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#but also i am so lonely and isolated for in person contact

somesecretpie · 27 days

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I am looking for a human host!

Are you bored?

Are you lonely and bored?

Do you have a lot of time on your hands?

Do you have hands?

I’m offering you a proposal, with potential financial compensation for your troubles. It may sound off putting at first blush, but hear me out. I am looking for a human host. And I mean a “willing” human host who might be willing to give up some of their time to help out an odd fellow that doesn’t have hands or blood.

Am I asking to control your body? Yes. Sometimes. You’ll still be there, but taking the backseat. Now you’re probably thinking “That sounds no fun! I don’t want to spend all my time riding shotgun.”

And that’s valid.

But you all spend about half of the day unconscious anyway. Your body is just there, doing nothing—a complete waste. As for me, I don’t sleep (haha), so we could have it so that during the day, I will graciously let you do fun human things, and at night, I’ll do whatever. And by whatever, I mean perfectly safe, perfectly reasonable activities.

I don’t drink, and I rarely go outside.

I enjoy baking, I look at pictures of birds online, I’ve been getting into neuroscience lately. Very interesting stuff. You’re all very interesting.

And maybe you’re still thinking “Hey now, I don’t want some random mind-controlling thingy hauling my body around in my sleep, “Weekend at Bernie’s Style” to which I say, you’re no fun and you’re not the kind of person I want to live with anyway.

“But I’m a light sleeper!” you say.

Don’t worry! I can isolate your somatosensory cortex so you can’t feel anything.

“But my family will think it’s weird!” you say.

Don’t worry! You don’t have to tell them.

Actually, I would prefer that you don’t tell anyone. Please.

And should anyone question me, I’m not bad at impressions. I’ll get really good at a “you” impression, it’ll be the first thing I do!

I know this all sounds very strange and potentially unpleasant, but remember the financial compensation that may or may not be happening. Hell, I’ll even do some of your chores if you like, while you sleep. You can wake up and the dishes will be done, laundry folded and coffee made. Doesn’t that sound nice? And then you open the fridge and oh, what’s this? Someone baked banana bread last night (that was me, I baked banana bread last night.)

Now I should say, I don’t have a lot of standards, I really don’t. But I do (unfortunately) have some, so let’s just get them out of the way before I waste your time.

Please do not contact me if you have any of the following:

- Anemia: Sorry, it’s just not going to work out. I can pay for iron supplements, but I can’t work miracles.

-A weak immune system: I don’t like getting sick, I’m sorry. It’s gross, sick people are gross. I mean I know it’s not your fault, but healthy folks only please.

-A strong immune system: Yes, I know what I just said, but I also don’t want to be attacked by your immune system. So maybe you’re not the picture of health, but you’re just kind of okay. I’m looking for someone who is just kind of okay.

-A penchant for alcohol: It makes me feel strange…

-A name that starts with a P: I’m not the greatest at “speaking.” It’s hard, moving air through your throat and moving your tongue and your mouth at the same time. You all do it so easy—can’t say I’m not envious! I’m the worst at making the “P” sound.

I intentionally avoid any "p word" in conversation, and get by well enough, but I’ll look pretty foolish if I’m cavorting about, pretending to be you, and I can’t even say your name!

Those are my standards, but really, other than that, I’ll take anyone.

I don’t care if you’re male or female or anything in between.

I don’t care if you’re gay.

I don’t care if you’re smart.

I don’t care if you don’t have a lawyer.

There are so many things that I don’t care about.

Now, I’ve specified all the ways in which I could compensate you and how our relationship will be not in any way problematic, but I want to stress that, above all things, I am looking for a friend.

Someone I can spend quiet evenings with.

If you want to hang out with me during the day, that’s great! I can give you fun hallucinations. Or you could have hallucinations the normal way, like by reading, like what you’re doing now. I love to read! I love doing funny voices. I wonder what you think I sound like?

I hope I sound nice.

And one of the best things about me is I’m very quiet. No one else will be able to hear me except you. I’ll be like your own personal friend that only you know. Like a secret friend. And you don’t even have to talk to me because I can read your thoughts.

I suppose I should tell you a bit more about myself, since you’re still reading.

I was born in the Everglades, I think. It’s been awhile.

But I remember being so cold…

And so alone...

But then I met this sweaty man in a colorful tee-shirt, with a camera, and half a granola bar, and with blood so hot.

So yeah, he was my first host, and I’ll admit, we weren’t the best of friends. It was a confusing time for both of us. I was confused. He was confused. What happened was really both of our faults, you could say…

He was a bird watcher, if I recall correctly. Just watched birds all the time. I thought it might have been out of jealousy—watching those little things flying around makes you feel kind of stuck. I felt stuck.

So I decided to be a bird for a while to see if it was really all it’s cracked up to be. Squished myself into the body of this lovely American crow. We settled down, built a nest, and laid several nice, healthy eggs with a man-bird by the name of “Richard Baxter.”

He was a very proud bird, very large. And he gave me so many wonderful gifts. Like children, and also small pieces of plastic.

I still have all of them.

The plastic, not the children.

I’d never been so happy, all these hormones had me consumed in the joy of motherhood, but the crow’s health was failing. I could not sustain myself—it’s pathetic little heart beat weaker and weaker.

I tried starving, I tried everything I could, I wanted to be a bird so bad. But it just wasn’t working out.

The bird stopped working.

The other crows held a funeral service for me, even though I was still alive. I tried to tell them, but I’m not good at speaking, you remember.

It was all just a big mess.

I haven't seen Baxter since, but I still think about him a lot.

Is that weird?

I’m totally over it though, haha.

After that incident, I got kind of depressed... I possessed a lot of trash animals—gulls, racoons, and salespeople. I did what I could to survive. That’s kind of where I am now.

I am currently living in Miami florida—been body surfing almost every day (haha). Right now I’m using a library computer and a librarian. She does not like being possessed, boy howdy are these fingers twitching. But you can thank her for my halfway decent grammar.

I’m tired of feeling like a parasite.

I want to try a different approach.

I want to be friends? Like with Richard Baxter except I also live in your brain and drink your blood sometimes. But I’ll make you bread in your sleep, so it’s okay.

It’s been really hard finding someone willing to put up with me.

I’ve tried everything.

So I thought I would put up an advertisement online, why not?

Can’t say the P word in real life, but you can hear it in your head loud enough I hope.

I know I kept saying that I would compensate you financially, but I’m going to be real with you, I don’t have much. I’ve got like twenty bucks, some small pieces of plastic and a book about...finance....

But I’m a real hoot! ;D

So,

(P)lease,

If you are interested, leave your comments below. I would love to get to know you :)

I need to go now, the library is closing soon, but I’ll get back as soon as I can.

#short fiction #short story #writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #this is a story I posted on reddit a few years ago #and I'm reposting it here #Pie writes #parasite #mind control parasite #yeerk #animorphs #body snatcher #nosleep #r/nosleep

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introverting-rn · 4 months

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was gonna start post with something along the lines of “why aren’t we addressing” but thats literal bullshit because we are all addressing it and So Am I

WHY IS THE CHARACTERISATION OF THE TRIO LITERALLY SO PERFECT YOU GUYS

it was perfect in the first two episodes too but this one just has me feeling so much i have to talk about it

“i am impertinent” and beginning to sing the consensus song - immediately a perfect persassy, and the returning annabeths cap is so cute i adore it, but also the conversation with medusa about his mother was incredibly done! i was leaning forwards to drink in every detail of the scene and i’m probably gonna go rewatch it now because WOW. the suspense was such a tangible, beautiful thing, and the sense of greed that seemed to sparkle in medusas eyes when we had still never seen her without the hat is seriously blowing my mind. her framing and tilts of the head and the antique feeling of her kitchen all hone in towards the scene and it’s messages and i found myself genuinely confronted as i tried to figure out which medusa story the show was going with. leaving that somewhat vague as the audience has to choose if we trust her as a narrator is so powerful in dragging you into the story. it means that what you believe reflects on you; there is no way to detach yourself from this world and the choices you are making within it, even as a mere spectator

and as she made the offer to percy and there was a long stretch of those camera angles, tilted ever so sweetly in such a menacing atmosphere, i was desperately trying to picture what percy’s reaction would be. i had expected him to have interrupted her already, to immediately cut through with a sharp “no” and cause her head to jolt up. i thought she would keep her chin high, turning sharply to face him in contrast to her flowing elegance, and that her head would be tilted back so that she could stare directly at him beneath the hat, tongue flicking over her teeth as she dropped her facade. i thought percy would instinctively go to match her eye contact with determination and be tackled by annabeth, who crept up to eavesdrop due to her suspicion, or that percy would look away by staring up at the sky, feeling isolated as medusa swept steadily towards him, and that we would see his eyes swim with tears and his legs refuse to move and his breathing increase as medusa ran a fingernail along his neck, and then annabeth would intervene

when percy didn’t shout to interrupt, i expected to cut back and see his face, wrought with raw emotion. i thought that he would let that moment of connection stretch, having felt so lonely before meeting this person who spoke exactly to his heart. i waited to see the grief and wrestling that it took him to refuse to help his mother, to accept the similar motherly figure before him as an enemy. i wondered if maybe we wouldn’t see his reaction now, and his silence would later be used against him as he himself is accused of betraying their quest

but the silence drew out for longer and longer, and when medusa turned her head to see the doorway completely empty, i realised that was the only thing that he would have done. i realised that he would think of the immediate danger to his friends first and go to warn them, and i realised that there was more to come and i loved every second of it

i loved seeing grover try to maintain peace on the quest. his look of disappointment at percy for sniping about thalia’s “fate of a pine cone”, and his refusal to comment about the validity of the voting system under totalitarian leadership (looking at you putin). the clapping for the consensus song had me so confused in the moment and then had me smiling uncontrollably with an extreme fondness because his awkwardness and his sincerity were so clearly shown. the finally shouting at percy and annabeth to get a grip, not having wanted to upset either of them but realising that letting this continue was only making it worse - man, this character is so wonderful. add to that the emotional weight of staring up at uncle ferdinand, feeling the presence of his failed quest heavy in the room as their current one began to fall apart. how he tried to conceal his tears, to be the Protector, not seeming to consider that his friends wanted to look after him too, perhaps because they themselves had forgotten to do so. he is so sweet and genuine and there’s such a depth and intricacy to his character in the show that i don’t remember from the books, although that may just be because i was younger when i first read them, or because seeing these people on screen is so much closer and more confronting in some ways

and annabeth. i fucking love annabeth. i love that she’s a bit of a dick in some ways, but that you’re never expected to hold it against her - it’s never presented as cruelty, just as pragmatism, because that’s what it is. as the same time, she can hold grudges, and they don’t shy from that. as i mentioned earlier, it’s constantly called into question which medusa narrative is the ‘correct’ one, and the way medusa describes to both annabeth and percy how they are direct parallels to the original story makes her feel so manipulative, and you feel annabeths faith in her previous notion of the story wavering as yours does, deeply connecting her with the audience. the way she explains her plan on the bus shows that she doesn’t expect herself to be so intelligent that nobody else understands - a common struggle in hubris - and her complete unwillingness to allow this plan to be questioned shows the leading nature she’s forced herself into. yes, annabeth is an incredible natural leader and strategist, but her refusal to show weakness is a sign of the struggles in her life. she confronts alectus on her own - self-centred or selfless? and in that final interaction with percy, the way she gives way just enough for both of them to discuss the offers they were given and understand each other. it was such a good moment to see that, even after percy’s unintentional acidity to her in saying they’ll never be friends, the two are laying down the basis for a firm trust and absolute belief in each other. she is such a well-rounded character so far and i am obsessed

not even to mention characters outside of this! luke’s slight hints of emotion as he alludes to his past, the hand the world has dealt him and how he has come to terms with it, are such perfect foreshadowing for those of us familiar with his character (which. by the way. i haven’t been on tumblr a lot recently so are we going for no spoilers or what lol). mr d claiming to be percy’s dad was a strong introduction of character in a way that makes me question why that didn’t happen in the book, and it lead into seamless exposition of the whole reason for demigods and quests. sally jackson is sally jackson and i fucking love her.

basically i am really enjoying the pj show, and loving every element - the biggest kudos to everyone working on it an aLSO ARE PERCY AND NICO GONNA NERD OUT TOGETHER ABOUT MYTHOMAGIC BYE 😭😭

#how in the heck is this show so perfect you guys #and how is it making me ship percabeth more than before?? and love grover’s friendship more than before?? yo this is pure Art #and they aren’t afraid to change things from the books to make the message better and that’s so refreshing #percy jackon and the olympians #percy jackson #annabeth chase #grover underwood #luke castellan #persassy #percabeth #cmon you know i gotta tag that #anyways love you guys!! make sure to sleep a good amount and eat well!! God bless!!!!!!!

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idolatrybarbie · 5 months

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pairing: marcus pike x fem!reader

word count & rating: 3.9k | explicit - minor free zone!

summary: you wish marcus a happy thirty-sixth birthday. the sequel to two lonely people.

warnings: social isolation, self doubt, anxiety, themes of alienation, light angst, fluff, marcus has the cutest stretch marks and freckles, reader is described as same height and/or shorter than marcus, smut - mentions of intercrural sex, cum eating, grinding, handjob, sex toys, praise kink, exhibitionism, nipple play, vibrator play, cuddling(!!!).

notes: wrote this sporadically throughout my weekend away, shout-out to sima for letting me blab on and on about pedro boy porn. truly in my marcus era, i am a man possessed. these sex toys [x] [x] are also real! in case you were curious.

Bender stretches out on the couch beside you, his long and lanky body bowing low. His hairy belly brushes against the fabric of the cushion when you scratch beneath his chin. The mission of an early afternoon nap has been well accomplished. You push yourself into a sitting position, letting Bender jump to the carpet and stroll away. The grey-white of the cushions contrasts the red of the walls perfectly; in another life, Marcus must have been an interior designer.

You watch your cat—yes, yours—settle atop the orange loveseat across from you, dotted with crimson and tangerine throw pillows. Everything inside Marcus’ place is so rich and vibrant, a constant splash of colour no matter where you look. It makes you feel good to be here, like you belong. Every night spent across the street from your own home feels like a glorious field trip.

You've been coming around for four months, and Marcus has never turned you away. He's your boyfriend now, a label and structure that hasn't existed in your life for what felt like aeons. You've had to modify your habits a little bit—boyfriends get worried when you don't text or show for four days. They show up at your front door ready to call someone—a hospital or an ambulance, or your mother, god forbid.

It has been more difficult to adjust than you thought it would be. As it turns out, once you live a life of solitude, incorporating people back into it is a little like pulling teeth. It’s not that you don't like it, crave that contact. You simply don't think of it. You don't take into consideration whether or not Marcus is missing you because that feels like a little too much. Too much thought from another thrown your way, too much care about you as a person.

You're finding that Marcus almost strictly operates in the realm of too much. Too much time, too much attention dedicated to you. It's a seed of guilt that you've swallowed. The feeling has rooted itself in your chest, stringy vines encircling your lungs. Surely he has something better to do: work, maybe, or visit family and friends. But he seems to want to spend almost every night with you.

You watch movies, chat dinner plans, fuck—though it doesn't really feel like fucking. Marcus brings sweetness to your tender care, delivering praise to each of your soft touches. You love learning his body. The glow in his eyes when he makes you feel good could light the night sky, you're sure of it.

Time with him injects a new type of levity into your life that animals can't bring. Even with Bender as your own now, after Anne-Marie admitted to you his care was too much for her to handle, Marcus brings a presence to your life that makes you feel a little more assured. It's cliché, but it's true.

Tonight, you're waiting for him to come home from a late shift at work. No pet clients this week, you’ve been making yourself comfortable at Pike’s place for the past few days—since that fateful evening he knocked on your door, presuming you dead or worse.

Earlier, you texted him asking when he'd be home and almost dropped your phone. Home. Marcus hadn’t seemed to notice, but the message stopped you short. Maybe you’re a little too comfortable.

Later than I’d like, he’d replied.

His guesstimate was closer to bedtime than dinner. You told him not to worry; you’d still be here waiting. It's his birthday, after all. You are determined to celebrate, even if it's after a long day of catching criminals.

You’ve got a whole thing prepared. A silver birthday banner hanging above the kitchen entryway, his gift on the coffee table. And dinner, of course: chupe and warm bread for dipping, along with sopapillas and ice cream cake for dessert. You've never put so much effort into something like this for another person—never gotten the chance to.

Picking his gift was probably the hardest part of the process. You'd bugged Marcus over and over about an online wishlist. Anything that he needed for his place, any wants. His answer was always the same, eliciting an eye roll every time: you.

“You can't gift a person,” is always your counter, to which the man wholeheartedly disagrees. He has everything he wants; a feeling you cannot understand. Everything he wants and all he seems to want is you.

When Marcus makes it through his front door, the sky is dark. You’re asleep again, body laid across the couch as Bender sits in a comfy loaf across your ribs and diaphragm. His purring moves through your chest, keeping you warm without a blanket. The peaceful scene is disrupted when Marcus drops his bag to the floor a little too loud, waking you. It’s less of a slow, sleepy roll and more of a sharp gasp. The intake scares the cat, Bender leaping from you. He lands on the floor easily.

“Marcus,” you sigh.

“It’s me!” he smiles, his tone one of mock celebration.

“I fell asleep.” An astute observation on your part, you rub the sleep from your eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Marcus approaches the couch, holding a hand out to help you stand. You take it, pulling yourself up with his weight as an anchor. He manages to get you into the hold of his arms before you realize, giving you a warm hug. He’s a little sweaty today, salt mixing in with natural sweetness at the collar of his shirt.

“Don’t be sorry,” Marcus says.

You start to move, readjusting the huddle of two so he’s at least facing the strung up banner. “Happy birthday,” you whisper. “I made dinner.”

He hums against your cheek. “All this for little ol’ me?”

“Yes,” you say. “And dessert. And a gift.” You nod at the coffee table, like he can even see you with his chin over your shoulder.

“You didn’t have to do this,” Marcus says.

“I already did. And I wanted to, so it’s done. Come on.” You squeeze your arms around him. “Let’s eat.”

You sit him down at the table, not letting Marcus lift a finger as you bring out two bowls. The shrimp stew has been on the stove, simmering at a low temperature since you finished cooking. You bring the pot out of the kitchen and set it on a cork trivet. When he looks past the lip of the pot, Marcus’ face splits into a disbelieving smile.

“I could kiss you right now,” he says, ass hovering from his chair.

“Sit. You can kiss me later.” You ladle chupe into Marcus’ bowl, then your own. “Shit, spoons. Just a second.” Getting up again, Marcus catches your wrist as you pass the side of the table.

“Honey,” he says.

“I’ll just be a second.”

“You’re doing too much.”

“I’m not,” you insist. “I—can I…”

Your eyes tell it better than your words can, staring down at him. Please let me do this for you. Marcus lets you go, and you return a minute later with a pair of spoons.

You sit down at the table. Marcus simply stares at you. You start to smile before twisting your lips, looking down at your bowl.

“What?” you ask. When he doesn’t say anything, you repeat yourself.

“Nothing.” Marcus shakes his head.

“There’s something.”

“You. You’re just…incredible.”

You shrug. “I wanted to do something a little bit special. I know it’s not a super big deal—”

“The woman who has a freezer stocked with heat-and-eat lasagna made me chupe.”

“Sopapillas, too. They’re in the microwave.”

“And sopapillas. This is such a big deal,” Marcus says.

You hate to admit it, but your heart swells. This is such a big deal. God, you really do lo—

Marcus watches you expectantly, like he's just asked a question. You have no idea what he said. Instead you smile and nod. Then you dip your spoon into the food.

Watching him eat is the best part. Every bite is a reaction, seeing the flavours splash over his tongue turning into something of a spectator sport. Marcus takes seconds but declines a third helping, obediently letting you clean up from dinner and bring out the aforementioned fried dough pouches.

In central Chile, they make sopapillas with pumpkin—in the north, that's not so much the case. Marcus has told you where his family is from, Arica, right near the border with Peru. Part of your disappearing act last week had to do with the last round of research and planning for tonight. By the time you’d nailed the recipe, you’d gotten caught up in looking at maps and learning the country’s history.

“I know it's not one hundred percent,” you say, referring to the food. “Not too sure if I cooked the sauce long enough.”

The cinnamon syrup was the difficult part of the cooking operation. Unsure if Marcus would like a thicker or thinner consistency, you spooned in corn syrup ‘til the liquid took on a half-runny, half-gloopy viscosity.

Marcus speaks with his mouth still full. “It's fucking delicious.” He cuts himself off at three, promising to finish the rest for breakfast.

You scoot away to the kitchen for the final time tonight, taking the ice cream cake out of the fridge. Admittedly, you got a little carried away with it. Ninety dollars on a cake sounds like highway robbery, but it's worth it for the look on his face.

As you set the cake down on the table before him, Marcus looks at a perfectly printed image of his own dopey grin. Jutting out from his mouth is a speech bubble made of icing and carefully placed fondant. He's wishing himself a happy birthday.

You stand by his shoulder, watching his expression. He seems to be stuck halfway between amazement and amusement; just what you wanted. When he joins you on his feet, it's to kiss you—long, deep, and slow. You lean into it, into him, his soft strength supporting you as Marcus caresses your upper arm. Then he grabs your elbow, gently placing each forearm at his sides to cage him in. You hear Bender more than see him, feeling him rub his head against your shin.

“This is the best birthday ever,” Marcus says.

“Including or ignoring that you’re four years out from fourty?” you ask.

His nose brushes against yours. “Don't be a smartass,” he breathes, voice all play.

You both only take a small slice of the cake, bellies full of your homemade dinner. You won't be telling Marcus about the trial batches of shrimp stew that were ultimately fed to the dogs in your care, woefully forgotten as you added another bag of the fresh shellfish to your grocery order.

When you're finished, you start to clear the table. Marcus insists on helping at this part, leaving no room for discussion when he plucks the stack of bowls and spoons from your hands. You wrap the cake and put it back in the fridge, along with the chupe and sopapillas, both in airtight containers. Marcus washes as you dry, navigating his kitchen like an expert when you go to put things away. Well, not like an expert—you are one. After today, you can run this room blindfolded.

When all is said and done, Marcus leans you against the kitchen counter. He plants a kiss to your cheek, slowly heading southbound to your jaw, then your neck.

You giggle as he reaches the soft skin of your throat. “Still got your present waiting for you.”

“You're right here,” he says.

“Hardy har,” you intone. Pushing at his shoulders, Marcus lets up. “On the coffee table.”

He takes the lead back to the living room, sitting on his couch to eye the sleek black box that awaits him. You can't sit, running a thumb over your lips as Marcus takes the gift in his hands. He shakes it, causing you to roll your eyes.

“You're killing me here, Pike.”

“I'm appreciating the fine cardboard craftsmanship,” he says of the box. As much artisanal handiwork as the dollar store gift aisle can grant you, anyway.

Finally, Marcus lifts the lid from the box. On a soft pillow of red and white tissue paper lies the three things you got him, as well as a small card. You watch him take one of the gifts from the box, squeezing it. Nerves claw at your stomach. He takes his time to analyze it, flip it over and flip it again in his hand.

“This is cool,” he says, almost absentmindedly. Then to you, “These stress toys?”

That anxious cord inside snaps, taking you down with it. You're in free fall as your skin goes warm with embarrassment, your palms the only thing shielding you from the world.

“No,” you sigh softly.

It's a shitty gift. That much is clear when he can't even tell what it is. You should have stuck with something simple, like a bookstore gift card. But no, you had to go out on a whim.

Marcus asks if you're okay, words laced with tender concern. You take three seconds to recompose yourself and prepare for what comes next. Pulling a mask together, your hands come away from your face.

“They're, um—well. They're sex toys. Grinding toys made of silicone to…” You clear your throat. “Those are soft... The other one is sort of a vibrator.” Marcus follows your words, looking down at the small green device. “It was a bad gift idea. I thought you would like ‘em.”

If you click your heels three times, will the universe grant you mercy and travel you home? Squeezing your eyes shut for a second, you swallow the knot in your throat. Opening them again, your boyfriend is still here. No dice.

He stands, bringing the box with him. You take a seat on the loveseat, letting him join you. As much as you want to curl inwards and die, for a lack of better words, Marcus will want to talk about it. Understand.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” you return. Looking at him makes it hard to retreat into yourself.

“It's a great gift.”

“You don't have to say that.”

“I mean it,” he insists. “This is good.”

Watching his thick fingers rub over the meat of the toy should not turn you on as much as it does, a low simmer between your legs. The soft ridges of the floppy one in his hand look a little Georgia O’Keefe; the lines of an abstract vulva. You stop yourself from picturing that hand by your thighs, cupping you where you want Marcus the most.

“I figured because you like to grind on me, this might add something more to it. Just for fun,” you shrug.

Like to is an understatement. If observing Marcus Pike is a competitive display, when it comes to grinding, you're going pro. In bed, he rubs his cock against you—your thighs, your ass, your chest—and against the sheets. He's very into intercrural, first showing you a video of the act on the night of your two month anniversary before putting yourselves to the test.

His favourite, though, is to rub against the top of your thigh as you make out and watch him. He likes the attention, and you love giving it to him. When Marcus finishes, he lets you feed him his cum with the pads of your fingers.

He kisses you softly now, hand at your cheek as he rubs the skin close to your ear.

“It's a great fuckin’ gift,” Marcus assures you. “Just needed the clue in.”

“You don't have to reassure me,” you say, shaking your head. You hate when this happens. Tonight is about him, and suddenly it's your emotions taking centre stage. Sometimes it feels like you take up all the air in the room.

“I want to,” Marcus says.

He wants to. You could melt.

“Did you want to try them?” you ask. “The toys?”

“Please.” He nods in the direction of the stairs, prompting you to lead the way.

You take Marcus by the hand, leading the way as he follows you up to his bedroom. In the months of being together, the rush to the bed has dissipated. Neither of you are any less eager, but you know now that Marcus isn't going anywhere. There is a sense of security here that you haven't ever felt before.

When you cross the threshold of the room, you take your time with undressing him. It's an unwrapping of sorts. The buttons of his shirt come away easily, sliding off Marcus’ shoulders to the floor. Next is his belt, clinking lightly as you reach down and pull the leather strap from his waist. He takes his pants and boxers off for you, leaving the man in the nude.

You leave yourself a moment to simply look. Taking him in with your eyes, you smile. Who has blessed you with such a beautiful, understanding man and how can you ever repay them? The heat of his body pressed against the skin bared by your rolled up sleeves makes you shiver. You want forever to hold him. Have him be yours.

Cool fingers run across Marcus’ bare hip. You trace the marks of thinned skin near his waist. He watches you carefully, breath held. You blow air against his lips before kissing him hungrily. Like this, you can taste him: vanilla ice cream and butterscotch.

Pulling him to the bed, you let him get comfortable. Marcus has left the box of toys on the nightstand. You leave them for now, straddling his thighs before you take his dick in your hand. He’s all warm and smooth against your palm, the ridge of a vein pressing against your thumb.

Marcus sucks in a small gasp as you start to move your hand. He gently takes hold of the base of your skull, resting your forehead to his. He looks at you, unblinking. The two of you are caught in a bit of a staring contest; you never want to pull your eyes away from his beautiful face. Those full lips pout for you, forming something like your name in precious whispers.

“Shhh, you’re okay,” you say. “I love you.” Marcus’ eyes roll to the back of his skull, his hips tilting further up into your touch.

This man is the sun to your stars. You don’t quite orbit each other, but he makes you feel that much brighter. You two are cut from the same cloth; scorching infernos no one ever truly gets to see, not quite within the grasp of others. But here, it’s different. A focused fire meets an exploding astral scatter.

“You’re always so good to me, Marcus,” you whisper. “I’m so lucky.”

“Fuck, you’re so—god.” He doesn’t get much more coherent.

You reach for the toys with your free hand, distracting him with gentle kisses across the constellations that dot his chest. A thousand tiny sun spots beneath the plush of your lips. You could stay here forever, feeling his skin against you.

First, you start with the soft silicone toy without the vibe. You squeeze it in your hand to warm it up, then bring it close to Marcus.

“Can I touch you with this?”

“Please,” he nods.

You take it into the hand already in contact with his cock, sliding the toy against him slowly. Marcus groans, tipping his head back. His eyes close briefly before flying back open.

Immediately, you stop what you are doing. “You alright?”

“You’re still fully dressed.” He speaks as if he’s just realized the situation at hand.

You simply nod. “Yeah.”

“Would you wanna…” Marcus glances down at his naked body.

“Tonight is about you,” you say.

“Well, I want you to. If you want to.”

You’ve been ignoring the tacky feeling in your underwear, letting the seam of your pants do the work for you as you watch Marcus.

“Okay.”

You let Marcus undress you, pressing pause on sex. His hands rove over you as he peels the shirt from your skin, making quick work of everything below the waist. He settles your cunt over his cock, gliding you forward and back with his hands. You take in a breath, reveling in the slide against your clit. When Marcus lifts his hips just so, you moan. You use his shoulders as a hold, balancing to stay upright.

Taking the silicone toy, you place it between his pelvis and the length of his dick. Then you hover over the underside of him once again. When you sit down, pussy slick against his length, Marcus huffs out a desperate groan. You grind against him, giving him friction at either side.

“Feels so fucking good,” Marcus says. “I…you’re so fucking warm. Wet.”

“Yeah? That’s what you do to me. So sweet, such a good man,” you say. His hands come to rest at your hips again. “Wanna flip me over?”

Marcus nods, readjusting so that he’s overtop of you now. He slots the toy between the crux of skin at your thigh, grinding against it as he presses light touches to your clit. Focused on his pleasure, he keeps his eyes closed as he ruts into you. Marcus kisses you as he cums, stickiness painting your skin.

He travels down your body with his mouth, trailing lips and tongue across your collarbone. Marcus licks at your left nipple before he latches onto it. Your spine pulls taut as you cup his head to your breast, petting his hair in encouragement. When he leaves your chest, he moves straight to the cum against your skin. As you watch him lick it off the front of your hip, you’re sure that you have died and gone to heaven.

Marcus laves his tongue over the skin between your belly and pelvis, watching for your reaction. He leaves your body for only a moment. When he comes into focus again, he’s holding the green vibrating toy in his hand.

Turning it on, he asks, “Is this okay?” as he presses it to your pubic bone.

You nod, an mhm coming out more like a slight whine.

He moves it lower and lower, tracing the tip of the pear-shaped device around your wetness.

“Where do you want it?” The question is playfully facetious; he knows exactly where you want it.

“Marcus, please,” you sigh.

He hums, nose inches above your soft and swollen cunt. “You know I’ll always give you what you want.”

Marcus presses the toy against you, the round and squishy body subtly buzzing against your cunt as the tip delivers a direct point of pressure to your clit. He shifts it every few moments, the readjustments pushing you further and faster towards the edge. It’s the kiss that does it for you, tender as he cradles the side of your face with his large hand. The caress of his ring finger against your cheek cuts the cord, your orgasm rocking your body like volts of electricity.

“You’re so gorgeous like this,” he murmurs. Marcus turns the toy off, releasing you from the overwhelming waves of pleasure. Cradling your back to his front, he kisses the crown of your head.

“I love you too, y’know,” Marcus says.

“Hm?” You shift in his arms, looking at him now. “What did you say?”

The way you bat your eyes at him tells Marcus that you heard him perfectly fine. He shakes his head with a light chuckle. “I said—”

“I love you.” You steal the words from him the same way he’s taken your heart.

Marcus Pike is many things: your neighbour, your boyfriend. A lover and a thief. He’s offered up his guts to you so easily, your prize for taking a chance. This man is a gift. A teacher. You're re-learning what it's like to have someone be there. To live and feel the art of giving.

#marcus pike #the mentalist fanfiction #marcus pike fanfiction #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedrostories #marcus pike x reader #*lover be sweet

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seasurfacefullofclouds1 · 2 months

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Hey Sea, I hope you're doing all right! Because of some personal family issues I haven't caught up to many things fandom & pop culture wise until now. Style's "transformation", in terms of both personality and career choices, becoming even worse after FL was predictable in my honest opinion. I think someone that empty simply does not deserve many words to describe him so I will not even bother. I must say though there is one thing that I simply cannot not help but mention and that is the Danny

2/3 Zuko Halloween makeover. I do not think Harry needs larries anymore for a sustainable career, and if he does, he has way easier techniques and less impersonal ones to do that. This one was definitely personal towards louis. Now we don’t know what really happened between them, they're just two strangers for us, at the end of the day. However it’s very clear they meant something for each other, even if just on friendly terms.

3/3 For him to what? Taunt Louis? Or make him pay attention to him? Desperate. Pathetic. Desperate! Quite creepy. Ridiculous. And yes, hilarious too. Except that I am not laughing with Harry, I am laughing at him. It gives me pleasure that Louis seems, at least from our perspective, to not give him any attention. Is that petty? Oh well! Anyways that's all I wanted to say, stay safe everyone!

Hi anon!

I agree with your interpretation and general read. I think that Larries trying to make this into a romantic gesture, and Harries trying to play this off as just Harry dressing up as a popular musical theater character, really underestimate One Direction’s, and specifically Louis Tomlinson’s, effect on Harry Styles’ psychology.

I’m not going to pretend to understand it, either. But the fact is that whatever impact Louis had on Harry is profoundly lasting, and it drives him to do some absolutely insane things.

The curious thing is that Harry has been surrounded by grown men trying to shape him into a rock ‘n roll messiah for more than 12 years. They’ve isolated him, sheltered him from all sorts of criticism, enabled him to get massively wealthy and sell out stadiums, given him Vogue covers and Met galas and allowed him to share the stage with legends. They’ve given Harry the opportunity to meet the wealthy and famous and to have experiences he (and the rest of 1D) couldn’t possibly imagine when they were starting out.

They’ve isolated Harry from peers for years, made him live the life of a 40-year-old businessman before he even turned 30. His closest friends are people with contacts, connections, companies, power— middle-aged or old men. There are no organic friendships in sight.

Yet Harry remembers about Danny Zuko! And wore the Harryween cosplay out of some kind of psychological compulsion!

Usually Harry cosplays for clout, so this was different— cosplaying in lieu of actual communication. He wanted attention, and specifically, attention from Louis.

But why? Was Harry bragging about his playground, Madison Square Garden?

It’s a very Kanye-Kim-Taylor spat-for-PR thing to do. Very on brand for Hardashian Styles. But also completely, pathetically unhinged.

The other thing I’ll add is that — my personal observation only — Harry might be business savvy, but he does not know how to cultivate longterm personal relationships. It’s always about quarterly earnings reports and not trust, compassion, empathy, and really, human love. Nothing is ever done without strings attached— Harry Styles is only about strings. There aren’t any romantic relationships longer than 2 years, ones without a professional agenda.

It’s a very empty emotional life. Harry’s face looks empty. His Instagram page feels frigid, isolating, posed, lonely. Whatever this means with regards to Danny Zuko— almost turning a fun high school moment into a garish pop culture caricature— is also incredibly sad.

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perplexingluciddreams · 17 days

Text

having Thoughts and Feelings about gender and sexuality shit. again. so... here is some rambling:

i am definitely female + like being female (or at least feel neutral about it). except breasts. chest is the only thing i want to change about my body.

but also kinda a boy. but only in the way of specific things that i, personally, have grouped together and assigned the label of "boy".

and if i described my general stance on my own gender without using any labels, most people would mentally assign it as some variant of nonbinary (i think?). or "agender". but i don't like those words because i don't have a personal connection with what they mean at all.

pretty much all dysphoria stuff revolves around physical body for me - and part of my reasons for that is disability based (like sensory + causing physical pain, limiting clothing, limiting mobility, etc.). but also i have much lower awareness of my own body AND other people's bodies and physical characteristics that might make someone "clock" male/female. so there is a lot i don't care about, simply because i have never noticed it.

my preferences about how i am called - name and pronouns - is mostly about the choice, really. and he/him is one of the things that my brain groups together under the word "boy". which i like! i always wished i was a "boy" as a kid (but only in these specific ways that i personally thought of as part of "being a boy").

a BIG part of wishing i was a boy when i was younger was because all the boys i saw around me seemed so comfortable in their bodies and physically able to move around and command their bodies to do what they wanted. which is always something i yearned for. (and also something i will never have to the extent that i wish for, because i am simply too disabled).

but also really wish i didn't have all the gender feelings so i could just be... a lesbian??? or something. or something? i don't know.

also don't even know at all what my sexuality is (like, NO idea) and have no avenue to explore it all. literally no in-person contact with anyone outside of parents and sister. i can't work anything real out with only access to hypotheticals.

don't feel like i can base any labels i use for myself around other people (or my attraction to other people). because i am barely aware that other people exist majority of the time.

and have no sense of community with other queer people, not really. sure there is online a tiny bit, but i can't fit into that anywhere because i am too disabled. already said i have no in-person contact, so that affects this very much too. i feel very lonely and cut-off and isolated in this respect.

obviously, also the fact that i have such little awareness of how anyone else experiences gender or sexuality means that i will never have a "gauge" for where my experience fits in. no matter how well i express it (which also never feels good enough).

and most of all i wish that i wasn't the way i am. because even if i find the perfect way to express it, even if i find community in the future, even if i get top surgery and feel finally at home in my body - the world will always be more cruel to me because of the way i am.

already there is intrinsic difficulty and cruelty from the world because i am disabled, which cannot change at all. it is permanent. but i just wish i wasn't queer, as well, on top of that. it might make things a wee bit less complicated and difficult.

or maybe it is just that i want to be comfortable and happy. and wish it wasn't so difficult to be me. i don't know. i only know it is hard, and i want it to be easy.

anyway, ramble over. for now.

#from the chaos of my mind #autism #autistic #developmentally disabled #disabled #gender #sexuality #queer #transsexual #transgender #trans #swearing

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iamaweretoad · 4 months

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Did you maybe get a chance to develop an idea for your Rogue Trader? What are they like? And, perhaps most importantly, how do they get along with the members of their retinue? 😊

I am so glad you enjoy the game, hope you have a great day!! 💜

Thank you for enabling me! 💜

god this game is giving me hella brainworms, so apologies in advance for how long this got!

His name is Mago Vanth, though he goes exclusively by his surname and has for a while now. It's a bit awkward with his fancy new surname tacked onto it (all those v's), but so is he, so.... XD

Crime lord background. Lawful neutral. Loyal to his people (crew/gang/etc) and nothing else. Ruthless when necessary. Fast talking. Pragmatic (until he's not). He has a talent for people and synthesizing information/perspectives. Good at tactics, bad at combat (he's gonna give Abelard a heart attack one of these fights). Be gay do crimes.

He was born in a hive world slum. Orphaned at 9 after his mother got sucked into a chaos cult and tried to sacrifice him and his sibling. Started his life of crime young and by his late 20s he was running a successful gang. Unfortunately the leaders of the larger syndicate that his gang was part of ALSO got involved in some Chaos shit, and Vanth was arrested as part of the investigation/crackdown.

I went with Shadow of Torment from the 'Darkest Hour' section of character creation ("You were arrested and thoroughly interrogated using creative and violent methods."), so.... yeah. He claims he lost his eye in a fight, but in reality it was a result of the interrogation.

He (barely) survives and manages to escape, but by that point he is a complete wreck and everyone he knows/cares about is dead, arrested or wants *him* dead for betraying them. So he runs, as far towards the outer rim (or whatever the in-universe equivalent is) as the money in his bailout stash will get him and begins the process of trying to piece himself and his life back together.

8? 10? years later, he's clawed his way up to being the leader of a successful smuggling syndicate (not huge, but a respectable size) when he gets press-ganged into the Von Valencias dynasty.

He's spent his whole life living/working outside of (and often in conflict with) the establishment. And now he IS the establishment and it's killing him. More than that, though, it's the title that he's really struggling with. Heinrix has that line at the beginning of Act 2, something about if you land on Footfall incognito it will be your last chance to be treated like a person -- and like, he means it in a subterfuge/reconnaissance way, not a existential way, but it's still very much true in an existential way. Vanth isn't a person anymore, he's a title, and it's terrifyingly isolating and lonely and he has no idea how to navigate it.

The only thing that is keeping him from drowning completely is a) he is very good at people, and b) he has never known stability in his entire life and is a firm believer in "no plan survives contact with the enemy" so he is very adept at improvising/adapting on the spot. But the amount of focus and energy this requires isn't really sustainable, and it's only a matter of time before he burns himself out.

***

Re: companions -- I just got to Footfall, so I've only got their Act 1 introductions so far (and haven't met the later companions yet). But in terms of very early impressions:

Abelard: Space Dad. They butt heads a fair bit, but his experience and advice is invaluable, and he's the one person Vanth can sorta lean on for support (professionally if not emotionally -- yet). He also seems unafraid to tell Vanth bluntly to his face when he thinks he's being an idiot, which is an indispensable quality even if Vanth doesn't always agree with his position.

Idira: Sibling energy. Someone else who found a way to exist outside of the system. The only person he can have a normal (to him) conversation with. Basically his reaction to Idira was "oh thank fuck someone sane".

Argenta: nails-on-a-blackboard levels of uncomfortable. She swings wildly between compassion, contempt and fanaticism and he cannot get a bead on her. He respects her skill in combat, but he does not trust her at all, AND she picks on Idira, so she's on thin fucking ice.

Cassia: He is trying to remember that she's still a kid (technically an adult, I assume, but he's in his mid to late thirties, so to him she's a kid). And she's a kid who has been intensely isolated, indoctrinated and infantilized her entire life and who has not, until like a week ago EVER come in contact with any information that challenges her perception of reality/worldview. He is also trying to remember that when someone is actually willing to talk to her about that conflicting information, she seems willing to sit with the discomfort and objectively consider it, and in some cases change her view/behavior in response (which is more than can be said for some of the other party members). He is trying to remember that and not have a kneejerk reaction every time she opens her mouth about commoners, but goddamn it's a struggle. Not helped by the fact that even if he succeeds, she can still tell he's angry because she's an empath. He's working on it. He likes her, he's just so fucking tired.

Pasqal: TBD. He doesn't quite know what to make of him yet. (i feel like Pasqual had a much higher ratio of exposition to personal dialogue than the other companions in Act 1 -- which entirely fits the character, but doesn't give me a lot to work with XD)

Heinrix: IT'S COMPLICATED. They got off on the wrong foot for starters, walking in on him interrogating an enemy. Instant trauma flashbacks for Vanth, and then Heinrix immediately escalated the tension by threatening Idira. As first impressions go, could not have been worse. Luckily there was still a station full of cultists trying to kill them and combat is a hell of an icebreaker. He's still a walking trigger and the way he asks questions sets Vanth's teeth on edge, but things are more or less civil between them for now. Vanth values his pragmatism, and he's been kind to Cassia and he helped Evayne (and even Idira in that last combat). And every so often there is a hint of a person underneath all the dogma and red-tape officiousness, which makes Vanth curious despite himself.

#thank you again for the lovely ask!#i hope you are having a great day as well! <3

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okthatsgreat · 5 months

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Hi! Could you do th

HGBDFJGSH YES I CAN !!!!!!!!!!!!!! again like celeste we are reaching lands where i am not extremely familiar with him so forgive me hifumi stans if i fuck up your boy

headcanon a (realistic): he started dabbling in animation!! i dont think he was necessarily planning on scoping out from princess piggles IMMEDIATELY but i definitely think he wondered where his ultimate talent could take him yknow... and considering his artistic ability he picks up animation suuuuper quickly. all of his animations are fic related for the moment but i think in the future when his years long hyperfixation starts to die down a bit he ventures into original work!!! speaking of i think this guy doodles fucking EVERYWHERE like any surface he can get. never give him your notes because he will turn it into his personal sketchpad. dont let him write anything on the chalkboard because he will just start drawing anime girls with wild proportions. makoto turned away from his test for a few seconds to check the clock and when he turned back hifumi had sketched out an entire manga page on his paper. also i headcanon that he tends to bite his tongue when he's concentrated so his friends know when to leave him be LMFAO

headcanon b (may not be realistic but it is hilarious): he plays a lottt of gacha games but cycles through them very very often. every three weeks or so he comes to class playing a completely different mobile game that his classmates have to research because sometimes it is OBSCURE. he's spent so much of his money on loot boxes it is crazy. his friends stage a mock intervention for him at one point. ALSO ALSO get this man into dnd he'd be a pretty awesome dm once he got the hang of it

headcanon c (heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends): hifumi was already an extremely lonely character however i cant imagine him immediately growing close to anybody in a postgame setting, ESPECIALLY after what he did to taka and what celeste did to him. this is a guy with an inflated sense of justice from some sort of hero complex, and i think the guilt of realising he was manipulated into celeste's biddings would genuinely eat him alive. plus he's definitely accustomed to isolation, i think it would just be easier for him to grieve everything on his own rather than attempt to bond with people again. his classmates dont see hifumi for a WHILE. like nobody can get in contact with him and its kinda frightening. i also think he gets serious headaches a LOT, like genuinely nauseating headaches as a side effect from his death

headcanon d (unrealistic, but i will disregard canon about it): unreasonably good at karaoke. he only sings songs he likes and never takes requests but whenever he takes the mic suddenly he has an entirely different voice for some reason. he takes his anime themes SO seriously. his classmates are shocked literally every single time

headcanon ask game!!

#WAHOO!!!!!#roobboob #hifumi yamada #ask lee #ask game

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ina-nis · 8 months

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Loneliness: It's not something we have, or something we're victims of. (...) Depression is easier to talk about, Kim argues, because it “is a recognized illness with a biological basis.” The liberally minded, at least, “understand that the depressed are victims rather than makers of their misfortune." Loneliness, by contrast, does not enjoy this objective status. Nor, Kim notes, does it “benefit from the same sympathetic perspective of victimhood.” Loneliness, which “cannot yet be attributed to brain chemistry,” is often perceived instead as “a social dysfunction of one’s own invention.” It is rarely raised as a personal issue, he continues, because the “unspoken assumption” is “that if you are lonely, then you must be unlikeable or socially maladapted.”

(...) The trouble with loneliness, in other words, is that subjective experience cannot be eliminated. Talking about a disorder like depression transforms feelings into something more physical (...) something that has you. The personal difficulties I am struggling with and the beliefs that shape my emotional experience disappear, replaced by the abstract it of depression, a malignant external force. But Kim does not have loneliness. He is lonely (...) His “confessions of loneliness” leave him open to judgments of inadequacy. It is so much safer to be considered a “victim” of depression. Then, all this human messiness disappears from the conversation. (...) Murthy recently revisited the subject (...) Loneliness, for Murthy, is something people often bring on themselves, as he illustrates with both his own experience and that of a friend. It can be addressed by simple choices to “prioritize human connection.” His tick-box recommendations for success: strengthen existing programs “that bring people together,” use our devices less, and “reach out to people we care about” more.

It’s a familiar list, often repeated. Loneliness, in this scheme, is a lack of social interaction. But people like Kim are rightly wary of this reduction. They know that many outgoing people with active social lives are lonely. (...) Kim described his loneliness in various ways. He talked about a lack of “deep, nourishing bonds,” a feeling that “no one truly understands me,” an emptiness and sense of isolation, and the “awful feeling of being encaged” in his own mind. Such characterizations do not suggest a mere lack of social contact or the need for programs “that bring people together.” They suggest an estrangement from others. Not an absence, but a quality, of relations that lack meaningful connection, feel alien, or are non-responsive. Relations, in short, that are “relationless,” that are mute and do not speak. The element of estrangement stands out in another word that Kim uses for loneliness: alienation. Alienation, though not synonymous, is a helpful concept for thinking about the personal experience of loneliness because it can be defined only in relation to specific contexts or social expectations—to what a person is alienated from. Rather than another abstraction, it can direct our attention to the ways in which people feel disconnected from their social worlds.

Among the possible forms of personal alienation that might relate to loneliness, three feelings stand out: homelessness, insecurity, and powerlessness. By homeless, I don’t mean a physical condition—being homeless—but a sense of not belonging. Disconnection, for instance, might follow a loss of meaningful others and accompany grief or homesickness or health challenges that restrict interaction. It might reflect a detachment from a situation or community, such as when we do not share the values or goals that are highly regarded by those around us. We might feel homeless when we do not feel respected, or our abilities or accomplishments valued. A sense of disconnection might also arise from a marginalization enforced by others, as when our “type” is disfavored, or we have been singled out and ostracized.

By insecurity, I mean not a lack of confidence or a feeling of anxiety but a distressing awareness of the tenuousness or superficiality of our social relations. The lack of depth and satisfaction may be especially felt in educational and professional settings, which can be highly competitive and where rewards hinge on carefully orchestrated presentations of self. Rather than being cultivated toward genuine friendship, associations are developed for such networking purposes as enhancing prestige or climbing ladders. Rather than being open and honest, relations are characterized by diffuse distrust, invidious comparisons, and mask-wearing. There is an enforced aloneness when no one can afford to be vulnerable. Finally, by powerless, I mean not so much the inability to control situations, as a perceived lack of self-efficacy to make meaningful bonds. Much in our world is unstable, precarious, unpredictable. The few remaining rules of conduct tend to be negative: what not to do. Lack of guidance and sheer self-protection can lead to a closing off from others. Retreating into ourselves, we may find, to quote Alexis de Tocqueville, confined “in the solitude of [our] own heart.” A truly responsive relationship, one in which both parties speak with their own voice, may seem unattainable. We may doubt not only our ability to reach another person but our ability to make an accommodating response should they be touched or affected by us.

Loneliness, in short, is complex. It defies the language of victimization, on the one hand, and the reduction to merely quantitative terms, on the other. At stake is often an estrangement from our surroundings that is neither external to us nor a matter of the number of people with whom we might interact. Loneliness concerns the quality of our relations, their mutuality, the ways in which they speak or fail to speak to us. If we want to understand loneliness, this is where we have to look (x)

#loneliness #resources

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a-mag-a-day · 1 year

Note

MAG 13!

So in general, I found this episode a bit boring, just didn't speak to me. In the spooky sense I mean. I like the character and social aspects of this statement a lot. Also I like the lore that's involved.

First time we actually really know, where exactly in the timeline we're at - 13th of January, 2016.

The Lukas family managed to totally evade my attention during my first listen. Peter Lukas himself had to actually walk in on the podcast for me to finally puzzle together, that this might be relevant (this might also be because I accidentally skipped MAG 33 on my first listen, oops).

Jon sounds different there at the beginning. Not that fake deep posh voice, but still not soft as later on.

It's so funny to me how much influence there was in pushing Jon to take live statements. First Oliver's statement in MAG 11, which made him anxious to miss anything important or perhaps even life-saving (very Eye-aligned) and now Naomi, who doesn't want Jon to leave while she records her story, because she doesn't want to be alone (which is understandable, since she was targeted by the Lonely).

Ha… indeed. I read this in another a-mag-a-day post, we really do hear Naomi breathing.

"He used to tell me it wasn’t natural for people to live in isolation, that we were creatures of community by nature." - Speak for yourself! xD

I am 100% convinced that Evan didn't die of a congenital heart problem. I think this is a very popular theory. His creepy Lonely family wasn't happy that he didn't want to be lonely/his Patron wasn't happy, that he didn't want to be lonely, so his god fed on him. I wonder, if the Lukases maybe sensed, that this life wasn't for Evan and just waited for the right person to come around, to finally give Evan the rest and prey on the poor soul who got left behind.

"He said he wasn’t on good terms with them because they were very religious, and he never had been." - so yep, Evan didn't want anything to do with the Lonely.

"The house was full of people I didn’t know." - What a lonely place to be… For some I guess. Whenever I'm in a situation like this I feel very seen and all my senses scream for me to leave and get somewhere, where I'm alone.

"I’m sure you want to be alone.” - Hold on, so is actually wanting to be alone tasty for the Fear or not? Because it would make me feel better.

Ah yes, the fog of the Lonely. Big fan.

"Kneeling down, I was surprised to realise that the ground I was now standing on was not wet. The hard-packed earth was damp from the creeping mist but it did not appear to have been rained on." / "I realised afterwards that the night should have been far too dark to see the fog. There were no lights there to show it, and the moon had been shrouded in storm clouds all night, but despite this I could clearly see it." - She really crossed over into the Lonely there.

"Every grave was open and they were all empty. Even here among the dead, I was alone." - This is the only line I find spooky.

" I heard something. It was the strangest thing, but as I tried to run I could have sworn I heard Evan’s voice call to me. He said, “Turn left”. That’s it. That’s all he said." - THIS is what I find very interesting because this is the first time we see a sort of anchor to escape the grasp of an Entity. While I can't quite puzzle out Naomi hearing Evan - ghost of the deceased only seem to exist in the Slaughter or in form of a memory in the Catalogue of the Trapped Dead and not in like our traditional sense of a soul lingering because of unfinished business or whatever. I heard it is possible to suffer from auditory hallucinations in periods of heavy grief, so maybe this was it? We know from MAG 48 (or MAG 129) that thinking of a loved one is enough to anchor people. So thinking of Evan should have been enough to get her to escape the Lonely, and that's exactly what happened. And the earlier "The image of Evan’s family suddenly came into my mind, and I vowed to myself that they would not be the last human contact I ever had." even makes it seem, as if the Lukas family actually tried to influence Naomi to prevent her from thinking of Evan. Yeah, big fan of the anchors-are-always-loved-ones-and-not-objects theory.

"I’d say it was only real insofar as trauma can have a very real effect on the mind." - Jon trying to deny/reason with his Mr. Spider encounter again?

"Some time with a more… qualified care professional might also prove helpful." - I don't know why this is supposed to be so insulting? Nah, actually I do know, there still is a huge social stigma on mental health… Normalize going to therapy!

Thank you for sharing!

#a mag a day #tma #the magnus archives #episode asks #mod ashes #tma spoilers #mag 13

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misscammiedawn · 4 months

Text

Miss Cammie Dawn's 2023 Round-Up

Permit me the self-indulgence to do a lil' wrap-up. Perhaps a little bit longer than a "lil'", we shall see. I don't expect any eyes on this. I write purely for the purposes of rereading later. Remember, I treat Tumblr like Livejournal.

I wish to focus upon the concepts of "what did you do/watch/read etc" and wrap it up for the year.

Personal Life

With the pandemic still limiting my options for socializing and having ended my close friendships and finally gone No Contact with my family of origin in the past few years, there's not been a lot of momentum in my life of late and I'm kind of okay with it.

Still. Some major events are to be expected. Here are mine for 2023:

Bottom surgery - Of everything in my year this was always going to be the first thing we needed to talk about. The process for getting here was such a long road and it almost doesn't feel real now that it's all done.

April 10th 2023 I went under the knife and began a healing journey that took much of the next 6 months of my life.

Going off of hormones for the time surrounding it was a complete emotional roller-coaster and I was *unstable* by the end of it. Oikos were kind enough to be supportive to me the whole time, thankfully. Daja traveled out to be there with me during the procedure. I have a detailed personal journal that conveys the whole experience but wow... that was a journey.

Those who know me may be aware of Precious, Cammie's Squishmallow. She goes wherever we go and she serves as an important tool for us. When we were in the hospital Daja asked our partners permission and with consent applied a hypnotic compulsion that made it so squeezing Precious and thinking of a partner would summon them in our mind and forge a connection. We refer to her now as the "Magical Scrying Kitty" and the trigger was essential for those first few days of recovery. Particularly the lonely void between visiting hours.

It all just sort of blurs now. I almost cannot remember being in bed for months after getting home nor the amount of energy that even the smallest tasks took. I have a vague memory of trying to get photographs in our yoga outfit before Beguiled and the effort of maneuvering around the bed was monumental.

We ended up returning to events in June/July, though we were still fairly restricted by the body's healing schedule.

I'm happier this side of the surgery. It has done wonders for my mental health and day to day comfort in our skin. Worth every sacrifice we made a hundred times over.

I don't think I have words for it yet but I feel there is a difference. There had been a level of anxiety and fear about the procedure before it but that has all melted away. I cannot even recall what those nebulous fears even were.

Anyway! Sleepyhead was nice enough to make my dream come true:

I have wanted that photo for years. I spoke of the dream often. I also made the Dickless for Chiklis tweet as promised years ago, though I doubt the intended audience saw it.

Life changes a bunch between starting the waiting list and getting the surgery, doesn't it?

DID Diagnosis - This has been a huge adjustment for us because of all the work that goes into trauma & dissociation therapy. We have joined support groups, we are putting in work to structure our journaling, we have built an innerworld conference space with isolated safe spaces (I was surprised to learn that this media trope is not only a real thing but it's a therapy technique that is taught. People are not born with these things and they are not a symptom of the disorder) and finally we are learning where the emotions originate, who has attachment to individual memories and experiences and then we are learning process things correctly. It is a process.

I am only slightly bitter that I had no context for the whole compartmentalized emotions thing. We wrote a frustrated Tumblr post about it recently.

The initial diagnosis came after a few months of testing. Many of our preconceptions were found to be based on a mixture of denial and ignorance exasperated by too much misinformation from fiction. Our therapist and Daja have both been on our case this entire year to stop obfuscating and hiding behind these excuses and barriers. It helps.

When we began the year our little system of 4 (technically 5) were completely at odds with one another. We had a number of distorted and self-loathing beliefs. Cammie was too childish and made us unreliable and immature and too stereotypically girlygirl trans. Camden was too strict and controlling and lived in constant hyper-vigilant survival mode, battling demons that had died decades ago. Dawn (presently typing) was a filthy NSFW embarrassment that was going to invite unwelcome elements to our life and post unforgivable content which must be deleted. Craig is a failing to our femininity that invalidates our struggles as a transwoman and Tilly-Mo doesn't even exist.

Now we're more comfortable working for a unified vision of self. Accepting that each of us is not the others and that we share a life. It's a process.

In May our therapist sent us to an online event held by a non-profit group who were tackling a bunch of topics ranging from "how to live with these conditions" "Professionals with CDD and their experiences with ISSTD" and a panel with transgender individuals with dissociative disorders. I was involved in that last one and I have to admit it was a turning point for me. For the first time in my life my experiences felt relatable and were being framed in a perspective of normal people living normal lives rather than the loud and proud version online. One of the things we continue to struggle with is how to integrate our condition into our life without fetishizing it. It's an invisible illness so all attempts to have our parts recognized feel like an attention grab. Even typing about it now. Somehow we have to navigate the gap between being open about it without highlight it. That's also a process.

Simply spoken we feel uncomfortable insisting on the one typing unless it's essential to being understood in how we communicate. We had an internal discussion about this post, wondering if we should let individual parts type different sections and highlight who was typing each one with a color or nametag. But that's not our style or comfort. It raises too much attention and sets off alarm bells. Half the reason we do our tagging system as we do on Tumblr is as a note to ourselves. Like a little filing system for when we go back searching later. A little switch counter. Helps us spot when someone has been away for too long.

Incidentally we decided we would write the post as time allowed and give everyone an opportunity to edit/add/delete from it before posting.

Electrolysis and Laser - My Electrolysist fired me. A shame. I really liked her. I... did not handle it well. There are only two times we have had a full blown meltdown during a session with our trauma and dissociation therapist and the week we got fired was one of them.

I did a few months of laser after leaving electrolysis but they have not yet invented a new form of laser that works for redheads so I just gave up. I'm done with my hair removal. I know there's a level of pettiness in that decision but being tortured for an hour a week wasn't good for my mental health and I barely go outside anyway. I'll just shave.

Trans activism in former career - I keep in touch with some of the people from my former career. I'll not name names or circumstances, but helping one of my former coworkers in their transition and joining an effort to petition the leadership (leveraging my weight as an out and proud transgender woman while I worked there) to rally against a company decision that actively promoted transphobia was a real highlight of my year. We won. I can type the name into Google and see articles about our victory. I may have been a single drop in the ocean when it comes to it but I know the people who made that decision. My emails shamed them for daring to do something like that on the ecosystem I helped create. It made me feel like I'd done something with my life. Made a difference to vulnerable people and guided some other people through these confusing halls we all wander down. That gave me life.

Immigration - I am applying for citizenship as it's easier than trying to get TERF Island to recognize my identity and I would rather all my documents have the same name and gender marker on them.

Events

Charmed 2023 - I wrote detailed con reports of last January's event. Suffice to say it was my first time taking the stage and teaching a class. A prominent member of the community posted on Twitter that they had gained a crush on me from watching me teach which is about the kindest thing anyone can say. Certainly boosted my self-estimation a little.

The vampire ball on the final day changed our brain chemistry forever. It has become the gold standard for our submissive scenes.

Charmed is the best. I am excited for the 2024 event.

Cybertronic Spree & The Protomen - I love going on roadtrips with my boyfriend, Copper. He loves driving and I love just sharing space and being comfortable with him. We shared music during the long drive to Chicago and I got to enjoy my "Other City". Part of us shall always view Chicago as our American home. We're a city girl at heart and seeing the night skyline of our former home was such a balm for the soul, particularly as it was our first time back there since we were married. My last trip there was an anniversary date to see Hamilton.

COVID risk was heavy on our mind but we had a fairly nice hotel a little out of the city and got to go to a pleasant venue. A couple of people I recognize from the hypnocon circuit were in the audience but we didn't think to approach them. A shame.

Sleepyhead and Puppet were the ones who bought the tickets but unfortunately health problems prevented them traveling. They were VIP tickets. We got merch signed for them both as a thank you and I got to meet Cybertronic spree.

Not to invoke the ghost of our marriage too often but our ex-wife and I saw The Protomen in 2010 during their Chicago stop of that year and I spoke with some of the band about it. A lifetime ago.

It was nice to step into a world we had long since exited with our current partner. The venue was a live rock place that had Rush posters on the wall and that black brick aesthetic that brought me back to when we saw gigs like Thunder in London.

I truly miss live events like this and though there was a COVID risk and though our throat was raw from 4-6 hours of no fluids, it was worth it. A highlight of my year for certain.

Cybertronic Spree played the theme of One Punch Man and a bunch of music from Transformers The Movie (1986) and generally kicked ass. Gambler and Arcee did a duet in both halves of the concert.

Dare to Be Stupid was ridiculous and I loved every second of it.

Beguiled 2023 - I only posted my outfits for public. But I was very detailed in my private journal. It was a difficult con for us as we were still weak from surgery and had limited mobility. We tapped out of our usual hypnoyoga class (perfect attendance ruined forever). Got to eat some incredible Japanese curry from a place that held great significance from me in a past life and danced with Daja to the music of the night...

Beguiled could have been a perfect event if my health were better.

I suppose I shall await 2025's event for the promised encore.

Daja Vacation - A very important trip. In October we headed over to Daja's state for a quick little visit. Sleepyhead accompanied us. There was curry, pan pizza (better than Giordano's. Daja is a chemist by day and kitchen sorceress by night), British meat pies, so many British chocolates, fountain trances, magic shows and time for all of us.

How can it be after 18 months that I still worry I have NRE with Daja? I truly do not know. But she shared her city with me. Created some new vital memories that shall be eternally treasured and gave the tightly wound little stress ball in my head a pretty view to admire inside of her little imagined safe space.

I am so damned smitten.

Books

My goal was to read every single Tamora Pierce book within a year of starting my relationship with Daja (named for the Emelan character, yes) and I found reading to be quite the comfort while I was laid up.

The Provost's Dog (Beka Cooper) Trilogy - The final Tortall books and the longest. They gave us many memories of our city and the caste system at play there. Beka is a wonderful protagonist and I fell in love with Farmer. Farmer is my favorite. I love him.

The police procedural in a high fantasy world was not entirely my cup of tea and I prefer it in the Rivers of London urban fantasy mold but seeing Pounce/Faithful as a far more actiive (and prissy) part of the story was a joy. Not my favorite of Tammy's series' by a long shot (For Tortall it would be Daine and Kel's quartets and for Emelan it would be any book which features Briar or Tris as a protagonist) but my preferences do not speak to quality. Tammy has evolved as a writer over the decades of her work and it breaks my heart that she is not as ubiquitous as Sir Terry.

I broke down into a weeping mess at the end because Beka's actions and her compassion granted her a single wish no one in universe or reading could have ever thought would have been granted. The sheer surprise and joy in that act of kindness was enough to break the dams of my heart.

Possibly the best ending of all Tammy's books.

The Circle of Magic Quartet - I am going to come out and say it right away. I prefer Emelan to Tortall. I do look at it as a "two cakes!" scenario and the two series are not in contest with one another (albeit Numair Chronicles is preventing the epilogue to the Reforged quartet from being written). But I enjoy the 4 displaced children and their mentors. I feel there is something solid about exploring Found Family tropes in kids who have known hardships beyond their years.

Daja (my partner, not the character in the book) had wondered which of the 4 I would gravitate towards more. Obviously I would be fond of Daja Kisubo for the name alone but would it be Briar the street kid who was caught between the world of his poverty street origins and his unexpected elevation in the caste system or perhaps Tris, the unwanted child who heard her caregivers tell her outright that she was an unwanted burden.

"Two cakes!"

The vignettes that brought the 4 together was a tough read and I didn't really feel the conflict of the books until the finale of Tris' book which kicked the series into high gear and from then on I ate Emelan up hungrily.

We were on track for 2.5 books read per month going into Emelan and actively had to slow ourselves down. I am pretty sure the only limitation we experienced was waiting lists on our library app.

Of the first quartet Briar's Book was an absolute favorite. Rosethorn's boy is wonderful and I love him. Also I wish to point out that the audio books were put out by Full Cast Audio who had actors for every role. Mo Harrington as Rosethorn was perfection. She also voiced Cloud in Daine's books but her Rosethorn is a career defining role. I wish only good things for Harrington. My favorite character of my favorite Tammy series will always be shaped in your vision of her.

The finale of the book, however, did stir some horrible memories and emotions in me. I suppose serendipity being a thing, though, in reacting to the book in real time to Daja as we read she noticed the shift and discovered a verbal quirk unique to a part of me who seldom gets to exist.

In a way much of our healing and accepting Craig came from Rosethorn's trip to the "garden" and our reaction to it as well as Daja's incredible ability to notice how unique it is for us to type "ain't" in a sentence.

I'm so glad I read these books.

The Circle Opens Quartet - At the time of reading these we had our surgery appointment and it became a mission to "catch up" before Daja came to visit to see us through surgery. We were listening to audiobooks from the library and books 3 and 4 (Cold Fire and Shatterglass) have never been adapted to audiobook due to Full Cast Audio's unfortunate financial troubles).

We had planned to borrow Daja's copies when she came over for the surgery.

But... we ended up catching up early enough that Daja in what may be one of the most romantic gestures of a year filled with romantic gestures, recorded herself reading the whole of Cold Fire and sending it to us so we may be caught up to borrow Shatterglass at the time of surgery.

Is it any wonder I'm so smitten?

Of the 4 stories I found Cold Fire and Shatterglass to be the most enjoyable. It was good seeing the siblings growing up in their own way and how their immaturity was evened out by their apprentices. Daja Kisubo's story was the one that got to me the most because the psychology of the serial killer and Kisubo's absolute betrayal towards the end. Watching how she dealt with Ben was heartbreaking.

Also the way insanity as a topic was handled was a little tactless and one quote made my blood boil a little but it was towards the character who spoke the words, not the author who penned them. The character Zhegorz returned in the next quartet and was an absolute highlight for me. I like the idea of scrying mages opening themselves up to mental disorders and for an allegory for schizophrenia I felt it was fairly tasteful in the next book. In this one the topic was not handled beautifully, but we are seeing the world through prejudice eyes and if there is one thing Daja Kisubo stories are good for it is showing prejudice viewpoints and their consequences.

Tris can't always be there to break social etiquette for you.

The Circle Reforged Quartet (albeit book 4 is not yet written) - Tammy matured as a writer a hundred times over before these books. I loved Emelan because it's a story of childhood trauma and how it impacts growth and development, even if the wounded soul is given encouraging and healthy environments to thrive in.

Each character carries scars deeper than they can admit to themselves or one another. Will of the Empress is a fantastic story because it takes everything that has been building and applies it to young adults who matured years before they should have and explores the sheer scale of the damage that does to them when they are left to their own devices.

Goodness... why would I find myself attracted to such a concept? I wonder?

The intro segment is so good we wrote a specific Tumblr post about it. Tris' bitterness that her raw talent cannot be monetized (without murder), Briar's PTSD, Sandry's muted bitterness at being abandoned by her siblings and Daja's hyper-vigilant need to push everyone away because of the betrayal she felt not just with Ben but in being banished from the only stable home she had ever known.

Watching the 4 open their connection to one another again caused many tears as we read it. Tris' accepting Sandry in particular just got me right in the heart.

The final sequence with Briar's safe space I had joked was the most accurate depiction of DID I'd seen. The whole shutting off the connection and having a shared inner world were both topics we were addressing in therapy about the time we listened to those chapters.

Battle Magic was a rough journey for seeing how much the Briar/Evie/Rosethorn trio suffered at the hands of the emperor. Rosethorn had become our quick favorite throughout the franchise and I just didn't want to see her hurt. Not after the end of Briar's Book.

Melting Stones was a cute little side story. Evie and Luvo are great. I don't have much to say about it as the book was written for the Full Cast Audio team and didn't develop anything we hadn't already seen from Will of the Empress which is chronologically the last of the quartet despite being the first in release order.

House of Leaves - Thanks to the MyHouse.WAD stuff happening early this year I was reminded of the book and with surgery recovery time I had time to dedicate to it. I kind of resent that there's no digital option but I appreciate that this book is a book.

Getting out of Mark Z. Danielewski's dumb dumb mind labyrinth of a mental virus is the hard part. If anything about our taste in fiction is true it's that we want to experience altered states and put ourselves in the head of another. So having an obsession simulator burrow deep into our head while we are bedridden and the days are blurred together was... not our best decision.

We have our de-realization symptoms locked down now and I think due to that stability we find ourselves compelled to seek out breaks in reality, especially now we no longer do character play hypnosis, tabletop RPG or allow once trusted individuals to gaslight us for fun.

Glitches and moments when things are wrong freak us out and have caused severe panic episodes for us (thank you Remedy for the credits to the bad ending of Control, that one damn near broke me and it was at a time in my life I didn't have anyone around to ground me or confirm what I was experiencing so we just went into free fall) and we shouldn't poke that bear.

But we do.

Willingly.

I've yet to bring that up with our therapist.

It's not just the ergodic literature that got under our skin though, with this one it was also that it depicts a parent in a mental care facility as a major plot point.

We have a history with that kind of thing and... yeah.

Plus the way Truant described his panic attack at seeing purple ink and remembering his mother's fingernails at his throat...

Reading this book may not have been our best decision... but we have a tag dedicated to it and are deeply in love with it. We knew what we were getting into (well... perhaps not the Pelafina stuff. We were not prepared for that) and there are no regrets!

Between the Whalestone Letters and Rosethorn's trip to the garden we need to check DoesTheDogDie.com more often =/

Regardless! We really dug the book.

Camden especially!

Much discussion online is on what parts of the book "really happened", what was in Navidson's record, what was in Zampano's analysis and what did Johnny edit in and how much did The Editors edit Johnny's narrative and how much is altered by our reading of it.

And like-- how much of the perspective based stuff is impacted by how your read it. For instance! When The Editors note that Johnny's ramblings have context in the appendix, I went and read all the Whalestone Letters then and there which made the panic attacks and Minotaur stuff make way more sense from the get go-- most may read the book first and the appendixes later.

It's a book that takes a unique shape based on how you navigate it. Sorta like a video game.

My experiences made me relate to and extrapolate emotional weight and context from Johnny's narrative after all. Regardless of Johnny's final message I cannot remove how I related to the things he shared... and that's the trick.

None of it happened. It's all a book. Whatever Danielewski intended is unimportant. You can listen to the companion album, you can look up interviews, you can see the citations and source material that inspired the story...

At the end of the day the more you put in, the more it will pull you deeper. There's no definitive way to read the book. It's a spiral staircase down into infinity and insanity.

The only winning move is not to play... or to quote the text:

"Maturity, one discovers, has everything to do with the acceptance of not knowing."

Tricksters Duology - Saved for last as Daja isn't a huge fan of the espionage from these books and she had recommended I skip them until I ran out of books to read. I'm glad it was saved as a little cherry on top to my adventures in Emelan and Tortall as meeting with Kyprioth the trickster god was a treat and the book goes out of its way to provide epilogues to all of the existing Tortall books. Seeing Daine and Numair's family grow, seeing Kel vs Alanna and seeing George Cooper be Best Boy was all such a lovely thing to behold.

I also read the Spy's Guide during this time and enjoyed it greatly. Daja handed me her hardcover the week of our surgery and we opened it to Daine's portrait, which just tickles me.

I am deeply fond of trickster gods...

Dissociation Made Simple - We had actually won a copy of this at the chronic dissociation event my therapist sent me to in May. I got to talk with the author and we follow one another on the other social media. They're a lovely person and they work hard to support the community of people who live with these conditions. The book is a navigation of living with a chronic dissociative disorder from a personal perspective and acts as both a guide to living with these experiences and supporting a loved one who happens to live with one.

It offers a wealth of perspectives and seeks to humanize matters in a way that does not rely too heavily upon pathology.

My sole complaint about it is that the author's personal philosophies bleed in. They are jaded with Western mental healthcare and favor an Eastern approach and they apologize profusely for including the perspectives of someone who sought Final Fusion (they say that they include the interview "as a means of painting a complete picture") and it truly felt more akin to an apology for discussing one of the gold standards of treatment goals than anything else. That was projecting on the audience a little in my opinion.

At present I do not seek final fusion as a goal. Healthy Multiplicity is just fine in my world... but I have seen posts and messages from those who did go that path and the support networks closing off to them and even harassing them over their personal decision is not the way to go.

Either way Dr. Jamie+ is a wonderful person I am proud is doing the work to make the world better for individuals struggling with chronic dissociative disorders.

The Third Person - Another suggested piece of reading from our time at the dissociation event. This is a 900 page book written by a transgender woman with DID and reflects her journey through the medical system as she attempts to get her HRT approved by an abusive therapist. There's a sunk cost fallacy that keeps her continuously coming week after week to someone who is an active threat to her mental health. After all. She'd need another 6+ months with a new therapist to get approved for HRT or she could just win Toby over and get him to sign for her.

Much of the book is conversations between Emma (and Katina and Ed) and their therapist, Toby. Katina is an impulsive party animal and the system's protector. She reminds us intensely of Dawn and that made finishing the book (in a single sitting, no less) an emotionally harrowing experience for us.

There's a refrain in some areas of the support communities that fiction based on our condition is sensationalized because to live with this condition is actually remarkably boring. We're just traumatized people trying to live our lives. This book is very much a shining example of that and I say it in a loving way. Nothing that happens to Emma's system is sensational or exceptional. She's just a normal transgender woman who got entangled with an abusive therapist (a transgender man who should have been an ally) and though it is mired by her hazy and bias recollection of events (she admits that the moment Toby said "your grandfather was right to hit you" she should have left and never come back) it still just reads as a normal person going through some shit.

And that's where the book is at its best. This is normal stuff. These are the things that can and do happen. I read the /r/therapists reddit enough to know that there's a population of people that think that their job includes dispelling "delusional thinking" and some definitions of that are a little uncomfortable. Not every professional believes in DID or transgender identities after all >.>;

This one was just a tough read and though my stated discomfort is that the alter that reminds me so much of Dawn had to hear Emma say the one sentence she could NEVER say to her.

Breaks our hearts =/

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles - Presently Daja is reading us these books on a weekly basis during our dates. We have gotten through the first two and are enamored with the primary cast. Telemain is my favorite.

They are just delightful stories full of tropes and fun. I would have loved them very much when I was young. Cammie presently loves them intensely.

Mr. Robot eps1.91_redwheelbarr0w.txt - Set during the time between Season 1 and Season 2 Episode 8, this is a journal. A literal journal made to look like it was written in pencil by series protagonist Elliot Alderson.

In the show the audience is his imaginary friend who he speaks to. When he is on the screen we see the world through his eyes and his delusions. Only during two flashbacks do we ever see him outside of his perspective, which saves Rami Malek having to play his alters and allows the show to be subjective with what is real and what isn't, plus we also get to see scenes Elliot isn't there for (typically perspective can be seen if someone refers to the villainous avatar of capitalism as "E Corp" their actual name rather than "Evil Corp" which Elliott always hears/reads it as) and when a twist happens at the end of season 1 he knows that we knew and we didn't tell him. We can't communicate with him after all.

To denote the time skip, hide a season 2 twist and to better blur the lines of what is real and what isn't, Elliot stops speaking to us after season 1 and reconciles with us during season 2. The journal covers the time when he was "not speaking with us" because we didn't tell him about Mr. Robot. At times he even writes to us as if we will someday read the book and then corrects himself to say that we will never read it. That kind of makes reading this feel a little invasive. Even the "editor" (a transgender woman in the show who was incarcerated in a male facility. I like Hot Carla) notes at times how fucked up it is that any of us are reading his private journal which he reminds often isn't for anyone elses' eyes.

Within the book are a number of little trinkets which serve to play an ARG that reveal the season 2 plot twist (Mr. Robot has been communicating with the Dark Army to continue his revolution while Elliot is in prison) and to the book's credit there is such an adherence to verisimilitude that the nearest we get to confirmation that there even IS an ARG is some comments penned in by the in-universe character who "published" the journal.

What I liked about it was not just the realism of the journal, which goes to lengths to utilize spaces in between entries as significant (we even get an entry written on the back of a pack of cigarettes when Elliot hands off the journal for another inmate to read it in her cell)

it didn't add a lot to the plot of the show but it was a fantastic dive into the character headspace of Elliot. Particularly during the period of time he was not talking to "us".

Music

Music is so disposable in scope that I'll be skipping much of the new stuff on our radar and focus on things we intentionally listened to.

The Protomen - Copper's favorite band. Puppet and Sleepyhead were nice enough to give him tickets to their show with the Cybertronic Spree (as noted above). We gave them a fair few spins to get ready for the concert. They are a lovely and self-indulgent band and their Queen tribute album is superb. I really dug the whole revolution subplot in the second act with Sniper Joe. Act 1's "after the apocalypse" campfire aesthetic wasn't my touch but the cyberpunk revolution stuff was cool as crap!

The Gambler is bloody amazing and any of her songs are just bangers by definition <3

The Caretaker (Everything At The End of Time) - We're late to the party on this one but god what an incredible experience. We went down a rabbit hole of tributes. For what it's worth Nowehere At The Millenium of Space is so far above the pack that if I ever wanted to listen to a 6 hour dementia simulator again then it'd be my pick. A3 is the track I'd listen to if you wanted to see if it would vibe with you or not.

(Though I wanna see more takes on the concept that try different perspectives-- there's a few that try for different conditions that have a lot of promise)

For the uninitiated, EATEOT is a 6 album concept piece that attempts to place you in the mind of a dementia patient at the end of their life. The composer read that music lingered beyond memories and information and wanted to run ideas of degrading of physical media and nostalgia for a time many of us were not alive for. The first track based on Heartaches from 1947 for instance. It gives us the idea of an era without true familiarity to it. Which makes my love of Nowhere a little odd as it takes the concept and then applies familiarity with many of the songs hitting "I KNOW THIS" buttons and...

Look, I came to learn about EATEOT from MyHouse and there the warped version of Running From Evil used that familiarity to great effect. Much of the subtle horror of the Doom map comes from recognizing the geography of the locations as The House and having your familiarity with Doom mechanics messed with in subtle ways. I like the feeling of "I know this... but it's wrong" especially as a means to invoke discomfort. That makes Nowhere a better album for me but to many the nostalgia for a time they weren't alive for helps put you in the head of a distant dying relative and that is more effective for the concept.

The fact I can talk about such high concepts is a proof of how amazing this album is at what it does.

If you don't have 6 hours and want a quick version of it, a YouTuber named zaza took the concept and applied it to Lo-Fi Beats to Study and Relax To. Add in intangible familiarity to Lo-Fi Beats as an amorphous genre with no real hook to hold onto and glitch effects to turn this video into one that tickles a terror center of my brain unscratched since I first played DDLC.

The Narcissist Cookbook - Apple Music throws some curveballs at me every now and again and I viscerally recall The Simplest Words coming on randomly and I *loved* it.

This Is How We Get Better is just a good album. It's on the topic of healing from crippling mental illness and given everything we have been going through in trauma therapy this year it was the right album at the right time. Pretty much every song is solid in its own special way. The line in The Pattern about walking through the halls of a demolished high school hit close to home and there is something beautiful about Leave My Phone At Home.

Some of the best works are less songs and more folk guitar during impassioned speeches. Courtney is a catchy song with a lecture on why people get into conspiracy rabbit holes, The Absolute State of our Nation is a plea that violent resistance to centrist complacency is a duty of those who wish to prevent history being sanitized and Cognitive Dissonance Blues is about the crushing despair of trying to do good in a world where evil is so deeply systemic that we only serve to hurt ourselves and make no measurable difference.

Highly recommended listening. Here, have The Simplest Words as a sample:

youtube

Mint Green (Growth) - Another group Apple threw at me while trying to understand why I love Left At London. I am not a fan of all their music but the album Growth really grew on me (ha!). They are an indie band out of California and sound like an indie band out of California. It is the kind of comforting sound you can lay down on a dark evening and stare at the ceiling listening to. A favorite pastime during our surgical recovery. Pinky Swear is now one of my favorite songs. I just love blasting it while I drive. I really enjoy them.

The Streets (The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light) - Skinner's band has never been able to reclaim its heights from Original Pirate Material (2002) but with Craig being more active in our system this year and Skinner releasing his first studio album under The Streets title since 2001's Computers and Blues we needed to dive on this as soon as it was released.

Like here's the thing. Peeps don't realize we like this sort of shit because we go all in on Rush. But there are certain sounds that just key in to what it was like growing up on a counsel flat in a broken home with an unemployed dad who has you pop down the corner store for some Rizla papers to roll his own.

It's just a tad to the left of pub music, y'know?

Point is Original Pirate Material got a bit of that larey London lad energy and was like a time capsule that yanks you back to 2002 to the point of which you can feel your old Nokia 220 vibrate in your pocket while you listen.

New album ain't terrible. Better than Computer and Blues by a wide margin.

Troubled Waters is an absolute classic and once again Skinner has caught a level of mild desperation with the British public. I always appreciated his "day in the life of a geeza" approach and I think one of the two reasons Skinner's career never took off beyond Original Pirate Material is that he was no longer just another bloke when that song hit. Later albums have songs about dealing with his fame and having affairs with high level pop stars and he lost the relatable flair that brought him to greatness.

Like no shade to Going Through Hell or that one song about the Earth will be fine it's us who are fucked. He's got some bangers in the mid but he came out the gates with an album of "bangers, not anthems"

I mean... Original Pirate Material is just a perfect album. Dunno what else to say.

This new one is growing on me. It's got a mature edge and it comes from a perspective of an older guy who has lived beyond the legacy his debut 20 years ago offered.

I need to force myself to listen to anything other than Troubled Waters but I find myself rewarded for doing so. Just wish Too Much Yayo wasn't the opening track. I'm not fond of it.

Movies

I've not been in a cinema since Spider-Man No Way Home and before then since movies were my career. Losing movie theatres in the pandemic has altered my brain chemistry a little, I think?

Creed III - Creed is one of my alltime favorite movies and so I was really excited for III. I was fucked up from being off of my hormones at the time and so I ended up watching it on the day of a meltdown when I had screamed my throat raw and was crying and non-verbal. That may have impacted my enjoyment of the film a little and I need to go back to it at some point. I really enjoyed the cerebral final battle between Donnie and Majors' character. Cried a bunch when Mary Anne died =/

It's sort of a tough thing to be all attached to this franchise and see it keep missing jumping off points. I wanna see it keep on going but I don't wanna see it decline after so many high finishes, y'know?

Super Mario Bros Movie - I literally do not remember watching this. Granted I was laid up at the time. It came to home media ridiculously fast. Still. I have no firm memory of this at all and I think that's an indictment on Illumination more than my mental state in surgical recovery.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - I am impressed but still waiting on the other shoe to drop. Another "Fuck Joe Quesada" production so I found myself deeply enjoying the fact Pete/MJ's wedding is a "canon event".

I honestly enjoyed the conversation around the movie more than the film itself.

Soundtrack is bloody amazing and Hobie is an absolute bro. Love that guy!

Barbie - Greta Gerwig does not miss. Lady Bird is one of our all time favorites and this was an enjoyable film in the same vein as Lego Movie. It lacks teeth or staying power but many of the movies which reach the top of the box office these days are that way. Teeth aren't profitable.

I adored the production and it is just pleasant to see good costumes in a movie in an increasingly stingy/anti-union world.

Like it's a fine and fun movie but like some people said "this movie doesn't have subtext, it's just text" and that is probably for the best given its wide audience. I just need something more.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 - It was alright. I liked the sentiment with Groot at the end. Yeah. Don't have much to say. It was alright.

War Games (1983) - Sleepyhead and Copper don't bond much. We're all family at Oikos but we're different people at the end of the day. When my two partners discovered I'd never seen this movie they worked together to correct it instantly.

It was a lovely night feeding off of their excitement and I am pleased to say the movie was well worth it and gave some good context for Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker's climax.

Lowkey may have been my favorite movie moment of the year. Plus it gave me context to references made in Mr. Robot so that was nice <3

Before Trilogy - I have had this on my DVD shelf since I was married and the idea of "the most realistic romance trilogy" has never seemed appealing. I'll be honest. I like the locations. I love the chemistry of the main pair and I enjoyed the first two parts way more than expected but didn't vibe with the final movie.

I doubt I will end up watching them again, which is a shame after so many years of having it hyped up on Film Twitter.

Television

TV is a quick and easy way to bond with loved ones and so I've been watching a bunch, especially while I was laid up. Sharing media remains one of my favorite ways to connect with people after all. In this time I've shared all of Twin Peaks with Sleepyhead, rewatched some old anime shows with Copper

Secret Invasion - I sincerely wish I could unwatch this. It was awful. No elaboration. Just... I did not like it. Best I can say is that the discussion threads doing "Boom! You looking for this?!" jokes was funny.

Star Wars Franchise - Okay. Copper, my boyfriend REALLY likes Star Wars and so has been sharing all the new content with me while introducing me to the past stuff. Rebels and Andor have been my favorite. Ahsoka was my least favorite. It's a true sign of love that I'm willing to put in with Star Wars given my history with the movie theatre-- that franchise has caused me so much misery.

Chopper is great though. Love that little war crimes robot.

I now understand the Mortis meme and I agree. I know peeps are all about the midichlorian thing and like, sure, yeah, no. That's bullshit because you're sciencing up the faith thing but like-- this ain't it. Don't rebalance that by going all in on the faith and applying it to deities. That is such a shitty thing to do when the basis was a balance between inner peace and conflict derived from a Buddhist mentality. Idk. The War in our Stars is not our favorite. But we loved sharing it with someone we love.

Loki Season 2 - This year I just about gave up on Marvel and decided to wait for the next story arc to conclude and see if it's worth returning to. I do not watch as many movies these days and they do not serve their social function for me as they had in a life when movies were my career and I was surrounded by those who shared my passion.

Watching this season with Sleepyhead was the closest I felt to those old days of excitement and reaction and social lubrication. It was deeply enjoyable for those reasons and more. I feel like it was the epilogue that the early phases of Marvel deserved and the only version of the modern Multiverse plot that felt worthy of my attention. I find that Multiverse as a concept robs a franchise of consequence. I can watch characters slaughtered by Scarlet Witch and feel nothing and it makes it impossible to feel the weight of consequence. Even the protagonist of this show is not the man murdered by Thanos.

Yet it is the acknowledgement and embracement of this fact which allowed me to enjoy Loki as a show. He was a version of the man who was there for Thor at the end of Ragnarok. We saw him robbed of development and we saw him deconstructed and reconstructed into that which we always knew he could be.

Loki gives me hope but I still intend to take a break. It was nice to be driven and excited again, though.

Andromeda - Not gotten far but sharing this with Daja and enjoying it thus far if only because Nietzschean is such a fun concept for a species and there's a ton of time shenanigans involved. I wanna see more!

The cast are a delight, the low budget is endearing and the theme song is written by a member of Rush. Also Daja informs me that some episodes were pitched as DS9 episodes.

Mr. Robot - This may actually be my favorite show now. Like of all time. It just mixes everything I love about Prestige Drama shows, specifically Better Call Saul and then applies it to topics that have my focus like mental illness and Capitalism Bad. Plus it's a pastiche of modern cinema and keeps teasing the "I KNOW THIS!" center of my brain with (intentional in-universe) references.

The plot surrounds the rise of a hacktivist group going up against the evil corporation that controls 70% of the US's money. They are Exxon, Wal-Mart and Wells-Fargo rolled into one.

Each character in the show is suffering from isolation generated by a modern society and the camerawork constantly shows this off by minimizing their space in the frame to show off all the empty space around them. It's rare for two characters to interact on screen at the same time and typically shows trust and connection. The show does this so consistently that it becomes an unspoken language long before the first season concludes. It's a fantastic way of feeling the emotional walls between people and seeing when they are torn down.

By the end of the show they are doing victory laps with themed episodes and all 3 of them are some of the best I've seen in my life.

S3E5 is a simulated one take during a riot that captures the frantic energy of the heist and chaos of protestors breaking into the E Corp building amazingly.

S4E5 is a no dialogue episode and pulls a similar trick to the above, utilizing silence for a better payoff.

S4E7 is the best episode of television I've seen in my life. An hour long bottle episode structured like a 5 act play.

This show changed my brain chemistry forever. I wish I had found it in my past life. I would have loved to have done watch parties as it aired.

Castlevania: Nocturne - I am reserving judgment until later. I enjoyed the first season. Olrox is wonderful. I just don't have enough to bite into to really feel invested. I didn't get into the first show until season 2 so we'll see how this one develops.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off - Watched it in one sitting with Sleepyhead. It was a fun little show made with a ton of love. I don't have anything deep to say about it. It was nice to see and I enjoyed watching it.

Video Games

If I've gone off of movies then I'm entirely off of games. I haven't really anticipated a game enough to preorder it since God of War Ragnarok, though a part of this is that I see no reason to upgrade to PS5 and my machine isn't powerful enough to play Alan Wake II or Cyberpunk. I likely would have bought Spider-Man 2 if I had a PS5 and would have regretted it and would have bought Metal Gear Solid Master Collection if I were still playing games and also regretted it.

For disclosure we watched a few games on YouTube. Spider-Man 2, Anatomy, Signalis and Slay The Princess most notably. But we're not going to type about the ones we watched. Feels unfair to judge something we didn't experience directly. Though it means we can't (well, chose not to) type about MyHouse and that's a shame because we watched SO much about that! We learned so much about programming from it!

So bonus thoughts "MyHouse fills us with awe and envy over what can be accomplished with existing engines and should be mandatory inspiration for any game dev who is trying to think inside the box" "Spider-Man 2 seems like a better game to play than watch, the game failed on every possible level with the concept of Symbiote controlled Peter. They could have had us fight as him and have no dialogue. They could have had us fight us Miles while Peter is violent and silent. They could have had a sequence of Peter (or Miles) fleeing Kraven while feeling hunted and then use the same concepts for Peter chasing MJ... they failed to do anything to amplify the story and it fell flat. Watching it was a chore." "Signalis is a work of art and I will play it and post full thoughts one of these days" "Anatomy is the scariest fucking thing I've ever played and I wish I didn't check the authors other games. The concept of a user violating a work of art by interacting with it is clearly their obsession and they have done it 3 or 4 times with the exact same framework. Anatomy feels like a complete and whole product in a way the others don't. I am too cowardly to play this myself." "Slay the Princess feels like a game tailor made for someone I care about. It made me miss them while letting me feel close to their memory. The fractured/distorted reality path caused me to have a panic attack."

Disco Elysium - Such an interesting little point and click adventure this is. I found the first few hours deeply frustrating as it is a fully immersive sim with the concept of throwing you into the role of an amnesiac cop in a post revolution community that is trying its hardest to stand upright after being through decades of hardship. It really wants to explore the painful reality of being in decline and caught between the fantasy of a better yesterday and the fantasy of a better tomorrow.

It is also a failure simulator.

In that regard it succeeds perfectly. I was forced to feel the kind of useless that reality offers when I am asked to perform with authority a task that I have absolutely no basis of how to do whatsoever.

Failing continuously during the early game is important to establishing your understanding of the mechanics and grounding how you will adapt. My earliest actions were reprehensible in universe because I could not grasp or master mechanics enough to insert my will upon the character. That, however, is one of the failings of the game in my mind. You are ranked for everything you do (in one of a slim number of cookie-cutter endings - to the point of which this PARODY of how lacking they are comes up first when you type "Disco Elysium Ending" into YouTube) and it feels a little like the game wants you to grapple with the politics and morals of reality via how you interact in game and though it succeeds in many regards it does fail when gameplay mechanics get in the way.

For the most part I loved the breakdown of the city that stands proud and shapes the people within it. I loved the explorations into moral philosophy and I truly enjoyed the comedy, no matter how dark it got. Harry is an absolute human disaster (my Disco Elysium tag is "Human Disaster") and I was endeared.

My final complaint is that it suffers the same bullshit that Donnie Darko does. This is a lovely narrative about the resilience of cultures and community that is buried in the brickwork, it's a beautiful critique on how to live with existential despair and a takedown of overly indulging in pain/regret or rejecting reality and living in pure fantasy. As a moral piece and as a take on philosophy it is second only to NieR:Automata in my mind... BUT... There's the fucking Pale.

I do not think this game benefits from Deep Lore and a dive into What's Really Happening with reality unfolding and the dump of information surrounding it. Like Donnie Darko the fiction's themes are fine on their own and require no supernatural/sci-fi explination for 50 minute YouTube deep dive videos.

Everyone talks about the church sidequest being the best in the game but I resented having this human story warped by the existential dread of a supernatural oblivion, even if it's a stand-in for climate grief.

Night in the Woods - I loved this one far more than I expected. Someone I cared for deeply insisted I play it when it was new but it wasn't until I got it in a charity games bundle that I was willing to give it a shot.

The snapshots of growing up are not things I can relate to. I'm an English city girl from poverty who never went to college. The melancholy of America's forgotten cities and the abandonment of their communities was as alien to me as Revachol from Disco Elysium. I say that because much of the fan reaction I've observed talks of how relatable the game is.

What I did find though was a rich character driven story that was able to get vibes across well. I really like how the game wanted to make us get on the same page of frustration with Mae's parents without making Mae's parents bad. Having them not pick her up from the bus station and seeing the seeds of their resentment to her failure in college really helped me view them through an imperfect lens. I fear if the opening was not introducing us to Mae in such a sympathetic manner then some audience may have rejected her for being as immature and unreliable as she seems at first before we learn of her mental issues.

The mechanic of the towns people you forge connections with showing up at the church was dearly appreciated, though I found much of the optional mechanics of the game to become chores by the end. I did not want to go to the subway and the edge of the town every single day to see if I could advance the plot with the teens so I gave up on it. Poetry neighbor was cool though.

All in all I enjoyed it. I throw "Die Anywhere Else" on sometimes as a feel good track and my favorite sequence was the party in the college town.

Oh and I chose to ignore (or just disregard the legitimacy of) the supernatural elements for the same reason as Elysium. The story works just fine without ancient gods in the mine and cat gods in dreams.

Tears of the Kingdom - TotK was what kept me sane while I was bed ridden. I did not enjoy the absolute freedom. I seldom do in video games, but the sheer expanse of mapping the depths kept me going for a long while.

Dungeons were better this time but I still find myself longing for OoT and Wind Waker's style.

I found much of my enjoyment to come from watching Sleepyhead and Copper playing the game or hearing about Daja's campaign. It's simply not my type of game. A good distraction but I long for something which feels like I'm working towards something and most of modern Nintendo is designed to keep you in a gameplay loop forever with no satisfaction of completion.

Had the map not have been a tangible accomplishment I may have ended up disappointed. Game design is rapidly moving away from my interests. God of War Ragnarok may well be the final game I end up buying new and loving.

The Room Franchise - As a matter of love towards Daja I played one of her all-time favorite game series. Puzzle boxes and many of them. Room 3 is the best by a wide country mile. I enjoyed the aesthetic and found myself trying to get through each room as swiftly as possible. Each game was a single sitting for me but I enjoyed them. Plus the anniversary sale made the franchise barely cost anything.

Sonic Frontiers - I did not enjoy it. I hear that Sega kept working on it and it's actually a good game now but I played it when new and it was... well a modern Sonic game.

Penlight - I have an entire tag dedicated to how much I enjoyed it and Turq, Sleepyhead and I have a Discord chat titled The ENTIRE Penlight Fandom where we share theories, headcanons and story ideas.

Fact of the matter is it is a visual novel that takes a lifetime of existing in the hypnosis community and creates every single cautionary tale we could think of as a community. Angela DeMille knows her stuff and wants you to know how beautiful and incredible hypnosis can be with clear communication, trust and vulnerability and how horrific it can be without those things.

There is a policy of "no good endings for unethical choices" that I truly appreciate. Just check my tag. I wrote tens of thousands of words about how much I enjoyed the game.

I think I got everything?

May edit later? Idk. Anyway! I typed a thing!

#personal #TAG TIME!#DID #watch me post my trauma in public #human disaster #sayori is best girl #domo arigato mr alderson #scott pilgrim's precious little tag #its mahvul baybe #spider posting #odds bobs #the word house in these tags is written in blue

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omniscientwreck · 9 months

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Tell me about your special little guy and his philosophy :3

Thank you so much for asking I've literally been thinking about this all day! The special little guy in question is Xaryl and he's a Knowledge Domain cleric I play in a game with some mutuals (oops!all party this probably isn't gonna contain serious spoilers for Xaryl but it isn't all stuff that he's fully laid out in campaign so i'm putting it under a cut. Do with that what you will) (sorry there's a lot, I created my own hyperfixation when I created Xaryl and I'm incapable of speaking about him briefly)

So this question is in regards to the ideas expressed in this post about the Luxon and the part about the Luxon that always stood out to me is the questions of Identity and how does one Know themself.

So Xaryl is a reader and a philosopher. He was isolated from his family as a teenager and taken away from most peer interaction his age to go assume a role in the Den he didn't want or ask for. His anamnesis didn't go correctly and his memories of his previous life are fragmented and have plagued him his entire life. He's hidden himself away and acted purely out of self preservation for decades, as long as he'd been with the dens.

So Xaryl's thoughts are essentially this: we cannot know ourselves devoid of each other. People (humanoids) are social creatures, we form groups and alliances and forge collective identities on various scopes (for example, being a Communist, being a nurse, being a particular person's brother, being a part of a certain family) and those add to, and inform our identites.

Further, we have different identites to and around different people. Then the question becomes something more like: which version of me is real? is every version of me real? do I have one identity or do I have many? does my identity exist as mine or is it a way for others to interpret me?

So with the Luxon, it created the primordials and then they were lost to the darkness as they warred within themselves, and so it scattered itself, hoping that eventually life would be refined and those that were bound to its light would live and live again and teach it about itself. It went dormant after that, it doesn't talk, so Luxon worshippers are left to determine "who am I and why am I?" for a being that hasn't really had any contact with it's followers.

So like, through all of this, lonely lost little Xaryl determines, in the middle of 80 years of isolating himself for his safety, that our purpose, and the Luxon's in turn, is to be known and to know. He works his way around to community and love as the meanings of life, and things to aspire to (despite not having those things for much of his life) so the way he prays turns into becoming the Luxon's friend. For decades instead of like "praying" he told the Luxon stories about his life, he tried to send it sensations of flavour or the smell of rain on cobblestone, or the sound and feeling of music. And he fought with the Luxon in his mind and said things he regretted in anger. He formed this totally one sided (until very recently but that's game canon) friendship and relationship and identity based entirely on something that, if he didn't literally get clerical powers from it, he might think existed only in his mind. So what does that make him? Xaryl, friend of the Luxon? Does that make it his friend in return? Is the true answer to "Who am I?" contained in the viewpoint of a single person? Is it responsible for the things its followers have done in its absence and silence? Is that its identity? What about the other side of the world, where surely there must be beacons? Do the people there think the same things? Could the same being's beacons elicit two completely different and opposed schools of worship? Much to consider.

Sorry this isn't as coherent as I'd like it to be and also sorry it's so long but thaaaaaaank you for asking I had a very tiring work day and it's nice to just talk about my oc's :3

#omni answers #xaryl core #this is by no means coherent or like #even a fully thought out philosophical stance #but he's just one guy who thinks he's figured out how people work despite not having been around them for much of his life

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artemiseamoon · 1 year

Text

Teaser: Damage Control

Upcoming chapter

Fic info ( full chapters only on A03)

Ft. Veronica, Frankie (plus a visit from one of the TF guys)

Warnings: angst, not adultery per se but thinking about it (not condoning, don’t do that in real life folks)

Frankie is facing forward now, in an effort to keep his eyes to himself. Veronica's is watching him, sitting sideways on the stool. He gives in and steals a glance from the corner of his eye, then takes another drink.

"Veronica, I was trying to sort out what happened. Me telling you all that."

"Don't beat yourself up about it, seriously. I'm glad you did."

"Wish I could say the same." He mumbles more to himself than her.

"There is nothing to regret Frankie. I see it this way, " she tops off her glass of wine, "you have that bottled up so deep inside, it was going to come out at some point. Even if wasn't here, or with me. But I'm glad it was me, and that -" she pauses to sort her thoughts, "you let me be there for you. Just for a little while. I think that's worth a boundaries breech." She brings the glass to her lips but stills when Frankie looks at her.

He doesn't know what to say, and he can't pull his eyes away from her either. Silence lingers between them as the prolonged gaze continues. Veronica suddenly gets a sad look on her face, and breaks eye contact first. "don't worry, I'll stay away from you."

"That's not what I'm worried about." Frankie admits. His words bring her eyes back to his.

"What are you worried about?"

"The same thing you are." He answers without hesitation.

Veronica looks away and stares off at the distance, he can see her mind working in her eyes. The next few minutes pass by in awkward silenced, as they both finish their drinks but don't speak.

Frankie knows he should leave, he tells himself to, but he stays. He knows he's asking for trouble, and that adrenaline junkie in him is taking the lead right now.

Veronica is done first. She stands quickly and caps the bottle, then leave it on the counter, along with her glass. She doesn't look at him, or say anything, just heads for the door.

Frankie faces the bar, his head lowered slightly. When he doesn't hear the door open, he glances over his shoulder to see her standing there. Her hand on the handle, but not moving.

"I just need to say something, to get it out - " she looks at him but keeps her hand on the handle, "I’m not an unhappy person, you know. I don’t hate my life or anything, for the most part I love it. I feel blessed. But I'm also lonely, he’s gone so much - "in the back of her mind, she's screaming at herself to shut up, to stop talking, but it's too late now,

"My brother, my friends, none of them live close to here. It's just me and the kids all the time. I'm isolated in this big castle of a house. I got so used to it I didn’t even think I could connect with a new person, then I - guess I connected too deeply."

Frankie’s paying close attention to her, her words, her movements, the sound of her voice. All the while, telling himself not to react, but he's not sure that's working. Everything he's been trying to keep back is clawing at the surface now.

She closes her arms around her body again, "you seemed so - far away, shut down and almost robotic at first. And when we started talking and just- being ourselves it was easy to get used to that, for me. I should have reeled back, I think. I don't know," she takes a breath, "I'm so mixed up about all of this and it needs to be said that, before you, I have never thought about - " she stops herself, unable to stay the rest.

"Never thought about what?"

"Frankie," she sends him a warning look, "don't ask me that. I stopped for a reason."

He sits up, "never thought about what?"

She loosens her arms and leans her back against the wall. When she finally replies, she keeps her eyes on the floor.

"I'm a faithful person, Frankie. Sure, I notice attractive people, but I'm not a cheat. If I'm with someone, I am with them, fully, with all of me. Damon and I, it took a lot to get here, and I love him. I do. I've never had my-" she rests a hand on her chest, " - no one's ever challenged my loyalty before," her voice drops to a whisper, "I've never thought about," she hesitates again and moistens her lips.

Frankie sighs and pulls his cap off. Setting it on the table, he scrubs his hands over his face. He knows he shouldn't push, but he wants to hear her say it. He hates himself for even admitting that.

"Maybe i'm making it all up, I don't know, fuck it. Forget I said anything." She shrugs and grabs the handle again. Frankie is quick to his feet, moving before his mind could tell him no.

He covers her hand with his own, and closes the door, his chest pressing against her back.

"frankie - "

"You're not making it up Veronica," he leans forward slightly, and breaths in the scent of her hair. She smells good, she always does. He's hyperaware of the space between his lower body and hers, if he moves closer, just a hair, that little bit of space, that small barrier, disappears. "Whatever this is, you're not making it up."

More soon. Fic in full on Ao3

More Frankie on my masterlist , scroll down to pedro or triple frontier

#Frankie Morales #private security frankie #frankie catfish morales #fic: damage control

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leofiat-bunny · 11 months

Text

Be My Favourite thoughts

My heart bleeds for Kawi

Kawi is an extrovert paralysed by social anxiety. I have social anxiety but I'm also very much an introvert. The self-imposed social isolation led to depression but nowadays I'm in a much better place... and even that place would be torture for Kawi because I still occassionally go a week without human contact (which is perfectly fine for me as long as it is occassional).

My immediate thought was his social anxiety is more extreme than mine ever was but actually, thinking about it, my worst was probably about equal; it just didn't hit as hard because

not hanging around people really didn't bother me as much

I'm close with my family and lived with my parents to my early 20s

at first I worked in an office with 1-3 other people around, not from home (and dear god did I get incredibly lucky with landing in that particular job, which I'm still at now)

Who is Pisaeng

They make it abundently clear that Kawi is an unreliable narrator and there’s no reason to believe that Pisaeng doesn't have his own blind spots, namely: he's not as frank as he claims he is/as he wants to be.

I think part of his problem is that he's a victim of his own privilege: he's rich, handsome, intelligent (I think), athletic. He's the incels ideal "alpha male".

His peers expect him to be a leader. They're happy to have him around, but they'll only invite him as part of a general invite. They won't seek him out for something because he's supposed to be taking the initiative.

Except he's very much not a leader. He's Newton's first law of motion in human form. He wants frankness because he wants people to tell him what they want.

Possibly even part of the natural sugar daddy is less the wish to be caretaker and more gratitude for clarity. Could be both. Actually, both would explain a reluctance to tell people he wants them to take the lead - he doesn't want to disappoint them. Another reason might just be the pressure of social expectation or you know... telling people is taking initiative so that’s not happening 🤷️

But it leaves him feeling isolated, ignored (for the person he actually is), and incredibly lonely.

I'm totally on the "he already had a crush on the cute boy and wanted to get to know him better" train, but I think he also was offering a meal because he didn't know what Kawi would want... he was probably also hoping for a clear answer to where would be good to go - we know he didn't book ahead since he couldn't tell Pear when they'd leave. And, of course, without instruction he didn't do anything as Kawi's buddy

But even 1 night of being led into friendship was enough to get the ball rolling and setting them as best friends 12 years later. Again: 1st law in human form.

(Along with the childhood friends and Pear just being awesome, part of why he likes her so much is because she's a great leader. I'm 100% on the arranged marriage train - it's attached to the other train, I haven't duplicated myself - but he still loves her, just platonically. Based on what we've seen so far I think Pear may currently have a crush on him, but she's still bi so she can get a girl who really loves her and Kawi's fixing her life too (good job accidently fixing it hero 😉))

I'm not sure how being a DJ fits into all of this... even if it's a passion, I'm surprised he followed through on finding a job

Outro

So those are my thoughts 2 episodes in.

How wrong am I? Probably very 😅

(General apology for the chaos that is my (ab-)use of punctuation)

#be my favorite

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