#REALITY Part 3

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

FIILE UNDER: '90s UNDERGROUND, DEEP SIX RECORDS, COMPILATIONS, GRAPHIC DESIGN, EXYREME MUSIC, '90s MUSIC, ETC...

PIC(S) INFO: Mega spotlight on sleeve art to "REALITY" Part #2 and Part #3, the second and third installments in the "REALITY" series of compilations by the American grindcore/ powerviolence/hardcore/ sludge/extreme music label, Deep Six Records, released in 1997 and 1999 respectively on both CD and 7 inch vinyl media formats.

Source: https://bloggedquartered.blogspot.com/2017/03/american-powerviolence-from-west-to-rest.html.

[baldursgate3tempobsessed]

Astarion Jealousy Part 2

The graphic extension to this but a lil less serious and definitely not sfw.

CW: Jealous spawn astarion who is still a sweetheart, but the drow twins get under his skin. graphic sex scenes, oral, relatively tame honestly. The sex part will be under the cut btw which is m/f. Also vampire man drinks blood. mentionable incorrect language for sex workers

~

It was odd, being home in Baldur’s Gate without the threat of Cazador always looming. Odd, but equally as wonderful. It had been so thoughtful, if not a little idiotic for Cazador to end up being your first stop in the city. The fight itself had been a blur, a barrage of intense emotions and bloody violence. Astarion had come so close to losing himself back there, losing everything that made him better than the man who almost ruined him. But then… you stopped him. You saw something more in him, a chance for a better life. A more meaningful life, away from the shackles of vampiric power obsessions. 

He was officially free. Now he could exist without any fear of his disgusting master’s retribution. He could just… be. Well… not including his darling’s own myriad of enemies that seemed to follow them about everywhere. And there was still the matter of defeating the elder brain, and lord knows if any of you made it through that alive. But at least his personal demons were slain and out of the picture.

Every little step counted after all. Perhaps some of your delusional hopefulness had finally started to rub off on him, but Astarion was actually starting to look forward to his future. Your future, together. All he had to do was get through a few more perilous adventures and then he’d really have you all to himself. 

All that said, Astarion could really go without the frequent visits to the local brothel. Was it the best place in the city for gathering information? Yes. It seemed that every walk of life in Baldur’s Gate found their way into Shar’s Caress and if you were going to find alternative passage to the underworld, this would be the best place to find it. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. For one there were the unwelcome advances to his own person, the concept of grace and personal space apparently left at the door. He was so very close to breaking the hand of the next person who thought it was appropriate to grab his ass. And if they could afford to get kicked out he would have by now. Your verbal, angry tirades in his defense could only scare off so many. 

But as terrible as his own discomfort was, it was nothing in the face of how often you were being fawned over. What was it about you that seemed to drive everyone mad? Yes you were objectively attractive, but this was frankly getting out of hand. First there was the green skinned druid doing something sensual to your mind, then there were the general stares and whispers as you walked by, and now a pair of gorgeous drow twins trying and failing to proposition you. 

It was getting tiresome. There were only so many times a man could take his lover being offered “free” services before he snapped. 

On one hand, he could respect the dedication they had to the craft. He could be considered something of a hired whore himself in his time, the old, “the first one’s free” was a tried and true trick. And he also knew, vaguely, that no one was actually trying to steal you from him. But on the other, he couldn’t help the fact that he wanted to claw their eyes out for looking at you so brazenly.

He hadn’t expected the eyes of the woman to wander over to him, like she was just noticing the possessive arm he had wrapped around your waist, “Is that your partner with you? How would you both feel about having a little fun?”

Absolutely fucking not. Maybe the old Astarion would have smiled and nodded, ready to do whatever was asked of him. But the man from that wretched era had died, or at the very least was dying. And he would be damned if he let you lay with another, never less participate in it. 

Astarion interrupted your overly-polite attempts stuttering of a refusal. He glared at them both, a sneer painted on his face, “We’ll be passing on that. You’d think the first no would have sufficed, but I suppose it’s not fair to expect everyone to have basic language comprehension. Now as illuminating as this conversation has been, we have places to be. Excuse us.”

Then he was pulling you away, happy to ignore the offended huffs of indignation he had left in his wake. 

“We’re supposed to be investigating, remember?” You said with a giggle, not even questioning him as he dragged you to the second floor, “Being rude is not the way we’ll find travel to the hells.”

“I highly doubt they would have been of use,” Astarion said as he pushed you into the first empty room he could find. He felt off, maybe even a little crazed as he turned to you, “Tell me darling, what is it about you that makes you so irresistible, hm?”

He crowded you against the closed door, ducking his head into the crook of your neck to breath you in. You smelled heavenly, you always did. He could trace the barest whiff of your blood from beneath your skin, always calling to him. You were the sweetest thing he ever tasted. Delicious even, for more reasons than one. 

“T-They just wanted my coin,” You gasped when he started to suck bruises into your skin, “That’s all.”

“I think they wanted a bit more than that,” Astarion bit out as he shoved his thigh between your legs, “What will it take for others to realize you’re mine.”

His hands were wandering, resting low to grip your hips. He was using them to move you, forcing you to grind against his thigh. You grasped at his shoulders, trying to bite back a moan as you stared at him with wide eyes, “You want to do it here? Does that door even lock?”

It looked like it didn’t, not that Astarion cared. Maybe walking in on him ravishing you would finally start getting the point across of who you belonged to. Astarion shrugged, "There are less appropriate venues than literal whore houses."

“But-”

“But I can tell you want it,” Astarion interrupted with a smirk, his hands barely working to move your body anymore. But that wasn’t stopping you from rubbing yourself all over him, “Just look at you darling. Desperate little thing. But if you really don’t want to…”

Astarion made a lazy attempt to step back, laughing out loud when your desperately pulled him back, your desire finally winning out over your common sense. But you were glaring at him, obviously annoyed that he was so good at riling you up. He had seen that look before, the one that just screamed that you were scheming something. 

He just hadn’t expected you to drop to your knees in front of him, huffing as you started to undo the fastenings to his pants, “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a bit of a shit?”

“Maybe,” Astarion said with a strained laugh, his breath catching when you pulled his half-hard cock out, “But it seems to keep getting me the things I want.”

You rolled your eyes before licking a wide strip up his cock, like you weren’t directly proving his point. You looked amazing own there, you’re half-hearted glare morphing into a blissful haze. 

Gods, how were you real? Astarion wasn’t quite sure why you were such a fan of getting him down your throat, but he knew that he was a lucky bastard for it. 

“Sweet girl,” Astarion sighed, letting a hand drift down to tangle in your hair, “Sweet girl with a perfect mouth. And you’re all mine, aren’t you?”

You made a small, affirmative noise around his cock, taking him in deeper as you clutched at his thighs. You were so good at this, so well-trained after months of being together. He loved the soft, wet sounds that would escape your lips as you swallowed him down, the pretty way your eyes would water as you encouraged him to fuck your throat, how you would squirm in place on your knees, no doubt ruining your panties with how wet you were getting. 

And no one else would ever know. No one would get to see you like this again, feel you like this. Needy, desperate, and his. Oddly enough, that thought was what sent him over the edge. He came down your throat, groaning as you eagerly swallowed around him. 

You pulled off of him slowly, panting while you smiled up at him. There was the smallest string of spit mixed with his come, connecting from the head of his cock to your lips. You licked it up, still clinging to his thighs as you hazily stared up at him. Sweet enough to make his heart skip a beat, and his dick give a valiant twitch.

He pulled you to your feet, not wasting any time in smashing your lips together. He spun you around, pushing you towards what he prayed was a clean bed. 

He pushed you back onto the sheets, making quick work of tearing your pants down your legs as he grinned down at you, “Your turn.”

He kneeled in front of you; spreading his hands over your splayed thighs to peel off your underwear. The core of you was already glistening, slick enough to make Astarion’s mouth water. He licked his lips as he spread your legs further apart, shameless as he feasted on you with his eyes. 

You were shaking in his hold, biting your bottom lip when you whined, “Stop staring already…”

“But you’re so pretty here my sweet,” Astarion cooed, tracing a single finger over the seam of your cunt, “And you’re dripping. Poor thing, have I kept you waiting too long?”

You nodded excitedly above him, your hips bucking when he let his fingers dip in further between your pussy lips. He lightly traced your clit, softly laughing at the way the simple touch made you whine.

It was his own fault that you were so needy, a fact that brought a smirk to his lips. You always got so wet after you had him down your throat, soaked and gorgeous. 

Astarion dove right in, loudly moaning as he licked into your folds. He dragged his lips upward to suckle on your clit, basking in all the cries and whimpers escaping you.

He licked back down, teasing your hole with his tongue as your legs quivered around his head. He let the sharpness of his fangs scrape against you as he started to fuck you with his tongue, threatening your most intimate places.

He knew you liked that; little minx that you were. The slight risk of pain that was always looming. It made him want to sink his fangs in you for real, a hunger that he'd sate after he had you gushing into his mouth.

You were already close, he could tell from the way your cunt was tightening around his tongue; too worked up from the thrill of being in public and the taste of him still lingering on your tongue. Astarion trailed talented fingers up to rub against your clit, his tongue still curling inside of you as you cried out. Finally falling over the edge. But that wasn't stopping him from continuing to play with you.

You had to tug on Astarion’s hair for him to finally pull away, too over sensitive to handle his talented tongue. You were still trembling by the time he leaned back, licking his lips. He rested his head on your thigh, obviously pleased with himself as he grinned up at you. He could feel your heart racing against his cheek, the sound of your blood pumping singing through your veins. It had his mouth watering for a completely different reason. 

He let his fangs drag against the delicate skin of your inner thigh, looking up at you through his lashes, "Can I?"

A superfluous question. Not when he already knew the answer before it escaped your lips.

“Y-yeah," You mumbled, lovingly gazing down at him. He would never tire of seeing that look on your face, "But be gentle? Please?” 

"Of course my love," Astarion murmured, before promptly sinking his fangs into your flesh. He had to hold you down from the way you were still trembling, your quivering only getting worse at the pleasure mixed with pain. He didn’t let himself go rabid, just enough to get a taste. He was pulling back too soon, smiling to himself at the little whine you let out. He gently licked over the wound before standing, not yet swallowing the last drops on his tongue.

Instead he leaned forward to kiss you, more than happy to share the sweet taste of your blood as he slipped his tongue into your mouth.

“Thank you my dear,” Astarion sighed as he pulled away, “That was exactly what I needed. Now I think that’s enough investigating for one day.” 

You sighed, taking the time to card your fingers through his hair, “Agreed. Though you might have to carry me out of here now.”

Wasn’t that a wonderful idea?

Astarion hummed as he pulled your clothing back on, “I think I like the sound of that," He didn't give you time to respond, too busy sweeping you up in his arms with a grin, "I'll be taking you up on that."

You squeaked when he hefted you up, bridal style, “I wasn’t being serious!”

But it was too late, Astarion was already kicking the door open. He shrugged at you, completely shameless as he winked at a few onlookers, "Then you shouldn't have suggested it."

You groaned, hiding your face in his shirt as he happily took you outside, “I’m going to get you back for this. I hope you know that.”

Astarion laughed as he kissed the top of your head, “I’m sure you will.”

It was a childish stunt, borderline on par with a jealous tantrum, but gods, did it feel good. Good enough to sate Astarion's obsessive tendencies for an impressive amount of time. Under normal circumstances. 

But what about your lives were normal?

[sticcmann]

Such a guy

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I hope to work on *all* of these ideas eventually; this poll is to see what excites people the most!

[cankersoregirl]

It was another version of him that kinda shocked me. It was cute, though. He’s normally quiet, but, on that day, he was like… He was saying something about the stars being cute. I was like, “What? Is this really happening?” I was a bit surprised. I was rambling and babbling. I didn’t know what made me say that. It was probably my true feeling.

DMD Friendship The Reality EP. 4

[sejanusarchive]

“Your own father used to say those people only drank water because it didn’t rain blood” vs two district boys who are assumed to be murder machines, yet prove that statement wrong multiple times: Reaper and Marcus.

PART ONE: REAPER

When Reaper is first introduced to us, we learn he’s rangy but muscular; we read about him wrapping his hands around Coriolanus’s throat on the truck headed to the zoo and about Dill, his District partner, saying he has killed a Peacekeeper before in District 11, without ever getting caught. 

Our first impression of him is that of a dangerous person, one who’s even clever in his lethality, and because of that we know he’s a presumed possible victor.

Lucy Gray mentions him more than once as one of the biggest threats, when talking about how she’s going to try as hard as she can to win the Games.

She also tells Coriolanus how Reaper apologized to the other tributes for having to kill them and told them he is going to make it up to them after, by taking revenge on the Capitol. Everyone takes this as him meaning it maliciously and with arrogance, ‘cause how else could he possibly mean it, right? Coriolanus thinks that he’s not only powerful, but good at mind games too. 

But the truth is that Reaper meant that genuinely, even with a certain innocence, and naivety to how it could have been misinterpreted. There was no malice or arrogance in his statement, but there was guilt and regret and grief, because of being forced into taking lives. He went into the arena fully prepared and resigned to kill the others to save himself, but not without obvious dissent.

When the Games start, he arms himself and heads to the stands. Coriolanus thinks he does so to begin his hunt, even if everyone else had fled in other directions and he had made no move to go after them.

Right after this we read about how Tanner, someone who’s also a presumed possible victor, is able to climb up to the first row of the stands and sit in the sun for a while, completely unbothered and unharmed. Reaper doesn’t try to fight him, even if it would have only been to his advantage, since he could have easily taken out his strongest opponent now that the Games had just begun and he wasn’t exhausted and starving.

His first interaction with another tribute in the arena is with a dying Dill, carrying her out of the tunnels, placing her in the sun and talking to her in the last moments of her life. 

His first act with another tribute, is comforting a dying child. 

This is when the “murder machine” image starts to crumble. Coriolanus’s classmates talk about how he doesn’t look so tough, doesn't look like the person who “promised to kill all the others”, which he never actually did.

But still, after all this, Coriolanus sees his distressed pacing around Dill, as him possibly being “eager to get back to the hunt”, a hunt he never even began, and not just him feeling pained and powerless at Dill’s condition. 

When Coriolanus is sent into the arena to get Sejanus out, Bobbin, Mizzen, Tanner and Coral are the tributes who go after them to try to kill them. No sign of Reaper at any point.

When Lucy Gray gets out of the tunnels with a rabid Jessup after her, he makes no move to kill them either. Coriolanus points out how he lets Lucy Gray go and only walks up to the bottles of water on the ground.

Again and again and again, he has a chance to easily take a life to save his own or take a small revenge against the Capitol, but he doesn’t. 

His second interaction with a tribute is with Lamina. He walks up to her, they negotiate an exchange of something both of them desperately need and that forms a bond between the two of them.

Then Coral, Mizzen and Tanner appear and he leaves, he goes behind the barricade and he falls asleep.

When he comes back out, he’s shocked to see Lamina and Tanner dead on the ground. And this is when he starts to make true his promise of avenging the tributes after their death. 

He lifts Lamina up in his arms and places her next to Marcus’s and Bobbin’s corpses and then collects Tanner, Dill and Sol, as well, and covers them all with the flag of Panem. And he keeps doing this with all the tributes for the rest of the Games, right until his death. 

This is the best form of revenge he could take. Not only because he disrespects the flag, causing great disdain among Capitol citizens; but also because, most importantly, he humanizes the tributes and gives them dignity, two things the Capitol has tried in every way to take away from them. He gives them as proper a burial as he can manage in those circumstances, makes it so now they can finally rest, tucked in a corner and covered, their corpses no longer on display for a bunch of sick people’s amusement. He honors them. He could have left them all scattered out on the dusty arena ground, but he didn’t. He took care of them.

Even when it’s just him and Lucy Gray left and he’s one step away from winning, he shows no signs of wanting to attack her. Doesn’t matter that he could easily take her out, save himself and finally go home. No, even then his main concern is that the tributes can properly rest with their corpses concealed. 

Everyone expected him to kill the most people, but he died in that arena killing no one and without ever even attempting to. He died holding strong to his humanity and making sure the fallen tributes could hold strong to theirs as well even in death.

Contrary to what we and the Capitol are made to believe initially, Reaper turns out to be pretty innocuous. He’s not a naturally violent or aggressive person, not a natural born killer and he refuses to be as well. This was a life or death situation and yet he didn’t even harm anyone. He has killed before, he is capable of it, but if he didn’t even do it in this case, even when all it would have taken for him to save himself was killing a girl smaller and younger than him, then imagine how dire and desperate the situation must have been when he had to resort to it.

He defied the Capitol by not participating in the Games, by not letting them turn him into the murder machine they wanted and expected him to be, and by honoring the corpses of the children whose lives have been so cruelly and unjustly cut short.

(Before moving on to Marcus, I wanna clarify some things in case anyone who’s reading this has only seen the movie. Reaper snapping at Clemensia during the one-on-one mentor-tribute interviews never happens in the book, neither does him looking angrily into the camera in the arena and challenging the Capitol to punish him arrogantly. Like we’ve just seen, this perceived arrogance and aggression in Reaper is a very surface level misconception of the people around him, that’s easily debunkable, that who made the movie took and ran with wrongfully. 

And actually there’s a few heartbreaking scenes in the book that contrast heavily with the image the movie created of him, like him tying a piece of the flag around his shoulders like a cape and spinning around, watching it fly behind him, and then running in the sun with his arms spread wide; and him rocking gently back and forth on himself for comfort, after the snake attacks, which is not when he dies in the book. He’s not the threatening, angry guy who tests the Capitol that they made him in the movie, he’s just a severely traumatized kid. Nothing more than a kid.

The movie made tons of stupid changes like this, that completely miss and disregard the whole point of both characters and story. Trust me when I say 99% of the characters are portrayed very wrongfully in it. So please keep that in mind.)

PART TWO: MARCUS

Marcus, like Reaper, was initially seen as a probable winner in the Games, before being murdered. Coriolanous makes note of his size multiple times, describing him as “towering”, as having a “colossal frame”, as “dwarfing the other tributes”, and comparing him to a grizzly bear. 

It’s exactly because of his size that people think of him as a sure winner, as capable of taking down everyone else, as threatening and deadly.

But then we hear Sejanus, the only person who actually got to know him at some point, talk about him, and the first and one thing he mentions about Marcus is his kindness. 

He tells Coriolanus how when they were still classmates in Two, he hurt his finger really badly and Marcus helped him by bringing him a cup of snow he scooped from the windowsill. He says he did it without being prompted by anyone, without consulting anyone, not even the teacher, and without even being friends with Sejanus. 

That’s actually the very first thing Sejanus tells us about him. They weren’t enemies, but they weren’t friends either. Marcus had no real reason to do it, especially considering how the Plinths were, and still are, deeply despised in Two, for having helped the Capitol win the war. He did it almost as a reflex, because that’s who he is as a person. 

And this pure, unconditional kindness, told by the one person who actually knew him, goes against the image of him everyone formed by just looking at him, against what everyone assumed because he’s district, he’s a tribute, and he’s tall and strong and broad, so he has to be dangerous and lethal, he will brutally kill everyone to save himself; he’s capable of it anyway.

As I already said, the Plinths are deeply despised in Two, Sejanus is a filthy traitor in his eyes, one who’s benefiting from a luxurious, safe life in the Capitol, thanks to blood money; blood of thousands of what were supposed to be his people, blood whose spillage made them lose the war and caused the realization of the Games, bringing Marcus to that very situation.

Sejanus doesn’t have to worry about whether or not he’s going to be able to fill his stomach everyday; whether he’ll be able to finish his studies or will have to drop out of school early, to go work to help sustain his family; whether the dangerous working conditions will be the cause of his early demise, or being sent to an arena to kill or be killed by a bunch of other children for amusement will be, and what will happen to his family once he’ll be gone. All of this thanks to his family’s betrayal.

No doubt he resents Sejanus and is angry at him, a part of him maybe even faults him a bit for everything, but he never takes it out on him. It would be easy to single him out, pick him and make him pay for this situation, since he can’t make the whole Capitol pay; take some sort of revenge on Strabo Plinth in the name of Two and Thirteen and all other Districts, by harming his son. 

Sweet Sejanus, who brings the tributes food when no one else thought about it, who keeps pleading with him to accept it, who tries to help them however he can, would probably let him do it. He would take the hit, metaphorical or not, because it’s clear he has guilt gnawing at him and would feel like he deserves it. And Marcus is definitely aware of it. 

But he never gets violent, physically nor verbally, never tries to attack him or spit insults or hate at him. Instead he just ignores him.

He had many chances to do harm, even to kill Capitol citizens and Peacekeepers as revenge, a small and trivial one, but still a revenge, and he had many chances to let his frustration and anger out on Sejanus and use him as a punching bag, but he never did, because despite what everyone assumed about him, that’s not the type of person he is.

PART THREE: SEJANUS 

Sejanus, whom I’ve already mentioned several times in this post, is another District boy with the ability to take lives, but who’s repulsed and disturbed by the mere idea of it. 

With Marcus and Reaper, it’s a matter of first impressions and then getting to actually know them and learn they’re not like they seemed. With Sejanus it’s the opposite. 

First thing we learn about him in the book, is his background: born in District 2, his father made fortune during the war and was able to buy his family a life in the Capitol. 

But the first thing we learn about him as a person, is that he’s shy and sensitive. 

Throughout the entirety of the book, over and over and over again, we see that he’s good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet and takes things so to heart. It’s constantly pointed out by the people around him. 

And it’s constantly shown to us by him as well, with the passion he puts into standing up against the dehumanization and mistreatment of District people; with how affected he is by these aspects and by the Games; with how he tries in every way he can to help the tributes; with how he made it his life mission to make things better for the Districts; with how he’s never mean or spiteful to people who bully, dehumanize and disrespect him; with how he was ready to give his life in protest.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is at its very center a discussion on human nature. He (alongside Dr. Gaul) is the main character who explicitly talks about it, and he believes in the inherent goodness of humans and constantly advocates in favor of it. All the injustice and atrocities he witnessed and experienced, never made him change his mind or his actions, never made it so compassion and love weren’t his driving forces.

His heart is big, and kind, and pure. And he wears it on his sleeve all the time. He’s referred to as “emotional” and “compassionate”, his eyes are soulful, his face is incredibly expressive, and there’s so many instances in which he’s described as speaking with a voice so full of sentiment, so many instances of his eyes filling with tears, of him wiping his face cause they spilled out. 

It’s well established how good and uncorrupted he is, how devoted to humanity he is, how much he values life.

And then in the third part of the book, we learn he’s an excellent marksman, a natural one even, who has been training in shooting every week since he was tiny.

He’s so good, that the sergeant in Twelve, as to not lose someone with Sejanus’s level of ability, refuses to give him the recommendation he needs in order to train to become a medic, even when Sejanus purposefully shoots much worse than he’s capable of, to hide his talent. 

The boy who values life more than anything in the world, has the ability to take one even with his eyes closed.

When he arrived in Twelve, wearing on his body the signs of the toll that the Capitol, the Games and what happened to Marcus, had taken on his mental health; with the prospect of building a new life for himself in which he could help the world become a better place; of training to be a medic and save lives; Coriolanus noted he had a much lighter air to himself, as if a heavy weight had been lifted off of him.

But when he is confronted with the reality that he is now a soldier and is expected to kill, Coriolanus says that his expression goes back to being as gloomy as it had been in the Capitol, the heavy weight now back on his shoulders. 

At dinner he doesn’t take a single bite of food, which is a behavior we’ve seen from him before, one he falls into when his mental health gets concerningly bad. And the reason is that he is terrified by the idea of having to kill someone, or someone dying because he can’t bring himself to shoot first. Because to him, every life is precious and none is disposable, and the possibility of being the cause of one being taken away, is an unbearable thought.

Reaper and Marcus had many chances and what could be considered reasons to kill, but they refused to. Sejanus, who is expected to kill because he’s a soldier and the best shooter, who would be punished, possibly even with execution, if he didn’t, refuses to. 

All three of them have the power to take lives with little effort but choose to cherish and honor them instead, choose kindness, choose humanity, even over their own self preservation, proving both the Capitol and Crassus Snow’s statement about District people being bloodthirsty, wrong, by simply being their honest, uncorrupted selves until the end, by being truthful to who they are no matter what.

[nyxi-pixie]

actually incredibly funny to me that ranpos entire thing centres on how his intelligence is not because of an ability or any other great thing, its just him. hes entirely, completely, inarguably human. and Yet, when it comes to dazai, so many people are Desperate that there just Has to be another explanation. his intelligence cant just be that hes unusual, no it must be a marker of separation, of difference so great it disallows the reality of his humanity.

[white-hole-station]

It is and has always been one of the wildest and most appreciated things about this game to me, the way it just installed a mental framework in me for accepting the unacceptable.

Anything and everything you've ever known is going to die. That is the starting, baseline premise of the story. Which means that anything you do in it - any hours of fun, any laughs, any exploration, any beauty, is done with the constant reminder of that utter finality in the background, spaced 22 minutes apart. Done with, in between, and in spite of that.

It doesn't need to matter to be worth it. It doesn't need to not be about to die in fire to still be beauty.

Several dozen hours of that, set to music that starts playing in my mind whenever I could most make use of the reminder, is the gift this game gives me for times when everything feels lost. It amazes me, as it always does, just how powerful of a thing shared between humanity a story can be.

[chaaistained]

sometimes i get this random urge to have little tiny minuscule secret treasure type tattoos

[nenoname]

can't get over ford being so proud of his depiction of weirdmageddon that he keeps drawing it over and over again and him going through the extra effort to draw expressions in the blackboard version of people falling in a ravine

but also ford drawing this right after weirdmageddon begun when he wasnt sure if he was going to survive, only for it to be destroyed a few hours later

[renas-reality]

My twin and I mutually agree to script each other out of some of our drs because this is what we had to deal with growing up.

[aerithisms]

so many thoughts about the last couple chapters of ff7 rebirth but one thing i love is that the speech aerith gives in the temple of the ancients about looking to the future seems to heavily draw from one of my favourite lines in the og ff7, where tifa tells cloud that she doesn't think aerith ever intended to die, because aerith talked about the future more than any of them. i always loved that tifa understood this about aerith more than even cloud did and i love that they're doing justice to that

[cankersoregirl]

In my eyes, you’re exceptional.

DMD Friendship the Reality: It Takes Two | EP. 4

[gr8ntaire]

do u think when Marc meets little kids (all decked out in gear to support him 🥺) he thinks of his little kid self and how much love and devotion HE had. Turns the whole thing into something just as lovely and pure as he possibly can because he recognises how important stuff like that is. waaah.

[hyakunana]

I was yesterday years old when I realized I've been coloring my Exo wrong all this time — but instead of updating in game, I'm retconning my art

[thesoupisburning]

right so you guys ever think about the spectre telling the narrator that hes more similar to her than to a person?

what "her" was she referring to? the fragment we call the spectre? the way he can only be perceived, not perceive himself? the ghost of him, the ghost of her? all of her?

im just. thinking. i always think about spectre. she has. a lot to say that i think is overlooked in favor of more common favorite routes like moment of clarity and the tower, but shes one of my favorites, and shes one of the only ones who SEES the narrator, save for wraith, who is. also her. or nightmare. and she says that hes not really a person. like her.

of course, that makes sense, we think shes a ghost and dead, so she is. but him. is the echo a ghost in the classical sense? is that what she meant? or are there layers?

she says he's not really like a person. what is a person to her? is she comparing the narrator to the "shards of broken glass on the floor" are her interactions with us and the voices the only "person" she knows?

i love love love when this game separates the narrator from us and our voices. i love it so much i think about it daily. props to tower for "layer of grime" that fucks so hard.

i don't have a thesis im just. thinking. how much of the narrator is left. really.