#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!!

[imagine-knowing-a-name]

'cause lately i've been feeling kinda lonely

Summary: The Avengers make the perfect family, they’re kind to you and never do you wrong. But sometimes it’s just not right.

Pairing: Avengers Team & Reader. Mainly Natasha Romanoff & Reader (could be romantic, platonic, or familial tbh, they’re just close)

Word Count: 1101

Warnings: Angst, but also hurt/comfort. Feeling out of place/isolated in a group.

A/N: My brain was having Sad Thoughts™️ which somehow gave me the ability to write this on my phone in under an hour, and it has not been proofread since lol. Hope you enjoy! :)

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It was unbearable, but also fine. Too loud, but no-one was shouting. Everything was wrong but nothing was.

You couldn't explain it; you couldn't even understand it yourself. It was all going wrong, and yet you didn't even know what 'it' was.

The family meal was a disaster, but it was the happiest you'd ever seen them.

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For you, it felt like nothing could go right. The conversations were too fast, too free-flowing; you couldn't get a word in before someone else would speak up with a smile, seamlessly drawing attention to their own story, and unknowingly diverting it away from your contribution, with no way back.

Amongst the team's laughs, you felt like you were drowning. Amongst the team's smiles, your face was vacant, but they didn't notice.

You smiled at the right times, you could take that cue at least, and that would put their minds at ease whenever they caught your eye.

For all turbulent thoughts inside of you, it felt like your body should be constricting. You expected your heart to feel like it's bursting, or your breathing to become staccato. But it wasn't, you were fine; according to your body it was all okay, it was only in your head where you thought otherwise.

You could force your heart to react, and with a thought, the sharp breaths could return, but what was the point? They didn't need to see that, and if your body wasn't doing it on its own, then why would you even think of forcing it? You were clearly fine.

"What's going on up there?" Natasha asked of you. Her brows furrowed despite the hint of a smile on her face; she'd noticed your silence. You loved that she'd noticed your silence. 

"They're probably thinking of work, as usual," Clint intruded before you could answer. He laughed, and you did too for a bit. You laughed and smiled and nodded at Nat just long enough to reassure her Clint was correct, you were thinking of work of course, not your feelings of disconnect. The others took Clint's statement and ran, adding more onto it until you were no longer the subject.

You still couldn't make yourself heard.

As the amiability continued long into the night, you grew bored of your place as a silent spectator. The dinner was done, so you wordlessly collected everyone's dishes; echoes of "thank you" and "I'll help" pursued you, but you shrugged them all off.

You smiled again, cringing at the artificiality of the expression, and told them to keep talking; you were happy to deal with this.

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Clanging of plates and cutlery rang unpleasantly in your ears, and yet, compared to their voices, it was an improvement.

You controlled this noise. You made this noise. And you did it at your own pace.

In between the clatter was blissful silence, the voices of your teammates reduced to murmurs, if anything. You revelled in it, breathing deeply to help yourself relax.

Then a loud laugh met you again. Thor's was distinctive, loudest, but you heard every one of your co-workers, out there laughing without your contribution. Yes you had chosen to do the dishes, and told them to keep talking, but it was like your removal changed nothing. Unless you went back out, then for the rest of the night, nobody would even think of you.

With renewed vigour, you loaded the dirty utensils into the machine as fast as you could, before slamming the door shut.

That was your work done, and the dinner over for you. Finally, you could retreat deeper into the compound and lock yourself in your room, putting your headphones in immediately.

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You don't know how long you were like that, staring into nothingness from the centre of your bed, hardly even noticing the music in your ears, but the stars were bright outside your window when Natasha knocked on your door.

Moving slowly, you pulled the speaker out of one ear, and gave some verbal sound to call her in.

Natasha opened the door cautiously. She stuck her head in before her body followed. You shuffled over on the bed and allowed her to perch on the edge, she sat silently at first, but her torso twisted to watch you.

"Are you okay?" she started. It was the same care she showed before, the kind that did provoke a physical reaction, the kind that pricked your eyes with tears and burned your heart with love. Unlike before, however, she didn't smile. She didn't want you to shrug it off like before, and she wouldn't let anyone else but you answer the question that only you could answer. 

"Of course," came your answer, a friendly smile and a nod accompanying it, but your efforts to be convincing did not fool the spy. She shuffled closer.

"You hardly spoke all through dinner-"

"Had nothing to say," you interjected,

"and you didn't stop Clint from interrupting last time I asked you."

"Clint likes to talk, I don't think I could stop him"

"Well he's not here now, so will you please tell me the truth?"

You contemplated lying again and saying you were fine. But your body WAS acting fine, so would it really be a lie? You could tell her that as a truth and whole-heartedly believe it, but this was Natasha. You hated having to say it, but she already knew the answer your heart wanted to give, she saw through your dull expression into the exhaustion and the cry for help. She saw what you needed, and she was here to ensure you asked for it.

"I don't know if I'm okay," you confessed at last.

She stayed quiet, giving you time to find the words you need.

"I can't- I don't know what it is. I was smiling genuinely for most of it, I promise, I like seeing everyone happy and getting along well and having such casual conversations... but I can't make myself feel included in it. I don't know where to interject in conversations, I feel my contributions lead nowhere, I- I just-" you stuttered again and Natasha laid a hand on your knee, silently encouraging you to take the time to untangle your mind.

"I feel so quiet. It makes everything else feel loud... There's too much in my head." Tears fell at that point, and you curled up tighter to sob into Natasha's side.

The Widow said nothing, but she wrapped her arms around you and held you closer. She'd work out how to help you another time, but for now? this was all you needed.

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[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! 💗💗💗

[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.

[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.

[heartshapedbubble]

HIIII guess who finally finished the fic they've been putting off for literal months 😇😇😇😇 um anyways this is for the lovely anon who wanted a sequel to the "the person i once knew" oneshot mwah ily you know who you are!!!

anyways after this i have some orphy content for a very sweet commissioner and then i'll do the rest of the asks!! 💓

the person i once knew, part 2🦎

i gave up on the concept of proofreading whats that????, slightish cw for blood and some veeery light stuff, my god the writing sucks, gender neutral reader as usual, sorry for the wait anon, i lvoe lchino druiuse send message

-------------------------------------------------------

"Please...let me die a painless death."

That sentence gradually lost meaning with all the times it crossed your mind, gripping the reins of your psyche and making you flinch out of nowhere. The way it echoed in your head kept you awake for hundreds of nights: it was very obviously your voice, yet so unreachable, so distant, as if it crawled out from the deepest parts of your consciousness and made its way to your throat. But at the same time, it gradually unlocked a new emotion: fear. Death was basically gnawing at your ankles, and somehow, you're still alive, with both your feet on the ground and your head up. And the scariest thing was that all your memories of the day were a blurry mess, each of them overlapping, disconnecting and constantly shifting, leaving holes in your mind. You could have escaped death by pure luck, and you would never fully know.

Trying to reminisce of the day it happened was like playing a scratched record. Sometimes you saw vivid pictures, sometimes everything was pitch black, and sometimes it was just that gut-twisting feeling of anxiety and pressure. Only a few pictures materialized in your mind, awakening various sensations and making the hairs on your arms stand up straight. The scorching feeling of the unsharpened, rusty knife in your stomach. Hearing the unbearable screams, whimpers, and sighs of people that were surrounding you. The doctor's sickly pale face and veiny, thin hands illuminated by the unbearably bright yet depressing hospital light. Feeling your own sweat turn ice cold in a flash. It would be so easy to align the pieces of your memory if it wasn't for the constant shuffling, and, of course, your unavoidable feeling that there was a key puzzle piece missing, the one thing that would make everything click in place.

And of course, there was him. How could you even forget that?

Through all of your nightmares and dreams, even when you jolted and suddenly woke up panting and covered in cold sweat, the first thing that flashed in front of your eyes was him. A man so familliar which you simply couldn't name, the first letter always lying on the top of your tongue and never going further than that. Whenever you curled up under your bedsheets, you could smell the sweet fragrance of his hair, and often the warmth of his fingertips that gently traced along the soft lines of your body. And during hot summer nights, you felt the weight of his head on your chest as you got lulled to sleep by the soothing scent of lavender coming from your bedside table. It was kind of embarrassing, how easily you let yourself fall into a stranger's embrace and rest your cheek against his soft skin, woven out of threads of your memory. Perhaps you yearned for more than the pads of his fingers - you often found yourself dreaming of the feeling of his lips melding with yours, a lone string of saliva being the only thing separating them, and his warm breath grazing your ski-

"I apologize for interrupting your daydreaming, dear, but could I get my paycheck? I finished checking and dressing your wound some time ago."

You flinched, and the bright light from the ceiling blinded you again - you were so absorbed in your fantasy that you forgot you were looking at it in the first place. Disoriented, you looked around in panic, only to be met with the doctor's droopy eyes tiredly glaring back at you.

"I-I'm sorry, ma'am, I- I really zoned out, I-" You were a stuttering mess, your cheeks heating up over the mere thought of the doctor watching you drift away. "No worries, sweetheart, I've seen worse.", the doctor replied, taking off the rubber gloves off of her hands. Unintentionally, you found yourself inspecting her features. She seemed disheveled, but still elegant - her sickly pale skin was decorated with various moles, and a lone pearl earring hung from her ear, the milky shine standing out from the plain working dress she wore. "Also, feel free to call me Emily. We'll be hanging out for quite some time until your wound fully heals, so why not be on friendly terms?" She smiled back at you. Her smile didn't last long, but it seemed as if she fought through her sleepiness and stress just to make your face light up for a moment. You couldn't stop yourself from grinning back at her, I mean, it's just human nature, isn't it? You thought to yourself.

Emily was a doctor assigned to help you out after your injury, one of the people you first saw after waking up from the wound-induced coma. Even though she was presumably overworked and not incredibly talkative, you could notice her slowly warming up to you with each visit, treating you with soft smiles every time she put on fresh bandages on your wound and stitched any stray cut that wasn't caught by the fabric wrapped around your waist. It was fascinating, watching her hand work - calculated, precise and fast like a needle on a sewing machine.

"Thanks for helping me out again, ma- I mean, Emily", you mumbled after clumsily wiggling out of your bed. "No worries, darling. Just remember to clean the wound every day, and avoid bending yourself over and doing physical work." She replied, draping her cloak around her shoulders.

You reached into the cupboard in your room, and tucked a thin stack of cash into the small pocket of her cloak. "Here. I gave you extra this time. Thanks again, you have no idea how much I value your help." You said and smiled again. Emily's eyebrows drooped. "Are you sure? That's way more than I need..." she worriedly whispered as you led her to the doorstep. "Don't worry about it!" you whispered back. She sighed. "Then I have no other option other than thank you for your generosity." You were treated by one of her gentle smiles yet again, dimples gracing both of her cheeks. "Well, I have to go now. I'll come over in a week or two. Just remember to take your painkillers if the abdominal pain becomes unbearable - such periods of pain are normal as the wound is still healing. Oh- I'm pretty sure they already arrived, yes?" She pointed her foot at the small bundle of cardboard packages and letters by your doorstep. "Anyways, take care. And remember-"

"I know - no overworking!"

A smile graced her face once again before she turned her back towards you and disappeared in the chilly autumn fog.

You sighed as you crouched to pick up today's mail. It was nothing special - your brown box of painkillers, a letter regarding rent, and an...

"... Invitation?" Your teeth stabbed into your bottom lip. It was, undoubtedly, an invitation - the yellowish envelope stood out from the pile, a weird symbol stamped onto the wax covering the opening. Your finger carefully traced the seal, and you didn't know if it was just your imagination, but you swore it was still heated, even though it was solid. Your gaze bounced onto the edges of the envelope, slightly scorched and crumbling with every touch.

You held the envelope in front of yourself - to open it, or not to open it? Your first instict was tearing it apart, but the longer you inspected the envelope, the more anxious you felt. Who could possibly be the mysterious sender behind it? There wasn't any information about the sender anywhere other than the enigmatic wax seal.

Letter opener in one hand, the edge of the letter in other, you sliced through the wax and the tightly pressed paper. You reached into the envelope, pulling out a small, crumbled piece of paper. It seemed like it was ripped straight out of a notebook, and through the blotchy handwriting, you made out the letters - it was an address. This has to be some sort of a scam. First, vague information, then, this messy writing, then... you muttered to yourself, about to shove the paper back into the envelope. Then you felt something thicker your fingers, bulging from under the textured pergament.

"There's more...?"

You pulled out a piece of laminated, silky smooth paper. Squinting, you deciphered the letters hidden behind the blotches of ink:

____ and Luchino Diruse.

You flipped the paper.

There was a picture of two people gently holding each other in an embrace, their fingers intertwined. One of them being you, and the other....

You'd recognize that face anywhere.

It was him.

~

Your stupidity and impulsiveness was amusing. What made everything funnier was the fact that you repeated that sentence in your mind as you got off the train, already neck deep in the problem. Fascinating about a stranger was already hilarious, but actually chasing them, going head first without any second thought just to see him in the flesh? It was a fucking comedy.

In front of you was an old yet enormous manor, rotting and ruined by the passing of time. The windows were sealed shut with planks, and the garden in the front of it probably wasn't touched up in decades. It truly seemed like a cruel prank, if it wasn't for that picture left at the bottom of the envelope, which was now resting in the inner pocket of your coat. It was the only proof you had, the only thing confirming that the man called "Luchino" wasn't just a marionette sculpted by your unconscious mind. How hilarious.

Your curiosity got the best of you, and you found yourself pushing the (unlocked... for some reason) creaky door open and letting yourself get lost in the darkness of the main hall. It would be pitch black if it wasn't for the few lanterns hanging on the ceiling, spider webs wrapping around the textured glass. Disoriented, you looked around for any possible sign of other people living here, literally anything to prove that you came to the right place.

A ray of light appeared in the corner of your eye - it came from a half-opened door. You slowly approached it, in fear of making the floorboards creak. It's a stranger's house, after all, and you assumed them realizing they have unexpected guests would make them angry.

Yet, your ear was now peering into the illuminated room, curiosity eating you from the inside. You could make out the people speaking just by the tone of their voice - two women, a calm, collected woman and an energetic, younger woman with a soft french accent, seemingly deep into an argument. You could hear their voices jump up a few octaves with every sentence, them tripping on words as they tried to reason with each other. A step further wouldn't hurt anyone, right? Now your whole head was stuck between the wooden planks, but the only things you were able to see were the peeled wallpaper and the edge of a huge, almost royal dining table - this manor was the property of some aristocrat, no doubt about that. Your fingers were aggressively gripping the doorknob, almost desperately. If you could only muster up the courage to open it...

"I wouldn't advise going any further. Mostly because... well, let's just say that miss Bourbon is not the best if we're talking self-control."

The sudden deep, raspy voice behind you made you flinch and turn around in panic. A blindfolded man stood in front of you - his body was wrapped in long, dark blue cloths, and a leather satchel hung from his waist. On his shoulder was a big, brown owl, arching its fluffy chest towards you and curiously tilting its head, as if it wants to know who you are.

"Don't let yourself get intimidated by Brooke - she's just fascinated by newcomers." he said as his gloved hand ruffled the owl's feathers. "The name's Eli Clark, but call me Eli for short. And yours?" The same gloved hand was now reached out towards you, awaiting a handshake.

"My- ah- um...the name is ____. My pleasure, Eli." you nervously mumbled as you grabbed his hand and awkwardly shook it.

"____... What a pretty name. You're new here, right?" The brunette man suddenly smiled. "I've been expecting you."

"Oh, really? So you must be the owner of the manor then! You sent me the invitation too, right?"

Eli rubbed his chin.

"What invitation..?"

You reached into your pocket, showing him the crumpled, yellow envelope. "This one. I was hoping you were the person that could help me out with this personal mission of mine..."

He exhaled, his nose scrunching from under the blindfold. "I'm really sorry, but I think you've been misinformed. I'm not the owner of manor, the same goes for the other two current residents."

"So you must be a relative of the owner, yes?"

"No... In fact, no one here knew others beforehand. Nor do we know the owner, or who invited us - although my "invitation" was more of a... gut instinct, if you will." He let out a bleak, emotionless chuckle. "But all I can say is that you're not alone in this. Miss Bourbon and miss Gilman were both invited by the same stranger, as far as I know."

Your heart sank. It can't possibly be a dead end! There has to be something more...

"You mean this "owner" person invited a bunch of random people here? That they probably don't know, either?"

"Well... yes."

"But why?"

He clicked his tongue. "God knows why. I have my own reasons, and the ladies have them too. All I know is that all of them are quite personal."

You couldn't wait any longer. Just a clue, just a tiny little nag in the right direction - it was all you asked for. "Then, Eli, do you perhaps recognize this man?", you said as you yanked the picture out of your pocket. A sharp line dragged itself across its surface, wearing out the paper after the numerous times you folded it and opened it yet again, just to embed his face in your memory a little bit better.

Eli might have been blindfolded, but you could sense his eyes widening in shock, baffled at the sight of the picture you handed him. Instead, his owl leaned forward, eyes like big, glass marbles staring back at the withering face on the photograph.

"Do you know this man, ___?"

"Yes. I... well, I'm looking for him. It was actually the reason I came here - this photograph right here was in the invitation."

The brunette man pressed his lips together, thinking of how to reply to you.

"That... No. I've never seen him. I'm sorry."

"Then should we ask the other two residents?" your gaze flew onto the half-opened door. "Maybe they know somet-"

"They don't. Trust me, they're not from here. Miss Gilman is quite isolated from others and the modern way of living in general, and Miss Bourbon arrived 4 days ago from a whole other continent. He... ugh, actually, nevermind." his voice was nervous and twitchy, almost like he was shivering in the cold.

Was he lying? You bit your lip while thinking. Even if he was telling the truth, you could notice the impact that the picture had on him. It was just two lovers, arms wrapped around each other, pigment of their faces crumbling after being worn out by time, yet they seemed to throw him right into a state of panic. Avoidant, out of breath - what could had possibly been on his mind that caused such a reaction?

"Are you sure, Eli? You're sounding kind of  unreasonable right now." your eyebrows furrowed as you spared a sharp glare at the panicking man.

"No! I'm just saying how it really is! It-"

A brown bush of hair suddenly popped up from the half open door, illuminated by the remaining traces of the warm, faint light from the dining room. "Can you two hurry up with introductions? Dinner's getting cold!"

~

Dinner went by faster than you thought.

As you followed Eli into the dining room, you were met with two women seated at the long table, the same ones that you overheard bickering.

"Yet another newcomer?" the calm, elegant lady spoke, her dark eyes squinting to get a better look at you. Her head and body were covered with a figureless purple garment, mystical symbols curved on the edges of the long, flabby sleeves and the hood. She suddenly stood up, her bony hand reaching towards you. "Fiona Gilman. Pleasure to meet you." you slowly shook her hand. "I bet all that traveling has worn you out, yes?"

"Oh, not at all, miss Fiona!" Even though she seemed like a friendly lady, you felt sort of intimidated by her elegant posture and mysterious, dazed eyes that were probably drifting off far away from the real word, losing themselves in some other dimension. As if she kept a dark secret that an ordinary human couldn't even comprehend. With her witchy appearance and tall, gloomy figure, she seemed out of this world, like a prophet of some apocalyptical, elven land.

"Doesn't matter, sugar, you're gonna eat some delicious soup and head back to bed. You seem quite sickly, too, did you get enough sleep? You should get two bowls today, warm homemade soup is the best cure for all illnesses..." the brown-haired lady spoke, pinching your cheeks while inspecting your face. Her french accent was still audible, her r's perching up and her u's cutely drooping a pitch lower every time she spoke. "Ah! I forgot to introduce myself. Call me Demi. None of that miss and mister bullshit. We're gonna be together for a few days anyway, so we should spend them in good spirits, no?" she said as she winked at you.

Even though it was only the four of you sitting at the huge table, the initial silence was instead filled with lively chatting, four different voices intertwining and interrupting each other. You got to know every single one of your new roommates,  even some of their own funny quirks. Your mind drifted off of Luchino, completely forgetting about him until the moment you curled up in your new bed.

As you changed from your clothes into your pyjamas, the picture dropped down to the floor next to the bed. "Oh, I completely forgot about you." you whispered as a wave of guilt struck you right as you picked it up. Was this part of the owner's plan? To give you so many clues and hints to solve the puzzle that troubled you for weeks, and then have you give them up for a glass of wine and a chat with complete strangers? You weren't sleepy anymore. You tucked the picture into your fist, and decided to go get a glass of water, maybe even meet Demi and Fiona and ask them about Luchino. Eli's reply still didn't satisfy you, and seemed to actually create more questions instead of giving you a direct answer.

The creaking of the old staircase filled your ears as you made your way down to the kitchen, each stair rhytmically answering you with a high pitched squeak with every step you took. You looked at the open window in the hall - the grayish full moon gleamed in the beautiful night, without a single cloud in sight to hide its beauty. Once you got to the kitchen, you noticed the warm light peeking from under the door. Did someone forget to turn it off? Probably left it on on accident, you thought to yourself as you headed towards the door.

The second you put your hand on the doorknob, you halted. A person was on the other side. Or were there two? It could very well be Eli - he mentioned he struggled with his sleeping schedule. Or maybe Demi? She drank a lot throughout the dinner. It could also be Fiona, considering her cultish interests and all the full moon rituals usually tied to such beliefs. To spy or not to spy? Your hands trembled out of nervousness. It would be a shitty thing to do, especially since you just left your first impression on them, but you were going to interrupt them either way by entering, weren't you? Eye peeking through the keyhole, you squatted down and pressed your head onto the rotting door, hoping to draw out anything that others decided to gossip about.

Through the miniscule keyhole, you made out Eli's legs, crossed while he was sitting, and Demi's green skirt, waving around her legs as she nervously walked back and forth.

"Why did you decide to lie to them?" suddenly you heard Demi hiss, as if she had already suspected someone was spying on them.

"I had a reason, alright? Besides, we've only just met! To leave them hopeless and sad, just for them to realize they can't leave yet?" now you heard Eli cry, his usually stable, calm voice now on the verge of madness.

"You should had told them the truth! Imagine how they would feel as they looked for him, only to realize that all of their efforts were just a dead end. The harsh truth is always better than hopeful lies."

It can't be. What are the odds that they're talking about him?

"He's... alive. I know it. He must be somewhere out there." Eli's voice trembled again.

"Stop lying to yourself, Eli. He's dead. We all saw him lying on the ground, writhing in pain, unable to help him despite our attempts. We all saw the same sight." Demi suddenly sighed as she reached for a chair to sit down on. "Besides, you saw it in your visions, too. You saw those scales on his body piercing his skin as he bled out, you noticed only his face was blurred out out of the four of us, you saw them taking his place. Everything aligned perfectly."

"I don't want to believe the truth. I... want to change the future. I don't want to make the same mistake ever again." You heard Eli whimper, his hands reaching his face. "Tommorrow's the final game. I'm going to try my best to make things right. I don't want to lose ___ the way we lost Luchino."

Demi leaned over, her arms softly pulling Eli's shoulders into a hug.

It can't be true.

It possibly cannot be.

He cannot be dead.

But you heard them confirm - yet, at the same time, you didn't want to believe it.

Suddenly you weren't thirsty anymore. You headed back to your room, tears rolling down your cheeks.

God, if there was ever a moment where you simply needed to feel his presence near you, to just feel his breath on your neck and his arms around your waist, it was this one. Yet, it was so hard to imagine it again, knowing that he's probably a corpse somewhere out there.

It didn't matter. You already had a plan - tommorrow you'll find him, and bring him home - no matter if he's dead or alive.

~

You couldn't tell the time, nor did you know how long you've been walking. All you saw was Eli's blurry figure in front of you, leading you to the place where the "game" would commence. Tired and dazed, you tried your best to stay awake, struggling with each step into the mud. Your legs were feeling weak and numb, as if they could easily fall off your body if the wind was a bit stronger.

"How much longer, Eli? I simply cannot walk anymore!" Demi groaned from the back, struggling to balance herself in the moldable, soft dirt, to which Eli didn't reply.

He wasn't very talkative today - in fact, no one was. Fiona and Demi spared you a quick smile in the morning, but nothing more than that. It was a strange parade, the four of you heading to god-knows-where, gloomy and silent as if you're part of some odd, morbid carnival.

"We're here!" Eli suddenly yelled. Through the fog you made out water-soaked wooden planks and heated, warm antennas that were perched up above it, like stars in the cloudy night sky. The damp and overwhelming air now reached your nostrils - you recognized it, but from where exactly? The smell of the grass soaked by the rain haunted you from some other distant time, but you simply couldn't put your finger on it.

Eli now faced all three of you, nervously clenching his fist. "We're splitting up now. Just follow the lights and try to decode the machines that you'll find." He pointed at the antennas clouded by the fog. "I'm going this way, alone. Don't follow me! I'll be back at once, trust me!"

"But, Eli, you can't just-" Demi yelled, but Eli already ran into the fog, the gray veil blurring out his figure until he fully vanished.

Fiona sighed. "I guess we don't have any other option. Demi - you and I will head for those two machines on the west side. ___, could you take over this one?" She signaled at the machine positioned north, in the same direction where Eli went. You nodded. The way the game progressed made you more worried than it should.

Through the fog, you approached the clunky machine. It looked like a lion in a cage on display - it made beeping noises, it was shaking and the buttons seemed like they were pressing themselves - almost as if it was alive. Yet, as you felt the weight of the indented buttons go down with the press of your finger, your initial fear was fading. Sweat dripping down your forehead, you were arched over the typewriter-like box, wiping and rewriting lines and lines of crypted text. A few sudden, loud booms made you jump - Demi and Fiona probably finished decoding theirs. As you reached halfway, you suddenly heard a cry coming from up north.

Or was it an owl's howl?

Your legs were cemented in front of the machine. Just a few more lines of code and whatever those symbols were, and you could get out freely, reach Demi and Fiona and escape, but was there even enough time to borrow? A wave of guilt suddenly bit you from the inside of your stomach, but you simply couldn't waste another second.

Sweat froze on your bare skin, but you didn't care. You ran and ran as fast as you could, continuing even after tripping over sometimes. It was obvious this would go down badly from the start, but maybe this was destined to be. You couldn't change the future already engraved into the stars. Eli couldn't, either. But you wanted to do the impossible. As you moved through the fog, you realized you had nothing more to lose.

Panting and catching your breath, all you found was Eli's leather satchel lying in the grass, a few of Brooke's feathers loosely sticking onto its surface. Suddenly you found yourself tying it around your waist. There was no explanation you could make up on the spot, but it was a souvenir of sorts. It was a piece of him, in a way. Even if he wasn't physically here, you found comfort in the way his satchel pulled it's weight down your hip. It was a reminder that you're on a mission - to change what Eli couldn't, and to return what was lost.

"__!"

It was Demi's voice coming from behind you. She was out of breath, leaning on her knees for support.

"Demi! For god's sake, y- Do you know where Fiona and Eli are?" You rushed to help her recover her stamina.

"Was just about to ask you. Fiona disappeared right as she finished her cipher, and as for Eli... well, we're both looking for him right now, aren't we? Have you found any clues?" Her hand roamed her bucket, taking out a dusty glass bottle, filled to the brim with shiny red liquid. "Nope, except Eli's satchel." You tapped its damp, shiny surface lightly. "But other than that, there were no footprints, no signs of where he went."

Demi took a swig out of the bottle, then carelessly threw it back into the bucket. "Alright. Since both Eli and Fiona are gone, we have to devise a plan. Listen - I'm going to look for those two, maybe they got lost - and you'll be decoding that last cipher over there, okay? I can't focus on those puzzle-code-whatever thingies while I'm tipsy, but I sure can pack a punch if needed!" She grinned as she flexed her arm.

"Sounds good to me. Just take care, okay? And be careful!"

"No need to worry about me, sweetie. I'll be back before you even enter the last line of code!" She laughed, and her laugh echoed over and over as she melted into the fog again.

Well, shit. You were loomed over the damned machine again, the cipher still shaking and wriggling as if it's about to explode. Now as you thought about it, the game was about to end, and it was faster than you thought. It all depended on you and Demi - for her to find the remaining two, and for you to decipher that goddamned block of text and get you all out of here.

Click. Click.

First row done, five more remaining.

You felt the first droplet of sweat form on your forehead.

Click. Click.

Second row done, four more remaining.

Did the buttons suddenly stop cooperating? They felt heavier under your fingertips, some of them refusing to pop back after you pressed them.

Click. Click.

Third row done, three more remaining.

Was it this cold the entire time? The wind played with your hair as you continued typing.

Click. Click.

Fourth row done, two more remaining.

You thought of your teammates. Where could they be now? Demi promised to return before you finished the cipher, but there was nothing to hear except the swaying of leaves, nothing to see through the fog except the outlines of the wooden skeletons that could have been houses in some other life.

Click. Click.

Fifth row done, one more remaining.

Was that a hiss you just heard? Your mind is probably playing tricks with you, yet you still felt uneasy, your leg bouncing in case you need to un-freeze and get going.

Click. Click.

Gah, fuck.

Wrong code, back to row five.

You felt the hairs on your skin rise up as your already numb fingers ran over the keyboard. Must be cause of the cold.

Click. Click.

Sixth row done. Cipher machine finished.

The exit gates have been opened.

You jumped and ran along with the ear-piercing siren, not finding the courage to look back at what might had been hunting you the whole game.

~

Two eyes staring right back at you. The last thing you saw before you started to run. As you turned your back to them, you already felt them stripping off your clothes and tearing your flesh apart, toying with your mutilated body as they pleased. If I don't run as fast as possible, that might just be the best case scenario, you suddenly thought and picked up your pace.

You ran to the quickest shed you found and pressed yourself against the wet planks. It was the best shelter you could find at the moment, although it was also the most fragile one out there. One careless move and your cover will be blown completely. Your hand pressed itself on your mouth on its own - Is this really how it's going to end? Legs cemented into the ground, unable to make a move in fear you'll get caught? If your hands weren't already shaky, you'd pinch yourself in hope that it's was all just a bad dream.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt to look behind. Now with a wooden shield against your back, perhaps you could stare down the predator from the thin, empty holes between the planks. Slowly, you tilted your head, the wetness of the wood brushing against your cheek. You didn't dare to completely turn around - it was too risky.

As you held onto the wall, fingers pale out of sheer force with which you held onto it, your gaze quickly flashed between the wooden frame, into the grayish cloud of icy, damp air.

Fatal mistake.

It only took a moment of inattention - you felt the skin of your chest ripping and the warmth of your own blood flowing down your body. As you gasped in shock, your eyes fixed themselves onto what poked through your pathetic little shelter and, in the end, your ribs - an enormous, clawed hand, searching around for whatever it stabbed in the first place. It could probably grip your whole neck with ease and turn your spine into dust with a strong enough grip. With your legs feeling like rubber, you sloppily leaped towards a tied up stack of planks set against a barrel. Trying to find some unreal source of energy from your worn out body, only one solution popped up in your mind - you pulled the stack with all your momentary might.

It was dizzying. A chain reaction ensued in your abdomen, as if something stabbed through your belly button from the inside of your body. You grabbed your stomach in vain, the blood leaking from your ribs already staining the cloth that was wrapped around your waist. Not enough power remained in your arms to support your weight and you simply crashed into the dewy grass, exhausted from fighting back.

"Please! Let me die a painless death!" You screamed at whatever was now looming over you and breathing into your neck. The only remaining option was to beg the two blurred, hellish orange orbs looking at you for mercy.

A second passed. Then another.

Your heart was still beating. The creature's heavy breathing still filled up your ears, yet you didn't dare to face it again. It leaned forward, scraping your wrist with its claws - no, grabbing something from your sleeve? You slowly opened your eyes.

It gazed at the same picture you cherished and held close to your chest each night.

As the monster's eyes fixated themselves on the two blurry faces, you heard a low hiss slipping from it's jaw. You could recognize that husky voice from miles and miles afar.

"____?"

~

"...Luchino?"

You couldn't believe your eyes. Yet, as you inspected the lizard-man looming over your body, you realized it really was him - the raggedy brownish-red hair rolling down the sides of his neck, the collared shirt slightly ripped at the seams - but god, what has he become? The soft surface of his big, veiny hands was now replaced by menacing claws that could rip you apart if he got careless enough.

"____! So it really is you I'm seeing! I'm so glad!" Luchino sighed in relief as he got on his knees in front of you. "I'm so sorry that you have to see me like this..."

"Luchino.. is this really you? What happened?" You murmured, reaching for his scaled face. The tension in your body disappeared the second you heard his voice seep from his mouth - he seemed less menacing, even cute in a way.

"Huh? You don't remember?" He leaned his face into your palm. It almost felt natural, the way your hand slowly cupped his cheek.

"No...I just... I don't remember what happened very well that night you disappeared. Are you hurt?" You whispered.

He sighed. "...It's a long story, darling. A story for another time. Don't worry about me - are you hurt?" His claws stroked the thick bandages that were tightly wrapped around your waist, now soaked with blood. "Ah, these wounds... I'm so sorry. It's all my fault." He looked away in shame. "I lost control of myself after that - well, transformation - thing and just... let myself get controlled by my animalistic instincts." As he got lower and lower, he slowly laid his head on your chest. "I never wanted to hurt you. I'll never forgive myself for making you bleed."

"Luchino..." you mumbled out as your arms wrapped around his neck. "Please. It's fine, trust me, I'm doing better now..."

"It's not fine." He suddenly yelped, making you jolt. "I can't excuse doing such an awful thing. Especially since it was you I hurt." His fingers intertwined with yours. "I'll get us out of here, tesoro. I'll make sure that no one - including me - lays another finger on you."

He picked up your fragile body from the grass that you laid in. "One day, angel, I'll find a way to return back to normal - and I'll be the man you once knew again."

You clenched the fabric rippling over his chest. "You were always the same man, Luchi. No scales or fangs will change the way you love, the way you tighten your grip whenever you hold me in your arms and the way you whisper sweet nothings into my ear."

He chuckled and softly pressed his mouth onto your forehead. He still kissed you with the same warmth he once did, the heat lingering as he moved his head away.

"I love you, vita mia."

[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.

:')

[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.

[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."

[maddiem4]

Reposado

A novella thing about letting go, and other things that I'd rather not spoil. I'll try to queue up daily updates, but I promise nothing. This is, essentially, writing practice that I'm doing in the open, rather than anything attempting to be a grand work unto itself.

Chapter 1

In hindsight, I think I first noticed the blood in the women’s bathroom. If there was something more subtle, it never caught me by the hair and dragged my face to it, like a dog being scolded for soiling the carpet. Maybe there was something subtle I missed. Maybe several things. But the first one I remember is a Monday morning, looking in the mirror as I put on mascara, and there it was reflected in the smudgy glass, painted on a stall door.

Like… you remember, when you see a crusty, dark brown handprint. That sort of thing stands out.

It had clearly dried over the course of the weekend, there was nobody else in the bathroom, but… ew. We all bleed, it’s gross, whatever. You don’t have to smear it on the door of a bathroom stall like a psycho. But on the other hand, it’s high school, there are psychos here. You just hope none of them are the shoot-y type, and you live your life.

Lashes, lips, done. I’d originally been planning to chill here for awhile, but the bathroom had less of a sanctuary vibe with that period blood handprint - nasty - so I might as well get back out into the fray. It was whatever. Seventeen isn’t technically grown up, but it’s the worst parts of adulthood, and the worst parts of being a kid. You’re just… stuck in the middle, you know? You’re not really allowed to be anybody.

And your problems aren’t really adult or kid either. They’re in between, like everything else. This was not a great moment for me, and yeah, it was for teen drama reasons. Even in the moment, I was rolling my eyes about it, but… I couldn’t solve it. It’s like having to fax in a job application, it’s the most awful feeling. You just get absolutely bushwhacked by something you’d love to be making fun of, that deserves to be made fun of, and is absolutely ruining your life.

The halls were empty, but not ambiently quiet, on the way back to science class. There’s a hum of living people in all the classrooms, you know what I mean? I didn’t feel lonely in a haunted house kind of way, even though I was technically alone. It honestly felt like a relief, and one I was dreading to see the end of. Room 232 was up ahead, and I felt every footstep on the way there. Being alone with people is so much worse than being alone by yourself, because you can feel that it’s wrong. There’s no excuses. You’re just disconnected.

Hand on doorknob. Turn however many degrees. Note that it’s whogivesashit in radians. Smile. Pull.

And yeah, there was a whole classroom there. And a teacher. I saw Cassie. My oldest friend, and one of the best. She was twirling her curly black hair around a pen, when she looked up to see me and smiled. I smiled a little wider and felt bittersweet about it. After a few seconds that felt like autopilot, I was sitting next to her again. Back to the lab grind.

“Oh god you missed so much stuff, Lees!” she said, mockingly. “I tried to take notes, but it was way too fast. Mr. Brownstone unfolded new worlds of knowledge that our puny minds will be coping with for centuries. The written word could never capture it. You’re just doomed, kid, dooooomed!” I laughed, and Mr. Brownstone glared at us, and I’m still not sure which of us he was more annoyed with in that moment. Not that I could ask him now, obviously.

“God, stop it. Jeez. I wasn’t even gone for long, and it’s a lab. What are you on, now, number 7? Lemme copy your worksheet.” I began scribbling on my blank copy, tongue planted in the corner of my mouth, a focused machine.

“Hey, you can’t cheat!” Cassie play protested. She made a big show of covering her work.

“Come on, Cassie, you’re my lab partner, I would never cheat on you! Now was that Fahrenheit or Celsius? Stop hiding it.”

“Never ever, huh? Suuuure. But alright, partner.” She got a little quieter in that moment. There was a softness that snuck into her voice, maybe a little shine in her eyes. “Anyways. It was meters actually.”

“Fuck.”

I remember, I’d looked it up. One year, 3 months, 25 days. It’s still crystal clear to me now, the exact duration until graduation, and god did I want to be out of the kiddie pool, but… that’s when friends say they’re gonna keep in touch, and they all know they’re gonna drift off in different directions with their lives. And half of ‘em are gonna be burnout losers or something. And we all just know it’s coming, whether we’re ready or not. I wanted real bad to be too grown up to be afraid of something like that, but… I wasn’t.

I guess the rest of the lab went fine. I don’t really remember it that much.

[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.