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bestworstcase · 1 year

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if salem and ozma are the gods of choice and knowledge, do you have any thoughts for what that means for cinder and raven, the maidens of their domains?

TO START,

we have to lay out some more general Thoughts and Concepts because this whole. can of worms has been simmering in my brain for more than a year and there’s just. A Lot. i can’t find and link every previous post of mine that has brushed up against it before because there’s too many but i’ve also not done a proper rundown of the whole thing before so we’re going to do that now.

what’s a god?

to lead into this i want to first set the baseline of the typical fandom-wide reading of the brother gods so that we can then talk about 1. what a deity is in the polytheistic sense, 2. why salem and ozma are not in fact “false” gods, and 3. why popular readings of lost fable are largely nonsense

the standard reading of the brother gods is that light is generally benevolent and dark generally malevolent, with some flex on either side to account for light’s rigidity and dark’s fickle nature; dark is implicitly understood to be subordinate and light the de facto supreme creator of everything, with dark’s participation reduced (incorrectly, per the text) to making the grimm and the destructive side of human nature. in essence, the majority of the fandom reads the god of light as the christian god and the god of darkness as the christian satan in fantasy costumes. this is what i meant by monotheistic lens—in popular fanon the god of darkness is effectively demoted to subordinate divine agent of the capital-g Supreme God. likewise, salem and ozma are understood as “false” gods for no reason at all other than circular “well they’re not real gods” logic.

so what is a god?

in the broadest, most simple terms, a god is a being revered as divine.

that’s it.

now if you want to get into the weeds there is a bewildering variety of definitions and meanings because concepts like “deity” and “divinity” have hugely different meanings across cultures and history, but for a loose general definition, we might get a little more granular and say that a god is a being with some degree of supernatural control or influence or power over some part of reality or existence, who interacts with humans in some emotionally or spiritually significant way. <- note the sheer amount of equivocation baked into this definition, because it isn’t possible to concisely and precisely define what a god is without drawing lines that exclude some entities who absolutely were or are gods. this includes attempting to narrow the definition by specifying that the being in question must not be human, because deification of ancestors and culture heroes are both widespread practices throughout history.

indeed outside of a monotheistic framework the notion of a “false” god is frankly meaningless; if a being is more powerful than ordinary humans and worshipped as divine then ipso facto it IS a god. divinity is a social construct.

as it pertains to rwby, the narrative has very helpfully provided some explicit definitions of divinity as it is understood by some of remnant’s cultures:

- a god is a being who uses magic and comes back from the dead (infinite man)

- a god is a higher power guiding people’s actions (after the fall)

- a god is a magical being who offers freedom and change (shallow sea)

- a god is a supernatural being who adjudicates conflicts between mortals (judgment of faunus)

- a god is a phenomenally powerful, but still finite, being who creates and destroys the world (two brothers)

- a god is a being that performs wonders far beyond the capability of any one human (gift of the moon)

some of these ideas overlap with each other and some don’t and some implicitly contradict each other, which is very realistic, but if we look at them all collectively it is perfectly clear that with the possible exception of adherents to the monolatrous brother-cult, most people on remnant would consider not only salem and ozma but also the maidens and the relic spirits to be gods—and the same holds true if we judge by the standards of the real world and polytheistic religions both today and historically.

(this is one of many reasons why the mantra pyrrha recites when she awakens jaune’s aura interests me so much; whatever religious tradition pyrrha subscribes to conceives of death as an apotheosis and that is an intriguing cultural belief to lead with in a story about religious war between two immortal people and their respective cults.)

now of course it goes without saying that the brothers are more powerful than the relics or ozma or salem, who themselves are more powerful than the maidens; but that doesn’t matter because godhood is not a measurement of raw power. divinity is a social construct. these characters are culturally defined as gods, ipso facto they are gods.

worship in the lost fable

the most critical thing to understand about the brothers is that they’re bad gods. i do not mean this in the sense of them being morally wrong (although they are that, too) but rather, they’re bad gods in the way that a bus driver who refused to pick up passengers would be a bad bus driver; the brother gods do not perform the basic functions of the societal role they occupy. this again is something the fandom at large gets abjectly wrong as a consequence of reading the god of light as the supreme-creator God and the god of darkness as the subordinate Devil, firstly because that reading presumes a christian-esque unidirectional relationship between God and humanity and secondly because it demands the assumption that light has the standing to forbid worship of his brother.

and that is um. not how polytheistic religions work. again there is a phenomenal amount of variety here across different cultures and time periods so i’m speaking in broad generalizations but 1. in polytheistic contexts worship of any given deity tends to be a matter of proximity, in the sense that if you go out into the woods to hunt you’ll want to be in good with whatever forest and hunting god(s) you might have in the area; it isn’t about belief so much as it’s about peaceful coexistence with the powers that be, and 2. the expectation is that the gods will make it worth your while. longtime followers and anyone who happened to see the post-9.5 brainmelt incident may recall me throwing the phrase ‘do ut des’ around and this is what that means—a literalish translation would be “i give that you might give”—it��s specifically a roman concept (<- roman polytheism was particularly contractual in nature) but the basic idea is very common. you do things to please the gods with the expectation that they will give something in return, or otherwise you repay divine favors with favor of your own.

thus a god who not only fails to deliver but punishes you for asking is violating their side of the arrangement and, practically speaking, is not going to be worshipped for very long, or at all. if a god who behaves in this manner is too powerful to ignore—as the brothers are—then at best they might be appeased from a distance, but nobody with the slightest bit of self-preservation or common sense is going to keep praying to a god who curses people for praying to them.

and although we see very little of the culture of ancient humans, what we do see suggests quite strongly that careful, arm’s-length appeasement is exactly the dynamic that existed between the brothers and humankind; both have modest shrines on the outskirts of their domains and apparently no formal religious systems whatsoever beyond that, as salem meets with no theological resistance in the course of inciting three kingdoms to rebellion against the brother gods. the incomprehensibly powerful creators of the cosmos were real and materially present alongside their creations, and a single person united multiple nations to go to war with them without so much as a whisper of protest from their cults because THERE WERE NO CULTS!

the brothers were such abject failures as deities that they were not widely worshipped on remnant until hundreds of millions of years after they left, and ancient humans existed in a state of such profound spiritual deprivation that all it took to provoke a rebellion was one woman with nothing left to lose.

—i could go down a rabbit hole here about the god of darkness but i HAVE talked about him quite a bit before so i will do my best to restrain myself. suffice it to say that there are some interesting layers to this where he’s concerned because he clearly does want to be worshipped in this reciprocal way and nearly comes to blows with his brother over light’s determination to prevent that.

the salient point as far as your actual question (we’ll get there!) is that when i say “salem did nothing wrong” i do not just mean that a traumatized grieving woman who grew up imprisoned in a tower deserved compassion instead of exorbitant punishment, i mean that the gods cursed her with eternal torture because she worshipped them. she makes an appropriate offering to both of them and tells them exactly what she wants—that’s not arrogant or entitled, that is straight up just how polytheistic religion works.

the god of choice

i want to stress up front that i’m not arguing that this is a deliberate allusion (because the similarity is archetypal) but rather using the real-world mythology as an illustration of the archetypes salem evokes; with that disclaimer in mind, let’s talk about the popol vuh!

in the interest of brevity i am going to give a very abridged summary; michael bazzett’s translation is lovely though :)

so, basically: the hero twins hunahpu and xbalanque, bastard children of hun hunahpu (whom the lords of xilbalba murdered) and xquic (daughter of a xilbalban lord), grow up in the dubious care of their grandmother and their two viciously cruel (and murderous) elder half-brothers, they’re made to work all day while their brothers play and then surrender the fruits of their labors over to their brothers, and so forth. they overcome every challenge they face through a combination of cunning, resourcefulness, and close connection with nature. when the vain god vucub caquix claims to be the sun and adorns himself with precious jewels, the hero twins are called upon to undo his falsehoods. first encounter with him, they break his jaw and he tears off hunahpu’s arm before escaping; undeterred, the twins trick him into returning the arm (which is then reattached) in exchange for the removal of his bejeweled teeth from his broken jaw by a pair of “doctors.” later they kill his equally arrogant and foolish sons, zipacna and cabrakan, through similarly deceptive means. later still, the twins begin to play in their father’s long-abandoned ballcourt and make so much noise that the lords of xibalba decide to invite them over for murder (as one does) and the twins stretch to the limits of their cleverness and creativity to survive various trials until they’re made to spend the night in bat house and hunahpu’s head is bitten off by one of the bats. (he’s fine) (xbalanque pulls off an elaborate sleight of hand to steal his head back and puts it back on and he’s literally fine). the lords of xibalba at this point are pissed so they build a big oven with the intention of forcing the twins into it; the twins are like, uh-oh, i don’t think we can’t trickster hero our way out of this one, so they instead jump willingly into the oven and get incinerated; the lords scatter the ashes in the river aaand the hero twins come right back to life. disguised, the twins return to xibalba and act as dancers and miracle-workers, burning and unburning houses, ritually sacrificing each other and then rising from the dead again, so forth, until the lords get so jazzed about the miracles that they demand to be killed and brought back too—and that is how the hero twins slay the lords of xibalba, avenging their father and breaking xibalba’s dominance over the land above, after which they depart from xibalba and ascend into the sky as the sun and the moon. time begins, and the final creation of humankind is completed at last. (<- the gods of the popol vuh make several attempts to create humans and destroy each failed attempt; the exact nature of the hero twins is ambiguously divine-human-adjacent.)

again, we are concerned with archetype here, not direct allusion. the essential building blocks of the popol vuh narrative—katabasis, confrontation with the divine, the cyclical creation and destruction of failed attempts by the gods to create humankind, apotheosis through death and resurrection, defeat of an older divine regime as the final act in the creation of the world—occur in a huge variety of different forms across a huge variety of cultures, and i’m referring to the popol vuh because it conveniently combines all of them into a single narrative. what i’m coming to is that a key strength of the lost fable is that it is an entirely plausible creation myth, and given the general nature of rwby’s narrative and its significant and overt intertextuality, there is no doubt in my mind that this plausibility is intentional; the lost fable is not based on any one myth but is rather a fictional myth crafted by combination of many mythical themes and motifs that exist commonly across many different traditions.

from this perspective, the lost fable is fairly unambiguously a story about the apotheosis of a mortal culture hero through a series of deaths and resurrections: she sees the injustices and cruelty of the gods laid bare and challenges their rule, as punishment she is cast into the fountain of creation and drowns and becomes immortal, she takes their curse and remakes it into her greatest weapon against them; the gods, displeased by the defiance of the humans they created, attempt to destroy them, and salem too is obliterated before she regenerates from the ashes; finding themselves unable to to kill her, the gods simply leave and consign her to eternal isolation, but salem casts herself into the pool of grimm and is torn apart and remade and climbs back out into a living new world. whether there is a direct causal relationship between salem’s transformation and the resurrection of humankind is not yet certain, but 1. the structure of the myth positions salem’s transformation as symbolically equivalent to the recreation of humanity itself, in that she wanders the dead ruin of the world alone until her transformation and the next we see of remnant it’s bursting with civilization, and 2. the first humans were created by union of the brothers’ natures, and salem’s transformation explicitly recreates that union (“it created a being of infinite life with a desire for pure destruction”), so mechanically speaking there is good reason to interpret her transformation as the act that gave rise to modern humans: identical to the brothers’ design in every way save for lacking the brothers’ blessings and having instead a kind of magic drawn from their own souls.

and this is what makes salem the god of choice, right. in the mythological sense her rebellion succeeded through its defeat: the gods annihilate humanity and salem is renewed from the ashes and they leave; she drowns herself in the pool of grimm and restores the balance of her soul and the world comes back to life, humanity rises again liberated from the exacting tyranny of the brothers. she is a god not only by the cultural definition given in the infinite man but also the one suggested by the shallow sea, a magical being of transformation and change and liberation.

our souls transcend death

with all of this laid out i want to return to pyrrha’s mantra, because it’s the keystone holding everything else together.

“for it is in passing that we achieve immortality. through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. i release your soul and by my shoulder protect thee.” <- the method pyrrha uses to awaken jaune’s aura is ritualized death and resurrection. aura, she tells him, is about knowing, understanding both light and darkness, within the self and in the world beyond. death is an act of transcendence. note that this mantra is echoed in the lyrics of rising, and the coincidence of this repetition with the lost fable is almost certainly not an accident; pyrrha draws upon a religious tradition that harkens back to the death and resurrection of humankind through the death and resurrection of salem herself. this is the first salvo of rwby’s cosmological worldbuilding and it’s about the triumph of salem’s rebellion, the rebirth of humanity from the ashes of defeat and unbound by death from the will of the brother gods.

the god of knowledge

strictly speaking i think it would be more accurate to describe ozma as a god of fate, but as we’re working within the fourfold metaphysics of the narrative here we’ll call it knowledge. the god of light brings him out of the afterlife and burdens him with an eschatological quest, telling him that humanity is gone but destined to rise again and must be redeemed before the brother gods or else be annihilated once again. he returns and finds salem and it is this unreconcilable tension between ozma’s knowledge of humanity’s fate and salem’s absolute defiance of the authors of that fate that ultimately tears them apart; if salem embodies humanity’s liberation from the brothers, then ozma is the threat of their eventual subjugation or obliteration. their conflict is a conflict between apostate and disciple but also thematically a conflict between choice and knowledge, freedom and fate.

in the more granular sense ozma also prosecutes the cold holy war through control and manipulation of knowledge; he refrains from telling salem the truth until she makes an unambiguous declaration rejecting the god he serves, whereupon he commits to the lie in an effort to guide her back into the fold—which goes predictably and catastrophically wrong; afterwards he devotes himself to eliminating all knowledge of her existence from public knowledge and spends lifetimes nurturing the monolatrous ditheistic brother-cult using careful arrangements of half-truths and lies to coax humanity back into obedient submission, with negligible success. by his own standards of divinity—“a higher power guiding our actions”—he’s a god, whether he cares to admit it or not.

but the most critical piece here is silver eyes, whose origin has been definitively confirmed but not yet explained: they are not, as maria assumes, a gift from the god of light, but rather a trait found in bloodlines stretching back to ozma. they come from him—and the quality the silver-eye magic belongs to is not creation but knowledge. after the first time ruby glares, she experiences echoes of pyrrha’s last moments in her dreams, remembering dialogue she herself did not get to hear; when maria teaches her how to use this power, she instructs ruby to think of the people who love her and how that makes her feel—to know what it feels like to be loved, so to speak. the first time ruby glares deliberately she has to call out to the avatar of knowledge for help, symbolically associating the glare’s magic with the presence of knowledge. and of course rwby has been very clear from the beginning that the sphere of knowledge encompasses emotion; grimm, creations of darkness, are drawn to emotion, the god of darkness himself is driven by emotion, and true human magic—aura—arises from knowledge of light and darkness, life and death. thus the glare, fueled as it is by love and grief, is at its core a power derived from knowledge.

(note that silver eyes are powerfully associated with light—and the relic of knowledge is a lamp.)

cinder and raven and broken fairytales

okay so with the preamble out of the way, both cinder and raven are to salem and ozma respectively as salem and ozma were to the brother gods; that is, cinder wants something from salem that salem is not willing to give and she is willing to disobey and defy salem in order to get it, and raven was entrusted with knowledge and power with the intention that she would use both in service of ozma’s will. the key difference with cinder is that salem met defiance with concession and compromise, and the key difference with raven is that upon realizing that her mandate was far worse than she had been lead to believe, she changed her mind and walked away from it.

in this sense both of them reveal the correct way forward; the brother gods must be made to uphold their side of the religious contract and ozma must find the courage to lay down his mandate and walk away. that salem gets it right when she’s put into the divine position is interesting mainly for what it might suggest about the way she conceives of herself in relation to the brothers—at a minimum she has correctly identified their tyranny not as their refusal to give her what she wanted but rather in punishing her for asking, hence why she takes responsibility for both cinder’s disobedience and her failure while still maneuvering cinder away from direct confrontation with the winter maiden. this also means salem is now in uncharted territory, in that she chose not to repeat the cycle of divine punishment and what cinder will do next is an open question.

similarly raven is due for a return and i expect that to loosely coincide with the reveal that summer rose is working for salem and team rwby’s return from the ever after, and for all of these things to incite change in ozma through their combined indictment of his conviction that there is no greater shame than “retreat.” raven in particular has already offered a direct counterargument to ozma’s philosophy on choice; he says “there is no shame or disgrace in abstaining, only in retreat” and condemns raven for choosing to “abandon her duties in favor of her own self interest,” she says the only sane thing to do is “look at all the information […] assess the situation, and make a choice”—and while raven has made plenty of bad choices, broadly the narrative agrees with her stance, not with ozma’s. the kids have been assessing the information in front of them and adjusting their choices in response to new information ever since the lost fable, and V9 so far is very much about questioning and looking at things from different perspectives in order to find better answers. so whereas the god of choice is changing herself by choosing to compromise, the god of knowledge has lost his absolute control over knowledge and is on the brink of a serious challenge to his philosophical understanding of choice and knowledge; a nascent third repetition of human rebellion against divine authority that must be answered before the story can end. and resolving these confrontations, negotiating reciprocal compromises with both salem and ozma, sets the pattern for final resolution of the ongoing conflict with the brother gods.

#it’s mythical in the most literal sense #which is to say it’s true but not literal #and ‘god’ is a social category

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lokisknife · 2 years

Text

¶Welcome to New York – Loki Odinson

Summary: Everyone got a red string around their pinky that leads to their soulmate... Well, everyone but Y/N, that got a golden line that goes straight up.

Word count: 4.7k

Warnings: not sticking to cannon; 2012! Loki; cursing; mentions of sickness; me bullying the shit of Loki (I love him that's okay); one sex joke; angst

Author's note: yes I'm naming all of my fanfics after Taylor Swift songs. Yes, I could have named it "invisible string" but it's too obvious. Also the original was just so long (up to 6k words) so I decided to split this in two, so I'm posting it vvvery soon.

Tony's version.

Liked my writing? Consider donating on Ko-fi!

Gif's not mine.

Since the beginning of human life on Earth, there have been records of the existence of invisible strings (at least to the general population regarding the strings of others) that connect two people that are fated to be together. The Mesopotamians, Ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, and many other folks had countless myths that served the purpose of explaining why that happened: some people said that these so-called soulmates were made of the same clay, the same stardust or maybe they were created as one singular soul that got split in two. The skeptics firmly believed that "soulmate strings" could be collective hallucinations induced by pheromones that persisted since prehistory, but the fact that everyone had a special someone was undeniable.

Whatever the reason, everyone in the whole world that ever existed has or had a red string on their pinky finger that led straight to their soulmate. Still, no religion, philosophy, or science could explain why Y/N was different than anyone else. As a kid, every visit to the doctor's office was accompanied by a complaint about their soulmate string that - quoting by the then 6 years old Y/N - "worked wonkily": they have learned about red strings that lead to your future spouse in school, but their own string was golden and pointed straight up, just like a helium balloon. Uncountable health professionals claimed they have never seen something like that, but it shouldn't be a reason to worry: soulmate's strings have never malfunctioned before, so it wasn't possible. Well, they hoped at least.

Not only the doctors but every person Y/N ever encountered commented on the golden circle around their finger (that being the only visible part of the string by third parties) and close friends even joked about their soulmate being a deity or an alien. Y/N always laughed and was considered to be someone with a good sense of humor regarding their own problems, but the truth is that all the remarks about their condition ached like a stab on a previously infected wound. The whispering and bewildered looks people shared when staring at Y/N's hands were a highly effective reminder of the possibility of a loveless life. Sure, they did not have an entirely loveless life: they had friends, family, hobbies, and many sources of joy. But the love they felt for life when looking at a puppy at a park couldn't compare to dancing in the rain with someone you fancy. The love they felt for life when buying pretty flowers for their nightstand was nothing next to cuddling in bed past noon.

Experts didn't have a clue about what was going on with their soulmate or the lack thereof – or even "Schrodinger's soulmate" as Y/N called it – but they couldn't put a stop to their running thoughts. As they spent their whole life thinking about it, they couldn't help but feel special: every single individual had an "other half" but them. Maybe their string pointing to absolutely fucking nowhere was Universe's way of saying "hey Y/N, you don't deserve love, maybe next time!".

Y/N observed their string that pointed at the sky as they walked to work, imagining how it would be to witness life with someone else's eyes. How does the world present itself with a vibrant red string that resembled a treasure map, in which the X represented the most wonderful feeling a human can feel? The girls that shared candies on a bench, the guy that served their coffee, and the receptionist of the building, all of them had the assurance of following a straight path to their lovers if they wished to. They all knew they could be loved and cherished and kissed on the spots they were most insecure about. They knew the person they were destined to spend their whole life with was safe somewhere. But Y/N knew they could marry the atmosphere, for what was possible.

The newly graduated scientist decided to put a stop to their introspections on frivolous matters like love – of course, this being a total facade they presented to people to seem unbothered by it – and focus on their obligations for the day. After spending years burning every single brain cell on difficult equations and acquiring student debt of the size of the moon, one could imagine that being an astrophysicist would be more glamorous: planetariums, telescopes, discovering new galaxies. Sure, someone who works at a fancy university, NASA, or Stark Industries could have all of that, but not Y/N. Don't get me wrong, Y/N was very grateful for their job, but sometimes they wondered if the right choice was made by trading the big companies of space-related technology to learn with the genius Dr. Erik Selvig.

Working with the Swedish scientist promised never-ending knowledge of Einstein-Rosen bridges and many other wonders of theoretical physics. Still, it said expectations were instead met with long lists of required research on nordic myths. Jane and Darcy already explained in detail all their discoveries of the past year when Thor - yes, the god and Foster's boyfriend, as crazy as it may seem - appeared out of nowhere in New Mexico and changed all humanity's knowledge of the universe forever and of course, as someone new on the field, Y/N found it very exciting. Even as a newbie, they were curious and capable as everyone else on the team, so reading borrowed dusty books about old deities felt like a waste of potential.

They trusted the professor with their life, but since the god of thunder made a special appearance on Earth, he has gone a little bit...lunatic, for a lack of better wording that could sugarcoat the actual state of his mind. Working with him on day to day basis made Y/N feel like a coadjuvant on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: in one second the blonde concentratedly wrote equations of the highest difficulty related to multiverse theories on the whiteboard, and in the other, he was shouting nonsense about Asgard, Midgard and hidden knowledge on the old texts; what bring to Y/N and the infinite paper stack on their table.

Okay, to be fair, Y/N would be lying if they said that they absolutely hated this part of the job, as it was much more entertaining than getting hot-headed over seemingly dead-end physics equations. Reading everything from the genesis of Asgard to its imminent end at Ragnarok and every single character that existed in the between, the scientist couldn't help but choose favorites. Their colleagues, Darcy, Selvig, and mostly Jane drooled when talking about Thor, his magic hammer, and long blonde locks. Even though Y/N could feel he was a nice guy and all, their attention was focused on his younger, quieter brother.

The stories put bad lighting on Loki Odinson, describing him as a mischievous, trickster, egocentric person but the feelings transpassed to them was of so much compassion that their heart must as well explode when reading about him. Yes, he was the God of Mischief and was always creating chaos in his realm, but couldn't you understand his motives? Just imagine how it must felt like growing up in his older brother's shadow, with every single person - including your own father - diminishing his achievements to magnify Thor's popularity even more! Well, everyone's entitled to have an opinion, and Y/N thinks raven hair is nicer than golden and magic is more interesting than muscles. Simple as that.

The scientist's head started to pound heavily, their eyes burning holes inside their skull and their stomach was sick to the point it felt like it was turning somersaults, as it always did when they spent way too much time curled over all the parchment covered-in dust obsessing over Loki - disguised by scientific research, of course. The whole week went like this and Y/N always downed some medicine down their throat and continued to work hard, but the migraines were getting stronger every day. Complaining to themselves about how the ache in their temples made it so hard to focus and form coherent trains of thought, they glanced at the clock on the wall. Only one hour and a half left of the work journey, good enough.

They quickly organized their table and talked to Dr. Erik, who, despite his urgency in advancing the research, was very comprehensive. So, work: check. Next step: finding a pharmacy while trying to not throw up from all the pain. Good thing Y/N lives in New York City and there are stores everywhere you set your sight on...and if they couldn't hold back the vomit, it's not like people are going to judge them so much right? C'mon, it's NY, at least it wasn't going to be that unusual of a thing.

As an astrophysicist and Dr. Erik Selvig's favorite intern to pile work on, they didn't have enough time or money to go to the hospital to get every "stupid symptom" checked. Y/N felt like dying, sure, but you and I know that no matter the illness, they would step out of the doctor's office with a flu diagnosis. So the smartest decision is, obviously, to get medicine for all the wrong stuff going on in their body. Only relaxing from all the rush of trying to not puke, faint, or cry from the headache when handing the cashier their debit card, the sight of their own hand hits them like a brick.

How great is the human mind and all of its levels of complexity, its delicate and intricate gears allowing conscient, external responses to subconscious perceptions. The golden thread, the subject of most of their worries that would otherwise be constant in its position, was leading somewhere out of the door. Their heart dropped, focusing on the inviting leaded path, their queasiness becoming just an annoying thought at the back of their mind. The string changing wasn't even an option for them, that being such an impossible scenario that Y/N didn't ever fantasize about it. They always took for a fact that they didn't have a soulmate, so the line basically pulling them towards someone was absolutely dumbfounding.

Tucking the meds under their arm, they ran after the thread feeling like a kid expecting to meet a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Y/N didn't know what to expect: to be honest, they didn't even know if they weren't hallucinating. Did their soulmate string lag all these years? Was their soulmate an older astronaut, who spent all of Y/n's life in space? Or worse, what if their soulmate were just born and they would have to wait decades to meet them? God, that's so weird, they sure fucking expected that they weren't running after a hospital or something like that. Wait, what if their soulmate was dead and some crazy scientist resurrected them?

Their head, still throbbing from the pain, spun in circles just like their thoughts. What if, what if, what if? Just what ifs, no plans, no logic, no focus. Their head was so full of "what ifs" that were no room for other feelings than concern. Having an abnormal soulmate thread resulted in so much pain their whole life but the worries that came with the scenario of finally having someone were nothing that Y/N ever heard of. The path could be leading to an abandoned warehouse in the middle of the creepiest forest to encounter Frankenstein's monster himself, and the only thought crossing their mind would be: does he like me?

Quietly thanking the Universe or whoever was in charge, Y/N sighed in relief when the string pointed to a large crowd on a busy street. It would be awful to find their one when there were dozens of people gathered together, but at least they could be sure that they weren't destined for Michael Myers hiding in the woods. The scientist takes a deep breath in order to calm down their soulmate-induced panic and looks around to form a tactical plan, but instead of locking eyes with a handsome someone, they met terrified looks. No one batted an eye at the astrophysicist, their wide eyes locked on something - or someone - way far ahead of them, their bodies frozen in place, unsure of every movement. New York, the city that never sleeps, whose streets were always booming with movement, fell dead silent. But no, Y/N couldn't call a uber from work and go straight home, they absolutely had to waltz themselves into this mess. Way to go, Y/N, what a great way to read the room.

Even though the little devil at their shoulder begged for them to tiptoe their way out, their feet seemed glued to the floor. They were completely clueless about what was happening and what they could and could not do. C'mon, you're a scientist, you work for one of the smartest men alive, you can work out some solution for this shit. Looking around again, they choose the youngest person in a three-foot circle, praying that this choice reflected a lesser possibility of being ridiculously rude to them - considering that absolutely no one dared utter a word - and nudged at a 17-ish boy's shoulder. Shooting him an apologetic look, Y/N mouthed a "what's happening?".

"I just got here like 10 minutes ago, but at the front is a very creepy weird dude with an even creepier scepter with blue lighting on it and he is shouting at us because he wants to be king or some shit like that. I thought he was just an anime nerd who thinks he is god because he is wearing really weird clothes, but looks like he is using magic to control people? That's all I know". He let it out in only one breath, in a voice barely above a whisper. "I'm so tired of living in New York man, I thought we were done after the Iron Monger/Obadiah Stane mess in 2009. All these weirdos wandering around... If I survive, I'm moving to California".

Y/N answered with a discrete smile. Okay, five minutes ago they were trying to convince themselves that they are smart and capable of making clever decisions but, for the first time in forever, they had hope. What horrible timing to finally meet their soulmate in a hostage situation by a (probably) Reddit user who thinks he is superior because he watched American Psycho a bazillion times and could pull off some magic tricks, and honestly, it's a shame that Y/N didn't give a single fuck to their plans. Their soulmate string was pointing to someone, the weirdo's superiority complex could wait, I guess. Passing through the crowd as they followed the golden path as if they were trying to get the best spot at a Taylor Swift concert at Madison Square Garden, they were increasingly ahead of the crowd. If they did have a soulmate, their soulmate was sure dumb to be that close to the psychopathic geek.

Now, in literally the middle of this mess, Y/N could see the wannabe-villain face and... This is so embarrassing. The teen's description was right but didn't do justice. The man had an unusual style, yes, but in an almost theatrical manner. A golden horned helmet lay on top of his long dark hair and framed his face perfectly, the contrasting colors making the man even paler, contributing to an eerie, power-hungry king look. Even though Y/N never laid eyes on someone like him before, he looked familiar: like an old childhood friend, an actor in a play you once saw, or someone you met in a dream. The type of memory that is stored in the back of your mind you can't quite make it hit the surface. Despite the situation - if you can ignore it - he looked beautiful. His power was mesmerizing and they couldn't look anywhere else. The man didn't sense their stare and continued his speech, which Y/N didn't catch the start of.

"Kneel before me" He shouted, some people in the crowd obeying his command. "Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state?"

The astrophysicist rolled their eyes and stood still on their feet. He was gorgeous, but it's no excuse to kneel... Well, his act was absurd and he didn't pay for dinner beforehand, so at least not tonight. The man up front opened his arms, his big gestures reflecting his big ego.

Y/N felt a slight pull on their string, reminding them that they were there for a reason, they had a purpose to fulfill. They didn't have a clue about how the thread worked, but maybe their soulmate got ahead of them in the crowd and tried to get their attention. Maybe their soulmate wanted Y/N to make the first move, maybe they were in a spot where they couldn't move that much. Jesus, the astrophysicist knew for a fact that purposefully being knee-deep into this shit was a dumb move, but you always could be...dumber, that's the word to describe it. Maybe common sense fell out of their bag at the drug store, being that the last place they have seen it. So, breathing heavily from the anticipation, Y/N squeezed their way closer to the front.

No one in the crowd struggled to maintain them farther away, complying rather quickly with their efforts, keeping their eyes glued to the golden thread afraid if they blinked, it may change again. Searching for their one was the main focus, the only thought on their head, the concentration was so great that Y/N slightly stumbled on their feet when the mass of bodies that prevented them from walking freely disappeared. Nothing obstructed their view, the path was clear. No frightened people, just the granite floor, the man, and the golden string connecting them.

His full image in front of Y/N made everything fall in place, as it is scary as one may think of this situation. A character that fell out of an old book, the raven hair that reflected the light of the buildings around among with his golden horns, the mischief of his eyes, and the scepter holding into what the scientist recognized as the Tesseract not only hinted but confirmed his identity. Loki of Asgard surely wasn't on Earth as part of Odinson's family trip.

They felt stupid. They should have felt this before based on their actions tonight, yes, but they felt stupid. And anxious. And scared, so scared. But, most of all, stupid, because everything seemed so predictable now. Fate, an arch-nemesis, played the game beautifully in leading Y/N in this time and place. Inexplicable hyper fixation on Laufey's son and his story, the pounding head, and the knot on their stomach while even thinking about him this week. Intuition, premonition, gut feeling. The abnormal string was actually pointing to the right place, doing its best to lead to another reality realm. If Y/N's friends had a penny for every time they joked about how one of them was destined to a deity... they would have one penny and a crazy story.

"It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity". Loki didn't seem to notice either the thread or the dumbfounded Y/N.

As soulmate strings, the question "why do humans cry when they feel strong emotions?" has been raised tirelessly from the beginning of time. Even though it's way out of their research field, the subject did also fascinate Y/N, who learned on research that, up to the 1600s, the prevailing theory was that all sentiments heated the heart, consequently generating water vapor that would escape from our eyes. In modern days we know that this belief it's invalid, but they couldn't feel like it didn't have some truth in it. As their eyes watered and their vision became blurry, disappointment, anger, and nonconformity rose in their heart and heated their chest.

On Soulmates 101 you don't really learn what to do in this type of situation. Sure, there are cute stories about soulmates who absolutely hated each other when they met, soulmates who were so different that they both thought that it was a mistake, and so on. But being fated to a God who happens to be enslaving Earth's population as a boost of ego... well, that's a first. Not that Y/N isn't used to having problems about their destiny.

Learning so much about Loki in the past months made them sympathize with him. Understand his motives, understand his personality, and understand his background. Understand, at least to the surface level, who he is. But this is too far. Mischievous tricks and pranks on the Asgardian royal family were a classic move, but this? Plotting a cartoony evil plan to be the king of the world? And all of that on a Friday night when a hot shower and a warm bed are waiting for them back home?

"You were made to be ruled". He went on with his megalomaniacal speech, making a pause and looking around, checking if he got the impact he was waiting for. His vision set a stop on Y/N. Their eyes locked for a beat of time that seemed like an eternity, sharing an unspoken understanding, knowing that wasn't the time or place. His eyes, marked in craziness, soften for a minute. He breathes shakily, fully filling his lungs. As he dry swallows, only the scientist ahead of the crowd gets a glimpse of a frightened, destroyed man. "in the end...you will always...kneel".

Should they do something? Could they do something? But, do what? Was it even logical to scream at the top of their lungs, begging him to stop, like the lame white love interest of an action movie who keeps saying "babe, stop! You're not like this!" in the middle of a fight scene? But who had the power to change his mind if not his soulmate? God, this isn't fair at all. Most people meet their soulmate at 20-something in a coffee shop and spend their whole lives happily together. But here is Y/N, debating internally if they should stop their meant-to-be (whose existence wasn't known up to 40 minutes ago) from being a tyrannical king. Not fair at all.

A sudden loud noise behind their back put a stop to their thoughts, the crowd splitting in half like the red sea in order to let its source walk freely to Loki. Like a god ex machina, red, white, and blue came into their vision: Captain America stood tall and confident, loud footsteps from his heavy boots contrasting with the sepulchral silence. Relief and panic washed over the scientist a the same time, like an electric shock right into their nervous system.

"You know" he annunciated "The last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing".

"The soldier" Loki chuckled, the laugh didn't meet his eyes. Y/N felt like the mass stopped breathing at the same time as an individual living organism. "The man out of time".

"I'm not the one who's out of time".

With that and the aircraft that unexpectedly appeared in the night sky, pointing a machine gun toward Loki, hell breaks loose. The scientist's head spun like it was part of Disney World's Mad Tea Party, the previously quiet and submissive mass of people running around, bumping into their body uncontrollably. Their shoulders ached, but their legs stood glued to the floor like blocks of concrete - Y/N thought they deserved to know what happens to their soulmate after all this time. Police ushered them to run to a safe spot, but their eyes were glued to the fight happening just a few feet away.

Loki shooted a blast of blue lightning from the tesseract at the aircraft, which maneuvered just in time for Captain America to throw his shield at the Asgard prince. Y/N's throat felt tight, wanting to scream "watch out!" but knowing it wasn't the right thing to do. The right thing to do was to run away as soon as the avengers showed up to save the day. The right thing to do was to not follow the golden thread to this mess. The right thing to do was to focus on the job and not spend hours reading about nordic old myths. The right thing to do was to take a better-paying, less interesting workplace. Maybe, the right thing to do was to never leave their bed until soulmates are not real anymore.

The golden thread that linked them together jumped in place with Loki's movements as he battled with Steve Rogers, fists meeting flesh, scepter meeting shield. The metallic sound of the clashing, the grunts, and the screams muffled Y/N's hard breathing, trying to contain their sobs, keeping their tears at bay. The world didn't care about their feelings, didn't care if they would ever get their happily ever after.

Their movements are way too fast and complex for someone out of the fight to comprehend, the violence looking like a choreographed waltz, the sirens sounding like an orchestra. The God of Mischief threw the soldier to the ground, swatting the bright collared shield away. Standing tall over the blonde, he grabbed the scepter tighter, pointing to the sharp end of the blue helmet. Y/N knew Rogers's abilities were extensive and he wasn't a hostage to his gadgets, but it was also part of their knowledge that Loki was a powerful sorcerer. But it was impossible for a newbie astrophysicist to know for a fact who would win in a battle between a deity and an enhanced super-human.

It felt so useless, discussing between doing what is right or doing what feels right when both weren't even an option. They were destined to be together and there was nothing Y/N could do: their presence and the presence of the next person were the same in this situation. The golden line wrapped around their finger stared back at its owner almost in mockery - the couple has never been so close, but the scientist has never been so unhopeful, even when they didn't even know about his existence. They surrendered to the gut-wrenching feeling that rose from the pit of their stomach, spreading like oil on a lake, making everything darker, lifeless, polluted.

The memory of the pull of the string by Loki's gesticulation flashed in Y/N's mind. They had as much understanding on soulmate threads as a kindergarten kid, only knowing the theoric part and having no experience whatsoever, but perhaps, just perhaps, they could do something. Y/N watched attentively, heart in hand. Not what they wanted to do, no, but what they should do. If what they wanted to do was on the table, they would have cried out to the raven-haired man, begging for explanations, the moment they set their eyes on him. But, who cares about what Y/N wanted? They had moral obligations, that sat above everything else.

"Please, let this work" the astrophysicist muttered. They rolled their wrist, grabbing the invisible thread like a rope in a Tug of War game, yanking it down in hopes of controlling the other side's movements like a ventriloquist.

Much to his surprise, Loki's hand falls, the scepter falling on the floor. The Captain didn't demonstrate his confusion at the prince's sudden change of behavior but took advantage of it, getting out of his passive stance and forcing Loki to the ground. Their team got him cornered while a policeman finally lost his patience with Y/N, grabbing them by the waist and forcing them out of the scene. Both were being talked to, but the scientist couldn't discern any words out of the cop's ramble even if their life depended on it.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I had to. I'm so sorry, I didn't want to" Y/N struggled to get the words out, their throat hurt from the contained sobs from before. Now, they didn't have any reasons — or strength — to fight their emotions. They sobbed like a child, the tears feeling like waterfalls, a powerful unstoppable force of nature. They knew that Loki couldn't hear them, but they hoped he could understand their motives.

His ice-blue eyes stared at Y/N, not showing any emotion. Just a stony, indifferent stare.

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knoxs2nd · 9 months

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thinking on yasu's views on kinzo and why she feels compelled to understand him (and why her understanding him has to happen, thematically) is because she's grappling with the fact that he is her culprit

with the understanding that witches = culprits, and with the understanding that up until now, yasu had been playing this game where she cast herself in the role of witch/culprit because

1) it's fun

2) culprits are *interesting*

unpiecing the culprit's heart is the most important and most rewarding part of the mystery novel, of life. in yasu's view of the world, being a witch is great fun, but there's also a part of her that would like to be understood, for someone to understand her "force of heart"

but up until november 29, 1984...yasu had never really had to face a culprit in her real life. she had been idealizing the narrative importance of the culprit and how emotional and human they must be, and fantasizing herself in that role.

learning of kinzo's past, she comes to the visceral realization that the culprit has to commit a crime. something that ruins other people's lives, that steals their happiness away from them. his sin that resulted in yasu like this, feeling cursed from birth and subhuman.

of course yasu feels repulsed by him! of course she is disgusted by the fact that she is borne of his blood! he committed unforgivable crimes that killed so many people, left so many others traumatized, and then cursed her with this Single Truth, that it's all his fault.

but at the same time...she had seen him at his death, when he found out about her existence. before she knew about his being her culprit. at that time, when confronted with kinzo, she couldn't hate him.

she was bewildered, yes, but she had been on the receiving end of that "force of heart" right there, and all she could do in that moment was grant kinzo's final request to call him "father" and bring him peace...she wanted to forgive and save him, then...

the thing is. yasu had already "forgiven" kinzo when he died. she can't exactly take back the fact that she called him father and that he died without regrets, or how, right then and there, she felt moved and like she'd done the right thing.

she learns of his sins only afterwards (thanks, team genji) and the exact nature of how he'd been the cause of all her suffering. and. what then? feel so revolted and wish she hadn't done it? but she had also been witness to his immense grief, madness, and regret.

she can't blindly forgive him, like she unwittingly already did, nor can she blindly hate him, because...she still felt for him when he died, as two human beings, as a part of her worldview that values understanding the heart's mysteries as the basis of human connection...

for her own sake, yasu needs to understand kinzo and what drove him, the heart that could both commit such terrible crimes and yet spend decades trying to repent.

just as we come to understand yasu as umineko's culprit, yasu comes to understands kinzo, her - beatrice's - culprit.

#character: yasu #character: kinzo #favorite

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indaysinaya · 1 year

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Chapter 16- Datu Undajan

AMILYN

It’s like the whole world stopped. No ice falling, no panicked running, no pandemonium of chaos. The cuts and the bruises I incurred made little impact on me. All I could see is that woman, lying on the ground, her neck oozing crimson blood. She’s dying. It hit me like a truck. I’m seeing someone dying right in front of my eyes.

It’s a surreal experience, seeing someone die right in front of your eyes. You literally see the life leaves their body, their breathing stops, their chest ceases to rise and fall, their eyes are blank. That’s what I see, that woman’s eyes are blank.

And then there was brightness. It’s as if heaven itself opened to embrace the soul of the departed. Light floods the entire field. Bright, warm, white light, cascading down from the heaven, bursting like a waterfall.

Oh no…

Am I dead now?

I think so. I don’t think heaven opens up and randomly heals people. And that’s how I feel, healed. And not metaphorically. I’m physically healed. All the cuts and the bruises hurt no more, my twisted ankle isn’t throbbing, my chest isn’t heaving from running too much, and I feel light and ready to spring to action.

So, is this it? Did I die in a hailstorm, right after I died and survived a flurry of torture tornado?

“Amilyn, your anke! How’s your ankle?” Mary excitedly asks me.

Okay, why is Mary with me in heaven? Not that she’s a bad person, just…. I assumed we would all get separate heavens.

“Amilyn! Are you here?” I see the silhouette of the hand waving in front of me.

“Yeah I’m here, wherever here is,” I manage to reply, still blinded by the flooding light.

“What do you mean where here is? You’re still here, in the field. It’s just bright and you can’t see well.”

“Oh, I assumed I died again. Sure feels like heaven to me. You sure this aint heaven?” I manage to quip.

“No dummy. Though I sure get your bewilderment. This is a healing spell. Is your ankle fine? My head is all patched up,” Mary announces.

“Yeah it’s fine. In fact I feel like I could outrun a horse. What kind of healing spell is this?” I ask.

“A big one. And it stopped the hailstorm. Only one person could possibly manage this. He’s…” Mary stutters off.

Because lo and behold, the flooding of light has stopped. Heaven has closed off and has ceased its shower of grace. We’re back in the field, where bewildered and formerly wounded people scatter here and there, muttering to themselves.

My attention immediately turns to the woman who was just now choking on her own blood. If we’re healed then she must be…

To my dismay, she’s still laying on the ground. I kind of expected her to be back on her feet, as springy and healed as the rest of us.

An old man has appeared at the scene. Old is the only negative thing I can say about him, though being old is not at all negative. But besides being old, he’s built like a tank, tall and ripped, his muscles showing beneath the open vest much like the ones the entourages wore. His entire body is covered in tattoo. His hair is pure white and partially let down in the front, braided in the back.

There’s something about this man, a presence so powerful it beckons to everyone present. He’s here, and his mere existence announces itself.

The man is holding the dead woman in his hands.

“Is she…” Mary asks.

“Not yet,” says a boy from behind us.

We turn to see a boy about our age, with white hair and a fair complexion. He’s taller than both Mary and I, and his eyes are the lightest shade of brown.

“Who are you and how do you know that?” Mary inquires of the newcomer.

“Lilith Mallory Basilio. And I know that because the human brain doesn’t die three minutes after the heart stops beating. If he can get the heart beating again within those three minutes, the girl will live,” the newcomer explains nonchalantly, casually observing the scene unfolding before him.

“And who might HE be?” I ask this time.

“Datu Undajan. That’s the man over there,” the boy replies.

#bagani #mythology #story #novelseries #adventure #comedy #gods #hero #teenhero #journey #warrior #philippines #fiction #mystery #superpowers #fantasy

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galimation · 9 months

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Something I noticed;

I always struggle imagining my DnD OC's interacting outside their campaigns. To combat that I placed all of them in an imaginary mansion where everyone has their own room, with a common area and shared kitchen. I wanted to call this "the White Space" originally, but considering Omori already has that I'll just call it "the Mind Space".

And I somehow managed to write existential horror the first time I explored that idea further x'D

„Wasn‘t I just in an airship?“, these are the thoughts that raced through Flufflebite as he found himself in an unfamiliar place. He recognices the smell of leather and fur, but not the objects belonging to them. He recognices the cloth under his paws, but not the pattern. He even recognices specific furniture around him, but not the room itself. He finds himself in a highly familiar unfamiliar place. Flufflebite ears perk up at the sudden knock on the door and he readies his Scythe. Snarling, he waits for whatever might come through. What actually comes through the door is something he did not expect; a halfling. The unfamiliar person places two cups of tea on the table and then turns to Flufflebite: „I bet you are the new Character of him, aren‘tcha“ Bewildered Flufflebite keeps his weapon up but doesn‘t answer. Who knows what this small figure could want of him, and what was it even talking about; „Character of him“? „I‘m sure ya must be confused, but don‘t worry. No one here will pose you a threat“ „Who am I speaking to?“ „Right, right, I completely forgot to introduce myself“, the small halfling straightens his back and takes a deep breath, „I am Gilban Tombubble, pleased to make your aquaintance!“ Flufflebite looks at the small hand the halfling is reaching towards him and shakes it: „Flufflebite“ „‚Flufflebite‘, huh? Haven‘t heard a name like yours here before. Haven‘t seen anyone like you here either“, Gilban moves some furniture around to allow for a comfortable talk over tea, „Sit down and I‘ll explain“ The large lupin sits down on what must be his bed and eyes the halfling suspiciously. Gilban asks if Flufflebite needs anything for his tea, before starting his explanation: „Ya see, this place I call ‚the Mind Space‘. It‘s a realm for all fictional characters made by humans. Not the humans you know, actual humans in a very boring reality. They make up stories and worlds to light up their sad lives and people like us happen to inhabit them.“ Slow to process, Flufflebite takes a minute before he speaks up: „Wait, you mean I‘m not real? That doesn‘t make sense. I can feel my fur, I can speak my mind. How-“ „That‘s true, but we still aren‘t real. Everything we experience is real to us, but not to them. For them we are a way to live more interesting lives, while also spending time with friends.“ Flufflebite lies on the bed, baffled. Did the halfling really just say that? Is all he does and think just someone elses idea? It takes a few seconds, then he bolts back up: „And you‘re okay with that?!“ „Basically, yes.“ „How?!“ Gilban sighs and takes another sip of his tea: „We don‘t really have another option. We just happen to exist and that‘s it. Everyone here learns to live with that fact some way or another.“ Finishing his cup, Gilban stands up again: „If you wanna see where you have arrived, I‘m outside the door; ready to show you around.“ With that, Gilban leaves Flufflebite alone in the room. Alone in the room that seems to be made perfectly for him.

#creative writing #oc stuff #accidental existential horror #familiar unfamiliar space #dnd oc stuff #dnd stuff

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collisvng · 9 months

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I just want to take some time away from my writing projects to speak about Yoongi and Jisung’s lyricism for a moment. Never in my life did I think I could fall in love with music and writing again until I found BTS and now Stray Kids. And the fact both my biases are complete lyrical geniuses is just bewildering to me.

Yoongi and Han have so much in common, but are also so different. Their types of writing styles and how they express their artistry is so unmatched in my eyes.

Yoongi has always been the type to express his feelings and world views through his music. He speaks about his life experiences, how others’ life experiences can change and affect those around them, and just makes music that feels so freeing when you listen to it you can’t help feel overwhelming emotion with each word that is said. He’s truly grown as an artist and will always choose being real over appeasing his audience, which I respect so much.

Han’s music is the kind of music that is so deceiving to the ear, it’s absolutely beautiful. His backtracks are always so full of life, while the songs themselves are so full of sorrow and heartbreak. His lyrics can literally rip your heart out with only a few words. And it’s like you are putting yourself in that pain while still managing to stay happy because of how it sounds. It's such a weird thing to experience, but it’s always so beautifully done.

They are both so forthcoming with their words, and the inspiration for what they write is always creative.

My little gummy smile boys with anxiety, using the most beautiful analogies to write the most gut-wrenching lyrics and coming out with the most expressive music. Ughhhhh, I love them.

And in more recent times, I have grown such emotional attachments to their more recent projects for emotional support.

Amygdala and Collision are the songs I have found myself having the most attachment to recently.

Those songs kinda saved me from myself in recent times when I was going through some really terrible stuff. And now with Han’s new song “Miserable” coming out at a very convenient time for me, it’s literally become my new favorite after only a day.

I will forever be grateful for their existence.

I hope BTS and Stray Kids continue to create a safe space for their fans, and know that there are people out there like me that were able to find a reason to keep going because of them.

I love them so much.

#random rambles #random thoughts #i love them so so so much #their lyrics saved me #han jisung #yoongi #agustd #stray kids #bts

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touchstoneaf · 10 months

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Why are the people who were fans when originally, it was just the book to go off of suddenly SO upset at Neil? I mean, I get being frustrated if for years the authors of one of your favorite books continually told you that your subtext reading was wrong and there was nothing to see there, only to turn around and make it very, very gay when it comes to the screen. I'm in my 40s, and I've been involved in fandoms for my entire life. I know the struggle (a lot better than some people on here who are younger, just saying)... but I still just don't understand the mentality of being like, "Look, you gave me everything I wanted before now and didn't have. But I'm furiously ungrateful for that gift because previously, in another time & place when it was much more dangerous to say otherwise, you didn't give me what I asked for... and now you have, and that somehow makes me angry."

That frankly just seems really perverse to me. Like, you're not gonna let yourself enjoy the present because you're mad about the journey it took to get here?!

I'm so confused. I want to go and thank Neil from the bottom of my heart for giving us what we got: all of the queerness, of Literally Every Variety. All the fanservice, all the wondrous beauty of this, even though as I'm reading the book, I can see that there's not as much of it in there. That just makes it better, IMO, to get something you want in more plenty, finally, for the first time. It's like somebody wrote a *canonical* fix-it fic for us... and you're pissed off because they didn't do it earlier.

Good Omens as it now exists is a wealth and a gift... And more importantly, people's points of view change over the years as the world changes around them, and they are confronted with new information and realize that, for instance, in this case, your fans are asking for representation they seldom get, and you are willing to give it to them because they have been good to you.

It's kind of like getting mad at people who tweeted something ignorant several years ago, and then did the right thing and changed their tune. They aren't "lying" now. People freaking change, for god's sake, and you should actually be *celebrating* that growth rather than being mad at someone because their previous iteration doesn't line up with the current one, like people are supposed to be some kind of unchanging monoliths.

Humans are not monoliths. We alter with time and perspective. Like for instance, years of interacting with people who have a different view. And an act of service like creating a massive, yearslong work of priceless art as a fulsome apology that gives folx everything they ever wanted is literally the definition of admitting you were mistaken in the past, and you're trying to do better.

To write the material in a way that appeals to the primary audience is probably the best way to go in this situation. It's not "pandering". Actually, the silent part you all are apparently furious about is the only pandering going on. Not saying it specifically is the part that's pandering, not MAKING US EXACTLY WHAT WE ASKED FOR. Neil also has to make a few people happy who are disgruntled about the fact that it's more overt now that these stories aren't for them, and they didn't want it to be for us. Really, it's offering a consolation prize to people who have lost. And you're mad that you've won about it? That attitude is bewildering to me.

Nor is it "a blatant money grab", as some people have accused. Yes, he wants to make a living, which is more and more difficult these days, for pretty much every creative (esp. screenwriters, obvs). What this is actually in practice though is Neil admitting through action rather than words that he was wrong. He is performing the ACTION of giving the material what it deserved the entire time and didn't have before. IN LOVING DETAIL, NO LESS... and you all are mad because he's not specifically saying, "Hey, I've learned and grown and gotten better about all this"?

Look, the fact that it happened means that he DID SAY IT; and we've gotten more from that growth and changed perspective than we ever thought possible on the screen. Representation of practically everybody, in every possible way, and I don't understand how people are mad about it!

Grow the fuck up, live in the present, and enjoy what we've been given instead of wallowing around in your bitterness that you didn't get a pat on the back twenty or thirty years ago. There's already enough rotten shit going on in this world without you adding more negativity. Or if you want to sit around being bitter all the time, go do it somewhere else where you're not pissing all over everybody else's good time... and having the utmost GALL to harass and insult a man who has given us so much joy and beauty and belonging.

#neil gaiman is an evil genius #bitter barn pity party #fans being impossible to please #grow up #good omens

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thoughtswordsandshit · 1 year

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Sometimes, there are moments when the ache within me is indescribable. It's a deep pain that resonates in my soul, as I grapple with the realization that this body I inhabit is mine alone. There's no escape from this existence, except through death, which suddenly feels like a familiar and welcoming concept. The thought of lying in the soft grass with no consciousness, free from the burden of yesterday, today, or tomorrow, seems like a blissful state of eternal rest. To embrace the end, to be free from the weight of thoughts, from the constraints of this body that no longer feels like my own, is a fleeting desire that haunts me. It's becoming increasingly challenging to simply live, to survive. I long for a day when I don't feel like a burden, when I don't have to accept sadness as my reality. I yearn to see the world with vivid colors, without doubting its existence or convincing myself of its reality. It's a bewildering state of mind, torn between accepting the void that seems to encompass everything and continuing to search for a glimmer of hope, for a brighter tomorrow. I look around and see people who are genuinely happy, and envy fills my heart. I want to experience that joy someday, though I still question if I've truly been happy before, or if I was simply distracted from my sadness. Nevertheless, I accept that uncertainty. You know what I hate the most? The fact that there are people in my life who genuinely wish the best for me, even when I struggle to do so for myself. Yet, I feel as though I am trapped in a glass box, unable to fully connect with them. I feel empty, as if a barren wasteland has taken over my once familiar sense of self. I miss the person I used to be." It's suffocating not knowing which version of me others love, the old one or the new one. This journey of processing and healing feels like a never-ending battle, and at times, it's exhausting. It's as if I am merely passing the time, counting minutes, hours, and days until it all comes to a stop, and I despise this feeling with every fiber of my being.

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murumart · 1 year

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A sacrifice to save the world, perhaps

The carpenter Zefon Kibudiz was one of the seven brave dwarf souls, one of the seven foundation-layers of the outpost of Emeraldbells, called Sedurrith in the local tongue. Sedurrith was the first attempt of the great Dwarven nation of The Persuasive Lashes to take advantage of the metal-rich areas far on the western tropical Continent of Trammeling. It was the year of Myth 128, late summer, and the future looked bright.

The first year was passing by fast. The recently arrived additional faces were getting acclimated, their hands full in the newly built workshops. Meager bedrooms were being carved out of the rough rock below, each requiring a new bed to be built. Wood and fruit was plentiful in the tropical forests aside Sedurrith, the diet of every one of the 15 residents varied and plentiful.

An order came from above: more logs were required for the oncoming construction projects. Zefon was called to action, one of the few skilled in woodcutting owing to his life before this new beginning. Proficiently, he felled enough trees so the new beds and barrels could be constructed without issue. The new stonecrafter was showing off their skill, producing masterful works, teaching their predecessor Olon in his new stonecutting job.

It was a sunny day when the world ground to a halt and ended.

The Overseer of Sedurrith was jarred by this. It was still getting used to its set of powers over the world, grasping and squirming around like a baby, when everything was taken so suddenly. This had not been accounted for. The Overseer then spent time scouring files and logs, to perhaps find an explanation to this. But none was found. Thankfully, backups existed, granting the Overseer control once again. But the date had rolled back three months, voiding all progress made during that time. The Overseer grit its teeth and got to work restating everything, anticipating the possibility that the world would end again.

It was the early summer of 128, the first year of business in the settlement of Sedurrith, and the year the world was going to end. The carpenter, Zefon Kibudiz, did not know about that, of course. New buildings and workshops were being planned in anticipation of new arrivals to the fortress, Olon the stonecutter seeing to stone constructions, the miners Degёl and others digging deeper and farther into the earth.

Zefon was chosen personally by the expedition leader, Mafol Obokakir. His woodworking skill was admittedly nothing special, for sure getting the job done, but outshined by many. He was, however, valued for his ambition, his personality that warmed people around him, his forward-looking nature. A close friend to Mafol and Olon, a kindred spirit to all others who took the founding of Sedurrith upon themselves.

An order came from above. The four new dwarves, having recently arrived, were about to settle into their prepared rooms. But more beds were required still. Zefon got his axe and went to work, the admittedly unbearable summer heat offset by a breeze, and the sight of elephants, magnificent creatures quite unknown to these settlers from the North-East.

The Overseer was alerted of a collapse on the surface. Unprepared, it floundered, digits twitching, seeking familiarity in the way it had to navigate, but failing. By the time it reached the site of the collapse, Mafol was there, Olon too, kneeling.

Zefon Kibudiz had been found dead, badly crushed.

The Overseer was bewildered beyond belief. Its general doubt in the entire world deepened. Dwarves, to its knowledge, were good at avoiding being crushed by falling trees, their fast feet and sharp senses in fact eliminating any and all possibility of this happening. But, seemingly, this one had just died having a tree fall on him. Apparently.

They were not given much time to mourn. A graveyard was dug into rock in haste and Zefon's remains buried quickly. Olon was distracted from his stonework by the sudden death of his friend, Mafol buried under paperwork, taking stock of wares, and answering to the Mountainhome far to the East. New arrivals demanded attention and assignments, the fortress progressing relatively unimpeded.

The Overseer watched as the fortress made it into its first winter. The late autumn world-end-day did not take place in this timeline. There was, of course, no snow so far inland and close to the equator, winter was rather referred to as the dry season. But the Overseer, glancing to the side, staring into the snowfall behind the glass, thought of Zefon and the world which birthed him, the world which, in the end, could only exist without him alive.

And the Overseer thought, "This is a story."

#dwarf fortress #story #dwarf fortress story #writing #mumadf

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cl0udpup · 1 year

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Autism self-discovery

This post will be detailing the thread I referenced in my last post. Here we go.

I’ve spent the last few months researching autism, trying to decide if it fits for me. I feel like I need to basically write a report with all the reasons I may or may not be autistic, before bringing it up to anyone in my personal life.

I’ve already gone through so many diagnoses, mental and physical health, because I’ve had so many problems my entire life. This adds to my fear of being disbelieved, or called a hypochondriac, or that people might think I’m just collecting diagnoses. In reality, I’ve known there’s something wrong and/or different about me as long as I can remember.

Some things fit, and give me a sense of relief and understanding. As time goes on, and other symptoms or circumstances clear, I feel I get closer to witnessing the real me. The clearer a picture I get, the more at peace I feel.

Right now, I’m at the end of a year that’s been almost entirely focused on my health issues. I found myself more disabled than ever before (and learned for the first time that I do indeed fit that label,) unable to work, do hobbies, take care of myself... I was falling apart.

Thankfully, also for the first time, I have genuine, unwavering, non-judgmental support. I have someone who believes and validates my struggles, and encourages me to continue healing.

After my physical ailments were brought under control, I was able to focus on my mental health. I went back to therapy, got a psychiatrist, adjusted my depression/anxiety meds, got diagnosed with ADHD - Inattentive type, started meds for it recently.

Yesterday I felt clarity like never before. I realized I felt “nothing”. I felt “normal.” It was amazing.

I’ve mentioned this before, but being sober now has been wildly eye opening as well. I’m sober, stable, medicated, and feel I finally can look at myself and my life, free from the fog.

I have always questioned WHY my life has been the way it is. Why I’ve had such a hard time, despite my best efforts, despite using any resources I could, despite trying to be self aware, research and learn about my problems, my behavior, my thinking.

ADHD explains a lot, but my experiences don’t fully align with other ADHD’ers I talk to or read about. In contrast, I feel seen when interacting with autists online, especially with AuDHD’ers.

The experience of being:

so sensitive (in every way)

chronically both over and under-stimulated

feeling like an outsider

excelling in some areas (or appearing to) but struggling deeply in others

always falling behind / can never catch up

quirky and annoying

drawn to “weird” subcultures

bouncing around to communities without a group to call home

desperately plotting routines and schedules, but never able to stick to anything

always trying to “get my life together”

I’ve been searching for so long for an answer to explain everything, why I feel so deeply, like I’m too sensitive for this world; I don’t understand how people can be so detached and uncaring. I’ve just been bewildered by it all, and don’t understand why people think I’M the weird one for caring so much about everything.

I’ve read others stories I see myself in. I feel it could be me, but I just still am scared, and don’t know. I told my therapist today I think my sibling is autistic, and we are alike in many ways. I’m thinking next week, maybe I’ll say: maybe I am too.

The replies:

“The fact you connect with what you’re learning about Autism and especially AuDHD’ers lived experiences is a good indication. Internalized ableism and Autistiphobia are hard to overcome.

I learned I was AuDHD as a young adult, and while it was liberatory in a way, I felt it was wrong of me to co-opt something I didn’t think I deserved to take the title of, as there were people who have more or different support needs. That was the ableism.

It’s okay to take your time. Feeling the need to justify your existence to others is their neuro-normative expectations on you, not your burden to bear.”

“I’m autistic and have all the traits you mentioned too.”

“Whatever you decide, you’re welcome between us! It took me a couple years to bring it to people close to me, and even then I have been really guarded about it in general, that’s ok too!”

“This is wildly autistic; which is to say, so awesome. You don’t need a test to know who you are.”

“I relate to a lot of what you shared. I went from social anxiety to BPD to cPTSD to ADHD before ever considering autism. I needed to know why I am so different and why life is so hard for me. I needed validation which I never got before finding the autistic community here.”

“This is autistic as fuck. Reminder that autism self-dx is absolutely valid. You don’t owe an explanation to anyone.”

“You do you and what works for you, but as soon as I started reading your thread I was like hmmm, yep, sounds very familiar! :)”

“That would be a very autistic thing to do, you probably don’t need to do the list. ;)”

“Something I’m learning is that people who are not autistic don’t spend time wondering if they are.”

“This is me but 4 years of intensive research. My traits are recorded in sections in a document.”

“This first post right here is all the diagnosis you need. You just described the most autistic thing. This is the journey for so many of us. Welcome to the club.”

“So you’re saying you’re autistic then. ;) I agonized as well, making lists, weighing ADHD with ASD. Then I came here and talked about it and was assured that NT’s don’t make lists about whether they’re autistic or not. In fact, their brains are apparently rather quiet from what I hear.”

“There’s not much in the world that’s more autistic than extensive research on whether or not you’re autistic.”

“Making a list is a very autistic approach. I use it often.”

“This tweet shows your autism. Extensive research and writing a report, that’s your autism tell right there. Also, no one who isn’t autistic wants to be autistic. You have done the research; self-diagnosis is VALID because of gatekeeping of the diagnosis.”

#gosh #actually autistic #autistic #autism #neurodivergent #neurodiverse #self advocacy #autistic community #validation #autistic af #i love making lists

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hear-the-ocean · 2 years

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The Starless Sea book review

A sleep-deprived slightly spoiler-y very unprofessional review of The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. I feel like having the review be professional and not as confusing as the novel was, would be doing it a disservice so here we go

look at all the pretty covers! under the cut ofc I don't want to clog up the tags

The covers are a work of art

Summary (pulled from goodreads) :

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Night Circus, a timeless love story set in a secret underground world—a place of pirates, painters, lovers, liars, and ships that sail upon a starless sea.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues—a bee, a key, and a sword—that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library hidden far below the surface of the earth. What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians—it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also of those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose—in both the mysterious book and in his own life.

Review:

👁👄👁 I honestly felt like I dreamt the entire book and isn't that ironic given the story lmao. Despite feeling like I was unbalanced the entire time and more confused than Zachary, I still really enjoyed the book. It's very whimsical. I would describe it as like being in a dream. Things make sense but also don't make sense? You can read meaning into anything in that dream and you won't really know if it's true or not since dreams don't exist as facts or to be proven.

The story follows many people though we anchor on Zachary, a grad student who gets sucked into an underground world of stories, time, fate, the moon, and the love between people. There's also a lot of honey and bees.

I can't truly explain the story because I don't think I could give it justice. It's something you have to read for yourself and explore the confusion and plug in what you believe is missing with your own beliefs and stories. I don't know how the author could spin multiple tales imbedded in each other and still keep the connections without tangling into too much confusion. There's enough of it to keep you intrigued. Thought as I was getting to the end, I realized there won't be clear answers that I was looking for. In that sense it truly does act like the fairytales already written in its pages. Stories with no logic, just emotion, magic, fate, and time.

I probably will realize some answers weeks from now or maybe I won't. Reading this book was different than others in the sense that even without full closure, I don't feel like I was left hanging. Just like the stories in the Harbor, this book exists to take you on a journey and then bring you back, it's not meant to have clear answers.

In the novel Fate believes that endings give stories meaning and Kat (Zachary's friend who will be a real keeper 😏) doesn't agree. To her, stories have meanings in their entirety, she just believes that they need to have a goodbye, somewhere to be left. And I agree with her.

The only thing is that despite there being so many love stories in the fairytales in the book and a love story between our main characters, I didn't feel it. I couldn't feel the chemistry, the yearning, the need to be with the other. I've read better romances and so I just ignored it and let it just happen. Maybe it's not the type of romance we need to start and build naturally and rather one where the love just happens and we are to just accept it. (Basically insta-love). Everything else keeps your focus more anyways.

The descriptions got a bit much so I found myself skimming it sometimes. But also the main character is soooooo passive. Things happen around him or things are put upon him and he's told he has a choice. Fate just gives you choices, it's up to you what path you take but honestly that's bs 😃 how is "this door or this door?" a proper choice when there's no other info. My guy gets yeeted into one place and then another and just... does what ppl need him to lmao poor guy. Also there's no real character development, probably because there's not much character in the first place but even the ones that existed? Nothing changed them. Comparing the characters in the beginning to how they are in the end, nothing really has changed. Reading other reviews, people are saying it's mainly a love letter to storytelling so it foregoes some other things usually needed in a story (is this irony, idk)

Not only was it a dizzying book to read, it's dizzying just to explain my thoughts. Or maybe it's the headache from staying up till 5am to read the book and finishing it after 5 hours of sleep. Once things start getting going, so do you; sleep, no matter how strong, will not be stronger than the honey floating you towards bees that buzz stories long gone or yet to happen in your ear and send you off to spread those stories.

Ps. Why tf do I sound so pretentious in my reviews lmao

#book review #books #booklr #bookblr #books and reading #writing portfolio #my writing #magical #mystery #my reviews #erin morgenstern #the starless sea #lgbt #mlm books #black mc

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anitosoul · 3 years

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My Favorite Albums of 2020

2. King Krule, Man Alive!

Favorite Tracks: Cellular | Energy Fleets | Alone, Omen 3

I want to start this one off by saying I’m completely bewildered why this album was absent from virtually every end-of-year list I’ve seen. There’s a trend of my favorite albums from this year speaking to the feelings of 2020, and none captures the depression and monotony of quarantine isolation like Man Alive! Both sonically and lyrically, this album represents a sense of nihilism I haven’t identified with since Earl Sweatshirt’s I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside and Solace. Despite its negative connotation, the existential nihilism King Krule has chosen to express on Man Alive! isn’t one of sad hopelessness, but one of freedom from everything besides connection.

That connection can take on many forms: One of the most striking to me is covered in my favorite album opener of the year, “Cellular.” The song boldly pushes the boundary of King Krule’s signature jazz-punk, portraying the the glitchy incomprehensibility of a cell phone showing real people crying and getting massacred across the globe while using the same device to call your ex moments later. These feelings were exacerbated during the pandemic, when I, like most people, was using the same screen to read updates about the deaths of thousands of people around the world, complete my work and school tasks, witness literal murder and subsequent riots due to individual and systemic racism, consume mind-numbing content, curate my digital persona, see everyone else’s all the time through social media, and talk to my friends represented by several tiny video chat boxes. I still don’t think we’re giving ourselves enough credit for having the mental capacity to process even a fraction of the information and emotional taxation we’re exposed to from the minute we wake up to the minute we fall asleep. This chaotic soup of emotions is something that only an artist like King Krule is able to capture through his unique blend of genres and subtle lyricism.

One might see all of this and rightfully think it is all too overwhelming, that there really is no point if this unending suffering exists. However, on Man Alive!, King Krule suggests the power of real, human connection. He does it in a way that’s not preachy or overtly conclusive towards either pointlessness or hopefulness—he expresses the power of the unknown, the essence of The Fool, a character undertaking this journey we call life with no expectation or direction. This is most clearly seen in the lyrics of “Alone, Omen 3”:

The ache and thunder in the storms of your mind Soak it in, for the rain will pass in time Nothing wrong in sinking low You’re the omen of paradise You’re the ghost they put aside But don’t forget you’re not alone - King Krule, “Alone, Omen 3”

We’re never really alone, especially in 2020. Despite the fact that we’re holed up in our homes, rarely seeing strangers or friends, connection is simply a tap away. No matter how I was feeling this year, whether it be depressed, lonely, joyful, invigorated, or apathetic, Man Alive! reminded me that I was just that—a man, alive—and that my existence, like all the energy in the universe, is fleeting. What am I going to do about it, then? I won’t forget I’m not alone: I’m going to hold my connections—to friends, to family, to strangers, to animals, to plants, to the world—as close to my heart as I can, as they’re the only thing that make any sense in this funny life.

Where are you goin’? The day’s about to end Such a funny life I lead I’m sittin’, soakin’ in the times I bleed Watch it flow right out of me Why stop readin’? When the page is ’bout to turn Such a funny life I lead - King Krule, “Energy Fleets”

#aoty 2020 #aoty #albums #music #music writing #king krule #man alive #reflects

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zoethehead · 1 year

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Reassurance from Motnia

now this is a lil' story that gives a sense of calm to Wulf and Chalakon.

basic synopsis: Motnia shows up, and tells Chalakon that he still accepts him for who he is, and accepts Wulf for doing his best to keep Chalakon safe, also... Wulf's real name is revealed .

also, a Cutsel is just fancy way of saying "Child" in the language of the Troskos, even though "Guppy" is also used.

(Tw's apply: Trauma, religious trauma, references of homophobia, mention of the garden of eden, to anyone who's sensitive to religion being mentioned in fiction)

Chalakon felt worried, he was exiled, and he knew his father struck the fear of Motnia’s wrath into him back when he was just a lil’ cutsel, blind to his world’s harsher truths. He cried, letting tears of worry and loathing fall onto the railing of a balcony. He had failed to be accepted by Motnia, what even was he if the deity his people worshiped couldn’t accept him?

Suddenly, a faint blue and gold glow formed from the moonlight and down into the waters, the eerie glow of the moon casting a brighter light upon a silhouette that arose from the moonlit waters, revealing itself to be Motnia. “M-motnia!” Chalakon stammered, backing away in slight fear. “I-i’m..” he stammered, soon falling to his knees in fear, and crying, knowing he would perish for his supposed sin. “Hush now, little one…. I’m not gonna hurt you….” Motnia said, holding Chalakon close. Chalakon was shocked, unknowing of what to say.

“But, why? I have sinned, I am a failure!” Chalkon worried.

“No, you aren’t, And neither has your boyfriend, he might have killed people, but it was his duty to, in the name of protecting those close to him… you included.” Motnia smiled. Chalakon was somewhat confused, but relieved. “You stood up for what’s right, and what you do as a Troskos, you are no burden to me at all, in fact.. I’m so very proud of you for doing so, you have my virtue of acceptance and hope.” Motnia said calmly.

“Chalakon? What’s going on right now?” Wulf asked groggily, he had woken up, getting out of the bed.

“Oh, well, I’m just getting a bit of reassurance from a god here.” Chalakon smiled.

“And as for you, Leksik, or should I say, Wulf….” Motnia said

Wulf felt slightly intimidated, how did Motnia know his real name?

“I might know what your real name is, but I am not meaning to intimidate you.” Motnia grinned.

“What do you mean?” Wulf asked.

“I mean, I'm proud of you as well, you chose a great guy to fall in love with, and to defend and keep safe from harm whenever you can.” Motnia said, walking over to Wulf and putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Well, i’ll be goin’ now, need to get back up to my area, see you again someday.” Motnia said, flying away into the distance, and then disappearing back into the ocean.

“Was that Motnia?” Wulf asked, kinda bewildered.

“It sure was, Chalakon smiled, with tears in his eyes. ”And he still accepts me for who i am.”

“Interesting, usually if there’s a god back in my world, it’s not really present.” Wulf smirked.

“Well, this isn’t really Earth, it’s a world known as Ecresia, somewhat like what you’d call a “Garden of Eden” in your world, but mixed with our own diverse culture, and our deities actually do exist in this world. Chalakon explained.

“That’s quite amusing to me, nice to know your gods care about you, all what I heard about a god when I was younger was how much they hated me for existing, for being not straight, and for being into metal and games." Wulf sighed.

“That sounds horrible!” Chalakon worried.

“Yeah, it was, but nice to see that a god can accept me for who I Am in this world.” Wulf smiled, looking up at the stars and the moon.

#trauma tw #religious tw #tw religion #religious trauma tw #tw religious trauma #tw homophobia #lgbtq #lgbtqia+#god oc #deity oc #reassurance #tw trauma

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more-than-a-princess · 2 years

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@inxtricabilis asked: Lackey

send a word and i will write a drabble or headcanon based on it - letter L

I think there’s two ways of interpreting lackey, at least where Sonia’s concerned? Either being an actual servant or behaving in a servile way (not employed but still trying to curry favor with her). So I’ll break down both of these.

She isn’t fond of people who want to be her “friend,” but especially those who want to act like her lackeys in exchange for her friendship, loyalty, etc. I believe it’s happened to her in the past and it will likely continue to happen to her, especially in light of the fact that when she considers you a friend, she will always consider you an equal. So it’s bewildering and hurtful for her when others, by their own volition, will try to act as lackeys towards her: they’re not appealing, that’s for sure.

While Sonia has some preferences in things, she’s ultimately not a snob. She’ll be picky about bad chocolate and bad wine, but she won’t think she’s superior to someone else, or balk at not doing something fancy/upscale/exclusive, or insist others not in her employ (or when she’s Queen, a citizen of her nation) must answer to her. In fact, she’s plenty entertained by engaging in “normal things!” Inexpensive excursions, normal errands, cheap food: she really enjoys these sorts of things because she either doesn’t have the opportunity to enjoy them at home or is banned from doing so.

Now, where lackeys as actual servants/staff are concerned? Sonia has mixed opinions. For one, most of her first friends were people that worked for her and her family: she grew up very sheltered (she didn’t attend an actual school until middle school, for example), and thus most of her friends and acquaintances were chosen for her by her family: either the children of wealthy and aristocratic families, or the staff that worked in Novoselic Castle or for the Royal Family in other capacities. Sonia is very much the type to strike up a conversation with various members of household staff, to footmen to maids to butlers and groundskeepers. If it’s not a formal affair and/or the family doesn’t have guests, she’ll happily engage in conversation with those going about their day, catching up on their lives. And I headcanon she likely tries her best to remember birthdays, and will also give gifts during Christmas as well. If they’re going through a hard time, she’ll likely send as much support as is appropriate.

But it still bothers her that her way of life, how she grew up with so many people to protect, clean, cook, maintain, etc. every aspect of her existence is not the norm. It’s considered very odd and strange to be so pampered and to do so little in the way of day-to-day errands and maintenance that she feels alienated from most of the world, that she’s abnormal and doesn’t fit in. That doesn’t sit well with her, that so many livelihoods are wholly devoted in service. It’s different than a company, or so she thinks in her younger verses: it’s tradition, one that has almost faded entirely from existence save for the few noble families who carry on with it.

When she’s older, she’s forced to come to terms that even though she feels a bit helpless in the taking care of herself department (do not let her in your kitchen or near your cleaning products. Do. not. let. her. cook.), she’s forced to admit that by having someone cook, clean, keep her schedule in order, look out for her safety, maintain various estates, and field the best possible public relations she can get, she’s able to instead spend her time focusing on bigger problems. Hobbies too of course, but the more responsibility she takes on, the more she appreciates someone always cooking her meals, cleaning her homes, making sure she’s on time to various things, etc.

She benefits from having servants and she knows it, and she’s torn between feeling some amount of guilt and being able to devote more of her life to her nation and its people. But she will always prefer to treat them with dignity and respect: many of the staff feel more like her own family than her actual blood relations (and that is a very good thing!).

#more-than-a-princess answered #more-than-a-princess headcanons #inxtricabilis #(Headcanons with the letter L meme)#(Thank you for the ask!)

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btsmosphere · 2 years

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Firstly, congratulations on your milestone, well deserved!

I am here for the drabble game, love this pick and mix idea!

So can i request:

Taehyung, idol neighbour au, strangers to lovers (suggestive if thats ok)

prompts:

Hiding and "I'm used to it."

Can it be for a mxr (fem reader please)

Thank you! Love your writing, can't wait to read! 🖤

~summary: your busy life hasn't given you the chance to meet your neighbour, until a crowd outside your apartment block brings you together ~pairing: taehyung x reader ~ceo!reader, idol!taehyung, neighbours, strangers to lovers, fluff, suggestive ~word count: 1k ~rating: pg ~warnings: swearing, a tad suggestive

~a/n: another drabble! thank you so much my lovely!! this was a fun one, I really hope you enjoy it and thank you for playing💜 this story is part of my drabble game, and requests are still open! for any of you who have seen it and considered, I would seriously love to get some more requests, so don’t hesistate!

Your journey home wasn’t too long, something you were thankful for. Having risen through the ranks of a big company, you always worked hard, but there were inevitably days when you wanted nothing more than to collapse onto your sofa and not move for hours.

Today was one of those days.

But when you turned the final corner of your route home, your dreams of Netflix were swiftly crushed.

At the foot of your apartment complex, spreading a little way along the pavement, was a crowd of people. Their clamouring reached you from across the street, and you noticed several holding up cameras.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened, given the area you lived in. Many rich and famous people lived in this district, and you had opted for this place in particular thanks to its high security and luxury apartments.

Unless some serious shit had gone down at work since you left twenty minutes ago, you were fairly certain the crowd wasn’t for you. That was something, but it didn’t change the fact you weren’t going to be able to make it inside anytime soon without leaking your address to the world.

Sighing, you dug your mask from your bag and slipped it on, just in case.

You made a beeline to avoid the rabble outside your home, instead going around your building to the back, where you could wait it out.

There was a back entrance, but it was usually for things like deliveries, so your key wouldn’t open it. Luckily, the crowds didn’t seem to be aware of its existence, as there was no one around this side when you got there.

The moment you stepped into the alcove where the doorway nestled, you were proven wrong.

A yelp startled you, realising too late that there was a man here already. He was very well concealed, only visible now you were round the corner.

Wide eyes stared from underneath a cap, a mask also covering the lower half of his face. His gaze darting behind you briefly, a faint frown appearing on his brows when he found nothing there.

Understanding quickly dawned on you.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t bring them with me,” you chuckled, “I guess you want to avoid them too?”

Blinking, the man raised his head so you could see a little more of his face, though he still looked bewildered. Adorably so.

Wow, it must have been a long day if you were crushing on someone that quickly. You needed to pull yourself together.

After a moment, he leaned forward, speaking in a low voice, practically a whisper.

“You live here too?”

You nodded.

“Is it you they’re after, then? Damn, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged, slumping back against the wall.

“I’m used to it.”

Shuffling further into the small space, you clicked your tongue in sympathy. You weren’t quite sure who this guy was, but it felt rude to ask in such a stressful situation. Whoever he was, he was clearly someone the front pages were keen to get a hold of.

A slight issue you hadn’t foreseen was that now you were pressed quite close to this stranger, the doorway not providing too much space.

“Do you think anyone’s around to let us in?” you asked, peering through the small window in the door, if only to avoid his eyes now you were so close.

“I think security all went to deal with the front,” he sighed, resigned. His voice was low and resonant, his clear tiredness lending it some huskiness that was affecting you more than it probably should.

“Do they not understand people have important binge-watching to attend to?”

You were relieved to note he laughed at your attempt at a joke, cheeks belying his happiness under the mask.

“Well said,” he agreed, “though I’m not sure if I’ll get to that tonight. I’m only in this mess because I forgot my keys, and someone spotted me while I was stuck outside.”

“Happens to the best of us,” you chuckled, “I’m sure you had big plans.”

Strangely, the conversation between the two of you flowed easily despite having just met. He became quite animated, causing the barely existent space between you to shrink sometimes, your face heating up.

You barely noticed the time passing, but eventually a click announced the opening of the door beside you.

The security guard apologised profusely for the situation. Accepting it with a smile, you didn’t have the heart to tell him you actually wished he had left you out there for longer.

“What’s your name, by the way? I’m Taehyung.”

Taehyung. Perhaps it ran a bell.

The two of you walked side by side to the elevator.

“Y/N,” you told him, “what floor do you need?”

You had pressed number 7 for yourself, but when you turned around, you barely registered him telling you he was on the same floor.

If you had been captivated by his eyes alone when he had his mask on, then this was…

Wow. You were speechless. He had removed his cap and mask, leaving dark scruffy hair falling into his dark eyes. His face looked as if it had been sculpted by the gods. No wonder he was famous.

A shy smile spread across his mouth. Clearly you had stared a little too long. With a breathy laugh, he leaned across you to press the console, letting the doors slide closed and the elevator set into motion.

To your surprise, he hardly moved further away from you than you had been in the doorway earlier, despite much more space being available here.

“I can’t believe I never noticed I had someone like you as a neighbour,” he smirked, leaning against the metal wall. He was way too at ease to be saying things like that.

You raised your eyebrows.

“Like me?”

“Yeah, I’m glad I got stuck hiding with you of all people. You’re funny” – his eyes then flicked up and down – “and cute.”

You were quite surprised you hadn’t burst into flames yet.

“I’m glad I could ease your boredom,” you laughed, “it certainly beat being out there all alone.”

The lift came to a halt too soon, the doors announcing the end of your journey.

“Thanks,” Taehyung grinned, though he stopped in the hallway, “I still can’t get into my apartment, though.”

One hand on your own door, already pushing it open, you turned to him and allowed a smirk to slip onto your own face.

“I think I might have a solution to that too.”

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