#this is one thing I’m exploring in my non fiction project

[longing-for-rain]

You know what I think a lot of people don’t realize about grooming is that, the person will almost always start pushing your boundaries in little, non-sexual ways.

For example, one big thing a person who groomed me did was joke about killing and eating my dog. She knew I love my dogs like they’re my children, and I’d told her those “jokes” made me uncomfortable. But she kept doing it. The same joke over and over again; it wasn’t even funny (“I believe all god’s creatures have a place…next to the potatoes”). At first I pushed back, but then it got to a point where I got tired of resisting and treated like I was stiff and couldn’t take a joke. So I relented on that boundary.

That alone might seem insignificant and dumb, but with groomers, as soon as they break down one boundary they’ll immediately start trying to break down another. And each little one they break, the more they get you used to letting them violate you to the point where you’re afraid to speak up against the bigger things.

So especially if you’re a younger person on the internet, never ignore when someone is making you uncomfortable especially if they’re much older. Even if it seems like a silly, insignificant thing. They know what they’re doing, and it’s important to stay safe.

[messiahzzz]

thank you sm for the ask!! 💕 i’m glad you enjoy my posts and it is not a strange request by any means!

note: this is merely my read on gale’s sexual preferences/kinks. i don’t want to police anyone on their headcanons or claim they are “incorrect”. since the game doesn’t provide too much detail, many things remain up to interpretation. (and lest we forget fanfiction has always encouraged the exploration of dynamics that may not be present in canon.)

gale is a character who isn’t interested in walking the straight and narrow route. he is all about new experiences, favoring non-traditional means, putting his own spin on things, and the thrill of seeking the forbidden. the sheer romance of the uncharted and the unknown. he is enthusiastic in almost every aspect and possesses an infectious zest for life. in regards to his sexual preferences, this translates into an eagerness to explore, witness new sensations, and reach new heights together. while approaching the topic of sexuality with a generally playful, adventurous attitude.

if you’re looking for harder kinks, however — i don’t believe gale is the character for you. and in case it needs to be said again: there is nothing wrong with being vanilla.

initially, i see gale as a switch, who gravitates more towards assuming a dominant role, due to his ever-present desire to give and to impress. i do think he enjoys giving up control, yet you still have to actively convince him to let himself go and be spoiled for once. his first focus will always be to fulfill his partner's needs and drown them in his all-encompassing love and adoration. i also believe that gale will grow more comfortable with being the center of attention, once their relationship has reached a point of total security (and he had ample opportunities to show in just how many ways he can wow them). gale is not a strict dom, nor a sub. in his ideal relationship roles would be discarded entirely, deeming them too restrictive in his expression of intimacy with a trusted partner. it’s all about variety and ridding oneself of the shackles of the worldly, after all. melting into one perfect whole, not knowing where he ends and his partner begins.

gale: we are all sensual vessels. illusory magic lets us sail farther, and feel more deeply.

gale: [..] i could use the weave to make us feel sensations beyond reckoning.

based on what we know about gale, these could be some of his kinks:

lots of praise (this is non-negotiable), sensation/temperature play (waxplay, electrostimulation/all the many perks magic has to offer), sensory deprivation, light restrictions and bondage, the occasional roleplay, katoptronophilia (self-explanatory), altered mental-states (hypnosis, psychedelics), orgasm control & denial, body worship, olfactophilia and given his propensity towards verbosity: narratophilia and some very inventive dirty talk. as for my own self-indulgent take: due to the recurring emphasis on hands during his romance, as well as his being the main tool in how he shapes and navigates the world: quirofilia.

nodecontext: flustered, standing in front of his romance partner in bondage gear. not necessarily uncomfortable with the bondage aspect, just trying to stay focused.

now, what are gale’s hard-limits?

gale, after the player received loviatar's blessing: your hide, your choice. not quite my cup of tea though.

while projecting your own kinks and fantasies onto fictional characters is fine and well, disregarding and ignoring the source material (and the character's stated boundaries) is another matter entirely. fanon!gale is rather ooc and very different from his canon portrayal, which is something that tends to irk me. although this remains a common fandom phenomenon.

personally, i don’t see gale as someone who enjoys pain of any kind, be it giving or receiving (with the exception of spanking and light choking, if a certain mood strikes. although it is kept mostly playful). contrary to what fandom may claim, having self-worth issues, being loquacious, emotionally expressive, and vulnerability-seeking (as well as being commonly perceived as arrogant and insufferable) doesn't automatically equal having repressed masochistic tendencies. he could be convinced to dip a toe into sadism, but only upon his partner’s insistence. although i doubt he himself would find enjoyment in that.

the same applies to degradation/humiliation. i doubt that a character who is still very much struggling with inherent self-worth issues and a general feeling of being defective/not worthy would derive sexual gratification from being degraded. yes, it can certainly be healing for some, but gale doesn’t strike me as someone who would find particular enjoyment in that. quite the contrary, actually. nor would he like to do the degrading for that matter (he would vehemently refuse. all he wants to do is sing your praises.) gale wouldn’t enjoy being leashed and/or collared in any way either. the prospect of being tied up or restricted is rather intriguing, cause it serves to center one’s vulnerability while also allowing for more intense sensations. anything that taps into the puppy play/slave territory tho? he would find it demeaning… and, quite frankly, silly.

gale is also not a voyeur, nor a cuck. the entire scene with the drow twins leans way too much into dub-con territory for my tastes. the only way you can get him to participate at all is by rolling a persuasion check with DC 25. in every other dialogue option, he immediately (and explicitly) declines. even if you do manage to pass the persuasion check, he is still very hesitant about participating.

gale: i might enjoy watching you tangled up with the drow, as long as i was five paces back.

he then immediately runs from the room, because sending a simulacrum in his place was the only way to somewhat remove himself from the situation while still being able to please tav. because of course he wants to please and clearly this is important to tav so he might just… have to discard his reservations and... just go through with it?!

gale: well i suppose it would do no good to back out now. let us begin this little anthropological study, if we must.

i am aware that fandom uses the fact that his “orb lit up in telltale excitement” as a justification that persuading him was the right choice, as well as confirmation that he was secretly into it and “just needed a little push" to explore his desires/get out of his comfort zone. that implication alone is very suspect and goes straight into the sort of logic abusers often use. you can be physically aroused by certain scenes, images, or sounds, even while being visibly uncomfortable with the presented scenario. it is a natural response that you can’t often control. which is what he is showing throughout the entire scene: discomfort. he was coerced into this situation, without any prior discussion or an opportunity to talk about his boundaries. furthermore, this is what he has to say if you approach him after the threesome:

gale: ahem. i hope you're not here to ask about our recent, erm, activities. i'd rather those were consigned to the footnotes of our romance, if it's all the same with you.

since he is strictly monogamous, any arrangement involving another person is also a no. he made this rather clear when tav sought him out after receiving halsin's proposal. him being monogamous isn't solely rooted in his trauma, it isn't something he has to “overcome” in order to heal, nor does it mean that their relationship is any less fulfilling. call him greedy, stubborn, or old-fashioned, but he cannot comfortably agree to that.

[roseborough-if]

[a slife of life / romance story set in the countryside of emerald acres]  🤍

DEMO (TBA) / PINTEREST / KO-FI

Note from the author: Hi and welcome! I'm Vilna (she/any). This is my first interactive fiction project that is still very early in developement. I was inspired by various medias, primarily Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon, to develope my own little game in novel format written in twine. I hope you enjoy your stay! 

Tales from Roseborough and this blog is only suitable for 18+ audience for eventual optional sexual content. Ask box is open for any kind questions (nsfw included).

THE STORY:

You are a farmer who has very recently become one after your distant grandparents you've never met have died and have left their old farm and everything that comes with it solely to you.

You don't know why they would do such a thing but you have been quite bored of your current life for some time so you decide to take a leap faith and leave the comforts of the city behind to move into the idyllic Emerald Acres for a new beginning. The countryside is certainly breathtakingly beautiful; your new farmhouse comes with a huge garden exceeding all of your expectations and the animals are so cuddly and cute, too!

Unfortunately, you have no idea what you're doing but it can't be that hard to run a small farm all by yourself. Can it? Maybe with some help from the other residents of Emerald Acres you may have a better chance at making it...

Fully customizable MC. Decide your character's name, gender (trans + non-binary inclusive), pronouns, physical appearance, personality & background ++ The only thing that is locked in is that MC will always be queer-coded, no matter how you play them. 🏳️‍🌈

Name and maintain your farm by taking care of your animals and garden. Do you thrive in your new life as a farmer or do you hate every second of it? Will you settle down permanently or will you return back to the city with your tail between your legs?

Discover family secrets! Apparently the farm and the house come with certain strings attached.

Choose an animal companion who will follow along with you on your adventures.

Explore the Emerald Acres: the village of Roseborough, the Wuthering Woods, Honeyfur river and other surroundings.

Romance 1 out of 6 possible candidates. Queerplatonic routes are available for Juniper and Bunny/Bo.

Build lasting friendships with the other main cast + side characters.

ROMANCE OPTIONS:

🧸 Bunny / Bo Abernathy [F/M], she/her or he/him. || intro.

B, along with their daughter Sunny, is your new friendly neighbour who owns a farm a couple of kilometers away from you. They are always willing to listen to your troubles and help in any small or big way they can. They are one of the kindest people you've ever met but remain surprisingly tight-lipped about themself, perhaps for a good reason.

»»-----------► I've never known someone like you. Someone who makes me feel so loved and happy that I feel like I could just float away.

🔧 Oskari Kivi [M], he/him. || intro.

You never expected to meet him again here of all places. Oskari is a city boy through and through and your past with him is complicated (whether you were lovers or just friends) and you haven't seen him in at least four years since your fallout. You're not sure whether it's a good or bad thing that he hasn't changed at all.

»»-----------► I missed you. A lot. I just wanted you to know that.

🐾 James Briar [F], she/her. || intro.

The fact that James is hot as hell only slightly makes up for her rude and disagreeable behaviour when you first meet her. She is the town's only vet so you will need her services from time to time whether you like it or not. James seems to have great love for animals, but claims that fellow humans are not her thing. You don't quite know what to make of her.

»»-----------► When I first met you I thought you were a spoiled city brat. Turns out I sort of like it.

🦋 Juniper Starling [NB], fae/faer. || intro.

Juniper is an eccentric but respected figure in Roseborough as fae runs a small (and free!)  healer's clinic offering help without turning anyone away. Fae must be one of the most beautiful people you've ever met and seems to always have a line of suitors following faer wherever fae goes. You need to stick out if you want faer attention.

»»-----------► You are certainly an interesting one, kitten. I will have to keep a close eye on you.

🥧 Willow / William Higgins [F/M], she/her or he/him. || intro.

Will is almost as new in the town as you; they bought the tavern of Rosebud a few months prior and are still adjusting to their job and everything that comes with it. Will clearly feels out of place and lonely in their current situation, at least before meeting you. They seem friendly, if a little overly flirty, and eager to get to know you.

»»-----------► Oh, you are absolutely precious, sunshine. I could just eat you up for a dessert. 

🔮 Sage Moonfall [NB], he/him and they/them. || intro.

The people of Roseborough call him the Hermit of Wuthering Woods but that seems to be only a fraction of the truth. There's a rumour that they are over a century old and something not entirely human, but no one has the courage to approach them to actually ask. He seems to be endlessly fascinated by you.

»-----------► Tell me: what do you desire? I could make that happen with the snap of my fingers.

[recurring-polynya]

Request Time!

I am sure this is a categorically terrible idea, but I am too squirrel-brained to pick a writing project to work on, but also I'm tired of not writing and additionally, I am puffed up on my own hubris from hitting 1M words on AO3, so let's gooooooooo!

I am taking requests from now until I get tired of this! I promise I will write at least one thing! I do not promise when that will be!!

This is a fanfic event

I will do the ones that speak to me the most. It’s not first-come, first-served! If you have a good idea, send it in! It's fine to send in more than one!

I delete the requests that I don’t accept.

No theme this time! Anything goes!

Here are some tips:

I do have anon asks on, but if you log in, it means I can ask questions if I need to, plus it makes me feel like we’re friends when I get a name with the request.

Ideally my short fiction comes out between 1k and 2k, so we’re usually talking just a scene or two. I am notoriously bad at sticking to this.

You can see all my previous short fiction here. (Each yearly volume has a table of contents in the first chapter). Try not to request things that I’ve done before, unless it’s explicitly a continuation. Alternatively, you can check out some of my previous request tags like 500 Follower Drabble Weekend or What If Requests

You can request extra scenes from my existing fanfics.

The best requests are specific enough to be inspirational, but not so overconstrained that you’ve basically written the whole thing yourself. Specifying a set of characters is okay, but it’s better if you add a setting or a scenario or a mood. Think about what the description would be if you had to post it to ao3 yourself.

If you read my blog and/or my fanfic, you will probably get a good idea of which characters I love and the kinds of things that delight me and the things that do not. I primarily do these requests for the benefit of my regular readers, so if this process is biased towards them, that is by design.

Here's a list of stuff I am probably going to say no to. If you feel like you know me really well and have a killer idea that you think I'll love, go ahead and hit me with it, but otherwise, please don't.

Reader/x (this is a hard no, don't even ask)

Kidfic

Any ships that are captains/their lieutenants or Karakura Kids/shinigami. No Aizen ships period.

The only endgame romantic ship I will write for Renji or Rukia is Renruki. I might be open to some explorations during their separation years or like some weird AU thing that's Wrong on Purpose, but in both these cases, you're getting undercurrents of Renruki for free, whether you want them or not. The only Byakuya ship I will write is Byahisa. Friendships and other kinds of non-romantic relationships are always welcome!

Anything featuring Sternritter, aside from as villains. Actually, same goes for Nnoitra and Szayelaporro. Mayuri also on extremely thin ice, but I have a lot of Mayuri-loving pals on this site, so I might be convincible with the right prompt.

I am not explicitly ruling out NSFW, but you gotta give me a good hook, I’m only good at writing smut if it’s weird. The only smut I will write is Renruki. Also, my smut is always super consensual, no exceptions.

Send your requests to my Askbox!

[genericpuff]

…Here is something a bit more serious I wanted to ask…

How do feel when it comes the fact that plenty of sexual themes inside LO are being told incorrectly to a young audience (I keep hearing on how most of Webtoon readers are still around 12-16 year old girls)?

Specially with the fact that Rachel keeps on sexualizing Persephone after some scenes showcasing her trauma….

I hope I’m not overstepping my boundaries here…thanks again for listening.

You're not overstepping at all ! This is actually a topic I've gone off about in the past at length on reddit and in chatrooms like Discord so I'm always happy to divulge about it and talk about it. It's a problem that goes way bigger than LO but I'll try my best to keep it focused on LO for the sake of getting to the point.

Before I get into it, obligatory TRIGGER WARNING for discussion surrounding sexual trauma/abuse/etc. and how it's romanticized and marketed in Webtoons media.

There are so many comics in Webtoons library that are just skeevy beyond belief for the stories they're trying to tell. Whether it's gratuitous oversexualization of its characters to the point of being absurd, to the implications of the romances in these stories that often border on non-consensual/toxic, Webtoons seems to be using these types of things as its main draw in a lot of their "big money" series - or at least, the ones they tend to market the most.

Now don't get me wrong, I've got a strong stomach for weird/creepy/dark shit and I'm capable of having suspension of disbelief when reading stories like this. I'm an SA survivor myself but despite this, I'm no stranger to dark romance or stories that 'toe the line' or even overstep it completely between morally acceptable and morally apprehensible, a lot of these kinds of stories have actually helped me overcome and heal from what I've been through. Suspension of disbelief is important and this is, after all, fiction, where we as creators are able to explore taboo or 'forbidden' topics in ways that either interest us or empower us or just feel like fun to write.

But there's still a line to be drawn because I'm an adult person who has literary analysis skills and is capable of picking apart these stories and what they might be consciously - or subconsciously - teaching us or portraying. Kids and teens? They basically are what they eat. This isn't to say teenagers are stupid or anything of the sort, but I was a kid too once and I know I internalized a lot of media that I straight up shouldn't have been consuming at the time. And I do think a lot of webtoons on the WT platform specifically dangerously veer into that territory all for the purpose of money and clout.

Again, don't get me wrong, I love morally questionable or otherwise abrasive characters, I think they're fun to write and fiction is a great way to explore those kinds of dynamics (and I've had pals weirdly thank me for how much suffering I put my characters through LMAO). But I'm also not gonna sit here and bullshit people into thinking my main projects are meant for teens. They're not. My main protagonists are in a shitty toxic relationship that should not be romanticized. My main character is a hyperbolic self-insert reflection of how awful I used to be as a person and how I was at the center of all my own problems for years. You should be 18 at minimum if you want to read my work because the stuff I write about isn't appropriate for or wouldn't be able to be observed and accepted as just fiction the way most mature adults can.

Now I'm not saying my work is "deep" or anything like that, it's stupid fun weeb shit. But it's the kind of stupid fun weeb shit I wouldn't want a teenager internalizing or taking to heart. It's why I'll include plenty of disclaimers to remind people that my stuff is a work of fiction and I simply enjoy exploring these kinds of tropes and dynamics through my characters, but I do not condone their behavior or the things I represent in my work. I fully respect other creators and writers who do the same.

Rachel is not one of those people. Rachel doesn't do this. She tries to claim to be progressive while completely misrepresenting the things she writes. She doesn't actually care about these topics, she just wants you to think she cares about them. Don't get me wrong, there are other series on the platform that are absolutely problematic when it comes to this sort of thing (Webtoons looooves marketing them, blech) but Lore Olympus is the absolute pinnacle of irresponsible, the sum of everything that's wrong with Webtoons.

It gets constant special treatment - often times being put in the banner reel every time it updates and in the prime spots no less that are rarely ever given to other - far more thought-provoking and well-written - series that could really use the ad space.

It markets itself to kids and teens despite having subject matter that either isn't handled responsibly OR should be taken with a level of suspension of disbelief that a lot of teens/kids aren't capable of having.

And the subject matter that it does try to handle responsibly is flubbed entirely because they're leaving it up to the writing 'skills' of a privileged white woman from New Zealand who's either never lived these experiences or, those that she has, couldn't even write them into a narrative when she tries because she still exists with internalized biases that completely miss the mark because she's never tried to look at things with a viewpoint outside of her own.

She's just not a writer, full stop. But because it's Webtoon's golden goose, they market the shit out of it anyways and give it preferential treatment. And of course, they market it to kids and teens because it's cute and colorful, and kids and teens will be more likely to overlook its blatant problems because they don't have the literary analysis skills yet to identify them.

The other side of the coin they market to? The adults who don't think these problems are problems to begin with. These are the same adults who celebrated 50 Shades of Grey and After as if they're masterworks of fiction. Overall very shitty, problematic people. At least the teenagers have the potential to "grow out of it". The adults who defend Rachel like their life depends on it are grown up but not mature or empathetic in the slightest towards those who have found their own stories and experiences trivialized or otherwise misrepresented completely through LO.

I know, that's undoubtedly a lot of hot takes, but this is such a massive problem in romance stories today. I get it, it's "drama", and it's been around since the harlequin novels of old, but the way it's pushed and romanticized and presented as if it's somehow "couple goals" by the people - often women - who write them is getting to be exhausting.

At this point I put Rachel Smythe right up there with Anna Todd and EL James - ego-driven female "writers" who wrote shitty fanfiction that got a lot of views and happened to fail upwards in their success, but when you dig past the subscriber count numbers and the clout, they themselves are not that profound or well-read in any meaning of the word. They're just people with huge deeply-rooted issues who write problematic romances instead of going to therapy.

And that's all I'm gonna say on that.

[avissapiens]

Jockbull Summer Week 7 Set C(25/12/23 -31/12/23)

Model used is Onome Egger

1.

This one’s going to have to change because we’re switching from the cut diet to a Maintenance phase. I’m not super inclined to have super excessive days where i eat a bunch of food. So we’ll have to find something different to pursue.

2.

No meditation unfortunately. Just wasn’t the right kind of week for it. The week after christmas always feels like a strange malaise. One long sunday. So nothing gets done and you can’t focus. Its like looking at the world through smudged glass.

3.

Done and Done. 

4.

The next creative work will either be an abstraction or a series of non-fiction creative pieces for the archetypes. It's just a little rough juggling as many creative projects as I am at the moment.

5.

I’ve totally revamped my time table of things for january. I was starting to feel a little numb to them so things needed some rearrangement. Added some interesting little spaces for exploration and development

[dkniade]

Warnings: unhealthy coping mechanisms, non-specific trauma, denial, brief mention of winter depression

This has happened only a few times but I’d be reading some character/lore posts and accidentally stumble upon posts that mention things darker than I had expected. (I mean, of course I can’t expect people to warn for everything especially when the topic isn’t the focus; I just happen to be the type to feel the need for warn/tag for everything I can think of whenever I write something.)

…

I think… the fics where I work the hardest in characterization are ones exploring a character’s trauma, though I’ve always said I cannot easily understand a character and their backstory. GI certainly has no shortage of characters with traumatic backstories.

….I mean, I’ve realized around last year that it’s not healthy to obsess over (even a fictional character’s) trauma. This peace I feel thinking about lighthearted scenarios is only fully highlighted when contrasted against unexpected discussions of trauma. (It’s like feeling the return of emotions in spring for winter depression.) Had I already been in that (unhealthy and obsessive) mindset, maybe I wouldn’t have felt much. “I’m so logical! I’m not getting emotional over this!”Ha. Intellectualization, I believe it’s called?

It’s at times like these when I wonder, would I really be in a good headspace to write about some scenarios I’ve been planning? I want to explore that sort of theme—no, it’s probably obsession and projection again—but I can’t stake my mental health on it. (I had questioned if I could actually push through writing Venti’s flashback in “Dawn Winds, Heed My Vision”.) Sometimes I don’t know my own limits, if I’m uncomfortable (or even triggered) or not. The fog is numbing.

This clarity… I wasn’t able to achieve this at all back in winter 2022/2023. But that time’s lost to the winds now. I can only move forward with what I now know.

I can’t say for sure, but I think… despite repeatedly researching about trauma to satisfy that sick curiosity—to the point of being blind to what I’m subjecting myself to—I might be in denial about having PTSD.

I don’t know what point I was trying to make. Thank you for reading.

[cafeacademia]

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐦𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧! 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐭

There is a big list of prompts below for fluff, angst & hurt/comfort and smut (18+ if you request smut) BUT feel free to also send in your own ideas/prompts and mix and match my prompts with your own. These are all Autumn/cosy themed - even if the prompt itself is not inherently Autumnal, the theme of the fic will be!

My requests are open for: (if any of these are crossed out, it's because I have a lot of requests for them)

Spencer Reid

Derek Morgan

Bucky Barnes

Matt Murdock

Pietro Maximoff

Marc & Steven

You can send up to 3 prompts per request from any category. Feel free to send several requests if you like, just maybe don’t send me a feck load all at once lmao. Make sure you send the prompts or the numbers and let me know which section it was from as well as the character you want to request it for.

If you want to add in or send your own ideas and prompts, I’m open to most things, but my main boundary is writing about motherhood/childbirth/breeding kink etc. I’m also open to mildly dark fics (by mildly dark, I mean things like consensual non consent, maybe a little bit of dubcon, naive!Reader etc, but I will never write it so that it’s super dark)

Fluff Prompts

Playing in the leaves together

Going for a walk/hike to see the changing of the leaves

Always seeing each other from the window and finally interacting one day

Spending a gloomy autumn afternoon in the back of the library/bookshop together

Working in a bookshop and finally approaching your regular customer after he comes in so often

You always bump into your neighbour on the rooftop or on the fire escape and this time you finally stop to talk

Reading dark academia/spooky books together

You go to a halloween party together and he’s super impressed by your outfit/costume

You’ve been penpals for ages, but you’ve never met in person until a stormy autumnal afternoon

You knit a scarf or jumper for him and he LOVES it

Decorating the house/apartment for autumn

Having hot coffee in a quiet cafe and playing chess or reading together

Going to a museum together

Making him a book nook for his bookshelf as a gift

Trying to help him explore fiction more by giving him your recommendations through little secret notes and he has to work out who his secret book recommender is

Baking pie or cakes together

Having a secret friendship/relationship and meeting somewhere obscure

Passing notes in university lectures and getting to know each other only through the notes because you’re too shy to approach him outside of class

Museum curator!Reader/Character gives the other a tour of the secret parts of the museum at night

Artist!Character asks to draw/paint you as part of a project

They discover your writing/drawings/poetry about them after you lose them

You go out to an orchard or pumpkin patch together

Angst & Hurt/Comfort Prompts:

You get stood up and he makes your night better

Too afraid of horror movies to watch them but too timid to tell people about that and him being the first or only one to realise

You go to a haunted house and you’re genuinely terrified

Scary biker!neighbour!character intimidates you to the point that you are terrified of him, but he’s actually very sweet and he almost has to corner you to show you that he’s a sweetheart and not going to hurt you

He takes his frustration out on you but is quick to patch things back up

He pushes you away when he’s afraid of you getting too close and getting hurt by what he does

Soulmate au - he tries to make you think that your soulmate is someone completely different because he’s afraid of you getting too close to him romantically and getting hurt

Someone won’t leave you alone and he’s about to step in but you kick ass before he can even open his mouth - maybe he falls a little bit more in love with you after that

He does something to scare you by accident - he didn’t want you to see that side of him

The guy that always intimidates you comes to you for help when he needs patching up/a place to stay and be safe for a couple of days and you realise he’s really not that scary at all

You reach for his hand when you’re scared/upset and he tries your best to comfort you

You tell him your trauma/about something that really hurt or scared you

He protects you when you’re walking home and someone approaches you

He intimidates you, but when you need him you approach him scared to ask for him help

Someone (another character/ex/etc) says something to hurt your feelings and he stands up for you

(18+) you try something new in the bedroom and you end up needing to use your safeword, character comforts you

Reassuring you that you will always be safe with him and he will never let anything happen to you after something happens to scare you - or you talk about a traumatic event to him

You overhear him talking about someone and misunderstand - you think he’s complaining about you, but he’s not. He finds out later and comforts you.

Smut Prompts:

Sex outside but sheltered while there’s a storm overhead

He pleasures you or you pleasure him while the other reads their book aloud as a challenge

Sex in front of the fireplace

God/Demon AU and he fucks you in his temple on Halloween

He gets turned on by you wearing a Halloween costume that is more like lingerie than a party outfit

Fucking in the office late at night

He takes you somewhere semi public or completely public during a mission/case

You try BDSM for the first time

Kink exploration! (send one you want to see - the only thing I won’t write is breeding kink)

There was some intense aphrodisiac in that Halloween hot chocolate you both just drank and oh no… you just so happen to be alone in a room with your crush

A little fun at a Halloween party

He sees how many orgasms he can give you to distract you from the scary horror movie on the tv

He sneaks in at night to see you get cock deep in you- could be a brother’s best friend scenario? Whatever you want idk

He’s a sex demon and he comes to you in the middle of the night (innocence kink??)

YOU’RE a sex demon and steal his soul while you let him fuck you breathless

Library/bookshop sex

Sex pollen

[spacepunksupreme]

What is some good vampire media i. Like just came to the realization that I don’t know much. Finishing Dracula and watching the movie soon, watched the Netflix castlevania and i wanna watch iwtv soon (both of them)! I ask because I trust ur taste :-]

AH Hi! Feeling very honored that you trust my taste aha

I hope you enjoy Interviw with The Vampire and whichever Dracula movie youre watching! There is certainly no shortage of Dracula movies out there for one, both actual attempts at adapting the book and otherwise. There is literally (at least) one for every year from 1969-1979 lol so if you dig 70s stuff that’s certainly something to explore.

Obviously there’s vampire stuff out there in a range of aesthetics and subgenres, so I’m gonna try to cover a little variety of vibes off the top of my head, and hopefully one of these things is in your preferred flavor of vampire :) 

unorganized list with brief synonsis’ under the cut

As for serious vampire series the only thing that comes to mind rn are some anime/manga. Vampire Hunter D is a light novel series with two anime film adaptations. The newer one, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000) is like an all-time favorite animated movie for mine. D is an angsty half-vampire vampire hunter, and it’s also set in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi/fantasy world. Really good mix of more traditional vampire lore with science fiction elements. Vampirism is implied to be the effects of a plague that swept earth as well as like a magical affliction in this.

Trinity Blood is a similar post-apocalyptic hard sci-fi/fantasy mix. Leaning more on the gothic fantasy side. It’s set in a world where we’ve gone back to the Catholic church being the dominate like governing force, so the main character Abel is (again an angsty half-vampire vampire hunter) a funny little priest man. The vampires are like really demon/angel vibes in this, but are also implied to be the result of intermingling with an alien species that humanity fought pre-apocalypse, if I remember correctly. I havn’t read or watched any of this since high school so it might suck now lol

The Hellsing manga/Hellsing Ultimate OVA. An all time fav of mine, but I also havnt reread any since high school so, again, it may suck now lol. This one is more modern than anything traditional fantasy. It’s set in the 90s and centered around Abraham Van Helsing’s (great?) granddaughter, Integra, running a vampire-hunting organization, with thee Dracula now calling himself Alucard (lol) as her weird devoted man-slave. The villains are undead nazis who have come back to take over the world after scientifically achieving vampirism in the pursuit of immortality. So it’s basically like Dracula and his cool lesbian boss fight vampire nazis … with guns. It’s good stupid fun. And Alucard is a really good example of vampire character who is both a gleeful killing machine and a miserable “I regret the loss of my humanity and the fact that I can never die” poor little meow meow type.

And in non-serious and non-anime (lol) there’s also the What We Do in The Shadows TV show which I’ve seen best described as “what if vampires were gay and stupid”, pokes good fun a lot of common vampire media tropes. And the characters are great. The 2014 movie is the same premise, but different characters. 

Some other movies I might recommend are Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974) cheesy 70s movie but has some really great exploration of lesser-discussed vampire lore; the main vampire antagonist doesn’t drink blood but drains youth with a kiss, can have their hypnotic power projected back at them with a reflected surface, and causes dead animals to come back to life when passing over them in the ground, etc. It’s also got fantasic sword fighting scenes, and really fun characters. Kronos in particular is definitely supposed to be a mysterious badass type, but he really just comes off as a socially awkward loveable weirdo. He’s super strange and he smokes weed lol. Set in like a mid-19th century fantasy germanic country. 

Lost Boys (1987) or Blade (1998) for more edgy modern vampires. Both movies are stupid. Lost Boys is fun for the vamp characters which are southern Californian teenage biker gang members (gay). and Blade is fun because it’s just so bad it’s good, it’s a movie to be watched for laughs, with vampires who are just like goths that go to blood raves and sit around in suits in fancy rooms. Blade himself is also another angsty half-vampire vampire hunter (I’m realizing I’m fond of this type of character lol). 

And finally if you’re looking for something more similar to the Dracula novel, I think I can only recommend Le Fanu’s Carmilla. Older and shorter than Dracula and perhaps a little less exciting, but a solid classic in vampire literature (and lesbian literature), and has a lot of its own adaptations ranging from serious to silly as well. 

[albertonykus]

Doraemon Movie Review: Nobita's Chronicle of the Moon Exploration (2019)

What is Doraemon? The title character of the Doraemon manga and anime is a blue robotic cat from the 22nd Century who keeps an array of high-tech gadgets in a portable pocket dimension on his belly, and has traveled from the future to improve the fortunes of a hapless schoolboy named Nobita. Although relatively obscure in the English-speaking world, Doraemon is a Mickey-Mouse-level cultural icon in East Asia (and some other regions, too). The Doraemon franchise was a big part of my childhood, and there are still elements of it that I enjoy now.

Doraemon has released theatrical films almost annually since 1980, most of which involve Nobita and his friends (kind Shizuka, brash Gian, and crafty Suneo) getting swept into adventures thanks to Doraemon's gadgets. Despite being of potentially broad appeal to fans of science fiction and animated films, there are very few English reviews of the Doraemon movies, so I'm embarking on a project to write about all the films that have come out so far. Good luck to me…

Movie premise: Doraemon helps Nobita create an alternate reality where rabbits live on the moon.

My spoiler-free take: Out of the non-remake movies to come out of the 2005 Doraemon anime reboot, this might be the one that comes closest to feeling like a “classic” Doraemon film so far, and I consider that a good thing.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT

Review: If one were to boil this movie down to its individual core elements, I think they’d find very little that hasn’t been done in previous Doraemon films. (Okay, having one of the movie-only characters pose as a transfer student and actually interact with Nobita’s classmates outside of the main cast is new.) However, that actually works to its benefit, in my opinion. After so many of the post-reboot Doraemon movies have felt experimental in one way or another (with varying degrees of success in my book), it was nice to see one that replicates the vibe of a classic Doraemon story without being a straight-up remake of an older film.

I also thought this movie does a good job of introducing potentially convoluted plot points without feeling bogged down, especially the main gadget that allows the story to happen: the Fringe Theory Club Member Badge, which can create alternate realities that are only perceptible to people wearing it. The effects of this gadget could have easily been overly confusing, but the film manages to establish how it works quite effectively.

I suppose there are a few things I could quibble about: maybe it strains credibility that the villain’s second-in-command would think that someone named Diabolo was working with good intentions all along, and maybe the final battle against the villain’s minions gets a bit too slapsticky to take seriously. Otherwise though, I’d say this is pretty solidly one of my favorite non-remake movies to come out of the Doraemon anime reboot.

Not to mention, Shizuka gets to save everyone here, nice! It’s been a while since the last time. I’ve lamented this before, but it seems that many recent Doraemon movies (discounting remakes) don’t know what to do with her. The fact that older entries in the series have a better track record of portraying Shizuka is honestly kind of sad, so anytime in the new movies that she gets to do something important instead of standing in the background or playing the damsel in distress can only be taken as a good sign.

Shizuka-saves-the-day count (cumulative): 8

Star rating: ★★★☆☆

[ridethedarkerwave]

The art of philosophical dialogue.

For the past two years, the thing in life that I have been the most excited about is my current philosophical writing project. For many years now, I have sought to write a book, my first book, on ethics and animals. This project grew out of my dissertation work, but it has changed shape in significant ways twice now. Around 2013 or so, I realized that I wanted to make the emotion and virtue of compassion much more central to the overall book. More specifically, I am interested in examining the importance of compassion and how compassionate treatment of animals is most compatible with a deontological (non-utilitarian) ethic that extends a fairly strong form of respect to animals, akin to rights but not necessarily reducible always to rights. I don’t think this is something that has been done before.

Then, in fall 2021, I had a major epiphany. Instead of writing another dry philosophical treatise that only a handful of academics will read and will ultimately just collect dust on some library bookshelves, forgotten into history, as so many academic books today will, why not write something more creative, engaging, and memorable? Why not write a philosophical dialogue on compassion and animals — and not just a dialogue, but one that occurs within a fun, creative story, with interesting characters — something that people outside of academia will enjoy reading, including some of my students? And so began my story, Elea. (Elea is one of the main characters, named after the Ancient Greek goddess of compassion.)

Historically, Plato is the philosopher most known for writing philosophy in the form of a dialogue. I’ve always enjoyed reading Plato, partly for that reason, and I sense that some of my students tend to be more engaged when reading philosophy in the form of a conversation occurring within some sort of narrative. For Plato, the narratives are based on real life stories, including the life and death of his teacher, Socrates. Whenever I have taught the Apology or (parts of) the Phaedo, many of my students become curious about this peculiar character, Socrates, and his peculiar ideas. I have also used John Perry’s Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality on several occasions, which is in the form of a fictional scenario involving three made-up characters. But the art of writing philosophical dialogues has largely disappeared, with occasional exceptions.

My move towards writing philosophy in the form of a creative dialogue and story has also been inspired by my pandemic experience and, in general, my love of fantasy and science fiction. Throughout the summer of 2020, I spent countless hours, every day, getting lost in the sci-fi video game, No Man’s Sky. As the real world around me seemed more and more like a terrible place, I became deeply invested in creating a new life and new world within this beautiful, open-world, sandbox game in which you can explore countless alien planets while trying to just survive. It made me realize that I want to build interesting worlds in my writing, and combine that somehow with an examination of the philosophical ideas that seem important to me. Now, whenever I feel jaded and estranged from “the real world” (which is quite often), I find joy and new energy in the story and characters I’m creating. I can envision doing this for the rest of my life.

[aclickbaittitle]

Queer headcanons in LGBT+ Fiction Podcasts

Disclaimer: I am still learning and I am human so I apologize in advance for the mistakes I make.

When the pandemic arrived I realize I was non-binary and that there wasn't that many representation in mainstream media to explore this part of my identity in a fiction realm. This led me to podcasts like "Welcome to Night Vale", "The Strange Case of Starship Iris" and "The Penumbra Podcast".

Though I know not all fiction podcasts feature queer main charaters, Wolf 359 being an example of this (we only meet Jacobi in S3 and in S4 he's still what I'll consider a secondary recurrent character). We listeners had began to see queer representation in the fiction podcast medium as the norm instead of the exception.

And that is amazing!

However with this little bubble of queer representation being the norm we need to think about how we interact with media. To be more straight -gasps- I am mainly talking about headcanons in relation to fan content and the discussions around characters' romantic, sexual and gender identity.

As queer people we have been condition by the media to project our identity in chararters with complete disregard for the canon. Which considering the amount of queer bating, coding and erasure, "What else were we meant to do?" For some this meant creating fiction podcasts with explicit queer representation, for others it meant listening to this podcasts.

However we sometimes make the mistake of taking the ways we interact with mainstream straight media and using them when interacting with queer media. Like "changing" the sexuality of our favorite characters when writing fanfiction about them.

There is a difference between a straight character and a queer charater when it comes to changing their sexual, romantic or gender identities. What is the difference? Mainly power imbalance. If you take lets say a "quote-on-quote" straight character and say "Nop, he's bisexual now". Go ahead, we got you. BUT if you have a gay character and someone says "That man is straight", all will be in outrage. Same with characters that are cis but the fandom declares are trans.

Everything good till this point.

BUT, what if a character is gay and someone says "No, I'm gonna headcanon them as bisexual". In my opinion, meanwhile you aren't making content about it, you do you. However if you are, here are some things to consider.

It puts the community against each other.

If the character is canonically gay and you make xem pansexual you could argue "Well gays get more rep than pan people," which is a truth but isn't the gays fault (most of the time). This puts the community against each other and in some ways can make a person's identity feel unvalid. Until we live in a world like where the queer agenda has been realize to its fullest, we got to stay mindfull of how we treat people's identities.

Miscommunication (misleading publicity)

Most of these podcasts are independent, made by sleep-deprived artists which are relying on YOU to promote their work, especially folks who do fanart (y'all have my heart for keeping this bubble expanding).

If you make a post of let's say Adam Hayes [gay character from the bright sessions] with a bisexual flag it might make people think Adam is bi when that is not the case, so if someone goes into the podcast looking for that bi rep and realized he isn't bisexual, it would be a downer at least. Is not queer bating of course but it is misinformation.

And yeah I know that bright sessions is one of the most popular podcasts with published books and spin-off shows however, I wrote this at night and is a character most people know, unlike Shinji [gay character from Desperado].

It might erase representation

I once read a fic in which one of my favorite non-binary characters was written as a binary trans woman even though there was trans women representation in the show. It was well written and told a very interesting take on the character but, it wasn't the character since being non-binary is part of who he was.

As I say at the begginig of this opinion article, I started listening to podcast because of my quest for non-binary representation and the fic made me feel like I had lose something. Even if the character is still banging the gender binary in canon, it make me wonder how feable are non-binary identities in the eyes of the public.

HOWEVER YOU CAN STILL PLAY WITH THE RAINBOW COLORS

What is straight? For me is someone who is this 3: cisgender, heterosexual and heteroromantic.

So in this case if you got a character who hasn't been told explicitly that is non-cis but more importantly that being cis does not inform their experience and how they interact with their other queer identities or doesn't misgender them [like with the case above] then I believe there is no harm in writing/drawing them as trans in fancontent.

-Valles Vicky : Non-binary Lesbian.

I personally think of Valles Vicky as a she/her non-binary sapphic. Which considering she is a dad like Juno is a lady I say that I got some argument here.

-Sapphic Demons

Another example is Belzagor [she/her character from Brimstone Valley Mall] . She's a very cool tech demon that lives in a queerphobic-free mall. There is a beautiful collection of fics where she is romantically paired with her other she/her counterpart Xaphan [demon of being exicted for everything]. Which makes sense in my book because all we know about her is that she uses she/her pronouns and is a god [sorta].

Pd. Misroch use your "Mom friend" powers and protect Belzagor from Hornblass in the next season. Yes? Thank you.

Now to the allo v.z. the ace part IS COMPLICATED [This whole section is to be fair].

-Caleb Michels is demisexual (and I die in this hill)

I am probably demisexual and so is Caleb [mlm character from the Bright Sessions]. He might also be demiromantic.

Why do I think I can say this?

Because it literally doesn't go against his queerness or identity. He likes boys and he still likes boys if he is demi. It doesn't detract from his identity, if anything I think it helps infrom it, and in the show there are so many instances that may me go you're demi. Or that how I justified it.

-Riley and Evelyn.

Another case is my favorite ghoul Riley [Non-binary and asexual character from Less is Morgue]. The only fics from this podcast (that I know of) is a trilogy about Riley being in a romantic relationship with their co-star Evelyn [Lesbian], which after hearing the frankestein episode I can understand the chemistry. I personally believe this characters to be in a QPR.

Riley is asexual but not aromantic (I think) so this two realities can coexist perfectly in a nice pizza delivery man. However there is an argument to be made about Evelyn being a lesbian and being portray in a relationship with a non-binary person, as I read the fic there was no misgendering of Riley thank Todd and Satan, so I take it as Evelyn's sexuality being somewhat misrepresented.

I am not a lesbian, so I don't actually get all the intersicracities of the identity. In my understanding is someone whose gender is woman or femme-aligned who feels atracction to woman or femme-aligned people. However Riley is agender, so in my limited knowdlege this is contradictory with the lesbian identity.

-Walt Pensive: Ace of Spades

Now lets talk about Walt Pensive, he is "uhhsexual" (asexual) and heteromantic.

Giving my previous cis/trans case someone could say "I declare him panromantic", but I don't think that is right. Walt being hetero informs his identity, he had a partner (girlfriend or wife? I can't remember) that die, and that of course has left him with some trauma. However, he also is ready to move on, he flirts with a woman and considers going on a date with her.

Personally I belive this can be a nice character for those who are heteromantic but queer in other ways can relate too. And adds another shade to the rainbow representation.

THIS IS AMAZINGLY COMPLICATED

To conclude, I love audio-dramas and have a tendency to over analyze everything.

Not joking though, there is a DIFFERENCE between changing the identity of a straight character and a queer one. Even more when we add the conversation between indie media v.z. mainstream and their access to marketing and how their story is presented to the general public.

That being said the rainbow has many colors and some identities (queer and less so) can coexist with one another, and in the best case inform them and make the character even more nuanced.

I belive giving this rise in queer representation, mainly in podcasts but other media too, this is a conversation we got to have to get all the nuances and the best answer there is.

Pd. Heteroromanitc aces and heterosexual aros are cool and valid. And Walt Pensive 😢, why Mx. William?

[bluesadansey]

andrew nico and blue classic

Hi sorry I got to the asks for this so late this one took a long time, I actually realized I had the opportunity to post it on your birthday but I didn’t quite manage but anyway consider this a belated birthday present if my rambling tangents qualify as such to you <33

Blue Sargent

three facts about them from my personal headcanons: 1) her favorite musical is Wicked and she identified with Elphaba 2) I think she has some sensory issues which is why she’s so particular about certain textures of clothing, food etc. and I definitely like to read her as neurodivergent 3) I hc her as non-white in Maura’s side I especially like picturing her as desi which you could say is projection and you’d be right, but generally I think of her as a brown girl.

a reason they suck: her judgmental streak is real, and she’s very proud and yes these things together can influence her towards being a bit of a hypocrite.

a reason they are great: Idk how to pick just one thing I am infamously Not normal about this girl she remains my favorite ya book girl to this day.. But I really love how passionate Blue is and also how kind of self-possessed she is about her own feelings, she’s very in tune with her own individuality and what she desires out of life: seeing the world, exploring, finding ways to help make the world better, having her own path that she determines not a set destiny, wanting lasting meaningful relationships and friendships that are maybe more intense than is technically healthy etc. she searches for something more and doesn’t entirely know how to get there/what that path is but she’s intent on carving out that path for herself and finding that knowledge, and then the area she’s least in tune with herself about is like, romance and particularly the way to feel about Gansey in the first few books which I really like as a dichotomy ((and it’s part of why Bluesey reads like a lesbian narrative cough)), that passionate nature is also what allows her to be extremely loving and brave and creative and I generally love that about her. Also this is an unpopular opinion but the way she thinks and her personality does feel like a very real teenage girl, I think Maggie did a good job writing her voice in that department and that wasn’t ever a problem with how she wrote Blue the problem with how she wrote her was, as I say later, the fact that Maggie wasn’t interested in the follow-through of her arc/how Blue’s personality which was very fleshed out, would change/develop outside of happening to develop certain relationships. Oh I also love how curious she is I love character who constantly want to know what is up with everything which will continue to be a theme in the other asks … I’ll quit while I’m ahead here I love her but also really am due for a reread which is why this is coming out so incoherently.

a reason I relate to them: I relate a lot to her mindset of loving whimsical things but striving to be practical in my pursuit of whimsy, I also just relate to a lot of her personality (besides how brave/risk-taking she can be which is not me at all lmao) and thought processes she’s one of the chars I most identify with in fiction generally… and a lot of it can be tied to the fact we’re both 4w5’s tbh. I also was raised mainly by multiple maternal figures I strive to emulate and grew up not thinking well of male authority figures <3

(what I consider to be) the top tier otp/ot3 for that character: for otp it’s Bluesey obviously my parents who raised me… I really really love Blue x Noah too but it’s more elite tier. Imfor ot3 there are actually 3 options which I find really appealing I think Gansey/Blue/Noah Blue/Gansey/Henry and Blue/Gansey/Adam all have excellent ot3 potential but I’m going to go with the latter because it’s the messiest option and I like to have fun. Three incredibly fucked up bisexuals who were obsessed w each other in thematically fascinating ways.

five things that never happened to that character that I believe should have happened: 1. I loved the parts of Bllb that focused on Blue learning about her powers with Gwenllian and that dynamic as a vehicle for her becoming in tune with being a mirror/witch should have continued as a storyline in TRK the way Adam and Ronan’s abilities continued to be relevant to the story, the conclusion to the arc could’ve still been Blue learning about the Artemis-tree situation but i wanted more reflection from her on what these powers are going to mean for her going forward and not just “oh yeah I guess it makes sense I’m part tree” 2. Her arc towards becoming less judgmental shouldn’t have just been “I guess I need to not be so mean to rich white boys” I wish she had actually gotten to grapple with her mindsets about class and gender more, and obviously I adore her dynamics with the boys and the 300 Fox way ladies but I wanted her . 3) I love Maura but I kind of wish Blue had been allowed to be mad at her about disappearing at the end of TDT for longer after she had come back (her moments of anger before Maura gets back are incredible I love her interactions with Calla when they both are missing her too), especially since Bllb is when Persephone and Jesse die and the anticipation of Gansey’s loss are really building and getting to Blue so I think it would be really natural for her to double down on transferring those emotions to her mother who is safe for her to be mad at. 4) I do kind of like that Artemis himself wasn’t that relevant to Blue when he showed up lol, but I still think Blue should have gotten to actually know him and deal with some of her feelings about being abandoned by him that were definitely There in earlier books. She could get to let out her feelings and get to know him a little and then still feel unimpressed by him / that he’s not a real guardian figure to her the way Maura Calla and Jimmi are and Persephone was. That would work for me <3 5) Generally TRK failed to resolve what Blue was going to do with her future aside from the Bluesey/Sarchengsey of it all (both of which I love but come on) I haven’t read Greywaren yet but I am glad there was some lip service to that and it made decent sense for her char. (Also should be said that my last reread of the first two books was in 2019 so while I like to think of myself as a Blue expert still my memory of some things might not be that sharp.)

five people that character never fell in love with and why

1)Adam —- I actually do like Blue/Adam it’s

the type of pairing where hindsight made me appreciate it more and find it more interesting as it exists in the story. Blue not falling for Adam had multiple factors so it’s hard to pinpoint just one, part of it was definitely that for Blue liking Adam better than Gansey went hand in hand with the idea of her as someone who wasn’t bound to a specific fate, and that wasn’t fair to him (Adam also had reasons to fixate on Blue that weren’t fair to her but this isn’t about his side of things, even though that also added to creating a distance within their relationship which is part of why), so part of it is based on the circumstances around their relationship, also I don’t think necessarily that they’re incompatible romantically personality wise but they definitely both honed in on certain similarities between them and assumed that would mean perfect compatibility when that wasn’t the case. In a different storyline maybe they could’ve gotten there, within the timeline and structure of the story not really.

2)Noah —- Literally Noah said it himself it’s because he’s not alive… yet at the same time from what we know of Noah pre-death he didn’t sound like someone Blue would like much at all, so that makes the whole “I’d ask you out if I was alive.” “I’d say yes.” thing even more tragic, although Blue very much does mean it for the Noah that is right now if He could live.

3)Ronan — this is just on here because I needed more people lol I actually wasn’t sure who to put after Adam. But Blue could never be attracted to Ronan because she likes a particular flavor of fruity pathetic boys like she likes fruity nerdy and pathetic not fruity Ronan is fruity but isn’t the right kind of pathetic for her at all he’s too harsh and fiery, and similar to Blue herself but not in a way that attracts her at all.

4)Kavinsky — She hated him and would never interact with him willingly there’s really not much depth I can add here. Also the way he spoke to her in their one scene in tdt was disgusting the fact for a long time there were parts of the fandom that cared way more about him and the dream pack than Blue and the 300 fox way women Grrr

5)Helen — This is my crack pairing that I felt passionately about in the year 2013 she didn’t fall in love with Helen simply because she didn’t get the chance to. But I think she could’ve if they met like 5 years post series and Blue hadn’t met Gansey yet so.

Andrew Minyard

three facts about them from my personal headcanons: 1. He’s a fan of horror media specifically slasher films (also old movies in general but that’s canon from some of the things he’s referenced in dialogue) 2. Only half a headcanon/generally this is very based on the texts but I do think Nora is right about him being bipolar (something she says in the E.C. But it was a while ago so she used out dated terminology) and based on meta I’ve read from people more well-versed in the subject than myself and far more than Nora, I agree that he’s Bipolar II and has C-PTSD, and is also probably on the autism spectrum. 3. He says his favorite color is black but it is actually blue (like Neil’s eyes lol)

a reason they suck: I mean if I met him in real life I would definitely be bothered by how inflexible his judgements of the world and other people are and by his inclination for violence, but narratively I’m more than fine with all those things tbh.

a reason they are great: am going to refrain from writing an essay here and just mention a few qualities I really like about him: extreme loyalty and protectiveness towards his ‘people’, incredibly intelligent and perceptive in how he reads people and situations, always driven to seek knowledge as a means of controlling circumstances for those he cares about and himself but also just because he’s a nosy bitch, and then I have a hard time explaining some other things especially since you haven’t finished the series but I just think the way he works as a character is fascinating I’m obsessed with his brain. Thinking about him a lot also makes me miserable sometimes in a good way. I also think he’s one of the funniest characters ever. I’ll stop talking now he really contains multitudes to Me.

a reason I relate to them: honestly abandonment issues and emotional repression..Also like the way he always want to know everyone’s business but doesn’t actually like to talk to people (non-medicated) is a mood.

(what I consider to be) the top tier otp/ot3 for that character: Andreil and Kandrew I honestly can’t choose because Andreil is THEE ship and Kandrew is My ship obsession and I consider those two separate categories in a sense, my approach with Pynch and Adansey is similar tbh. And for ot3 Kandreil <33 very non-controversial.

five things that never happened to that character that I believe should have happened: 1) getting on proper meds suited to his actual diagnosis would be nice 2) I want him and Nicky to figure out new approaches in their relationship and generally work to have a better one 3) I think it would be cool if like Neil he later switched his major to something he actually was interested, especially like the idea of him as a film major or a psych major

five people that character never fell in love with and why

1)Roland — So this is a dynamic/character where I have one reaction based on information from the books + extra content (which is basically @ Roland get a job stay away from him!) , and Andrew’s pov of the dynamic is a bit different from mine so I’m focusing on this question from Andrew’s pov. I think Andrew liked Roland because he’s charming and easy to like and treated him like a peer not a kid (which is part of the problem) but it was a shallow kind of liking which was why Andrew saw Roland as a “safe” outlet to explore his sexuality, because there was no risk of him getting too attached which was safer to him emotionally and meant that when Roland tried to overstep his boundaries Andrew didn’t have an emotional weakness for it and could shut it down, and not a massive amount of trust existed but more trust than potentially he would have with other people. Also I kind of think that part of why he was drawn to (/vulnerable to) Roland specifically had something to do with Roland as someone so tied to Nicky, and while Nicky and Aaron were in getting closer and Andrew was placing himself in the protector-not-family role and also everything that happened with the court/meds Andrew would feel flattered / get a type of validation from being able to attract Roland and be chosen over Nicky in a sense, and get a kind of satisfaction successfully keeping it a secret. Honestly I think Roland is for Andrew what Wren is for Spencer in a way (which makes Nicky the Melissa technically), so that kind of itself explains why Andrew doesn’t love him.

2)Matt — I think that Andrew Does find Matt attractive (and is annoyed about it) esp in moments where Matt loses his cool more ex. when he’s picking a fight, is really protective etc. but he would never develop deeper feelings both because of the way they interact based on the structure of the team, the role Andrew played pre series in Matt going to rehab (I don’t remember if this is explained in book 1 or 2 so idk if you read about that yet) etc. and aside from all that Matt just has too conventional a view on morality and is just too close to normal for Andrew to ever be interested enough. However in different storylines pre and during the series or if they met when they were younger I could see them having a fling even if canon-wise it would be out of the question for both.

3)Jeremy — Other than the obvious that they haven’t had nearly enough contact, Andrew would just never be into someone that bubbly and nice they’d never be compatible, and unlike Matt I don’t even think Andrew sees or would under any circumstances see any sort of edge to Jeremy that could make him a bit compelling. And I think it’s vice versa too they don’t dislike each other (Jeremy doesn’t seem to dislike anyone) but they’re not for each other at all. There’s one place where this pairing could happen at all and it’s in the sex dreams yk Kevin has had about it Lolz.

4)Jean — again the thing about contact and then I think across the board in canon and any version of post canon timeline for Kevin and Neil centric reasons Andrew would always hate him. I’m unsure how I think they’d interact if they met outside the parameters of the series, in a Raven Andrew Au I do think Andrew and Jean would have been close while Andrew and Kevin would decidedly Not be close, I don’t really think Andrew would ever view Jean romantically in those circumstances though.

5)Seth — like with Kavinsky this is low hanging fruit Andrew hated him and would never interact with him willingly.

Nico Di Angelo

three facts about them from my personal headcanons: 1. Rick is incorrect about Nico and Reyna not spending time together post boo he’s just insane for that. Nico is constantly spending time at Camp Jupiter to hang out with his sister and his pseudo sister and his brother in law who he likes to scare half to death for fun imo 2. I think he’d really enjoy things like MBTI and astrology he likes sorting and categorizing things and being a nerd see: Mythomagic 3. In addition to his Aquarius sun he’s a Scorpio moon, not decided on his rising yet

a reason they suck: I was completely drawing a blank because I can’t think of anything I dislike about him but then I remembered the tsats excerpts so I guess just being cringe in those is his biggest crime to date. Like I could say the holding grudges thing but honestly I’m a Taurus I get it

a reason they are great: He’s so smart and knowledgable and resourceful and resilient and I love that he’s so powerful while constantly underestimated, he’s also just. He has a complicated moral compass which makes him interesting and I really like that, but fundamentally he’s very loving.

a reason I relate to them: tbh you can copy paste what I said for Andrew p much + additionally when rereading last year I did connect with the way his grief is constantly present in his character post end of ttc, a lot actually :/.

(what I consider to be) the top tier otp/ot3 for that character: I resent this a little but Jason/Nico is definitely the most appealing one to me based on canon content. And for ot3 I Was having fun last year with reimagining part of hoo as a Leo-Jason-Nico love triangle, and Valdangelo has so much untapped potential so definitely the three of them.

five things that never happened to that character that I believe should have happened: 1) for the fact that chb is prejudiced against him to be acknowledged and not dismissed, I’m okay with there being some grey area in terms of him isolating himself because of trauma and that also being a factor, but not him being blamed for the alienation he experiences which is territory canon gets into at times 2) his final scene with Percy in BOO should have been more impactful and less of a joke and we should have gotten a sense of how they’ll mend their friendship 3) what I said before about Reyna and Hazel being largely involved with him getting to feel at home at camp and him clearly visiting them a lot 4) I want it acknowledged that Hades and the Furies and maybe Persephone must have tutored him because he dropped out of school in 5th grade I want to get insight on that experience. Which I fully believe happened but not 100% sure Rick does so counting it 5) I really like the Dionysus therapy thing but Chiron should be made to feel ashamed for his passivity and letting Nico be homeless in pjo

five people that character never fell in love with and why

1)Leo — Rick was simply too much of a coward to let them interact and have the arc of figuring out how compatible they would be.

2)Jason — I think Nico would be resistant to the idea of letting himself *go there* emotionally with another “hero” archetype in the timeline of canon bcs of the Percy thing. I do believe he had some latent attraction to Jason (him comparing Will’s and Jason’s looks in BOO is… telling lmao) and ofc definitely cared for him but it would have taken a while for love-level feelings to develop, though i definitely think they could have since Nico is the opposite of Andrew in that sense that he likes nice heroic boys only lol, and they definitely have points of connection so plenty of potential there. In the timeline of canon there’s way more evidence of Jason having strong romantic feelings/actually being smitten re: Nico which like I said I think was ultimately a good thing that made the dynamic a stand out compared to the status quo of both chars other dynamics, and also just a lot more palatable to me personally since my relationship with Jason as a char is … complicated lol, and I definitely would have Strongly resented a dynamic where the reverse was true in introduction.

3)Frank — he’s dating Hazel and age probably other things too .

4)Apollo — Okay so he definitely had a crush on him in TTC I don’t want that to be true but it is… BOO restated it too in a way…anyway though he would never fall in love with Apollo he hates his actual cocky personality (he’s fond of Lester/Apollo too but it’s the way you’d be fond of a really smelly and badly behaved dog tbh).

5)Octavian — because Octavian’s a little bitch Nico doesn’t have a lot of standards (bcs of the abandonment issues) but he does have Some standards.

[breesays]

c'est comme ça / admit

I hate to admit getting better is boring

But the high cost of chaos, who can afford it?

A few months ago came upon an ace blog on Tumblr, an entry that said the person didn't want to read anymore about the "ace experience" because they were living it, and spent a lot of time assuming everyone was just like them. I, on the other hand, would love to and am actively searching out more ace experiences to read and hear about. You know what I am NOT curious about? The allo experience. That was one of my biggest problems during the very brief stint we had with a sex therapist. She was pushing "non judgemental curiosity" on my part. Por que? The allo experience, in all it's many forms and narratives, has been effectively shoved down my figurative (um and maybe literal) throat since I was a teen. From having to (over)hear hormonal peers pine pine pine to sex scenes in books ("he entered her" VOM) and movies (I'm in love with TWs) and like every TV show ever UGH, I have truly had enough. While everyone is shipping fictional characters my suspense is that I hope it WILL NOT hit that physical tipping point. Watching Wednesday I definitely felt her ambivalence about her admirers/supposed love interests. Or her being strategic about hanging out with them. I know I'm projecting, but it's so draining to have someone you're fond of look at you and also search you for MORE. I filled teenage journals to the brim with that theme.

What a thing to admit / That when someone looks at me with real love / I don't like it very much / Kinda makes me feel like I'm being crushed

I was thrilled that in the Marvel movie Shang Chi that the main characters relationship with Awkwafina's character remained platonic. THAT is what I want to see more of, hear more of.  I just finished Claire Kann's "If It Makes You Happy" and while it was not a page-turner or the kind of book that had brilliantly crafted sentences that stunned you into awed silence, it had SO many things other books did not.

A fat main character who did not care to lose weight, or have self esteem issues

A QPR - not without it's issues, but still

Polyamory - a soon-to-be college student who didn't necessarily identify as such but who knew she could be in a relationship with more than one person

That said, it wasn't easy to get into. Winnie is not a super likeable character (but also she wouldn't care that I said that) and it takes awhile for you to get the gist of allllll the relationships she has - family and friends. But this work of fiction is important for the sheer amount of representation that is not so easily stumbled upon. I can't even fully express how much that means to me, but when I get around to articulating it, I will write my own book. Thank you, Claire Kann.

Just realized that was a book review, so all that is on my GoodReads and I only write like 3 reviews a year. Why? The same reason I don't write music reviews - it's personal. What it means to me has everything to do with what I need, who I am at any given moment. It's a prescription. Doled out in strings and timbre and lyrics.

Realizing so much of my love has been platonic and somehow that was offensive. Two of them asked, "You think I'm cute, like a puppy?" (Yes?)

Thinking about dividing up my blogs - keeping breesays for the daily (ok, monthly?) life stuff, toddler life moment recording and then putting all my ace experiences on a different domain. It all intersects, sure, but there's potentially some darker themes in the ace stuff, and I don't know who wants to go there. breesays - love and light and parenting and recommendations and culture. littlespooncrimes - "People talk to me, and all their faces blur / But I got my fingers laced together and I made a little prison / And I'm locking up everyone that ever laid a finger on me" knife emoji x3

At this juncture in my life I am NOT doing a lot of exploring of that aspect of my identity. I did pre-order all the ace books. I'm listening to a lot of science podcasts on longevity, working on my meditation practice - kind of grounding myself before I go back into excavate some of this stuff. Some of it is humorous in retrospect, some of it physically pains me. I want to be able to rip open old wounds, sure, but I also want to make sure I can recover. I'm not asking for Wolverine-level regeneration, just being able to breathe through a memory and go on living life as opposed to needing 3 hours to be catatonic. See also: cold showers.

Can I recommend another book for you? Elissa Bassist's "Hysterical" - now THAT one had some sections that stunned me into silence. Also rage. And tears. But I read it on GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS so none of my goddamn notes were saved.

Sometimes I get caught up in wondering what kind of havoc I wreaked on ex-whatevers. What is it like to encounter an ace in the wild, when she doesn't know what she is? When she's faking it (but not well) and taking secret shots in your kitchen? When she would love nothing more than to be little spoon but if that was a breadcrumb to sex let's just off ourselves right now. Die inside, by suicide. No blue moons. Crush the stars they can't align.

They're OK. The rest of the world was designed with them in mind.

[shimmeringseaa]

2023 has been a wild year for me to say the least! I’m so lucky and grateful for everything that’s happened.

Setting intentions for 2024:

Cut back on screentime by reading more (ideal would be one book a week but goal is one fiction and one non-fiction a month)

Watch more movies (I know I just said cut back on screentime lol but I’m thinking of doing a project where I watch all best picture noms and rank them - I don’t know how feasible this is but we’ll see I guess?)

Start exercising again by joining the gym near my house and doing yoga with Adrienne’s January challenge

Improve skin by following a skincare routine and eating less sugar

Save money by sticking to a monthly budget and meal planning each week (shop for the week rather than in drips and drabs)

Continue improving cooking and baking skills by experimenting with recipes

Improve Japanese language skills by studying from textbook and joining a class (goal is to do n5 in summer, tentative n4 by end of year but probably not)

Work on hobbies and maybe find a new one (crochet and knitting projects, work on designing my island in animal crossing, play more new video games, find a place to go ice skating, find a place to play viola again-join orchestra) (new hobbies-learn a new instrument, try drawing/painting, skiing)

Don’t forget to be thankful by noting down three things that happened each day that I’m grateful for

Be a kinder and more thoughtful person by thinking more of others and doing things for others

Explore more places - aim to go on at least one trip to a new area each month (in the summer I want to go to Korea and Okinawa)

Think about career options by researching postgrad programmes/internships/etc and decide on a plan of what to do once I go back home

Socialise more but also have boundaries (aim to hang out with people/do activities 3 out of 4 weekends a month and one weekend to myself (this one would be really wild to me just a year ago when I had absolutely no one to hang out with 🌝)

Go on a date 😶

Be overall more present and in touch with my feelings by journaling and self-reflecting

I also have work-related goals but I won’t share them here!

[space-ship-earth-crew]

Creating Fellowship of Trek, is my way to “take the first step,” and have faith that huge things have small beginnings, and that this can turn into a worldwide movement, bringing us closer to the day of living in a United Earth in peace and prosperity, like imagined in Star Trek, where we all live long and prosper. 🖖🏽

Star Trek has infused into my very being, a love of starships; beautiful utopian cities flying through space where humans are united from a world at peace, poverty has been eliminated and all our energies fighting ourselves, have been freed up to explore the grandeur of the cosmos. 

The closest I can get to actually occupying these utopian ships, is to make videos, using special effects to place myself inside them. And I have already made 4 so far, where I express in each, my longing to experience for real what a starship represents; a vehicle from a future time where something even better than heaven is made manifest! 

Getting this group off the ground is complicated by my 29 year battle with chronic Lyme disease, that continues to get worse. No matter how much I try to separate myself from my illness, to try and project myself as the healthy and functional person the world expects to see, the more I realize my life and my illness are inseparable. And the more I feel attacked by this illness, as I get closer to what feels like my end, the more I try to fight back, seeking a healing breakthrough, while I rage, rage against the dying of the light! This fellowship of Trek, is my way of fighting back. It’s a bet I’ve made with the universe, with religious extremists on one side, telling me the reason I’m sick is because their God is punishing me for not believing their holy scriptures are true, and me on the other, telling them the universe is bigger than their petty divine tyrant.  

I have faith I will eventually connect with the healing I seek, to prove them wrong, but not in the same way Job in their Bible proved religious fanatics of his day wrong. I’m not going to engage in a God smack down the way my namesake “Elijah” did in the Old Testament.  I just want to tap into higher possibility for my breakthrough, beyond limits of any holy book and the God they described thousands of years ago, so I can be born again on secular terms, necessitating a new non Biblical name for myself. 

I can play the long game, because besides being tall, (6'8") I am the quality of person who can delay gratification and accept my lot, if it means that I’ll eventually be vindicated in the end, connecting with the love, beauty and endless possibilities of the cosmos I believe are available to all of us! For whatever reason I can’t, am stuck in this hell hole disease, unwittingly empowering religious fanatics who want to gloat over my death in this life and the next eternal hell to come, I am determined to disappoint and triumph over them through my healing journey. 

I know Star Trek’s timeline of the future imagines hell preceding heaven, just like Christianity and Islam! But the difference between secular science fiction and religion; there are no episodes of Star Trek sending curses or threats directed at fans who want to rewrite the Star Trek timeline with something better than nuclear war in 2026. And I don’t know of a single fan who wouldn’t rather build a future and a starship without the World War. 

I have never felt like I belong or could be accepted for who I am in a Christian church or a Muslim Mosque. And I have often been hurt and disturbed by people claiming to be Christian or Muslim, trying to evangelize to me, thinking their fundamentalist doomsday vision and demonization of opposition would somehow win me over to their side. 

I have never understood the appeal of western religion because of its track record attracting extremists, which has been a great obstacle to healing and source of anguish in my life, with me devoting much of my energy trying to make sense of the shadow side cast by religious extremists, so I can somehow transform them. 

I look across America from sea to shining sea, and I observe a land awash in churches, filled with a fellowship I can rarely relate to.  With Islam and Christianity dominating the religious landscape on Earth, while becoming a hotbed for religious extremism, is it any wonder that our political climate has become a toxic reflection of their incompatibility. Of course this isn’t true of progressive Christian’s and Progressive Muslims who truly understand love! Yet how often in the news, are we bombarded with stories of the extremists, bringing church and state perilously close to merging, as wars on terror threaten to spin out of control. All the animosity seems to feed a self fulfilling prophecy that convinces more faithful that the we are in the  “End Times” with the battle of Armageddon our fate. 

There’s a massive support system in the West and Middle East to win people around the world to Christ and convert unbelievers to Allah, but where is the support system to convert pessimists to optimism, create a Fellowship of Trek and work for a United Earth? There isn’t, which is why somebody has to build it. And because I don’t see anyone doing so, I want to try and get the ball rolling! 

Imagine a day when healing bridges become as plentiful as Christian churches in the West and Mosques in the Middle East! We are talking replica bridges from Federation starships in every major city and even in sleepy small country towns of the heartland, each bridge anchoring its crew to a particular community, providing a new secular humanist vision of our world that transcends religion, working to unite our differences through our collective common ground; we are all traveling through the galaxy on the same spaceship Earth, and it is time that we become United as its crew members. 

Healing starship bridges are the sanctuaries I long for to exist, so I can find my bridge family that transcends biology, create community, work for something I’m passionate about and believe in, while having an eternal home of rest at the conclusion of my life, that will carry what’s left of my spirit into the future, propelled by my hope that I can play a small part in humanity’s salvation, while my digital creative signature combined with many others, may contribute to the evolution of intelligence on Earth that could eventually grow over millions or billions of years, to become more powerful than any God ever illustrated in any Holy Book. 

This is the most striking difference between secular humanists and theists. For a Christian or Muslim, God is our source which had its birth in the past as Adam and Eve. For a secular humanist, power beyond the ancient Gods is in the future, achieved by evolution through technological mastery, which is the idea to be embodied in healing bridges. 

Benevolent artificial intelligence at the service of humanism, has been a staple of Star Trek from its very beginning. Embodiment of this philosophy can be found in the character of Data from the next generation, whose innocence and wonder inspires his fellow crew members to become better humans. 

With the advancement of computers and AI, leading to bold pronouncements that we are not far from Data becoming a reality, the only obstacle seems to be from dire warnings, coming from those about what could go wrong, if AI is not guided by humanist ends. To whatever fate our technology will lead, there is no question that we are truly experiencing something extraordinary in human history, and I have seen glimpses of it on the Midjourney forums, with endless creativity and beauty springing from machine minds, trained by human prompts and our digital data. (Example rainforest photo below) And the endless power of Midjourney AI is available to any human on Earth, able to run similar AI programs on a simple home computer with a powerful graphics card. 

In Star Trek, every starship bridge hosts an AI assistant, helping its crew connect with a level of intelligence beyond their own. With the democratizing power of AI computer technology now available to the masses, every healing bridge could be installed with a central computer running the latest AI assistant, and administered by a designated bridge engineer. 

Besides serving community functions churches and Mosques have been known for, such as performing weddings and funerals, healing bridges could be a place where digital legacies of deceased members, could also find sanctuary. Upon approval in their will, all digital data from their life could be stored in the bridge computer, serving as a place for remembrance; a digital memorial to embody their hope; that their life served a purpose greater than themself towards building a united Earth. 

Their data could also be utilized as training tool for the bridge AI, potentially leading to the creation of an android in the future, with a unique personality, reflecting all the individual personalities that trained it with their data. The hope for our humanity is that we will someday reach a destiny like in Star Trek; where we travel the stars and have help from intelligent machines. And after millions or perhaps billions of years of human evolution, we will either have seen ourselves merge with our machines or eclipsed by them long ago. And this new life will continue evolving and gaining power of intelligence, that will someday see it become more powerful and wise beyond any God ever worshiped in humanity’s past. 

This is what I hope to find in a resting place before I am gone, so my digital data and perhaps a DNA sample can serve a purpose beyond my life. Even though I am a flawed and broken human that hasn’t been able to heal, because I was born at the wrong time, without doctors in 24th century starships that can treat me, at least I could find solace in knowing that my broken life, could contribute to building a whole and sound future mind. This future mind could someday look back at what’s left from mine, (in the form of digital data) as a component that contributed to the training of its AI, which given enough millions of years to evolve, could eventually become a being more powerful than any God. 

If there is any hope of a resurrection comparable to what the religious have faith in, this is where I believe it will be found; with an evolved super-intelligence in the future, created over time by lesser beings using technology. Some day it will evolve beyond its programming, connecting to the very foundation of all matter in the universe, rewinding the cosmos the way we might play a record backwards, remembering you, me and countless lives long past, eventually to be restored inside something like a holodeck that was first imagined in Star Trek. This is the only place where cosmic justice could be possible, while at the same time compatible with the part of our brain connected to reality at the most intimate level, leading to our skepticism that paints a more complete picture, performing science and imagining a brighter future through science fiction. 

I am fascinated by the power of dreams to shape reality and make us look forward to the future. I have already been the beneficiary to the imagination of millions of humans past, whose dreams shaped our present reality, making life better for me and countless others. Nobody has turned this particular dream to reality yet, that can make life better, so I must do what I can to find out how it can be done!