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theinnerunderrain · 1 month

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"Venus, planet of love was destroyed by global warming" [Yandere! Emperor x Fem! Princess Reader x Yandere! Empress]

Warnings/tags : Yandere themes, mentions of war and violence, minor character death, historical, coercion, suggestive themes.

Notes: I might write a part 2 for this but it'll be a lot darker and have more suggestive (adult) themes!

The Empress of the Solis Imperium was renowned as the most noble woman on the entire continent.

As a mere princess from a neighboring region, you had the privilege of catching sight of the empress at a few royal occasions. A single meeting was all it took for you to deem her the most noble woman you had ever encountered. Every step she took, every breath she drew, every movement she made exuded nothing but elegance. She was a true epitome of beauty. You were a mere whisper of a presence from a distant land, with no power or wealth to rival hers. So, it was almost inevitable when the Solis Imperium chose to seize your country, the invasion heralded by the clash of swords and gunfire under the dreary cover of a rainy dawn. Startled from sleep, your mother hastily draped an overcoat over your nightgown, her urgent gestures propelling you down the dimly lit hallway.

As you followed closely behind your mother, shouts echoed around you, growing louder with each step. Suddenly, a deafening gunshot pierced the air, and you watched in horror as blood began to seep from your mother's back.

Her startled scream filled the hallway as she crumpled to the floor. Dropping to her side, you tried desperately to help, but before you could do anything, imperial knights caught up to you. Their strong grip tore you away from your wailing mother. You couldn't remember what happened next, only seeing another soldier approach her before darkness enveloped you, the last sound echoing in your mind being your mother's cries.

Upon waking, expecting to find yourself in a dark dungeon surrounded by eerie creatures and chains weighing down your wrists, you were instead greeted by the comfort of a soft bed and the sensation of clean, new clothes against your skin. A maid stood beside your bed, busily preparing a warm cup of tea. As she noticed you were awake, she turned to you with a gentle smile, her expression tender and welcoming.

"Ah, you're awake," she exclaimed softly, a look of relief crossing her face. "I was worried, as the young miss has been asleep for a few days now."

You tried to reply but only managed a soft cough, prompting the maid to hand you the cup of tea. You hesitated, staring at the warm liquid, its bright orange hue inviting yet unfamiliar. Taking a cautious sip, you were pleasantly surprised by its flavor—a delightful blend of grapefruit with a hint of honey.

"It must be delicious! It was recommended by the empress, after all," the maid remarked with a smile, her eyes bright with anticipation of your reaction. You nodded in response, taking another sip and feeling the warmth of the tea soothing your sore throat.

The maid continued speaking, her voice gentle yet urgent. "Ah, perhaps I shouldn't be distracting you so much. Please wait here; I must inform the empress." With that, she hurried out of the room, leaving you alone once more with your thoughts and the weight of the news you had just received.

Before you could stop her to ask more questions, the maid hurriedly left the room, leaving you alone with your thoughts. You stared at the now empty cup of tea, trying to process everything that had just occurred. A war had broken out, your kingdom invaded, your mother attacked, and an imperial knight had apprehended you. Your family, your people, your knights—all gone. They were gone, gone, gone. Your stomach twisted at the thoughts, a wave of nausea rising as if you were about to vomit. Dropping the empty cup of tea into your lap, you buried your head in your hands, overwhelmed by the realization that you might be the only one left alive. The weight of survivor's guilt bore down on you as you thought, "I should have died too."

As the door creaked open, you were startled from your reverie, looking up to behold the empress entering the room. Your eyes widened in awe, but you swiftly composed yourself, offering a slight bow despite your bedridden state.

"Ah, you're awake. I was quite worried for you," the empress remarked, gracefully making her way to sit beside your bed. Her smile was soft yet elegant, accentuating her features. Her mahogany blonde hair was artfully pinned behind her ears, and she was dressed in a flowing pastel gown that emphasized her regal presence. Her piercing blue eyes, filled with concern yet there was an oddness of madness behind them, met yours, and you felt a wave of reassurance wash over you in her presence.

"It must have been shocking to awaken to such violence. I offer my sincere apologies for the loss of your kingdom and family," the empress continued, her voice filled with genuine sympathy.

You couldn't help but feel a wave of sickness wash over you, knowing that she was partially responsible for the decision to invade your land. Despite this, you remained silent, listening to her words. She reached out and gently took hold of your hands, her fingers adorned with a silky white glove.

"Yet, you are still a princess, and we cannot simply discard you like an expendable commoner," the empress said, her tone laced with a mixture of sympathy and detachment.

You wanted to scoff at the irony of her words, to scream and claw at her flawless facade. Her excuses and lies flowed effortlessly, masking the truth with each elegant syllable. If her words held any weight, they would have spared your elder brother, who possessed far more knowledge and capability than you. Yet, they chose to spare you, knowing you lacked the charm, power, or influence to pose any threat.

"Given your tender age, my husband—or the emperor, in this case—has decided to position you as a concubine. Doesn't that sound wonderful?" she asked, her voice laced with a deceptive sweetness. As her thumb tenderly stroked against your palm, the scent of roses invaded your senses.

"Your only responsibility is to produce an heir. Many do not know this, but it is difficult for the emperor and me to conceive."

Your mouth instantly went dry at her words, and you stared at her with wide eyes, your lips parting slightly in disbelief. Yet, her expression remained sweet and unchanging, despite your obvious discomfort.

"Haha, don't stare at me like that. You're acting as if we're sending you to war," she teased, reaching to push a stray strand of hair behind your ear. A wave of heat washed over you, beads of sweat forming on your forehead, contrasting with the empress's cold hand against your skin. Your head began to throb, and your limbs felt heavy and weak.

"Ah, the tea must be setting in now," the empress commented, her tone nonchalant as she observed your discomfort.

The tea? The tea that the maid had served you earlier. You realized, with a sinking feeling, that it must have been laced with something to induce this sudden weakness and disorientation. Panic began to rise within you as you struggled to maintain consciousness, your thoughts racing as you tried to make sense of the situation. The empress gently pushed you back onto the bed until your head rested against the pillow. As she stood up, her beautiful face left a lasting impression in your blurry vision.

"Rest up now, my dear. You have many long days ahead of you," she said, her voice fading as darkness overtook your senses, and you slipped into unconsciousness.

Upon awakening, the gravity of the empress's words became apparent. You were swiftly ushered into a bath, attended by servants who scrubbed your skin and combed your hair with oils. Their ministrations were firm yet gentle, leaving no marks but providing a discomfort that hinted at the magnitude of your new reality. After the bath, you were clothed in a dress of beige hue, its fabric exquisite and embellished with intricate floral patterns and delicate frills. It was a garment of elegance and refinement, a stark contrast to the simple attire of your past, serving as a poignant symbol of the profound changes in your life.

After the servants had prepared you, you were ushered into a grand dining hall to have breakfast with the empress and emperor. You were seated directly across from the empress, her forever sweet smile lighting up the room, while the emperor sat at the head of the table. A lavish spread awaited you, with stacks of food including soup, bread, chicken, and vibrant fruits laid out before you. However, your attention was drawn to the two rulers. It was your first time being in such close proximity to the emperor. In contrast to the empress, his hair was as dark as the night, and his eyes were a soft shade of teal, giving him a more reserved and colder aura compared to the warm presence of the empress. He appeared to be five or six years older than the empress, meaning he was approximately ten years older than you, nearing his forties.

"Princess [First Name]."

The resonant timbre of the emperor's voice momentarily broke your reverie, prompting you to look up at him, your hands instinctively fidgeting with your dress beneath the table.

"I apologize for the delayed greeting, as my duties have demanded much of my time," he began, his tone measured and formal. "Allow me to express my deepest condolences for the tragedy that befell your land. May your family rest in peace."

His words, though seemingly sincere, lacked the warmth and empathy that would have provided true solace. It was evident that his expression of sympathy was more a matter of protocol than genuine compassion for the plight of your small nation. You forced a smile, though it failed to reach the corners of your eyes.

"Ah, thank you so much for your kindness and sincerity," you replied, the words tasting bitter on your tongue.

You thanked them, though it was for nothing. Certainly not for the loss of your family and people. Not for the seizure of your land and the imposition of a life that felt like being a doll in the hands of a capricious child. The emperor nodded at your words before continuing, delicately cutting into a piece of chicken with a silver fork that appeared to be worth a small fortune.

"You are most welcome. I trust that the empress has explained your duties here within our nation?"

"Yes.."

You replied with a hint of hesitation, savoring a sip of the soup before you. Its delightful flavors and comforting warmth brought to mind the soups your mother used to lovingly prepare for you during times of illness. The emperor appeared pleased with your response, his gaze thoughtful as he studied your face. A small, knowing smile graced his lips before he nodded in acknowledgment.

"Excellent. Then you'll be well prepared for what lies ahead," he remarked, his tone carrying a sense of reassurance or you had hope for it to be reassurance. As he reclined in his chair, the empress's smile remained fixed upon you. Despite your efforts, you couldn't help but feel a tinge of worry seep down your spine as you tried to decipher their expressions, hoping to unveil the true emotions hidden behind their masks. However, their faces revealed no clues, leaving you with a sense of uncertainty.

"We are excited to welcome you. Your duties will officially begin today."

Perhaps this new chapter wouldn't be as dreadful as you had imagined. Maybe, if you were to make a mistake, it would hasten your reunion with your family. On the other hand, serving the emperor and empress might not be so terrible.

At least, that's what you hoped.

However, a strange feeling began to form at the pit of your stomach, planting seeds of doubt within you.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 17 days

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Utah’s getting some of America’s best broadband

TOMORROW (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

Residents of 21 cities in Utah have access to some of the fastest, most competitively priced broadband in the country, at speeds up to 10gb/s and prices as low as $75/month. It's uncapped, and the connections are symmetrical: perfect for uploading and downloading. And it's all thanks to the government.

This broadband service is, of course, delivered via fiber optic cable. Of course it is. Fiber is vastly superior to all other forms of broadband delivery, including satellites, but also cable and DSL. Fiber caps out at 100tb/s, while cable caps out at 50gb/s – that is, fiber is 1,000 times faster:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/why-fiber-vastly-superior-cable-and-5g

Despite the obvious superiority of fiber, America has been very slow to adopt it. Our monopolistic carriers act as though pulling fiber to our homes is an impossible challenge. All those wires that currently go to your house, from power-lines to copper phone-lines, are relics of a mysterious, fallen civilization and its long-lost arts. Apparently we could no more get a new wire to your house than we could build the pyramids using only hand-tools.

In a sense, the people who say we can't pull wires anymore are right: these are relics of a lost civilization. Specifically, electrification and later, universal telephone service was accomplished through massive federal grants under the New Deal – grants that were typically made to either local governments or non-profit co-operatives who got everyone in town connected to these essential modern utilities.

Today – thanks to decades of neoliberalism and its dogmatic insistence that governments can't do anything and shouldn't try, lest they break the fragile equilibrium of the market – we have lost much of the public capacity that our grandparents took for granted. But in the isolated pockets where this capacity lives on, amazing things happen.

Since 2015, residents of Jackson County, KY – one of the poorest counties in America – have enjoyed some of the country's fastest, cheapest, most reliable broadband. The desperately poor Appalachian county is home to a rural telephone co-op, which grew out of its rural electrification co-op, and it used a combination of federal grants and local capacity to bring fiber to every home in the county, traversing dangerous mountain passes with a mule named "Ole Bub" to reach the most remote homes. The result was an immediately economic uplift for the community, and in the longer term, the county had reliable and effective broadband during the covid lockdowns:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Contrast this with places where the private sector has the only say over who gets broadband, at what speed, and at what price. America is full of broadband deserts – deserts that strand our poorest people. Even in the hearts of our largest densest cities, whole neighborhoods can't get any broadband. You won't be surprised to learn that these are the neighborhoods that were historically redlined, and that the people who live in them are Black and brown, and also live with some of the highest levels of pollution and its attendant sicknesses:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/#digital-divide

These places are not set up for success under the best of circumstances, and during the lockdowns, they suffered terribly. You think your kid found it hard to go to Zoom school? Imagine what life was like for kids who attended remote learning while sitting on the baking tarmac in a Taco Bell parking lot, using its free wifi:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/02/elem-s02.html

ISPs loathe competition. They divide up the country into exclusive territories like the Pope dividing up the "new world" and do not trouble one another by trying to sell to customers outside of "their" turf. When Frontier – one of the worst of America's terrible ISPs – went bankrupt, we got to see their books, and we learned two important facts:

The company booked one million customers who had no alternative as an asset, because they would pay more for slower broadband, and Frontier could save a fortune by skipping maintenance, and charging these customers for broadband even through multi-day outages; and

Frontier knew that it could make a billion dollars in profit over a decade by investing in fiber build-out, but it chose not to, because stock analysts will downrank any carrier that made capital investments that took more than five years to mature. Because Frontier's execs were paid primarily in stock, they chose to strand their customers with aging copper connections and to leave a billion dollars sitting on the table, so that their personal net worth didn't suffer a temporary downturn:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-reveals-cynical-choice-deny-profitable-fiber-millions

ISPs maintain the weirdest position: that a) only the private sector can deliver broadband effectively, but b) to do so, they'll need massive, unsupervised, no-strings-attached government handouts. For years, America went along with this improbable scheme, which is why Trump's FCC chairman Ajit Pai gave the carriers $45 billion in public funds to string slow, 19th-century-style copper lines across rural America:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/27/all-broadband-politics-are-local/

Now, this is obviously untrue, and people keep figuring out that publicly provisioned broadband is the only way for America to get the same standard of broadband connectivity that our cousins in other high-income nations enjoy. In order to thwart the public's will, the cable and telco lobbyists joined ALEC, the far-right, corporatist lobbying shop, and drafted "model legislation" banning cities and counties from providing broadband, even in places the carriers chose not to serve:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/culture-war-bullshit-stole-your-broadband/

Red states across America adopted these rules, and legislators sold this to their base by saying that this was just "keeping the government out of their internet" (even as every carrier relied on an exclusive, government-granted territorial charter, often with massive government subsidies).

ALEC didn't target red states exclusively because they had pliable, bribable conservative lawmakers. Red states trend rural, and rural places are the most likely sites for public fiber. Partly, that's because low-density areas are harder to make a business case for, but also because these are also the places that got electricity and telephone through New Deal co-ops, which are often still in place.

Just about the only places in America where people like their internet service are the 450+ small towns where the local government provides fiber. These places vote solidly Republican, and it was their beloved conservative lawmakers whom ALEC targeted to enact laws banning their equally beloved fiber – keep voting for Christmas, turkeys, and see where it gets you:

https://communitynets.org/content/community-network-map

But spare a little sympathy for the conservative movement here. The fact that reality has a pronounced leftist bias must be really frustrating for the ideological project of insisting that anything the market can't provide is literally impossible.

Which brings me back to Utah, a red state with a Republican governor and legislature, and a national leader in passing unconstitutional, unhinged, unworkable legislation as part of an elaborate culture war kabuki:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/24/1165975112/utah-passes-an-age-verification-law-for-anyone-using-social-media

For more than two decades, a coalition of 21 cities in Utah have been building out municipal fiber. The consortium calls itself UTOPIA: "Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency":

https://www.utopiafiber.com/faqs/

UTOPIA pursues a hybrid model: they run "open access" fiber and then let anyone offer service over it. This can deliver the best of both worlds: publicly provisioned, blazing-fast fiber to your home, but with service provided by your choice of competing carriers. That means that if Moms for Liberty captures you local government, you're not captive to their ideas about what sites your ISP should block.

As Karl Bode writes for Techdirt, Utahns in UTOPIA regions have their choice of 18 carriers, and competition has driven down prices and increased speeds. Want uncapped 1gb fiber? That's $75/month. Want 10gb fiber? That's $150:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/05/15/utah-locals-are-getting-cheap-10-gbps-fiber-thanks-to-local-governments/

UTOPIA's path to glory wasn't an easy one. The dismal telco monopolists Qwest and Lumen sued to put them out of business, delaying the rollout by years:

https://www.deseret.com/2005/7/22/19903471/utopia-responds-to-qwest-lawsuit/

UTOPIA has been profitable and self-sustaining for over 15 years and shows no sign of slowing. But 17 states still ban any attempt at this.

Keeping up such an obviously bad policy requires a steady stream of distractions and lies. The "government broadband doesn't work" lie has worn thin, so we've gotten a string of new lies about wireless service, insisting that fiber is obviated by point-to-point microwave relays, or 5g, or satellite service.

There's plenty of places where these services make sense. You're not going to be able to use fiber in a moving car, so yeah, you're going to want 5g (and those 5g towers are going to need to be connected to each other with fiber). Microwave relay service can fill the gap until fiber can be brought in, and it's great for temporary sites (especially in places where it doesn't rain, because rain, clouds, leaves and other obstructions are deadly for microwave relays). Satellite can make sense for an RV or a boat or remote scientific station.

But wireless services are orders of magnitude slower than fiber. With satellite service, you share your bandwidth with an entire region or even a state. If there's only a couple of users in your satellite's footprint, you might get great service, but when your carrier adds a thousand more customers, your connection is sliced into a thousand pieces.

That's also true for everyone sharing your fiber trunk, but the difference is that your fiber trunk supports speeds that are tens of thousands of times faster than the maximum speeds we can put through freespace electromagnetic spectrum. If we need more fiber capacity, we can just fish a new strand of fiber through the conduit. And while you can increase the capacity of wireless by increasing your power and bandwidth, at a certain point you start pump so much EM into the air that birds start falling out of the sky.

Every wireless device in a region shares the same electromagnetic spectrum, and we are only issued one such spectrum per universe. Each strand of fiber, by contrast, has its own little pocket universe, containing a subset of that spectrum.

Despite all its disadvantages, satellite broadband has one distinct advantage, at least from an investor's perspective: it can be monopolized. Just as we only have one electromagnetic spectrum, we also only have one sky, and the satellite density needed to sustain a colorably fast broadband speed pushes the limit of that shared sky:

https://spacenews.com/starlink-vs-the-astronomers/

Private investors love monopoly telecoms providers, because, like pre-bankruptcy Frontier, they are too big to care. Back in 2021, Altice – the fourth-largest cable operator in America – announced that it was slashing its broadband speeds, to be "in line with other ISPs":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/immortan-altice/#broadband-is-a-human-right

In other words: "We've figured out that our competitors are so much worse than we are that we are deliberately degrading our service because we know you will still pay us the same for less."

This is why corporate shills and pro-monopolists prefer satellite to municipal fiber. Sure, it's orders of magnitude slower than fiber. Sure, it costs subscribers far more. Sure, it's less reliable. But boy oh boy is it profitable.

The thing is, reality has a pronounced leftist bias. No amount of market magic will conjure up new electromagnetic spectra that will allow satellite to attain parity with fiber. Physics hates Starlink.

Yeah, I'm talking about Starlink. Of course I am. Elon Musk basically claims that his business genius can triumph over physics itself.

That's not the only vast, impersonal, implacable force that Musk claims he can best with his incredible reality-distortion field. Musk also claims that he can somehow add so many cars to the road that he will end traffic – in other words, he will best geometry too:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Geometry hates Tesla, and physics hates Starlink. Reality has a leftist bias. The future is fiber, and public transit. These are both vastly preferable, more efficient, safer, more reliable and more plausible than satellite and private vehicles. Their only disadvantage is that they fail to give an easily gulled, thin-skinned compulsive liar more power over billions of people. That's a disadvantage I can live with.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/16/symmetrical-10gb-for-119/#utopia

Image: 4028mdk09 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rote_LED_Fiberglasleuchte.JPG

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #fiber #broadband #physics #public goods #utah #utopia #red states #ole bub

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lockdown-bard · 2 years

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You all really do only care about abortion rights when it comes to the USA, same as wildfires, same with social unrest

I am sorry for every person affected by this stupid decision, I feel for you. But by god am I mad that you cry out complaining to the world that everyone else should do something when you didn't lift a finger for other people's countries.

#my country went through wildfires and countless protests demanding abortion rights #the usa just took the green scarves and cries bc they let some old people overturn a right they already had #rant #personal #i am so mad #now everyone cries when my country was pushing for it nobody cared until it was announced as legal #same with wildfires half of australia burns down half of argentina's forest burn down but only california matters #i am tired #the us people shouldn't have let their cops get so powerful now if they want to protest they have it much harder

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captainjonnitkessler · 6 months

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I understand if you want to stay out of it but I’m curious as to you’re thoughts on this discourse

https://www.tumblr.com/dappercat123/737173649266737152/your-arguments-sum-to-in-my-perfect-world-there

Anon, I'm going to be entirely honest with you. I have been waiting for an excuse to put my thoughts about this down. Forewarning that this is going to be long and take a dim view of organized religion.

TL;DR: I think everyone in that thread is maliciously misinterpreting evilsoup's point, which is basically that they think Gene Roddenberry was right about what a post-utopian society would look like re: religion. And you can agree or disagree about whether a post-religious utopia is likely or desirable, but to say that anyone who thinks it is is actively calling for and encouraging genocide is a gross misuse of the term (especially coming from at least one person that I'm pretty sure is currently denying an actively ongoing actual fucking genocide).

@evilsoup can correct me if I'm misinterpreting their points, but as far as I see it there are two main points being made:

A) In a perfect utopia with absolutely no source of oppression, marginalization, or disparity, religion would naturally whither away with no outside pressure being applied.

B) This would be a good or at least a neutral thing.

As far as A) goes - a lot of the responses evilsoup got were basically "well *I* would never choose to be nonreligious, so therefore the only way to create that world would be by force, and therefore you are calling for literal genocide". But aside from the fact that evilsoup was very, very clear that they thought this would be a *natural* event and that trying to force people to be nonreligious would be evil - we're not talking about (general) you. You can be as religious as you want but you don't get to make that choice for your grandkids, or your great-great-great grandkids, or your great-great-great-great-great-etc. grandkids. Just because religion is an integral part of your identity doesn't mean it's something you can pass down, and if you're not comfortable with the idea that your kids might choose to leave your religion, you shouldn't have kids.

I personally don't foresee religion disappearing entirely, but it is pretty consistent that as a country becomes happier, healthier, and wealthier, it also becomes less religious. Religiosity is inversely correlated with progressive values. And the more democratic and secular a nation is, the less powerful religious authorities become - In the 1600s blasphemy and atheism were punishable by death* in Massachusetts and today I can call the Pope a cunt to his face** on Twitter with no repercussions whatsoever. Political secularism is an absolute necessity for true democracy and it necessitates removing power from religious authorities, which has and will likely continue to lead to a decline in religiosity - not just a decline in how many people identify as religious, but also a decline in how religious the remaining people are.

*Blasphemy laws and death penalties for blasphemers/apostates are still VERY much a thing in many places. It's hard to see a path where those places become more democratic but don't become more secular and repeal those laws.

**Well, to the face of whoever runs his Twitter account, but the point remains.

I also believe that many religious communities have been held together for so long via coercion - either internal coercion like blasphemy and apostasy laws, shunning, and threats of hell or other supernatural punishment, or external coercion like oppression from the majority religious group or ethnic cleansings. In a perfect utopia, neither form of coercion would exist and I don't think it's crazy to think that religiosity would drop severely and become a much less important part of people's identities, in the way I think the queer community would not exist in a world where queerphobia didn't exist.

ANYWAY, all this is actually kind of moot. It could happen, it could not, nobody is calling for it to be forced so we'll just have to wait and see. The real point of disagreement is on B).

I'm gonna be honest - I think a lot of the responders are rank hypocrites and are really hung up on the idea of cultural purity, which is something I'm wildly uncomfortable with.

First of all, the idea that a deeply-held religious belief could be diluted until it's just a cultural thing that nobody really remembers the origins of isn't some evil mastermind plot evilsoup is trying to concoct, it's just how cultures work. There's tons of stuff about American culture that are vaguely rooted in what were once deeply-held beliefs and are now entertainment. Halloween is rooted in sacred tradition and now it's a day to dress up and get candy. Christmas is one of the most sacred holidays in Christianity but nobody bats an eye if a non-Christian puts up some lights or decorates a tree just because it's fun. I have no doubt that every culture on Earth has traditions that used to be deeply sacred but are now just fun family traditions. People in Japan use Christian symbology as an "exotic, mythical" aesthetic the exact same way people in the West use Eastern symbology. And if you're okay with it happening to Christianity, why wouldn't you be okay with it happening to any other religion in the absence of oppression?

And there's the idea that if a culture fails to get passed down *exactly* as it is now, it's a terrible loss and the result of malicious outside influence. But . . . cultures change over time. No culture is the same now as it was two or five or eight hundred years ago and I don't believe that change is inherently loss. The things that are sacred to you may or may not be sacred to the people of your culture in the future. That's just the way things work, and I don't think it's inherently good or bad.

And finally, people keep accusing evilsoup of "just wanting everyone to assimilate to your culture", but it absolutely does not follow that a lack of religion means a lack of diversity. Different nonreligious cultures are every bit as capable of being diverse as different religious cultures, so it's weird to insist that evilsoup wants there to only be one culture when they never said anything to indicate that.

#me still nursing the burn i got from touching the Discourse Stove last week: well surely it's not still hot #time to hit post and then log off for the night #atheism #skepticism umbrella

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lucabyte · 12 days

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thinking about the very specific reading of isat i had during act 3 for the most part

anyway yeah ill ramble here about this. since it actually explains my headcanons for what the disappearing island wish was

disclaimer: taken as a whole this is way too allegorical for what i'd consider a holistic reading of isat, but it was part of my running theories at the time.

anyway my guess for the real-world equivalent of the island ended up being French Polynesia by the end of the game. I had initially thrown a dart at siffrin being greek wrt europe, sisyphus allusion, enjoyment of plays and seafairing-- but the moment that little guy started getting real weird about stars and specified they were from an island i switched my guess to him being polynesian. And then that reading only really strengthened from there (and i was pretty close, tbf!)

but yeah during act 3, especially the king plotline, i started thinking about the themes of cultural erasure + lack of identity that the game has and how that plays wrt vaugarde's extremely welcoming and diverse nature.

reading far too much into it but it made me wonder if they are the results of a fallen empire of some kind. somewhere that gathered people from across the globe (as empires are known to do) before dissolving into what seems to be a localised theocracy of some kind?

like. vaugarde is basically the Good End for an empire. Fully demilitarised (they barely have use for police to the point where the defenders are surprised by burglaries, and almost CERTAINLY have zero army), extremely diverse, not caring where one comes from.

(either that or they've been a socialist utopia like, forever? and thus just aquired migrants perpetually... but ka bue is characterised as harsher by odile in a lot of respects so one can assume its not that the whole planet is Niceys All The Time.)

this lines up pretty well with the um. Whole France Thing. Boy do they own a lot of islands still that they maybe shouldn't. Also lines up with bonnie's word-of-god french creole dialect. So Vaugarde as the welcoming, ideal form of former-colonialiser-nation is like. one i vibe with if we're gonna read too hard into the worldbuilding as presented.

Anyway all this to say I did for a time wonder if the Northern Island wish was 'For The Island To Be Safe'. Assuming this world to have any level of inter-country conflict-- Wish craft is powerful stuff, and a singular island might not be able to defend itself against those seeking to take it by force. Hiding the island from the world would protect it.

... though that felt like an unusually cruel read. The implication that cloistering away like that is a 'valid' strategy for a culture to be safe (albeit with the splash damage of hurting any diaspora).

Plus, wish craft is superbly powerful, with evidently its use on the island only becoming more widespread after it was discovered how to make it work Consistently.

(i work here under the assumption that Siffrin's growing cloak is imbued with wish craft, assumedly the same as the king's armour? Since there's no way that was created at that scale...)

So it almost makes more sense, to me, for the wish to be to 'Protect The World (universe) From Us' or to 'Keep The Universe Safe'.

Wish craft being so second nature to the Islanders (See: Siffrin, favour tree), that a wish that breaks the universe is almost inevitable were the knowledge to become widespread and ingrained.

This too is an oddly cruel read, that a culture's rituals can be dangerous to that degree, but ... ? Dunno. Like I said, reading it as hard allegory makes it fall apart somewhat. Symbols can mean many different things at once until you flatten them for direct analysis like this. I don't think it's quite so 1-to-1, and it's honestly slightly too 'no story only lore' for my tastes, so I did push a lot of this stuff out of my analytical mind once I started getting to the back and of act 3 and into act 4.

Anyway. Not the most coherent explanation in the world, but still some thoughts I had mid-game that i figure i should put somewhere at least, even if I don't think they are really what the game is going for.

As a bonus, the discussions on what the island wish were in this context also lead my friend @samhainian to speculation on the colour wish that i really enjoy. Which is....

The wish that removed colour from humans perception of the world being something along the lines of:

"I wish the world was simpler"

ergo, removing colour as an invocation of Nuiance VS Black and White Morality. The world is simpler, easier to understand.

I think it's a fun headcanon! I like it.

Well anyway. A work is more than the sum of its parts and dissecting something so sloppily as this often does it a disservice. So don't take my theorising as anything more than a general rundown of where my head was at mid-game before i had all the pieces. The emotional core of the story is far more where it's at for ISAT sooooo. [Shrugs and scampers away]

#isat #isat spoilers #decided to finally ramble about this since i thought these were obvious conclusions but few else are chatting about it in the tags so.#mostly because i wanted to voice that colour wish headcanon and idk where else to put it #anyway being pulled away to do stuff so. ill talk about the king & corbeux connection some other time maybe #lucabytetalks #long post

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genderkoolaid · 2 months

Note

sorry if you've talked about it already, but what is it that makes KOSA's idea of online safety wrong? I don't know much about the bill, what does it intend to do?

What do you think is a good way to protect kids from things like online predators or just seeing things that they shouldn't be seeing? (By which I mean sex and graphic violence, things which you'd need to be 16+ to see in a movie theater so I think it makes sense to not want pre-teens to see it)

From stopkosa.com:

Why is KOSA a bad bill? KOSA uses two methods to “protect” kids, and both of them are awful. First, KOSA would incentivize social media platforms to erase content that could be deemed “inappropriate” for minors. The problem is: there is no consensus on what is inappropriate for minors. All across the country we are seeing how lawmakers are attacking young people’s access to gender affirming healthcare, sex education, birth control, and abortion. Online communities and resources that queer and trans youth depend on as lifelines should not be subject to the whims of the most rightwing extremist powers and we shouldn’t give them another tool to harm marginalized communities. Second, KOSA would ramp up the online surveillance of all internet users by expanding the use of age verification and parental monitoring tools. Not only are these tools needlessly invasive, they’re a massive safety risk for young people who could be trying to escape domestic violence and abuse.

I’ve heard there’s a new version of KOSA. What’s the deal? The new version of KOSA makes some good changes: narrowing the ability of rightwing attorneys general to weaponize KOSA to target content they don’t like and limiting the problematic “duty of care. However, because the bill is still not content neutral, KOSA still invites the harms that civil rights advocates have warned about. As LGBTQ and reproductive rights groups have said for months, the fundamental problem with KOSA is that its “duty of care” covers content specific aspects of content recommendation systems, and the new changes fail to address that. In fact, personalized recommendation systems are explicitly listed under the definition of a design feature covered by the duty of care in the new version. This means that a future Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could still use KOSA to pressure platforms into automated filtering of important, but controversial topics like LGBTQ issues and abortion, by claiming that algorithmically recommending such content “causes” mental health outcomes that are covered by the duty of care like anxiety and depression. Bans on inclusive books, abortion, and gender affirming healthcare have been passed on exactly that kind of rhetoric in many states recently. And we know that already existing content filtering systems impact content from marginalized creators exponentially more, resulting in discrimination and censorship. It’s also important to remember that algorithmic recommendation includes, for example, showing a user a post from a friend that they follow, since most platforms do not show all users all posts, but curate them in some way. As long as KOSA’s duty of care isn’t content neutral, platforms will be likely to react the same way that they did to the broad liability imposed by SESTA/FOSTA: by engaging in aggressive filtering and suppression of important, and in some cases lifesaving, content.

Why it's bad:

The way it's written (even after being changed, which the website also goes over), it is still possible for this law to be used to restrict things like queer content, discussion of reproductive rights and resources, and sexual education.

It will restrict youth's ability to use the Internet independently, essentially cutting off life support to many vulnerable people who rely on the Internet to learn that they are queer, being abused, disabled, etc.

Better alternatives:

Stop relying on ageist ideas of purity and innocence. When we focus on protecting the "purity" of youth, we dehumanize them and it becomes more about soothing adult anxieties than actually improving the lives of children.

Making sure content (sexual, violent, etc.) is marked/tagged and made avoidable for anyone who doesn't want to engage with it.

Teach children why certain things may be upsetting and how best to avoid those things.

Teach children how to recognize grooming and abuse and empower them to stop it themselves.

Teach children how to recognize fear, discomfort, trauma, and how to cope with those experiences.

The Internet makes a great boogeyman. But the idea that it is uniquely corrupting the Pure Innocent Youth relies on the idea that all children are middle-class suburban White kids from otherwise happy homes. What about the children who see police brutality on their front lawns, against their family members? How are we protecting them from being traumatized? Or children who are seeing and experiencing physical and sexual violence in their own homes, by the parents who prevent them from realizing what's happening by restricting their Internet usage? How does strengthening parent's rights stop those kids from being groomed? Or the kids who grow up in evangelical Christian homes and are given graphic descriptions of the horrors of the Apocalypse and told if they ever question their parents, they'll be left behind?

Children live in the same world we do. There are children who are already intimately aware of violence and "adult" topics because of their lived experiences. Actually protecting children means being concerned about THEIR human rights, it means empowering them to save themselves, it means giving them the tools to understand their own feelings and traumas. KOSA is just another in a long line of attempts to "save the children!" by dehumanizing them and giving more power to the people most likely to abuse them. We need to stop trying to protect children's "innocence" and appreciate that children are already growing, changing people, learning to deal with discomfort and pain and the weight of the world the same as everyone else. What people often think keeps kids safe really just keeps them ignorant and quiet.

Another explanation as to why it's bad:

#m.#ask box

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ressonancee · 10 months

Text

TRACK N02. KAMIKAZE - CHOI SEUNGCHEOL

I love the beginnin', the moonlight is callin' I know we'll go up, but we'll end up freefallin' You mind if I need to come kamikaze, crash into your way?

✷ wordcount: 7.734 ✷ genre: angst, break-up, smut

✷ This work is a part of "The Loviest Time Universe" - A collection of stories inspired by Carly Rae Jepsen's album

✷ Thea's note: hi everyone this is finally out - the first installment of the loveliest time, hehe. But first let me say a few thank yous. To @ssinboo for giving this a read since the first draft and enduring my thoughts on Discord 24/7. A thank you to @dalamjisung for reading this when i thought this was too sad and nobody would read this. And a special thanks to @toruro mika you are the kindest, thank you for reassuring me when I thought this sucked and was too depressing <3 , and for beta-reading ♥ I hope you all enjoy this (even if it hurts) also seungcheol-enjoyers i am very very sorry. Kkuma 2nd appearance.

I saw you in the deep end A shipwreck underwater And I know I shouldn't want that

Loving Seungcheol was not an easy task, and you learned it in the hardest way possible.

Loving Seungcheol seemed easy. He crashed into your life - loudly, fast. Often, you thought about it like a car crash in a movie scene - the part when everything gets upside down, and even the glass pieces flying around look kinda magical.

But you guess, after a while, the movie scene was just a little bit too loud and possibly a security hazard for everyone involved.

A part of you really wanted to give your all, to sacrifice, to just give a little bit more of yourself to make it work, but lately, you have been so fucking tired and so alone that you don’t even have the strength to try anymore.

You loved everything about Seungcheol, you loved his laugh, you loved the way that Seungcheol made everyone feel cared for, you loved how he treated you and you loved how he loved you, and knowing all that made everything worse.

But Seungcheol had that power - he made sure to make you fall in love all over again every time he had a chance. And everything would be okay after a few hours in the same space as him, you would feel loved, he would smile, he would embrace you and everything would just feel right.

The problem was that lately, Seungcheol didn't have the time to make you fall in love with him.

If you thought about it, you couldn't even pinpoint the last time you saw Seungcheol. You know he dropped by before going overseas for his tour - four months long tour, for a quick fuck but before that you can't really remember because he was already busy with a comeback and rehearsal.

And you tried your best to keep it cool, and you tried your best to deal with it on your own - Seungcheol was a constant topic in your therapy, and you tried to understand - of course his life is more glamorous than yours, of course he has the chance to go to all those beautiful places you can only see in pictures, of course it was work.

And you tried to bite your tongue and think how much of his life he had to give up in order to be where he is now. And it is his dream, his youth, his life really - so you can't make Seungcheol choose.

You know all that.

And you try to use your brain instead of your heart. But when Seungcheol is in the same country as you, in the same time zone, and still has a problem reaching up, it still has a problem finding more than a 30-minute time slot, you know what you need to do.

You need to let him go.

It is a Monday when Cheol arrives on your doorstep, you let him in and everything seems so normal - the majority of times you two hang out was in your house, not a lot of dating outside, not a lot of going out with your boyfriend enjoying the city.

You tried to brush it off and pretend you didn't care Seungcheol didn't have a normal life, so you two could have brunch on a sunday or a stroll in the nearest mall.

"Hey baby I was thinking of ordering from that chinese restaurant god I am craving the food," Seungcheol says, crashing on your sofa like it is his own house, and it settles on you that it is almost like his second house, a hideaway, every time he had a problem he would just crash on your place. He had the keys, why didn't he open the door? Why were you always doing the job? Letting him in, let him crash into your life? Why couldn't you crash into his and set things on fire? "Baby? Are you listening?" Seungcheol calls, but you know he doesn't really care because his eyes are glued to his phone.

"Cheol I need your attention for a minute," you say, looking at him, trying your best to keep it straight, to not fall on the ground and cry.

"Okay okay just let me answer a few more texts. We are scheduling the next varieties right now so everything is a bit crazy," your boyfriend says, still not paying attention. And you ask yourself - has it always been like that?

Did Seungcheol always come into your life, create havoc, crush everything on his point of view, take everything he could get his hands on and everything you could give him to not give five minutes of his time in return?

"Seungcheol I really need you to put your phone down," you say again and you are so pathetic that you feel the tears rolling down your cheeks, your voice cracking up - and that's what calls Seungcheol's attention, eyes big on surprise.

"Love, are you okay? What happened?" he asks and now that you have his attention, his phone is screen down on your sofa, his eyes on you, you feel all certainty leaving your body because you miss him so much and he looks so tired your heart almost breaks because you feel like to Seungcheol you are just another thing he needs to take care of, to handle, to adjust in his crazy hours.

You feel like you are a plate spinning in the little stick, and you are about to fall down because Seungcheol forgot that he needs to spin you around.

"I'm really sorry, I-" you hiccup, and god you feel so fucking silly.

"Baby what is going on?" Seungcheol's voice is low when he tries to wrap his arms around you, scared when you don't let him do it. "Baby you are worrying me," he says again when he watches you take steps away from him.

"You don't need to worry, everything is fine."

"Clearly everything is not fine, I am back after ages, and my girlfriend is crying in the living room," he says god you wish you could get angry and pick a fight with Seungcheol but you feel so tired, you feel so exhausted.

"I-" you try to start, but you feel your legs buckle and your heartbreak. "I think we should break up."

"What?" Seungcheol because that is the only thing he can say. Seungcheol feels like he is inside a car crash like he is the one getting upside down. He feels so blindsided by your decision, did... Did you find someone when he was away, or did you just fall out of love?

"I think we should break up," you say it again, more to yourself than to him, like you are making up your own mind.

"Can-" Seungcheol paces around, he actually feels his throat close and his tongue feels like sandpaper around the roof of his mouth, he can't even bring himself to actually look at you. But he finally does, seeing you sitting on the floor, back against a wall, hands holding your own hand, elbows on your knee, and you just feel so different. Seungcheol can't actually pinpoint what seems different, but you are, and you look so tired, what the fuck happened, how could he not see this coming? "Can I ask why?"

And you scoff, Seungcheol can see your whole body moving. Everything is so clear to you and so hazed to Seungcheol is like you two are in different directions speaking through a tin can telephone.

"I don't think this is working for me I-" you try to start, trying to dry your tears with the sleeve of your shirt.

"Did you find someone else?" Seungcheol blurts out.

"What?" You ask in actual disbelief, did he-

"Are you in love with someone else?" He says it again and you can wrap your mind around it, what he wants to mean with those silly accusations.

"Thats-"

"That's ok, I can take it, you can be honest with me," Seungcheol says again, trying to brace himself for the impact, preparing himself to hear the eyes falling out of your lips.

"You know what's funny?" You say without a hint of humor in your voice, "You actually prefer that wouldn't you? You would actually prefer the idea of being cheated on, of me being guilty of falling in love with someone else than to acknowledge that may be-" you hiccup, and try to breathe even though you can't do it through your nose, "that may be I am ending things with you because i can't deal with the shit show that is your life anymore, that I can't take being a second option anymore because your life is so fucking good that only someone crazy wouldn't want to share it with you." You pick yourself up, and you feel so angry, you feel so disrespected. You look at him, and god, even though you love him you know Seungcheol can't give you what you want, he can't give you coffee dates, he can't give you holidays, he can't give you the certainty of Valentine's days and birthdays. And even though you love him, even though you gave everything you could, even though you spent months and months on videocalls or just texts, even though you felt so fucking happy when he was by your side even though it meant a delivery and a night in, he is implying that you could cheat on him, like you could find someone like you are not broken enough to think that you could never love someone again like you love him. "Guess what Cheol, you don't share anything. You just take and take until the person doesn't have any more to give you"

And he stays silent like he doesn't have anything to say. Like he is trying to understand the situation, those hazy moments after the crash when you try to make yourself come back to reality.

"I am sorry I am really tired if you could-" you start, walking to your door.

"Do you-" Seungcheol starts and when he looks at you can see the tears around his eyes and you want to take everything back, you want to say you are sorry, you want to say it was just you're feeling lonely but now he is back, now everything is okay, you can deal with going to every working related dinner or party alone and lie when people ask why your boyfriend never comes. "Do you think I could do something different?"

"No," you say voice small, looking everywhere just so you can avoid Cheol's eyes. "I really love you, I love you so fucking much, I just can't deal with your life, I just can't deal with the loneliness that comes when you go MIA between shows because you are tired, I just can't deal with whole weeks gone just because you guys are working on a new album, and I can't deal having a boyfriend only inside the walls of my apartment, it hurts so fucking much Cheol and I just have nothing else to give you." you catch your breath, and you smell his perfume, and everything looks so out of place, how can a heartbreak make you nauseated, make you feel physically ill? "And even though I love you, I wish I could bring myself to ask for it, to make you give me what I want, but I know you and I know I can't ask you for that, and I know you enough to know that if I ask for it maybe I won't get what I want in return because you can't give what I want.

When Seungcheol leaves the only thing you do is cry. Like a child, on your bed, in a fetal position, hiccuping every few minutes. You cry so much that you fall asleep while doing it. In the morning when your alarm goes off, you can feel a headache. You think you will need a lot more than a painkiller. But you pick yourself up, and go to work and you regret it. You regret it when you see a fucking bus with Seungcheol's face plastered on it - his birthday is in three weeks. You regret it when you see it again on the subway, and when you open social media the news around his new album is across it - you think you need to delete every account Seungcheol related.

You also regret when you see Mingyu's name on your phone screen. But when Mingyu calls you for the third time you know something must be wrong.

"Hello?"

"Hey can you- ok guys shut up, hi hmm” He says in a lower voice, “can you tell Seungcheol to hurry up he is a bit late we have scheduled in like 30-ish," He says across the line.

"Hm, Mingyu I really can't do that." You say almost laughing because his friends don’t call you ever, you have Mingyu’s number registered because once Seungcheol had a dead phone and he asked Mingyu to tell you he was arriving late - that’s when Seungcheol still cared you think, after that he just arrived late without telling you his schedule was running late.

"No really like it is a really important schedule."

"Mingyu Seungcheol is not with me right now you should call him-"

"Is he not? I mean he slept with you, right? Did he leave your house already?"

"No, he didn't sleep at my place last night-"

"No?" Mingyu asks and the line is dead silent before you pick yourself up and have the courage to tell you.

"Mingyu we broke up yesterday," You say in the lowest register ever, the last thing you wanted was Karen from the sales department eavesdropping on your conversation and asking if you needed a girl time.

"Why did you break up with him?" He asks and that makes your head spin a little, how did he know?

"Mingyu that's-" you breathe loudly, you want to smash the phone against the nearest surface, but you need patience, and to be honest Mingyu didn’t do anything for you to be rude, yes, you are angry but it is not Mingyu’s fault, "That's really personal I'm sorry"

"Ok, sorry, yeah I overstepped for sure," you can hear the faint voices in the background, "Do you think you know a place he could've gone to?"

"No, I really don't, I am sorry, just" your bite your tongue because you think that’s overstepping too, but you say nonetheless, "Just give me a heads up if you guys find him or if I need to worry ok?"

"Yeah, yeah."

And against everything - your rational mind and your broken heart, you call Seungcheol, because he still comes first, his well-being and state. Even if he is not picking Mingyu's call that stills a part of you that says that you are special enough to him that he may answer your calls. He doesn't. But you don't even have time to worry because Mingyu sends you a message saying that Seungcheol just showed up and he is fine.

And the reality of it crushes you. You are not the person that Seungcheol will pick up when everyone calls him, you are not the exception anymore.

What really hurts is when you think that maybe you never were.

And the feeling makes you so physically ill that when you knock on your chief's door to say you are going back home because you feel unwell and gonna try to work remotely he just says you can take a day off because you are clearly looking like a fucking truck hit you.

The first few days make you wish Seungcheol was right. You cry so much you feel dehydrated and have a non-stop headache. So you wish he was right, you wish you did cheat on him, you wish you ended things because you fell. in love with somebody else.

You don't delete his messages but you do archive the conversation because every time you open the app it is just there and the want to hover it, to go back, to look at it, to have Seungcheol back in your life is so big you ask yourself how can you carry such a burden.

When you reach the 7 days you feel like somehow you can breathe again, now crying only 25% of the time. It's painful how you get back into your routine very quickly, it makes you feel that Seungcheol was not a big part of it. The main thing you do is to just keep your phone away, check less social media - the last time his face popped up and you almost yetted the phone.

On week two you do all the things that you wanted to do with Seungcheol, alone or with other people. You go to the new corner cafe with a book and order a lot of sweet treats. You go to the movies after a day of work because why not. You drive yourself to the beach, and even though it’s not really summer, the weather is nice enough. In a way you think you are a masochist, experiencing all of those things and reminiscing of what could be if Seungcheol was by your side. But every time you come home and your empty place greets you with the memory of Seungcheol and his belongings you think that masochism would be locking yourself up in a place where Seungcheol was most present in your life.

Week three is a living hell. It's Seungcheol's birthday and you catch yourself entering a store just because something nice enough to be his present caught your attention. When you pick up your phone to ask him if he prefers leather or wool the reality crashes into you. It makes your world spin a little, and everything is in slow motion when you go back home.

It doesn't help that you still have a pair of shoes, some shirts, a few pieces of jewelry, and even toiletries that don't belong to you in your own house. You feel stupid when you cry, but you pick everything up and put everything in a box - but you still don't have the strength to contact Seungcheol and say that he needs to pick up his things in order to move on.

I'm just here for the weekend A wordless kind of offer And I'm hoping that you saw that

After a month you stop crying.

Even though you don't keep tabs in a tracker you know every month that passes by, and Seungcheol's box turns into a decorative item by your door.

In a way, everything you know about Seungcheol is stored in the back of your mind, and sometimes it comes back to your conscious mind like an intrusive thought.

To be honest, Seungcheol still pops up daily in your life, his voice plays in the nice book store, his face shows up in the make-up store and now he is the face of your favorite lip balm, he shows up in the tv and again in the subway, he shows up in the news and in your favorite variety show - the first time you don't actually binge watch. You know when Seungcheol is blond and when he is not, you know when his hair is long or shorter. And even if you don't want to, you keep tabs on him.

But in reality, you can deal with it, you can deal with Seungcheol's absence when he doesn't come back to make you fall in love with him.

And it gets easier.

Or you get used to not having Seungcheol in your life, seeing him from afar, or not seeing him at all. After 3 months you think to yourself that for the first time, you feel like a human again. Like your feet are back on the ground. You can walk without crunches for the first time after breaking both legs.

When it hits the six-month mark you think it is okay to remember, it is okay to think about it, it was a milestone after all. When you think about buying a cake for the one-year mark you think that maybe that's not normal.

But maybe that’s the path of healing, the ups, and downs of it, healing is not linear - you think that you saw an Instagram post about it. And you just accept it, you don’t fight anymore about how you remember Seungcheol in the silliest things, when you look at something on the street, or when you start binge-watching a new tv show. But sometimes you also don’t remember him, sometimes you can go a few days without conjuring him in your mind - but you always end up losing the game when you think to yourself how you did not think about him.

'Cause I see you I fall back into the feeling like we've just begun Tell me, ooh Are you tired of being alone? You're not the only one

When you see Seungcheol, two years later, you just laugh and take a sip of your drink. It is really crazy how Seungcheol's absence makes you forget that one of your closest friends knew Seungcheol - he was the reason why you two met in the first place.

And yet you feel surprised to see Seungcheol in the same space as you after a while. And god why do your legs buckle and why is he so good-looking?

At the same time you want to turn and run, you are so freaking obsessed with seeing Seungcheol with your own two eyes after such a long time. God. You need a drink, you need a glass of the most powerful poison, you need courage and you need strength.

But before you can turn Seungcheol has his eye on you.

And you want to run and scream when you see him walking into you.

"Hey," Seungcheol says and he too looks like he is fine with everything, and you think if it has always been like that if Seungcheol almost didn’t get a scratch when you always left with a broken heart and broken bones "I-" Seungcheol laughs. "This is weird."

"Yeah," you say drinking the rest of your drink in one gulp "They didn't tell me you were coming so-"

"Do we need to continue doing that?" Seungcheol asks and you can feel your head tilting like a damn dog, and Seungcheol's tint smile across his face confirms your suspicion- he always thought it was endearing. "Avoid each other I mean," he clarifies.

And you want to say yes because you feel so weak on your knees. You feel like you are getting pulled - physical traction makes you throw away all that you learned in the past year, making you forget how difficult it was, how painful.

"I don't know, it is not the ideal but what is the other option?" You ask and don't even wait for Seungcheol to answer you when you look around - you need another drink, you are not doing this sober, you feel yourself close to tears and you can't cry sober - drunk you at least have an excuse to bawl everything out.

"Not hating each other?" Seungcheol scoffs, and you do the same.

"Sometimes I think about how we spent four years together," you say, going to the bar with Seungcheol by your side, you order a mojito while Seungcheol just brushes the guy off. Seungcheol is so close that you can feel your brain start malfunctioning.

"Come on, I swear I didn't try to pick a fight if you want I can go I already said my wishes to the host so-"

"Is not that," You feel so fucking frustrated, you can feel your heart in your throat. "I just-" You breathe loudly, maybe you should let him enjoy the party and go - he was the one that didn't show up in two consecutive years. "Look this is not the time or the place for us to have this conversation but the point is I never hated you - I never could, and to be honest never wanted."

Seungcheol just looks at you, his eyes big and mouth agape.

And you wish you could hate him because it would be easier. And because if you hated him you wouldn't question yourself if it was the right decision, if you hated him you wouldn't be thinking about letting Seungcheol back in your life.

"Hey, hey-" you hear Seungcheol's voice behind you.

Fuck you forgot the uber, so you do your best to ignore Seungcheol and pick up your cell phone, trying to open the app fast enough just so a car teleports in the street.

"Come on I can take you home," He says and you want to laugh really, what the fuck is on his mind.

"And would I say yes to that?"

"Look," Seungcheol’s hand goes through his hair and you know he is frustrated, and a part of you relishes that, in the way that you still know him even after more than 24 months apart, "I don't know how you are doing, and this can be me being fucking egotistical, but I have been thinking you hate me for two years, so if here is not the place then we can find a place, I would say my place but that would make me sound like a jerk so-"

"Cheol," you almost beg.

"I really just want to understand what happened, fuck-" And when you look again you see Seungcheol in such a different light, he is so tired, he looks so exhausted, he looks older, but not just older he looks jaded, "It is been plaguing my mind since we broke up I can't fuck wrap my head around-"

"Your house then."

"Ok, ok. Just so you know I have a dog." Seungcheol says while guiding you to his car and you just feel a pang in your chest because you know how he went on and on about how he wanted a dog, how you two could get a dog, how if he wasn't so busy, and far away half of the time you two should get a dog.

And God you feel so sad, you can actually feel everything building up inside your body, you can feel it in your throat.

You heard and heard about the dog and you were not there, and that’s all you can think about the entire trip to Seungcheol’s house.

"This is Kkuma," Seungcheol says holding the dog up, when he sees that you are not in the mood to greet the cute creature he gives up. "Is this a mistake?"

"Probably," you say, looking at his living room - god when you two dated he didn’t have his own house. How much did you miss? How many milestones in his life were you not a part of?

"I-" Seungcheol starts, making you look at him, "I just thought we could go back to good terms you know, I've been keeping tabs on you," and you don’t know why but you feel so angry, you feel like there is something growing under your skin you can’t quite name it. "Don't look at me like that, I wanted to know how you were, how you've been doing, and when I asked about you this last time he said I could show up so I thought you knew"

"I didn't"

"Yeah, I'm sorry," he says, rubbing his palm against his pants in an attempt to dry it. "I mean for today and for everything I guess, I wasn't the best back then. I just thought-"

"What do you want from me Cheol?" You ask for the first time looking at Cheol's eyes, looking for the truth in it, searching for every little detail you can catch to make it make sense, but that just makes you crumble like a sandcastle against a wave, "I've been trying so hard- god"

"Hey, hey-" Seungcheol's hand close around your wrist, his fingers in contrast with your skin. "Don't cry please, don't cry, I always hated when you cried, hated every time I saw you in tears because of me." He says while getting closer to you, which just makes you cry a little bit more.

"I am so sorry, this was a bad idea, I can take you home if you want to," Seungcheol says with his arms around you - and god, you should've braced yourself from the impact, but you didn't and Seungcheol was just crashing into your life again.

"Yeah, and I was crazy enough to say yes to you," you say against Seungcheol's embrace and you are surprised when he picks up your muffled sounds.

"Why did you, say yes I mean" Seungcheol making space to look down at you.

"You know why Cheol," you say rolling your eyes at him.

"It's the same for me too, I guess," Seungcheol says tucking your hair behind your ears, "Maybe that's why I went after you today, fuck, that's why I talked to you really-" his lips find your forehead, and you can feel your heart in throat. You feel like your lungs are about to collapse, you can't breathe, "when I saw you I just-" He smells your hair like he used to do, his hand on your neck, his thumb caressing your jaw. "it just felt like nothing had changed"

I know it sounds fatal, I know we made fires The ending's real clear and it won't take us higher Tonight, I might need to come kamikaze Crash into your way (Kamikaze, kamikaze)

You know Seungcheol, you can tell, you can anticipate every step. With Seungcheol it is like you have the ability to see the future in your lids. With Seungcheol even when he crashes and burns makes you think to yourself that you can take the fire against your skin.

And you miss the feeling - to be understood even when you don't have words, when the silence speaks for you when Seungcheol just knows what you need before you ask for it. That's why you broke things up, you think, maybe you felt the most loved when Seungcheol would anticipate every and each one of your needs, and the moment he stopped you felt so unseen.

When Seungcheol's lips find your cheeks, just below your eyes, you can hear the sound of your heart-shattering. Your hands tighten against his sides.

"I missed you," Seungcheol says, his forehead resting against yours. "I missed this, missed us."

"Cheol," you beg because it is the only thing you can do, the only thing you can master.

"Let me take care of you," You can feel the way his hand goes to your nape, making you shiver, "Let me make you happy."

You just nod, because that's what you want. You want it so much that you could change the earth's axis, you could change the future and the past for it. And when you feel Seungcheol's lips against yours you think that ending the world would seem like an easy task if it was to achieve Seungcheol's love, to have his touch against your skin every day.

When you wrap your arms around Seungcheol's neck you know you are done for - you know you fell in love all over again.

And you do it because it is him, because it is Seungcheol, and he is the only one who could break your heart.

"You will, won't you?" Seungcheol says mouth against your jaw, hand still against your nape holding you in place, "Let me love you?"

"Don't say things like that," you whisper, tugging on Seungcheol's shirt.

"Why baby?" He says kissing your jaw, his hand caressing your cheek, "god, I missed this," Seungcheol says when his breath in on your neck, rubbing his nose on it. "missed how you smell," his hand holds your waist and you feel so glad because you almost melting, "missing the way you taste," he says when his tongue laps at your skin, giving you a small kiss on the kneck.

The only thing you can do is try to anchor yourself, one hand splayed against Seungcheol's back and another one tugging at his hair. Seungcheol's hand goes around you, caging you against his body, his hands finding the hem of your shirt and putting it under your shirt.

And it is just so much, the way his hands feel hot against your back, keeping you upright. The way his lips feel against your skin, wet, across your cleavage. The way that his body feels hard against yours.

It's just so much. To have all that again, you almost forget how to breathe.

Seungcheol is so big - physically yes, but his whole existence is so big, it makes you feel suffocated. Seungcheol is so big that you question yourself how you used to fit him in your heart.

But you choose not to think about it, not know. You call his name while tugging his hair, blindly searching his mouth. And you focus on Seungcheol, the way that his tongue feels against yours, the way that he holds you, the way that you feel how hard he is against your hips.

"Let me," Seungcheol whisper against your mouth before his hand found the back of your thighs and picks your up - and you do the only thing you can do, letting out a surprised noise and hugging Seungcheol. And you can feel how Seungcheol's smiles spread against the skin of your chest.

"Don't laugh," you try to scold him, hand tugging his hair again - when he let his hair gets so long? It was a newfound joy for you.

"-m not laughing," you hear Seungcheol say against your skin, his fingers dipping in the skin of your ass.

When your back hits the mattress, you feel like you can breathe again for the first time, Seungcheol's body away from yours. Until his hand is back on your hips, making your heart skip a beat and your lungs collapse.

"You are so pretty," he says when his hands travel up against your body, lifting your shirt, Seungcheol's lips find the skin of your stomach, his hand pressing on your ribcage. Seungcheol looks at you, his tongue on your skin, linking a strip of it.

The thing about Seungcheol is that he still remembers. He still knows what makes you melt, makes you hot, makes you whimper. And he does it so right that makes your head spin.

Seungcheol lifts your shirt up, pooling it against your neck. "Fuck-" Seungcheol starts again and you ask yourself how he doesn't feel tongue-tied like you, "so pretty like this," his digits touch your chest when the lace of your bra ends, and it is just so faint, you lift your chest searching for his touch.

"Can I?" Seungcheol asks and you don't even know what he wants but you are nodding. He tugs on your bra, letting your boobs free. His forefinger and his middle finger find your nipple, tugging at it lightly, making you whimper. "Always loved how you are so fucking sensitive," he coos.

Seungcheol's lips find your skin again, and the way he kisses the underside of your boob is so soft and so tender that makes your head spin a little. Seungcheol lowers his body against yours, making you open your legs a little to make space for him between them.

Seungcheol kisses your sternum at the same time that his hands wrapped around your throat, he doesn't put pressure on it. But the mere fact that his hand is splayed on your windpipe makes you lose it, make you whimper. "God, missed this too, the way you sound"

"Cheol," you want to complain but you can't because Seungcheol just licks one of your nipples, his free hand holding you in place for him to latch on it. You don't even know what to do - it is just too much, the feel of Seungcheol's hands on your body, of his mouth against your skin.

When his mouth leaves your nipple with a low pop, his mouth doesn't leave your skin. "Don't worry babe gonna give it to you," you hear his voice low and muffled, "Gonna give you everything."

"Want you-" you say tugging at his shirt. And you feel so hot all over, you ask yourself how did you survive without his touch for so long, how did you survive with your skin against yours.

"I know, I know” Seungcheol coos and you just melt against the hand he places against your face, when he kisses you again you know you are doomed. “Just let me eat you first," he says putting his lips just below your ear, his body heavy and hot against you, "Missed your pussy too, missed everything."

"Don't talk like that," you beg and you don't hear it, but you feel the way that Seungcheol's body reverberates with a chuckle - and you take the opportunity to tug at your own shirt and bra.

"I know you like it," Seungcheol says opening the button of your pants and tugging at each leg.

"I don't anymore," you say just because you feel like you need to pick a fight really. To look like it is harder to rip you apart at the seams, to make Seungcheol think it is not that easy to wreck you.

To make Seungcheol think it's harder to have you again.

"I know you do," Seungcheol says lifting your leg and kissing your ankle, and you feel if it's not normal to feel so much. "I can see you do still like it." Seungcheol's voice drops and you can see his eyes on your pussy, his knuckle pressing on it over your panties, you can see how wet it feels, and god you feel so ashamed because you want it so much, and because Seungcheol knows.

You can feel how red your skin is. Seungcheol lies between your legs. He rearranges your position, opening more your legs, putting one of your thighs on his shoulder. "Don't need to lie to me," He says before slowly biting on the meat of your thigh, his hands holding you in place when you buckle.

Seungcheol kisses your pussy over your panties and you bite on your tongue, you hold yourself back. "God, I even miss the way you smell," Seungcheol says and you feel faint - and you tug at the sheet almost crying, almost begging.

But before you say anything you feel him tugging at your panties and you don't move, you just let Seungcheol move your body to his pleasure, taking your panties off but putting your legs the same way as before.

You feel Seungcheol digits against your folds and you bite your tongue again - trying to hold back. But when his thumb presses on your clit you can't resist calling his name. "Shh, it's okay baby," Seungcheol says before his tongue is on you, making your head spin.

You ask yourself again how you survived without him.

Because with Seungcheol was just so easy.

Seungcheol doesn't ask what you like he already knows.

Seungcheol knows how to pin your hips down, with his hand splayed, because you like how strong he is. Seungcheol knows how to lick your folds, how to suck on your clit, how to tease you with his fingers.

"Can you-" you try to ask for it, but when you look down between your legs you see Seungcheol looking at you, seeking your reactions, trying to catch every little detail, and before you can ask again Seungcheol is nodding against your pussy, mouth not leaving it for a second even thoughyou are bucking your hips.

And then you feel his fingers against your entrance. And it is Seungcheol he knows how you like it, but he knows too much, he teases you first, just the knuckle against your hole.

"Seungcheol, please," you ask again, accepting that you lost the war, accepting that you can't pretend anymore because you know Seungcheol will only give you when you ask for it.

But you asked for it so he gives to you.

He starts fucking you slowly with his fingers, his tongue never leaving your clit.

You feel like you are going insane, it's just too much - his hand’s strong grounding your hips, the way that his mouth closes against your clit, the way that his fingers enter you, the way his eyes never leave yours.

And before you can say anything you are cumming against his tongue, Seungcheol laps at it like he wants to feel your taste on his tongue, like he wants every drop of it.

"Always loved your mouth." You say before Seungcheol kisses you and you can taste yourself on his tongue.

Seungcheol lifts his body, kneeling on the mattress, and finally takes his shirt off, "wait," you call for him, and you look at him. And god he is so fucking pretty all over. He always has been. You touch him, hands against his stomach, and you wish you can make him feel like he does to you.

You sit on the bed, Seungcheol's position making him taller than you, but it is not a problem when the difference makes it easier to kiss his pecs. And Seungcheol holds the back of your neck, his eyes again, never leaving you, making sure he sees every tiny fraction of every little touch.

You don't know if you actually forgot, or, if you just locked the memories away in a tiny part of your brain, but when you see Seungcheol so pilant against your touch - against one of your hands on his stomach, the other touching his pecs and mouth sucking at his skins it is like it's unlock something on you.

"Did you miss it?" You ask hand working on Cheol's pants, palming him in the process.

"Hun?" He asks voice low, like he didn't catch the meaning behind the question.

"The way I make you feel," you answer, hand underneath his underwear, touching his hard dick. "Did you miss it?" You ask again, looking Seungcheol in the eyes.

"So fucking much," he answers and you can see how his body reacts to every single touch you give him, you lower Seungcheol's underwear, just enough so his cock springs free - red and leaking, and God you wish you could forget how many time Seungcheol split you open with his dick, but you can't, you think you remember each and every time, "Thought about it every day."

"Can you fuck me?" You ask Seungcheol, fingers wrapped around his dick, pumping him slowly, thumb rubbing against his tip, and you can see his body twitch, but Seungcheol just lets you do whatever you want with him.

"How do you want me?" he asks.

"You know how," you say it because it is true. Seungcheol knows how to eat you, how to fuck you, how to split you open, he knows how to make you feel good, and how to make you cry.

"Come on," He says hand on your shoulder making you lay down again, and you whine because the action made you set his dick free "You asked me to fuck you" his hands wrap around your leg and make your body turn to the side.

And it is just so hot, how Seungcheol can manhandle you, can make you turn and move, but still cave into every and each one of your whims. You ask and he answers it. You ask him to jump and he asks how high.

Seungcheol lays on the bed, his front pressed against your back, his strong arms around you, his lips against your neck, his dick against your ass.

Your mind goes back to how big Seungcheol is, how he doesn't let space for anyone else.

But you come back to reality when you feel Seungcheol's dick going against your pussy. Seungcheol mumbles against the skin of your shoulder, but you are so gone that you don't actually pay attention to it.

When Seungcheol starts fucking you you are halfway there. You hold Seungcheol's arms, your nails marking his skin. "You take me so fucking well," Seungcheol says before his teeth find the flesh of your shoulder. "Do you need-" You don't let him finish, tugging at his hair, searching for his mouth - and the kiss is messy and sloppy, and when Seungcheol's fingers find your pussy again you just moan on his mouth.

"Are you-" Seungcheol asks, and you know what he wants to say in the way his hips fall in rhythm the way his other hand tightens against your ass, the way with every stroke he goes deeper and deeper. And you nod because it is the truth, you are so close to it that you feel like your bones are melting.

And you just let it hit you, let the wave of the orgasm wash over your body. And you know Seungcheol is close by the way he pants against your neck, by the way, his strong hands hold your thigh - until you feel him cum on you.

You can feel your heart beating against your chest. You can feel the way Seungcheol's dick slips off you, and the way your back feels sweaty against his chest. You squirm a little trying to put some distance between your bodies.

"Stay," Seungcheol murmurs against your shoulder while enveloping you in his embrace, tugging you closer and you do. You stay because Seungcheol still makes you fall in love with him every single chance he gets, but your mind is still wrapped around the feeling that maybe, you two, are not meant to be, one of the lovers that could be so fucking beautiful and that marked your life, that is a before Seungcheol and after Seungcheol in your life.

But, deep down you know, that you just got tired of asking for more.

Now you don't want a lover that you need to ask for it - even though you know Seungcheol would never say no to you, but for once, you think that you want someone who gives to you without being asked for.

I love the beginning, the moonlight is calling I know we'll go up but we'll end up freefalling

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