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#like not to be full of myself but these essays SUCK i am a way better writer than them. lol. i have edits
lukesunbornn · 1 year
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bruh i get such a superiority complex over being a good writer
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The names of the Gods
I vaguely promised an essay on my thoughts on the names of the Gods about a week ago or so, and thus I shall deliver :)
A few months ago when I was scrolling on TikTok (as one does), I came across a video by @olympianbutch talking about invocations in traditional Hellenic Polytheist prayers. The whole video was good, so I'll link the video (for the invocation): [here], and you can watch it all for yourselves. (And you should watch the two videos before it, they were equally good and educational). In it, he explained why we start prayers by saying the Gods' names: "This is because the ancient Greeks believed that when you said a God's name, They went: [insert action of dramatically turning around here]." Now, this was definitely funny, but once the full implications of that statement sunk in, it permanently changed how I viewed my own praying (in a good way, of course, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this thing based off of the video).
Now, the idea that your speech can call a God to you is something incredibly amazing, incredibly beautiful, and incredibly powerful. It means that the very second you state Their name, They can see your whole situation, and respond accordingly. I think this is something good to keep in mind, especially as the influence of 2020 witchtok/pagantok fades out (I was deep in this back then, so I'm speaking from that perspective [at some point in the future I'm doing a ramble on this as well, and how it impacted my early worship + relationships with the Gods {no hate if you were there too, I think it lowkey sucked for all of us}]). I used to feel really nervous that I didn't have a Real Connection with the Gods because I wasn't constantly hearing Their voices in my head, or having some kind of miraculous encounter with Them on a daily basis, and I used to base a lot of the idea of a "successful prayer life" around those encounters. However, since hearing of the concept of the Gods seeing you when their names are called, I've found my worries about that trickling away. When I pray, whichever God I'm praying to is there, and I can simply revel in the knowledge that I am standing (or sitting, or kneeling) in the presence of the God(s). The Gods are ever-present to begin with, but by calling upon Them in prayer, I am able to be face-to-face with Them in a more meaningful way, even if it's not something immediately sensible.
Beyond my prayer life, I've also found myself a lot more thoughtful about when I say the Gods' names. For deities that I worship frequently like Hermes or Dionysos, I'll be a bit more lax. I'll call upon Them for little things, like seeing a little crystal phallus in a metaphysical shop, or praying for safe travels. For deities that I once worshiped closely, like Artemis, I'll call upon Her in praise of the beauty of nature, especially if it's getting Real Beautiful or Real Cool. And even for deities that I rarely worship except on feasts, like Zeus, I'll call upon Him in praise of good things that fall under His domain, as a "I know it was You doing this!" kind of thing.
Anyways, this ended up a bit more rambly than I initially intended it to be, but I hope that somewhere within this ADHD-addled writing there was something of substance that's useful to you in your practice :) The Gods are always there, something something, always good, something something, I love Them.
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eazy-peazy54 · 3 months
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My problem with the Will Wood fandom, (a.k.a touch grass, a.k.a stan culture can suck it) (an essay.)
This one is LONG and a DOOZY, so buckle up if you like to read.
just want to clarify, i do NOT hate the will wood fandom in itself. AT ALL. I love you guys (/p)
i just dislike the people who say weird and creepy shit. if that doesnt apply to you, cool! but tell the people who do that shit to knock it off.
NO DISCOURSE IN THE REBLOGS I WILL ATTACK YOU
One HUGE gripe I have with the Will Wood fandom is how some of you guys treat Will Wood like (and this is literally the only way I can put this that isn't too serious) some all-powerful deity of knowledge that you would kill AND die for. In this essay, I will explain why [some of] you are fucking creeps.
Will Wood. Where do I begin. For the very few who are unaware, Will Wood is a singer-songwriter who makes very strange avant garde whatchamacallit evil jazz/swing music. He has been known as Will Wood since 2015, where he released his first album, Everything Is A Lot, under the name Will Wood and the Tapeworms.
Me personally, I first heard of him from the song Dr. Sunshine Is Dead, from the good old days of 2018 animation meme Youtube.
Ever since the inevitable Tiktokification of the song I / Me / Myself, from The Normal Album, the Will Wood fandom has become... well.. full of children. I have no place to speak, of course, because I myself, am a teenager, but I'm talking like. 11-14 year olds.
11-14 year olds who are all fucking INSANE.
Will Wood has been put in what I like to call;
The Holy Trinity.
This being the big three artists who the mentally ill queers (like me) listen to.
Lemon Demon, Tally Hall, and of course, Will Wood.
Being in this holy trinity has both done him good, and bad. On the positive side, yay!! More streams, more plays, more people to appreciate the craft, and more people who like the music! On the negative side, now you have an army of children listening to adult music, interacting with adult music and music videos, who are willing to do ANYTHING to get your attention, because they are young and don't know much better.
And here, stuck in the middle of it all, is poor William.
Stuck as a straight "gay icon," in a sea of twelve year olds.
Well shit.
---
Leading to the second part of my half-essay.
2020. The year shit changed for Will Wood. The Normal Album was released, and people found themselves relating to I / Me / Myself, as stated before. Then this "new," unheard of fandom was kind of birthed upon Tiktok. They were treating him like fucking jesus.
Which is weird.
They were sad, gay, looking for answers, and found them in Will's music. Which is like. Cool!
But when people were saying that he was trans, and then switched up and said he was making fun of trans people?
Yeah. Not that cool actually.
Coming back to the present now, Will has stated how weird these kids are.
In a response from a AMA for In Case I Make It on the official Will Wood subreddit, (I know. Ew, gross, Reddit, but this post was what inspired me to make this in the first place, so,) Will says this:
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"When I was living in the sticks along the Delaware during the pandemic, I had this weird sort of mystical thing going on inside my head that was trying connect dots in my life and turn meaningless nothing things into signs that I would die.
This was happening around the same time I was dealing with getting actual public attention for the first time, and was living in an area where nobody wore masks, and was living with people who were at risk of serious covid complications if they caught it. Also for most of it I was the dreaded 27, and having been a bit of a junkie in my younger years and an idiot with a barely-treated psychiatric wreck in my brain for most of the ones following it, it was not unlike me to assume I'd die young.
It just seemed too perfect.
As I was dealing with the reception of the normal album (my first truly scathing reviews, I/Me/Myself "discourse," being the subject of conversation on a larger scale) which was beyond what I was prepared for psychologically in terms of its scope and type, my anxious rumination started to veer toward genuine paranoia.
I started thinking that I would die by my own hand or be murdered by one of these crazed Will Wood fans in the dead of night. So I didn't sleep like ever, I lost a bunch of weight and couldn't gain it back for a while, I freaked out a whole bunch and I'm surprised looking back I never lost my sobriety or whatever.
Since it started to look more and more like cosmic fact that I was doomed, I started to feel greater and greater desperation to get out these songs that I had been quietly writing over the previous year or two. Songs I'd written while going through a big breakup and wrestling with rotten parts of me that were finally accessible due to my finally being properly medicated and dealing with the real shit in therapy. And then songs I'd written as I went through these changes."
---
Obviously that is a lot to unpack for a Tumblr essay, but since you’re this far, you probably read it all already.
“Stans,” as most would call them, and “Stan Culture” as a whole, is just a huge wreck. Everyone is always fighting someone. We know this. We all do. Stans scare artists. 
I want you to think. Think of the artists who are inspired by Will Wood. The ones who want to cater out their music to the Will Wood fans. Imagine if you will, those artists seeing that AMA post, seeing the crazed fans, seeing the relentless sexualization, the jokes about serious issues, like Will’s past drug use, seeing all of this and thinking:
“Is it really worth it?
Is it really worth all of this to make music and put myself out there?”
Now, that may make you uncomfortable, but it's the honest truth. And it's happened to so many people, and so many artists. 
---
And now a message to the disgraced kids who managed to latch on to Will Wood’s music.
Treating a musical artist like a god is not gonna help anyone. I’d know. I’ve seen it happen multiple times, to multiple artists. 
I guess what I’m trying to say is think before posting on the internet. Think to yourself; would I say this to the artist's face? Could someone see this and think differently of me? Is this just weird to say in general?
Remember that these people are real people. Will Wood is a real person. With real thoughts. real feelings. a life to live. He's not just some music making machine. He’s not just some silly character. He’s not just some whimsical guy who we can all project onto.
Will Wood is a real person, and everyone should treat him that way. 
Thank you for reading.
(I will edit this essay if I think of anything else to add. That or I'll just reblog it.)
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arokel · 2 months
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10 questions for 10 writers
thank you so much for the tag @strangethings-everywhere ! secretly I've always wanted to do one of these
1. Is writing a hobby or a way of life?
Way of life for sure; I'm basically never not thinking about it. I start to feel awful and purposeless if I go too long without writing at least something.
2. A journal full of notes or a clean completed manuscript?
Clean completed manuscript, unfortunately. I wish I could be less persnickety about my first drafts but so far that hasn't happened. I do sometimes make extensive outlines though and those are always by hand, but they're usually pretty clean too :/ no scribbly scribbly for me
3. Who or what inspired your writing?
I've been writing since I was five years old and telling stories since I could talk, so I guess I'll say that when I was first reading chapter books I asked my parents why books always have a few blank pages at the end and they said it was so you had space to continue the story yourself if you wanted. They made it up on the spot and they don't remember saying it at all, but it's always stuck with me.
4. Which is worse: Someone you ‘idolize’ reading your first draft or listening to you sing?
Listening to me sing, 100%. I post my barely-edited first drafts on ao3 all the time lmao. But I also feel like with a first draft it's easy to say hey this is a first draft, if there's stuff you don't like I'm happy to hear criticism! Whereas with singing, that's just your voice. You can practice the song but at some point whether they like it or not just comes down to something about you that you can't change. (Although I am a hashtag classically trained singer so my feelings of needing to live up to that might not be universal.) (Don't ask me to sing opera for you because I don't actually like opera.)
5. Has writing from someone else’s POV changed your perspective?
I think most of the perspective changes that have come out of stories have been from reading for me? Like the first time I was really exposed to the idea of transness was a Harry Potter fic (suck on that, JKR) and that obviously really stuck with me. But I think the desire to write from queer povs really helped me come to terms with my own sexuality, maybe more than actually doing it. I guess writing narrative essays, which I do less frequently than straight up fiction, is usually a way for me to explore things I feel about myself and about the world.
6. Tumblr, AO3, LiveJournal, or FFN?
AO3 foreverrrrrrr. I was on ffn in my misspent youth and Very briefly on lj, but ao3 has been my home since 2014 and it would take a lot to get me to move.
7. AO3 word count? And are you satisfied with it?
646,046, and soon enough it'll jump another 100,000. Honestly not sure how I feel about that.
8. What movie/book gripped you irrevocably?
I will never not love Tamora Pierce's Tortall series. I know they're kind of dated and don't hold up in some places, but they've been in my bloodstream so long that they're basically a part of my understanding of the world. They shaped so much of my ideas on literature - how to create compelling characters and relationships, what makes a world believable, what fantasy even is - and honestly I think they're responsible for about 50% of my sense of humor and at least a quarter of my relationship to gender. They were my first fandom and in the end I'll always come back to them.
9. What’s the highest compliment you could ever be given, and have you been given it?
One of my plays deals with a very difficult emotional subject and is quite frankly pretty depressing the whole way through, and after the premiere a friend of mine came up to me and said "it was so so funny; I was laughing the entire time." That's what I always want my writing to do, not so much in fic but out in the world - I want to give people catharsis, and I hope they leave the reading or viewing experience feeling a little better than they did going in. And also I want people to laugh at my jokes.
10. What defines your writing style?
Can I say inconsistency? No but really it's definitely dialogue. I struggle with descriptive prose sometimes, but I never have to work at dialogue. I think it's my strongest area and people always tell me it's snappy (thank you Tamora Pierce). Other than that uhh... too many commas probably.
tagging @violasmirabiles @fregata-magnificens @kjxlll @borealopelta @uwu-dowoon @teaforarteza @icegreyrose @shadowquill17 @ris-d-deridex and using my 10th tag for anyone else who wants to participate!
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blue-phoria · 9 months
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When you type out a full essay in reply to someone and at the end praise them for not flaming and blocking you immediately for having a conversation - Only to realise that while you were typing they blocked you and flamed you lol I don't want it to go to waste so I'll just put it below the cut v @milkshotalate @mxsickfuck Thought you might wanna give thoughts of it Cw - talk of exposure therapy - suibaiting at the end
"Exposure therapy should only be conducted by a professional under supervision and with extreme caution." Where are you getting this from that exposure therapy is dangerous unless under a medical professional? Sounds a bit gatekeepy for people who cannot afford or do not trust doctors to have their best interests in mind.
Might be just once example but I did it myself as a kid on my own, it sucked for half and hour, but after I was calm and could look at the image that scared me without fear.
"Just throwing yourself at something that makes you uncomfortable could go very, very wrong incredibly quickly." Meditation and Agere can also wrong for some, but well for others. Do you think that those also can only be done under the guidance of a doctor? "I agree that character creation is a great way to project intrusive thoughts in a healthy way, hell I do it, but purposefully consuming content that disgusts, disturbs or otherwise distresses you because you feel you somehow deserve it or need to feel disgusted again is NOT the move." Your last paragraph is spot on, don't go out of the way to find things that make you upset, I am completely on board with it. But at least in the spaces I am in "don't like don't read" is a proship talking point. Yet for antis it seems to be the opposite, they seem to want to find content they hate to disgust themselves and have someone to be angry at. I was in an encounter a while back where someone found my blog and was doomscrolling it and sharing it with their group chat, talking about how much they hated me and how they wanted to send me hate.
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Sounds fun sign me up - I also hope the anon who came to you for advice, sees ur behaviour and decides not to trust you with their mental health anymore lol
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iraprince · 2 years
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Heyo! Any advice on struggling to get your art seen in the world? I feel like no matter how much I post, or what I post, people never see it or seem to like it. I love art and am pursuing it as a career (hence why Im getting a degree in it currently lmao) but its kind of disheartening to work really hard on something, post it, and no one sees it.
oh, man. i'm afraid for this one i don't feel like i have a lot of solid advice. having a large-ish following online feels like something that kind of just, like, Happened to me, mostly on accident/in ways outside of my control, and even if i had some ideas on how to potentially replicate those gains i don't think they'd work consistently. (also, a lot of my large jumps in follower count came from mental health related work going viral bc it's #relatable; this is something i have complicated feelings about and it's absolutely not a viable, like, "strategy" or something that i would recommend, in the way that ppl can say like, "fanart gets attention!" or stuff like that.)
so, i don't have advice for how to actually GET those eyes on your art; i can maybe help with making ppl more likely to STAY once they do find you, and how to build a following that will actually help you maintain a living from your work -- bc i have TONS of peers w a following a fraction of the size of mine who get more jobs than me, are doing cooler/more "professional" stuff than me, etc! (heads up that most of my experience is on twitter; i know less than nothing about places like instagram + tiktok, and while tumblr functions very differently from twitter i feel like i handle things mostly the same here, aside from doing less personal posting/being less talkative and not 'networking' or following many people).
SCROLLING BACK UP TO ADD A SPOILER ALERT: AS ALWAYS I HAVE SAID "HAHA IDK I DON'T REALLY HAVE ANY ADVICE" AND THEN PROCEEDED TO TYPE A FULL ESSAY. IF YOU ARE ON DESKTOP YOU CAN HIT THE 'J' KEY TO SKIP THIS POST. IF YOU'RE ON MOBILE, I'M SORRY
a very important thing, especially professionally: it HAS to be easy to see what you do. (this is easier here on tumblr, where u can have a designated art tag etc, than on twitter, which is an awful website that sucks. <- guy who makes all his money on twitter) this means, like -- if i see something from you and get curious and click your profile, it should only take one more click to quickly see at least SOME of your art. on a professional account, it's probably best for your icon to be your own work, something snappy and memorable and eye-catching that reads well at a small size; people shouldn't have to dig for 20 minutes before they can start browsing your art. on twitter, this means TRY not to gunk up your media tab with a ton of reaction images/screencaps of your gacha pulls/etc; on here, it means make your art tag easy to find; on any website, a portfolio link, prominently displayed, is the best bet. (i am still working on that one myself lmao and i've been working professionally full time for a few years now so like, there are outliers and wiggle room on all of this).
next! it's great when your audience finds you, but you have to find them, too. find artists who do similar stuff to you and get into their stuff -- sincerely, not just as "networking." (like only do this with ppl whose stuff you actually think is cool, not just trying to get in mutuals with everyone you see in hopes of a bump, obviously.) get interested in other indie artists, find the people who are working/publishing in the spaces that are exciting and aspirational for you, and support them! i don't want it to sound cynical when i say there's a kind of give-and-take built into this; the point is not "well, if i reblog/retweet a bunch of YOUR stuff, maybe you'll feel obligated to boost mine in return," but that when you find other artists/creatives who are on the same wavelength as you, you will naturally stumble into pools of people who want to support art like yours, and you and your newfound peers will help each other when you hype each other's stuff up and direct followers to each other! (again re: things going differently on dif websites: this is twitter-specific for me, bc i use my tumblr as a gallery/portfolio. that doesn't mean it doesn't happen here tho! it can and does happen everywhere!)
it is really not a competition. i know that SOMETIMES it is in like, a really nitty-gritty numbers sense; people only have so much money to spare, they will make choices about whose patreon they can afford/what comic to buy/etc, that's true. but to me that's not competition. people who are sincerely into your stuff will hang on until they can afford it; maybe that means someone follows you for two whole years before the planets align and they have the budget/opportunity to commission you. by hanging out in similar circles you are not taking potential business or opportunities away from anyone else, nor are you risking leading your own audience to Someone They'll Like Better; you're just offering more options, and the internet is VAST and endless, and EVENTUALLY people will show up who are into YOUR STUFF, SPECIFICALLY. helping each other is never going to stifle or delay that!!
and my final chunk of advice is the one i give constantly that everyone is probably super sick of hearing but i just seriously seriously believe in it, even tho i know it's slow to pay off and hard to follow: keep doing exactly what you want to. keep doing it!!! you have to!!! yes, i mean the stuff that's getting like, 2 likes and 0 reblogs! the stuff that 'nobody likes!'
earlier i mentioned i have gotten big follower bumps from like adhd comics and stuff like that going viral. the thing is that, from a professional standpoint: my follower count has like, more than quintupled from where it was at a few years ago; my patreon income has absolutely NOT quintupled lmfao. it has less than doubled, over that same period of like... i wanna say over 4 years. that's still good, i'm grateful for it, and i owe a lot of it to the sheer numbers game (the more ppl see ur work, the more likely it is you'll reach someone who decides to support you), but there is absolutely not an actual direct correlation between numbers and career success/stability.
where there IS a direct correlation is between "people who give a shit about the art i really truly love making" and "people who like my art enough to support me professionally." HUGE chunks of the followers i get any time something goes viral slough off over time; there's nothing wrong with that, they just follow me bc something was funny/interesting and end up realizing my work's not actually their thing. but the ppl who follow me bc they're into all the stuff i post most consistently, the stuff i care about and am passionate about, stick around. and i would not have found them if i wasn't posting the shit i care about!
out there there are people who will be 100% crazy about the stuff that is 100% what you want to make. it's like actually statistically impossible for there not to be. the more niche your thing is, the longer it will take to find them, but they absolutely exist. but if you give up before you find them -- if you start saying, "well, i'll put in 50% of this idea that i love, but the other 50% is too weird and nobody's gonna like it and it'll flop" -- well, in that case, you can only ever find the ppl who are 50% into what you do. don't fuck yourself like that!! you cannot deny yourself the possibility (the INEVITABILITY!!! IMO!!!!!) of finding the people who will 100% get what you're doing.
so: on a pragmatic level, i'm sure there will be ppl who disagree with me on this, and who think it's absolutely mandatory to do fanart as a crowd draw or learn about algorithms and posting times and get on tiktok and do the visibility grind and everything and that it's stupid and irresponsible to tell people not to. i'm sure it's also easy to point out that i'm speaking from a place where i now have more eyes on my stuff than i know what to fucking do with so maybe i'm just totally out of touch and being naive or something. but for me the most important part of doing art now, ESPECIALLY as a career, is to keep loving it and to believe in what i'm doing and to build an audience that cares about the same things i do. and i think it is really really vital to make that your top priority. bc if you don't, then even if you DO crack the code to suddenly getting tons of notes on everything etc -- will you even keep wanting to do it?
this job is hard. it's lonely, in my experience; i spend so much time sitting in front of my computer alone. it's unstable, which is stressful and can be frightening. it's emotionally taxing, for me, because art is so important to me that it's hard to set boundaries and separate my identity from it and actually treat it like a job. it has taken me a long time to find success doing this; maybe i could have gotten there faster if i had tried to find ways to draw an audience specifically, but i think if i had somehow managed to get a big patreon following/tons of commissioners/etc by doing something formulaic or doing stuff that specifically gets tons of attention, but isn't what's natural for me -- i don't think i would have lasted very long that way. this is already hard and complicated enough; i don't think it's sustainable to give up any unnecessary ground on doing exactly what you're passionate about, bc at least in my case, that's mandatory for this even being a livable career for me. i would burn out and decide to do something else very quickly if the only way to succeed was to chase numbers/engagement.
doing it this way is very slow. if i hadn't been able to lean on family/my wife while starting up, i would have had to have a day job for much longer (like, years, probably) while saving up and preparing to go full time; for as long as you struggle to get traction, it may mean going full time has to be on the backburner. but the thing is that there's nothing wrong with that, it's the reality for the vast majority of us (from what i've seen) -- and you'll eventually build a career that can last way longer, i think.
okay oh my god i'm done. sorry about that. like i said this job is pretty lonely and i sit here all day and think about this stuff and then generally do not talk about it with anyone until somebody asks me about it and then i repeat myself at length again. like i did here. anyway have a good night sincerely and i hope some part of this was helpful!!!
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Prompt - an old man is sitting in the park below the old tree the old tree here signifies his old age and he is seeing the child play , mid age people giggling, couple walking holding hands and a family man sitting silent in the corner. Like basically he is seeing every phase of human life and you can relate an excited child with butterflies , similarly relating every human phase with something present in the park
I wanted to write in this theme but now you can write if you find the idea nice 👍 you can alter and change accordingly
Happy writing 🎇
Flower for you too 🌷
I want to write this in more of a essay form, might get boring//
In this era of rush, everyone in a chase for something like hamsters stuck on rolling wheels, so am I. Tired of all this craving to find the perfect life and all the ways to be successful, I wished to run away or ruin myself. To take a break from these all, chaos, thoughts, I went on a walk to the grounds nearby, to ground my own pace in this world.
There was an old man sitting on the dais below a tree and I sat beside, breathing in the changing atmosphere from the dull exhausted air of afternoon, to the cold, heavy, yet crisp fresh zephyrs of evening.
I began to notice his face and features, there was a calm and little smile, while his eyes danced around and there were wrinkle and smile lines on his face just like the tree behind us. I followed where his eyes went, to see what made him feel at such peace, one we all are searching, one I couldn't find.
I followed everywhere his eyes went, wondering what was so good about this? I took a look back at his eyes and his smile grew wider. I wanted to ask, why? What is so good about it all? So I took the courage and asked him.
He talked a while, and then told me about how he viewed the world and I think I learned something that day I can never let go of anymore.
There are people around, children hiding and seeking, playing with joys of childhood. Look at the kids, they are so young, carefree, they don't even care about the worldly belonging, because their world is just full of love, like the bees in this tree, they roam around, collecting sweet things in the fields. That's childhood you see.
Groups of teenagers walking back to home, laughing together maybe cracking jokes about how their days went, or about some teacher of their who sucks at school, or maybe something else. Look at those teens and these ants climbing behind the tree, hardworking, to keep themselves alive when the world grows cold, finding little joys even in the competition to survive, greeting each other with smiles and they will fight for their lives. You see that is youth.
Then there is a couple sitting beside a food stall, holding hands, giggling, waiting for the food. Look at those young people so adorably into each other, even getting a little treat is like whole world for them, you see these moments are fleeting, they will disappear just like the food and maybe after a while they will find new recipes to try but the love will always flow in those veins. You see that is love.
There is a young man carrying grocery bags and other with his child in his lapel, reconnecting after seeing each other randomly. They are like bunch of caterpillars fed on same plant but different species, one evolved into a small butterfly other into a moth, maybe one of their friend will be a majestic kind, both pretty in their own kind. Different paths but the process they went is the same. You see that's adulting.
And then there is he, An old man, like this old tree, watching everyone, everything, finding joy in mundanity of these little things, in the minuscule worth of human life. And then there is you, trying to make sense of this world, trying to find a way to bring happiness to your soul without searching the beauty in simplicity. Life is a pathetically abusive race, It took me ages to learn how to appreciate it and I noticed how you craves that knowledge, just like me in my youth. I hope you grow like this tree, it was younger when I was a child, still quite old but it continues to grow more. And look how peaceful it is to sit beneath it and how enormous it is, don't forget life is a race but its also your only life. Don't lose yourself in admist the chaos, I hope you age beautifully, Child.
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vesselslut · 1 year
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One more secret won't hurt / Bunny x reader
Part 1
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Chapter 2: Encounter with the weirdos
Sundays are for walking. Just like Saturdays are for reading and Mondays are for crying. It feels natural, meant to be. The college is surrounded by miles of woods, dissected by dozens of trails in every direction. A dream campus for an avid hiker. If I could, I’d spend my every waking hour exploring every trail, every nook and cranny of this beautiful Vermont wilderness. But trying to be a semi-functional adult that passes all her classes, I decided I’d dedicate only my Sundays to this hobby. Being responsible sucks ass.
But I am nothing in my soul if not responsible. So, on Saturdays, I made my way down to the little library to work on the week’s assignments and papers. Being a literature major means most of my day is spent reading and writing. I enjoy the reading part, but writing can be such a pain in the ass, having to find exactly the right word to describe something, having to come up with a combination of words in an order that’s never been done before or it’s plagiarism, and don’t get me started on writer’s block. Knowing I get to explore a new path the next day is what gets me through these harrowing Saturdays.
So, I make my way to the library, my bag hanging off my shoulder, full of assignments due way too soon, screaming in agony to be completed. It’s 8 a.m. too early for there to be too many people in the library on a Saturday. It buys me a few hours of reading with no distractions. It’s not like I have issues staying focused, like ADHD or something, I’m just extremely nosey. At least that’s what I tell myself to avoid taking meds.
I find an empty table near a window and sit down. I put on my noise cancelling headphones just in case, pull my copy of Frankenstein out of my bag, and start reading. Of course, I’ve read it a hundred times before, but now that I gotta analyze it for an essay, I find my brain completely blank. What original thought could I possibly have about a 200-year-old book that hasn’t been said before? What could I analyze that hasn’t been analyzed from a hundred different perspectives already? Maybe re-reading it will jiggle a decent idea out of my fried-out brain.
After a few dozen pages and exactly zero ideas, I put the book down and remove my headphones to take a small break. I release a heavy, exhausted sigh and rub my eyes. With my ears free of the headphones, I notice the library is not so quiet anymore. I look up and immediately spot the source of the noise. A few tables away I see a small group of people dressed oddly formal, discussing something in a strange language. Latin, maybe? Greek? Specifically, one of the boys is the source of the commotion. He is not screaming; in fact, he’s using a regular speaking tone, but in a library that’s pretty much the same thing. The others reply to his arguments in whispers, but this does not make the blond guy speak any lower.
I have seen this group around campus, talking amongst themselves and disappearing into the vine covered building, but I’ve never seen any of them in any of my classes. I haven’t paid too much attention to them, but it’s not hard to notice they are a bit odd.
The redhead seems annoyed, his head buried in a notebook while he aggressively scribbles something down, not paying any attention to the loud discussion happening around him. The only girl sitting with them is very pretty. She’s listening carefully and offering a few words here and there. The guy sitting next to her looks exactly like her but with shorter hair. I assume they’re either twins or it’s a very freaky coincidence. He also seems a bit disinterested in the outcome of the discourse, rolling his eyes a few times at the other boys. The two other dark-haired guys are the most involved, pointing at something in one of the books, and then at some scribbles in a notebook.
But the loud one, the blond guy with the glasses, is the one that caught my eye. I’d say that’s easy to do when you’re being this loud in a quiet place, but it’s not the loudness. He looks so excited, speaking in that gibberish sounding language, his hands moving around wildly, as if he’s trying to prove the most important point ever. He has my full attention. I stare at his lips, trying to make sense of any of the sounds, when I finally catch a few English words.
- “But that would make no sense though! Why would they be sailing to Carthage to attack?” then a few more words in the strange language. “See? It’s the aorist!”
- “Why are you so stubborn? We can just use the locative case, you can remove the epi if you don’t think they’re going to attack, and those who think they will just keep the epi. Problem solved,” said one of the dark-haired boys.
Holy shit. Even in English I have no idea what they’re talking about. Sounds like they’re trying to translate a very complicated text.
I kept staring at them, occasionally glancing down at my book to be less obvious. His energy is so contagious, how are the rest of them not scream-speaking like him? I have no clue what they’re even disagreeing on, but I’m on his side. He almost looks out of place here, like he should be on a pirate ship somewhere, yelling out orders, or maybe on a T.V. ad, trying to sell something outrageous with a surprising success rate, not here in a quiet library, talking about whatever ‘Carthage’ is.
My book is forgotten on the table after a while. It’s not shaping up to be a very productive Saturday after all. When I look down at my watch, I realize it’s almost noon. I see the group packing up their stuff and making their way out of the library, probably to grab some lunch. I should do the same, so I pack my half-read book and my blank notebook into my bag and start resignedly walking to my dorm to get food. I don’t think this Frankenstein paper is going to get written soon. My mind is still on the mysterious group, and the loud guy that seemingly stole more than just a bit of my attention.
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wartakes · 1 year
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What Comes Next? (OLD ESSAY)
This essay was originally posted on January 21st, 2021.
This is the essay that actually responds to January 6th (as the one that was posted on January 6th was actually before everything happened and had nothing to do with it, lol). (Full essay below the cut).
So, I guess it’s finally time to talk about the last couple weeks.
On the morning of January 6th I had just posted an essay I’d rant-written over an hour or two the night prior about an op-ed on Military.com calling for war criminal Robert Bales to be pardoned by now former-President Donald Trump (thankfully, Bales does not appear to have been included in Trump’s last minute Pardonpalooza – sucks to suck Bobby Boy). I figured that would be the thing I’d be the angriest or distressed about that day, or even that week.
Yeah, so, we know what happened in the second half of the day.
I’ll be honest, I intended to write something about all this sooner. God knows that I’m a little late to the game on all this. A lot of my favorite analysts, podcasters, and other content creators have all already done their bits on the January 6th insurrection/riot/whatever by now. But I decided to sit tight before I put my thoughts down on “paper” as it were for a couple reasons.
The first reason was equal parts paranoia and selfishness. I held my fire because with the threats and increasingly tense situation surrounding the inauguration, I wanted to wait until after Biden was sworn in before I wrote anything because – much like my Bales essay being overcome by events – I was afraid I’d write something only to have an actual coup de tat kick off five minutes after posting it (Note: as of writing this, Biden has successfully been sworn in and is in the White House probably saying “listen Jack” to his staff repeatedly).
The second reason was, I honestly didn’t know what to write and didn’t know exactly how I felt about everything and I still am struggling. Since January 6th, I’ve felt just about every emotion I think is possible at least once a day – often more than once. I’ve mellowed out a lot since then and feel a lot better today, but I’ll be real with you all, I was kind of a wreck for a bit with everything going on (if you’re worried, I’m ok, and thank you).
This essay is going to be a bit disjointed compared to some of my other works, but this is just something I wanted to get off my chest and out of my head to help myself make sense of things, and maybe it’ll help other folks in that way too. I’ll try and follow it up with something approaching intelligent analysis on how we should think about this and deal with it going forward. Hopefully in the next few weeks I can get back to my usual fare. For now, let’s do this.
How Do I Feel?
I’ve spent most of my adult life learning and training to be a national security professional and then (finally) starting to work in the field. I’ve typically been what you’d call a generalist. I’ve dipped my toe in a bit of everything, but I’ve largely focused on conflict between states in all its various forms throughout my academic and professional career.
With that in mind, another reason I was slow to write about this was that I’m not the best person to. While I’ve always been aware of and concerned about the dangers of the far-right and white nationalism and all the other toxic elements in American politics, it wasn’t until the last four years – and the final stages of my radicalization as a leftist in the last year in particular – that I truly began to appreciate the gravity of the threat. I’ve never focused on any of this in my studies or work. I’ve never been an expert on far-right paramilitary violence and domestic terrorism and all of that. I’ve never even been an expert on terrorism and political violence in general. I watched what happened on the 6th unfold in real time over livestream, talking with my close friends and family as it occurred – which in a way, made it even harder and take even more time to process it. I’ve seen plenty of events unfold like that in other countries before, but it was just that: foreign. Something that happens over there, not back here.
In a way, I had a massive cognitive dissonance about the event as it was happening. On one hand, it was entirely shocking and surprising that this could happen in the United States of America of all places, in the 21st century. And yet, at the same time, I couldn’t help but think “well of course something like this finally happened, how could it not have?” We’ve been building up to something like this for years now. It didn’t help that while I now view the government and many institutions with a much more critical eye given my change in politics, I can’t deny the monuments and symbology still hold some kind of value to me emotionally, and seeing far-right Trump supporters bashing their way inside and running amok fucked me up some (this in addition to some personal connections I have to the Capitol that made it all hit a little close to home, but I don’t really want to get into that here).
So, where am I going with this? That’s a good question. I guess my point here is, amidst the mix of emotions I felt over the past week or two, the overriding one was fear. I was scared. And I’m here to tell you that if you were scared as well, that’s ok. That’s valid, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Was what happened at the Capitol as bad as it could have been? No. I’ve heard a lot of 9/11 comparisons and while I agree some are ham fisted, and while January 6th was nowhere near as deadly as 9/11, it still left me with the same sense of fear and uncertainty that event did when I was a kid. It was still a traumatic event in a lot of ways, and if you feel scared by it, don’t let anyone make you feel like shit for feeling what you feel.
I’ve seen a lot of people cracking jokes about what happened on twitter and elsewhere. That’s fine. Honestly, one reason it’s been hard to make sense of everything after the 6th has been the fact that while the insurrection was serious, it was also in many ways, laughable in its events. I mean, c’mon. You have the Q Shaman dressed up in a fur faux-Viking outfit. How can you not joke about this shit in some shape or form? It’s impossible not to.
I’ve absolutely made a lot of gallows humor among friends myself to deal with what happened. As Hawkeye Pierce once said on M*A*S*H, sometimes joking is the only way you can open your mouth without screaming. When this becomes unhelpful or hurtful is when the joking becomes less about working through something you’re feeling and more about trivializing it and dismissing it as something that is not worth your concern and attention. That is not fine, and it pisses me off in a major way. Not only does it feel like punching down, but it also feels like it misses the implications of what happened for us as leftists and the country as a whole.
Again, was this as bad is it could have been? No. Was it the worst thing ever to happen to or in America? Not by a long shot. But it is extremely concerning and should be a warning to us for what might come next. Even if the riots themselves didn’t amount to much, and in many places were laughable, it was also extremely fortunate they were not worse – as there are now plenty of indications that they could have been much, much worse.
While there are a lot of people on the left that have been keenly aware of the threat of right-wing violence for years now, this may be a wakeup call for many who either weren’t as aware or didn’t think it was as serious or extensive as it’s turned out to be. While we all may have been affected in different ways and to different degrees but the last few weeks, what we need to agree on is that far-right violence and extremism is a problem that is only going to get worse before it gets better, even now that Trump has left the White House. Trump was only the beginning. We need to brace ourselves because what has become clear is that the last few years if we want to stop things much worse than what happened on January 6th from occurring in the future.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Ok, so I just disgorged about a thousand words or more in change at you about my own jumble of personal feelings about all this. I feel like I owe you something a bit more thought out on what we should be trying to do from here on in to deal with the oncoming wave of chuddery.
First off, there are two important ideas that need to be understood in tandem – to some folks these may be obvious but I’m going to state them anyway to drive the point home: 1.) this is not a problem that cropped up overnight; and 2.) this is not a problem that will be taken care of in four years or eight years or even more than that. The current form of far-right extremism that we face is not one that suddenly cropped up after Trump became President. It has its roots going back more than thirty years. The problems of white supremacy in particular are entwined with the very founding of the nation. These are problems that are going to need to be dealt with over the course of a generation – more likely, multiple generations. It is going to require us to fundamentally change as a society, which I do not believe is impossible, but I do think it will be a long and hard effort with many twists and turns and missteps along the way.
Another key takeaway that I don’t think that a lot of people on the left are going to need convincing on is that this is not a problem that can or should be solved solely through arrests and imprisonment and violent crackdown from the state. I’ll say right now that some new Patriot Act II: The Patrioting, is 100% not the answer. As a national security professional, I can tell you right now that if the government can’t stop what happened on the 6th or any of the other incidences of far-right violence in recent years with the massive toolbox of domestic surveillance and counter-terrorism infrastructure it already has – and arguably shouldn’t have in the first place, there’s no way some new domestic version of the Patriot Act is going to do it (and it’ll just get turned against leftists and minorities anyway, let’s be real). Giving more money to cops certainly isn’t going to solve shit – especially when a number of them are part of these movements, as well as more than a few troops in the military).
That being said, another thing that the left may need more convincing on is that some of these people will never be convinced to give up what they believe. That is not to say that all of them are lost causes. I don’t believe that every person who voted for Trump is a QAnon adherent or a fascist in waiting, and they can’t be forgotten and need to be brought along for the ride in building a better world – after all, I became a socialist because I want life to be better for everyone, not just everyone I like who believes in my ideology. Likewise, I don’t believe that every person that gets caught up in far-right extremist movements is necessarily a lost cause. Some of them may be able to be helped through some kind of de-programming and de-radicalization effort (there’s a lot of discourse on how appropriate the cult comparison is QAnon, but I think this is an apt one), but we need to accept that some people are never going to surrender their beliefs and will always consider people like us as an existential threat.
Where am I going with this? Well, here’s that part that may not go over as well. I definitely fear state overreach and abuse of power in light of what happened on the sixth – which I hope was already demonstrated by my apprehension about any kind of new domestic terror law. But even with all of that in mind, some of these people are going to have to be arrested and go to prison.
Let me be clear: the criminal justice system and law enforcement in this country are fundamentally flawed. I think they need to be completely rebuilt – not reformed but torn down and rebuilt from scratch. Not only that, but they also need to be rebuilt as part of a system that prioritizes social services that prevent crime and violence from occurring long before it ever gets to the point of involving law enforcement or any form of detention or corrections – and that those need to be done in as humane a way as possible. But I still think they need to exist. Why? The same reason I think a military will still need to exist. Because no matter what, somehow, some way, there will always be someone who wishes to do harm for one reason or another. We can try and help as many people who have been drawn in by far-right movements as we can, but we need to come to terms before we get deeper into the struggle that we cannot help them all.
What that point gets across is that dealing with this problem in the years to come isn’t just going to be accomplished by doing all the good things we’ve always wanted to do. It is going to require us doing things that some leftists may be fundamentally uncomfortable with. Things that involve the use of force and wielding of power by the state. I wasn’t happy at all about the fact we deployed more troops in Washington D.C. than we have in both Iraq and Afghanistan combined in order to guarantee what normally should be a peaceful transfer of power. But as much as that made me uncomfortable and scared and angry, I can’t say that it wasn’t entirely necessary.
I am not saying we need to discard our own principles to deal with extremism. In fact, I would argue against that strongly and forcefully. If we acted in a way contrary to every concept of social justice and human rights and democracy that we claim to uphold, then we’d be no better than those who passed the Patriot Act, let alone any authoritarian police state that has existed past, present, or future – be it fascist or socialist. But there are things that we are going to need to address and come to terms with as a movement. I don’t begin to claim to have the answers, but I do know there are tough conversations that will need to be had. I believe in a better world, but not in a utopian one. We need to come to terms with that going forward.
Keep On Keeping On
I’ve been a little all over the map since the 6th, but as my mind has cleared some, if nothing else I’ve emerged with a renewed sense of purpose in the aftermath of what happened that day. It has reaffirmed the beliefs I started to be honest with myself about almost a year ago when the mask finally began to come off to me. It has made me more certain about what side I am on and the kind of future that I want to live in.
While I still believe things can and will get better, I also unfortunately believe they will likely get worse before they do. As Joe Biden is inaugurated, there are already signs that the disillusioned once-QAnon faithful who for so long “trusted the plan” only to be let down and questioning everything they believe, are being targeted by more violent and accelerationist far-right groups for recruitment. There are also plenty of people who will likely maintain their loyalty to the QAnon theory in some shape or form and that movement is in the process of an uncertain transformation. And while many Republican have tried to disconnect themselves from far-right elements, there are still more than a few who not only remain tied to them but court them as a power base. This is a problem that is going to stick around in multiple forms for a long time, whether it be QAnon, a Q offshoot, your basic white nationalism, outright fascism, and etc.
This all should give us a renewed sense of urgency, as well as purpose. If we didn’t believe it before, we have to believe now we are engaged in a political struggle for the future – our right to exist in a more just, safe, peaceful, democratic world. January 6th and the reactions and aftermath of it should drive home to you that the stakes are very much real. That we need to work even harder to organize and mobilize the people of this country to enact change for the better.
Moreover, as things will likely get worse before they get better, we need to be prepared for that. While we should never seek out violence, we need to be prepared if violence seeks us out – as it has been apt to do so far. Much has been said about the police response to the insurrection on the 6th. The bungled response appears to have not been due to any one factor, but that none of them bode well in sum. Police collusion and sympathy, a lack of taking the threat seriously, and a lack of the necessary skills or competence when it actually wants to deal with the far-right threat means that we cannot depend on law enforcement to protect us as it is currently structured.
Again – and I cannot stress this enough – this does not mean we should seek out violence. If anyone has fantasies about a Second Civil War, take it from someone who has spent their entire adult life watching still-ongoing civil wars in Syria, Libya, Yemen, and other places: you don’t fucking want that. Period. Full stop. But if anything has been made clear by the rise in right wing terrorism in the last decade, is a reality that we need to watch out for ourselves as we try to move forward. Simply put we can’t make a better world if we don’t live to see it through.
Its ok to be scared. Let yourself be scared for a bit if you feel the need. My Mom always has said you have to let yourself be sad or upset for a while before you can be not upset. But don’t despair. Don’t give in to hopelessness. Nothing is set in stone. Time is not a flat circle, despite what many might tell you. We can make a better world, but we need to be clear headed about the challenges we are going to face going forward in doing that, and we need to be ready for them. So, suit up for the long-haul kiddos. I’ll be here with you, contributing in my own way, going on about war and foreign policy and my usual hobby horses. I don’t plan on going anywhere and neither should you. If we have that resolve, that in itself is a starting victory.
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thirddoctor · 2 years
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I saw your recent reblog about Sherlock, and your tags, and as someone who always loves seeing what you have to say about things, I am curious as to your actual thoughts on Hbomberguy's video - like do you not like the video itself or do you just not like the resulting discourse (and what WAS the resulting discourse, anyway?)
Full disclosure, I haven't seen the whole video, just the bits that address Doctor Who, so I was mainly talking about it from that perspective, because I felt his take on Twelve's era was just... not very good. I have no idea whether the Sherlock parts are an accurate or unfair critique of the show - probably a mix. But the way people frequently take popular video essays like that one and old half-remembered fan perceptions as gospel truth rather than forming their own opinions always irks me. I'm not even immune to it myself - I'm sure there are pieces of media I have a very inaccurate view of because of the misconceptions and bad takes I've absorbed from other people - but I think it's always a good idea to keep an open mind. One of my issues with that video is people just kinda post it as a gotcha proving Sherlock/Moffat suck without actually engaging with the material themselves in a meaningful way. They're just regurgitating someone else's opinion about a show they probably haven't watched since they were 15 or maybe never even watched at all. Again, I see this more in DW spaces because I'm not in the Sherlock fandom, but it can be very frustrating, especially if they dismiss more nuanced views simply because The Internet Already Decided It Was Bad.
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kitchfit · 10 months
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Year in Review: Games pt 2
Back to Bildeo Bames! After finishing my big Kingdom Hearts binge, I told myself to cut back on gaming for a while until Tears of the Kingdom came out. That was a huge lie! I love deception and falsehoods :D
Psychonauts
The idea of going inside someone's head to discover an entire universe created from their thoughts and memories has always been a fascinating one for me. I spent a lot of time as a kid imagining what my own or my friends' brain-world would look like and how you might navigate it. So imagine my surprise when I found an entire 3D platformer based around that concept. And for $5 on sale, no less! This had been a cult classic for a long time, but the recent sequel I still need to play elevated it to a higher place in the social conscience.
You play as Raz, a young kid who crashed a training camp in order to become a Psychonaut, people who covertly enter other's minds to extract secrets for the government. At least that's the idea, Raz ends up using his training to help his mind-victims work through their insecurities and psychoses in order to improve their mental health, first focusing on people in his camp, and then on clients in the nearby insane asylum. This isn't just out of a heroic desire to help others, but the easiest way Raz has to save his new camp friends, whose brains have all been cartoonishly sucked out of their ears and placed into jars. This world is so goofy and fun and the premise allows for endless creativity with settings and like. You can write a whole essay on any one of these levels. Damn I need to play the sequel.
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
I like Sonic quite a bit. The characters are so expressive and fun and the world is similarly wacky and cool. The lore is an odd mix of typical video-game nonsense and genuinely fascinating tragic backstories. I loved the Sonic X show and Sonic Underground but like. The games... Okay the games are fun, but there's always one thing that ends up giving me a huge headache. Usually the Chaos emeralds. Eventually I'll go back and play through the Origin games and meet the games on their terms, but in the meantime this is the perfect Sonic game for me.
It's just a three hour visual novel written in the style of a murder mystery! It's so cute! Sonic is dead! You spend most of the game as Barry the Quokka, who's name is actually Kitch, a dorky dude in charge of catering on the murder mystery train, thrust suddenly into Amy Rose's birthday party on a quest to figure out the culprit who fake murdered our best blue boy. The game is full of so many adorable designs, fun characterization, and goofy plot tangents that its clear Sega just gave a group of Sonic fans free reign to go crazy over an official project. If you get bored of the visual novel part, its interspersed with random isometric Sonic levels you can plow through pretty quickly. I had a pretty good time with all of it.
Sonic Adventure: DX
In fact I had such a good time with The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog that I jumped immediately into an actual Sonic game. This was Sonic's first real jump into 3D, and I was always led to believe that jump missed the platform and tumbled into badly rendered, inanimate water. This isn't true! The voice acting is pretty bad at times and the animation gets wonky in places, but like. I am a Kingdom Hearts fan. These are not negatives. It also splits a singular story into multiple perspectives, so you discover more context for what's happening the more characters you play as. That doesn't mean the story is amazing or anything, but the effort is commendable and I love when stories do this.
Each character sits in a different genre of game as well. Sonic himself translates his 2D gameplay pretty well into a 3D setting, which is what most people reference when talking about this game. Tails is more of a direct racing game where you can basically skip most of any level due to the fact he can fly. Knuckles is a treasure hunting game focused on exploration. Amy is a survival horror game where you beat the shit out of robotic pyramid head at the end, and Big the Cat is a fishing game that's pretty fun after you tear all of your hair out. The last story, Gamma, is a rail shooter about one of Eggman's robots developing a conscience after learning it is being powered by a small tormented bird, before going on a rampage against its robotic brethren and self-destructing, freeing them all from Eggman's control. It's surprisingly... pointiate? powniant? *checks watch* poignant dammit. I have an English degree. Anyways robot stories like this always get to me for some reason.
Pokemon Infinite Fusion
There are a few communities where the amount of effort that can go into amateur fan content astounds me. The Pokemon fanbase is one of those communities. Romhacks have been popular in this community for a long time, many of them matching or exceeding some of the professionally made mainline titles, in my opinion, at least. Pokemon Infinite Fusion approaches that line with just the shear volume of fan content present in this game.
Any Pokemon of any stage can be "fused" with another to create a new design. Their typing and stats depend on a fairly simple algorithm, but the designs themselves are created by hundreds of incredibly talented independent artists you can find credited in the Pokedex. You can even import your own design if you wish! Obviously, with the amount of possible combinations, not all of them are artist-created, most procedurally generated, but there are just so many that it boggles my mind. Here are a few of my favorites
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[Image I.D. Fusion of Mawile and Electavire created by Sadfrog, it has jumper cables in place of its giant mouths]
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[Image I.D. fusion of Cofagrigus and Weavile that resembles Midna from the Zelda series created by King Peggy]
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[Image I.D. fusion of Charizard and Aerodactyl created by artist Beespoon]
The game itself is a decent remake of Firered and Leafgreen with a significant post game. I have a couple issues, such as the credits being kind of vague and buried, and the gameplay being glitchy in certain areas, but this game is still being updated, so I'm excited to see what else it will offer in the future.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Ocarina of Time is the quintessential Zelda game, Breath of the Wild reinvented the franchise, but this is my first and favorite Zelda game. When I think of Zelda I think of this Hyrule's landscape, this Link's journey. I can talk at length about the perfect structure of this game, the dungeon layouts, the visuals' mix of quirky and grimdark, the fun boss designs, but I can't deny its all washed in nostalgia.
The story is about two people with the rest of their life apparent ahead of them, both cursed and disfigured beyond their imagination and forced into a role they could have never predicted. People say Midna is the greatest "helper" in the franchise, but really she's the hero right alongside our main boy. This isn't Link's story, its both of theirs. And at the end, neither of them can truly return to what they used to be; the curse is dispelled, but the change remains. For Midna this means sacrificing her closest relationship for the good of her kingdom, and for Link this means leaving the town he knew as home. Maybe he's looking for a way to find Midna, maybe he's off on a new, dangerous adventure, maybe he wants to do motion-controlled sharpshooting on Nintendo's cool new console. Regardless of his goal, his adventure changed him in a way that he can no longer live comfortably in the life he grew up in. So he leaves.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD
When this game came out, the biggest complaint about it were the broken motion-controls. Personally, they always worked fine for me, but I'm glad the switch remake added a new control scheme to make the experience more accessible. Now more people can complain about the actual game rather than the controls! Honestly never really understood why this game was so polarizing, the only big problem I had with the original was Fi's constant interruptions (which were toned down in this version), but Navi did that shit way more frequently and no one marked that as an abject flaw. It's a damn good 3D Zelda with excellent dungeons and a really compelling conflict.
This version of Link and Zelda are one of the only overtly romantic iterations of these characters. A classic childhood friends to lovers dynamic. Zelda is on her quest to restore the power of the goddess and Link is set on supporting her, no matter how painful it might be for him. A cool detail I love in this game is after Zelda seals herself up in the Orange Sap of Eternal Agony or whatever, the lines on Link's face notably lengthen and darken.
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[Image I.D. Link at the beginning of Skyward Sword. The lines under his eyes are visible, but indistinct]
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[Image I.D. Link towards the end of Skyward Sword, the lines under his eyes are deeper and more apparent.]
It's as if the trauma of his journey has physically aged him. Idk maybe its just a lighting thing I'm reading too far into. I'm glad this Link and Zelda get a happy ending. My only complaint nowadays is learning Nintendo almost made a "hero mode" style extra game where you play through Zelda's adventure! And they took it out! Cowards! You get glimpses of what it would be like in the end credits, like they're taunting you.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Breath of the Wild might be my favorite game to just exist in. Every inch of Hyrule is so thoroughly laid out; the environments are gorgeous, the movement is fun, there's always something in the distance worth checking out, and the towns are so heavily detailed. You can spend hours even after completing the game 100% just driving around the landscape or studying the textures and wall decor in Kakariko to find some hidden piece of storytelling. In that regard, excited to say the Tears of the Kingdom is the perfect sequel.
I was concerned when it was revealed we were exploring the same Hyrule's map, just a few years later, but they changed things up so thoroughly, exploring the same area doesn't feel like retreading old ground, but seeing how the area evolved. It's familiar, rather than identical. Not only that, but there are now two entirely new maps situated above and below the old one, each with a new, invigorating aesthetic that are so fun and exciting to travel through. Go to the Sky for some awesome Agoraphobia, or travel to the Depths for some cooky Claustrophobia. You will never know how badly I spelled claustrophobia at first.
The story is nowhere near as elegantly written as BotW, and that's fine, it's a sequel, it only needs to add on to the original, and it brought it me Tears (HAH) for entirely different reasons that BotW. The dragon's tears sidequest had genuinely shocked me with the order I collected them, and the endgame boss sequence was just so incredibly peak. On the lore side of things, and how it connects to the larger mythos, this game makes me want to strangle someone, but this is Zelda, I would not have it any other way. Mechanically, I'm never one to push a game to its absolute limit, but this game has so many tools intended for the player to do exactly that, and I'm excited to see what other people come up with.
youtube
Recently, as of writing this, the Youtuber Any Austin put out a video analyzing the woodworking of TotK and BotW, and it might sound goofy, but it got me pumped to return to it in the near future, to just exist in Hyrule for a while longer.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team Pt 1
This is the first title I'm granting the "pt 1" moniker. Some games have a definitive ending, and then a post-game epilogue that is an entirely new story that I might finish next year. This is a childhood favorite of mine I'm revisiting. The mystery dungeon games have this insane hold over my psyche and always wrench an emotion out of me like no other Pokemon games can. While that didn't change time around, I realized I had a great deal of nostalgia blindness over its story. It's not bad at all, but it plays into a lot of generic adventure story tropes while I remembered it being more unique. In truth, this game was actually my introduction to a lot of those tropes and archetypes, and it pulls them off very well. It occasionally moves into some insane territory, like your cute Pokemon guys are hunted down by a lynch mob at one point.
This game also established a lot of Pokemon identities in my head, and are the reason Mons like Ninetales and Gardevoir are some of my favorites. Its such a comfortable game to go back to, but it will always be outshined by its successor, in my opinion.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Skies Pt. 1
No, I didn't misspell that. This is a fanmade improvement hack that adds some quality of life adjustments, like shortcuts for all of your moves, and a bunch of new story sidequests. Most of the story elements are relegated to the post game, so my playthrough was more or less identical to the original. That being said, this is one of my favorite games of all time. The reason I remembered Red Rescue team as having a more in-depth story is because of this game. Upon my umpteenth playthrough of this I can confirm that it is not (just) nostalgia blindness, this is still one of the best video game stories I have ever experienced. You can withdraw all of the elements that make it a Pokemon game and you are still left with a really well written, emotionally driven science fiction story. Wigglytuff and Chatot aren't even Pokemon to me. They're just the chaotic gay couple from this game.
The gameplay is mostly unchanged from the first, with the addition of the lovable 4th generation freaks. The change of focus from rescuing Pokemon to exploring new areas and finding treasure always hooked me and spurred on my imagination as a kid, it captures the sense of wonder really well.
Link to hack: https://hacks.skytemple.org/h/skies
Pikmin
This is probably my most replayed game ever. It's a pretty short game, if you know what you're doing. There was a point where I had the map so consistently memorized I could do a playthrough in my head, lmao. Take that Miyamoto. I pirated your game through MY MIND. YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A MEMORY.
There's still something magical about the atmosphere in this game that I don't think any of the sequels quite matched. Something about music; the mystery; the sound design; the isolation. It's just one man forced to make friends with these adorable alien freaks to ensure both of their survival. Later entries would focus on the intrigue of exploring what seems to be the ruins of human society from an ants perspective, which has its own appeal, but this game feels most genuinely alien and hostile in the way nature can be, in a beautiful way. I also played this with gamecube controls for the first time in my life man fuck the gamecube controls.
Pikmin 2 pt 1
This game has come under fire in recent years, which I think is goofy as all hell. I heard people call it "the black sheep" of the Pikmin series back when there were only three sheep! And a pygmy goat on the 3DS, I guess. I understand a lot of the criticisms, but this was a dream come true when I first picked it up as a kid. Now you have an endless amount of time to explore the Pikmin Planet to your leisure! You have another dude (he sucks so much I love him)! More little freaks to follow you around! Even more big freaks who want to kill you! I love freaks. I don't know how much time I spent studying through the Piklopedia to understand the wider ecology of this viddy game. It solidified the character of Olimar in my head even moreso than the original.
People hate the caves, (or hated?) but I think that's just because it wasn't like Pikmin 1. There's something to be said about the generic aesthetics dulling down the personality of these dungeons, but it always felt like a suitable expansion of this world. They're bugs! Tons of bugs live underground! Of course that's where they're all hiding. Because of the endless time limit, they did ramp up the difficulty on some of these caves to the bullshit level, which made me want to move on once I paid off the debt. Sorry Louie! I know you like it down there anyways. With the other freaks.
Pikmin 3
I never owned a Wii U, so this game coming out at the peak of my Pikmin hyper fixation was agonizing. I staved off the insanity of not being able to play it by scrolling the fanwiki articles for every new creature it introduced and rewatching the trailer demo over and over again? Huh, I really did that. Finally being able to play it on the switch is fantastic, and I don't have to deal with that stupid gamepad. Sorry, really cool bulky controller with a tiny screen you can't see shit on.
This game is so beautiful. It almost retains the majesty of discovery that the original had. I understand why people often refer to it as the true sequel. It works to strike a balance between the tight survival gameplay of 1 and the explorative aspect of 2 by having your day count tied to the amount of resources you can gather within a day, which also allows the plot to manufacture genuine anxiety when a certain asshole steals all your shit. All that time you spent gathering a buffer against certain starvation for your dudes was worthless unless you can get it back. You can actually lose the game at this point if you aren't on top of things.
I like all the new dudes. They all fit within the pre-established universe very well and contrast nicely against the original trilogy of dudes by being nice and actually liking each other. You just feel bad that Olimar hasn't been living it up with these cool cats all this time, and is instead tormented by his asshole coworkers every waking moment of his life on PNF 404. All three of the coolcats also get original Piklopedia entries from different professional perspectives. All together we get an amateur biologist (Olimar), a cook (Louie), an engineer (Alph), a botanist (Brittany), and a tactician (Charlie). Most of Charlie's are just "can I take this bug in 1v1" and I love him for that.
Cutting this off here for now. Remember how I said I love deceptions? That also went for writing this in a timely fashion. Oh well, one person's Monday night is another's Friday morning. That's how timezones work, I think. Going back to movies next Monday. I don't watch a lot of movies overall, but I have a lot to go through.
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radios-universe · 1 year
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some random questions:
do you have a favourite scent?
do you prefer short ankle socks or crew socks?
what’s the last book you read?
what’s a book you really didn’t like?
do you prefer to sleep with white noise or silence?
do you have a favourite food?
who’s a band/artist you’ve liked for a long time? (you can define “long” however you want)
bonus round:
what’s philosophy school like? like what kinds of classes and assignments do you have and just your general thoughts on it
you are a BLESSING this is so fun!
favourite scent has gotta be either a freshly blown out candle or drying paint. yeah.
short ankle socks all the way!!! idk what it is but if socks are coming any further up my ankle than trainers socks do i am naauuut having it.
last book i read in full was radio silence...!!! while i was annotating it for my friend. currently rereading solitaire though :]
oooo... if i don't like a book, then i will never actually make myself read it, especially because i can have quite a hard time reading in the first place anyway, nevermind if it's something i'm not enjoying. so i don't know, actually. i can't even think of any books i read in school which i didn't like... they weren't THAT bad i suppose..!
definitely sleep in silence. i need complete silence and minimal light. not complete darkness, no, i'm actually scared of the dark. but at least like a lamp in the corner of the room or something. too bright and i can't sleep and too loud and i can't sleep. i actually am really picky about sleeping conditions and find it quite tough to fall asleep in places that aren't my bedroom T-T
my favourite food, at least for now, is definitely pasta. not any specific type or dish... just because it can be used for so many things and has so many different types that i feel like i could eat it everyday and never really complain.
bonus answer: garlic bread (i am a walking asexual stereotype, and proud of it)
well i can take the music artist question and half jokingly answer one direction really... ok they haven't been about for... almost a decade but i was in fact a directioner...!
as for right now, i've been a really big fan of the band lovejoy and have been for a long time, the same way that a lot of their fans have been around for a long time - the lead singer of the band is also a twitch streamer/youtuber...!!
i've been keeping up with his solo music before he formed lovejoy with his bandmates and its been amazing to see how not only the lead singer has grown with his music, but the band overall..!! they're very very cool and i really like their sound. they're awesome in concert too.
blehhh well i do philosophy (and religious studies too, actually! joint degree) at a UK university so.... really um. yeah.
it's not the most riveting experience ever. sure, it's pretty interesting but really you're just sitting watching a lecturer talk in front of a powerpoint a few times a week and then you're made to actually read all the other information by yourself. for way too long.
as someone who (as previously mentioned) sucks at reading for the most part... yeah...!! it's an experience.
it's not like i didn't expect it. the grades are based on a typical UK idea of half being essay and half being an exam, for the most part.
it's definitely an experience...!!! trust me, i am only doing this so that i can teach the subject (RMPS to be specific, meaning 'religious, moral, philosophical studies) at high schools. if i was doing this without a career choice in mind i would be going craaazy
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ivyschapter · 2 years
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A Peek Inside My Head (a pull from my personal essay class)
A Peek Inside My Head
I am far from a simple girl. I take pride in what I know and interest in what I don't. Like Professor Graham, I don't particularly favor letting strangers take a peek into my mind. Yet, I want to be a writer. What's great is I get to be incharge of the work I display. If I think I've let my brain leak a little too much on the page, I can discard the piece. Though, for this particular assignment, I have allowed all the leakage to stream freely. In this essay I touch on what makes my brain wander far, ignorance, and a personal goal. Gifted with a grand amount of vulnerability, here is a look into my brain.
As a nineteen year old girl, numerous things make my brain go “hmmm.” For example, taxes or even something less complex like the mind of a nineteen year old boy. (slightly kidding!) Both of these things make me wonder. However, those ideas do not live in my brain. The concept of life and love, do. It has been argued for generations about how humans evolved on this giant rock and what our significance is. To me, the soundness of how we managed to get here or transform into who we are doesn't matter. What matters is that we're here, I’m here, right now. Out of all the planets, solar systems, galaxies, and universes my soul seeks refuge on earth. And to have the ability to experience a deep connection full of raw emotion, on a giant rock, makes my brain go “hmmm.” 
“Come on Man!” is what I would say to the owner of a 2011 Honda Civic after they’ve cut me off on the freeway. Bad driving drives me absolutely mad. Something I've noticed about bad drivers is that they justify their actions by saying something along the lines of “i've got somewhere to be.” So does everyone else. Maybe a child is in the back of their mothers minivan throwing up on the way to the hospital, an employee late for work on their third strike, or an old man on his way to visit his wife’s grave, regardless, everyone has somewhere to be. The danger factor also contributes to the issue. Putting other’s lives at risk is something that happens every time one gets behind the wheel. Thinking that your destination is more important than everyone else’s is ignorant. Ignorant people cause me to scream “come on man!” on the freeway. 
J’apprends le français mais je ne suis pas très bon. In English, this phrase translates to “I am learning French but I am not very good”. Before understanding life as I do now, I had no interest in learning another language. But, I got to college and all of the sudden my mind began to explore new ideas and opportunities. At first, I hated attempting to grasp how the French communicate. C’est difficile. Nonetheless, after indulging in a semester or two, I have fallen in love with trying. To be brutally honest, I suck at remembering and pronunciation is killer. I am far from great, some might even say horrible, but get back to me five years down the line. I might be conversing with a local under the brightly lit night sky in Paris, fluently. I am not good at speaking French but I strongly wish to be. 
As stated before, I consider myself out of the box labeled “simple.” This consideration has its pros and cons. I see life and love through the eyes of youth and I have the capacity for a new language. With this, I also overthink about people who change lanes too quickly. I hope I have shed light on how I think and why I do so, in an admirable fashion.
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caixxa · 1 year
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hi caixa 🥰!! 7, 13, 16, 19, 28, and 35 for the weird questions ask please? 💗
Baby!! So many!
7. What is your deepest joy about writing?
Creating a thing out of thin air with nothing but my imagination and words.
13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy?
Violence is difficult. The action of fighting, physical injury, pain, and I know next to nothing about firearms either. I'm also not very confident in my ability to write sports as action. It takes time.
The romantic style of writing atmospheric descriptions of spaces and nature as a reflection of emotions and inner thoughts is something that comes easily.
16. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?
I don't think I've ever used anything particularly weird.
19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?
I suddenly remembered I had answered the question once and I'll copy my answer from a year ago here bc my thumbs sre going numb from typing.
I told myself bedtime stories in my head, those that I can remember, from about 7 or 8 years of age. Elaborate ensembles of characters, either completely of my own or characters from a book series. Never wrote them down.
I had a diary, I wrote little poems, my teacher liked my essays at school and the little plays I wrote for my classmates. It was fun.
From then on, I always had some kind of a story running in my mind. Sometimes, I wrote them down; usually not.
University taught me news prose and the value of readability, clarity, and accuracy. Work has taught me the value of good enough and done in time versus perfect.
Now? I gather building blocks called information and stack them together for easy but nutritious servings.
But I also tell myself bedtime stories in my head. Sometimes I type them down to give them a concrete form. I have posted some of them on Archive of our Own.
Where am I going? Where is anybody going? As you see, my friend, time is a flat circle. Maybe I’ll end up writing short sentences about how the day went and simple little poems in a small diary in wobbly handwriting.
28. Who is the most delightful character you’ve ever written? Why?
Answered, Hine in myporn AU sdfies (he'sa major character in two fics). Here's a snippet:
He was right, Roope got him something unmistakably fancy, the aroma of freshly ground coffee under a hint of vanilla and foaming steamed milk is rich and dark and he can basically feel the caffeine injected in his veins.
Roope sits on the other edge of the messy bed, pulls the blanket to straighten it over the sheet. He places a cardboard box down between them and opens the lid, revealing a small selection of fruit, a croissant, sliced avocado on two pieces of toast and a small plastic plate filled with thin green spinach omelet. Roope fishes a wooden fork from the bottom of the box and takes a bite of the omelet.
“Have something,” he gestures with an extended little finger, mumbling through a mouth full of egg. Sebastian pics a grape and puts it in his mouth, starts chewing slowly.
“Isn’t this stupidly expensive?” he can’t help asking.
Roope shrugs and takes another bite of the eggs.
“If I’m down to the last twenty on my debit card three days before pay day, I just can’t care. I’ll rather have something tasty because I’ll be broke anyway,” he says. 
35. What’s your favorite writing rule to smash into smithereens?
The "first drafts are meant to suck, just get it all out" doesn't work for everyone. Some writers work better when they try to get the text right and ready from the start and will rather think and edit as they go. If the only way you get anything written is this, go for it.
--
Thank you for the ask!
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icharchivist · 2 years
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No but speaking of “i don’t like getting into things that are popular because if i genuinely like it i end up disliking everyone involved in liking it and it’s really annoying”, little storytime that somehow illustrated exactly what i mean.
The game i’m currently playing is mad popular. Like, one of the most popular game that exist. (if you guess what it is/know from seeing me on discord, do not share it there please, for reasons that i’ll explain, it’d get me mad. If i end up rambling about it one day you might)
And ever since this game came out i heard two things about it: it’s a good game, and “the writing is absolutely garbage and all the characters end up being made dirty and actually this is such a horrible game but you gotta play it anyway”
and i can’t stress enough: in what way do you think anyone would like to play a game while the only thing you hear about it is how bad it is?
for years i genuinely didn’t want to touch this game because all the negativity i saw about it got to me. I was seeing essays over essays over what this game had failed to do, and i genuinely spited the game thinking there was nothing salvageable about it and ended up mad seeing it online.
Until my best friend started to play the game, got really into it, and streamed a bit of it to me, and i genuinely started to love it. 
I got super invested in the characters, and everything else about the game that no one talked about genuinely got to me. I love the gameplay, i love the music, i love the experience. 
After two streaming sessions, we gave up the idea of streaming, i bought the game, and while originally i didn’t want to talk about it because i didn’t know how much i’d end up enjoying it, i’m currently about 50 hours into the game and i’ve been playing almost everyday for at least 8 hours.
There’s flaws in the writing already that i’m noticing, linked also to flaws i saw brought up before, but as it is, it’s nothing that i’m genuinely finding myself to completely hate yet. So it is a bit unnerving to know a flaw i am willing to let it flow me by as an audience was blown up of proportion so much that i didn’t even want to touch this game.
But the most aggravating to me was when i was playing peacefully, geeking to my bestie about it, that i got a message on discord from a long time friend (who is not on tumblr, it’s a twitter friend) i haven’t talked with in a long while, who saw i was playing it and immediately went
“omg i love this game! please tell me all of your thoughts about it! also watch out for my fav omg the writing is SO BAD around him he was made SO DIRTY i hATE that the game did that to him” I was a bit baffled and i just told them “hey i’m just starting the game, i don’t want to hear this type of stuff yet, i can get my own opinion of it” and they went “NO BUT YOU DONT GET IT THE WRITING IS GENUINELY SHIT” and i had to be even more firm about how, hey, don’t fucking do that, and my friend eventually apologized and left me alone.
But i’ve been genuinely in full unrest ever since. Like. The whole reason i didn’t want to play this game was this type of behavior. How do you end up believing anyone would want to play a game when you talk about it to them like that?
I was playing it and i was being so excited about it. Genuinely happy.
I’m so depressed, that the fact i have something that makes me want to wake up early in the morning, vibrating, just to play it, that also helps me not look at socmed most of the day, that i end up vibing with and being able to share with my best friend, is honestly so great. It’s so rare. I genuinely feel so dead inside and am desperately trying to revive a bit of the feelings i used to feel with nostalgia, and when a good game manage to come its way and motivate me to at least live a little, i take it! i don’t care if it sucks, i take it! 
Only to have people seeing me play and being? Like THAT? in my DMs?
Like ngl but this sort of “i love something but DISCLAIMER: it sucks” pseudo self awareness from online circle is a plague. You can discuss the flaws without centering your whole opinion on something about how much the thing sucks for it. 
There is so much to love in flawed things, because generally when it takes a bad swing, the sudden gap to a good thing feels like a rush. I tend to value flawed media much more than anything people consider flawless.
But the more a media is popular the more people have Takes that they force on me, and this takes the fucking cake.
This whole incident makes me want to never, ever talk about this game on main. I’ll talk about it to my bestie, and a few other friends i trust and love who has been much better about it (N* if you see this post since you often see my rambles, you’re a delight anytime and you count into the friends i trust and love here, just in case) but that’s it.
Will the flaws prove themselves to get worse toward the end in a way that will stain my enjoyment? probably! but i want to discover it by myself. 
But i’m genuinely not recovering from it, liking popular thing is a nightmare because like, when something is mainstream there’s so many people who will talk about it; Someone will have a problem with this aspect of the story while loving the rest, someone else will have a problem with another aspect and loving the rest.... but as current socmed’s circles are built over people having to PROVE they’re aware that the thing they like is bad, each people are going to talk about the flaw more. And for each people who only have say, one flaw about it, they’ll only talk about it until only the flaws remain. You’ll get locked in an echo chamber of misery that is stripping away your own ability to make judgement based on your own gut feelings and appreciation. 
And people will just shun you and the thing you like. 
That’s fucking depressing. 
and ofc disclaimer there are important flaws to discuss like, especially when something’s problem is rooted in bigotry and the likes.  But this is not what i’m talking about so please don’t derail <3
Genuinely i’m still feeling insane about all of this i’m never talking about anything popular i like ever again. You only get the niche stuff because it’s the only place people behave because they’re not constantly performing about how “i’m the one who intellectually interreact with this media by only pointing out the flaws”, when it’s too niche it’s just “listen no one knows about it let me just talk about how it’s unfair this thing that makes me happy is unknown”. And that’s the way i want to live. A bit of positivity in this damn world damnit if i wanted to hear negativity i’d turn on the news. or read twitter. Even worse.
So yeah, i’ve been avoiding getting into anything too popular and if you need a reason why, this whole incident somehow managed to bring to light why i’m feeling so strongly about it.  Not getting into anything popular and if i do, it’s stealthly because i don’t trust anyone.  A shame really.
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catiewithvt · 2 years
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And now an early morning essay on how I would have sex with my partner an essay that no one asked for but I'm still going to type out on my phone because some times you just have to type out the things you want to say.
The ways I would have sex with my partner is going to be a very interesting read into my own personal psyche because as like majority of you I am a deeply damaged person with parent issues (aka abusive parents) so I may call my partner "Daddy." Because my real father is a piece of shit and has left me to fend for myself far too many times.
Now I would never call any woman "Mommy" because that one comes with a lot more baggage and would not really suffice all that well. Since my mother physically abused me to the point where if my voice was heard earlier in life I would have probably been taken away to CPS. Thus I hate the word "Mommy" because of my past experiences with my own hateful mother
Anyways back to having sex because I went on far too long about my own personal baggage and it probably won't be brought up again nope not whatsoever.
Alright to begin I would start by well touching my partner, and not the other way around because physical touch from someone else kinda scares me. You know because physical touch is sacred for me and is one of my main love languages, so when I touch you or let you touch me, that's a personal thing that I have let happen and you should actually feel like a tiny bit grateful for because I don't let anyone touch me.
Especially on the shoulders because those shoulders are extra sensitive to me because that's where my neighbor (who I am still neighbors with, and yes this is a cry for help because I still feel slightly unsafe because knocking and whistling now make me jump and have trauma induced flashbacks) touched me the most while he was sexually assaulting me, especially when I was in a very vulnerable position... This old crusty man wanted to do more to me and I am glad I got out when I could but the situation still scares me to this day... That this man could have done worse to me...
Anyway so I will start touching my partner gently maybe giving them a backrub or maybe making out something that will get them a little bit bothered, doing a bunch of teasing as I slowly start edge closer and closer to the point of no return~
Which reminds me of the point of no return with my ex had I known he was that manipulative and a terrible terrible person I probably would have burned that bridge even harder. Atleast I'm getting the last in the end, I'm not saying how but atleast I am getting it in the end.
Finally finally I would start to go down on my partner, giving the occasional suck before eventually using my full force to really go down on them like a swift and hard vacuum cleaner trying to get that last spec of dirt off the carpet.
after that I would tell my partner that I want them to take me hard and let me feel ever lasting pleasure because I want them deep inside of me, because we at a crucial moment of deep deep passion
So while my partner finally decides to start dicking me hard and vigorous I will finally, cry because finally I know that I am passionately loved by someone who wants my body and doesn't think I'm fat, or ugly because I'm disabled or don't look a certain way.
Because that's someone that I've had to come to terms with for a long time, and there have been times where I have felt extremely unloved, and I just wish there were people there to comfort me and tell me that everything will be okay because I am loved who I am.
Because I've dealt with self esteem issues for so long and the lingering thoughts if I'll even feel love, or if any of this was even worth it. Because I almost gave up while being harassed so badly that I've had to private my Twitter twice just so I could have peace, honest if it weren't for my supportive friends and partner I probably would have lost my own battle.
And the finale happens where finally we both reached our climax eventually with me most likely being filled and probably getting pregnant. My partner is hopefully kissing me still and calling me beautiful and telling me that eventually I'll be a good mother.
I hope I'm a good mother... Because I didn't have a mother to look up to...
And that's how I would passionately have sex with my partner, hopefully it wasn't too too deep or graphic for you all!
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