#commitment issues?

[kj-yikes]

I’m watching season one of supergirl and kara really just tries to find every excuse to not date a man doesn’t she

[redstrewn]

Thinking abt vere.......what is going on in his head. He's so selfish but he holds a soft spot for Ais. What is going on in his heart. I want to know

[cherryfairy-2000]

sometime in spring 2023

I reconnected with my first love recently, 7 years after the end of our relationship and 4 years after the last time I saw him. In between those timelines and lifetimes, I often thought of him as the only one I’d ever love like that. The only soul tie I had ever created. I have loved and been loved since him in those timelines and lifetimes and I believed I had proven myself wrong a few times but the end never felt the way it did when he left. He was the first person to show my young jaded heart that love was real, even when it ended. I remember the rant I gave my mother at the dinner table with tear filled eyes. I was 16 experiencing my first heartbreak and no feeling I had ever experienced had ever felt that real. I spoke highly of him still, through my shattered heart and swollen eyes, tears still racing down my cheeks and eyes that have gotten no sleep. I spoke of gratitude; how grateful I was to love like that, to be loved like that. To feel so deeply and connect to someone in such a way at such a young age.

“The pain was worth it!” I kept repeating, sobbing. “I would go back and only love him harder despite knowing the inevitable end! I would only love him harder and hold him tighter!”

My mother looked over at her 16 year old daughter, crying with gratitude over a broken heart and replied “you are so beautiful.” She herself experienced heartbreak, the end of a marriage just the year before mine and was still in the painful grief process. She was the first of the family to experience heartbreak, a lost love, and I was second. The eldest daughter out of three kids, the middle child and yet I have fallen in and out of love more times than anyone else in my family. They watch my tireless attempts at finding that feeling again like I am a creature at a zoo, dumbfounded at my fearlessness of getting my heart broken again.

He sat across from me for the first time in 4 years and I started to mentally count and compare all the differences I’d notice from the man in front of me to the boy that used to lie in my arms and live in my heart. He has a beard now and I notice chest hair peeking out from the top of his t-shirt. His hair is much shorter and seems darker, still messy but nothing like the shoulder length light blond hair I used to intertwine my fingers in. His smile was the same, his mannerisms too; like the way he uses his hands to talk when he's being lighthearted and playful. He spoke more confidently now, aware and comfortable in his skin. His body resembles more of a man than a lanky young boy which caught me off guard a bit. His eyes haven't changed either and the feeling of his stare has the same effect after all this time.

He told me about his life, his journey through grief and suffering. How he's been committed to healing everything that he avoided in his youth. He can finally cry now, the pressure he used to feel in his face is no longer there. He wears a big tiger's eye crystal around his neck and smiles wider now. His laugh is more full body like he's accepted joy into his life like never before. I had to hold back tears when I noticed all of the similarities and differences I found.

I felt the disconnect from the present, and a simultaneous hyper awareness of all the lives I lived in his absence. This feeling rushed through my veins, like the caffeine from a double shot of espresso or the head rush that follows a sober cigarette. He says “You look the same, but your energy is more you; calmer.” I told him about my life the past 4 years and although I experienced traveling and life in many ways; the common pattern is my habit of getting in and out of relationships. My heart has broken about 5 times since the end of our relationship, in the past 7 years. The men I’ve dated become no more than a stranger to me after a year. How devoted I am to loving even though I was rarely loved back in the same capacity is confusing to him.

“Do you believe you deserve love?” He asked me.

“Are you afraid of being alone?”

I lingered on that thought. Embarrassed. When was the last time I was single? Alone with nowhere to put my love other than myself and my world? I had just moved into my first apartment with my current boyfriend. He's gentle, treats me well and loves me so much. The healthiest relationship I’ve ever experienced in my adulthood. But I can’t help but think we've only been dating for 6 months and not even a month before I met him I was in Greece with a completely different lover. I didn’t choose the city we moved to, he did and I was okay with it. I didn’t plan anything about Greece, he did but I was okay with it. These men that court me plan futures with me in their heads and I fear I just simply play the part... Do I allow myself any say in these futures? Or am I just okay with it? Is the concept of falling and staying in love more important to me than my own journey to find myself? Healing myself? The spiritual path I have always been drawn to but always ignored because the people I allowed myself to love never took that part of me seriously, never mind joining me on the same path.

[tea-time-terrier]

Salmon Sun!

She's finally done, my sewing and printing project! It's a faux quilted jacket with raw edge appliqué fish and a bit of embroidery <3

[heich0e]

man who refuses to put a label on your relationship but who gets insanely turned on when bad weather forces him to spend the night and you end up basically playing house

[rev-xce]

"until the celebration of rebirth is torn to pieces crawling through heaven at night!"

[kayanne369]

The Guide telling Nandor that he's all about the conquest and not the victory is so damn cathartic cause I've been seeing WAY too many people accusing him of acting out of character. He's not. This is how he is. He's a war lord and is only interested in shit he can't have. Once he gets it, he looses interest and moves onto something else. This is what he has done through this entire damn series. It's one of his most obvious and consistent character flaws he has. He's a warrior. He likes to fight and you can not fight if there is nothing to fight FOR.

[insomni-frog]

More Light Cream (and Margarine, I guess)

[vngful]

Me if I wasn’t overdramatic and stayed roommates with my twin

[toiletepaperroll]

blah blah blah put kimi antonelli in the williams and move carlos to mercedes blah blah blah

YOURE ALL WRONG

put kimi antonelli in the williams of ALEX ALBON and move alex up to mercedes.

brocedes 2.0 except theyre nice to each other and they care about each other and its not really brocedes even though theyre besties since childhood and in silver mercs.

because galex would be nice to each other. anti-brocedes. the opposite of brocedes would happen to them i think. and that would just destroy brocedes because that means for them that nico and lewis just did not have to do all that shit and were more willing to sacrifice themselves and their love for each other than race wins and it was all for nothing in the end.

it would be fun i think. loscar should do it too but they should unlock some secret third ending (im delusional abt logan sargeant redemption arc with cadillac. IT WILL HAPPEN PEOPLE) because loscar is just like, some other beast all together.

[kettledemon]

Miscommunication

EDIT: im a complete idiot, it wasnt icarly, it was victorious, this clip here. i dont know my disney shows-

[crustycrackhead]

Gideon always liked the way Kremy looked when he smoked, but like in an ironic way, of course. Noticed how the burning embers perfectly reflecting in his golden eyes, Gideon Nathaniel Coal, was never a man of flowery poetry… but for Kremy, his buddy ol’ pal, he can’t help but think he’s as beautiful as a sunset in autumn.

Kremy and Gideon make me miserable and sad and I cry at nights for them— I don’t need them to have sex, I need them to be like… okay 😭, like damn, bitches can never win, I hate them, I hate them (I love them but they make me suffer)

Also this drawing started because I was inspired by this one author on AO3: Never_Eat_Sour_Wheat, @pedal-mail , I love their writing sm! They inspired me to draw this lil Drabble lol 🚶🚶🚶

[fizpup]

valentine, you're a horse ❤️

[tacticalprincess]

Tell me more about biker!koing and how he ignores you for days and then just shows up at your apartment with little to no warning 👀👀

biker!könig who started riding as a way to cope with his anxiety, often going mia for hours at a time while he’s zipping through from city to city to clear his mind. never had anyone close enough to notice his absence, until you. sometimes the promises he made to check in slip his mind, other times he just doesn’t know what to say, how to respond to such sweet concern. and aren’t you just so cute and caring, staying up at odd hours of the night to make sure he made it home safe? he feels bad for worrying you, figures you should be angry at him in person rather than through a screen, popping up at your apartment unannounced.

smugness curls his lips into a smirk to find you all sleepy and annoyed at him, a pout tainting your pretty features. forcing you into decent clothes so you can be his little backpack for the rest of his drive, pressing a chaste kiss to your sleep swollen lips before he lowers his spare helmet onto your head. comes to find he likes the feeling of you on the back of his bike, arms wrapped tightly around his rigid waist like a koala as he speeds through the empty, open roads, the buildings a blur of lights on either side of you. the least he can do is treat you to a 24 hour ice cream spot before he takes you home with him, carrying you to his bedroom to give you sloppy, jaw-aching head as an apology for his behavior until you pass out in his bed, looking scarily at home tangled up in his sheets. he hopes you won’t be too disappointed to wake up alone.

[starcurtain]

Hey! I apologize if this question has been asked before since it seems like a pretty obvious one, but where do you think the idea of Aventurine being a sex slave came from? Other than the obvious factor of it being something fun for the fandom to mess around with, I mean.

It's something I kind of took for granted as being true before playing his quest, but after finishing it I realized there wasn't really any indication. The only thing I can really think of is his master's comments about him having a good body. Is there anything in his behavior you can think of that would lead to this conclusion if it wasn't a popular fan interpretation already/kind of just an easy conclusion to reach with a slave character?

(also kind of related but what do you think of the idea that he sleeps around/with his clients to make deals? he's obviously willing to sexualize himself with the boob window, but that doesn't necessarily mean he goes further.)

As far as I can tell, the idea that Aventurine was involved in sexual slavery comes from three (maybe four) places:

First, the comment from the master about Aventurine's appearance. People were holding this comment up as refutable proof that Aventurine was used in sexual slavery on top of being tossed into the Hunger Games; however, the response from other players on this interpretation, especially the Chinese side of the fandom, was very mixed, with a lot of people pointing out that the context in the game probably meant the slave master was talking about Aventurine's ability to attract attention from fans watching the literal Sigonian Hunger Games, rather than having a direct sexual-slavery connotation.

Second, the comment from Sparkle about stripping naked and getting on his knees for Sunday. This one has way more implication in English than I think it might for an Eastern audience, actually. In English, this pretty much sounds like Sparkle saying Aventurine trades sexual favors for success in his gambles. However, I suspect the original intention in Chinese was more about humiliation. Western audiences don't have as much history with honor-based prostration, i.e. accepting corporal humiliation as a form of reconciliation that Eastern audiences might be more familiar with. And in any case, Sparkle is Sparkle. She probably just went for the lowest blow she could think of here.

Third, the general assumption that if Sigonian slaves were being chained, branded, beaten, sent to death matches, etc., it seems logical that they would also be taken advantage of in other ways. I honestly think this is probably the fairest take--many, many real slaves around the world faced (and still face!) sexual abuse, so if slaves from Sigonia were treated so poorly you could make them fight to the death for entertainment, it stands to reason they were probably also not safe from other forms of assault. We also have no idea what happened to Kakavasha in any of the years between his being a tiny child fleeing the massacre and then being purchased as a slave as a late-teens-early-twenties person. That's a very long time for a child to have to survive on their own on an extremely hostile planet and not face risks of all kinds or end up needing to do unspeakable things to survive. So I think this is at least not that far-fetched, although it's important to say there's nothing in the game that directly confirms this.

And fourth: I read a tweet semi-recently that stated that one of the Chinese (or maybe it was Japanese) names for a quest Aventurine was involved in was actually a reference to a book about a teenage sexual assault survivor. However, when I tried to verify this myself, I couldn't find any quest Aventurine was in that was based on a book about sexual assault in either English, Chinese, or Japanese. It's possible I just missed something, but I'm taking this one with a bit of a grain of salt currently, since I can't confirm it personally.

Regarding your other question, about whether I think Aventurine sleeps around to make deals...

I definitely think he does not, for one major reason.

First, I will admit that Aventurine is definitely willing to use his appearance to his advantage. This is pretty obvious. He wears incredibly flashy clothes, baths himself in cologne, overloads on glittering golden jewels, and absolutely calls attention to his appearance when working with clients.

We see him actively doing this in his Moment Among the Stars video, where he is clearly using his looks as an equal tool (to his wealth), to daze his target.

It's not an accident that he says things like "Use me as you wish," with all the explicit connotations preserved. The implication is there. However, unless he was absolutely backed into a corner, I think that implication is all it will ever be.

The reason I think this is that the devs go out of their way to give Aventurine three fairly noticeable physical behaviors in his in-game scenes:

For one, he has some of the most closed off body language of any character in the game.

Aventurine's default conversation pose is arms crossed directly and tightly in front of himself. This is like "Defensive Body Language 101." By crossing your arms, you put a symbolic barrier between yourself and the person you're speaking to, and also ensure that your hands are up and available in case you actually need to physically defend yourself.

Virtually all of Aventurine's conversations take place from this stance, no matter who he is speaking to (from the Trailblazer all the way to Topaz). He deliberately closes his pose off and tightens up his silhouette, which just sends a glaring "Don't touch me" message.

This closing off is also blatantly apparent when you compare it to the deliberately open poses he strikes while trying to make himself seem accessible to others (like tempting clients) or seem powerful (to intimidate):

Complementing this habit of closing himself off is a second noticeable aspect of his body language: He frequently avoids eye contact to the point that he even holds conversations while entirely facing away from the person he's speaking to.

I might be a bit lenient and say maybe he's doing this to on purpose to be mysterious, whoo~~ But... in all honestly, he just does this with everyone, even with Ratio while trying to talk about an actual important issue (wanting to look into Acheron's real identity). Hell, even the fake Aventurine does it to himself!

We can even say that wearing the rose-tinted glasses in the first place is another intentional barrier, one Aventurine deliberately removes in specific moments to give people the (false) impression that he's "letting them in" to his circle:

Now, this might be a bit more complicated in Aventurine's case, because eye contact has a whole extra meaning when eyes are the defining trait of your species and come with particularly challenging racial stereotypes. So it may be that Aventurine is simply used to conducting conversation while looking away to minimize racial prejudice against his eyes' unique appearance.

However, I'd also argue that the devs deliberately turned his entire model away in cutscene after cutscene to create a clear sense of being inaccessible, unapproachable, and unwilling to engage in the physical intimacy of standing closely, directly facing, and staring at his conversation partners.

While he faces away, he controls both the figurative and the literal direction of conversation, forcing people to keep their eyes on him while he is free to move as he pleases. Over and over again, it just says "I want to be the one in control. I'm not afraid to show my back to you, but you are not welcome to come near me."

And, in fact, that's a third aspect of his character's body language that I am sure the devs did not include accidentally: More so than other characters, many of Aventurine's conversations are conducted from weirdly far distances. Like, half the time he's talking, he's standing all the way on the opposite side of the room!

This habit of speaking from a-larger-than-normal distance is apparent in the first scene with Himeko...

And then in just about every other conversation too:

The bubble is twenty feet in every direction.

Like yes, he does approach and have conversations like a normal person... sometimes... But it is significantly more noticeable with Aventurine than with other characters that he often conducts whole conversations--even with his allies--from a distance. Just genuinely weirdly far apart.

Leaving space for Gaiathra, I guess.

And it's because these significant decisions were made with Aventurine's in-game body language that, when he deliberately alters his own behavior, it is instantaneously noticeable.

In 2.0, he closes the distance, the glasses come off, and he gets directly up in the Trailblazer's face.

It's uncomfortable not just because the player is suddenly being loomed over, but because this behavior has already been subconsciously established for the player as out of character for Aventurine.

The barriers the character himself was putting up are deliberately stripped away so that he can use physicality and demanding eye contact to intimidate his target. He has to reverse his own normal body language in order to come across as domineering (and, I guess if you're into that, appealing in a domineering manner).

And ummmm, just a tiny aside here because I can't resist:

This does mean that when the game goes out of its way to demonstrate Aventurine altering his own normal habit of distant and defensive body language, it is absolutely intentional.

Yes, this is a Ratiorine post in disguise. There literally isn't any other character in the game that Aventurine is shown being comfortable standing so close to and interacting with in this manner. This doesn't occur in every one of their scenes, but Ratio is the only character that this happens with repeatedly. It's not an accident that the devs literally added "They were walking side-by-side" as flavor text.

But look, I'll be fair: There's a great example of this in Aventurine's scene with Acheron too, where he closes the distance and attempts to make eye contact with her--seeking her guidance and closeness--and she is actually the one stepping away, speaking with her back turned, demonstrating her power and control (and issues with connection!) in that scene.

Anyway, this was a whole longggg tangent into analyzing Aventurine's body language, but my point is that, overall, the devs deliberately adjusted his model's actions in-game to give the impression of a person who clearly wants to be in control of every interaction he has with other people, who insists on distance over intimacy, and whose stances and habits suggest that he is significantly less accessible and open than his "Use me as you wish" motto might suggest.

Long story longer, I think that there is almost zero chance Aventurine is willingly ceding control over himself or the actions expected of him to anyone he isn't 100% comfortable with, and I think that using physical intimacy of any kind would be an absolute last resort for him. Frankly, he comes across as more likely to shoot himself in the foot than let someone he doesn't trust lay hands on him.

To me, he reads very much as "You may look, but you may not touch."

[raptorwozhere]

spoilers i guess. i finally caught up with the comics yippie (i actually did a few days ago but shhh)