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fights I would pay to see: sigmund “everyone is attracted to someone” freud vs John “sexual desire is evil and cereal can and will fix it” Kellogg

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I do not know the pokemon lore but I'm curious now, which one is it?

When inventing a fantasy religion a lot of people a) make the mistake of assuming that everyone in fantasy world would worship the same gods and b) assume that polytheistic religions see all of their gods as morally good

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Oh damn, I have got to find the full story, dude did his freaking homework.

Literally sobbing. A judge, a US judge defended us. A judge brought up intersex people, uaing the term intersex, to *defend* us by not allowing our erasure. I'm having a lot of feelings right now

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Levels of Context in Fiction and Fanfiction

Kinda fascinated by the difference in context levels between fiction and fanfiction.

Like, you don't need to explain everything in fiction, it's not all a mystery where you want to have all the loose ends wrapped up, means motive and method all clearly explained. I've read some good stories where the exact nature of some of the characters has stayed vague the whole time, where the truth of the past is a deliberately misleading. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't, but I don't want to start this with the implication that fiction does, or needs to, explain everything.

However. Fanfiction in particular has a lot of "you already know the story I don't need to tell you stuff" going on. It's written from the "playing in someone else's sandbox" perspective, so regardless of whether the reader's actually familiar with the canon the author is assuming they are.

That is gonna vary a bit. If you're writing say, what you think happened after the movie's happily ever after, or between two episodes, you don't need to explain much. We already know what led up to this. On the other hand, if you're writing an au, especially one set in a very different world, you might provide a little more context to explain the changes.

For an example where there's very little context given, there's a fic I really like where the Leverage crew slowly becomes gods. And the writer says practically nothing about the heists, cause like, the show is the background and we've seen it, we know the kind of impossible stuff they've pulled off. We know who the characters are and their relationships to each other, we know how they met and why they stuck together. The story doesn't need to tell us who they are or what they do, which is all info you'd probably want if this was an original work, it came here to show the slow process of ascending to divinity and that's all it needs to do.

For an example where there's more context given, the fic that prompted this thought is a Star Wars fic where the Jedi lived in secret and the Mandalorian and Sith Empires ruled a large chunk of the galaxy. It's an AU, it's not that close to canon, so it does some explaining of like, how the Jedi hide and what exactly Anakin did (which is fairly close to canon in that he betrays them for Palps and kills kids), but it never explains who the Jedi/Sith/Mandalorians are, what the importance of lightsabers/the Force is, why falling is a problem, or why it's bad for the Sith to have Jedi kids. That's stuff we already know.

And even though fiction can leave things unsaid, I feel like there's something different about the way fanfiction does it. Maybe it's less that they do it differently and more that, since we as readers often have that context, it feels different. Maybe the difference is having the context and not the level of explanation. But my musing is done so I will stop here.

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i remember in 6th grade public school one of my friends in the class used the word “bungalow” as often as possible and every time he needed to say “house” or “home” he swapped it for “bungalow” and me and the rest of the class thought it was so fucking funny.

so everyone in the class started using it too like saying “I brought my lunch from the bungalow today” or whatever and the teachers HATED IT.

it started getting out of hand when we were learning about the presidents and we often needed to say “the White House” so of course we would say “the White Bungalow” and the teacher was so furious and then there was a ban on the word and if anyone said it they were sent to the office and I remember the kid who started all the bullshit one time got in trouble for something petty like sharing his homework and the teacher said that she was going to call home to him mom and he just stood up and cried out “No, ms_____! Please don’t call home!”

and there was this huge silence because he just raised his voice at the teacher

and then a huge smile spread across his face and he said

“call bungalow instead.”

and I swear the whole class rioted it was amazing

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99.99% of rap haters have never even listened to rap. or if they have it's like one gangsta rap song & they treat the genre as a monolith and act like it's representative of every rap song ever. and well of course they are also just racist

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Wait wait you can't say that and not tell us what the "fuck you"s in Tatooine culture are!

hot take: given the fact that the concept of a jedi has roots in martial arts, the dropping of the cloak is actually a sign of mutual respect in a duel, like bowing, even if the end goal is to absolutely beat the shit out of each other. in this essay I will-

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If you don't have to deal with a place's weather disasters you shouldn't get to name it.

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"pun-tential" - you are a genius

Batman acts as a secondary parent mentor to all the young justice members, so when a mentorless Dani Phantom joins it was only natural that he tried to be a parent mentor to her as well.

Because she's never had a parental mentor figure, Dani's very confused about what Batman's doing.

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The thing people don’t get is, it’s not that Parker doesn’t understand SEX, it’s just that Parker doesn’t understand INNUENDO. She’s not an innocent baby, she’s just autistic.

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Sophie went "Hardison we'll need to to forge a historical book for a con well enough to fool an expert, something you have never done before" and he went "goddamnit" and then did it, I can absolutely see him making his own cosplays.

Of course Eliot knows how to sew, between his military service, medical skills, and the likelihood that he's slept with a seamstress or two. He can, at minimum, hem a pair of pants and do most types of repairs.

Hardison, though? Sure, word of God is that he makes the disguises that the team uses during cons, which could just mean he's ironing "FBI" transfer letters onto windbreakers.

HOWEVER.

Hardison is a cosplayer in the early 2010s. I did my first con cosplay at AnimeNext in '08. Before 2013 or so, you could not Google a character and find sales listings for a ready-made cosplay. If you wanted to cosplay a character who doesn't wear readily available normal clothes, you had two options: you either found someone who could sew and were very, very nice to them, or you learned how to make stuff yourself. I know several people who taught themselves how to sew by taking apart thriftstore finds for cosplay, and I had a side hustle taking on sewing and patterning commissions.

Hardison could have commissioned his first cosplay, but I think he'd get sucked in. He'd get really excited about computerized sewing machines. He'd get himself a machine that he can hack and reprogram so it's got extra stitches, multiple buttonhole settings, automatic seam guidance, a controlled heat setting that does a fused edge finish on synthetic fabrics. He digitizes his own embroidery patterns.

At some point Eliot asks to borrow a sewing machine because his job is as rough on his clothes as it is on his body, and he nearly has an aneurysm trying to do a basic darning patch on Hardison's beeping whistling computer-monster. A couple days later, a second sewing machine shows up. It's an old one with sturdy metal innards and mechanical dials to set stitch length and width. It has no screen, no control buttons, and only a handful of settings. One of them is a darning stitch.

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“You are utterly unclear on how to be dead. This is the second time in two years that you’ve shown up at your own funeral.”

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Okay I love this concept.

Pondering Doors Again >.>

Thinking about a concept I saw in a Manhwa. "Dungeons feed of the death that occurs within them" and how the Protagonist went "alright, Bet. A stable and prosperous society for outcasts has a LOT of Death! What with the need to eat food and people growing old and thus, inevitably, at least SOMEONE dying every day".

Because FARMING is and always has been a slower but more profitable way to accumulate food then Hunting. More reliable too.

And? What better way too feed your hunger(HungryHungryHUNGRYItHurtSIMSO-) then by BECOMING a Trap Door? Not every ghost looks human. Not every ghost WANTS too.

Maybe you want to Live. Yes, you are fighting, fighting, fighting. Not even Death can take you. But given half a chance? Given the infinite freedom of the Zone and all of Time stretched out before you? Do you? WANT to think anymore? WANT to keep fighting FOREVER for every scrap of food to fill your endless NEED for food? Your obsession with being full?

You can stop.

Like meditation.

Instead of MAKING a Lair... become one. You could always change your mind, if you felt like it. Souls rarely if ever DO, but you COULD. Then? You wait.

There are house ghosts. Dwellings that die. You blend right in. Are you angry? Vengeful? Do you blame the world? Perhaps you'll call them in. Like Hansel and Gretel. Look upon my house made of candy, children. Isn't it tempting? Isn't it sweet? Come closer. Listen to my siren song.

Chomp.

But, maybe you are tired. Hungry. Old bones and cold, barren soil. Barely the strength to paint gaudy veneers over straining, decaying wood. Like long abandoned circuses. You try for the appearance of cheer, but your tattered visage. betrays you. Yet, just like them, while you may not be able to entice those you truely wish to come? Vermin find safety and comfort in your walls.

And is that not how nature heals? First the weeds? The insects and vermin? Little things that build to great forests over time? Blobs hide within in you. Safely out from underfoot. What do they care, if you can not provide them scenery? You are safe. And they? They feed you in turn.

Like little worker bees. Drifting out, gorging on ectoplasm, and returning. Nesting safely inside you, they radiate that Ectoplasm and leech it into the Lair around them. You feed. And Feed. And FEED.

You make more places to hide for them. Bushes. Trees. You only half remember them now, so the colors are off and the forms shakey at best. The blobs do not care. More flock to you in response. You grow stronger. Make more trees.

You finally, FINALLY attract a curious and skittish ghost. They linger by the entrance. Watching. Uncertain. They know traps and hunters hide out here. Who would leave a perfectly good Lair up for grabs? This is a trick. A nasty little trap. Right? It has to be! Their luck can not be this good.

But it is. Because bottom feeders find each other all the time. Lairs that have little to offer and Ghosts who couldn't possibly defend anything worth keeping. All the Zone is stronger then them, why not be weakling together?

And they always take the chance. Because hope is eternal.

Inching forward in a cautious float, ready to dash away, they eventually realize the Lair really IS up for grabs. It really CAN be theirs. Which of course... means they have to fix it up of course! They are THRILLED. Look at all this ROOM! Why, these trees are LOVELY. A good start! They just gotta tweak THIS and then THAT aaand... there we go! Oooh, now over THERE would be a great place for a- *excited muttering*

And a proper ghost? MUCH better at bringing in Ectoplasm then a blob. Then dive in and out, fetching plants to transplant, decorations, building supplies. They invite their friend to crash with them. Become roommates. Their roommate gets a partner. They meet someone. Eventually somebody has a kid. And so on and so on.

All the while, they are feeding their Lair. Do they know it's not a NORMAL Lair? Yeah. They aren't dumb. Blobs disappear sometimes, if no one leaves for too long. House ghosts don't do that (or so they're told). But? They aren't powerful ghosts. They are weak ones. They CAN'T defend one of the nice spots from jerks who want to take it.

But a Lair that can defend ITSELF? And doesn't seem to want to eat them? Meh. Whatever works, man.

And you know what happens? Eventually, you reach a sustainable mass tipping point. Enough ghosts, set up in houses and cabins and castles and caves. All within a single Trap Lair. That they radiate enough ectoplasm to sustain the Lair itself. Enough that it can FINALLY pull the infamous and legendary "never leave" trick.

What is that trick?

Simple! You are a ghost. You'd kinda like an apple. You get up to leave you Lair to go get one. Oh, hey, an apple tree! That's new. Oh, these are really good! You sit back down. You never leave. Why would you leave? You are happy and have everything here. Your friends and family are here. Have another cake. Sit back down.

That is the trick.

The Trap of the sort of Trap Door.

They are known as Honey Traps. Heaven's Gates. Dream Doors. And they build slow to become quite dangerous. Entire cities exsist inside them. Ghosts go in and never come out. The take the energy you produce, small kernel that it is, and feed it back to you. And Ghosts? Efficient generators that they are, produce far more then they are given. Little into more. Little into greater. Building and building.

Until it has the strength to weave dreams.

Trap and entice. Blind and numb you. Bread and circuses for the masses, pay no attention to the bars that keep you here. You LOVE the comfort of your cage! You can leave whenever you want! You just never want too.

The Lair makes certain of that.

@the-witchhunter @hypewinter @hdgnj @mutable-manifestation

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Red Hood: The plan was to get Black Mask so desperate he'd get you out of Arkham

Black Mask: You can't. Trust. Anybody.

I don't know why this makes me laugh he's just like "you started a gang war and the point wasn't even the fucking gang war??? rude"

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Phantom moving the mark like: what did you think it was that easy?

DC x DP Prompt *24*

Something has changed. Everyone in the hero community could feel it, even the ones outside of the Justice League.

Over night it seemed like all of them got stronger, faster and more resilient when they were trying to protect someone.

On the other hand, if one of them tried to use their skills to do something unheroic, it was harder to use them and other heros seemed to be able to sense their betrayal easier.

It took some time for Zatanna and the rest of the Justice League Dark to figure out what was going on. Mostly because they didn't think of this specific thing.

A new god had ascended. Something that happened rarely, especially nowadays. But the magic users were sure. Every hero they had checked, had a divine blessing from a new patron god. And every former hero who had fallen to villainy in the last few month had a curse put on them.

The god of super heros had ascended and was watching over them. While some heros got paranoid, others felt some sense of pride and relief.

And maybe it wasn't a bad thing, if something else was making sure that evil wouldn't take hold of them. As soon as they knew their name, they could properly worship them.

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@mr-thundercloud's tags cause I wanted to see the full thing:

#”Remember to ignore the fact that Fenton is definitely ecto contaminated we don’t want the GiW to find out”#Paulina quite likes her ecto-claw gauntlets that look like gloves#Mikey with a creep stick: Dash I need you to throw me like a football#No one wants to ask who gave Sam a bazooka even when they know Fenton definitely didn’t#Which he didn’t she brought her own actually#Definitely wasn’t going to use it to bribe Harley to meet Poison Ivy#Lancer has given up on controlling his class#As long as there’s little to no property damage he’s fine#The tour guide is gobsmacked while he's standing there reading a book & the kids go feral#”Where did you say you’re from again ...?”#No one is going to be able to get near Danny if the class has any say#This is THEIR ecto-contaminated weapons dealer thank you very much

There's something really funny about exasperated Lancer apologizing to locals for his Liminal/wild students.

Prompt 173

Danny might have made a mistake. On one hand, thankfully, his class hasn’t realized he’s Phantom, which is good. On the other hand, he’s somehow become their arms dealer after maybe, just maybe er, being done with Skulker’s shit when he was just trying to do his test and er… maybe beating him to a pulp. As Danny Fenton. 

Well, the good news is apparently everyone now thinks that he doesn’t fight back lest he accidentally snap someone’s spine. Which is honestly kind of nice to not have to deal with the harassment anymore. 

How has he become the fenton technology arms dealer though?! Legitimately, he has no idea how it happened except for sleep deprivation and someone mentioning how one of the places that they might be going to for the field trip was Gotham. 

At least everyone has their weapons and knows how to use them when some sort of clown-masked people decide to break into the mall and attempt to take them hostage. So. He guess he can’t complain, and at least he got food that doesn’t come alive in exchange.