#i would strongly recommend this place to anyone. such a good experience

[whippetcrimes]

The progression. First, run from pool. Then be very uncertain about it. Then, only partly unwilling swimming

#when i called her from the other side and had a squeaky toy she came very enthusiastically #definitely worth the hour drive i think #everyone was so nice! and she was big about stopping before it got too exhausting/unfun #and making sure misty was as comfortable as she could be #and not rushing her too quickly to the water. we walked around the pool a couple times first and checked out the toys and such #the instructor was so great about keeping it a positive experience even though misty was a bit unsure/unhappy at times #i would strongly recommend this place to anyone. such a good experience #next time we're going to work on being excited/motivated for a toy instead of treats... #going to have to find something extra special that floats and only bring it out for this #she likes to play but she's really not toy driven... may be difficult #the instructor thought maybe her flirt pole would work so tbd #whippet #misdemeanor #dogblr #petblr #swimming

[veren-cos]

You Will Be Okay

Astarion (Bg3) x reader

TW: Mentions of Self Harm. Do not read this if this will trigger you or make you uncomfortable. If you struggle with self-harm or suicidal thoughts, I strongly recommend you reach out to someone.

Over 2k words. Probably. I don't know how to get a word count in my notes app 😭

Not proof read

"I think I hate myself." It slipped out. Fuck. It slipped out, you didn't mean to say that. Not right now. Not when everything was going so well?

Astarion stood there, tensed up. "What?" His face was flickering between concern, and confusion, and... whatever else that was.

You weren't going to repeat it. You couldn't. You were already panicking from saying it once, you couldn't imagine saying it again. Much less having a conversation about this. "I need to go." You said, too loud for talking, but too quiet to be considered a yell.

"OH no you don't" He grabbed you by the wrist as you were turning out the door. "We need to talk about this."

"I can't. No... No. No no no no nonono I can't—I can't do this. I can't do this astarion not today not toda-" You were pulling away, but that only tightened his grip. He pulled you into a hug. And although it was a loose one, it still made you feel trapped.

"Okay. Compromise. You've shown me how important those are." You looked at him, still panicked, but you were willing to hear him out. "You can go. But!"

Of course there was a but.

"only if I come with you. And!"

Another condition?

"Only if we talk about it when we come back. We don't have to talk at all while we are out. I'd prefer it, but it isn't a necessity. I just need you to not be alone. Either way, someone needs to be with you. Whether it's me, or say... one of our other companions? If you don't want this to linger in the air? I'm sure anyone of them would be happy to accompany you for an outing."

He was being. Suprisingly considerate about this. Accommodating. But now was not the time. You needed out, now.

You pulled out of the hug, fast. Not that it wasn't appreciated, but it was starting to feel more suffocating. "Alright. Alright. Okay. Yes. Fine. Good. Great. Awesome!" You felt a touch on your hand again. "Okay. Hoooo" you let out a breath. Then took a few more deep ones. "I'll take Gale. Is that okay? I mean you can come too but I really, really don't want to talk about this and if you're there I know I'll want to and I really can't." Your words were getting faster the more that came out. You took another breath, "But I will when we get back. Okay?"

"Okay. Be safe, I'll be around. I love you" Astarion sqeezed your hand tight, and then let go. He followed you and Gale out of camp, grateful (for once) that you and him were close.

Once Astarion saw you and Gale off, he made his way back his tent. Considering you weren't feeling the best, he knew he had roughly an hour to prepare.

You hated yourself? Blasphemy. Well... not blasphemy. He had seen you, the faint scars in the most random of places. Places that would be too well protected to be done by an enemy. The scars and cuts—just deep enough to have been recent, the constant torn skin around your fingertips. So he supposed he should have already known, but he didnt know you still felt this way.

He had plenty of experience hating himself, but he didn't dwell on it like you did. He swallowed his hatred and turned to bad habits - habits you were helping him fix. Now it was his turn to help you.

He had begun by cleaning. It wasn't necessarily messy, but he had seen your belongings and how they had gotten out of order. Once everything was in its proper place, he started to plan how to tackle this.

It wasn't something to be taken lightly, and it wasn't something that would be solved in a day. This conversation was a start, but it certainly wouldn't be the end. What did he bring up? How much could you handle? Did he mention that he had his suspicions, or did he leave that alone? Gods, this was hard. You've seemed so put together on your journey that he thought this was resolved a long time ago. When was the last time you'd hurt yourself?

Nothing much got accomplished in that hour, not that he could without you there. And before he knew it, you were home.

You sat down on a cushion, not having the luxury of a chair at the moment, and looked into Astarion's eyes. You knew you had to be the one to start this conversation. You knew it, but that doesn't mean you had to like it.

"Thank you," Astarion raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "for giving me space."

He gave a light smile, "of course. You have done the same for me countless times, and I know how hard these things can be. I will never pressure you into an immediate conversation. But, my dear, we need to talk about this. You can't be hating yourself. You are wonderful. I know some simple words of praise won't wash this away, but I need you to know that you are good."

Astarion came to sit next to you, close enough where you could feel his presence, but not be overwhelmed.

Feelings were bubbling up. Everything was coming up. You could feel tears start to stream down your face, falling whenever your breath shook your entire body with force. "I just hate everything. I hate myself. So much. Astarion, you don't know what things were like for me before. I was pitiful. You wouldn't have even spared me a thought."

You inturupted yourself with near hysterical sobbing. The thought of not being with him was too much to bear with all your emotions. "Go on. It's safe. You are safe here" He placed his hand atop yours and gave it a squeeze, like earlier.

"I. Uhm. I used cut myself. A lot. I know you've seen the reminents of it. I just." You took a minute to catch your breath before continuing. "I just couldn't tell you. Because there wasn't even a good reason for it."

"I didn't like the way I felt. I didn't like the way I looked. The way I acted? I felt like such a burden to everyone. And now I'm such a burden to you? And I know you'll just say that I'm not, but I should have been able to resolve this on my own. If I'd had my way, you would have never found out and thought my scars were from some brave battle. It wasn't a brave battle. It was self loathing."

You took another crying break. How long was this going to go on? How much of your guts would you spill before you broke?

"And I still think of it. All the time. I still hate myself. I still feel the urge to destroy myself in the only way I know how. But I can't afford to. I'm trying so hard to stay put together for everyone here. I want you all to live. But I really don't want that for myself."

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit, shit! Well now he knows everything. No turning back. Not that there was before, but your in too deep to even try and bury this.

He was sitting in front of you. You saw he was taking in everything you were saying at lighting speed, but you couldn't tell what he was thinking. He just kept rubbing circles into your palm, and handing you tissues at the appropriate moments.

You paused a bit too long for it to be considered normal in a conversation, so he urged you to continue. "Darling, I won't judge. It's okay, you can keep going."

You once again took some deep breaths. "I uhm... I tried to kill myself a while back? It didn't work, clearly, but the thought of it never truly went away. I uhm.

...

I still.. want to? And it's not that I'm unhappy, don't get me wrong! Every moment of joy has been genuine. But it's all being muffled by a blanket of sorrow and despair? That is dramatic oh hells. But yeah. I think uh. I think it's all out now?"

You sighed, both scared and relieved. You didn't want him to think that you didn't love him just because you didn't want to be here. You loved him so much it was probably one of the few things keeping you. Not that you would tell him. That is too much of a burden to put on one person.

So this is what you've been thinking. It explained a lot. The seemingly random guilty looks, and the distance whenever he tried to get closer. He had stopped pursuing you as a form of protection and deceit a while ago, but he had always thought that was the reason for your distance.

Now it was his turn for the big breaths. "My love." He drawled out the endearment. "It's okay. You're okay. We will get through this. You will get through this. Can I hug you?"

You nodded before he grasped you tightly.

"I'm right here. And I will be with you every step. Every setback you have. You can fall back on me"

He stroked through your hair once again, holding you tight into his chest, "Thank you for telling me. Now, this will be something that comes up every once in a while, okay? I know it won't be a comfortable topic but check-ins are necessary. I need to know how you're doing, because," He paused just enough for dramatic flair, "Whatever would we do without our fearless leader!"

It had managed to calm your tears, if only a little. Just what he had hoped for. The smallest laugh that escaped your breath was music to his ears, even between the hics and gasps as you recovered your breath.

"I just want you to know that I'm trying. I'm trying so hard. The feeling comes and goes. And right now is just a time where I need to be around people more. I need more support. But I'll be okay. So if you'll still have me..?"

Ugh, Idiot! Why would you say that last bit. He would never-

"I would never leave you over this darling! What do you take me for? If anything, this is just an excuse for me to constantly drape my arms around you. Whisper into your ear..."

He stands up and struts behind you. Wrapping his arms around you, he whispers, "tell you how much I care. How much I love you." And you smiled. Hells, you let out a laugh.

"See aren't I just amazing? Can make your mood with just a few words. I love you." He smirked, letting out the last bit of tense breath against your neck as he set his head on your shoulder. "I love you," he whispered again.

"I love you too, Astarion"

That day, he didn't let you go once. He stayed right by your side. You went out of your tent for dinner, and found that while you napped, Astarion told Gale to make your favorite. You don't often get nights of calm, but despite the rocky start, today was good.

Things were said, and things were learned, but everything would be okay.

You will be okay.

Author's Note: Please, once again, if you struggle with self harm or suicidal thoughts, reach out to someone. Things do get better, I promise you. There are many help lines and local resources, a quick search on Google will pull them all up.

If there is a way I can better phrase the trigger warning, please let me know. No one had any suggestions on my last one, so I'm going to assume that it was okay.

#bg3 #bg3 tav #bg3 x reader #bg3 x tav #astarion #astarion ancunin #astarion x gn!tav #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #astarion x you #tw #tw self h4rm #tw s3lf harm #tw selfhate #x reader fanfiction #x reader

[max1461]

My first encounter with the broad concept of "people who want to live in the woods" came in the form of seeing people, online and in media, actually living in the woods, in one capacity or another.

As a teenager I watched Ray Mears' Bushcraft. It's a really good show that I would strongly recommend to just about anyone. Ray Mears (who in fact popularized the term "bushcraft") is a British wilderness survival/outdoorsmanship expert, and in Bushcraft he travels around the world, meeting with people who still practice some form of traditional subsistence-off-the-land, and documenting their knowledge and techniques. He shows traditional bushcraft in the Amazon, among aboriginal Australians, etc., and talks to the people who practice it about their way of life.

This show had a pretty big impact on me as a young person. I was already avidly interested in nature and the outdoors, and I had been intrigued by the concept of "wilderness survival" since watching Survivorman as a kid. There was something very appealing about the idea of placing oneself in nature with as few barriers as possible; getting to experience the natural world not just in a removed, "sightseeing" way, but in a real, engaged and "tactile" way. But what Mears presented added an additional layer of appeal: "wilderness survival" not as a chaotic fray to stay alive, but as a body of skills, refined over the centuries, which can be taught and learned. A mature art, something sophisticated and deep, in which one can become a practitioner. Something, in other words, a lot like mathematics, which I already knew that I liked, and a lot like language, which I had just recently become aware I was fascinated by. This inspired in me a much more lasting and serious interest in bushcraft. I began reading about it more seriously, and practicing as much of it as I could (not very much) in my parents' back yard.

I still count "becoming truly proficient in bushcraft" as one of my life goals, although I am not anywhere near that point yet.

A further point stressed by Ray Mears was that these traditional bushcraft techniques are a dying art. As people's lifestyles change, they are not getting passed on, and soon they may be lost. I want to stress here (because I'm on tumblr, where Big Ideas and Grand Narratives rule) that I have no desire to chastise people for living a different lifestyle than their grandparents! That's fine! I do not believe that, I don't know, the children of bushcraft experts should be forced by government decree to live in the woods or whatever. I have to make this clear, because "what should we force people to do by government decree?" seems often to be the only level at which tumblr discoursers are willing to think. What I am claiming is that this loss of knowledge is sad, it is unfortunate, and being that I and others (including most principally many of the practitioners) would not like to see these arts die out, it would be nice if they continued to be taught and learned and thereby passed on into posterity.

There need not be some kind of Decree! Maybe people just do some kind of outreach, as Mears himself did, and get more people interested in these things. Maybe, if you're an Amazonian guy or an aboriginal Australian guy, you do that outreach in a community-internal way, because your desire is principally to increase interest community-internally. I don't know; my whole point here is that I'm not really trying to get into the political dimension of this. That's not where my interests lie. Other than expressing a general sentiment that "bushcraft is cool and readers of my blog should think it's cool", I don't have any particular agenda here.

Anyway, this is the sum total of the context in which "people going out and doing shit in the woods" existed for me until just a few years ago. Then I came into the internet discoursosphere, around 2020, and I realized two things very quickly:

everyone was debating the relative merits of living in the woods

no one seemed to have any interest in or experience with anything even passingly related to living in the woods on a practical level, either first- or second-hand.

It was all, all this purely abstract, "theory"-based, grand narrativizing politico-philosophical debate. Nobody gave a shit about friction fire-lighting or shelter construction at an object level. Nobody gave a fucking shit!

This is a microcosm, and in fact not just a microcosm but perhaps the type case, of why I hate the discourse. The discourse is insistent on taking everything real in the world, everything that is (permit me to get a bit philosophical myself) vibrant and living and actual, and turning it into this dreary, sterile, empty word game. Are the Marxists the True Leftists or are the Anprims the True Leftists? Which one is it? I don't know and I don't care. Why is our interest in being in nature mediated by meaningless word game abstractions? Why must our interest in science or history be reduced to meaningless word game abstractions (shape rotator/wordcel discourse)? Why must our interest in, say, video games be reduced to meaningless word game abstractions (any of the thousand video game discourses)? Etc. etc.

It's actively, fucking, toxic to the idea of just being a person in the world. Everything you do has to be some symbol in a bullshit fucking symbol game. Worse, everything everybody else does becomes to you a symbol in a symbol game, even if they aren't playing.

I am dedicated to an alternate project. I want to be in the world and I want to be in it with others. In fact, I am so dedicated to this, that I can appreciate the reality of others' lived experience and actions even in spite of the symbol games they might be playing, even if I think these symbol games might be a little bit bullshit. This is a plainly virtuous way to be. This is the way I was raised to interact with people; it is parablized in various different ways, we're told (among other things) "everyone has a story", and "everyone is valuable in their own way", and so on. And these things may seem trite but they are true, they are obviously fucking true and many people in "discourse" have forgotten.

There are some anarchists who are really into urban community gardening. They're into it for various reasons. Some feel that it gives them autonomy over and knowledge of their own food in a way that buying things at the grocery store does not. That's fair, and kinda cool. If you're into that I support you. Some of them think that the whole economy could be replaced with urban community gardens. That's a bit silly. But I will come to these "silly" anarchists' defense every single time without question, because, fuck, they're doing something. I mean they're fucking doing something, ya know? They see meaning in this thing, and they're doing it, and that's cool! I would rather go to the overly idealistic anarchist community garden than the just-the-right-tendency Marxist reading group or whatever the fuck every single time.

Buncha "got lost in the world of symbols and forgot what they signify" mfers on this world wide web of ours istg.

#will probably delete later #this is too personal and pissy #but I'll put it out there for a moment and see what people think #wtf am I coming to dumping my guts on the internet like this I should certainly shut the fuck up

[that-bwitch]

(five) stages of grief (love)

stage one: denial

so, this is going to be a series with five parts, obviously. heavily inspired by the band voilà and some of their songs. each song has an assigned part and will be revealed at the beginning. you don't have to, but I'd strongly recommend checking them out, as they're not only good songs, but will also elevate your reading experience.

also, since it's a series, I will be doing a taglist, so if you'd like to be added, let me know <3

falling asleep at the wheel by voilà sirius black x reader warning: toxic relationship, gaslighting, emotional abuse, swearing, drinking, mentions of underage drinking. read at your own risk. wc: 3.2k

The two of you were just a couple of young kids suddenly thrust into adulthood.

During the last few months at Hogwarts the thoughts about the future couldn’t escape your mind. It felt strange in a sense, because you remembered planning out your life after school down to the smallest details. You had your mind set on becoming a healer for a long, long while. You studied pretty much every single day, dusk till dawn, dawn till dusk – you had to ace the N.E.W.Ts or else your childhood dream would be crushed by the ruthless claws of the education system. Sirius never got that. He sounded rather nonchalant every time you tried to have a talk about the future, even when it came to the future of you as a couple. He didn’t have any plans, at least as far as you were aware. He brushed off your worries like they were specks of dust on one of his immaculate white shirts (two buttons at the top always undone, three – on special occasions). At some point, you had to give up trying to hammer at least some sense of responsibility into his head (not literally, but sometimes you really wanted to). But you stupidly didn’t, so you had to deal with an actual toddler of a boyfriend on top of your daily stress of the ever-accumulating homework and extra credit tasks you never failed to take.

Sirius was annoyed by your never-ending passion to study as much and as often as you could. He always joked about the fact that he had never spent this much time in the library as he started to when you got together. That much was true: in order to catch mere minutes with you he had to visit the quietest place in Hogwarts rather often – way more often than he would prefer. He wasn’t really joking when he said it though, and you started to catch irritated glances from him from time to time as your relationship progressed. At first, he used to compliment your longing for knowledge, he used to say you looked cute cuddled up with a book on a couch in the common room; as time went by, the number and the poetic value of his compliments had majorly decreased.

Sirius couldn’t help thinking that he didn’t sign up for this, but he didn’t have enough nerve to voice these thoughts. Still, you started having more and more fights. In your mind, you shouldn’t have had any during the so-called “honeymoon phase” of your relationship, but you chucked it all up to simple teenage drama. You thought it was brilliantly self-aware of you, but obviously it didn’t seem like it to Sirius. He hated the fact that he had to scramble for crumbs of your attention and lost the battle against your textbooks more than half the time. He wasn’t used to being sidelined, more so when his opponent was an ancient Herbology volume that looked like it was about to disintegrate in your hands as soon as you breathed on it.

You still had love for each other. It wasn’t puppy love, oh no – your eyes would shoot daggers at anyone who even dared to suggest it. Sirius was also of an incredibly high opinion of that thing between the two of you, calling you “star-crossed lovers” and “the modern version of Romeo and Juliet”. He started using the latter as soon as you made him acquainted with this terribly upsetting love story written by a muggle literary genius, and wouldn’t let it go even after learning that these kids did, in fact, die. He always assured you that you wouldn’t end up like them, that even death couldn’t do you part, and you just knew he was right. You just knew.

“So, what’s next?”

You were standing on the platform, waiting for Hogwarts Express to pick you up and take you away into the likely gray and rainy but still welcoming embrace of London. Your eyes were still glistening in the sun from all the tears you shed during the graduation ceremony. You kept sobbing as you left the school grounds on the same boats that took you there when you were just a small child with a dream. To be honest, you still felt like a child with a dream; suddenly, you weren’t fully ready to take the next step that could take your life in various directions even you, a goody-two-shoes with spreadsheets tracking her exam scores, didn’t have the ability to predict.

“I don’t know, baby. We’ll figure it out.”

Sirius was as laconic as he usually was when it came to these kinds of talks. His hands were wrapped around your waist, bringing you some sense of comfort in front of this huge uncharted wasteland that was the future. You looked up at him, exploring every single feature of his carefree face, completely unbothered by any mighty thinking. You wanted to remember him like that.

“Oh, the lovebirds are at it again, look at them!” James yelled, running up to you hand in hand with Lily. You let out a little laugh, because he seemed to be blissfully unaware of him being a member of the “lovebirds club” as well.

“You ready?” he asked, hugging Lily from behind as they stopped next to you.

“Born ready.”

It was such a Sirius line. You remembered getting annoyed at how he inevitably used it every time you questioned his lack of concern about tomorrow. He was born ready to face anything – McGonagall’s justified wrath when he failed (or, more precisely, didn’t even start) to complete the simplest Transfiguration homework known to man; raging Slytherins after a particularly nasty Quidditch loss; a hangover after getting wasted on very illegal firewhiskey that the guys managed to get at the Hog’s Head and sneak into school. You weren’t born ready, so you felt his words were rather offensive towards your anxious state.

“Where’s Moony? He’s always wandering somewhere; I’m shocked he hadn’t missed a train once!”

Just as Sirius’ words escaped his mouth, someone’s hand landed on his shoulder. Remus was all smiles, running his other hand through his hair to move some stray strands from his face.

“Here, Pads, don’t you worry. Wonder where this little rat is, though. Peter!!!” Remus screamed at the top of his lungs to cover as much ground as possible.

“Coming!” Peter approached your group, slightly out of breath.

You felt like you were in a dream – you know, one of those you wake up from and have to take an extra minute to yourself to come back to Earth; you can’t believe it didn’t happen in real life. That moment at the platform awoke the same exact emotions in you. You had all your friends around you, you should have been over the moon and looking forward to what life had to offer – and somewhere deep inside your mind and soul you were. But you felt your stomach turn all the same, looking back at the glorious castle that towered over the crowd of new graduates even in the distance. For the first time in years, you knew for sure that you wouldn’t be returning there on the 1st of September. But it would be the last time you would cram yourself into the carriage with your closest ones, the last time you would laugh your asses off for the whole Express to hear, the last time you would say your goodbyes on the Platform 9 ¾ and not know when would be the next time you see each other.

“Hey, baby?” Sirius gently nudged your shoulder, drawing your wandering attention. “You seem lost.”

“Can’t believe we’re leaving, is all.”

Your voice was hoarse and quiet, like it didn’t belong to you at all. Sirius pressed his lips against your temple, leaving a trace of lingering warmth. At the moment, he made sure you knew that you were his world and he was yours. The voices of your friends around you were muffled by the soft and fresh cotton blanket of his love.

“We’ll be fine, baby. I promise, we’ll be fine.”

And you wanted to believe him.

The couch in your tiny rented flat was all beaten up and shabby, but as long as it was Sirius whose breath your felt on your skin while you lay on it, it didn’t matter. The whole flat had most definitely seen better days, but it was your home, your first home together, so it already had sentimental value assigned to it. Were you too young at this tender age to live together? Too young to shoulder the responsibilities that the very unforgiving Big World had yet to put on your shoulders? Your parents would enthusiastically agree, but you and Sirius would just roll your eyes in sync and you would add that you weren’t their little baby girl anymore. Then you would soften, because you loved your parents a lot, even when they were insufferable! – and assure them that they could calm down, that you had everything figured out, that you would send them owls at least every three days and visit at least once every two weeks. Your mom would laugh and say that promises were nice, but if you were to succeed in becoming a Healer like you wanted, you would never have time for all that. And you would leave, realizing with stifling regret that she was right.

“Baby, I’m sorry, I have to go,” you whispered into Sirius’ ear. He seemed to have fallen asleep, but as soon as you moved your body to lift yourself up from the couch, his eyes snapped open and he strengthened the hold he had on you. You sighed and pushed yourself against his chest, trying to unglue his tightly locked arms.

“No, Sirius, really, let me go.”

“Why would I?” he wondered, determined, of course, not to let you leave him on the couch all alone. “You’re warm, you’re soft, tonight I slept for two hours… See?”

You closed your eyes for a brief moment, clearing your head without any pressure that Sirius liked inflicting on you with his puppy eyes. Lately you had to deal with them and his pleading far too often. It had only been two weeks since you moved in together, but tension hadn’t left the air since day one, when you couldn’t agree on the chore chart you suggested – as in, Sirius didn’t want to have one at all. He thought it was perfectly fine to leave dirty dishes in the sink, to leave dust to accumulate in layers on every surface imaginable – he was a wizard, after all! He could do it whenever, so why would he spend his precious time that you can’t get back on some measly chores? His attitude drove you insane, but each time you had a fight about it, you had to let it go until another little thing would make you lose your temper. He just. Wasn’t. Cooperating. In anything.

“Sirius, love, my apprenticeship. Why do you always forget?”

“Oh yeah. Sure. Your apprenticeship.”

Sirius loosened his grip and you were able to slip away to finally start getting dressed. His bitter verbal quotation marks were a given whenever he mentioned your new job. As soon as you heard the tone of his voice, you slapped your palms against your face so hard that you could hear the sound faintly ringing in the air, and let out a whistling breath into the gaps between your fingers.

“Again?”

“What? I just said “sure”, is that not allowed anymore?”

Sirius was getting angry. You could tell by way his chest heaved harder than usual and his hands, albeit still resting on his stomach, were clenched together, knuckles so white they could blind the sun itself.

“You know what you said, Sirius. I’m not stupid.”

You didn’t have time to deal with all this nonsense, you would hate to be late to St Mungo’s again. Besides, throughout the whole fortnight you had been living together so far, you started to grow increasingly more anxious and irater whenever you had to mention your newfound venture even in a brief recollection of you day. Sirius would never leave it be, he would always, always do something or say something that hurt you. He didn’t do it maliciously, he told you anytime you took notice of that, he was just reacting, you knew how he felt about you always being away, and blah-blah-blah, and so on… You believed him, you tried really hard to believe him and spent hours on hours on hours persuading yourself that he didn’t mean it, that he loved you and was happy for you.

“Whatever. You can leave. It’s not like I’m locking the door.”

He knew you hated it. He knew how much you despised getting out of the house with a fight between the two of you still looming like the sword of Damocles above your head during the day. He also knew that you would likely forget about the whole deal by the end of it, or at least would try smoothing things over. You hated fighting. But this time he was mistaken – rage you had accrued by that point was burning you up from the inside and you were tired of the endless piles of shit he kept throwing your way.

“You know what, Sirius? You’re a real fucking asshole!”

That was a pretty pathetic insult, you thought, but turned out, it was just enough to get Sirius all riled up. He jumped up from the couch and in seconds he was standing right in front of you, spitting words straight into your face.

“A real fucking asshole?! Come on, baby, who taught you to swear? A fucking child?”

“Yes, it was you, so yes, a fucking child!”

Sirius stepped back, raising his eyebrows sarcastically and bursting out laughing. He was hysterical, by the sounds of it.

“I’m a child? I am a child?! And who are you then, my poor, poor soul? Because throwing me crumbs when your fucking hospital gets the whole three-course meal is real mature!”

And there he was again, shitting all over you like it was small talk.

“Could you ever respect my job?! Is this too much that I’m asking?!”

Your arms hurt from waving them around so much. You wished you could stay calm, as always, you wished you had just left, then came back at the end of the day and everything was alright. But deep down you knew this whole delusional bubble would burst at some point. Sooner was better than later.

“Come on, what job? What job?! 2 galleons a day is a-fucking-lot, isn’t it, love?”

A wave of pure shock nearly knocked you down. Your nose started tingling, signaling the imminent arrival of those pesky motherfuckers called tears. Sirius never talked about money to you, on the contrary, it was always your initiative to go over your budget for the week. He never agreed, because he felt it was too burdensome, and now he was throwing it straight back into your desperate face.

“At least I don’t sit on my ass all day! Your part-time at Fortescue’s is so much better, right?! Why don’t you try the Hog’s Head next?”

You knew you struck a nerve. You couldn’t even deny doing it deliberately, just to show him that it hurt. Sirius never explained his choice of career to you, but he seemed happy enough, so you never let it bother you. But his unwillingness to actually properly discuss it made you think he wasn’t that satisfied. You saw it on his face right after you blurted out your little speech.

“Oh yeah, I do sit on my ass all day, and you know what? Even I earn more than you!”

Sirius wasn’t that easy to break, you knew it, but you hoped that you could maybe just this one time… And you also knew that you brought this storm upon yourself, because when Sirius was angry, he could say anything, literally anything without a care in the world, something he would probably regret later. You could never guess if he actually did, but your heart was desperate to believe so. It didn’t happen often, but whenever it did, it stung like a thousand wasps landed on you at the same time and plunged their stingers deep inside your skin at the same exact spot.

“So, it is about the money?”

You weren’t shouting anymore. Any leftover strength fled your body, so you had to sit back down on the couch, staring at Sirius as he was going blurry in front of you, as if he was already drowning in the upcoming stream of your tears.

“No? If that’s what you’re getting… well, good fucking luck.”

Sirius threw his hands up, as if he was giving up. He leaned on the wall and crossed his arms on his still heavily heaving chest, looking somewhere through the leaking ceiling.

“What is it then?” you asked, almost in a whisper, because you truly did not have it in you to even raise your voice, let alone have a screaming match.

“Really? I fucking love you, that’s what!”

Sirius did have it in him. He tried really hard to ignore your fallen spirit; he felt the need to dump the entirety of his emotional outburst on you, because when else would he do it? Things were already perfectly awful, so nothing had the capacity to make the situation worse.

You wished you had some magical noise-cancelling earmuffs that would drown out his voice. After everything he said (and had been saying before) he had the audacity to tell you that he loved you? Indeed, he did. It was no surprise, unfortunately. All your fights ended up like that – he told you that he loved you, that he was just afraid of losing you, that you were his everything; he begged you to say that you loved him too. He needed to hear it, he cried. And you would always crumble right there with him. You forgave him every. Single. Time. And then he went back to his usual careless self.

“I want to be with you in every possible way, do you understand that? Emotionally, spiritually, or whatever the fuck you call it, and physically.” Sirius took your silence as a go-ahead for him to continue, his voice still raised. “And right now, I can’t have that. And I don’t like it at all, I hate it with a burning passion. Why can’t you see it?” he finished much softer.

You finally let a violent shower of tears leave your eyes. You couldn’t stand crying in front of Sirius – it was a sign he won. But he never let it show. He could finally play the part he knew and loved the most: a wonderful apologetic boyfriend who pulled you into his arms, cradled you like a baby and gave your head thousands of little kisses while you wept into his shoulder. He apologized over and over and you felt guilty for making him do it. Ultimately, he was right. Maybe you were selfish, maybe you didn’t have your priorities straight, maybe you wronged him each and every time you took an extra shift at St Mungo’s to prove yourself as a reliable Trainee Healer. Maybe he did love you more than life itself. Maybe he was your fate, your forever and ever, and you were his.

“We’ll be fine, baby. I promise, we’ll be fine.”

You had already heard these words before. You believed them.

#sirius black x reader #sirius black x fem!reader #sirius black x y/n #sirius black fanfiction #sirius black imagine #sirius black series #the marauders #the marauders era #the marauders fanfiction

[stelladess]

I feel a bit annoyed by people saying Firefly is the star rail version of Kallen. As a fan of both characters I feel they got next to nothing in common whatsoever. They dont look similar, they arnt similar people, they dont have similar backgrounds or motives... there is just nothing really. It feels like reducing them to Stelle/Caelus girlfriend (this one is supported by the story but I feel like much of what makes Firefly and this ship interesting gets overlooked, admittedly some of it assumes the theory about Firefly being SAM is true and some lore knowledge about SAM but even without taking that into account Firefly is a great character in her own right) and Otto´s girlfriend (which, as a huge Otto fan, I will say, of course has its own issues and I do not like the romantic interpretation with them, the previous era versions of them are different people and dont count for this imo and there is no evidence at all Kallen of the current era was into Otto and also Kolosten heavily suggests it wasnt even a romance thing for Otto either) I highly recommend people read the prequel comic focused on Kallen, its when Kallen is younger then when we see her in flashbacks, set before meeting Sakura (i highly recommend also checking out that whole story at some point even if it can be a bit awkwardly time gated in game and slightly confusing) in HI3 so her personality/demeanor is a bit different from how she was by then (she is a lot more naive for one) but I think its still a good introduction to see why Kallen is a good character and a good showcase of how she isnt like Firefly at all and doesnt require sitting trough all of Kolosten and several side stuff in game to get to, so its a convenient starting place to see if you want to see more about Kallen. Which I hope anyone reading this ends up wanting to but even if not thats fine and is why I recommend starting here since its an easy read with very nice art and a fairly self contained story. Also if you dont play HI3 and am just curious on Kallen because of what other people are saying. Elan Palatinus: https://manga.honkaiimpact3.com/book/ Some spoilers for Penacony mentioned below here....

Firefly I dont wanna go too deep into character analysis here cause some of it relies heavily on an unproven theory, ill probably write about her more later though. But either way I feel like she is a very well written character, her desire to indulge in some escapism to get a break from her harsh reality with her terminal illness, her determination to find the watchmaker´s legacy despite the risk, her clearly having gotten a lot of experience dealing with dangerous situations despite seemingly wanting to just live a normal happy life, she hasnt been in the game very long (yet, the boss that "killed" her whole gimmick is that you can free the souls it claims so im not so sure she is actually gone, also you can see a Firefly leave her body before she dissolves shortly before Sam shows up...) but she is already very strongly characterized even with her limited screentime. If the theory that she is Sam is also true then it would add an extra layer to her closeness with Stelle in that some lore about Sam suggests Sam was artifically created for the purpose of fighting against the swarm, so she likely would relate to Stelle on account of the whole... being made to fullfill a purpose thing. As a stellaron hunter in this case she would also know about that quite likely so I like the theory. Idunno I just feel frustrated how characters often feel like they get boiled down to just their archetype or role (and sometimes not even any of those but just completely unrecognizable) when they are actually very interesting and well written characters. I want people to appreciate the writing that went into these amazing characters, not just these two but also many other examples but I wont ramble on here. So I strongly recommend people read more about them if at all curious, altough be careful since there are tons of leaks and spoilers in general going around regarding anything Penacony related, so with Firefly it might be best to wait a bit if spoilers are a concern.

#honkai star rail #hsr #hi3rd #hi3 #hsr firefly #kallen kaslana #honkai impact

[lizzibennet]

Hiii you don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but what made you realise you were a lesbian rather than bi? As someone who has always identified as bi since discovering the concept of it, sometimes I really do wonder.

Or do u think of it as more fluidly- something that changes with the time of life and people you surround yourself with and other factors.

And are all the sexuality phases you have been through just as valid as the current one or can the past be negated by the strong sense of change at that moment?

Idk I just want your thoughts on it (again feel free to ignore!) (Ps: also i would love to hear your recommendation on bi lit books, fiction or otherwise!!)

sooooo to put it very simply, i realized my “attraction” to men was actually just a sense of me wanting to get recognition and validation from them. this was truly SHOCKING to me as i’ve always considered myself a pretty independent person who didn’t give a shit about what anyone thinks, and on a surface level that is true, but this was something unconscious, in such a deep level that i needed help in therapy to be able to understand it! there was just something about being *desired* by men that made me feel good, but things like, say, sex or the actual romantic relationships i pursued with them were never fulfilling to me, emotionally or physically. i also was always into men who just were not good to me and i sought it out, i think, as a form of self harm. i just thought that’s how i was! and then i met my girlfriend and just so much slotted into place. i think a lot is different because she is the love of my life, but i also needed to admit how many things seemed to be different because she is a woman, how many things are good and easy with her and were good and easy with my ex gf but were terrible headaches when dating my ex bfs. so much of my demeanor just unconsciously changed when we started dating and i felt like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, like i didn’t need to “perform” as a woman as much, and as someone who DI DN’T think i performed before i knew there was something to examine there. truly there is so much!!!! a lot of my life seems to make more sense now! i always had a little bit of doubt and even tested the label when i was like 16 but in the end i just realized even if the gf and i broke up i would simply never want to date a man again ever in my life and would only ever pursue women from then on. i also realized the things i did like about the men i dated were simply things i could get from friends. i could never be wholly fulfilled only being friends with women, i’d want to date and fall in love with them, but i do not need or want that from men. the few parts of my relationships w men i did like (which were pointedly not the sexual or romantic part of it, more like the camaraderie of it i guess) i easily get from my male friends now. saurrrr this is totally rambly because it’s still very much not tidy in my mind yet tbh but yeah comphet and a lot of self hatred did a number on me LMAO

i think sexuality can definitely be fluid and i could very well have been bisexual and then later become a lesbian! i personally don’t think that was the case with me, i think i’ve always been a lesbian and just now with the clarity of AdulthoodTM and so many relationships and experiences i can have more context and know that i’ve probably always really been attracted to women and thats all. in the end even when i id’d as bi i always said i did not want to marry a man and always thought i’d end up with a woman so i think at some level i probably always knew a little bit.

(of course bisexuals with preferences exist and having been on the receiving end of biphobia so many times over the course of the last decade i feel very strongly that bi experiences and the bi community and its history are very important for all lgbt people to know! id’ing as bi, i always felt like the fact a ton of our experiences were not black and white and uniform made other members of the lgbt community uncomfortable, and, well, now i’m a lesbian with a track record that can only be defined as contentious lmao, so i relate stoll. the discussions happening within bi spaces are all very enlightening and important. i always felt safe and very welcomed in bi spaces and i loved the local community. i just felt like i had to say this- i need it to be very clear that my experience does not invalidate bisexuality in any way shape or form)

i have no like ill will towards past me for not “seeing it” sooner, i simply do not want to be that anymore. idk if “negate” is the word i’d use, i think all my past experiences as they happened then were valid and important and tbh if interpreted them as i was back then then i have no interest in going back and revisiting all of it. i thought of myself like that back then, i lived my life as best as i could then, this is what i think now and i’ll live my life as best as i can from now on. i’m not really the type to latch/hold onto past deeds. i’ll reexamine something if i think it’s worthwhile for current me but i don’t feel the need to go and recontextualize my entire life it that makes sense. that’s how i was then and this is how i am now, both phases are just as valid in my opinion

tldr i 🩷 my gf!!!!!!!!!!

#anonymous #what is my ask tag again

[jupitermelichios]

Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 Warning

Just got back from seeing vol 3, and it's great, really good film, but I also genuinely think it has been rated incorrectly. I don't normally disagree with the BBFC, but if I had seen that movie at 12, it would have given me nightmares for months.

It also contains a lot of themes and moments which hit common triggers.

The movie contains themes of: animal abuse, torture of both animals and people, child abuse, animal death, medical abuse and medicalised torture, genocide, and gore

I've included a list below the cut of upsetting or potentially triggering things which happen (in as spoiler-free a form as possible) but I would definitely recommend talking to someone who's seen it before making a decision about going if any of the themes listed above are likely to be an issue for you, and if you have kids or young teens who want to see it, I would highly recommend seeing it yourself or talking to someone who has before deciding whether to take them. (And if you don't know anyone who's going to see it, feel free to drop me a message, i'd be happy to help)

Like I said, it's a good movie, and obviously is has a happy ending, it's an action-comedy blockbuster, but it gets really dark in places in ways I definitely wasn't expecting based on the trailers and the previous two movies.

More details under the cut

The movie contains multiple flashbacks to Rocket's backstory as a baby racoon who was experimented on

While not graphic, there are two scenes showing him being opperated on, and in one of these he is conscious and clearly in great distress

We see the aftermarth of one of the experiments when Rocket is still a baby, which leaves him bleeding and in pain

Other animals who have been experimented on appear in the movie. Most are cyborgs (having some robotic parts) and all are designed to be unsettling to look at, even though the characters themselves are sympathetic, including a rabbit with robotic spider-legs, and a walrus with mechanised eyelids which resemble the eye-opening device from a Clockwork Orange

Rocket has a relationship to his creator which strongly resembles that of an abusive parent-child relationship

As a child Rocket is forced to watch another animal be tortured and then killed

Rocket witnesses the other animal experiments, including one who is framed as basically being his adoptive mom, be murdered

The Guardians discover the people who made rocket are now experimenting on human-looking children. We do not see the children be tortured, but we do see them in cages

A character gets their face peeled off, and the raw muscle underneath is shown on camera

An entire planet is destroyed, killing every inhabitant, and this is not the usual upping the stakes style destruction seen from space, we are on the ground as it happens, and have met some of the inhabits who we see die

The initiating event of the movie involves Rocket not being able to recieve urgent medical care because his childhood abuser is preventing it

#gotg #gotg vol 3 #mcu #guardians of the galaxy #rocket raccoon

[optiwashere]

Opti, you said you were in fandom for a long time right?

What would you do if a show you're really into gets another season out of nowhere that you're excited to see but the fandom you were a part of actually was the worst (okay to be honest it wasnt the worste but the amount of disparity i see between content for the white characters and the non white characters makes me superimpose) and you're afraid of it reviving again?

Also tbh the shows not that good either it just gripped me in the special interest and now I can't let go

How to fix?

Heya anon!

First of all, I'm sorry that the fandom for this show was like that. There's definitely decades of history of fandoms hyperfocusing on white characters over all else, white men specifically, if there are even any non-white characters in the first place. That's awful, and I'm sorry you gotta deal with that.

Usually, my suggestion for that is to create that content you want to see. But I get that it's immensely frustrating when you have to do that because people are ignoring entire chunks of the original work. I also get if it's not something you've got the skills for. Fuck knows I can't draw for shit, so any visual art I would want out there can't come from me.

So as a general rule of thumb I always suggest the self-preservation method of fandom if you can! If you can carve out a niche of fandom that you can vibe with, not even necessarily agree with 100% of all topics on, then fandoms like that become infinitely more enjoyable.

I had to do that with all of my previous fandoms and I still do that with BG3. I curate everything I see really heavily by blocking anyone that worsens my experience on Tumblr/AO3/insert fandom hub of choice, blacklisting tags on those sites that would make my experience worse, and exercising some willpower in not trawling the general fandom tags*

Worsening my experience can mean anything from stressing me out about the type of posts they make or simply making me roll my eyes one too many times. I promise you they won't notice nor will they care. At least nobody I've blocked has ever cared because the feelings are typically mutual lol. Anyways, I strongly recommend getting well-acquainted with the block button.

So if you really want to enjoy this new season, watch it with people you like talking to if you can. Send anons to the people with the opinions you at least enjoy reading about (not necessarily agree with BTW) to stoke their hype and create that lovely feedback loop of fandom joy.

When you're in a fandom that you either don't enjoy or find yourself disagreeing with on major topics, you kinda have to curate it for yourself. I know it sucks to feel disconnected from the fandom sometimes. I'm a weirdly social creature with fandoms, so I really get that feeling of being completely and utterly disconnected from the greater whole (i.e., vampire man)

I can only suggest the above options for keeping yourself somewhat sane while also having fun!

Hope that helps 💜

*I fail at this too often for my own good tbh

#hey you can ask me things! #p.s. before you say “oh it doesn't matter how good you are!” w/r/t art - I mean I'm very bad and I don't have the time to learn to be bette #which may or may not be this anon's situation

[peemanne]

pee-man's yakuza ost review: the original

guess who's obsessing over shirtless guys fighting on rooftops again!!!!!!! so i've been working on a little personal project which naturally involves me typing up a bunch of yakuza related stuff and i usually listen to said soundtrack whenever i write about it because a) it reminds me of my experiences with the games themselves and b) buzz lightyear video game osts video so while i'm doing that i got the idea to do this little thing on the side: i'm gonna review each game's ost as i write about them, keeping things fresh in my mind and to give another shot to tracks i might've missed or forgotten about. when it's all over, i'll do the natural gamer thing and make a Tier List™️ because of course i will plus i haven't listened to most of the japanese only spinoff ost's so i finally get an excuse to fully listen to those too. yippee!!

Naturally we start with the first game: Yakuza for the PS2. (quality for certain tracks can get a little questionable towards their ends: i just listened to them via spotify myself)

The first two PS2 games have a very unique sound to them that the later entries don't really have. A lot of the current composers haven't really gotten on board yet, so Hidenori Shoji's directed and (I think) also composed most of the tracks by himself. What results is a more rough, edged feel to the sound. It's almost grunge-like rock, and I'm definitely a fan of what comes out of it.

My personal top 5 includes: 1) Turning Point, with its sirens and dream-like rhythms 2) Pray Me, with unintelligible English lyrics, unironically my favorite part of it 3) For Whose Sake, conveying so much sorrow 4) son of a gun, if you want reasoning just listen to 1:08-1:20 5) Funk Goes On, which kept me coming back for street fights just to hear it again

Some tracks I appreciated more this time include:

Blow To The City: This is a pretty damn solid panic theme! I love the unease that comes with those piano chords in the middle.

Singin' Bass: Fun little track for the hostess minigame. I dig how laid back it is, and I really like those little touches and whispers of sax.

Coming To My Life: The... uh... noises at the start threw me for a loop when this first came on, but aside from that, another cool laid back song. The vocals are very, how you say, "video game music" like? But yeah, whatever, cool track.

Poison Pill: I honestly didn't even know this track existed. But hey, it sounds awesome, and it's more music, so that's a win. I like the main riffs quite a bit, and of course, that signature PS2kuza siren. I love that siren so much.

You of course have your iconic first appearances of what would be legendary tracks with pretty strong first outings, with what is basically the game's main theme, Receive You, and our favorite one-eyed mad dog's first ever theme, Receive You the Prototype. And, yeah! They're pretty solid tracks, and it's no wonder they've been the basis for so many renditions later down the line. Receive You actually won 2nd place in a little OST bracket on Youtube awhile back: that should speak to it's legacy a lot. I love the other renditions a LOT, but the originals still stand strong as great tracks.

Overall, pretty strong soundtrack! Even in their first outing, RGG had their priorities straight and their music department on fire. While, spoiler alert, I still like Yakuza 2's OST more, there are some really good tracks here, and they do so much to enhance the moment's they're played in, as well as really helping in Yakuza 1's atmosphere, which I'd argue is one of the game's strongest elements. I'd STRONGLY recommend a listen to anyone who's only every heard the Kiwami renditions.

#ryu ga gotoku #rgg #yakuza #like a dragon #yakuza 1 #yakuza ost #VIDEO GAME OSTS #THAT'S WHAT BRINGS HEALING INTO MY SOUL. #YOU!! HAVE!! NO!! SWAG!! #i have swag by the way i promise i listen to stuff other than video game osts please i promise im cool and swag and awesome #ramblings of the pee-man

[aleakybiro]

Gris; A new way of using a medium

So I recently played through the game ‘Gris’ (2018), and I would 100% recommend! The gameplay was enjoyable, the puzzles challenging, and was a good general experience. The story centers around a girl who has been through a traumatic experience, with each of the game’s chapters focusing on one of the five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. 

The first thing that stood out to me about this game was the art. Painted in a loose, watercolour style, it’s beautiful and rather unique, and combined with the music creates an overall immersive effect. But as well as setting a gorgeous backdrop, the art plays a key part in the story.

Gris’ journey begins in black and white, in a barren landscape. Every step is slow, every button results in her slumping to the ground. This immediately resonated with me, evoking a feeling of hopelessness the way a painting or a piece of music perhaps would, but not one I’ve felt so strongly from a videogame before this.

As you travel, Gris gains abilities relating to her environment. One of these is her dress becoming a heavy block, a grounding force against the winds of anger which allows slow, but steady steps forward through the storm. Later, this ability can be used to generate large amounts of force, the anger becoming a grounding force as harsh actions like breaking through stone allow her to move past places where she would otherwise find herself stuck. The application of real world advice and aids is an important part of Gris, with the need for patience, balance, seeing the bigger picture, and trusting yourself to jump even if you can't yet see where you'll land.

More importantly though, as the game progresses, you restore colour to the world. As Gris reconnects with each emotion, no matter how terrible, colour returns, moving away from the empty wasteland of grey to eventually fill the world with all the colours. The beauty of watercolour skies and painted backdrops are directly relevant to the storyline, with the restoration of each colour allowing you to directly connect with different elements of the world (water, nature etc.) 

However, what I did find quite unusual about Gris, was the lack of fighting, or the ability to die. There is no game over. If you fall, you are just set back. You have to climb up again, yes, but you don’t die. Because this is a journey through the mind, Gris does not fall and break. In fact, falling plays an important role in the story, with the opening credits having her fall through the endless sky. This is, I think, one thing that makes the game feel very close to real life. You can be set back, you can fall, time and time again, but the fall is never what kills you; giving up is. You can give up on Gris, become frustrated that you can’t find your way back up, and leave. But the game always gives you the option to just get up and give it another go, right from where you fell. 

Even the game’s “boss” is not a traditional battle. On your first encounter, you run away. I mean, of course you do. The big, inky black crow is an obvious symbol of the trauma, and that’s what anyone would try to do - escape. Your battle is merely pushing him back while you try to get away, get further into the sky. Eventually though, you do face him. But it’s not by punching through him or shattering him into a million pieces. No, instead we watch, as Gris comes to terms with the creature. There are parts where we just watch, watch the beautiful scenery rush by during a chase, watch the story piece itself together without our input.

The game is also paced very well, the mystery of what happened gradually revealed as you walk time and time again through one particular place, yet notice how it changes each time, and how with your new experience and abilities you gain access to paths previously out of reach.

It is in these parts where I wonder if Gris would have worked as something other than a game. And the answer is, in my opinion, probably yes. Gris is an art piece, more than anything else. Game or not, it still would have been a beautiful one. And yet, I think the videogame part is what made it so effective. It captures us, fully, in its world, its stakes becoming our own. We feel grounded by the block the same way Gris does, it's weight allowing us to keep moving. We feel the same frustration she must every time we fall down, every time we have to try again. And I think it’s because of this that during my playthrough, it felt more as if I was immersed in a piece of art than playing a game. 

Gris is, of course, not the only game to do this, but it is a stunning example. Despite the simple premise, the experience it gives the player is very meaningful, because it isn’t trying to be anything more complicated than what it is. It tells you a story, shows you the art of beautiful, abstract worlds. But it also takes you into that, wrapping you in music and evoking emotions that we have all felt before, reminding us of our own experiences and relating to us in a way that feels more on the level of a movie than a videogame.

I think that it’s amazing to see the medium of games used in this way, and it really shows that the industry will always be one full of innovators. I really do hope that in the future artists will be able to show us their work in this way more.

#gris #gris game #analysis #videogame analysis #nomadadigital #nomada studio #also sorry the gifs aren't great quality #i had to do them myself #and i forgot how difficult it is to edit anything on tumblr #wouldn't let me have the pictures where i wanted AND a cut apparently that was too much

[dominustempori]

Not every day an actor you admire gets you to watch one of their movies...

Long post, you've been duly warned.

So if you've seen my more recent blogs, I've been obsessing (a bit, healthily, I assure you) over a certain adventure game series. And from there, I'm doing like I usually do when I want to know more about an actor I REALLY like. Finding other stuff they've done, checking out what social media they use here and there, non-profits they support and promote and what have you...

Enter Alexandra Boyd. Actor, writer, director...inspiration.

Podcasts? Check. Her own personal site? Check. Clips from past British shows she had minor AND major roles in? Check.

Finding out her latest film is a documentary about some of the "core extras," including herself, that were in 1997's 'Titanic?' And the trailer for it looks REALLY good?...didn't see that coming.

Truth: until, like, literally now, I NEVER SAW TITANIC.

I was probably the ONLY teenager in AMERICA that had no desire to go watch it, or had a crush on Leo DiCaprio for that matter.

But...granted, I remembered that other actors I've come to REALLY like over time since I was in high school, they were in the movie: Victor Garber, Bernard Hill, Ioan Gruffud, David Warner...you get the idea. I think I prefer Kate Winslet's performance in "Sense and Sensibility" to her Rose but, eh, I'm a little biased.

And, well there's good reasons why 'Titanic' got so many Academy Awards that year...but I'll be real: I was pretty damn excited when "Return of the King" got all of ITS Oscars for 2003.

Anyway.

Few days ago, I took a chance, hoping I didn't come off as too-much-of-an-awkward fangirl, and shot Alexandra a shoutout on Messenger, saying how amazing it was that she came back for her role as Elaine in Return to Monkey Island. And, kind of offhandedly, mentioned how cool the "Ship of Dreams" (her documentary that's releasing soon) looked, and...how I never saw Titanic but now was kind of inspired to after how many years.

She kindly responded to my message (yay!) and highly recommended to watch "Titanic" at the very least to obtain more of and appreciation for 'Ship of Dreams' when it comes out (I've no idea if it'll be in theaters where I live, but then again, I'm going to ask an acquaintance of mine, who just happens to be the director of a local historical theatre with a small modern cinema next to it, if they could possibly get hold of it. Small city living yo.)

Overall...I liked it. I definitely need to watch it again. Full on experience should be more than my library's letterboxed basic edition on my laptop.

Some scenes and lines...I was all "Oh yeah, right. Uh-huh." Dramatic license sort of getting in the way. Strongest dialogue...maybe not so much? Little cornball in places? Mm, well, putting on the romantic plot in an ultimate disaster movie...kind of lends itself to that sort of thing.

But didn't I LOVE to hate (well, strongly dislike) Billy Zane and David Warner's characters. Which of course is the idea. And I was internally cheering on Kate and Leo pretty much the whole way through. Kathy Bates was probably the best of all the first class passengers that got focused on.

Held my breath and tensed up and...closed my eyes for many of the stunt/action shots once the ship hit the iceberg. That music score realllly helped with that. Once it got to that certain high angle and you got more of the screaming...yeah, that broke me. Knew it was coming but still...hit me right in the feels. And didn't Victor look SO SAD when he realized the truth that his ship's design turned out to be SO flawed. Oh he plays that so well.

BUT I didn't get teary until good old (then unknown) Ioan "My Man Hornblower" Gruffud turned his lifeboat around and desperately called out if anyone in the water was still alive.

Yeah, I liked it. More than I thought I would. Surprised me quite a bit, which is usually a good thing. Need to find me more behind-the-scenes stuff. I'm intrigued, and that's always a good sign that I enjoyed a film.

So TL, DR: Alexandra Boyd basically got me to watch 'Titanic.' How cool is that? Thanks, Alexandra, and cheers!

#amateur time lord turns film critic #titanic 1997 #only took me forever #alexandra boyd #she's the coolest

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Real Article

THE OTHER PART OF my experience as a Christian that I tried to deal with in The Final Beast was the experience of prayer, and . . I drew directly from an event in my own life. 

A year or so before writing the book, I took two or three days off to attend a series of seminars on prayer conducted by an Episcopal laywoman named Agnes Sanford, who was recommended to me by a friend as a fascinating and deeply spiritual woman who had had remarkable success as a faith healer. "Spiritual" was another of those words that I always choked on a little, and faith-healing was something I associated with charlatans and the lunatic fringe; but since my friend had only recently left the college chaplaincy to become a Jungian analyst, I couldn't dismiss him as easily taken in, so I decided to accept his recommendation and go.

I saw Agnes Sanford first in the dingy front hall of the building where the talks were to take place, and after no more than a few minutes' conversation with her, I felt as sure as you can ever be in such matters that if there was such a thing as the Real Article in her line of work, then that was what she was. She was rather short and on the plump side with a breezy matter-of-factness about her which was the last thing I would have expected. She had far more the air of a college dean or a successful businesswoman than of a Mary Baker Eddy or Madam Blavatsky. She seemed completely without pretensions, yet just as completely confident that she knew what she was talking about. She had an earthy sense of humor.

The most vivid image she presented was of Jesus standing in church services all over Christendom with his hands tied behind his back and unable to do any mighty works there because the ministers who led the services either didn't expect him to do them or didn't dare ask him to do them for fear that he wouldn't or couldn't and that their own faith and the faith of their congregations would be threatened as the result. I recognized immediately my kinship with those ministers. A great deal of public prayer seemed to me a matter of giving God something that he neither needed nor, as far as I could imagine, much wanted. In private I prayed a good deal but for the most part it was a very blurred, haphazard kind of business—much of it blubbering, as Dr. Muilenburg had said his was, speaking words out of my deepest needs, fears, longings, but never expecting much back by way of an answer, never believing very strongly that anyone was listening to me or even, at times, that there was anyone to listen at all.

That was the whole point, Agnes Sanford said. You had to expect. You had to believe. As in Jesus' parables of the Importunate Friend and the Unjust Judge, you had to keep at it. It took work. It took practice, was in that sense not unlike the Buddhist Eightfold Path. More than anything else, it took faith. It was faith that unbound the hands of Jesus so that through your prayers his power could flow and miracles could happen, healing could happen, because where faith was, healing always was too, she said, and there was no power on earth that could prevent it. Inside us all, she said, there was a voice of doubt and disbelief which sought to drown out our prayers even as we were praying them, but we were to pray down that voice for all we were worth because it was simply the product in us of old hurts, griefs, failures, of all that the world had done to try to destroy our faith. More even than our bodies, she said, it was these hurtful memories that needed healing. 

For God, all time is one, and we were to invite Jesus into our past as into a house that has been locked up for years—to open windows and doors for us so that light and life could enter at last, to sweep out the debris of decades, to drive back the shadows. 

The healing of memories was like the forgiveness of sins, she said. Prayer was like a game, a little ridiculous the way she described it, but we were to play it anyway—praying for the healing both of ourselves and others—because Jesus told us to and because most of the other games we played were more ridiculous still and not half so useful.

We were to believe in spite of not believing. That was what faith was all about, she told us. "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief," said the father of the sick son (Mark 9:24), and though it wasn't much, Jesus considered it enough. The boy was healed. Fairy-tale prayers, she called them. Why not? Jesus prayers. The language of the prayer didn't matter, and her own language couldn't have been plainer or her prayers more unliterary and down-to-earth. Only the faith mattered. All of this she spoke with nothing wild-eyed or dramatic about her, but clearly, wittily, less like a mystic than like the president of a rather impressive club. And you could also get too much praying, too much religion, she said, and when that happened, the thing to do was just to put it aside for a while as she did and do something else....

[Frederick Buechner]

#healing #prayer #Frederick Buechner #quotes #belief #faith

[muzzleroars]

i just wanted to know if you've ever heard the song divine virus by essenger? it's got some serious yaldabaoth vibes to it, so much that i refuse to believe it wasn't written with him in mind.

want to get out in front and say HUGE agree the vibes for yal here are absolutely perfect...even the name of the song itself is so so good for him...thank you for this rec!!

i have more to say but i’ll place it under a cut because it will contain an infohazard - if you have bad anxiety, i strongly recommend not reading any further!

SO i would guess based on the album art this may be a reference to roko's basilisk, but that's the exact reason i hinted at that thought experiment on this piece!!! it is VERY reminiscent of yaldabaoth imo - roko's basilisk is a good and helpful ai, its mission is to bring peace to humanity...but how it punishes those that go “against” it is highly questionable for something meant to be on humanity’s side. yaldabaoth is VERY similar to the basilisk imo, as he is following his programming to end the suffering of mankind...and notably, toward the end of the fight with him, he tells the thieves that they will taste pain everlasting for rebelling against him. which is. exactly what the basilisk does to anyone that doesn’t assist in creating it. i really do think of him as a cross between an ai like the basilisk and a christian-like god, which is a terrifying hybrid but MAN does it vibe so good with me.

(and if you read this without knowing about roko’s basilisk, please don’t worry! it’s a thought experiment, nothing more, and has many, many logical fallacies that make it fall apart under scrutiny. it’s just meant to be an interesting idea to discuss logically or philosophically - it’s not posed as any sort of reality.)

#infohazard tw #i love that idea tho personally #and i FINALLY got to talk about it yes!!! #i figured i'd give ample warning tho bc it freaked me out when i found out about it #but god ABSOLUTELY it's full of yal vibes!! #just kno that i'm rambling about how much it suits him under the read more #if you don't want to click #cake answers

[pagantwot]

Hello! Welcome to my blog! I'm That Witch Over There~

I've found the description space to be lacking, so in case anyone is intrigued, here's a long-winded post all about the spiritual journey of my second-favorite person, me!

(My first-favorite person is my darling cat, Quinn. All must love him and despair.)

To start with, my name is Izzy! It's lovely to meet me, I'm sure. I live in the American Southwest, which is a terrible place for a born-and-raised bog witch to end up, but there you have it. I am, among many other things, a writer, dancer, gamer, cook, and proud cat-Papa.

I've been somewhat of a pagan for a while (23 years, give or take), but more in a "I believe all gods are real but I don't worship any in particular" kind of way. Do they call that a spiritualist? I don't know. It's the religious equivalent of believing your neighbors exist but never going to any of the neighborhood barbequeues or junk sales.

I observed a few pagan traditions particular to my Irish and Polish ancestors out of a feeling of deep attachment to and respect for them, but that was about it. No gods had anything to do with my practice of magic, either, or if they did, it wasn't by request and, so far as I can tell, they never made it known to me.

The 2020 election and, earlier this year, my visit to Greece changed that. I had two separate, dissimilar, and personal experiences during these times that compelled me to dedicate myself to the worship of the gods of the ancient Greeks.

While I was most strongly called to Apollon, and later Hermes as well, I do my best to make room in my worship for all of the gods, nymphs, and other beings as they become or make themselves known to me.

UPDATE: Most recently I have been delving into the philosophies underpinning Satanism and Luciferianism - not so much theistic Satanism or Luciferianism, but trying to incorporate those ideals and ethics into my life and my faith - and I'd love to find people who would like to discuss it! It doesn't escape me that Satanism does trend more strongly towards an atheistic approach, nor that regarding oneself as godly in one's own right falls under hybris and is generally at odds with Hellenic paganism, but that certainly would be an interesting discussion to have if you like! Please note that I am not particularly affiliated with any official Satanist or Luciferian organizations.

My practice of magic does trend towards Irish and Polish tradition, and I still don't tend to involve the gods in it, but if anyone wants to talk about the frequent intersection between paganism and the practice of magic today, I'd be interested to hear your perspectives. I don't especially have one tbh.

I'm also available to discuss:

- methods of divination

- the ethics of using curses in one's magical practice

- personal methods of worship

- environmentally-conscious magic

- interpretation of myths

- book recommendations

- reconstructionism vs. eclecticism

- building local community in a minority religion

- anything related to paganism (particularly hellenic but not required), magical practice, theology in general, religious history in general, or cats

I practice various forms of cleromancy and my readings are free, but I haven't worked out a good system for me for doing so long distance - if that changes, I'll update this post!

You can find me on Twitter @pagantwot, and I've just made an Insta as well with the same username.

#witchblr #helpol #hellenic polytheism #paganblr #about me #cleromancy #divination #satanism #luciferianism

[aesthetic-bastard]

Media Interaction 2023

April

Pleasure Bon Bon - this webcomic was so unexpectedly well written and calling it furry porn would be reductive. The portrayal of the characters' emotions and romantic relationships is impressive, and the world in which the story takes place is well-developed. Also, the women it are all super gay!! I have never interacted with anything before where a love triangle is established but instead of being misogynistic and cliche the two women involved in the triangle end up falling in love with each other and I really adored that.

This webcomic was so good it makes me genuinely disappointed it ended so abruptly due to the author getting into a copyright dispute with the owner of the original website it was hosted on so it kind of just... ends. I have discovered there is a reboot of this webcomic series hosted by the original author on her Patreon and I might check that out at some point.

Gudetama: An Eggcellent Adventure - this series was released on Netflix back in December and I have not seen a single person talk about it. Having watched this series, I found it to be genuinely charming and entertaining enough to watch it all in one sitting. Moreover, it conveyed a very touching overarching message. The mix of CGI and live action is actually very pleasing and enjoyable to look at. I'm surprised that this series isn't getting more attention considering it is available on one of the most accessible streaming services and it features a popular Sanrio character. I strongly suggest giving Gudetama: An Eggcellent Adventure a chance.

Garma Zabi Capture - after months of searching for a listing of this specific doujin second-hand I finally got my hands on a physical copy. Having this doujin is truly precious to me because it was the first one I ever engaged with when I stumbled upon scans of it online. It sparked my interest in collecting fan works as a hobby and also served as a great source of inspiration for my art. With that being said, although the length of this doujin is brief, the artwork is absolutely stunning. It's truly breathtaking! I find the level of intimacy between the characters quite endearing and exactly to my liking. Unfortunately, this fan work concludes with a common cliche where one of the characters wakes up and discovers that it was all just a dream. In addition to that, I thoroughly enjoyed it and am overjoyed to possess a tangible copy.

October Rust -  the fourth studio album by Type O Negative released in 1996. This album is incredibly sexy from start to finish and that is not a word I typically use to sincerely describe anything I listen to I find this album to be truly sensual in a way that is both pleasurable and addictive to listen to, without resorting to misogyny with its lyrical content.

JoJolion - in my opinion, this part of JoJo's Bizare Adventure is on par with Steel Ball Run as the best one. Its story is exceptionally well-crafted, surpassing the previous entries in the series. From the very first volume, I found JoJolion to be highly captivating and enjoyable to read. I found the world-building in this series to be quite impressive. Moreover, I appreciated the unique approach taken in this installment, as there wasn't a clear-cut main antagonist, which added an exciting twist to the franchise. It's refreshing that this part in JoJo didn't revolve around vanquishing a nemesis, but rather breaking free from a hereditary family curse. I also unexpectedly developed a liking for the character designs in JoJolion, despite usually taking time to get used to many of Araki's character designs.

Goodnight Punpun - this was the most miserable thing I have ever read in my entire life I do not think I hate life or hate myself enough to have resonated with anything presented in this manga and reading this was an experience I do not recommend to anyone. I don't think Punpun is bad in the sense that it's atrociously written because it's not. There is good writing in this series and it's very sincere about portraying a lot of the extremely triggering subject matter present throughout the manga and does nothing to romanticize any of the horrible things depicted. Punpun is just so extreme to handle I just don't see myself recommending this to anyone for their own well-being. I'm surprised at the immense popularity of this series, given its triggering content. I wanted to share that when I finished reading this manga series, my partner broke up with me on the same day. It unfortunately made me understand the series' appeal on a personal level. I get it now. I understand why everyone eats this series up like it's hot shit. I get it now...

#media interaction 2023

[seedbrain0]

4 Simple Techniques For Willa's Provisions Tampa

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But that is not how this are going to come to be your way of experiencing the brand new lifestyle – right?

#coffee shop #the press room coffee shop