#there is a sort of a tl:dr at the bottom

[vavoom-sorted-art]

Wing tutorial~

Since it has been asked, I made a little breakdown on how to draw wings.

So, first thing to understand is wing anatomy. I used a swan wing as reference for my artwork. Divide the wing into blocks of feathers. There's sort of three layers to the feathers outlined in the second picture, and these divided along the top joint of the wing where it folds. See the second image. Make sure you bring in these nice, flowy shapes here!

Now that you have these big shapes, you can cut into them and make the individual shapes of the primary and secondary feathers (layer 3.) also make sure they overlap correctly depending on if you are drawing the wing from the front or the back. make sure you stick with a nice rythm and have the feathers get gradually bigger as you get closer to the tip. Like this:

when you go ahead and draw that layer 2 of coverts, make sure that every feather you drew for the bottom layer has (approximately) a feather overlapping it (so you have pretty much the same number of feathers in each layer) and that they line up nicely. But you can also make them a bit more ruffled. Like this:

Other than the flight feathers, the very top part of the wing is very smooth, with shorter, more rounded feathers (almost half-circles!). They can lie very flat or also look a lot more fluffy. think of them almost like overlapping scales. There is also the Alula at the top of the wing, a sort of extra feathery bit that sticks out over the primaries. also don't forget the scapulars which cover over the shoulder blade and are on top when the wing is folded. The Scapulars also have two layers of feathers. (see first graphic).

From there, it's only a matter of lineart and shading or however you want to finish your artwork. Hope this helps with the structure! Drawing wings folded together is a whole other story that I'm not going to get into here... lol.

TL:DR: understand the structure of wings and use references to get it right, work from big shapes to small shapes.

Edit: I demand to be tagged in the results, I desperately need to see more wing art. ÒwÓ

[oorusandei]

An Analysis: The Beast-Yeast Update + White Lily, AKA What Could’ve Been

Crossposted on the Youtube video of White Lily’s release in a fanatical comment. Will do the same here, only longer and more detailed, for the White Lily stans (around 5 total)

For the people who don’t get the lore and/or White Lily’s character, I made a very long explanation and analysis. (The Literature student in me couldn’t resist.) Scroll to the very bottom for short summary.

From what I can tell from this video, Whire Lily seems to have been in some sort of coma or unconscious state. This is likely because she fell into the Ultimate Dough and most of her consciousness was reincarnated into her “evil” form Dark Enchantress Cookie. However, the part of her that is pure and good is trapped in the glass coffin shown, and she’s trying to gather her essence to stay awake for as long as possible. She needs “life powder” to escape, so she can only remain in the coffin if no one else sacrifices themself. Faerie King did make the necessary sacrifice, thankfully, and she’s escaped with the intent of repenting for her sins as her alter ego, Dark Enchantress. Then, it’s revealed that an even darker and more dangerous force has awakened: Shadow Milk Cookie, the first Fallen Hero and Pute Vanilla’s counterpart. Seems like the Fallen Heroes are all counterparts to the Ancients. The Ancients and the Fallen Heroes have the same essence (Truth, Happiness, etc) but things went awry some time along the way, turning them evil.

Looking deeper into it, White Lily is a good example of “same goal, different choices, different story”. Perhaps she, like the Fallen Heroes, had the same fate, but she was at least able to preserve her last bits of goodness. She is my favorite Ancient because the conflict happens internally and not externally. Basically, she’s fighting another version of herself. And the interesting part is, it shows that anything can be “good” or “evil”. You could also say that she’s a morally gray character who could go either way, and this created 2 personas: White Lily and Dark Enchantress. You ever read an “Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence” fanfic? This is exactly what happened. Both of them want to seek the truth. It is only the actions they took (and will take) that differ, and what makes them so different from each other. It is why White Lily’s soul split into two. White Lily wants to seek the truth to help Cookiekind: improving stamina and attempting to bake a perfect Cookie, while Dark Enchantress has gone rogue in her quest for and obsession with the truth, firmly believing that Cookies are made to be eaten. It’s noted that this destroyed her character fundamentally, and is ultimately what turned her evil. I like to think that she herself was the reason behind her descent into madness and villainy, not the Ultimate Dough.

Back to the update. Did anyone notice that the Fallen Heroes each have their own corner, or nation, on the map of Beast-Yeast? If we look at the parallels between the Ancients and the Fallen Heroes, we can see a pattern: the Fallen Heroes are direct rivals of the Ancients. If I recall correctly, Pure Vanilla represents kindness, and sincerity (at least he does in my eyes). Shadow Milk is written as a trickster, as someone who likes pranks and doesn’t take anything seriously, the opposite of the genuine Pure Vanilla.

Also, I love PureLily. Don’t hate on PureCacao or anything. Just putting it out there that they were childhood friends turned almost lovers turned enemies to almost lovers again (?) in the coming update, and I’m really hyped. My favorite trope.

I’m honestly impressed that a Cookie gacha game has such intricate lore. Looking forward to this update a lot, the 3 year wait was worth it.

TL:DR: White Lily is in a glass coffin and needs Life Powder to get out. Faerie King sacrifices himself. Evil awakens in the tree as Faerie King’s magic is no longer active: aka Shadow Milk Cookie, first of the Fallen Heroes in the preview and counterpart to Pure Vanilla, similar to what Dark Enchantress is to White Lily.

[bitter-limelight]

Marius, Armand, Daniel, and power dynamics.

I honestly love Marius' reactions in the new trilogy though? I love seeing him take control again, I love seeing him and Armand fall into their old dance steps again, even if they're both unpracticed and in the dark. That's how I've always seen those fights and exchanges. Marius and Armand are completely entwined, and no amount of time or distance or pain is going to undo that. They were formed to be a part of each other's lives and shaped in a way to have a piece of each other that only the other could fill. To me seeing Armand looking to Marius "as though asking permission to speak" is Armand tentatively looking for that power exchange again, needing it, wanting it, guilty for it, but wanting it. To me, that need is one of the reasons I love Armand and Daniel but I don't ship them as their own couple. Both need that contrast and power exchange but they can't fulfill that in each other. Daniel is a sassy bottom bitch there's no way he would ever give that controlling presence Armand needs.

Perhaps Armand has seen what Marius did for Daniel, how good Daniel and Marius are for each other, Daniel in crisis and needing so much care and Marius providing it, perhaps selfishly at first but over time doing it for Daniel's sake alone. And even seeing in Marius what Armand always said he himself was; a man, grown, capable and independent. Marius with Daniel shows true manhood and dignity. Marius giving his time and love for the protection of another is acting as a man should, a contrast to the fish and childish way Armand treated his toy.

Armand has grown so much through the years the series takes place, we see it even in QOTD when he finally looks at Daniel and realized he wanted to give Daniel what he asked for. That even if it hurt himself, he would let Daniel live forever. He broke his vow for Daniel. We see him turning his hunting prowess to keeping Trinity Gate safe. Fuck I even count his wanting to tear apart the replimoids because he's doing it to keep himself and his coven safe. Armand has grown, and so has Marius. Marius who takes to guiding his coven, who had been so used to caring for the cold and unfeeling parents, who then spent 30 years caring for a very feeling and very vocal Daniel. Who sees now that loving someone to love them and expect nothing back is the way he should have always been.

All that to say that if you ask me and I know nobody did, the fact that Armand is submitting to Marius again is entirely the point. There's Marius and Daniel acting "as spouses" and in love. There's Armand seeing Daniel again, seeing that happiness and peace in him that Armand sure never gave him. There's Daniel dressed to match Marius in crisp suits, doing as Marius says to keep him safe and loved. Of course Armand would want that again. Armand who is a man with impulses and a heart trapped young. Everything about him is given to submission; power and control at the trust of another. Looking to Marius for approval, wearing the color he liked best, Marius as the one to restrain him when he was in hysterics to keep him from hurting himself. Going full circle back to how they should be, only now, Armand gets to choose that submission, and any sub or bottom will tell you that sort of trust and deference to another is true power.

Armand grows through the series; his submitting to Marius again is PART OF THAT GROWTH.

Tl:Dr Marius, Daniel and Armand endgame ought to be about power exchange and the control inherent in submission/the sacrifice of dominance and I'll die on that hill.

[captainfontinaricotta]

I had two dreams last night. TL:DR at the bottom.

Dream #1: This group was doing a humongous puppy sale. There were over 200 large cages each with a different dog breed (including registered with the AKC/UKC/CKC breeds, designer breeds, and unknown mixes) that were all sorted alphabetically by breed (with unknown breeds making up the end rows). Each puppy was selling for $5-$20 depending on size. Also, they had pet supplies (bowls, collars, leashes, pet beds, etc.) that they sold for retail price. I was look at the puppies with Shinjiro Aragaki from Persona 3 (for some reason), who was trying so hard to maintain his tough-guy act around a sea of cuteness. When we got to the “B” breeds, I was looking for an English bulldog (a dog my late grandpa really liked), and they were nowhere to be found. As we continued to look at puppies, I found a pale-coated golden retriever puppy, and I immediately fell in love. I picked out a collar, a bed, and a name: Orville (because he looked like buttered popcorn lol). I woke up just before paying.

Dream #2: My family (including my mom & dad, my slightly younger brother, my older & younger cousins, my aunt, and all of our dogs) were at a large farm (like a farm that you would go to in the fall for produce, cider, carnival games, and hayrides) surrounded by a large wall. I was talking to one of my older cousins (with Orville from the last dream resting in my arms like a baby) about dinosaurs and explaining the difference between ceratopsian dinosaurs (probably something I haven’t talked to them about since I was 5), and I saw a foot-wide gap in the wall. On the other side, there was a large field surrounded by a forest and herbivore dinosaurs grazing on the grass. Out of the trees, a giganotosaurus slowly emerged from trees and began charging toward the wall attracted by the noise from the patrons. I told my cousin that we needed to hide, and we all hid in the basement of a large barn with the dogs. While we were hiding, the giga bashed through the barn. At that point, I woke up.

TL:DR: First dream: got a golden retriever puppy named Orville at a giant puppy sale. Second dream: dinosaur apocalypse starts at a fall festival on a large farm.

[amarguerite]

ignore my Extremely Impolite Caps Lock Usage ahead but TLDR at bottom

MARGZZ I'VE BEEN A FAN FOR A YEAR NOW AND I JUST CANT GET OVER HOW MUCH YOU KNOW LIKE. HOW??? IK IM PROBABLY HALF UR AGE OR AT LEAST A DECADE YOUNGER AND YOU DEF DO EXTENSIVE RESEARCH FOR UR BIG FICS BUT LIKE HOWWWWW ARE U SO KNOWLEGABLE IS IT JUST ADHD HYPERFOCUS AND KNOWING RANDOM BITS OF INFO THAT YOUVE JUST LEARNT HOW TO WEAVE TOGETHER INTO ONE PIECE OF FABRIC OR DID YOU HAVE SUPER HIGH QUALITY EDUCATION OR CAN READ TEN BOOKS PER MIN AND AND ITS SO FUNNI LIKE???

TLDR: how tf do you know so much like. what. give me some advice here im a teen and it feels bordeeline awkward to say this oit loud but I wanna be a Funny Cool Smarty like you /gen /srs

Dang these are quite the compliments thank you! Ummm I’ve got anxiety rather than ADHD or anything of the sort so it isn’t hyper focus exactly— in a way (or at least early on), it was driven a lot by the fear of messing up something. There’s still some stuff I won’t write because I’m not convinced I can do it right.

In all honesty, I think it’s a mix of I got really lucky and went to a really great college and also just that I like reading and researching.

Weaving together all the historical details into one piece of fabric is honestly just many years of trial and error with writing. If you do it long enough, it starts to become instinctive and you find yourself adding in a detail about bombazine or using some kind of military metaphor for a soldier character becuase you’ve trained your neural pathways to automatically make those connections.

So I just tl:dr is “indulge your nerdy passions and then practice a lot”

[proteanderg]

Rambles ahead

Between some things happening in my personal life and everything going on with Tumblr, I've thought a good bit about my art and how I want to proceed on social media (tumblr, cohost, whatever else). I've collected my thoughts below, TL:DR at the bottom.

Even with the opt-out in place, I don't feel too comfortable uploading finished art on Tumblr anymore. It wouldn't be the first company to lie or use loopholes to get around this sort of thing, so I want to be careful. I'll still upload sketches and and textposts here since I'm less concerned over those, but anything more than a doodle will be posted just to Cohost for now.

As for the Squeakification drive, I'll be ending it sooner than expected for a couple reasons:

- One, I'm not sure if tumblr will even last long enough to finish it at this point. I'd rather finish it early than leave it undone.

- Two, I honestly got in a bit over my head, and can feel my creativity starting to be stifiled by being locked into it for the next 16 months. I should have clamped the time to a shorter period, and probably shouldn't have included most of stage 10. I just got excited without fully concidering what it would mean to have it go for so long. I still enjoy it currently, but can already feel the toll it would take otherwise.

That being said, I'm going to finish it with a bang. I'll detail what this means in a later post, but get your silly ideas ready if you want to help me finish it off~

Finally, I'm going to focus more on drawing whatever I want to instead of reigning myself in on some ideas because I feel like I'd be the only one who likes it. I like what I have been drawing recently, don't get me wrong! I just mean I don't want to feel obliged to draw or not draw anything in particular. Art won't be drastically different, just a bit weirder or niche at times. If people enjoy it, great! If not, whatever

(Note: This is *NOT* a shift into fetishy/NSFW territory. I'm not into anything I draw like that, I just find TF/Inflatables/etc fun to draw. I'll be sure to mark/tag anything that seems close to that line just in case)

Thank y'all for reading, and thanks for enjoying my art and stuff~

TL:DR: Only sketches will be posted on Tumblr, finished pieces and anything else will be posted only to Cohost. The squeakification drive will be ending short for a couple reasons, but I intend to finish with a bang. Gunna start drawing more of what makes me happy, but overal content won't change too much.

[fishstickmonkey]

A Short (hopefully) Hiatus

tl:dr

I'm going to be off tumblr until the Y2K banner at the bottom goes away.

Long version:

I have an astigmatism in my left eye that causes it not focus correctly with my right eye. Every time that Y2K thing flops my left eye shifts its focus to it. Aside from being annoying, it puts a strain on that eye and it becomes sore in just a couple of minutes.

I have seen other tumblrs who have this problem much worse than I ask @staff and @support to please take this into consideration when doing this sort of thing and make a way for it to be disabled. While they express their sympathy, they keep doing it. Which suggests to me that they really don't care.

[the-whispers-of-death]

Cairo is giving Stone a bunch of dirt a shovel and a few buckets of water to fix Irodim's home

Because Cairo trusts Irodim with everything and loves Irodim dearly

TL:DR Stone essentially disrespected Cairo godfather

Lore time! (Remember when I said I would stop with giving you so much lore? I remember too)

When Cairo was a wee lad he had a snake named Midori because his favorite color is green and he wanted to find some rats to feed his snake

So one day he's out and about and he finds this hole but he doesn't hear anything

So he finds a deer carcass and throws it down the hole and he hears eating sounds and 5 minutes later a demon pops it's head out of the hole

Note!: the place where demons come from is underneath the ocean/bottom of the ocean so a lot of demons were aquatic until they reached the surface. You know how fish and tiny sea bugs went to the surface and evolved into the animals we have today? Demons were doing that to at the exact same time. But the more humans popped up and more modern the world got, the more demons went into a dormant sort of hibernation state. When the bomb dropped it awoken a few evolved demons that lived on the surface aka the Turquoissian Era which is like a tiny middle era.

Ramble over.

Anyways Cairo starts hanging put with this demon who is much older than him and baby Cairo is like "wanna see my pet snake?" And the demon is like sure so Cairo brings Midori and he starts to see how similar the demon and his snake are so he asks the demon "can I name you?" And the demon says ok and Cairo names him Irodim which is Midori backwards because they were just that similar and Cairo was a child

Then the Azure started, and Irodim watched over Cairo to make sure he was safe, and when Cairo was twenty and got his Mob boss status Irodim vowed to keep him and the Ryobi property safe

Cairo truly does see Irodim as a third parent or a guardian and friend

-🔮

Stone, trying hard to grumble about having to fix Irodim's home (*gasp consequences, man doesn't know them) because Kali will spank him: *taking the shovel and bucket of water from Cairo*

It's okay, Stone will eventually see Irodim as someone to trust. I just imagine that they will be butting heads until then.

[nyx-b-log]

A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

this got long so i put the opinion bit under the cut, spoilers are right at the bottom of the review

read: sep 2022

rating: 3.5 stars (edit: dropped down from a 4)

goodreads page here

summary:

kadou is crown prince of the mahisti empire, and in charge of far too many things in the wake of his sister, the sultan, giving birth to her first child.

when he drops himself into hot water during his attempts to investigate a break-in at the harbour, he is assigned a new guardsman, evemer, and must now deal with his judging gaze along with what is quickly becoming clear is a much larger conspiracy than any of them first thought.

content warnings:

kidnapping, death, anxiety (big, big warning for anxiety), a short scene which can be read as dissociation. (if there’s anything else let me know)

opinion:

tl:dr; i enjoyed it, i don’t think it’s a bad book, but there’s a few issues with it that hamper the enjoyment in retrospect for me. if you’re here for fanfiction-style royal (kink) romance, give it a go, i really think you’ll get something out of it. if you’re here for plot, go elsewhere.

(i use fanfiction-style with love, don’t @ me)

i’ve written and rewritten this review a few times over the past few days now, and i’m finding coming to a conclusion difficult.

on the whole, i enjoyed the time i spent with this book. it took a while to get going but once i got used to the world and the style (about a third of the way through) i devoured the rest. the characters were fun, the dynamics were engaging, the banter was enjoyable.

(the following paragraphs up until “there was plenty to like” are from my original review, pre- more negative rewrite)

it moves back and forth in tone very neatly, from very anxious moments with kadou (both alone and with company), to bright humour (mostly via tadek), to lovely romance.

the characters are fantastic, they all felt very distinct and bounced off each other well. tadek especially had a lot going on with where his relationship to kadou now stands, and his job in general (edit: we’ll come back to him).

but of course our main characters, kadou and evemer, are the most well-developed and they really carry the book (plus the kayhalar as a concept). they’re all imperfect people, very much so, and it’s fun to read them interact and change each other’s world views.

(more melek and tenzin in my life please yes and thank you)

which, speaking of power dynamics, they feel well handled to me in this book. there’s a lot of care shown for how people’s relationships with each other change depending on the situation (kadou and his kayhalar), or across time (kadou and evemer), or even within scenes (kadou and zeliha). (…we needed more evemer exclusive content i think). plus, the characters are conscious of this.

they don’t just dance around the very difficult topic of falling in love with/having sex with your immediate subordinate/superior, they directly talk about it with each other, often. they also talk about it again as people’s positions change around, which i appreciate.

(does it go into kink? maybe probably a little bit. does this fall off in the last third? sort of.)

oh and there’s another thing, communication in this is great, both in terms of the way the actual dialogue is written and how characters approach each other. any time they’re not communicating, it gets addressed by the characters, or at least the narrative. plus they can go to therapy if they want! promotes healthy relationships, and is just, pleasing to read.

(well, therapy, it’s called unburdening and ig is more like a cross between therapy and catholic confession, but to me it definitely leans a lot closer to the therapy side of things, from the brief bit we saw).

the plot felt a little (cough very) weak to me, in that very little would happen for a while, then we would get a lot all at once, and then very little would happen and so on. plus, it was incredibly obvious to me who the perpetrator of the conspiracy was, to the point that i was expecting some kind of twist for who was responsible that never came. plus it drops the plot on you right at the beginning, but it’s so buried in everything else that i didn’t realise until much, much later than i think i was supposed to.

it really does take a while to get going too, i had to reread the first chapter or so cos i got completely lost. it just throws names and stuff at you and expects you to immediately get it, which works in some cases but here it felt a little too much, y’know?

but there was plenty to like!

and as much as i stand by those positive feelings - they didn’t come out of nowhere - the more i’m thinking about this book as the days go by, the quicker those feelings are going away.

why? two main reasons: one, trans erasure, and two, tadek.

(and also kind of a third and fourth but the third is more minor and the fourth i don’t feel comfortable speaking on)

first off the trans erasure.

i’m gonna start this by saying i hope it wasn’t intentional. i hope the author wrote the things they wrote in complete ignorance and that seeing others bring this up they have learned and grown from their mistakes.

for the most part the queer rep in this book is good. there’s a distinct lack of homophobia in the general populace (seems to negatively affect royals, but as much as kadou was worried about it it seemed more about marrying someone he didn’t love? idk, it was inconsistent. anyway), and nonbinary existence is so normalised that it’s kind of heart-warming to see tbh.

however.

there’s a conversation that really sticks out at me, where kadou and tadek are talking about kadou’s probable need to marry for duty rather than love. kadou assumes it will be a woman, says he’d prefer the hypothetical brother, etc. then tadek asks, jokingly “if it’s the cock that’s the problem-” and then kadou gets annoyed at him for being improper or smth and it never comes up again.

…

that’s…hm. i don’t know what tadek would have said. maybe it would have been positive. but it didn’t feel positive, i felt icky reading it at the time and feel icky thinking about it now.

actually thinking about it now, a potential non-binary character isn’t even suggested here. hm.

plus for sultans, it’s mentioned a few times that it’s a person’s ability to give birth to children which is valued (and the person who impregnates is always a body-father which, hm) and though the author tries to work round this by saying that it’s okay for anyone of any gender to be sultan, it really falls flat for me. this obviously doesn’t just affect trans people, but with the tadek thing and the general lack of visible trans people in general (or for that matter any sort of wlw content) it doesn’t add up well.

second, tadek.

tadek starts off as a character with a lot of depth and (i think) the only side character with any kind of side plot. he and kadou were a fwb kind of thing, but kadou was his direct superior, then they’re no longer a thing now cos it’s not possible, tadek has been essentially demoted, it’s a whole thing.

i loved this! it felt very interesting to me and improved both tadek and kadou’s character. it basically informs a good chunk of kadou’s decisions in the first third or so, and the entirety of tadek’s character for most of the time he’s on the page.

but then there’s some conversations, an off-screen thing, and all of that just, goes away?

now, i get that tadek puts on a face around people. i do, and i’m happy we get to see that and how it affects both him and the people he’s around.

but as the romance picks up and the plot meanders along in the background, tadek gets completely sidelined? and his development really suffers for it. he becomes very two-dimensional and only regains any sort of depth when it’s for kadou or evemer’s benefit. i still like his character, but it could have been handled a lot better.

the other two things are that this is probably a converted mo dao zu shi fic which, fine, sure, not my fandom, other people can weigh in on this; and that this is set in an ottoman empire inspired world, and i’ve seen native turkish people uncomfortable and upset with the way it’s presented. i’m not turkish, i know nothing about the ottoman empire, i won’t add an opinion here.

anyway this is getting way too long.

i don’t think this is a bad book. there’s clearly a lot of love in here and there’s some really excellent scenes.

but there’s also some unavoidable issues with the book that i don’t want to ignore.

in conclusion, i don’t think this is a book worth going out of your way for, but if you’ve spent any amount of time on the m/m tag on ao3, you’ll absolutely get something out of this.

SPOILERS BELOW

spoilery bits

they got married? they got fucking married????? honestly this was a bit unbelievable for me, if just cos nobody was there to officiate or anything? so they just needed to say the words and believe them and it would have been fine? who knows, i’m weirdly okay with it.

presumably the sequel is going to be sitcom level shenanigans, cos nobody knows they’re married (well except tadek) so that can only go poorly (complimentary).

[akurathereaper]

An insignificant rant on HoT&PoF

As everyone knows, yady yady ya, everyone prefers HoT, whatever

I’m one of those people and I’m about to rant about this too.

THIS IS NOT A SPOILER FREE RANT

I will be talking about story elements and stuff that happens in both DLCs.

I like Path of Fire, I really do, it gave me Elona, it gave me agent Kito whom I wholeheartedly pity cuz he has to deal with the Commander, it gave me more of Aurene (and it gave me Joko on whom I can shit on when I feel bad)

But, it didn’t give me maps I like (and I will tell you why) (please note I am no game designer, or designer in general. In fact, maps designed by me would be probably shit, but I still believe my opinion is valid, because I am a person with eyes that can see)

This is going to be a small rant when it comes to maps, now mark, english isn’t my first language so there may be nonsensical sentences, and I am no professional critic so all of this is coming from my heart, not my brain.

Ready? Let’s go

So I’m going to do a little comparison (nothing too much in depth) of the four maps from each DLC (plus Domain of Vabbi but I don’t have much to say on it if I’m honest).

 We have Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, Tangled Depths and Dragon’s stand from Heart of Thorns, and Crystal Oasis, Desert Highlands, The Desolation, Elon Riverlands and Domain of Vabbi. 

Let me start with HoT, because it makes logical sense.

When you first start the Heart of Thorns campaign, you’re told to go from Silverwastes to... Verdant Brink. You get a small taste of it right before you enter it, in that cave where the injured pact members are talking about it. And then you load in (hopefully, if your pc doesn’t reenact an atomic blast), and first thing you see, when you walk in on that VERY SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED LEDGE

is absolute carnage.

Ships are strewn about, hanging in pieces torn apart by Mordremoth’s vines, smoke and fire is everywhere, that part of the jungle is ravaged not only by Mordremoth, but also by you. Your Pact. And in that moment you exactly realize what happened (if it wasn’t obvious from the cutscene that played before it *cough cough*)

But now you see it. The map tells you a very obvious story, and you don’t need to be a genius to figure it out. It tells you and SHOWS you exactly how strong and dangerous the Dragon you’re hunting is. It shows you what you have to overcome.  (And if you’re me, you’re crying cuz Trahearne got kidnapped)

I’m going to skip the storyparts of this map, but will instead focus on the meta of it (since i’ve done it like trillion times). There’s five main crashpoints. Each has to bring their all to successfuly make this map “safe”. The nobles, the Pale Reavers, the quaggan and her soldiers. Everyone. I’m guessing that after you kill all the five champions, the area becomes safe enough for you to move on, after all, you’re the Commander, and you cannot leave everyone to die in the middle of the Jungle. Once again, the map tells you a story through the gameplay)

And then you move onto Auric Basin (I’m guessing it’s a lot of people’s fav map)

Oh, Auric Basin... The map instantly breathes “something”, something different. You KNOW you’re somewhere else, the whole atmosphere tells you that you’re somewhere forgotten, somewhere where the touches of humans, sylvari, charr, whatever main race, have not reached. 

Your first instance of it is most likely the story instance, so you get introduced to the place pretty quickly. I don’t have to say how gorgeous the city actually is, right?

The whole place is an archaeologist’s wet dream. And again, the map tells you, it shows you, it’s story, it’s history (the Priory people are wetting themselves over the whole thing), and sometimes it’s the Exalted themselves who tell you the story. But you can gauge a lot of it just from observing. It’s not the most effective of cities, I’ll be honest, but it’s a damn impressive one. After all, Tarir was build for Glint’s scion.

And the meta? It’s about PROTECTING the city. Protecting it from Mordremoth, from destroying it, from destroying the safe place for a dragon’s egg. You stop Mordremoth from leaching the place with Octovines (or an exalted does it for you. Kudos to you, immortal and endless exalted), and you don’t rly realize the importance of this place until the whole Aurene thing happens.

And oof, Tangled Depths. 

Tangled Depths, one of the most hated maps in the entire expansion, a thing (imho) that can be very much blamed on the map limitation (I’m talking about your map, where you see where you are and where the waypoints are, etc.) Like, honestly, wouldn’t it be a WHOLE lot easier to traverse if your map made actual damn sense? But I digress.

Tangled Depths is probably one of the lesser impressive maps? Overall, I very like it, although it’s story has to be unearthed and explored actively. It’s more of a bland looking pie with delicious filling.

Tangled Depths is quite...a good map. In a way. Don’t throw trash at me, please. I also hated it when I had to walk through it, but I learnt the shortcuts and then traversed with relative ease, so I stopped seeing the whole map as a nuisance and started seeing it for what it was. 

Such an untouched piece of history... The Rata Novus? Rata Novus? Hello? Asura lived here?

The Ogres, making their village there? The Nuhoch, fighting for their survival with the Zintl hyleks and the Chak? The Chak? Such new and interesting creatures who literally eat magic! In the middle of the jungle, you see such life, such vivacity, even in the midst of Mordremoth’s reign of terror.

And the story of the meta is tying in so nicely to the overall thing! You’re literally tunneling into Dragon’s stand, to reach old Papa Mordremoth, and you’re doing it with the help of everyone on the map! The Ogres, the asuras (well they dead, so their robots lol), the Chak (yeah, Chak bois be helping, not rly it’s just the lane lol), and the useless easy line! You’re charging a thingimajig that blasts a hole through the ley-line empowered wall and bam, you’re in DS. (Excuse me it has been a while since I was in TD) And Chak bois are on your ass trying to eat it cuz magic but that’s so the meta is interesting.

And then... My favourite map. Dragon’s stand.

I played this map... probably more than I should’ve, but... the way it is structured is simply so interesting! Three lines, for three leaders, each battling their way through the jungle to get to the Generals, to get to the Mouth of Mordremoth. And along the way, you gain more and more allies, more and more people to help you fight this noodle!  You get the ogres, the itzel, the nuhoch, the skritt(!), the exalted, the... THE NIGHTMARE COURT? *cough cough* cut content *cough cough*. Yeah, some don’t get an explanation, but you see everything that you have done, everyone you have helped in the previous map, go help you out in this one? You see them and protect them at the last island (and the whole map is just one giant meta and I LOVE IT (it can be a point of criticism as well, since it’s quite hard to explore if the meta ain’t done and the last few pois are impossible to get if MoM isn’t dead)) and it’s just so epic

Everything you did was leading up to this moment, this last battle, this last stand, the DRAGON’S STAND. And the battle was just... epic. Epic, is all I can say about this map and it’s story. (Shame the Commanders/Generals were cut out, as we have no clue who they were, and knowing something about them would make it a bit more meaningful in fighting them)

To conclude.

HoT is focused as hell. You got a goal: Pop a cap in Mordremoth. And you’re going to do it. You got twice the motivation if you’re a sylvari. Each map is designed to give you the build up of the fight, first you see what Mordremoth can do, then you see what’s at stake, and then you gotta fight for it. The fact the maps are gorgeous (If a little (bit a lot) laggy) only helps the overall feel.  Anything and Everything can and will murder your ass, and you gotta be ready for it.

Now onto PoF maps. This segment is going to be shorter, because in all honesty? PoF, I like you, but you’re just... well, you’ll see. Hopefully. This is after all just my opinion lol.

Oh and if you got this far? Kudos lol I ramble a lot. <3

Anyway, PoF maps.

So the opening to PoF is... quite good? It’s a bit out of your control but it does it’s job imo.

You come in on an airship, and you see the land spread before you. You see a pyramind, and you think “Oh hell yeah, pyramids.” I would LOVE to just be able to explore the area, you know, have a chill opening, but PoF is about FIRE and FIGHT so, you fight and try to save the people and it’s very chaotic and everything is on FIRE OH GODS.

So you chase this mysterious person, you get introduced to the raptor village, all goes well or bad, and then you are directed to the city of Amnoon (since we’re still in a story instance), so you go. Amnoon is very pretty, and following the tradition of MMO cities very impractical, but hey, rule of cool. The whole time you’re not rly allowed to explore anywhere or look at anything, you’re focused, sure, but you’re also very distracted, you get me?

You want to look around, you want to explore, but you’ve just been attacked by this Herald woman and you’re tired of politics. The opening of PoF isn’t bad, but it is very different from HoT, as in HoT you first SAW the carnage Mordy did and THEN you went on down to help the remaining survivals, whereas here, in Oasis, you kinda.. live through it? You see it first hand what Balthy is doing, while in HoT you only chased the aftermaths of the massacres. This works differently for everyone, and I personally prefer the HoT approach. 

PoF is very open when it comes to the story, as in you are not AS limited to instances as it was with HoT, sometimes it works to its advantage, sometimes.. it doesn’t. 

The way PoF maps jerk you around is very confusing to me. You explore Crystal Oasis, then you go to Desert Highlands, then to Elon riverlands, and you gotta go back down through the Oasis to get there, so you are already trudging through the land you already know (and since you have mounts they took full advantage of making the maps bigger, but it makes them feel... emptier? Like I get it, it’s the Desert, but still...) so you get to Elon riverlands, you do your thing there, then you go to Desolation, then to Vabbi. Nice. Okay.

In none of these maps, there is a story meta. None. No impressive whole-map meta where you gotta all cooperate to keep the map stable. Nothing. There is no use in me trying to analyze these maps, for they are just... backdrop to what’s happening.  Balthazar this, Balthazar that. Oh no Kralky is awake, and oh look we met Vlast for like 2 seconds and then he immediately ded. 

I’ll be honest... I don’t remember much of PoF before chapter 9 The Departing (because that chapter was fire. Lol. get it), which saddens me immensely. I remember most of HoT. Where what happened when it happened how it happened, I know, and if I don’t know immediately, in few minutes my brain serves me the entire instance. I could probably play HoT blindfolded. 

This is a very shallow look into why I probably don’t like PoF as much as I like HoT. 

To try and conclude my very messy terrible rant essay:

Heart of Thorns used its maps in a way that showed you with gameplay what’s in store for you. It used maps in a way to help you build that anticipation of the fight, of everything you sacrificed along the way. The maps are smartly connected in a way where with each map you delve deeper into the jungle, deeper into the mouth of the beast. Sure, they lag as fuck, but the PoF maps do so too, don’t lie to yourselves. With each map you meet new allies that help you along the way.

In Path of Fire I just... don’t get that feeling. I run from map to map, mindlessly following the green star, hoping I will stumble upon something interesting on the way. In Heart of Thorns it was the opposite. I was walking around the map, breathing in the atmosphere of the place, and stumbling upon the green story star. I feel like the Elona desert did not get such justice as it deserved. I trudge around the maps, I complete the maps to get the reward, then I move onto the story. My interest in the whole thing only started to pick up once I freaking DIED for gods’ sake. 

My hopes for the End of Dragons, which is happening in Cantha, is that I get more of that focused map design. That story in gameplay, that map-wide meta that will have me grind my teeth at 10pm on a work/school night. I don’t need Drizzlewood metas (an inferior Dragon’s stand, mind you) that are like 2-3 hours long. A 30 min prelude and 30 min metas are fine. An hour long meta if you have the idea for it, but... give me map stories, Anet.

Feel free to share your own feels about the different feels between the DLCs. I will GLADLY take in PoF preferrers. What did you prefer in PoF? What did you like in it? Give me your opinions, give me your take on everything. 

And thank you for reading my overly long rant essay, hah.

[bluejayblueskies]

this may be an unpopular opinion, and i may end up eating my words in the weeks/months to come, but i don't think that arthur is following a corruption arc or losing his humanity. that's not to say that arthur is doing well or making good decisions, but i think there is an important distinction to be made between arthur slowly breaking down and making more morally dubious decisions and arthur losing his humanity, which to me is a very specific word that has a very specific meaning and that holds considerable weight in this podcast. here's why:

arthur’s rationale for killing larson that he presents to john is flimsy and, as we know, obscures his real motivation: larson's sacrifice of his daughter. arthur right now is driven by emotion, not logic, which is something that most of us can probably agree on but that i argue is a mark of humanity rather than indicative of its absence. feeling such emotions as the desire for revenge, fury, guilt, or even murderous intent does not make somebody less human. to be honest, i think the real mark of inhumanity would be either a lack of feeling altogether or a sort of amusement--ie, if arthur were chasing after larson for fun, solely because of the hunt or the thrill of the kill, or if he saw himself as so far above larson that killing larson means nothing. (i think that arthur is in fact projecting himself and his guilt onto larson, so while he calls larson monstrous etc., he doesn’t see himself as a degree above larson, like a god would to a human, though that’s straying away from metatextual analysis a bit and into headcanon territory).

arthur is messy right now, yes, and all over the place emotionally. he strikes me as unstable, on the verge of a breakdown, and not thinking clearly. he's a man who's been through more than anyone should have to go through, who's had to make impossible decisions for the sake of survival. there is, in my opinion, a great deal of trauma sitting on his shoulders, and really the main thing that surprises me right now about his actions is that it took this long for him to reach his breaking point. he has a strong, never-give-up attitude that has helped him survive and keep going, but he's had to face now the fact that a) in order to survive he has had to make otherwise immoral decisions, such as killing and eating faust and b) that sometimes, no matter what you do, you still lose the things you care about (ep. 20, coda, and the period with yellow). i keep coming back to this quote from yellow in ep. 23:

You imprisoned me, you took me from my rightful place as king, and stuck me inside this prison. You are a murderer, Arthur, you are a monster. You are no better than Wallace, no better than the foulness you murdered in that pit! I am not your friend; I am not John. And I never will be. I am nothing like you. And he is dead.

...

This is your fault, all of this. I hope you know that.

and thinking about how hearing this must have affected arthur. even though yellow is not quite john, he’s also not not john, and arthur knows this (exemplified by arthur slipping and calling john ‘yellow’ in ep. 24). arthur cares about john, even when they’re fighting or hurting one another, and i think hearing all of this right after finding out that larson sacrificed his daughter really dealt a blow to his mental state. all of arthur’s drive right now hinges on his emotions--his anger at larson and, i would argue, his feelings regarding the murder of faust and what that means for him. arthur may think that he is losing his humanity, but he’s not; he’s just going down a bad path, one lined with hurt and trauma and guilt and desperation, and eventually, that path will reach the bottom and arthur can begin to rebuild from there.

TL:DR - i disagree with the interpretation that arthur is losing his humanity or following a corruption arc because to me his actions as of late seem rooted in emotions, trauma, and increasing mental instability inching towards an inevitable breakdown. humanity is, to me, a specific word with a specific meaning that is important to this podcast, and i think it’s best to look at what we mean when we say that arthur is losing his humanity and consider whether or not he’s actually becoming less human, or rather reacting to things in a way that is in fact very human indeed.

[sparring-spirals]

Do you think Laudna would hold some resentment when she heard about how it went down? I saw some people saying she would have done anything to make them choose Imogen and I can see her begging them to choose her, if not doing more, but Imogen didn't even plead. Laudna is very kind and puts oother people before herself, so I don't think Laudna would be mean to anyone because of that, but deep down, do you think it would sting? As in "I would do it all for her, but she wouldn't do half for me?"

Okay, so, I think this question is kind of doubled, because there's the direct question of "How would Laudna feel about how her death went down with everyone else & Imogen's role in it", but I also think there's a secondary implicit question of. "Did Imogen really try everything she could/if Imogen cares so much why didn't she try harder or offer more pushback/ reacted More or done something more in the moment" which I. Would like to address. Perhaps a bit defensively. So. Sorry.

tl:dr: I really do not jibe with the reading of "Imogen not fighting harder was bc she didn't care enough" interpretation, and while i could maybe see Laudna taking in the series of events as a sort of awful condemnation/indicator about how important/valued she is. I think its more likely for that to reflect in a negative self estimation/affirmation rather than resentment towards the others.

But to focus on the first q, first:

I don't know if Laudna would hold resentment, per se. I think that whole situation was an absolute nightmare and there were no good choices, and I don't see a world where Laudna comes back and doesn't see that, or try to understand that. Could hearing about it drive home some personal fears and bad feelings and questions for Laudna? Yeah, defs. But i feel like that negativity has a higher chance of going in than out. I think it could sting, sure. But I'm not sure Laudna, at least the Laudna we knew as she died, would have the mindset to view it as a "Well I would have, so why didn't she?". Rather than a, say: "Well. Of course. Of course." (And tbh, Laudna's opinion of Imogen is such that I'd be surprised if she heard ANY eval of the sitch and went "Well why didn't Imogen do more" instead of "Well I'm sure my beloved light and Target of Many Projections And Hopes did everything she could AND she brought me back, so-". I am saying this with the requisite levels of exasperation and affection.)

Also along those lines- I don't know yet what the Bells are going to do to try to get her back. But i think that would influence it as well. Bc i don't think they're going to make small swings.

And for the second, implicit question, which tbh I- really don't agree with. At least 40% of it might be personal read on Imogen and just Personal Beliefs, so I'm going to lay out as much of it as possible and we can go from there. If this is knee-jerk and off topic, my apologies.

Okay first, can we just- all agree that the entire situation was a clusterfuck from top to bottom? it was dire as hell, folks. Three of them died. It must have felt like a miracle it wasn't more. Everyone rattled and still trying to act. Fearne, freshly not dead, had never even done a revivify, and they were looking at. An impossible choice. Two are down. You can only choose one.

How do you choose which of your friends to kill?

(Let's be real. In that situation, that's what you're choosing.)

I really, truly, from the bottom of my heart read Imogen as the kind of character who is very used to pressing down her comforts and her wants to get things done. In regular situations.

So what happens when you want something, you want it so badly it feels like it could kill you if you lose it, when you need something, and you also know, you know with zero doubt, that pursuing that want means you kill your other friend.

What happens when this whole shitshow feels like it is your fault, your memory is still fresh with these friends dying to send a message to you, personally. What the fuck kind of right do you have to demand, your other friend die for this, for her, (for you, for your wants).

And at this point maybe we get a: Okay but this isn't about Imogen, this is about LAUDNA, who is the one who actually needs to be brought back to life, this is about Orym, whose life hangs in the balance as well.

And you're right. You're so right and I have so many feelings about it here have this excellent meta by @professorthaddeus about it so i don't add 8 more paragraphs here but yes. It's not about Imogen, right? it shouldn't be.

that's the point. that's the problem. i really, really think the depth of that want played right into why Imogen wouldn't have pushed back more, why Imogen was desperately trying to figure out an option that wouldn't kill one for the other- threatening Delilah, mentioning Laudna having been dead before. This wasn't about Imogen. This couldn't be, not with Orym lifeless looking up and Fearne's voice shaking and Laudna dead, Laudna dead-

(Imogen had also tried pleading, she had just pleaded, she had begged and tried to give in and- it hadn't done anything. It had accomplished literally nothing, her begging and desperation had done nothing but expose her friends as weak spots for Otohan to target and oh god that is so. so fucked up.)

(Also none of this even takes into account the whole "Imogen was probably still extremely shell shocked and disoriented after being a human shockwave and probably in some level of denial", but know I'm counting that too).

(ALSO the way Imogen yelled at Ashton after to treat Laudna's body with dignity, more than once. Those outbursts and insistences are just so. just so.)

And okay one last thing is this, which is this meta about Imogen and how she deals with Problems vs how Laudna does and I think its maybe relevant again.

god im getting off track a bit here maybe but like- i really think Imogen's reaction was heartbreaking and so fueled by love and fear and shock and panic and- understandable given a nightmare of a situation.

and i definitely think the details of this might impact Laudna, if she were to hear about it, although in what ways, as always, remain to be seen. But my guess is- not good for her self esteem. Everything else is a bit more up in the air.

[fernlessbastard]

Ok, but c!Wilbur is def a flirt that gets incredibly flustered whenever it is recuperated. So he'll just be pulling the height card and leaning on the wall above c!Quackity (ergo sandwiching Q between him and the wall) and ol' duck boi will bust out a dirty one-liner and Wilbur would sort of stumble back while his face goes red because he wasn't expecting that. (tl:dr, c!Wilbur is a bottom

Lmao oh definitely, I've even drawn something like that already

More specifically, not even a bottom (though that too), but most importantly a brat and a massive sub

Anyway yeah based

[stellarcat52]

I posted 5,596 times in 2021

45 posts created (1%)

5551 posts reblogged (99%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 123.4 posts.

I added 72 tags in 2021

#empires smp - 20 posts

#scott smajor - 13 posts

#esmp - 7 posts

#empire smp - 6 posts

#oh no - 5 posts

#flower husbands - 5 posts

#the winged and the rotten - 5 posts

#detentionaire - 4 posts

#xornoth - 4 posts

#my writing - 3 posts

Longest Tag: 136 characters

#there are two important and reoccurring girls in the books i’m reading rn and they’re both labeled as love interest for other characters

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Okay, guys? All of us who are seeing the unfrozen cod sanctuary and cheering on flower husbands? I’ve got something to say.

It’s not some sort of love magic keeping it unfrozen.

Scott literally designed the cod sanctuary to be safe from both his ice magic, and Rivendell’s natural cold. It’s not magic, it’s just love.

102 notes • Posted 2021-11-21 18:40:33 GMT

#4

See the full post

106 notes • Posted 2021-07-01 10:01:07 GMT

#3

Okay okay, unpopular esmp opinion/headcanon/theory.

Scott wearing Xornoth’s crystal is not what started the eternal winter thing that’s currently happening. Hear me out.

Is there any canonical evidence to back this up, yes actually? Kinda? That’s rare for my thoughts. Scott first froze something with his boots/power before fighting Xornoth, or even knowing that the final battle was upon them. (At the beginning of episode 24: the final showdown) Although apparently the ice wasn’t melting originally because it was night, he still froze it and that ice wasn’t normal when he went back to check.

Now, I saw this post that points out that Scott doesn’t really seem surprised about his powers. So that just kinda added another layer to this.

I think Scott has always know he would be the one to start the Eternal Winter. Maybe finding the book made him think there was a chance it would be someone else, Xornoth, but I doubt it because Xornoth’s corruption was very clearly nether/fire themed. Also, I have no idea what episode this was in, but Scott mentioned having ice themed powers before all of that. (I think he was talking about Gem, then mentioned he should have protagonist powers and brought up D&D classes, but with ice powers. If anyone knows what episode this is please say something.)

Anyways, onto part two of my theory, as to why it got worse after Xornoth was banished.

Xornoth’s fiery corruption and magic is part of what kept the eternal winter from starting.

So, the first time Scott uses his magic, it’s with the boots which I think act as a magical tool to help his magic, hence why he needed them to freeze something while Xornoth was still around. But now, in his most recent episode, it’s confirmed he doesn’t really need them to freeze things anymore, and the ice corruption follows him anyway.

My prediction is, assuming this is all true/similar to canon, is that Xornoth might be freed in order to stop Scott. Now I’m not sure who would free him, maybe Scott if he gets desperate enough, maybe Joey bc… Joey, and I kinda think Gem, Sausage, and/or Jimmy would free him if the ice corruption got too bad and they couldn’t find another way to stop it.

Bonus: Scott’s magic is uncontrollable because the dragon is dead (therefore any limits on his and Xornoth’s powers were lessened/removed) and that happened before his developed/activated at all. So he’s stronger than he should be, and never had time/the ability to control them when his magic was weaker.

Tl:Dr, Scott has known he would start the ice apocalypse this entire time, Xornoth existing is what slowed his power’s growth.

107 notes • Posted 2021-11-10 01:38:42 GMT

#2

Did anyone else think this one part of Deal With Destiny sounds like Scott’s threatening and/or challenging Lizzie?

I’m not kidding that was my first thought, like- why that tone? Sir?

119 notes • Posted 2021-10-18 02:21:27 GMT

#1

Okay, back on my empires prophecy bs. This time, the Northern castle prophecy. TLDR at the bottom

This one is fairly obvious, I don’t think I’ve seen anything talking about this that isn’t Scott related (especially since the freezing started) and I hate it.

First things first, I need to make sure anyone interest is entirely aware. North does not mean cold, especially in Minecraft. North is a cardinal direction, not a temperature or weather pattern. Yes it’s usually associated with frigid temperatures, but again, it doesn’t matter in Minecraft.

Rivendell, the place where Scott has been living up until the most recent episode’s ending, is not northern at all. Actually, he’s in the south and is at basically the bottom of the map when north is the top. It is possible the ice spikes biome is northern, but unless that’s true and the ccs decide to actually go with the ice palace thing from frozen, (and even possibly then) it’s not talking about Scott.

Especially because I’m fairly sure the prophecy has already happened, or is happening. The northern empires are Pixandria, the Ocean Empire, and Mezalea. I really hope where I’m going with this makes sense now.

The Mezalean megabase, the Matral Palace, has been in work since episode 12 of Smallishbeans’ pov. I haven’t watched his pov yet, but in almost everyone else’s episodes, there have been remarks on how insane Joel is for building it, or how they wouldn’t/couldn’t build something as big and amazing as that.

Tl;Dr: This prophecy isn’t complex, I don’t understand why it’s still connected to Scott in the fandom. I don’t think anyone can top The (prophesied) Matral Palace of Mezalea.

129 notes • Posted 2021-11-22 05:57:09 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[moreofthousandlives]

I asked my boyfriend to be in an open relationship. He didn’t take it well.

Tl:dr at the bottom

I am (19F) and my boyfriend is (19M). I’ve been in a few relationships, and none have gone farther than making out. The reason being that I get too uncomfortable.

My mind tells me that I should want to be sexually intimate, but the moment they start touching me I get “the ick”. The whole time I am cuddling and kissing, all I think about is how long I have to keep going to make them not suspicious of my discomfort. Like “ok if I do this for five minutes they’ll think I’m not into it so I’ll have to continue for at least 10 minutes, but not past 20 minutes or they might take that as a sign to go further than what we are doing right now”. It’s not fun or comfortable for me at all.

The only reason I bring this up now is because I recently got in a big “fight” with my boyfriend. You’d expect it to be something along the lines of him having a high sex drive and me having a low one which is causing conflict, but it’s not that at all (sort of). I know full well that me not going further with him isn’t fair to him because he does have sex on his mind all the time. He has mentioned in the past that he wanted to marry me and couldn’t wait for sexy time with me and that I give him blue balls and that he wants me and all this other stuff. Putting myself into the shoes of a different person I feel like this should be endearing. Like “omg he is horny for me and he wants me so bad”. But, similarly to my past relationships, these remarks make me extremely uncomfortable. Not the remarks themselves but the thought behind them. The idea that someone desires me makes me so uncomfortable. It’s this reason why marriage sounds so awful to me. Having a life partner sounds great, but having someone expectant and actively seeking me out sexually is so gross to me. Like especially the idea of waiting for marriage. In my head the idea that my boyfriend will be thinking of fucking me the whole ceremony and actively thinking about it the whole drive home for the honeymoon. And then the expectation when we finally get to the bedroom, and even the idea that now he can sleep with me all the time because we are finally married and one body…I am physically repulsed by that idea.

So anyways , the fight with my boyfriend happened after he brought up the “I can’t wait till we are married “ thing in regards to sex. (I’ve never said that I want to wait till marriage but I think he takes my lack of intimacy and virginity as such). This time I told him what I genuinely wanted.

I told him I wanted to be in a open relationship. He got mad thinking I wanted to see other people and accused me of cheating because I didn’t see him as attractive (which in his mind explains the lack of intimacy). I told him no I would still be monogamous to him, he would be the one sleeping with other people. I explained that I have zero libido and that since he has a high sex drive he could sleep with other people and I would just be here as his emotional partner. He said I was putting him in the friend zone / dumping him so he stormed off and we haven’t talked since this morning.

The strange thing is that I’m not completely adverse to sexuality. When I was little I used to sneak off and read my moms erotica novels. Reading about sex and people in passionate relationships gets me excited. I get very horny when I read any sort of erotic story, but thinking about myself and my partners has always been conversely off putting. It really is just when someone expresses desire for me that I get perturbed. I don’t know why I feel like this. I’ve never had a bad experience with a man , and ive always had a good life. I just don’t get it.

When I was younger all the girls were getting crushes except me, they were all getting boyfriends and kissing and by high school fucking, except me. I never desired to do any of that. I would meet guys, we would flirt but I was never doing it to be sexual. All of my past boyfriends have been guys that I really liked and had great personalities. I’d even go far to say I thought they were attractive people. But I would never get that “crush feeling” that everyone explained.

Anyways, I don’t know what to do. I thought that an open relationship would be a relief for him and his sexual urges but his reaction makes me doubt everything. I’m at a loss for how to make these things better.

Tl:dr I have no sexual desire toward my boyfriend but I do have emotional desire towards him. I offered an open relationship so he could have sexual satisfaction, but he ultimately got upset and stormed off. Is there anything I can do ?

submitted by /u/getheloed [link] [comments] from Sex https://ift.tt/2fnU8Q9

[bard-llama]

I apologize for using "being needlessly mean to people (specifically, you) on the internet" as a means of venting, but I'm still gonna do it anyway

Fuck it fam, I’ll jump off anon since you called me out on it. At least now I can write a proper response since I’m not trying to cram my wording into an ask’s character limit. Maybe now I can focus more on my actual points instead of spending 75% of the space reaching my post-ly Asshole Quota™

Also, there’s a TL;DR one paragraph from the bottom, in case you’d like to be Spared My Bullshit™ without skipping it entirely.

Anyways, responses to numbers:

1: Who chose it then lol, given that this exchange stemmed from a post about chosen names. You say you’ve “professionally been Llama for over a decade”, so it obviously isn’t your birth name. And if you say “X person suggested it to me”, then -you chose- to use that suggestion.

2: Fine, let me be more clear: “Obligation to respect someone’s name” only goes as far as recognizing it as their name. I’ll gladly call you Llama if that’s what you say your name is, but I’ll still say Llama was a hella dumb name choice given that the animal the word refers to is most well known for having ugly teeth & spitting on people. (And you can’t even say ‘akshually, there’s another, better-as-a-name meaning of the word and that’s how I chose it’, given your profile pic). Criticism, however harsh or mean-spirited, isn’t disrespect. You wouldn’t say “you can’t call out right-wing Christians on their homophobia because that’d disrespect their religious beliefs!”, y'know?

Also lol, as someone whose own non-English name constantly gets mispronounced by rightey-whitey Americans, I can tell you that I actually take language & culture of origin into account for this stuff. Like as an example, “Daiben” would both be easy to pronounce and not read as “silly-sounding” to an English-only speaker, but it’d be a -fuckawful- name for a Japanese person given that it literally means “shit” in that language. In turn, I’m sure there’s some language out there where “Poopoo” translates to “full of energy” or something similarly nice, meaning even though it’d sound ridiculous at first to someone who only speaks English, it’d be a perfectly fine name for someone who grew up in that language’s culture.

I only make fun of people who pick existing words whose meanings make for utterly terrible names for a person, or people like Elon Musk who name themselves/their kid a literal keysmash. People who make fun of “foreign-sounding” names just cuz said names sound silly to them are assholes in the “irredeemably bad” way, not the “tough love” way.

3: So I guess by your view, it’s inherently wrong to call Nazis absolute pieces of filth who’d be better off dead if they can’t be re-educated, because in doing so we’d be being an asshole to said diehard Nazis?

Also lol, I -absolutely- have a right to decide what being an idiot means to me. I’m allowed to have opinions, lol. And while I may not be -obligated- to try to stop what I perceive as idiocy, it’s certainly within my personal autonomy to decide to try anyway for whatever underlying reason I want.

And yeah, my whole point was that just because they aren’t openly being a dick to you about it doesn’t mean they don’t privately think it’s a dumb name lol. Unlike those potentially-dishonest people, if I think someone is doing something dumb I’m not gonna hold back saying so just for the sake of their feefees.

TL:DR Obligated respect only goes as far as recognition, criticism isn’t disrespect even if said criticism is snide/assholey/etc. I can recognize & respect that your name is Llama while still saying “but seriously dude that was a -terrible- choice”. Also, remember that on this site we’ve pretty much collectively agreed that rather than respond to their calls of “calmly debate me!”, it’s better to insult & punch & generally be assholes to Nazis to get them to stop their bullshit. You’d be foolish to try to label that as “inherently wrong” action to take.

Also PS: As for the “Why this”, it’s because very nearly all of my time is “free time” nowadays, so I no longer have any sense of task priority. Something grabbing my attention enough to inspire my own response (such as the initial post chain on this topic) is liable to cause me to remain engaged with it longer than most folks would, simply because I literally have nothing better to do. Granted, there’s a lot of fucked up shit underpinning how I got to that point, but I’m not gonna send you a TMI wall-of-text explaining the psychology & trauma that goes into someone becoming my sort of internet troll, at least not unless you go “no fam actually I’m -really- curious as to how someone gets that fucked in the head.”

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Wow, this is a ride, buddy. You’re a self-admitted asshole, so I don’t imagine that my response will do much but WOW.

1) Not that it’s any of your business, but the name Llama was given to me. 

2) You literally admit that you make fun of people for their name. What the fuck is wrong with you??? You’re a fucking bully and you sound proud of it. 

“Criticism, however harsh or mean-spirited, isn’t disrespect.” Yes it is???? First off, there’s no criticism here. Criticism is intended to help someone improve, especially in skills. My fucking name isn’t something you can criticize. What you’re doing is just straight up being a dick and yeah, extremely disrespectful. 

“Also lol, as someone whose own non-English name constantly gets mispronounced by rightey-whitey Americans, I can tell you that I actually take language & culture of origin into account for this stuff.” So what you’re saying is you’ll respect people whose names you view as “valid”, but no one else. Which boils down to the same thing - you’re a fucking dick. You don’t get to decide whose name is valid and whose isn’t. You don’t get to decide that a name is only “good” when it comes from one language vs another. It’s literally not your fucking business where people’s names come from??? 

What’s funny to me is that people have no problem using “silly nicknames” on the internet, but as soon as it’s applied to reality, suddenly it’s untenable? Guess what? Some people actually go outside and experience reality and when it comes down to it? They don’t fucking care how “silly” your name is, they’ll just use it because it’s your fucking name.

Like, I really don’t know how to emphasize this more: making fun of someone’s name FOR ANY REASON makes you a bully and an asshole. Period.

“People who make fun of “foreign-sounding” names just cuz said names sound silly to them are assholes in the “irredeemably bad” way, not the “tough love” way.” There is no difference here. Literally, both categories of asshole are bullies and are out of line. Additionally, I don’t fucking know you and you have no right to apply your ‘tough love’ bullying.

3) “So I guess by your view, it’s inherently wrong to call Nazis absolute pieces of filth who’d be better off dead if they can’t be re-educated, because in doing so we’d be being an asshole to said diehard Nazis?” Where the fuck did you even get this take from?? What I said is that everyone deserves to have their name respected. Period. How you bring that to nazis says more about YOUR views than mine. But for the record: deciding that some people “deserve” to have their names made fun of makes you no better. One hopes that you aren’t advocating for the elimination of marginalized groups, but frankly, your views are the first step towards that. When you decide that there is a group for whom it’s “acceptable” to bully and make fun of, you are taking a first step towards what is called eugenics when it’s systemic. Fortunately, I imagine you have no power to make things systemic, considering you get your jollies harassing people on the internet.

“And while I may not be -obligated- to try to stop what I perceive as idiocy, it’s certainly within my personal autonomy to decide to try anyway for whatever underlying reason I want.” No??? Like, what the fuck??? You perceive my name as idiocy and therefore try to... what? Make me ashamed of it? Make me hate myself? Exactly what gives you the fucking right? You have a right to personal autonomy, sure. That also means that you have to face the consequences for that autonomy. And here are the consequences for this: you bullying people over their names makes you a fucking jackass. It doesn’t matter where the line you say is “acceptable” for a name is - you’ve arbitrarily decided that YOUR autonomy is more important than theirs.

“Unlike those potentially-dishonest people, if I think someone is doing something dumb I’m not gonna hold back saying so just for the sake of their feefees.” Once again, this is called being a dick. Period. First off, you have no idea what the people in my life think about my name. Secondly, there’s this little thing called courtesy wherein you aren’t a fucking asshole to people. Sounds basic, I know, but apparently this is beyond you.

Literally, what someone calls themselves isn’t your fucking business. Your obligation is to use someone’s name as they present it and THAT’S IT! You don’t follow it up with “hey, by the way, your name is stupid”. Why the fuck would you do that? It’s not about “feefees” it’s about being a respectable member of a community. Because guess what? When all you do is insult other people, you find yourself ostracized from the community and on your own when you need help.

But what would I know? I’m just a “stupid” Llama.

Also? Get a fucking life. It takes 0 effort to just keep scrolling rather than reach out an insulting people for no fucking reason. I never asked for your opinion and frankly, I don’t care what you think. 

tl;dr: You’re an admitted asshole who bullies people who you decide do not deserve respect based purely on their name. What the fuck is wrong with you?

Existing in society, in a community, means having basic respect and care for others - and means NOT bullying people over shit. Like, literally, just keep your thoughts to yourself??? It’s not that fucking hard???