#which just felt more lonely and disconnected in my mind

[symbologic]

y'all, most of my tumblr is a time capsule from 2016 and earlier. A lot's happened since then. Changed continents, changed careers, got psychotherapy and then physical therapy. My corner of fandom was pretty much exclusively on Plurk, and not even consistently

then the OPLA happened, and it got me in a chokehold. I'd been back on my OP bullshit for over a couple years now, so it was kind of inevitable

But now I crave discussions and community and gushing over faves 💔 at the same time, fan communities feel so fragmented in the post-LJ era. it's hard to find like-minded people, but I'm doin' my best!!

[yellowocaballero]

⭐️ for either of the fe3h fics <3

ROSETTA HEADSTONE!!!! A fic that was very messy and all over the place but one that I am actually very fond of and that was slightly slept on.

“You’re the other half of me.” Byleth spoke slowly, but for the very first time there was a hint of emotion in her voice. It was wonder. What an amazing first emotion to feel. How lucky! How magnificent! “I’m the other half of you.” Claude smiled. She was so wondrous. So beautiful and special. She’d need a lot of help. Dimitri would provide what he could, but Claude would have to pick up the rest. “You’re the other half of me. And I’m the other half of you. I’m you, and you’re me. Wonderful, isn’t it?” [...] “Is that a friend?” Byleth asked seriously.  “If you want. It’s anything you want.” Her hand was still on his chest, and Claude reached up to softly grasp her hand, pressing it softly against his chest. “Tell you what, Byleth. I’ll trust you completely if you trust me completely. Give me anything you want, and I’ll give you all of my own. Is that fair?”

There's a few different relationships that were very influential for this scene. SSS Class Suicide Hunter's Gongja/Raviel was a big one, but Full Metal Alchemist's Ed/Winry were too: when Ed tells Winry that he'll give her half of his life if she give her half of hers, and she tells him that she'll give him all of her life. Khalid and Byleth are platonic, but there's still something so Relationship about it that makes me go crazy.

I got fond of the character I had created over the course of this story. He started out a lonely, isolated, self-centered person. He was a chronic liar who was fundamentally impossible to understand. He used his separation from others as a microscope, a way of studying and trying to dissect them down into pieces that he can understand. He's the kind of person to brag about this, and a significant percentage of it is self-inflicted, but I felt bad for him. He and Byleth's disconnect, their inability to work together, inadvertently resulted in her death. His first time investing whole-heartedly in somebody was in a dying woman, who had been dead to begin with.

It was what made this moment special to me. He's not psychoanalyzing or dissecting her in this scene - he's just caught in the beauty of this imperfect and banal moment. He sees how amazing it is to have somebody to truly understand. Giving away all of himself is an act of intense vulnerability, the kind he once never would have tolerated, but he does it willingly here - because you can't get if you don't give, and if you give somebody all of you then you can have all of them, and what is shared is doubled.

I wrote Byleth very 'Dead Anime Mom' - everything she said had to be incredibly significant and meaningful. She was perfect and untouchable. It's only in the epilogue that we see her humanity and vulnerability, that she feels remotely on the same level as Khalid. She doesn't understand him and he doesn't truly know her - how fantastic, that there's so much to discover about each other! How miraculous, that this person is about to take her first steps into becoming a human being, and that you're lucky enough to guide her on that path! That you get to become a human being with her!

It's a unique set of emotions that I hope the reader was able to feel alongside Khalid. Both Weekenders and RH were stories about the protagonist joining humanity, and both of them had to do it through confronting the twin calamities of death and love, but I'm a bit more fond of how it happened in RH. I think it may have been the strong The World Ends With You influence, which is a game that splits open the mind of the depressed misanthropic fifteen year old. I remember the first time I felt lucky to exist in the world. It felt like an important part of growing up - and maybe a pre-requisite of survival. It's hard to survive never feeling that sense of wonder. It was great to write somebody experiencing it for the first time.

[zzoomacroom]

Rain Is Coming Down (Chapter 6)

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Dreamling, Retired Dream, Multi-chapter, Mpreg, Fluff, Smut, Angst

(Start from chapter 1 here)

Rating: Explicit

Chapters: 6/12

Relationships: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling

Additional tags: Retired Dream, Mpreg, Pregnancy, Trans Dream, Fluff, Smut, Angst

CONTENT WARNINGS for this chapter: brief panic attack/ptsd flashback, misogynistic and transphobic slurs, non-graphic violence, explicit sexual content

✨✨✨✨✨

Chapter 6: 26 Weeks - Part 2

The wooden bench creaks beneath him as Morpheus flops heavily into his seat at their table. The pub is lively this evening, but he would rather endure the noise and crowds than make the arduous trek back up the stairs at the moment.

“Save our seats and I’ll go and see what I can scrounge up from the kitchen, yeah? Back in a mo,” Hob says, giving Morpheus a quick peck on the cheek before slowly making his way across the packed room.

The former Dreamlord sits and watches the other patrons at the New Inn, some engaged in animated conversation while others appear more interested in the football game playing on the television above the bar. It is still a strange feeling, looking at these people and being unable to peer into their minds, being blind to their innermost fantasies. How irritating that he must now rely on facial expressions and abstruse human social cues in order to guess at what they might be thinking.

Perhaps it is poetic justice that in becoming human, Morpheus finds himself more disconnected from humanity than ever.

And yet, he has found it to be surprisingly… freeing. The realization that he is no longer burdened with carrying the hopes and fears of everyone in the room. It is lonely at times, yes, but it is a different sort of loneliness than what he felt during his imprisonment or, indeed, for the vast majority of his existence. He is never truly lonely now, he realizes. Now that he has Hob, now that he is—

“Murphy!” Suzanne exclaims, snapping him out of his reverie as she places a glass of ginger ale in front of him, as well as a pint of lager for Hob. “How are you, love? It’s been ages since you’ve been down! Everyone’s missed you.”

(Continue reading below or on ao3)

“No we haven’t,” says a familiar-looking bearded man at the next table. “Quiz nights are no fun with those two always winning.”

“Oh, hush, Keith,” Suzanne scoffs, pretending to swat at him with her notepad. “Not like you ever win either way; you thought the capital of Spain was Majorca, for pity’s sake.” She rolls her eyes as she turns back to Morpheus. “So, how’ve you been? You look fantastic. Robbie’s taking good care of you, I take it.”

“He is,” Morpheus replies, a smile spreading across his face. “I am well. Thank you, Suzanne.”

“I’m glad to hear it, love. I was starting to worry. What’ve you been doing up there, all cooped up? Getting lots of rest, I hope.”

Morpheus likes Suzanne. Like Hob, she is easy to talk to. He knows a little of her dreams, having first met her before his retirement. Mostly, she dreams of her family and hopes that they will always be safe and know that they are loved. Very rarely, she has nightmares—memories of things she endured, things no one should have to endure, but which ultimately led her to the greatest joys in her life. Morpheus can empathize.

“I have been painting. A mural, for the nursery. We also had a visit from my sister today,” he says.

“Oh, how nice! Didi, right? I remember her from the Christmas party. Has she got kids of her own?”

“No,” Morpheus replies, “but our niece and nephew refer to her as their ‘cool aunt.’”

“I’ll bet she is!” Suzanne laughs heartily. “I’m glad you have her. She seems like such a dear.”

“She is,” Morpheus agrees with an easy smile. “She has done… a great deal for me.”

“Wish I’d had someone like her when I was pregnant with Shannon,” Suzanne says. “I’m just glad I can be here for her now, and for you lads,” she adds, nodding towards Hob, who has just returned with a large, steaming platter of fish and chips. “Which reminds me, I’ve got another batch of Leo and Gracie’s old clothes and things for you.”

“I hope you know we insist on paying for those,” Hob remarks as he places the dish in the center of the table for the two of them to share.

“Please, you’d be doing me a favor just by getting them out of my flat,” Suzanne says with a wave of her notepad.

“Well then, at least let me go and pick them up,” Hob counters.

“Deal. But I still want to come up and see that mural!”

“Oh, yeah, you’ve got to see it! It’s stunning!” Hob grins at Morpheus as he sits down across from him, giving him a sly wink before popping a chip into his mouth. Morpheus grins back, knowing full well that Hob will slip some cash into Suzanne’s handbag when she’s not looking.

“There’s something else I wanted to talk to you boys about,” Suzanne continues, suddenly earnest. Morpheus and Hob exchange uneasy glances; Morpheus wonders if this will be another lecture on the virtues of modern obstetrics. “I’d like to throw you a baby shower.”

Morpheus gulps. Hob bites his lip as he tries to stifle a laugh. Morpheus kicks him under the table. Hob schools his features, giving Morpheus a look that he interprets to mean ‘I’ll try and talk her out of it.'

“That’s incredibly sweet of you, Suze, but don’t trouble yourself,” Hob insists. “Can’t imagine we’d need one, what with everything you’ve given us.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” Suzanne says, undeterred. “It’ll only be a small do, and we can have it here. Just the staff and any friends you want to bring. Oh, and bring your sister! I’ll make that chocolate cake you like.”

Hob looks at Morpheus again, raising his eyebrows. ‘Come on, dove, you know we can’t say no,' he conveys with those big, sparkling brown eyes that he knows very well Morpheus cannot resist.

“Thank you, Suzanne,” Morpheus finally grits out, hoping his smile doesn’t look too forced. “That sounds lovely.”

“Yeah, cheers, Suze,” Hob agrees. “You’re a gem.”

“Sure am. Dunno what you’d do without me,” she winks. “Right, I’ll leave you lads to it, then. I’d better get this lot their drinks before they start rioting,” she sighs as she marches back to the bar.

Morpheus slumps in his seat, picking forlornly at his chips. Hob gives him a pitying look and hooks his foot around Morpheus’ ankle. “It won’t be that bad, dove,” he says. “Thanks for being a good sport about it. You know it would’ve broken her heart if we’d said no.”

“Two baby showers. Two. This is egregious,” Morpheus mutters. Hob’s mouth twitches as he makes a valiant effort to keep a straight face, and Morpheus finds his own twisting into a smile in spite of his best efforts to maintain his sullen pout. “You mock my misfortune, Hob Gadling?” he asks, his voice dripping with faux indignation. 

He snatches the piece of fish that Hob was reaching for and stuffs it into his mouth, both to underscore his petulance and to smother the treacherous wheeze of laughter that was dangerously close to spilling out.

“Oh, poor you,” Hob chuckles, looking smugly triumphant at his husband’s reaction. “What dreadful misfortune, having so many people who love you that they’re throwing two separate parties in your honor. You know—”

Hob does not finish his thought as there is a sudden commotion near the bar. A shout, followed by a deafening shatter of glass. Morpheus goes still. He shivers, despite it being uncomfortably warm in the crowded pub. Everything sounds muffled and distant, like he is behind a thick layer of glass. He can feel it again. The glass, the iron, closing in on him, he cannot…

“Darling? Darling, are you—” Hob’s voice cuts through the noise as he turns away from the source of clamor and back to Morpheus, his eyes widening in concern. And oh, it is so loud, and Morpheus wants to go home, but he cannot move, and—

“—No! No, you need to leave. Trust me, mate, you do not want to get the owner involved.” Suzanne’s voice rings out, booming and steely and surprisingly intimidating. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she adds grimly, catching Hob’s eye as he rises from his chair.

“Hob—”

“Wait here,” Hob tells Morpheus, and before he can protest his husband is striding across the room, a look of flinty determination in his eyes that Morpheus has only seen once before. It sends another shiver down his spine, for rather different reasons this time.

From where Morpheus sits, he can see his husband approaching a belligerent and obviously drunk man who has crowded Suzanne into a corner. She glares defiantly up at him as he shouts obscenities at her, swaying on his feet all the while. “I already told you—you bitch,” he hiccups, slurring his words, “’m not leavin’ ‘til I talk to the owner.”

The room has gone silent. Everyone in the pub has turned towards the bar, riveted on the scene as it unfolds. Alan, the barman, wrings his hands nervously as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, apparently unsure as to whether he should step in. Toni and Ethan have emerged from the kitchen, still holding their knife and spatula, respectively, and looking as though they hope they will not need to use them to defend themselves. The New Inn is not the sort of establishment that frequently sees this sort of disorderly conduct, and everyone seems to be at a loss for what to do.

Everyone except Hob.

“I’m the owner, and you’re leaving now,” Hob announces sternly, grabbing the man (who is considerably larger than himself) by the shoulder and pulling him away from Suzanne.

“Get your fuckin’ ‘ands off me, mate! I haven’t done nothin’ wrong,” the man growls, shoving Hob backwards. Morpheus jumps to his feet almost involuntarily, but finds himself riveted to the spot where he stands, unable to move closer to the fray.

“He started spouting off a load of words I’m not going to repeat,” Suzanne interjects, “and when I asked him to leave he knocked all the glasses off the bar like a bloody toddler.”

“Yeah, you’re done here. Out. Now,” Hob barks, pointing to the door.

The man scoffs and smirks as he raises his hands in an exaggerated gesture of surrender. “Fine by me,” he sneers, looking Morpheus dead in the eye and jabbing his chin in his direction. “Too many freaks and trannies here for my taste anyway.”

Morpheus has no time to react to these words before there’s a loud, dull thwack, and the man is clutching his cheek and staggering backwards into a table. Morpheus only realizes belatedly that Hob must have punched him.

The pub goes silent. Then, all at once, there is a cacophony of whispers and shouts and everything in between as the denizens of the New Inn turn their fury on the man who interrupted their evening.

“You get ‘im, Robbie!” someone calls out.

“Yeah, that was well out of order, mate,” says another onlooker.

“Does he know he’s his husband?” hisses a blonde woman seated next to Keith.

A cold trickle of… something snakes its way through Morpheus’ veins as he stands there, torn between rushing to his husband’s side and remaining where he is for the sake of the baby’s safety. Is it shame that he feels? Anger, humiliation…? Yes. All of those, and perhaps some other things. But he cannot deliberate on them now, because the drunk man is stumbling back to his feet and raising his fist and—

“Hob—!” Morpheus cries, only realizing that his legs apparently do work after all when he is halfway across the room. His own words from centuries past ring in his head. ‘You can be hurt, or captured.' He reaches his husband faster than should be possible in his current state, propelled by equal amounts of rage and fear.

Morpheus reaches instinctively for his sand before remembering that—oh. Right. He is completely helpless now. Useless.

But Hob is still as capable as ever. He catches the man’s fist and deftly twists his arm around, pinning it behind his back. “Get the fuck out of my pub before I get my broadsword,” he snarls as he shoves the man towards the exit.

The man yelps and shambles clumsily to the door, and just as he is reaching for the handle, Hob seizes him by the collar and yanks him around to look him in the eye.

An uneasy murmur ripples through the room. The drunk man looks as terror-stricken as he would have had Morpheus unleashed his most vicious nightmares upon him.

“If you ever come near my husband or my family again, I’ll fucking—” Hob rages at the man, his teeth bared and his speech lapsing into an archaic dialect. Morpheus understands the threats of dismemberment and desecration of the man’s corpse, but to other observers it must sound like the garbled ravings of a lunatic (which may actually be less disturbing than what Hob is saying).

Morpheus has never seen his husband this angry before, and it is. Alarming. What is also alarming is how aroused he has become; he is glad that he wore black today, as he can feel the growing wetness in his underwear gradually seeping through the fabric of his joggers.

There is a loud thump as the back of the man’s head hits the door, Hob’s fists still clenched in the front of his shirt. Morpheus and Suzanne reach them at the same time and drag Hob away from the man by the shoulders.

“Hob—!” Morpheus begins.

“Robbie, that’s enough!” Suzanne yells at the same moment. “You’ve made your point, now let him go!”

Hob deflates under their hands. He turns around, glancing between Morpheus, Suzanne, and the crowd of wide-eyed spectators. He is breathing hard and he looks rather foggy and far away, his eyes glazed and his hands shaking.

The drunk man bolts out the door as soon as Hob turns his back, and a few of the patrons make noises of approval, though most are still sitting in stunned silence.

“Good riddance!” Keith calls out, and the blonde woman beside him—Helen, his wife, as Morpheus recalls—nods in vehement agreement.

Suzanne immediately returns to the bar with broom and mop, directing Alan to help her with the mess. She goes on with her work as if she is entirely unruffled by the whole affair, though Morpheus can see the way her hands tremble ever so slightly as she sweeps up jagged shards of glass.

Hob blinks, looking down at Morpheus’ hand on his shoulder and then up at his frowning face. The bewilderment in his eyes is gradually replaced by a look of profound shame and remorse. He hangs his head and sighs. “Please don’t be angry,” he mumbles, his voice thin and flat as he rubs his knuckles, which are already starting to bruise. “I know, I know… pot, kettle, and all.”

Morpheus opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again. It had not occurred to him to be angry with Hob. Perhaps he should be, but the only anger he feels is for the man who just fled the pub. He is filled with a variety of competing emotions right now, but anger is surprisingly not one of the stronger contestants. He is relieved that Hob is safe. He is… touched, he supposes. And pleased. That Hob defended him, that Suzanne and everyone else sided with him.

But beneath that is the guilt—Hob defended him. He hurt that man and himself, and forced everyone in the pub to witness it, because of Morpheus. Morpheus, who cannot defend himself or his husband as he should, who put his child in harm’s way because he was too foolish to see his own weakness.

And beneath that, simmering and throbbing low in his belly, is a raging, nigh-overpowering inferno of pure lust.

He is still staring at Hob, who peers up at Morpheus with a sad smile of resignation. Morpheus does not know what to say. Something is about to erupt from him, but he does not know which of the warring feelings will emerge victorious until he is grasping Hob’s face with both hands and kissing him desperately right there in the middle of the pub. He licks into Hob’s mouth, burrowing in like he intends to make a home there, and Hob lets out a surprised little whimper as he opens eagerly for him, his hands coming up to clutch at Morpheus’ shirt and reel him closer.

It would seem they both forgot about their audience, as they startle back from each other when the pub explodes into raucous cheers, applause, and wolf whistles. Hob starts to giggle hysterically, shaking his head as his cheeks redden, and Morpheus hides his irrepressible grin in the crook of his husband’s neck.

When he looks up to meet his eyes, Hob has a knowing smirk on his face. “Don’t even say it,” he warns, with precisely none of the authority he carried just minutes ago. Morpheus decides to show him mercy. He says nothing, merely kisses him again until they are both gasping for breath.

“Get a room, you two!” someone laughs.

“Right!” Hob calls out, clapping his hands together as he glances around the pub. “We’re closing early, everybody out.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Suzanne huffs, propping her elbows on the now-clean bar. “Just go home, you berks. We’ll be fine down here until closing time.”

“Are you sure?” Hob asks, sounding doubtful. “Suze, what if he comes back? What if the police show up? I can’t just leave—”

“Robbie, love, you misunderstand me. I’m kicking you out,” Suzanne interrupts. “Before you do something really indecent. I don’t think that scumbag will be back. And if the cops come round,” she adds, raising her voice to command the attention of everyone in the pub, “the owner wasn’t in today and none of us heard anything about a fight.”

There’s a distracted murmur of agreement throughout the room as the patrons turn back to their drinks and their football match, apparently ready to be done with the spectacle and move on with their evening. Morpheus shares their sentiments. He takes Hob’s hand and drags him toward the stairs with single-minded purpose.

“Alright, but call me if anything goes wrong, yeah?” Hob says hurriedly, glancing back as he is towed helplessly away. “And text me later so I know you got home safe!”

The journey upstairs and to the bedroom does not even register in Morpheus’ mind; everything feels rather surreal just now. Dreamlike. One moment they are in the pub, and the next they are standing beside their bed, having apparently already shed their clothing.

“… You with me, dove?” Hob is asking him, his hand on Morpheus’ cheek and his head tilted in concern.

“Yes,” Morpheus says, blinking as he comes back to himself.

“Tell me what you need, sweetheart.”

He needs… he needs. Full stop. He needs Hob, needs to touch him, needs to feel him inside and know that he is there, that he is real, that they are both alive and safe and loved and wanted and…

“You,” Morpheus replies finally, pulling Hob close and kissing him voraciously. He leads them backwards, his hands on Hob’s hips, until Hob falls back onto the bed. Morpheus breaks the kiss only long enough to crawl into his husband’s lap, fumbling blindly for the lube on the bedside table and knocking the alarm clock and Hob’s reading glasses to the floor. “I need to feel you. Everywhere,” he says, his voice low and rough.

Morpheus hastily uncaps the bottle with one hand, letting the other roam over Hob’s body, burying his fingers in luxuriant hair and sinking his nails into warm, yielding flesh. He kisses and bites his way down his neck while reaching behind himself to press a slick finger to his entrance. It is slightly challenging at this angle, and he struggles momentarily before Hob catches on to what he is doing, his eyes widening and his face darkening with arousal.

“Let me help you with that, darling,” Hob says, taking the lube and pouring a generous amount on his fingers.

He grabs Morpheus by the hip with his other hand, steadying him as he circles one finger around his rim. Morpheus gasps at the cool, wet sensation and tightens his grip on Hob’s shoulders. Hob works him open quickly but gently, pausing intermittently to palm at Morpheus’ sopping wet cunt, smearing and spreading his arousal down to his hole and making a sloppy, squelching mess of both of them.

“You’re so fucking wet,” Hob pants. “Probably could have done it even without the lube.”

“Enough,” Morpheus rumbles, pushing Hob down to lie on his back and positioning himself over his hips. “I am ready,” he breathes as he guides himself onto his husband’s cock.

His eyes flutter shut and his moans, loud and wanton, mingle with Hob’s as he sinks down. They have not had anal sex in this manner since before the pregnancy, and they both take a moment to acclimate to the sensation. They are silent, save for their ragged breathing, and when he opens his eyes Morpheus sees his husband gazing reverently up at him, a look of awe in his tear-glazed eyes.

Morpheus takes one of Hob’s hands (the cleaner of the two), and without breaking eye contact he brings it to his mouth, slowly sucking on his fingers before pushing his arm down between his legs. Hob takes his cue and slides two fingers into Morpheus’ cunt, scissoring them and pressing into his g-spot. Morpheus hums pleasurably and begins to rock slowly, then gasps when Hob adds a third finger while simultaneously pressing his thumb to Morpheus’ clit. It is an awkward position for Hob, and Morpheus’ belly is an obstacle, but neither of them are deterred as Morpheus increases his pace and begins to ride Hob’s cock and fingers.

Morpheus shudders in relief at the feeling of fullness, and he bends forward to gain better leverage, resting his swollen midsection on Hob’s arm and bracing his hands on his chest as he bounces furiously. It’s fast and frantic, urgent and desperate, and Morpheus whines in frustration that he cannot be any closer to Hob than this. That he cannot, as he once could, take all of Hob’s being into himself, cannot merge the two of them together until they are one perfect, infinite entity.

“It’s alright, love. I’ve got you,” Hob soothes. “Take what you need.”

And Morpheus does. He takes all he can, and Hob offers it up eagerly. It is not enough, it is never enough, but Morpheus gluts himself on his husband’s body until he is as sated as this form will allow. He thinks of the first time Hob fought and defended him, the way he had wanted to do exactly this (well, perhaps a variation, with a slightly different body). He had wanted so badly it burned, and now he gets to have this. And he will not let anyone or anything take it away. So he grasps and clutches with both hands and he takes and takes and takes.

“So beautiful,” Hob purrs, trailing his free hand up Morpheus’ stomach and thumbing at his nipple. “Love you so fucking much.”

Morpheus sobs as he comes, his legs shaking and his fingers curling tightly into the hair on Hob’s sweaty, heaving chest. His vision blurs and tears stream down his face, and Hob wails as he floods Morpheus’ insides with a copious rush of hot seed. Morpheus shivers in ecstasy, his own orgasm still pulsing through him.

Hob takes his fingers away and maneuvers Morpheus by the hips to pull his softening cock from his hole. Morpheus weeps at the sudden emptiness; it is not enough, he has not had his fill of Hob. He needs more.

He shifts forward slightly, straddling his husband’s plush waist and grinding his clit against the forest of coarse hair below his navel. The slick from his cunt mingles with the warm rivulet of lubricant and cum that trickles from his hole, forming a veritable puddle on Hob’s stomach as Morpheus ruts frenziedly against him. Hob is looking up at him softly when he comes again, his eyes heavy-lidded and his mouth hanging open in wonder.

Neither of them speak as Morpheus rolls over and collapses beside Hob, curling up against him once Hob has given them a cursory wipe-down with a clean towel from the stack they’ve taken to keeping next to the bed. They remain silent, catching their breath as they rest in each other’s arms, and Morpheus is glad for it. Today has been utterly exhausting—physically, mentally, and emotionally—and he has no energy to discuss it now.

Later, when he regains his composure, he must express to Hob… everything. He does not know. He cannot formulate the words now. His love, his gratitude, how much it means to him that Hob is always ready to defend him without a second thought. Hob is aware of all of this, he knows, but he feels it all so strongly now, and it is so… vexing. That he only has this body and his paltry words with which to articulate himself. That he cannot simply give Hob a dream that conveys the inexpressible depths of his affection.

He is so much less than he used to be. And yet still Hob loves him, still fights for him even though he is too weak to fight for himself.

The muted roar of activity from downstairs, usually a comforting presence in the background, only exacerbates Morpheus’ distress at the moment. Words from earlier echo through his head.

Freak. Tranny.

So this is how he is perceived, now that he has no say in whether or not he is perceived at all.

Yet still Hob loves him.

“I’m sorry.”

Hob’s voice, wet and quavering, comes so softly that it takes Morpheus a moment to realize he spoke, and another to understand what he is apologizing for.

“About earlier. I shouldn’t have hit that lad,” Hob clarifies.

“Do not be sorry, my love,” Morpheus says emphatically. “You were in the right.”

“See, but it’s fucked up that we both thought that,” Hob argues. “Mo, I shouldn’t have done that. What he said, what he did—it was completely inexcusable, but… He was leaving, and I attacked him. I just… lost control. And I’m so sorry.” He puts a hand over his face and sighs. “I’m going to get a handle on this before the baby comes, I swear.”

“Hob. Look at me,” Morpheus implores, taking Hob’s hand from his face and holding it in his own. His knuckles have bruised a deep plum, and it only occurs to Morpheus now that their activities a few minutes ago cannot have helped. “Oh. I have hurt you,” he murmurs, peering into Hob’s red-rimmed eyes and bringing his hand to his lips, kissing each knuckle tenderly.

“No, love. No,” Hob insists, fresh tears welling up in his eyes as he brings his other hand up to cover Morpheus’. “None of this is on you. This was all me and my stupid bloody anger issues.”

“Hob, I trust you with my life. And with our child’s life. I know that you would never turn your anger on either of us.”

“But what if I do?” Hob whispers shakily, sounding genuinely terrified. It breaks Morpheus’ heart to see him so distraught.

“You will not,” he replies. It is the truth, Morpheus is certain of it. He knows, of course, of Hob’s violent past—knows better than anyone, perhaps, save for Hob himself. And he knows that his husband would sooner rescind his immortality than harm his family. It is not that Hob is a violent man by nature; he is a passionate man, one who loves fiercely and would tear the world apart to save those he loves. He is a better man than Morpheus, who would have done far worse to that man in the pub had he still had the power of nightmares at his disposal. 

“You will not, beloved,” Morpheus repeats, cradling him closer and soothing his hand absently up and down his back.

“Alright,” Hob says weakly. “I won’t. Promise.”

“You should put some ice on your hand,” Morpheus mumbles.

“I will, later. Let’s just get some sleep, yeah? Been a hell of a day.”

Morpheus yawns in agreement as he nestles into Hob’s side. They lie there in silence, neither succumbing to the lure of the Dreaming despite their weariness.

When Morpheus finally drifts off, it is a restless half-sleep scattered with disjointed scraps of nightmares. Massive hands enfold him in a sphere of cold, bone-white flesh. Peeking through the cracks between the fingers, he sees Hob in the distance. He carries a sword and his face is bloodied, his jaw set in grim resolve. The hands hold Morpheus aloft, just out of Hob’s reach, lifting him higher and higher until he is face to face with himself, vast and terrible.

The dream ends.

✨✨✨✨✨

Thanks for reading! Reblogs, as well as kudos and comments on ao3 are always appreciated! 💗💗💗

[radi0gh4stxd]

SWTD AS UNDERTALE/DELTARUNE OST’s

This is technically my first official post for this game so bear with me. First post and it’s about my three favourite games lol.

Some of these might make sense, others might not. But to me, they made some sense, while some I just thought fit the vibe of that character. So, without further ado- let’s go!

CAZ-Pre Shape

•015-Sans

This OST is cool. Very chill, laid back yet also upbeat and I think that fits Caz very well, with how he acts before the shape, I could imagine this being like, background music for him, whenever he enters somewhere it plays lol. Also, the image of Caz as Sans just makes me laugh a little

During Shape/Main part of the game

•028-Premonition

•065-CORE

Now, technically, these two can be about the main part of the game all round and in general, but I did write these with Caz in mind so I put them with him.

Premonition is cold. Lonely yet also not. Caz is alone yet he also isn’t. Roy, Finlay and Brodie are here, still alive, around the rig somewhere and possibly a few others. But he doesn’t know for sure, and for how much longer?? Are they even still alive? What if they’re not?? What if they’ve been infected or been killed or died somewhere on this rig?? Caz wouldn’t know. Because Caz is alone.

CORE starts ‘slow’, with little backing, its building tension, and I think that must be how Caz feels whenever he has to make some dangerous jump or quick decision or whenever he’s being chased by the infected. This OST is fast, jumpy and filled with a load of adrenaline, much like how Caz has to be to survive.

The end

•070-Long Elevator

•094-Respite

Long Elevator might be a weird choice be hear me out. It’s the walk there. Finlay’s dead, everyone is dead, Caz is alone, Caz is alive, lighter in hand. He has to do this. He must end this. He’s the only who can. Also, this OST makes me feel almost dissociated from everything, like I’ve been disconnected from the real world which I’m sure is how Caz felt when he was walking towards the shape, towards his end.

Respite is the end. It’s Caz’s final respite. The lighter has been lit and thrown down into the abyss. Everything goes white and Caz is home. He’s home and Suze is in bed, asleep. This is it. All Caz can do is smile and turn to the door. “Kiss the weens for me?” He opens the door and the credits roll, with Suze’s letter being heard in the background, forever left un-heard and un-read. Its a bittersweet end to it all, but it’s an end that will keep his family safe.

The Shape

•079-Your best nightmare

•Deltarune-05-The Door

•Deltarune-032-The Circus

Yep, the shape gets to have its own OST’s too because I said so.

Your best nightmare. Need I explain why I gave this one to The Shape. No? Good. Onto the next one!

The Door OST is eerie. The Shape is there, it’s everywhere, on and in the rig, in the crew members, everywhere. It’s growing, it’s watching, and it’ll continue to grow and expand. Sooner than later, you’ll also be a part of it too. It’s just a matter of time is all.

I don’t really have a reason for this OST, I just thought it fit The Shape quite well to be honest.

And there we go, I do have more written out, Finlay and Brodie to be specific, but I think this post has gotten long enough lol. I’ll probably post those two later this week, or tomorrow. So yeah. If anyone has any ideas for what would fit the others, I’d be happy to hear it!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Buck Angel

Published: Jul 21, 2023

A guest post by Buck Angel, which really should be in The New York Times—maybe they’ll republish it?

Every day, I’m called a new name. Sometimes it’s something obviously insulting, like bigot or transphobe. Sometimes it’s something more subtly designed to twist my knickers, like female. My critics assume this will wound me, because for the last 30 years, I have lived as a man. I medically transitioned at age 30, after what felt like a lifetime of struggle, and after many years of therapy and evaluation.

Transition saved my life. But being called female doesn’t hurt me, because while I changed my body, I’m well aware that I can’t change my sex. And even though I’ve felt since I was a young child that I would have preferred to be—and should have been—born male, I don’t believe that children should medically transition. I’m one of the oldest and most visible female-to-male transsexuals in the country, but because of my views, today’s trans activists not only don’t speak for me, they try to cancel me.

Let’s rewind. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, a time of tomboys, when I was one of several typically masculine girls in short hair and sports shorts, running wild. There wasn’t much difference between me and those other tomboy girls back then; I beat up the boys and earned their respect. For the most part, my parents let me dress and live as a boy. The few times I had to wear a dress for church were torture, but other than that I had an excellent childhood.

My parents assumed my tomboyism was a phase I’d outgrow, but at puberty, I became deeply uncomfortable with my female body, a condition I had no name for back then. I lived for many years as a butch lesbian, and was an internationally successful androgynous model. Sometimes I wore suits, but when they stuffed me into a dress, I would spiral.

Eventually, the disconnect between my body and my sense of myself became too great. Sad and lonely, I turned to drugs, became homeless, engaged in prostitution, lost most of my friends and family, and hit bottom.

Once I got sober, and got therapy, I also got clarity. I told the therapist I felt that I should be—no, that I was—a man, and, unlike everyone else I’d ever said this to, she said, “I hear you. I believe you.” She gave me a diagnosis of what was then called gender identity disorder, which didn’t feel like a stigma. It felt like a lightbulb going off, which allowed me to understand and accept myself. I had a mental condition. That’s why I experienced anguish. Our next task was to figure out how to treat it.

Gender clinics were hardly in existence then. She couldn’t just affirm me and send me off for drugs and surgery with a letter. We spent over a year exploring the source of my distress and what it meant to be or live as a man or woman. She dug deep, she pushed back. And eventually, together, we decided that the potential benefits of transition were worth the risks. I had already passed the “real life” test. Now I went in search of medical treatments.

We filled out an inch-thick pile of paperwork for a program at Stanford, and never even received a reply. Eventually, we found an endocrinologist who explained to me that if I took testosterone, it would be experimental. But by that time, after 25 years of navigating the world as a differently-gendered person and more than a year of intensive psychological evaluation, I was ready.  

I did something even more radical than transitioning once my body changed: I became an adult film star, a man without male parts, making space for nonconforming bodies, raising awareness and increasing body positivity for trans people. Some of my lesbian friends called me a traitor, and haters sometimes called me a tranny, but for the most part, I found acceptance and joy. Until about five years ago, I was happily living as a transsexual, or, as I call it, “a man with a female past.”

Then several things started to change. The word transsexual—a person of one sex who changes their body to appear more like the other—was eclipsed by the word “transgender,” an umbrella term that included everyone from tomboys gently rejecting stereotypes to trans women who’d had penectomies, plus myriad gender identities that seemed to have no locatable meaning. The idea that people could actually change sex, that sex was mutable or unreal, took hold in society, especially with young people.

Then, as some clinicians, including trans women, have admitted, a rash of teen girls started to declare themselves trans and transition; some said they’d had no mental health treatments before doing so. Then I started to hear about and from detransitioners, who’d taken cross-sex hormones or had breast or genital surgeries, not to cure some kind of organic dysphoria but because they’d been taught that if they felt uncomfortable with themselves or their bodies, maybe they needed to change them to match their brains. One study of detransitioners showed 55 percent felt they weren’t properly evaluated.

When it comes to gender dysphoria, talk therapy is more important than anything else. In fact, several European countries are now insisting that therapy is the primary treatment for it, with medical interventions under strict regulation. Physical transition is hard both on your body and mind; I should know. You have to make sure this is the right path for you by working with a therapist who will push back and question and explore the source of your desire to change. Dysphoria is in the brain. If you’re skipping over the brain and going straight to the body, you’re not helping trans people.

People accuse me of climbing the ladder and pulling it up behind me, transitioning and then trying to stop other people from doing so. That’s not my goal at all. I transitioned at age 30 and never looked back or felt I’d made a mistake, and I welcome adults who can adequately weigh the risks and benefits of transition to join me. But I never could have been sure without the struggle I navigated, without my brain growing mature enough to decide. Every choice I made was in adulthood.

One reason I’m so adamant about not medically transitioning children is that those tomboy girls I played with growing up, who were just like me back then, didn’t turn out like me. Some are gay women. Some are straight. Some feminized during or after puberty. Some stayed masculine. Childhood gender nonconformity or even gender dysphoria aren’t indications of any one adulthood. We can’t just slap the label trans on a kid who’s differently gendered and assume we know what path that kid should take for the rest of their life. In fact, several studies show that the vast majority of kids who are gender dysphoric in childhood resolve their distress by the end of puberty, and a majority of those grow up to be same-sex attracted.  

Instead of focusing on identity, we should be focusing on the rigid gender stereotypes kids are absorbing every day. Give them the room I had to be masculine or feminine without presuming what it means about their futures. For suggesting these ideas, my own so-called LGBT+ “community” attacks me, tries to silence and intimidate me, accuses me of condemning children to a lifetime of suffering. But that’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying it may be hard to live in their bodies, but it’s important that they try, because we don’t know how to forecast the future from their current struggle, but we know it’s important that they learn to navigate and overcome hardship.

Myself, I’m glad for my many years of struggling. Struggle made me strong. Now the struggle is so different. It’s a struggle to tell an inconvenient truth in a world that thinks truth is transphobic. It’s a struggle to keep my business going amid #cancelbuckangel hashtags. It’s a struggle to feel part of a community that would oust a pioneering elder for wrongthink.

I’ve already been through so much, and I can handle it. But I don’t think suppressing knowledge, dissent and discussion is going to create more space for kids struggling today. I think those kids are best served by having time and space to understand themselves, and not rush—or be rushed—to make decisions about who they are going to be.

[briannysey]

Last night errands took me on a drive for miles along the lake shore. It was a vast, quiet, stillness through a thin line of bare-branched trees, while I drove on a boulevard sparsely lit with guttering warm street lamps.

It was the first truly cold evening of the season, and I was driving to a function where I was gonna re-meet a ton of folks from highschool. A friend had done my makeup in this bold glam look, and I was driving in the cold dark while more myself than I felt I'd ever been, with so much of life unchanged from highschool and so much radically different than things were ten years ago.

It felt like time was knotted up, then flattened, and I was folded up against all the old places I came from but as this new truth that had been hidden for so long.

The reunion was boring, lots of suburban kids who were more interested in salaries and job titles than they were in the wild shapes of each others' lives. But while I was alone for much of the event, I wasn't lonely. Most of the folks who were interesting and I wanted to catch up with either didn't come, or live all over the country (or world). And facing these folks again as this truer more honest version of myself, folded up against all the versions of me that still lived in others' heads, I felt very vindicated in my disconnect from them. Not that there was anything particularly monstrous about these folks. Just... lifeless? Just hollow? Like most of them had rolled down paths laid out for them, and didn't want to open their eyes or minds to just how big and strange the world is?

And so I drove through copses of bristly trees, and then back along the lakeshore, which was a quiet stillness on the right, stretching as far back in the gloam as the eyes could pierce. And the disconnect I felt from the folks at the reunion was not some gap between me and all other people, it was a gap between me and those people in that place. And I don't know how many of them would ever appreciate the warm streetlamp, the dark waters, the chill air that reddened my cheeks and made me grateful for jacket.

[smallnico]

4, 5, and 8 durgetash asks >:3

LONG ASS ANSWER thank u for asking <3

https://www.tumblr.com/smallnico/756672403384434688

read more if you like pain with a side of petty god drama <3

4. Did Durge steal anything for themselves during the heist, or did they only take the crown?

the boring answer is yeah, because esper is a big fan of stealing and will do it with very little justification. i don't have any specific items in mind that they would have stolen, but if something looked valuable and reasonably not-cursed, they would've grabbed it and probably pawned it to helsik or one of gortash's buyers.

the exciting answer is that the hell heist is also the first and only time bhaalist esper stole a kiss from everyone's favourite babygurl. this requires a bit of explanation, but i am happy to provide. >:3

so, bhaal uses esper as an avatar. even when he's not actively superseding their consciousness and using their body as his own, he likes to watch through their eyes and make them feel aggression or agitation or lust or nausea or pleasure or pain, or whatever the situation calls for in order to manipulate them into doing what he wants. esper is fairly resistant to the smaller-scale manipulations or their physical emotions and responses thanks to the bard training from their childhood, but they consider these small signs as missives from the divine (because that's what they are, really) -- warnings to stop what they're doing and do what father says, or else he's going to make you black out and wake up with some fresh bullshit to answer for and deal with. esper fears this loss of control more than anything, so they compensate by being a zealous and committed servant, just so they can at least keep their mind. just so they can have Something.

bhaal is always living in esper's head rent free even when he's not there, panopticon style. this, plus the Gift of Guaranteed Murder (which i interpret for esper as a hyperawareness of signs of life in their surroundings and an inexorable pull toward snuffing them out, Especially when people touch them. esper is constantly bordering on overstimulated by the sound of breathing, heartbeats, body heat, etc., so when they're feeling particularly sick from touch starvation, that's when they get cozy with corpses) is the main cluster of reasons they never actually get with gortash, and actively repress their desire to do so. sure, they're extremely aware of the fact that gortash Wants them and they know the effect they have on him, but the only thing they do about it is manipulate his attentions to their gain. where it starts to get a bit cloudier and less manipulative for them both is on the level of friendship and emotional connection. both gortash and esper are deeply isolated and disconnected people, but through some cosmic tragic joke (hehe) they've ended up in the same fuckin. emotional netherzone. so they're both mutually the only person the other has ever felt they could actually relate to, and the very small vulnerable lonely parts of their souls cling to each other with everything they've got in spite of how much the rest of their selves want to pretend that isn't happening.

so, while they aren't really in love per se, esper needs gortash and gortash needs them, both on a deep, scared lizard brain level. but every time esper (who is by far the more emotionally intelligent person in their diad by virtue of literally being an empath and a psychic) tries to reach out for warmth, tries to satisfy even as much as the gnawing touch starvation they feel because they're terrified of losing what little control they have over their body, bhaal is there to shock them away from it with a cold sweat or a physical disgust, just to warn them away from latching onto anything that distracts them from their purpose -- to help him slaughter everything. so they have to ignore the lengths gortash will go to win their favour. they have to ignore the fact that he's willing to share power with them. they have to ignore the grand gestures, the convoluted schemes, the business dealings he amends to benefit their interests as well as his, the nonsense issues he contrives to find an excuse to spend time with them. the fact that he wants to possess them, but is willing to ignore that want and frame their interactions to pre-emptively satisfy the temple of bhaal's independance from his baneite affairs, because he values esper's company just a little bit more than his own greed. and esper can't Not be aware of this because they can't tune out the information their own magic is giving them.

so, what does the hell heist have to do with all of this? let me tell you. since raphael has the ability to silence the emperor And the voice of bhaal in act 3 when he forces you into a private conversation about the crown of karsus (something that also made esper go a little feral, because What The Fuck, You Can Just Do That, Don't Put It Back, cue a lot of panicking about taking that deal because they want nothing more than to be free from all that shit, but that's another point), and because there aren't really any durge moments in the house of hope (and the emperor is also out of reach down there), i thought it would be fun if bhaal just. couldn't possess them while they were in the hells.

so, imagine you're esper. imagine you're embarking on another heist with your bestie associate, normal as anything, as a part of his grand plan (which he made sure to get your god to sign off on) to steal the crown of karsus and turn the both of you into gods, him for power and you for freedom from your current master shit boss dad beloved dark lord. you have your doubts and don't trust him to not use the crown for himself and make only himself into a god capable of subjugating you, but you find these weird illithid plans you can use instead. it's a lot more complicated, but that's how gortash likes to do things, especially if it means getting to work with you for just a bit longer. he thinks this whole tadpole thing could also help finally make his steel watchers, this project he's been labouring on for years, work. his hands are on the crown, they're on ultimate power, and he's showing you these plans instead, proposing an alternative that will Ensure that you can both conquer the world -- together by necessity -- and leverage your followers against the existing pantheon into granting you mutual godhood. no faith required.

and you realize in that moment that you love him for this. and that the immediate whiplash feeling of violence and hatred and disgust you're used to feeling when you love... isn't there. you can hear his heart hammering in his chest and smell the fear and adrenaline in his system, sense the presence of memories he's pushing down. you know the world around him is soup to him right now. he's suggestible, at this point trying to win you over in the only ways he knows how out of habit, because he's wanted to do it for so long it's second nature even when he's so agitated, when you know that he knows that you know that he knows it'll never work. you think about him. you think about what he's promising you, what he's making inevitable for you by locking the both of you into a gamble that could be a suicide pact, but will ultimately free you, one way or the other, and ensure that you aren't alone while you're waiting for how it turns out, because he'll be there with you. your freedom, and finally, an end to your gnawing, all-consuming loneliness.

and you can't hear your god. and your god can't hear you.

so you grab the man by the shoulders and steal a moment in this tense situation to kiss the fuck out of him. everything you have time for. you justify this uncontrolled, impulsive, opportunistic act of pure fucking id to yourself in hindsight with the usual. you were manipulating him into keeping his promise, obviously. he was too gobsmacked and overwhelmed to absorb what you said to him, but you remember. you were in control. something about making sure he kept his promise. you remember, don't you? you didn't do it for you. you didn't do it to spite your god, or to resist. you would never do something like that.

you remember what you said, right?

anyway, that's what esper stole from the mephistar vault. boy oh boy did they ever have to pay for it though, lol. they started spiralling after, eventually culminating in the prayer for forgiveness and the whole bullshit with orin.

5. What did pre tadpole Durge think of Jergal? Was that mindset in any way influenced by Bhaal?

i think esper didnt consider jergal much, other than as a predecessor to bhaal and an ancient minor deity they had no need to contend with. their opinions were very much influenced by bhaal, and bhaal had no particular reason to suspect jergal of fucking around.

the gods bhaalist esper really had beef with were bane and cyric. bane for the whole you-oppressed-my-god-and-killed-a-bunch-of-bhaalists situation (that manifests as an ideological opposition to doing anything gortash tells them to, among other things) and cyric for the whole bitchass-usurper-who-killed-my-god-and-stole-his-job situation. part of the reason esper hates the zhentarim on principle and sides with the guild during any territorial skirmishes in the area is because they do hold a grudge against the zhents for their not-so-secret cyricist history. one of these days i'll write about that particular death cult political drama, since it's part of my headcanon surrounding the hall of wonders heist -- lots of cyric temples were built out of old bhaalist temples and kept bhaalist relics for show, so it seemed to me like a faction that would be likely to, for example, drag a bunch of stolen bhaalist relics into the city for people to gawp at.

given esper's beef with cyric, i believe the thinking is that while jergal served as his seneschal, he was also working to subvert him, so esper doesn't have a problem with jergal. in a way, esper also serves as a seneschal for bhaal, so if nothing else, they understand that you don't often get to choose your god, and you gotta do what you gotta do to live your life with dignity and take pride in what you do. since jergal wasn't (at least to their knowledge at the time) trying to subvert bhaal, esper didn't count him as an enemy.

post-tadpole (and post-endgame) esper effectively has no choice but to become a jergal stan thanks to withers, but even pre-tadpole their personal philosophy (shackled to, but apart from bhaal) aligned harder with jergal than most gods. they were (and still are) a fatalistic believer that all living things must die, but contrary to bhaal's philosophy, esper likes to look at the bigger picture of their victims' whole lives and the impacts their deaths will have -- when they have the luxury of choice, esper is picky about who they kill, preferring deaths that will create a rippling narrative of fear of murder/bhaal or ones that help to prune away undesired developments in the world, and they get their gay little psychic hands all over the vibes of everyone they meet regardless of their intent to kill them, so it becomes difficult Not to remember those narratives. esper always has a few good stories to tell at the feast of the moon.

8. What were their last words towards each other? And who really got the final say? (Same as prev, be as vague as you'd like)

split this one into two, since there are different answers depending on when you consider their 'last' conversation was!

last words pre-orin:

i don't have any specific words in mind, but i feel like their last conversation before orin's surprise attack was about as normal as any conversation could be after the mess during the hell heist. esper was called to moonrise towers to help ketheric with some strategy he'd been planning to entrap and recruit drow soldiers to appoint as squadron leaders, since the swathes of goblins and reanimated corpses they'd collected wasn't very conducive to organization, and ketheric is a great general, but he's not as feverish a micromanager as esper or gortash are, and the absolute's army needs competent leaders for him to delegate to. esper, being raised as drow, had some insights that could be used to hook good candidates, so they were off to make sure it got done right while gortash and orin (probably; she's a shapeshifter, she's probably still here, right?) kept things under control in baldur's gate.

so esper headed to moonrise, where they provided ketheric with their advice, briefly indulged in a drink and an only sort-of-disguised vent session chastising ketheric for only serving his god because myrkul was essentially holding his love for his daughter hostage. the kind of empty judgement that they pass constantly, but their heart isn't really in, because they're mostly just envious that ketheric's god was willing to let him have Something. cue esper going to the basement and getting vibe checked by orin on bhaal's behalf for being an ingrate.

but the last conversation between esper and gortash was purely business. what are you talking about? nothing happened in the hells, no, of course not. no question that gortash had the last word there, because he always does, he's petty like that. something inane and amiable like "i'll have a list of targets by tomorrow, but i'll make sure the temple doesn't kill them all before you get back," or like, "walk in death, my dear urge, or whatever it is your lot says", or "close the door behind you".

last words pre-gortash dying:

"i think i always liked you, too. but this is how it has to be."

... or some more characteristic equivalent based on that line. gortash learned at the very last minute that esper was right -- they did always like him, because they had the ability to curbstomp him extremely disrespectfully any time they wanted, and they worked very, very hard to avoid doing so. he realizes that esper did care about him, very much, because he was now looking at an esper that didn't care what happened to him. he sees them taking their swords to someone else while karlach is killing him -- annoying and embarrassing, by the way, to be killed by an employee of all things --he sees them let someone else take the kill, breaking their promise that he would die by their hand.

but there's some peace in that. they got out. they said they got out. his empire is crumbling around him, and the only person he's ever loved is abandoning him for a second time, and he hates them, he hates them, he hates them. he'll drag them kicking and screaming into the hells with him if bane ever lets him. but that same small part of him that they had thought died when he lost them for the first time, he can feel it again.

and it's grinning from ear to ear. because the plan worked. he's doomed, but he was right, and it worked. and his last living thought is on getting revenge, just like it's always been.

[eros-thanatos89]

This is a random, but I was listening to Sia’s “Chandelier” and thinking for the millionth time how well it applies to both Jesse and Nacho. They both have distinct ways of self-medicating and trying to party away their pain, but they’re very parallel.

Jesse experiences something horrendously traumatic? Time to fill his house with people, noise, distraction! And disappear into a meth-induced haze for days at a time. Until things progress from fun to dismal, destructive, and scary. Wash, rinse, repeat. He can never feel truly safe. Especially not in his own home where he’s constantly reminded of so many horrible things he’s had to do, including flushing the remains of his business partner and childhood friend down the toilet and killing his cousin in the basement (RIP Emilio and Domingo). He truly has nowhere to escape but his own altered mind state. Being alone in that house, haunted by its memories, would be enough to drive anyone a little mad.

Nacho is experiencing self-loathing and existential dread? Better populate his house with girls who are more like pets than true friends or romantic partners and with whom he can get high, get laid, and feel maybe a little less lonely and disconnected from who he used to be or wants to be. (Presumably, he’s smoked meth with them sometimes, since they offer it to him. I often wonder how and when he met them, since we don’t see them until after he moves up in the cartel and buys the big house and flashy new car. It’s almost like they came with the house. I wonder what club or party scene he ran across them in…) And buy a bunch of expensive stuff that he clearly doesn’t even want or care about. His Javelin seems to be the only thing he owns that he’s actually emotionally attached to. Everything else is a status symbol, which is a reminder of the “success” he’s achieved—probably everything he used to dream about—and now it’s all just a chain that weighs him down and reminds him of how trapped in the cartel life he is.

It’s amazing how starkly lonely both of their houses (and lives) feel, even with all the distractions they fill them with.

Anyways, what I’m trying to say is, there are so many parallels between Jesse and Nacho, including being sad party boys who want to swing from the chandelier so they can forget how sad they are.

I wish they could’ve met even one time as adults (I completely head canon that they knew each other as kids because of Jesse being friends with Emilio) and connected and maybe felt seen by each other, even if just for a moment. *big sigh *

Thanks for coming to my sad bois Ted Talk.

[mazm-imagines]

Notice! (NOT THE END OF THIS ACCOUNT I PROMMY)

Aheeem aheem wheemper...

Hi guys. Sorry for making false assurances again... just forgor to get to the halloween asks even over my fall break. However I do want to talk about certain things. I want to explain this creative block and for a moment just be vulnerable on here. There's been so much in my life right now I've been feelin like dogshit and then last night i was talking to a friend snd it all clicked. This is a really long post so I'll put it under a cut.

I have to admit... my passion for mazm is dwindling a bit. I wont be dropping the blog or anything not at all. The memories I've made here cheered me up when I was at my worst moments.

I like to write and draw to make people happy. I remember when I was 12, I came onto mazm tumblr tags to just look at things. I came across an incorrect quotes blog, and while I don't think it was the highest effort content, it still put a smile on my face because I could tell whoever ran it was passionate. People were passionate. The mod left around 2020ish??? And i remembered being so sad.

It's hard to make content for small fandoms. Heaven only knows others have it worse... some only have 3 people instead of 5/lh

I've watched mutuals leave the fandom as they lost interest. Which is completely normal like it happens. But it just. Sucks. Its hard to make art/writing when you dont have people to exchange ideas with. I know I should be writing for myself, but I also would like to know that there are people reading and watching. I want to make people happy in the same way i was happy in the past.

But the dwindling activity on here + the lack of participation in the community events such as MazM week makes me want to give up trying sometimes. Not giving up trying to write nor answer asks by any means. I do those of my free will. But give up trying to reach out. I absolutely hate forcing interest, i don't like to harass others.

As i grow older, and younger members join the fandom, i start to feel a disconnect. Not because they are doing anything wrong, and I am happy that children get to enjoy MazM the same way i used to. It's more that my tastes mature, but i don't have anyone to discuss it with. It feels strange.

There's also the fact that I've always been more fond of MazMs original works such as Pechka, Thy Creature, and Hyde and Seek. I like Phantom of the Operas more original aspects ironically, but was never quite fond of Jekyll and Hyde. I often think a large part of MazM discussions involve the adaptations rather than the original aspects. Which again, I feel a bit out of place with.

All of this, and it starts feeling a bit lonely... I must be self pitying because the discord is pretty alive and I do see people in the tags. I appreciate all the creators i see, from the bottom of my heart. Everyone that creates something or speaks their mind or participates, that is what keeps it alive. If anyone ever wants to reach out to me I am more than happy to talk and share ideas.

But I've felt my old work was juvenile. I keep rereading my current work and looking at my current art. I keep feeling "not enough". Its leaked over to my other interests too like IDV. I have to drop one of my biggest projects because I've lost passion for some of the characters due to lore shit. And the other fic, I just couldn't read my prose without cringing. Which sucked because that project was for myself, it wasn't meant to be serious it was just yume shit. But... maybe that just reflects upon how I feel with myself now. That if no one reads, then I must be doing something wrong.

I love mazm from the bottom of my heart, I admire the team so much. It's why I started to draw seriously, it's why i started to read and analyze seriously and heavily influenced my writing. I AM MAZM FAN NUMBER 1!!! i am super excited for the new edgar allen poe game of course i am. It's just seeing the team members leave one by one and the format change so drastically... i don't know. The magic is different. But I will always support MazM despite it all.

So this is where I am now. Burnt out, unable to look at my own creations properly, cold lasagne hate myself. All very kafkaesque im sure. I don't want to put out low effort posts, so that's why I've just been keeping my askbox preserved. To all the people that sent me asks, thank you so so so much. You guys are the reason i am not letting this blog go anywhere. And I am very sorry to keep you all waiting.

[sailorgundam308]

BG3 introspection bit

This one isn't edgy or funny. I just feel like sharing, prompted by seeing how, indeed, BG3 is one of the greatest if not THE greatest pieces of entertainment we've got in a long while. But I know for so many people it turned out to be much more than just that. That includes me. To make a long story short, I've been living a full world away from my loved ones for almost a decade, in a place that is particularly hostile towards me. I'm here out of necessity and choice, since my other option happens to be worse. It's been shockingly lonely, until I grew used to the isolation. Still, I made do. I make do. Around a few years back, and especially last year, things took a turn for the much worse. I've spiraled into a very, very dark place, which in turn isolated me even more from other people - but also from myself.

Being so far away from familiarity and the things I love worn me down, and disconnected from who I am and what I enjoy. To the point I effectively stayed in a limbo, frozen in time, empty, for the past years. It's been way more scary than when I was obviously and loudly sad or depressed, because at least then I had energy to react in some way. As an artist by profession and by passion, it was even more concerning that I could not create ANYTHING - words, images, even concepts. My mind had been simply silent, dead. I quite literally spent the last 3-4 years just existing, going to my job like a mindless clockwork because otherwise I wouldn't be able to make rent and end up getting deported. I knew I was utterly and completely lost, and had no idea what I could grab onto to pull me out. It was as if I couldn't move - I did not really wanted to, somehow.

It happens to everyone, I think, that sometimes a seemingly random thing that you engage with unexpectedly becomes a sort of lifeline. It happened to me once before, during a complicated part of my teens. And now it seemed to have happened again because I decided to play Baldur's Gate 3. I mentioned before, I am a bit older and have played BG1 and BG2, and also DnD and the like. I've always been the nerdy artsy type, and it had always fueled my imagination and gave me energy to keep creating, keep moving, searching, growing.

It was really a struck of luck that I heard the news that BG3 was a thing. I was so isolated I did not engage with any piece of media anymore - I watched no news, no movies, no series, read no books. When I think about it, it's really scary how I felt absolutely nothing, how truly empty of any will to live I was. But it's been wild for a while now. I happened to be on 'vacation' when BG3 got released, and I was sucked into it like I was desperate. And I probably was. I needed anything to take me away from where I was, who (or the lack of) I had become. The game did just that. It's not a coincidence I put 750+ hours in it. I could not stand looking at my own circumstances and somehow I managed to finally escape anywhere else. While I recognize I went to the opposite extreme of (problematic) engagement, I also saw how my mind seeemed to switch on again after a while - as if I was reminded of how it used to be.

Ideas, cohesive thoughts, images, the unavoidable urge to move, to create something - all these things that made me ME started to come back.

I remembered how much I enjoyed fantasy, fiction, having ideas, organizing, planning, making things come true - how much just marking a paper with a pencil brings me joy. How my own mind can be rich and exciting, and how I have the skills to translate those impulses into reality. And that is what made me, all my life. It's hard to explain how I feel after 4 years not creating a single thing, having no impulse or creative idea and watching life pass in a haze, now I feel like I'm finally reconecting to something precious. My doctor even pointed it out, how it seems I'm finally waking up after years, coming out of whatever dark hole I've been in.

While it's been a short while, I'm very aware this is essentially a hyperfixation, but for someone who (even though I tried) could not feel anything towards anything for so long, this seems like a blessing. And I'm doing my best to make a stair out of it - use the momentum to branch out into other things I know I need and miss, the other things that have always been part of my life that I'd let go of.

I'm probably not the only one who clicked with this game, and it somehow pulled us out of strange, scary places. Even though it's a lot of projection on our part, people in such situations need something they relate to in order to project onto, to grab to float. Not everything works, it must be something special to the person at the right time. Lucky me that Baldur's Gate 3 happened when it did, the way it did, and that I was where I was.

I'm really, truly happy I stumbled onto the news of the game, for whatever reason took action to actually buy it, open and play it. When I did, I had no idea it would be the lifeline I'd grab onto. But it's been, and it meant so much to me. That's all of my sad introspective blurb. I have no way of explaining how thankful I feel to everyone who put this game together. While it wasn't the intention of the creators, BG3 gave me the push I so desperately needed and that nothing else had managed to.

I'd still be lost in a very dark place without it.

:')

[skylarkking]

"One In The Same"

A TFA Blitzwing x Mech!reader

Word Count: 1.3k

Chapter 10: Enigma Deactivation

I wouldn't end up finding a location for the Decepticons. Instead, I would end up encountering the last thing anyone would expect.

The Autobot ship, which had been submerged in water for almost an earth year, was free once again. I was suddenly grabbed by a set of metallic claws that jutted out of the top. I didn't fight it, though, because my calculations dictated that there was only a 12.5% chance of escape without injury.

The claws brought me inside the ship where a familiar medic and human were looking at me in shock. I was then restrained in place by more metal claws and cables, the percentage for escape without damage dropping to 0.03%.

I stared blankly at the medic and human. There were no thoughts, no emotions, absolutely nothing behind my optics. I was just a machine.

"Primus..." Ratchet whispered, and he approached me. "What did he do to you?"

"Ratchet, did you find Y/D?" Optimus's voice called over the comlink.

"Yeah... yeah, I did." He said grimly. "I have him restrained at the moment, and we will be closing in on your location in a little while. Just hang tight." Ratchet closed the comlink and stared up at me with an expression that one usually had when they were mourning.

For a brief moment, the crimson left my optics, and a singular tear slid down my cheek, Sari spotting the change just as I returned to my cold and calculating state.

"He's still in there!" Sari said. "Ratchet, Y/D is still in there!" Ratchet looked down at the little girl in surprise and then back at me, his optics fixating on the damp trail left behind by the tear.

That is what they saw, but in my mind, the Y/D they knew was trapped deep inside, surrounded by chains and code, enslaved and broken.

It cried for freedom. It cried for Ratchet. It cried... for Blitzwing.

But no one could hear it.

No one could hear my core consciousness screaming and sobbing. No one could hear the pain and unfiltered agony I wanted to release in hot, heavy sobs. I was alone, with no way out.

I was going to die.

"Duel conscious programming detected." I muttered as my core consciousness and the Enigma Programming battled for control of my frame. By this point, Ratchet had picked up the other Autobots, and they all turned to look at me.

"Did he just say duel conscious programming?" Prowl asked.

"He did." Ratchet said grimly.

"What does that mean?" Sari asked.

"It means that Enigma and Y/D are battling inside his mind." Ratchet said as he became deep in thought. "And I think we can provide reinforcements." He went up to my restrained form and reached for the cables, gently disconnecting them one by one. After the 3rd one was pulled, my frame siezed up, and a scream left me.

As I screamed, the Decepticons opened fire on the ship, the Autobots scattering about to man various battle stations. I struggled and writhed as everything began to go haywire. It was all a blur of confusing and overwhelming colors, scents, sounds, and feelings.

Then it all imploded, my vision going black as I was forced deep inside my own mind.

I was surrounded by a black void where nothing was above, and nothing was below. It was cold, dark, empty, and extremely lonely.

But I knew I wasn't alone.

'Autobot consciousness programming detected.' The voice of the Enigma program echoed. 'Termination protocol activated.'

It felt like I was being torn to shreds, my will breaking as parts of me began to die.

'I refuse to die like this!' I growled. 'ENIGMA! SHOW YOURSELF!'

'Challange... accepted.' Glitching into existence was a near perfect copy of myself. Only this one was purely a grounder. His paint job was far duller and desaturated than mine was, and his face was... oddly sad to me.

'Enigma,' I said. 'You can't destroy me.'

'Protocal dictates I must. It is Megatron's order that all autobot soldiers must die. As he wills it, so it chall be.'

'You don't have to follow Megatron. He doesn't own you!'

'I am Decepticon property, a weapon meant to destroy in the name of Megatron.' He ejected his claws and pointed them at me with an expressionless stare. 'All shall die.'

'Enigma, listen! If you destroy me, you destroy yourself in the process!'

In that moment, Enigma looked at me with his crimson optics with... confusion?

'Clarify.' He demanded.

'YOU BUMBLING IDIOT!' The Wrath state shouted as he appeared next to me. 'IF YOU KILL Y/D YOU END UP KILLING YOURSELF!'

'Ahahaha!' The Mania state cackled as he materialized on the other side of me. 'Suicide is such a crazy concept! Or maybe it's murder? Murder suicide? I don't know! Hehehe!'

'Enigma, please.' I begged. 'I know you're just a program and aren't sentient, but... you have to at least somewhat understand that this will destroy us both. So please, don't do it.'

'Command not recognized.' Enigma said. 'Termination protocol engaged.' The black void began to fill with green sprawling code, and all of us began to break away like pixels on a screen. It was slow, painful, and had to stop. I fought hard against the termination and stepped forward, the other two states pushing me from behind as support.

I then lunged at Enigma, my arms wrapping around him in a sort of hug. That's when all 4 of us were consumed by a bright white, the two states vanishing and leaving Enigma and myself alone in the white.

'What... what are you doing?' Enigma asked as I continued to hug him.

'They say self-love and care are good for the mind.' I said. 'Even if it's just something that can't return it.'

'I... I do not understand.' Enigma said.

'You don't have to.' I said quietly. 'You just accept it as it is.' Enigma hesitated, something he had not done before, and he reached around me and returned the embrace.

'This is... nice.' He said.

'And you can share it with me all the time.' I said. 'Stop the termination.'

The light faded as did the pain, the image of myself and Enigma vanishing into the black.

While this was occurring, my bindings had been broken by Optimus battling Megatron,  my frame falling to the ground with a crash.

"Nnnngh." I groaned as I came to, my helm spinning like mad and mh now blue optics opening to see the chaos. "What the?!"

"Y/D!" Optimus called as he blocked a swing from Megatron. I quickly got up and charged at Megatron, my fist connecting to the warlord's face and sending him to the floor.

"YOU ABSOLUTE SLAG PILE!" I shrieked as an uncontrollable rage built inside me, my optics swapping to violet.

"Enigma!" Megatron barked. "Stand down!"

"I am not Enigma." I snarled as I ejected my claws.

"What is this?!" He exclaimed.

"My name, is Y/D!" I charged the warlord and slashed hard across his chassis, Megatron grunting in pain as he stepped back. He glared at me, and the pair of us entered a brawl that ended up heading out of the crashed ship and onto the shoreline where Bumblebee, Prowl, and Bulkhead were battling Blitzwing and Lugnut.

"YOU TRIED TO TAKE MY FREE WILL!" I shouted angrily as I blocked a swing, the sparks and deafening clang reaching the battling bots.

Megatron snarled at me and shoved me back, his fist colliding with my frame as he beat the slag out of me.

Optimus intervened, and the battle between him and Megatron continued, Blitzwing throwing Bumblebee to the side and rushing to my battered frame. I opened my optics slightly at him and let out a pained whine.

"Shh, don't talk." He said softly.

"Blitzy... i... I'm sorry."

Darkness overtook me, and I remembered nothing more.

-------

A/n I am not sure how much I like this chapter in terms of descriptions and stuff, but I think it's okay? But just okay. The REAL drama is about to begin, though.

Previous Chapter: Click Here

Next Chapter: Click Here

[dizzybizz]

ok i need someone elses (especially- but not exclusively- other afab autistics, cis or trans) thoughts on this shit cause im losing my goddamn mind i just have so many feelings about gender and its fucking me up

ok so.

ive always sorta felt disconnected with my gender and i dont think me being autistic helps with it either. what with trying to pinpoint feelings and all that being hard. and it has i guess planted a lot of doubt surrounding my thoughts and feelings about my own gender in my mind. i question if everything im feeling is just bc im autistic. which is why im making this post!! i just need some outside perspectives and thoughts and i guess i want to know that im probably not alone in my struggles with this.

idk how i wanna structure this post but ill just write down the things that come to mind.

like before i hit puberty i was not into the idea of it at all. and before i had considered the fact that i might be trans, i thought it was just because i didnt like the thought of change. and i think thats normal, being hesitant about puberty.

BUT uhm. now im not religious. but i vividly remember praying to god that i would at least be as late a bloomer as possible. if not, never ever going through afab puberty. and i always felt more inclined towards amab puberty, and i thought it was a MUCH better deal than whatever afab puberty was going to do with me.

and i feel really silly writing this cause that does not sound like something a normal cis girl would do or think... and i feel quite confident in me being not cis. but i guess this is just a post to seek some validation in my suspicion and feelings. but i also want to know if it is an experience others share.

my gender thoughts as i call them have been particularly prevelant since 2019, thats when i think i first started contemplating whether i might just actually be trans. at that time i believe it was more towards the non binary, but nowadays its ftm

and i just idk. im kinda lost and lonely here, i havent talked about with any family members which are the people i spend most of my time with currently. i wanted to get the perspective of people who are also autistic and might relate to the gender feelings and yeah

and ok no sorry, jumping back, cause its always at its worst before and during shark week (like right now :)) and that has also thrown me off quite badly

cause what if its just pms, or just some kinda hormone imbalance or some shit like that. am i crazy cause sometimes i feel like im driving myself mad with this stuff. is it common to have really intense thoughts about gender anytime your period is about to kick in.

also growing up with a younger brother (who also has a whole ass army of guy friends) when you have these thoughts is fucked up ngl who allowed this. youre telling me he gets to just get that puberty for free. fucking hell wtf

sorry i lost it pls just idk tell me your thoughts wherever, replies, i think im turning off reblogs for this but, my inbox or dms anything ok thanks so much, means the world

[alitwebster]

task starter for @savvy-sutton

Sometimes, life tells you it's not the right time to make lemonade with the lemons it gave you. When Ali moved to East Haven with, and for his partner, he did not imagine he would be the sad boyfriend who waits for his loved one to come back from work. Even now that he was working evening shifts super late at night, he would often come home to an empty apartment and a text. "Sorry, got held up at work.". That was his life, that had been his life for far too long now. At first, Ali had trouble connecting with people. He felt lost in a country that didn't feel like home, and, truthfully, got a little homesick. It took time, and effort, to finally make friends. He even had trouble calling them that, feeling like he was betraying the ones he had in Scotland, or all over the world, really. He had two, at first. Two that knew a version of him that wasn't completely up to date. And anyway, who's got only two friends ? Ali felt lonely, and couldn't possibly bother the same two people on repeat. So indeed, it took time and effort, but he finally did it. It had been a few weeks since Ali started to go out at night, on the days when you would tell him you'd be home late. He'd get an invite via text, or he would ask someone if they were out, and he tried to do his best to feel motivated. Because, believe it or not, partying was not Ali's forte. On the contrary, he was one to enjoy cozy nights with a book and a cup of tea. He meditated; ate a macaron and massaged his partner's shoulders. Going out was a violent matter, something that was way out of his comfort zone. However, the 36-year-old quickly came to the realisation that if he wanted to connect with people here, the quickest way to do so was probably to do shots with them, and dance to silly little songs that had either little to no meaning, or a very sexual one. He was uncomfortable, but at least, he wasn't playing housewife anymore. Sadly, the more he tried to connect with people, the more disconnected he felt. He felt foggy, the rush of the alcohol numbing his senses. Tonight was a wild night, but tonight also happened to be one for which Andy had come home on time. Ali just left the apartment too early to realise. The party wasn't in his neighbourhood, and he had to take the car. So right now, as his phone indicated 3 am, Ali had been partying for far too long for his mind to be sane. You know this thing, when people are way drunker than they appear ? Ali's whole drinking game consists of this. He does his best to appear sober, even though he is on the brink of vomitting on his loafers. He was never a huge drinker, and this new habit of his ? Not his best life decision. But right now, it's late, Aindreis is probably sleeping, and the fresh air in front of the bar gives him a second of clarity. He won't be calling Aindreis tonight. The shame would be too grand. It had happened twice already, and that was already too much. Instead, he recognised the path to your part of town, and texted. "Hey, hope you're awake. I can't take the car home, I've had too much to drink and it wouldn't be safe, my friend drank as well. Is there any chance I could crash at your place ?" In that message, include one or two typos due to the dancing sidewalk under Ali's feet, and there you go. The perfect 3 am message. "I'll owe you 1" he adds before switching to his conversation with Aindreis, renamed "Angel face / husband material" in his phone. He took a second to breathe, and focus real hard. "Hi love, going to crash at a friend's place tonight. She doesn't feel so good, and I can't leave her like this. I'll see you in the morning. I love you. To the infinity and beyond." Ali laughed to the Disney joke, and hit send. Fifteen minutes later, he was knocking at your door, after receiving confirmation that he could come. The walk had somewhat brought clarity to his senses, but his breath and his posture still screamed intoxication. "I am so sorry..." He said, shameful. "I couldn't get home like this. Andy would have killed me on the spot."

[antibrainrotcrusader]

Review of: More Than This by Patrick Ness

More Than This is a novel written by Patrick Ness. The main character-Seth Wearing- thought he had nothing in the world; that he was alone. After committing suicide on a cold stormy day in the ocean, he wakes up in his childhood home, half-naked, alive, and completely truly alone. Being put in a place where he actually had nothing, knows nothing, but is somehow alive, made him appreciate the life he had abandoned. He slowly began to learn that his life wasn’t as bad as he thought it was, that he took a lot of things for granted, and ignored others because it didn’t fit in with how bad everything felt.

From the beginning, Ness extracts my sympathy for Seth as he shows the scene where Seth dies. Seth struggles to stay alive, so much so that I would’ve never thought he chose that fate for himself. Seth is frightened by death, but he is more afraid of being alone. Ness perfectly describes the feeling of loneliness and depression by comparing Seth’s half-conscious state to an unplugged electronic device, and in a way, it is also accurate to humanity’s current state. When I came back to the beginning of the book after finishing it, I realised how close the description was to what people feel when they’ve been disconnected after being online for a long time. Even when he regains complete consciousness, he doesn’t accept that he is alone, and for good reason; we humans are social animals. According to an article on Psychology Today, “when our need for social relationships is not met, we fall apart mentally, and even physically.” Loneliness is a feeling everybody has experienced at least once; we are not strangers to it. The only difference is that Seth wasn’t only feeling lonely; he was literally alone. He talked to himself to fill the silence and loneliness, which may have been a sign of his falling apart, and it may have been what was keeping him together. He was in a world he believed he knew nothing about, and he had nothing to guide him but his instincts. I admired how he didn’t stop him from trying to live; and when he did, I couldn’t blame him. 

When Seth finally found people, he’d already accepted that he is alone in the world, it almost seemed like he doesn’t mind the loneliness as he tells himself “it isn’t the most unfamiliar feeling in the world.” He kept questioning his friends’ existence, even though they were real in every sense that matters. If I was in his place, I would’ve been the same. Dying only to wake up uninjured and alive is bound to make anyone question their own existence. Finding out that the brother he knew for most of his life was fabricated by a program and that the real version of him has died long before would only make him question the existence of everything else. So why shouldn’t he be suspicious? 

Even though the story started grimly, it ended on a much happier note. Not only does he stop being suspicious of his friends’ existence, and overcomes his loneliness, but he also learns the value of life. “Now that I know there’s more? I want to have more. If there really is more to life, I want to live all of it. And why shouldn’t all of us? Don’t we deserve that?” While it can sound like Seth is just being greedy, what he is saying makes a lot of sense. It’s a notion that everyone should follow; why settle for one thing when you can have more? Why stick to what you have if it’s bleak and dreary? We have the power to lead happy, fulfilling lives, if we let ourselves. I find it especially inspirational, how Seth changed from wanting to escape his own life, to wanting it back and more. It is why this would not only be an entertaining read for year 12 students, but it’ll also be a great source of inspiration to live the best lives they can.

[remedyxxl]

idk what the fuck was wrong with me when i decided to get those first tattoos, like i guess i know what was wrong, i was in a spiral and was making decisions not in my right mind and couldn’t connect with what i felt was right - totally disconnected from my sense of self and feeling itself. and then pretending like i liked them for months, until i made another insane decision to get them blacked out, making them so much more visible & permanent. they are a bad placement, they are symmetrical, idk i just don’t really fuck with them and i cannot integrate them into my self image. but like there is nothing i can do about it, and the fact is i can’t get rid of them & if i have to live with them i can just continue this path i’ve started, which is this path of learning to tattoo, which SOMETHING called me toward 1.5 years ago, called me to blindly tattoo on my body, called me to continue practicing and learning as i go, making bad decisions but at least *doing* something with myself rather than simply sitting around doing nothing and having no skills…

I want them off so bad, they make me feel so lonely + ashamed + then ashamed of my nostalgia for my perfect, unmarked body - like before i ever got the tattoos i didn’t even register when other people had them, and now i’m constantly jealous of other peoples bare legs - why has this path been chosen for me? + i must continue to be grateful for what i have learned and the path that has opened up to me, this path that i affirm can only lead to increased opportunity for connecting with other people by honing this skill - yet i simply mourn for my old body and i must learn to accept and hold this regret, despair, and anger at myself, and move to recognize what this change has given me: a manner of turning spirit to action, which has haunted+evaded me for so long - resisting the path which i have chosen will only lead to a continued life of shame and despair

[verbosebabbler]

I feel that I need to stop and write a post for the end of season 4, since there is a big status quo shift starting the next season. I really didn't end up writing anything about the spoilers below, just focusing on the Fear system.

Let's see if I can now write the 15 fears by memory, names may vary because why not also not have definitive names for a completely new categorization system.

Desolation Death Stranger Spiral Corruption Buried Vast Web Slaughter Flesh Lonely Darkness Eye Hunt Extinction

Ok, I can manage it, though slaughter and below were like pulling teeth from my memory for some reason. But it'll get easier with time. My memory isn't great without little reminders, but usually I can remember them in groups. Sure, why don't I group them. I had done it before when my only understanding was from the wiki. Because of how the fears tangle there will be multiple uses of each fear.

To start with are the pairs of opposites I can think of: Vast and Buried, of large or enclosed spaces Eye and Darkness, of the seen and not seen Eye and Spiral, of truth and falsehood Web and Lonely, of connection and disconnection

Then there's the large group of destructive sorts of fears Death, Desolation, Slaughter, Corruption, Extinction: • Death is specifically about an end of a person most usually • Desolation is the destruction of anything of worth or meaning, which can be a loved one. • Extinction is the apocalypse. Very associated with both End of life and with the Desolation of everything. • Slaughter is unimaginable violence which often results in a lot of death • Corruption has plenty of associations but the one relevant to this group is its connection to decay and rot.

Then there's a group that I associate with more primal fears Hunt, Slaughter, Flesh: • Hunt being the most primal of them all, the chase of predator and prey. • Slaughter is related to violence and feels connected to the predator part of the hunt, that hunger for the catch. • Flesh is related to the acknowledgement that people, like animals, are just meat and can be eaten and easily relates to the prey part of hunt. --Could also include the Death of the prey, the Darkness in which both predator and prey can hide, but for some reason my mind doesn't group them in here.

It's hard to articulate, but then there are fears that play or rely upon our perception of understanding of what things are. Eye, Stranger, Spiral: • Eye is the fear of being watched, of secrets revealed. It's the fear of being known • Stranger is the fear of the uncanny, of something being not quite right. It requires a base understanding of what something is, in order to fear what it's not supposed to be. • Spiral is the fear of confusion and deceit. Fundamentally, it is of misunderstanding. Of wrong or incorrect knowledge. --Of note, zampaniosim also uses corruption abstractly for the eroding of information. "The rot takes all in the end." Like corrupted data and link rot. So it would likely be partially grouped here.

There's also some looser. • Vast fear cases are likely going to coincide with Lonely. • Corruption or Web could both be associated with spiders. • Spiral and Corruption are an weird duo that is really hard for me to explain, though this is zampaniosim specific. 

I think I will need to make a larger separate post on corruption. I went off on an unrelated tangent to how overbroad corruption is, made even broader in zampaniosim. Seriously, trying to list out and separate all of the ideas that are getting lumped in to corruption is taxing on my energy and sanity.

But one thing that still puzzles me is, where are fractals in all this?? It's not brought up a lot in TMA: there's a story of a guy getting obsessed with them thinking they had secret knowledge of the universe, and there was an offhand mention of that web artifact table not being like the fractals. It felt like a setup to something then but maybe it was just a reference or just dropped. I only mention because both fractals and the idea of obsession that story had are a strong reoccurring element in zampaniosim and I think it made me believe it'd be a bigger deal here than it was. But now I'm not sure which fear that story was associated with.

I'm done typing for now. On to season 5, and then... My podcast app lists the Magnus Protocol as season 7? Was season 6 all the non Magnus extras in between? I've been skipping the extras and was going to go back to some later (like Duskhollow, which is relevant to zampaniosim). Eh, I'll figure that out when I finish season 5.