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#but its like i have told myself my entire life i am free and i am wild but faced with true freedom and wildness i am caged and confined
daydreaming-nerd · 1 month
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The Bonds That Break Us (Rhysand x Female! Reader) Part 2
Part 1 , Part 3 , Part 4, Part 5 , Part 6, Final Part
Request: "Would you do a Rhysand x fem!reader series? Maybe fem!reader is Rhysand's mate and Tamlin's sister? So secret love?"
AN: omg guys the love part 1 received has been so amazing. I seriously am so happy you're all loving this fic as much as me. As someone who hasn't written in so long it's been so fufilling to write this. Thank you for all the kind words. Please feel free to leave a comment! Hearing your guy's feedback is what motivates me to write!
Summary: It was almost as if the cauldron liked to play games, as if it had sensed years of boredom and predictability and begged to be entertained. Its method of absolving its melancholy? Mate the High Lord of the Night Court to the younger sister of the High Lord of Spring. 
Warnings (so far): SA, starting to get a little steamy
Word count: 2704
(all photos are from pinterest)
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The next morning I woke with a certain lightness to my step that I knew shouldn’t be there. My hands skimmed over the countless dresses looking for just the right one. All of the sudden I had started caring more about my appearance for council meetings. Deep down I know why. 
I meet my brother and Lucien in the foyer per usual, and I feel Lucien’s fiery gaze rake over the lavender chiffon draped over my body. I told myself that I had selected the revealing dress because of how hot the Day court was, but I think I had other motives backing my choice. 
The Day Court, like all other courts, was utterly beautiful. Large pillars stood all around and like the summer court it was entirely open air, allowing the sunlight and breeze to float into the room. I sit between Lucien and Tamlin at a large table with the other High Lord’s and nobility. My eyes scan the room for a hint of that violet that I dreamt about last night but I don’t find it. It isn’t until a few minutes later, when my skin starts buzzing, that the High Lord of Night steps into the room. His presence commending, his eyes immediately finding mine. 
I feel him pluck at the bond as if to say hello. After speaking to him through my mind for so long it was almost strange to see him in real life. Somehow he was always much more handsome in person. Like no matter how many times I tried to put together the image of his face at night it never compares to the sheer glory and presence of him. 
As Helion began speaking a voice crawled into my head. 
I’m glad you find me so glorious, darling.
“Shh you nosey High Lord. I’m trying to listen,” I silence him and to my  surprise he obliges.  
Helion talks on and on and of course there is arguing between Kallias and Beron as there usually is but I couldn’t begin to tell you what about. I spend the entire meeting noticing every move the High Lord of Night made. When he breathed, or flexed his hands, adjusted his spot on his seat. Whenever I felt his eyes sliding over to me I would do my best to evade them. 
See something you like? I look over to him and find his eyes smirking. 
“Yeah actually, Eris is looking especially delicious today,” I tease, I don’t break eye contact with him. 
He chuckles brushing off my comment. You’re a vision in purple mate, but if Lucien looks at your cleavage one more time I might just leap across the table and rip his only good eye out. 
“So violent,” I muse disapprovingly, looking towards where Kallias is speaking about potential war with Hybern.
I save my most brutal acts of violence for those who seek to harm you darling. My eyes flit back at him and a smile tugs at the corners of his lips as he averts his gaze back to Kallias. 
“Enough talk of war my friends, let us adjourn this meeting until next week.” Helion finally says, causing the rest of the council to let out a breath. 
Tamlin doesn’t say a word before he and Lucien stand and make a beeline to Tarquin, most likely to talk about problems we’ve been having on the border. I take it as my queue to walk around the Day Court’s terrace and I secretly hope that a certain High Lord follows me. 
The Day Court and the Summer Court are like twin sisters. Except the Day Court always felt like liquid gold. All around me I could see clouds and honeyed sunlight peeking through the them. The rays warmed my skin as I basked in them, leaning against one of the many large pillars. 
“I knew you’d look amazing in this light,” drawled that voice I had secretly wanted to hear. 
I glance over to find The High Lord admiring me, the light of the Day Court doing wonders for him as well. “You shouldn’t be here,” I say, trying to act like I mean it. 
“Yet you wanted me to follow you,” he smirks knowingly, slowly stepping towards me. 
“What makes you say that?” 
“This,” he says, pulling on the bond again. I take a sharp breath in and he chuckles. “I’ll never get tired of that reaction.”
“I really hate it when you do that,” I grumble. 
“No you don’t,” he muses using one arm to cage me into the pillar I’m leaning against. 
“Yes I do,” I affirm. His other hand lifts my chin to meet his stare. 
“No you don’t, you don’t hate anything about me. In fact you think I’m beautiful,” he smirks, somehow stepping even closer to me. “And, you want me to touch you right now, your skin is practically on fire for it.” 
“My Lord-” 
“I told you to call me Rhysand,” he cuts me off. I want to lie and tell him no, I want to push him away but I fear that even the action of me touching his chest, even for a moment, would be too much for me to bear. 
“Rhys,” I breathe out. Before I can even think his lips are on mine swallowing the breath that held his name, just like he promised.  
The kiss is hot and needy, built up from the last two weeks of torture. One of his hands finds my face while the other finds my waist. His frame presses me into the pillar behind me. I feel my body ignite in a way I didn’t know possible, I need him closer. I pull on the lapels of his jacket earning a low grumble from him. 
“Say it again,” he says between kisses. 
“Rhysand,” I moan, his name like a prayer on my lips. 
“Fuck,” he groans before sliding a hand down under my knee and hoisting it up to wrap around his waist. The slit in my dress parted for him, giving him full access to my bare leg. I feel his lips drag across my neck leaving opened mouth kisses on me. I practically come undone for him, the only thing keeping me upright are his hands and the pillar behind me. 
In the distance I can hear footsteps clicking across the floor, in a panic I winnow both of us further away. He breaks apart the kiss and gives me a bewildered look. 
“Sorry, someone was coming,” I say breathlessly. 
“Let them see,” he grins before stepping closer to me. I take a step back and he halts his movements, surprised. 
“We can’t, my brother will kill me, kill you.” I remind him. 
He lets out a chuckle like he’s completely unphased, “I promise you that I hold more power in my pinky than Tamilin does in his entire body.”  he boasts. 
“Still,” I start. “You’re the High Lord of the Night Court, his sworn enemy, my court's sworn enemy. Think of what they would say about me if the truth came out. What they would say about you. You’d be the monster who stole away the princess of spring.” I ramble. 
“I’ve been called a monster by those who know nothing but stories of me my whole life, what’s one more?” he states. 
“I’ve heard stories of your court, that it’s the part of Prythian where the most feared monsters and beings of our kind reside,” I say fearfully. I start to remember who he is. Not just a pretty face, but the High Lord of the Night Court. He’s dangerous, and he is a monster. 
“Part of that is true,” he affirms, and I can see a tinge of hurt in his eyes. 
“And the other part?” I ask on bated breath. 
“You’ll see soon enough mate,” he says. 
“My Lord we cannot be together,” I state firmly. 
“Back to formalities now are we?” he sighs. “I’ve waited 500 years to find my mate y/n, don’t think for one second that I’m going to stay away from you just because you’re afraid of that pathetic excuse for a brother.” 
“He’s not pathetic, he loves me!” I growl. 
“You don’t know half the things you think you do about your brother,” he sneered. 
As much as I hated to admit it he was right. Tamlin and I had never truly been close. We hardly ever did anything together. I always sensed a darkness in him that I couldn’t place. There was so much he simply refused to tell me just because I was a woman. But I couldn't bear that truth to Rhys, not when I needed his silence. 
“This conversation is over,” I huff before walking away, I feel him grasp my arm. 
“No darling it’s not,” Rhys says with frustration in his eyes. 
“Wanna bet?” I ask smugly before winnowing back to the Spring Court. 
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The next few days I don’t hear from Rhysand, and I don’t feel a tug on the bond. All of the sudden my life is filled with a sense of melancholy, I never had before. I had grown so used to his constant tugging on the bond or his remarks throughout my daily life that I felt a little empty without him.  
So empty that I now found myself nudging around the food on my plate at dinner. Lucien had been out with the emissary of the Summer Court fixing the problems on the border, which meant it was just me and Tamlin. 
We spend the whole meal in silence until he finally breaks it, “I have something I want to discuss with you,” he says, placing his napkin down on the table. 
“What is it?” I ask, starting to wonder if maybe he saw me and Rhysand the other day. 
“I’ve been talking with Beron Vanserra, and it seems that his eldest son Eris has taken a liking to you. We think it might be in the best interest of our two courts if you two were to marry.” he says casually, as if the words weren’t a huge punch to the gut. 
“What?” I breathe in disbelief. 
“Come on y/n this has always been our plan, to get you an advantageous marriage.” he reminds me, irritation laced in his voice. 
“Not my plan Tamlin, yours.” I seethe. “Eris is a viper, I won’t marry him.” 
“You’ll do as you're told and that’s final!” he screams slamming his fists down on the table making the silverware rattle. 
I leave my plate full of food on the table and get up. If I wasn’t hungry before I certainly am not now. I leave the dining room and make sure to slam the door on my way out. The halls of the palace were dark save for the moonlight drifting through the windows. My mind was a mess of Tamlin’s words, I was so angry I could hardly think beyond it. At the end of the hall there was a door and even from where I was I could see the doorknob turning. A head of red hair popped through the door and Lucien stumbled to close it.
 I kept my head down trying to avoid him but it was no use. The second he passed me his hands were on me shoving me into the nearest wall. 
“Hello my flower,” he slurred. 
“You’re drunk Lucien,” I pointed out, jerking my head away. 
“Yes I suppose I am, the emissary for the summer court knows how to celebrate. We went to a tavern after completing the job on the border to indulge in some women and maybe a few drinks,” he chuckled. 
“Yeah a few hundred drinks you fucking idiot,” I gripe trying to get out of his grasp but his hands only pin my wrists tighter.
“It was fun, but being around all those women made me long for my little flower,” he smiled drunkenly before kissing my neck. 
For months now he’s been doing this, stealing touches whenever he could, and kissing my neck like this when he was feeling really bold, or in this case, drunk. He never took it further than that though. Never kissing, never fully fucking me, and I think it’s because he knew that it would be where Tamilin drew the line. But tonight he was drunk, in a way I had never seen him before, and I wasn’t sure if the line that had held for so many months would be held now. 
“Get the fuck off me Lucien,” I growl trying to push him off again. 
He completely ignores me, “You know my dear I’ve let my hands wander every expanse of this magnificent body, but I have yet to taste you,” he says lowly. “I think I’m going to change that.” 
I don’t even get a chance to try and fight before his lips are on mine. He tastes like shitty whiskey and he smells like cheap perfume. It’s vile and it has me sick to my stomach. I find my opening to rip my lips off him and take it. 
“Lucien what the fuck!” I scream in his face. His eyes just go down to my heaving chest, where my breasts are pushed up high due to my corset. 
“And these,” he drawls before placing open mouth kisses on the peaks of my breasts. His hand lets go of my wrist and flies to my waist to pull me closer to him and I take the change of position as an opportunity to knee him between his legs. 
His knees hit the ground and I run down the hall towards my room. I slam and lock the door as fast as possible, barricading myself in with a chair. I pace back and forth trying to dispel the pent up adrenaline that’s inside of me but in the end I sink to my knees and start to cry. 
What happened?
That calming voice cleaves its way through my mind and it feels like a huge weight off my chest has been lifted. 
“It was Lucien he tried to…” I let my voice trail off not even wanting to finish the sentence. I know the High Lord of Night is at the complete other end of Prythian but I swear I feel the ground beneath me tremble. 
Did he? He asks, like he would winnow here right now and make due on his promise of ripping out his good eye. 
“No, I fought him off,” I assure him.
Are you safe? 
“As safe as I can be, I barricaded the door,”  I say, as my heart rate calms down. 
You shouldn’t have to live in a place where you have to barricade yourself in your room.
“Well I do so I’m handling it the best I can,” I gripe at him. I would gladly change the situation if I could but I can’t. There's a silence and I can feel him ruminating over my words as I crawl into bed. 
I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said it like that. 
“It’s okay I understood what you meant,” I say pulling the covers up to my chin like they might protect me. 
And I’m sorry for what I said about Tamlin. I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you, he’s your brother, of course you’re going to defend him.
“It’s okay, maybe everything you said about Tamlin wasn’t entirely false,” I confess remembering the conversation that had me fleeing the dining room in the first place. 
What happened? 
A moment passes and I think about telling him. But saying it almost makes it real and I choose not to, “I’d rather not talk about it now. Too much has happened tonight,” I say
Alright we won’t then. I sense disappointment in his voice but I am happy that he respects my wishes. 
“Rhys?”I ask, and there’s a hesitation there. 
Yes darling? He purrs and I can hear him practically swooning at the fact that I said his name.
“I don’t wanna be alone, will you stay up with me?” I confess feeling like I’m baring my soul. 
Of course I will darling, all night if you want me to.
Taglist: @heyyitsnat21 , @cheshire-salvatore-mikaelson , @randomperson1234sblog , @local-fangirl09 , @bleh-81 , @annaaaaa88
(I've never made a taglist so hopefully this works)
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academically-stupid · 3 months
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Avalon | Prologue
poly!bts x male!reader | vampire!AU | reader x vampire!bts | ot7 x male!reader
Caught one night when bathing in the river by his home M/n is taken by a group of men. Realising the situation he has found himself in, M/n's number one priority is getting out of there alive. Easier said than done when you've got to get past seven bloodthirsty and ridiculously horny vampires hellbent on making him their newest blood bag.
A/N: I got inspired while reading @colormepurplex2 's series, so go show her some support!! This is my first fic so pls give me advice or write if you notice any mistakes. Yess DPR IAN is my face claim for M/n, I love this man too much. Thank you thank you, enjoy!
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His hands trembled as he followed the black-haired man down the hallway, thoughts running and changing faster than his mind could keep up with. Was this it? Was this where his life would end? Not that there was much of a life to begin with, but he had so many things he had yet to do, so many sights and places he hoped he would one day be able to see, even if only for a moment.
Stopping in front of a large oak door he paused, leaving a good distance between him and his kidnappers, just what did they want with him? If they were going to kill him then do it already? Why make him wait, why prolong the inevitable?
The man in front of him sighed, causing him to freeze up. Shit. Did he say something? Has he somehow made his situation even worse by making it seem as though he had not been listening, choosing to actively ignore the all-powerful man in front of him? The man who held his very life in the palm of his hands, free to do with it as he pleased. Free to end it any way he wanted. 
“You know," he said, looking back at him "for someone who doesn’t speak, you sure do have a lot to say”. Turning around he opened the door, with the taller man begrudgingly following shortly behind.
Beautiful. Truly whoever had decorated this building- this mansion- deserved the highest of praise. Deep maroon walls surrounded him, the colour seeming to match the aura of the brooding man before him. Only one window seemed visible, and even then, the curtains that hung from the high ceilings, cascading like a bloody waterfall, seemed to cover what little light managed to fight its way through.
“Well, are you going to come in or am I going to have to pull you in here myself?” Was all he said, cocking his head slightly, as though giving him a choice. Quickly he shuffled in as fast as his feet could make him. The illusion of a choice
Sure he didn’t really think this would in any way put a stop to his inevitable doom, but maybe listening to them would make the end less painful. Even if it sounded stupid in his head, the idea of there being even the slightest chance at a painless end spurred him to bite his tongue and do as the men told him.
Sitting down on the bed that stood in the middle of the room, the centrepiece, the man gestured to the space in front of him. Too close. He wanted him far too close for his liking. But what choice did he have? 
Begrudgingly he slowly made his way towards the man. Though perhaps he was too slow because the next thing he knows he’s being pulled by the arm, tripping over his own feet, falling to his knees in front of a now annoyed vampire. Shit.
A rhetorical question. He was obviously not expecting an answer from the man kneeling before him who had yet to say a single word. Did he not know that staying silent was useless, that he could hear his thoughts over the span of an entire forest? The very thing that got him into this situation in the first place? 
‘No’ Yoongi thought to himself, letting out a deep breath of frustration. There had to be more to it.
Of all the people Namjoon could have chosen from, why had it been him who was stuck on babysitting duty? No, babysitting was the wrong word for his current situation. The way that the man in front of him carried himself. The way he kept his legs tucked underneath him, hands clasped together on his thighs, the slight tremble visible only to the perseptive eyes of him and his brothers.
This felt closer to pet sitting if anything. He had not been blind to the way that he always kept a safe distance between himself and any of the guys in the house. Sighing he got up, for once having enough of the silence. The man was quick to jump to his feet. Whether to fight, run or hide Yoongi wasn’t certain.
"Stay here," he said walking towards the door he just came from. He had heard the front door open and close shut, signaling the return of the others. "I'll be right back, and I think we both know it would be in your best interest to stay put."
And with that, the door was closed. Sealing yet another victims fate.
Yet something kept bother Yoongi, as he walked down the corridor towards his brothers study, where the rest of them were bound to already be lounging about.
Why was this new humans scent so enticing? Was it even healthy for a living breathing human being to smell that much like death? Whatever it was Yoongi knew they were going to figure it out, with or without your cooperation.
One thing was for sure though;
This was gonna be a pain.
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bandofchimeras · 3 months
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Buckle up cuz this is a longpost about Jewish conversion & transsexual identity.
A friend joked, "why do all the bad Catholic girls become good Jewish boys?" when I told them of my conversion.
which sure, it's a bit funny how common it is to find Jewish convert trans men.
but for me the joke formula is a bit off. I consider myself a Good (read: prudish, rule enforcing, obsessively observant) Catholic girl to a bad (read: indolent, irreverent, skeptical, punk ass) Jewish boy.
I had to ask myself, what does it mean to enter a religious tradition and outright declare oneself "bad"? Why do I even want to be part of the Jewish people?
Well it has to do with autonomy & reactivity.
Catholicism was forced upon my natural psyche, much like girlhood. I was assigned Catholic and Girl at birth.
To cope, aside from moments of lapse and rebellion that would explode out now and again, I strove to be "good," to exactingly follow this assignment, perfectly study all its rules and craft the perfect image of what was desired of me to wear as a mask over my realer, neglected and deeply wounded self.
Breaking free of both those constraints in rapid order, there was no going back. I would never again be a Catholic, bad or otherwise, or a girl, feminist or otherwise. Yet in my heart of course, I will always be a Catholic girl with the attendant moods and desires and shapes of understanding that it required me to take.
Now, in conversion and in transition - there is a choice. I could remain nonbinary, fluid, in constant flux, agnostic, ungrounded, dynamic and in conversation with the questions of the world. For a time I thought yes this is who I really am. Not seeing, of course, this is who we all are at our core. Living in that non-identity and infinite identity at once for a time spiritually reconnected my soul back to its own shapelessness and shape shifting power.
But there comes a time when life requires you make some commitments. This is not to say nonbinary or gender fluid people must pick a side. Some folks need to carve out something different entirely. But while my soul remains genderfluid, pagan and animist, I felt the need for communal identity and a structure to build myself on in the world. What aligned most was ftm transexuality, and Judaism, both strains of music I'd been hearing since early childhood, hints and leads all along the way.
See it's that, the formless mischievous spirit within me takes on the shape of a Jewish boy reconnecting with his Slavic roots.
But! In having so much a choice in this (not really, but it was a choice to follow the path that called my name), means it is my Identity. And while Judaism comes with a large set of rules, guidelines, practices and a huge long tradition of scholarship to draw on, and while I did hear jokes about and feel concerned about the similarity of Jewish and Catholic guilt ....none of that has been much of a problem. I'm a very bad and rules avoidant little punk. I tried for a minute to be a "good" man and it fucking failed, fell flat on my face and in the end had to laugh at my attempts. I'm kind of a slut, a fag and a sleazebag. I do what I want, no matter how I try, and that's that. Judaism, I hoped would be a forcefield of community to help me hold onto morality and find a light of belonging in the darkness.
Post October 7th, it has become exceedingly clear that no, it will not be the institutions of Judaism that light this candle, but the weirdos, the queers, the witches and outcasts and converts in conflict. Judaism, as a spiritual /shape/ has a home for us in the corners even though the solidified institutions are entrenched in Zionism. It breaks my heart to pieces but I feel lucky to have seen it before formally converting. It's the storytellers that means the most to my heart, the subaltern keepers of memory. The survivors.
So I revel in being a bad Jew before I am finished becoming one, embracing the role of black sheep before even entering the fold, and will not fight against it.
Similarly, allowing my masculinity to be odd, offbeat and expressive - I did get beat down into a kind of cishet conformity for survival for awhile, and I'm not talking about feminizing my expression, but just being a weird fucking guy who violates male social contracts by existing as myself.
There's a freedom in renouncing desire for recognition, validation and asserting oneself (with humility!) in a tradition while still embracing it. Like hah! You can't get rid of me, I'm the pest assigned by G-d to question your assumptions unto my own exclusion, or relate freely to G-d, look them in the eyes while praying. I have an attitude and I'm not good, and don't care to be. Nothing has illustrated this more beautifully than the graphic novel The Rabbi's Cat. In which the figure of the dog and the cat play out as different orientations towards Hashem and Judaism itself.
There is room for all of us. If you don't think so, okay. We will keep making room for ourselves anyhow.
Meow meow.
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mr-clow · 5 months
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Overture: The rise of an imperatrix. Part 1:
The sol system was pure chaos. Humans did whatever they could to defend themselves on their own system, at the same time they tried to form search and rescue groups for all the escape pods that were floating around all the system. Searching something inside an entire system was taxing, but doing so while avoiding the attack of several navies that were attacking combined, that was soul consuming.
Marco – Hey! Steve! I have another signal near us!
Steve – What are you waiting then, let’s go get them.
Marco – But… If it is a trap?
Kale – They are too busy for that, the captain told us to save anyone floating around here, and that is what we are going to do. Marco, turn on the thrusters, the silent search finished. We grab them and run away.
The ship jumped to life and after a few seconds the pod was in front of the bridge. This small merchant ship was doing what it could to help the surprise attack that was launched 9 days ago and only could float mindlessly until it grabs a pod and then fly away. It didn’t have any weapons of sorts, and its cargo bay barely could fit a pod.
Marco – Hey, it can’t be, this is a trap. Wasn’t the Amanitore station completely decimated?
Steve – Maybe someone got away, even i they were the first ones to be attacked.
Kale – Marco, stabilize the ship, we don’t have time. I’ll grab it as it is. Prepare to jump.
As Kale carefully used the attraction system to load the pod through the upper port of the cargo hold, Marco started the jump engine. They would return to earth orbit at a speed faster than light to avoid anyone that had read the energy signature. As soon as they heard the cargo bay close, with a soundless flash the space itself consumed the ship, leaving nothing behind.
A ship appeared out of nothing, and the signal lights let them know that dock N°3 was free. While Marco moved through the uncountable ships coming and going, trying to rescue people and bit and ends of recent battles bounced off the hull, Steve and Kale rushed to the cargo bay. They opened the hatch with their hearths in their throat, 9 days was too much time for a pod to provide oxygen, and they didn’t know what was waiting inside. After the door came down, they wished they had found two bodies instead of only one and the husk of a woman.
I was floating in space, silently, holding the body of my eight-year daughter for nine days. I wailed, and cried. I insulted the powers that be and every being I could think of until no more sorrow was left. Then, the guilt came, I regretted taking that post, marrying my now deceased husband, leaving my suspicions of the Gubni aside, I even regretted having my little girl as she was the reason it hurt so much. And then, when I could not regret any more, when all my life seemed a mistake, anger came and consumed me.
Those nine days felt like an eternity, where my sanity and consciousness slid away from myself. I forgot my previous life, goals and self, decided that my own goal was going to hunt those bastards until the limits of space itself if it was necessary and renamed myself as Boudica, an ancient queen from my country that took revenge against an empire. I drew the plan in my head, how I was going to make every of those damned plants and any other species that had a part on it suffer. While I was consumed by my thoughts, still holding the rotting remains of what used to be my daughter, the door of the pod opened. Two men were watching me without reacting as I stood up, place the carcass of what was my daughter on the hands of one of them.
Boudica – I am General Jeanette Iceni, but you will address me as Boudica. I commend you to dispose of this body, as it was one of the many mistakes those animals did. Now, I need a shower and food first. Guide me.
While Kale took the body and promptly turn away to puke for the odour and impression, Steve only could move his hand as I followed through the small corridor.
Boudica – Tell me your name and our location.
Steve – The man back there is Kale, and I’m Steve. We’re on the moon, everything is chaotic. Did you really were in Amanitore station?
Boudica – A lot of things that were there are not more, as my life. I thank you for guiding me to a shower, I’ll look for the mess hall after I’m clean. I require clothes, these are soiled, can you provide them and leave them here?
Steve – Ehhh yes ma... Sorry, Boudica.
After I washed, changed and ate, Steve guided me without pronouncing a word to the moon base officials that were doing their best to guide the sea of people moving around the station. As I went near them, I took my badge and credentials that were on the uniform I discarded after showering, and they automatically salute me.
Boudica – I’m General Jeanette Iceni, I was on the Amanitore station. I require you to guide me to the nearest press office.
Official 1 – Madam, I’m obliged to take you to the command centre right away.
Official 2 – Madam, you’ll have time to do your endeavours, but we cannot comply.
Boudica – Excuse me, I might not have spoken clearly after floating nine days in space holding the body of my own daughter. I didn’t ask you where I should be. So, right now you’ll guide me to a press office, or I’ll charge both of you of insubordination and carry the sentence where you stand. As I see it, the only thing you’re allowed to do before start guiding me is checking my credentials with your scanner.
Both officers looked at the gun, holster in my hip but now with a hand on top, and then shared a look. One of them lifted the scanner, and before he pointed, I moved it in front of the camera, and it beeped with two long tones that not only proved my credential was valid but that I was part of the upper commands. They swallowed and one of them bowed slightly.
Officer 1 – Follow me, please.
Boudica – Don’t walk, run. I don’t have any time, and you already made me lose valuable seconds.
In the few minutes I ran behind a really scared officer, I wondered if I always had this capacity of intimidation and command inside me, or if it was something that came with the appearance I had taken. After taking the shower I looked in the mirror, the person I saw, it wasn’t me. A pale, lifeless skin, sunken eyes and cheeks and my eyes, the bright inside my eyes burned with hatred and madness. That look I only saw it in inmates walking the death row, and now on the same eyes that were wondering if I should have pointed the gun to the officers from the beginning…
Officer 1 – Here General Iceni.
As he opened the door, several voices came from the inside. Several complaining while others still immersed in the previous discussions. I walked in and looked at them in the eye until all the voices died out.
Boudica – I’m General Jeanette Iceni, I was on the Amanitore station. I need access to a live stream as soon as possible. Vital information needs to be shared in case we are attacked.
Carlos - Emmm, excuse me, did you say you were General Iceni from Amanitore?
Boudica – Do I need to repeat myself?
Carlos – Welcome aboard general, my name is Carlos Rodriguez, and I’ll be glad to prepare for a live broadcast. Please take a seat, and I’ll let you know when everything is ready.
I didn't like the smirk, tone, or attitude of Carlos, but as soon as I took a seat he started giving orders to every one. To check my identity, my position, to clear up the channels and call back the journalist that was presenting from the docks as changing to the earth view while they prepared a stand for two and tested the microphones. His way of giving orders was awful, but not a single step was done out of the books. I enjoyed the moment, savouring what was going to go live in a few minutes.
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the-words-we-sung · 24 days
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While I (not so) patiently await season 3...
I think being on Tumblr is gonna be tough this week: I've blacklisted sp*ilers because I wanna watch the new season with my mind as free as possible (like I did for the first 2 seasons) but it means that right now my dash is 99% empty, just an endless list of blocked posts 😅 So 1. it's boring and 2. the temptation to check these hidden posts is growing bigger and bigger by the minute >< I'm not entirely sure I can make it spoiler-free 'til next Monday... But anyway, I was just thinking tonight how lucky we are to live at a time when shows like Young Royals are being made, and well-made, and successful, and so so loved by so many people.
Earlier tonight I got struck by a faint memory of a scene from an old TV show I watched when I was (way) younger and so I went on a deep search to find it. It was an old French TV show that I watched with my parents growing up and it made me laugh to check some bits of some episodes: but I ended up watching a scene where a (secondary) character comes out to his best friend (a main character on the show) and it was awful. The best friend reaction was terrible and homophobic, but treated as if it was totally normal and acceptable. And it made me so so sad, because I grew up with that, I grew up watching that. And it's probably not the only scene, the only show, the only movie with that kind of message that I've watched when I was young. I grew up in an environment, a family, that was quite close-minded. The mere concept of not being straight, not being cis, was not at all something that I was aware of at the time. We didn't talk about that with my parents or at school. And the little representations I got on TV (like this one) were pretty awful. It makes sense that it took me so long to really realize that I was neither straight nor cis, to be able to actually put words on what I had been feeling my whole life (and I'm not even done questioning it all). But yeah, growing up then meant not being exposed to the amazing representation that we have now. And I am so so so happy that young people now can have that!! That we can all have that! I am sometimes incredibly frustrated by the idea that my life would have been so so different if a show like Young Royals existed when I was growing up, when I was a teenager... Where would I be now? Who would I be now? Most of the time I'm just happy and grateful that I still managed to get where I am today, but yeah, the frustration over what feels like wasted years can rear its ugly head sometimes...
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Glee was my first "Young Royals", my first fandom, my first show with a good and real and strong LGBTQ+ representation. It's the show that will always have a special place in my heart because it made me see, made me realize things about myself. It's the show that pushed me head first into queer culture and told me to "look look here! Look at these people, look at this history!". The show that took me by the hand and told me I could be strong and brave and myself. And that I was not alone. Blaine and Kurt will always be the fictional characters who helped me the most, who made me start the process of becoming myself, who started healing me.
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At the time I didn't participate in the fandom life as I do now with Young Royals, because I was quite introverted and not comfortable talking to people, and still trying to figure things out about myself. But Young Royals changed that. This show arrived at the perfect time, when I felt ready for more, ready to take a step further in my healing process. Anyway, such a long rant just to say that Young Royals is incredible. It didn't change my life quite as radically as Glee did, but it is making it incredibly better! Part of it is of course due to the show itself, and Wilhelm, and Simon, and the cast (Omar!!!!). But it is also this fandom, and the people I've met and chatted with. You all have no idea how incredible you've been, how happy you've made me. How healing you've been for me. I'm realizing that I've written a whole novel in this post >< Which was not really my intention! I was mostly just thinking about how awesome our little show is, how lucky we are that we're gonna have 3 incredible seasons to watch and rewatch. And how happy I am to be part of our little fandom family 💜
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So I hope you're all enjoying the season 3 content that we've been getting today (even though I don't know what it is 😱) and I'm excited to be there with you all next week to be happy and sad and unhinged as usual about our dear dear show 💜💜
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seattlesellie · 9 months
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this is super random (also this is my first msg to u hi <3) and i’m honestly asking this generally to anyone else who also happens to read this, but recently i’ve realized my sexual orientation and come to the conclusion that i’m like REALLY attracted to women (as a woman myself ofc). so obv this made me also think abt how someday i’m gonna have to tell ppl close to me abt this but i’m literally losing my mind cause i’m NAWT vulnerable especially w/ my parents 😭 and also i just now was watching a tiktok live that was full of homophobic ppl and whenever i see that on the internet, it makes me wanna go deeper in the shell (or closet lmao) that i already am in. like it makes me realize how many horrible ppl there are that won’t accept smth so simple (i’m also very emotional as u can see 😍) so like tbh i’m not sure what i’m seeking here but ig i’m just curious if u or anyone else has felt like this/what helped u come out? like it’s so hard for me to be open and as someone who recently graduated and is going to uni, in a completely diff country alone, i’m gonna have more freedom and if i were to date another girl, it’d feel unfair to my parents if i didnt say anything prior abt my identity. ik they’re also very supportive, which i’m thankful for, but i just HATEEE vulnerability. idk man :( it’s also very weird finally realizing more abt myself. it makes me SO happy yet so so so scared? aarrghh idk sorry abt this long message, u seem like the nicest person and this place feels safe, so i just felt like i could ask/find some kind of relatability. 💗 sorry again for this long ass rant LOLS 🌟
okokok im gonna tell u my coming out story because i can awfully relate to this ?? n adding a read more cos this is so long sorry <333 🤧
literally knew i liked girls my entire life and like suppressed the shit out of it. would try and date guys all throughout highschool and would feel so terrible afterwards… but like you, i was super uncomfortable with that type of vulnerability and also barely had any gay friends, let alone any gay female friends. so i spent my life just thinking im gonna be in the closet forever !! until i met my now ex gf, she would constantly be sleeping over— but i did the classic thing of telling my parents she was just my new best friend, until one day my dad was like… be so fr rn are you two dating. like you said, my parents are also very liberal and supportive (especially my dad), but still— it made me panic and drop a mug and deny deny deny !! then, after being together for like 6 months it was incredibly hard to hide it, and obvs she felt super uncomfortable bc i was super closeted and she was super out. so i kind of had to come out to my parents (i hid under a blanket and told them i have an important thing to say n then they already somehow knew). my parents and i literally never talked about these things like my mom didn’t even know about my first kiss or literally NOTHING about me, we didn’t have that type or relationship at all so i can relate to u so hard !!but like here’s the thing— i don’t think it would be unfair to your parents, this is your story to tell and you should do it when you feel comfortable enough, and if it takes you dating a girl for that then so be it. you shouldn’t worry about other peoples feelings about this, as this is yours to tell and not theirs! as long as you’re in a safe environment, coming out can truly be such a big fucking relief !! like that absolute weight that drops out of your chest is so so freeing. if the people who are close to you love you— they will accept you. if they won’t? truthfully, they don’t deserve u and never have. about the homophobia, its always going to be here, unfortunately for us hateful and bigoted people will always exist, and that can be extremely stressful and painful, which is why surrounding yourself with people from your own community is so so important and necessary. uni is such a good place to do that !! so many new people to meet and especially queer people to surround yourself with !! i super understand your fears but the good things that happen after you come out— that feeling of no longer needing to hide yourself is so so worth it 💗💗💗💗
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cosmerelists · 7 months
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Things that Wax & Szeth Could Talk About
[Spoilers for Mistborn Era 2 & for Stormlight Archives!]
Have you ever thought about how much Wax & Szeth have in common? No? Well, just imagine all of the things they could reasonably talk about! Things like...
1. Dying
Wax: Yeah, I died once.
Wax: Met God and everything.
Wax: He told me that I could embark on the adventure that was death, or I could continue on the adventure that was life. To me, life felt like more of a duty than an adventure.
Wax: But I literally always pick duty, so I picked life, and here I am.
Szeth: I was brought back against my will.
Szeth: I SAID I wanted to stay dead and that I DIDN’T want to study, but Nale was all, “Sucks to be you. Here’s your new sword.”
Szeth: And then he nailed my soul to my body. Somewhat badly. 
Wax: I’m...very sorry to hear that? 
Szeth (solemnly): Thank you.
2. Flying
Wax: I fly by ingesting steel which allows me to Push on metals in the environment, launching me into the air.
Wax: I can also make myself lighter or heavier, which helps somehow.
Szeth: I fly by breathing in Stormlight and then Lashing myself in various directions. 
Wax: I love it. You never feel so free as you do when you’re soaring through the air, you know?
Szeth: I have never felt free a day in my life.
Wax: I’m...very sorry to hear that?
Szeth (solemnly): Thank you.
3. Killing
Wax: I do seem to kill a lot of people.
Wax: I once meat-grinded my way through an entire skyscraper of people, floor by floor.
Szeth: I killed my way across many countries.
Wax: Are you a lawman?
Szeth: Assassin.
Wax: ...Should I be arresting you?
Szeth: No--I already died for that. Now I am reborn. And I don’t assassinate any more. Very often.
Wax: Very often?
Szeth: I did kill the man who ordered all of the assassinations to begin with.
Wax: Well, that seems fair.
Szeth: Thank you.
4. Social class
Wax: I’m a noble, but I tried to reject that for a while by becoming a Gentleman Lawman in the Roughs.
Wax: Now I’m a Roughs Politician.
Wax: So long as its backwards, I feel fine.
Szeth: The status of my family has not yet been revealed to readers.
Szeth: But since I was bonded to an Honorblade, many readers think that they can guess.
Wax: You were a noble too?
Szeth: Heck no.
Szeth: In my society, only the lowest of the low engage in something as barbaric as fighting.
Szeth: Presumably, I was always considered scum.
Wax: I don’t want to keep saying “I’m sorry” but...
5. Weight
Wax: Can you imagine actually weighing what you weigh?
Szeth: Not lash myself upwards so that I’m super light on my feet? Seems fake.
Wax: Normal people have it rough.
6. Having to be the mature one
Wax: Wayne is family and my best friend.
Wax: But I have to make sure he doesn’t pocket anything too valuable or make the sort of comment that’ll get him shot, you know?
Szeth: I do. My sword would love to kill more people and eat more souls, but sometimes I have to put my foot down and say “Not today.”
7. Following inanimate objects
Szeth: People don’t understand, but I had to obey my Oathstone. 
Szeth: As a Truthless, that stone commanded my life.
Wax: I think I might understand - sort of?
Wax: This earring lets me talk to God.
Szeth: Our god is dead.
Wax: Man, wouldn’t that be nice sometimes.
Szeth: What?
Wax: What?
8. The Law
Szeth: As a Skybreaker, I am to obey the law wherever I find myself.
Szeth: But Nale says that human laws are frail and prone to injustice.
Wax: I understand how you feel.
Wax: I once had to face off against a fellow lawman who argued that the law only protected the powerful, and that real change would take a violent overthrow of the whole social order.
Szeth: What did you do?
Wax: Arrested him. What about you?
Szeth: Swore to follow this guy I sort of knew.
Wax: How is that uh going for you?
Szeth: Pretty well thank you for asking.
9. The Drama
Szeth: I wore white on the day I was to kill a king.
Wax: I wear Roughs clothes in the city and nice suits in the Roughs.
Szeth: I cut my way into buildings with my magic sword.
Wax: I crash through walls, windows, the floor--you name it.
Szeth: I am excellent at lurking.
Wax: I am the best at looming.
Szeth: I once fought a man in the middle of a storm, running across entire plateaus that had been tossed into the air in the tumult. 
Wax: Came back to life, held the powers of Creation, and pulled down an entire Airship of War using my powers. 
Szeth: ...
Wax: ...
Wax: Did we just become best friends?
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mirohtron · 2 years
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Hey hey hey!! Hru bestie? Its been a while! Here's some ☕&🍮 (bc who doesn't love the jiggly caramel desert). I hope this finds you well :D we should totally hangout sometime (on the server lol).
I've also come to maybe request a hurt hero and Villain helping them out. Maybe Hero is flustered?
- Snow ❄️
It wasn't, exactly, that touch flustered them. It was just that every time they winced, went stiff with the shock of pain, flinched at the metals on the tray clicking together, the villain would hush them. Tangle firm fingers into their hair, tug, and say, "that's a dear," or, "you're so good for me."
Most times they thought they were good at hiding it. The effect the villain's praise had on them. The way it tugged on their heartstrings and made them a little bit emotional. Sometimes, high on painkillers, they were bad at it. They'd take up the offer of holding the villain's hand until they were all sewn up and patched up and clean. They'd stare at the villain at every praise, bottom lip quivering, until they felt the prick of tears at the corners of their eyes and look away.
Kindly enough, the villain never mentioned it.
But, touch did not fluster them. The hero told themself it wasn't that.
The villain patched them up again, today. They took them home, cleaned them, applied medicine to their bruises and wounds and rubbed firm circles with their thumb into the hero's shoulder when they flinched or winced or the pain got so much that they hissed.
"You don't have to do this, you know," they said softly. "I can take care of myself."
The villain paused their little massage, and the hero tried not to let the absence of the pleasure-pain get to them. They buried their face entirely into the pillow.
"I know, baby," they agreed, and the hero was glad their cheeks were hidden. "I don't have to do this."
Idiot, the hero told themself, because their heart kind of, sort of jumped at the acquiescence. But they wanted to keep talking.
"Will you stop?"
"Will you?"
"No."
"Neither will I."
The hero melted into the sheets, and it must've been obvious, but the villain didn't acknowledge that, either.
It was thoughtless. It was utterly selfish, that was what it was. That some traitorous, greedy part of the hero looked forward to these nights. When they picked each other up after a fight. When they took care of each other, and never mentioned it, and held the whispered words of it's okay it's all right you're safe with me baby between them like it was made of fragile china, thoughtless and never second-guessed, free of all consequence. It was. The villain was utterly cruel otherwise. What they shared was a third life, here in this little house, completely different from being capes or civilians, born of the hero's compassion and the villain's debt to them.
The villain tugged them close. They let them wear their shirt. As per routine they sat on the bed together, watching the stars out the window like two cats, the villain's arms wrapped kindly around their waist.
"Thank you," said the hero, softly. They were sure their eyes were burning, because the last time someone had praised them had been the time before this, when the hero was hurt again and the villain had to patch them up again. Damn it all, but the hero would rather die than stop this unspoken arrangement.
"You mustn't."
"I want to."
"There's no reason. It's only because you saved my life. I would not do this otherwise. I'm just indebted to you."
The hero turned their head. "Thank you," they repeated. Perhaps, this was perverse. Corrupt. The hero did not know.
Gentleness did not come to the villain easily. They shifted the hero like they'd practised it before, let them lay their head on the chest, and did not respond. The hero heard it in the silence anyway. You needn't thank me. For you, I am debased.
It wasn't, exactly, that touch flustered the hero. It was more the fact that the villain chose to be gentle, overwhelmingly gentle, over and over again, to repay a useless debt.
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dropped-stitches · 3 months
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The Death of Hope
I am wrung out by war and tragedy, the cruelty of capitalism and the transgressions that people are driven to commit. 
I am neither rich nor poor, I’ve worked (like the vast majority of us) in jobs where I knew I was a cog in a capitalist wheel. I live, work, love, think and create - I exist - in the safe confines of a small life untouched by war and want. I feel smaller as the world gets bigger, here in my snug average life.
I am tired. So very tired. What can I do to help the world? I meditate, I think, I strive to be a better friend, partner, writer, to be a better human in the small ways that we are told will be good for us and for the world. I educate myself, I witness, I speak (loudly in real life, softly in the vastness of the internet). I cry, I rail, I rage against those injustices I know of, in the past, present and the future. 
And through it all, I lose hope. 
I lose hope atom by atom. I feel tiny bits of my soul being burned off with every new atrocity I hear of, and with the awareness of all the atrocities I know must be going on that I don’t know of. How heavy we’ve made life and living. How impossible it feels to hold on to humanity when our individuality is subsumed by the overpowering presence of the group. 
My life is filled with small, significantly insignificant interactions with people. I’ve found most people, one-on-one, want to be good to each other. Or, at the very least, most people, one-on-one, do not want to be bad to each other. Most of us just want to get on with our small lives, maximise our small wins and minimise our small losses. 
But put us together in a group, bring our - entirely human - need for belonging to the foreground, and we end up losing our small, harmless humanity to become part of something greater, and uglier, than the sum of its parts. 
I truly believe we were not made for the digital age. We were not, most of us, made for the sheer volume of information we have access to. We were not made to live our lives with the billions of people on the internet just a thin piece of glass away, shouting at us through the windows of our devices. Our minds are not made for a 24-hour news cycle, for living our lives online, or for consuming the amount of ‘content’ we do. Our brains, poor human things still stuck in the evolutionary rung of some distant pastoral past, are too fragile to handle the noise, and crave peace in the form of moments of silence and moments of boredom.
I also truly believe in the power of stories, in the inherent value of art and in creation. I’m using my luck and privilege now to get back into education and hopefully tell stories, but my voice feels small and selfish. But the very act of creating and writing feels self-indulgent, and posting online feels like adding to the chaos and cacophony on the internet and the world. What does my small, quiet, safe life have to offer in a world gone mad, but more noise and less peace?
There was a thread on r/askhistorians about completed genocides, and that’s where I found out about the people of the Banda islands, a whole society completely eradicated within a couple of decades by the Dutch because they wanted a monopoly on nutmeg and mace. A monopoly! The Banda were happy to trade with them, the way they traded with everyone else, but the Dutch policy was to have a monopoly on whatever they wanted to trade in. This information is going to live rent-free in my head, this event that happened four hundred years ago, that I can do absolutely nothing about. I sit on my comfortable sofa, warm and safe, and draw parallels between cruelty in the past and the present, and anticipate the cruelties of the future. What fresh horrors are we going to unleash upon the world this year, and the decades and centuries following? 
I think of the bloody dots that connect our shared history of fighting for land, fighting to take, to colonise, to retake, recover, fighting for wealth that masquerades as righteousness. All the while, most of us, the average cog in the capitalist machine, are fed intellectual and militaristic opium in the form of the idea that a group of people, of ‘peoples’, bound by made-up concepts, deserve some part of the world. We’ve been taught that humanity has inherited the earth, as though we own the whole world, and don’t share it with millions of other species. 
I think of how Palestinians, who have lived and loved, created, procreated and died on that blood-soaked land for thousands of generations, are been exterminated in the name of someone’s ‘Holy Land’ because...why? Because of something in the Old Testament? Because the British could not stop fucking up every land they touched? Because we have not been taught, as a species, to stop, just for once to please just fucking stop wanting more and more and more of everything? 
How can I not lose hope when we’re all caught up in this ugly mess of capitalism, geopolitics, nationalism and fundamentalist religion that cares nothing for the children buried under rubble. 
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hambonusmaximus · 2 months
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This will very much be a long personal post, so feel free to skip this if you don't care enough about what's going on in my life.
(Also mentions of depression if that sort of thing bothers you)
Also also, I'm just jotting down thoughts as they come to me, so my points might end up disjointed.
As I mentioned above, this post is mostly going to be talking about my depression, where I believe it stems from and how its affecting me currently. This isn't meant to be pointed at anyone in particular, these are just what I'm going through and how I feel about it.
For whatever reason, I really feel like my depression has really been kicked into overdrive lately, and its got me thinking about why, and what I should possibly do about it. Its honestly been really hard to enjoy things lately, and me wanting to spend time with friends just makes me feel like I'm being a bother most of the time. I know that they would tell me that I'm not a bother, but I can't shake the feeling that me trying to insert myself into their lives just makes me an annoyance that everyone would be better off without. I worry that I come off as some attention-seeker that craves validation, or that I'm constantly trying to make conversations about me, and while there is definitely a part of me that desires validation, which I'll get more into in a bit, I genuinely do not mean to make things about me all the time. I guess maybe I try to make myself more relatable and that's where these thoughts come from, I just hope that I'm the only one that thinks that.
As for that point about needing validation from others, that I believe stems from the part of my life where most everyone seemed to hate me for seemingly no reason. I won't go into my entire life story, because no one wants to hear that, but I will just say that, from around 6th grade all the way up until my 30's, I would constantly be belittled, insulted, bullied, beat up, and told that I'm a lesser person for just being who I am. I never had many friends growing up, even well into my adult life, and even some of the people I considered friends would eventually turn their backs on me. I was miserable for so long. It got to the point where I just wanted it to end. I would have accepted death at any point during that time. Not enough to take my own life, but I wouldn't have fought against it either way.
Suddenly, in the last couple of years, things starting getting better. I was getting promoted at my job and earning more money, I was paying off credit card debt that I never thought would have been possible... and most importantly of all, I reconnected with an online friend from years ago, one that I never actually figured would connect with me again. Then he introduced me to more of his friends, and then more, and suddenly I'm surrounded by so many wonderful people that all seem to really like me. It felt sort of overwhelming, and to be honest it still does at times, but I actually felt like I was worthy of love and praise rather than just being some nobody that didn't matter to anyone. I've never had this many friends at one time, and its been incredible to say the very least.
However, that brings me to my next problem; the feeling that I'm just an awful friend. I don't like having this feeling, but I cannot help it some times. I generally don't reach out to talk with friends in DM's, because (again) I don't want to be a bother, so I prefer to wait and see if they would reach out to me. It feels selfish of me to expect others to initiate a conversation when I can't bring myself to do so.
Another problem is, as I mentioned before, I feel like I try to insert myself into other people's lives without considering their feelings about it. I do want to be a part of my friends' worlds, as much as they are a part of mine, but again I get this gnawing voice in my head that tells me I'm being selfish. Like, two friends could be having a conversation about something, and I feel like I have to feel included somehow. I don't do it intentionally, or maliciously, but it feels like it comes off like I do. I hate that I feel like I can't help myself sometimes.
Regardless of all that, there is one thing that worries me most about my new friends; that feeling that, inevitably, I'll either say or do something that will drive them all away, and leave me with no one left to care, back where I started those years ago when I was at my lowest. That worry has been keeping me from really enjoying the things I want to do, like playing games or making art, and even hanging out with those same friends. Perhaps that's why those feelings of me being a bother to everyone is so prominent in my mind.
I don't really know what all I could do to change the way I think. I also don't expect this post to be able to change anything either. I suppose its just a way for me to put this all out there so others are aware of what I'm going through mentally. It does feel kind of nice to be able to vent this all out in some way that doesn't feel intrusive or mandatory to others. I also don't want this to seem like engagement-bait or whatever, that's not really a thing I like to do.
If you've read up to this point, I really appreciate you taking the time to do so. If you are a friend of mine, please don't feel pressured to check in on me or try to explain anything to me. These are simply my thoughts, not pointed at anyone but myself. I love and cherish you all, you mean the world to me, and nothing will change that.
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Submitted propaganda under the cut
Wren - 1
fuckin okay i get Save The Planet is noble or whatever but do you understand i'm MAYBE tired of being told to change Everything abt how I live when everything i could ever do is a drop in the ocean compared to corporations and i dont want to micromanage my entire life for the sake of the planet and its ALWAYS the leftist youtubers shilling it as The Best Most Selfless Thing you can do. like. dude. i am tired. i dont get paid enough to have the energy to care.
RAID shadow legends - 22
I caved and downloaded the app, played three levels and holy shit it’s so boring
I don't think I need to explain myself here.
Every Youtuber has been sponsored by them at some point and they are infuriating
It’s everywhere and it’s a shitty game that feels like the kind of low quality shit you’d see in a mobile add, because that’s exactly what it is
I have not seen a single sponsorship that makes this game sound like anything but a waste of time. Plus, their sponsorships are always sooooo long lol. At least a full minute, sometimes two.
the sponsorships and ads are everywhere yet ive never actually seen anyone outside of the ads enjoying it or even talking about it
They say the exact same thing every time so much that it's become a memorized phrase used as a meme
the art is mid, but not only that, but none of the characteers were designed by someone truly unhinged and horny. giving out that many free summons just makes them look like a scam, like those scammy crap gacha games with promo codes that have one digit repeated (example: 1111, 777, 888, and so on). there's nothing you can do there that other games haven't done better, and there's no overlying premise that draws in fans of stories (talk all the crap you like about food fantasy, at least the lore was fucking WILD). raid shadow legends is like fruit gushers in that it's massively mediocre and wildly overhyped. sure, you *COULD* inflict it upon yourself without hurting too badly, but why would you want to?
You KNOW why
Infamous
gaming.
Annoying, constant, bs, dumb, pay to play, badgering, I hate them. My friend ended up spending over a hundred dollars on this game bc their advertising occasionally works, and when it does, that's not great!
You KNOW WHY.
They don't pay the fucking people they ask to talk about them half the time. Also the game is ugly.
scammy as hell wtf is that game
Do I even need to explain? It's not a helpful product, it's just a dumb mobile game no one needs in their lives.
It’s bad
Everyone’s heard of it. Nobody likes it.
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theageofsims · 4 months
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The Age of Sims 2.7 - Part 4 - "A Conversation with No Beginning and No End."
(Language Warning)
One week later and neither could find the time to figure out a way around living their lives because it was impossible to do. There was no way to dial anything back or side step -- everything had to be addressed, discussed, thought about, and then discussed further… and there just hadn't been very much time for that.
---------
"Well give them the french toast if there isn't any toast left."
"How we gonna make it French when we don't even have toast -- period? You're not making any damn sense!"
Gloria sighed and shook her head, "Give them a croissant then -- and a free coffee."
"If we keep giving away free coffee, we'll be out of coffee in about an hour."
"This can't be happening."
"Oh -- Oh, it's happening." Came the voice on the other end of the phone. "You need to get down here. Last time this happened I got my ass chewed out and then food thrown on. It's your turn."
"Listen, just be polite--"
"I ALWAYS AM POLITE!!!!!!"
William hung around, listening in to the screaming person on the other end of the line, but said nothing.
"Stop screaming -- the customers will hear you--"
"You know what, Gloria? I don't give a fuck anymore! I am one fucking second from walking the fuck outta here so you better get your ass down here -- NOW!"
"Keep your voice down… I am coming."
The call ended when the person on the other end of the phone hung up, but her phone wasn't through with its calls, bells and whistles. Eventually, Gloria told her staff to shut the door and to give the few customers that had already been seated what they wanted -- and more, for free.
William kept quiet the entire time, wondering what to say. He could understand the frustrations on both sides from what he heard, but it didn't mean he liked hearing the lack of respect her staff had for her.
"Do they talk to you like that all the time?"
"No. Only when every fucking thing goes wrong and I'm not there to help them. Then it's my fault and you know what? Maybe it is my fault. Maybe it's all my damn fault--"
"Hey, I didn't mean… the food industry is a crazy place--"
"I know that, William. I've been working in the industry for a long time now."
"I'm just trying to make you feel better." He admitted.
"How am I supposed to feel better when I just had to close my place? Do you know how much money we lost today? And we haven't even got much money to lose in the first place, but every little penny counts. Now I've got to make up for it by picking up shifts. Shifts I should have been done picking up months and months ago, hell -- even a year ago."
She finished with a harsh sigh and a darkened stare at her kitchen floor.
"I collect my pension every Thursday…"
"I don't want your money, William."
"Not even to borrow it?"
"I've never borrowed anything from anyone in my life."
"Could start now." He shrugged, "I won't stay away until you pay it all back -- with interest." He teased, but she hadn't given him much of a response back in return. "If we were married, would you accept?"
"If we were married?" She blinked at him, then shook her head. "What are you asking me?"
"Nothing." He said quickly, "I'm just… wondering. You know, like… getting to know you a little better… trying to understand why you never want to accept gifts from me or money--"
"It's because I'm used to taking care of myself--"
"Okay, but that's part of my job now, too…"
"William, I… I just want to be able to stand on my own two feet and make it through. I don't want to rely on someone else or… I've always been independent--"
"I know that and I love that about you, I just…" He shook it off, "I guess I just… nevermind. Forget it."
She thought of everything he had said from the museum a week ago, through the week, and now from just moments before.
"Listen William, I don't know what's bothering you -- I mean, I do, but I don't know what you want me to say or what you aren't saying for the sake of keeping the peace between us or --"
"Hey, hey…" He reached for her, "There isn't peace between us?"
"There is, but I…" She was at a loss for words, "I just feel like you're expecting--"
"Expecting?"
"I just feel like you're irritated about things that I can't control and I know I should try to understand more or really, consider your feelings and your position on things -- and I do, but I just haven't… I haven't got the time, which sounds like I don't give a shit about you -- but I do, I just… I just…"
"Hey, hey…" He started again, then shook his head, "Take a deep breath. I don't want to be the reason you develop spots."
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So, she took a deep breath and then she gave him the quickest kiss he never saw coming and told him she had to go.
"I've got to clean up the mess and call companies about orders of ingridents and supplies we don't have."
"Want some help?"
"You've got your nephew."
He held her and wouldn't let go, "His mother's got him for the day. I'm all yours -- if you'd like…?"
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ladycatryx · 7 months
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In Defense of Harry Potter
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If you or someone you love is a trans person in crisis: The Trevor Project‘s 24/7/365 Lifeline [US]: 866-488-7386 Trans Lifeline [US]: 877-565-8860 TrevorChat, (online instant messaging option) International Support: TrevorSpace
I minored in Gender Studies for both my Bachelor's and Master's. I have a bookshelf full of queer theory. I have several trans friends.
And I went to a Harry Potter themed party the other day.
Like many of my fellow 90s kids, I grew up reading Harry Potter. It was an era-defining feature of my adolescence, eagerly anticipating book releases and midnight movie theatre screenings. But unlike many of my peers, it is not merely a feature of my past. I still regularly read and write Harry Potter fanfiction. I have beautiful art books and unofficial compendiums chock-full of lore and behind-the-scenes details. I am a HP trivia wizard---or witch, as the case may be. I have so much investment into the lore and the world of Harry Potter, and I often find myself in Hogwarts and the surrounding Highlands in my dreams---even moreso now that Hogwarts Legacy has given us a first-person and 3D experience of the layout and landscape of the Wizarding World. So I relished the chance to don my Slytherin robes and get all dressed up in character. The pictures turned out great. But I couldn't post them on any of my social media. I have been told, in no uncertain terms, that anyone who continues to support or engage with the Harry Potter franchise is a TERF and a fascist. Full stop. To quote one of my friends, "I don't interact with Harry Potter media anymore. And frankly I treat any interest in it as a sign of transphobia for my own safety. So I really don't care to know much about the [Hogwarts Legacy] game aside from the disgusting blood libel it chose to use in it's narrative. It's a hard line for me as a trans person."
It's a controversial topic, to be sure. Now I absolutely hate cancel culture's tendency to drag something someone said 10 years ago into the spotlight and blow it out of proportion, even sometimes taking it out of its original context to spin it as a bad actor with bad intentions, and then to deny people the ability to apologize or acknowledge personal growth (see: what happened to Lindsay Ellis. Thanks, I hate it). But let's be clear: that's not the case here. JKR has only dug herself deeper into the hole, being belligerently and purposefully ignorant and cruel despite a PR team probably begging her to shut up, and despite an entire world of people who have attempted to teach her better. She has acted, and continues to act, in bad faith, even writing trans and queer-coded villains and serial killers into her latest books. This is not a person who has attempted to apologize and make right her wrongs when they've been pointed out. This is someone who has been given every opportunity to not be an awful person and instead has doubled down on her hurtful and hateful views.
So, now that we know JKR's true colors, clearly the entire world of Harry Potter is suspect, as is anyone who continues to enjoy it....right? Sure, maybe not everyone who still rocks their House Pride merch is a TERF, but, like the sandwich-eaters of Chick-fil-A who just need their chicken fix, they certainly can't be counted as allies....right?
I've struggled with this.
And maybe this entire blog post will be read as nothing more than a selfish person defending their right to enjoy a thing guilt-free in order to conveniently overlook or dismiss the harm they're doing by persisting in centering their nostalgia over the real-life danger JKR's views presents to trans people. You can be the judge of that, I suppose.
My impulse since all of this has been to lean into "death of the author," an argument that says, essentially, it is not authorial intent that matters for meaning, but the text itself that is authoritative. In theory, the text can speak for itself, and the way readers engage with it and interpret it can stand in isolation from whatever meaning was meant by the author. (For an excellent video on this subject, click here, and here for a JKR-specific one). But I'd like to expand on that here, because 1) as the links above point out, engaging with the work of a living author still empowers them and gives them a platform and 2) is usually just an emotional response to silo oneself from the guilt of consuming the content of a problematic creator. In other words, it's a cop-out.
But I'm a sociologist. I'm currently an ABD Ph.D. student. I specialize in theory, gender, religion, and culture---the latter is just an elaborate system of signs and symbols that we are embedded in and have to make meaning out of. And meaning-making is a messy business. Interpretation is a vital and integral part of meaning-making. Messages aren't just handed down from the heavens and absorbed---social actors are actively engaged in the process of receiving them. Sometimes there are interferences, misunderstandings, and mixed signals that scramble the meaning. Intent does not equal impact, and so the messages we receive and understand do not always correspond to the meaning that was meant. (Again, not saying JKR is misunderstood or that we're misreading her intentions here---she's pretty unequivocally awful. But I am saying that in a world where meaning is what we make it, a trash person can still produce something of value, since beauty is in the eye of the beholder.)
Sometimes reading a meaning other than that which was meant into something can have humorous consequences. Sometimes the results are disastrous. Sometimes it means that we humans, as pattern-seeking creatures, see the face of Jesus on a slice of toast, or a baby-shaped cloud in the sky the same week we find out a loved one is pregnant. I think the fact that we can make meaning where there is none and make beauty out of nothing is spectacular, miraculous. In this age of disenchantment, many people are looking for ways to reconnect and reenchant their lives, to create sacred rituals out of their mundane routines. We are meaning-seeking creatures, and with many people feeling burned by, disillusioned with, or distrustful of traditional religion, we are turning to nontraditional sources of wisdom and inspiration. For literal millions of people, the Harry Potter books have been one such source. And I think there is value to them still, despite what has come to light about their author.
In college, I was heavily involved in interfaith activism. I no longer identify as Christian, but I was raised Christian. And I started to feel the parallels from my own experience.
If a person has been hurt by a Christian, feels Christianity is toxic, identifies passages in the Bible that have been used to oppress or were the product of a time that was openly endorsing of slavery, homophobia, misogyny, etc...their experience is valid. They have a right to say "Hey, I was raised with this thing and at one point it meant a lot to me (or maybe not, maybe it was always forced) but it hurt me and I no longer feel comfortable there and I choose not to engage with Christianity anymore." They have a right to be wary if they hear someone is Christian and they don't know anything else about that person.
But no religion is a monolith. The Bible is not a monolith. For every passage that may be hurtful or harmful or be interpreted in bad faith to support a particular agenda, there are dozens more about love, kindness, and compassion. Religion has been the driving force behind so many wars and evils...but it has inspired countless good as well. The Bible has been wielded as a weapon to cause suffering as well as been looked to as a resource of hope and peace.
I'm not saying that cancelling someone for resonating deeply with the Harry Potter series and not wanting to give it up because of what it means to them is like asking someone to not be a Christian or to give up their faith so as not to offend others. Of course, the comparison seems flippant. Religion is religion! We give it special legal protections because of its literally sacred status. It concerns matters of ultimate importance. The other is...fiction.
But what is sacred is a social construction. I'm going to bracket here any discussion about the existence or nonexistence of deities, an afterlife, and etc. What does religion actually do for people? What does it mean in the lives of the faithful? It is a source of comfort. Of hope. Of inspiration. Of answers. It can be a moral guide, with lessons and instruction and a guide for how to live that others can model their own lives on.
Casper ter Kuile, cofounder of the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, (check out their values statement if you want to know where they stand---spoiler alert, they're as progressive as it gets) would not find the comparison ridiculous. In fact, ter Kuile (who is, by the way, a gay man) founded the project with a fellow student while at Harvard Divinity School. In his book The Power of Ritual (2020) he talks about how the HP books have been a source of solace and inspiration and sacred reflection for him---and not just for him, but for thousands. Millions.
"Millions of readers already treated the Potter books as sacred in their own way. Therapists and counselors report young people using Hogwarts as their psychological safe space to go to in times of struggle and pain. And it isn't simply a refuge from the world. The Harry Potter Alliance, founded in 2005, has mobilized thousands around the country to act on marriage equality, fair-trade chocolate, and other progressive issues, using the narratives and rituals from the books to motivate and shape winning campaigns. Just as social justice movements have reinterpreted biblical narratives like the Exodus story and quoted the psalms, so too the Harry Potter Alliance references characters and plotlines from the wizarding world to motivate readers into action" (2020:44-45).
The HP books have helped people (and kids) cope with the loss of loved ones, understand privilege, learn that adults, authority figures, and even the government that makes the laws can lie and be corrupted and may not always have one's best interests at heart. That what is legal is not necessarily right or just. That evil doesn't just look like pale, snake-faced men who attempt to murder babies---sometimes it's enough for people in power to do nothing, to care more about maintaining their own relative privilege, power, and comfort. That often bullies lash out because they too have been hurt, and that hate can be easier to speak than love when it's all that you know...but that in the end, it is our choices that matter, not our abilities or the circumstances of our birth. The books have powerful messages, and they have nuance.
Take, for example, Petunia Dursley. As ter Kuile points out, universally disliked. But:
"As Vanessa and I reread that first chapter, we saw a young woman, unsupported in motherhood, suddenly given a second infant to care for after the death of her sister. Imposed on by a world she has always envied and feared, with no explanation, she feels vulnerable to a society that can only spell danger. No doubt, Petunia is abusive to Harry. She neglects him in the most foundational years of his life. But this sacred reading illustrated that narratives of good and evil nearly always are more complex when we risk our hearts to explore a sacred reading. It not only gave me a new lens for understanding a character, but it challenged me to realize I'd let the polarizing news narratives construct simplistic binaries of innocence and guilt" (2020:49).
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The books aren't perfect. Even the messages JKR wrote into the books aren't all good, even if many are. Many people despise Dumbledore despite the twinkle in his eye and his many wise sayings for the way he used Harry like a pawn, like a tool---keeping him in the dark and just getting him to survive long enough to get him to die at the right time. By putting him in danger year after year, putting responsibility on his shoulders that no child should ever have to bear. For thinking that there would ever be an acceptable reason to leave him in the care of abusers, blood or no, magical love ward or no. And I love fanfiction because this messiness is explored and unpacked.
And yet, in canon, this jock who married his high school girlfriend and became a cop named his son after that guy and the incel who lusted after his mom man who tormented him and his schoolmates for years (I do love Snape as a literary character though, speaking of nuance...) instead of, oh, Remus, Rubeus, Arthur...y'know, any of the other men that were actually decent father figures to him in his life.
And yes, there are some heinous things in the book, like giving the Asian character the name Cho Chang and the Black man the name Shacklebolt. The antisemitism of the way goblins are portrayed: big-nosed, greedy, and money-hungry. And don't get me started on the fucking shofar. It has become trendy to shit on the books and other related IP, even to the point of ridiculousness. (Case in point: the uproar over the inclusion of a trans character in Hogwarts Legacy. And not from TERFs, but from the progressive community. At first I didn't understand---performative allyship? Surely her inclusion, and the ability to make trans characters in the character create, is better than the alternative, right? Apparently, it's her name that's the issue: Sirona Ryan. I had to actually look up why people were mad because again, I didn't get it. Evidently, people took issue with the "Sir" and the "Ryan," arguing that two such masculine-sounding elements on a trans woman's name was the equivalent of naming her "Penis McMan." Yes, really. Guess we better tell Serena Williams she's canceled too for perpetuating the "Black women athletes are too muscular and masculinized" stereotype). Anyway, it's been a dogpile lately to point out the plot holes and the poor world-building. And I admit, fanfiction authors often wield some amazing transformative alchemy, building on some of the half-assed parts of the lore and magic system and turning it into something far superior to what is canon. Nevertheless, it is reductive and revisionist history to portray the books as something other than the international bestsellers that they are. They are not the most amazing, brilliant things ever written, and yes, there are series out there that deserve the fame and attention and accolades that the Harry Potter series got. But nor are the HP books terrible derivative drivel that suddenly everyone wants to portray them as. In reality, they're a mixed bag.
What they undeniably are is important to people.
People read sacred texts because:
"the thousands of years in which generations have engaged these texts is something we need to pay attention to; and that we can step into a continuous stream of conversation between the text and human beings that has lasted centuries" (The Power of Ritual 2020:38).
There are nuggets of wisdom and timeless truths to be found, even in fiction. There is nostalgia for those of us who literally grew up with these characters, being of a similar age to Harry, Ron, and Hermione as we first read the books. The HP series is fairly unique in being both culturally relevant---a pop culture touchstone (I can't recall ever attending themed midnight release parties at a bookstore for any other series)---and possessing of longevity. The HP generation is passing the books along to their kids now. It connects generations in a way not many other franchises do. Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are the only other ones that come to my mind at the moment.
JKR is a TERF (which is not a slur, incidentally). Unapologetic. An awful person, certainly.
But I've seen people call her evil.
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We can debate the meaning of the term, certainly. Evil itself is not black and white---her own books taught me that. If someone is evil, can anything they produce contain some good? Or is it irreparably tainted? Can someone be evil and still donate millions of pounds to charities for the homeless and victims of domestic violence? Could an evil person be capable of writing such emotionally deep and nuanced characters?
I think we are all capable of great evil and great good. Again, I'm not advocating for forgiveness or redemption here---she's done nothing to earn such goodwill. I don't support her.
But I think there are ethical ways to continue to engage in and enjoy the franchise. Don't buy officially licensed merch---but the fan-made stuff on Etsy labeled "Red House" or "Magical School Badger House" I find fair game. Buy your copy of Hogwarts Legacy used, or borrow from a friend. (Personally, I'm pessimistic enough to think that there's nothing I personally can or can't do that will financially impact her in any meaningful way...throwing away all my HP merch and not buying the $7 Slytherin slipper socks at BoxLunch isn't going to make a dent. It's up to the major companies and corporations that have partnered with her in the past to license Harry Potter-themed merch to roll back their association, and for production studios and actors to refuse to associate with the franchise. That's what she'll notice and care about. But I digress.)
On a personal level, I find deep psychological satisfaction from identifying as a Slytherin. (I'm also that bitch who is way too into her MBTI archetype and knows her rising sign and other obscure details of her natal chart, so sue me.) Just the other day, I got into an argument with my partner, who accused me of employing leading questions to get information about his mental state and plans for the day---he prefers directness, I find subtlety to be much more polite. We speak different languages. That's not the point. The point is, he felt manipulated, and even though he knows me well enough to know it wasn't out of any malicious intent, it felt slimy to him. From my perspective, my approach comes from a history of emotional abuse from my father, who has Borderline Personality Disorder and a host of other mental illnesses I inherited (yay, trauma!) In other words, it's a survival tactic. (Self-preservation: also a Slytherin trait.) I had to learn to prioritize myself from a very young age to avoid being taken advantage of. To some, that may sound selfish. For me, it was survival. And the word "manipulation" gets a bad rap, but it literally means "to handle or control (a tool, mechanism, etc.), typically in a skillful manner." That isn't necessarily sinister or done with bad intentions. It's strategic. It's smart. It's what emotionally aware humans have evolved to do as social animals. We don't talk about manipulating tools as shady behavior. It's an asset, this ability.
Maybe that's my ambition speaking. But I wouldn't be where I am today---working hard to earn my Ph.D., having already earned a Master's Degree from a highly prestigious institution, having graduated summa cum laude with research honors at my previous university---without ambition. But I do understand that people distrust sly, slippery, cunning people. But Coyote is a culture hero, I don't abide by the maligning of snakes and serpents, and I'm a Prometheus/Lucifer apologist. People may not find their methods entirely honorable, but you can't argue with the results being for the greatest good. Those cunning folk use any means to achieve their ends. It all fits, and it's a label that allows me to understand myself and my motivations and priorities better.
If you've been hurt and betrayed by JKR and can no longer find solace in a world that was once a source of comfort for you, I grieve that with you. I understand, and I'm sorry. No one should be forced to engage with something they find tainted and harmful, and everyone must draw that line for themselves. But I think there are ethical ways to continue to enjoy and engage with a franchise that has been a source of joy and inspiration for so many, including those within the LGB+TGNC community. The text even lends itself to queer, subversive, progressive, and action-oriented readings, which is the sweetest form of reclaiming and empowerment, and which the queer community has a long history of---appropriating the hurtful and harmful and transforming it into something playful and prideful. Queer folx are the original alchemists.
It's an egregore now, especially the fanon version of the Wizarding World. It's the collective product of millions of people loving and investing in these characters and their world. It has taken on a life of its own, independent of its creator. And like Lucifer, like humankind, it can defy the will and designs of its master and break away. It's expanded beyond her. She may have built the framework of the house, but we grew up there. We furnished it. And we can return to move things around and play in it from time to time. Some of us never left. I won't give that up because I've been made to feel I have to.
Oh, and that Harry Potter themed party? It was held at a business that is an unofficial hub for the local queer community. A portion of the proceeds went to a local LGBTQ charity, and there were several trans people in attendance. And we all had a fabulous time.
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biblioflyer · 10 months
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Being a red shirt on the info literacy and empathy front lines.
This is a bit of a meta post and by "going there" I'm really just trying to generate more of the sort of "you are seen" genre for whomever it has meaning. If it has a whiff of "look at me, I'm an ally, I'm helping by yelling into the void" then I don't know really know what to tell you, maybe it is and if it is, feel free to keep on scrolling, I am not consciously demanding your affirmation, just rambling about the role of sci-fi in my life in getting me to this point ethically and professionally.
I am a red state millennial librarian. Don't feel as sorry for me as you might reflexively think I want you to. I'm not a public librarian or a public school librarian, I'm an academic librarian. Moms for Liberty hasn't directed its Eye of Sauron at us (yet.) Thus we're able to keep stocking LGBTQ literature without too much worry of people screaming at us. For now at least.
Why does this matter?
Well through a little loophole we are officially an academic library that provides services to young adults and the public in addition to formal college students without being a public or school library. I'm reluctant to share too many biographical details, but suffice to say you might be surprised at what is part of your nearest academic library collection and it may be easier than you think to access that collection.
Individual institutions are going to have their own policies, however because we are part of a broader consortium that all shares resources, we offer reciprocal services to every member of that consortium and their patrons if those patrons come to us with a valid library card from one of the member counties or a peer institution.
So if your public library has been gutted, take a peak at local colleges. They are more likely than you think to have queer literature, including queer and diverse literature in the YA genre, as well as inclusive children's books even picture books. College libraries know many of their students are either parents or are intending to go into public education (god help them) and thus have some very infrequently utilized special collections that they would love to see circulate so they can justify buying more.
This being a nerd blog, let me just speak briefly of the role of sci-fi and fantasy allegories in my development. I could very easily have been one of the people that I fear may come for my job. The people we have done workshops rehearsing how to respond professionally, empathetically, but also forcefully to formal challenges to what's on our shelves and informal challenges - i.e. people intent on making spectacles.
I don't say that I "fear" these people lightly, our head of DEI initiatives was sacked after the program was expected (and ultimately) was defunded. This person was not offered a job in a different department. I'm not super in touch with what goes on outside my department but I'm told that this person was broadly respected and other than their job title, was never involved in anything controversial or had any interpersonal disputes.
So we who are heteronormative don't get the luxury of putting our heads down and assuming this will blow over. We can't actually know with any certainty how many degrees of separation are between us and the ire of the Christian Nationalist fever that has swept the nation.
Anywho, Handmaid's Tale isn't exactly the sci-fi I meant to talk about (although boy howdy did it scare the bejeezus out of me the first time I listened to it and that was - I think - pre-2016.)
I grew up in a very rural area with minimal diversity. My exposure to diversity and later queer representation was almost entirely through media. Star Trek was a big one, but also Roseanne which ironically makes the comedian's red pilling more heart breaking than JK Rowling - its a xenniel thing, I was in my edgy ironic full of myself no time for childish things teenage years when Harry Potter came out.
I'm sitting here in 2023, and I can see the absurd falseness of the rhetoric of grooming discourse. Riker's fling with an androgynous alien or Jadzia Dax's open pansexuality didn't make me queer. It de-stigmatized being queer and left me open to taking seriously the self expressed experiences of people who I was open to befriending. As an adult, while I've found Discovery to be frustrating in many ways, one of the things that keeps me coming back is Culber and Stamets. Their performances and arcs have been a consistently solid part of an otherwise very messy production.
Much as Culber and Stamets are simply decent human beings just trying to get by and overcome crisis after crisis, so too are the queer people I've befriend. Their sinister agenda is to walk in public with their partner without people walking between them not thinking they're actually together or being harassed. Some of them are parents of developmentally well adjusted children.
I'm not looking for ally virtue signal points by praising these storylines, I'm just recognizing them for what they are: pieces of my development as a person. Which makes me happy to be in a place in my life where if nothing else, for now I get to make available a wide variety of experiences and perspectives for people to be exposed to. Its not my job to force anything on anyone and I order plenty of straight forward murder mysteries, romances, and swashbuckling epics that don't require a lot of critical thinking, but I like knowing that something I placed on the shelf might make someone accept themselves or accept someone else.
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lizard-shifter-noms · 4 months
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Wayward Waters Chapter 16
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Hello everyone! Chapter 16!
absolute Chaos!!
this Story contains Vore, Dont like dont read.
have fun reading!
and as always Reblogs are appreciated! (Also ASK’s are open so feel free to bother me!)
AO3 Link for those that prefer the layout there;
AO3 Wayward waters
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I stared up at the Gigantic being, my brain still weirdly foggy but now clear enough to finally move on my own.
Not really having any idea what to do as I was way too far for any screams to ever reach anyone I twisted at the Bracelet,  growing Giant, though still small in comparison to this being.
Weirdly enough the Kraken didn't do anything,  aside from lowering itself down to be more eye level.
Didn't it do the same with Cassidy?
The weird fog in my brain kept me rooted to the spot, and I had no doubt that it was this Gigantic Mer that was the cause of it.
It was probably the reason I walked out here to begin with.
But why? And why me of all people?
It bent down, its face getting way too close for comfort,  and let me see that even though I was in Giant form the Kraken's head was as big as I was.
Huh, so that's how people felt when they saw me.
Suddenly I had to commend Robin's bravery even more.
Its unsettingly Lilac eyes with the W shaped pupils focused on me,  the face getting even closer as I was rooted to the spot.
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It got close enough to touch, its unusual eye larger than my hand.
Hoo fuck, was i about to die?
Apparently not as the Kraken simply let one of its tendrils softly touch at the top of my head.
“Hello”
I Jolted, like back with the electric eel, at the sudden voice that somehow was in my head but also not.
“Apologies, it is not my intent to frighten you, i simply wanted to talk”
The voice, which was very deep and sounded somewhat Female?,  said, the sound again vibrating through my entire skull as the Krakens' lips never moved.
“I- what? Wait, why do you want to talk to ME of all people?”
Well, at least the Kraken wasn't here to hurt people it seemed.
“Be calm child of Elven blood, my name is Grella and i have sought you out because i sensed magic on you”
So the Kraken was Named Grella, not what I would have imagined.
“Magic on me? You mean the Bracelet? 
Ronan got one too now, so why did you only call me out? 
How did you do that anyway? It felt like sleepwalking”
The behemoth in front of me blinked,  the weird eyes disappearing for a moment.
“I suppose those questions are rightfully asked, so I shall explain.
Yes, the bracelet is what drew me near. 
I have the ability to sense magic and even use the magical energy in the stead of food.
I myself am a magical being, I am sure you have heard of sirens before yes? What I did is not that different, and it keeps the rest of the island fast asleep, even your Statue friend has laid down to rest for now.
And i only called you out as you have more experience with the Bracelet than Ronan, and quite frankly are more responsible”
Well, aside from the fact that apparently she'd managed to get the entire island to sleep, INCLUDING Akeem she was kinda right about Ronan.
If I told anyone that even the Kraken said he was an irresponsible idiot he'd never live it down.
“Well I do have to give you right at the last part,  but still, what am I here for?”
The massive body, which was mostly underwater shifted a little, the many tentacles changing color and blending in with the water.
“I have called you here to tell you to be careful, the Bracelet uses the magic of the environment to let you change your shape.
The world of Tern has lines not unlike rivers of blood vessels running through it filled with magic, so called Ley Lines.
I myself use their energy to sustain my life force,  but in the last few hundred years I have noticed a steady decline in how much magic they carry.
I had to retreat to Graves keep to stay alive,  not able to leave for more than a day now,  seeing as at that place multiple of the Ley lines intersect.
But you realize what that means, yes?”
I stared at her, mind reeling from what she had told me.
“Magic is disappearing, but why? And why tell ME that?”
She leaned in closer and I instinctively took a step back.
“If magic is gone you will be stuck in whatever form you chose last, be that Giant, Half Elf or Ardua, and you will take this form to the grave”
I stared horrified at her.
“You mean one day I won't be able to shift anymore? 
Even with the Bracelet?”
“Exactly, so you better think about what form you want to live your live in and get buried in, with the way things are going you have thirty years at most before that happens, i myself will Die in less than twenty”
Ah, so she wanted to tell the land dweller early as it wasn't exactly likely I'd ever come back here, Ronan could be told anytime really.
“Wait, WHY is the magic disappearing? 
Is that why less and less human mages have been born? 
The last case i know of is two hundred years back”
She slowly nodded.
“Yes, and tell me when was the last time you heard of anyone seeing one of the older true magical creatures, 
such as Unicorns and the true Dragons? 
When was the last time you have seen actual grand magic that wasn't more than some meager little spells?
When was the last time you saw something truly grand that could only be magic?”
I had to think about that, sure Fable had used a light spell and set his thumb on fire but even he admitted that was all, and elves used to be regarded for their magic skills.
And Unicorns hadn't been heard of even in my mothers lifetime,  same as dragons, at this point they were just stories,  and Drakes weren't even real dragons.
“I do not think i have, there used to be an Icemancer but Oakley took his staff which apparently held all the power? Or at least the Gem on it did”
Grellas' eyes widened for a second,  and I almost thought I had imagined it.
“It is Possible to store Magic in specialized gemstones, however even those will run dry one day, i suppose if you get stuck in a form you don't want you might be able to use that Gem as a last effort to change.
Given that you don't use it for anything else”
So, Magic really was dying, what a sad fate.
“So, if magic Dies i will get stuck in whatever form I took on last,  and you will simply Die?”
Her mouth twisted into something like a sad smile.
“I am fated to die regardless, I am the last Kraken, my brethren either starved or have been hunted to extinction before they could reach maturity simply for being something the human mind didn't understand.
The Elder Behemoths are almost all gone, especially those with magic, The only other one, that I am not sure where he is now, is an Elder Dragon of a similar coloration as me, his name is Siokhain.
Though if my memory serves correctly his eyes are of a more Amethyst shade instead of my pale Lilac.
It is a shame really, the Violet eyes used to share their knowledge with the smaller folk, our lifespans far longer than that of any other mortal and capable of storing the memories of those that asked us to.
If magic Dies a lot of knowledge will too, and if that happens people will revert back to attacking things they used to know out of fear”
So, basically if Magic Died a lot of other things were fucked as well.
Damnit.
“Yeah, people attack things they fear and don't understand,  i know that too well, i guess they don't want to be afraid and instead become angry because it's easier for them, and hey, if they destroy the thing that scared them they won't have to be scared anymore”
Grella let out a sound that was probably a chuckle,  albeit distorted from her being so big.
“But they should be scared, not of things they don't know,  but of things they DO know.
Anyone can take up a weapon and murder if the conditions are right,  a person that is generally seen as helpful and loving could be the serial killer that haunts the streets at night.
And i think that people should in fact be uncomfortable sometimes,  if you never have the way you view the world challenged it lets hatred foster and stagnate your heart.
Sadly a lot of people do not seem get that being safe and feeling safe are two different things”
Taking all the bravery I had, I looked her straight into the eyes,  well one eye.
“Is there nothing we can do to stop it? 
Are you just content to Die like that? WHY is the magic disappearing? And where to? Where the fuck does all the magic go to if it isn't in those Ley lines anymore?”
There HAD to be SOME way to fix it, right?
Grella smiled sadly, a tear shining in her eye uh oh.
“Little man, it does not matter if i am content to die or not,  But I did have to accept that I cannot do anything to stop it,  and worrying everyday about it will not make it better,  Instead I have chosen to enjoy the time I have left, even though these days I'm mostly confined to Graves keep and my life isn't that bad.
Cassidy is a dear friend and as I told him I could not leave for long he offered to see the world for me.
He goes out on adventures and then comes back home to share the memories with me, be they made on land or at sea.
Even though I cannot go far,  I still have seen more of the world than most ever will.
There are fates worse than this, but thank you for wanting to help.
As for where the magic goes, I cannot really say, but I suspect the land of Valyria had something to do with it about three hundred years ago as they have managed to alter the flow of a few of the lines.
I would have investigated had it not been on land,  and had they not aimed their weapons at me as I swam closer.
Had i known what i do today i would have tried harder,  but now i cannot go too far from Graves keep or risk withering away, besides at this point they surely have better defenses against threats, they've seen me once so they surely prepared in case i came back”
Valyria huh? That sounded ominous,  and Elven maybe I should ask Fable as soon as I was back.
Still, I kinda felt sad for Grella, but at least she wasn't alone,  and apparently could see memories.
That and she cared enough about a stranger to warn them that they could get stuck in one form for the rest of their life.
“Grella?”
“Yes child of Elven blood?”
It was a weird title but I WAS of elven blood so she wasn't wrong.
“You said you can see and store memories, yes?”
She nodded slightly, probably to not disturb the surroundings too much
“That I can, yes, are you asking to see some of them?”
I shook my head.
“No, opposite actually, id let you see some of mine, i don't think Cassidy has ever been In Kamerasca so i could at least show you what it looks like?
I mean, you came this far from Graves keep just to warn me of the magic thing, that's the least i can do,  just promise to not show them to anyone else okay?”
Grella actually smiled, showing off three fangs,  two of which pointed up and framed a third one that grew down the middle of her upper jaw, not unlike an octopus beak.
“I will not show anyone as long as i live,  thank you young man, are you truly sure?”
I nodded, I already offered so no backtracking, that would just be mean.
“Yeah, i am, though i warn you that most of it is not happy”
She gave a slight nod once again, more of her hairlike tendrils curling and uncurling near my own head, gently touching at my own hair and skin.
”Rest easy now young Ardua,  and be assured your sleep will be untroubled”
What?
The tendrils curled around me,  getting the foggy feeling back into my brain.
“Tell Oakley my regards, and that i enjoyed the time we had so long ago”
Then it was black.
I woke up who the fuck knew when later still on the sandy strip,  sun out and Kraken gone.
Did that really happen? 
Judging by the fact I was still here AND giant sized, yes, it did.
What the hell.
Hopefully I made no one worry, seeing as the sun was just going up,  but at least I did not have any bad dreams or any dreams really.
At least Grella had been right in that,  but what the fuck was that last comment about Oakley?
The way she said it made it sound like they had something going on in the past.
Of course Oakley would fuck a Kraken, why the hell not.
I twisted the gem on the bracelet and shrunk back down to human size, dusting the sand off of my legs and finding a bunch of very colorful seashells next to me.
Considering how far from water I was,  Grella had to have placed these here.
I picked up the five or so shells, 
finding a twisted one with spikes about the same Color as Grella was, which I now realized was just pearl white with a hint of blue.
There also was a blue, red and purple one I would definitely give to Arthur and a few others I could decorate my nearly empty shelf at home with.
I really ought to find more stuff to put in it,  empty as it was, it just looked sad.
Well, better get back before anyone got worried.
Good thing i at least somewhat remembered the way back,  and in nearly no time at all i was back near Imugi’s saltwater pond.
“Donovan! Where have you been!”
I looked at where the voice came from,  seeing Robin had somehow gotten on top of the weird house.
Well, what the fuck was i supposed to tell here? That the Kraken herself had called me out in the middle of the night to tell me magic was dying?
Absolutely not.
So instead I held the seashells up.
“Got shells, I did tell Arthur I'd get him a pretty one after all!”
Robin leaned over the roof to look down and I prepared to shift in case he fell.
“Ohhh those are pretty! Which one are you gonna give him?”
“Come down here and I'll show you all of them! And don't fall!”
He nodded, scrambling out of sight and to wherever he got up in the first place.
I did not know one could go on their roof,  if a somewhat flat stone top of a cave even counted as that.
If anything it really was just a very big boulder that had gotten hollowed out, however the fuck that was done.
Holding the seashells I walked around to the entrance and found that there was a ladder going up to the roof,  which Robin was currently climbing down.
Before I could say anything to him though Ronan popped up,  well rather fell out of his hammock and landed face first on the floor.
“Ouch! Hey where did you get those shells? 
They are from some deep sea species! Can I have one?” 
Deep sea species? Of course Grella would give me something like that, why not, well whatever counted as deep sea for humans probably was still rather shallow waters for her.
“I found them in the sand, and one of those is for Arthur,  but i can give the small blue one”
I handed the small but rather long and thin twisted blue shell to him after he managed to stand up.
“Thanks! Can't wait to measure it after I find my measuring tape! 
Where did I put that anyway?”
Before he could get far he got scruffed by Akeem,  who held the other a good foot or so above the floor.
“No science for today, we have stuff to do, namely repair the ship.
You are going to go get supplies Imik listed for you,  you can ask someone else to come with if you want”
Ronan pouted at that.
“Fine, at least let me stash this properly so it doesn't break!”
Akeem nodded and shoved a list into his hands before letting him fall to the floor.
As the stone man walked out his eyes met mine for a second,  almost as if trying to look through me.
He knew something was off, clearly as he usually didn't sleep but the Kraken had managed to make him do just that.
I tried my best to stare back with a blank expression,  which seemed to be enough and he left.
Ronan had stashed the shell away, letting me use one of his boxes to put the other ones in and then invited us to tag along as apparently he just had to buy more wood so they could make a new railing.
Robin of course was immediately for it as he wanted to explore the city, but apparently the place to get wood was outside of it, near a little forest.
Well it kind of was still exploring the island, and he'd probably need help dragging the stuff back so we went along with him anyway.
Also I did not trust him to not do something dumb,  especially now that he could shift.
“Hey wouldn't it be easier to shift big to go get stuff?”
Yep, there it was, he already wanted to shift in the middle of the day in the middle of the island.
“Better not, you might give someone a heart attack doing that, also not everyone takes well to having a giant suddenly appear out of nowhere”
He made an unhappy face but before he could say anything Robin had found the weird door that was built directly into the stone,  still featuring that odd tree.
“What is this door for? Can I open it? Where does it go to?”
It was the door I had been told nobody could open so they just let it be.
Ronan laughed.
“If you manage to get it open i will eat a dozen raw eggs!”
That sounded like a great way to get sick very fast.
Still Robin tried to pull the door open with all his strength, and even tried to see if the door had to be pushed instead before going back to pulling.
It obviously wasn't working, not that something like that had stopped people from doing things before.
Grabbing him I heaved him away from the door,  the ginger still clinging to the very old and used looking handle.
“Aww come on, is it rusted shut or something?”
Instead of letting go he tried once more to pull it open, using me as a sort of brace but when even that didn't work he gave up.
“Why build something like that anyway?”
Good question, though it might have been part of something else once and was now just rotting and rusting here.
“Eh it was probably meant for something else that just never got finished”
After that I had to tell Ronan at least two more times to not randomly shift where people could see as he might cause some panic.
He clearly didn't like being told what to do but still didn't shift.
It wasn't long before we came across the sawmill near a patch of woods, already hearing the telltale sound of wood being cut.
Ronan of course waltzed in without knocking.
“Heya old man! How's it going? Still have all your fingers?”
Robin looked at me,  clearly aware that Ronan was rude to whoever worked here,  and neither of us would be surprised if he'd get a log tossed at him.
Going in after him I saw him handing a list to a man that looked very familiar.
He looked like an older version of Nemas, minus the face tattoo.
Right, the Captain of the Victory Rose had mentioned that his father had chosen to work in a sawmill instead of being a sailor.
Though I had not expected that to be here, well if he was anything like his son Ronan should prepare to get his ears talked off.
Which he didn't, but he did whack Ronan with a flexible stick for being rude before shoving everything that was on the list into his arms, not caring if Ronan could actually hold it or not.
Which he definitely couldn't so me and Robin went to help.
Well mostly me, Robin struck up conversation with the man, telling him that he looked like Nemas, who was indeed his son, and then walked out after hearing his son was here but apparently hadn't visited him so far.
Well, that sure was something just now.
Helping Ronan gather up the not so small amount of materials we helped carry it back towards the Halcyon, the new shifter complaining all the way that he wanted to get big to carry the stuff.
We did not let him, even Robin was aware that randomly shifting in a populated place was a bad idea so we were stuck bringing the wood back the old fashioned way.
Apparently once he'd given the wood to Imik and Akeem who worked to restore the ship he deemed it far enough away from people and jumped into the water, shifting to the creature form.
Of course Imugi had her fun with that,  swimming around him happily clicking and splashing.
Well, if Grella was right I had only about twenty years of shifting however I wanted, so why not join them for a bit?
Jumping down I also shifted and a moment later the big and green form of the Ardua was also splashing in the water.
I yelped as Imugi suddenly spit water at me from behind,  turning around and splashing back with my paws.
Imik yelled from somewhere on the ship for us to fuck off if we weren't helping and i could clearly hear Robin laughing loudly at the silly display we did.
We did as told, Ronan and Imugi a lot faster than me seeing as i wasn't a sea dwelling creature like them.
Somehow Imugi got a new tree, which I actually started to suspect was stolen from the other side of the island where the sawmill was, and let me hold onto it as she dragged me towards shallower water.
At least I could stand here, and Imugi wanted to play tug o 'war again, which I lost considering I was still in water.
Ronan tried to sneak up and get Imugi by spitting water at her,  but missed and hit me instead.
In retaliation I dunked his head under,  The flat surface of it was perfect for placing a paw on top.
“Hey! Haha! How long do you think I can hold my breath? 
This form doesn't have gills so I guess it's more like a seal? maybe?”
Honestly I had no idea how long those could hold their breath either.
“No idea! You can test it later if you want!”
Imugi forced her head against Ronan, shoving him around like a piece of cork and dunking him every time he tried to get away.
“I blame you for this!”
I just grinned at him, splashing Imugi who then turned her attention to me, bonking her head against my own.
Despite barely being able to stand i tried to shove her trough the water like she had done, with only mild success.
It was fun nonetheless and she used her beak to gently tap at me.
I responded by bapping at her with a paw,  a motion that would have anything just half her size falling over.
Ronan then headbutted me away, trying to shove me over the sandy ground of the little bay we were in and trying to dunk me as well.
Standing up on my haunches I shoved him backwards with both front paws, the situation quickly escalating into stupid and childlike play fighting, well if one could call two shapeshifting creatures trying to shove, harmlessly hit or headbutt each other that.
Imugi tossed the log shed found between us and like some stupid dogs we fought about it, me biting one end and him biting the other one.
Whoever let go first lost.
Water splashed as we each tugged and tore at the wood, Imugi click-whistled happily as we both acted like animals if just for this moment.
Then we got interrupted by someone yelling.
“HEY BOYS! FUNS OVER GET OVER HERE!”
I let go of the wood surprise, Ronan keeling over backwards as I suddenly stopped holding it and making a spectacular splash as his back hit the water first.
Looking up I could see Yamet standing there, waving us out of the water.
What time was it anyway? Judging by the sun at least midday now.
He'd probably cooked lunch or something, so better we'd dry off now.
Walking out of the water closely followed by Ronan I shook myself like a dog as soon as we were on dry land again, Ronan immediately trying as well and getting the water from his fur all over me.
I placed a paw on his head and pressed down a little,  seeing him squish his body like that was funny and more reminiscent of a cat being slightly annoyed.
Before he could think to do it back I jumped up the few boulders closer to Yamet, shifting back to human form as soon as I was next to him.
“What is it? Did you make Lunch?”
He shook his head, which I found a little disappointing.
“No, though i should soon, but whatever, your friend, the black haired one is looking for you, i think he wants to go to some other island soon?”
Ohh right, Kamerasca had a colony here, whatever that was called, of course Rikaad would want to take a look at it when he was already here.
“Uh, sure? Where is he now? Do I have to get my stuff?”
Well, it looked like we were leaving pretty fast,  though that was just like Rikaad really.
I was, however, a bit sad, being here had been fun! And now that they were here also i had wanted to at least stay a day or two more.
Yamet just shrugged and pointed me back towards the boat.
As said Rikaad was there,  and the guy with the oversized chicken as well, Chicken included.
I could see Imik keeping his distance from it while Jamie was gently scratching its head.
As Rikaad saw me his face got a good bit less grumpy.
Nice to see he cared.
Robin was right behind him, also staring at the Chicken.
“Donovan! There you are, why are you drenched in seawater?”
“Ronan was testing his new form a bit more, and Imugi wanted to play”
Rikaad glanced at the water where Imugi was swimming back to the boat.
“I see, anyway since we are here i wanted to go check out Naroa island, Which is the colony's main place,  Do you want to come with? We will come back here after and stay here till Nemas manages to repair the ship”
Oh right, the Victory Rose had gotten quite a bit damaged, wait how would we get to Naroa then?
“Uh, sure why not, see a bit more of the world,  but how are we going to get there if the Victory Rose is damaged?”
Rikaad pointed all the way over to where they had parked the Call Of The Damned.
“Cassidy is going to take us there, apparently his wife is also there for the next two or so weeks and he wants to talk to her”
Oh yeah that would work, wait wasn't Cassidy divorced? 
Eh not my life so not my problem.
“Yeah why not? I am curious what that place looks like!”
Suddenly Ronan interrupted.
“Can we come with? I've never been there either! 
And only Yamet and Imik know how to repair the ship anyway!”
He had to duck as a hammer was tossed at him from Yamet.
“Then fucking learn!”
Ronan ignored it in favor of listening to Rikaads answer.
“I do not see why not, as long as Cassidy lets you on the ship i have no problem, anyone else here want to come with?”
Jamie jumped, grabbing at Ronans arm with their bird claws and standing sideways.
“I'd like to see! I have no idea where on the fucking map that is anyway!”
“If Jamie and Ronan go then so will i, someone has to stop them from doing stupid things”
Ah so Akeem would come as well, nice, and yeah he was right in that.
Rikaad nodded curtly.
“Very well, get what you need and meet us at the ship”
NEXT / PREVIOUS / OVERSIGHT
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guuccibaguette · 1 year
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Sims 4 Sweet Life Legacy Challenge
Hi, this is the creator of this challenge! I am not a professional when it comes to making legacy challenges but I try my best! You can find multiple other ways of seeing my progress on doing my own legacies and other fellow simmers legacies as well. I have always been fond of doing legacy challenges, they give me more purpose to play sims in ways that I myself would not know how. Let's be honest sims 4 can be very boring if you don’t have anything planned out, that's why challenges make the game so much better - along with custom content -. If you decide to use my challenge I hope you have fun and enjoy this!
General Rules for this Challenge are pretty simple but I don’t want to make this challenge so easy that people can fly thru each gen like butter.
Generation 1 - Cinnamon
Your parents are and have always been big on their vegetable garden and being complete Vegans. They make money from selling their vegetables all around Henford-On-Bagley. It's their home and they will not leave under no circumstances. You never told them how you are definitely not a vegan. You in fact have a very strong sweet tooth, especially for Cinnamon Rolls. This is your secret from them. Your dream is to get out of Henford-On-Bagley and start your own sweets bakery completely not Vegan.
Aspiration- Master Chef (this is a mod-friendly challenge if you want to use the custom bakery aspiration be my guest)
Career- You make all your simoleons from baking sweets and eventually own your own sweets bakery.
Skills- Cooking, Gourmet Cooking, & Baking
*Start as a child or teen*
*All Three Skills Have To Be Completed to Mastered*
*Must live in Henford-On-Bagley as a teen, but leave once Young Adult*
*Marry the first employee you hire when you open your bakery*
*Have a five-star Bakery before you die*
*Have at least 2-3 kids*
*If you want to complete the parents' aspiration as well (not required) its Country Caretaker*
Generation 2 - Starberry Shortcake
Running a bakery with your parents is and has always been fun, free sweets every day. Sadly though when it comes to eating sweets every day you will most likely end up with bad health and bad teeth - aka cavities- not fun. You strive to make a better body for yourself, and more healthy lifestyle. It's not easy and multiple steps up the stairs but you will make it. 
Aspiration- Bodybuilder
Career- Athlete *If you master this career before your sim dies you can download a dentist career to fit the storyline.*
Skills- Fitness, Wellness, Snowboarding, skiing, & *optional* rock climbing
*TRY to master fitness skill as a teen*
*Go to Mt. Komorebi every other weekend to master your snowboarding, skiing, & *optional* rock climbing skill*
*Join football or cheer for after school, not both*
*Marry an afterschool member*
*Move to Mt. Komorebi as a young adult*
*Have one or more child(ren) with first spouse*
*Have an affair with a native from Mt. Komorebi*
Generation 3 - Rice Crispy Treat
You have always watched your parent either come home from working looking sweaty, or them picking you up from school and the entire car smelling like sweat. It has and will always gross you out to no avail. It made you nauseous a lot when seeing both your parents sweaty from working out just casually being able to hug, kiss, or do anything with grime on them. This made you end up constantly cleaning the house, the car, EVERYTHING you can see that makes you see dirt. *sigh* Being a clean freak isn’t as easy when all you see is sticky.
Aspiration- Perfectly Pristine
Career- Influencer (you make money from your posts/videos of your positive clean lifestyle)
Skills- If there was a cleaning skill it would be that skill
*Must have the bust the dust kit enabled*
*Keep your house as perfectly clean as possible*
*Have as many kids as you would like the more the messier*
*Marry an opposites attract sim because obviously, opposites attract*
*Adopt a stray cat or dog to add to the messiness*
*Once aspiration is completed and being an elder die from over exhaustion from cleaning*
Generation 4 - Smores
Because of your parents' clean freak illness, they put you in scouts. They kept you in scouts from childhood, teenhood till young adult. Lucky for you, you learned a lot being in scouts. How to make smores, make fires, and tie a rope for about anything. Being in the outdoors is the best! Learning more things about the outdoors is all you want in life. You want your firstborn to be born in the outdoors, you want to die in the outdoors. Outdoor life is all you can think about when you get home from scouts. You even asked your parent(s) if you could go camping but they always said no. Now is your chance to let your dreams come true as a young adult!
Aspiration- Outdoor Enthusiast
Career- You make money from your finds. *Bugs, fish, etc*
Skills- Herbalism, & Gardening
*If you have the mod to live in Granite falls you can use that, if not buy an empty lot and constantly vacation to granite falls to explore and make money.*
*Try to complete the frog collection if not collect at least 15 to 20 frogs it will show in your collections*
*Collect at least 10-15 insects in your collections*
*Collect all the granite falls exclusive fish (Golden Yellow, Yellow Perch, Red Crayfish, Blue Crayfish, Fish-far from the Mountains)*
*Befriend the Hermit of Granite falls*
*Raise all child(ren) in granite falls*
*Marry a sim in a bear costume*
Generation 5 - Banana Split
Camping has always been a huge thing for your family. Your parent could never get your grandparent to ever visit or join you. So you always had to travel the distance just to see extended family. It was always fun to watch what new buildings appeared and what new stores were made. Seeing cousins, family members and many more was never a hassle it was always a joy just to travel. Once you got your license to drive, no one was ever able to stop you from going off to travel somewhere.
Aspiration- Beach life & City Native *Optional* Jungle Explorer
Career- Critic *You are traveling a lot this is a perfect job for your sim*
Skills- Charisma, Logic, & Photography
*Once mastered either aspiration continue on to the next as long as one aspiration is finished you completed the generation*
*Make at least 12 friends, 12 good friends, and 1 best friend*
*Marry a native from either Sulani or San Myshuno*
*Have two children one born from Sulani and One born from San Myshuno*
*Always participate in the markets and festivals*
*Learn all the San Myshuno Food Stall Recipes*
*Collect all snowglobes*
Generation 6 - Brownie
Because of your very absent parent always traveling claiming it was for their job, they were not in your life that much. It was mostly you and your sibling. You had to learn to cook and clean, make sure that you and your sibling survive without the adult around. There was always money on the table, never had to struggle in that department yet you struggled to be happy. In school, you were bullied for your hair, and your clothes, and when sims found out that your parent was absent in your life the new nickname was now your name *housewife*. 
Aspiration- Super Parent
Career- Babysitter
Skills- Parenting
*Always save your money and only spend on needed stuff, aka bills, food, or furniture.*
*Never order out always cook meals for everyone in your household*
*Marry a sim that is already a parent (step-parent life)*
*Have 2 children with your spouse*
*Have a no-contact relationship or negative relationship with a neglectful parent*
*Adopt one child when elder*
Generation 7 - Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate Chip Cookies are the best snack ever in your sim opinion. Your sim parent would always make it for movie nights, after-school snacks even sleepovers! Yet the older they got the more sad you got that those Chocolate Chip Cookies will never be made by them ever again. Then it dawned on you, a lot of things are never gonna be seen or made again. You want to keep all that knowledge, keep everything you know and not let it go away. This got you into collecting things specifically shiny things.
Aspiration- The Curator
Career- Science
Skills- Rocket Science
*Collect all the crystals*
*Build a rocketship and go to Sixam*
*Meet and Marry an alien from Sixam*
*Have one alien child*
*Maintain a relationship with the parent making sure the child has one with them as well*
*Collect all Geodes*
*Have a tiny garden with only Fang Flower, Glow Orb, & Quill Fruit*
Generation 8 - Cheesecake
Being different has never been harder. Your skin may look and feel like a sim but you don’t sound like one, you don't feel like one, and you definitely don’t act like one. Your sim parent always tried to make you feel included in the sim world teaching you everything about sims, but your alien parent was always making it known where your origin is from. Two different worlds yet it feels so hard to understand either. Getting away from it all and going somewhere new is probably what's best to handle your anxiety. You go to a small town with not that many sims and it's very unknown.
Aspiration- StrangerVille Mystery
Career- Military
Skills- Programming & Robotics
*Use your robotics skill to make your best friend a robot*
*When making your crew to defeat mother befriend all of them*
*Marry one crew member*
*Once the mother is defeated make a second robot so your robot can have a spouse*
*Have multiple children as many as you desire*
*Leave StrangerVille after all the above is completed*
Generation 9 - Red Velvet Cake
Romance *sigh* the most romantic thing to see is two sims falling in love and sharing their compassion for one another. You watched your parents love blossom all the time, and you even witnessed the robot family members have a loving relationship blossom! You crave that feeling one day. The warm gushy mushy feeling in your gut. Your heart pounding just being near the one you love. Watching romance movies and having celebrity crushes will never fill the void in your heart you want real love, you want a real sim to share your feelings with. 
Aspiration- Soulmate or Serial Romantic
Career- Architecture 
Skills- Flower Arranging & Bowling
*Every date you go on has to be at a bowling alley*
*Every date you go on you have to give them a vase of flowers*
*Marry a sim that you’ve worked for at your job*
*Have an affair with a married sim*
*Have six kids with spouse*
*Divorce spouse*
*Marry as an elder*
Generation 10 - Doughnut
A dozen is most common when buying doughnuts right? Either six or twelve no in between unless it's a full party. You love parties, you thrive for nights out and attending parties, and you love throwing secret parties your sim parent never knows about. It's the best and most thrilling thing to do. Especially since you have a dozen siblings meaning the house parties you throw will be massive. You are always excited about your young adult life growing up because all you want to do is throw parties and go to clubs to party some more. 
Aspiration- Party Animal
Career- Video Game Streamer
Skills- Media Production, Dancing, & Dj Mixing
*Every Saturday throw a party*
*Every Sunday go to the club*
*Befriend a celebrity at any star level*
*Marry a celebrity*
*Have a set of twins*
*Live in a mansion*
*Become a five-star celebrity*
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