#that specialized environment lives on in each one of them every day

[novelconcepts]

There’s a line from American Gods I keep coming back to in relation to Yellowjackets, an observation made early on by Shadow in prison: “The kind of behavior that works in a specialized environment, such as prison, can fail to work and in fact become harmful when used outside such an environment.” I keep rotating it in my head in thinking about the six survivors, the roles they occupy in the wilderness, and the way the show depicts them as adults in society.

Because in the wilderness, as in prison, they’re trapped—they’re suffering, they’re traumatized, they’re terrified—but they’re also able to construct very specific boxes to live in. And, in a way, that might make it easier. Cut away the fat, narrow the story down to its base arc. You are no longer the complex young woman who weighs a moral compass before acting. You no longer have the luxury of asking questions. You are a survivor. You have only to get to the next day.

Shauna: the scribe. Lottie: the prophet. Van: the acolyte. Taissa: the skeptic. Misty: the knight. Natalie: the queen. Neat, orderly, the bricks of a new kind of society. And it works in the woods; we know this because these six survive. (Add Travis: the hunter, while you’re at it, because he does make it to adulthood).

But then they’re rescued. And it’s not just lost purpose and PTSD they’re dealing with now, but a loss of that intrinsic identity each built in the woods. How do you go home again? How do you rejoin a so-called civilized world, where all the violence is restricted to a soccer field, to an argument, to your own nightmares?

How does the scribe, the one who wrote it all out in black and white to make sense of the horrors, cope with a world that would actively reject her story? She locks that story away. But she can’t stop turning it over in her head. She can’t forget the details. They’re waiting around every corner. In the husband beside her in bed. In the child she can’t connect with across the table. In the best friend whose parents draw her in, make her the object of their grief, the friend who lives on in every corner of their hometown. She can’t forget, so she tries so hard to write a different kind of story instead, to fool everyone into seeing the soft maternal mask and not the butcher beneath, and she winds up with blood on her hands just the same.

How does the prophet come back from the religion a desperate group made of her, a group that took her tortured visions, her slipping mental health, and built a hungry need around the very things whittling her down? She builds over the bones. She creates a place out of all that well-intended damage, and she tells herself she’s helping, she’s saving them, she has to save them, because the world is greedy and needs a leader, needs a martyr, needs someone to stand up tall and reassure everyone at the end of the day that they know what’s best. The world, any world, needs someone who will take those blows so the innocent don’t have to. She’s haunted by everyone she didn’t save, by the godhood assigned to her out of misplaced damage, and when the darkness comes knocking again, there is nothing else to do but repeat old rhymes until there is blood on her hands just the same.

How does the acolyte return to a world that cares nothing for the faith of the desperate, the faith that did nothing to save most of her friends, that indeed pushed her to destroy? She runs from it. She dives into things that are safe to believe in, things that rescue lonely girls from rough home lives, things that show a young queer kid there’s still sunshine out there somewhere. She delves into fiction, makes a home inside old stories to which she already knows the endings, coaxes herself away from the belief that damned her and into a cinemascope safety net where the real stuff never has to get in. She teaches herself surface-level interests, she avoids anything she might believe in too deeply, and still she’s dragged back to the place where blood winds up on her hands just the same.

How does the skeptic make peace with the things she knows happened, the things that she did even without meaning to, without realizing? She buries them. She leans hard into a refusal to believe those skeletons could ever crawl back out of the graves she stuffed them into, because belief is in some ways the opposite of control. She doesn’t talk to her wife. She doesn’t talk to anyone. It’s not about what’s underneath the surface, because that’s just a mess, so instead she actively discounts the girl she became in the woods. She makes something new, something rational and orderly, someone who can’t fail. She polishes the picture to a shine, and she stands up straight, the model achievement. She goes about her original plan like it was always going to be that way, and she winds up with blood on her hands just the same.

How does the knight exist in a world with no one to serve, no one to protect, no reason propelling the devastating choices she had grown comfortable making? She rechannels it. She convinces herself she’s the smartest person in the room, the most capable, the most observant. She convinces herself other people’s mysteries are hers to solve, that she is helping in every single action she takes. She makes a career out of assisting the most fragile, the most helpless souls she can find, and she makes a hobby out of patrolling for crimes to solve, and when a chance comes to strap her armor back on and ride into battle, she rejoices in the return to normalcy. She craves that station as someone needed, someone to rely upon in the darkest of hours, and she winds up with blood on her hands because, in a way, she never left the wilderness at all.

How does the queen keep going without a queendom, without a pack, without people to lead past the horrors of tomorrow? She doesn’t. She simply does not know how. She scrounges for something, anything, that will make her feel connected to the world the way that team did. She moves in and out of a world that rejects trauma, punishes the traumatized, heckles the grieving as a spectacle. She finds comfort in the cohesive ritual of rehabilitation, this place where she gets so close to finding herself again, only to stumble when she opens her eyes and sees she’s alone. All those months feeding and guiding and gripping fast to the fight of making it to another day, and she no longer knows how to rest. How to let go without falling. She no longer wears a crown, and she never wanted it in the first place, so how on earth does she survive a world that doesn’t understand the guilt and shame of being made the centerpiece of a specialized environment you can never explain to anyone else? How, how, how do you survive without winding up with blood on your hands just the same?

All six of these girls found, for better or worse, a place in the woods. All six of them found, for better or worse, a reason to get up the next day. For each other. And then they go home, and even if they all stayed close, stayed friends, it’d still be like stepping out of chains for the first time in years. Where do you go? How do you make small choices when every decision for months was life or death? How do you keep the part of yourself stitched so innately into your survival in a world that would scream to see it? How do you do away with the survivor and still keep going?

They brought it back with them. Of course they did. It was the only way.

#yellowjackets #yellowjackets spoilers #yj meta #long post #shauna shipman #lottie matthews #taissa turner #van palmer #misty quigley #natalie scatorccio #the question not being how do you survive the wilderness. the question being how do you come BACK. #the way each of them tries so hard to keep moving forward #unable to untangle the girl in the woods from the adult suffering in polite society #how the world doesn’t want to hear about the pain or the night terrors or the sleepwalking or the addiction #the world wants the bright colors and the flash-bang headlines #the world doesn’t want who they are. who they had to be. it wants pretty perfect tragedy #that specialized environment lives on in each one of them every day #but it’s not a place anyone else can ever go #how do you feed that for so long and then just…stop? #constantly thinking about nat saying we didn’t make it out. none of us. #because no. no they didn’t. the girls died the minute that rescue chance did. what came back was risen from those ashes

[mostlysignssomeportents]

What kind of bubble is AI?

My latest column for Locus Magazine is "What Kind of Bubble is AI?" All economic bubbles are hugely destructive, but some of them leave behind wreckage that can be salvaged for useful purposes, while others leave nothing behind but ashes:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Think about some 21st century bubbles. The dotcom bubble was a terrible tragedy, one that drained the coffers of pension funds and other institutional investors and wiped out retail investors who were gulled by Superbowl Ads. But there was a lot left behind after the dotcoms were wiped out: cheap servers, office furniture and space, but far more importantly, a generation of young people who'd been trained as web makers, leaving nontechnical degree programs to learn HTML, perl and python. This created a whole cohort of technologists from non-technical backgrounds, a first in technological history. Many of these people became the vanguard of a more inclusive and humane tech development movement, and they were able to make interesting and useful services and products in an environment where raw materials – compute, bandwidth, space and talent – were available at firesale prices.

Contrast this with the crypto bubble. It, too, destroyed the fortunes of institutional and individual investors through fraud and Superbowl Ads. It, too, lured in nontechnical people to learn esoteric disciplines at investor expense. But apart from a smattering of Rust programmers, the main residue of crypto is bad digital art and worse Austrian economics.

Or think of Worldcom vs Enron. Both bubbles were built on pure fraud, but Enron's fraud left nothing behind but a string of suspicious deaths. By contrast, Worldcom's fraud was a Big Store con that required laying a ton of fiber that is still in the ground to this day, and is being bought and used at pennies on the dollar.

AI is definitely a bubble. As I write in the column, if you fly into SFO and rent a car and drive north to San Francisco or south to Silicon Valley, every single billboard is advertising an "AI" startup, many of which are not even using anything that can be remotely characterized as AI. That's amazing, considering what a meaningless buzzword AI already is.

So which kind of bubble is AI? When it pops, will something useful be left behind, or will it go away altogether? To be sure, there's a legion of technologists who are learning Tensorflow and Pytorch. These nominally open source tools are bound, respectively, to Google and Facebook's AI environments:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

But if those environments go away, those programming skills become a lot less useful. Live, large-scale Big Tech AI projects are shockingly expensive to run. Some of their costs are fixed – collecting, labeling and processing training data – but the running costs for each query are prodigious. There's a massive primary energy bill for the servers, a nearly as large energy bill for the chillers, and a titanic wage bill for the specialized technical staff involved.

Once investor subsidies dry up, will the real-world, non-hyperbolic applications for AI be enough to cover these running costs? AI applications can be plotted on a 2X2 grid whose axes are "value" (how much customers will pay for them) and "risk tolerance" (how perfect the product needs to be).

Charging teenaged D&D players $10 month for an image generator that creates epic illustrations of their characters fighting monsters is low value and very risk tolerant (teenagers aren't overly worried about six-fingered swordspeople with three pupils in each eye). Charging scammy spamfarms $500/month for a text generator that spits out dull, search-algorithm-pleasing narratives to appear over recipes is likewise low-value and highly risk tolerant (your customer doesn't care if the text is nonsense). Charging visually impaired people $100 month for an app that plays a text-to-speech description of anything they point their cameras at is low-value and moderately risk tolerant ("that's your blue shirt" when it's green is not a big deal, while "the street is safe to cross" when it's not is a much bigger one).

Morganstanley doesn't talk about the trillions the AI industry will be worth some day because of these applications. These are just spinoffs from the main event, a collection of extremely high-value applications. Think of self-driving cars or radiology bots that analyze chest x-rays and characterize masses as cancerous or noncancerous.

These are high value – but only if they are also risk-tolerant. The pitch for self-driving cars is "fire most drivers and replace them with 'humans in the loop' who intervene at critical junctures." That's the risk-tolerant version of self-driving cars, and it's a failure. More than $100b has been incinerated chasing self-driving cars, and cars are nowhere near driving themselves:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Quite the reverse, in fact. Cruise was just forced to quit the field after one of their cars maimed a woman – a pedestrian who had not opted into being part of a high-risk AI experiment – and dragged her body 20 feet through the streets of San Francisco. Afterwards, it emerged that Cruise had replaced the single low-waged driver who would normally be paid to operate a taxi with 1.5 high-waged skilled technicians who remotely oversaw each of its vehicles:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/technology/cruise-general-motors-self-driving-cars.html

The self-driving pitch isn't that your car will correct your own human errors (like an alarm that sounds when you activate your turn signal while someone is in your blind-spot). Self-driving isn't about using automation to augment human skill – it's about replacing humans. There's no business case for spending hundreds of billions on better safety systems for cars (there's a human case for it, though!). The only way the price-tag justifies itself is if paid drivers can be fired and replaced with software that costs less than their wages.

What about radiologists? Radiologists certainly make mistakes from time to time, and if there's a computer vision system that makes different mistakes than the sort that humans make, they could be a cheap way of generating second opinions that trigger re-examination by a human radiologist. But no AI investor thinks their return will come from selling hospitals that reduce the number of X-rays each radiologist processes every day, as a second-opinion-generating system would. Rather, the value of AI radiologists comes from firing most of your human radiologists and replacing them with software whose judgments are cursorily double-checked by a human whose "automation blindness" will turn them into an OK-button-mashing automaton:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/23/automation-blindness/#humans-in-the-loop

The profit-generating pitch for high-value AI applications lies in creating "reverse centaurs": humans who serve as appendages for automation that operates at a speed and scale that is unrelated to the capacity or needs of the worker:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

But unless these high-value applications are intrinsically risk-tolerant, they are poor candidates for automation. Cruise was able to nonconsensually enlist the population of San Francisco in an experimental murderbot development program thanks to the vast sums of money sloshing around the industry. Some of this money funds the inevitabilist narrative that self-driving cars are coming, it's only a matter of when, not if, and so SF had better get in the autonomous vehicle or get run over by the forces of history.

Once the bubble pops (all bubbles pop), AI applications will have to rise or fall on their actual merits, not their promise. The odds are stacked against the long-term survival of high-value, risk-intolerant AI applications.

The problem for AI is that while there are a lot of risk-tolerant applications, they're almost all low-value; while nearly all the high-value applications are risk-intolerant. Once AI has to be profitable – once investors withdraw their subsidies from money-losing ventures – the risk-tolerant applications need to be sufficient to run those tremendously expensive servers in those brutally expensive data-centers tended by exceptionally expensive technical workers.

If they aren't, then the business case for running those servers goes away, and so do the servers – and so do all those risk-tolerant, low-value applications. It doesn't matter if helping blind people make sense of their surroundings is socially beneficial. It doesn't matter if teenaged gamers love their epic character art. It doesn't even matter how horny scammers are for generating AI nonsense SEO websites:

https://twitter.com/jakezward/status/1728032634037567509

These applications are all riding on the coattails of the big AI models that are being built and operated at a loss in order to be profitable. If they remain unprofitable long enough, the private sector will no longer pay to operate them.

Now, there are smaller models, models that stand alone and run on commodity hardware. These would persist even after the AI bubble bursts, because most of their costs are setup costs that have already been borne by the well-funded companies who created them. These models are limited, of course, though the communities that have formed around them have pushed those limits in surprising ways, far beyond their original manufacturers' beliefs about their capacity. These communities will continue to push those limits for as long as they find the models useful.

These standalone, "toy" models are derived from the big models, though. When the AI bubble bursts and the private sector no longer subsidizes mass-scale model creation, it will cease to spin out more sophisticated models that run on commodity hardware (it's possible that Federated learning and other techniques for spreading out the work of making large-scale models will fill the gap).

So what kind of bubble is the AI bubble? What will we salvage from its wreckage? Perhaps the communities who've invested in becoming experts in Pytorch and Tensorflow will wrestle them away from their corporate masters and make them generally useful. Certainly, a lot of people will have gained skills in applying statistical techniques.

But there will also be a lot of unsalvageable wreckage. As big AI models get integrated into the processes of the productive economy, AI becomes a source of systemic risk. The only thing worse than having an automated process that is rendered dangerous or erratic based on AI integration is to have that process fail entirely because the AI suddenly disappeared, a collapse that is too precipitous for former AI customers to engineer a soft landing for their systems.

This is a blind spot in our policymakers debates about AI. The smart policymakers are asking questions about fairness, algorithmic bias, and fraud. The foolish policymakers are ensnared in fantasies about "AI safety," AKA "Will the chatbot become a superintelligence that turns the whole human race into paperclips?"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

But no one is asking, "What will we do if" – when – "the AI bubble pops and most of this stuff disappears overnight?"

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/19/bubblenomics/#pop

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

--

tom_bullock (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/tombullock/25173469495/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

#pluralistic #ai #economics #business #hype #bubbles #bubblenomics #residue

[cutielando]

family ~ rafe cameron

my masterlist

Ever since he was young, Rafe had always dreamed of having a family. His wife, his children that he would raise whatever way he saw fit with his partner by his side. He wanted it all.

Growing up, he came to the conclusion that he would never have that. Who would want to love someone as damaged as him? Not even his family loved him, he couldn’t expect a stranger to do so. It would be completely unfair.

Meeting you had been Rafe’s lifeline from the very beginning. He couldn’t explain it, but he knew, from the moment you had first spoken to each other, that he would end up marrying you.

To some people, it might seem rash, or completely unrealistic. How could you think that you would be spending the rest of your life with someone you had known for such a short amount of time? Some even called Rafe delusional.

But he had been right in the end.

You saw Rafe for so much more than his family was making him believe about himself. He had so much potential to become such a great human being, a great CEO for his family’s business, an amazing partner and a reliable friend. He had all the qualities to be amazing, he was just being let down by his own family who didn’t believe he was worth any trouble. A fact which completely broke your heart.

You had vowed to yourself that you wouldn’t let his family dictate his life any longer, that you would not let them bring him down and make him think less of himself. You would show him just how much life had to offer and how much better off he would be without their control over him.

Rafe knew he had to get out. He would never have got better if he were to remain to live under the same roof as them or even be in the same place as them.

Which was partially the reason why the two of you moved in together on the mainland, not even 6 months after your relationship had officially started. Many of your friends thought it was too soon, that you hadn’t thought things through and were just acting up. Typical things coming from entitled teenagers.

Nothing about your relationship was ordinary. The circumstances in which the two of you had met, the very beginning of your relationship with each other, your interactions with his family and especially his father, your mutual decision to help Rafe escape from the toxic environment he had grown accustomed to. Unique circumstances, as your boyfriend had liked putting it.

Those exact circumstances were the reason why Rafe proposed to you on your 1 year anniversary dinner. He hadn’t told anyone he would be doing it, making sure you didn’t suspect anything that would ruin his surprise.

The wedding ceremony had been the one to go down in history books. You’d decided to go all out, inviting every last one of your friends, both of your families, a lot of people from the island, new friends you had made since the two of you moved, wanting the people you loved close to you on that special day.

Rafe had been skeptical of inviting his family at first, very familiar with the way his father made it his life’s mission to make his son’s life a living hell with any occasion.

Luckily, thanks to Rose, that hadn’t been the case at all. You didn’t even know he was there, that’s how quiet and invisible he had made himself out to be.

Being married to Rafe was amazing. You both had stable jobs, but you still made time for each other every single day. He would always bring you something when he would come home, either a bouquet of your favorite flowers, or some kind of jewelry that he had seen on the way home and made him think of you.

Everything was perfect.

But there was just something missing. Something both of you had been thinking about but didn’t have the courage to bring it up until one night.

A child.

“Baby?” Rafe had called out to you one night while you were doing your night routine.

“Yes?” you called out from the bathroom.

“Can we talk about something once you’re done?” his words made you a little bit nervous, figuring it had to be something important.

“Of course” you called back, now suddenly in a hurry to finish your skincare.

Nerves were gnawing at your chest, making all kinds of thoughts run through your head. Deep down, you knew you had no reason to be scared or anything like that. At the end of the day, it was Rafe you were talking about. Your sweet, sweet husband.

You walked back into your shared bedroom, noticing Rafe sitting in the middle of the bed under the covers, playing with his hands which rested on his lap.

Getting in next to him and cuddling with the mountain of blankets you slept with, you smiled at him, which he reciprocated but his smile didn’t meet his eyes.

“What did you want to talk about?” you asked, taking his hand in yours once you realized just how nervous he was.

He cleared his throat, turning around so he was completely facing you.

“I’ve been thinking lately, we’ve got a very stable lifestyle, you know? We both have good jobs, we really have a lot of money, we have a nice and big house, we have friends who support us, we’re doing really well, wouldn’t you agree?” he asked, making you nod. “I was thinking about it, and you can totally say no and I would completely understand if you think it would be too soon. But what do you thinking about starting to try for a baby?” by the time he had asked the question, his hands were shaking even more so than they were before.

You were shocked, to say the least. You had been toying around with the idea in your head as well, but you were skeptical of bringing it up because you had just got married, you didn’t want to pressure Rafe into having a kid just yet.

As it turned out, he had been doing the exact same thing.

“I think it’s time we started trying for a baby” you whispered, biting your lip once you saw how his eyes lit up.

“You do? You’re not just saying that for my sake?” he whispered, wanting to make sure you were truly on the same page about this.

You shook your head, smiling at him fondly.

“Truth to be told, I’ve been thinking about bringing up having children ever since our honeymoon ended, but I didn’t want to make you feel pressured to have a kid right away. Turns out I’ve been worrying in vain all this time” you chuckled, taking a hold of one of his hands.

Rafe chuckled alongside you and let out a big breath, feeling relief slowly taking over his body.

Silence fell over the room, you and your husband communicating through your eyes. There was an unspoken agreement between the two of you, an agreement that it was time for your family to get bigger, that you were more than ready to take this step together.

That you were ready to embark on yet another adventure.

Said adventure proved to come much quicker than the both of you were expecting.

After not even a month since you’d had that discussion and agreed that you would start trying for a baby, the blue stick that you had purchased at the pharmacy had shown a + sign, marking the beginning of your journey towards parenthood.

Telling Rafe had been your favorite part. You had gone out to the store and bought a little onesie and baby socks, deciding to put them in a small gift box along with the positive test you had taken.

When Rafe came home and discovered the gift, he burst out crying, sinking down to his knees and pressing kisses on your stomach, repeatedly thanking you for giving him such a huge blessing to love and care for.

For giving him a family.

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[bethanythebogwitch]

It's big, it's strong, its scaly, it's this week's Wet Beast Wednesday topic! An arapaima, also known as a pirarucu or paiche, is any of four species of fish in the genus Arapaima in the order of bony-tongued fish. There is som ongoing debate about the classification of the species, so to keep thing simple, I'm going to use the most common species names of Arapaima gigas (the type species and most well known, and the one with the most confusion about its classification), Arapaima agassizii, Arapaima leptosoma, and Arapaima mapae. Because A. gigas is the most well-studied of the species, unless I say otherwise you can assume everything I say in this post applies to it.

(image: an arapaima)

Arapaimas are bony fish that retain several primitive traits, causing them to sometimes be identified as "living fossils". They are most notable for their size, with A. gigas being a contender for the largest freshwater fish in the world. The maximum recorded size for one was 3.7 meters (10 ft) and 200 kg (400 lbs), but most get to around 2 meters (6.6 ft) long and 200 kg (440 lbs). That average length is decreasing as overfishing of the largest individuals is resulting in a selective pressure for smaller sizes. In addition to their size, they are extremely strong and can move fast if needed. Arapaima are fully capable of leaping out of the water if disturbed or they feel their current pond in unsuitable. Because of their strength, specimens in captivity must be handled with care as they can easy break bones if they slap someone. They live in rivers and lakes in South America, where they are often the top predators.

(image: several anglers with an arapaima)

Arapaimas are obligate air-breathers and will drown if they can't get to the surface to breathe. This is accomplished with a specialized swim bladder. The swim bladder is filled with highly vascularized tissue, letting it act like a lung. This pseudo-lung opens into the mouth using a modified gill arch known as the labyrinth organ. Arapaima gills are too small to sustain them, but they can supplement their oxygen intake with the gills. Juveniles are born exclusively using their gills and transition into air-breathers shortly after hatching. Arapaimas can survive up to a full day out of the water. They typically surface to gulp in air every 15-20 minutes. Breathing makes a loud gulping sound that anglers use to target them.

(image: an arapaima at the surface)

Because of their ability to breathe air, arapaimas are top predators in low-oxygen environments. Non-air breathing fish are forced to slow down in water with low levels of dissolved oxygen as they can't get enough oxygen through their gills. Since Arapaimas breathe air, they can easily chase down lethargic smaller fish. They are especially potent predators during the low season, when water levels lower. A combination of rotting vegetation reducing oxygen levels and ponds getting cut off from rivers and losing a supply of oxygen lets the arapaima reign supreme. Arapaimas are primarily predators that feed on smaller fish, though they will hunt other types of animals and eat fruits and seeds. Even land animals aren't safe as arapaimas have been known to launch themselves out of the water to catch animals near the shore. A combination of sharp teeth and their bony tongues are used to debilitate prey.

(image: an arapaima with its mouth open)

Not content with powerleveling their attack stat, arapaimas also have excellent defense. Their scales have been compared to bullet proof vests. Each has a hard, mineralized outer layer over multiple layers of collagen fibers. These layers are all oriented at an angle to each other to provide extra strength. This orientation of layers is called a Bouligand-type arrangement and is similar to how plywood is assembled. The harder outer layers and flexible inner layers work together to allow for both strength and flexibility. These scales help provide protection form large predators such as caiman and small threats like biting piranha. They also like provide protection from other arapaima, as the fish are aggressive and will fight each other.

(image: a diagram showing the composition of arapaima scales. source)

You probably wouldn't expect a swimming tank of an animal to be a good parent, but you'd be wrong. Arapaimas work together in mated pairs to build nests for their eggs, then cooperate to guard the nest. Once the eggs hatch, the male will practice mouth brooding, keeping his young safe in his mouth. The female will also help by patrolling the area around the male to ward off predators. They secrete pheromones from their heads to ensure the young don't swim too far away. Eggs are laid either in in the low season or as water levels are starting to rise, ensuring that the young become independent during the high season.

(Image: baby arapaimas)

Arapaima are classified as "data deficient" by the IUCN. This means there isn't enough data to properly assess their conservation needs. They are known to be threatened by overfishing. Arapaima make up a large part of the diet of many South American populations. Habitat loss and pollution are also believed to threaten them. They have been introduced to many areas out of their native range and are an invasive species in placed like Florida, Malaysia, and India.

Does anyone else remember these cards? (image: the arapaima card from Weird n' Wild Creatures)

#wet beast wednesday #fishblr #fish #biology #zoology #ecology #animals #aquatic biology #animal facts #absolute unit #arapaima #pirarucu #paiche

[williamrikers]

On the subject of consent in recent BLs

In this analysis, I will take a look at several love scenes in recent Thai BLs, how they frame consent and the sexual agency of the characters, and why those matter.

(KinnPorsche deserves its own post: I’m sure people have already written in detail about how much emphasis is placed on issues of consent/non-consent throughout the show and how fundamental consent is to the relationship arcs of both KinnPorsche and VegasPete, and I won’t belabor the point here. Also, special shout-out to The Warp Effect for what it brought to the conversation about gay sex, but TWE isn’t technically a BL so I decided not to include it in this analysis.)

I am going to take a closer look at the following shows in this essay: Not Me, The Eclipse, A Boss And A Babe, Step By Step, and La Pluie.

Not Me and The Eclipse predate the other shows by two years/one year respectively, but I feel it is valuable to include them here because both show very explicit negotiations of consent that I feel are spiritual successors to the wonderful scenes we’ve been getting in the other three shows.

Why am I even writing this? There used to be an unfortunate tendency in the genre to have a power imbalance between the “seme” and the “uke” character, which translated into the seme deciding when to have sex and what kind of sex to have—and even though recently, several shows have done good work in dismantling the seme/uke dynamic and questioning the associated stereotypes, it cannot be denied that the archetypes are still an important part of most BLs, and even in cases where the tropes are played with and questioned, understanding those subversions still requires a knowledge of and familiarity with the original tropes on the part of the audience.

However, gone are the days of Until We Meet Again and Dean’s “I’ve waited long enough, make sure you’re ready.” (I enjoyed UWMA a lot but that was. Yeah. Not Great.) Now, we see characters actually talking about and negotiating their limits, and doing what feels good to them.

Let’s start from the very beginning. Not Me was an absolute trailblazer in this regard, and not mentioning it here would be a gross oversight. The first time Sean and White have sex, it happens in their version of the beach episode. (Which, in Not Me, is the two characters briefly living in a tent inside an abandoned building. This show is the best.) Sean and White are removed from their usual environment and protected from the outside world by two barriers: the walls of the old house and the tent that’s literally enveloping them and giving them a space that is unequivocally theirs, shared, in which neither one of the characters has any sort of power over the other. And what happens in that space when they’re about to have sex is extremely interesting: the first thing Sean asks is whether White is afraid of him, which White denies. The following exchange goes like this: White: "So, what are we doing?" Sean: "What should I do to you?" White: "That’s up to you." (Watch the whole scene here.)

I find this exchange incredibly meaningful because this already turns the seme/uke dynamic that can be found in a lot of other shows on its head. OffGun as a branded pair can easily be stereotyped into the seme/uke dynamic just because of their physical appearances, and clearly spelling out that both characters have agency in this scene is incredibly important.

And then it gets better! Sean assumes that White is sexually inexperienced (which is not true but the fact that White was actually in a relationship with a woman back in Russia never comes up again after the pilot episode, so maybe the show expects us to assume this, too), and suggests they try different things and White can tell him what he likes and doesn’t like. Compared to the stuff we’re getting now, this scene isn’t very high heat at all, but it’s one of my favorite intimate scenes ever because them asking each other “Do you like this?” after every kiss, every touch, is so incredibly unique and transports a wonderful sense of figuring out sexual pleasure together, as a couple.

Sex in Not Me is not something one character does to another, it is something that is discovered and shared together, and we even get an afterglow scene in which they gently tease each other about their fast beating hearts. (And don’t get me started on the importance of White choosing to ask Sean whether Sean is okay with White not being like Black in that moment right before they have sex, because he doesn’t actually want to have sex with Sean as Black! He wants to discover and share intimacy with Sean as White, as himself, not as his brother! The layers!)

Anyway, I think that scene paved the way for a lot of the conversations around consent we’re now getting in BL, just because it is so explicitly, unashamedly putting forward a definition of sexuality that has nothing to do with one character actively giving and the other passively receiving, but frames intimacy as something that is built together. (More on giving and receiving later!)

Now, moving on to The Eclipse. I decided to include the first time Akk and Aye have sex for a different reason: while we don’t really see them actually talking about consent, we see them practicing non-verbal consent. Let me explain. Akk’s and Aye’s whole thing is teasing each other. At first, Aye is usually the one doing the teasing, but Akk gets the hang of it towards the end of the show and teases his boyfriend right back. When they’re in Akk’s childhood bedroom together, Aye clearly alludes to the fact that he thought they might use this opportunity to have sex for the first time, which Akk pretends not to understand, all while alluding to it himself. I love this guy. (Watch the whole scene here.) Anyway, Akk says he wants to sleep, lies down and once again, tells Aye jokingly he just wants to sleep, clearly expecting Aye to do what other BL protagonists do at that point and not take no for an answer (sidenote: I HATE the “saying no as foreplay” trope with a passion and as far as I’m concerned it should die already).

However, Aye is not like other BL love interests, and he backs off. He stops touching Akk, lies down with his back to Akk, showing Akk that he takes him by his word: if Akk says he wants to sleep, Aye is going to let him do just that. So now, it’s on Akk to say that, no, that’s not what he meant, can Aye please come back to cuddle. And then Akk is the one to escalate from cuddling to kissing, which is extremely important: we know that Aye has been ready to have sex with Akk since forever, it’s Akk who’s been having hangups about intimacy this whole time.

They don’t put consent into so many words on this show, but Aye shows Akk that he respects his limits and that Akk only has to tell him he doesn’t want to do something and Aye will take him at his word.

So, these are, to me, two foundational scenes of establishing consent: one that shows consent as something that is established verbally, as an ongoing conversation, and one that shows consent as something that is established physically, by showing your partner that you respect their choices and limits by way of simply acting accordingly.

Now, let’s get into the fun part: scenes we got so far in 2023. I’m writing this post on the 13th of June, and I’m sure this year still has some great things in store for us, especially because Step By Step and La Pluie are both ongoing and neither of the main couples are actually together yet at time of writing. However, they’ve both already given us AMAZING scenes on the topic of consent, so I feel it is worthwhile to write about those already.

I want to start off by talking about A Boss And A Babe.

Let me just preface this by saying that the intimate scenes in ABAAB are some of my all time favorites in BL ever, because in them, sex is something that is just so normal. When Gun and Cher have sex, we don’t see them very passionate, excited, reluctant or wide-eyed innocent (which are some of the emotions traditionally associated with sex in BL). On the contrary, in every single scene that shows them being intimate, both characters are incredibly calm. They’re certainly happy to be with each other, but in a subdued way. Someone described their second intimate scene as them seeming like they’ve been married for a few years. They’re both just… incredibly normal about having sex with each other. It’s simply something they like to do together. It’s a part of their romance but it’s not more or less important than any other aspects of their lives.

And consent is at the very heart of it.

When Gun and Cher have their first time, we see Gun explicitly asking for consent two times: first, “Can I kiss you?”, then, “Can I do more?” The second one even comes with the promise that if Cher says no, Gun will immediately go to sleep without mentioning it again. And then it is on Cher to say yes, to pull Gun close and kiss him to show him that he is comfortable with taking things further. (In the show, these two questions were shown apart from each other, I cut together a version of the whole First Time Scene in its entirety, watch it here.)

Now, things get more interesting: the second intimate scene shows Cher initiating the encounter (watch the whole scene here). Cher pretty consistently falls into the uke category, both physically and as far as characterization is concerned, but he’s certainly not shy in the bedroom. And this time, he’s the one who asks for consent from Gun: Gun asks “You’re starting it?” and Cher’s response is “Can I?” Despite him being framed physically lower than Gun, basically at Gun’s mercy, he still seeks confirmation that Gun is okay with the way things are going. Not to overstate it, but to me, this feels revolutionary. Once again, we’re being shown that sex is something two people do together, as a shared activity, and that the “seme” character isn’t expected to just be up for it. He, too, has the right to say no.

On this show, sexual agency is taken extremely seriously, and it is clear that both Gun and Cher give each other space to decide what they’re comfortable doing. This is shown in non-intimate scenes as well: there are so many moments on ABAAB in which the characters negotiate physical touch and closeness, asking each other for hugs before actually hugging each other, Cher leaning on Gun’s shoulder in the car but not allowing Gun to touch him because that’s not what he’s comfortable with in that moment, and so on. (The only exception to this otherwise pretty consistent rule is the kiss in the car scene, which I’m still extremely confused about because it seems to go completely against Gun’s character. Who knows what happened there.)

Of course, the fact that so much emphasis is placed on negotiation and consent isn’t surprising on a show that has such obvious kink undertones and whose Our Skyy 2 entry basically consisted entirely of Dom/sub roleplay at work—I’m just saying, I think someone on the writing team is way into BDSM and knows all about the importance of enthusiastic consent from all parties involved, and I would like to send them flowers.

Step By Step hasn’t really reached the point where we can analyse the dynamic between the main couple (although we can take some educated guesses based on the interactions we’ve seen so far). However, last week’s episode had an extremely important scene between Pat and Put: Pat wanting to have sex with Put, then changing his mind mid make-out (watch the whole scene here). I really like the way this scene was done. No matter how shitty Put treats Pat at times, in this instance, he immediately understood and respected Pat’s change of mind without Pat even saying or explaining anything—at the end of the episode, Put says to Pat that Pat should tell Put when he feels ready to have sex. (We already know this will never happen because of course, Pat and Put are not endgame, but I do appreciate the sentiment.)

BLs rarely include a whole storyline in which the protagonist is in an actual, serious romantic relationship with someone other than his endgame love interest (hi Moonlight Chicken!), or if they do then just to up the angst factor. In this case, however, I feel that this scene raises our expectations for Jeng even further: if the guy who is definitely not a romantic match for Pat treats Pat with this much respect in the bedroom, then Jeng has to do at least that and then some. I do feel confident that Jeng won’t disappoint in this regard, but it’s fascinating to see a show frame this kind of respect as the absolute baseline minimum, with the endgame love interest expected to do even better.

Now, the one you’ve all been waiting for. The one that made me write this whole essay in the first place: La Pluie.

Oh boy. Where to start.

A week ago, we got an incredible make-out scene on Saengtai’s floor, which ended in Patts stopping the encounter because he could tell Tai wasn’t really comfortable taking things further—@bengiyo talked about that scene in detail here. And then, three days ago, La Pluie gave us the most unique, trope-defying, timeline-changing blowjob scene of all time, and I want to talk about it.

Tai and Patts are making out on their bed, Tai is not ready to go “all the way” and stops Patts from undressing him. We see a very realistic frustrated reaction from Patts, who nevertheless immediately stops and accepts Tai’s wishes—it is clear that Patts does not expect things to go any further at this point, and that he won’t pressure Tai into anything.

And then, Tai offers to blow him.

(Unfortunately, this show is only on iQiyi so I can't link to it, but you can get a good impression of the scene here.)

I mentioned the concepts of giving and receiving earlier: other people have said this more eloquently than me, but there is a tendency not only in BL but also in wider society to view sex in terms of giving and receiving, with a lot of expectations and stereotypes attached to the roles during different sexual acts. On other shows, that blowjob might be framed as a consolidation or an apology, something that the giver does out of a sense of obligation without enjoying it much. Not so on La Pluie! Tai is shown incredibly happy and satisfied afterwards, both when they’re sleeping next to each other, as well as on the morning after (see also @ginnymoonbeam's post about that here). Tai offered to blow Patts because he simply wanted to, not motivated by guilt or anything of that sort. And he genuinely enjoyed it! In the post I linked above, @bengiyo points out that La Pluie consistently centers queer desire, or more specifically in this case, male desire for a male body; much in the same way that the camera fucking loves Force’s body on ABAAB: the sensuality of the skin, the hands, the abs, the flat chests, the broad backs and shoulders of these men is explicitly emphasized, and Tai’s desire for a dick in his mouth is made absolutely crystal-clear. Of course, since this is a TV show and not a porno, we only see Patts’s thumb in Tai’s mouth instead of his dick, but the imagery, the implications, are clear as day.

And it is such a gentle framing, too: Patts caresses Tai’s lip lovingly, Tai opens his mouth slowly, seductively, then faces Patts’s crotch with a soft look on his face. We do get a clear sense of this encounter as tender, and gentle, and most of all, desired. Tai’s queer desire is at the heart of this scene, and at the heart of the afterglow scene as well. He wanted this man’s dick in his mouth, openly suggested it, showed Patts he was sure about his decision after Patts asked him whether he was, and ended up clearly happy and satisfied with the sex they had. This post, also by @bengiyo, goes into more detail on that.

This, once again, shows us sex as a conversation rather than a series of predetermined acts, shows us sex as a shared activity, as something that can be wonderful and intimate and make people happy without following what society views as “the correct steps”. I think this is extremely important because one part of queer identity is figuring out one’s own relationship to sexuality, one’s own desires and needs, and BLs that ignore this aspect fall a little short in my opinion. Sure, those men are kissing, but do they experience queer desire? Do they experience joy in their queer desire?

For me personally, a show that does not shy away from these questions is a lot more meaningful than a show that does, and consent is at the heart of it all. By framing sex as a conversation, as something that is built and shared together, the shows I looked at here are actively positioning themselves against the idea that there should be predetermined roles for partners during sex, and instead suggest that queer joy can be found in communication and consent. Understanding sex and intimacy as something that is built together, with both partners as equals in conversation, is just as radically queer as a man waking up with a smile on his face after giving his soulmate a blowjob the previous night.

And quite honestly, a male character who clearly, passionately, unquestioningly communicates that he wants a dick inside of him—that is incredibly sexy. But maybe that’s just me.

#*mine #not me the series #the eclipse #the eclipse the series #a boss and a babe #step by step #step by step the series #la pluie #la pluie the series #i said ''is anyone going to write a 3k meta analysis on this topic'' then didn't wait for an answer

[inlovewithpandora]

Hey love💕 I was wondering if you could write a oneshot where neteyam finds out reader harms herself?

Thank for this request anon💗! I hope it meets your expectations!

If anyone has any requests leave them in my asks!

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Part 1 (here) || Part 2 || Part 3

This story was inspired by the song above^

- I'm tired -

Pairing: Neteyam x Fem! Omatikaya gf! reader

Both characters are 19!

Warnings: self harm ( very descriptive) suicide ideation, attempt, extreme angst, slight physical/ emotional abuse

If your not comfortable with this type of writing please click off

Word count: 1,645

You and Neteyam just recently started dating a few weeks ago. The first time you saw him it made a feeling that was foreign to you course through your veins. When you meet him and got to know him he made you feel an emotion you've never felt before, Happiness.

Every time he came by your pod to whisk you away to somewhere special in the forest you felt nothing but pure bliss.

But when you weren't around you him you felt melancholic, lonely, depressed, and every other negative feeling under the sun. The environment you lived in was toxic and it was ripping a piece of you away every day.

You were trying to ignore the pain and heartache but it wasn't working. you were trying to find healthy ways to cope like weaving or hunting but it wasn't working. The only thing that would help is cutting, making small slits into your navy blue skin that would release crimson-colored liquid. Watching the blood drip down your arm is the only thing that would help you feel better and would make the pain stop.

You lived at home with your father and he was an alcoholic. When you were born your mother died while giving birth to you and that was the last day your father showed any positive emotion. He abhorred you for taking the love of his life away and he made sure you knew it every single day.

You were sitting in your part of the pod trying to avoid your father's alcoholic rage but you couldn't because he decided to come find you and spew his hatred all over you.

He came and pulled the curtain back which revealed you sitting on your woven mat. As he was towering over your small frame you could smell the alcohol seeping from his pores, "What are doing in here?!"

"N-nothing father I'm just making a necklace for someone", A couple of days ago you and Neteyam were sitting by a pond and he told you how he needed a new necklace because he lost his other one so you decided to make him one.

"Who is it for?! Is it for that boy you've been running around with?!" He yelled which startled you. You hated when he yelled because it always made you cry. Instead of responding you just sat there silently looking down at the floor which told your father he was correct about his assumption.

He let out a dark chuckle before continuing to yell at you, "He is only using you for your body, do you think someone could really like you?! That someone would want to actually mate with you one day?! You have to be the dumbest na'vi around to think that. Look at you, you're pitiful. Always crying and sulking around this house. You're always cutting your arm like some deranged freak! What boy would ever want someone like that?!" He yelled with venom coming out of his mouth with each word that escaped his lips

All you could do is break down into a crying fit. You felt like your father was right, why would someone want to be with someone who felt like their only escape was harming themselves? You felt like whatever you had going on inside of you could rub off on Neteyam and you didn't want to corrupt him with this sickness.

Your father saw drops of water flowing down your face and it only made him angrier, "WHAT ARE YOU CRYING FOR? HUH? THERE IS NO REASON FOR YOU TO BE SHEDDING ANY TEARS! IF ANYTHING I SHOULD BE THE ONE CRYING, YOU TOOK MY MATE FROM ME! EVER SINCE YOU CAME INTO MY LIFE IT HAS BEEN NOTHING BUT HELL!" He shouted at you furiously

He crouched down to your level and harshly grabbed your bicep, yanking you up so you could stand on your feet. He then extended your arm, looking at all the scars that ran down your skin. He began to speak but this time he wasn't yelling, he was calm but you could still hear the maliciousness in his tone.

"I wish you were the one that died that day, not your mother. Next time you decided to cut yourself make sure you finished the job and go live among Eywa. I can't stand to have you living in my house and making me live in despair." He let go of your arm and threw it to your side. He lifted his alcoholic beverage to his lips and began imbibing enormous amounts of it before walking outside the pod.

As you stood there with sobs emerging from your throat you decided that you were tired. You were tired of your father's emotional and sometimes physical abuse, you looked down at your arm and could see a purple outline on your arm from his tight grip.

You were tired of feeling like this, you need the pain and heartache to stop. You needed this feeling of sorrow to go away. You looked around your pod and grabbed your knife and put it in its sheath and grabbed your shawl and wrapped it around your arms and began walking to Neteyam's Family pod.

You wanted to talk to him and tell him how you felt about him before you went to see the Great Mother.

As you walked you heard a group of girls talking about you as you walked by, "Look at her, She looks awful" one of the girls said while laughing

"Yeah I'm surprised she even came out of her pod, she's been locked up in there for almost a week" one of the other girls chimed in

They continued saying all these nasty things about you and it made you feel even worse than before. Neteyam was in the tree above, looking down at the event that was unfolding. He watched you run away to a deeper part of the forest. He immediately climbed down the tree and began to follow you to see if you were okay.

He hasn't seen you in almost a week and he's been worried about you. He came by your pod to try and talk to you but every time he came your father sent him away.

As you were running you didn't know where you going until you found yourself in front of a small pond. You sat down and looked at your reflection in the water, as you looked at yourself you couldn't even recognize the person you saw anymore. It was like you changed into a totally different person. You looked at yourself and felt disgusted, you felt like you looked repulsive. As you looked at your puffy eyes and the dark circles around them you felt so much pain and agony.

You pulled your knife out of its sheath and pressed it again your skin. You knew by doing this it would make you feel so much better, you would finally be at peace. You could finally see your mother and live among your ancestors.

As you were about to penetrate your skin and create a gash so deep that it would bleed out until you took your last breath, you heard someone call out your name.

"Y/N!" Neteyam called out. You turned and saw so many emotions on his face, he looked at you horrified by what he saw you doing to your body.

As you looked at him all you could is cry even harder, "Neteyam please leave"

You didn't want him to see you in this state, you didn't want him to see you so broken.

"Y/N what's wrong? What's going on?" Neteyam asked you as he sat down next to you. As he looked at your arm he saw multiple old scars on your arm and a bruise on your bicep, as you followed his gaze all you could do was apologize to him even though you didn't know why you were doing it.

"I-I’m sorry Neteyam I just can't handle the pain anymore, I'm tired of feeling so miserable. I'm always crying and I'm so weak. Nobody likes me not even my own father, the person who's supposed to love me the most. I feel like I'm going crazy, I feel like I'm a freak" you told him  as you let out sobs in between every few words

"I don't want to live Neteyam. I want to be with Eywa where I can feel peace, I need to feel peace."

As you rambled without properly thinking clearly, Neteyam was horrified by your words. "Baby, why would you say that?" Neteyam asked you as his voice broke a little. He hated hearing you speak about yourself so harshly and it broke his heart to hear that you wanted to end your life

"Because it's true! Every single thing I said was true"

"Y/N you are not a freak, you are beautiful and I love you with every fiber in my body. Whatever is going on with your father I will help you figure it out. I will be there for you and help you through these feelings until they have faded away. I will be here for you always, but you can't leave me. I want you to stay here with me so we can grow old together, Okay?" he talked to you with so much conviction in his voice some tears slowly streamed down his face

"Okay, Neteyam" is all you could muster up and say. You wrapped your arms around his body and clung to him. He embraced you and kissed you on the cheek " These feelings won't last forever, we'll get through this together" As you laid your head on his shoulder for the first time you felt like someone cared about you. As you laid in his embrace you felt a feeling you'd been longing for, something you wanted for a long time.

Love & Peace

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I hope you enjoyed💗!

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©️inlovewithpandora ━━━ 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑 | All rights reserved. Do not repost, reupload, translate, modify, or claim my work as your own.

#❖ — 🌳: 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑯𝑨𝑽𝑬 𝑨 𝑺𝑻𝑹𝑶𝑵𝑮 𝑯𝑬𝑨𝑹𝑻.! #❖ — 🪸: 𝑾𝑨𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑪𝑶𝑵𝑵𝑬𝑪𝑻𝑺 𝑨𝑳𝑳 𝑻𝑯𝑰𝑵𝑮𝑺.! #tw alchoholism #tw sucidal ideation #tw: sucidal thoughts #angst #neteyam fanfiction #triggering stuff #neytiri #avatar james cameron #avatar fanfiction #avatar fandom #jake sully #avatar 2009 #neteyam sully #neteyam angst #neteyam x y/n #neteyam x reader #neteyam fanfic #neteyam atwow #avatar the way of water #atwow neteyam #tsu’tey #aonung #loak sully #new writer #avatar angst #atwow angst #tw

[staytinyville]

OUTLAW (18)

ATEEZ poly!ot8 x Reader

Cowboy AU / Wild West

Series Masterlist

Warning: none.

A/N BETA READ (@mariana-mmtz). Just know I am reading every single one of your comments and reblogs. And I love them so much. Just to let you know. I might add a special shoutout for all of you who made my day with your comments lol.

As the evening was starting to turn dark, the boys had gone back into their roles of being with one another. You could see how at ease they all felt now that they were all together. The four boys who were staying in the city had always been a bit tense. They were worried about their comrades and thus it created a stale environment full of depression. It was clear they fed off each other’s energies. They needed every single one of them in order to be content. 

While they knew they were all together, you had noticed one person missing during dinner. The boys didn���t seem to care enough, at least not until they had all finished and Wooyoung noticed how many plates there were to wash. 

The boy was mad, stomping around as he made a bowl for the captain. He was about to scold the man until you spoke up, telling him you would take the meal. The boy grumbled to himself, shoving the food into your hands as he went back to cleaning.

There wasn’t anywhere you could knock so you had just called out that you were going to enter the tent. When you got a response, you moved the tarp to the side and passed through. You knew he wasn’t doing anything, seeing as it was just the main tent where they would gather for meetings. 

“I brought you a bowl of soup.” You gestured to the plate. “Wooyoung got mad that you didn't come out.”

Hongjoong had been looking over some papers at a desk, glancing up at you. “He'll live.” He hummed. When you set the plate down in front of him, he gave a nod of his head and moved to begin eating. “Thank you.” 

You tried not to be nosey and look over the papers he had, so you opted to look around the table, trying to find other things to occupy yourself with. Hongjoong placed the spoon down into the bowl as he kept his eyes on you.

You look awkward to be standing there next to him. He wondered why it was you hadn’t just walked out after giving him the food; however, he figured you wanted something if you were the one to do the delivery. He decided to make things less suffocating by being the one to start a conversation.

“Are you okay?” His question caught you off guard, looking at him with wide eyes. 

You licked your lips as you thought about his question. “At this moment or in the past two weeks?” You asked, looking down. 

Sighing, you felt like you knew exactly what it was you wanted to say. You looked up at Hongjoong, meeting his eyes. “I'm relieved.” You breathed out. “That you are all okay and safe for the most part. I wanted to come find you all right away, but the boys told me I had to wait. Time went painstakingly slow. It felt like torture to not know how you all were.”

Hongjoong turned to give you his full attention, one leg lifted over the other as he got comfortable in the chair. “I'm sure you weren't the only one worried.” He told you.

“So you all have said.” You laughed softly. “Thank you.” You suddenly spoke up, looking at him with kind eyes. 

“For what?” He frowned, eyebrows pinched together. 

“Keeping the others safe.” You smiled. “I know you don't like me much, but I appreciate you.” Hongjoong looked at you like you had grown an extra head.

He had given you no reason to like him. No reason to really even think about him. He hadn’t really spoken to you much, but somehow you appreciate him? He knew that you were different from what the others had said, however now he was just a bit skeptical. 

“In fact, after all this time, I think you're an inspiration. What you've done with the boys—how you've kept them together for so long. They speak highly of you.”

Hongjoong hummed as your feelings now made sense. A small smile grew on his face as he thought about his friends. He didn’t realize how much his leadership affected them so much. He knew they spoke about him, they always spoke about each other. But to have them speak about him in such a way that made people see him as an inspiration had him wanting to cry. 

After so long, he knew they were much closer than a lot of other gangs. He was glad to have reached that kind of level of friendship. He had tried so hard to keep them all together, it seemed like that paid off. They trusted him so much and he didn’t want to lose it. 

Looking over at you, he knew that they were starting to care deeply for you. If he was to ask them to leave you he knew they would, but at the cost of some of their own happiness. He had never seen the boys become so enamored with someone so quickly. Now that he was actually having a conversation with you, he could see why they would be.

“I can't remember a time when we made friends that lasted a long while.” He expressed. “They come and go after finding out what we do. I've tried my best at keeping them together, but sometimes I fail to do that.” He let out a deep sigh, pursing his lips as he had just expressed an insecurity he had. 

Your lips slowly pulled up into a smile at his confession. You were excited to get something from him after never speaking more than two words to him. “Everyone has their differences. Even all of you. I'm sure it is tough to do what you do.” You comforted him. 

Hongjoong pursed his lips. His jaw clenched as his face suddenly looked at you appalled. Here you were speaking your mind and somehow he confessed something he held deeply to you. It bothered him to know you were able to do that with him. He had hidden so much from others, even his closest friends, but all you had to do was tell him that you understood him and he opened his mouth. 

“Why are you like that?” He glared.

“Like what?” You didn’t seem affected by his glare, though you did raise a brow at his change in attitude. 

“Like you know what to say to get people on your side.” He clenched his fist. “What more do you want? You already have the others worried. Why speak to me like you understand me? Don't you know? We've killed men. We are criminals. Why associate yourself with people like that?” He stressed. 

“I never said I did.” You immediately retorted, face turning stoic. However, he watched as you licked your lips and suddenly looked down. 

“When Mingi saved me, I thought it was going to end for me. I had jumped to save that girl but at the cost of my own life.” You had an expression of thoughtfulness as you recalled that day to him. He listened intently to you, knowing that something like that wasn’t a nice experience to relive. 

“It made me realize all the regrets I had in life. Instead of feeling scared, I felt so angry with myself for not noticing sooner the life I led wasn't one I would have wanted. I had a mental breakdown after Mingi turned up, but these past few weeks made me realize that the day I found you all was the day I started to see the kind of person I wanted to be.”

“Sure, at first I thought you were all criminals and scumbags, but after getting to know you all things changed. In the eyes of the public, you are criminals and outlaws. But to me, you're the people who saved me and opened my eyes. That's worth more to me than anything.”

He didn’t know your story, just as you didn’t know his. There was a lot that you were in the dark about and Hongjoong wondered why it was that you didn’t ask about it. The boys had explained that you were a very understanding person who trusted her intuition about people. Any sane person would try their hardest to stay away from people like them, but here you were staying with them in their camp.

There would come a day when the boys would want to grow up and find their own ways, but for now Hongjoong wanted to keep them together for as long as possible. If that meant keeping you at arms length, then he was willing to put his group on the line. At least the line that would lead them to you.

“You shouldn't be reckless.” Hongjoong told you. “We won't always be there to save you.”

Your lips pulled over your teeth as you grinned at the man. “Says the outlaw.” You chuckled. You got up to leave the tent, turning back to look at the man. “Besides now we're even from when I didn't tell anyone you were in town all those weeks ago.” You teased.

“You're a menace.” Hongjoong scoffed, rolling his eyes playfully. “You'll fit right in.” He took a sip of the soup to hide the fact that he had just acknowledged you as part of the group.

A soft look cast over your features as you smiled softly. “Thanks, Captain.”

Series Masterlist

@thefrog3223 , @iarayara , @0rangemilk , @explorewithd , @detectivedoodle , @bangtanxberm , @a1i33a , @loveforred , @drunken-deitence , @0325tiny , @the-ghostest-with-the-mostest , @atinyreads , @atinytinaa , @lexiigom , @smilingtokki , @mismatchfluffysocks , @brain-empty-only-draken , @sousydive , @alex-tinyy , @h3arteyes4mingi , @onedumbho3 , @popcatx0 , @blue1amory

#kpop fanfic #ateez #ateez fanfic #ateez imagines #ateez x reader #ateez wooyoung #ateez hongjoong #ateez san #ateez yeosang #ateez mingi #ateez jongho #ateez yunho #ateez seonghwa #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong x you #hongjoong x y/n #fanfiction #hongjoong imagines

[waywardcrow]

Timeless.

Chapter V.

Summary: 1943. 1975. 2024. Three different decades, three different lives, three different times your life and Bucky's interwined; he lost you twice, will he do it again?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader.

TW: It can change each chapter but themes of Bucky as soldier in WWII and as the Winter Soldier in general, lots of feels, a little bit of angst, fluff, two cuties pinning after each other, 40’s!reader is mentioned to be named Beth but that changes for 2024 version of her so I nicknamed her little bird for Bucky, Ace for everybody else, this will be a +18 story so minors dni.

Disclaimer: Please remember english is not my first language so if I make a mistake or forget something let me know.

Pictures from pinterest and graphic and dividers by the amazing @ firefly-graphics so all credits to the creators.

Previous chapter <;<<

Harper sent you the most astonishing suit you had ever seen.

The color complimented your skin tone, the cut was clean and highlighted every part of your body you liked; she left a note on top too.

“This is your new beginning, Ace, go get them.”

It made you smile, still you didn’t wear it, the suit was too expensive. Your choice was one black plain pencil skirt, white blouse and simple heels. Your makeup and hairstyle wasn’t too special also, you wanted Pepper Potts to see what you were capable of beyond your fashion choices.

After making your way to the tower and making all the procedure, you met your new boss.

“Maria is going to give some training and we can get some things done as we start working together” the ginger woman said behind her desk, you gave a nod and she smiled “relax; you’re going to do great.”

You didn’t know how to relax; it wasn’t in you to be able to do it.

Maria Hill, an intimidating but efficient woman, made you sign a confidentially contract which was fine with you, you were given an enormous pile of information that made you believe you were not qualified enough for this.

“Thank you miss Potts- Pepper” you rectified, giving her a list of her things to do “miss Van Dyme is coming after lunch to discuss your partnership with Pym industries and Dr. Stephen Strange asked for an appointment tomorrow too, you have your daughter’s teacher reunion at ten so maybe after it could be a good time”

“It’s perfect, Ace” the happy tone in her words made you smile. After being so long stuck with someone who only made you feel stupid, it was nice to have some reassurance.

You both went about your day and the familiar environment of the office setting helped you to focus instead of losing it, you were working with the Avengers! Your folks barely believe it when you called them, in all honesty you almost couldn’t believe it too.

The day was easy, probably because Pepper wanted you to don’t give up and when you least expect it, it was time to go home.

“Are you sure miss- Pepper?” you asked for the millionth time, obviously going home before midnight wasn’t usual for you.

“I’m completely sure, Ace. Please go home and rest, tomorrow we have a great day” not very convinced, you did what she say and after saying goodnight you took your things and walk to the elevator.

When the doors opened your heart raced in your chest.

Sergeant Barnes smiled at you when you entered the elevator, giving you enough space between your bodies.

“Are you ok, miss?” his smile faltered and you tried to look less like an idiot.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, just tired” you lied “I didn’t see you all day”

In the moment your words left your mouth, heat rushed to your cheeks, what the fuck were you doing?

“I was working on something with Sam, he can be a pain in the ass sometimes” he explained without making evident how dumb you were being. The doors opened again and he walked with you to the entrance “are you going home or-?”

“Home” it was a whisper under the city noise but he could hear you perfectly.

“Maybe I could drive you there, if you want” it sounded crazy but he almost looked shy, like you were about to reject him. For a moment, the memory of your dreams about that boy smiling at you in the moonlight came back.

“Yeah, I’d like that”

It was the right answer, his face light up and it took you a second to remember how to breathe.

Bucky directed you to his car in silence which was a good thing because your head was a complete mess, what were you doing? There was no way you could deny you felt attraction towards him but it wasn’t like you were the only one, the man was breathtaking so you were just reacting to that, it was a complete different story to think something could happen between you two.

He opened the door for you with the same politeness he let you walk first out of the elevator and your hands shook a little. It was nothing, he was a gentleman, he came from the time gentlemen were a thing, for all you knew he probably had a beautiful girlfriend waiting at home, ready to welcomed him with mind blowing sex and plans of a future together.

Being the silly hopeless romantic you were, the thought made your heart ache.

“Did you forget something at the tower?” he asked again when he started driving, Bucky looked a little concerned about you so you tried to smile.

“I’m fine, sorry, just leave me near the next subway station”

“Why would I do that? You are not going to the subway and not at this hour, little bird, it’s too dangerous” Bucky was too affronted to realize his mistake but you weren’t.

“Little bird?”

For a moment you could see how his jaw clenched, like he was scolding himself but then it was gone and he gave you a boyish smile.

“It’s ok if I call you that? Just felt appropriate, you’re sweet and small and I don’t know” he shrugged before the light turned green and then you didn’t think about anything else but how perfect it sounded that nickname in his voice.

“I’m obviously small next to you Bucky, you grew up like ivy around a stone house, don’t ya think?”

The most melodic laugh came out of him and you weren’t in his car anymore, instead it was a tent surrounding you and the chill of the autumn air around you.

You started bickering like you knew each other all your lives, he asked you about your day and then you asked about his and what had him so busy with Sam which led to something very interesting.

“Alright, in my defense I don’t go around looking for old ladies to charm” he defended himself after telling you a story about a bingo night in Louisiana with Sam and a very nice old lady who gave him her number.

“You’re a heartbreaker, Bucky Barnes” you told him holding back your laugh, he was so cute when he was all flustered, you could swear you saw him like this before.

“I used to be”

He stopped in front of your building and the sad tone in his voice made you want to reach for his hand to comfort him, despite that your hand stayed still.

“I’m pretty sure you still are, maybe you don’t find the right lady yet”

His sky blue eyes found yours, making the air inside the vehicle heavy with unspoken words. His gaze never left your face; he looked like he was fighting with himself.

“I did find her, actually” Bucky finally said and your hopes crashed against each other.

“Oh” was everything you could say.

“In the 40’s, she was… she was gone shortly after I disappeared” his voice was barely a whisper but you could hear him perfectly being that close, this time your hand closed around his.

“I’m so sorry Buck” your jealousy was long forgotten, a silly crush was nothing compared to losing someone like that, when the details of his pardon were made public they said that he was believed to be dead when in reality he was captured a second time by Hydra, you couldn’t imagine how it was for his lover to lose him twice when he was alive and suffering and for him to lose the woman he loved with everything else that monsters took from him.

A heart crushing pain that was always there hit you, your soul aching for both of them, for the young soldier Bucky was, for the woman who surely waited until her last breath to see him again.

“Please don’t cry little bird, I didn’t mean to make you cry” he wiped your tears with his hands and your skin felt hot at the contact, why were you crying? God, he surely would think you were an idiot or a fake jerk.

“I’m fine, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying” stopping was impossible but Bucky didn’t look at you like you lose your mind, instead he hugged you, rubbing circles in your back. His scent of leather and mint made you close your eyes and start to relax.

“Everything is ok little bird, you’re fine, I’m fine” he mumbled against your hair.

Taking a deep breath, you calmed down and put some space between you two.

There was concern in his beautiful face and that was normal after your behavior but there was also something more, something that made you both move towards each other before a honk startled you, making you fall from his arms.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Barnes, I don’t know what happened to me” you apologized, taking your purse before he could say anything and getting out of the car to your department.

You didn’t stopped running until the door closed behind you.

Tag list: @cjand10 @bunnyforhim @cookingdancingchick @moon-light1928

Next chapter >>>

Hiya! I know it's a small chapter but I was not at my best these past days but here we are, tell me what you think! And if my tags work! Please.

Love, Lily.

#bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x f!reader #bucky barnes fluff #40s bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes angst

[apenguinbird]

Animal familiars in NRC

So, you know how Master Trein is the only character in the entire school with an animal familiar? (If we don’t count Yuu having Grim)

Welp, I started to think which animal would fit the best for each NRC student along with some headcanons about them, such as:

Familiars have a special magical connection with their respective mages, which is like an invisible bond.

Not every magic user gets a familiar.

Having a familiar is similar to unique magic, they can arrive at any moment and they make your magic stronger.

You don’t need them by your side 24/7.

They can’t talk unless you use magic like the one in Animal Linguistics class.

Think of some of the animal sidekicks of some Disney movies like Cinderella’s mice, Mula’s horse, or better yet, think of the villain’s companions like Maleficient’s crow, Shang Yu’s Falcon, Iago, etc.  

The magical bond allows for things like the animal having a bit of a longer life span (more on that later) and adapting better to other environments.

NRC has measures in place to take care of the familiars and fit things like good living places, health, and diet requirements.

Here are the headcanons! We began with Heartslabyul along with some headcanons of their dynamics with their respective familiar, the other dorms will come in later posts (Savanaclaw and Octavinelle, Scarabia and Pomefiore, Ignihye and Diasomnia)

Riddle: Hedgehog.

I decided to name the little hedgehog Quinte.

Riddle met her as a kid some days after the incident with his mom happened.

He was looking out his window wishing Trey or Che'nya would appear again when he saw something moving in the bushes of his house. Against what he would consider his better judgement he decided to go and check what was there.

That's when he found Quinte! He knew about familiars and he also felt something special when he saw the little hedgehog but at that moment he just wanted to make sure she was going to be okay so he brought her inside and although hesitantly, told his mom.

I honestly think Mrs.Rosehearts wouldn’t have approved of Riddle having a “distraction” but she realized her son had found his familiar so she allowed it. 

In NRC everyone treats Quinte with the same respect they have for Riddle. Quinte legally can’t break any rules.

One time a student confused her for one of the normal hedgehogs the dorm has so he put her in the same place as the others go. 

Cue Riddle desperately looking for his familiar and worried sick for something bad happening to her until he finally found her with the other hedgehogs, cue absolute relief but also a student losing his head for like a week.

I can see Cater getting her a little crown to match Riddle.

Trey: Rat

Hear me out! This works both for an Alice in Wonderland (I know the animal there is a mouse but still) reference AND a Ratatouille one!

Did you know rats are actually pretty clean animals?

I was so tempted to name the rat Remi, but I won’t. I was thinking of the name Peres, let’s call him that for now, but I’m not sure, if you have any ideas let me know.

Yes, Trey’s parents weren’t thrilled when he found his familiar, probably in his mid to late teens. But you can’t do much about it so they made sure Peres was well-cleaned and groomed, also he wasn’t allowed inside their bakery, a bit mean but they couldn’t afford to have customers seeing a rat. 

Once in NRC however, Peres helps Trey in the kitchen with things like getting ingredients or tools. The sub-chef who takes his work seriously.

Say something rude about Peres and your pastries will taste like clams.

Cater: Dog

He was a difficult one, I might change it later

A caterpillar jk

Probably a race like a terrier or a bloodhound, I have no idea why but I think his name would be something like Princess/Prince.

His magic cam is full of photos of his familiar along with cute accesories which his familar uses willingly and like a diva.

I can see him getting the dog right before entering NRC or maybe in his first year.

The dog is lucky because there is always someone taking care of it, either Cater himself or one of his copies.

Deuce: Rabbit

Was planning on giving him a chicken ngl

Deuce loves him with all his heart.

I can see Deuce naming the rabbit something like Carrot, don’t worry, he investigates and soon realizes the appropriate diet for a rabbit.

His mom was so proud.

The two found each other the same week Deuce decided to turn his life around, he took it as a sign he was going in the right direction.

Do anything to scare the rabbit and he will throw hands.

The bunny is very willing to bite and kick. Unfortunately, that also includes some furniture damage.

Also, he brought Carrot with him to the White Rabbit Fest. “Carrot, give me your rabbit wisdom.” “...” “Thank you.”

Ace: Hare

Please help. I have no ideas for the name and I don’t think Ace would call his familiar March.

Yes, he and Deuce see the irony too.

Ace insists his familiar could beat Deuce’s in a fight.

His brother probably teases him for an animal such as a hare but Ace's comeback is that his brother doesn’t even have a familiar yet.

That hare is as teasing as Ace, a nightmare duo. If you find bite marks or missing things you know who is to blame, Ace will insist his familiar is innocent and if it isn’t c’mon is just a cute hare.

If Riddle could he would collar them both.

#twisted wonderland #twst #heartslabyul #riddle rosehearts #trey clover #cater diamond #ace trappola #deuce spade

[pop-punklouis]

Hope thoughts on Zayn saying he was suspicious that hiatus was and happen so he went ahead of the curve. Didn't Harry said that he was the first one to talk about hiatus in 2014??

i think all of this happened almost a decade ago, and it’s obvious since the end of the band that every member has had different thoughts and perspectives on the ending of 1D and what it meant/how it occurred. and i think they’re all valid. they were all so young when the band started and the band ended. and being around four other people 24/7 for five years can take a toll on anyone especially young people which is normal. and pettiness or heartache or obnoxiousness is normal being in that dynamic for so long. it can be a pressure cooker yk? so zayn saying that isn’t surprising. just as harry talking about a hiatus so they didn’t get burnt out and end up hating each other isn’t surprising. just as louis saying he felt gut-punched when it ended and knowing zayn leaving meant it was the beginning of the end and feeling a bit of resentment for a while isn’t surprising. just as liam saying he struggled a lot during the last part of the band in a variety of ways isn’t surprising. just as niall saying he loved every minute of the band isn’t surprising. they’re five different people with five different perspectives on how it all came down, so i don’t think at this time in 2023 there’s any reason to point a finger at any one of them for how things were pulled apart at the seams. they were so young. people like to blame zayn. people like to blame harry. but at the end of the day, it’s just how life goes. and the hiatus of a band like 1D is never riding on just one person or the simplicity of one person in the band’s decision. it just isn’t. there isn’t a black & white answer. there’s too much grey involved. and too many individual people with individual feelings and individual perceptions to take into consideration.

i’m just glad it seems like they’ve all had time to really explore all these emotions and find closure to this time in their lives over the past seven years where there doesn’t seem to be any major animosity sitting between some of them anymore. and i’m really happy to see that in all of them. they’re healing/have healed to the point that they can reference 1D or sing their songs or talk about each other again and that’s really beautiful to me after all the shit they’ve been through in one direction and outside of it. no one else but those five guys will ever truly know what they went through and how they felt growing up together in that environment. and that’s special that they have that in each other. no matter what they will always be etched into the fabric of each other’s lives. just happy for them to be where they all are now in regards to that band because i know it wasn’t easy.

#grey

[lvlyhao]

PAC: what’s special about you?

Hello, lovely people, and welcome to this pick-a-card reading. Today is Friday, Venus’ day, and we’re diving a bit deeper into what is special about each of you. This reading was channeled for tons of self-love and light!

♡ Please follow, like and reblog if this resonated with you so I can do more fun readings like this in the future ♡

How do I choose a pile?

Take a deep breath or two, close your eyes, and focus on the question we’re asking the cards today. Then, take a look at the images above. Which one of them calls your name?

───⋆☆───────────────

If you chose Dokyeom, welcome to pile 1!

Song: fighting (BSS)

Card: 4 of cups; water energy (pisces, scorpio, cancer)

Bottom of the deck: 7 of pentacles; earth energy (taurus, virgo, capricorn)

It seems you’ve been going through a tough time in your life right now. People tell you that things will look up, or that not every day is a bad day, but that just doesn’t really matter to you at the moment. You may be experiencing feelings of apathy, and being disconnected from your own reality. The few things that bring a smile to your face feel so far away, it can be hard to keep going. However, this card also indicates a moment where you’re finally going to be pulled out of this darkness. What’s so special about you is your ability not only to endure difficult periods in your life, but realize when you’ve had enough and completely turn it around! When you feel more like yourself, you have the incredible ability to see the beauty in life, and in others. You are an immensely positive and resilient person, and all that is left to do is remind yourself that you’ve had bad days before, and you got through them. Rely on expanding your awareness of how you can be more connected and present in your own life right now, and things will fall into place.

If you chose Joshua, welcome to pile 2!

Song: black eye (vernon)

Card: 5 of swords; air energy (aquarius, gemini, libra)

Bottom of the deck: seven of cups; water energy (pisces, scorpio, cancer)

The 5 of swords, in other contexts, could have a completely different meaning. What I’m getting, though, especially from the artwork in my deck and the song Spirit assigned to you, is that what is so special about you is your ability to thrive no matter the conditions. The environments you’re inserted in are often hard to navigate or even hostile, and that intimidates a lot of people. They lose sight of their goals and give up, but not you. Never you. You have the ability to keep your eyes on the prize and hold your head high, never letting other people’s negative energies mellow you out. You are tough, brave, bold, and ready to step into your full power as a person. The only thing this card warns you about, however, is to be careful not to push the people who love you away once you get into your more focused mindset. Keep yourself kind even when faced with a challenge, and you’ll achieve whatever you dream of and much more. You go!

If you chose Vernon, welcome to pile 3!

Song: lunch (BSS)

Card: 2 of pentacles; earth energy (taurus, virgo, capricorn)

Bottom of the deck: the high priestess; cancer energy

As a person, you are someone who’s highly adaptable. Right now, things may be a bit tricky in your life since you are being needed in different aspects (this could be work and family, family and school, school and love, etc). The earth and water energy indicate you’re embodying a very hardworking and, at the same time, intuitive energy. You’re doing your part in all of your projects, and listening to your inner self when it comes to important decisions. This is great for you. It can be very easy to become so focused in one area of our lives that we forget another one, but you’re keeping your balance flawlessly! It’s probably not your first time facing a situation like this one, so you’ve been kind of confident in yourself. Spirit is saying you should keep on trusting yourself for whatever may come your way. Soon this period of juggling will be over, and you’ll be able to reconnect with activities and hobbies you used to enjoy: maybe singing, drawing, dancing… you got this!

#pick a card #pick a picture #pick a pile #tarot reading #love reading #tarotcommunity #tarotblr #kpop tarot #seventeen tarot #daily tarot #astrology #divination #pac reading #free tarot #witchblr #pick a card reading

[sonakkisbrainrot]

read: playlists are super down below so keep scrolling!!

Our Life: Beginnings & Always.

Hello Hello! Welcome to my first ever post on tumblr that just had to be about my ultimate top tier favorite visual novel of all time..Our Life: Beginnings & Always or OL:BA for short.

This game has such a special place in my heart that im afraid I’ll forever be attached to it because at this point it’s not even a phase anymore lol. I still remember that heated summer day of scrolling down on my steam shop out of boredom and i kept getting recommended OL:BA but back then i really couldn’t care less and would not even spare a glance on it until i got so fed up of it popping up in my recommended for the next few days that i decided to finally check it out.

Reading what it was about made me curious but what really got me downloading it was because of the customization of our character/characters.

And finally into the game i was! I remember when the story started, i was very surprised already by the environment, narrative and world building of the game. It truly felt like i was part of it and i didn’t get bored at all. In fact right from the start i was hooked already!

I loved ALL of the characters that was introduced, i love the fact that it was SO multiple choice that it felt like you were really integrating yourself/oc onto the game and that you’re not just forced to say the same thing as a different choice or feel as though your options are limited. Its definitely a game that you’re supposed to replay over and over because its just that fun!!

And as someone who has never had a great childhood and adolescence, absentee parent, chaotic household, unsupportive friends, want to be understood (you know…this and that) i was so happy that this game was doing that and it genuinely gave me hope to live despite going through the darkest of times in my life :)

This game has changed me into a better person and made me want to be the best version of myself that i want to be in the future! I will infinitely recommend this to anyone who wants to have a feel good game/read (+1 it will make you cry!!)

Anyway enough yapping 💀 Time to get to the point.

Here are some playlists i made dedicated to the lovable characters of OL:BA that i personally listened to during my walkthrough and may relate to their route/lore ;)

read: playlists are super down below so keep scrolling!!

1# COVE HOLDEN

the og love interest!

summer with cove holden.

this playlist is the epitome vibes of the game (growing up with them and having fun, making memories.)

from beginnings to always with cove holden.

spoiler alert!! MARRIAGE DLC WOOOO!! really love this one cuz its all full of cute romance and wedding songs. i also put some songs that i think mc and cove would have when they get kids :3

#2 DEREK SUAREZ

MY PERSONAL FAVORITE!!

DEREK IS JUST SOOOO AAHHHH He’s my ideal man and i KIN him so bad you dont even know!!!

derek suarez crushing on you.

THIS PLAYLIST. IM TELLING YOU. one of the FAVES i made!! the pining, secret crush on mc for a loong time, the angst GOSH. so cute. every song in this plays a part on each moment with him i swear

#3 BAXTER WARD

ANGST MAN.

5 years after baxter ward.

one thing i noticed about our life is it lacks certain angst aspects when the baxter dlc didn’t exist YET back then. like i LOVED the fight between mc and cove in mcs room and i wanted it to escalate more ngl just cuz i LIVE for angst! but if you want to get real hurt you should choose baxter. this playlist focuses more on the last step of his dlc and its full of taylor swift songs.

baxter ward.

honestly this playlist is catered more to his vibes, his character (i listen to this playlist and i imagine edits of him lol) but i guess some songs are related to his story/lore? i made this waaay before 5 years after baxter ward and when the baxter dlc didn’t exist yet and we all just knew him to be as the new neighbor in sunset bird but people like it i guess so here it is xD

anyway thats all for OL:BA series! GB Patch is cooking up Our Life Now & Forever and it’s not released yet! just on demo on steam and itch! i already have a playlist for it but so far i have only made Qiu Lin (one of the leads of the game) i also have a privated filo inspired playlist for baxter if you want to listen to it let me know so i can put it up in public!

#our life beginnings & always #our life #cove holden #derek suarez #visual novel #video games #games #spotify #music #spotify playlist #character playlist #baxter ward #olba mc #olba #olba derek #olba cove #olba baxter #Spotify

[honey-tongued-devil]

↞[arcane preference] Love language↠

▶[Jayce, Viktor, Ekko, Marcus, Silco, Vander, Singed, Jinx, Vi, Caitlyn, Mel, Sevika] and their love language

[NdA]

Okay unbelievable, after saying for fifty times that I would return I have actually returned :D meanwhile, I don't know how tumblr works but I have exceeded 100 readers and I am very happy, especially because English is not my first language so I was really afraid to be attacked for mistakes made in the texts (besides the fact that I thought no one would read because my grammatical structures are complicated, my native language is a romance language) instead it seems to me that everything is going quite well, therefore to greater reason I am happy to propose you a couple of new things (besides to finally answer to the requests)

↠No use of "y/n", gender neutral reader (no pronouns for the reader) ↠TW: fluff?, Sfw, scars mention ↠Character/s: gn reader, Jayce, Viktor, Ekko, Marcus, Silco, Vander, Singed, Jinx, Vi, Caitlyn, Mel, Sevika

↠If you have any requests, ask the devil.↞

【Jayce】

Jayce has a habit of hugging.

Are you cooking? He will hug you from behind and leaning his head in the recess of your neck. Are you studying? His hands go straight to your hips to pull you closer to him.

nothing sexual, just the warmth of your body touching

He loves physical contact, which is why he looks for it whenever possible.

Another way to feel close to you is to caress your hair.

He wraps it around the fingers, braids it if it is long enough, combs it between the fingers, and moves the rebel tufts behind the ears.

in the mornings, when you have nothing to do, he likes to comb them and if possible style them.

【Viktor】

Viktor listens to whatever you say.

It doesn’t matter if you tell him about the day, the shopping bag that broke while you were walking down the street, your special interest, or even if you repeat something you already told him. He will listen.

This simple action also constitutes some moments of your intimacy: being able to talk about everything, voicing whatever you think, knowing that you are constantly being listened to.

Other times, however, there is a need for silence, and even in those moments nobody knows how to listen like him.

Sometimes the silence is louder than a scream.

Just stay together in the room, without a sound, without talking, without feeling embarrassment. Words can sometimes be equivocal.

And you two know how to enjoy the calm.

【Ekko】

Ekko’s always taking care of you.

it’s influenced by the environment in which he lives, where it is normal to get hurt and neglect the slightest wounds

returning from missions or work, he usually brings pieces of clean cotton and water in the room, so you can combine the moment of pampering to actually take care of you if you need it.

he kisses the scars as a ritual when you’re intimate, walking your body with his lips in a path that seems to want to help it heal completely.

he knows and loves every sign on your body, from the stupidest to the most painful ones and loves them all equally. It’s just stories you carry on your skin

like the time you overboarded and fell with your face on the iron gate and got that little scar on your forehead.

each sign tells a story that he would hear a thousand times.

【Marcus】

Marcus usually brings you flowers.

Is it a cheesy gesture? Yes. But it has become an indispensable habit.

on the kitchen table there is always a modest bunch of fresh flowers that make the environment more tender and give the room a fresh scent.

When you go out in the evening for events or a simple walk, he picks a flower from the bouquet and sticks it behind your ear: he knows which ones you love the most and he will make sure that they are always present.

And when it rains and he can’t pick the flowers he will make you find a tray of your favorite sweets

he is conscious that because of his work (and not only the legal one) he cannot be too present in the house but these small gestures serve to show you that not only he actually does care about you but that he listens to you and takes into account what you like

and if one night is on patrol, the flowers will remind you that he would never abandon you

【Silco】

Silco has a very special and specific and peculiar love language.

hands.

He casually strokes your hand with his thumb and leaves his hand at your disposal to distract you when you talk, if you need it.

he kisses the back of your hand to greet you

and in moments of maximum vulnerability rubs against it his carved cheek.

is always a delicate, light, compound contact, but that in itself retains all the tenderness that the underground can offer.

In public he appears detached, but if he perceives that you need him he brings an arm just behind the torso so that you can hold your little finger to his and feel his intimidating presence.

And those hands are ready to protect you at the cost of killing without the aid of weapons.

【Vander】

Vander loves to cook for you.

No matter what time he comes back home or how tired he is, he’ll always find time to put a hot meal on the table for you.

the smell of garlic has become almost pleasant: he often uses it in a delicate way, you don't even perceive it in dishes, but somehow his fingers are soaked with that strong aroma that you now recognize as "home smell"

when you want to spend time together and don’t know what to do, he proposes to cook together

it always ends up with dirty clothes and laughs.

and then, why not, you move two clumsy dance steps in the kitchen, humming under the voice a song out of tune

【Singed】

Singed is used to bring you small gifts from nature.

his work sees the use of chemical agents, but often it’s himself to extract them from plants or some weird ass poison glands, seeing the scientist in a… close contact with nature.

if you can say so.

when he comes across crystals or gems he does a quick job of soldering and makes you find small pendants as gifts.

But his absolute love language is sharing knowledge. 

He will explain to you what properties those stones have, the nature of the stabilized flower that now lies in a glass flask, which alkali contains, if it is poisonous how does it acts.

He’s dedicated his whole life to science, and there’s nothing in the world he loves more than to share that little world of his with you

【Jinx】

Jinx isn’t great with words.

sometimes she is afraid of not being able to express a concept well, which is why she begins to speak quickly and the words come out of her mouth like a confused river in flood.

which is why your life has become particularly... colorful. 

sticky notes. sticky notes everywhere. 

You’ll find some sticky notes on the mirror with hearts and compliments on them, on your bedroom door, on the sofa, on the refrigerator.

"Everywhere" means no place is safe. 

They are literally stuck on every single thing in the house, some contain messages, some simple drawings, but they don't fail make you huff a laugh.

You keep a pair of them in your wallet.

【Vi】

Vi doesn’t really know how to cook.

she would like her love language to be cooking (like her father), for her to actually dedicate herself to you

but it’s more of a continuous check of how you feel and what you need.

Have you eaten? and slept enough? Are you drinking?

It’s not totally her fault, it’s a bit of the ol’ “syndrome of the older sister”, and a bit of “the need to never waste energy when you are in the lanes: ask allows you to do in a targeted way what is needed”.

And then the protection.

Do you feel in danger? She accompanies you. Someone threatens you even jokingly? They’ll regret it immediately.

【Caitlyn】

Caitlyn hates the rules.

Her love language? To live.

She grew up in a disciplined environment, she’s used to being educated in a rigid way, but when it comes to showing love... Here she is sneaking out a window in the middle of the night, maybe clumsily, falling down.

It is not even a rebellion, it is more a “need to not live adapting life to the rules but adapt the rules to life”.

Whatever comes to mind you will do. The bath at night? clearly a bad idea, but why not. Dancing in front of the academy, with everyone’s eyes on? must try. Exotic foods? fuck yeah.

and to testify everything, her trusty instant camera.

You know she has a metal box in her room where she keeps your photos, receipts, candy wrappers and everything that serves as evidence of the little follies committed together.

【Sevika】

Sevika comes from an environment that makes her very emotionally constipated.

she is a strong and established woman, but the moment you are alone she needs that exact and specific contact: you have to sit on her thighs.

No matter if you eat, talk or watch a movie, she will pick you up while remaining serious.

It’s a vulnerability hard to explain, but being able to distract herself despite someone being so close to her vital organs is their ultimate way of expressing unconditional love and trust.

although undeniably sevika scolds. 

She doesn’t like you to catch, emulate or share her bad habits and try to keep you away from her work.

She just wants to protect you.

【Mel】

We could take five minutes and talk about Mel not being used to expressions of affection, but we won’t.

Her Love language? Gifts.

she makes you find them galore, especially after quarrels or more difficult periods.

always makes sure that you can have everything you could possibly want, making you aware that she listens to you when you are in the room,

gifting you things that you just mentioned you liked or were intrigued by.

Her other love language is to explain what is going on in her mind, even to speak openly about her political ideas.

She knows you won’t judge her, and talking about it openly helps her find the flaws in the plan, as well as showing you how much she loves you.

#jayce x reader #viktor x reader #ekko x reader #silco x reader #marcus x reader #vander x reader #singed x reader #jinx x reader #vi x reader #caitlyn x reader #sevika x reader #mel x reader #jayce talis #viktor arcane #ekko arcane #marcus arcane #silco arcane #arcane vander #singed #jinx #vi arcane #caitlyn kiramman #mel medarda #sevika #arcane x reader #arcane headcanon

[nissanmaxima]

Finally someone who writes African American readers! I’ve been looking all over! Anyways, can you write a story about Levi and his African American s/o having kids and they’re all just dancing to popular urban songs? Its basically just a little bonding time.

foot note: pay no mind to the fact that this literally just never got published i’m so sorry 😭

——————————————————————————

A smile graced your face as you soaked in the scenario that’s unfolding, it felt surreal. Levi Ackerman, humanity's strongest soldier, and his loving (Y/N) found themselves blessed with a lively bunch of children. As they watched their little ones grow, they realized the profound joy that music brought their family.

The sun was shining, the faint buzzing sound of insects as well as the wind brushing against the grass surrounded the Ackerman family as they decided to have a special bonding session in the backyard. They put on their favorite R&B songs and danced to the rhythm with pure delight. The Kids, Madie, Genesis, Tremaine and Miracle giggled and twirled around, trying to imitate their parents' moves while Levi and his partner showcased their natural dancing skills. Older songs playing the likes of Whitney Houston, Earth Wind & Fire, Ja Rule, and Madie’s personal favorite: Michael Jackson

“Madie, what’s your stage name?”

“Madie Jackson!”

the exclamation made both parents laugh and hugged their daughter as tight as they possibly could,

“You’d be the best Madie Jackson ever!”

Levi, known for his stoic demeanor, let loose and embraced the happiness that radiated from his family. His partner, whose contagious laughter filled the air, led the way with energetic dance routines. They encouraged each child to express themselves through dance, fostering an environment of creativity and freedom.

The eldest child, a curly-haired girl named Genesis showed off her agility and grace with fluid dance moves, reminiscent of a seasoned performer. Next in line was Tremaine, a mischievous young boy who wasn't afraid to break out into spontaneous breakdance moves that left the family in awe and finally the twins, Madie and Miracle, added a touch of synchronized elegance to their performance, never missing a beat.

As the music continued to play, the baby of the Ackerman family, Levi Jr., joined in with his adorable little steps and contagious laughter. Every family member swayed and grooved, revealing the true power of love and unity.

Neighbors passing by couldn't help but stop and watch as this remarkable family exuded happiness and harmony. Some even joined in, clapping their hands and bopping to the beat, turning the backyard into a joyful dance party.

The day unfolded like a magical symphony from the morning starting with grits and eggs, to the midday being cleaning time to the Ackerman family dancing freely to the rhythm of their hearts. Each movement became a reflection of their love for one another, letting no outside or otherworldly interference stop their flow.

In that moment, Levi Ackerman, the hardened soldier, and his special (Y/N), were more than just parents. They were the architects of happiness and togetherness, creating cherished memories that would last a lifetime.

And so, under the warm sunshine and with the melody of slow, rugged and beautifully crafted R&B songs carrying them on, the Ackerman family continued to dance, bonding through rhythm and expression, celebrating the love that bound them forever and always.

——————————————————————————

foot note: heyyyyy i’m sorry :D i do this thing where i get a bunch of inspiration and then it goes no where sorryyyyy but i’m over the legal age so now i’m gonna start writing the spicy stuff so hopefully i’ll pump those out for kinktober :>

#poc reader #levi ackerman #levi x reader #levi x reader oneshots #levi attack on titan #levi aot #levi ackerman oneshot #levi x black reader #levi ackerman x reader #black reader #x black fem reader #afab reader #levi x black!reader #africanamericanreader

[kitkatopinions]

I kind of feel like it's funny when people hold RWBY and Blake/Yang up as some kind of super progressive height of gay representation that other media should learn from for a number of reasons, but the idea that "unlike other media, Bumblebee is never forced" is to me just.....

First of all

Like stop trying to throw other queer content that was fought for past insane amounts of censorship under the bus to try and make 'could've been way more queer from like day one' rwby look better. Like please tell me what queer romance in media you're talking about specifically, and explain why Bumblebee is inherently better.

But second of all..... We did watch the same show, right? "There's nothing forced about bumblebee-" Bro if you liked the scene where they kissed, more power to you. But the show writers literally decided to make the world around them randomly disregard like all other character conflicts and separate Blake and Yang from the group, putting them in a magical pocket dimension or something where their lives were in danger and the win conditions that would allow them to get out was them confessing their feelings for each other. There was literally "how do we take the next step" dialogue and then the two very awkwardly started forcing themselves to compliment each other (some of those compliments were straight up not true btw.) Prior to the kiss they started telepathically communicating with each other, somehow, and that was never explained or even treated as weird, and then the world around them conformed to their emotions enough to shove them together physically after shoving them together emotionally so that they could kiss, and sprouted flowers up around each other. And then that got them back to safety. And that whole time they were written to not even wonder what was happening to other characters or if they were safe. Again, this sort of thing did not happen to any of the other characters who needed to work out conflicts, not once in the whole season, despite the fact that we were led to believe it was a somewhat regular occurrence in Ever After that was supposed to happen with conflicts in general, and despite the fact that the whole reason the 'punderstorm' got created was because of a different conflict that didn't really get wholly addressed iirc. The 'punderstorm,' the bridge, the whole thing was pretty much just created so that the world and the writers could quite literally force Blake and Yang together on pain of death.

So it's cool that a lot of people really liked seeing the people they ship get together, but it's mind boggling that people saw it and thought "what a natural and completely non-forced way for them to get together! Other shows where people discuss past romantic histories or kiss after one person was worried about the other or have weddings or whatever need to learn from this super duper natural special gold standard of queer romance!"

Again, if other people liked it, great. And it was confirmation and rep so as bad as I might think it was done, every little bit helps to normalize queerness in media, so... Whatever. But like??? Idk why we're kidding ourselves here by calling it 'natural' or 'not forced.' The writers literally wrote the environment around Blake and Yang to force them to get together on threat of death. I couldn't think of any better example of a forced romance.

#rwde #anti bumbleby #anti bees #anti bumblebee #anti blake x yang

[aidonotknow]

That is a interesting theory! But my thoughts went in different directions.

Considering the plots of the 98 and 23 animations, my theory/headcanon is that humans have indeed changed - becoming more and more biologically similar to plant, because this is the reason why plant were created.

If it is for unlimited energy, there is no reason for humans to create "humanoid" biobatteries and cause ethical problems. The reason why plant is in human form is because what those scientists originally wanted to creat was actually the "spare body", and it's the ageless body.

We can see that they already got the technology for full-body prosthetics. As long as the rejection problem is overcome, humans can be directly transplanted into plant.

This is why the 23plant is considered "soulless", and every version of the plant remains dormant, because they are deliberately prevented from producing "life" or "consciousness". So plants have human appearances, good-looking faces, and are all female. The reason is the same as Jurassic Park (?

However, the problem of transplant rejection cannot be solved, so the by-product: the huge energy that keeps cells from aging, is instead used as a biological battery.

Therefore, as soon as Tesla, an Independent that is more similar to humans and can leave the life-sustaining light bulb, appears, scientists of SEED are eager to conduct radical experiments.

As long as it's proven that the two organisms are compatible, it will be a major breakthrough for mankind. But there are obviously still obstacles. What happened to Tesla may be severe transplant rejection.

As the article quoted at the beginning said, the earth may have achieved some kind of balance or compromise. Even when the emotions were intense, Chronica did not attack Knives with her A. arm but with machinery. Maybe it's not that she avoided using plant's power attack, she just can't use it.

23Dr. continued this plan with the consent of Knives (don't know why). They approached this from two aspects:

Eye of Michael: Modify human beings and adapt them to plant cells.

Elendira: A literal human-plant hybrid.

The MangaDr. has no obvious achievements in this regard, also his relationship with EOM is not very close. The specialized bodies of members of GHG may have been modified by him, such as Dominic's hypnotic eye, which is obviously From Transplant; The giantess carrying Legato's Coffin; Gauntlet and 9 Lives, etc.

MangaEl was very disdainful of EOM modified people, not sure if it was because she was born with plant cells.

Regarding Legato, because it is not certain when he was picked up by Knives, the inferences that can be made are limited:

98L- Perhaps because the action of transplanting an arm is so strange, most people are not aware of something even more abnormal - that is a cross-species transplant, and it seems that not only did Legato not have any rejection reactions, he also adapted very well - That means that there is little biological difference between legato and plant/Independent.

(I felt... uncanny, when I thought that he and plant twins would have no problem donating blood to each other)

23L- There may not be a transplant, but genetic modification or mutation, and NL's acquired environment caused him to directly evolve powers similar to those of a plant.

MangaL- We know His physique is better than that of ordinary humans, his "thread" ability, he can sense Knives and he "will lose to Vash"... But none of them can be explained😅 Also we can say Dr. attaches great importance to him. After Legato had his limbs chopped off by Knives, he tried to save Legato even though Knives might be displeased, risked being fired by Vash's A. Arm, even if he couldn't lift Legato.

Taken together, I guess Legato is a new human being born accidentally, and it is also evidence that humans and plants will one day become the same species. This is not man-made, but it is a victory for mankind. 23Dr's human experiments are based on him as a model, and Dr. therefore claims that he "chose human"... If they are still human by then.

Legato existence also subverted Knives' biological determinism, but for some reason Knives did not kill Legato as soon as possible. Contrary to his words, his actions not only did not dislike the human-plant blend theory, but supported it. Again, I don't know why. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

#trigun spoilers #headcanon