#the likelihood of my dreams coming true

[pinesfamilyguidetotheweird]

Gravity Falls Thoughts: Ford and Trauma™ Part 2 (Forced Insomnia)

Annnnnd here we are with Part 2 of Ford and Trauma™!

Last time, we tackled the likelihood of Ford living off of pills and coffee over the last 30 years. So, what’s the logical next part?

Perhaps one of the most popular Ford ships out there!

Ford x Sleeeeep!!!!

Or…his problems with it. Let’s go with that.

If Gravity Falls went a bit longer (like if it had 3 seasons), this could have been a running gag of sorts for Ford, his lack of sleep or at least the repercussions of said lack of sleep, such as him dozing off in weird places.

And you can blame a certain dream demon for that.

Not long after Ford learns of Bill’s true colors, Ford did anything he could to prevent Bill from having any control of the situation…that includes depriving himself of sleep due to his deal with Bill.

…Yeah…um…there is a glaring issue on that plan, I must say. And that is the fact that depriving yourself of sleep…will not be beneficial in the long run.

According to Healthline, there are 5 Sleep Deprivation Stages, each stage is determined by the many hours of no sleep.

Stage 01 is after 24 hours of no sleep. A personal fact here, y’all: I’ve done this before twice in my life, staying up for about 24 hours…it was not fun both times.

While not necessarily a cause for major problems, there will be some issues, such as decreased alertness, drowsiness, fatigue, increased risks of mistakes…

Stage 02, after 36 hours (A day and a half), and you’ll start experiencing severe cognitive impairment. Not to mention an overwhelming desire for sleep and the likelihood of having microsleeps (short bouts of sleep that lasts for about 30 secs) is possible.

Come Stage 03 (after 48 hours) and hoooo…boy, things aren’t lookin’ good at all! This is where hallucinations can start setting in. Which, in Ford’s paranoid case, is a definite cause for concern. And there’s depersonalization, anxiety, heightened stress levels, increased irritability, and extreme fatigue. Microsleeps becomes more of a guarantee. And you won't realize it.

At Stage 04 (after 72 hours), along with more frequent and longer microsleeps, the hallucinations could get more complex.

Then finally, at Stage 05 (after 96 hours and more), you’ll start to experience a little thing called sleep deprivation psychosis, when your perception of reality is severely distorted due to lack of sleep.

So…not much of a shock to see this…

And we don’t even know how long Ford had been trying to keep himself awake. Even Journal 3 (I have the regular edition) doesn’t provide the answer for this except for the mad scrawlings of CAN’T SLEEP and the hellish amount of coffee he drank.

This can also explain his insistence on preserving his journals instead of just destroying them. He’s not thinking clearly due to lack of sleep.

It is possible to recover from this, though, it will take a while.

It can take days or weeks to recover from a bout of sleep deprivation. Just 1 hour of sleep loss requires 4 days to recover. The longer you’ve been awake, the longer it will take to get back on track.

And considering that Ford got sucked into the Portal before he could have a moment for well deserved rest…kind of a similar situation to his crap diet while on the run, how often was Ford able to get a full night's rest? I mean...look how he sleeps now, in day wear with his coat, glasses, and boots on, like he has to be prepared to book it...

It’s honestly a wonder that Ford came back to our dimension without sporting some eyebags that would give Shouta Aizawa (or even Toshinori Yagi) a run for his money.

…Question: So, Bill had free reign of entering Ford’s mind when he sleeps, right? Did Bill still do that during Ford’s travels up until he got that plate installed?

...So, what should I talk about next? The bullying Ford had to endure? Father of the Year, Filbrick Pines? Possible complex PTSD? Major Guilt? Wounds and potential complications? Bill -fucking- Cipher and the abuse?

#gravity falls #stanford pines #ford pines #grunkle ford #trauma #gravity falls thoughts

[centrally-unplanned]

I always find the 'semiotics' or symbolic language of media interesting from an evolutionary perspective. Recently online there was a bit of a discussion about run cycles in animation; a guide to running written by Hayao Miyazaki from back in 1980 for which we had the text due to its inclusion in collected-writings book Starting Point has been missing its original accompanying visuals for all this time. Someone (Rebekah Machemer) found and scanned those drawings so now we have the complete work:

Very cool stuff, and really great to recover any lost production media like this. In the essay itself Miyazaki gets a bit philosophical - why care about running animation at all?

Above all what is most important is what one wants to express through the act of running…Men of strong resolve, who are wearing heavy armor and carrying swords, should run in a way that weak extras cannot. The running of surging masses on fire with anger, the running of a child doing his best to hold back tears until he reaches his house, the running of a heroine who has forsaken everything but the desire to flee—being able to show wonderful ways of running, running that expresses the very act of living, the pulse of life, across the screen would give me enormous delight. I dream of someday coming across a work that requires that kind of running.

On the one hand this all resonates; make the character visual, express their identity through motion, etc. On the other hand...girl who runs like this? I don't run, like, at all! It's not a common occurence in my everyday life to see a single person running, and if I do it is 99% of the time someone working out. I am pretty sure when I do run its way less an expression of my Forsaken Herione vibes and instead an expression of my 12-hours-a-day-on-a-computer workout routine.

-How you think you look running

-How you actually look running

What I am not saying here is that Miyazaki is wrong or anything to care about running. Instead I am saying that when he discusses how beautiful the act-of-running is, that is only partially coming from observing reality; it primarily comes from animation as a medium. Animation's value-add is the art-in-motion, you want the screen to be expressing itself to the audience through movement. You as an audience member want to see the animator themselves express their own aesthetic to you through that movement. There are a million ways to make that happen but running is one of the strongest; its character focused, universally applicable, common *enough* that you know what it looks like, you can make it diegetic to a climax if the plot demands it, etc. It makes sense for animation to utilize it, and it does - more than just animation, film all over does! It's a universally common symbol in the language of film with decades of meaning built into it.

But that meaning does not first come from real life, it comes from those demands of film-as-a-medium. In all likelihood no one has ever emoted a climactic meaning to you while running, or after running, you don't have a frame of reference for that. When you, as a viewer, are emotionally moved by the act of running, you feel that because film as a medium taught you to feel that. Compare it to how animation/film often focuses on the eyes and mouth for expressing emotion - that is not an invention of film, that is how real human beings communicate, when talking to a person you focus primarily on their eyes and mouth. The semiotics of film's language around eyes is built primarily from real life, which is much less true for running.

What is cool is how much of a semiotics of running animation has been built up given its origin within the demands of the medium. Miyazaki had a hot take and a desire to see artists push the craft as early as 1980; since then I can think of hundreds of running cycles artists have put their own touch on. I think of these as real Artist moments - it is something that the craft leads you to that you become obsessed with perfecting, existing for its own sake, something that interplays between observation and pure creativity. I can see these scenes now outside their own story, as the use and evolution of language. Which is neat!

#animation media theory

[yallemagne]

The way Mina emphasizes Harker. The way Jonathan sounds so vulnerable and scared. The way Lucy sounds just as vulnerable and scared.

She loves the way it sounds: Wilhelmina Harker. In the eyes of God, he's finally hers, and she's finally his.

She's so thrilled to finally wed Jonathan even if it isn't how they imagined, even if he can't stand for the ceremony, even if their only witnesses are strangers. She forgets that she's already referred to him as her husband because she's just so delighted that now it's true.

It doesn't matter to her that it isn't picture-perfect. In all likelihood, she never expected picture-perfect. Even in her immense joy, she still lets slip a little of her insecurity that she has no dowry to provide to him. But dowries, pah! Who cares! He'd marry her no matter what, and the same can evidently be said about her.

I gotta go into Jonathan's whole speech I---

'Wilhelmina'—I knew then that he was in deadly earnest, for he has never called me by that name since he asked me to marry him—'you know, dear, my ideas of the trust between husband and wife: there should be no secret, no concealment. I have had a great shock, and--'

The sound that plays! It swoops down like a bat over his head as he tries to think of what happened to him. There are also his ideas of trust-- they're very similar to Lucy's "A woman ought to tell her husband everything—don't you think so, dear?".

'--when I try to think of what it is I feel my head spin round, and I do not know if it was all real or the dreaming of a madman. You know I have had brain fever, and that is to be mad.'

His voice gets deeper, more solemn. It feels reminiscent of the way Renfield talks. It's very haunting and it shows his dire understanding that, were they in England, he would be denied his right to marriage even if Mina still wanted him.

'The secret is here, and I do not want to know it. I want to take up my life here, with our marriage.' 

Such ease in those words! "With our marriage"! It's like a weeping sigh of relief.

'Are you willing, Wilhelmina, to share my ignorance? Here is the book. Take it and keep it, read it if you will, but never let me know; unless, indeed, some solemn duty should come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, sane or mad, recorded here.'

The words both read and sound just like wedding vows and the passion he has to muster for them is too much for his mind and body to handle, and he falls back asleep. But then all that uncertainty is deeply contrasted by his firm "I will."

Lucy speaks in a constant whisper, even while she's alone, she's so quiet. It is like how Mina says writing is like whispering to herself, but now, it's less comforting. Lucy's taken to writing in imitation of Mina because she misses her and wants to emulate the same behaviour that kept her friend thinking on her feet, but she really closely resembles Jonathan, noting others' feelings and privately planning what she may do to keep herself safe.

I don't know that she realizes Arthur is concerned for her. I think she believes he's still anxious for his father's sake, but she can't muster the gaiety needed to cheer him up in the same way Jonathan mustered all that passion for Mina. Because Jonathan is recovering, and Lucy is now suffering a relapse in her health. They both have the same beliefs about telling the truth in marriage, but in practice, it is very difficult for both of them. Jonathan struggles to remember, but he at least has his journal to give to Mina should she wish to know. Lucy only hopes that she can at least get well enough that her pretending will prove more convincing.

She says she'll try to persuade her mother to let her sleep in her bed, but she doesn't seem confident that she will. Mina would let her, but they're no longer on vacation together, are they? Her mother will likely scold her for being childish, but maybe if she provides a good enough excuse...?

She at least has to try.

#dracula #dracula daily #people ask me things #update #mina harker #jonathan harker #lucy westenra #jonmina #re: dracula

[eoieopda]

First off, congrats on 1k 👏👏👏👏 you are so incredible at writing and when I followed I assumed I was late finding you but it appears to be I came in early(?) on time, any who…

More than you know - Axewell /\ Ingrosso

With Jungkook 🙃

Thank you if you do this ❤️ keep up the great writing 🥰😎

tysm sweet bb! i’m so glad you found me, whenever and however you did 🫶🏻 also, this is such a banger omfg. i had to physically get up and jump around my bedroom, lol.

listen here

ft. truly the most chaotic and adorable jungkook i’ve written to date, i think. this is also the first 1k drabblepalooza piece to literally include the inspo. song, which feels kind of fitting since it’s the last one!

you had your reasons, you had a few / but you knew that I would go anywhere for you / ‘cause it ain't over, until she sings

A slump.

There was no other way to put it. You were simultaneously too wired to sleep, and too tired to do much of anything else. Above all, you were bored. No matter how many times you checked your phone, the time on the home screen never seemed to change. The seconds slid by like syrup, sticking to everything as they passed.

Ugh.

Jungkook should have been home from work hours ago. When he wasn’t, he swore up and down that he was nearly finished with whatever it was that held him up. As soon as he did finish, he’d said, he’d be right there to keep you company and keep you occupied. Unfortunately for you, that last text was sent more than two hours ago.

You’d watched so many episodes of Sailor Moon in the meantime that you felt your brain turning to doenjang.

Listless, you flopped back onto your mattress with your arms outstretched on either side. As you did, your phone slipped out of your hand, over the edge of the bed, and onto the floor. You stared after it but didn’t bother to grab it. It wasn’t doing you any good, anyway.

Stretched out over the mattress, it dawned on you how rarely you got the opportunity to take up this much space. Now, you could truly bask in it: the newfound ability to spread out without arms around your waist, or a head resting on your chest, or a leg flung over your side to keep you close while you slept. It also dawned on you that you actually kind of hated feeling this untangled.

Between you and Jungkook, you certainly weren’t the clingy one. As he’d once lovingly phrased it, you were a cactus. You didn’t need constant attention or physical contact to thrive — just some, now and then, in moderation. Low maintenance. Jungkook, on the other hand, said he needed enough to drown in. Until now, this assessment seemed spot-on.

Of course, you’d never dream of telling him that his neediness had — shockingly — rubbed off on you. If Jungkook knew that his affection was missed this badly, you’d have to have him surgically removed.

Eventually, your eyes began burning from the way you’d zoned out, staring at the ceiling. You closed them and, like a child, you made a wish: When they open again, Jungkook will be standing in the doorway. So, you kept them closed to increase the likelihood of your wish coming true.

And you waited, waited, waited…

You might’ve stayed asleep if there wasn’t a car honking emphatically outside your window. There was intermittent shouting, too, and — music?

Sitting up, you tried to rub the sleep from your eyes. As it turned out, it was confusion — not exhaustion — that kept them narrowed. With a groan, you dragged yourself to your feet. Then, you stumbled through the dark towards your balcony door. As you slid open the glass pane and stepped out in the cold, you braced yourself.

Oh god.

Standing on the sidewalk with a boombox at his feet was one Jeon Jungkook. You didn’t recognize the song that was absolutely blaring from the speakers, but his chaotic charm was nothing new. Truthfully, you couldn’t tell which of those two things had drawn more of the onlookers’ attention.

“I just need to get it off my chest,” he belted — in English — with his eyes shut tightly and his raised fist shaking in the air. It was the most absurd display of exaggerated emotion you’d ever seen out of him; and that was saying something. Judging by his smirk, he found himself immensely entertaining, too.

“Yeah, more than you know!”

You snorted, but immediately slapped a hand over your mouth. As hard as it was, you tried to keep your laughter off the list of noise complaints you’d surely receive. Across the street, an old man shoved his head out the window just to bark, “Babo, hajima!”

“Yeah, more than you know.”

Jungkook’s eyes flew open, focusing hard on you. His fist opened, too. With one finger extended, he let his arm drop slowly until he was pointing right at you. As if you weren’t blushing badly enough, he wiggled his hips in time with the music, “You should know that, baby, you’re the best.”

Torn between swooning and dying of embarrassment, you expected to drop at any moment. There was a young couple sitting at a bus stop a few meters behind Jungkook that showered him with praise, though. Ever the crowd-pleaser, Jungkook pointed finger guns at both men and shot them a wink, too.

“Jungkookah!” You whined loudly enough for him to hear but — hopefully — quietly enough to avoid further upset. You could no longer restrain the full, belly laugh that made your shoulders shake.

“Sorry I’m late!” He shouted back, entirely unbothered by the passersby who heckled him. “Also I’m sorry for forgetting my keys!”

Your eyebrows shot up into your hairline. In your confusion, you forgot your manners; you yelled down through wheezing laughter, “You what? Is that what all this was for?”

Jungkook was beaming more brightly than you’d ever seen when he shrugged, “Well, you didn’t answer when I texted or called. What else was I supposed to do?”

Before you could even think to ask after the stereo he’d somehow acquired, you ran to the door and headed for the stairwell. Hopefully, you could whisk your boyfriend away before someone called the police to do the same.

#jade’s requests #jade’s drabbles #1k drabblepalooza #anon #bts #jjk #bts drabble #bts fluff #bts imagine #bts scenarios #bts jungkook #bts jeon jungkook #jeon jungkook #jungkook #jungkook drabble #jungkook fluff #jungkook x reader #jungkook x you #jungkook x y/n #jeon jungkook drabble #jeon jungkook fluff #jeon jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook x you #jeon jungkook x y/n #bts army

[aria-ashryver]

Take marriage out of the equation .... but how would your blorbos survive two hours stuck together in traffic? :)

lmao i was actually thinking about something like this yesterday while I was on a flight!! how'd you know? 😆

Luca is extremely restless -- they usually channel their excess energy into flipping balisongs (or drumsticks). But he can hardly take a pair of knives through security screening, right? I think on a flight, he'd make do with flipping a pen, but he's also gonna feel self-conscious the entire time because its an enclosed space, and he doesn't want to be super noisy. What if he starts clicking it repeatedly and annoys the crap out of people? I think long flights would be Luca's personal idea of hell.

Traffic, though? That could go a number of ways.

Luca, Cas, and Gabriel all stuck in a car together would be totally fine at first! Their banter is great; all three of them are sharply intelligent and they love to make each other laugh, so I think they'd enjoy just spending time with each other!

After the first hour... it would depend what version of Luca we got.

Luca would have their knives, so thats something. If he's dissociating and staring out the window, he'll be okay for a while. If they are the one driving, they'd be drumming on the steering wheel and listening to music.

If we've got hungry Luca though? Oh god. They'd be SO freaking irritable. That would be two hours of Cas and Gabe being trapped in a vehicle with a pissed-off, feral raccoon.

Fortunately --since Gabriel is practically a suburban housewife in disguise and he never leaves the house without his bag-- I'm sure he'd have something in there to help. Water, snacks, a pen for Luca to flip if they didn't have their knives. If Gabriel was not the one driving, he'd be reading a book.

Gabe has the patience of a saint. Two hours stuck in traffic on his own? He'd probably enjoy the downtime. Two hours in traffic, just he and Luca? MUSIC TIME, baby! Those two would be sharing their favourite songs, and talking music theory, and singing harmonies with each other -- it would be exactly the kind of sappy, saccharine, heart-eyed bullshit that would make Cas vomit.

Now then. Add Cas into the mix.

The issue is not that Gabriel and Luca are stuck in traffic, oh no. They are stuck in a confined space with Cassius Harlow. I think Cas would find it a bit of a blessing! Gabe and Luca are Right There! Where he can annoy the crap out of them, and neither can escape! That's a dream come true.

Cas is that seven-year-old kid on a plane you want to throttle the crap out of because they won't stop kicking the back of your seat. Cas is whining at Gabe that its too hot, and he hates this song, and he's hungry, and are we there yet???? Only he's doing it with an infuriating little grin on his face, because all three of them damn well know he's only doing it to wind them up. Goading his boyfriends --especially Gabriel-- is one of Cas's favourite pastimes.

If Gabriel was in a mood to retaliate, he'd be reciting a bunch of random facts to try and bore Cas to death with, but its anyone's guess who gets sick of it all first -- its a case of "Immovable Patience meets Unstoppable Dickhead".

Hence, we circle back to "it depends on what version of Luca we get". Luca loves their bickering, but he's great at mediating when they get too close to actually arguing. If Luca is not hungry, the three of them are going to have a surprisingly great time stuck in that car. Cas won't admit it, but sitting there and listening to Gabriel and Luca singing makes him feel all kinds of peaceful, and grateful, and happy.

If Luca is hungry though. In all likelihood, someone's getting murdered.

(TYSM for the ask my love, this was way too much fun to think about haha 😊💖💖)

#asks answered #SICSIG #choices immortal desires #cas harlow #gabe adalhard #luca o'rinn

[andkisses]

♡ don't play | jake ♡

he’s just teasing–he teases all the time–but now he wonders if you know his secret

♡ jake x gn!reader | wc. 648 ♡ genres/tropes: angst lol; implied college!au ♡ mentions of/warnings: he teases but it’s bc he’s v v much stupidly in love w u; physical non sexual intimacy (it’s sfw) ♡ a/n: this is a rewrite of a fic i wrote and posted in 2020 i think; unfortunately it was eaten up when i accidentally deleted my blog :’) it was originally for kevin from tbz; there's maybe a p2 rattling around my head c;

Jake doesn’t know how he got here, except he does. It’s his fault. He’d been teasing you, joking about taking you on dates, going to fancy dinners, holding doors open for you but in “a romantic way,” whatever that meant. It was so easy to come up with silly scenarios to get under your skin because, well, he’d already thought them out.

What he would do to ask you on a date, your first date together, an outing with romantic undertones. How, after a while of being together, he’d take you to the fancy restaurant of your choice and spoil you. Whatever you wanted, you could have. Doing whatever he could to make you understand how absolutely infatuated–completely whipped–he is for you.

And out here, resting in the grass, watching the stars twinkle above, the words he says don’t feel real or consequential, feel weighty. They just are.

These words, laced with the subtle reality of his true feelings, float up and away without reprimand. He expects you to do what you always do–fake gag or roll your eyes and go, “Yeah, yeah, romantic dates with my bestie Jake. Truly my dream.” Which, over course, always hurt a little bit, a sting straight to his heart. But he always gets to see you smile afterward, and that makes it worth it.

Except, this time, to Jake’s surprise, you don’t. No clapback or witty remark or smile. Instead, you ask if you could prove your seriousness, whatever that meant, and Jake says yeah, sure, anything.

Because he would do anything for you; all you have to do is say the word—

It happens at high speeds and slow motion—somehow both and it’s confusing and intoxicating and it takes Jake’s breath away. In an instant, as if you’ve been planning this from the moment you two had arrived and spread the gingham blanket out on the grass, you’d gone from beside him to on top of him. Your knees secure on either side of his hips, and your hands wrap around his wrists and pin them above his head, your palms hot on his pulse.

Forget stealing just a breath, there’s no breathing at all.

Jake swallows, breath heavy, as you lean down maddeningly close. His mind races with all the other times he’d wanted something like this to occur, every time he’d put thought into being with you. But it would be the other way around, and in a discreet corner at some frat party where the likelihood of blending into the party crowd could cover up his beating heart. Your face is too close now, he can feel your breath fanning against his cheek as you inch towards his ear. Jake is sure this is happening at lightning speeds, but your proximity might as well have slowed time to a stop.

He can’t help but wonder, is this how you feel when he teases you?

Your words are hot against his left ear, your lips barely missing his skin. It makes him shiver. “Don’t play with me, Jake. Don’t break my heart. Don’t be stupid.” With each sentence, you squeeze against his wrists, and Jake can actually feel his own heart shattering into a million pieces just for you, just for the chance to do anything for you.

How can he be brave enough to make you understand?

But he can’t even breathe, let alone talk to you about how serious he is. That he means everything he says. That it’s not a joke. Not even after you’ve returned to your spot beside him, pointing out where Orion is amongst the other thousands of glassy night stars, does Jake feel normal or okay or like teasing or telling the truth.

With the hot warmth of your body gone, still stuck in the faint cloud of your perfume, the stars are too distant and too dizzying to focus on.

#kwritersworld #kdiarynet #kflixnet #enhypen angst #jake angst #drabbles #angst #enhypen #jake #all

[amuletrebel]

My Theory for TWST Book 7

WARNING: There are spoilers here for Book 6, so tread lightly.

So we all can see a pattern in how what the main conflict of each book is according to the dorm and by extension which villain the characters are based off of. Leona tried to overthrow Malleus to come out on top, even if it meant seriously injuring him, much like Scar. Jamil tried to get rid of Kalim and be on top for a change, much like Jafaar. Vil tried to succeed Neige and be “the most beautiful”, like the Evil Queen. It’s unlikely that this pattern will break. Which leads us to Malleus, based off Maleficent.

We’ve all seen this image of the Book 7 promo making the rounds, right? Not only that, there were also scenes from the Sleeping Beauty movie, like Prince Philip fighting dragon Maleficent and the spinning wheel. Book 7 may be the one to have scenes that closely parallel the story of Sleeping Beauty.

Near the end of Book 6, we have Malleus contemplating the fragility and limited time of humanity compared to fae like him and Lilia. Lilia has long since made peace with the sorrows of parting in his long life, even though I’m sure he wishes he never had to. But Malleus is of a different mind. When you level up the vignettes on any of his cards, he says this: “You aren’t afraid of me. But I’m starting to become afraid...of losing you...” Malleus is a little more fragile to the concept, probably because he didn’t have anyone that he cared about who didn’t also have an extended lifespan. So he never had to deal with this pain.

Now the probability of experiencing it is slowly dawning on him. And Malleus, being a bit stubborn, wants to prevent such a thing.

I’m sure you all have heard the theory that Malleus is going to put Yuu to sleep in Book 7, likely because, as his first true friend, he’s not ready to let go of them so easily.

Here’s some evidence to support this theory:

In Book 5 and 6, we see Malleus “giving gifts” with his magic. At least to Vil. In Sleeping Beauty, Aurora is given gifts by the three fairies at her royal christening.

The gift of song (Malleus repairs the stage so the group can still perform in the VDC)

The gift of beauty (Malleus restores Vil to his youthful appearance after he aged drastically when saving Grim)

But wait. Aurora didn’t just receive 3 gifts. She received 4. Or rather, 3 gifts and 1 curse.

A curse that she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel when she turns 16 (coincidentally the age of all freshmen here) she’ll fall into a deep sleep for all eternity. This can easily coincide with the things Malleus says in the Book 7 trailer: “Here, a gift from me. 1000 years, they will feel like a moment in a dream.”

Distraught by the the possibility of losing his dear human friend, Malleus decides to put them into a deep sleep where they won’t age or get sick, preserving them so he will never have to feel like he has no one. With Yuu stuck in a deep sleep, he hides them away in the Diasomnia dorm, much like how Aurora was hidden in the tower.

Silver and Sebek stand with bowed heads. They still greatly respect Malleus, but the choices he’s made will likely shake their faith. They can only stand with him and hope what he’s doing will be worth it.

Now onto that final gift. The gift of true love’s kiss that’ll break the curse. I doubt that the gift will go exactly like this. But Malleus would likely not give this gift with his clouded mind. I suspect it’ll be Lilia who will give this gift to Yuu. He knows that what Malleus is doing is insane, but he also knows that the prince is too stubborn to listen to reason.

He hopes Malleus will understand the weight of his actions and undo all this on his own. But if he doesn’t, Lilia’s provided Yuu with a backup plan so they can wake up and escape.

I predict that we’ll be seeing more of the boys’ POVs in this Book. When we get Yuu’s POV, there’s some likelihood that they’ll be traversing a dream world. That might be how they best get in contact with Mickey and piece together all the prophetic dreams they’ve been having.

Yuu will eventually wake up, and when Malleus sees that his plan has crumbled and there really is no stopping Yuu from living and leaving and one day dying, the pain of this realization will be too much to bear, leading to his overblot.

But oh, you thought I was done. Here’s my final theory. I think since it’s the last chapter and Malleus is the strongest character in the game, we’ll have to fight him multiple times. That’s right. MULTIPLE! Malleus isn’t the type to just give up after losing one fight. Remember when we fought Vil but canonically, we couldn’t beat him? That Deuce’s unique magic was the answer? Yeah, it’ll be like that. We won’t be able to officially beat Malleus. Something else is gonna help him come down from it.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst theory #book 6 spoilers #book 7 theory

[rriavian]

☔️--for the emono game you reblogged!

Oh you definitely have some sort of ability for knowing when I've got secrets!

Ok so I've had another ask with this emoji but I drafted this answer first, so prepare for a wildly different tone haha. Most of my ideas are ones that I fully intend to write at some point, but there are a few where I am holding off on fully committing. I have at least two that have been concepts for about a year. I've even written prose for them. Wait, no...there's also third I've written which is, er, basically finished. But (like the others) unless I get a lot braver I don't know if I could ever complete and post it without feeling like I could never look any of you in the virtual eye ever again.

Essentially I've got smut fic ideas hidden away in my drafts folder because my goodness did I really come up with that?! I can read anything without even blinking, but writing and posting? Not quite there yet!

Though really it's not just smut, but also fics that have a much darker tone than what I usually write. I'll talk about the one that is most fleshed out (and the most likely to be written while still being one I'm very unsure of). It's really two ideas because I have another version that might just end up being the set up for the fic but anyway! This is currently the title/description that's sitting at the top of the prose I have:

Lawfully Bound - The one where Dream ends up bound to the Corinthian by magical law but it's nowhere near the easy advantage he’d expected.

You can probably relate to this with the Ella Enchanted au you're writing because I know that fic has a darker tone too. This would be Corintheus but with some very unbalanced power dynamics, and for me that's very hard to get right in a way that I (personally) find satisfying. Playing with the idea of one character having essentially ultimate control over another is interesting, but tricky. In all likelihood it wouldn't be a long fic, the idea is that it's a temporary situation that the Corinthian eagerly takes advantage of (while knowing exactly what Dream might do to him in retaliation when free) and so I'd probably want to lean more that I usually would into what the Corinthian might actually do if he had a chance like this.

My usual method of balance will need to shift because the interplay would be very different. I've sort of figured that out already, because power taken by force is vastly different from true capitulation and Dream is very good at rubbing salt in a wound. Even in a situation like this he still finds a way to be smug, and the Corinthian still has to be smart about finding weakness even with all of the power he now has over Dream. It's still possible to press in the wrong places.

Again, I may never write this but I might share bits of it one day :) It's about 1200 words at the moment but still a long way off a fully formed fic.

#ask game #corintheus #fic concept #dream the endless #the corinthian

[max1461]

A thing I have noticed, regarding the way many progressives talk about race.

So there's this argument you often see from progressives, an argument that I think is essentially true and pretty important—that when it comes to discrimination, intent doesn't matter, only effects matter. So, for instance, suppose there's a hiring manager who tends to turn people down for jobs with a higher frequency when they have stereotypically black American names. And maybe this hiring manager, in their heart of hearts, has no animosity towards black people, and wouldn't dream of discriminating against them intentionally. But, none the less, the ambient culture has it that names like Jamar or DeShawn are in some sense unprofessional, "thuggish", what have you, and this puts the hiring manager off. And so he just doesn't tend to hire these people. They give him the wrong vibe. And that means, on average, black people are going to be unfairly disadvantaged relative to equally qualified white people for the position. In terms of its practical impacts, this is exactly as bad as if he was making the same hiring decisions out of intentional racial malice.

Now, I think on an individual level, it probably does matter a lot whether someone is genuinely racially malicious or whether they're just acting on some vague social bias. One type of person may be easier to reason with, or more willing to change their behavior. But on a systemic level, I think this intention-ignoring perspective is exactly the right way to think about things.

Ok, with that basic premise out of the way, I'd like to get on to my point.

So sometimes you'll be talking with your racist uncle. And your racist uncle says about your black neighbor "Hey, watch out for that guy, I think he's trouble... not because he's black, of course! I'm no racist! He just rubs me the wrong way!". And to a lot of left-leaning people, this looks, superficially, a lot like the hiring manager scenario. Here's a guy who's kind of obviously being racist, but he's maintaining some veneer of plausible deniability about it. And so you'll be tempted to respond to your racist uncle with something like "Well, you may not be intending to be racist, but it's not intentions that matter, it's effects, [blah blah blah] and that's why you shouldn't say our neighbor is trouble. Because even if you don't mean it in a racist way, it's part of systemic racism and has racist outcomes".

Except, wait, no! That's not true, and this is not analogous to the hiring manager situation—in fact, it's exactly the reverse. The hiring manager, we're supposing for this thought experiment, genuinely bears no racial animosity. But because his actions, in aggregate, are colored by some society-wide racial bias (I mean "bias" in the statistical sense here), they end up having racially-unfair consequences. That is, the hiring manager has innocent intentions, but his actions have an inherent racial unfairness built into them. Your racist uncle is exactly the opposite. His words, in-and-of-themselves, have no inherent racial bias: someone might fairly tell someone else to watch out for a person for any number of reasons. Imagine the uncle had credible knowledge that the neighbor had a pattern of sexual assault, for instance. But because you know your racist uncle, and you know already that he does bare racial animosity, you can reasonably infer that his intentions are not innocent. That despite saying something which in principle need not have racial undertones, he is still with all likelihood expressing intentions of racial animosity.

This is, you know, not exactly any better. But it is different, and I do think it needs to be handled differently. I think if you say the standard progressive thing to your uncle in this scenario, "your intentions may not be racist, but...", he's just going to look at you like you're a crazy person. Because outside of a systemic context, a statistical context, where we're talking about the effects of large numbers of people and their actions in aggregate, that just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's not true to life. His intentions are racist, obviously, and you know this because you have a set of human social skills which allow you (fallibly, but consistently enough) to deduce people's unspoken implications. So he's going to look at you like you're crazy, and probably not be moved, because in context what you're saying kind of is just a repetition of a progressive dogma. True in other contexts, but inappropriate here.

What a better strategy is will depend on the specific person and your relation to them, but what I've found generally works is to simply tackle it head on. Not beat around the bush. He says (confrontationally) "that guy's trouble", you say (dismissively) "I'm pretty sure you just think that because you're racist and he's black".

And you're fucking right. He does just think that because he's racist and the guy is black. This isn't best dealt with as a systemic thing, this is best dealt with as an interpersonal thing.

Now obviously I'm not recommending that you be needlessly snarky with your relatives, if that's not the best way to reach them. Probably, if you have an ok relationship with someone, a more cooperative style of communication would be in order (and more likely to make them see your point of view). But the point is to be clear, in your own head, when you are talking to a well-meaning person with an accidental racial bias and when you are talking to a person with an actively racist thought process who happens to be saying something plausibly-deniable as not racist.

And this doesn't just go for relatives, but for people in general. Obviously, if you don't know someone, your ability to abduce their intentions is going to be limited. Still, I constantly see progressives making this same error in the public sphere—treating what appears to me to be intentional racism done with plausible deniability as if it unintentional racism. And I think that's something people should be more aware of.

Ditto for other forms of discrimination.

#society

[vacantgodling]

THE LIMINAL SPACE SERIES…

… is a series of 5 interconnecting stories + 1 story in the same universe but completely separate from the main storyline. what they all have in common is they center on death, Reapers, Witches, magic, possession, and horror, but above all liminal spaces.

Liminal Spaces are defined as the place a person is in during a transitional period. this can be emotionally, physically, metaphysically or all of the above. in this series liminal spaces are more akin to separate planes of existence where death and horror reign supreme and magic is in the air. nothing is impossible and your worst nightmares usually come true.

if this sounds like your cup of tea, keep reading as i’ll give a synopsis and general details/warnings for all of the books in the series:

DONUT WIP (real title a secret, shh)

I woke up to a shriek so horrible that it shook me out of my slumber, my dreams, and almost half way out of my skin.

After deciding against going home for the holiday season, Julissa Vaughn decides she’ll be spending her winter break at her dorm; on an undisclosed college campus on the East Coast. She plans to spend her time with her best friend Andres Seymour, ogling her crush, the R.A. Joaquin Kelley, maybe making a few new friends in René Edwards, Daisy Kennedy, and Saul Carson—others who decided to stay the winter as well. Most importantly however, Juls plans to sleep and finally compose some music after one hell of a draining semester. Unfortunately, all of these plans are thrown bodily out of the window when mysterious and unexplained happenings rock the six of them to their core. With an incoming blizzard, and no answers, it’s as though they’re locked in their own personal hell(s).

POV: first person ; from the perspective of Julissa Vaughn

Warnings: explicit violence and graphic depictions of death, unreality, horror & body horror, unexplained supernatural phenomena, childhood trauma, near death experiences, phobias, “suicide”, nightmares, hopelessness, nothing is explained :)

Tropes & Vibes: love webs, goofy college antics, old school horror movies, low fi, best friends til the end, tragedy brings us closer together, warm blankets, isolation, fear

Specific Tag: s: donut wip

NOI, ALONE

A plan was beginning to brew in their mind, one that they unfortunately wouldn’t be able to do on their own. They’d need help, at least two others… ladders… a lock pick...

Noi Randiche, in their final year of their journalism major, has been stuck on what story they should cover for their thesis. That is, until they return back to school to a tight lipped staff, an entire dorm building shut down with no entry—no exceptions, and a crisis that seemed to happen over winter break that no one wants to talk about. Inspiration strikes, and Noi vows to get to the bottom of it; supported by their best friend Likitha Singh, and newcomer Seph Sparrow. It’s just… what Noi uncovers, is far more sinister than they could have ever imagined. Coupled with being stalked by an eerie presence that they cannot explain, things will get worse… but the likelihood they will get better is far off.

POV: third person limited ; following Noi Randiche

Warnings: explicit violence and graphic depictions of death, unreality, horror & body horror, supernatural phenomena, childhood trauma, near death experiences, grief & profound misery, possession

Tropes & Vibes: the truth doesn’t set you free it’s worse actually, college noir, breaking and entering, empathy is hard but sympathy is overwhelming, it’s not your fault but you’ll still pay the consequences, the good die young, friendship, platonic bonds can’t be broken, love that never could be

Specific Tag: s: noi alone

JENNA THE REAPER (pt. 1 & 2)

Vision-Jenna held out her hand, palm opened and outstretched. Black matter began to gather in her hands, taking shape and materializing into the form of a scythe.

“Through her I purge all things.” The second voice said through Jenna alone. “You cannot save.”

Jenna Magboo spends much of her time with her best friend Carlos Carvalho documenting and looking for the supernatural creatures and happenings around their small hometown of Braebrooke. While happenings are scarce and usually benign, Jenna’s fascination with the supernatural world is only understandable; after all she is the daughter of two powerful witches, Adunni and Kashmira. However, after coming upon a vengeful basilisk, the supernatural occurrences around them take a turn for the horrifying, for the deadly. And despite all common sense (Carlos), Jenna is determined to get to the bottom of it.

What she doesn’t realize is that a Reaper’s spirit is manifesting high in the mountains of Braebrooke’s backyard, looking for a suitable host and unfortunately Jenna fits the bill; a prophecy Kashmira was praying wouldn’t come true. But when the Reaper strips away Jenna’s connection to her senses and occupies her body… there’s a problem. A catch, if you will. It hadn’t been able to fully annihilate Jenna’s sense of self, and now the two share a body. And Jenna only has one year to figure out how to separate Yehna and herself, or else Yehna will become powerful enough to swallow her spirit for good.

POV: third person omniscient ; usually follows Carlos

Warnings: explicit violence and graphic depictions of death, unreality, horror & body horror, supernatural phenomena, possession, near death experiences, supernatural horror, supernatural flora & fauna, body snatching gone wrong lol?

Tropes & Vibes: small town gothic, the closest city is thirty minutes away, queer platonic relationships, the power of friendship family and love baby, teenagers amiright?, autistic protag (Jenna), skipping school, milkshakes and late night drives

Specific Tag: s: jenna the reaper

JENNA THE WITCH KING

“When I become a witch, I want Carlos to be my familiar.”

Several years after Jenna and Yehna are separated, Jenna decides it’s finally time to leave the nest and to embark on her own journey to become a full-fledged witch. In order to do that, she must hunt down the elusive Witch King—Creator of Witches. It is a journey all witches who wish to have their powers manifested must take. The first test is to find them. The second test to prove their prowess is decided upon by the Witch King themself. With Carlos in tow, she sets off to become just like her mothers… oh and to make sure Carlos gains extended life as her familiar, of course.

POV: third person omniscient

Warnings: supernatural phenomena, supernatural horror, supernatural flora & fauna, light horror elements

Tropes & Vibes: road trips, witches, old tarot card spreads under the night sky, red convertibles, dust, trust, fun, exploration, light hearted humor, coming full circle

Specific Tag: s: jenna the witch king

MASON AT THE AIRPORT (the +1)

Airports are notoriously hectic, but this airport seemed surprisingly quiet after Mason wakes up from a short nap between layover flights. In fact, between himself, and a few others who also seemed to have fallen asleep, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else there. Curious about when he’ll next be able to depart and where everyone has gone, this small group makes their way around looking for help. But things quickly go awry.

POV: third person limited ; following Mason

Warnings: plant horror, body horror, implied death, unreality, supernatural phenomena, nothing is explained

Tropes & Vibes: alice in wonderland, don’t eat the food, don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to, keep looking forward, airports, long distance relationships, tired but wired, ready to go the fuck home

Specific Tag: s: mason at the airport

#wip intro #wip intros plural #writeblr #s: the liminal space series #s: donut wip #s: noi alone #s: jenna the reaper #s: jenna the witch king #s: mason at the airport

[agnesmontague]

what does your url mean

my time has come

[for posterity: this was when my url was albertinesimonet. there's a high likelihood that once the tma sequel starts up i would have gone back to agnesmontague, or something else entirely. but i do want to document how excited i was to get this ask]

albertine simonet is the main love interest in marcel proust's in search of lost time. the unnamed narrator encounters her in book 2 and becomes instantly drawn to her; the next 4 books will be spent in an anaclitic frenzy of agony and love-hate until albertine dies offscreen, in book 6. she's described as having thick, black hair, round cheeks, a little pink "cat nose", and eyes that are in turns blue, green, or (my favorite) violet; true to her personality as an outgoing sports lover, her very first appearance has her in a polo cap on a bicycle, in a clutch of other girls on the beach. her final "appearance", as it is, is a telegram informing the narrator that she has died somewhere in the countryside, by falling off a horse.

the term "manic pixie dream girl" is inevitably tied to her, since each of those terms apply to her almost directly, and yet the role she occupies in the story is very much not what the trope has come to mean. instead of an airy balm to the narrator's self-important troubles, she is very often at the source of them: he spends a truly tedious amount of time tormenting himself over the possibility that she may have lesbian inclinations with her friend andrée, a suspicion that is hinted to be true in the end. when he's not eating himself alive over whether albertine eats pussy, the narrator is constantly unsure of his love for her at all, lamenting that she remains forever unknowable to him (the "être de fuite" in my bio--lit. "the ever-fleeing being"--is what he calls her) while professing his repulsion for her and their closeness. it's a big mess, is what i'm saying. her name is the single most oft-recurring name in the entire book series for a reason, and this series has over 2500 recurring characters.

albertine is one of the most intensely fascinating aspects of an already intensely fascinating piece of literature, and i would say not so much for what she is in the story proper (like i said, there are 2500 characters in à la recherche, and many of them are more riveting than albertine herself on the surface) but more for what she has come to represent. proust, famously, was gay, and seems to have rather resented this part of himself (i have neither the time nor the expertise to do any sort of deep dive into proust's relationship with queerness, but the flesh and spirit are both willing, so maybe someday). that he used a female character in this intense projection of contemporary and personal insecurities, as a canvas for romantic and interpersonal turmoil, is probably one of the first things i would study in depth when i can. anyway, i changed my url the day i came home from a proust exhibition that rekindled my desire to live, and i am truly, exuberantly, madly attached to albertine herself as well as the books and author she comes from, so it was a small miracle that this wasn't taken. i would like to keep this url as long as i can.

#rambles #proustgirling

[avelera]

My dreamling fic writer flaw is that I'm always gonna have Hob be going by his original name of Robert Gadling in the current lifetime I'm writing, no matter how unrealistic it would be.

(My ADHD-brain felt the need to over-explain this beneath the cut, but the point above stands!)

It does not matter to me if he used it in the previous lifetime or in the previous story I wrote.

Realistically, actually, enough people have the same name and Robert Gadling is common enough that I honestly believe he could just move to another town and get away with it, people really don't notice similar names or assume this person who looks like a younger version of the person they knew is the same person. That's a logical fallacy made up in our monkey brains from the fact we're at the center of our own lives, everyone knows us in them, and our monkey brains can really only conceive of 400 people in our immediate community and everyone beyond that is mostly "other", hence why people have statistically bonkers beliefs about their likelihood of winning the lottery and stuff y'all, 1/1,000,000 is so inconceivably vast but our brains can really only handle the idea of 1/400 other people being out there ANYWAY.

... But regardless, I just do not have the creativity or rather the creative interest in coming up with another "Robert Gadling"-sounding name likely Bob Gadler or whatever, except in passing as something he once used in the past and EVEN THEN I feel dumb trying to come up with new variations .

More to the point, from a Doylist perspective, all the audience has on the page is the character's name and pronouns to visualize them. When I say "Hob opened the door" you have a mental image. When I say "Robbie Gadler opened the door" you will probably have a different mental image. Given that writing characters as in-character as possible and having my prose be visual for the readers is a major priority for me, the last thing I need is for a different mental image to pop into the reader's head because I gave a named character a different name, even if he would realistically have a different name at that point.

It's also one reason I didn't switch Dream's pronouns or give him a wildly different name in "Come live with me". The minute I write "Dream looked around and then she opened the door" I have an allergic reaction. It doesn't feel like Dream anymore, even to write him that way. Heck, I have trouble visualizing the character and staying in his head and aligning his actions with stuff he would do when I switch even something as small as pronouns. It's why Dream is referred to as Morfea only sparingly when the characters speak aloud, or to remind readers what Dream currently looks like, which is the "Morfea" identity who uses "she/her" pronouns because that character does and should feel slightly off center from what the true "Dream" feels like because it's not his identity, it's not how he would choose to present himself if he could avoid it, and it disturbs Hob too because he struggles with recognizing Morfea as Dream when look at "her" as much as I feel like I and if I do it right the reader should fee like Morfea isn't "quite" Dream, the word isn't quite Dream's name when reading it and visualizing it from the page.

ANYWAY, writerly ramblings aside, yeah. "This Rough Magic" "Come live with me" and "Giving Sanctuary" all give reasons why Hob is currently going with the name Robert Gadling in his present life (GS doesn't really bother because as a vagrant, no one was really asking Hob anyway, but...) and if I set a longer fic in 2022 you'd miraculously discover that Hob has cycled back to using Robert Gadling again just in time for the story to take place because I just point blank simply refuse to fuck around with that shit lol

#maggie's writing progress #giving sanctuary bts #arranged marriage au dreamling #occultist hob fic #1689 fic

[doodlebloo]

Unfortunately tommy didnt sign up for this mcc :( he's not quitting though its just a break

NAURRR. HE IS OUT TO GET ME FOR REAL :(

Well that's all the more likelihood for a Tubbo & GTWS team I suppose. Maybe my dream will finally come true...

#asks #anon

[like-rain-or-confetti]

i know you dont write about twilight anymore but if u are willing to answer this

Do u think mates are chosen?

Ah fuck it why not.

So I'll start by saying this is a topic of debate for me.

So, Canon wise, I think they're chosen. I believe a relationship develops strong enough that a vampire sees their mate and chooses them as a 'you. You're the one. You're the love of my life. I want to spend eternity with you.' This is seemingly how it works.

And I don't dig it. For no other reason, the likelihood, in my opinion. This is probably because I'm a human in the real world. I think a lot, if not everyone who has ever been in love has this moment. They find someone and know this person is the one. Maybe they'll get married and have kids. All with the idea that they'll be together until they die. This doesn't always happen. People get divorced. People have kids thinking it'll somehow miraculously save their relationship and most come away with the conclusion that if you spend your whole life with one person then you were lucky and you two were so good at overcoming hurdles along the way because relationships are always requiring work.

So with this being said, these great loves like Carlisle and Esme, Marcus and Didyme, etc. All will constantly need work. All will have periods of difficulty, and they will have to actively force themselves to fight for their relationship over and over again as the world changes around them throughout time and people like me would then have to wonder...when did it turn into forcing yourselves to stay together in the hopes this will miraculously fix itself?

I think most of us can agree that if someone a friend has spent a long period of time in a long-term relationship unhappy and actually forcing themselves to stay, the advice you'd give as a friend is to leave for both parties happiness.

That brings me to the alternative of mates not being chosen.

Let's not forget my bias as a fanfic writer who spent years writing twilight. 😂

So let me be clear, fated mates are so much easier to write. I'm not writing a full book with someone else's characters and taking a step by step process to those characters falling in love. Especially knowing that half of those characters wouldn't touch a human with a ten foot pole except for getting the munchies. I often wonder if it would be like falling in love with the turkey you have on the holidays or the lettuce in your salad. Why would a vampire fall for the food source? Well, that's a whole other rabbit hole, isn't it? I reckon there is some debate to be made on that. Anyway back to mates.

Oh but vanity why would the universe be so cruel give someone a mate only for them to be born millennia apart? Well, my lovelies, let me explain that too.

Anyone else ever wonder if you could relate to anyone in the 1800s even if your lives are vastly different? Well that's kinda similar to where I'm doing.

It's the whole idea that the universe isn't cruel, its just indifferent.

Some people you'll just click with more than others and if people from the dark ages were walking around among us, we'd probably get along with some. 🤷‍♀️

Plus, it tickles the romanticist in me. Wouldn't we all love to believe there's someone out there perfect for us?

It's like a dream but with a dose of reality that we can't guarantee we'll ever be alive at the same time as our true love or whatever.

Not to mention, it's very comforting if you feel like an outcast no? No worries if humanity is a bitch there's a gorgeous vampire who's been waiting 1000 years to find you! Yup, clears that right up 😂

This fated mates alternative -TO ME- irons out these questions of these relationships lasting forever without a hitch as written in the books. Carlisle and Esme will face hardship here and there, but for not one minute, will there ever be a doubt that they won't do it together. It's them against the world always, and they're happy and fulfilled for it. Their lives are complete in that regard, which is why it tears them apart from the inside when a vampire loses their mate. Another reason why a vampire can not keep their mate as human because they can't bear being without them, not that they've found them. Like tearing away a piece of yourself, knowingly. No one could choose that happily. So they don't. Benjamin snuck Tia away in the middle of the night, and the rest was history, Amun be damned. Benjamin needed Tia like we need air to breathe. It's simple in a complicated world.

I think I basically covered everything 🤔...as well as sucked my brain into the feeding/falling in love with humans rabbit hole.

Hope this was somewhat interesting!

P.S. I'm still dabbling with Twilight, but for the foreseeable future, I won't be taking requests. I can't make up my mind. So it's easier to say I'm not writing for it so I'm not getting hopes up because even if twilight consistently came back, i probably wouldn't take requests.

#twilight #vanity needs to stop talking

[chattingwiththelightkeeper]

Navigating Life's Second Act in the Lifestyle

In recent times, there's been a noticeable trend of more mature individuals exploring the D/S lifestyle. "More mature" refers to those who are delving into this lifestyle in their thirties or later. With this in mind, let's discuss some of the challenges that individuals who discover or embrace the D/S lifestyle later in life might encounter and hopefully provide valuable insights that can be beneficial to everyone, regardless of age or experience.

One common experience that transcends age is the feeling of solitude when embarking on the path of D/S discovery. This

sensation can be more pronounced in those who come to the lifestyle later in life, possibly due to traditional life responsibilities like careers, raising children, or even dealing with significant life events such as divorce. At first, it might seem like your circumstances make your journey more solitary. However, it is important to remember that your journey is unique, yet many others have traveled similar roads. You are not alone in your exploration. There are countless individuals in the lifestyle who are open to offering support, advice, and a listening ear based on their own experiences.

Reflecting on my journey into the lifestyle, D/S discovery took place during my college years but it was put aside when transitioning into the "real world" after graduation. It took a while to come to terms with the fact that the D/S lifestyle was an integral part of the soul. Later the challenge became societal expectations of what someone of a certain age "should" be doing. Society often expects individuals to be settled down, married, and diligently working towards building a college fund for their children. Finally, it was discovered that embracing the D/S lifestyle did not mean putting other dreams and desires on hold. One can explore the lifestyle while still pursuing vanilla aspirations. Embracing one’s true self is a challenging but incredibly rewarding decision, and it is more than okay to explore and grow in D/S even if the vanilla world, while more accepting now, it still carries a degree of taboo in certain circles.

While people of any age can engage in unethical behaviors, experiences and discussions with others have highlighted a higher likelihood of encountering individuals who engage in dishonesty within D/S relationships among those who are more seasoned. There are various reasons for this behavior, but two stand out. First, some individuals may feel financially tied to their current partner, making it difficult to leave the relationship due to the costs involved. Alternatively, they may be unwilling to deal with the legal complexities that can arise from dissolving a long-term relationship. The second reason often centers around boredom in the bedroom within their current partnership. Many who have been in long-term relationships find that keeping the spark alive can be challenging, and they turn to D/S as a way to fulfill their desires for kinkier experiences. It is important to note that most individuals explore the lifestyle for genuine reasons, but unethical behavior reminds us of the importance of thorough vetting when seeking a partner.

For many, especially those who have established careers and families, there is a deep-seated fear of others discovering their involvement in the lifestyle. This fear is understandable but can be somewhat tempered. A common fear many have is encountering someone they knew in the vanilla world at an in-person lifestyle gathering. However, over time, one learns that those who are involved in the lifestyle for the right reasons, are discreet and have their fears of discovery. The online community can provide a safer space for connecting and exploring the lifestyle while maintaining a level of comfort and control. In other words, it is possible to discreetly explore this lifestyle without compromising your privacy.

As we age, our responsibilities tend to increase. Some people starting their exploration of the D/S lifestyle express concerns about not having enough time to dedicate to it. While this may be true, experience shows that we make time for the things that truly speak to our souls. Exploring the D/S lifestyle does not come with a rigid schedule, and no fixed amount of time must be dedicated to it. As life gets busier, it is perfectly acceptable to explore the lifestyle when time allows. Growing in the lifestyle can be a gradual process, and there is no need to rush.

It is not uncommon for individuals exploring the D/S lifestyle to find certain terms or labels unappealing. People may resonate with a specific role but not feel comfortable with the title associated with it. The beauty of D/S is that titles and roles can hold different meanings for different people. You can identify with a particular role without feeling compelled to use certain titles. There are no hard-and-fast rules for labels; it is essential to articulate what works for you when you're ready to connect with someone special.

One of the most significant mistakes one can make, regardless of age, is rushing into a lifestyle relationship or kinktastic play. The allure of the lifestyle's unique experiences can be incredibly intoxicating. However, it is vital to remember that impulsive decisions can lead to negative relationship outcomes and unsafe situations in the context of play. Take your time, move forward with care, and exercise patience.

Age can bring health-related concerns to the forefront. It is essential to have open discussions with prospective partners about any health issues or concerns that could impact your involvement in the D/S lifestyle. For instance, physical limitations or medication requirements might affect your participation in specific activities. Transparency about health is crucial for ensuring safe and enjoyable interactions. The D/S lifestyle welcomes individuals of all ages and backgrounds. Those who discover or embrace this path later in life face unique challenges but also bring valuable life experience and wisdom to their journey. This adventure offers personal growth, self-acceptance, and the opportunity to explore new horizons. Remember that you are not alone, and others have walked similar paths and are willing to offer support and advice. Embrace the D/S lifestyle at your own pace, maintain safety and ethics, and never rush. Your journey is uniquely yours, and it is a path of self-discovery, growth, and fulfillment.

If you enjoyed this, I invite you to give my podcast a listen 'Chatting With The Lightkeeper,' a top 25% most-followed podcasts on Spotify but available on all the major podcasting apps and follow my socials for more exclusive content: Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter) for a deeper dive into the wonderful world of D/S.

As with all of my thoughts, please see this disclaimer.

©TLK2023

#d/s relationship #bd/sm community #dom/sub #d/s community #my writing

[chaosincurate]

Album Spotlight - Jubilee

By Japanese Breakfast

Genre: Chamber pop/indie pop

Song to try: Paprika

This may well be one of the albums I've brought up the most since starting this blog towards the start of this year, and I have no qualms or shame regarding that. Apart from just slowly, over time, becoming one of my favourite albums of the decade so far. So I've decided to write this post for two reasons: one, to really lay out why I love this album so much; and two, to have something to link to in the constantly recurring event that I have it listed as an album I listened to in my month in music posts that makes my life easier and does the album more justice. So lets get into it shall we?

Paprika

As I write the first draft of this post, while listening to the album, my intention isn't to do a track-by-track here necessarily (although I am aware of the noticeable likelihood of the post becoming just that (P.S. kind of but not really)), but a handful of songs absolutely deserve a particularly close look, and Paprika is absolutely one of them.

Starting off with the lyrics here, this is some of my favourite writing, definitely in music, and quite possibly in any medium. To describe what I believe this song is about, I'd like to bring up the Cobra Effect story.

For those who aren't aware of the story, it goes something like this: In colonial India, there was an unsustainably high number of Cobras. The government, in an attempt to crack down on these Cobras, issued a bounty on them. Anyone that brought them a dead Cobra would be rewarded. In response, the citizens started creating Cobra farms, increasing the snake population and endangering themselves to get constant rewards from the government. Now, that story probably isn't true, but it holds a lot of rhetorical value, and I think it's apt to compare it to the relationship between expression of negative emotion and artistry. Artists initially started expressing negative emotion to work through those emotions using a healthy outlet and were rewarded, being considered brave and artistic for it, but soon that became exploitable, and artists would seek out negativity, establishing the Cobra farm that is the "tortured artist" trope, and increasing the pressure to write about negativity. If you made a song about something negative, it would be seen as artistic and valuable by default. If you made something positive, it would be seen as low-brow by default. And with that, a divide was born: artists made sad stuff, entertainers made happy stuff (there's nothing wrong with music as entertainment either, to be clear, but that isn't the path for everyone).

Paprika stands in opposition to these snake farms. Now, Michelle Zauner (the writer) doesn't seem to have any disdain for negativity in music - in fact, there are several metaphorical cobras on this very album - but this song criticizes the urge to create negative art, especially if it means ruining your own happiness so you can have something new to exploit, instead encouraging an artistic focus on the brighter side of one's life.

The song has so much density of meaning, and everything is conveyed in such a clear and beautiful way. It's a perfect paragon of positive lyricism.

Lucidity came slowly I awoke from dreams of untying a great knot It unravelled like a braid into what seemed were thousands of separate strands of fishing line Attached to a coarse behaviour A calm, it calls, it screams "what else is here?"

The excellence doesn't begin and end with words on a page though, the music is equally as enchanting. The core of the song is a marching band rhythm, which makes sense, because according to Zauner, that was the first part of the song to come to mind for her and the song was built from there. It lends a celebratory mood to the song that also drives it forward and gives the song a sense of direction, which is all perfect for this song and makes for a fantastic opener.

The percussion doesn't steal the show though, it is simply the narrator guiding you through it. The dreamy synths provide a comforting atmosphere, the vocals sound decidedly at peace and grateful, as if sang through a grin while she acknowledges she is living in a dream, the way those opening chords literally go from a chord that sounds dark and dissonant to something that sounds happier and lighter (I'm sure someone with a better ear for chords can give specifics, but I'm not that person), it's an incredible musical journey, one that I've honestly never considered to be made up of individual instruments until being pushed to pick things out of the mix right now for this post. It is one of those songs that feel more plucked out of some spiritual realm than actively worked on, so when you consider that it was created by (I'm pretty sure) real humans, it's even more awe-inspiring.

If nothing else comes of you reading this post, if you don't listen to the album, if you don't listen to Japanese Breakfast, I'm perfectly content. But I'm begging you, if you care enough about indie music to read about this album and you haven't already, listen to the song. At least read the lyrics, as imperfect as that would be. I genuinely think this is not just spectacular, but important to music and artistry as a whole, and I say that fully recognizing that I sound like a naive Swiftie saying "no no, you don't understand, she's not a writer, she's a storyteller". Just trust me on this.

Not Paprika

Other than Paprika, the most notable song on this album is Be Sweet, an incredibly fun, bass-centric, and danceable song about loving someone, but being unwilling to continue a relationship until they do some self-reflection and become a better person

Recognize your mistakes and I'll let you back in Recognize, not too late, love you always

It's a song that is thematically cohesive within the album, but is musically very much "the hit" of the album. It is a way better project with the song included, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't introduce any sequencing issues, particularly going from Be Sweet itself to Kokomo, IN. It felt like a fun little detour on a road trip that took us off route and was a little logistically awkward, but it was a fun moment.

After the comparatively unremarkable, but otherwise still great, sweet songs Kokomo, IN and Slide Tackle, the album goes in a direction reminiscent of Japanese Breakfast's earlier work on Soft Sounds from Another Planet and the Sable soundtrack (which is great by the way, Zauner's incredible ear for sonic atmosphere makes the game feel so important). The first song to remind me of her previous album is Posing In Bondage, a song which creates an insulated feeling where the narrator begs for "Closeness // Proximity" in the form of the eponymous bondage, which follows very naturally into the similarly cozy and sexual Sit, which is a song about face-sitting, which is fun, as well as the desire and fantasizing of being with someone who is already in a monogamous relationship.

Then we continue this excellent sequencing with a perfectly timed upbeat moment with Savage Good Boy, a track which satirizes the endless pursuit of wealth and pleasure, while also painting a picture of someone who is obsessed with one person and attempts to trap them into a relationship with them, threatening apocalypse and total ruin to do so. The title itself evokes that contradiction of goals and actions, too. The idea of being someone's "Savage Good Boy" implies both domination and self-subjugation, as if being held accountable only on their own terms, with the threat of annihilation lingering over the head of the "loved one" in the form of simply removing the support previously relied on.

One line that I really appreciate for it's subtle reification of the themes (whether it's intentional or not) is the line "we will be so wealthy I'm absolved from questioning". The way the line goes from talking about them as a hypothetical couple and how that would be, to quickly refocusing on what that would do for him, and how he would have so much control specifically is a great touch that works as a fantastic criticism of how this sort of person enters relationships seeing them as something to exploit for their gain more than a real connection.

The way I see it, Savage Good Boy is a song with as much density of meaning as Paprika, even if it doesn't quite hit me as hard as that masterpiece at the start of the album did.

I wanna make the money 'til there's no more to be made And we will be so wealthy I'm absolved from questioning

I said earlier that there was negativity in the album, and if the deranged commitment to constant, selfish positivity that was Savage Good Boy didn't suffice for you, In Hell should. This song has lines that will make your heart feel like you just got hit with a Mortal Kombat fatality. Here's a couple:

Wheeled you in laid on your side I cried and cried And at my signal They stopped your heart and then you died

And under florescence, another sterile room Where no one ever tells you just how clinical death looks And I can't unsee it The two shots it took

It's blunt. It's brutal. It's unfair. It's riddled with unwarranted, but totally understandable, guilt and I for one can't help but feel a whole in my chest where my heart rested before it was savagely torn from me. It's by no means a fun song but it is yet another incredible display of artistry.

Following that, there is a bittersweet reflection on love and loss with Tactics, where Zauner takes a sympathetic look at her dad's... Imperfect reaction to losing his wife to cancer: running away (literally crossing a sea) and marrying someone, seemingly anyone, else. Of course the specific details aren't important to the song, what is important is the, again, bittersweet understanding shown, a sentiment of healthy forgiveness is portrayed. One where the harm is not waved away, but there is a deep peace and understanding about it all, which makes it possible for her to write a very insightful and emotional song about losing someone you love so much and how that can make you act in unpredictable ways.

Then the album ends with Posing for Cars, a song about a romantic contrast, where both the characters in the story love eachother but have very distinct experiences with that love. The protagonist is fairly insecure, dwelling on anxious thoughts of what might happen if the other person left them, while the other person is secure in the relationship. There is a distance in that, but not enough to undermine the love the song evokes. Then the song, and by extension the album, ends on a long, sweet, sprawling guitar solo. It's such a great way to close an amazing album.

Closing thoughts

If I were to sum up my favourite things about this album, I would probably point out the lyrical nuance and emotional maturity that is on display, and the musical atmosphere that Michelle Zauner conjures so immaculately in all her projects (or at least the one's I've heard).

The lyrical nuance is all over the album. It is very common for songs to have at least two perspectives and every time she tackles another one, it usually seems just as validated and fleshed out as her own, with the clear exception, naturally, being Savage Good Boy, where the alternate view is that of an abuser.

As for the atmosphere, it truly needs to be heard to be understood. Every song is a rich tapestry of sound that feeds into itself in awesome fashion.

#chaosincurate #music reccs #music recommendation #indie music #music #japanese breakfast #album spotlight #chamber pop #indie pop