#there are so many concepts here that could be posts on their own

[commsroom]

i think there's something to be said about what exactly it means to be "non-human" in a story that is as much about humanity as wolf 359 is, where even the dear listeners are defined less by their own perspective and more by what they fail to understand and therefore reflect about the human perspective - to the point that they don't even have their own voices or faces or identities that aren't either given to them or taken from humans. they speak to humanity as a mirror.

even pryce and cutter are "very much humans" - pryce defined by her resentment of and desire to transcend its limitations, and cutter by his aspirations to redefine and create a "better" type of human - and find the idea that they might not be human laughable. it's interesting that they have distinctly transhumanist aspirations when their goal is the narrative opposite of common science fiction fears: that we will expand the definition of humanity so much that we'll lose whatever it is that makes us human. pryce and cutter's transhumanism narrows the definition of humanity to the worthy and the useful, as defined by them; "there will still be a humanity; it'll just be our humanity."

in direct opposition to that, i think it's meaningful that the show instead expands the definition of humanity in ways that include lovelace and hera, who in another show with different themes might be considered (in the descriptive, non-moralistic sense) non-human. i will always make a point of saying that personhood and humanity are two often-related but meaningfully distinct concepts, especially when talking about sci-fi and fantasy. i am talking about humanity.

the question of how hera identifies, and what social pressures influence that, is a complicated one. i've talked about it before and i will talk about again. what's important for the purposes of this post is that i think the show considers her fundamentally human. think about her role in shut up and listen - consider jacobi's lion example and the concept of different paradigms - that even things that are close to humans, comparatively speaking, understand the world in different ways. whatever differences hera may have from the others, it's primarily in experience, not fundamental understanding. she shares their emotions, their concerns, their values, their thought patterns. she has an appreciation for music, which the show considers a hallmark of humanity. she fits within the framework of humanity as the show defines and is, in her own words, left feeling "uneasy" about how difficult it might be to communicate with beings who don't. and it's significant that this takes place in shut up and listen, of all episodes, specifically because the way she is clearly and unambiguously included in the show's understanding of what it means to be human highlights the ways she and lovelace are othered by eiffel's careless comments that suggest otherwise.

(i don't want to get too into these details for this particular post, but it's worth noting that hera will refer to 'humans' as a category, often when she is upset and feeling isolated, but has never said that she 'isn't human' - she has never been upset that people are treating her 'too' human. i've seen it said about the line "you need to get it through your heads that what goes for you doesn't always go for me", but that's a frustration related to ability and safety, not identity. far more often, she will refer to herself in 'human' terms - referring idiomatically to experiences or body parts etc. that she doesn't literally have - and is upset primarily with comments referring to her status as an AI. it does not diminish how being an AI influences her perspective and experience, but again, so much of that is in terms of ability that it feels almost inseparable from a discussion about disability.)

lovelace's humanity and hera's humanity are so interlinked and directly paralleled in the text that i think it's impossible to really argue one of them is "not" human without making implications about the other. in desperate measures, lovelace tells kepler he's "not human" and he responds "you're hilarious. on a multitude of levels." later, defending lovelace against kepler's repeated dehumanization, hera very pointedly uses the phrase "that woman." in out of the loop, hera says she's never met anyone who "worked so hard at being inhuman" as jacobi, who says "what do you know about being human?" hera very emphatically responds, "i know plenty." later, defending hera against jacobi's repeated dehumanization, minkowski pointedly uses the phrase "that woman." with the care taken towards language and the way scenes and turns of phrase will parallel each other, that's not a coincidence. it might seem strange to have the "non-human" characters be the ones to express criticisms based on perceived "humanity" (something hera will do in other contexts as well - "we don't have funerals for animals" etc.) but in the broader context of the show, i think it's the point.

so, whether hera would ever call herself human, or be comfortable with that, is a complicated question for another time and depends on a lot of other factors. but wolf 359 is a show about humanity, it includes her within its definition of what it means to be human, and i wouldn't be comfortable definitively saying she's not human because of that. it can't be a neutral statement within the particular context of this show.

[new-lorien-artist]

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[crest-of-gautier]

guys i don't remember the last time i got this invested into a game

[ldknightshade]

morality: a character creation guide

creating and understanding your oc’s personal moral code! no, i cannot tell you whether they’re gonna come out good or bad or grey; that part is up to you.

anyway, let’s rock.

i. politics

politics are a good way to indicate things your character values, especially when it comes to large-scale concepts such as government, community, and humanity as a whole.

say what you will about either image; i’d argue for the unintiated, the right image is a good introduction to some lesser discussed ideologies… some of which your oc may or may not fall under.

either way, taking a good look at your character’s values on the economic + social side of things is a good place to start, as politics are something that, well… we all have ‘em, you can’t avoid ‘em.

clearly, this will have to be adjusted for settings that utilize other schools of thought (such as fantasy + historical fiction and the divine right of kings), but again, economic/social scale plotting will be a good start for most.

ii. religion + philosophy

is your oc religious? do they believe in a form of higher power? do they follow some sort of philosophy?

are they devout? yes, this applies to non-religious theist and atheist characters as well; in the former’s case… is their belief in a higher power something that guides many of their actions or is their belief in a higher power something that only informs a few of their actions? for the atheists; do they militant anti-theists who believe atheism is the only way and that religion is harmful? or do they not care about religion, so long as it’s thrust upon them?

for the religious: what is your oc’s relationship with the higher power in question? are they very progressive by their religion’s standards or more orthodox? how well informed of their own religion are they?

does your oc follow a particular school of philosophical thought? how does that interact with their religious identification?

iii. values

by taking their political stance and their religious + philosophical stance, you have a fairly good grasp on the things your character values.

is there anything they value - due to backstory, or what they do, or what they love - that isn’t explained by political stance and religious and/or philosophical identification? some big players here will likely be your oc’s culture and past.

of everything you’ve determined they value, what do they value the most?

iv. “the line”

everyone draws it somewhere. we all have a line we won’t cross, no matter the lengths we go for what we believe is a noble cause. where does your character draw it? how far will they go for something they truly believe is a noble cause? as discussed in part iii of my tips for morally grey characters,

would they lie? cheat? steal? manipulate? maim? what about commit acts of vandalism? arson? would they kill?

but even when we have a line, sometimes we make exceptions for a variety of reasons. additionally, there are limits to some of the lengths we’d go to.

find your character’s line, their limits and their exceptions.

v. objectivism/relativism

objectivism, as defined by the merriam-webster dictionary, is “an ethical theory that moral good is objectively real or that moral precepts are objectively valid.”

relativism, as defined by the merriam-webster dictionary, is “a view that ethical truths depend on the individuals and groups holding them.”

what take on morality, as a concept, does your character have? is morality objective? is morality subjective?

we could really delve deep into this one, but this post is long enough that i don’t think we need to get into philosophical rambling… so this is a good starting point.

either way, exploring morality as a concept and how your character views it will allow for better application of their personal moral code.

vi. application

so, now you know what they believe and have a deep understanding of your character’s moral code, all that’s left is to apply it and understand how it informs their actions while taking their personality into account.

and interesting thing to note is that we are all hypocrites; you don’t have to do this, but it might be fun to play around with the concept of their moral code and add a little bit of hypocrisy to their actions as a treat.

either way, how do your character’s various beliefs interact? how does it make them interact with the world? with others? with their friends, family, and community? with their government? with their employment? with their studies? with the earth and environment itself?

in conclusion:

there’s a lot of things that inform one’s moral compass and i will never be able to touch on them all; however, this should hopefully serve as at least a basic guide.

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Often when I post an AI-neutral or AI-positive take on an anti-AI post I get blocked, so I wanted to make my own post to share my thoughts on "Nightshade", the new adversarial data poisoning attack that the Glaze people have come out with.

I've read the paper and here are my takeaways:

Firstly, this is not necessarily or primarily a tool for artists to "coat" their images like Glaze; in fact, Nightshade works best when applied to sort of carefully selected "archetypal" images, ideally ones that were already generated using generative AI using a prompt for the generic concept to be attacked (which is what the authors did in their paper). Also, the image has to be explicitly paired with a specific text caption optimized to have the most impact, which would make it pretty annoying for individual artists to deploy.

While the intent of Nightshade is to have maximum impact with minimal data poisoning, in order to attack a large model there would have to be many thousands of samples in the training data. Obviously if you have a webpage that you created specifically to host a massive gallery poisoned images, that can be fairly easily blacklisted, so you'd have to have a lot of patience and resources in order to hide these enough so they proliferate into the training datasets of major models.

The main use case for this as suggested by the authors is to protect specific copyrights. The example they use is that of Disney specifically releasing a lot of poisoned images of Mickey Mouse to prevent people generating art of him. As a large company like Disney would be more likely to have the resources to seed Nightshade images at scale, this sounds like the most plausible large scale use case for me, even if web artists could crowdsource some sort of similar generic campaign.

Either way, the optimal use case of "large organization repeatedly using generative AI models to create images, then running through another resource heavy AI model to corrupt them, then hiding them on the open web, to protect specific concepts and copyrights" doesn't sound like the big win for freedom of expression that people are going to pretend it is. This is the case for a lot of discussion around AI and I wish people would stop flagwaving for corporate copyright protections, but whatever.

The panic about AI resource use in terms of power/water is mostly bunk (AI training is done once per large model, and in terms of industrial production processes, using a single airliner flight's worth of carbon output for an industrial model that can then be used indefinitely to do useful work seems like a small fry in comparison to all the other nonsense that humanity wastes power on). However, given that deploying this at scale would be a huge compute sink, it's ironic to see anti-AI activists for that is a talking point hyping this up so much.

In terms of actual attack effectiveness; like Glaze, this once again relies on analysis of the feature space of current public models such as Stable Diffusion. This means that effectiveness is reduced on other models with differing architectures and training sets. However, also like Glaze, it looks like the overall "world feature space" that generative models fit to is generalisable enough that this attack will work across models.

That means that if this does get deployed at scale, it could definitely fuck with a lot of current systems. That said, once again, it'd likely have a bigger effect on indie and open source generation projects than the massive corporate monoliths who are probably working to secure proprietary data sets, like I believe Adobe Firefly did. I don't like how these attacks concentrate the power up.

The generalisation of the attack doesn't mean that this can't be defended against, but it does mean that you'd likely need to invest in bespoke measures; e.g. specifically training a detector on a large dataset of Nightshade poison in order to filter them out, spending more time and labour curating your input dataset, or designing radically different architectures that don't produce a comparably similar virtual feature space. I.e. the effect of this being used at scale wouldn't eliminate "AI art", but it could potentially cause a headache for people all around and limit accessibility for hobbyists (although presumably curated datasets would trickle down eventually).

All in all a bit of a dick move that will make things harder for people in general, but I suppose that's the point, and what people who want to deploy this at scale are aiming for. I suppose with public data scraping that sort of thing is fair game I guess.

Additionally, since making my first reply I've had a look at their website:

Used responsibly, Nightshade can help deter model trainers who disregard copyrights, opt-out lists, and do-not-scrape/robots.txt directives. It does not rely on the kindness of model trainers, but instead associates a small incremental price on each piece of data scraped and trained without authorization. Nightshade's goal is not to break models, but to increase the cost of training on unlicensed data, such that licensing images from their creators becomes a viable alternative.

Once again we see that the intended impact of Nightshade is not to eliminate generative AI but to make it infeasible for models to be created and trained by without a corporate money-bag to pay licensing fees for guaranteed clean data. I generally feel that this focuses power upwards and is overall a bad move. If anything, this sort of model, where only large corporations can create and control AI tools, will do nothing to help counter the economic displacement without worker protection that is the real issue with AI systems deployment, but will exacerbate the problem of the benefits of those systems being more constrained to said large corporations.

Kinda sucks how that gets pushed through by lying to small artists about the importance of copyright law for their own small-scale works (ignoring the fact that processing derived metadata from web images is pretty damn clearly a fair use application).

[aureum-cordis]

Lost & Found

Parental!DogDay & Child!Reader

A/N: Hey there! First post, I know, but I couldn’t help but share this. A friend of mine encouraged me to, so I hope other people like it as well! This is only the first part and I have much more planned for this story, I hope you enjoy! I know this ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, but that may or may not be intentional. Find Part 2 here!

Spoilers for Poppy Playtime Chapter 3: Deep Sleep!

Warnings: Mentions of character death, blood, gore, and the like. Child experimentation will also be mentioned. This story will contain references to the information in the game as well, if uncomfortable with any of those topics then please proceed with caution.

________________________________________________

DogDay and the others knew well that something was amiss in the building, several of the Smiling Critters had sought him out due to the fact that he was the leader. CatNap was the only one that had been distant for a long time now, becoming something that he couldn’t recognize.

And then it happened. The Hour of Joy. The metallic scent of blood was something he could never rid his nose of, his ears still rang from the sound of screaming from both children and adults. The Prototype had clearly been convincing the cat of the Smiling Critters, for nothing but praises fell out for the creature amongst that dreaded red gas that poured out of his perpetually gaping maw.

DogDay had been able to reach the others first, encouraging them to not stand idly by and follow something as monstrous as The Prototype and his newly fashioned pawn.

It ended poorly, their rebellion was met with nightmarish hallucinations and a set of claws that sliced their bodies to ribbons.

Even they were not impervious to the red gas that covered the ground like a dense fog, announcing CatNap’s presence before he could be seen. Few of them remained, far less than what once was. They rotated hideouts regularly, knowing well that they had to keep moving to avoid CatNap’s patrols.

Currently, the place they had sought refuge in was some long abandoned room of the orphanage. Those that remained were silent.

CraftyCorn was frantically drawing something on a dirtied sheet of paper, the colors bleeding against her hooves as she struggled to keep a steady grip.

Bobby BearHug was huddled in a corner, clutching a blanket that was shredded in places and nearly fell apart as she held it to her chest, her body shook from silent sobs or perhaps fear of what would come.

DogDay himself was solemn, resting on the floor with his back pressed against the wall. They had just lost Hoppy days prior, or at least it had seemed like days. Any semblance of a concept of time was lost in this pit of despair, the inability to even catch a glimpse of light that wasn’t artificial was disheartening and disorienting. The others in the room were in no state to actively patrol, their minds in shambles and in various states of decay.

There was no optimism to be found, he knew that. Any attempt to even lighten the mood would be met with dismay and the kind of disgust that caused nausea to wash over oneself and clouded any other senses. They had lost far too many for any form of joy to be found.

CatNap may have been the one to end their lives, following the guiding hand of The Prototype, but their blood was also on his hands. Their screams kept him awake, the fear in their voices as they called out and weeped for help kept him going.

Slowly, he rose from his seated position to his feet, the sun pendant that hung from his zipper clinked against the metal with the motion and swung gently before resting against his chest. It was enough of a sound to draw the eyes of CraftyCorn, to which DogDay gave a dip of his head. “I’m sorry to startle you, that wasn’t my intention,” he started, voice rough and scratchy from disuse as he met the eyes of the other.

“I’ll take the first watch, be safe and try to get some rest, please.” The please sounded pathetic in his own ears, a sign that despite his attempts to remain strong for the other survivors, he was suffering from the grief and loss of their shared companions.

The idea of losing them too was something he refused to linger on, a small sliver of hope remained in his heart despite the horrors that threatened their very lives.

CraftyCorn didn’t seem to mind the interruption, even going as far as lowering her hooves as she looked over at him, the red crayon in her grasp rolled to the floor with a quiet thump. “Be careful, DogDay.” Her voice was soft, it was a comfort in this trying time. As gentle as the very petals of the flower she once smelled like, an extension of her kind yet hardy nature.

He wanted to reassure her, to give her some hope that he might return. But that wasn’t a guarantee, he knew that.

Regardless, he nodded before approaching the door, opening it slightly before listening carefully for any sounds. Relieved to have been met with relative silence, he crept through the door before shutting it behind him. Complete silence was impossible for him to achieve, given his size and the overall state of the orphanage itself.

His movements were slow and deliberate, each placement of his hand or foot was mindful of the debris that lined the halls. Shattered picture frames with glass littering the floor and various toys that had once belonged to the children here were a common item to stumble across. There had been moments when the odd toy activated or some rotting piece of wood snapped under the pressure of a bed that rested upon it, but it was silent other than that.

His ears were active in keeping note of his surroundings, as his nose focused on the horrible scent of lavender and the intensity of it. It stuck to every crack and crevice of this building, yet it was relatively faint at the given moment, a positive in an otherwise grim situation. His eyes swept every open door that he passed by, peering into the room for several moments before moving on. To say he was tense and alert was an understatement, every fiber of his being stood on edge as he patrolled the halls.

He froze in his tracks as a sound caught his attention, a sound that he hadn’t been expecting to come across. It had been a sob, a shuddering and weak sound that left from an open door in front of him. Had he not been focused as intently as he was, he could’ve missed it. DogDay stayed in that position as he listened further, making sure that he hadn’t been imagining such a sound. His doubts were shattered as he heard the sound repeat, the fear in the weeping was unmistakable.

The thought didn’t even cross his mind that it could potentially be a trap, that some sick monster would be willing to mimic such a heartbreaking sound.

[needle-noggins]

(CW for SA, suicidal ideation) Here we go. My favorite and simultaneously least favorite panel of Vash and Knives.

I've seen a few interpretations of this scene and before we dive into the one that really struck me, let's start with the more... chill one. We're finally introduced to the third gun of Trigun, Vash's angel arm. And the way we're introduced to it involves Knives forcing him to pull the trigger. Of course, since no one knows anything about Knives, the people of Noman's Land blame Vash for Fifth Moon, and Vash likewise blames himself (this is kinda a spoiler but if you've been paying attention, it's just par for the course). However, he's not the one who pulled the trigger, Knives is. It brings up an interesting moral question of blame - do we blame the gun (and Vash, who is being used/objectified as a weapon here), or the person who wanted it to happen? Guns don't kill people, genocidal twins do!

Now for the awful interpretation, the one that makes me cry and wish Vash was real so I could hug him and pay for his therapy. And really highlights how awful Knives is and how far he'd go for his brother in his own, fucked-up way. I touched on this in a previous post about Legato and the Murder Cafe, and the whole time I was thinking about Fifth Moon but didn't want to say anything for the sake of spoilers.

So. Pay attention to the way Vash and Knives are standing. Knives, when he first grabbed Vash's head, was standing in front of him. He moves behind him to better control him and yeah, he's still controlling him via hand on head, and now he's got his other hand gripping Vash's chest, where feathers/wings are manifesting. Knives is assaulting him. If you wanna get crazy with it and say that the angel arm is kinda phallic, you could say... yeah. This is rape. I heard that specific interpretation once and while I accepted it I also don't know if that would be generally accepted or if I'd be called out for it, so I'm trying to tread lightly here.

It also doesn't escape me that of course the angel arm has feminine features like the plants - the plants that, again, humans are exploiting for their ability to create. There's a lot of feminist commentary to be made here but many people have said it better than me. Specifically I'm thinking of this one post I saw about gender fuckery and Tristamp Vash. Anyway.

Also, the atomic bomb/black hole/sun/whatever that is in the middle... It's just so powerful. It's terrifying. The eldritch body horror here is a punch to the gut. What the fuck, Trigun? I thought this was a funky space western!!!

Oh, and here's more commentary on the following few panels:

Vashussy shot, Knives is still right behind him. Yeah, I wasn't kidding about how bad this pose is for them. Knives, you sick fuck.

Vash shoots himself in the leg (a key difference from '98 trigun, lol), because of course he does, but it doesn't free him from the arm.

The arm's getting darker/the light inside is getting lighter! Stampede did an awesome job with their interpretation of the angel arm and I don't think I would have understood it without that. Also, on my first read I didn't notice that Vash is literally levitating, which is cool, but also terrifying because ?? he's not in control of that either??

Finally. A super painful, minimalist, double-page spread. Nightow loves 'em. Vash thinks he's dying (maybe?) and he wishes he had never existed. It's not suicidal ideation per se, but he wishes he didn't exist at all because he's already caused enough suffering. This is a low for him, because he believes so strongly in the concept of the Blank Ticket. (Come on, soupy brain bitch boy, get it together!) He's a monster, it's just how he was born, and he's not in control. Very specifically too, he says "we", and then changes it to "I"... he doesn't blame Knives at all, and that's very him. I want to shake him! Stop playing the martyr, Vash!

[jewishvitya]

[This post was originally written in response to someone tagging me and claiming that a free Palestine would mean all Israeli Jews will be kicked out and where will I go, and how they can't understand why I'm so against Israel being our ethnostate. OP blocked me, so I'm reposting with a few edits, because I already wrote this and I might as well.]

Look. I understand your mentality. We're traumatized by a history of violence against us. We were shown that so many in the world want us dead, and so many others won't stop them. I get it. But I refuse to let myself silently become the face of similar oppression for other people.

Israel benefits from antisemitism and maintains myths that got Jewish people killed in the past, like double loyalty. It weaponizes it for propaganda reasons. It's supported by antisemitic Christian zionist organizations with terrifying motivations. It started out with violence not only against Palestinians but against Jews too. Israel isn't motivated by our safety, it abuses that idea. It manipulates and weaponizes our trauma to make us feel justified in causing so much suffering to innocent people.

You're right that I'll have nowhere to go if I'm kicked out of here. This is where I was born. My parents come from other countries that I won't feel safe in. But all of this is hypothetical. The ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians is not hypothetical, it's REALITY. It's happening RIGHT NOW. And I don't understand how, as a Jewish person who knows what this kind of suffering and loss of life means, you seem unable to prioritize that. I tell you I'm witnessing a genocide happening right next to me and you keep telling me "but what if they hurt you instead."

The assumption that Palestinians will pull some sort of reverse ethnic cleansing against us is racist. This assumption is the reason Israel feels comfortable calling the carpet bombing of a civilian population "self defense." Killing them based on a this is not self defense, it's a racially motivated crime against humanity.

And I'm calling it an assumption because I'm not willing to pull from the Hamas charter that they've since replaced. Hamas isn't Palestinians. The only reason they became this powerful is Israeli funding, and Israeli violence giving Hamas free PR as the only ones who will stand up to the state that will keep them trapped and dying.

We control every aspect of their lives. Israel created a place that breeds radicalization. No group of people, living under the conditions forced on Palestinians, would be peaceful. They would fight back. Because peaceful attempts to have the human rights that Israel denies them got nothing. We stomped on every single one. We blocked all other routes and left them with only violence, which Israeli politicians have been using as an excuse for over 15 years to make a show of force with military campaigns whenever they wanted a boost in popularity. We created living conditions with such low life expectancy that half of the population is children because so few adults survive. They don't deserve this. No one deserves this.

Palestine was a land with people living in it. One plot of land can create multiple groups of people, especially when we've been separated for 2000 years. Our connection to this land does not cancel out theirs. Removing them to create our own country could never be right. It's not an argument saying that our connection to Israel gives us the right to move here to live ALONGSIDE Palestinians. That's not what we wanted. We wanted a country that enforces Jewish majority and legally prioritizes Jews. You're justifying this when I repeatedly state that the only way for it to exist is through ethnic cleansing and genocide. There's no way to make this concept into a reality without killing, displacing, and oppressing whoever's left in various different ways, from apartheid to other kinds of discrimination.

I'm not against safety for us. I want to be safe. I want my children to grow in a safe world where we can be openly and joyfully Jewish. I'm not willing to pay for that with the lives and freedoms of other people.

So I will be loud about this: Palestinians deserve to be free in every part of their homeland, even if it's our ancestral homeland too.

If safety for us means we're the ones committing the genocide, maybe we should rethink what safety looks like.

I'm terrified for the lives of millions of people in Gaza. Right now, all I can think about is this, and it baffles me to see people so willing to transfer the horrors of our history to other people.

I had a lovely conversation in DMs in response to the first post, about how zionism encourages us to isolate rather than build bridges in the places where we live all over the world. We can't ignore the way antisemitism saturates culture, but we should also remember the places where Jewish communities thrived for centuries, the places where our neighbors protected us. We're hated, and we're loved. Each form of oppression is unique, so no other group experiences what Jewish people do exactly, but we're not alone. We have a long and rich history of solidarity with other marginalized communities and involvement in liberation movements. We're actively working to make the world safer, and we have people fighting with us. I'm just participating in this fight where I am. The struggle for liberation is a human struggle. You can't use the trauma of antisemitism to silence me about other kinds of bigotry.

Never again. To ANYONE.

[burst-of-iridescent]

South Asian and Hindu Influences in ATLA (Part 1)

disclaimer: i was raised culturally and religiously hindu, and though i've tried to do my research for this post and pair it with my own cultural knowledge, i'm not an expert on hinduism by any means. should i mess up, please let me know.

please also be aware that many of the concepts discussed in this post overlap heavily with religions such as buddhism and jainism, which might have different interpretations and representations. as i'm not from those religions or cultures, i don't want to speak on them, but if anyone with that knowledge wishes to add on, please feel free.

it's well-known that atla draws from indigenous, east and southeast asian influences, but something i rarely see discussed in the fandom is the influences the show takes from hinduism and south asia, and there are actually far more than i think people are aware of.

so here's a (non-exhaustive list) of the main inspirations atla drew from south asian culture and hinduism, starting with...

The Avatar

the title of the show itself is taken from the ancient language of sanskrit, often considered the sacred tongue of the hindu religion. in sanskrit, the word "avatar" means to "descend" or "alight".

the concept of the avatar is a very old one, referring to the physical incarnation of a powerful deity or spirit. the idea of the avatar is most often linked to the god Vishnu, one of three supreme hindu gods collectively called the trimurti, or trinity. the avatar is said to manifest upon earth primarily in times of great need, when balance must be maintained between the forces of good and evil.

atla borrows heavily from this idea in having aang be the incarnation of a divine spirit who returns to the world during a time of immense strife, and is tasked with defeating a great evil to bring balance back to the world. and though i don't know if it was an intentional reference, it's interesting to note that Krishna, the most famous incarnation of Vishnu was also reborn amidst a fierce storm and carried through a raging sea to a new home where he would be protected from the king who sought to kill him. sounds a little familiar, doesn't it?

Agni Kai and the Philosophy of Firebending

the word "agni" derives from the sanskrit name Agni, the god of fire, though it can also generally mean "fire".

the concepts of lightning bending and the sun being the source of firebending are likely also taken from the idea of Agni, since he's said to exist simultaneously in three different forms on three different dimensions: as fire on earth, as lightning in the atmosphere, and as the sun in the sky.

Agni is a significant aspect of many rituals, including marriage rites, death rites, and the festivals of holi and diwali. the concept of Agni is one of duality: life and death, rebirth and destruction. hindu rituals accept and celebrate both aspects, revolving around the idea that destruction is not separate from creation, but rather necessary to facilitate it. the cremation of the dead, for instance, is seen as purification, not destruction: burning away the physical form so the soul is unencumbered, set free to continue the reincarnation cycle.

this influence can be seen in the firebending masters episode, which discusses the idea of fire being vital to life. the sun warriors safeguarding the original fire and demanding that zuko and aang bring fire to the dragons as a sacrifice could also reference the ritual of Agnihotra - the ritual of keeping a fire at the home hearth and making offerings to it. the purpose of this ritual differs depending on which text you refer to, but it is generally believed to purify the person and atmosphere in which it is performed, similar to how zuko and aang must make offerings to ran and shaw and survive their fire before being deemed worthy and pure.

Agnihotra is said to serve as a symbolic reminder of the vitality and importance of fire as the driving force of life, a lesson that zuko and aang also internalize from their encounter with the dragons.

Bumi

bumi's name is taken from the sanskrit word "bhumi", which means "earth". it's also the name of the hindu goddess of the earth, bumi or bhudevi.

one of the things the original animation didn't do and which i really enjoyed about the live action was that they made bumi indian and added desi inspiration to omashu. it makes perfect sense for a king whose name is as hindu-inspired as they come.

NWT Royal Palace

chief arnook's palace in the northern water tribe takes inspiration from the gopurams of hindu temples, massive pyramidal structures that served as entrance towers to the temple.

gopurams were built tall enough to be seen for miles around, beacons to signal tired or weary travellers who wished for a place to rest that a temple was nearby. it's a nice touch that the chief's palace is located in front of the spirit oasis, a similarly symbolic entryway to a sanctuary housing otherworldly deities.

Betrothal Necklaces

to preface: i doubt this was an intentional reference, and this great post talks about other cultures that could have inspired the water tribe betrothal necklaces. given the desi influence in the nwt architecture however, i figured it was worth mentioning.

the idea of betrothal necklaces being given to women by their male partners is similar to the thaali, a necklace given to hindu wives by their husbands. during hindu weddings, grooms tie the thaali around their brides' necks to symbolize their marriage. once given, wives are expected to wear their thaali till the day they die, as doing so is believed to bring good luck, health and prosperity to their husbands.

Chi-Blocking

though chi-blocking takes primary inspiration from the art of Dim Mak, it is also influenced by the south indian martial arts forms of adimurai and kalaripayattu, both of which include techniques of striking vital points in the body to disable or kill an opponent.

kalaripayattu also shares parallels with firebending, being a very physically demanding, aggressive martial art that emphasises the importance of discipline and mental fortitude. control of the mind is essential to control of the body, a philosophy similar to that espoused by iroh across the show.

Wan Shi Tong's Library

the library draws inspiration partly from the taj mahal, the famous mausoleum constructed by shah jahan during the mughal empire as a monument to his beloved wife, mumtaz mahal.

i'll end this post here since it's getting too long as it is, and the following section will be even longer. for while atla treated the concepts in this post with respect, the same unfortunately cannot be said for its depiction of guru pathik and combustion man - both of which we'll be discussing next.

[yumeka-sxf]

Japanese Linguistic Observations in Spy x Family - part 1

This is a post series I've been planning for a while and I've finally had the time to complete part 1! 😃 I may have mentioned here before that I got my B.A. in Japanese/East Asian Studies, and even though I'm not fluent, I know the linguistics of the language fairly well. So I thought it would be fun to examine the interesting aspects of the Japanese version of the SxF manga that aren't reflected in the English translation. It might also be an informative experience for those who don't know any Japanese to learn a bit about the language through SxF! I'll try not to get too technical with the linguistics and keep my explanations at a beginner's level.

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Part 1 - Twilight's "honne and tatemae"

One of the main themes in SxF is how many of the characters have secrets they want to hide, so they act a certain way in front of others in order to mask their true selves. Japanese has a word for this phenomena called 本音と建前 ("honne and tatemae").

I remember learning about the concept of "honne and tatemae" during my Japanese college studies – a quick google search will yield a lot of publications on the topic and its relation to Japanese culture in particular. While the idea of hiding one's true intentions behind a fake facade can exist anywhere and is not something unique to Japan, it is enough of an occurrence in Japanese culture that there are specific words for it. The Wiki article has a basic but good definition of honne and tatemae, to quote:

A person's honne may be contrary to what is expected by society or what is required according to one's position and circumstances, and they are often kept hidden, except with one's closest friends. Tatemae is what is expected by society and required according to one's position and circumstances, and these may or may not match one's honne. In many cases, tatemae leads to outright telling of lies in order to avoid exposing the true inward feelings.

Sounds very much like the characters in SxF, doesn't it? Twilight especially, because unlike other characters like Yor and Anya, who simply have secrets they need to keep but don't create fake personas for themselves, Twilight does – the cheerful, friendly Loid Forger is a different person from the cold, calculating Twilight after all. Also unlike Yor and Anya, who speak the same way consistently no matter who they're talking to, Twilight uses different speech levels depending on which persona he's using and who he's talking to.

There are many different levels of speech in Japanese, ranging from super formal to totally crude. These speech levels are distinguished mostly by the pronouns the speaker chooses to use for themselves and who they're speaking to, as well as how they choose to conjugate the words they use. For example, 座ってください (suwatte kudasai), 座って (suwatte,) and 座れ (suware) all mean "sit," as in, telling someone to sit down. But the tone being conveyed is different: the first one is polite, the second one is casual, and the last one could be seen as rude if you're not using it with a close friend/family member.

As Twilight, he uses casual speech with the masculine and less polite pronoun 俺 or オレ (ore). This is the speech he uses when talking to a fellow spy like Fiona, and for his own inner thoughts.

As Loid Forger, he uses the polite 敬語 (keigo) speech, which is basically comprised of using the -ます (-masu) conjugation for verbs and the "to be" verb です (desu). He also uses the pronoun ボク or 僕 (boku), which is the standard male pronoun and more polite than "ore." He uses keigo to address pretty much everyone who doesn't know his true identity. When talking to a higher-up like Sylvia, he'll still use "ore" but will use polite speech instead of casual speech.

Anya is an exception to this: with her, he uses his most casual speech, the same as he uses with Franky.

I discussed a bit about this in part 24 of my Twiyor analysis posts, but this could be because Anya is a little kid, so he doesn't feel the need to put on any airs with her (same with Bond, whom he also uses casual speech with).

An interesting side note is that, as a child, Twilight used the pronoun "boku" but then changed to "ore" as soon as he became an adult/soldier.

Another aspect of keigo, besides using the more polite forms of pronouns and verb conjugations, is putting the honorific さん (san) after people's names. Twilight does this all the time with Yor, as she does with him. However, he switches to casual speech and drops the "san" part in her name when addressing her in front of people who (supposedly) believe they're a real married couple, such as Yuri and Fiona – because it would be weird for a real couple who have been married for a year to address each other in such a formal way, especially the husband. In the below panel when Fiona visits them, he's calling her "Yor" instead of "Yor-san" and using casual speech instead of keigo.

Oddly in these situations, while he uses just "Yor" when addressing her directly, he still calls her "Yor-san" when talking about her. During Yuri's first visit for example, he calls her "Yor-san" when telling Yuri how much Anya loves her (talking to someone about her) but then calls her just "Yor" a few moments later when telling her that he'll clean up the spill (talking to her directly). It's strange to me that he wouldn't just consistently use "Yor" whether he's talking to her or about her in these situations...I'm honestly not sure if he does this intentionally or if he just slips up since he's so used to using "Yor-san" in her presence.

*UPDATE* Thank you to @dentedintheworld-blog for enlightening me with the below reply about this!

"In Japanese, when speaking to your spouse's family about your spouse, you address her/him by attaching "san" her/his name out of respect for her/his family. This is also to show her/his family that you respect your spouse. That's why Loid calls Yor with san when he talks about how much he loves Yor to Yuri."

That definitely makes sense for why Twilight switches between "Yor" and "Yor-san" in these situations.

Regardless, this is why the scene in chapter 86 is so significant – when Yor isn't present, there's no reason for him to refer to her as "Yor-san," especially in front of a fellow spy like Fiona who knows he (supposedly) shouldn't have any feelings for her. Yet, even after he just called Yuri by his full name "Yuri Briar" a moment before, he doesn't do the same for Yor and continues to call her "Yor-san" here, much to Fiona's dismay.

In the same chapter, it's also significant that he uses "ore" when addressing Yor directly in his thoughts. Even though he's not speaking out loud, I believe this is the first time he's speaking directly "to" her as Twilight and/or his true self and not as Loid Forger.

But despite all this, I think that both Loid Forger and Twilight are tatemae…they're both masks to hide the person he truly is. The person who fondly talked about his mother to Yor on the park bench, the person who genuinely expressed gratitude for her sacrifice when leaving the resort island, the person who refused to kill Yuri in a life-or-death struggle because he knew it would hurt her…that's his actual honne. But of course, the ongoing conflict of the series is that he has yet to realize this. He won't even show his honne to his closest friend, Franky. Seems like it mostly comes out in dribs and drabs during his interactions with Yor...no surprise there, lol. The man is certainly a work in progress. When he finally starts letting his "honne" show, I'm curious what form of speech he'll adopt.

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Continue to Part 2 ->

[konniesreality]

There is always two sides to a coin and you’re choosing tails.

(void state post)

you are victimizing yourself. whether you like it, or not. You complain that you can’t enter the void, you whine and cry and you send thousands of asks to bloggers for help. stop victimizing yourself and expect something magical to help you get into the void. Do the inner work.

okay, i seriously have no idea how many times i have to repeat this. i have been repeatedly saying this so many times, yet it goes in one ear and out the other. please, for the love of everything divinely possible, stop over complicating the void state!

It is NOT HARD. You make it seem hard because that is YOUR ASSUMPTION! And I know that you are tired of hearing that, but this applies to everything in life. We are always manifesting unconsciously and consciously, and there is nothing we can do about it. How do you expect to get into the void if you keep telling yourself that you can’t?

it makes absolutely no sense. Do a method that is comfortable for you. Don’t do things because other people are doing it. If you don’t like a method, or a certain position, then do the void state how you want to! You like yoga nidra? Perfect. Do that then. But you don’t like affirming “I am in the void state” while doing the lullaby method? Okay. Just affirm “broccoli” and boom you are in the void. Why? Because you assumed it would work for you.

I get countless asks of people saying things like, “I worked on my self concept, but I didn’t enter the void state” NO SH*T SHERLOCK!! That’s what you told yourself!! I’m sure if you were actually a void master, you wouldn’t come into peoples asks complaining that YOU CANT DO IT!!

the void state is genuinely easy. It’s you. And it can be achieved so easily if you would persist and tell yourself it’s easy. so many of the success stories you see are people doing this thing: finding what works for them.

here is the thing: you can do it. You are just telling yourself that you cant. The biggest reason you guys aren’t entering the void, is your lack of persistence.

going back to the title, you could have been ONE second away from entering the void, but you complained like usual and rolled over. You guys aren’t focusing on the void state while attempting. You’re focusing on your body, symptoms, “am I doing this right, ugh my body hurts, did I choose the right subliminal” LIKE NO!! That’s why you aren’t entering the void like cmon now. Isn’t this obvious?!

focus on the black behind your eyes and relax. focus on your affirmations or whatever you’re doing. think about you getting your dream life, and use that happiness to persist in the void state. find what works for you. stop complaining and going into mine and bloggers asks complaining the void doesn’t work for you.

going back to the title, there are 2 sides to a coin. And you guys are choosing tails. instead of “I’m tired and don’t wanna affirm anymore” say “I’m so happy I’m in the void, my dream life is here!”

stop being a victim in your own reality and step it up!! I hope this post gave you a wake up call and reality check because oh boy, y’all need it.

[lakefu]

A Perfect Warmth 🕯️

Summary: Astarion and Tav take a well deserved break away form the chaos of their adventures at an inn inside Baldur's Gate. They need to clean up and get back on the road but they keep getting distracted. Perhaps plans could be delayed for a night of passion...

Pairing: Astarion x female!Tav

Tags: 18+, Explicit, fluffy smut, brief Astarion trauma response, PIV, erogenous elf ears, scent kink, blood + biting, a bit of praise, a bit of edging... a sprinkle of cockwarming...., these guys are in love...

Word count: 3.5k Note: This was my first fic originally uploaded on Ao3 on 11/27/23, inspired by the patch #4 dev note mentioning adding sponges to clean your companions. I've made edits from the Ao3 post.

“Remind me to sell this junk next time we pass by a merchant, would you dear?” Astarion was seated at the edge of the bed and rummaging through his traveler’s pack, placing various items on the nightstand for further examination. Two silver forks, an old necklace, and a handful of various polished stones ended up on the table before he plucked out an intricate sapphire ring and held it up to the sunlight peeking through the window.

“Good taste,” he muttered to himself. He placed the ring on his pinky finger in amusement and resumed the scavenge. 

“It’s going to get difficult sneaking up on people if I have to lug this heavy thing around you know.” He threw over a glance at Tav, who was preoccupied with gathering laundry together in preparation for the next day.

“It wouldn’t be so heavy if you didn’t pocket nearly every shiny thing we came across,” she teased, without even looking over at him.

He gasped dramatically. “Framed by my own lover? Quite the scandal. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the near dozen times you’ve asked me to hold onto your things because your own pack was too full.”

“Hmm. Maybe. I guess that might sound sort of familiar…” She giggled to herself and walked into the bedroom to catch his eye, meeting him with a mischievous grin. 

“Why are you such a- oh! Now, what’s this you’re wearing?” Astarion blinked and scanned her up and down, clearly enthralled by the wardrobe change. She stood there in an old linen robe that was yellowed with age, definitely unlike anything he had ever seen her in before.

“Just some old thing I found in the dresser here, isn’t it just fabulous?” Tav's words were dripping in sarcasm and yet she smiled, performing a grandiose little spin in the middle of the room as if she was wearing the most beautiful ball gown in the world.

“I… it’s just so different from your usual armor or that drow nightwear you fancy so much. You look so… domestic.” His eyes were locked onto Tav intensely, with brow furrowed as he seemed to be confused by his own words.

She felt her heart skip a beat and a flush run to her face.

“And you think that’s a good look for me?”

His eyes softened and he paused a moment before quietly answering.

“Yes… I do.”

Tav watched as his smile faded and the gaze of his eyes became increasingly more distant. The atmosphere seemed to shift and a slight panic ran through her body. Did she do something wrong? No... and it didn’t require a tadpole connection to get an understanding for what had brought down his spirits.

Astarion hadn’t considered a comfortable domestic life was possible for someone like him. Even the slightest concept of such a thing had been buried for over a hundred years, and he never expected it to resurface. Was he worthy of such a thing, and was it even possible? 

Oh, it was possible. The evidence was standing right in front of him, spinning circles in an ugly bathrobe. He could see glimpses of a happy future that was so close to being a reality he nearly felt nauseous. Not because he was unsure of himself, but because there were still too many unresolved matters they had a duty to attend to. Too many missions and stupid little quests that could now go wrong and threaten this idea of a happy ending he never even knew was possible.

Everything was different now that he realized what was possible, and he suddenly felt an unknown and uncomfortable pressure. All he knew was that he couldn’t afford to lose in the upcoming battles. Battles that some would say were impossible, suicidal even. The thought of loss at this point was beyond unbearable. It was sickening just to think about.

“Hey!!” Tav ran up to where he was sitting on the bed and took his head in her hands. She placed a delicate kiss on his forehead, knowing she had to get him focused on something else.

“Why don’t we go to the shop right now and get rid of that stuff,” she motioned to the collection of items that had been gathered on the nightstand.

“Wouldn’t hurt to get some more coin in our pockets, right?” She looked at him expectantly and felt a huge relief as a light seemed to return to his eye and meet her view.

“Please tell me you aren’t going to wear that horrid robe to see the merchant,” he sighed and looked up at her pleadingly.

“Of course not!! I’ll change and- oh gods!!! We’ve got to get this blood off your face, the merchant is going to think we are trying to kill him!” Tav exclaimed as she lightly shook his shoulders, and quickly began examining his body to see how much cleaning would have to get done before they could leave.

“Blood… on my face?” He raised an eyebrow and brought a finger to his cheek.

“Yeah!! Well, it’s all over you really, dontcha remember earlier today, fighting those cultists?? You sneaked up behind one of ‘em and BAM!!! Just obliterated with a single strike, it was amazing!! You’re so strong…you know.” Her pulse was racing at the mere memory of the event as she delicately traced the side of his face with her fingers and ventured down to his chest. 

“Ah of course. That was all so terribly easy I’d nearly forgotten,” he said proudly, adjusting his posture and keeping his eyes on Tav’s hand movements sliding across his chest. Her soft touch was becoming more firm as her fingers made their way toward his arms, giving his biceps a teasing squeeze before leaning her face into his and teasing a kiss.

Before their lips could touch, Astarion wags a finger in between their faces as if to remind Tav of the task at hand.

“Alright my sweet, let’s clean up shall we? You’re my mirror after all. So, go on then.” He took her hands into his own and gave them a kiss before placing them back at her side, encouraging her to go and gather whatever it was she needed to get him cleaned up.

Right, the supplies. It was nearly impossible to remain focused after moments of intimacy with him, no matter how brief they were. She quickly moved into the other room to acquire the washcloths and bucket of soapy water that she was using for herself not too long ago. Hands full, she scurried back to the bedroom to meet her lover, who hadn’t moved an inch.

As she approached him, Tav could feel the tie on her robe becoming increasingly more loose with each step that was taken across the floor. The embarrassment hit her as she realized she didn't have any hands free to do anything about it. She quickly tried to put the bucket down by the bedside, but the bending movement only resulted in the robe slipping off one of her shoulders, exposing a bare breast.

“Oh? You haven’t got anything on underneath?” Astarion cocked his head in amusement, eyes unmoving from the newly exposed skin.

“Ye-yeah that’s the whole point of robes isn’t it? I was doing laundry earlier ya know and umm,” She laughed nervously and started to fix the wardrobe malfunction but was quickly stopped by a hand over her own. Astarion reached out toward her until both hands were around her waist and pulled her in close to his body. Fangs were peeking through his devious smile while determined eyes looked her up and down. With a singular finger he crept over to the loose knot of the robe’s tie and flicked it completely undone with one swift movement.

Tav shuddered and felt her body starting to run warm despite now being suddenly exposed to the cool air of the inn. She was completely revealed to him now, the robe only just clinging to her arms and draped across her backside.

“Gods, you’re beautiful,” he sighed and began kissing her stomach and caressing the curves of her waist. “Come here.”

Tav gasped as she felt his cold grip around her waist tighten as he expertly lifted her up onto his lap with ease. Pleased at the new angle, Astarion shifted his attention to kissing the crook of her neck and started moving down her chest. He delightfully found her nipple with his mouth in no time, and teased it in circles with his tongue just as he knew she liked it. His gentle sucking continued for only a few brief moments before he suddenly withdrew and cleared his throat.

“Ah, well. You can reach my face better up here I’m sure. For the cleaning of course,” he said smugly. The elf leaned back and admired the view of his lover, nude and flustered, perched oh-so perfectly on top of him.

“The cleaning…” Tav nodded and remembered she still had a warm and soapy washcloth in her hand. The urge to throw the stupid cloth into some unknown corner of the room was nearly undeniable. All she wanted in this moment was for him to take her completely, in any way he wanted, it didn’t matter as long as she ended up getting fucked into oblivion. So fine. On with the cleaning.

She raised the washcloth to his temple and slowly began to wipe away the dried blood by working down his face. His cheeks were a bit sunken as usual but flushed adorably in this moment, clearly enjoying the tender rubs of cloth on his skin. She continued rubbing down toward his chiseled jawline, across to his lips, and back up the other side to repeat the process once more. She ran her fingers through his silver curls and noticed his ears would need cleaning too. 

One hand caressed the pointy ear to keep it in place and the other brought the washcloth in for a gentle scrub. A quiet moan suddenly escaped the vampire’s lips.

Oh? She had seemingly discovered a sensitive spot and noted that she would have to continue her work carefully. The scrubbing continued but Tav couldn’t keep her eyes off his face now. His eyes were closed but still noticeably moving behind their lids, and his lips were slightly parted with his breathing becoming increasingly heavier and more noticeable. 

Astarion was in his own world of pleasure. What in the hells had he been doing these past weeks, aimlessly scrubbing himself clean alone in the river when they could have been doing this the whole time instead?

He opened his eyes just to make sure it wasn’t all a dream. She was still there of course, diligently and lovingly taking such good care of his body. A wave of maddening lust rushed through his core and he needed her closer. He needed her as close as physically possible and even more so after that.

Their eyes met, revealing intense desires. Tav lowered her hands and she spoke slowly, “Can you take your shirt off? There’s a spot I can’t get to with it on…” 

She wasn’t fooling anybody, but he obeyed without hesitation. The shirt was gone in seconds, revealing his pale and perfectly sculpted chest. It was a sight that Tav never tired of admiring, and was in fact the subject of distracting daydreams on the daily. She shifted her body closer to his and continued scrubbing his neck and chest, despite it becoming increasingly more difficult to focus. Deep breaths.

She had always been fond of his cologne that he was quite proud of concocting himself. The scent of aged brandy, bergamot, and rosemary was now forever an Astarion specialty that she could never forget. Even during times of battle or travel, a gust of wind could carry his essence to her and bring along with it a sense of reassuring familiarity. As she continued to wipe him down, however, a different scent began to come to the forefront.

It was something that did not seem completely foreign, but it wasn't immediately identifiable either. There was something about taking it all in that felt forbidden. Tav tried to pinpoint what she was experiencing. He smelled earthy… raw… unnatural… it was without a doubt, the undeath.

An undeniable heat rose through her body as she engulfed herself with this pure scent from her lover. The washcloth, the bed, the entire room seemed miles away, and nothing felt coherent except for a craving to be even closer to him. Nothing else existed except their bodies and her overwhelming desire to-

“Eager, are we?” A sultry voice snapped her back into reality, where piercing red eyes amusingly greeted her return. She suddenly became aware of a presence between her thighs and glanced down, realizing she was sitting atop a clothed bulge. His hands had a firm grip on her backside and his encouraging movements made it clear she had been absentmindedly grinding on him during her trance. 

“Shit, I got carried away…” She hadn’t taken her eyes off his crotch and began to notice that her excitement had left a dampness on his clothes. Embarrassment nearly overtook her, but a gentle yet confident hand grabbed her chin and brought it up to meet his gaze. He leaned into her with a grinning open mouth and kissed her passionately, tongues intertwining.

She felt his fangs briefly scrape against her tongue every so often until a metallic taste became increasingly noticeable. She didn't mind the blood, especially since it seemed to enhance his arousal as noted by his hips continuously jolting faster up into her exposed crotch. Tav was soon pleasantly overwhelmed between his deep kisses and desperate hands groping her at every curve of her body. She longed to give him everything; her blood for his hunger, her body for his pleasure. 

Tav released herself from the kiss they had been locked into and tilted her head so that her neck became exposed as an undeniable gift. His mouth lunged at the presented spot as soon as it was noticed, fangs immediately sinking in deep. Tav cried out at the initial impact but soon was reveling in the experience. It was a perfect mixture of pain and pleasure that she was only capable of experiencing from him.

He remained on her neck for a while, still tightly holding on to her body and keeping one hand free to reassuringly caress the back of her head. It was only after the blood flow slowed to a near stop did he cease his medley of licking and sucking at the wound. Blood dripped down his chin and onto his exposed chest, but he was ultimately unfazed. He leaned back, clearly happy and mostly satisfied, but there was still a different type of satisfaction he had left to chase.

Astarion's throbbing erection was begging to be released from its clothed restraints. He quickly untied his pants and shifted his underwear to finally free it. He moaned a few incomprehensible words of relief and stroked himself a few times before looking up at Tav for approval.

Tav had been staring at his length from the moment it was exposed, an impressive size for an elf, no doubt. Her eyes fixated on his perfectly pink tip, glistening with precum just for her. She immediately fantasized of shoving him down her throat until she choked and cried, but that was a fantasy for another day. In their current position, they both knew there was only one simple way of how to continue.

“Astarion,” she whimpered. “Fuck me.”

Tav sat up on her knees and positioned herself so that her entrance was just nearly grazing the head of his dick, ready to take him in completely at any moment. She grabbed ahold of his shaft and guided the tip back and forth through her folds until he was covered in her slick. The new sensation of the friction between them left them both gasping and desperate for more.

Suddenly, finally, his arms wrapped around her body as he pulled her down onto him with one firm motion. Astarion grunted through his teeth while Tav moaned unapologetically, focusing on relaxing enough to allow her body to adjust to his length inside of her. 

The temperature differences between their bodies only heightened the feelings of pleasure whenever they became one. Her warmness was intoxicating to him, granting a sense of safety and bliss that was impossible to achieve anywhere else. He was already so close to the edge in this moment, but was not ready to give in just yet. He wanted this moment of heaven to last as long as possible.

Meanwhile, Tav was having the time of her life riding her man like there was no tomorrow. She had no intent to slow down until a pair of large hands suddenly gripped her hips in a way that prevented any further movement.

“I’m not done with you yet, love. Didn’t you notice the mess I’ve made after feasting on you?” Astarion took a finger to his chin and smeared a bit of Tav’s fresh blood down his neck.

It was true, he had made a mess. Quite uncharacteristically of him in fact. Tav had assumed he had simply gotten careless in his horny and feral craze but no- it was clearly all calculated. 

“Just be still and sit nice and pretty on my cock. Finish the cleaning, then I’ll take care of you myself. How does that sound?” 

How does that sound? His words echoed in her head, which was already spinning plenty enough as it was. She was unsure if it was from the blood loss or her seemingly never ending carnal desires, but perhaps it was both. One thing was certain, however, he could convince her to do damn near anything speaking in that low and lustful tone of his. Without uttering a word she slowly brought the washcloth up to his chest. 

“Good girl,” he whispered. He felt her body twitch around him in response to the praise, and he leaned back to relax and enjoy these final few moments of intimacy. 

It had taken everything in Tav's power to remain still while she worked. It wasn't exactly easy to focus- she was being split in half by a whimpering vampire beneath her after all. Astarion’s skilled fingers had been dancing around her swollen clit the whole time, just enough to keep her stimulated but never enough to let her come.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the blood was all cleaned up. She hadn't even realized when it happened or how he did it, but his pants were completely gone now. She reached over to place the cloth down and awaited her reward of sweet release.

Astarion’s hands moved to the knees that were straddling him and slowly pushed them farther apart, spreading Tav’s legs open bit by bit. She inhaled sharply as she took him in deeper. He opened her up more and more until she lost her balance and fell backwards onto his expectant embrace. 

“Relax darling, I’ve got you,” He purred in reassurance. 

Astarion took her entire weight in his arms with ease and laid her down amongst the soft pillows of the bed. He nestled himself comfortably between her legs, making sure their bodies were flush with one another. Nearly smothered by his body now, all Tav could do was claw at his back and arch her hips into his powerful thrusts. His mouth frantically traveled across her lips and neck with desperately wet kisses until he settled near her ear with a playful nibble.

“You’re so beautiful…” He whispered tenderly, while the rhythm of his lovemaking became increasingly sporadic. “So fucking perfect… Gods…just for me… I love you… so much...”

“Star, I- ah!” Her words cut short as she felt something snap within her. Pure ecstasy- she was falling and flying somewhere a million galaxies away and never wanted to come back. Obscene noises and curses filled the room as they rode out each other’s high in tight embrace. The smell of sex lingered in the air as their bodies heaved with labored breaths, finally collapsing on each other in exhaustion. 

They laid together a while longer, exchanging soft kisses and enjoying the short moment in time where nothing else in the world mattered. Eventually, Astarion rolled out of the bed and stood up to stretch. 

“Tsk, looks like it’s my turn to clean you up my dear,” He said with an accomplished grin, eying how her thighs were dripping with his sticky mess.

“I’ll be right back, don’t move an inch. Actually, I doubt you can move at all after that, ahaha!” He laughed and leaned over to brush aside a strand of Tav’s sweaty hair that was stuck to her forehead before walking over to the other room. 

“Shut up… dummy…” she smiled to herself and rolled over, feeling at ease enough that the weight of sleep was starting to overtake her.

“I love you too, Astarion.” Her eyes closed as she drifted off into a peaceful slumber, knowing that her lover would soon come back to her side like he always did, and always would.

[infamous-if]

Happy 1 year anniversary to this blog!

It was yesterday...though I do find it fitting that I've been focused on writing so much that I forgot lmao

When I first had the idea for Infamous, I didn't work on it right away. The concept was cool, yeah, but was it enough for interactive fiction? A medium I never even tried before?

I let it marinate in my head for a while wondering if it would be a good story or not. I listened to a lot of music, made a lot of idea boards and outlined routes but told myself I wasn't actually writing it. Just playing in a new literary sandbox with no strings! I was very close to not publishing my idea because it felt like it wasn't a story that I could handle. And it was daunting. I've published stories before, but they were completed novels that I could just forget about it and move on from once I was done. This was a commitment! I kept asking myself if I was even a good enough writer for the plans I had haha

But it didn't stop bothering me and I was getting irritable over my own brain creating this whole world without my permission. So I posted the intro post on a whim just to see what would happen! Turns out, I'm really happy I did!

One year later and there's been a whole community of people who have enriched the story and elevated it to a place that I wouldn't have been able to do it on my own. The amazing fanfics, the head canons, fan art and the suggestions, it's been really nice to work on this with the support and encouragement I've gotten. I think the best parts of the story so far have come from the collective, not me, and knowing that there are people who watched me serve my ideas on a platter like "here. take it pls." and accepted it is really nice. I'm grateful :)

thank you guys for reading the story and being kind to me and my ideas and having so many discussions over these characters that were once just in my mind, alone with me to tend to them. and to the if authors who have been here much longer, thank you for welcoming me with open arms. thank you to the group of if authors in particular who took me under their wing and gave me advice on how to handle things and how to move forward. you didn't have to come into my dm's and give me guidance or help me, but you did anyway and im eternally grateful!

I'm excited for 2024 to be the year that we really dive into the story. I still can't believe we're only 2 chapters in. it feels much longer, doesn't it? lololol

thanks!! <3

[wri0thesley]

SO glad someone else is in the "Just the tip" hole, so here I am like a little kid, cupping my hands for any spare thoughts (preferrably anyone besides Sampo), if you have any to share? 🤲🖤

loni i was going to write a post anyway but being able to reply to asks with my thoughts - proof that there is Demand (tm!) makes me feel SO much better about the brainrot!!! i have many thoughts abt sampo too so i am eagerly awaiting ur drabble, just the tip is really a concept of all time!

ft: gepard, welt, himeko, serval, jing yuan, luocha cw: reader is afab with no pronouns used. public sex (luocha), straps, sex toys (himeko and serval), a little size kink (jing yuan), a little soft dom (welt). not sfw, minors dni.

Gepard doesn't quite realise how big he is. He's not got all that much experience; he's never really thought about it, far too busy with all of the responsibilities that come hand in hand with being Captain of the Silvermane Guards. So when your eyes widen and your fingers can't quite meet when you wrap them around his length, he lets out a ragged breath and a moan and pushes his cock between your thighs. You have to breathlessly curl your fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and whisper out his name. He's already on the edge just by being close to you. The silky softness of your thighs, the inviting shine of your lips and the way that arousal makes your eyes blow dark and wide - when you whisper softly into his ear; "I don't know if I can take it, Gepard . . . J-just the tip, alright? Go slow--", he worries that he's about to embarrass himself right there and then and come before he's even gotten inside of you.

You whine and whimper as he slowly pushes you open, your wetness smearing all over the ruddy head of his cock. Your fingers tighten in his hair even as a soft strangled noise falls from Gepard's own mouth and he struggles to not ram himself inside of you - you have no idea how good you feel. How hot and tight and wet and perfect the embrace of your walls clinging to him is, even on just the head of his cock.

But he did not get where he is by not having self-control. His muscular arms, corded with scars from practise battles and real battles alike, cage you in on the bed beneath him. He looks at you like someone who cannot believe how lucky he is.

"I'll wait here," he promises you, his voice lust-soaked and cracking with the effort. "As long as you need me to."

Welt sees how your lip trembles, how you take in a slow, steadying breath, and he cannot help his desire to take care of you a little. To coddle you and fuss over you, to make the most of the age and experience that he has and you do not. So he smiles at you, crow's feet crinkling the edges of his eyes behind his glasses, and traces the pout of your bottom lip with his thumb. His voice is patient and soft when he speaks to you.

"I'll go slowly," he tells you, as he gently slaps his cock against your wet folds where you sit on his desk before him, animation sketches and research papers pushed to one side in favour of the tempting treat that is your body. He has spent so much of his time working - nobody could blame him for taking a break and finding himself again in the silky tightness of someone younger and prettier than he himself is. "Just the tip first."

"Alright, Mr Yang," you breathe to him, your hands locking about his neck, urging him forward. You sigh as the head nudges your clit, as his precome mingles with your own slick arousal. You're a sensitive mess already - Welt is certainly not the kind of man who'd leave a partner unsatisfied, and his fingers and his tongue have already learnt every petal-soft fold of you, every spot that makes you shiver and whimper until you'd had to bite into his shoulder to stop your cries waking up every other crew member of the Express.

Slowly, slowly, carefully, he eases into you. Watches with rapt attention every movement of your body; the stretch of your cunt as it accepts him, until your hips are wriggling and squirming and you're tugging on his shoulders.

"Mr Yang," you're saying to him, your lip trembling, your shoulders racked with gasps. A whine leaks into your tone as he rests the head of his cock inside of you, enjoying the feel of it. Your sex pulses around the modicum of his length inside of you, fluttering, waiting to be fully claimed. "It's -- it's not enough!"

Welt laughs softly and presses a kiss on the top of your head that is almost paternal in its comfort - a reminder that he's old enough to be your father, your grandfather--

His voice is soft with just a hint of admonishment in it.

"You're really going to have to learn some patience."

Himeko has you wrapped around her little finger, but that doesn't mean that you don't eye the toy that she shows you with a little trepidation. She laughs at you when you do, pulling you into her, kissing you with the taste of coffee on her tongue as she talks you into her bed.

"If you're frightened of it," she's saying, even as your mouth is going dry as you watch her disrobe, "We'll go as slow as you need, darling. We'll start with just the tip."

You lose the ability to speak at the sight of her, auburn curls tumbling down her back and over the milky pale spill of her breasts and shoulders. Bathed in the starlight from her cabin window, she's unearthly, and your entire body sings out with desire for her. She smiles when she sees you looking.

"Always such a flatterer," she teases affectionately, as she wraps the toy carefully around the curve of her hips. It looks just as striking on her as everything else does. "Now, you just lie back. I've done this before. Let Himeko handle it, hmm?"

You're helpless to a command from the beautiful navigator, and you let yourself fall back on the pillows as she walks towards you with all of the elegance of somebody who knows exactly how lovely she is. She gives you a soft smile, her golden eyes gentle in the light, even as she gathers herself onto her knees and her fingers lightly dance over your bare skin. Electric pinpricks of desire radiate from every touch.

"Aren't you beautiful?" She muses to herself, as she wraps her hand around the toy and pumps it a few times - when it comes away, you see there's something thick and clear and viscous dripping from it. She laughs softly again when she sees you looking.

"You're already wet," she whispers to you, in a low, musical voice. "But if you're still nervous . . . well, there's nothing wrong with a little help, is there?"

Her fingers dance over your skin. She knows every part of you intimately by now; the spot on your stomach, the way you whimper when she pinches your nipples, the place on your hips that makes you breathe in a deep sigh and your own lashes flutter. Through her touches, she keeps murmuring soft platitudes to you - how pretty you look like this, for her. What a precious treasure you are. How she can't wait for you to come apart--

And by the time she is sliding the tip of the toy inside of you and you are fair dizzy with want, you can do nothing but whisper out her name. She leaves the tip of the toy inside of you, smiling down, as patient and beautiful and dazzling as ever.

"I told you," she murmurs, as her long fingers return to pluck and play with your nipples, and you get used to the new stretch of having something thicker than Himeko's fingers inside of you. "We'll go as slow as you need. Any new territory worth exploring is worth doing . . ." She leans down, her mouth full and soft and wet as it meets yours and you whine into it. "Thoroughly."

Serval is a tease. You'd known she was up to something the moment you'd stepped into the workshop and she'd flipped the sign to 'closed' with a feline grin on her face as she'd beckoned you over to her and told you she could really use your help with some new gadget she was tinkering with.

So now, as she has you bent over her workbench with something vibrating pressed in the valley between the folds of your sex, the tip pressed just so - buzzing and tingling - against the swollen pearl of your clit, it's all you can do to keep your fingers tight around the edge of the workbench and your knees locked so you don't collapse.

"Kitten," Serval is purring, her hips slowly rocking back and forth, the phallic toy strapped to her hips rubbing through the wet mess of your cunt. "Don't you like it? I made it thinking of you!"

Your words come out garbled, a mess of moans and sighs. Your own hips thrust back when she pulls away, trying to get her to keep the toy pressed against your clit for long enough for you to get off. Instead, she just laughs, nipping at your bare shoulder.

"You're getting desperate," she teases you, her voice deep and throaty and satisfied. "Beg me, kitten, and we'll see what I can do for you."

"Serval--" Your voice comes out a whine. "Please . . ."

Her clever fingers, calloused palms, slide down your bare skin, leaving electric zaps wherever they touch you. You shudder under her practised touch - you are an instrument, and Serval has already proved she is a master musician.

"Seeing as you asked so nicely," she says to you, and you sense the wicked cat-like grin on her mouth. "How about I give you just the tip?"

"Not enough--"

"You're getting greedy!" The buzzing toy slides a scant inch inside of you without the smallest hint of resistance; you're wet enough from the teasing already. You can feel your own arousal dripping down your thighs, and Serval sighs happily as she dips one of her fingers between your thighs to toy with your clit as the tip of the toy rests inside of you.

"You're lucky you're so cute," she whispers to you. Her finger slides back and forth over your clit, drawing delicate circles - she always knows how to use them. "Come for me on the tip, and I'll fuck you with the rest of it too."

Jing Yuan's patience has long been mistaken for occasional laziness; but you know better than most that there is nothing of the kind, when it comes to him. And there is certainly nothing of the kind when it comes to trysts like this.

Oh, you and he have gotten used to rushing moments when you can, in between him being needed for meetings and work - but now? In the evening, loose ends tied up, with nothing but one another to spend the night on?

This is a tryst that will last.

Jing Yuan is not lazy - he merely likes to take his time. For a man whose being is tied up in his past warfare, he knows how to handle delicate things like you - but that doesn't mean he's going to rush it. Not when you look so pretty laid out like this for him, clothes rumpled and discarded beneath you, looking up at him with your eyes all soft and wanting and your mouth aching to be kissed.

He hums beneath his breath as he lets his mouth learn the shape of yours; pushes you gently back when you try and kiss deeply into him, to make him hurry up. His cock nudges against your inner thigh and he sighs a slow, indolent sigh of pleasure that makes your heart beat double time in your chest.

"We have all of the time in the world, little bird," he tells you, with an insouciant smile on his face. Your face scrunches, an adorable expression of impatience taking over your features, and he smiles down at you like someone looking at the finest treasure in the world.

"Impatient," he chides you, but there's nothing but warmth in his tone when it comes to you. His hands find your thighs, digging into the soft skin as he parts them. Warm eyes like pools of molten gold find your core, and he sighs as he looks at you. You squirm under his gaze, and as he softly leans down and lets some of his own saliva drip onto your cunt, you whimper at the feel. "This is impatient, too," He says to you, and laughs. "Drooling all over the place. Mm. Is that how much it wants me?"

"I want you," you respond to him, mouth petulant. Jing Yuan shakes his head fondly at you but readjusts himself, hand around his cock to guide it to your sex. He taps the thick head softly against your clit until you squirm, pouting. "Jing Yuan--"

"Ah, I know, I know," he looks down at where the two of you are not yet joined. "I'm always reminded how . . . small you are, when I look down at you like this."

"It will fit," you insist to him, and he raises one eyebrow.

"Oh, I know it will," he tells you, still smiling at you. "But it's a tight one, isn't it?"

"Jing Yuan, you're stalling--!"

He laughs again.

"Ha. My apologies, little bird." Slowly, he guides his cock to your opening - resting it against there, just for a moment. Exactly as he said, he seems so much bigger than you - his tip thick and blunt and rounded, your entrance small even as your hole pulses and oozes slick in preparation for him. "I simply like looking at you."

"There's something you'd like more than just looking," you encourage him, and he shakes his head so that his mane of hair falls over his shoulders.

"You're incorrigible," he tells you - and then he is pushing forth into you, and your mind goes white of anything but the feel of Jing Yuan inside of you, his cock, your cunt, where they meld together and you become one--

Wait.

Why has he stopped?

"Jing Yuan--!"

He swallows your cry of his name with a kiss that is anything but lazy, tongue exploring your mouth, teeth tugging at your bottom lip until you're dizzy with it all. He tastes, just a little, like sweets.

He pulls back just enough to look at you half-lidded, the tip of his cock just stretching you out.

"I'm merely taking my time," he tells you. "Whilst I have it."

Luocha is mean, you think, even as his words remain unfailingly genteel. Even as his face remains a polite mask, he leaves his cock not-quite inside of you as you tremble against the wall he has you bodily pressed up against.

"Please," you breathe out to him, teary-eyed, lip trembling. "Y-you can't just leave it there--"

He cocks one eyebrow, his face unfairly pretty - unfairly unruffled, even with the tip of his cock buried in you. He's unfailingly still - almost as if the hot tightness of your cunt pulsing around him has no effect on him whatsoever. One long, elegant hand curves around your cheek as a small smile pulls at the corner of his lips.

He's big. You can't help but squirm against the concrete, your cunt wrapped around only the head of his cock but feeling like you've taken far, far more.

"We're in public," he says to you, voice just a little condescending. "If I were to go about this more . . . vigorously, surely you wouldn't want the attention of every person in the vicinity on you?"

Your own need feels like a thrum inside of you. It's hard to think, as Luocha moves his hips the barest fraction and you find yourself whining aloud. Firmly, he moves the hand on your cheek so that it's pressed over your mouth, muffling your noises.

"You can't take more than this," he tells you, voice calm and patient. "Not here. Not now."

You whimper into his gloved palm, tears beading in your eyes like little diamonds. Even that doesn't seem to move him, though he tips his head to one side, vaguely considering. He moves his hand just enough for you to take a breath, and whisper beseechingly;

"I-if not here . . . will you do it somewhere else?"

He laughs only one soft, musical little noise. He leans in close, his breath cool against your neck.

"Mm . . . but when you ask like that--"

You cry out as he pushes another inch of himself into you, eyes widening as the noise breaks the calm, cool air. Luocha pauses.

"Oh dear," he says. "I suppose we'll have to both come quickly then, hmm?"

[moonit3]

I can order a yandere cute (kawaii), who maybe because of his cute and innocent appearance managed to get close to his beloved, but maybe this boy is not only cute and has a very disturbing past...

i love this concept, a cute person who is actually a freaking person behind the curtains. that’s why i love my readers, always giving me the best ideas to write.

ꕥ CUTE BOY ꕥ

➽ context warnings: yandere! male, gn! reader, sfw but there is some nsfw lines down there, a small age gap (like two-four years, but both reader and yandere are legal age!), manipulation, murder off scene.

➽ word count: 998 (sorry for that, guys!)

➽ synopsis: perhaps you would see him with another eyes if he was the same age as your.

➽ yandere! cute boy x gn! reader

➽ a/n: another few weeks later and i am here with another work of mine, today i present to you all my new creation that i am proud to be the mother of it. this work is a little too short for my own likes, but i feared that if i wrote more i could easily ruin it…so please, bear with me today’s writing.

➽ walking around the streets without paying attention led you to meet someone completely different from most people you met before. clothes so bright that might your hurt at first glance full of cute patterns on it, hairclips all over his dyed hair and of course, his personality being way too soft for a world like this, but with a little extra spicy that can’t be compared to anyone else.

➽ micah is his name, a sweet boy that isn’t so tall compared to most guys that you’ve encountered. yet, is the one who catch your attention the most with his odd smile, unfamiliar style and unique sense of humor. you consider yourself lucky to have met someone like him and even luckier to have someone by your side after moving to a new city.

➽ you might have know him for a couple of weeks, but it’s feel like he been around your whole life by the way he acts with you. many people even mistakenly you two as a couple by how affectionate he is in public, always holding hands and kissing your cheek as a way to greet you, so you don’t blame them for thing the wrong way when explaining that micah is just too friendly with you. but no one seems to believe you, always telling you that there is no shame in being touchy with him in public or hide the relationship.

➽ well, they aren’t wrong about micah being so much cling with you in the public eyes. sometimes, you ask yourself the last time you went out without him or for how long he can go without touching you (almost a minute, you recall). your best friend being like this doesn’t make you uncomfortable, by the completely opposite, you are kind into it. after all, everyone needs some physical affection and you are in no place to deny it.

➽ as more time goes on, you only got closer to micah while your other friends began distancing themselves away from you. why would they do that? the sense that you’ve done something wrong quickly makes you anxious, overthinking and even forgetting things that you were supposed to do. it’s hurt to see so many people leave you, abandon you. but hey, at least micah is by your side with no intention to leave.

➽ “let’s go out, [name]!” he brings you to the mall whatever he feels like, buying expensive outfits that match his style and making you pose with him to post at his social media. mostly of the comments compliment how the two looks so perfect together, some even saying that micah is a lucky guy to have you in his life. “look, look, [name]! they think we are a couple! isn’t that cute? maybe we do fit to be together like that.”

➽ “don’t be silly.” always patting his head makes him melt under your touch only if you could do that on other parts of his body, and he couldn’t be more grateful to be receiving those head pats too. “aren’t you a little to young for me? i know that you enjoy hugging me a lot and even kissing my cheek whatever you want, but you have to remember that i am older than you.”

➽ “hahaha, i know that.” can’t you see that his smile is no bigger as it was? your eyes does look at him, seeing that he isn’t playful like before, so you hold one of his hand and smile at him. “but you will stay by my side, right? like forever without anyone else trying to separate us.”

➽ “i promise, micah.” his pink dyed hair has become a messy by the time you stopped patting him, making him slightly better to the rest of the hanging out. even with your words promising to stay with him forever, the boy can’t help but want more than your friendship.

➽ he wants to be your boyfriend, then fiancé and then husband! the plans for the wedding are already written down at his journal and the ideas for your dress/suit to match his outfit can’t be ruined by your mindset of him being ‘too young’. he is already twenty-one! just because he still on his second year of college, doesn’t mean that he isn’t mature enough to marry the love of his life!

➽ that’s why he promise himself to study hard to graduate with the best grades from his fashion design class, so he can get a degree and a good paying job at his area. maybe you will see him with other eyes when he becomes a fully grown man who can afford to pay rent without struggling and to make the best matching outfits to both of you when he gets himself a studio and able to buy the most comfortable materials ever made.

➽ he can already imagine the large house he will buy for you. a big one at the countryside of the country so no one will disturb his peaceful and lovely spouse (you, of course!), maybe he will give/adopt a child with you like he always dreamed of. but that only will happen if he works hard, so micah has a long way to go. for now, he will stay close with you as a friend only.

➽ in meanwhile, he will act behind the scenes when someone might try to steal you away from him. those idiot who think that have a chance with are all disposable and you won’t never need anyone else in your life other than him (and probably a future pet to keep you company), so micah waste no time in making sure those people won’t be found and of course. he always makes a good job in hiding the remains of those people into the deepest parts of the woods, after all, he can’t do any mistakes or else he won’t be there for you in the future, [name].

@moonit3 writings