#/ It is hard to let go sometimes / ( Mass effect verse ) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lowkeyhockey · 5 years

Text

accIdents (how we went from friends to this) - sidney crosby

Title: accidents (how we went from friends to this), part i

Pairing: Sidney Crosby/Female Reader

Mentions: Taylor Crosby

Warnings: Pairing is not endgame, mentions of underaged kissing

Word Count: 2.2k

Summary: How many friendships start with a book? (In which someone is always way too hyper, someone kisses two boys because it's easier than talking, and someone leaves because he's genuinely too good to stay.)

Writer’s Notes: This is Part I of a story that’s a part of a bigger verse titled Can I Go (Where You Go) featuring [Y/N], a not-very single mother, Lila, your very opinionated daughter, and Freddie Andersen - a man very happy to be dragged along for the ride. But in the beginning, there had been Sidney Crosby.

Each story in the verse can be read as a standalone. Thanks so much for reading, and please hmu if you have a prompt/request/critique!

------------------------------------------

A shriek pierced through the air with the volume and intensity of at least two or three feral wildcats, and you turn around with half a grin already formed on your lips, waiting to catch sight of her to complete it. And when you do, you drop to your knees on instinct, heedless of any grass stains that might show on your pretty floral dress - besides, grass and flowers go together, don't they?

And you go with Taylor, would never say no to a hug from her, ignore the way your friends stand in a small huddle waiting for you to rejoin them because they're so used to this. Never mind that the elementary and middle school buildings were on the same campus, and that you run into Taylor maybe five times a day on a good day.

Whenever you see Taylor, you hug her. That's it. One time, you'd pretended not to see her just to tease her, and she'd climbed onto a water fountain to leap onto your back. And that was only one of the ways she'd lost her baby teeth around you.

All things considered, it's really safer when you greet Taylor like a semi-normal human being, letting her leap into your outstretched arms and almost tumbling over backwards anyway just from the force of her enthusiasm, wrapping your arms tight around her and pressing a kiss against her silky blonde hair. She smells just a little like lavender, and you smile even wider at that, because you knew you hadn't just misplaced your favourite bottle of perfume.

You suppose you should scold her for the thievery but by now, it's labeled in your head under ‘something that reading buddies just do’. Especially considering neither of you have actual sisters to steal or get things stolen from.

The two of you had met six months ago, when Tay's first grade teacher had marched her class over to your waiting class of sixth graders, and before either your or her teacher could divvy your two classes up for the reading buddy programme Taylor had simply collapsed into your lap, foot nudging the copy of Roald Dahl you had by you on the floor with an expression that said that she's going to practice her reading with you only if she has to.

She tells you later, eyes wide with earnestness, that she only liked you because you'd been sitting on a blue beanbag, and you're still grateful for the fact that blue's your favourite colour, too.

The programme lasted just three months, with the two of you meeting every other day to sit in the small, glasshouse reading nook attached to the library, but neither of you particularly cared about letting a teacher tell you that you didn't have to hang out.

You didn't even let your parents do it - Taylor was sleeping over at your house every other weekend just three weeks into the programme, and you had dinner at the Crosby's whenever you had basketball practice, because it always ended around the same time as Sid's hockey training did and it was always easier to feed two hungry student athletes at the same time than just one, when said student athletes have dinner so much later than most people.

Of course, Sid eats enough for at least three people, and you kinda hate how easily he seems to convert food into muscle mass. He wouldn't have let Tay bowl him over so easily - and you look up over Taylor's shoulder to see him grinning down at you like he's thinking the exact same thing, reaching out to tussle first Tay's hair, then yours.

Dumb Sid. Dumb, cute, athletic, nice Sid, who laughs like a honking goose and has never minded having to share his little sister with you because you didn't have any siblings of your own. You think you'd maybe hate him if he weren't so cute and athletic and nice.

Or maybe not - Taylor would probably never let you, was already unhooking one arm from around your neck to reach for the hand her big brother still has resting in your hair, as though the three of you could really walk home attached together like this.

"Don't you have training today?" you ask him, managing to stand up with your arms around a squirming seven year, freeing a hand to wave goodbye to your friends before they walk away. You know that two of your friends - Sara and Anaaya - would probably have liked to stay and talk to him too, but you girls had a pact that Sidney Crosby was too big a potential sore point for your U-12 girls' basketball team, and that meant that no one was allowed to date him.

Not that you'd want to, even though he's dumb and cute and athletic and nice.

He's been pretty grumpy lately and you're pretty sure you know why, but if he's not going to bring it up you won't either. Especially not with Taylor now on the ground between the two of you, swinging both of your arms as she looks around for a new way to make mischief on your way home.

You'd have thought that Tay would have ran out of new ways by now. But you also think that Taylor would never run out of new ways to make mischief, wherever she might be.

Sid lets out a small grunt and you grin as you used your linked hands to nudge Taylor, which had a (totally expected) domino effect of her nudging (punching, really) Sid's side, as high as she could reach and as hard as she could do it.

You burst out laughing instead of scolding her for trying to push her brother off the sidewalk and onto the street - what a way for the great Sidney Crosby to go - and he gives you the admonishing look he really should be giving Taylor instead. Your puppy dog eyes are almost as good as hers, though, and he's shaking his head a moment later and starting down your normal route home again without taking any sort of vengeance.

"Nah, I think they're making me play with Dartmouth again," he says, sounding just a little sulky about it, and you wince in commiseration as though you understand even though you don't, not really.

You've only ever played for your school, basketball in the winter and baseball in the spring. You used to do a little figure skating, a little hockey in mites, because didn't everyone? But you'd never been like him. No one expected you to be amazing, not at sports, and Sid's only fourteen and already dealing with the whole country calling him the next something.

The next great hero, or the next great villain - he's way more than good enough to play with the Bearcats for real and everyone knows it, and that's why they hate him. They won't let him play even though he's just a little bit too young, and even though he's a lot too good for his actual age group, and even though the players and parents in the national midget 'AAA' league shout and boo and hit him so hard he barely wears any of his sweaters or team shirts outside of a game anymore.

The assholes have made Taylor cry, at some games, watching what they do to her big brother. They've made you cry, too, but you don't like talking about that.

You let go of Taylor's hand to cover her ears instead, keeping up your pace so she doesn't protest too much, telling him with an expression more serious than you knew you could manage, "those dumb jerks don't know what they're missing out on."

(But I do, I will, if you go, you want to add, but you don't like talking about that either.)

He gives you a grin, though, probably to make up for your seriousness, probably because Taylor's trying to squirm extra hard now and neither of you wanted to upset her. "It's whatever, you know? Winning the Air Canada Cup's going to be pretty okay too."

And you laugh, dropping your hands from Taylor's ears to push him again, this time doing it directly. His t-shirt's soft against the palm of your hand, and you kinda want to curl your fingers into it instead.

"Watching you win it's going to be pretty okay, if my mom lets me go," you agree, as though you and Taylor didn't already have outfits and facepaintings planned. Taylor's "87" painting on her cheeks are going to have hearts in the holes of the '8', and your "Croz" painting's going to be done in Tay's best handwriting.

You wouldn't let Taylor cry listening to and watching those assholes alone. And besides, god, it really was beautiful to watch Sid play.

Sometimes he lets you practice shooting with him in his basement. He doesn't make you stand in front of the goal, because padding or no it still hurts when the pucks hit you, but he lets you choose the music as you guys race to get pucks in the net - because he's older, because he's Sidney Crosby, he has to make ten shots before you make five, and usually he wins anyway.

But this time he and Taylor drop you off at the mailbox in front of your house. When it's just you and Taylor you usually walk to her house first, then go back to yours, and you can walk alone when Tay has her big brother to walk with because it's a little out of the Crosbys' way but they never make you do that.

So you kneel down again, let Tay wrap her arms around your neck again, but you stand before Sid could ruffle your hair in goodbye - leaning in, not even having to stand on tiptoe, to kiss his cheek instead. "They're so dumb, but we're not, so keep playing for us, eh?"

He looks a little like a prince then, thoughtful and distant even with a faint blush traced across his cheeks, eyes that gorgeous shade of hazel and hair dark and lightly tussled by the wind, and you think that this is how Sara and Anaaya might see him. He's here but unavailable. Here but so different from you, even though he's just three years older than you, so much more mature than the other fourteen year old boys in his class.

You should know. Mike Wallace tried to shove his tongue down your throat that one time, when you admitted to him that you wouldn't mind kissing him, and all Sid's doing to you right now is just stare.

You're blushing yourself before you even know it, reach a little blindly to ruffle Tay's hair the way Sid always does, calling out a goodbye to them before Sid could say anything else.

***

You ask Sid to go to the Winter Formal with you, because Mike Wallace asked you and you refuse to make yourself do that again, but he has extra practice and you spend the evening with Sara and Annika instead.

Sara's in a kinda hippie phase where she pretends she can cast magic, pretends that there's magic in the night and that she's feeding off it, and Annika pretends she's not desperately in love with Sara.

You kiss Mike Wallace again and it's not bad, this time, even though it feels like pretending, even though he told his friends after the last time you guys kissed that twelve year old girls kiss way better than eleven year old girls, like it's bad that you’d skipped a grade. Idiot. Not too bad a kisser, though.

When you get home, Sid's there in a game day suit even though he didn't have a game that day, you know he didn't, you'd have gone to the game instead if he did.

He's a really bad dancer, but he's an okay kisser, and he lets you choose the music again even though you're in your basement now and not his.

When he finds out you'd kissed Mike Wallace already that night, he makes a sound like he's going to throw up, and you punch him as hard as Taylor would have punched him, and burst out laughing right as he starts letting out those stupid honk-laughs of his.

***

"I trust you, y'know. I would leave Taylor if I didn't know I'd be leaving her with you."

And you do know, and you trust him too, but he's still going all the way over to America and he's stronger than you still - you can't lift up Taylor and threaten to throw her into the bushes on your way home from school the way he can.

But you suppose that if he's going to Shattuck-Saint Mary's, the way you knew he would, his way home from school's going to be looking really different anyway.

"Don't tell her that," you say instead, with an eyeroll that somehow makes the tears gathering in the corners of your eyes more likely to fall instead of less. "I don't want her to hate me too," you say, and it's a little mean, but he winces and you know it's a direct hit.

And Sid always appreciates accuracy, doesn't he?

"I'll miss you too," he tells you, instead of rising to the bait, and you let him pull you into burying your face against his shoulder before the tears could fall. If he questions whatever wet spots you leave behind on his t-shirt you'd tell him that his permanent hockey player-stink made your nose run

but he doesn't ask

so you don't say it.

An "I miss you too"s not the worst thing to end a goodbye on, you think later, even if you never told him that you'd miss him. He's dumb, but you're not surprised that he figured it out.

#sidney crosby imagine #nhl imagine #hockey imagine #penguins imagine #penguins #v:can i go (where you go)#s:accidents (how we went from friends to this)#lyss writes hockey

57 notes · View notes

eldunea · 5 years

Text

why the sorting hat found slytherin to be such an obvious choice for lotor that it sorted him there the moment it touched his head.

i mean……most of us would put him instantly in slytherin, so this hardly has to be a meta. but i can feel a long one welling up because one question has been nagging at me: one other option could have been a hatstall between slytherin and ravenclaw. alternately, since ravenclaw is the house of wit and intelligence, why didn’t the hat instantly put him in there? no, the answer isn’t “because he’s a manipulative bastard.” it all comes down to the fact that regardless of anyone’s morality, lotor exemplifies all of slytherin house’s core values in a way that sets him apart from ravenclaws. let me break it down for you.

AMBITION.

i don’t have to do much explaining on this--water is wet, lotor is ambitious. instead, i want to talk specifically about how this trait puts him in slytherin rather than ravenclaw.

lotor is smart. both ravenclaw and slytherin value intelligence. however, the two houses differ in the type of intelligence that they value. ravenclaw is content with intelligence and knowledge for its own sake, whereas slytherin wants to use those same properties for a purpose. and i always saw the core of mainverse lotor’s character as putting every bit of his knowledge to use as a leader of the alteans and the galra empire. in mainverse, he has plenty of time where he indulges in knowledge for knowledge’s sake--he does, after all, enjoy philosophy and math. but he is also intensely focused on how he can use what he knows to shape society around him.

i should note that this isn’t necessarily tied to a lust for power--in fact, mainverse lotor wants less power because of his whole thing with decolonization. but whereas most people associate ambition with wanting power, the dictionary definition is “a strong desire to do or achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work; desire and determination to achieve success.” therefore, desiring greatly to better society counts as an ambition……especially since lotor very much enjoys all the asspats he gets from being acknowledged as a savior.

harry potter AU lotor is very much the same. he is a massive nerd, with an extensive knowledge of alchemy, history and muggle science--but he’s not simply content with sitting at his desk and studying. he has the grand and sweeping visions for society of a slytherin: he wants wizards and muggles to be able to coexist. he wants a renaissance among magic folk in which they finally stop being so complacent with their technological progress and get up and invent at the same pace as muggles. he wants to put motherfucking wizards in space--and he wants to be known all around the world as the GREAT VISIONARY who created a new era for wizardkind. these are all the hallmarks of a slytherin. a ravenclaw, on the other hand, might just be happy with tinkering at their desk.

TRADITION.

this one might have thrown you off, because slytherin house is all about the traditions of self-proclaimed pure-blooded white europeans, and lotor is as brown as you can get. but tradition is important to him in its own way. he was raised to be fiercely proud of his heritage, to proudly speak his parents’ endangered languages and to carry on indigenous magical customs. one of his ideas as he becomes older is to decolonize POC societies around the globe who had the international statute of secrecy forced on them by european wizards--a return to the traditional way of living in which magical and mundane existed side by side. so yes. even though sometimes he acts in ways that go against religious and moral precepts, tradition absolutely is one of his core values……just not in the sense of pureblood (and most likely white) supremacy that was so prized by old salazar.

side note: this also fits with who lotor is in mainverse--mainverse lotor tirelessly worked to save altean (especially moon elf altean) traditions, immersing himself in the customs and beliefs of his own people and helping to preserve them for the next generation.

CUNNING AND RESOURCEFULNESS.

like………do i even have to explain this? he’s as much of a master strategist and just as silver-tongued in harry potter verse as he is in all of his other verses. he has an intellect as hard to grasp as a fish in a stream, and a tongue that can talk its way out of almost any situation. some of his methods may be outside those of conventional morality, but one can’t deny that they’re efficient and effective. once again, the reason why these traits put him in slytherin is because though both slytherin and ravenclaw value intelligence, it’s all about the type of intelligence valued by the two houses.

LEADERSHIP AND PERSUASION.

slytherins, much like gryffindors, are known for craving leadership--and let me tell you, lotor was just made for it. this is yet another one that’s like “no duh” given what he is in canon--he’s charismatic, he’s highly competent, and oh boy can he get the people going. it’s the ravenclaw in lotor that started designing the world’s first wizarding space vessel. but it’s the slytherin in him that gave him the ability to publicize it and make it popular, and the slytherin in him that swayed the masses to his side when just a few years prior the whole wizarding community was calling him crazy. he has the skill and the drive to shape history as it’s being made, and he has what it takes to lead the next generation of wizardkind to the great beyond. as bigoted as salazar slytherin is, i’ll bet it would make him very proud.

FRATERNITY.

slytherin often has a reputation for being the house that will stab you in the back, but word of god aka jk rowling’s slytherin welcome greeting on pottermore says that to the right people, slytherins are extremely loyal. canonically, lotor is capable of being ride or die with his friends the generals--i interpret narti’s death not as lotor consciously betraying her but as him reacting to her betrayal, which just goes to show how much he values faithfulness to those he loves.

deep and abiding loyalty to loved ones is a common trait among all lotors. he will not abandon his (close) friends, his spouses, his family, his children--he is with them until death, with very few things so morally objectionable that he would find that a reason to cut someone off. he may be standoffish around strangers, and a wily sonofabitch around those he doesn’t know well. and like many slytherins, he’s selective about who he gets close to so this sort of loyalty from him is very hard-won. but once you have earned his trust and his devotion, you have earned it for life.

#headcanon. || HARRY POTTER AU #alma te anul; the history of self. || HEADCANON

7 notes · View notes

intrvso-archived11821 · 4 years

Text

THE MEGA RP PLOTTING SHEET / MEME

First and foremost, recall that no one is perfect, we’ve all witnessed some plotting once which didn’t go too well, be it because of ourselves or our partner. So here, have this, which may help for future plotting. It’s a lot, yes, but perhaps give your partners some insight? Anyway BOLD what fully applies, italicize if only somewhat

tagged by @deivorous tagging: Everyone

Mun Name: Onyx Age: 25 Contact: Discord

Character(s) I rp: Kaien Shiba, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, Meranni Mahariel, Drea Hawke, River Hawke, Caius Cousland, Dane Trevelyan, Castille Lavellan, Taeros Lavellan, Akio Matsuda, Misty Shephard, Cameron Shephard, Keith Kogane, Kuron, Matt Holt, Garrus Vakarian Which muse(s) inspires you the most atm?(At the moment): the Shephards Current Fandom(s): Bleach, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Voltron Fandom(s) you have an AU for: Not many My language(s): English Themes I’m interested in for rp: Fantasy / Science fiction / Horror / Western / Romance / Thriller / Mystery / Dystopia / Adventure / Modern / Erotic / Crime / Mythology / Classic / History / Renaissance / Medieval / Ancient / War / Family / Politics / Religion / School / Adulthood / Childhood / Apocalyptic / Gods / Sport / Music / Science / Fights / Angst / Smut / Drama / etc. Themes/Genres you have an AU for: Not all of them need aus

Preferred Thread length: one-liner / 1 para / 2 para / 3+ / novella. Asks can be sent by: Mutuals / Non-Mutuals / Personals / Anons. Can Asks be continued?: YES / NO only by Mutuals?: YES / NO. Preferred thread type: crack / casual nothing too deep / serious / deep as heck.

Is realism / research important for you in certain themes?: YES / NO. Are you atm open for new plots?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. Do you handle your draft / ask - count well?: YES / NO / SOMEWHAT. How long do you usually take to reply?: 24h / 1 week / 2 weeks / 3+ / months / years. I’m okay with interacting: original characters / a relative of my character (an oc) / duplicates (haven’t tried, no opinion yet) / my fandom / crossovers / multi-muses / self-inserts / people with no AU verse for my fandom / canon-divergent portrayals / AU-versions (as main or only verse). Do you post more ic or ooc?: IC / OOC. Are you selective with following others?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

Best ways to approach you for rp/plotting: Literally like a starter call, jump into my askbox, I’m not a scary person.

What expectations do you hold towards your plotting partner: Legit follow my rules and be nice to each other, I’m not a hard person to get along with.

How do you usually plot with others, do you give input or leave most work towards your partner?: Throw stuff at each other until we find an idea we can both agree on.

When a partner drops the thread, do you wish to know?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. - And why?: Because I track threads through rpthreadtracker and I gotta know when to remove threads from the tracker. - Will you tell your partner?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

Is communication in the rpc important to you? YES / NO. - And why?: Because it’s important to get to know rp partners and feel comfortable going to them about anything. Whether it’s wanting to ship with them or even just wanting to let them know that there’s a problem in threads or anything. Avoiding problems is the start of issues with rpers and can lead to unnecessary drama.

- Are you okay with absolute honesty, even if it may means hearing something negative about you and/or portrayal?: I prefer it.

- Do you think you can handle such a situation in a mature way? YES / NO.

Why do you rp again, is there a goal?: This is a hobby, I like getting to know my partners and my muses. I learn new things about them in new and different situations.

Wishlist, be it plots or scenarios: I don’t really do wishlists of my own? If someone has an au idea they want to thread with me it’s as easy as saying “Hey I have an idea I want to see about threading with you.”

Some specific characters I really want to develop relationships with include:

All of them

What Type of Starters do you prefer?: Set everything up so that I am able to respond.

What Type of Starters do dislike, can’t work with?:Don’t give me something like “___ Was a bitch. She was such a bitch that no one liked her.” I once got a reply like that but it was a full ass paragraph of sentences like that. I won’t respond to anything like that at all.

What type of characters catch your interest the most?: Soft bois.. sometimes the rough guys with soft hearts. Really it depends on muses. I don’t care about the muses personality as long as I’m cmomfortable with the mun.

What type of characters catch your interest the least?: uhh honestly it depends if I can connect or the mun and I don’t talk, I can’t really write with others that well.

What are your strong aspects as rp partner?: Angst, I can do that asleep. I am also decent at fluff.

What are your weak aspects as rp partner?: I don’t know? I haven’t really been told anything I need to work on?

Do you rp smut?: YES / NO / UNKNOWN. Do you prefer to go into detail?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. Are you okay with black curtain?: YES / NO. - When do you rp smut? More out of fun or character development?: I don’t.

- Anything you would not want to rp there?: I keep it light on triggers. IF I have anything even remotely triggering come up on an rp it’s usually tagged immediately. Are ships important to you?: YES / NO. ( I don’t know what this question means?) I don’t need to ship, but I have fun with it!

Would you say your blog is ship-focused?: YES / NO

.Do you use read-mores?: YES / NO / SOMETIMES... Only if things get suggestive. Which is Incredibly rare with me.

Are you: Multi-Ship / exclusive multi ship / Single-Ship / Dual-Ship — Multiverse / Singleverse

- What do you love to explore the most in your ships?: the dynamics of the ship? Watching the muses grow?

- What is your smut tag?: I use EC // more than anything

Are you okay with pre-established relationships?: YES / NO. - And what kind of ones?: Acquaintances of circumstance, Rivals, Enemies, Allies, Sibling like, Fracción, Parental, Ex, Employee/Employer, Significant Other (tentatively)

► SECTION ABOUT YOUR MUSE.

- What could possibly make your Muse interesting towards others, why should they rp with this particular character of yours now, what possible plots do they offer?:

Because they want to? Not because of anything I say?

- What interests your Muse(s) in general: Depends on the muse

- What do they desire, is their goal?: Depends on the muse

- What catches their interest first when meeting someone new?: Depends on the muse

- What do they value in a person?: Depends on the muse

- What themes do they like talking about?: Depends on the muse

- Which themes bore them?: Depends on the muse

- Did they ever go through something traumatic?: Depends on the muse

- What could possibly trigger them?: Depends on the muse

- What could set them off, enrage them?: Depends on the muse

- Is there someone /-thing they hate?: Depends on the muse

- Is there someone /-thing they love?: Depends on the muse

Is your Muse easy to approach?: YES / NO (???) - Best ways to approach them?: Depends on the muse - Where are they usually to be found?: Depends on the muse

Something you may still want to point out about your muse?: Depends on the muse

#ooc :|| ᵐʸ ᶰᵃᵐᵉ ᶤˢ ʲᵉᵗ ᵃᶰᵈ ᵗʰᶤˢ ᶤˢ ʲᵃᶜᵏᵃˢˢ #[ Sorry there are too many muses I have to write stuff like this for ]#[ unless one was picked ]#Long Post //

1 note · View note

chonacatibog · 4 years

Text

Commitments: Lent 2020

Photo from IG:@chonacatibog: “ When it comes to my small #IndoorGarden, it's always a satisfaction when i see my rescued plants regrowing and doing much better than ever! 🌱🌿 ”

I was in my second, or third year in college when I decided to tear the walls down that kept me from God, the walls that stood boxing Him in--the very same walls that maybe I did build influenced by society, the world, maybe my family and friends, and probably even the Church.

Coming from a family who practiced the Catholic religion quite seriously, I still wouldn’t call myself religious then. (I still prefer not to be called religious today, though!) I went to Church on a weekly basis. I took down notes during religion classes and performed well during exams. I enjoyed whenever my grandparents invited their friends over and did their regular activities as a CFC household. (I genuinely miss those--as of writing!) I enjoyed the mass songs taught to me by my Titos and Titas never fully understanding what the songs meant. And when my parents separated, I was taught that God was not pleased because it’s a violation, a disrespect, or something to that effect, to the Sacrament of Marriage. I went to a semi-Catholic school in high school and was part of quite a prayerful community. I prayed, sure. I prayed with my family. And I was taught at a very young age that whenever two or more are gathered in prayer, Christ is there with them. (Matthew 18:20). So I did pray. I understood then that when I needed help with something, I only had to pray and ask God. I have memorized a lot of Catholic prayers but never truly knowing what they really meant. I have some Bible Verses memorized as well, and sometimes used them--for the benefit of none other than me--but mostly, I’ve learned, they’re taken out of context.

But it wasn’t actually until God surrounded me with people who are actually qualified to be called His disciples that I truly, truly, truly understood: I know nothing about who the Lord really is!

Looking back, I still thank Him for placing these people in my life. Some I’ve already lost in touch with; some remained and are still actually my good friends!

I think I just also have to mention that not all these people are from the same religion as mine yet they illuminate the light of God, no doubt. And if there’s anything I’ve learned from all those years of seeking and getting to know Him, it’s that He shouldn’t be caged in a religion, in a practice. I understood He’s far greater than that. He is in every person I meet and encounter who practices love, especially when it’s just so hard to love. Just as Christ did. And just as He still always does up until this very time, this very moment.

Love. God is Love.

And for this year’s lent, my commitment would be to learn more about love by practicing love, always. To everyone. At any given time.

I know myself and I know it’s not going to be an easy task.

Ever since I began my commitment and my declaration (to self) that I am a child of God and that I love Him above anything else in this world, I became more conscious of the things I’m doing, and feeling, and thinking. Is it right to feel this way? Is this the right thing to do? It is not an easy task and getting an answer isn’t always one plus one equals two. I have learned that the world is not black and white and there’s actually a blurry line between right and wrong.

Although I have always tried to be conscious of the things I do, many many times I still fail to follow Him. I am an impatient person. I judge other people, sometimes way too quickly, whenever I feel like they’re standing on a wrong belief. Sometimes, I find it hard to listen. And most of the time, I let my pride eat me, totally consumed, instead of the other way around. At the end of the day, I am still a disappointing, always-sinning, failure. And although I think I could have had a total control over my actions, it’s a cycle that almost never ends. And it doesn’t help that I keep forgetting that each time I feel frustrated, I beg for forgiveness and pray that He grants me with a heart just like His.

---

Just a few weeks and days ago, the entire Luzon has been placed under an Enhanced Community Quarantine as a safety measure against the COVID-19 virus outbreak. What a time of great uncertainty!

While I am privileged to have a roof above my head and resources that will help us get through these troubling times, I acknowledge the fact that there are brothers and sisters out there who are forced to risk their lives everyday to serve fellow neighbors, countrymen, and their families. I’d like to think there’s a reason why God has placed this burden on our shoulders just in time for Lent. I am not saying that it is a reason to celebrate, but it is a reason to slow down, grow much much much stronger in prayer, remain vigilant and in search for Truth.

Provided the many painful news we receive everyday, I have been in such a crazy emotional roller-coaster ride--the emotions being mostly negative, by the way. I hear news about increase in the number of cases, and I get anxious. I hear news about the government’s incompetence, and I’m angry. I hear news about other people’s indifference, and I’m furious. I hear news about fellow Pinoys abused and just neglected during these times, and I’m just heartbroken.

I notice, once again, that my feelings lead me to becoming a disappointing, always-sinning, failure. I confess that I have spoken against other people. I refused to listen. I refused to put my shoes in their shoes to maybe look around where they’re coming from. Thinking about those things now, I also confess I still have this little voice in my head telling me “those things are straight-up, unadulterated, absolutely wrong and there’s nothing to even consider about it, not worth listening to!” I try to justify how I feel by telling myself “God wouldn’t like it either!”--so it’s just right to be angry at these people, forget about your relationships with them ‘cause they are not worth your time and understanding!

Awful. Just awful. God wouldn’t like that either.

This Lent, I confess I have committed all these mistakes and that these were all made out of the lack of love. I always pray for God to help me become more like Him, less like me. And while I know God always wants to help me with this, I am the one who wanders away. I commit, and then I forget.

So today, I am going back to keeping a journal. Writing, anyway, has always helped me think better. For example, before I created this entry, I didn’t think I’d write this much!

Moving forward--and there’s nowhere else to go but forward, the question to answer is: What is love? How would Christ exhibit love at a situation like this? How do you best practice love?

Let’s see what God has to say.

Dear Lord,

Thank you for reaching out to me the past days. You know how weary my heart is now. And how eager I am to finally change my ways--especially now that, I think, the world needs it more. Forgive me for all the mistakes I have made.

Teach me Lord to see things the way You see them. How do I best practice love at these times, Lord?

#love #christ #jesus christ #catholic #lentenseason

1 note · View note

thesinglesjukebox · 5 years

Video

youtube

SELENA GOMEZ - LOSE YOU TO LOVE ME

[6.17]

We like it like a lose song, maybe...

Alex Clifton: I'm fascinated by songs where singers air their grievances and fans all know which specific people they are calling out. It's one of the reasons I fell in love with Taylor Swift's music way back in the day; I love a good gossip. Over the past eight years, I've worried about Selena with relation to Justin Bieber constantly. Not my relationship, I know, but he seemed like an immature asswipe when Selena could do much better. She's avoided discussing Bieber in much of her previous music. Even the songs that were definitely about him ("Love Will Remember," "The Heart Wants What It Wants") were written in abstract terms so you'd only really know the subject if you spent time following the Selena/Justin drama. Cut to "Lose You to Love Me," where she goes for the kill: "in two months you replaced us," a clear reference to Justin suddenly moving onto his now-wife Hailey. Such a vulnerable and specific track is a strong statement from Selena, who in the past two years has stayed relatively out of the public eye and is now ready to share parts of her story. There's no red scarf here, not that level of minutiae, but frankly she doesn't need it when much of her toxic and turbulent relationship with Bieber played out in the tabloids. And god it's so cathartic. It's an acknowledgement of hurt and anger but a phoenix move for Selena; she's rising from the debris stronger than before, and she wants you to know it. I'm so pleased for her. In the immortal words of her friend Taylor, "she lost him but she found herself and somehow that was everything." [8]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: A decade into her career as one of the world's most popular artists, it's worth noting that Selena Gomez's ascent to fame was improbable. She didn't have the most powerful voice, dance skills, or even a number one hit -- but especially early in her career, she was able to leverage her very public personal life to fuel interest in her music: a Disney fan base, a feud with Demi Lovato which the media loved to cover, membership in Taylor Swift's entourage, and, of course, most significantly, an infamous on-and-off-again relationship. But over the past four years, Selena has developed an effective signature vocal style -- hushed, controlled whispers which burst into moments of pop brilliance -- which makes it clear that her music is more than capable of standing on her own. So it's all the more frustrating then, that after seeing how stellar her music can be removed from celebrity context, that the first song we get off her long awaited third solo album is yet another song about Justin Bieber. But while I initially rejected "Lose You to Love Me" as a regression into formulaic pop balladry, there's a surprising amount of depth. The song sounds like genuine healing, coming from an artist singing her truth. Her voice is soft but powerful, emotive but not overwrought, reflective but not nostalgic. A line like "now the chapter is closed and done" could land cliché and hollow, but Selena sings it like someone who finally took a breath of fresh air for the first time in years. This is all to say: if we have to listen to this one last song about Justin Bieber, at least it's the first genuinely compelling one, and a step in seeing her evolution as an artist and celebrity. [7]

Leah Isobel: When Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake broke up, he got to project his messy breakup feelings outward; he produced imagery about spying on her doppelganger and fantasizing about her death. But for Selena -- Timberlake's 2010s tabloid counterpart -- unrepentant sleaze is a much riskier proposition, at least on the charts. Instead, she sublimates her anger, returning to the baby-voiced Julia Michaels wheelhouse. The mass of vocal effects on the chorus is surprisingly effective, but for an artist who was briefly one of the more progressive voices on Top 40 radio, this defanged "Everytime" is a little disappointing. [4]

Katherine St Asaph: Piano ballads are to music what Joseph Campbell is to narratives. Not a song but a beat on a storyboard -- barely a storyboard, even, but tabloid kerfuffle. [1]

Michael Hong: Selena Gomez's career has long mirrored Demi Lovato's, from child acting stints on Barney & Friends to the release of their fifth studio albums within a week of each other in 2015. Here she goes for something similar to Lovato's "Sober," released last year as a sort of song-as-a-statement -- though Gomez's statement is more uplifting than heartbreaking. "Sober" was a rare instance where Lovato never pushed her voice too far, with its statement made more effective by the events that followed; her confession came across as authentically personal as it unfolded in real-time. "Lose You to Love Me," like "Sober," is stripped down to its bare bones for a more intimate feeling, but here, it's questionable whether the quiet dynamic is one of Gomez's stylistic choices or a symptom of her limited vocal range. There are interesting touches, like the echo-chamber effect on her voice for the line "in two months, you replaced us," which makes the following lines about being broken all the more devastating. But there are also moments like the choir vocals on the final chorus that are predictably overwrought. While "Lose You to Love Me" is a delicately gorgeous and uplifting track, its statement is diminished by how tiresome the Gomez-Bieber narrative feels. We're no longer watching her relationship end in the present, but instead seeing Selena Gomez finally claim closure on a relationship that has long since run its course (at least in the public eye). More interesting is the single released the following day, which features the offbeat personality she's carved out for herself over the past few years and is equally effective at demonstrating that Selena Gomez has moved on. [6]

Alfred Soto: In a tradition of self-reflexive love songs, she tells us she'll sing the chorus off-key (it sounds okay to me). Maybe this line represents one of Selena Gomez's contributions. If I see Julia Michaels, I think of phony uplift, of which the chorus has hints. Then Gomez counters with a slightly hoarse, un-melodramatic dropping of the line, "You promised the world and I fell for it. A performance with grandness in its bones, and it almost succeeds. [6]

Stephen Eisermann: I'm a sucker for big, cathartic choruses, but the verses really let me down here. Between Selena's weird vocal, the melodramatic strings, and the unintentionally funny lyrics (I'm not convinced that the whole singing off-key line isn't a bit that she's delivering with a wink), it's really hard to take the track seriously. But when that big booming chorus hits, backing vocals and all, you can almost feel Selena letting go of everything Bieber did to her. And that, that's lovely. It's also why the other track released after this is so much better. [5]

Joshua Copperman: A song that's perfectly in tune with 2019-type sad music yet unafraid to be huge. It doesn't have the stakes of "Praying" or the bounce of "It Ain't Me," but that's not a problem. The gang vocals that plagued so much of mid-to-late 2010s pop -- including Selena Gomez's own music -- blossom into a full choir, beautifully contrasting with her usual hushiness. It should be Real Music-y --even the lyrics are less playful and twee than Michaels and Tranter usually go, barring the "killing me softly" shoehorn and obvious title -- but because of how thin Gomez's voice sounds, it's not. (The most Michaels-y touch is the backing vocals going "to love, to love" instead of "to love me, love me" like I'd thought, as in "I needed to lose you to love again at all.") The pop most beloved non-mainstream artists are producing is proudly campy, and that's great! Gomez seems to be headed in that direction too with "Look at Her Now," but this unexpected pivot to pathos inexplicably works thanks to the strategic arrangement and lyricism. [9]

Kayla Beardslee: It's fascinatingly difficult to determine where Julia Michaels' style ends and Selena Gomez's begins, and the whispered melodies and "Issues" violins here don't help. Although Gomez's voice can sometimes be aggressively pleasant, she digs in enough to communicate real emotion here, and the choir backing vocals are surprisingly powerful. The song makes a poignant, if heavy-handed, statement about maturing and finding your identity, amplified by this being her comeback single: Ariana has "thank u, next," Miley has "Slide Away," and now Selena has "Lose You to Love Me." [7]

Jackie Powell: While Julia Michaels has commented that Selena Gomez is indeed a songwriter, I still don't believe that's the proper term to describe her contributions to music. Gomez is a storyteller first and foremost. That's the term: storyteller. Sometimes those can be interpreted as synonymous or givens of each other, but let's remember that Gomez has been telling stories since she was seven years old. Her art is most successful when she's in control of her narrative and knows exactly what story she's about to tell. When she has the opportunity to perform her stories, she goes all out and sells it exactly as someone who's been on stage since childhood can. That may sound like something Ariana Grande has done in the past year or so with "thank u, next," since both "Lose You to Love Me" and that highlight some of the most dramatic breakups in pop culture. But as Tatiana Cirisano pointed out for Billboard, Gomez's approach is the contrapositive to Grande's. Both cuts are relatable and have a commitment to empowerment and autonomy, but Gomez makes her track a moment without a teen movie pastiche. Her choice to emphasize and crescendo on the lyrics "In two months you replaced us" and "Made me think I deserved it" speak loudly. This track is all about its dynamics in its minimalistic glory. Imagine Gomez was performing a monologue. That's the type of choice a storyteller makes. Justin Tranter and Michaels provide the melody and the nuts and bolts, but the concept is clearly all Gomez. The backing vocals in each chorus from Tranter and Michaels are symbolic of what they've meant to Gomez over the years. They've been by her side every step of the way and have lifted her up. That's beautiful. What's also beautiful is if I ever wanted to learn more about Justin Bieber, the lyrics "Sang off-key in my chorus / 'Cause it wasn't yours" tell me all I need to know. [8]

Josh Buck: The Selena Gomez x Julia Michaels joints never miss. [6]

Abdullah Siddiqui: Selena Gomez's discography in the last four years has largely consisted of stylistic meandering and incomplete ideas. She hasn't quite been able to settle on a sound or a narrative. This feels like she's starting from scratch. It's a pretty solid place to start. [7]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Selena Gomez #pop #music #music review #writing

2 notes · View notes

queen-scribbles · 5 years

Text

Author Questions

Tagged by @greyias, just gonna open tag to inflict on authors in general. :D

---

Author Name: queen-scribbles(or queen_scribbles on AO3)

Fandoms You Write For: Oof, let’s see... Dragon Age, Pillars of Eternity, SWtOR/KotOR, PfKm, every once in a very great while some Mass Effect pops in there.

Where You Post: AO3 and tumblr, but there’s a bunch of old stuff on dA and FFnet as well.

Most Popular One-Shot: According to AO3 stats(both hits and kudos), Third Time’s the Charm, which is just a huge ego boost; for my first fic in a fandom to be my most popular. (It has 938 hits, I’m screaming)

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: That’s really hard to determine, bc some things are only on FFN/dA, some are here, some are here, dA, and AO3, but I THINK Of Wardens and Pariahs? I feel like that’s definitely more popular than the Rahna Tabris longfics

Favorite Story You Wrote: Goood, don’t make me pick between my babies, that’s just mean. D: Um, OWaP is always going to have a special place in my heart bc I love Alex and getting to co-write something with her makes me super happy(also, I just. Adore our kids. They’re so great, individually and together and call me an extremely biased mother-in-law, but Harvey is hands down my favorite Warden in the Dragon Age fandom. /ahem I’ll stop gushing now)

BUT I also love Moorings Lost and Found and TTtC and all my Brykar and Spy Nerds and Telara and Ederity and the Babies’ oneshots and just /SIGH

Gun to my head, if I had to pick something I solo authored, Moorings for multichapter bc I’m damn proud of it, and Certain as the Sun or A Pirate’s Life for Me for oneshot bc both of them are just super fun fluff with two of my favorite pairings to write.

Story You Were Nervous to Post: Drifting Roads, bc Jowan-as-Inquisitor is super niche, also it’s like 75-85% in the Fade, which is a huuuuge writing weakness for me when it comes to Dragon Age. But it’s getting kudos! And I have a couple comments! So apparently multichapter Jowan-as-Inquisitor fics do have an audience :D :D :D

How Do You Choose Your Titles: Luck and prayer which is ironically a good title itself. /s It’s usually a word/phrase/concept that pops up throughout the work for oneshots. Longer things it’s maybe an over-arching concept. Drifting Roads is from a verse in the Chant of Light about the Fade, so it felt appropriate, that’s an exception to how I usually do it.

Do You Outline: Almost never for oneshots, sometimes for multichapter. Definitely for OWaP. OWaP each chapter gets an outline in addition to there being one for the overarching story

Complete: Um. A lot? Definitely over 200(WOW), maybe over 300 if we count prompt fills? Idk, there’s too many sites to go through and count everything.

In-Progress: OWaP and Roads, for things I’ve posted. I did start working on and outline that Brykar longfic I keep talking about, but I wanna get to a point where I could more consistently work on it before posting any. Also, it y’know. Needs a title. /cough

Coming Soon: There’s a Jastian oneshot I have about 75% written, and I wanna get out another chapter of Roads this month and OWaP before end of September. ALSO I have a couple memory prompts still sitting in my inbox I really need to write(Risu, I’m sorry, Emiri is not chatty for some reason)

Do You Accept Prompts: Always. Both when I’ve reblogged a prompt list or if there’s just something random you want to ask about for a given muse.

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: All the multichapter stuff; Roads, OWaP, and I really, really wanna work more on that Brykar thing, man. It’ll be SO COOL.

#tagged #writer stuff #i just know there's fics i'm forgetting #I JUST KNOW IT #there's something i worte and adore that i'm just forgetting bc of the sheer VOLUME OF CONTENT #i apologize heartily to that fic

4 notes · View notes

eeveevie · 5 years

Text

author questions~

I was tagged by @alyssalenko (thank you :) )

Author Name: speedgriffon (it has griffons on it)

Fandoms You Write For: Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls: Skyrim mostly. I can always pick up Fallout and Mass Effect but I’m not as versed as I used to be.

Where You Post: Here and Ao3

Most Popular One-Shot: (According to Ao3) Truth or Dare, a Cullen x Aurelie Trevelyan fic I wrote way back in February 2015. So, it has a lot of weird “character traits” for Aurelie that I don’t necessarily agree with anymore. That being said, I still really like this one-shot. It’s fun, and includes Hawke!

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: Unequivocally, The Way You Make Me Feel : a modern AU story for Alistair x Evelyn Cousland. Best Friends to lovers full of lots of tropey goodness. The first full length fic I really fully focused on for DA, and had a lot of fun with. This was also written in 2015, so sometimes when I go back and read it, I have flashes of “oh god this is bad” but there’s also some really good stuff there I’m proud of, and without writing it, I would’ve never grown. Have I mentioned they were roommates?!

Favorite Story You Wrote: Fuck, I don’t know. I will say, I had a lot of fun writing Shadow and Light (Varric Tethras x Bethany Hawke). I really let myself just write (after a long hiatus) and had fun working with characters I hadn’t really written for. Writing for a rare-pair is a gamble, but for this I just wanted to do something (mostly) for myself, and have fun doing it. I also had this same feeling writing Returned Goods (Brynjolf x F!Dragonborn). Though I have pretty much written off the events of this fic, I still really love it as a story, especially my first story for this specific fandom.

Story You Were Nervous to Post: Returned Goods for the reasons listed above. I hadn’t really been posting a lot on tumblr, hadn’t been posting a lot of writing, and was about to post a story for a fandom I had never written for (and for a rare-pairing, no less). I had a lot to be nervous for. Turns out, lots of people like Brynjolf and Fiona.

How Do You Choose Your Titles: HA. I think I put the least amount of time and effort into my titles. It is hard.

Do You Outline: Yes. I don’t ever start anything from the start because what? Most of my stories start as rough outlines, random notes, or lines of dialogue. I fill in the spaces and then fine tune it until it’s to my liking.

Complete: Everything that is complete can be found on Ao3

In-Progress: The prompts in my inbox. I have 4 remaining. Three are for Brynjolf and Fiona, and 1 is for Varric and Bethany. I think I should be able to post one by Sunday evening.

Coming Soon: I’ve been teasing it forever, the Alistair x Evelyn fic where it’s the “bad timeline” where he’s not King, they didn’t stay a couple and everything is sad and angsty (but things eventually get better through the story). I am writing this slowly (but everything is planned out), and will not be posting it until it is complete, so I can post chapters in a timely, precise manner.

Do You Accept Prompts: Yes, but usually only when I post new prompt lists. Depending on how busy work is, it can be difficult for me to get to them during the week, so the only chance for me to write is the weekend. I’ve also been writing longer prompt responses (1000+), so it’s been taking me longer to get through them.

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: The Alistair fic mentioned above. Other than that, I’m having a lot of fun writing Bryn and Fiona adventures in Skyrim.

#meme

3 notes · View notes

kmp78 · 6 years

Text

I came, I saw, I (little bit) konquered 💪

First of all: apologies for this mega massive post! 😂

But I wanted to fit everything in one, so that´s the way it has to be!

Big thanks to lovely Stockholm for being a very gracious host and taking such good care of this world-weary traveler! Let´s start off with some general sights before getting down to the nasty business of Mars!

I have to say that seeing those posters for the 1st time in the flesh made me quite giddy indeed...

BUT NOW! On to the main event...

The M&G took place a few hours before the show, and arrangements were top grade, gotta give props when props are due!

These two ladies were really lovely and seemed like PROS at what they do and yet POLITE towards us even tho this was probably the 3000th M&G they were handling. I have no complaints!

We were escorted to a small meeting room type of area right next door to the stage area, and at first I figured I wasn´t even gonna bother fighting the hoards for the 1st row seats, but then I heard Reni saying there was one spot left - and I leaped into action.

At the M&G room Reni explained the rules and game plan for the evening. No personal/private questions, no simple yes/no questions, no groping during the pics, no running to the concert area (there were near-catastrophic incidents in Prague some days ago, some girls ran like cray and tripped and fell and created a domino effect and it was a mess...) and so on. 🙄

Reni asked us who has listened to the album (most raised their hands) and who has not listened to the album (me and few others raised ours... Hihi...), and what people´s fave songs were.

Then we got back to talking about the potential questions again, and she encouraged people to ask about the new album (*COUGH* REMEMBER THIS LATER AS YOU READ ON *COUGH*), or if you want advice etc.

Not that I cared much anyway, but seeing as she did not seem to touch upon “that topic” at all, I decided to try my luck and asked:

“What about the “elephant in the room”?” 🐘

The room fell silent and there were some dramatic “Oooooooh´s” coming from my fellow VIP peeps.

Reni´s face went serious and she quietly said “No”, as was fully expected.

I pressed on.

“How come?”

Reni: “Because we would rather... It´s a personal matter. Of the band.”

Me: “So we´re never gonna get any explanation?”

Reni: “It´s a personal matter... And until he doesn´t decide... It´s not in our...”

And that was it! That´s the explanation I managed to squeeze out! Sorry, guys! I tried, but... 😞

I´m totally not the only one who reads that to mean that IT WAS TOMO´S OWN DECISION TO WALK AND IT´LL BE HIS DECISION IF/WHEN HE COMES BACK, right?! And that the band has no say in it, and they have no clue if and when the situation gets resolved?! Right?!

UGH! 😠

Then Reni went on to explain that if someone was there specifically to meet TM, they could get a refund but they would have to leave immediately.

Total bs “offer” because there ain´t NO ONE coming to these things just to meet TM, but whatever... I did contemplate if I should ask for a partial refund because I only got partial Mars, but chose to let it slide. Not even worth it.

One guy in the audience commented “Good question”, so I guess I wasn´t alone with my queries! It may have been Gustavo, I dunno.

Before the band came in, people kept busy by asking the crew a few questions.

And at this point I would like to offer a MEA CULPA and sincere apologies to the person/persons who I battled with some weeks ago when Reni´s home land was a topic. See, as luck would have it, one of the VIPs asked the staff where they were from, and Reni said “I´M ORIGINALLY FROM MEXICO”, so yeah... Haha! I giggled quite a lot... Sorry, anon/anons! I was indeed wrong! Shayla said she´s from NYC, Inaki also from Mexico and Diana (I think that was her name...?) from Brazil.

Shayla mentioned that she is kinda jetlagged. Reni said she´s usually pretty good with it.

Then they plugged Camp Mars (a few people had no idea what Camp Mars even is...) and lured us to buy with big promises of hangings with the band during the most magical weekend of the year.

“The band is also there all day.”

Reni also inquired if people would be interested in attending Camp if they by some miracle happened to arrange it in Europe. Most people were eager, no surprises there.

Someone asked if Camp could be arranged earlier in the summer, and Reni said no because the Malibu Camp site is occupado until August.

Another one asked if Camp is getting bigger, to which Reni replied that “It´s getting better. I would not say it´s getting bigger because the number of people for the past 2 times has been exactly the same, which is 200.”

So there we have it. An official number.

Well, as official as these people are ever gonna admit, anyway... 🤷

Then we voted for our fave songs from the new album. “GWO” won.

(I voted Tabasco. 🤗)

Someone wanted to know if they were gonna play “GWO”, and Shayla said nope because they have not rehearsed it.

Of course not! 🤷

Then we swiftly moved on to the “Kumbaya” moment of the evening where Reni asked if someone knows how to sing, and some dude said yeah, so he came up front and started singing WoW.

Now this is just my opinion, but sitting there listening to an almost Sunday church-like hysterical pathos... Worshipers partying and yelling out the lyrics as if God himself was within hearing distance...

I did not know I needed that in my life. 😱

Then Reni we needed to “make some noise so they´ll come faster”.

Is... is that what VK does too? 🤔

I dunno, but we did.

It did not help. 😴

To kill even more time, we did the obligatory “Where is everyone from?” round. I stayed silent. Surprisingly it seemed like almost half of the peeps were non-Swedes! The woman next to me was also from Finland. Wooooop!

Someone asked if the band is gonna do festivals, and Reni listed some upcoming dates. I don´t know why people don´t GO ONLINE to find out this stuff, but... 🤷

The crew also mentioned they have days off on occasion, Helsinki was mentioned as one of their days off, which kinda maybe means that the band will be arriving tomorrow and hanging for a whole day before the gig on Wednesday... Uuuuuuh!

Then all of a sudden...

DOORS FLUNG OPEN AND ANGELS SANG PRAISES! 🎺

Well no, it was just echies screaming and clapping. 🙏

JL and SL sneaked in from the stage area and the masses of course went bananas.

I still sat in silence and watched. 👀

The bros had a table and chairs, but never sat down. Instead they stood and placed one foot ON THE CHAIR, as all civilized peeps do.

JL asked if anyone was at the previous gig, and mentioned that it has been a really small show, but this one would be the smallest (arena holds max 3500 people). Last night apparently was “INCREDIBLE”, one of the better shows on the tour.

For some reason (pffft...) he spotted some German chicks who I guess were twins or smthg, I wasn´t really paying attention. Anyway, he mentioned “We always need more twins in our lives”.

Echies naturally giggled because OMGGGGGGGG HILAAAARIOUS, and JL went on to explain that “Hey our grandfather had a twin”.

SL quipped that maybe he or JL will have twins, and JL mentioned that he and JR argued about the twin gene skipping a generation or smthg like that. 🙄🙄

Then he spotted some chick in the front row who had big muscles (no she did not btw) and asked her if she´s a trainer or smthg. JL mentioned that he just recently started working out again so he keeps looking at muscles.

Uh huh. 🙄🙄🙄

On/off SL gave looks around the room, and I got some too. He did not smile, not even a crack. Meh.

THEN IT WAS FINALLY Q AND A TIME!!! 🙏 😈

Some dude asked how hard it is to get a workout on the road.

SL said the recovery is the most challenging part. I guess he meant recovery from the shows.

JL says the 2 hours on stage are the hardest, and then the rest of the time should be spent by doing nothing.

That last part might be more familiar to some in the band than others... 🤔

Some woman from Ohio, USA was picked and I guess she yammered on about herself a bit too long because JL interrupted her speech with a very stern “QUESTION!” (we all know that tone... Hihi!), and she asked if there were any “Aha!” moments when making the album.

I suppose she did not mean “Aha! We totes should wrap this whole shit in Americana even tho it has fuck all to do with it!”...

SL said the 1st thing that comes to mind is “Rescue Me”. Apparently they´ve had that song for 10 years and have had people help them work on it (WHOOOO?!), and the last person they worked on it with caused them to have an “Aha!” moment when they realized they were actually going to finish it.

I´m sure we all share that amazement...

JL said he remembered sitting down during TIW in his home in Fredonia (his old home) with a synthesizer and the verse and the chorus are still the same. Lyrics have changed. The chorus used to just be “Rescue me, rescue me” without anything else, and 5 years later he was sitting on a plane and the current chorus started forming in his head. The song used to have a “pre-chorus” too. “He said” or “She said” (I could not make out which, or maybe both) before the main chorus.

He said the lesson in that is to never give up because you never know what can happen. Sometimes songs happen quickly, like “A Modern Myth” which he said he wrote in 5 minutes, and SL wrote “Remedy” fairly quickly. Finishing songs usually takes him longer than coming up with a song.

Next guy asked about creative differences between Album 1 and Album 5.

JL said you can still hear the same band on both albums.

(GIVE OR TAKE A FEW BAND MEMBERS, MAYBE... 🙄)

He listed all the elements the new album features. He said he thinks a song like “Echelon” could totally be on the new album.

Next up a woman who said she was studying to be in the music business asked what she could do to make sure no other artist has to deal with what Mars had to deal with (lawsuit etc.).

JL´s advise: Don´t sign a record deal unless you absolutely have to. Spread your music via social media and other platforms.

(I know he was talking about EMI specifically, but I could not help thinking there might have been some Interscope crumbs in there too...)

The woman clarified that she meant more from the music label/business side and not the artist side. Jl responded “Go work for Spotify”. He went on to say that record companies and people can be great too, but the deals are the problem. They should be transparent and available online. It´s the last kind of “gangsta business” where you can really take advantage of people.

Some dude mentioned that he saw Mars 11 years ago when they opened for Linkin Park in Europe. JL remembered that tour, SL did not.

I guess he asked what it feels like to go from there to here (I wasn´t really listening because meeeeeh), and SL tried to come up with smthg intellectual and deep but it just sounded so ridiculously pathetic it´s not even worth mentioning. Smthg about just living and maturing and evolving as human beings. 💤

He also said they are really fortunate to still be together as a band (*SNORT*) because lots of bands from back then don´t exist anymore.

JL said this feels like a new and fresh chapter. Like his inner child. Like a reboot. Like they just got a facelift (HOLD YOUR LAUGHS, PLEASE). The new songs live are apparently “pretty INCREDIBLE”.

“I know some people are like “Where´s the guitar?” and “Where the heavy music?” but I think it´s still pure 30 StM.”

He also called the new album very dark and “lyrically on point”.

His point might be somewhere waaaaaay off the playing field tho, but...

Some chick with pink hair was up next and JL said he was gonna dye his hair pink but now he can´t.

SL said dyeing wrecks your hair and JL said his hair can´t take another bleaching.

And yes, you guessed it, folks. Fangirl giggles and swoons galore!

Her actual question was about Mars music feeling ancient or smthg, again I was totally not even paying attention because I DON´T CAAAAARE. Sorry but these questions were fucking USELESS. 👎

Anyway, SL blabbered on about them being from an “old place”. JL said everyone has missed the point that they made the album by using modern American sounds like Hip Hop and Pop etc. and that WoW is a giant political FUCK YOU.

Except not too long ago he gave that interview to a Finnish journo and specifically banned political questions, but okay... 👌

He said it´s exciting to see people from different countries singing that song with so much passion that sometimes he almost feels like they need to escape through the back door (he was kidding).

Next that same guy who sang during the pre-M&G stood up and congratulated the band on the new album. JL in return congratulated the guy on his hair (= a poofed up semi-mullet kinda thing) and they chatted a bit about his hair. Soooo riveting... 😫

The dude said one of his fave songs is “Convergence” and he asked about spirituality or smthg. Again, not interested...

JL said the last album was only 7 songs and the rest were fillers (well he didn´t say fillers but I´m saying it), and this new one is 11 songs and only 1 filler.

While JL was still yammering on his response to the mullet dude, I made my move and raised my hand HIIIIIGH - and when he finally finished his looooong sermon JL turned my way and...

Oh uh! It's Go time! 😱

⚠️ Little background info first! ⚠️

I obviously had thought of a few questions before coming to the M&G, just to prepare for the off-chance an opportunity might present itself. My options ranged from "Why did you call us Screaming Fat Girls?" to "Why did I have to pay 400 for this when 20 yo models get it for free?" and beyond. Yes I even toyed with the idea of sneakily slipping VK into the mix... 🙃

But sitting there as the M&G went on and listening to the other questions and studying the room's vibe, I started feeling my questions were all... wrong. They started feeling like I would just be purposely asking for trouble and causing a stink and potentially ruining the event, which was not my intention at all.

I started feeling like I needed to ask smthg current, smthg that has relevance in this day and age, smthg that hopefully gave us some answers to the questions we have been pondering about on the blog, smthg that would make you peeps proud, smthg that would not be a waste of a question - and yes, smthg that maybe poked a little hole into his massive ego at the same time! 🤔

So with all that criteria in mind, I went into battle...

Me: "Hi, speaking of the album, have you read or heard the reviews? Because some of them were... not very kind...?

JL: "This newest album?"

(NO DUMMY I WANNA KNOW IF YOU READ THE REVIEWS FOR THE ALBUM YOU RELEASED IN 2002!!! 🙄🤦‍♀️)

Me: "Yeah."

JL, staring right at me, with the snarkiest and bitchiest voice and most passivest aggressivest demeanor:

"Well thanks for bringing that up."

😱😱😱

His reaction both in words and in vibe (and the reaction from the room aka loud gasps, few hisses and cheers after he "lashed out" at me) was worth all the money I paid for that M&G, I don't even mind telling you!

SL also chimed in with “Yeah, thanks for bringing that up” but at that moment I was so focused on JL´s face that I completely ignored SL´s whining and existence - not to mention that every single molecule inside me screamed “HALLELUJAAAAAAAAH!”

So yeah basically I just sat there going...

While he stared at me throughout that little exchange, he most def could sense the snark in my question, and I most def could sense the snark in his reply. Naaaw... Just a couple of petty snarks sharing a moment... 🤣🙊😍

#BucketList ✔

I guess that is what an orgasm of the mind feels like. ☺

And btw...

"Thanks for bringing that up"?

Honey, with the amount of shit we have on you, you should be very #Grateful I only brought THAT up! 🤨

Anyway, the room kinda “erupted” with little gasps and hollers and whatnot, and after that initial "explosion" SL took over and started "grilling me" about my choice of question.

"That's your question? You wanna know if we read and what´s our response to the bad reviews?"

I replied “Yeah, I wanna know”.

SL said he had not read any.

Okay, but... Why did you just jump on my throat about that topic then...?

He continued that everyone has opinions and tastes and attitudes and personalities and colors (???) and stuff... He said he can´t pay attention to it, he can only focus on what he did and the band did, and he feels great about it. He said he is secure in himself and his “bro”, as he called JL.

Then JL took over and in a very explanatory manner (calm voice this time) said that these days everyone is a critic. He said on social media any person´s opinion is as important as a reviewer´s. He also said he thinks a lot of the criticism revolves around the “Where is the rock?” argument, and that they are probably right.

“It´s not a rock album.”

Followed by a LOOOOONG silence.

A silence which was only interrupted by SL going “Well, there you go!” in a triumphant manner. Echies of course applauded, and then suddenly JL picked up again:

“Don´t be fooled, we knew EXACTLY what we were doing. But let me just tell you something: we have NEVER gotten good reviews. Even when we made rock albums. So... Nothing really changes...”

At this point it again felt like he was getting ready to move on, but NO! He still kept going!

“I have a feeling lot of it has to do with me...”

That Gustavo dude piped up with “Jealousy...”, but JL ignored that comment and continued:

“It just has to do with me being in the band... I don´t think people wanna let that slide...”

SL commented “Fucking weird...” and then after a short silence went “Great” in the most “NON GREAT” way imaginable. Kinda like when you spill juice all over yourself and go “Great”.

So with that “NON GREAT” “GREAT”, this topic was now finished and my time in the spotlight was over.

I will point out that while pretty much everyone who asked a question before me got a “Thanks for the question” comment, I did not...

😭😭😭

BEFORE WE MOVE ON - QUICK ANALYSIS ON MY Q AND HIS A:

I think what we learned here are 3 things:

1. Poor SL really thinks he contributed to this album and has reason to be proud. 🤷‍♀️

2. JL is indeed VERY aware of the bad reviews and backlash his latest offering brought him. 😭

3. JL is also aware of the "bad rep" he has. Not just for the "Oh he's an actor trying to be a singer" thing which he has battled since Day 1 (which I'm sure he was mostly alluding to), but also that currently (= after SS) he gets ridiculed and judged on a whole new level.

I mean, the way he almost dragged the topic on and felt like he had to add “just one more thing”... Kinda felt like he was trying to convince not just us but himself as well... 🤨

Anyway, feel free to send feedback and thoughts on this! Did I do good?! 😜

Okay back to the M&G!

The next person asked what would they say to their younger selves.

JL wouldn’t wanna say anything because “We’re in a pretty good place right now in life and career… I guess I’d say "Take a deep breath… It’s gonna be alright. Don’t pay attention to the reviews.”“

Ooooooh... Still feeling butt-hurt from the previous Q, are we… ? 😏🤭

The next Q was asked with such a heavy-accented English I had NO IDEA what he asked, but apparently JL did because he managed an answer. It was smthg about the Mars symbols (the triad). 🤷🏼‍♀️

The next chick started off my saying "I just wanna say I love you and adore you” and I almost yelped out “MR. KAUFMAN IS ALREADY TAKEN!” but managed to keep my emotions in check.

Her question was a pretty good one: “Why did you come up with the name "Monolith” for the tour", she said she (like all of us!) did not get it.

JL said the name comes from the giant screen on stage and the giant box thing as well, which of course for this tour they could not fit through the doors.

Next question was “Why did you call the album "America” when it talks about universal issues?“

JL: "I think the idea of America is universal (FUCK OFF ALREADY DICK IT SO IS NOT) and everyone has an opinion (WANNA KNOW MINE?) and the songs are universal. I think what’s going on in our country is probably going on in other countries. I don’t think we’re the only country thinking about things like immigration, the right and the left, what kind of a world we want to live in, what kind of a future we want. I just thought it was an interesting time and an interesting word. It really isn’t political title, it’s more of a concept (🙄🙄🙄), that’s why I liked all the lists that we came up with because they were so bizarre and funny and provocative. They do give you a sense of the time we’re living in.”

He went on to say that in 100 years people will be able to look at them and go “Oh, that was that crazy group if people that was alive between this time and that time and that fucking guy was president in America!”

Oh my! Look who’s getting all feisty again! Dare you to say that publicly tho!

During this question the noise from the soundcheck taking place in the next room went up a few notches and Stevie´s high-pitched screams almost overpowered the Letos... They made some jokes about SA´s screams. 😂

And of course he kept with the “The name “America” inspired the film that we made that´s coming out later this year, the trip across the country... Did anybody follow it on social media? (I MAY HAVE...) The Museum of America in LA and many other things that we´ve done. I dunno, I just thought it was an interesting container.”

In relation to the previous question, JL also mentioned that he had an alternative title for "America" which he admitted (?) he sometimes thinks he should have used:

“ERA”.

As in this era we are now living in.

YOU GOD DAMN DILL!!!!! THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN 40 GAZILLION TIMES BETTER THAN "AMERICA"!!!!!

🤬🤬🤬

I seriously almost screamed out loud when he said that... I can't even deal with him! 😠

He said that title would have been “a little more global but a little more boring”.

NO, DILL! YOU AND YOUR BEDWARMERS ARE GLOBAL AND BORING! THAT TITLE WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT!

😠

The last question came from a woman next to me (fellow Finn btw! 😃🇫🇮) who told us that she's a teacher and she asked what inspires them etc.

JL said that “sometimes I´m not inspired” (REALLY? Never would have guessed...) and that “at that point you just have to rely on muscle memory and to just put one foot in front of the other and keep marching forward... Someone asks a question you don´t like (WHO?! WHO ASKED A QUESTION YOU DID NOT LIKE?! 🙊), you deal with it... You have to do some part of your job that´s tedious (like... the actual working part?), you push past it... I think a lot of times it´s just showing up... You can surprise yourself. You start a conversation, you start a concert, and before you know it you´re lost in the concert and you´re enjoying your time.”

SL said what helps is “getting rid of the fucking trash in the head. If I feel distracted or there´s a lot of stuff going on in my head that doesn´t have anything to do with what I wanna do, I have to get rid of it. Meditation helps, hanging out with cool people (LOOOOOOOOL), yoga, taking a walk...”

And that was it! Show over! JL thanked us for coming and then...

Picture time! 📷

We lined up in the hallway and practically RAN through the stage they had set up for the pic.

Seriously it was RIDICULOUS! Felt even faster and more North Korean than in Getafe! We all legit had no more than 2 seconds to pose and then we were pushed out! 😑

Total bs. No other way to put it. Treated like actual cattle. 🐄

Anyway, I had a plan ready again and as I stepped up to SL who kinda "yanked me" between him and JL (not in a bad way but just kinda like "let's just get this over with FAST"), I said to them:

"Okay guys, let's smile like I'm a model."

🤭🤭🤭

Now, I don't know if they heard me or bothered listening (or in "someone's" case even understood what I was hinting at), but it def made me feel giggly... 😜

Anyway, end result is this:

I think JL may have gotten what I was implying, or perhaps he was still salty about my earlier question, but he def pushed my back to get me to leave the area after the pic. 🤷🏼‍♀️👉🚪

Altho he probs does that to everyone, especially those who are not 20-smthg Russian models, but… Oh well. Kinda made me smirk even more! 🤣

Or perhaps it was my shirt which ruffled his feathers? 🤔

Wanna see a close-up?

BOOM.

Tell you this much: online T-shirt printing businesses and 20€ sure provide a lot of satisfaction. 😏👕💳

And even tho I once again got only 20 Secs (Jfc… 😂), I still managed to sneak TM into my pic, sooo… 😎💁🏼‍♀️

More closeups:

Thanks GOD he looks more than decent in mine!

And c´mon now, Jarry. I think we all know you can go bigger than that.

Jaw seems to work a-ok...

And yes, I watermarked them because that´s how I roll, homies!

After the pics we were given our VIP merch: black beanie (not bad! I might actually wear that…), plastic badge (who the fuck needs these?!), a canvas tote bag (meh ok) and a signed poster.

TRY TELLING ME BOTH THOSE SIGNATURES ARE NOT FROM THE SAME DAMN ALMOST-WORN-OUT PEN… 😂😒🖋

We were also allowed to stay in the M&G room and check out the official merch stand (pffffft! Did not buy a fucking thing as everything looked so uggo).

This tho...

After about an hour of waiting, we were finally led into the actual concert area. As some of you saw from my IG posts, this was not a regular MonolOth tour gig, but more a club gig. The set was completely different, no monolOth anywhere, and stage was not in the middle of the room.

I noticed there was a balcony area too and I marched up to a security guy to ask if it was ok to go up. He said yeah but only 100 people are allowed up so I needed a special ticket, which he then handed me and told me I needed to give it back if/when I came down again so someone else could use my place up there. Very smart security move!

Being as tiny as I am and as claustrophobic as I am, I knew standing in a sea of people and not even seeing a fucking thing was not a viable option, so I chose to wander up to the balcony - and oh man, that was the best decision I could have made! I scored a prime spot right up front and had full “skyview” of the whole room! Lucky move also because without the balcony spot, that IG Live would have been quite difficult to pull off…😏😄

JR’s DJ set was about as useful as sledgehammer when washing windows, so there’s no need to even discuss it. Literally maybe 7 people actually listened and cheered him. 😴

At around 8:40 pm the lights FINALLY dimmed and the show started.

Now, seeing as I did an IG Live for the whole show which means I did not take any pics or clips (I´ll try posting some of the clips I saved from the IG Live a little later on tho), I’m going to utilize a few fellow concert goers offerings here for vibe and atmosphere reasons! 😉

And of course we can NEVER forget the true star of the night...

A post shared by Jared Leto ∆ Echelon page (@dy.jovi) on Apr 24, 2018 at 1:18am PDT

A post shared by Jared Leto ∆ Echelon page (@dy.jovi) on Apr 22, 2018 at 1:11pm PDT

NOT ALL HEROES WEAR CAPES. OR SHIRTS. 🤣 🕺

As far as overall grade for the show goes…

Well, the people who came on my Live on/off and witnessed the gig with me can probably kinda agree that… eh… It wasn’t very awesomely great. 😣

The stage looked stupid with just SL’s drums, SA was once again shoved to the side where we could barely see him (but could hear him plenty!), the sound overall was kinda off (or maybe it was because of my location, but the drums sounded REALLY loud at times, almost drowned out rest of the instruments. Altho… what instruments? 🤔)…

But the biggest problem of all: Jared’s voice.

It’s fucking DESTROYED, guys. GONE.

Yes on some songs he sounded ok, even quite good on occasion. But overall, he cannot do a full show like a proper rock singer should.

And true to form, he skipped out on a lot of the lyrics (either he let SA sing, or the audience had to sing), and when he did sing (“sing”) he sounded BAD. Multiple times extremely off key and basically just shouted/screamed his way through the songs. There is no way on earth that anyone with ears could claim he sounded good!

Sheep would try no doubt, but lemme tell ya: Lies! Lies, lies, lies!

I think the only song which sounded at least half decent was “Stay”. It’s not a very challenging song anyway, so that one he still manages ok. Everything else… uh. 🙉

youtube

But it is what it is, I guess... Can´t turn back the clock and undo years of damage!

And that yelling is not helping what little he has left...

youtube

I did enjoy JL calling me and my fellow upstairs residents “BALCONY MONKEY MOTHERFUCKERS” tho. 🐒

Been called worse before! HA! 😂

Overall I would say that had I not had the IG Live peeps keeping me company throughout the show, I would have been majorly bored. There really was nothing even remotely interesting happening on stage (not counting Naked Dancing Dude!), and traveling across an actual ocean just for that show...

Not really worth it, gotta say.

If someone asks me if I would recommend buying a ticket, I would have to say no - based on the actual show, I mean. it just really does not offer any great “WOW” moments.

But on a personal level and by taking into account the WHOLE experience, counting the entire weekend etc., I will rank this as one of my better vacays for sure! And a big part of that is thanks to ALL YOU who joined and shared it with me, so THANK YOU! 💗

Report over and out!

#30 Seconds To Mars #sweden #yeehaw #jared leto #shannon leto #duo #i like bringing things up #you should know that by now

99 notes · View notes

freak1ish · 1 year

Text

❛I'm a biotic not a miracle worker. ❜

#/ the page is out of print / ( open starters )#/ It is hard to let go sometimes / ( Mass effect verse )#/ into the void / ( queue )

0 notes

moonichor-blog · 6 years

Text

TAGGED: @kintsuggi TAGGING: listen.

LAYER ONE: THE OUTSIDE.

NAME. LUNAFREYA NOX FLEURET ( luna / the moon. roman moon goddess and equivalent to selene. freya / ‘the lady’ another form of freyja, the norse goddess associated with fertility, war, death, seidr - a sort of shamanic magic - gold, love & sex. nox / latin for night. fleuret / a sword, or foil - which also is a synonym for to prevent ironically ) EYE COLOUR. sky blue / cyan. ( if you take it in a very microscopic analytical way: the shade of blue that the sky resembles is basically only created by sunlit molecules in the atmosphere. luna is in a very bizarre way a materialized dream of selene’s ‘day-dreaming’ / existing in a mirroring effect opposing her actual self. though we know beyond the blue, there is obscurity and darkness only waiting to be discovered but so majestically hidden, you can only wait till night-time to unveil it, if you can stay for that long. ) HAIR STYLE/COLOUR. golden hair . ( given freyja is associated with the color gold & seidr, in which luna’s healing magic reminds strongly of such, in prowess, and color... her hair color might be manipulated by the genetical anchor that this magic has already bitten itself into ) long locks, mostly styled and pinned up, with sideswap braids fixated across her crown. she certainly needs hair maidens to style her hair each morn HEIGHT. 167cm ( 5 feet 6 inches ) . CLOTHING STYLE. extraordinary, elegant, expensive dresses. casual clothing is worn too with elegance. such as blouses and skirts. clean, and oft lily-white. rarely does she wear black or blue, but would do so occasionally. BEST PHYSICAL FEATURE. her back. ( dont @ me rn, i have an explanation ) its strong and well toned. its the middle ground between fine and firm. stiffened and always straightened when she stands or sits. its a fragment of her strictness and strength in how she carries herself. these shoulder blades, whenever exposed, show those of a saint who does not fear to openly present her best feature indeed.

LAYER TWO: THE INSIDE

YOUR FEARS. actions being in vain. sacrifices done for naught. oh the emotional exposure. YOUR GUILTY PLEASURE. writing a journal / diary. a place to express herself between pages and ink, as a rather cheap replacement for someone to talk to. often in form of poetry or not-so-pleasantly looking drawings does she pour thoughts and sentiments and allows herself to let go of all these harbored things in her mind. YOUR BIGGEST PET PEEVE. being objectified. being seen as trophy or treasure. despite her being used to ‘be’ the holy grail that grants miraculous healing --- she is greatly peeved to be seen as only this. however, she can separate professional duty as oracle and her personal disdain, and her compassion comes with a price. YOUR AMBITIONS FOR THE FUTURE. verse dependent. in most cases to fulfill her purpose, no matter how hard the work may be. / with the exception for one particular verse in which she aims to break free from god-given captivity.

LAYER THREE: THOUGHTS

YOUR FIRST THOUGHTS WAKING UP . there is a specific blankness. WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT MOST . knowing about things she will not be able to reach for, nor would she accomplish certain things, given her confined limitations. rationally she is not a fan of day dreaming and far too devoted to her duties and the prophecy. WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT BEFORE BED . everything. too much. wondering if she did enough. wondering if her knowledge will be enough for the next day, and if not, how much would she need to learn? how long would it take to get back to the sky and how long would it take to carry this body that has her skin but feels not as her right type of skin. how much longer must she endure only to lay into bed the next day and ask the same questions. / most likely, leading back to her objectification pet peeve, and how A CERTAIN SOMEONE does exactly the opposite and it’s tearing her apart and draws her away to think about something else than what she devoted herself to. YOU THINK YOUR BEST QUALITY IS . to fake a smile. to fake stability. to emotionally detach herself and if she doesn’t, knowing how to stay.

LAYER FOUR: WHAT’S BETTER?

SINGLE OR GROUP DATES. single . TO BE LOVED OR RESPECTED. respected . ( some inner desire of her says to be loved, but it’s greatly overshadowed by her rational wish to be respected, to be treated right, which sometimes you cannot receive with love. sometimes you face disrespect, or are not treated the way you expect, even when you are loved, and she is aware of that. ) BEAUTY OR BRAINS. brains . DOGS OR CATS. both. whilst the moon has a certain relationship to canine-animals ( example, wolves howling to the moon ) freyja has a fondness to cats.

LAYER FIVE: DO YOU…

LIE. yes . BELIEVE IN YOURSELF . barely , though, forcefully. BELIEVE IN LOVE. as a rarity . WANT SOMEONE. hah.

LAYER SIX: EVER BEEN…

BEEN ON STAGE. yes, mostly speeches / preaches / gospel. and eventually the ceremony of the ascension as oracle required a public first healing performance DONE DRUGS. no, not for addiction purposes. rather medication, if any. CHANGED WHO YOU WERE TO FIT IN. yes & no, afford to blend in with the casual masses she cannot in her grander role as public figure. she is in fact very much residing in utter distance from where she could fit in, therefore she did not change who she was, willingly. / she only attempted to ‘fit in’ on her getaway from the empire, and during travels across Eos, only to not out-stand too much and get caught on the long run. less extravagant clothing and hairstyles was all she did for that. old habits die hard though, such as extremely formal speech and her posture.

LAYER SEVEN: FAVORITES

FAVORITE COLOR. white / silver and black. FAVORITE ANIMAL. she appreciates any animal FAVORITE MOVIE. she is more into books than anything. though she would enjoy drama & thrillers FAVORITE GAME. chess certainly.

LAYER EIGHT: AGE

DAY YOUR NEXT BIRTHDAY WILL BE. tuesday, 4th of september. HOW OLD WILL YOU BE. 25 years as mortal ( which is a lie, she doesn’t even reach 25, she dies being 24 ) / 4.5+ billion years and onward as selene AGE YOU LOST YOUR VIRGINITY. N / A DOES AGE MATTER. depends on the case. you can be the oldest being, and still be foolish and unwise. intercourse-wise, the age of consent is still something of importance.

LAYER NINE: IN A PERSON

BEST PERSONALITY . ‘contrasting’ / ability to reflect her own madness / humorous enough to make her genuinely laugh / give the feeling of safety & openness BEST EYE COLOR . any BEST HAIR COLOR . any BEST THING TO DO WITH A PARTNER . existing / feeling / closeness / honesty ( very simple and base things but as humane as they are, its something she is not very practiced with )

LAYER TEN: FINISH THE SENTENCE

I LOVE. balance / chaos I FEEL. light / heavy / chained / caged I HIDE. nothing / everything I MISS. my body I WISH. for release.

#✶ GOSPEL of the oracle.#/ queue.#yes i analyzed her eye color u can all fight me in hell or something #/ long post

3 notes · View notes

nearlyhuman · 7 years

Text

Long Post: An explanation about what anarchism is, why i’m an anarchist, and why it’s such a big part of my life all of a sudden

[[Since I don’t have much time before I need to get back to my homework, I am not going to edit this post super carefully to make sure I don’t sound like a dork or a narcissist. This post isn’t really meant for random followers, but people who know me irl. And I hope the people who know me irl don’t think i’m a narcissist and forgive me for being a dork. ]]

Beginning two years ago but not really taking root until a year-ish ago, anarchism became an idea in my mind with increasing pull and importance. As it has become a bigger inspiration and influence in my life/brain, I’ve brought it up in countless conversations and for the most part get blank stares, confusion, misconception, or the impression that the person i’m talking to wants to leave immediately because i’m scaring them or weirding them out or coming on too strong or w/e. I accepted, several months ago, that I can’t keep bringing it up if people aren’t interested. But recent weeks have made me realize that I should at least explain myself somewhere, once, in an impersonal setting, just to avoid constantly feeling like i’m weirding people out or confusing them.

A foundational value in my life, spanning all kinds of religious metamorphoses, is the concept/verse “to those who have been given much. much will be expected.” In left-speak, I’m a Person of Privilege. I have been given access to a lot of things and have not faced hurdles many others have faced. I do not believe it is fine for me to simply enjoy my life however is easiest or happiest for myself -- I believe I had a god-given responsibility, a sacred duty to the world -- to give back, not just tithe-percentages but wholeheartedly.

That core value has driven me, again, from a young age, to self-educate about how the world works, and to be keenly invested in caring about the welfare of others, especially those who are extra vulnerable, disadvantaged, exploited, and oppressed. As I’ve slowly learned bit by bit, my attention has changed -- instead of focusing, for example, on the problem of suicide itself, I now invest more energy in the systems which create and allow for suicides to occur in epidemic proportions. While searching for the roots of the problems and the places where impact can be greatest and change is needed most urgently, I’ve been compelled to learn more and more about government, legislation, and those in power. Politics. That word everyone hates and removes from their own lives, but is really encompassing everything we do/think/are, every day, all the time.

For a long time, the world of politics seemed like this enormous, hopeless, endless tangle of corruption and arbitrary interpretations of morality and justice and who has a right to what. It felt like there were good guys and bad guys on every side, that things were always convoluted, that no movement ever made sense for that long. None of it ever felt right, reliable, honest, trustworthy, or transparent.

And then, I learned about anarchism.

When most people that I know discuss politics, there are roughly two sides. Sometimes people are vaguely aware of a third of fourth, but still, it’s largely a dichotomy. But what makes a Republican a Republican? What is the Republican platform, philosophically and policy-wise? What is a democrat? if you were to sit down and try to write a paper on what democrat ideology is, or what republican ideology is, could you do it? Do you know where the economics come from? Where the sense of authority comes from? Where the morality comes from? I think most of us just have these really vague notions about them, like “Republicans like small government and democrats like big government,” or “Republicans are christians and democrats are atheist.” But even these vague notions are usually pretty wrong -- for example, Republicans LOVE a large government regarding social justice issues, and there are MANY Christian denominations that are more populated by Democrats than Republicans. So what are these parties and how did they get so much power in our nation that they’re the only two platforms that Really Matter? Why do we accept the power they hold? Why do so many of us register as one or the other, and then vote down the ticket pretty much all one or all the other? When we don’t even know what they are and can only pick or choose a couple issues here and there that we feel like we maybe have kind of gotten a grasp of, like gay rights or abortion or gun control.

So to explain anarchism and avoid that enormous mess about parties and what we think we accept even when we don’t understand it, let’s start at the beginning, and leave all preconceived notions behind.

Who do you trust to be an authority over the world? who do you trust to be an authority over your life? Why? The people in power are not a special breed of person -- they don’t obtain power because they are more intelligent, more discerning, stronger of character, or more stable. For the most part, they obtain power because a) they want it and b) they’ve decided to spend their lives figuring out how to get it. And so now we’ve found ourselves in a society with myriad arbitrary laws dictating whether or not we can buy raw milk, who is permitted to marry who, that we can’t smoke weed but we can drink all the alcohol we want, that it’s okay to prescribe opiates regardless of alternatives/risks, that mass incarceration happens, police brutality happens, occupying other people’s countries and homes happens, patriarchy happens, white supremacy happens, that healthcare and justice can be bought only by those with wealth, and that wealth dictates everything. Seriously, from the nutrients we eat to the ratio of time we spend caring for ourselves to the lawyers we can afford to the healthcare we can afford to the education we can obtain to the amount of safety we can purchase etc etc. The more you know, the more evidence you see that having people calling the shots about how your personal world/life should go either don’t have your best interest in mind at all or don’t have the information and position they need to be in in order to make good decisions for you. Any direction that you look in -- economically, socially, geographically, culturally, you name it -- the people in power have really screwed us all over, majorly. And those of us w/ a decent amount of privilege can get by okay, most of the time. But it’s a sharp ledge to fall off when your luck runs out, when you quit winning the life-lottery that put you in a position of relative safety. Everyone hits that patch at some point. They get sexually assaulted. they can’t pay a debt. they find themselves with a chronic illness or a disease. will the system have your back when it happens to you? Look around and see that it absolutely will not.

Okay, so, I’ve made a broad, quick case for why having a small subset of people in power over the rest of the world sucks. In anarchist lingo, we refer to that problem as being a problem of hierarchy. The idea of anarchism is to create a world without hierarchy. Again, PLEASE, keep leaving your preconceived notions at the door. Don’t bring up but what about X republican idea or X democrat idea and don’t bring up black masks and molotov cocktails, just hang back so we can keep working this out from scratch.

So what does anarchism suggest? It suggests that we should be able to directly make our own choices in our lives. It suggests that we, the people, know what’s best for ourselves and can solve our own problems and make our own decisions and call our own shots. In effect, that means, instead of having a CEO or board make decisions about what millions of employees do, employees make decisions for themselves. Instead of having a department of education deciding what curriculum is being taught to our kids/us, we get to choose what we want to learn. Instead of having a department of state deciding when to draft us and send us into combat, we decide how to protect ourselves and make ourselves safe. We get to decide where to live, who we want to live with, who we want to work with, what we want to belong to, and how we make our communities work. Anarchism hinges upon the idea that, despite the fact that hierarchies have hit our culture hard (intelligence/information/mental health/opportunity-wise,) people WANT GOOD THINGS and can make decisions for themselves. People are a social species. By nature, we love to work together. We have families, we have friends, we seek community and partnership. We succeed when we cooperate and not when someone else makes our decisions for us and we are forced to comply. By giving power back to people, to be self-determining, we will be able to make progress together. And that governments and economic hierarchies that pose as being for our benefit/motivation/safety are actually ultimately getting in the way, and need to be dismantled and replaced with more cooperative, collaborative, empowered systems in order for civilization to avoid its descent into a melted planet where a tiny group has everything and the rest of us/our ancestors either die or get effectively enslaved.

Honestly, the anarchist platform is kind of easier to understand than the Republican one or the Democrat one or the Libertarian one. It’s pretty simple. And we teach it to ourselves in all kinds of other situations. You know, all of that language about believing in ourselves and being empowered and being independent and knowing our worth and knowing what’s best for us and making or own decisions and respecting each other’s decisions and goals and dreams? We all talk about that all of the time! It’s just expected that if you’re a decent friend, you talk to your friends like that and you treat them like that. So anarchism really just takes what people sort of already understand on an internal/personal level and then expands that to encompass everything else, too. It’s not a big leap. Once you make it, it seems incredibly obvious.

And that’s why it’s become so important in my life. I mean, for one, it’s beautiful and optimistic. Two, it’s really not a change at ALL from how I already lived and thought, it’s just putting how I lived and thought into a larger context. Three, it has helped the world make so much more sense to me -- it’s like Occam’s razor. If you apply an anarchist perspective to almost any problem, it’s solved pretty easily and neatly. Respect autonomy. Mind your business. Help your neighbor. Work together. Don’t oppress anyone. Don’t push anyone around. Be independent. Build what you want and what you love.

So anyway. I’ll probably keep editing this post and improving it as time goes by because this is a rough draft on an important topic that will probably influence all kinds of things forever, unless I one day change my mind.

#my life #anarchism #long post

5 notes · View notes

siirensung · 7 years

Note

Hello :) My name is Dani and first of all let me tell you that I LOVE your writing. I literally sit and read how you interact with others for HOURS and seeing you and a couple of the people you write with gave me the inspiration to create an indie blog for my bb Reyes. That being said, I've never had an indie rp before but I've figured the basics with the rules, verses, etc. Could you please give me some suggestions on how to approach people or get this thing started? I'd thank you forever

asldkfh that’s so sweet of you omg what the fuck

HELL YEAH OKIE DOKIE first thing first: the best way to learn how to indie rp is just to follow a bunch of people and sort of pick and choose the different techniques you like to resemble. that what i did. i came from a long experience of closed group rping with no formatting, and just sort of floated with the indie trends that came and out, and kept the ones i like. i’m gonna tell you how I consider indie rping, which isn’t law or bible or anything, but this is what i look for when i’m looking to follow people!

first, the technical shit

RULES. i’m gonna go over things you say you already know, because there are some. hidden things that people sort of silently expect. in your rules, you must have your name/alias, your pronouns, your age (the terms ‘minor’ or ‘18+’ are sufficient, you don’t need to give your exact age but you NEED to tell people if you’re a minor or not), and your triggers (again, no detail necessary, just tell us what we should tag for you). these are the necessities and the rest is up to you. make your rules clear and concise, and on the short side. it helps to bold important things so people can skim and find them easily. personally, i like seeing people’s shipping policies. bc i’m a shipping slut. are you single ship? multiship? do you prefer not to ship? are you exclusive?

SELECTIVITY. on that note. let people know about your selectivity. do you want to play with anyone who follows you? do you only want to play with mutual followers (people you follow who follow you back)? i, as well as (almost) everyone i follow, are mutuals only. don’t feel guilty if you want to follow this route, and don’t let people talk you into playing with people you don’t want to play with. this blog is yours and your time is yours. spend it how you choose.

EXCLUSIVITY. along the same vein, let people know about your policy on exclusivity – which basically means that there are certain blogs of characters and theirs is the only blog of that character with whom you will play. this is entirely up to you. personally, i don’t do it and i never will. but be sure to let people know if you do! make sure to be honest. make sure you’re comfortable with your rules.

then, the aesthetic shit

REPRESENTATION. the first glance. the first eye contact. generally, this is the mobile preview. have a cool looking mobile banner! it attracts the eye! you don’t need to be a photoshop god for this, either. minimalism is in. a dark screenshot of your character that blends in with the color of your mobile background is hella neat. make sure the color is eye-friendly. black, white, cream, soft tones. if a mobile preview is lime green or shocking blue, i won’t give it a second look. My Eyes, They Bleed. then make sure you have SOMEWHERE on your mobile preview the bare minimum of your blog’s explanation. it doesn’t need to be long. in fact, i tend to like short ones. minimalism, man. for example, mine: ‘multimuse rp blog: dragon age and mass effect canon and ocs’. i’m saying what this blog is: an rp blog. i’m saying what KIND of rp blog: a multimuse. what fandoms i cater to: dragon age and mass effect. what characters you expect to find here: canon and ocs. sometimes people will put their name, too. (also, warn people if you have an autoplay. just write ‘ap’ or ‘autoplay’. people know.)

REPRESENTATION PART 2. piggybacking on all that: promos. gotta have a promo. this is how people find you, and how you can spread the word about your cool new blog. (tag it with the audiences you want to attract. such as: mass effect rp, mass effect roleplay, bioware rp, bioware roleplay, star wars rp, etc etc. the mass effect fandom isn’t all that huge. consider expanding with crossovers to other space fandoms, such as star wars and star trek. we’re buddies.) it can be as simple as the icon promo trend, where you have a horizontal line of icons of your character followed by ‘like/reblog if you’re interested in playing with (character name)! written by (your name).’ it can be that chill. sometimes it can be dramatic. just make sure it’s tasteful. try to avoid gaudy. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS (this is my pet peeve) INCLUDE YOUR CHARACTER’S NAME AND THE FANDOM NAME. i die inside every time i have no idea who this promo is for.

THEME. the second glance. your blog’s handshake. first – and sometimes last – impression. same rules as the preview and the promo, make it tasteful or make it minimalist. make it easy to follow. if you’re not confident in your aesthetic or ps skills, the white blogs with a simple pic of your character in the sidebar is in right now. leave it open to interpretation. theme-hunter is where i get all my themes, for the most part. if you want some cool theme suggestions, let me know! you may end up interested in html through theme aesthetic and wANTING IT TO BE PERFECT. like me. hehe. anywho – you’ll see a lot of Hyper Aesthetic Themes. try not to get worried about them. the most important thing is that your links to your rules, verses, dossier (if you have one), and ask are clear. the writing is easy to read.

also, the replying shit

FORMATTING. okay so formatting is a Minefield right now. personally, i really enjoy formatting! my formatting trick is: twenty spaces before each paragraph to simulate tabs, bolding quotation marks and putting a space between the marks and the dialogue, ( doing this to parentheses and quite frankly using Way too many parentheses ), BOLDING AND CAPSING emotive words or phrases, italicizing things for emphasis, using small font (and sometimes tiny font). but DON’T overdo it. still, the point is legibility. it’s your choice to use formatting at all. i like it a lot, it helps me Feel the writing and reply. it’s also your choice to use small or tiny font, but… i’ma be honest. i really really do prefer when people use small or tiny font. people are pushing back against tiny font bc it can be really hard to read, so i tend to just use small font (unless my partner uses tiny font). to small font (on pc): select all the text, ctrl shift minus sign. to use tiny font: use small font, then ctrl comma.

ICONNING. again, another minefield. as we speak, rp icons are getting smaller and smaller. my icons at 80x80 with a 2px border, and i often times use a psd. if you get your icons from somewhere, credit that place. i frequently make my own, but not always. as a personal favor, don’t go smaller than 75px… the icons… they’re shrinking…

SPEED. go at your own speed! i cannot stress the importance of this. i’m currently suffering from depression and some Shit, so i may be on the dash a lot, but my reply speed is frequently outstripped by passing snails. don’t write if you’re not feeling it. don’t feel pressured to do it. personally, the majority of the fun of rping is plotting with your partner and obsessing over your character. people love to see people enthusiastic about their kid. that’s why they followed you. bc they love your kid, too. if you have a thread you’re not feeling, be honest! TALK TO YOUR PARTNER.

COMMUNICATION. on that note! get to know your rp partners. love them. cherish them. tell them they’re wonderful. tell them when you’re not feeling a thread. don’t suffer in silence. drop threads. treat yoself. also, follow ALL THE PEOPLE. they may not follow you back. don’t tug at them if they don’t. follow people and make sure you have examples of your writing on your page, even if it’s just a long headcanon or drabble. like a cover letter.

WRITING. third person. i think i can be pretty confident about this: only third person. i use present tense for the most part, but present or past tense. sometimes there are oneliners (replies that are usually just dialogue, maybe with a lil but of narrative for actions, usually spur of the moment and dropped after the moment is gone). there are short paras (generally 1-3 paragraphs of varying sizes). there are long paras (4-6 paras, usually for plotting). there are Novella (6+ for the Intense Future Tolkiens i can’t do this i’m a dr seuss).

TAGGING. can be pretty simple. as a multi, i have too many characters to have thorough tagging systems. a lot of people have different tags for like. aesthetic, musing, visage, headcanons, etc. mine is simple. each character has an in character thread tag: * ｡✧ ━ ⦅ character: scott. ⦆. also, a musing tag: * ｡✧ ━ ⦅ musing: scott. ⦆. a headcanon tag: * ｡✧ ━ ⦅ headcanon: scott. ⦆. sometimes a ship tag: * ｡✧ ━ ⦅ scott & liam: just frame the halves and call them brothers. ⦆. and you MUST have an out of character tag, where it’s just you talking, and you must tag every post of just you talking with it: * ｡✧ ━ ⦅ out of character. ⦆. it must be clear. you can make them fancy and pretty like this. i like them. it’s not necessary. also: tag any triggers. important. search your partners’ rules for their triggers. if someone asks you to tag a trigger, do it without a second thought.

lastly, the important shit

HAVE FUN! we’re all here for the same reason. we love mass effect. WE LOVE SPACE. there will always be aggression and elitism and hurt feelings in the indie rp community. always. try not to let it bring you down. play nice. kindergarten rules. enjoy!

let me know if you have more questions/want more detail!

don’t reblog this

#long post cw #I'M SURE I FORGOT THINGS #OR I TOOK THIS THE WRONG WAY AND WENT MORE INTO LIKE #THE FUNCTION OF INDIE??#idk Let Me Know i'm fine with explaining more #Again this is just my take on indie rping #everyone is different #rxysvidal #let me know if you want this rebloggable i can post it elsewhere #let me know if you want me to make a suggestions list #also check out my recommendations tag in my nav #for some Hella Cool Kids

4 notes · View notes

inkspot-fox · 7 years

Text

Mortality

(Scourge/Jedi Knight, Sunspots-verse)

To prove that I’m still working on Sunspots, I wrote a thing that is not Sunspots but is Sunspots-compliant. Look I’m trying okay.

This is the precursor to Armor. Also, despite the way it begins, there is nothing explicit. This should be work-safe. There is, however, mention of suicidal thoughts, and everyone should remember that Kat's relationship with Scourge is not a healthy one.

In which Scourge and Katsulas have a moment alone after they’re finally reunited on Odessen, and Scourge discovers the scar on Kat’s abdomen.

Mortality

Scourge smothers Katsulas like an avalanche the instant they’re alone. Potential energy in the form of worry and longing stored up over five years is finally unleashed with singular focus. Kat’s back hits the wall with enough force to knock the wind from his lungs, and when he gasps, Scourge’s mouth crushes his own and steals what air he has left. Kat makes a muffled, pained noise of protest, but instead of letting go, the hands curled around his biceps squeeze hard enough to bruise his dark skin through his clothing. “Five years,” Scourge snarls against Kat’s mouth. “Where were you?”

“Frozen in fucking carbonite,” Katsulas growls back, “in Arcann’s personal goddamn trophy room.”

Scourge pulls just far enough away to stare at him, but his grip doesn’t loosen.

“You’re hurting me,” Katsulas says through gritted teeth.

“I always hurt you,” Scourge retorts, but this time he lets go. “Normally you enjoy that.”

The last of Kat’s energy drains out of him, leaving him feeling cold, hollow, and utterly exhausted. He’d been so happy to see Scourge at first, enough that he’d forgotten how intense Scourge can be in all the wrong ways. Forgotten how accustomed Scourge is to feeding off of Kat’s anger more than anything else, because anger is easy and happiness is so rare for Kat. Pleasure is the closest they ever come to joy.

Sometimes, Katsulas thinks back to the dilapidated temple where he'd spent a few weeks in hiding after he'd left the Jedi Order for the first time. He remembers lying on the stone roof and thinking about how high up he was and how long it would take him to hit the jungle floor. He remembers Scourge carrying him off the cold roof and wrapping him first in a warm blanket on the couch, and then in his own massive arms. He remembers Scourge pressing gentle kisses to the top of his head and, hours later, to the hollow of his throat and the side of his thigh.

Katsulas wishes he didn't have to be suicidal for Scourge to treat him with gentleness. And while he doesn't actively want to die right at this second, he still feels too brittle for more bruises.

Katsulas sags against the wall. “Not...not tonight, Scourge. Not tonight.”

Scourge’s fists clench. His gauntlets creak and his red eyes narrow. “Fine,” he says through gritted teeth, and abruptly he turns to leave.

“Scourge?” Kat’s confusion turns to panic as he realizes that Scourge believes he’s been spurned. “No, wait!” Kat lunges away from the wall and catches Scourge’s cape. “That’s not...that’s not what I meant.”

Scourge turns and stares wordlessly at Katsulas. His expression is flat and unreadable.

Kat tightens his hand in the cape, bunching the black fabric between his fingers. “Dammit, Scourge, you complete ass. I missed you.” His mouth pinches briefly, and the creases beneath his eyes deepen with exhaustion. “Though at this very moment, I’m beginning to question why.”

Scourge remains silent for long enough that Kat almost gives up. He’s about to let go of the cape when finally, Scourge says: “I searched for you. The entire galaxy was convinced of your death, but I would have sensed your passing. Your signature faded, but did not extinguish.”

Kat says nothing.

Scourge steps in close to him and takes ahold of Kat’s arms again, but his grip is more gentle this time. “And then, when it returned to full strength, all I could sense was Vitiate.”

Katsulas tenses. “I’m not possessed. He doesn’t control me, Scourge, you know that. And he’s gone, anyway, I told--”

“I am aware,” Scourge says, cutting him off. His fingers squeeze more tightly around Kat’s arms, but not quite enough to bruise. “Otherwise I would not have returned. I came back for you, Katsulas.”

Of course, Kat thinks as he stares up at Scourge’s face. How selfish of me. “Right… you need me in order to feel, and it's been five years for you.” Kat drops his gaze back down and stares blankly forward at Scourge's chest. He closes his eyes and his shoulders sag. He's so tired. “But I don't have anything for you right now.”

“Katsulas--”

“I was happy to see you,” Katsulas says abruptly. His fingertips dig into his palms. He can feel his own throat tightening, and a deep ache begins to swell above his sternum. “I was happy. And then you… Why can't that be enough?”

In the long seconds of silence that follow, Kat wishes he hadn't said anything. He wishes he'd kept his stupid mouth shut. He wishes he could be stronger than this, and that he could stop sounding like a fragile, pathetic child all the time. He wishes he could live up to being the Hero that Scourge saw in his vision three hundred years ago.

Scourge sighs, and Kat feels the hands on his biceps loosen and slide around to his back. Scourge pulls Katsulas against him. “It is enough,” Scourge says. “I enjoy your delight, when you feel it. But you feel happiness so rarely, Katsulas. It is often more effective to drive you towards anger.”

Katsulas curls his arms around Scourge's torso and presses his forehead to Scourge’s sternum. “I can’t do that tonight,” he whispers. “I can’t. I was so happy to see you, and then…”

Katsulas feels Scourge shift, pulling slightly away so that he can bend down and tilt Kat’s face up towards his own. Katsulas isn’t sure, but he thinks he might be able to see a hint of warmth in Scourge’s flat red eyes before he covers Kat’s mouth with his own. This time, Katsulas doesn’t protest. He presses hungrily up into the kiss and threads his fingers into the front of Scourge’s cape. Kat feels the hand on his jaw shift to curl through his thick black hair and settle at the back of his head, holding him in place. Scourge’s other hand dips from the span between his shoulderblades to the small of his back and up underneath the hem of his shirt to press against his bare skin.

Katsulas forgets all about the mottled, circular mass of scar tissue until Scourge runs his palm over it and goes very, very still.

Then Scourge pulls away, tight-lipped and scowling, and turns Katsulas around before he can protest. Katsulas can’t see his expression as he lifts the hem of Kat’s shirt higher and stares at the livid scars--stark and pale against his dark skin--but he can hear the anger in Scourge’s voice as he asks, “How did this happen?”

Katsulas closes his eyes and swallows, bracing himself for a fight that he doesn’t have the energy for. “Arcann. He found us on Asylum shortly after we escaped from the Spire. He managed to run me through, I shoved him off the building.”

Scourge reaches around and feels beneath the front of Kat’s shirt where he finds the other, matching scar. “This should have been fatal,” Scourge growls.

Katsulas exhales slowly. “Vitiate kept me alive. And no, I didn’t ask him to.”

Scourge turns Katsulas back around to face him again, both hands on Kat’s shoulders, and when Katsulas looks up at Scourge’s face, the expression he finds there is… strange. Scourge’s lips are thinned and his eyes are just a little wider than usual. “How could you be so careless?” Scourge asks, his voice harsh.

Kat narrows his eyes. “Vitiate threw me off-balance by pulling me outside the flow of time and offering his power to me,” he grits out, his jaw clenched. “I refused his obvious attempt at manipulation, and when Vitiate let me go, all of my defenses were down.”

Scourge’s lips thin even further, and he looks back down at Kat’s abdomen. “You shouldn’t have--”

“What? Shouldn’t have fucking what, Scourge?” Katsulas shouts. “Shouldn’t have refused?”

“That is not--”

“Shouldn’t have let my guard down while Vitiate was literally fucking with my perception of time?” Katsulas balls his fists and presses his forearms over his abdomen, directly above the hole-shaped scar. “Fuck you, Scourge. You weren’t there. You weren’t fucking there.” Kat’s shoulders hunch, and he feels small and cold and miserable. “I just said I don’t want to do this, Scourge. I don’t want to fight. Just stop.”

The grip on Kat’s shoulders loosens, but Scourge doesn’t let go or move away. After a moment, he says, “In all the years I have known you, I have never seen you come so close to death.”

Katsulas says nothing. He stares at Scourge’s boots.

“You could have died, and I would not have even been there.”

“Yeah, well,” Katsulas mutters after a moment, “I can’t actually blame you for keeping your distance.”

Kat doesn’t resist when Scourge pulls him close again and wraps his arms tightly around his shoulders. “I will not leave you again,” Scourge promises. He kisses the top of Kat’s head.

Katsulas closes his eyes and takes a slow, deep breath. He lets it out and nods once against Scourge’s chest. “I missed you,” he says quietly.

“I missed you, too.”

#swtor #lord scourge #oc: katsulas #jedi knight #Star Wars The Old Republic #fic: sunspots #etienne writes fic

32 notes · View notes

lady-divine-writes · 7 years

Text

Kurtbastian fic - “A Dalton Boy in the Void” (Rated NC17)

Kurt needs Sebastian's total surrender, and he has interesting means of getting it. (1650 words)

Written for @lilinas's Bitchmas prompt 'sound', and takes place probably over Christmas break, maybe some time after. I know it's a bit on the short side, but to be honest, these holiday challenge prompts strike me as the kinds of things that are fulfilled with snippets, not fully fleshed out chapters. This is a glimpse into what they do together, and I think it stands fine as is.

Warning for bondage, blindfolds, vibrators, sensory deprivation, and sensory overload.

Read on AO3.

“What kind of music you into, preppy?” Kurt asks, but it’s a rhetorical question. With the red ball gag in Sebastian’s mouth, larger than their usual, and secured extra tight, pulling his cheeks back into an open-mouth grimace, Sebastian can’t answer. He can only sniff thru his nose and drool uncontrollably – not exactly an attractive look, but it makes Kurt smile. But Kurt isn’t looking at him right now, pacing with his iPod in his hands, switching between playlists in search of the perfect one.

And by perfect, he means one that will wear at the corners of Sebastian’s sanity. He needs Sebastian raw, frayed, a trembling mass of nerves and reflexes, utterly disoriented. He wants to alter time in Sebastian’s mind, turn the world on its head.

He needs Sebastian’s total surrender.

And Kurt has decided to get it with a cocktail of sensory deprivation and overload.

“Because I see you as a Top 40s sort of boy.” Kurt walks back and forth in front of his sub who can’t see him - a black, silk blindfold secured over his eyes; and can’t touch him - arms bound straight out at his sides. All Sebastian can do is listen as Kurt talks; feel as Kurt preps him for today’s session by securing a vibrating wand up his ass, and another to his cock with bondage tape. “But that’s a symptom of being a Warbler. I mean, do they even sing anything else?” Kurt pauses. In the space, Sebastian tries to grumble an answer. When nothing intelligible comes out of Sebastian’s mouth, just a grunt and more drool, Kurt continues. “No. That’s right, preppy. They don’t. But seeing as it is Christmas time, I think we’ll pick something more traditional. Festive.”

Kurt walks up to Sebastian and stands face to face with him, nose to nose so that Sebastian knows he’s there.

“How do you feel about carols, preppy? Oh, wait a minute.” Kurt snickers. “You sing with a show choir, so I know you love them.”

Sebastian groans inside his head because Christmas carols and sex? Not his favorite combination. Jamie tried to blow him once while “Silent Night” played in the background. Sebastian isn’t at all religious, but the big, swelling, dramatic choir singing their praises to the baby Jesus killed his boner dead.

“So, now that we’ve got that settled, we’ll just stick these over your ears …” Kurt fits a pair of noise cancelling headphones onto Sebastian’s head, the earpieces completely covering his ears. They work so well that, if Kurt says anything after that, Sebastian doesn’t hear him. He doesn’t hear anything until the music starts, and when it does, he wishes more than anything that he could go back to the quiet.

Kurt switches the vibrators on at contrasting speeds – the one on his cock to high while the one in his ass simmers at a medium pulse-pulse-stop, pulse-pulse-stop, mere centimeters away from his prostate. After that, Sebastian feels nothing else from Kurt. In fact, Sebastian doesn’t know whether Kurt leaves or not. He sure as hell can’t hear him, and with the spreader bar between his ankles pushing his legs apart, then tied to the bed frame in a way that keeps him elevated on his toes, vibrations on the floor are muffled.

Sebastian tries to remain stoic with “Jingle Bell Rock” blasting in his ears – not loud enough to hurt, but loud enough to be fucking annoying, so much so that by the first refrain, he’s already done with this Christmas carol bullshit. But before too long, the song finishes, and Sebastian takes a breather. That’s fine. He got through that one. Now to focus on the next one. There’s got to be hundreds of Christmas carols in the world. Even if one or two repeat, it’ll be fine. He realizes that these songs are going to become his sole focus, and that should be a blessing since it’ll effectively block out everything else. The wand buzzing in his ass, taunting his prostate - he can shove that aside. The vibrator strapped to his cock - that he can ignore, too, as long as he has the crutch of this music in his head.

As long as he concentrates on loathing it, then everything will be fine.

Except it’s not.

Because the next song that comes up on the playlist is –

Rockin’ around the Christmas tree at the Christmas party hop …

Jesus Christ! Did Kurt just put this one song on repeat? Why would he do that?

Because he’s a sadistic bastard, Sebastian thinks, the tiny voice in his head following that up with duh.

It takes a few minutes of listening, a few minutes of seething, but Sebastian realizes that no. Kurt did something way worse than just put this one song on repeat, because after one more full repetition of “Jingle Bell Rock”, it plays again, stops in the middle, and jumps to the next song – “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”

But as nerve rattling as that is, it’s actually somewhat of a relief. It takes Sebastian’s mind off of how irritating this is by giving him the chance to judge.

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The official anthem for white saviors everywhere? Does anyone even listen to this song anymore? Why in the world would Kurt have this?

Two verses in, Sebastian knows why.

For one, it’s obnoxious as hell, but with its repetitive refrain, it becomes demonic when messed with. It starts to slow down, the voices in the chorus melting, becoming cartoonish, disturbing. Then it skids, actually makes a scratching noise like a needle being pulled off a record, which is jarring as shit. Sebastian can’t help but be impressed by Kurt’s conviction to the devious that he would find a digital file with the inclusion of a record scratch.

But as the music in the headset continues, not a single song plays to the end. It throws him off, sets his teeth on edge. They would grind except for the ball gag in his mouth keeping his jaw separate. Because of all of the skips and jumps, songs stopping in the middle, rewinding to the beginning and starting over again, and then becoming other songs – sometimes seamlessly, sometimes not – Sebastian can’t determine how long he’s been there.

The vibrating on his cock has long since stopped feeling anything close to good. Now it’s just pure pain, the buzzing on his skin like the drilling of a small, hard needle into his penis. As for the one in his ass, it’s giving him a headache. He feels the vibrations in the base of his skull, the dark behind the blindfold shuddering. He doesn’t see it with his eyes, but with his brain, and it’s making his forehead numb. His upper lip itches, and he needs to sneeze. He pulls his arms in reflexively to rub the sensation away, but between the cuffs and the ropes keeping his arms outstretched, he’s tied too tight.

Sebastian can’t hear the noises he makes over the music playing in the headphones - stopping, starting, scratching, playing backwards - not even in his own head, but what he feels coming up from his chest and working its way around the ball gag seems almost animal. And it doesn’t stop, his throat going dry, forcing a cough out of him so violent, it’s hard to breathe.

The music stops dead. Sebastian doesn’t register the cut off, so he doesn’t relax, hanging on the beveled edge for the next horrible rendition of “Jingle Bell Rock” to begin. Maybe it’ll be at double speed. Maybe it’ll be in Spanish. Maybe it’ll be at double speed and in Spanish – backwards. But the music doesn’t return. The headphones hugging the sides of his face release, lifting off his head and away.

“Okay, preppy, okay,” Kurt coos. “Let’s get you unhooked before I liquefy your brain.”

Sebastian’s ears ring with the remnants of “Jingle Bell Rock”. Kurt removes the ball gag. When the straps are undone and the gag removed, Sebastian drops his head. He rolls his bottom jaw, sore from clenching around the ball. He opens his mouth to speak, but he has no words, those repeated lyrics pounding in his ears alongside the high-pitched ripping of the record scratch.

Sebastian sniffs. With the ball gag in his mouth and the music in his ears, he hadn’t realized he’d been crying in frustration.

“Oh, preppy,” Kurt coddles condescendingly as he turns off the vibrators and removes them from his sub’s body. “What can I do for you, hmm?”

Sebastian shakes his head. He moves his mouth, but sound has yet to come out, his throat so dry it stings. Kurt grabs a bottle of Aquafina from his bedside table and hands it to Sebastian.

“Here. Have some of this. It’ll make it easier to talk.”

Sebastian nods and cracks the bottle open. Once the water touches his lips and he starts to drink, he doesn’t lower it till it’s empty.

“If I fucked your mouth, would that make you feel better, preppy?”

“Yes, Master,” Sebastian mumbles, tossing the bottle aside and dropping to his knees. He rubs his head against Kurt’s crotch like a dog seeking comfort. Kurt undoes his fly and lowers his jeans down his thighs. He leans forward, positioning the head of his cock at his sub’s lips. This blowjob isn’t gratuitous. Kurt’s not taking advantage. Sebastian needs something to ground him, and his connection to Kurt is the best possible way to do that.

So what if it’s the exact reaction that Kurt was hoping for?

Sebastian whines low in his throat, muttering a quick, “Thank you, Master,” before wrapping his lips around him.

“Anytime,” Kurt moans, throwing his head back as Sebastian makes quick work of taking Kurt’s cock completely down his throat. “You know how much I love to help.”

#kurtbastian #sebkurt #sekurt #frankie writes #Dom!Kurt #sub!Sebastian

36 notes · View notes