#Anyways I do firmly believe humans are animals

[rotationalsymmetry]

ok I’m definitely not reblogging because I don’t want to shame OP, but I just read a really weird read on vegetarianism and pet ownership.

I’m an ecologist. My opposition to meat eating isn’t about the sanctity of life; most animals eat at least some meat some of the time, some animals exclusively eat meat, animals can eat meat and also have a functioning ecosystem. Actually everything has to be eaten at some point, either via predation or after death via scavenging or decomposition. That’s how we recycle nutrients.

The reason it’s not great for humans to eat meat has to do with trophic levels and carrying capacity . There’s about an order of magnitude more zebras than lions. If humans want to live like lions, our carrying capacity (how many of us can exist without breaking everything) is lower than if we live mostly like zebras. This is complicated by exactly what biome you’re living in (if you live in the arctic, living like a zebra is not an option) and it’s also complicated by the way all industrial agriculture is unsustainable. There is a sense in which all industrial ag is just terrible and we shouldn’t be doing it, at all. But just like you can’t live like a zebra in Alaska, in practice most people can’t opt out of industrial agriculture. But industrial animal agriculture is about an order of magnitude (ten times) more unsustainable than skipping the animals and feeding people plants, so when people can eat plant foods or mostly plant foods — and especially when people can avoid beef/cow meat specifically — it’s … harm reduction. It buys us a little more time.

My impression is indigenous cultures that aren’t in places where eating plants isn’t viable handle this by 1. mostly eating plants, or maybe some combo of plants and seafood, and 2. having a bunch of rules around hunting and harvesting that include the idea of asking permission to take life. I have no idea what that looks like in practice, but I’m sure it makes sense to people who were raised that way. Point is, while vegetarianism is a cultural anomaly, that doesn’t mean that cultures that do eat meat think everything is fine with every way of killing animals for meat.

As a side note the reason I can coexist without conflict with meat eaters is I have a very strong ethic around the idea that each person is in charge of their own life and moral choices, and I’m kind of straddling the middle of an older worldview of “some things that are good to do are mandatory for everyone, and some things that are good to do are sort of above and beyond, and most people aren’t going to do them and that’s ok,” with vegetarianism being one of the above and beyond things, and a newer stoicism-based “whatever anyone else does is none of my damn business anyways.” That’s got nothing to do with seeing animal lives as less valuable than human lives — I think humans should be eaten too, by worms or bacteria or fungi after we’re dead, so that nutrients stay in the ecosystem — and everything to do with “I’ve got enough to handle with my own life and my own moral responsibilities, I don’t need to be running other people’s too.”

[drmaddict]

Her Wolf

Summary: (Y/n) and Jason are a couple in secret. Everything is perfect. But (Y/n)s brother Eddie had to find out sometime.

Word count: 1.678

How the two had come together was easy to answer.

Jason and (Y/n) had bumped into each other absolutely drunk at a party. Before (Y/n) knew it, she was in an empty bedroom with Jason over her and she was having the best night of her life. Jason was no saint by God. He had taken her like a wild animal and she had surrendered to it all too willingly.

In fact, it should have stayed that way. Jason Carver and (y/n) Munson. It wasn't going to work out anyway.

It's just that it didn't stay that way.

(Y/n) held back, though she couldn't get that night out of her mind. Secretly, she watched him. Tried to sense the beast that was hidden deep within this golden boy.

She didn't see it again until it pulled her into a cubbyhole. He was the wolf and she was Little Red Riding Hood.

Their meetings happend more often.

And if it had remained that way. If they met only because of Sex and lust, both would have understood it.

But at some point, the nature of the relationship changed. At some point, they went out to have coffee in a larger city. At some point, the wolf pulled his Little Red Riding Hood into the closet just to kiss her, suck in her scent, and be wished good luck for the game.

At some point, they slipped notes to each other. At some point, she was in his arms in the back seat of his Jeep, enjoying the warmth of togetherness.

It remained a secret. They both wanted it. What they had was untainted by the outside world. It was supposed to stay that way. But unfortunately, everything had an end at some point.

(Y/n) was lying on the sofa in the trailer. Wayne was at work and Eddie would be busy enough with Hellfire for a long time.

Jason, her wolf, was lying over her. He wasn't kissing her neck. He was biting it. She wasn't holding onto his back. She was scratching him open.

Pleasurable and hard, they gave themselves over to lust. Bathed in sin. Let themselves be devoured and devoured each other.

Jason's skillful didacticism was long gone. He moaned. He grunted. He growled.

She came. Tightened around him, draining even the last of his humanity.

Hard and rough, he bit the crook of her neck. Growled possessively and poured himself inside her.

Breathing heavily, they lay there. Slowly he withdrew his teeth and carefully kissed the bruised area. The imprint was deep. A whimper escaped him. Immediately he felt gentle fingers running through his hair. He pulled her protectively against him. Neither of them said anything.

She let him hold her. He let himself be caressed.

Jason firmly believed that he was wrong. That he shouldn't feel this way. Beating someone in a fight was one thing, but taking a woman so.... To take her so animalistically. He was no better than an animal, no matter how hard he tried to pull himself together in the rest of his life. No matter how perfect he tried to be. In the end, he was just an animal. But (Y/n) accept the animal. Her wolf, she called it. She took him as he was. Full of flaws. His little angel.

It was one of those days when it was hard for him to form words after the act. (Y/n) put him back together again. Gently and sweetly.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly.

Jason nodded, still shaken. "Yes." he whispered back. His voice was hoarse and still a little too low. "I'm sorry." He gently stroked the bite marks. He looked up into her smiling face. She shook her head. "I like it."

He grinned with tired eyes. "Freak." He said it with affection, not hate.

She nudged him in the shoulder with an equal grin. "Says the right guy."

"We should shower," she suggested, but he immediately wrapped his arms tighter around her.

"Not yet." He buried his face against the crook of her neck and took a deep breath. "How long do we have?"

"I don't know. These games can last hours."

And normaly (Y/n) would have been right about that. Except in normal circumstances, Dustin didn't fell over because of an allergic shock.

Jason was just scraping back together the last of his humanity, listening to (Y/n)s hum when a dull bang sounded. Jason turned around in surprise. (Y/n) immediately frantically pulled the small wool blanket over them.

Standing in front of them was a dim-witted Eddie Munson. His metal box lay forgotten beside him.

No one said anything until Eddie snapped out of his stupor. "You son of a-"

He had not been able to taken a step toward them, when (Y/n) stood up, the blanket wrapped around her.

"Take it easy." she determined.

"He - You... What?"

She turned him by the shoulder and pushed him toward the front door. "I'll get dressed now, and you practice how to speek."

With that, she slammed the front door and turned to Jason. He was still staring at her in shock.

"Jason?" she asked, when she realized he was lying there stiff as a board. He was shaking slightly.

"Jason. It's all right. He's not going to do anything."

Jason shook his head. He buried his face in his hands. "He'll tell everyone," he said, upset.

She stroked his silky strands. "Would it be so bad?"

He took a deep breath. "They'll be all over you. The rumors will get worse and worse, and eventually you'll leave me."

"Jason. Jason look at me." The blue eyes looked up at her sadly. "I'm not leaving because of any rumors or high school jokes." She took his face in her hands. "But your reputation might-"

He shook his head. "It's not real anyway." He stroked her neck. "Look at what I always do to you."

She sighed. "Let's get dressed and then I'll beat him into keeping his mouth shut." She kissed him on the forehead. Jason nodded and fished his gym pants off the floor.

(Y/n) came back in a shirt and shorts and yanked open the door. Immediately Eddie came into the room. "I'm against this! This stops right now!" he shouted and ran into the trailer like a startled chicken.

"Self-determination is not happening here?" asked (Y/n) sarcastically.

"No! You're my little sister!"

She slapped her hand to her forehead. "Eddie!" she ripened, annoyed.

"If you're just playing with her to-"

"Get a grip, Freak." Jason immediately spat.

"I've got better things to do, than pick girls based solely on how much it bothers you."

Eddie looked at him venomously. "If you hurt her, and I swear by all the gods I've ever heard of, you'll spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair."

Jason looked at him, unimpressed. They both crossed their arms in front of their chests.

"WE decide when this comes out! Got that Freak?!"

Eddie stretched out his hand to Jason. Jason gripped it exaggeratedly tight.

"Good."

"Good."

Eddie turned to her. "There's no fucking in the trailer and - What the hell did you do to her neck? What are you? An octopus?"

Jason turned away from him, annoyed, and reached for his shirt. The fresh, still slightly bloody scratches beamed at Eddie.

He looked back and forth between the two of them with gigantic eyes.

"I'm going to go bleach the images out of my brain," he said monotonously, and walked into his room.

They both looked after him. (Y/n) rolling her eyes. Jason amused. Annoying the freak like that was fun, too.

"That went pretty well, didn't it?" shrugged (Y/n).

Jason looked at her intently. "Is that my shirt?"

"No."

"I've been looking for that for weeks!"

"You're welcome to wear it."

"How generous."

Eddie, as usual, gathered his sheep to go to school. The first was Gareth. He dropped into his seat, exhausted. He whimpered out.

"What's wrong Gareth?" asked Eddie cheerfully as he drove on.

Gareth just gave him a telling look. "What's wrong Gareth?" he mimicked him. He grunted something into his non-existent beard.

(Y/n) smirked. Eddie still thought she knew nothing about the two. After Jason left the night before, Eddie had taken off and did not come back until after midnight. She did not want to know what he had done to Gareth.

"Have you guys ever noticed that Jason's really been leaving us alone lately," Gareth muttered.

Eddie clung tighter to his steering wheel. "No. Why?"

Gareth shrugged. "I'm just saying. Last time he smacked me was probably three months ago or so."

He mused. "Right. At Bowers' party."

Eddie looked stubbornly down the street. She smirked a little to herself. He'd even left them alone when they were just having sex.

Gareth shrugged. "Probably just finally getting laid."

Eddie made a full stop, sending Gareth flying forward. Eddie catched him with one arm.

"DUDE!"

Eddie looked at (Y/n) nervously. She rolled her eyes. "Just Gareth.", she said firmly.

"She's fucking Carver!" shouted Eddie at Gareth, as if he were a kid telling Mom that the little sister had just stolen his toy.

Gareth turned to her in surprise.

"You guys were the ones in the bedroom at the party? Right? We had to turn the music up to drown your sounds out."

"That's the point you were holding on to now?" asked Eddie, upset.

"You didn't hear that. They were like two wild animals!"

"Lalalalalala!" sang Eddie loudly, and took off again.

Gareth turned back to (Y/n). "Thank you for your service to the community." She nodded, waving it of.

"I won't say anything, if you don't." She held out her hand to him. He took it.

"You don't sound any better.", she muttered. "Just so you know." Eddie looked at her, startled.

"Eyes on the road!" yelled Gareth, grabbing the steering wheel that Eddie had let go in shock.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Hi Clan! I haven't been around in a while the autism took me for a few months sorry. Would you do some headcanons for Miles and/or Gwen meeting a Mutant!Spider-Person reader? Like an X-Men type mutant. They never got bit but were instead born with the spider powers (including the webs) and 4 arms. Because they're a mutant they aren't really trusted as a hero by the people of their city (or the cops) but they still try their best because "If I gave up because a few people didn't like me, I wouldn't be very good at my job"

-Forgetful Anon

Gwen Stacy

While visiting Spider Society HQ for the first time, she noticed you sitting at a nearby table, having an arm-wrestling match against Ben Riley.

He insisted you used all four of your arms to "challenge" him....and yet he sulks when he ultimately loses, and you just laugh in victory before patting him on the back.

Once he leaves, you spot this new Spiderwoman and wave her over to your table, insisting on having a match.

It's just your way of breaking the ice for new Spiderpeople. You loved getting to know them and testing their strength. Winning or losing doesn't matter to you.

"Don't worry, I'll go easy on ya." You tease, only to be surprised as Gwen wins with little effort, her smug grin present.

"You went a little "too" easy on me, I think."

"Haha...jeez, I guess so."

And so you both talk for a little while about different things: what she thought of Spider Society, how long she's been Spiderwoman, etc.

When she turns the questions on you, however, you're....a bit hesitant to share.

Unlike most of the Spiderpeople here, you didn't get your powers in the "traditional" sense. No spider has ever bitten you.

Seeing Gwen's curiosity, though, you eventually tell her you're actually a mutant, a human born with the X-gene that made you into a spider hybrid.

You mentioned a league of mutant superheroes in your dimension.....but you ride solo, as most Spiderpeople do, not wanting to be tied down to any specific group (ironic as you're part of Spider Society, but that's besides the point).

She imagines the people there feel pretty safe, though you shake your head. "Nah, some see us as the bigger threat just because we look like this and have all these crazy powers. I've fought aliens and wizards, but...there's some battles that you just can't punch or shoot webs at, y'know?"

Her expression changes to a slightly solemn one, nodding her head in sympathy. "You're fighting for basic respect."

"We just want fair treatment...and it's like we're asking them for the world. All I wanna do is protect my city, but it's hard when half the population hates us and thinks we brought the trouble to them."

"I can't imagine.." She frowns. "If I might ask..what keeps you going? Why bother if nobody even thanks you or sees you as a hero? What's the point?"

"......."

"...sorry, was that too deep-?"

"No, no..you're good, kid." You chuckle, feeling more relaxed. "All my life I've dealt with that stuff, and it still sometimes hurts, but if I gave up just because some people didn't like me, well...I'd be terrible at my job as a Spiderperson."

Gwen's impressed by your words, not expecting to have such a deep conversation about your "origin story" at the first meeting.

But she's glad she could talk to you, needing this distraction from the incident with her dad while she was questioning her own self-worth as Spiderwoman.

You reassure her she can come to you for advice anytime.

Miles Morales (E-1610)

You first met Miles after getting thrown into his dimension thanks to the collider explosion, taking comfort in knowing you're not the most "unusual" spiderperson around.

There's a pig and an anime girl with a psychic link to her spider, for crying out loud.

Anyways, you had faith that he could help you get back to your dimension, never doubting him unlike the other spiderpeople who firmly believed he wasn't ready for this task.

You followed him after he left May's basement to talk one-on-one, sympathizing with his struggles.

"Trust me, kid..I've been in your shoes once. I never felt like a Spiderman in my life..even now."

He stares at you in disbelief. "Really? You? But...you got all your powers at birth! I mean yeah, you weren't bitten, but....but you're already better at this than I am! I bet people really admire you-"

"I've had my fair share of doubters, Miles. All of us have, but I got it...particularly bad in my world. And not just because I'm a "masked vigilante putting myself about the law"."

He's still a bit lost, so you tell him about the unfair treatment of mutantkind in your dimension, speaking of how some people hated you so much...they sought to "cure" your X-genes.

It stings to know that they will shun you instead of seeing you as a hero, though you didn't wanna ramble on for too long and depress Miles further, seeing his frown growing.

"You say all of this, and yet...you think I can help you get back there. Why would you ever wanna go back to a world that hates you just for being yourself? For just trying to do the right thing even if everyone's telling you no?"

"Well..besides dying if I stay in this dimension--" You begin, painfully glitching for a moment as if to prove that point. "--ouch...look, I just can't abandon the people who need me. The ones who do see me as a hero. It's my duty, and...if I gave up trying to be Spiderman just because I get a few stares or snide comments...well then I'm not really Spiderman, am I?"

Miles doesn't know what to say...but he does feel incredibly inspired by your words.

He only wishes the others trusted him like you did.

Patting his shoulder, you remove your mask and smile at him. "Don't their words bring you down, kid. You got potential...they'll realize it soon enough."

[ryttu3k]

this might be a silly question, but do we know what sascha's zulo form looks like? and if we dont, do you have any head cannons?

The 'canon' answer is that all Zulo forms are completely identical and Sascha's is no different, as described in the original Players' Guide to the Sabbat:

"This power enables the vampire to assume the form of a real monster. In one turn, the vampire's entire body transforms into a seven to eight-foot-tall creature with grotesque features. The vampire has clawlike, seven-fingered hands, a row of bony spines protruding from her vertebrae, a horribly deformed head, huge muscles and thick blackish -gray skin covered with a slick, black, oily residue. Oddly enough, all vampires using this power take this form, though each has slight variations."

Still held true as late as the V20 corebook, although it no longer emphasises that they're all identical. More specifically, so does the Revised corebook! The Clan Novel Saga, specifically the individual story written by Lucien Soulban, is Revised-era, and is the only story where we get a specific description of Sascha's Zulo form:

This is one of the very few things V5 actually did right for the Tzimisce, in that Zulo form is no longer identical to everyone:

"With a mastery of the body so complete that it surpasses natural limitations, the vampire can take on a truly monstrous form, complete with vicious claws, protruding fangs, ridged features, and corded muscles. Although its exact traits can vary between occasions, the form often has an individual, specific appearance that manifests every time this power is used, a vision of the user’s Beast made flesh. Some look like hellishly malformed animals, some look demonic or atavistic, and some defy any sense of worldly familiarity. Many incorporate the traits of other vampires in nature, such as leeches, bats, ticks, and mosquitoes, magnified to grotesque proportions."

The fact that it's an amalgam between Protean 4 and Dominate 2 is still a stupid-ass decision. Ha ha yeah you can change yourself because you're ~dominating your body~ oh get fucked. If you had to make Vicissitude an amalgam, at least make it something that makes sense, like Auspex! Also it now costs drastically higher, it had always been Vicissitude 4 and now you need two extra levels? Man c'mon.

Anyway.

A lot of fandom has embraced that, or, potentially, the V5 Companion writers looked at how basically every Tzimisce fan went "yeah no fuck that" and designed their own Zulo form. There are some amazingly, wonderfully creative designs out there, and I firmly believe that in a clan like the Tzimisce, Zulo forms would be individualistic and incredible to see. And Sascha has Vicissitude 7 and Style 6, as if they're going to be constrained to some basic-ass variation everyone has ;)

For my own interpretation, I hc that they have wings with razor-sharp black feathers made of chitin, to really tie into that Angel of Caine imagery. They're not quite designed to fly with, they don't use Chiropteran Marauder form, but they can glide a bit and, more importantly, intimidate ;D I see the main body of their Zulo form as catlike, like this sleek black panther, with razor-sharp claws, spikes down the length of their spine, and a sword-like blade on the end of their tail, and alarmingly intelligent and human-like eyes that look really disconcerting in a panther-like face.

But that's just 'my' Sascha - there are probably a ton of incredible designs out there!

[acesgarden]

NINJAGO HEADCANON TIME ‼️

I- am shamelessly on a Ninjago fixation again (I blame my irl friends- they’re not gonna see this anyway sooooooooo) yippe. Some of these headcanons are ones Ive see and whole heartedly agree with, and some are just random ones i’ve come up with throughout the years so uh yeah don’t mind that some have more then others haha. I’ll probably post smaller ones (and like a another one specifically for DR headcanons :DDDDD

They are in no coherent order🧍‍♂️

This is long I apologize 😂

Masterlist

Lloyd

• He/They and Panro Ace.

• None of the ninja are not queer and three(?) of them are ace to me (I am projecting.) Lloyd is ace, for I cannot see the words Lloyd and s3x working in the same sentence. In general just idea cannot be fathomed by me. If you do, cool! (We don’t shame headcanons around here!!)

• He is trans masc as well I love trans masc Lloyd headcanons.

• Getting this out the way. I am a s u c k e r for the oni dragon feature headcanons. 👏💳👏💳👏

• He has horns, starting on his forehead following the curve of his head, the horns aren’t to long and are pretty smooth, starting off as his skin color before transitioning into a black color with a green sheen.

• The horns are a mix of dragon shape with oni coloring.

• Lloyd has pointy ears and they do reflect his emotions.

• Like they’re sitting pointed high when he’s really happy, excited, nervous (?) and tend to droop when he’s sad or upset. Though they are typically in a neutral middle.

• Yes he has a tail but he does hide it when in public.

• Does have shape shifting! Just not to the extent of a full blood Oni, he could change into other people or animals but it’s much harder and required complete focus. So it’s better for him to take small characteristics or changes (like his face, hiding scars, etc), or to hide some Oni and Dragon features if he so wishes.

• He can purr, but is very embarrassed by it so other than around the ninja he tries his best to keep it down.

• Short compared to the ninja, like the second shortest, around 5’6”.

• Trust issues, kinda funky to new people like he’s not mean but he isn’t gonna be all buddy buddy and friendly (I blame Harumi & his childhood.)

• Especially after seasons 8-10, absolutely does not trust anybody besides his family.

• Absolutely did not like the new changes of horns and a tail, etc when they manifested. Dreaded it and himself at one point. Took a lot of care, and work, and love (and probably a lot of therapy) for him to feel comfortable again.

• There are days in which he still feels awful but he knows he can go straight over to the ninja when he starts feeling like that.

• Through he did not mind his fangs since he did have them since birth. When they started growing it was not an uncommon occurrence to find him staring into the bathroom mirror as he’d gently poke the tips of his fangs.

• There are some times, rare times, where you’ll still catch him doing it.

• His fangs are not as typically long as a regular onis, but longer that a normal humans canines.

• His nail are in a similar fashion, they grow pointy and a faster than the rest of the ninja, so he often has to file them down at least one or twice a week.(?)

• Even now has the biggest sweet tooth, when he was younger he’d steal some of Cole’s sweets but now they’ve been baking together for a while. He’s gotten pretty good

• Lloyd, like his father, both like shiny stuff or things with nice sounds. Think like dice! some are shiny while others just make the best sound when clunked together. Leads me to my next thing.

• HE HAS PIERCINGS, I firmly believe he had his ears pierced at least once, with like gold studs but will change them out to other gold esk earrings every so often.

• The rest of the ninja have bought them a set of earrings that match each ninja. Quartz studs from Zane. Like a vertical bar hoop earings from Cole, Kai went a little extra and got him a gold lobe to conch chained earring which a dangling piece of chain with a red jewel, Mismatch blue studs from Jay, and Raindrop earrings from Nya.

• He gets constantly reminded ans (lovingly) made fun of his Prime Empire avatar.

• The next few are gonna be angst and possibly a bit darker, so be warned when proceeding.

• Lloyd has had and still has a lot going on, mentally and emotionally.

• You’ve seen the amount of trauma and shit he’s been through.

• When he first found out about being the green ninja he was young, a kid, so he found it exciting imagining himself like that. He felt very important and wanted to do anything and everything to achieve that faster. Kids are oblivious like that. After getting hit with Tommorow’s Tea it finally dawned on him.

• Lloyd got what he wanted but being the Green Ninja was not the simple obstacle to overcome.

• The weight of the responsibility and power was to heavy at first. So he put himself through the training, every morning to night he trained. it got bad at one point because he’d rarely leave, even to eat.

• It was an issue that had an intervention for, he wasn’t allowed to train without someone knowing or supervising for awhile.

• He broke down during the intervention, because he wanted to be ready and to strong enough, etc. But he never did through out the training. That night was a movie night where Lloyd got to watch all his favorite moviess.

• He struggled with getting into better eating habits after awhile of the non-stop training. The others were always patient with him though.

• Lloyd felt he had a lot to uphold and maintain especially as words were used like “chosen one” and “destiny” to describe his role.

• After awhile he started having a harder time expressing his emotions, but the Ninja caught on quick enough and did help him reverse that thinking and process. Sometimes it’s still hard.

• There are times where Lloyd blanks out to his own thoughts and he struggles to come out of them.

• Has anxiety and has had anxiety and panic attacks more then once. Knows the routine on how to deal with them.

• The first time he had a panic attack he was alone and it scared him. But he was to afraid to tell anyone.

• Sensei Wu was the first to find out and talked to Lloyd about it, he got the rest of the team involved after getting a plan and everything set up to help Lloyd.

• Probably has (undiagnosed) ADHD, notable hyperfixations were Sharks, Space (due to a comic book series), The history of Ninjago/the Ninja, and his current Hyperfixation is Plants/botany.

• To lighten the mood, RGB SIBLINGS.

•I am a firm believer in them.

• Lloyd intended to make matching bracelets for him, Kai and Nya but while making them decided to do it for all the ninja so now they all have needed bracelets consisting of a green, light blue, blue, red, black, and white bead.

• They (Kai and Nya) were the first people he saw as family besides Sensei Wu. Then they adopted him very much was like “Yes, he is our little brother. Whatcha gonna do about it?”

• Lloyd started copying both of them because he really looked up to them. Took their sides in arguments but took Nya’s when it was an argument between the two of them.

• Lloyd often let Nya paint his nails and sometimes practice makeup on him.

• He also got roped up into most of Kai’s pranks, he loves it though.

• Rgb siblings have a very good relationship and they are the closest out of any sibling esk relationship Lloyd has with the Ninja.

Nya

• She/They and Bisexual (fem leaning)

• I see a lot of the Ninja as Bi in some aspect (again i’m projecting.)

• Genderqueer but def more feminine leaning.

• Nya and Jay keep their half of the Yin Yang medallion on themselves 99% of the time.

• Nya is in fact taller then jay and is only an inch taller then Lloyd standing at 5’7”.

• Nya and Cole are best friends.

• They work out together go on jogs and help spot each other, etc.

• NYA IS B U F F, Can easily pick up Jay and carry him around.

• Both cringe looking back at the “Cole is my perfect match” thing.

• Has a spice tolerance because of Kai but not at the same level as him.

• P.i.x.a.l. and Nya like to work on stuff together, just like they’ll ask for tiny bits of advice or suggestions. It’s best described as parallel play? but they’re doing very similar things but on their own.

• Can not cook for shit, has burnt food more times then she can count.

• Messy clean room, tbh this can go for all ninja except Kai weirdly enough, his room is by far the most organized out of them all, still can be messy but overall clean.

• Skates, known longboards, regular skateboards and skates, she and Lloyd do it a lot.

•Knows how to ride a motorbike and is very proud of it. That thing is like her child.

• Also post becoming one with the sea she’s grown wayyyy more interested in the ocean and relating topics like preservation, marine biology, how the ocean works and how land is made, etc.

• Side effect from becoming one with the sea is she constantly smells like sea salt

• She also has markings left over in swirly shapes, and her eyes glow a faint blue in the dark.

• Subconsciously understands (aquatic) animals like they make their noises and subconsciously Nya’s brain translates it.

• The monastery has since also been made to follow proper recycling procedures.

• Goes out to help with any kind of beach clean ups, sometimes will drag the rest of the team to help.

• Likes pretty much every and all kinda of music. You name is she’s listen to it. While working on her Samurai X suit she’s find random music to play.

• One of the three (Jay, Her, and Cole) coffee addicts of the monastery, the others either don’t drink coffee (P.i.x.a.l. and Zane), drink tea (Lloyd and Sensei Wu), or drink Redbull (Kai.)

• Feels like she needs to prove her worth 24/7. Especially in early seasons. But she’s learned that she’s loved no matter her worth and that she’s important to the team, but there are times she struggles.

• Back to Nya and Jay, I feel like they’d have date nights once a week.

• It takes a variety of forms, like movie dates, all day dates, or simply staying over in each others rooms to cuddle.

• Or stargazing dates or long rides on Nya’s motorbike.

• I feel they’re 100% comfortable and honest with each other even if they don’t want to. Especially in the later seasons.

• They’ve had a few breakdowns together, relatively no one knows bout this as they take extra care into keeping it private. Unless the other was genuinely concerned then they might get Sensei Wu involved but that is the farthest they’ll go.

• Double dates with Kai and Skylor.

• Nya has two victims when she wants to experiment with stuff. Jay and Lloyd, at this point they have become accustomed to it.

• Couple times the entire ninja crew fell for the skincare ‘dates’ now it’s a once a month thing.

• SHES A GOOD INVENTOR, There’s like 4 (Nya, Jay, Zane, and P.i.x.a.l.) of them now, so sometimes with bigger projects they’ll get together to help out.

• Jaya kiss each other a lot, from pecks, to showering each other in kisses, forehead, nose, butterfly, hand kisses. They’re adorable.

• THEY BOTH ARE SO TICKLISH TO THE POINT THEYLL GET ALL GIGGLY WHEN THEY GET PEPPERED IN KISSES.

• Sometimes while they’ll out they’ll spot a pretty person and point them out and giggle about it to each other.

• Wears claw clips and has noticed Jay keeps an extra one on his at all times.

• They absolutely dance and play in the rain.

• If one of them gets sick because of it they feel bad and will stick with them 100% through it even if they end up catching it.

• They are so silly I love them hehehe.

• Saw this short comic and now it’s my person headcannon Nya for the samurai x idea from Lloyd.

• Daddy’s girl.

Jay

• He/Him and Bisexual (fem leaning)

•Jay is trans, ftm. Another one where I really like the trans headcanon. <333

• Second person in the group to have ADHD. Though he’s known about it for longer and takes medication to help but also has his own routine to help incase he forgets to take his meds.

• When he was younger his main hyper fixation was inventing and now it’s just carried over into regular interests. There are times where it’ll seep back into his brain for a short while but it hasn’t been as big as it was when he was younger.

• Loved building things with his dad ‼️ was bonding moments for them. He still has some of the trinkets they’ve made together. They’re his prized possessions.

• Learned to sew from his mom, which was useful ashe took his stuffed bear, Mister Cuddlywomp, around with his everywhere and he’d either get dirty or ripped so Edna taught Jay to see so he could repair the stuffed bear whenever.

• Had a hyperfixation on video games, birds, and Dinosaurs. His current hyperfixation is back to inventing.

• Rambles a lot and everybody listens, especially Nya. Lloyd on the other hand jumps in and they end up rambling together for hours.

• He also collects stuff, Crow collecting random stuff Jay and Dragon loving shiny Lloyd. They show off their collections to each other atleast once a week.

• He has sensitive ears and can get overwhelmed easily by loud noises. So he caries a pair of headphones on him at all times.

• Lloyd and Jay are very close and definitely hang out a lot whether it’s a parallel play thing (like Nya and p.i.x.a.l.) or it’s talking about their hyperfixations, or their collections, etc.

• Oh yeah, he’s definitely the shortest ninja I wanna say around 5’4”-5’5”.

• Has lightning looking scars from his first few attempts at his power. Can be a bit subconscious about them but then remembers this one time a kid said he looked badass from the scars.

• Again I love him and Nyas relationship because they’re so comfortable with each other.

• He’s the little spoon and loves when Nya plays with his hair.

• Cuddler, enough said.

• Power has gone out multiple times because he’s been jumpscared. So now everybody’s agreed to just not scare him. He’s vulnerable to pranks, no body is.

• Which, Jay has started 2 prank war before, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it’s happened twice.

• Can’t skate, Nya has tried many times and all failed.

• I feel he definitely has some scaring especially because he’s always be scraped or have bandages on him as a kid.

• Rom com enthusiast ‼️

• Really wants to learn more about his biological parents, especially after that whole thing in Sky bound, I feel like it was just a one up thing and I would’ve loved to see him get to learn about them from Sensei Wu in canon. So after Skybound ended he begged Sensei Wu to tell him about his bio parents. He would’ve said yes and told him as much as he could remember.

• Nervous laughs when he feels awkward.

• Fidgets a lot with his fingers, or random items he has on hand.

• Bit of an artist, says he can’t draw, proceeds to make the most detailed and analyzed sketch of a invention he’s working on and says “I know it’s messy and I was a bit lazy with it sorry.”

• Likes to cloud gaze when he doesn’t have training. He finds it calming and satisfying to watch the clouds slowly pass by. Has almost fallen asleep out there.

• Jay sometimes feel likes he’s the useless member of the team, Kai is pretty useful with his knowledge of weapons, Zane could cook remarkably, Nya has made multiple vehicles and even a secret base as well as repair the bounty, Cole is a good baker and super strong (+ plus he has connections due to his fathers status) and pixel is an major knowledge source for them.

• He will sit in his room thinking about how he could become more useful, one time Nya found him like this and he spent the rest of the night crying to her. Apologizing for ever making her feel this way before.

• I feel they would’ve talk to each other about it more after Jay calmed down and how Nya felt during that time. It made them grow closer and understand each other better.

• Jay always makes sure to include everyone since then. No matter what’s going on.

• Has a stuffed animal collections and they hall have names and elaborate personalities and backstories. Many of them are friends with Lloyd’s stuffed animals.

• He’s a sweetheart overall, possibly writes poetry for Nya, or atleast has attempted it.

• Sharper cainines the left over from when he was a snake.

Kai

• He/They and Bisexual

• Kai is a demi-boy or bigender I can’t really decide because they both fit him.

•Massive spice tolerance, will and can drown his food in black pepper regardless of if it needs it or not. You can smell it.

• He’s a decent cook but has formally been banned from cooking from now on due to an incident where he almost set the kitchen on fire.

• Street smart.

• Avide romance enjoyer, Jays the only one who knows and has it used as blackmail.

• Jay gives him book recs.

• Average height, 5’8” in reality he’s 5’7”.

• He’s really warm to the touch, so he’s like a personal heater when it gets cold out.

• Kai and Skylor love each other a lot. But they were on and off for awhile. Eventually they made it official.

• Visits the Noodle house a lot to flirt with Skylor which she just ends up making him help her.

• Talks shit with Nya in Spanish.

• Attempted to teach Lloyd Spanish, only picked up little things.

• Kai has scars and burn marks from working in his family black smith. He got more the first time he used his powers, he no longer has finger prints.

• The only normal one, has no side effects from being turned into or being related to anything.

• Mama’s boy (cried over the song Mama’s boy)

• Kai has a mild hydrophobia, because he almost drowned as a kid. Nya helped pull him out and that was the first experience of her using her elemental powers whether she knew it or not.

• Kept having nightmares especially after and during Seabound.

• When his sister became the sea he’d stare out at the ocean, it was his two biggest fears combined but he still wanted to be near for Nya.

• He definitely had multiple breakdowns about and overall cried a lot. He was terrified.

• Actually really good with kids, loves them to death.

• Theater kid, even just a tiny bit. Don’t ask.

• Redbull drinker, but will drink other energy drinks if there’s none in the house.

• Scared to lose his power do sometimes he’ll wake up suddenly and try to light his hand to make sure he still has it,

• Could be 25° outside he could wear shorts and a t-shirt and be fine. Despite that he hates it.

Cole

• He/Him and Gay.

• Cole is the only cis person out of the Ninja but he does feel fem from time to time so you can see him experimenting with his styles and tends to keep his hair longer.

• Very good baker! Experiments with different recipes and stuff. Lloyd likes to help with whatever he can however he can.

• The tallest of the ninja at 6’1”

• After reverting from being a ghost he had a hard time adjusting back to being human.

• He had to adjust to eating and drinking again. Zane often would help him but he would forget at times.

• Mild hydrophobia, forgets he can touch water again.

• Forgets he can’t become invisible or pass through stuff.

• Sometimes has phantom feelings of being a ghost still, no physical altercations occurred really.

• He can still see ghost though, freaks him out a bunch but he’s made a few ghost friends.

• Loves music and has a vinyl and cd collections. Cole is very proud of it.

• He eventually began to enjoy dancing, using it to train along with other various forms of martial arts.

• He’s the Dad of the group.

• When he is stressed he bakes late at night, he’s scared a few of his teammates when they came to get water or smth late at night.

• Can kinda like feel the group like tremors, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. Pretty useful and he often uses it when the city doesn’t pick up on stuff.

• He’s scared of being abandoned.

Zane

• He/They/It and Asexual

• I saw this once and I agree, they very obviously feel emotions, like love, heartbreak, happiness, sadness, hurt, etc. But I do not think when they were built their creators had them being sexually active in mind, I do not think they were built with any of those parts at all. And being asexual doesn’t mean you can’t love someone you absolutely can be attracted romantically to anyone just you don’t or barely feel sexual attraction. I’m stating this because of the fact they are Nindroids.

• Zane is nonbinary because i’m nonbinary and I say so.

• Zane and p.i.x.a.l. are dating but they aren’t the typically publicly affectionate kind, they’re obviously a couple but leave affectionate for private.

• Also the mom of the group.

• Most people are banned from using the kitchen except him and Cole. As well as kai if he has either of the two’s supervision.

• One of the more organized people, he’s more organized than Kai. Everything must be in place.

• He also follows recipes to a T. Not a simple mistake in his cooking.

• Can withstand the cold, he’s cold to the touch. Even if he is metal he’s colder than what it typically gets like.

• He’s like an info machine, they ask him lots of questions which can get very annoying at times. They don’t mean for it to be rude, they just want him to show off how much knowledge he holds.

• Second tallest of the ninja at 5’11”

• Let’s the team vent to him and help them find solutions or ways to help at all.

• Likes books but has only really read a few that he truely enjoyed.

Pixel

• Any pronouns and Asexual

• I saw this once and I agree, they very obviously feel emotions, like love, heartbreak, happiness, sadness, hurt, etc. But I do not think when they were built their creators had them being sexually active in mind, I do not think they were built with any of those parts at all. And being asexual doesn’t mean you can’t love someone you absolutely can be attracted romantically to anyone just you don’t or barely feel sexual attraction. I’m stating this because of the fact they are Nindroids.

• Pixel is a demi-girl.

• P.i.x.a.l. is also 5’11”

• Also someone the team vents to.

• Super cool badass but also the biggest softie, While Zane and her aren’t as affectionate, if you’re sneaky and lucky enough you’ll find them cuddling or out watching movies.

• P.i.x.a.l. is very good with kids, finding them really adorable.

[rayshippouuchiha]

Great! You watched it so that means I don’t have to hold back! Mwahahaha you activated my hidden trapcard 😈

Jk jk but anyway LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR RIGHT??

Like, first they HAD to reinvent the whole Bible Genesis story to make him as freaking sympathetic as possible. I mean, a little dreamer whose ideas were dismissed? Who falls in love with a woman because he admired her “fierce independence”, then freaking gifts humanity in general and Eve in particular with FREE WILL? (I have so many headcanons about them btw; Adam being the way he is I think he and Lilith wanted Eve to have the chance to make decisions regarding her own body, relationship, and future that a life under Adam’s thumb as heaven had inteded would’ve denied her. I think they were very good friends once upon a time., and it kills me that we never see Eve again. Did she blame them for being kicked out of Eden? Or was she grateful to them? I’d love to know, I hope we see her next time). That’s all so freaking good already as a backstory, but then they add this:

At this moment my mind just, imploded with the implications. He gifted humanity with free will presumably because, as a joyous dreamer, he had firmly believed that they would create wonderful things and bring about a better world if they were allowed to think for themselves, but gradually over hundreds and thousands of years seeing only the absolute worst that humanity had to offer he seems to think that it was a mistake, and that’s so sad 🥺 He never got to see the good that came from his actions and became depressed as a consequence, probably blaming himself a bit for every ill-action and sin committed.

I was already primed to love him after that backstory right? But then they imply that he’s a neglectful, distant father to Charlie and she is such a good, pure girl that I started thinking maybe I was wrong to start liking him, maybe there was something off about him that the intro had left out since it was Charlie telling her parent’s story. But then we meet him and he’s just:

A cute, awkward little man? One who clearly loves his family to death if the ring still on his finger (after SEVEN FREAKING YEARS OF ABSCENCE, dear god) and the multiple, gigantic family portraits strewn about his room say anything?

Also, he seems like 2 steps away from an anxiety attack at any given time, especially when asked to speak over the phone. He just like me fr fr

And that, along with the fact that he says “this is the first time she’s called you in YEARS”, and that he seems so freaking happy and excited at even the insinuation that she wants to spend time with him,

Leads me to believe that his absence from Charlie’s life was caused by a mutual misunderstanding born of a similar thought process (namely “what if I’m bothering them? What if they think I’m annoying by calling when I don’t need anything? I should wait until I have a good reason to call, or until they call me”) or willfully by someone (Lilith does seem to take Charlie away from her father awfully quick during that one flashback, right? It’s not just me?). I mean, ^that’s not the face of a father who wants to stay away from his daughter because she reminds him of her mom, or even the face of a father who stayed away on purpose for some time and is now willing to reconnect. That looks more to me like the face of someone who has been eagerly awaiting even a single hint that he’s wanted before daring to appear before his daughter, and has now finally been given that chance after a long time and is ECSTATIC. And even then, it seems that even through his self-deprecation and depression he does do his best to reach out, at least more frequently than Charlie does (he called her 5 months ago, she hadn’t called in years, etc etc).

And then he gets to the hotel and he’s so small and cute and awkward and good with animals and I thought I couldn’t love him any more than I already did but I COULD. HOW DID THEY MAKE A CHARACTER SO APPEALING TO ME SPECIFICALLY THIS IS UNFAIR

Which leads me to my other big headcanon: I firmly believe Lucifer tried to get to know sinners in the beginning, and that he tried some kind of “redeem sinners” effort at some point, just like Charlie’s doing - Perhaps for hundreds of years. But he failed, time and time again, until his dreams were absolutely crushed and he ended up giving up on them for good. I mean, those lines:

“You invite people in and offer them everything and they just bring violence and chaos to your doorstep. It doesn’t matter how well-intentioned you are. They’re always gonna disappoint you!”

“Sinners are violent psychopaths hellbent on causing as much pain and destruction as they can. There’s really no point in trying”

^They all sound not like something he’s saying to rub it in Charlie’s face that he was right (which would be cruel and out of character for someone who seems to love his daughter so much), but more like a cautionary tale coming from a deeply ingrained experience, or like things he’s repeatedly told himself before.

And then during More Than Anything he says this:

“You didn’t know that when I tried this all before *gestures around him with his arms as if gesturing towards the hotel as a whole* my dreams were too hard to defend”

That just cemented that belief for me.

On another note, MORE THAN ANYTHING IS SO FREAKING GOOD?? I CRY EVERY TIME GODDAMMIT AFTER THAT SONG I WENT FROM “AW I LOVE THIS LITTLE MAN” TO “I’D DIE FOR HIM, IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO HIM I’LL KILL EVERYONE IN THE ROOM AND THEN MYSELF”. HE’S JUST So- asfgctrdhfdg

AND I HAVEN!T EVEN TALKED ABOUT HOW BADASS HE IS FIGHTING ADAM OR HOW CUTE AND SWEET HE WAS COMFORTING CHARLIE DURING THE FINALE LOOK AT HIMMM

Or about Radioapple (aka DuckieDeer lol), the ship that has had me in a fucking chokehold since I watched episode 5. There are so many things I love about it that I’d need like 3 whole pages to explain but for now have all this absolutely fantastic fanart instead ❤️

Once again thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Btw any thoughts on Radioapple?

Oh oh Lucifer is such an interesting character and he absolutely makes me eager to see and learn more about the verse and the finer points of what is/has happened in it.

Personally, RadioDust grabbed me by the heart more than anything, since Alastor is my favorite with Angel Dust as a close second, but I do hands down see the appeal of Radioapple.

[palant1r]

ok sorry but i do firmly believe that the death note anime suffers from how much it cuts of matsuda. this isnt just my Blorbo Bias btw, matsuda is a really important character in the manga and so much of the stuff they cut would have made the anime, especially the second half, make more thematic and structural sense like. matsuda is the only character who visibly struggles with the morality of kira throughout the manga, starting from one of his first appearances and going all the way through after soichiros death. like!!! he is the medium through which light's "good guy" persona publicly engages with the morality of kira!! everyone else knows exactly where they stand, but matsuda doesn't and that allows him to be an audience surrogate and vehicle for the ideological struggles of the story. and so much of that is just cut from the anime so you have Zero ideological conflict in an anime about a scenario RIFE for that conflict. the final chapter of death note is a matsuda-centric chapter that was never adapted, but it turns near's final plot from supremely stupid to supremely ethically ambiguous and thought-provoking, offering insight into near's character! not to mention all the smaller details, like matsuda pretending to be L to mello, which both answers the question of "why didn't mello go after the task force/continue threatening sayu once he had the notebook" AND sets up his later offer to take the shinigami eyes, which the anime kept. im also lowkey salty they cut matsuda reaching out to light in sympathy at the very end — it really serves to highlight just how pitiful and human light is as he dies. and thats not even getting INTO the Bisexuality. like i know they had limited time, and a lot of the stuff they cut definitely does make sense to cut like the looney tunes ass mogi adventures, but.

anyway.

[tigreblvnc]

BLUE LOCK MATCHUP EXCHANGE — @thecurrator

Your match is...

— Isagi Yoichi

✦ MUST PROTECT.

✦ Honestly, that was my first thought.

✦ But I know that INFPs can be very fierce when they firmly believe in a cause they defend, so; must protect, yeah, but they can protect you as well.

✦ Isagi seemed like the best choice: empathetic, the first to go towards someone who seems hurt or isolated.

✦ It's his overall kindness that got him insulted by all the other Blue Lock participants hahaha

✦ But it's also what makes him a very human character and the most capable of properly nurturing your emotional and sensitive aspects.

✦ When watching the anime for the first time, I thought he could be an INFJ (especially his ability to "predict," which is actually his Introverted Intuition at work, in the background).

✦ And I was RIGHT.

✦ INFP and INFJ is honestly one of the sweetest and deepest MBTI couples I know.

✦ I focus way too much on MBTI, but this psychological model fascinates me, I've read so much about it that I could talk about it for hours >>>

✦ BACK TO THE MATCHUP NOW.

✦ I can see him having watched a LOT of videos and read a LOT of books… even if they were mostly about soccer. But he perfectly understands your passions and shares them.

✦ I can imagine you both in the same room, or at least in a more or less close perimeter, doing your own thing without necessarily talking, but savoring each other's presence.

✦ You are comfortable doing that because you trust each other and don't need to verbalize all your needs.

✦ … Even though Isagi always tends to worry too much about others; I know he is capable of understanding others' limits thanks to his sharp intuition.

✦ Proof: he was able (and the only one as well) to understand and read Itoshi Rin's game… Nothing else could resist him.

✦ Sweet moments in a café, drinking hot chocolate, working on your projects together in a cozy place. He always remembers your choices and even orders for you.

✦ He could listen to you talk about your passions for hours with stars in his eyes: more than the subject itself, it's your enthusiasm and excitement about what you love that keeps him captivated.

✦ He has learned not to fear your moments of silence, he knows it's part of you and there's no need to worry. I also think that's the strength of being empathetic: understanding without expressing.

✦ He's someone you can communicate with a lot without fearing he'll cut you off or boast about his achievements, because even if Blue Lock has ingrained in him that you need to be individualistic to succeed: I don't see him losing that very human side of him that always allows him to unite several people for a common goal. He's very good at that and we've seen it many times; his presence helps unify the group.

✦ Whole days spent watching anime together under the blanket? YES PLEASE.

✦ During his down moments, you are the ideal attentive ear to help him organize his inner thoughts. In fact, you both provide this quality to each other: a very qualitative listening.

✦ Your little gestures touch him deeply and often come at just the right moment.

✦ He has the perfect words to comfort you in the worst moments; words of affirmation are undoubtedly his love language, maybe physical contact too. It's often his words that helped turn the tide in several matches (I'm thinking of Baro, even though in that case, Isagi used his words to ignite Baro's pride more than to comfort him…) (anyway, he's very good at using his words to hit the mark).

✦ I also think blue and black are his favorite colors, so let's go for couple outfits!!!

✦ I don't see him being very frontal in his affection but rather in gestures, attentions, words, small gifts, texts sent during the day... He wishes you a good day in the morning and checks on you in the evening. He's a bit of the boy next door by definition.

✦ You both share the pleasure of dissecting others' mentality to understand, speculate, always go further. It's almost visceral. If for him it's partly to analyze his opponents' game: he willingly gives his input when you want to debate a character's profile in a series or find the killer in a detective novel.

✦ He always intuitively knows when you need something, but when you're apart, he sends messages accordingly. You are clearly the couple that grabs their phone just as you receive a message from the other.

✦ Always very attentive to you and can sometimes be clingy, but if you tell him, he understands without complaint and gives you all the space you need.

✦ 100% devoted in love as well as in friendship.

✦ And above all: a steely determination behind his too sweet and too kind demeanor.

A word about your match: Absolutely no hesitation, Isagi fits you very well and you two will get along perfectly.

© JAE-PUDDING 2024 | INTERESTED IN A MATCHUP EXCHANGE? CHECK THIS.

[moltengoldveins]

molten i have minimal marvel knowledge (only watched like 10 of the movies) but if you have the patience to explain how you think techno and steve roger's friendship would develop/work, i would LOVE to hear about it

( i would ask more about the DC side but unfortunately i know a grand total of Nothing about dc )

OK SO (sorry I took so long to respond I was moving) LET ME TELL YOU THIS HOT NONSENSE. (Fair warning, this is a VERY long post)

SO. First off, I’m gonna quickly establish the Techno im working with since I think you already know who that is (/lh 😉) and then I’ll Explain Steven Grant Rogers.

So, the Techno im working with is fundamentally a lawful neutral character. He believes in freedom, in the moral obligation of someone who is capable of preventing evil to work to the fullest extent possible to prevent said evil. He believes that tyranny dictatorship is wrong and that there should be as little government as possible, and said government should be as democratic and free as possible. He jokes about anarchy, but his actions don’t quite line up with direct anarchy so I’m pretty sure it’s mostly for the bit, but he’s very anti-establishment. Techno is not, however, necessarily concerned with what is Good, so much as what is True. Violence does not necessarily equal evil, and he doesn’t seem to have much of a category for civilians when it comes to controlling the damage war causes, though he does quite firmly distinguish between “people who are my enemies” and “people who aren’t involved.” He is motivated by Justice, not mercy. This doesn’t mean he isn’t merciful: it means he doesn’t believe that he is obligated to be merciful. It means that any act of his mercy is, according to him, an exception to the rule, a kindness the people around him don’t deserve and should not take advantage of. He is unflinchingly loyal and viciously protective, as well as shockingly paranoid and proactive in preparing for any eventuality. He’s also a traumatized veteran and a victim of long-term institutionalized racism and speciesism on account of the Piglin thing, a fact that actually ISNT a headcanon! That’s not even made up! He CANONICALLY was concerned that people treated him like an animal and a weapon as opposed to a person and reacted to conflict and confrontation with the assumption that human characters were more likely to treat him poorly than nonhuman ones, like Ranboo or Philza. (I’ve got a whole other essay in there I won’t get into) ANYWAY

If that’s Techno, Steve Rogers is what you do if you take the same solid gold core and raise him poor and catholic in New York in the 1930s. Steve is religious, but it’s unclear if he’s practicing. His faith is an important core to his worldview and the choices he makes, but he’s not preachy. He’s lawful good at first, but I think his character pretty quickly looses that fundamental foundation of “I am righteous, because I know what is right, and I am doing it.” after he loses Bucky, his kinda maybe love interestchildhood friend and gets yeeted popcicle-style into the modern day. He’s loyal as a dog, stubborn to a fault, and, like Techno, completely and utterly incapable of allowing injustice or ‘wrongness’ to exist in the same space as himself. Before the serum he threw himself into fights with enough regularity that Bucky apparently would just… walk around Brooklyn in the vague area he knew Rogers should be and check alleyways for either a brawl or an unconscious Steve. He also believes in freedom, and in the moral obligation of someone who is capable of preventing evil to work to the fullest extent possible to prevent said evil. However, Steve is Captain America. He’s not an idiot: he’s portrayed as incredibly progressive for every era he’s in, but he fundamentally believes that the US is a good system, or at least the best system possible. He believes in the ideal of the American dream and said dream’s ability to inspire people to do good, even if he doesn’t believe in the reality of that dream. He’s also blatantly unwilling to take orders and follow commands unless he knows the reasoning behind the decisions and has been fully convinced that his actions won’t be furthering evil without his knowledge, and considering his history with Nazis and with SHEILD (the government agency that founded the avengers) being a front for the same Nazi organization that got him and Bucky killed originally? It’s totally understandable for him to be VERY wary of his superiors. He’s a good leader, but he’s quick to make moral judgements of other people’s characters and will stick to them until he’s been beaten over the head with how wrong he is, which is really just a subset of his “you find what is True and Right and then you stick to it to the end and you Make the rest of the world move instead of you” mentality, which is a very helpful mentality for a paragon hero! …. Until they don’t have all the information, or that stubbornness is used against them, or they meet someone who has a quality they think is repulsive or immortal. 

So all this being said…. Holy crap I wanna put these two in a box and shake them around like a stim toy. 

They’re both paragons, by the firm definition of the word, but in completely different ways. They’re both loyal, vicious, guard-dog coded characters, but Techno chewed through his leash and chose his own path (Philza) centuries ago, while Steve was just beaten and dumped in the river by masters he thought were kind, and is now snapping at any human who resembles them. Steve still wants structure above and around him, he still wants to work For a government, as long as it’s a trustworthy one. He’s just not sure how or where to find one, or if he’ll ever be able to trust one again. Techno is absolutely uninterested in that. They’re feral in different ways, and they’ve got very similar opinions about government except for Steve’s uncertainty as to how far exactly he thinks he should go and when, and Techno’s blatant non-regard for things like collateral damage.

They’re both the strongest non-augmented melee fighters of their respective worlds and they’ve both got a signature weapon that, despite actively being a Weapon, is meant to symbolically represent peace and protection. They both have rebirth imagery and close semi-platonic relationships with right-hand-men who are snipers/long distance fighters. They’ve both got a history with being made to perform, Steve with his propaganda and Techno with either his Chat or, in some headcanons, his time as an Emperor or a gladiator. 

They’ve both got (I’m taking some liberties with like, crossover X-men comics and Steve’s hatred of Nazis here) problems with people treating other people as non-human, but Techno is living it, while Steve is working from a place of privilege.

Techno, on the other hand, would not necessarily have the same experience as Steve when it comes to his early life: Steve is still, fundamentally, a small, disabled, asthmatic kid from Brooklyn, and the disconnect between Him and The Body is at absolute best a struggle he works his way through after the first few Avengers films and at worst something that haunts him for the rest of his life. 

Steve might feel his body is not his own but he has no experience with his MIND not being his own. He’s frighteningly intelligent. Techno is smart, but the Voices are another huge difference between them I think I’d find fascinating to explore. 

Steve is not the brains of the Avengers, but he is the mind. He is their compass, their engine, the one making judgements on and off field for the team, but he’s not alone: in good avengers media (Avengers Assemble) he’s working alongside Tony, and he has the whole team at his back. Techno and Phil are alone. They are entirely self-reliant and have been for aeons. There is absolutely no reason for them to understand or comprehend how the Avengers work as a team without some significant work to bridge that gap. Philza is a whole other can of worms: the hardcore worlds might be a form of long-term enforced or self-isolation, the hardcore life system might be shared by both Phil and Techno or be just Phil, they might assume the team can die more than once and be shocked to learn everyone on earth has only one life, they’re so old they carry scars from things they can’t remember anymore and traumas the Avengers are not equipped to handle. 

Literally everything about this dynamic is fascinating to me. How would Steve and Techno fight together? What parts of their political ideals would clash and why? Would they help own another grow or make one another worse? Are we getting post-Bucky-returns Steve, where the Avengers is splintered and Steve is truly disillusioned? Or will Emduo be present for the events of Winter Solider? If they are, how would they influence those events? Techno would take one look at Steve’s reaction to Hydra and know Exactly how much they needed to be wiped from the face of the planet, but how would that go? Would he bring Steve with him? Would he clean house without Steve even realizing and come back like “.ey yo I polished ur government for u. Hope you like it, it’s freshly de-Hydrad. Also half ur entire chain of command is dead they were evil my bad.” Would Philza have enough influence and wisdom to pull Tony away from the idea of Ultron? How would either of these characters interact with Peter Parker (Tommy but… a spider?) or Nightcrawler (That is an Enderman Hybrid. Why is there a normal enderman hybrid in this universe?) or Venom (ah, you fool. I’ve already got someone living in my brain rent-free, bold of you to assume you will survive this mistake). Literally everything about this is amazing and there are ONLY TWO FICS ON AO3. Infuriating. Literally the worst. 

[arlo-venn]

The cabin was really cool and I liked it a lot, but we didn’t even get settled in before Arlo started scratching and I found fleas in the loft. The guy was fucking WEIRD about it and I no longer felt safe there (alone on a wooded property in the middle of no where with no service in the Catskills), so I packed everything back into the car and left. Which makes it all sound a lot simpler than it was.

I had his help via a golf cart and a wagon to get my stuff (heavy cooler, giant paddleboard case, multiple backpacks, etc etc) on the way in, but on the way out I no longer trusted him so I had to do it all on my own. In the heat. There was a hill. I survived. I have a migraine coming on as repercussions though. I’m in a hotel now instead, staying for two nights instead of one which was not in the budget but I’m going to need time to physically recover from the fiasco.

so in short I told him there were fleas, he didn’t believe me, he insists that it’s not possible bc no animals have been in there in over a month, didn’t believe me that they can be brought in by humans and mice. (There were also mice turds which he acknowledged; I didn’t care about that, it’s a tiny cabin in the middle of the woods that’s rarely inhabited, of course there are mice but like HELLO those are animals.) He wasn’t just gaslighting me his vibe went all weird about it. And before *I* even became concerned about his behavior, about a minute beforehand, Arlo suddenly didn’t like him anymore, either. He was fine around him going in. His vibe changed when he came to check for the fleas and Arlo was barking and lunging at him a lot, when he wasn’t, he was firmly positioned between my legs with his eyes dead set on him, which isn’t something I ever even trained him to do.

Then he started saying well maybe your dog brought them in. And like, he was just very thoroughly checked his whole body over when he was out for the dental and they found the skin infection. There were no fleas. We haven’t been in the woods or anything since. He’s on flea meds. He wasn’t itching himself at all until we got into the cabin. I wasn’t itchy until I got into the cabin. I saw fleas within milliseconds of climbing into that loft. They were there. He changed the bedding and sprayed the whole place down with rubbing alcohol (too much to keep a dog in a confined space in), claimed he saw no fleas. I placated him, told him I was putting my stuff in the car to lessen the chances of carrying anything over and that I was leaving to go find somewhere to buy flea shampoo. Then I left, drove until I had service again, and messaged him about why I left and wouldn’t be returning. I haven’t fully read his responses because I’m protecting my vibe lol but from the previews I saw him continue to gaslight me and then in a separate text he said “You left without warning.”

No I didn’t, I told him I was leaving the property to go get shampoo.

I don’t have to report my comings and goings to this man and I don’t have to be honest with him about where I’m actually going, the fuck

That’s the really abridged version. Oh AND I KEPT telling him Arlo doesn’t like other dogs and he still just let his roam freely and approach him and stuff so we couldn’t even use the land we paid for anyway. The rules said “off leash, on leash, depends who’s there” which lead me to believe that other dogs that don’t know how to give space would be leashed if necessary. Anyway, the biggest issue was that I stopped trusting him and my only connection to the outside world was his wifi that he could turn off at any time. I watch a lot of true crime lol and Arlo is scary but no match for things like guns so he’s not a foolproof protection method.

hotel’s fun. Arlo’s first elevator ride. He looooves whatever they use to wash their linens. Migraines getting worst gotta jet lol

[cyberdragoninfinity]

I totally agree with your points about Primo and bees, because they do make a lot of sense and are more canonically accurate to him (although I personally have to confess i like the idea of him liking bees just because I like bees-)

I think however one point that could argue in favour of him at least having an interest in bees is the fact that he outright describes how bees dance, if I recall correctly. Literally no one just remembers while riding a motorbike in a life or death scenario which formation bees make when dancing, and also there's the fact that he knows bees dance. He's an android from a post apocalyptic world; just why does he knows about bees, specifically bees, of all things? Considering the state of that world, bees shouldn't exist.

Anyway, what's your take on why Primo just happens to know about bees? i mean one possibility is that he deliberately studied things to compare lester to

That's a good question! Definitely worth examining. Primo does indeed bring up this concept of bees dancing in the sub, and though he doesn't describe the specific formation, he does shares the fact about how they do it to indicate to each other where to find things (though irl it's pollen actually, not honey lol)

To me though, I think Primo having this knowledge is less out of a driven interest in bees themselves, and moreso an interest in what the bees represent to him. Primo is... a not a terribly subtle person, and he is Very Vocal about his interest (fixation, almost) in determinism and destiny. Bees are a social animal, just like humans, and to him the bees' dance is all but the beautiful instinct of a small and insignificant creature, an act they perform not out of free will but out of inevitability--just like the inevitability he believes befalls humanity in their eternal Synchro-driven self destruction.

imo with him knowing this bit of Bee Knowledge, he doesn't actually care about the bee part--he cares about the dancing. I really like his Duel Links taunt that ties into this, actually, I think it's a great little flicker of insight on this topic.

god LOOK at that fucked up toothy grin!!!! what you lookin crazy for!!!! he says it in such a gnarly mean snarly way too. And it's clear here he is Not talking about the "bees dancing to show each other where to find food" tidbit he shares in show, he could not care LESS about that part right now; he's comparing his opponent's implied struggling to the predetermined helpless act of an amusing little insect. Because that's the part he's most interested in. There's no way you can win this, destiny's already determined that. All you can do is repeat your own mistakes, Do the same dance over and over.

So why's he got this bee knowledge in the first place? Personally, I think it's probably something he's tripped over in his own pursuits of examining humanity's inevitabilities (and trying to figure out how to circumvent them and save the world) He's an android, it's not super farfetched to think that he could have just downloaded a swatch of topics related to potentially predetermined instincts of social animals into his synthetic brain, and then later gave pause to bees in particular while mid-working on the Diablo and having a Commanded By External Forces "swarm" of his own. Or, considering that. ah. well. Z-one is quick to compare those he deems insignificant to insects ( 8,) ), Primo might have picked that up as learned behavior and was already inclined to pick bees as his preferred metaphor for unimportant cogs in the destiny's great machine.

Hell, maybe even Z-one himself is the one who preprogrammed the knowledge of creatures great and small into Primo's robo-brain. 5D's is very nebulous about just how long the Emperors have been around, but I'm very firmly in the camp of "a long fucking time, and they have probably been through several time loops and alternate timelines and rebuildings," so i think there's been ample opportunity for Primo to make contact with that knowledge one way or another, not necessarily because he actively sought it out. The post apocalypse Iliaster crawled out of may have been devoid of much life at all, let alone bees, but these guys very literally have all the time in the world to become acquainted with past ecology. (also Z-one is a NERD!!!! i KNOW he would have been preserving knowledge of things like animals. something something the repressed unspoken hope that things will get better, etc. etc.)

anyway, tl;dr I think Primo's more interested in what bees and their little dance symbolize in the grand scheme of what Iliaster is working towards than in the bugaboos themselves, and I think a combination of his active efforts building a particularly bee swarm-like robot army, his own personal belief system, and also the fact he's an android himself (with no doubt an inclination towards gathering data relevant to his God's command) just made him more inclined to pick up some Fun Bee Trivia and keep it fresh in his mind. 🐝

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Eleutherophobia Deleted Scene

@eomund42 #might have to post as a DVD extra or whatever  

Yes please!

[This fragment was originally part of Chapter 6 of How I Live Now.  I got rid of it because a) the conversation around Jake’s table was getting too long, b) the tone doesn’t work given how the chapter opens, and c) I accidentally left Rachel and Effilit unsupervised in the yeerk pool, so I needed to retcon that the Tobys were guarding her while everyone else was at the house.]

“Food?  They had enough kandrona for years.”

“Not the yeerks, the hosts!”  I stood up, pacing as I talked.  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t spotted it before.  “The Blade ship only had space for a few months’ worth of food storage, and I know that at least some of that was taken up with bark for hork-bajir or taxxon meat for taxxons.”

Marco made a gagging noise which I ignored.

“Visser Seventeen didn't bother restocking those stores or even checking them.  Humans are omnivores, that’s a big part of what makes us so useful,” I continued, “and the yeerks always assumed that they could feed a human body just about anything that didn’t poison it and it would keep going.”  I turned around, making eye contact with Eva.  She was nodding slowly.  “But what if that’s not the case?  What if they ran through the human food supply they had on board and couldn’t find any alternatives that had all the vitamins or amino acids or whatever that a human body needs?”

“They really don’t know as much about humans as they think they do.”  Eva offered me a tight little smile.  “Edriss wrote up most of the intel they have on us and... Well.  Edriss wasn’t a disinterested party, given that her life depended on her ability to convince the Council that humans were worth the Empire’s time.”

“That would explain why the Blade ship hasn’t been back sooner,” I said, resting both hands on the back of the empty chair.  “They’ve probably been hopping around between planets this entire time searching for a plant or animal source that’s close enough to Earth food.”

“Until they got desperate enough to come back here,” Cassie said.

I nodded.  “Humans can digest just about anything, but that doesn’t mean they can live off it indefinitely.  The yeerks probably found a few partial food sources, and they might have bought themselves some time by forcing one of the hosts to morph a large animal, become a nothlit, and then—”

Marco made his stop-talking-about-cannibalism gagging noise again, this time louder.

“Anyway,” I said, conceding the point this time.  “Maybe there’s no vitamin K in the universe in a form humans can use.  Maybe there’s no calcium.  I don’t know, but whatever it is they’re missing, they’d get desperate enough and have to come back here.”

“So this is a quick trip.  A grab and go.”  Cassie exchanged a glance with Jake.

“Which means that if Rachel doesn’t come back within a few hours they’ll probably leave without her,” Jake concluded.

“And that brings us back to Tom’s original point,” Eva said.  “We need to figure out where the rest of them are hiding.  Immediately.”

<Rachel can tell us right now if we figure out a way to get that thing out of her head,> Tobias pointed out.

Having arrived firmly back at square one, we all sat there in frustrated silence for several seconds.

“Could you contact your illusionist?” Eva said.  “Make, I don't know, a hologram vanarx to threaten it with?”

I glanced over at her.  That wasn’t a bad idea.

“Illusionist?” Marco said.  “What illusionist?”

“Your person who makes the holograms,” I said impatiently.

“We don’t have a person who makes holograms.”  Marco glanced at Jake, who gave a slight nod.  “I mean, maybe if Ax-man asked the Dome ship nicely they’d be willing to whip something up, but that’d take too long.”

Eva leveled a long, unamused stare at Marco.  “I may have been born at night, querido, but I wasn’t born last night.”

Marco looked away, shoulders hunching.

“Eva,” Jake said.  “Please trust us.  We’re telling the truth that we don’t have an illusionist.”

“I know perfectly well that you six did not whip up an entire fake hork-bajir valley in less than three hours using parts you found at Radio Shack,” she said flatly.  “Humans still don't have that kind of technology.  Probably not the andalites either.  So.  Who helped you?”

“Technically...” Ax said.  “Eck.  Nick.  Lally.”  He trailed off.  That appeared to be all he was going to say on the subject.

I looked at Eva.  Eva looked at me.  We were adults, I reminded myself, in a room full of kids.  There was no need to bristle with defensiveness, no need to feel like the only two losers out of the loop.

“You could make a hologram on that scale, with that level of sophistication, right now?” Eva said to Ax.

And now none of the Animorphs were looking at her.

<Those were special circumstances,> Tobias mumbled.

“And the current situation doesn't count as special circumstances?” I looked slowly around at each of them.  Jake wouldn't meet my eyes, but Marco leveled me with a hard, defiant stare.

<No, just…>

“You just can’t have the zombies knowing about it?” I asked.

Cassie stiffened.

Jake held up both hands in a placating gesture, looking between me and Eva.  “It isn’t possible, okay?  So leave it.”

I shoved forward to brace both hands on the tabletop.  At least three of them flinched.  “Just like it’s not possible for you to pull an exact copy of Cassie out of your collective asses?  Cut it and it’d bleed, but scan it for life forms and it’d pop up as inorganic.  Hang onto it for over two hours and it wouldn’t demorph, but take your eyes off it for a second and—”  I snapped my fingers.  “It’d disappear into thin air.  You mind telling me how you pulled that one off?”

There was a long silence.  Tobias had developed an apparent fascination with straightening his own feathers.  Cassie just looked annoyed with me.

“Didn’t think I’d notice that, did you?” I asked them, voice flat.

“To be honest?” Marco said.  “No, we didn’t.”

“It's not our secret to tell,” Cassie blurted. “We swear.”

Marco glanced at Jake again.  Jake looked at Cassie, who looked from Tobias to Ax and then back to Jake.  Jake looked back at Marco.

“Since Tom and I are clearly the only ones who give a damn about actually helping Rachel,” Eva said, “perhaps it would be best if we left the room.”

“Chee!” Marco shouted.

We all looked at him.

“That's whose hologram tech we were using,” he said. “The chee.”

It was progress, anyway.  “What’s a chee?” I said.

Jake muttered something about there not being time for all this, but looked up at me and said “There was this species called the pemalites.”

“Yeah, everybody knows about pemalites.”  I frowned.  “Wait, you’re telling me they’re not extinct?”

“They are,” Jake said.  “But they built robotic companions before they died.  And those companions, those chee, were specifically designed to look and sound and even feel like anything they wanted.  The chee can’t commit violence, not even to save a life.  But, yeah, they can make a copy of Cassie — or the hork-bajir valley — on command.”

“Please, you can’t tell anyone,” Cassie said.  “Their existence depends on their secrecy.”

I shrugged.  “I so do not care that the pemalites left behind a bunch of sex bots, and don’t think anyone else will either.  Can they help us?”

“Sex bots?  Sex bots?” Marco spluttered, twisting around to glare at me.  “They're not sex bots, you absolute sixth-grader.”

“’Chee’ literally just means ‘friend,’” Cassie said.

“And you can program them to look like anyone you want because…?” I raised my eyebrows.

Cassie opened her mouth halfway, and left it open.

“Jake?” Marco said imploringly.  “Tell me the chee aren’t sex bots.”

Jake patted Marco on the arm.  “The chee aren’t sex bots.”

“See?” Marco said to me.  “You are a disgusting human being, and oughta be ashamed to open your mouth.”

“Always am,” I said, smiling angelically.

<Anyway, it’s a moot point.>  Tobias glared at me.  <The chee wouldn’t spit on us if we were on fire, even if we could contact them.  Which we can’t.>

“Why, what happened?” I asked.  

Jake suddenly became fascinated with the grain of the tabletop in front of him.  Cassie made a noise of annoyance in the back of her throat, also looking away.

“He was fine,” Marco said loudly.  “Jake did nothing wrong.”

“Who was fine?” Eva asked.

“No one!”  Marco waved his hands.  “I mean everyone!  Everyone was fine.  So don’t worry about it.”

I made eye contact with Eva.  Yep, right back to the feeling we were the nerds being tolerated by the cool kids’ table but not allowed in on the joke.

“Tobias is right,” Cassie said.  “We’re wasting time with this discussion.  The chee are well-hidden enough that we couldn’t find them if we tried.  And even if we did they wouldn’t help.”

“You can’t even ask,” Eva said tiredly.  “You don’t think it would be worth trying to ask for help.”

“They can look like anyone.”  Marco did look genuinely apologetic now.  “Anything.  Trees, rocks, the wall behind them.  They don’t want to be found, and so we’re never going to find them again.”

“Okay.”  Jake ran a hand over his face.  “Okay.  An illusion is a dead end.  We’re on the right track, though.  How else could we get a, um, a yeerk-eating-thing?”

“Varanx,” I provided.  “And we even if we had one for real, it’d just eat Rachel’s brain right along with the yeerk.”

“So that idea’s a bust, but…”  Jake looked around the table.  “But…”

<Is there another way to get it out by force?> Tobias threw in.  <Brain surgery, something like that.>

I winced.  I knew of 10 or 12 people who’d had yeerks removed by force.  Two had survived.  One was in a vegetative state, and the other was, well... Spacey Gervais.  Who lived up to his name.

“Is there anyone among our allies qualified to perform brain surgery?”  Ax looked at Jake.  “Your father, perhaps?”  Then he twisted to look at Cassie.  “Or yours?”

“Not on a human,” Cassie said, even as Jake shook his head.

“That’s also likely to be a dead end.”  Eva was leaning more heavily against the wall, but glared at me when I tried to nudge my empty chair over to her.  “Human brains are strange, and poorly understood by humans and yeerks alike.”

<Rachel’s a morpher.>  Tobias looked from Eva back to Cassie.  <She can heal from any amount of damage that doesn’t kill her instantly.>

“Or leave her comatose,” Cassie said.  “Or otherwise unable to make a mental image of an elephant and then will her body to become that.  And I don’t think Ben Carson himself could get an entire yeerk loose without taking apart most of the host brain as well.”

“No surgery.”  Jake rested both hands on the table, closing the discussion.  “No varanx, real or imaginary.  It seems like we keep coming back to persuasion as the best way to get it out.”

I hated persuasion.  Because I had an idea for persuasion, and I was going to pitch it to the group when hell froze over.

Hell froze over… or Rachel’s life was on the line.

I sighed.  “Yeah.  Fine.  I’ll do it.”

Cassie looked up at me.  “Do what?”

[chaoscommissioner]

I've always been the type of person who doesn't mind helping for the sake of "this is something that needs done, so I'm just gonna do it." Because I firmly believe that the main reason this world has become such a cold place is because too many people have become complacent.

They don't question anything because they are too scared to get involved. So when someone sees a problem, instead of trying to do something about it, they just take short cuts or say "someone else will take care of it".

But this viewpoint also extends to other stuff too.

Like, how many times have you been walking somewhere and spotted a piece of litter on the ground, totally within reach, and just kept walking? It's something literally everyone, including me, is guilty of. But because I recognize that, I do my best to take that split second to pick it up anyway because I refuse to be "that person" who just sees an obvious problem and pretends that I don't.

It's a conscious choice that we have to make, to choose to be a bystander or not.

I make it a point to make every problem my problem the second I become aware of it.

Does that mean I'm responsible for the problem? No. Does that mean I have to go out of my way to fix the problem at it's root? No again, because I am not actually responsible for the problem.

But should I at least do my part and chip in? Yeah, even if it's just something as simple as seeing someone upset and saying, "Hey dude, you good?" Even if they say their okay and don't need any assistance, you put the offer out there and that's what counts.

I make the choice to ask if there's something I can do and help (if needed) because I'm human and that's my job as an inhabitant of this planet and a member of this community.

People seem to forget that humans, while individuals of a highly intelligent race, are still pack animals at their core. We can't survive alone, because we were never built to.

[jupitermelichios]

so this is, as far as anyone can tell, not a joke. this is an actual list an alt right dipshit gamerTM made of 'conservative core' games and posted on a 4chan clone, and it's the greatest self own I've seen online in a while. guy is just out here boasting about his own lack of media literacy

I'll put the full list below a cut for anyone who wants it, but i just want to highlight a extra few special entries here first (minor content warning for mention of forced pregnancy, nothing explicit):

Toho Project: it's almost certainly on here because it contains anime waifus, but I've literally never met a toho fan who wasn't trans. technically i guess cis toho fans exist, but they're definitely not the ones keeping the franchise afloat

The 3 different Warhammer 40k games: 40k was created as a critique of reactionary conservatism generally, and margaret thatcher specifically.

Doom: just gonna quote the creator of doom here. "Trans rights are human rights, important rights, critical rights and society needs to do more to make this the case for everyone."

Sniper Elite: this is a game about shooting nazis in the balls. literally, that is the game. there are nazis, you shoot them. usually in the balls. that feels like a pretty firmly anti-nazi stance to me, idk

Persona 4: this game is about how conservative japanese society mistreats teenagers and denies them physical and emotional agency. gonna go out on a limb and guess it's on here because dipshit fancies one of the female characters

Silent Hill 3: silent hill three is about a teenage girl who is impregnated against her will and desperately wants to not be pregnant but a powerful religious organisation tries to force her to carry the baby to term and as a direct result the world nearly ends. in one of the endings, it does end. because of the lack of an abortion. i cannot believe the game about the importance of reproductive rights isn't even the stupidest entry on this list

Fallout 3: it is, granted,one of the less political fallouts. it's still a game about how the U.S. gonvernment destroyed the entire world by declaring war on china and then nuking the planet, and also about how unchecked capitalism and the replacing the social safety net with corporations will inevitably lead to those corporations abusing people, and how that is very bad actually.

Bioshock: literally the first thing that happens in this game is you are told libertarianism is a stupid ideology that will always fail and ayn rand was a moron. and then the game goes on telling you that. at length. in a variety of creative ways. for the next 15 hours.

Metro Last Light: see fallout, this is a game about war-hungry governments who don't give a shit about their people end up nuking the planet and nearly wiping out all life.

and finally, to end on the highest possible note:

Metal Gear Rising Revengence: not only is this an entry in a franchise which is entirely and exclusively about how awful the military industrial complex is, this game specifically is about a soldier who was abused by the military killing the president of the united states because his use of private military corporations to fight wars is morally indefensible. literally. that's the plot. it's entirely possible raiden just says those words in that order out loud in the game because hideo kojima knows writers who use subtext and they're all cowards.

anyway, the alt right are fucking morons and media studies needs to be a compulsory subject in every school on the planet.

full list below the cut:

Toho Project

Warhammer 40k: Darktide

Doom

Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Sniper Elite

Mortal Kombat

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Persona 4

Rimworld

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Quake

Silent Hill 3

Resident Evil: Parasite Eve

007: Goldeneye

Perfect Dark

Battlefield 4

Dino Crisis

Fallout 3

Counter Strike: Global Offensive

Arma III

Squad (no, I don't know what this one is either, it appears to just be called squad? it looks like a rainbox six knock off)

Ready or Not (disappointingly, this looks like a Call of Duty knockoff and not a game based on the film ready or not, which is about killing the 1% with a machete)

Company of Heroes

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Devil May Cry 2

Fire Emblem: the Three Houses

Megaman Zero

STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl

Bioshock

Halo 2

Battlefield 3

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War

Ninja Gaiden II

Metro: Last Light

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine (fun fact, at the end of this game your character gets executed for heresy because they saved lives, but i'm sure that's not commentary on anything at all)

Killzone 2

Dead or Alive: X-Treme Beach Volleyball 2

God of War (the original, not the Dad of Boy reboot)

Metal Gear Rising Revengence

[elesary]

Hi everyone! I know I’ve been a bit awol but I thought I would post the first chapter of CATO the first one of my books to be published NEXT month I can’t even believe it. I hope you’ll give it a read. If you like it, you can preorder it on Amazon.

And if you like it so much that you want to read more right away, you can find more on my Patreon.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1

Skyler

“Do you know what will happen next?” the woman asks, leaning forward in her chair and looking at me over her spectacles like I am a zoo animal behind glass. She is always younger than I expect her to be, with playful cruelty in her drooping blue eyes. Something in her screams monster, but Ramona Archer isn’t one, not really. She may be a psychopath, but she is still human.

I do not know the answer to her question, and her glittering eyes tell me that she knows that, tell me that she’s enjoying this. The truth is, I have been trained for this my whole life. The truth is, there is still no way to be prepared for what comes next. I nod anyway.

“I meet Cato.”

There is a file in my hand, thinner than I anticipated. Somehow, in all my years of training I never realized just how little the agency really knew about their monsters. Case in point, my first assignment is to fetch the bodies of the last two Tamers they paired with Cato. The first one he had let live, merely taking one of her eyes. He doesn’t like green, Kari explained, her single remaining olive eye filling up with tears.

Ramona simply nodded and dismissed her. Useless now, she would be sent home with a substantial enough stipend to make her disappear. No one wants a broken Tamer, and there is no room for kindness in this corner of the world.

Neither of the next two Tamers Ramona sent had green eyes, but neither survived the encounter to tell the rest of us what else Cato might not like.

“Do try to survive the encounter,” Ramona advises me with a smile. “I’m sure he’s running out of acceptable explanations, and the job really does need to be done.”

I wonder if dealing with Ramona is a test, but even if it is, I will pass it. If I cannot handle a blithe psychopath, I’ll stand no chance against a Berserker.

“Then you probably shouldn’t have enabled the problem for so long,” I reply sweetly, tilting my head and meeting Ramona’s selechian eyes.

She laughs, very nearly pleased.

“There’s that attitude,” she says fondly. “I wonder if you’ll be allowed to keep it when he breaks you.”

My smile stays firmly in place; there is no point in fearing the inevitable, only in trying to make it work for me.

“Is there anything else?” I ask politely, toeing the fine line between respecting her and respecting myself. She is my boss, after all, the person who prepared me for what I must do, for what I was born to do. My role in keeping the world safe. More importantly, keeping my family safe.

“Yes, Skyler,” she says, and she lets herself be human for a moment. “Good luck.”

I nod and stand up, fear clutching my throat like a vice as I leave.

–

I sit in my car in front of Cato’s skyscraper and read through the file one more time. It settles me, reviewing the string of mutilated bodies that have begun appearing in playgrounds around the city, just in time for recess. I think about Livia sauntering out of her classroom and stumbling onto one of these horror scenes, and rage and fear slice through me.

I am not the Ripper tearing through the city and I cannot stop her, but I can hold the leash of one who can hunt and kill her.

Unless he doesn’t want me either, and I wind up as dead as the last two Tamers.

Still, the thought of my niece motivates me to turn off the car and exit into the rolling heat and stench of the city in the summertime. Standing by my vehicle, I adjust the sleeves of my suit and run my hand through my hair. Then I turn toward the building.

The skyscraper is all blinding glass, surging upward toward the flawless blue of the sky. Cato’s apartment is right at the top. As I cross the street, I wonder if he’s watching me, if his eyes truly are keen enough to pick up some level of detail forty stories off the ground.

The doorman smiles at me as I pass, tugging on one of her honey curls with a coy smile. It’s clear she doesn’t recognize me for what I am, because no one looks at Tamers like that. Whatever we are—feared, worshiped, or scorned—we are necessary, but we are not built for casual flirtation or sex. In another world, perhaps I would linger at her desk, pull on one of those pretty curls myself.

But in this world, I merely nod at her. I wonder if she will recognize me when I come back down.

If I come back down.

The survival rate of Tamers at their first meeting with a potential Berserker is just under ninety percent, although mutilations and rejections are more common than that. If you have all your parts after the first hour, my trainer Sara liked to tell us, your likelihood of dying violently plummets … unless it doesn’t. Berserkers rarely let their Tamers die after they’ve accepted us, unless they kill us themselves. But even that is rare, and not always something the Berserker survives themselves.

Still, Cato has already undermined the statistics.

I press the up button and wait until the door opens with a cheery ding. The first thirty-nine floors are laid out in a neat row, but the button to the penthouse sits behind safety glass, only accessible after I step close enough that the scanner can sense the microchip that sits under my skin.

The elevator rises with a smooth purr, and I breathe deeply to control my nerves. Part of me wants to run and hide; part of me never expected to get this far. Tamers are rare, few and far between. The ones that are found often fail out of the program long before they are matched. And still, even after matching, there’s only a little less than a one in five chance at actually being chosen.

Cato has already run through the three Tamers he was most likely to accept. I am number four. Only Reynaldo will be left if I am killed, rejected, or incapacitated, but the important thing is that Cato accepts one of us. Still, I do not want it to be Reynaldo. Among the five of us, he is the one I least want it to be. Reynaldo is intolerable enough as he is—I can’t imagine him with the power of a Berserker behind him.

But I don't want it to be me either.

As the elevator rises, I fight the urge to run. It is just now setting in that in mere moments, the doors will open and I will be face to face with a monster. My monster, if he wants me. If he wants me, I will belong to him. There will be no more freedom or family or friends unless he allows it. There will be nothing but serving him and guiding his violence toward the ones who deserve it and away from the innocent.

It is important, necessary work. Work for which my family and I have been generously compensated since I hit puberty. And yet, fourth in line, I never expected to have to do anything more than train.

The elevator dings once more and opens.

I breathe deeply, reaching for any inner sense of calm I can find. One of the earliest lessons we are taught is to meditate, to control our fear and natural instincts. Berserkers are true predators, and fear only makes people—especially Tamers—increasingly resemble prey. I square my shoulders and enter the apartment, pulling confidence around myself like a cloak.

I step onto dark hardwood. The hallway is smooth and bare. There is a table next to the door for keys and coins. Beneath it are shoes. I see a pair of joggers and a neat row of gray oxfords, all buffed to gleaming. The jacket hanging on the wall on the other side of the door is as thick as fog and the same color. It will allow Cato to disappear in the night along the water's edge but will do nothing to hide the blood. I wonder why he has it when he isn’t supposed to have ever left the apartment. I wonder why it is hung up as if for daily use.

I swallow. I have been trained for Cato nearly my whole life. I know that Cato doesn’t care about hiding the blood. The apartment is silent and still. No lights are on. The hallway opens up into the living room, bracketed on three walls by floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the entire city. I am drawn toward the view, as helpless to resist it as an insect flying into a spider's web.

There is no blood on the walls, but the stench of fear permeates the otherwise luxurious space. Still, there are no obvious bodies. On the left, the hallway branches into a chef's kitchen. I walk past it with a brief glance, just to make sure that there aren’t any bodies bleeding onto the tile.

I step into the living room with hackles raised. I feel vulnerable, but I force myself to breathe deeply and relax my shoulders. This is my job, this is my purpose. I have no control over Cato, not yet. There is no pretending or hiding—he will choose me or he will not. I will survive the encounter or I will not. Fearing it will only drive me crazy and give Cato more satisfaction.

I am petty enough that I do not wish my death to be fulfilling for Cato. Something moves in the right corner. My head turns to look and I exhale sharply in surprise. Amor looks back at me with a whimper.

My hand flies to cover my mouth. I have never liked Amor; she was always too pretty and too dangerous, both traits giving her power that she enjoys exerting over others. She planned to use her ambition and bloodlust to her advantage as a Tamer. It clearly backfired.

“Skyler,” she tries to say, but if it wasn’t my name I’m not sure I would have recognised it. Her mouth is destroyed. Blood dribbles over her torn lips in a congealed mess, sliding over her gore-stained chin and pooling on the floor beneath her. Broken teeth shine in her mouth as she struggles to control her jutting jaw, clearly dislocated at the very least, if not broken.

Rage rips through me, though I control it the same way I control my fear. Amor is broken, yes, but she is hardly dead. I don’t know why Ramona lied to me, but I intend to ask her, if I get out of this apartment alive, or at least able to speak.

“Where’s Elmar?” I demand, crouching in front of her, heedless of the blood.

Amor reaches for me, gripping my suit with a shaking, stained hand. She tries to speak again, but the state of her mouth makes it impossible. My stomach roils, fear and anger and disgust and pity joining forces to try and make me heave.

Coming in, I knew violence was possible, likely even. I have seen horrific videos and been given access to the crimes of the Rippers that stalk the streets, but this is far from a classroom.

I rise to my feet with a grimace. Amor is in no position to help me, so I leave her there, in a puddle of her own blood and drool. She will probably survive this if she stays silent and out of sight.

I still don't know where Cato is.

My hands drift up to my clavicle and I press against my skin, locating the transmitter just below the bone. It doesn’t hurt as I tap it, but it’s how I know that Ramona knows that Amor is alive. We are all tracked like animals. It’s supposed to keep us safe, and I am furious at Ramona for using it to convince me that Cato is crazy enough to have killed his Tamer. A lesson, I decide. No one is on my side.

I turn to the right, toward the bedrooms. I still need to locate Elmar and convince Cato to let me remove both of them from his territory. No one but his Tamer is allowed in his space, not without risking his wrath.

I think about Amor and feel sick. No one cares about exposing Tamers to their Berserker’s rage. It’s why we are there.

There is a noise behind one of the doors, a muffled panting, the squeak of furniture moving. My tongue skids across my suddenly dry lips. Another experiment? I wonder. Has Ramona sent me into the lair of a Berserker who has already claimed his Tamer? If so, I am already dead.

I am not sure what Ramona would get out of such a cruel game, but it doesn’t matter. If Elmer has done his job, then I have just become redundant. I fight back the urge to run before I am caught trespassing.

“It is rude to enter someone’s home without invitation,” a mild voice says. I freeze in my tracks, one hand reaching for the door. I grit my teeth and force myself to calm down.

“I apologize,” I reply, fighting hard to keep my voice from breaking. “I mean no disrespect. I was sent here to collect Amor and Elmar.” I keep my voice bland, as if finding the broken remains of the people with whom I was raised is pedestrian.

There is another noise; I think it is Elmar. I think that Elmar is with Cato right now. Something squeezes in my stomach at the thought. Worry for my friend perhaps, or maybe it is just fear for myself.

“By all means,” the voice responds, sweetly polite. “Do come in.”

I push the door open and step into the room. It’s an office, cozy and inviting. The walls are lined with stuffed bookshelves. In the corner, a worn leather chair sits under a lamp with a warm woolen afghan laying over the arm. The table next to it holds a book and a pair of glasses. Elmar is curled in the other corner, as far away from the desk as he can manage. He whimpers, one fist stuffed into his mouth to muffle the noises.

I don't see blood, but there are ways to break a person without making them bleed, and anyway, I don’t really even look. I can’t. I’m transfixed by the man sitting behind the desk, looking irritated at being disturbed. The man flicks his eyes over me dismissively before turning back to his newspaper. I recognize the picture on the sheet facing me. Unless Al’s Vacuum Emporium bought more than one ad for the morning edition, Cato is reading about the body left on the playground this morning. It has to be a good sign that he is already looking into this Ripper. His Ripper.

Cato doesn’t look dangerous, not right away. His eyes are brown and droopy under a flop of wavy brown hair that would just brush the tops of his shoulders if it wasn’t pulled back into a utilitarian ponytail. Even sitting down, I can see that he’s not a particularly tall man, but his body is lithe and graceful, each joint poised on the edge of action. His skin is rich and tan—from birth, not the sun. If I didn’t know exactly who this man was, I would dismiss him as a threat.

I stand, waiting, but he ignores me just as effectively as the hyperventilating man in the corner and the gurgling woman in the foyer. “Ramona sent me,” I tell him, just to say something. I didn’t think that I would care, but the idea of being ignored by this man in the same way as his other rejected Tamers riles me.

Cato looks up at me and I immediately regret drawing his attention. I freeze like a mouse under the beady glare of a falcon. Cato meets my gaze and I flush hot and cold in quick succession. There is no beating this man at any game, there is no escaping or running from him. If he decides that I am dead, I am dead. If he decides to keep me, I will be kept. No wonder Elmar broke, I think. He was always the softest one of us.

“Ramona needs to stop sending me toys to break,” Cato says. “It stopped being fun after the one in the living room. Is she still alive?”

My stomach quakes at the casual disregard Cato shows for people who have dedicated their lives to his service, but I try not to show it on my face. He is a predator, he will pounce at the first sign of weakness.

“Last I checked,” I say, as carelessly as I can manage. “Funny, that. Ramona sent me for their bodies. Are you the liar, or is she?” There is no evidence that Cato found and removed Amor’s chip, so I know the deception is Ramona’s, but I don’t know if Cato knows how closely we are monitored.

Cato smiles, a disingenuous thing.

“Do I look like a man who needs to lie to get what I want?” His posture in his chair is languid, but his eyes are sharp and hungry and focused on my face. My heart beats hummingbird-fast in my chest, and I feel unable to move for fear of provoking him to pounce.

I breathe deeply and force my shoulders to drop away from my ears. He will kill me or he won’t, I remind myself, so what’s the point in worrying about it?

“You look like a man who might not stick around to see if someone you hit gets back up,” I say before I can shut myself up. Cato’s unwavering brown eyes remain so intense that I think he can probably see the racing of blood in my carotid artery. The skin protecting it has never felt so fragile before. The words taste, a bit, of a lie. “If you don’t care about them, I mean,” I amend a bit clumsily, trying to make my statement ring true.

Cato cocks his head to one side and keeps looking at me. I want to look away, to shift my weight and break the tension, but I’m held in place just as firmly as if he had a hand around my throat. In the corner, Elmar whimpers quietly, curling around himself even tighter.

He is just the distraction that I need to pull myself from Cato’s thrall. I force my gaze away and go to my knees in front of my friend, reaching for him slowly.

“Hey, Elmar,” I greet, smoothing a gentle hand over one of his curls. “How are you doing?” I keep my voice as low and soothing as I can.

His eyes latch onto mine desperately, and it takes a moment for recognition to overtake the terror and desperation within them. He whimpers, one hand curling around the sleeve of my suit jacket tightly enough that I know he is scared I am going to leave him.

“What did you do to him?” I demand, turning back to Cato with a vicious snarl. It is unwise to let my fury get the best of me, but Elmar is my friend, and seeing him like this up close is too much.

Cato blinks back at me, interest glimmering in his droopy eyes. It sends a shudder through me, dark and enticing. Being the center of his focus is a dangerous place to be, and even though I have been training for it nearly my whole life, I want to run.

But that would only make him chase me. My nipples tighten underneath my shirt, until another whimper drags my attention back to Elmar, resparking my fury. “Well?” I demand harshly, twisting my lips at Cato as I stroke Elmar’s lovely black hair as gently as I can.

Cato’s eyes narrow on my hand on Elmar and his fingers twitch, a violent, aborted gesture that catches my breath in my throat. “I told Ramona I didn’t want a Tamer,” he says darkly. “I cannot feel guilty over her bad decisions. Get your pets and leave before I decide to break you too.”

A shiver runs through me. At the agency, it continues to be debated whether or not our predators are capable of feeling anything at all, let alone remorse for their actions. The few existing partners who lived long enough to become trainers are close-lipped about the ins and outs of their relationships, despite the rabid curiosity of the baby Tamers.

My temper sparks at his dismissal, even though it’s the permission I need to do my job. Shut up, Sky, I order myself, compressing my lips into a thin line. Just grab Elmar and get out. I’ve always been good at biting my tongue when I should and letting things go, but my mouth opens without my permission. “Break me?” I taunt, hauling Elmar up and supporting the majority of his body weight. “I’m not sure you could.”

I don’t even have time to regret my words before Cato is on me. Elmar slips from my grasp as he grabs me by the throat and shoves me back until I hit the wall. My pulse flutters rabbit fast under his grip but I don’t make the mistake of averting my eyes from his. Any sign of weakness will make him go for the kill, like a cat with a mouse by the tail.

“Oh little Tamer,” he croons, “I won’t even have to try. The only thing saving you now is my need to send Ramona a message. The next Tamer she gives me leaves in a body bag, do you understand?”

I should nod, apologize and flee. I tilt my head as much as I can instead. “Why?” I ask. “You can’t go to work without one of us, and you have five to choose from. Why fight it?”

“Hmmm,” Cato muses, bringing his nose to my pulse as if he can smell my fear. “You are not a reward or a partner, you are a leash and I have no wish to be caged any more than I already am.” I don’t understand what he means, not really, but his lips brush my throat as he speaks, with just enough of a hint of teeth to make me shiver with awareness.

Thoughtlessly, I bare my throat. He snarls and drags his tongue up the tendon in my throat and my world zeroes into the rough glide over my carotid. Just as quickly as he grabbed me, he shoves himself away from me with a violent snarl. “Get out,” he commands. “If you ever let me see you again I will kill you, do you understand me?”

I nod slowly, but I have to fight down a dark laugh. With the Ripper attacks increasing to the point of attempting to activate Cato, it is doubtful that Ramona will let him be, and that means that Reynaldo and I, and maybe even Elmar, will be thrust in front of him again and again until he fucks one of us or kills us all. The thought of Cato’s cock makes me pant, even though I know there is a high chance that I would not survive the encounter.

“It’s nice that you think that I have any choice in the matter,” I tell him honestly. “If you break us all, you’ll be of no use to them and they’ll put you down.”

Cato grins a bloodthirsty grin and I imagine my blood between his teeth. “We all have choices, little Tamer. Theirs might have consequences if they try.”

My heart thumps out of rhythm at that. Even though I know that no single Berserker, no matter how determined, can bring down the entire system that keeps him corralled, the surety in his tone ripples through me. If Cato chooses to, he will come at them with unflagging aggression until he is destroyed. Who knows how many people will die in the crossfire?

I care because I will be one of them. As far as Ramona is concerned, he is my responsibility now, even if he rejects me. Tamers are both the carrot and the stick, the reward and the noose around our Berserker’s throat, at all times a passive threat to their lives.’

“Then you should kill me now,” I advise, somehow driven to honesty. The thought doesn’t fill me with as much fear as it should. My life has been tied to Cato’s since I was twelve years old. I’ve long since come to terms with the idea of my death at his hands.

It would be vaguely galling to die in a dick measuring contest, but that, like most things, is out of my control.

“Kill you now,” Cato repeats, tightening his grip on my throat until I think he’s going to do it. He’s going to tear my head from my body and traumatize Elmar further. I don’t have time to be afraid until he’s already stepping back, dismissing me with a careless flick of his wrist. “Get out.”

I pull Elmar up and against my side and then take him from the room. It’s hard to juggle him and Amor, but I manage to get us all into the elevator and pull out my phone. Come get us, I text Ramona, because the thought of getting them back to the agency myself is overwhelming and I can’t bring myself to worry about formality after coming so close to decapitation.

And it was close. Now that I am out from under those flat brown eyes I can’t stop shaking. Freezing sweat clings to my skin and dampens my suit, which will begin to smell as it dries. I lean against the cold marble wall in the lobby, barely attempting to supervise the other two Tamers on the uncomfortable gray couch.

Amor is staining it with blood, but I can’t bring myself to care. The doorman is looking over at us nervously, hands fluttering over the phone on her desk like she’s trying to decide between calling security or an ambulance. I catch her eye and shake my head slowly. She knows who lives in the apartment we just left, knows what I am now. She subsides and pretends to ignore us, but she can’t hide her unease.

Ramona doesn’t text me back, but within fifteen minutes a black sedan with tinted windows pulls up in front of the building, parking illegally. I am still too rattled to snort derisively, no matter how unsubtle the agency is.

The lobby floods with medics and supervisors. The medics hurry over to Amor and Elmar, wrapping them in blankets and rushing them out the door. I wait numbly. A man and a woman in matching suits approach me.

“Were you harmed?” the woman asks. She doesn’t care. If they really worried about my health, one of the healthcare workers would have been sent.

I don’t bother to answer her. “Take me to Ramona,” I demand tonelessly, watching the van bearing Elmar disappear around the corner.

The suits don’t even bother to glance at each other. “The director is a busy woman,” the man says. “You will come with us for debriefing.”

I do not argue. I let my anger go, for now, at least, and I follow them from the building and into one of the remaining vans.

I do not look up as I get in the backseat. I won’t be able to pick out the window of Cato’s office, but I don’t want him to see me glance back at him, on the off chance he cares enough to look at all.

–

The woman who takes my statement back at headquarters is petite and blonde, but her eyes and fingernails are sharp enough to peel the whole story from me and type it into her tablet. I do not hold back. I do not hide my anger and disgust at being deceived by Ramona about the state of the other Tamers. I do not hide how close Cato came to killing me. The only thing I do not share is the way my gut clenched as his fingers closed over my windpipe.

That is not a necessary detail, mostly because it would surprise no one. There is a reason I am a Tamer, and my sexual preferences play a role in that. They are common knowledge in this building, my fantasies a matter of public record. There is no such thing as privacy for Tamers.

How much of my statement the woman edits, I do not know. How much more will be deleted or retracted does not matter. I still feel a bit better when I run out of words. She doesn’t look like she feels anything at all. She stands up, snaps her tablet closed and nods at me crisply. “Ramona will be with you shortly,” she tells me, heels clicking sharply on her way across the floor and out the door.

–

She lied. Ramona doesn’t summon me before dinner, and I don’t feel like sticking around, eating mass-produced food off of a plastic tray before trotting off to my small, sterile set of rooms. I leave headquarters at sunset and only then remember that my car is still outside of Cato’s building, probably already papered with parking tickets.

I won’t have to pay them—a special privilege of being a Tamer—but the fact remains that I do not have my car. My stomach grumbles and I glance over my shoulder towards the building behind me, wondering if I should eat, but the thought of re-entering Cato’s territory after dark makes me shudder.

Another, bigger part of me pushes back against that. I don’t like the thought of him looking down from his window and seeing my car, knowing that I fear him too much to retrieve it. I can’t beat him, can’t fight him off if he catches me, but I still can’t just let him win.

I go back inside, but not for food.

I find Reynaldo on the balcony of the large suite of rooms we share with the rest of Cato’s potential Tamers. It is too late for coffee, but he doesn’t care. “Espresso?” he asks me, tilting his own porcelain cup in my direction.

I wrinkle my nose. I will have enough nightmares tonight without having to fight off caffeine. “I need a ride.”

Reynaldo raises an eyebrow. “Why would I do anything to help you?” he sneers.

I shrug. I know that he wishes Cato had killed or maimed me the same way he did the others. I know that he wants the power of being a claimed Tamer, that the danger and exclusivity get him off. The thing is, they get us all off. We are all deviant in that way, some of us just know how to hide it better than the others.

“You’re taking me to Cato’s home,” I explain, purposefully leaving out the reason why. Let him stew in it as he plots to get rid of me the whole ride.

Reynaldo’s other eyebrow joins the first one near his hairline. “You want him to meet me?” he asks dubiously, sensing a trap.

No. My lips twitch, hiding my instinctive rejection of that notion. “The odds of you making it out of the meeting without being maimed are awfully low,” I point out. “But I do not care what he does with you.” Something tightens in my stomach, and I hate that I am lying a little bit. I blink, and I imagine Cato pressing Reynaldo against the wall the same way he had me, but this time, instead of threatening him, Cato takes his mouth, and Reynaldo moans and opens to him.

I look away, exhaling the tension from my stomach. “If he picks me,” Reynaldo says casually, abandoning his espresso with a faint clink. “I’ll let him kill you.”

I roll my eyes. “You do that.”

Reynaldo grabs his keys and follows me from the room. We don’t talk at all on the way down to the lobby, but the elevator is crowded enough that the hum of conversation would be undesirable even if Reynaldo were someone I would want to talk to.

The ride is quiet too. Reynaldo plays music, but I ignore him and it. With each block that we pass, my stomach gets tighter and tighter and my lungs climb higher and higher up my throat. I feel restless and anxious, and worst of all, thrilled. Adrenaline sings through my blood as Reynaldo pulls into a loading zone beneath Cato’s building.

I look up at the windows, but even if I could identify which ones were his, I can’t see through them.

I still feel like I’m being watched. A chill races its way down my spine and crouches in my tailbone. I glance over at Reynaldo to see if he feels it too. He doesn’t tell me, of course, but he’s gone still and silent in the driver's seat. His eyes are thoughtful and pointed upwards. “Get out,” he says with teeth.

I pull the lever of the door until it releases. “His violence is escalating. He really might kill you.” I don’t particularly care about Reynaldo or his life, but I still warn him. If he ignores me, that’s on him. There are very few laws that can govern a Tamer, but we still aren’t allowed to straight up murder each other, especially over a Berserker. There are multiple of us and one of them, and only one spot up for grabs, but only a handful of potential Tamers actually want the job.

It is a much better prospect to survive any introduction with our Berserker with as few scars as possible and take our pensions and flee back to our families. But most of us are perverse and damaged and jealous.

Not all Tamers have a family to go home to. But I do. I shake all thoughts of Reynaldo and Cato from my brain as I cross the street.

I feel heavy eyes watching me until I drive away.

-

As soon as I step into my brother’s house, I feel like I can breathe again. It smells like warmth and tomato sauce and home, and Livia hears me coming. “Uncle Sky!” she howls, bare feet slapping against the hardwood as she races down the hall. She skids around the corner and flings herself at me like a rabid cat, seemingly determined to knock me to the ground. I catch her and swing her around with a laugh.

“Hello, beast,” I rub my face in her riot of curly hair and drop her back down to her feet. She is wiry and lean and my favorite person. “What trouble are we going to cause tonight?”

“You know her teachers blame us for her bad behavior, right?” Ilona comments from the doorway, a small smile tugging at her lips. “No matter how often we tell them it’s your fault.”

I grin back at her, lifting Livia out of my way so I can cross the floor and kiss my sister in law on the cheek. “We need to work on your lying. Ask your daughter, she’s a fast learner.”

“That,” Ilona scolds with a laugh, “is exactly the kind of stuff that’s getting you both in trouble!”

I laugh with her, letting the blood and shame and uncomfortable interest leak from me. My shoulders relax and everything within me loosens. Down the hall, Oskar calls my name from the kitchen and I swoop up my niece and follow my ears and nose to my brother.

–

After dinner, Ilona takes Livia to the living room for homework, and Oskar and I slowly begin to clear the table and start the dishes. “It’s time, isn’t it?” Oskar asks softly as he fills the sink with hot, soapy water.

I scowl and wring the dish towel between my fingers until they go red and numb. “It doesn’t have to be,” I tell him.

“But Cato was activated,” Oskar presses, as usual, intolerant of my bullshit.

I shrug. “He maimed Kari and Amor and broke Elmar. I doubt I’m tempting enough to make him obey if they weren’t. Chances are, I’ll be released by the end of the week and we can move out of this shit-hole city—”

“You love this city,” Oskar interrupts. “And you didn’t tell me about Reynaldo, or when they’re going to hand you over to him like a toy.”

“I don’t know about Reynaldo,” I hedge, not wanting to tell my brother that I have been tossed to Cato—and returned. “He’s there now.”

Oskar drops the dish he is scrubbing into the sink with a soapy clatter and grips my arm tightly, dampening my shirt. “That’s great, Sky,” he rasps, pulling me into a brief, hard hug. “If he picks him, you’ll be free!”

Something rises in my throat, choking me. It is likely, since Cato let me leave untouched, that he has no intention of keeping me, leaving Reynaldo his only option if he wishes to remain unculled. The thought of Reynaldo beneath Cato makes me want to make him vomit his own blood.

I ignore that thought. It has no place in my brother's lamp-lit kitchen. “I hope so,” I say, the lie bitter and burning as bile.

–

Later, alone in my bed in Oskar’s house, I give the question another answer. “I hope he picks me,” I say to myself. I still feel sick, nausea and fear colliding in my bloodstream. I don’t want to be picked. I don’t want to be torn from my life and my family and turned into a monster’s chew toy.

“I hope he picks Reynaldo,” I say instead. The sinking in my stomach calls me a liar. I think about standing in Ramona’s office and looking at Reynaldo’s smug bitch face as she thanks me for my service and dismisses me. I think about turning on the TV the night I move into my little cabin out of the city and catching the end of Reynaldo’s press conference detailing the capture and execution of the Ripper currently dissecting fifth graders. Cato would watch him, fascination in his droopy mahogany eyes as Reynaldo answered the questions, shirt opened enough to reveal the marks Cato left deeply enough to be visible, even on skin dark as Reynaldo’s.

The thought makes me want to hurt them both. It isn’t logical or reasonable—it isn’t me. I have never coveted a man, and only partly because we are kept away from lovers as much as possible. It isn’t supposed to work this way. Berserkers might fixate on their chosen Tamer as soon as they see them, but I have never heard of any Tamer who felt the same way.

Of course, I never see any Tamer once they are claimed.

As soon as a Berserker is activated, they are introduced to their potentials within days if not hours. The chosen Tamer disappears into the Berserkers lair and is only ever seen again on TV or in brief, stolen glimpses through glass.

They even use a separate elevator when they come into headquarters.

But we are taught that it is the Berserker who knows. It has never occurred to me to ask how the Tamer feels. Of course, I never really thought—I never planned on being picked myself.

I roll over. I haven’t been, I remind myself, staring at the silent phone on the bedside table.

My stomach hurts.

–

The phone rings.

I’m not sleeping. I’m watching light climb the shadows from my blinds like a stepladder in the early morning and thinking, quite intentionally, of absolutely nothing else.

“What?” I say, bringing my phone to the pillow and turning on the speaker. It’s not a particularly professional greeting, but there’s nothing professional about calling someone before six in the morning either. Besides, what are they going to do? Fire me?

The pit in my stomach yawns further, because probably. It is rare for a Tamer to face any true punishment for our behavior. We are too important, too valuable. It is often assumed that rejection and claiming are equally punishing. But endangering another Tamer is a bad enough crime to warrant expulsion from the order.

No pension, no relevant job experience or training, and the intense public shame and judgment for your actions.

I shudder, still waiting for the voice on the other end of the line. “Reynaldo is dead,” Ramona says crisply. “You should not have allowed him to approach Cato’s building after you had not been rejected.”

I go hot, and then cold. My breath catches in my throat and I am hit with a wave of emotions. Relief, terror, grief, fury. “I am not his mother,” I say numbly. “I cannot allow him anything. He offered to drive me back to my car so I could get home. I did not tell him to go to the apartment, and I’m not sure how you expected me to stop him.”

It’s not entirely true. I had known what he would do, and I had made no real effort to stop him. But I hadn’t expected, hadn’t truly thought, that Cato would kill him, leaving me the only option if he wishes for a Tamer.

“Come in,” Ramona says, her voice dark and empty and cold. I shiver at it. She is angry, yes, and still in control of me, but any consequences for my actions will not come from her. Not until—not unless, Cato goes rogue, and if he does, likely as not he’ll begin or end his rampage with me. I am dead if he kills me and dead if he spares me. My only chance at living, regardless of quality of life, is under Cato’s thumb.

My heart pounding, I sit up. I could run. Necessarily, I have not told anyone at the agency of my retirement plan or the cabin I have slowly been stashing my money away for. I could take it and vanish, move beyond the reach of the agency's control, across the sea where finding me would be difficult, where unleashing Cato would be a disaster for everyone.

I dismiss the idea almost immediately, because if they cannot find me, they’ll start with Oskar and Ilona, and selfish as I might be, I can’t be responsible for their deaths or imprisonment.

My stomach burns, but I can’t tell if it's because of grief, excitement or dread. I am quiet when I get ready, and thorough in the shower. My fingers shake slightly as I clean my body, paying particular attention to the cleft of my ass. From here on out, I do not know what to expect. Tamers are prepared for everything up until the moment of being chosen, but there is nothing predictable about what happens after. Berserkers are too different, too wild and unique in their reactions to being leashed. Some treat their freedom as a cost well worth paying for their Tamers, some treat their Tamer like a whipping boy, suitable to punish in lue of the agency.

But it’s always, always, sexual. It’s what we both were made for, the reason the system works and is not torn apart by apathetic Berserkers and bloodthirsty Rippers alike.

I have known my role since I was identified as a Tamer at puberty; it is not like me to question it.

I am quiet when I leave my bedroom, not relishing sharing my mixed feelings about my fate with my family, but my effort is wasted. Oskar is in the kitchen, brewing the morning coffee. He looks up when I creep by the doorway and holds up a steaming mug in offer. I consider ignoring him, but I don’t know when I’ll be able to see him again.

“Thanks,” I whisper and enter the kitchen, warming my hands around the hot porcelain.

“What’s going on?” he asks, because when I stay over I make waffles with Livia for breakfast, not sneak out at dawn like a criminal.

“I got the call,” I tell him, making it real. “I’m the last Tamer left.”

Oskar puts his mug down, ceramic rattling against the marble. “Skyler,” he breathes, eyes wide.

I look away. “I know,” I interrupt before he can say anything else. I don’t need to hear his reaction. I know all too well how inevitability can turn into impossibility and back again.

“What are you going to do?” Oskar says after a stunted pause.

I chug my coffee just for the burn and put the empty cup into the sink.

“My job,” I tell him and leave the kitchen. This time he lets me go. He doesn’t follow me into the hall while I pull my coat on, or out to the driveway as I get in my car. I’m glad he doesn’t. If we don’t say goodbye, this can’t be the last time I see any of them.

[sunwarmed-ash]

Hello I return with more Gavin hc for you

I firmly believe he volunteers at the local animal shelter to help take care of the cats. The shelter staff do have to keep him away from prospective adopters cause he's still Gavin

I'm crying, I love Gavin and his cats 😻

"Ugh! Mr. Sweaty napkins no!!!" Gavin shouted, louder than he probably should have at the senior tabby cat, who on the best of days tolerates humans. But he had knocked over a glass of water for the 7th time now and this time it landed all over his phone. 

In the cat's defense, he really wasn't supposed to be on his phone. Hes supposed to be working. But the customers who come into the Cat Cafe (which is attached to the Detroit Cat Rescue) on thursdays are always dicks. Its always the same 4 assholes who come in, loiter in their restaurant, spend no more than the cost of drip coffee, and worst of all, mistreat the cats.

Howell won't even kick them out. Their cafe\adoption shelter was barely scraping by as is. Any money coming in, even from bad customers, was worth it. 

However, Gavin wasn't standing for it today. He shook water off his phone and finally looked through the kitchen window to see what Mr. Sweaty Napkins must have been trying to get his attention about. 

Charles, MSN longtime boyfriend and best friend, is up on one of the red and teal booths, his hackles raised all the way up. He's hissing and swatting at Resident Jackass Number 4 who is currently shoving a fork in the animals face for fun. 

"Hear ya loud and clear buddy," Gavin says to the orange tabby before demanding it to stay put, knowing he would do whatever he damn well pleased before heading into the small dining room to address the situation. 

"Hey, asshole! What the hell do you think you're doing?" 

Gavin's sudden and angry presence startles the man and subdues the cat, who jumps immediately onto Gavin's shoulder when he gets close enough. 

"What, we're just playing," the man scoffs, confidence back now that they had an 'audience' to entertain. 

"Bullshit. I mean, are you stupid? He was phcking hissing. He's telling you he's not cool with that shit. So knock it off."

The man's smirk only grew when their spectacles humored the other dickwads that seemed to show up too often for comfort. 

"Oh I'm sorry, I don't speak pussy."

The lewd comment doesn't bother Gavin, but it does bother the other smattering of customers. Specifically the handful with kids and Gavin growled and doubled down. 

He yanked the scrawny man up by his jean jacket, reveling in the man's sudden choked surprise. 

"Time to go asshole," he mutters quietly, pushing the squirming man up, out the front door, and out of their lives. 

*

Howell, his junior, blue haired twink of a boss was furious, of course, because the man, a 'Jeremy Turnpike' left a one star review of their cafe a half an hour later and Gavin got his ass chewed for it. 

Gavin didn't care. Even if Howell didn't have his back, he knew he made the right choice. He did the job he was hired for. He protected Charles, and all the other cats from cruel assholes.

"Well?!?" Howell demands suddenly and Gavin grimaces because he definitely checked out the second his boss started bitching him out. 

"Well what?" He asks anyway, getting another pretentious scoff from the younger man.  

"I can't believe you Gavin. I just can't believe you." 

Me? I can't believe you don't have my back! Gavin shook his head and made up his mind. 

"You don't gotta believe me anymore. I quit and I'm adopting Charles and Mr. Sweaty Napkins when I leave." 

*

So, how is Sumo with multiple cats… 1:23 PM

His phone was still struggling to load certain apps and would need a rice bath when he got home but he was at least able to text Hank and Connor, forewarning them of the two new roommates coming home with him. 

Hank texted back a

How many we talking? Knowing Gavin all too well and Connor called requesting video proof. 

The camera only loaded partially, gaining confused remarks from the other side. 

"Sorry if you can't see much. This guy, decided to knock a glass of water onto my phone. But it was to save his partner. So I guess I can't be too mad." 

The cats were currently sitting in the zipped up fur of his winter jacket, looking at the inside of his car while the old engine roared to life. 

"They sure are cute Gav," Hank says, a softness in his voice he only gets when he's talking about animals or babies. 

"How soon until you're home Gavin?" Connor asks, a child-like eagerness in his voice that accompanies the addition of animals. The first time Gavin brought a kitten home Connor and the thing were practically inseparable. 

"You'd know that better than me wouldn't you, computer boy?" Gavin teased gently. No longer holding any malice for the android. 

Whatever Connor was gonna say next was halted by an inhuman static squeaking noise that confused both the humans and the cats. When they realized it was Connor's verbal reaction to the cats falling asleep in Gavin's jacket, they all laughed collectively. 

"I'll be home soon as I can. I think you're gonna get along with these guys Con. They are a couple of old grumpy gays like Hank and I."

"Hey!" Hank rebuffed, causing another wave of laughter to fill his car, adding a bit of silver lining to his storm cloud of a day.  

The cat cafe, Howell, Mr. Sweaty Napkins and Charles are all characters from Bee and Puppy cat lazy in space. I just rewatched Gentle touch as I was thinking up this ficlet