#polar 2019 imagine

[bi-bard]

Stupid Mistakes - Duncan Vizla Imagine [Polar]

Title: Stupid Mistakes

Pairing: Duncan Vizla X Reader

Word Count: 1,357 words

Warning(s): Descriptions of violence, use of guns, injury, blood, kidnapping

Summary: People make stupid mistakes. It happens to everyone. However, not everyone will find that their stupid mistakes have deadly consequences.

Author's Note: I spent Valentine's Day watching a crap ton of Mads Mikkelsen projects. I don't know if that's a warning or a promise.

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I was groggy when I woke up.

I blinked a few times, feeling an aching in my arms and shoulders. There were restraints around my wrists, holding me up above the floor.

I looked around at the room of guards before turning my attention to some woman in what was clearly a wig.

"Vivian?"

She just raised an eyebrow at my question.

"Good guess on my part," I muttered.

She scoffed and walked away, going to sit down in a chair.

One of the guards stepped forward and grabbed my chin. I stared at him. I refused to show weakness or fear.

"Been dying to see Duncan's sparkling diamond," the guard said as his grip tightened on my jaw. "He hid you well."

"I would let go of me," I replied through the hold on my face.

"Aw, what's wrong, do you not like me?"

I took a deep breath.

"Poor thing is scared. Don't worry. Once this is over, we'll take great care of you."

There were a few chuckles from those around him. I simply stared at him before quickly spitting in his face.

He quickly stepped back as he wiped his face. "Oh, you disgusting pig!"

"If he did so much to hide me, what do you think he'll do to protect me?"

The sound in the room stopped. Like it was suddenly much more tense than it had been. Had none of them even considered the possibility of him finding me?

"He's a little too... busy to come and save you," Vivian spoke up from her seat, clearly trying to calm the guards.

"How long do you think you'll be able to hold him after he finds out that you took me," I asked. "Considering psychological torture is part of your boss's plan... then there are photos of me here... like this? Truly a very stupid decision."

Again, silence.

"So, I'm right. Well then, you've all been making a lot of stupid mistakes."

I saw Vivian shift a bit in her seat.

"How long do you think I've been with Duncan?"

"Our records go back two years," she replied.

I nodded. "Interesting."

"Surprised that we know?"

"Not really. Surprised it took you this long to fuck up considering how long you've know."

She took a deep breath. I looked around the room.

"What do you think happens when you take away a man like Duncan's- what did you call it- sparkling diamond?"

None of the guards replied to me.

"Well, I'll tell you... nothing good."

"Shut your mouth," one of them snapped.

"Aw, are you getting scared? Y'know, Duncan always reminds me not to let myself get scared if I found myself in a situation like this. You make more mistakes when you're scared."

"I told you to shut your mouth!"

There was a gun in my face.

"Ooo, I wouldn't let him see you do that," I shook my head like I was a disappointed parent. "Poor thing, you are still making so many mistakes."

"Shut your fucking mouth, you-"

The shouting was cut off. The guard dropped dead in front of my feet. I sighed.

"I tried to warn you," I shrugged.

Another man fell.

I watched them frantically look around for a minute.

"Where is he," Vivian asked.

"I don't know, your boss was the one holding him captive," I replied.

The door slammed open a matter of seconds after the word left my mouth.

I ducked my head down as best I could as gunfire started ringing out. I squeezed my eyes shut. I was going to feel the ringing in my ears for weeks.

It all stopped. I didn't move. Not until I felt the restraints on my arms give way and I was placed back on the ground.

I knelt down as I saw Duncan fall to his knees. My heart broke at the sight of all of his injuries. He looked so exhausted. I touched the sides of his face.

I saw Vivian move over his shoulder.

I stood up, taking the gun from Duncan's hand. He held onto my free hand.

"Don't do something stupid," I warned. "You've made enough of those choices today."

"I have a job to complete," she replied. She had been hurt at some point. I could see it. "Look at him. It'll be just like putting down an old dog."

I let out a sharp breath through my nose. "Your records... of me... they're wrong."

"Doesn't matter now."

"But it does," I replied. "You said that your records showed a two-year relationship, yes?"

"Doesn't matter-"

"You missed a decade," I cut her off. Her eyebrows furrowed.

I smirked a bit before quickly lifting my arm and firing a shot. I watched her body fall to the ground.

"A lot of time to practice my shot."

I knelt back down in front of Duncan and put the gun down. I cupped his face again.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I... I didn't want you to have to do that."

"I always thought I would," I shrugged. "One of the things I accepted when I decided to stay with you."

"You shouldn't have-"

"Stop," I shook my head. "I decided a long time ago that I wanted to be with you. Forever. I chose that. Because I love you. You aren't to blame for anything that happened. I chose this life; those people chose to take me. That's it."

His eyes closed and he leaned forward, his forehead touching mine.

"Let's go get you taken care of."

Duncan- while half-conscious- gave me instructions to find a friend of his. She took him in, took care of his wounds far better than I could have, and gave us a place to stay while he healed.

I sat on the bed next to him, staring at the number of bandages covering his body.

"How long have you two been together," his friend-Jazmin- asked.

"It'll be twelve years in a few months," I replied, turning to her. She seemed shocked. I chuckled. "He did a good job hiding me, I can see."

"I didn't think he'd allow himself to have something so... serious."

"He couldn't lose me," I shrugged, chuckling again. "He tried to keep me away at first, but I guess, time proved that it wasn't happening. And here we are."

"When did you find out?"

"God, I don't know... two years in? I think? I was mad that he kept it from me at first, but... I understood. He is... everything to me. He's my world. I understand that he wanted to keep me safe from it because I would've done the same thing. Because I love him."

She grinned and nodded.

She went about whatever she was working on, giving me some peace with Duncan. I wanted to reach over and hold his hand, but even that was bandaged up. It broke my heart.

I resigned myself to lying on my side next to him, watching his chest move with his breaths. The movement was the only sense of comfort I had. The only reassurance. I was going to cling to it.

I soon heard a groan come from Duncan.

I leaned up on my elbow so I could lean over him. "Hey..."

He blinked at me a few times. He went to move.

I carefully placed a hand on his chest. "Don't move. You have a lot of shit in your system. Just stay still."

He slowly nodded.

I grinned.

"I... I didn't tell you earlier," he muttered. I furrowed my eyebrows. "I love you too."

I chuckled, leaning over to press a kiss to his cheek. "Trust me, I am well aware... but having you keep saying it is very tempting."

"I love you," he whispered. I rolled my eyes. "I'll say it as many times as you want."

"Rest first... and then I'll torment you by holding you to that promise."

"Could never torment me."

"Oh, don't tempt me."

I kissed his lips gently, pushing him back when he tried to follow me. I laid my head back down on the pillow next to him.

I knew that he was still blaming himself for what happened in that place. I could see it on his face, as much as he tried to hide it. I think he knew that he couldn't hide anything from me anymore, but he still tried.

It was his stupid mistake. I was just more forgiving than he was.

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[entitled-fangirl]

Four days of hell.

Duncan Visla x Swedish!reader

Summary: Duncan curses Blut for involving his neighbor in the man's schemes.

Warnings: torture, blood, inappropriate comments, cursing, name-calling, shooting, idk just Duncan Visla things.

Author's note: I thought it was spelled Vizla, but the closed captions said Visla. Idk. Either way, I guess.

Masterlist

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Duncan was enraged.

Here he was, held up by chains like an animal, awaiting his fate at the hands of Mr. Blut.

And they had taken her in the process.

Y/N.

Mr. Blut walked through the doors, the light revealing little but the bright red of his suit. And behind him was Y/N.

She had a collar wrapped around her neck, the leash being held by the man.

Duncan was ready do make him regret the day he was born.

Mr. Blut handed the leash off to one of the guards who ties it to a nearby pole.

"You hurt me, Mr. Visla. And that cannot be repaid with a swift, impersonal death."

He slowly takes off his jacket as he speaks, replacing it with a transparent apron.

"When the English caught the traitor William Wallace, they dragged him naked through the street for six miles so that peasants could smear their warm, fresh piss and shit on him…"

Duncan didn't even bother paying attention to the man, his eyes resting solely on the girl, as if his gaze would be enough to unlock the chains on the two of them.

The old man remembers the day she came into his life. He has been out splitting logs when he heard a noise coming from around the house next door.

Y/N had fallen outside in the snow, and now sat in it, half embarrassed, half amused.

Although Duncan hadn't noticed the fall, he saw the girl immediately and found himself walking in her direction.

The girl, as it had turned out, had just moved from Sweden, and was trying her luck at a life in America.

Duncan thought her foolish for picking Montana of all places, but he would never say that to her.

In the fall, she had scratched her leg, and hadn't noticed the red seeping into the snow. So, Duncan helped the poor girl into the house. 

And that was eight months ago.

He had grown too fond of the girl since then and he now was cursing himself for it.

"…because the traitor had hurt the king."

Duncan snapped away from his thoughts and back to the situation in front of him. He was dripping sweat as his eyes glared at the man.

"…I guess Wallace hurt England pretty bad," Mr. Blut leaned in towards Duncan, "YOU hurt ME pretty bad, Mr. Visla. I have four days before I have to kill you. Four days of HELL! And on your birthday….

…you die."

Y/N had sat against the pole she was tied to, her eyes focused on Duncan's face. She had never seen the older man like this: focused, angry, and unforgiving. It was a scary sight for her.

But beyond that, she focused on the man in the red suit's words. She was struggling learning all of the English words, and lots of them she had missed just then. But the ones she did catch were the most important ones. 

Something about his birthday and hell and dying.

She continued to watch her neighbor closely. So much so, that she didn't notice the other man shift his gaze to her.

Mr. Blut gave a sick smile as he turned back to Duncan, "I'm going to have a little fun with your lady. And you're gonna watch."

She didn't quite understand what he meant, but she saw Duncan's eyes narrow just slightly.

He held a picture up to Duncan of the girl that was taken earlier, her body in a kneeling position and the man's hand gripped her jaw, his thumb in her mouth. She looked scared and confused in it, and Duncan was ready to murder.

Mr. Blut held up a knife, stabbing the picture into Duncan's chest. 

Duncan let out a groan.

Y/N pushed herself forward slightly, her eyes wide in shock. A small shriek left her lips but she covered it with her mouth.

Mr. Blut moved to his instruments of torture, "So I've given it some thought, and I've decided that we're gonna start…" he held up a small snipping tool, "…with these. Music please."

The man proceeded to cut Duncan's skin to the sound of the bagpipes. 

The sounds of Duncan's wails and cries becoming too much for the girl. She backed herself up against the pole, covering her ears and shutting her eyes tightly.

After what felt like hours, he finally stopped his torture. He pulled the knife from Duncan's body, taking the picture with him. 

"The fun continues tomorrow, Mr. Visla."

He untied Y/N, dragging her out of the room with him.

The door closed, the lights shut off, and Duncan's chains were given slack, making the exhausted man fall to the ground in a slump.

…

The pattern continued for the next three days. The endless torturing, the pained cries, the blood, and the crying girl in the corner.

By the third day, Duncan was entirely disoriented, his eyes not moving as fast as he wanted them to. His body wasn't listening to his brain and he was dying of blood loss.

Mid-torture, Blut's knife broke in Duncan's torso. He cursed at the man, and held up the remaining part of the blade. "You broke my favorite knife."

But Duncan wasn't responding. He could barely keep his eyes open. 

Blut got in his face, "I said, you've broken my favorite— hello?"

He cut at Duncan's cheek to try to get a reaction, but none came.

"I'm obviously not getting through to you, am I?"

And with that, he stabbed the broken blade into Duncan's eye.

Duncan screamed, the deep vibrato echoing in the room.

Y/N let out a shriek, her voice finally coming through. "Sluta! Sluta såra honom!" 

Blut looked over his shoulder, taking the blade from Duncan's eye. He looks back, pulling Duncan's face up by his hair. "The fun continues tomorrow, Mr. Visla."

As he walked back towards the door, he stopped by the girl. He leaned close.

The girl was panting now, her voice now turning soft compared to the shriek she had given earlier, "p…please."

The man kicked at her legs in anger. "You'll learn to shut your fucking mouth, you little whore."

She retreated slightly, her eyes wide.

Blut turned back towards Duncan. "And for your birthday present, Mr. Visla… you get to keep your whore tonight."

And then he left.

…

The silence continued in the space for longer than she would have liked.

Duncan could barely keep his eyes open.

"D…Duncan?"

He let out a groan of recognition at the sound of her voice.

"What did… what were the words he said… about me? I tried to follow but I… it was too fast."

A light hum from the man and a strained, "…No."

She nodded, understanding to keep to herself. 

"Sleep…"

She turned her head to Duncan. "W…what?"

"…sleep."

A nod, and she leaned back against the pillar, letting herself fall asleep.

…

The next day, Y/N awoke to the sound of gunshots. She jumped, her head swiveling to Duncan.

She watched as Duncan fought off the guards. She was unfamiliar with the sound of bones snapping until that day.

She hid as much as she could to avoid the bullets that flew across the room. Duncan stood straight when it was done, his mind now focused, and his body responsive like never before.

He took heavy steps to the girl who now was looking up at him with an unreadable expression.

When he neared her, he took the piece of broken blade in his hand, and stared at the collar, as if asking for permission to touch.

When she nodded, he stood in front of her now, her head tilted up from her place of the ground to look at the ex-assassin.

His fingers lightly ghosted over the scratch on his cheek, his eyes studying it closely.

She let him, unsure of what it was he was doing.

Finally when he deemed her alright physically, he knelt down face-to-face with her, his hand fidgeting with the collar's lock until it opened.

He threw it from her frame, his eyes now ghosting over the bruises that laid under the collar.

He took deep breaths.

"Did he touch you?"

She tilted her head slightly in confusion.

He sighed, "Did he… hurt you in other ways?"

She slowly shook her head.

He left out the biggest sigh of relief. "You're gonna follow me. And you're going to do everything I say without hesitation."

He grabbed her arm, pulling her up with him.

When he hurt more guards climbing the stairs, he pushed up under a table. "Stay there."

He then shot the light box, making the building lose power.

The guards came in slowly and on edge, their flashlights being their only source of light.

Duncan managed to take them out one by one.

When they had been cleared from the room and the outer room, he whistled lowly and the girl slowly emerged, following him down the stairs.

He checked around each corner carefully before leading her through. Once they entered the underground tunnel, he took the fire extinguisher off the wall. "Cover your ears and stay right there."

He threw the extinguisher around the corner and shot it, making the guards both with ringing ears and blind eyes.

After a lot of shooting, she heard his whistle again and moved to follow.

She stepped close to him then felt a hand wrap around her throat from behind, a gun now pointed at her temple.

"Don't move, Visla."

Duncan cursed under his breath and turned around slowly, his calculating eyes taking in the sight, "Give me the girl."

The guard pushed against the girl's already bruised windpipe. "I said don't move."

"Christ…"

The man was shot before Y/N even processed that Duncan had moved.

She felt his body crumple to the ground, his voice pleading.

Duncan stepped to them slowly, taking the man's shirt in his grip. He punched the man harshly.

And again.

And again.

And she let him.

After about six punches, Duncan fell to the ground in exhaustion. 

She knelt down beside him with a gently hand on his upper back.

He finally stood up with her help, and they slowly walked out of their seemingly endless enclosure. 

He pulled her to him, placing a gentle kiss at her temple.

Duncan held her close, and she let him. The blood seeping into her clothes didn't bother her at all.

.......................................................

Part 2 would be cute :)))

[heuimagines]

📌 info post!

Welcome 2 our page! This blog is modded by 2 guys who have an abnormally large amount to say about Hannibal. And the Hannibal Extended Universe. And Mads Mikkelsen.

Important warnings:

Aside from canon-typical violence, we will post NSFW and potentially triggering topics, always with warnings on the post b4 the content. That being said there should also be plenty of tamer, SFW posts.

What we post:

Basically any scenario related to anything from Mads or Hugh’s filmographies! Solo character scenarios, reader insert scenarios (like a TON lol), character ship scenarios, etc. Posts could be 1 or 2 sentences or thousands of words, bulleted lists of headcanons or fully fleshed out narrative.

Basically, think of this page as an HEU variety show.

That’s it for now!

Expect mod intros at some point, but since neither of us use tumblr very often who knows when that’ll happen. Thanks sm 4 reading nd have a great rest of ur day ^^ - mod 🫀

[imagines-to-quench-thirst]

Do you think Duncan has a breeding kink?👅😵👅😵

IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR ASS OUT OF MY HOUSE!!!!!

EVERY DUNCAN HOE KNOWS THAT DUNCAN LIVES ON BREEDING KINK. THAT IS THE FIRST RULE YOU HEAR WHEN SIGNING YOUR SOUL AWAY TO THE DUNCAN-HOE-CLUB.

plus that man is pure sex, I'm sure that breeding kink is at the top when he meets his dove.

JOIN US TODAY. BE A DUNCAN HOE!

[6lostgirl6]

Duncan Vizla Masterlist

Fics:

Headcanons:

Scenarios/Imagines:

Requests:

[james-stark-the-writer]

alright. fuck. time to sit down to watch M. Night Shyamalan's Glass (2019). i know this one is really polarizing, i know there's a Folding Ideas video on it about how much it sucks bc it was recommended to me for like three straight weeks at one point (obviously haven't seen it). Split was more compelling than it was "good" so i have tempered expectations, but hopefully at least it's enjoyable? i mean i cannot imagine Samuel L Jackson — if he's back, why would he not be back — not being fun but after Split, i don't fucking know. i'm just holding my breath and hoping for a fun time. here's to hoping this is more Unbreakable than Split or that it finds new ground for itself that manages to synthesize both feelings and thoughts into something cohesive. what will be god this time?

[boobaloof]

Horizon Tag Game

Thank you for tagging me @nerd-artist! :)

1. Ride or die ship (Your otp):

Ereloy. When I first got my ps4 Horizon was one of the first games I ever played back in 2019 and MAN. The dynamic and stories that surround these two. They're polar opposites both in writing, origin and personality. Like many Ereloys I fell hard at the Two Minutes Convo™️ back in hzd when Aloy was all mission and no time to waste. Not only did she reassure Erend when he most needed it, but also promised him a bit more of her time than what little he had asked her for. (Also, the way Guerrilla team describes Erend in regards of his relationship with Aloy is just SUCH TEASING. They love their friendship as much as we do and the puppy mentions are my fave meal.)

Their relationship has developed like HELL in hfw and I'm so here for it. Their closeness and chemistry is out of this world, and to see Aloy be soft and smile with him makes me hope for more moments in HZ3 where she can have fun with him when we go to 🕯️The Claim🕯️. The care they have for eachother is more than evident, too, and all the special focus they both had in HFW still has me thinking they might be endgame in Hz3. I just can't escape them.

2. Most annoying ship: Hating a ship in public? In this economy??

3. Second favorite ship: Morlund and Abadund. Ray of sunshine and little rain cloud ship? Sign me the fuck up. Oh also Vanasha x Uthid. Delish.

4. Favourite platonic relationship: Erend and Varl, whatever Erend and Kotallo have going on, Aloy and Talanah, Beta and Erend, Zo and Aloy, ALOY AND BETA (Super exited for the possible 'Teaching Beta how to hunt' Aloy moment. Need more sisters bonding!)

5. Underrated ship: Morlund x Abadund.

6. Overrated ship: The Horizon fandom is kinda small tbh, so, none thus far.

7. One thing i would change in canon: Ugh. A lot. Kinda noticed that the horizon writing has been kinda lazy after hzd so that explains a lot. Varl’s death, the returning character's treatment in hfw, (Erend got written like a CLOWN in the base dialogue), Most of the Hfw DLC, the small amount of Beta and Aloy bonding in hfw, which made the whole 'sister' thing came outta the blue honestly, The Zeniths showing up too soon in the story for my liking, some writing, mostly.

8. Something canon did right: You know what? HZD. BEAUTIFUL introduction to the game's amazing world. The effort that came into creating every tribe is evident and each one of them has this gorgeous presence in the games. Then the worldbuilding, too. The amazing characters that were made (both main and minor), and to tie it off, the way everything comes together in a perfect symphony surely makes the Horizon universe be unique. The delicate balance of the world and its inhabitant's interactions with one another's makes the world so rich and gorgeous. Major kudos there.

9. A thing i'm proud of creating for the fandom PLEASE BRAG ABOUT YOURSELF I WANT TO SEE/READ YOUR ART: Well, I never thought I'd ever be able to draw digitally and let alone post it online to begin with, so it's been a ride for me. I've evolved a lot ever since my first drawing was posted here, and I'm more than grateful for everyone that has enjoyed the fruits of what I can offer.

The most difficult piece I've ever done and my favorite this far is the Evening at Hidden Ember piece. I have it printed in crappy paper and framed on my bookshelf. It was HELL for me to draw, but it makes it worth it even more because the outcome was lovely.

Also, my fics. NEVER would have imagined I'd be able to write anything in my second language, so yea.

10. A character who is perfect to me (Wouldn't change a thing): Beta is a gorgeous character. I love how different she is to both Elisabet and Aloy, and what it brings to the table. I'd love to see what she will become in hz3. She has this huge potential it'd be sad if she remained as Aloy's gal in the chair. Let her see the world!

Erend is nice, too. I know I mentioned the HFW writing, but the whole base thing can be overlooked when you compare it to the general writing of Erend.

I'm easily unimpressed with the hard, serious, tragic-past-having character trope that a post apocalyptic like horizon can create. It's most of Sony's male protagonists. It's gotten quite old for me.

So to see the kindness, fun, and emotional sensitivity Erend's character represents in Horizon is like drinking a huge glass of cold water after exiting the desert. Guerrilla played the "Crass and Loud male character" in on itself with Erend, which is something that can easily backfire if treated poorly, (hence why I hated the hfw base Erend writing reducing him to just, loud and crass and drunk. It was a gross character regression) but the way they did everything else? They aced Erend GORGEOUSLY.

To remain kind and gentle despite everything, specially in a world like horizon, is a feat, and I applaud that. (While also having a sharp bite, of course, and not making it the whole character's theme and personality.)

That's why his introduction in hzd is the way it is- That's why Erend looks the way he does. He is there to show that not everyone has to be what they seem. So when the heavily armored, loud, piercing having, mohawk and muttonchop wearing guy ended up not being an asshole I was quite happy. I breathed, because I' didn't want to see the basic ass hard guy narrative.

TL;DR I love my fucking bear and the free sister everyone gained in hfw.

11. The character I relate to the most and why:

Aloy. Not much of a social being tbh. Mostly everyone I've met here knows I suck ass at staying in touch or one-on-one chats (I do apreciate y'all though, even if I'm not good at showing it). Most comfy talking on public servers. Def.

12. Character(-s) i hate the most and why: Not many characters to actually hate, to be honest. The bad guys are just 'bad' for narrative purposes no matter how many horrible things they've done. Most characters in Horizon are so well made that I just can't hate them.

Maybe I could hate a character if they're poorly written, or if they represent a character archetype we've already seen in-game, but the hate is not inherently on the character itself, instead it's directed at the lost potential and lack of originality the character represents.

13. Something i've learned from the fandom: About the Horizon fandom itself, it's that it's very friendly and tight knit. Everyone here knows eachother, (specially the hzd oldies), so if any nonsense tries to take flight (Like the good ol' 'new fans trying to stir shit up in a generally peaceful fandom' or the famous Shipping Manifestos™️ explainig why MY ship better than YOUR ship, we can just laugh at the utter idiocy, block, and keep creating.

14. Three tags i seek out on ao3: Friends to lovers, Angst/Comfort, The unadulterated, pure, grade E smut, Modern AU, Coffee Shop AU, etc.

15. A song i strongly associate with my otp/favourite character:

Something about us (Daft Punk) for Ereloy. Much pining much yearning. Delicious.

Tagging anyone who'd like to participate! These are fun to read.

[taylortruther]

I’m going to send a spicy thought I once sent another blog that is completely theoretical, sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t the size of the career that Joe cared about as much critical acclaim. Because in some pretentious circles back in 2017-2019, someone who acted in Oscar bait films like the Favorite and Harriet in supporting roles is much more artistically respectable than a polarizing pop star whose lyricism is always reduced to singing about boys. But now Taylor is actually respected as a songwriter, even a lot of normies who don’t like her music give props about it. And CWF/other roles actually had really mixed reviews about both Joe and the actual final product. So it does seem like uncharted territory for their relationship

i think this is kinda what people mean about the imbalance of their career success: he didn't want to be HUGE but he wants to be well-respected. and although this is an assumption, it is easy to imagine that it stung for him when his partner receives accolades for everything she seemed to touch and he felt he was struggling. (again.. assumptions!!)

[cavorta]

Visualisations with "inner guides"

Over twenty years ago, I learned something in psychotherapy: visualisations with »inner guides«.

The idea is quite simple: You invent some kind of helpful person or animal or another entity whom you can trust and then you visualise having conversations with them. This inner guide may have a different perspective on your problems and help you solve them - or at least find a state of mind with which you can better deal with them. If you cannot visualize, because of aphantasia or something else, you could also try to hear the conversation you have with your inner guide instead of visualizing them.

You could say, that you tap into your inner wisdom while talking with such a guide, or into the Collective Unconscious. And this can be easier with a visualisation or a similar method, than in your every-day state of mind.

I am a spiritual person and these days, I differenciate between spirit guides and inner guides: The inner guides are made-up, a product of my imagination. The spirit guides are real entities (at least in my personal experience or my unverified personal gnosis).

The therapist who told me about this mentioned that some religious folks use angels as such inner guides, so the line between imaginary guides and spirit(ual) guides gets blurry there.

In 2019, I chose a fictional character whom I really like, as an inner guide and I am glad I did, because this has helped me a lot.

My hyperfixation on Good Omens has given me the idea to use Aziraphale and Crowley as inner guides, too.

I think it might be really interesting to have two such polar opposites and see their different viewpoints on things. There is this well-known image of a tiny angel on one shoulder, whispering in your ear and the devil (or a demon) is also there, whispering in your other ear and both try to persuade you to do some things (or not do them).

So I tried a respective visualisation last night. In it, we met in the book shop, Aziraphale was very welcoming and offered me a cup of tea, as he would. Crowley on the other hand was sarcastic and thought-provoking – as he would be. This visualisation was helpful to me, so I am looking forward to more such conversations with them.

[mariacallous]

Not so long ago, the UK government could brag about its climate credentials. In 2019, Prime Minister Theresa May pledged the country to reach net zero by 2050—the first major economy to legally commit to eradicating its emissions. The UK’s early embrace of renewables also saw it cut emissions more quickly and rapidly than other major economies, and it has now slashed its emissions in half compared with 1990 levels.

But as of late, the UK’s bragging rights are looking shaky. Under current prime minister Rishi Sunak, the government has signaled a willingness to roll back green pledges and drag climate policy into the culture wars. In its latest report to Parliament, the Climate Change Committee, which advises the government on climate policy, warned that the UK was in danger of losing its position as a climate leader.

For six years, Chris Stark has been CEO of the Climate Change Committee and the UK’s top adviser on climate change. As he steps down from the role, he spoke to WIRED about the UK’s shift away from climate leadership, his fears about the polarization around climate change, and the role he thinks oil and gas companies might play in a net zero future.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Matt Reynolds: In the six years you’ve been CEO of the Climate Change Committee, the UK has had four different prime ministers. How much does the person in charge matter when it comes to climate change policy?

Chris Stark: It’s massively important, though it’s often not the explicit leadership that matters. To tackle climate change we’ve got to have something that spreads right across all the arms of the government. If you know that the person at the top of government wants that policy to be focused on climate, everything just gets a bit easier. I imagine this as a set of strings held by the person at the top. It’s much easier if they’re pulling them up.

So if you’re working on housing policy and there’s something at the margins about whether you do something that helps emissions, or you do something that helps one of the other priorities, then knowing that the boss wants progress on climate really matters.

Has government enthusiasm for bold climate policy waned since your early days in the job?

Over my six years I think we’ve made a huge amount of progress, but I feel we’ve lost the excitement at the top to do good climate policy. In the first half of my time with the CCC we were producing, I think, really interesting insights on what a net zero future looks like, which were easily swallowed by a government that was interested in carving a more positive future.

Today it’s much more of a culture war, and net zero is presented—including by the prime minister—as a cost more than an opportunity. All the things we said before are still true, even more so than six years ago, but we find ourselves having to make the same arguments with one hand tied behind our back.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine feels like a really pivotal moment in this narrative. In the autumn of 2022, energy prices in the UK were skyrocketing, and yet the response of Liz Truss, prime minister at the time, was to double down on oil and gas exploration and refuse to ask people to cut down their energy usage. It was the absolute opposite approach to many European nations facing the same problem.

At the time [the invasion] happened, it was obviously a genuine crisis and I thought climate was going to come down the priority list. But in my technocratic mind, I was also thinking this was going to create the incentive to get off high-carbon fuels—if you want to know what the world looks like with a high carbon price, we’re about to find out.

What I didn’t expect is that the green arguments were too late out of the blocks because the fossil arguments stepped in immediately to say, “This is why we need a domestic fossil fuel supply.” That really important argument, to act on this because fossil fuels are so price-volatile and so expensive, was slightly missed in the political ether at the time, and we jumped to a different narrative of what the country needed to do.

The irony of that whole period is we’re running out of oil and gas. So it’s not going to be a credible strategy in the long run to try and pump prime oil and gas licenses in the North Sea.

A year later, Truss’ successor, Rishi Sunak, made a big speech rolling back key climate policies, most notably pushing back the 2030 deadline banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.

If you look at it purely as a policy speech, there was more pro-climate policy than there was delayed climate policy. It was the one where he talks about accelerating green investment, for example. And the electric vehicle thing [pushing back the 2030 deadline] wasn’t that much of a shift, since we were already allowing hybrids until 2035.

But what did the country hear? They heard, “Don’t worry, now’s not the time to switch to electric vehicles.” It’s hard to tie anything back to a single speech, but if you look at the share of electric vehicles being sold in the UK, it has flatlined since September. I’m sure there are other factors here, but there will be people who thought, “Oh well, maybe I don’t need to get that electric car right now.”

It seems that this government has decided to make appealing to motorists a key campaigning strategy. In July 2023, the Labour Party narrowly lost the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election, and a lot of commentators thought that the Conservative candidate won that election because of his opposition to the Ultra Low Emission Zone.

What happened there was interesting. The Labour Party also accepted the narrative that ULEZ was why they didn’t win that constituency. Inevitably, in any election there are a host of issues at play, but if all parties think it’s about environmental policies, it’s no surprise that that becomes one of the dominant themes in politics after that.

My regret is that we’ve allowed that to color the whole of climate policymaking and politics, but it’s important to make that distinction between politics and policy because the government is still producing lots and lots of climate policies, but now it’s quite unsure how to pitch them.

Electric vehicles are a good example of an area where the UK could have moved really early and made itself a real hub for this technology. Instead, we have a situation where China is really dominating that market and reaping a lot of the benefits of that green transition.

You go right back to the Beijing Olympics—right back at that point, they were already planning as an autocratic state for a full supply chain of electric vehicles, and they weren’t interested in fossil fuels, it was solely about electric vehicles. They could see the trajectory for cost falls in batteries, see the opportunity for being the dominant player in that market, and see that the production line itself is cheaper for an electric vehicle.

We could have done that in the West. Instead we had a whole King Canute-style strategy of holding back from electric vehicles, and we’re about to see the first wave of much, much cheaper electric vehicles from China. It’s going to be difficult to hold that back, so you’ve got a real challenge now.

You don’t need to be an autocratic state to be successful in this transition. I wish we were better at accepting that technology falls down that cost curve.

In February the government announced that the UK is the first major economy to have halved its emissions, compared with 1990 levels. The transition really has been huge, but the CCC has shown that the vast majority of that reduction has come from decarbonizing the power sector. Progress on transport, buildings, industry, and so on has been much slower.

This is the source of some tension between us and the government. I think it’s remarkable what we’ve pulled off with the power sector in this country. It is genuine emissions reduction, there’s been a hell of a lot of big policy to allow that to happen, and a whole energy sector that’s been dragged along with that.

However, while I understand the government’s desire to give retrospective arguments for this, it doesn’t matter in terms of climate. What climate cares about is what you do next, and that’s where I’ve seen the biggest gap. I’m interested now in the set of other stories that go alongside the power system.

We’ve got to change our transport system, change the way industrial production takes place; we’ve got to do things in farming, and heat homes differently. These are the next set of stories and we’re slow on them.

We are not really reducing emissions outside of the power sector at the same rate as inside it. We have to see a very significant increase in decarbonization outside the power sector if we want to hit the goals we’ve set for 2030 and beyond.

One area the UK has been trying to get ahead is with capturing carbon and storing it in the North Sea, the same place where companies are currently drilling for oil and gas.

It’s a controversial thing for us, because obviously I’d prefer that we didn’t continue to use fossil fuels.

But the role of carbon capture is really important in achieving net zero. It helps you reduce emissions on the journey to net zero, and if you’ve got the facility to capture carbon and store it, it also opens this brand-new industry of greenhouse gas removals, which I think the world will need on its journey to tackling climate change.

Without carbon capture and storage it is a very difficult journey to net zero, if not impossible. Without it, it is a very difficult journey. And the key thing is that it’s not an alternative to decarbonizing.

The UK government has awarded 21 carbon storage licenses, most of them going to the oil and gas industry. It’s jarring that the same companies that dug carbon out of the ground, sparking off this whole crisis, stand to benefit by putting that carbon back under the sea.

It jars with me as well, but I also care about pace and tech and ability. You will not find the ability to do this outside of the oil and gas sector. If you want to try and exclude the oil and gas sector from this then you will fail on this.

We cannot be too binary about who we deal with. It is a transition. Oil and gas do have a role, whether we like it or not, over the next 30 years. I’d far rather have an oil and gas sector that is properly invested in technologies that will help the transition to net zero. If we make them pariahs then they’ll stick to their knitting, as we’ve seen in Scotland.

In an interview with the BBC you said that climate campaigners have been unhelpful in the discussion around climate change. I’m sure a lot of people will be disappointed to hear that from the UK’s leading climate adviser.

Yeah, I’m sure they’d be disappointed. I have no issue with campaigners themselves. My observation is more about the impact that campaigning has had and how that’s changed over the time I’ve done this job.

I would contrast the early part of my job—as we were gearing up to do the early work on net zero, where there was just a positive campaign to act on climate change that made it quite easy for us to do the analysis and present that to a government that was ready for it—with the recent discussion, which I think has been more polarized by some of the more extreme activism.

I’m not judging at all. I understand entirely why activists feel as strongly as they do about climate change. I also feel that strongly. But I do think the politics has soured partly because of what the activist groups have done recently. I don’t know whether that’s right or wrong, except to say that I think it’s objectively what we’re seeing in British politics at the moment.

When you say activism, are you thinking about Just Stop Oil, blocking motorways, and so on?

I don’t think it’s just Just Stop Oil, but yeah, those more radical protests. It’s an easy target now for the populist voices to say, “This is what happens if we try and tackle climate change.”

I know there are activists that are keen to return to that more positive framing. My own view is that the more we keep the arguments for climate change positive, the better that progress will be.

Right, but I suppose another way to look at it is that without those climate activists, it gives others the license to ease off on the transition because there isn’t that pressure.

It may well be right. But my point is that I don’t think we need to dial up the risk now. I think people see it. Climate change is definitely with us and people are worried about it—in a sense, the climate is doing that job for us.

The despair comes in when you are worried about climate change, you’re seeing it playing out, and you’re not seeing a response from industry. My worry is that’s where we’ll end up.

You’re right that the positive framing needs to be complemented by a genuine sense of the risks, but I tend to think that people already see that. Not everyone wakes up like I do and thinks about climate change, but everyone is touched by it now. I don’t have any trouble making the arguments that climate change is happening now—that feels like a shift over the past six years.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to revisit the landmark First Amendment decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, rebuffing a request to take another look at decades-old precedent that created a higher bar for public figures to claim libel in civil suits.

The media world has for years relied on the unanimous decision in the 1964 case to fend off costly defamation lawsuits brought by public figures. The ruling established the requirement that public figures show “actual malice” before they can succeed in a libel dispute.

Despite being a mainstay in US media law, the Sullivan decision has increasingly come under fire by conservatives both inside and outside the court, including Justice Clarence Thomas, who said on Tuesday that he still wanted to revisit Sullivan at some point.

“In an appropriate case, however, we should reconsider New York Times and our other decisions displacing state defamation law,” Thomas wrote in a brief concurrence to the court’s decision not to take up the case. He said that the case, Don Blankenship v. NBC Universal, LLC, was a poor vehicle to reconsider Sullivan.

Just a few months ago, the conservative justice attacked the ruling in Sullivan in a fiery dissent in which he called it “flawed.” Thomas issued other public critiques of Sullivan in recent years, including in 2019, when he wrote that the ruling and “the Court’s decisions extending it were policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law.”

The case at hand concerns Don Blankenship, a former coal baron who was convicted of a federal conspiracy offense related to a deadly 2010 explosion at a mine he ran, in what was one of the worst US mine disasters in decades. His sentence of a year in prison was one day less than a felony sentence.

“Blankenship himself admits this was a highly unusual sentence for a misdemeanor offense; he notes that he was the only inmate at his prison who was not serving a sentence for a felony conviction,” according to a lower-court opinion in the case.

During his unsuccessful 2018 US Senate campaign in West Virginia, a number of media organizations erroneously reported that he was a convicted felon, even though his conspiracy offense was classified as a misdemeanor.

Blankenship sued a slew of news outlets for the error, alleging defamation and false light invasion of privacy. Lower courts ruled against him, finding that the outlets did not make the statements with actual malice, the standard required by Sullivan.

Attorneys for Blankenship told the justices in court papers that the “damage was irreparable” since no felon has ever been elected to the Senate, and urged them to overturn the Sullivan decision.

“The actual malice standard poses a clear and present danger to our democracy,” they wrote. “New York Times Co. v. Sullivan and its progeny grant the press a license to publish defamatory falsehoods that misinform voters, manipulate elections, intensify polarization, and incite unrest.”

Attorneys for the media outlets urged the justices not to take up the case, arguing that it’s “as poor a vehicle as one could imagine to consider” questions related to Sullivan’s holding because, they said, the reporting mistakes were honest ones.

“There is good reason why the actual malice standard of New York Times has been embraced for so long and so often,” the media organizations told the justices. “At its essence, the standard protects ‘erroneous statements honestly made.’ While it permits recovery for falsehoods uttered with knowledge of falsity or with reckless disregard for the truth, it provides the ‘breathing space’ required for ‘free debate.’ A free people engaged in self-government deserves no less.”

Just last year the court declined to revisit Sullivan in a case brought by a not-for-profit Christian ministry against the Southern Poverty Law Center.

At the time, Thomas dissented from the court’s refusal to take up the case.

“I would grant certiorari in this case to revisit the ‘actual malice’ standard,” he wrote. “This case is one of many showing how New York Times and its progeny have allowed media organizations and interest groups ‘to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.’”

In 2021, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch also questioned the decision in Sullivan, writing in a dissent when the court decided not to take up a defamation case that the 1964 ruling should be revisited in part because it “has come to leave far more people without redress than anyone could have predicted.”

[stoltze]

i think more often than not, students in stem might feel the need to make math and science meaningful to fuel our curiosity. we know the brain doesn't work that way but someone who would be considered left-brained most likely wouldn't have to search within themselves or seldom do, to be reminded of what about their field is interesting/could potentially be interesting to them, so that they find motivation to go on with their studies. from merely what i observed in a friend who's superb at maths and a beloved biology professor, these people get so used to being methodical in their approach that it looks like they function almost on auto-pilot when dealing with the problem in hand. even though some of them might be born with unfair advantages in terms of high logical-mathematical intelligence, one can only achieve expertise through dedication and constant hard work. and working hard for long periods of time is only doable when you have a strong "why". in a nobel minds video from 2019 where the laureates have a round-table discussion, they are asked if they act just as rationally in their personal lives as they do in their professional lives. their answers and witty anecdotes showed me that each of these people who are top scientists in their fields aren't just spock in different fonts. their approach to work shares discipline as the foundation but with different quirks, perks and "why"s of their own, something that might speak to the less rational side of the brain. ray bradbury said: “there’s hardly a scientist or an astronaut i’ve met who wasn’t beholden to some romantic before him who led him to doing something in life. [...] in order to get the facts we have to be excited to go out and get them, and there’s only one way to do that - through romance." in literature we might see the classicists with their emphasis on perfection and appeal to the intellect (akin to scientists) and romantics with their imagination and powerful emotions as the polar opposites, when in reality, we might benefit more from considering them as the two sides of the same coin. we shouldn't have to feel forced to like or be good at positive sciences because they have more practical value in the 'real world' than social sciences or are deemed as more important in multiple choice exams. we could benefit from viewing the world of numbers, enzymes and quarks with different approaches if they start to become dull and incomprehensible. tilt your head a little, try upside down, look from above. they make up the world you live in, the world you belong to. don't allow anyone to make you feel like you don't have what it takes to understand them.

[marengogo]

NAKED - 5: The Occurrence and Development of Events by Chance in a Happy or Beneficial Way [PART 1].

Oh No! by Mindy Gledhill [Pocketful of Poetry]

[Music is a very big part of my life and I’m MOSTLY INCAPABLE of writing without music, so I just thought I'd share what I am listening to while writing this]

–🐺–🐺–🐺–

On November 21, 2022, when JK safely returned to South Korea from Qatar, I first, and foremost, thanked whatever Superior Being is out there like I always do whenever someone I care about gets on a plane, including myself. Then, I awkwardly smiled at myself accepting the fact that:

Yup. We wait. We wait because Jikook have this interesting pattern, from circa 2019, where they go dead silent whenever they are at a close radius from each other, but start becoming very social and SM savvy when apart. And yes, the company, and even the members, will upload videos, pictures, etc, with them in it, together or individually, almost as if to say “they are alive and well!”; but not them.

Jikook will not upload anything, when they are at a close radius. Even JK, who likes to interact with his members on IG, will do so, but will not interact with ARMY or any non-band related activity. At least not that I’ve noticed. But that’s just my own observation, don’t mind me. Anyways, because I’ve had a shitty week and I seemed to be painfully missing them, I decided to sit my ass down, and between Netflix shows, life and unhealthy snacking, I began to write a “Story”.

A peculiar story of two ordinary, but not so ordinary, young men. An ongoing story collecting unbelievably cute, and sometimes rather extraordinary, facts. A based-on-real-facts story, very much built on the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way, otherwise also known as; Serendipity.

Hence, as every respectable book, I'll begin with providing you with the following table of contents:

[PROLOGUE] - 35.1796°N, 129.0756°E 

[CHAPTER 1] - Lucky Number 13 

[CHAPTER 2] - The Dancer who could Sing & The Singer who could Dance

[CHAPTER 3] - Just Let Me Love You … Please Love Me

[END OF MY STORY] - Thinking. Loving. Clicking.

Great! So Let's start now, shall we?

・35.1796°N, 129.0756°E 

The planet is Earth, the coordinates are 35ish degrees North, 129ish degrees East, and the dates are two: October 13, 1995 and September 1, 1997. During these two particular sets of dates, two boys, who’s destinies would be almost magically intertwined, were born. Because of them and five others, life would never be the same for many citizens on planet Earth, but even more specifically, for the boys themselves.

Now, even though both families had quite different backgrounds and life scenarios, coincidentally, they raised the boys within environments that were very loving and which fostered and encouraged freedom of expression and self though “one’s self” is very hard to grasp at the very beginning stages of your life. Nevertheless, at first glance, the boys grew up to be almost quite the opposite of each other. For example the older boy, Park Jimin (JM), shaped himself into becoming quite versed in plenty of disciplines, on top of becoming a model student. He would also turn out to be an extrovert who didn’t believe in fate.

On the other hand the younger one, Jeon Jungkook (JK), who also was unbelievably talented and had interest in a plethora of activities, would not find much interest in academics. He’d then be known to be quite the introvert with a deep believe in fate.

I know what you are thinking 😌… It sounds exactly like the plot of that one guilty pleasure coming-of-age romance we all REALLY love to read/watch maybe secretly, doesn't it? The one where the geeky girl/boy/enby end up with the badass girl/boy/enby after meeting at their worst but deciding to stay together for an unforeseen best. But this is most definitely how this story begins. Coincidence? Fate? Who knows right? Now, if we were to take a step further and imagine them as “complete polar opposites”, Angel & Demons if you may, and mind you, do not be fooled by the intrinsic nature of said beings there’s plenty of devilish angels and goodwilled demons, at this point, you might be wondering:

How did this ethereal genius 👆🏾manage to cross paths with this underworld prodigy 👇🏾?

And now back to reality. Basically, how did an extrovert nonbeliever manage to connect with an introvert believer? Well, being that they were born and did live at the same set of coordinates, 35.1796°N, 129.0756°E, also known as Busan, they must have bumped into each other at some point. Right? I mean this would be the obvious “encounter scenario” in this movie genre. Right?

Wrong..

Eventually, in the Spring of 2011, JK would travel all the way to the capital, Seoul, in order to begin the pursuit of his own dreams, and so would JM, in Spring of 2012, a whole year later. As fate, or chance, would want it, their dream-chasing destination would lead them to the exact same destination: Big Hit Entertainment. There, they would join 5 other talented boys and, unbeknownst to them, would ultimately become one of the biggest group of all time.

Anyways, let me go ahead and post this, because 1899 is regrettably for all of you HELLA INTERESTING and I really wanna watch a couple of episodes more 😬😬. As for the rest of the chapters, I do believe I want to write it all in the next post (or maybe 2 posts max) and if luck wants it to be so, it might be later on today! But I won’t let you wait for too long at least I’ll try not to.

So for now, I just saw that Taekook's RUN BTS challenge has just been uploaded, so let's go and enjoy that! (... even in the darkness of it all, Tae looks like a snacc NGL).

Always respectfully yours 🫰🏾💜,

Marengo.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

I know this is a super broad question, but; I'm in Chicago this weekend for MPCA/ACA and was wondering if you have any recommendations on what I could do in my freetime? Any smaller/niche museums or bookstores or whatever. Anything you think is interesting/nerdy. And food, of course! Food recommendations are always good :)

Oh man, I wish I had less touristy answers to give you, but I live just enough outside of the city that I mostly do touristy kinds of things when I go down there, and I've only been once since the 2020, so a lot of my answers aren't open anymore/didn't survive the pandemic.

BUT: I do have one that's not touristy! If you're into crafting or found objects at all, there's a secondhand crafts supply store called The WasteShed on Kimball Ave. that's very cool. My favorite thing there are the collections of donated old family photos and slides that people just sort of... give away, when someone in their family dies and they don't want to keep the personal effects(?????). I found an amazing pair of gorgeous family portraits from 1928 in Tokyo last time I was there. The family's names, ages, and the date are all written on the back in both Japanese and English. I'm glad those portraits didn't go into the landfill. But I'm a Small History person who loves things like ephemera. They also have tons of stuff for every type of art or craft imaginable!

Greektown also used to be super cool, but I don't know whether it still is. AFAIK the big tentpoles all didn't survive the pandemic, so don't quote me on that one.

I'm also always going to hype the fairy castle at the Museum of Science & Industry. It was created by and for Colleen Moore, the flapper and silent film star, and she used to tour the country with it to show at children's hospitals. It's fucking amazing. There's a 1" actual Guttenberg bible in there. There's a polar bear rug made of mink and mouse teeth. There's mother-of-pearl chairs made from her earrings from the set of a movie. There used to be running water on the Weeping Willow, but they had to turn off the water in the '90s because it was eating through the materials after 70 years. It's truly my favorite dollhouse, and I've seen the Nutshell Studies.

...I also love American Girl Place but that's literally just a me thing. I also sort of hate-love it, because they have Lost Their Way Severely.

I also am a big fan of the Field Museum -- I know, I know, museums evil, but it does genuinely seem like they're trying to course-correct and make amends -- and the Shedd Aquarium (same). You can touch a manta ray. You can see otters. You can smell penguins. I mean, you can also see them, but boy can you smell them. And Sue (the t-rex at the Field) is an unofficial Chicago mascot.

This is a good list of cool bookstores in the city, which I have to say I haven't explored as much as I should. I've been to a ton of cool bookstores in the Twin Cities, New York, and Staten Island, and some in the SF area and Seattle, but I haven't really explored the ones in Chicago too much because there used to be THE BEST children's/YA bookstore in my suburb and it was where I spent my entire life. This list looks like it has good options for many neighborhoods in the city, though, so wherever you're staying there should be something near-ish to you.

Which is kind of the other reason I haven't explored Chicago as much as other cities in which I've lived, despite living here the longest: public transit here FUCKING SUCKS and I hate city driving more than anything in the world. Maybe you'll have a better experience with the L than I ever do, though, so don't let me being terrible at the L put you off trying it out. I just am not good at it. I can do the subway! I can do trams and the Skyway! I can do street maps okay! I cannot do the L. Somehow every single time I try, I miss a stop and have to circle all the way around again.

Ooh, one other fun thing I did in like 2019 in the city was go ax-throwing, so if you want to try that, they have that right near the symphony building. That's surprisingly fun and not scary.

Food-wise, Chicago is full of good food. Pretty much everything I've ever eaten in the city was great, from the popcorn at Union Station (YOU MUST GET THE CHEDDAR AND CARAMEL MIX AT UNION STATION. IT IS THE BEST POPCORN.) to the $600+ per plate price fixe at Alinea (the only good thing I ever got from an ex). I feel like Sam @copperbadge has a more "a la minute" (hyuk hyuk) set of opinions about Chicago dining than I do -- like I said, a lot of the places that I really liked didn't survive the pandemic or they're outside of the city itself.

Oh! And it is sort of touristy but also very nerdy: the International Museum of Surgical Science. There's an exhibit right now about Frankenstein!

Honestly, looking at the MPCA/ACA website, I'm just jealous you get to be doing/seeing that all weekend. I feel like that's the nerdiest and most fun-seeming ticket in town. What are you there to present or see specifically?? I'm so intrigued!

[imagines-to-quench-thirst]

Do you imagine Duncan Vizla being gentle or more rough with his beloved? I think he’d be really sweet unless he thought he almost lost her. His fear makes him protective so I imagine him his way of “taking care of you” being a sexy dom 😜

you just know it! that man may be a killer of people but that man can mu"der you with his.... uhm.... "pelvic movement" when he wants you. he just had that kind of deep stroke that just screams "you are mine and I need you in my life" kind of stroke, you know what I mean?!

especially... his beard. don't get me started on that.... hehe

[90363462]

Getty Images

Sounds Of Lovemaking: What You Need To Know About Audio Porn

The name of the game is taking your pleasure to new heights sonically. 

Sheriden Chanel

Nov. 03, 2021 01:37PM EST

I can't be the only one who feels a tinge of arousal at the sound of someone's voice. Especially when the intention behind the sultry tone dipped in honey is exactly that -- to arouse. Recently, I had the pleasure of coming across an Instagram ad promoting the female-founded sexual wellness platform, Dipsea. The voice I heard immediately was one I had become familiar with as an avid Insecure fan. That of none other than Sarunas J. Jackson. Funny enough, that was something I admired about him in the series (as well as in Good Trouble). He had a voice that could evoke trickles almost effortlessly.

So that, coupled with the storytelling element that the audio company is all about proved to me in 30 seconds or less that Mr. Jackson had the uncanny ability for taking pleasure to new heights sonically. What I had accidentally stumbled upon was audio porn, and apparently, in terms of sexual pleasure, it is absolutely the wave. Audio porn is defined as adult content that you listen to. Audio porn can be narrated erotic stories (like the aforementioned Jackson's "Off the Record" series), guided masturbation sessions, listening to someone talk dirty to you, or even orgasm sound libraries. 

In the last decade, audio porn has seen a lucrative uptick in popularity. The multi-million dollar industry raised over $8 million in 2019 alone. So, what is it about audio porn erotica that has women so tapped in to auditory stimulation versus visual? I spoke with blogger and speaker on all things sexuality, Tatyannah King to spill the tea on all things audio porn. 

Audio Porn: What Is It & Why Do We Listen To It?

Porn is often a polarizing topic where some women don't often feel the porn that is out there is representative of them or intended for their gaze. Instead, the "traditional" mainstream porn that we come across are conceptualized, filmed, directed, and edited with the typical male viewer in mind. While ethical porn can be a great alternative for those who want to visually consume porn that isn't inherently male-centric, audio porn provides an erotic outlet for those looking for a less male-centric view that is also immersive. "Audio porn allows you to use imagination and make you feel like you're actually part of the scene," Tatyannah explains.

She continues, "For those who enjoy the sound of moaning, audio porn is a great option. As someone who loves to hear men being vocal and expressive during sex, it frustrates me that I typically have to endlessly search through pages on traditional porn to hear the man moaning. With audio porn, I don't have that issue as much because premium sites do a better job at making sure their male performers are there for more than just penetrating and occasionally grunting."

Erotic Intimacy Through Audio Porn

Don't ask me why, but in my younger days, one of my favorite ways to consume porn was either through reading adult fanfiction or by listening to porn through audio recordings I made with a tape recorder. Without realizing it, the latter was my first taste of the power of audio porn. There was a mental element being tapped into that made the act of consuming erotic content that much more enticing and tantalizing to me.

To this day, a voice note of a partner moaning or even listening to myself in previous sessions can elicit arousal in a way that even the best rough sex compliation I can find on the internet can't. It's the raw erotic intimacy for me. Tatyannah explains, "Some people prefer to have the visuals laid out in front of them, but audio attracts people who enjoy using their imagination and visualizing what they want the scene to be like while listening to the audio."

"Audio porn encourages you to think about your desires in a deeper sense."

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The Science Behind the Pleasure Found in Audio Porn

If you're a fan of verbal expression or confirmation during your lovemaking, it should come as no surprise that audio porn taps into an aspect of us that gets off on hearing others experience pleasure. There's a reason why moans can get you more aroused. According to Tatyannah, that reason is Autonomous Sensory Response, aka ASMR. She explains it as "the tingling sensation along the scalp, neck, or back that people feel when exposed to certain auditory stimuli." 

She adds, "Aside from biological and physical responses, it is possible for people to have an auralism fetish, which is a sexual fetish in which one is sexually aroused or excited by sound. These sounds can include music, a particular tone of voice, the actual sounds of sex itself, or simply listening to others have sex."

The Best Places to Find Audio Porn

Dipsea

Quin

Audiodesires

Vibease Chat

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