#noarambles

[noa-de-cajou]

Me, an asexual: Why must there always be sex in fictional relationships

The relationship: Starts as enemies/rivals with benefits/hate sex then slowly ease into something more caring through their various sexual interactions until they truly make love instead of just fucking and form true bonds of affection/love with each other

Me, sobbing: A,,, And they were,,,, fucking (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)

#asexual #tropes #relationship tropes #tw sex #smut #fictional tropes #guilty as charged #ship tropes #noarambles #celyan x blue #im obssessed over a ship again #brainrot

[noa-de-cajou]

Sometimes I think I grieve the fact that I'll probably never have sex.

Let me explain.

I am aroace, sex-repulsed and I've never had sex before. I do enjoy erotic content, discussions and jokes about sex with people.

And I think I really like sex as a concept. Like I'm really thrilled by the idea of sharing intimacy with someone in such a close way. I have nsfw scenarios with characters in my head that would probably shock most people who know me. I think there's something beautiful about the potential of sex if done safely, respectfully and consensually.

I could experience that if I wanted to, despite not experiencing sexual attraction. But that's the thing, it's not about will. Sex as a concept sounds great, but as soon as I imagine what it could feel like I get really icky. I don't think I could handle the sensory impact of skin on skin, of sweat, the smell, the fear of doing something wrong or hurting the other, the fact that I have to be vulnerable and a million other things. I have my own solo sexual life but doing it with someone else is a line I'll probably never cross.

The thing is, I wish I could be able to genuinely want to cross that line. A lot of people make it sound great, a lot of people make it sound awful, either way I kind of wish I knew what it'd feel like. But I don't want to actually do the thing. I don't think I can.

And I don't want to hear words of comfort like "don't worry you're not missing out on anything" or "you can be perfectly happy without having sex ever", because I know that.

I know that. But I still grieve somehow because I know I'll never have sex with someone else.

So if you're reading this, ace or not, I just want you to know that you're allowed to be sex-negative/sex-repulsed and still grieve the sexual intimacy you'll never have.

You're allowed to want and not want at the same time.

(Same goes with romantic feelings or relationships I think.)

Anyways, if you're reading this I love you. <3

#noarambles #asexual #aromantic #rant about sex #missing something you'll never have #i'm lucky to have partners who completely understand and respect it #some of them are on the ace spectrum some aren't #but I never really discussed that specific feeling with them I think #it's hard to put into words

[noa-de-cajou]

Just saw someone on Tiktok say that whump is just smut for ace people and I'm. Yeah.

#noarambles #whump #i also love smut don't get me wrong but whump always hits different

[noa-de-cajou]

You know what really hurts me about Ether and Dal?

It's that even if Ether forgave him for what he did to her, even if Dal made it up to her and even if they actually tried to mend their friendship

Ether would always say

"You could have left."

And Dal would always reply with

"You could have stayed."

That's the core of their dispute. That's the core of their rupture. That they will never, ever agree on.

That's the core reason why they can never be friends again.

#noarambles #ether nepheli #dal #dalnae'hyr llokarsharan #ttrpg #lysara #they make me unwell #dal is the canon event #each of them represents everything the other loathes and everything they wish they could understand #man o< - <

[noa-de-cajou]

My DM two weeks ago, jokingly: Next time Noa will play a character who doesn't talk

Me : That's never gonna happen I wouldn't be able to hold it

Me now because the idea is starting to sound really really interesting with the character concept I'm having:

#oh no #noarambles #ttrpg #lysara #this is going to be a fucking nightmare #but wouldn't it be so cool if I managed to do that tho....

[noa-de-cajou]

A trope I'm extremely weak for is a character's composure breaking.

Like when a very bubbly character's smile falters and they start crying.

A very cold, quiet character smiles faintly or has genuine fear and worry flashing through their eyes.

A very confident, showy villain just breaking down into sobs like a little kid upon being defeated.

A calm, pragmatic character going apeshit and making a rash decision out of anger.

The strong one needing to be held for a sec.

Because it's when a character is truly, fully vulnerable that you can see how their environment, loved ones or enemies react.

(I always hope for shock then comfort in these kind of situations because I'm a sucker for hurt/comfort)

But yes. I love it. :D

#noarambles #trope talk #hurt comfort

[noa-de-cajou]

Thinking about something that happened on a call with two of my partners, H and N, a few weeks ago

Me: *apologizes in lenght for something*

Them: *talk through it with me then resume the convo*

Me, later: *thanks them in lenght for something*

H: Somehow that sounds negative.

Me: Huh??

H: Your tone when you thank us, it feels weird.

Me: But I don't- oh, shit.

Me: I say "thank you" with the same tone I use to say "sorry".

......

I say "thank you" the same way I say "sorry".

#noarambles #some deep thoughts #raw ass quotes coming from nowhere istg #still thinking about this #I feel like I know what it means but cannot explain it in words

[noa-de-cajou]

Me when I think about the tragic, heartwrenching, doomed, Achilles and Patroclus and Jesus and Judas coded, poetry material love story in my new ttrpg character's past that I cannot tell anyone about

#noarambles #ttrpg #help I am unwell about Bazyli (he's been here for two days)

[noa-de-cajou]

I think writing a short story that's slowly turning into a sort-of-novel is actually really good for me

Because you know at the start it was just supposed to be 20-pages long backstory for a ttrpg character

Now I'm 96 pages in and I know I have much more to write and that I probably will write much more after the campaign planned this christmas is over

And it just feels so nice to write something that you know will get big but doesn't have that much ambition.

I have a character. I think her story is worth telling. Even if it's just to myself or to my little group of six, seven other people.

I've been writing her story for three months and I'm happy about it.

Writing feels good again. :)

#writing #author #writer #ttrpg #ttrpg character #to love writing again #ether nepheli #ether #noarambles

[noa-de-cajou]

My next ttrpg character, Ether, is just the "former gifted kid who's now a disappointment" trope taken to an extreme

A really really huge extreme

I will not elaborate

#lysara #ttrpg #Ether Nepheli #oh to look like the dumbest bitch alive while simultaneously being a smartass #former gifted kid turned pirate #“i don't need no degree to sing wellerman and drink rum” #i have so much stuff to say about her but I cannot #noarambles

[noa-de-cajou]

Non-human life expectancy and loss: Comparative thoughts on my ttrpg characters

As some of you may know I tend to make ttrpg characters whose life expectancy goes a long way. I won't talk much about Swan here but I'll look into Lubell (age immortal) and Ether instead (500 years life expectancy). Trying not to spoil too much about Ether for my fellow players.

Lubell has lived thousands of years. She was aged 60 during the campaign and experimented two major losses at 40 and 45 : first her kid that she had to abandon, then her lover who was brutally killed. Lubell is extremely one-dimensional in her grief: everything is her fault and she must atone for the rest of her existence. She used to deemed worthy of living only the people that she loved, all the rest could burn every color of the rainbow for all she cared. Only after her losses did she realize that she made many people suffer the same grief she was experiencing. And she's killed hundreds if not thousands of people as a demon paladin in 45 years. The guilt Lubell feels is not just guilt for abandoning her child and not stopping her lover from getting into a dangerous situation: it's the guilt of a thousands lives wasted she carries. That's what her grief is about. It's the loss of her family as potential validation pattern, it's grieving anything she could have been.

Lubell doesn't want to heal because she believes healing and living on would be unfair to everyone she hurt. That she doesn't have the right to experience anything good because she had her chance and wasted it. (Ironically, she ends up with two of the healers of the party. Something something growth, something something character arc.) She went from not giving value to any life outside of her scope to not giving her own life any value. She was shown that it wasn't the way. Such a mindset only brings more hurt. But before that, Lubell was unprepared for grief because she avoided every good relationships she had (until forced into the party) and was always surrounded by nearly-immortal people. Hence self-sacrificing tendencies, because grief feels like a worse fate than death to her, like a virus her body wasn't used to. To Lubell, loss = self-blame. Killing the BBEG, however, was a mercy that finalized her getting out of that mindset. I may develop on this in another post.

To summarize: Lubell experienced loss and the grief that came with it very brutally, twice, and therefore saw it as a terrifying thing that had to be kept away at all costs.

Now onto Ether.

Ether will be 119 when the campaign starts. Her relationship to loss is completely different: loss is something that's embedded into her, something that's inevitable. Ether lost many people that were very dear to her, and not just lovers. She saw complete strangers age and die while she stayed exactly the same, she saw countries and people and customs change all around her, she witnessed the world after a war. Ether lost people and lost many homes, not all of them to death. Ether expects to lose something the moment it falls into her hands, but can't bring herself to throw it away. Ether sees grief as a constant that doesn't drown out all the good, but to her good is impermanent. There's nothing she can really keep, and the more she ages the more jaded she becomes. Ether can't help but feel like she's *too* permanent. There's the loneliness of not feeling attached to her elven counterparts and never being around people with the same temporality. There's the loneliness of changing more slowly than everything else around you. The loneliness of the world changing as soon as you get attached to it.

Where Lubell sees grief as something to avoid, Ether powers through it because loneliness is much worse to her than loss. If you're grieving, it means you are able to lose things, because you had things and you loved those things. Ether knows grief is the price she pays for love. She remembers many names but starts forgetting faces. Many places to stay but never a permanent home. There's a resignation in her life, knowing she never gets to keep anyone, that she's the first to lose and never the one lost. And yet she tried. She tried, and she's stopped trying. Or she's decided to stop trying but very much failing at it. Ether values life too much to stay indifferent. So she keeps forming bonds with people knowing full well that she won't keep them. But having the slight hope that she will.

To summarize: Ether's life is composed of at least four or five world-shattering losses and of hundreds of smaller ones. She believes she'll just go through it again and again. She tries to go by the "it is what it is" mentality. She doesn't know yet that maybe it doesn't have to be this way.

So we have the one that refused loss and the one who deems it inevitable.

The second one hasn't had her development yet.

I can't wait to see it. :)

#discussion of grief #discussion of loss #loss #tw grief #ether nepheli #lubell an yang #lysara #ttrpg #noarambles #i may add more to this #when it gets clearer

[noa-de-cajou]

Me : Oh the Genos trio actually had a happy childhood before shit went down!

Meanwhile Dalnæ'hyr worked himself to the bone to become a Professor in Mathematics like his father and grandfather without ever questionning if that's what he truly wanted to do, even if his dad would have supported almost any career choice

Ether used to stitch up her injuries on her own without telling her parents to "train" for becoming a surgeon from 10 to 14 years old

Nenia's childhood stopped when she was 8 and her sister left, and as a teen she injected herself with drugs to stay awake and later let a highly venomous snake bite her until it was domesticated enough and she developed a tolerance

But yes

A happy childhood <3

All hail Genos <3

#noarambles #lysara #ether nepheli #nenia bastet #dalnae'hyr llokarsharan #genos trio #i have many thoughts about them and most of them make me unwell #they're all a different flavor of fucked up

[noa-de-cajou]

Hello I want to ramble about march.

Yes about march. The month we're currently in. That march.

I keep seeing people say that january is long af, that february and march go by in a blink, and it just makes me think.

March is the longest month of the year for me and I usually dread it when it arrives.

Because march is... the anniversary month of a lot of stuff in my life. The lockdown in which I fell into extremely violent depression and anxiety that I'm still recovering from (or not recovered), the anniversary of my uncle's death, the anniversary of me coming out as non-binary to my parents. It's a very busy month usually with final season coming up. It's my older brother's birthday and it's uncomfortable because we don't quite get along.

I love the fact that it's almost spring, I love to see the sun coming back and the flowers blossoming and the longer days and the warmer weather.

But each time I go outside and smell the spring, all I can think about is the nearly 16 yo kid who walked four times around their neighbourhood everyday like a cage animal, who couldn't sleep at night, who exploded at everyone and felt so bad and sad and angry and misunderstood all the time and it hurts.

Each time I see the date I think, four years ago I was in my room not understanding what was going on.

It's been four years and march still feels like an open wound no matter how much I try to fill it with good memories.

Luckily every wound scars eventually. <3

#noarambles #march #four years later

[noa-de-cajou]

Had a convo with @thal-ent the other day and realized I never really developed Lubell's mother in her short story

So I'm writing a little thingy

There's a lot to say about Llaera Yang :)

#noarambles #lysara #ttrpg #lubell an yang #she was not a good mother but boy is she interesting #llaera yang

[noa-de-cajou]

The good thing about surviving the first semester of my second year of uni with a major traumatic event and a major relapse in my mental health in the middle of it

Is that right now when I realize all the work I'm gonna have for the second semester after nearly a month of nothing because schedule issues and an injury that stopped me from going

I'm just thinking that if I made it through that absolute hell of a first semester

I can smash that one just as much

Is it gonna be full of anguish and discouragement? Yeah

Am I gonna see it through anyway? Definitely

I also have a bunch of cool, non-school-related stuff planned and a lot of projects

I'm not used to optimism mingling with anxiety but it feels nice from time to time

And I know you can do it too. <3

#noarambles #uni life #student thoughts

[noa-de-cajou]

Rational me: Listen. You said something and your loved one responded confusedly and clammed up when corrected by others and they were already tired and influenced by many other factors that have absolutely nothing to do with you. It's not your fault they feel bad

Driven by traumatic precognitive outlines me: NO I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR EMOTIONS AND THEREFORE I MUST FEEL BAD TOO BECAUSE IF I HAD KEPT QUIET EVERYTHING WOULD HAVE BEEN FINE

Rational me: But you didn't keep quiet so why bother thinking about something that didn't happen

Driven by traumatic precognitive outlines me: BECAUSE THE SITUATION NEEDS A CULPRIT AND IT HAS TO BE ME SO I HAVE CONTROL OVER IT AND I CAN PUNISH MYSELF BY FEELING BAD

Rational me: Ah yes because feeling bad is a notorious way of solving situations

Driven by traumatic precognitive outlines me: I KNOW IT ISN'T I CAN'T HELP IT

#*sigh* #a vent sorta #being self aware doesn't mean I manage stuff well #i am. tired #noarambles