#I am literally not equipped to deal with this
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Dear Mouthwashing fandom, explain to me, why next to the incredible fan art, I find a fuck ton of shipping content, especially between characters where this is highly problematic? SPOILERS FOR MOUTHWASHING AHEAD CN for talk about sexual abuse, death, suicide & violence
DISCLAIMER: I do not shame the general practice of shipping at all. I am a shipper myself and I think it makes up for a lot of interesting dynamics and narratives outside the canon. Shipping is an important pillar of fandom communities and I am unable to forbid you to do it. HOWEVER, in the case of Mouthwashing I want to talk about what, in my opinion, feels tone-deaf to the themes and the canon of the game. But let me start with a short summary of the game before I get into it.
Mouthwashing is basically a visual novel that takes place on the Tulpar, the last manned cargo ship of the company Pony Express. The crew, consisting of Caption Curly, Co-Captain Jimmy, Nurse Anya, Mechanic Swansea and his intern Daisuke, is confronted with a crash against an asteroid and the consequences following it. The story is told out of order to reveal the truth bit by bit. What caused the crash, what happened and how the crew deals with the time afterward being stuck on the ship. Revealing sexual abuse, tragic backstories, the horrible side effects of late state capitalism and the neglect of people in command towards the people they are responsible for.
To boil it down we have two men who, out of societal misogyny, hurt the only woman on their crew by assaulting her or not acting as they should have in their position of responsibility. All of this would not have happened if Jimmy didn't rape Anya and impregnate her, and if Curly had disciplined Jimmy in a capacity possible on the ship and in Jimmy's position as co-pilot. To be honest, with the amount of automatization the ship has, I don't think they need Jimmy if it is not a case of emergency, but I digress. Jimmy is the perpetrator of the story, but Curly is an accomplice in putting his aim of finding a solution and compromise over punishing his subordinate as he should have.
And now to my actual point: I am a big fan of the game, the narration style and the utter tragedy of 5 people losing their lives in the isolation of space, with their company not giving a shit about them. Otherwise, they might have been rescued much earlier or at all. Or had enough cryo pots in the first place. Or a nurse with experience. Or any amount of better equipment and not the most cheap shit that somehow made it through a resemblance of regulations. There are probably no regulations.
Being a fan I, of course, looked into the hashtags on several social media sites, and between the incredible art and analysis of the game, I quickly found shipping content, and I have no idea why. I have literally no idea how that narrative speaks to you in a way of shipping characters romantically/sexually. Especially three shippings really rub me the wrong way.
ANYA/JIMMY
Are you fucking kidding me? Literally, what is wrong with you shipping a victim with their abuser? There was not one interaction between them, that suggest that there was consent or affection, that Jimmy has any sympathy for Anya. He knows what is going on, he knows that Anya is pregnant and takes no responsibility. Even worse, his idea of FIXING this was to kill everyone, at least himself, to avoid responsibility! Same goes for AUs where she kept the baby and is somehow okay and happy? I get the urge to fix it, but that is not a good fix. There is no good fix if you are pregnant due to rape.
ANYA/CURLY
A lot of argument I hear for that is that "at least Curly is her friend and was nice to her" and if that is your whole foundation of argument, I want to ask what your standards for a relationship are. Please know that you deserve more than the bare minimum. Another question in that context: Is Curly really Anya's friend? His friend was abused and instead of protecting her, he tried to reason and help her abuser! That is not the behavior of a friend! There is no "but Jimmy is his friend too!". If your friend is an abuser and that does not make you stop being their friend....why?
JIMMY/CURLY
It feels like it is a law on the internet, that two men who look at least averagely handsome will be shipped, especially if they have the tiniest of connection to each other. I am not even sure if I would call them friends in the first place. It appears that Jimmy, whatever his bad life before that job was (thanks to the developers for not giving us a backstory), he is still absolutely unsatisfied with that he has. He is jealous of Curly and his position, seeing how quickly he takes on the Captain title after the crash and only realizes far too late how hard the position actually is. Curly on the other hand feels a bit like a people pleaser to me. He probably had pity for Jimmy, took him under his wing to help him? Fix him? Whatever it is, it made him ignore Jimmy's bad side to a fatal degree. I respect the toxic yaoi but are you sure?
TLDR; I am worried about how the practice of shipping developed, from a way to extend the canon, explore queerness in cis/straight dominated media, into a compulsion of where some people can't look at any form of media or constellation of characters without immediately smashing them together like dolls. If you do this, maybe step back for a minute and ask yourself if it is appropriate. On that note, same goes in case you defend Jimmy. Why?
#mouthwashing#commentary#shipping#fandom culture#captain curly#anya mouthwashing#jimmy mouthwashing#swansea mouthwashing#daisuke mouthwashing#explaintome
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Me, just trying to do my homework:
My suspiciously quiet roommate:
Me, realizing she’s literally about to overdose: could you please not
#like it’s just hitting me#holy shit she almost killed herself last night#I am literally not equipped to deal with this#and like I want to be there for her and help her#but I like really actually truly cannot deal with this#do I tell the RA???#I don’t want to go behind her back but like holy fuck I can’t deal with this#and like I don’t want to be selfish but I can’t deal with this#I just want to do my hw#anyways uh yea#freaking out a little bit#not quite sure what to do#so that’s fun…..
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Apologetics for transphobia is just transphobia. Transphobia is just as dangerous, even if it's "well they don't want you dead, they want [x, y, z]." Transphobia doesn't have to end in somebody's death in order for it to be real, dangerous, and worth discussing (not to mention that "non-lethal" transphobia is still very much lethal).
I understand why people want to categorize transphobia into "real and dangerous" and "not real (and not really dangerous)," but that isn't going to save us. Transphobia is transphobia. Transphobes often do not want to ~💐save trans people💐~ with kind words and affirmation. They want us eradicated - gone.
#trans#transgender#lgbt#lgbtq#ftm#mtf#nonbinary#transphobia#transphobia tw#like i've heard over and over that transphobes want to ~save the trans men~ for instance and they don't want us dead#but they fucking do. wanting to save trans men like a transphobe does is to want for our deaths#wanting to detransition trans people is wanting trans people eradicated#wanting trans people to be pushed out of public life is to want to eradicate trans people#you don't always have to be presented with the literal worst transphobia to recognize how harmful and genocidal it is#because a transphobe doesn't want to save a person like me - they want a person like me dead#brought up trans men because: 1.) i am one 2.) i see this form of transphobia apologism too much 3.) it terrifies me to see that shit#because what recourse is there for trans people who don't face what is deemed 'good enough' transphobia? what do they do?#what do you do when nobody wants to help you because you are either not suffering enough or you aren't suffering in the 'right' way?#the overarching trans community must be prepared to deal with a variety of trans lives and issues if we ever want trans liberation#if we are not equipped to help and aid trans people who are not what you typically expect then we are doing trans people a disservice
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i think the reason i struggle so much with liking alaska is because anchorage smells like burnt fuel meth and poopy caca weewhiz
#also the infrastructure is nonexistent#its funny that the new mayor was like heyyyy we know yall have been begging for better snow maintenance for like 10 years maybe#welllll here i am to present that we WONT be buying anymore equipment to deal with snow!! for the indefinite future!!#fuck yourself!!! especially if you walk or take the bus! and if youre homeless! hope yall die!!!#like okay anchorage fucking awesome and so cool of you.#just keep putting up those handouts dont help signs without doing literally fucking anything to actually assist them lol
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ok as an artist i personally find traditional painting to be. really really annoying. like. i do not have the patience for it and i just find it to be really frustrating to set up and actually do and i end up not liking the results. i find that there's little room for mistakes and trying to fix them usually ends up with me making 50 other ones, paints can be so inconsistent and having to rely on availability and certain brands to continue making the paint is really inconvenient, not to mention expensive. spending a bunch of time trying to mix the right shade of paint, only for it to go down a completely different shade of colour and not being able to do anything about it is so frustrating as someone who likes consistency and having things just, y'know, not change colour as soon as it dries. plus, they all use different chemicals and can go off really easily or change textures and i am just not ok with having all my materials having an expiration date like food. lead and graphite pencils just don't do that and they can last for years, they're more reliable. every paint is drastically different and trying to find the right one is not only time consuming but, again, expensive, and i don't even see the point in experimenting when most of my materials end up not even getting used if i don't like using them. plus, i'm just.... really impatient. waiting for paint to dry sucks and is why i much prefer digital or just drawing something because i don't need to wait for anything, it just works. and then when i do want to take my time and work slowly for a better result, it dries too fast. it's kinda hellish trying to balance that time, especially considering how inconsistent paints are.
i like to use guidelines when doing art and i find painting straight onto a canvas to be really tricky because there's a lack of direction for me to actually paint. i'm at a complete loss at what to do when i pick up a brush because i can't map it out first without risking screwing up the paint. there's just so many things to keep track of and so much wet paint to avoid and i just do not have the mind for it. putting colours on a canvas and praying that it works just isn't it for me and requires a discipline that i just don't wanna involve myself with. painting is also just like... really exhausting and kinda painful. i got some pretty bad back issues and my arms tire and get sore easily and quickly when i'm standing in front of a canvas. it's a really physical activity for me and i just don't find something to be very fun to do at all when it's physically hurting me. i know drawing on a canvas has this issue too, which is why i prefer sketchbooks. sitting down and drawing something that doesn't break my entire spine every time i do it is much more preferrable than questioning if i should go to the doctor every time i make a brushstroke, lol
that's not to say that there's nothing i like about painting though! i can paint simple little things, and i like doing that. i like mixing colours with a palette knife and i find it fun and even a little relaxing. i painted some cute little chibi cardboard cutouts of the mario brothers one time and i found that to be really fun and i think i'd like to do that again! but apart from that, i just do not have the patience for it. i love the look of traditional paintings and i find many to be really beautiful, but i could never get into actually doing it myself because i hate the process. i'm content with just sketching and doing digital stuff because that's more fun to me and less stressful of a process to do. it's fun, it allows for more mistakes, it's easier to build up layers of shading and lines, not to mention using building up a figure with guidelines is super helpful with visualising what i want it to look like, and i can just erase something if i don't want it there or want to change something. it just makes sense to me.
tl;dr i dont like painting because it's inconsistent, expensive, time-consuming, directionless, frustrating and it makes my back hurt really bad. i'll just stick to drawing stuff :)
#vent#artist vent#i hate painting#i hate it so much and i just cannot understand it nor do i have the patience for it#i seriously had a crack at it and i just find it to be so annoying#there's so much preparation and i'd much prefer just whipping out a pencil and eraser and scribbling something down#to be fair though i do enjoy other art mediums that require more preparation#i find crafts to be fun and i really like working with air dry clay#using clay is just creating a little creature and i really quite like it a lot#making little cardboard guys is fun if not a bit tricky sometimes because my hands are so big compared to the tiny bits of carboard im usin#but it's very fun and cardboard is easy to get#clay is not so easy to get but you can get a lot of it and make many things with it#the only things i really dont like about clay is fingerprints and the fear of having your art literally explode when you fire it up#but other than that? fun!#painting? not fun!#paint is so messy and i don't like having goopy stuff getting stuck on me and all over my fingers all the time funnily enough#if i bump into something (which is very likely for me because i am clumsy) then oouuguh there goes all the paint its everywhere now#oh my god you know what i hate the most. i hate oil paints. i hate them so much.#the smell gives me bad headaches and makes me feel faint and it's hard to clean and dispose of and it's just more chemicals to deal with#it's just acrylic but more annoying#i don't think it's edible either which is. frustrating#it's also harder to clean out if you get stained with it (which is very likely because paint is messy)#i just dislike oil materials in general. they smell weird and they do not wash off. i still have oil pastel stains on one of my favourite-#-shirts despite the fact that it has been washed multiple times. and it took several days and so much fucking scrubbing to get-#-it out of my nails and off my hands completely. actual hellscape.#i know graphite and lead pencils would never betray me like this#pencils are so reliable and i love them <3#pencils and drawing equipment in general are just more reliable and don't expire or develop inconsistent textures (except erasers for some-#-reason) and they don't! hurt! my! back!#like i'm over here needing to do the riker maneuver to sit down after i paint my back hurts so bad
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got a new job but the manager didn’t fully listen to me about my transportation issues and hired me/scheduled me specifically at a location very far from my home. so now i have to either spend ~$15 every shift on a lyft (technically ~$30 counting return trips) or ask my boyfriend’s grandparents to drive me every time i work. and if i decide i can’t do that, the $10 i’m making currently will go down to $7.25 for the rest of my paycheck per company policy!!!!!! and i’m so fucking stressed and worried that if i lose this one i’ll literally be homeless next month. i’m already in eviction status. and then i’m worried my bf will get so fed up with my inability to just be an adult and WORK and we’ll end up fighting and/or breaking up because it’s been like this for years. what is wrong with me literally why can’t i just function like a person and like get up and go to work? why do i get so anxious and ????? i don’t even KNOW
#long post sorry#i also got kicked off my insurance on my bday in may :) so now i can’t even look for a therapist until i get on new insurance#i can’t deal!!!! i am literally a child in my mind i’m not prepared or equipped for any of this shit i hate my parents for doing this to me
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kim sunwoo ; gym sex [ drabble ] 𝜗𝜚
PAIRING boyfriend!sunwoo x fem!reader
GENRE 18+ SMUT
SYNOPSIS confronting your boyfriend on why he quit letting you work out with him, it leading to an intense workout.
WORD COUNT 1637
WARNINGS sweat, gym sex, mentioning of boners, biting, kissing, hair pulling, improper use of gym equipment, praises mixed with degradation, mirror sex, reader has a vagina, unprotected sex, breeding, spanking. let me know if i missed anything ~
a/n sorry for any mistakes! this came to me out of literally nowhere. still trying to get back into writing since i took a long hiatus so please be kind. ꒰ ྀི◞ ◟ ꒱ like always, please like, reblog, and send requests!!! ♡
Sunwoo who loves working out with you but the blood pumping through him causes problems for himself as well. This leads to him changing his routine to avoid going to the gym with you, going super early in the morning knowing you’d be sleeping soundly. You hadn’t known your boyfriend was embarrassed by getting boners while working out in the gym with you, not that it was anything for him to be embarrassed about. It was only natural due to the flow of blood.
You rolled over one morning having stayed up wanting to confront Sunwoo why he kept excluding you from the workouts. He stood there awkwardly trying to find the best way to explain himself, groaning as he hid his face with his arm.
“It’s embarrassing.”
“What do you mean? Am I embarrassing to you ?” You asked confused on what he meant but also a twinge of hurt in your voice.
He was quick to respond to clear up the misunderstanding, explaining with a blush on his face that he kept getting boners in the gym and he didn’t want to weird you out by them.
Your voice softens and you can’t help but let out a laugh, making sure to quickly apologize for laughing as you explained you weren’t making fun of him but thankful it wasn’t something worse. Having him sit down next to you on the bed, you asked him if he got them because of the blood flow or something else, a smirk playing on your lips suggestively. He takes a minute to breathe, explaining that it was a combination of both but mostly blood flow as it happens even when you aren’t with him. The two of you talk making sure it’s not a huge deal for you and you were more bothered with being excluded than anything. Sunwoo apologizes, giving him a quick kiss on the lips asking if he’d be bothered with you going to the gym with him. He shakes his head saying he’d be happy to have company as he missed you going along with him.
Entering the company gym, Sunwoo helps you set up your yoga mat so that you can comfortably do your stretches and routine whilst he works on lifting. The two of you don’t speak much through the first half of the workout session, both immersed in perfecting your technique and the music playing in the background. It’s not until you turn to look over your shoulder at Sunwoo that you realize he really did have a boner. It wasn’t super easy to tell due to his pants being baggy, but as he stretched his legs to sit on each side of the bench, it made the fabric tight around his lap. He’s immersed into his reps, you slowly standing up and moving until you’re standing behind the top of his head. Sunwoo gives you his attention instantly, setting the weights back onto the rack before giving you a smile.
“You need something?”
Shaking your head you point towards his lap with your head looking back down at his face to give him a playful smile.
“I don’t believe so but you surely do.”
“I, oh my god, listen,” Sunwoo’s face turns a shade of pink as he tries to hide it by pulling down on the hem of his shirt. However due to the skin tight material it does absolutely nothing to hide it. Moving so one of your legs was positioned one one side of his head, you giggle as he asks what you’re doing, telling him to stop being so shy and do what he really wants to do. Sunwoo doesn’t take long to move his hands so that he’s rubbing his pointer and middle fingers up your clothed pussy. Planting your feet firmly onto the ground trying to hold yourself up from falling down onto his face, you bite down onto your bottom lip and stare down at him.
“No wonder you said not to worry about this, you wanted this didn’t you?”
Sunwoo takes his time moving his fingers further down, your pussy swallowing both the fabric of your yoga pants and his fingers. Small moans fall from your lips from his words not being able to admit nor deny his claims, his fingers making your legs shake in anticipation.
“Take these off.” His assertive tone makes your heart leap in your chest, gasping as he brings both your pants and panties down to the back of your knees, exposing your pussy in full view for him. Sunwoo is quick to place his fingers back where he had them last, rubbing up against your clit now making you squeeze your thighs together, entrapping his hand. Not allowing you to stay in that position for long, Sunwoo spreads your legs back apart telling you to mind yourself. Now, that only ignited a fire within you that said to be a brat, the rational part of your brain being thrown into the dust. Against your better judgment, you go to close your legs again, Sunwoo gifting you a warning slap against the side of your thigh. Once again you ignore it, going to close around his hand, Sunwoo changing positions quickly so you were now pinned firmly down against the bench.
“What did I say?”
You don’t answer.
“What did I say?” Sunwoo repeats again, adding a pause in between each word knowing that meant he was growing tired of your actions. However, once again, you ignored him. He grabs a fistful of your hair making your head snap back to look into the mirrors directly in front of the two of you.
“Again. One last time, what did I say?”
“Don’t close my legs?”
He lands a heavy handed slap against your ass before he lets go of your hair, your body falling back down flat onto the bench.
“Good girl.”
The praise makes goosebumps run over your entire body, making you shiver. You loved his praises especially in moments like these where his actions were rough but his words so sweet. You watch as he uses one hand to bring down his sweats, his dick springing up hitting just barely below his belly button making you swallow in anticipation. Of course you’ve had sex before but something about doing it in the gym made you both nervous and excited. He has you move to give him better access, gasping in surprise when he lifts you up just slightly so he can ease into you easier. The stretch in this position makes your eyes flutter, looking forward at your reflection, your stomach muscles tightening, seeing Sunwoo holding your bottom half up as if you weighed absolutely nothing.
“You look so pretty, baby.”
You hum at his praises thanking him as he starts to move his hips, moaning as his thighs hit against the back of yours. The way in your chest rubbed against the leather cushion of the bench made you swear under your breath, your nipples sensitive and growing sore. Sunwoo didn’t give you much time to think as his steady pace quickened and had moans being knocked out of you each time you two reconnected.
“Sunwoo, please, fuck.”
“Shh, baby~” Sunwoo cooed just slightly mockingly as he didn't slow down his thrusts, his grip on your hips tightening knowing that they’d surely be bruised by the morning. He brings you up so your back is flush to his chest, not even caring about the uncomfortable feeling of sweat pooling between you two, tossing your head back to lay on his shoulder as he kissed up your exposed throat. Your head was fuzzy in a cloud of pleasure, completely incoherent to Sunwoo and both his praises and degrading words being reduced to moans and fucked out expressions. Wrapping his arms around your waist, he positions himself so he can easily rock up into you, your body all but practically limp on his hold as the red hot knot in your lower abdomen unwound itself, turning your face to bite roughly into his throat as you came around his dick. You can barely hear as Sunwoo swears from the pain, his throat vibrating under your teeth as he chuckles, his thighs shaking as he reaches closer to his own climax.
Sunwoo goes to pull out, lifting your hips up to but you tighten your legs around him, letting go of his throat as you shake your head.
“Baby, I don’t have a condom.” Sunwoo says breathlessly, clearly straining as he tries to hold back from cummimg in you without protection.
You groan in annoyance, begging him to cum in you, reminding him that you’re on the pill, ignoring him trying to rationalize him not cumming in you.
“Please, Woo, cum in me please.” You begged before pausing, opening your eyes, looking up at him with huge, wet, doe eyes. “Want you to breed me.”
Something in Sunwoo snaps, his jaw tightening as he picks back up from a few moments ago, encouraging him to cum as he reaches closer toward cumming. His thighs spasm as he leans forward his body pinning you down a bit uncomfortably in between the bench and his weight, happily humming as he cums in you. Loving the feeling of him filling you up, his dick twitching which each tremor. Sunwoo doesn’t move until his aftershocks settle down, lifting himself up, slicking his hair that was sweat matted on his forehead. He pulls out slowly watching as you shake from him dragging along your walls, smiling at him stupidly as he plants kisses from your sweaty forehead down to your lips, calling you beautiful. You weakly headbutt his chest telling him not to be cheesy, Sunwoo apologizing and helping you towards the showers, promising to help you more when you two reach the dorms.
#gothlcsan#smut#kpop smut#tbz x reader#tbz smut#sunwoo#tbz sunwoo#the boyz#the boyz smut#sunwoo smut#tbz scenarios#drabble
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Can you write how Geo would deal with a mc that is always sick? (Totally not cause I'm sick too)
My Remedy for your Malady. (All x Sick! MC/Reader)
Anon. First and foremost, I made you wait 5 1/2 days. I am truly, wholly sorry for this *humbly bows*. (▰︶︹︺▰)
Secondly, I decided that I'm gonna do this for all 7 of our characters, because Jess, Brit and Deryl deserve more attention. I hope you may forgive me for my lateness, and enjoy this fic nonetheless (btw get well soon if you're not already <33).
Also I know that Jess especially is shorter (literally teehee) than the others, but I'm gonna get the hang of her eventually. Same with Deryl. >:]
ALSO, you're in an established relationship with them, so that's why they have (very legal) access to your residence!
- Signed by biggest-geo-oogami-enjoyer
Remedy: a medicine or treatment for a disease or injury.
Malady: a disease or ailment.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Geo was concerned when he found out you were ill.
When you didn't show up to school for the last few days, he texted you to find out why; to which you bluntly told him you felt like utter shit.
He doesn't pick up on the fact you're sick until you straight-up tell him.
Depending on what type of sick you are, he'll get the appropriate medicines/remedies and speed his way towards your home, hell, he might even skip archery, and he *never* skips archery.
Would rock up with food he knows shouldn't cause any problems or nausea for you and will probably make soup.
And you better fucking eat it.
He will feed it to you (reluctantly, but if you seriously can't do it yourself, then he'll manage).
Will ask you how the hell you fell ill anyway, and depending on your answer, he'll be either: Pissed (if you caught it from someone else), Or exasperated (if you stopped taking care of yourself or didn't equip yourself well enough to deal with the weather).
Will take care of you either way.
Will read to you in Japanese to help you sleep.
Will try to not lie near you if possible, unless absolutely needed. He does not plan on catching shit.
Will remain at your residence until you recover; unless he has classes that are either critically important and/or ones you're also in.
Will lend you his notes.
Will also take them back after a few days.
Will also just probably talk to you while you're bedridden, unless you cannot, in which case he'll simply watch you sleep, occasionally stroking your head and hair to try and comfort you.
He's trying his best, okay?
Sol will freak when he finds out you're sick.
Doesn't care what he's got on next, he's gonna go take care of you.
Will probably feel bad for not telling Hyugo anything about suddenly vanishing
, but he'll understand right?
Will spawn outside your home with: - Medicine, - Your favourite comfort food (if you can eat it without the fear of vomiting), - Probably will bring poetry and art with him, so you both have something to do (that's not him) when you're bedridden.
Will try and hold you if possible, doesn't mind if he gets your blessed germs on him.
You'll have to tell him that you'd worry for him if he fell ill, so he'll respect that.
But he will feed you. You don't have a say in that.
You're being babied now.
He's gonna make sure everything you want (and can have when sick), you'll have.
Is honestly okay with not going to any class, he'll just ask Hyugo for notes if he hasn't been MIAing.
Covers you in blankets if you've got a cold.
If you have a fever? Ice cream. >:]
Essentially tries to uplift your mood as much as humanely possible.
This guy will do anything for you. <33
Crowe will ensure that when he arrives at your home, you'll have everything you'll need.
Will cook your favourite food.
Will make you eat soup and light foods that are easy on the stomach.
Won't touch you, he doesn't want to fall ill, but will read to you.
He's got a soothing voice I just know it.
And he's 110% going to put you in a coma from how tired you feel when his voice hits just right.
Or maybe you're just fatigued because of your body waging a war against god-knows what kind of virus.
Will make you all forms of beverages to suit your illness, will also go out of his way to purchase any, after all, he's got the funding.
Will still go to classes, and takes extensive notes for you.
Will also tutor you the content if you're up for it.
Will stroke your hair if it's not sweaty, as a form of comfort.
Will make you feel as loved as possible.
Because that's what you deserve.
Brittney will be appalled.
How did you get sick? More importantly...who got you sick?
She's gonna yell at them.
Or fight them.
Maybe both.
Will buy a bunch of goodies for the both of you.
She can't cook for shit, so she'll just get takeout as food and order a fuckton of cough drops and Panadol.
You're both gonna be painting each others' nails.
And spilling gossip. Oh my god, she always had gossip.
Will give you notes to subjects that are majors, or ones you share.
Other than that can't offer much.
Will sit away from you to not get sick, but she'll 110% be supporting you emotionally.
Will probably give you a massage when you get better.
Idk she gives the vibe that she would.
Is the most aggressively supportive girlfriend ever.
She only wants you to recover ASAP, and to feel as content as someone who's sick can be. <333
Jess will be focused solely on you recovering as swiftly as humanely possible.
Is upset when she finds out you're fallen ill.
She'll drive to her home, grab the best shit she has and drives to your home.
Stays with you for days on end.
You've become her priority now, after all.
Jess is a very devoted (and lonely) girl, what can I say.
Will try and comfort you via reading to you, or listening to you talk about literally anything.
She just loves your company and you. Poor girl's been neglected her whole life.
She'll try her hardest to take care of you, and she does a very good job. (Ask Brittney teehee)
You're more than glad to have her.
And she to have you.
Hyugo will be astounded.
You? Got sick?
Why?
Did someone make you sick???? (if so teehee someone's getting food poisoning~)
He's at your home, with everything.
Literally everything.
Blankets, movies, games, medicine, puns, your favourite food and whatever else he deems necessary.
Will hug you if you're not aggressively sneezing/coughing.
Will watch movies with you on the couch with you lying on his plush fucking thighs.
Says the most stupid shit in Japanese (such as teaching you how to hide a body) and making it sound like flirting.
Tells you jokes and puns to make you feel better, until you laugh too hard that is and almost die.
Will make food for you.
Will ramble on about random shit to you, or listen to you talk (if you can).
Literally just seeing you content is more than enough for him.
Deryl will be SHOOKETH.
He will sprint to your fucking house. He doesn't care.
You're his only priority now.
Will magically appear at your home, and immediately hugs you.
You can be fucking dying, he doesn't care.
You're getting squashed.
Will be asking if you're okay 24/7
Until he realises he forgot to bring food.
Then he runs to get it, along with tablets, Panadol, all that jazz.
Like RUNS.
HE WILL RUN.
HE IS A FAST MOTHERFUCKER.
FAST!!!!!
Then he gets tired, so by the time he gets to the store, gets the food (and the 'goods'), he's gonna just call a fucking cab and crash at your place. (he forgot takeout existed lol)
He doesn't mind, and frankly, neither do you. The food and snacks was awesome (well, what you could eat anyway).
Will try his absolute best to take care of you, but often gets carried away with his energy. Often talks and rambles to you while you happily lay in bed next to him and listen.
Will call Geo or Jess for how to make a warm soup to feed you.
Then it becomes 'we've got Masterchefs at home'.
Shit goes crazy when Deryl's around tbh.
And you're more than happy to enjoy the ride (in more ways than one ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)).
#reminder that geo is superior#the kid at the back#tkatb#tkatb vn#geo subaru oogami#geo oogami#crowe ichabod#jericho crowe ichabod#hyugo sugimoto#tkatb x reader#solivan brugmansia#sol brugmansia#jess sitrus#brittney claire#deryl helianthus#tkatb hyugo#tkatb geo#tkatb crowe#tkatb sol#tkatb jess#tkatb deryl#tkatb brittney#IM SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG ANON#FORGIVE ME#RAAAAAA#also if some of these are short im sorrryyyyyyyy#( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)#heeeheee
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Let me tell you something about Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his father and, for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, remained, attached as liaison with the Canadian consulate.
There was never much of a chance that Benton Fraser would grow up to be what most people would casually call "a regular guy". From what little insight we get, no part of his childhood would have been standard. Looking at the anecdote Bob Fraser tells in Burning Down The House, we can assume that Benton grew up in a cabin his father built by hand, in a location remote enough and far enough North that living in an igloo during the construction of said cabin was a sensible thing for his parents to do. We see one picture of the family in Good For The Soul, and it is a puzzler:
Now, I wasn't around in the mid to late 1960's when that photo would have been taken, and I've never been to Canada's far North, but everything I could find anywhere tells me that that is not how (white!) people dressed then even up there, and no, I am not talking about trendy fashion. Everyday clothing looked pretty much like what we still wear today, but the people in that picture don't. They look like this guy - a European "explorer" whose picture was taken in 1889:
Side note: I am purposely only talking about white/western/mainstream society in this post because the Frasers are white.
I wonder what drove them to live like this, and so far away from other people? It can't have been money, Bob would have made enough to support them. I guess Fraser's parents weren't regular guys, either.
Anyway, we know that Bob wasn't around much while Fraser's mother was alive, and even less so after her death. He handed the boy off to his own parents instead, and Benton was raised by literal, real life Edwardians, people who were born before the invention of band-aids and bubblegum. Public radio broadcasts were cutting-edge technology when they were young. I'm glad they stepped up, and I'm sure they did their best, but they weren't exactly well-equipped to prepare a child for life in modern society. They were librarians who for some reason moved around a lot. When he was eight, they took Benton to a place called Alert - the northernmost continously inhabited place in the world. Unfortunately it's inhabited by soldiers and researchers who go there on six-months-tours, but it counts because the tours overlap. Fraser would have been the only child there, and, the times being what they were, his grandmother the only woman. What librarians would have done in Alert we can only speculate about, but between this and the fact that they helped build an English-speaking library in China before the revolution, we can safely assume that we are dealing with another generation of non-regular Frasers here. This idea is supported by the fact that they fed Fraser arctic tern for Christmas. Each bird weighs under 130 grams, and they would be hard to come by in northern Canada in December because they migrate to literally the other end of the world after breeding in the Arctic in the summer. I'm not entirely certain what this says about Fraser's grandparents, but it sure says something, doesn't it?
This bird may scream, but it does not scream Christmas to me.
Listen, I LOVE that Fraser's grandmother taught him how to box from a book.
Perhaps this one from 1922? In this book, the writer "not only describes the various moves of the game and traces the history of their development but deals comprehensively with all the factors of body and mind that make for success in the ring." Sounds like a good choice!
I do NOT love that she taught him that being in the hospital for three weeks after being shot in the back is "babying yourself". She also raised Bob Fraser to be the kind of man who tells his journal "The last time I saw Ben, he was barely tall enough to reach my belt. When I said good-bye he shook my hand. Never a tear or a complaint. Seven years old and he's already a stronger man than I'll ever be. Someday I'll tell him.", and friends, I DO NOT love that at all. That is NOT a healthy way to deal with emotions, and I think we can agree that growing up guided by these mindsets did Fraser no favors at all. Look at how he lives! His apartment is absolutely bare-bones, no personality, and after that he literally lives in his office - this is a man who gets REALLY uncomfortable when he's comfortable, is what I'm saying. Everything he does is quick and efficient to make sure he can devote a maximum amount of time to his work. I'd bet "Idle hands are the devil's workshop" was a very common saying in the Fraser household.
Look, our upbringing informs who we become, how we approach life, how we connect to those around us. Fraser's view of the world is completely different from how other people see it. Long before he's displaced geographically, he's displaced in time.
He grew up without TV, and while living with librarians gave him access to a large number of books, the libraries they worked at served remote communities and would not have been all too well funded. It stands to reason they would have had to make their books last as long as possible, and that new purchases would have been, shall we say, conservative? Copies of beloved classics, books with general appeal, books with educational/instructional value would have made up the bulk of purchases. Even if the librarians wanted to, there would have been little money to buy more controversial books - and it doesn't seem likely that Fraser's grandparents would have wanted to. Fraser probably grew up on adventure tales, detective stories and, as a teen and young adult, the classics from Austen to Shakespeare.
When he gets to Depot in Regina to become a Mountie he has nothing in common with the other recruits, and that continues throughout all his career. There's a reason he's still a Constable after all his years of service: he's severely lacking in social skills, and his upbringing is a big part of that problem*. He was raised by Edwardians on Victorian (and Romantic) mores and values, and bridging that gap to make connections with people from what's essentially a different world is very, very hard.
TL,DR: Fraser is both an alien and a time traveler, and we should remember that when we talk about him.
*Other parts of the problem are his queerness and neurodiversity, but those are topics for another essay. Please know that by problem I do NOT mean there's something wrong with him, I mean that there's something wrong with how society treats people like him.
Big thank you to @sammaggs and @sammeltassensammelsurium for excellent feedback!
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Sooo, I have a thought from an ask i saw about yandere beasts towards the ancients...
What if the Beasts became yandere towards YOU instead?
Although, the Ancients have the same feeling too, which may lead to high tensions in the air.
What would YOU in that scenario?
-A Self-Aware/Yandere lover Anon
Wait, me? Me specifically? Merchant? The person answering this ask? That's certainly an interesting thought...
If the Beasts became yanderes towards me, then I would fucking panic lol. I don't condone this kind of behavior irl, it's fun to write fictional crazy people but nobody wants to endure ACTUAL crazy people. Stalkers are sick and dangerous and need to be put away, and it's a damn shame it's not taken seriously by law enforcement anywhere (not until it escalates to violence, anyway, unfortunately)
With that said, let's terrorize Merchant for a little bit
IF THE BEASTS ARE STILL JUST COOKIES:
Step on them immediately, they're like 3 inches tall wait, would that work? They have powers and are crazy strong. What can they actually do against humans? Would stepping on them just break my fucking foot?
Send my dog after them no wait, I don't want them to hurt my dog. I love my dog very much. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to him. I'd never forgive myself if I let him try to eat them and he just got turned into flour or something
Pour milk on them ONE OF THEM IS MADE OF MILK ALREADY GODDAMN IT
Hide the box of cookies I like to get from the store, because they probably wouldn't appreciate the fact that I love to eat cookies (they're just like this 🍪 but still)
Try to trap them in the fridge momentarily, hope they don't destroy my nice fridge
Make a deal where they are allowed to live in and explore my house provided they damage nothing and hurt no one
Give them head scratches (especially Spice, his head looks Very Scratchable)
Give them tiny little kisses if they behave themselves (however, if I give one a kiss, I have to give them ALL kisses, or else the other 4 will retaliate against me out of jealousy)
I will also allow them to sit on my shoulders if they behave themselves and don't try to yank on my hair or my ears or something
Wait, do cookies know what sex is? Are they capable of sexual feelings? If so, how do they deal with them? Do they have the... equipment for that? WHAT IF THEY TRY TO HUMP MY FINGERS OR SOMETHING OH GOD-
Contact federal authorities and hope that they believe me when I say superpowered talking cookies are in my house, so they can come take them away and perhaps experiment on them
Probably never sleep again because there's a batch of little satanic cookies in my house that all want to fuck me for some reason (I'm ugly and a normie, wtf did I do to deserve this 💀)
IF THE BEASTS ARE HUMAN:
immediate death
panic x10000000000
I hc Spice as being at least 6'5''/198cm and 200+/90+ lbs/kg so I'm cooked 7 ways to Sunday just with him
Seriously I'm just a short nerd irl. Assuming they still have their powers, my life is literally over
Do everything in my power to convince them all my loved ones are dead so they don't go harm them out of jealousy (ESPECIALLY my SO, God have mercy, I'll probably have to tell him to go hide in his home country for a while)
Try to barricade myself in a church, hope that the "demons cannot set foot on hallowed ground/in God's house" rule applies to them, beg God to save my sorry ass while they try to break in and drag me back out
Can't call the cops because A) stalking and harassment are not taken seriously by police, B) they won't believe me when I say that 5 supervillains are trying to kidnap and marry me, C) by the time they realize I'm telling the truth, they will already have been hanged/put into a coma/beheaded/turned to flour/cut up into salt cubes
I actually only like men irl so I am in deep trouble with Flour and Sugar especially
Try to flee the country (probably won't work but I'll try anyway and hope they don't get too mad about it), hide out in the Yukon or some bumfuck nowhere village in Russia, I'd rather face a polar bear than these guys
Probably still be forced to let them live in my house in exchange for peace and obedience
...I don't know if tiny head scratches and kisses would cover it this time
Hope that they're all possessive enough to only harass me one at a time, instead of... more than one at a time, because that counts as sharing and yanderes don't really like doing that
Try to pit them against each other constantly. If they're too focused on arguing about who I belong to or whatever, then they can't focus on tormenting me
Would like to try to stab or shoot them but idk if conventional weaponry works on them at all
If I HAD TO pick one to say yes to, it would be Burning Spice. He is sexy af. Then, hopefully, I can weaponize this and get him to defend me from the others
IF THE ANCIENTS LIKED ME TOO, BUT WERE NORMAL:
Yay, sanity. I'll tell them to PLEASE get the Beasts away from me. They can sort out whatever they feel towards me later, we've got a bigger problem on our hands than that
COOKIES: I will keep them safe in my house under the same conditions as the Beasts: behave and do not harm anyone or anything
HUMANS: Look, can I just... send them back? How did any of these guys get here, anyway? Can I please just shove them back through the portal or whatever they used to get here? Even if I wasn't taken, I don't think I'd have the strength or patience to put up with anyone's shit. Can we just be friends? I'd love to be friends. I need a mom friend like Hollyberry in my life
If necessary, I am picking Dark Cacao. Seriously, I love my big, strong men. Merchant is a basic bitch at heart lol
IF THE ANCIENTS WERE YANDERES TOO:
Are you fucking kidding me
Am still picking Cacao, fuck all of you
#cookie run kingdom#burning spice cookie#golden cheese cookie#shadow milk cookie#silent salt cookie#hollyberry cookie#dark cacao cookie#mystic flour cookie#eternal sugar cookie#white lily cookie#pure vanilla cookie#yandere beasts
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Amazon Alexa is a graduate of the Darth Vader MBA
Next Tuesday (Oct 31) at 10hPT, the Internet Archive is livestreaming my presentation on my recent book, The Internet Con.
If you own an Alexa, you might enjoy its integration with IFTTT, an easy scripting environment that lets you create your own little voice-controlled apps, like "start my Roomba" or "close the garage door." If so, tough shit, Amazon just nuked IFTTT for Alexa:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/25/23931463/ifttt-amazon-alexa-applets-ending-support-integration-automation
Amazon can do this because the Alexa's operating system sits behind a cryptographic lock, and any tool that bypasses that lock is a felony under Section 1201 of the DMCA, punishable by a 5-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine. That means that it's literally a crime to provide a rival OS that lets users retain functionality that Amazon no longer supports.
This is the proverbial gun on the mantelpiece, a moral hazard and invitation to mischief that tempts Amazon executives to run a bait-and-switch con where they sell you a gadget with five features and then remotely kill-switch two of them. This is prime directive of the Darth Vader MBA: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
So many companies got their business-plan at the Darth Vader MBA. The ability to revoke features after the fact means that companies can fuck around, but never find out. Apple sold millions of tracks via iTunes with the promise of letting you stream them to any other device you owned. After a couple years of this, the company caught some heat from the record labels, so they just pushed an update that killed the feature:
https://memex.craphound.com/2004/10/30/apple-to-ipod-owners-eat-shit-and-die-updated/
That gun on the mantelpiece went off all the way back in 2004 and it turns out it was a starter-pistol. Pretty soon, everyone was getting in on the act. If you find an alert on your printer screen demanding that you install a "security update" there's a damned good chance that the "update" is designed to block you from using third-party ink cartridges in a printer that you (sorta) own:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer
Selling your Tesla? Have fun being poor. The upgrades you spent thousands of dollars on go up in a puff of smoke the minute you trade the car into the dealer, annihilating the resale value of your car at the speed of light:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/23/how-to-fix-cars-by-breaking-felony-contempt-of-business-model/
Telsa has to detect the ownership transfer first. But once a product is sufficiently cloud-based, they can destroy your property from a distance without any warning or intervention on your part. That's what Adobe did last year, when it literally stole the colors from your Photoshop files, in history's SaaSiest heist caper:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process
And yet, when we hear about remote killswitches in the news, it's most often as part of a PR blitz for their virtues. Russia's invasion of Ukraine kicked off a new genre of these PR pieces, celebrating the fact that a John Deere dealership was able to remotely brick looted tractors that had been removed to Chechnya:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/
Today, Deere's PR minions are pitching search-and-replace versions of this story about Israeli tractors that Hamas is said to have looted, which were also remotely bricked.
But the main use of this remote killswitch isn't confounding war-looters: it's preventing farmers from fixing their own tractors without paying rent to John Deere. An even bigger omission from this narrative is the fact that John Deere is objectively Very Bad At Security, which means that the world's fleet of critical agricultural equipment is one breach away from being rendered permanently inert:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#deere-john
There are plenty of good and honorable people working at big companies, from Adobe to Apple to Deere to Tesla to Amazon. But those people have to convince their colleagues that they should do the right thing. Those debates weigh the expected gains from scammy, immoral behavior against the expected costs.
Without DMCA 1201, Amazon would have to worry that their decision to revoke IFTTT functionality would motivate customers to seek out alternative software for their Alexas. This is a big deal: once a customer learns how to de-Amazon their Alexa, Amazon might never recapture that customer. Such a switch wouldn't have to come from a scrappy startup or a hacker's DIY solution, either. Take away DMCA 1201 and Walmart could step up, offering an alternative Alexa software stack that let you switch your purchases away from Amazon.
Money talks, bullshit walks. In any boardroom argument about whether to shift value away from customers to the company, a credible argument about how the company will suffer a net loss as a result has a better chance of prevailing than an argument that's just about the ethics of such a course of action:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/
Inevitably, these killswitches are pitched as a paternalistic tool for protecting customers. An HP rep once told me that they push deceptive security updates to brick third-party ink cartridges so that printer owners aren't tricked into printing out cherished family photos with ink that fades over time. Apple insists that its ability to push iOS updates that revoke functionality is about keeping mobile users safe – not monopolizing repair:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently
John Deere's killswitches protect you from looters. Adobe's killswitches let them add valuable functionality to their products. Tesla? Well, Tesla at least is refreshingly honest: "We have a killswitch because fuck you, that's why."
These excuses ring hollow because they conspicuously omit the possibility that you could have the benefits without the harms. Like, your tractor could come with a killswitch that you could bypass, meaning you could brick it at a distance, and still fix it yourself. Same with your phone. Software updates that take away functionality you want can be mitigated with the ability to roll back those updates – and by giving users the ability to apply part of a patch, but not the whole patch.
Cloud computing and software as a service are a choice. "Local first" computing is possible, and desirable:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/03/there-is-no-cloud/#only-other-peoples-computers
The cheapest rhetorical trick of the tech sector is the "indivisibility gambit" – the idea that these prix-fixe menus could never be served a la carte. Wanna talk to your friends online? Sorry there's just no way to help you do that without spying on you:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/08/divisibility/#technognosticism
One important argument over smart-speakers was poisoned by this false dichotomy: the debate about accessibility and IoT gadgets. Every IoT privacy or revocation scandal would provoke blanket statements from technically savvy people like, "No one should ever use one of these." The replies would then swiftly follow: "That's an ableist statement: I rely on my automation because I have a disability and I would otherwise be reliant on a caregiver or have to go without."
But the excluded middle here is: "No one should use one of these because they are killswitched. This is especially bad when a smart speaker is an assistive technology, because those applications are too important to leave up to the whims of giant companies that might brick them or revoke their features due to their own commercial imperatives, callousness, or financial straits."
Like the problem with the "bionic eyes" that Second Sight bricked wasn't that they helped visually impaired people see – it was that they couldn't be operated without the company's ongoing support and consent:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/bionic-eye-obsolete
It's perfectly possible to imagine a bionic eye whose software can be maintained by third parties, whose parts and schematics are widely available. The challenge of making this assistive technology fail gracefully isn't technical – it's commercial.
We're meant to believe that no bionic eye company could survive unless they devise their assistive technology such that it fails catastrophically if the business goes under. But it turns out that a bionic eye company can't survive even if they are allowed to do this.
Even if you believe Milton Friedman's Big Lie that a company is legally obligated to "maximize shareholder value," not even Friedman says that you are legally obligated to maximize companies' shareholder value. The fact that a company can make more money by defrauding you by revoking or bricking the things you buy from them doesn't oblige you to stand up for their right to do this.
Indeed, all of this conduct is arguably illegal, under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits "unfair and deceptive business practices":
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge
"No one should ever use a smart speaker" lacks nuance. "Anyone who uses a smart speaker should be insulated from unilateral revocations by the manufacturer, both through legal restrictions that bind the manufacturer, and legal rights that empower others to modify our devices to help us," is a much better formulation.
It's only in the land of the Darth Vader MBA that the deal is "take it or leave it." In a good world, we should be able to take the parts that work, and throw away the parts that don't.
(Image: Stock Catalog/https://www.quotecatalog.com, Sam Howzit; CC BY 2.0; modified)
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure
#pluralistic#alexa#ifttt#criptech#disability#drm#revocation#nothing about us without us#futureproofing#graceful failure#darth vader MBA#enshittification
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The Is and Isn'ts of Fusion
(copied from my reddit post x3)
Hiya. I'm someone undergoing fusion-focused therapy to treat DID. Every day I open this app to some new and fascinating misconception about fusion, so I wanted to clear things up.
Please note that I am not a student of psychology or mental health practitioner. The advice I share comes from my personal experience of fusion, as well as my therapist's - who has multiple clients with DID - understanding of fusion-centered therapy. I have also done talk therapy, parts work, cognitive processing therapy (a modified form of CBT to treat PTSD), and DBT.
Fusion isn't...
- **A convenient way to get rid of alters.** I can speak for myself, and other fusions within the system have said the same, that we carry on our personhoods and identities and memories, and even relationships within the system. I was V and M, and now I'm both of them.
- **A loss.** As said above, my personhoods carried over when the parts of me that make up me fused. If anything, I view it as a gain - Ariadne has everything V and M had, plus a bit more because I am a calmer, more controlled, and more mentally equipped person.
- **The death of an alter.** In a literal sense, alters cannot die. And, also, as said above, my personhoods carried over.
- **The end of the involved alters' relationships.** This isn't a problem for us with other people, because we operate as a package deal in our relationships with others. But also, within the system, some of our insys relationships carry over. Gabriel was Monika's best friend, and he's still mine. Some of our insys relationships are different, too (Fray and Cal are no longer romantically involved,) but like all changes we can adapt to it.
- **Purposely killing an alter.** Shut up.
- **The same thing as integration.** Integration is any type of processing and work that results in the system "running better" - smoother communication, greater continuity of memory or experience, more willingness to work together, and fusion are all some examples of integration.
- **The only choice to get better.** Some people with DID find that functional multiplicity suits their recovery goals more.
Fusion is
- **Healthy.** I'm happier fused than I was apart, for sure, even though it was a difficult adjustment at first. I've had to overcome knowing a fuller picture of my childhood. It's difficult, but I know this is what I want and I'm doing better.
- **Stable.** Lots of fearmongering happens in DID spaces, with the idea that once you fully fuse you're prone to splitting apart again. While that is possible, fusion does not happen without *significant* healing and trauma processing. By virtue of being able to fuse, work has been done. New, healthier coping skills have been learned.
- **A fluid experience.** Within our own system, we experience fusion in different ways. Fray is one alter who holds many experiences. I'm Ariadne, but Monika and Val are still two distinct parts within me. There's absolute continuity of experience, consciousness, and emotion, so I don't consider us separate the same way our alters are. But, I'm one and two at the same time.
- **Achievable.** With sufficient trauma-processing, many people are capable of fusing.
- **The right choice for some people.** Functional multiplicity works for many. I'm not devastated by the thought of remaining multiple for the rest of my life, but I'd also like to work towards fusion because I know that's what would make me happiest.
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Hey, not sure if you're down for writing a continuation of the “Megatron 'accidentally' adopting human Buddy who fears nothing” post. But there was a line “Rung has a line of bots that express the same worry for Buddy one day doing something dumb and not being able to come back from it.” that I think should be expanded upon. Dangerous things are constantly happening to the lost light crew and Buddy must have the devil's luck to come out of everything that happens unscathed. I'd like to see that luck run out. I'd like to see the crew panicking because Buddy got hurt badly and there's been no news if they'll recover or not. I want to see Megatron deal with the impending mortality of his newly adopted kid poorly. And I want to see everyone on the lost light panic even more because if Megatron doesn't start a war if this kid dies, Whirl absolutely will. P.s please let buddy live, I may crave angst, but not that much.
Have a good day, love your writing
Ooooh! Have you been peaking at some of my drafts? haha! I have been thinking about what would happen if Buddy ever got hurt on Megatron's watch. But now more bots are going to watch.
Hope you enjoy!
Megatron and Fearless Buddy who gets seriously hurt
SFW, familial, platonic, angst but happy ending, mention of injuries but nothing graphic or detailed, Human reader
MTMTE/LL
As we all know Buddy fears nothing
And this put some stress on their friends and new dad, Megatron.
“Hey Megs!”--Rodimus
“Rodimus, don’t call me that.”--Megatron
“Yeah, not gonna happen. Anyways I was wondering if you’ve seen Buddy anywhere. They were supposed to show me something?”--Rodimus
“Show you what?”--Megatron
“Something about being a present for being Brainstorm’s ‘Guinea pig’?”--Rodimus
Buddy flying by on a jet pack.
“Hi Roddy! Hi Megs! Bye Roddy! Bye Megs!”--Buddy
“…”—Rodimus and Megatron
CRASH!
Both mechs start running
But as time continues to go on, their little antics are just normalized. Sure, there are still some bots that know the true fragility of the human life span. Such bots included but not limited to Ratchet, First Aid, Velocity, Swerve, Rung, Megatron, and Whirl
“Where are you going with those pilars?”—First Aid
“It’s nothing illegal, yet.”--Buddy
“What type of answer is that!?”—First Aid
But for the most part the crew thinks Buddy is almost as durable as they are. Yes, even Megatron has been guilty of this type of behavior. He isn’t too proud of that.
“C’mon Fleshy jump and do a flip!”—Random Bot
“Bet—”--Buddy
“I think not.”--Whirl
“Whirl?!”--Buddy
“If you break your dumb fragile bones who else is going to come with me on planet expeditions? Cyclonus? I think not. He sucks out all the fun.”—Whirl
“I am literally right here.”--Cyclonus
So, let the angst begin.
The place was being invaded by space pirates.
The pirates where taking the bridge and had successfully barricaded themselves in.
“Why can’t we just break the door down?”--Buddy
“The main room has delicate equipment. One wrong move…”--Megatron
“Okay that’s a bad idea then.”--Buddy
“We just need an opening from the main door and we can figure out the rest.”--Rodimus
“Hey, I’m tiny enough to fit through the crack under the door. I can open the door!”--Buddy
“Absolutely not.”--Megatron
“For once I’m agreeing with him.”--Whirl
“Hey, its not like we have many options here. Unless someone else has a better idea then I am quite literally the only thing stopping these guys.”--Buddy
“…go then…”--Megatron
He was going to regret saying it like that. The computers dashboard in order to unlock the door or at least give it an opening. So, when they were sure that the aliens weren’t looking, they sprinted over to the console by swinging up with a grappling hook to the chair and began running towards the buttons.
They had indirectly activated the plasma screens.
These were holoscreens all over the ship that would show what was happening on the bridge. Everyone had a front row seat to Buddy sprinting across the console. There where cheers as Buddy was coming closer and closer to the button
“They made it!”--Rodimus
“Way to go Buddy!”--Tailgate
“Just press the button.”—Ultra Magnus
“That’s my Amica—”--Whirl
It was right there…
The alien came out of nowhere…
“EW! A Rat!”--Alien
“A ra—"--Buddy
They swatted Buddy across the room in one swift movement. They’re tiny body hurdling across the room and off screen. A small sickening crack was heard.
It was barely noticeable.
But it caused a deafening sound across the entire Lost Light.
Good news for the crew, Buddy’s shoe came off from the force of the hit and successfully pressed the button opening the door.
Everyone is lined up to take these aliens down.
Megatron and Whirl are at the forefront of it.
Megatron is trying to find Buddy while Whirl is absolutely destroying everything.
Megatron spots Buddy slumped over in the far corner of the room.
No motion, nothing
He is just frozen in place.
“Buddy…”--Megatron
“…”--Buddy
“Megatron! Move!”--Ratchet
Ratchet snaps him out of it as he is trying to help Buddy.
Megatron snaps out of it a cover him.
Buddy is rushed out an into the medbay.
Everyone is waiting.
The sudden gravity of Buddy’s mortality weighs heavily on the minds of everyone involved.
Megatron sulks in his room thinking about how he failed them. He can’t bear to sit by Buddy in the med bay. Ratchet understands and tells him that he when Buddy wakes up.
Whirl on the other hand, stays by Buddy’s bed side the entire time.
“Hey Tiny. It’s been a hot minute since you’ve open those little eyes… You mind opening them up?”--whirl
“…”--Buddy
“Fine be like that…”--Whirl
“…”--Buddy
“Well, you’ve missed a lot since you took that hit. One you have a ton of inner most energon by your room and a growing number of get-well gifts. I personally made sure none of you’re a secret bomb. Megs is still in his room and its giving everyone the creeps.”--Whirl
“…”--Buddy
“… Don’t tell this to anyone… but we miss you, you scared the ever living Pits out of us.”--Whirl
“…”--Buddy
Whirl has lost every good thing in his life. He is going to make sure that this one thing does go so soon.
Buddy does wake up
“Hye Whirly Bird?”--Buddy
“Buddy?!”--Whirl
“Why you looking at me like that? Someone died?”--Buddy
“You nearly did Tiny!”--Whirl
“But I didn’t, huh? It takes more than a hand to stop me.”--Buddy
“…I guess huh.”--Whirl
Megatron is zooming over when he hears. Buddy is trying to play off their injuries to try and keep the peace.
“Hey Megs.”--Buddy
“Buddy…”--Megatron
“You okay? You look like you’re dying.”--Buddy
“… that was a poor choice of words.”--Megatron
“Yeah I guess— woah, Megs?"—Buddy
Megatron gently holding Buddy’s hand the best he can
“Just let me hold you please, just a little bit.”--Megatron
“Sure Megs.”--Buddy
As they are recovering Buddy is treated with a bit more respect than they had before. Good thing too, they did after all manage to save the ship after all.
#transformers#transformers x reader#idw mtmte#mtmte x reader#mtmte megatron#mtmte rodimus#mtmte whirl#maccadam#mtmte x platonic reader#human buddy
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Ghost'ed Part Two
Follow up to this post about literal ghost! Ghost
💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
Normally, an investigation wouldn't be halted so early on, especially upon seeing true, actual evidence. However, to simply put it, your equipment was fucked. No amount of button pushing would change that and replacing the batteries was a bust considering those somehow disappeared too.
Ghost the ghost who ghosted you might as well be a rotten thief too. You're certain that you put those batteries in your bag yet no matter how you rummaged through the many compartments it was as if they had vanished into thin air, much like the specter that roamed somewhere around the house.
As much as frustration weighed on you, urging you to just throw your hands up into the air once more, walk out, and quit - you knew that wasn't an option. You'd been paid to do a job and still had yet to finish. Saying "Oh well, sorry, my equipment died" wouldn't be a good enough explanation and would only end up with more sceptics and a thorough verbal berating you're sure would be worse than dealing with any ghost out there.
You couldn't let this bastard win. It's time to go the old fashioned route.
"Okay, I know you're here." You spoke as you grabbed your 'emergency' power out kit, knowing that there's no better time than the present to use it, "But so am I. You're not getting rid of me."
At least it paid to be prepared. It wasn't your first rodeo and unruly ghosts weren't unheard of but this is certainly the first time that one has had the audacity to steal your batteries.
A simple golden compass, glowstick, service desk bell, manual thermometer, mechanical film camera, and spirit board would hopefully be your saviors. All of your high tech equipment had failed you but that didn't mean the old reliable, tried and true methods couldn't work. They'd just take more time.
Rummaging in the bag, your fingers curled around the smooth glass of the thermometer tube and the gilded surface of the compass alike, pulling them out and settling them into your hands. The glowstick followed suit as you took it in hand, the crack of the tube echoing throughout the house as you shook the contents to life. While the dull, luminous green glow might not be much, it at least was better than having to rely on your eyes in the darkness alone.
The rest of the equipment stayed in the bag as you hauled it on your back. They'd come in use when you finally found this slippery bastard who you were already beginning to not like.
Each step you took further into the house echoed off the lofty walls and ricocheted off the high ceilings as you set off once more. Every hair stood on end as you kept all of your senses on high alert, listening for any little creak or groan that might give away the presence of something else.
This wasn't a basic ghost, it couldn't be. You mentally mused as you checked through the kitchen, the red liquid of the thermometer refusing to go down stubbornly as the compass idly swayed. Normally ghosts didn't usually have the capability to drain all equipment at once. Sure, draining a battery or two or short circuiting some devices were common enough - that's why you had backups. But all of them? That's nearly unheard of.
And that wasn't even considering the fact that it stole your batteries.
You didn't misplace them, that you knew. You'd reassured yourself too many times for it to be anything else. Checking through your equipment and being anything less than thorough wasn't your style. When it came to dealing with the paranormal and the undead, you couldn't be too careful. And yet it's like your batteries didn't even exist in the first place, like you'd never even put them there.
How it possessed such capability was beyond you.
Were you dealing with a ghost? Came to mind as an intrusive, unwelcomed thought as you checked the bathroom, scrutinizing for any abnormalities. The pipes felt cold to the touch still and absolutely nothing had moved in there, making yet another room that was a bust.
Ghosts usually weren't this strong. Taking things is unheard of. Was it a demon? The possibility flashed across your mind as you creaked open the door to the guest room, checking the temperature and compass alike which sadly both seemed content to stay in one place.
Then again, it drained everything. Maybe it took that energy just to steal the batteries. You tried to reason. A shudder ran down your spine at the possibility of dealing with something much worse than a simple paranormal apparition.
Dying to Ghost the demon would be laughable. This was just a prankster spirit, right? It had to be.
Checking through the house twice more turned up no results. Not a single temperature fluctuation, not a single moment of the compass going awry. Whoever or whatever this was was one slippery, sneaky, bastard. Your mind shuffled through the possibilities as you racked your brain, trying to figure out the next steps in this careful dance.
It couldn't leave the house, most spirits and paranormal were location bounded. So it had to be here. Maybe you needed to give it a minute after doing something that big - maybe it just needed to recharge.
Sighing, your lips pursed downwards into a frown. Wandering around aimlessly for another half hour would prove to be fruitless. Trying to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different results was the definition of insanity. You needed to switch it up.
Normally, taunting and trying to draw it out was risky behavior, but your equipment was broken (that would be a pain in the ass later to swap out the batteries on literally everything) and what else could you do? Maybe except for hoping that this just was a really bad spirit and not something worse.
"Okay, Ghost. That's your name, right?" You spoke as you started walking down the halls once more, brandishing your glowstick like the faint beam of light could turn up some evidence. "I'm not playing games with you anymore, I'm here for a reason."
Silence still greeted you, only interrupted by the sounds of your own breaths and heartbeat alike. "But I suppose you are too."
The stillness that greeted you should be expected for such a house but it still sent a shiver down your spine and had your hair stand on end as you tense, ears straining as you listened for something, anything.
Oh how you wish your beloved spirit box was working right about now.
"I don't know if you want to be here," You began as you kept walking, eyeing the streaks of paint that you supposed were supposed to be thought provoking paintings that hung on the wall, a small cringe running through your system at them, " But I sure don't. I mean, it's a place creepier than you. Who chooses white furniture? Now that's scary."
You're not sure if talking would do anything but at least it might make you feel a little less alone in this place, like you could possibly find the something that you knew was out there somewhere. "Not exactly a prime place for a haunt. Can't imagine you went out of your way to want to be here."
Solitude seemed to be your only companion as everything went unanswered, still, as your round of the house started to creep up upon a full circle. "Look, Ghost, I'm here whether you like it or not. And I'm here to help. It's your choice if it's going to be the homeowners I'm helping, or you. I'm the only one going to listen. You think the people who monogrammed their soaps are going to care about what happens to you?"
Maybe you needed to instigate, just a little bit. "If I can't find something or get an answer, you know what's going to happen? They're going to get a hot-shot know-it-all in who does something stupid and either straight up banishes you into non-existence, or traps you to a room. Do you really want that?"
Yet again the echo of your voice was the only thing that greeted you, but out of the corner of your eye the red of your thermometer slowly bobbed down, as if having been awaiting this cue.
Thoroughly resisting the urge to cheer as your heart leapt at the possibility that you've finally called its number, you didn't stop the smile that bloomed on your face or how you nearly dropped the items in your hand as you held them up.
The thin needle on the compass swayed the smallest bit, far too much to be because of the smallest jittery tremble in your hands. You had to keep going, this was the right way, "C'mon, you just have to work with me. That's all that I ask. Maybe I can even get you out of here." You spoke louder, hoping that your voice may carry further.
When the last sentence left your mouth, the compass needle twirled as a chill settled upon the air in an instantaneous reaction. Goosebumps prickled your flesh as your breath fogged in front of you, your movement halting as you glanced around the hallway you found yourself in. Moonlight filtered through the wide windows, bathing the space in a silvery glow that almost could've been comforting if it weren't for the fact it only drew out the contrasting lack of color that matched everything in this house.
Built in bookshelves and cabinets alike lined the wall, though the items on it were sparse aside from a few gaudy statues and decorative items which you couldn't quite figure out the shape of. Aside from that, there was little to note. The space seldom seemed used between the light layer of dust coating the racks and the obvious disinterest they had in decorating it. Maybe there was something here you overlooked - something they overlooked too.
Setting the bag of your stuff down, your first instinct was to peruse through whatever the shelf may have, but setting up first seemed a lot wiser. This time, though, everything was thoroughly ghost proof. Unless this was a throwing stuff kind, which you doubted (or at least sincerely hoped not).
Clouded mists of your breath fanned in front of you as the temperature kept lowering, a small shiver inevitably wracking your spine as you set up. Luckily, them leaving a lot of space meant you had plenty of room to do what you needed. Brushing some of the dust off, you set the brass bell down and placed the spirit board beside it. The compass and thermometer went back in your bag as a preventative measure in case it was the aforementioned throwing things kind of ghost, you would hate to have things damaged... or to have to clean them up, while the glowstick still remained.
Taking the still-luminous tube in hand, you held it up as you inspected the contents of the shelves closer. "You're tied to something here, aren't you?" You said mainly to yourself as you tilted your head to read the gilded writing that brandished the sides of the few books there were.
It would make the most sense, you rationalized. Ghosts could often have their spirits tied to certain objects and with how the homeowners insisted they hadn't had problems up until a few months ago, it was likely something that was brought in. And seeing as they didn't exactly seem to be in this area, maybe they simply forgot something in their own possesion.
Your eyes flickered over towards the desk bell and the spirit board alike, hoping to catch some form of a response, but once again nothing happened. Typical.
Near everything present seemed to be typical, boring, modern - not something that you'd figure was tied to anything aside from an abnormally bad sense of style. Books on finance, economics, and healthy lifestyles could be horrifying in their own way but they're nothing you were looking for.
The odd sculptures that decorated the shelves and the few trinkets seemed to be relics of a wine night and art class. Matching initials carved into the corners of the pieces seemed to confirm that, as did the more recent dates engraved right beside it. Imperfections present in each told how it was the work of an amateur and certainly wasn't something that was picked up, but rather handmade. Honestly though, as weird as the sculptures were, it was the most human thing in the house. At least there was some semblance of personality in them.
All of the shelves, however, were devoid of anything that could even be a plausibility for an object of interest. Nothing even remotely sent a chill down your spine, nothing immediately registered or seemed like a fit, all of them were too modern, too plain. Deciding to squat down to the cabinets, you popped open the doors and shone the feeble light of the glowstick inside, hoping to find something, anything.
Yet it's only when you reached for a plain, small, leatherbound book in your back that the familiar feeling of being watched prickled the hair on the back of your neck. A gust of breath fanned along the shell of your ear as the same voice you heard earlier spoke. Though this time not through a spirit box or any device, it was right in your ear as clear as the night sky itself.
"Took you long enough, love."
Barley missing hitting the top of the cabinet with your skull, you yelped. Backpedaling, you whipped your head around and were met with anything aside from the nothingness that graced you prior.
All of your breath left your lungs in a single beat as the shimmering apparition tilted their head at you, still crouched. His form swirled in an indistinct yet solid inky blur, as if made up from the shifting shadows themselves. Though the intricacies of his form were swallowed by the shifting darkness, the bleached eternally grinning facade of a skull decorated his face. Had it not been for the fact he stood so close that you could see the ridges of it lifting up as it settled on his face, you would've mistaken it for his skull.
Deep mahogany eyes regarded you with an unreadable, scrutinizing gaze as he simply stared right back at you. "Well?" He asked as he tipped his head the other way in a slow tilt.
Like molted lead had been poured down your throat, any words that had possibly been formed burned away, sinking into the pit of your belly.
"You look like you've seen a ghost." He quipped as he rose to his feet, taking a step back from you but staring all the same.
If you weren't so taken aback by his sudden appearance, the absolute absurdity of such a comment coming from a ghost himself would have had you scoffing. Yet he didn't seem to mind your lack of reaction as you stared, all color draining from your face as your mouth fell open.
The corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement, the dark brown pools of his irises stood out amongst the stygian shroud of fog that made up his vaguely human form . Had he been a bit more opaque and had a solid consistency instead of a shifting pattern of darkness, you're sure he could have passed for another living being with how he held himself and how clear his voice resonated in the otherwise silent house.
A shiver racked down your spine as a small tremble made itself known in your limbs as you scrambled to your feet. Throughout all your investigations and countless nights spent investigating in dozens of places, you'd never seen something someone so consequential and solid. Any interactions with your equipment, any spirit orbs spotted in a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of your eye, any hushed whisper you heard down a dark hallway, utterly paled in comparison to the being in front of you.
"Y-you.... you're..." Words failed you as your tongue tied itself in knots, your mind scrambling in every which way as it tried to figure out what to say.
You knew ghosts were real but this was -
"Ghost?" He offered, picking the word for you. The thick Mancurian accent lingering on the washed out, almost echoing tone was much too real to be apart of your own vivid imagination.
This was something very different than what you're used to.
You nodded, shutting your mouth as you fell quiet, not trusting yourself to say anything sensible. The rapid thudding of your heart pounding against your ribcage as your breaths came in shaky exhales was the only thing that echoed in the otherwise still, silent room - aside from automatic rush of blood in your ears as your body urged you to run, to do anything to get far far away from here.
Yet adrenaline wouldn't save you from this one. It held you prisoner as you stood rooted in place, your limbs not obeying anything you pleaded them to do as your eyes refused to leave the singular reason you were even in this house to begin with. Said silence remained even as he took a step forwards, the lack of any noise persisting despite the fact he clearly was walking. Even on the hardwood, there wasn't a whisper of noise as he moved closer. "You're awfully quiet now for someone who has been chatting my ears off all evening." He remarked as those dark eyes, framed with the smallest hint of pale lashes that glinted in the moonlight narrowed once more.
Your heart must've skipped another beat at that realization that he'd probably been there from the moment you stepped inside and started talking, lingering in the shadows. "You - you listened?" You spoke, nearly choking on the stuttered words that came out as you tried to find your voice amidst the storm of emotions you felt.
"Hard not to with how loud you are." He snorted, though he seemed less peeved and more amuse with how his eyes seemed to once again fold in what you're assuming was a smile under the mask he wore.
The faintest heat of a blush rose to your cheeks, dusting your pallid features with something warmer as you glanced away for a split second, unable to hold his gaze. Logically, you know you shouldn't be embarrassed about doing your job. Yet you couldn't help but to feel ridiculous when faced with such a real creature of the night, calling you out for doing such things.
Putting yourself in his shoes, you're sure you'd be not too happy all the same if someone waltzed into your house and started throwing their equipment around as they tried to get your attention. Then again, it's not like you were invisible or in that situation. It's not like you were the one haunting the house.
Another realization struck you when you snapped your gaze back to him. The self-consciousness faded away to something that burned much brighter as you tried your best not to glare. "Then why didn't you say anything? Do you know how long I've-" You cut yourself off, shaking your head.
Of course he knew how long you were looking for him, all around the house. He was right there the entire time.
He seemed none too bothered with it, tilting his head once more. If he were arching a brow or smiling again, you couldn't quite tell as the expression faded. "I did." He countered, "It's not my fault that you found my answers unsatisfactory."
"You only said ghost!" You protested, unable to help the half pitch up and the rush that your words came out in.
He nodded, "Answered your questions just fine, love."
You swear you heard the self-satisfied smirk in his voice, even if it were hidden amongst the everything that he was. Another flare of indignation rose in you at that as you pointed an accusing finger at him.
"I asked you your name! Not what you are."
"That is my name. Or was."
You weren't sure if he was plain stupid, confused, or truly thought that's what he was called. An exasperated sigh left your lungs as you threw your hand up and dropped it on your thigh.
"You're telling me that you, a ghost, are named Ghost?" You echoed, pressing your lips into a thin line.
You didn't let him answer as you continued, "You're also aware that you're not alive and that ghost is a thing - a way the people here," Your hands swept to the house in a broad gesture, "Are referring to you as because they don't know your name."
The charged hush that fell between you was anything but peaceful. No words were said for a few long moments as you glared at him. Raising up his arms, he crossed them as he regarded you with the same, unreadable expression.
"I'm dead, love. Not deaf." He replied, his own voice infuriatingly calm, "No need to shout."
Your mouth fell open once more but this time not from horror or surprise, but from the utter audacity he had. The same low, rumbling chuckle that you heard earlier echoed as he surely grinned. "While I'm dead, I'm not stupid. I'm well aware." He answered as he moved further backwards to lean against the wall, nearly seeping into the shadows there.
"Ghost was my name before I died." He explained with a casual shrug, "Quite ironic to end up this way, really. Suppose its the universes' retribution and eternal punishment for using it as my callsign - if you believe in that sort of thing, anyhow."
You might as well with what you were staring at. Had there ever been a moment to believe in such things, now would've been the perfect time as you stood in the presence of an undead being that shouldn't have existed; much less, one you shouldn't have been talking to. Even as he said that though, he didn't seem to care for it or believe it himself as he snorted a small sigh through his nose and shrugged, regarding you with a lazy gaze.
"Callsign..." You repeated, your brows furrowing as you wracked your brain from where you knew that word from.
"You were in the military?" You asked the moment the connection formed, recalling such a thing from the videogames you played in the days of your youth.
Ghost gave a single, curt nod. "It's the reason I'm Ghost in more ways than one now."
At least his sense of humor wasn't dead - as much as you weren't a fan of it right now.
"Right." You said, biting back the instinctive urge to apologize for something you didn't do, as a pang of something seized your heart with a relentless grasp.
You weren't the reason he was dead, and you certainly don't know what you were apologizing for. The fact that he met his maker? The fact he was here right now? The fact he was a ghost? Either way, it wasn't your fault, but you had to bite back the 'Sorry' that threatened to fall out on instinct, as if you were hearing about someone's bad day.
"Why are you here now, then?" You asked after another small beat, looking around the house that seemed anything but fitting for him. "I mean... in this house. I don't think either of us can figure out the afterlife thing fully." You clarified in a quick rush, trying your best not to sound like a total idiot.
Though the flush on your cheeks returned and made itself known as it warmed your body once more like you donned a light winter jacket, he didn't say anything about it or your jumbled rush of justification.
Ghost contemplated it for a long moment, glancing around the hallway itself and staring at the figurines on the shelf and the few decorations to match. Bringing a hand up to his face, he scrubbed it down his chin. "Wasn't my idea, believe me. I've seen livelier decor in a hostage cell."
Admittedly, that part had you agreeing as you suppressed the smile that fought so hard to surface and the giggle to match. You weren't going to admit that as much of an initial annoyance he had been, he was growing on you and... okay, maybe he was funny. Not yet. The annoyance from earlier would have to fully fade away to nothingness.
Ghost nodded towards the bottom cabinet that you had left open, "They have my journal. It was on me when I died."
Your eyes were drawn back to the faded frayed edges of the black leatherbound journal, tucked away in the corner that you had almost touched before he made his appearance. That had to be the one. Hesitancy weighed on you as you didn't reach for it just yet. Touching such a personal item with him right there felt wrong - especially admitting it was something that he had on his person when he finally met his maker. Yet you didn't fight the urge to step forward towards it, nor to urge to kneel right back where you had been.
"You should be able to fill in the rest. After all, aren't you the paranormal investigator?" He remarked as he too stepped closer too, silent footfalls leading him to hover over you.
Of course you were - and of course you knew. Violent deaths meant there's a chance that a spirit can be tied to something, especially a personal object of value. It was your initial haunch when you stepped into this all too modern house. There had to be something here, a reason why a ghost would suddenly turn up. And seeing as there weren't any deaths or burial grounds or anything to warrant such a level of haunting, that was the typical reason.
Seeing as he was in the military and didn't seem to be too old, it's likely because he met an untimely end too that he ended up anchored to such an object to begin with. Unfinished business, as they would say. Not that he had a choice in that matter. You weren't going to pry on that part and why or how he died, but it told you all that you needed to know to do your job here.
Technically, you now had everything you needed to know to finish your job. You could walk out that door, evidence in hand, and tell them that they were indeed housing the super natural. That's what your job was as a paranormal investigator and nothing more. They called you in to find evidence of the supernatural, not to "take care" of it. You were not exorcist or priest to match and weren't ready to play on that scale of fucking around and finding out.
Yet, for some reason, you hesitated. As much as you wanted to be out of the house, you didn't want to go and simply leave this restless spirit. Doing such a thing after making a discovery this huge felt like abandonment after he showed his face and talked to you.
Of course, it could be a trick. It could be another supernatural creature posing, pretending to be the spirit of a soldier who met his end all too soon. Maybe it was a demon taking form and -
Out of the corner of your eye, you saw his form flicker. The solidness of it fading in and out, as if a flashlight were being shone through him. "As nice as this chat was, afraid I don't have the energy to be here much longer." He spoke, the echo of his voice more pronounced, like the whispers of his tone were being dragged out and thrown to all ends of the room, "The batteries you had were lovely but they can only do so much."
You didn't even have it in you to be mad at him for that anymore. Not when he probably swiped them and drained them of all their energy just to be able to make himself visible and to come to you. How long he had been waiting to do something like this, hoping to have someone, anyone to talk too you didn't know. There were so many questions, so many things unanswered, but those were pushed to the back of your mind as you locked eyes with him once more.
Like a watercolor wash, those deep browns ebbed away bit by bit as they faded out into a tawny shade to match the swirls of shadows that made up his form hazing into fuzzier lines. Even though they were waning like the moonlight from the tall windows as they turned into a muddled shade, the slight melancholy and droop of his the corners spoke plenty that words couldn't say.
You didn't need to say anything else as you took ahold of the book before you could think, the thrum of energy that greeted you instantaneous as the pads of your fingers grazed the cool leather. The electricity that flowed through your veins caused your hair to stand on, the tidal wave of a summery balm coursing through them all the same as it set your nerves alight. While he couldn't touch you physically, its as if he himself were matching your energy with his own, the little that he had left. You didn't need to ask anything to know that this was right.
Wrapping it in your arms in a wordless promise, what had once been a plain unassuming book alone gathering dust on a shelf was now the most precious thing you could hold. You weren't holding a book alone, no, you were holding a life - a life that had been cut short and doomed to walk the earth, bound to the confines of the singular object that weighed him down more than any physical anchor could have. What you held was his lifeline and his burden all the same; his chance at redemption and damnation all the same. And you weren't going to let that, or him, go anytime soon.
A silent vow passed as your eyes met what was left of his - you weren't going to leave him, you weren't going to abandon him or leave him here to rot all in his lonesome. He'd taken a chance and so would you.
Before he finally disappeared, he leaned forwards, bringing the tips of his wisping fingers to skim against your cheek. Though his ice cold touch froze you as it gusted across your skin in a breeze, sending another shiver down your spine, your heart couldn't have been warmer. Your eyes snapped shut at the sensation, the cool touch fading just as fast as it came.
When you finally opened your eyes, you were greeted with an empty room. The pang of disappointment that hit faded as fast as it came as your hold on the book tightened once more, the smallest spark of energy tingling through your veins. He might not be in the room but he was still here, tucked underneath your fingertips.
Your eyes traced over the name etched on the top that had gone unnoticed prior as you held it up in the moonlight, "Alright, Simon. Let's get you home."
#cod#simon ghost riley#simon riley x you#simon riley x reader#simon ghost x reader#cod modern warfare#cod mw3#simon ghost#simon riley#ghost cod#ghost call of duty#ghost riley#call of duty#cod mwiii#call of duty x you#call of duty x reader#reader insert#gender neutral reader#monster#paranormal#ghost hunting#ghost#ghost fanfiction#ghost x reader#ghost x you#monstober#literal ghost ghost#i love him so much
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Alright, I saw too many posts about DA4 and the pressure valve on dragon age opinions burst so I'm breaking my silence about mage discourse.
One day someone at bioware, can't remember who, made the worst possible PR decision and openly declared mages as an allegory for mental illness. It has all been downhill from there. Quite literally I could not be less interested in treating mages and mental illness as even tangentally related. Within the canon of DA, mages are people who literally have demons speaking to them, can literally become possessed by demons, and who are literally dangerous in extremely real and unavoidable ways even without the demon stuff. Lobotomies not only exist, but also work, the 'tranquil' are no longer plagued by the demons, nor do they have the powers of fireball anymore. It's like they called the 1300's and asked a witch hunter to write this.
And I am absolutely certain this framing is extremely cathartic for some people to relate too. Themactically speaking, turning all the dials up on a social issue for a fantasy world will always resonate with many of the victims of that issue. There is something impactful about taking all the insane stereotypes society has created around your lived experience, deciding they're real in an imaginary world and then playing out scenarios where you deal with them. God only knows gay people love vampires and werewolves.
But in that case it also has to be understood that others will not like it, or find it cathartic at all. The sticking point for me is probably the fact that mages are immensely powerful, something I find so egregiously unrelatable that any possible power fantasy it might be tempting me into just evaporates. And then of course there is Tevinter, which if we're following the allegorical logic is a state ruled by the mentally ill whom have 'embraced their demons' and so are now ruling an empire built on the enslavement of the 'pure' and 'untainted undemonic' population. Which I feel like, if we're weighing the mage narrative on the merit of it's being a cathartic themactic framing, is stretching the concept quite thin.
So I've always experienced mage based narratives as entirely seperate from their irl allegories at least emotionally, even if cognitively I do understand the parallels. And when you look at it like that, so sorry, it actually is a grey moral issue. If there were people in real life who could, without any additional equipment or technology, just create a fire/lightning storm from thin air, that on it's own would be a problem society would have to grapple with solving. You could not just let people with such power live under the same rules as everyone else. Like Wynne as a child nearly burned a barn down and scarred another child. These are not hypothetical issues within the canon.
And somewhat unrelated side tangent but I've seen people say, without an ounce of irony, 'magic doesn't kill people, people kill people' as an argument against the need for magic control. Which is just a fascinating framing all by itself, given the only difference between guns and DA magic is that one is an external tool and the other is built into select people. AND given that witholding gun licenses from the so called 'mentally disturbed' is an often advocated for policy... it's just kind of ironic is all!
Anyway the POINT is this is kind of frustrating to me because technically the mages COULD be a fun little play pretend thought morality experiment. This IS a difficult problem to solve, DA rightly engages with the fact that any institution created to control a subsection of people will create an environment of horrific abuse and dehumanisation. And that is only doubled with the introduction of religious control. When presented neutrally this is a 'do you sacrifice the few for the sake of the many' quandary with a lot of interesting caviates. IS it for the sake of the many? Would the actual number of people harmed by mages really exceed the number of mages themselves? Are we not just sacrificing the peace and freedom of many people for a hypothetical? But IS it a hypothetical since the slaver empire ruled by mages exists? But the hypothetical in the other direction isn't a hypothetical either, since the mage rebellion also exists and arguably did greater harm than free mages might have otherwise! But is that true? What about all the years worth of people in history hypothetically saved from harm by the strict control over mages? Isn't pushing for a more ethical circle a better plan than total abolishion? But is an ethical circle even possible given the cultural position mages hold? But in that case are free mages really going to be able to lead peaceful lives anyway? Doesn't the circle also protect them? But that is a situation the circle created and enforced right? Or is it? Since, once again, Demons definitely exist and mages have become possessed by them for centuries, and other mages have used their powers to dominate and abuse others in the past!
Theoretically, two people with exactly the same humanitarian purposes could argue the opposite ends of this debate in good faith, which is a fantasy. Because in the real world no one is born with a body inherrently able to cause more harm than the majority of other bodies. In fact, the opposite is true, people are born with more vulnerable bodies than the majority and are oppressed for it, their vulnerability taken advantage of by the dominant states in order to further those state's agendas in some way or other. Oppression does not have a 'good reason' to exist that originates from the oppressed class, those supposed reasons are fabricated after the fact to justify oppression in the minds of the general populace whom hold themselves to moral standards that a State does not. So, inherrently, the mages in DA are a fantasy idea and should be thought of as such.
But, amongst many DA fans, this is not the case. We've all seen people argue without irony that NOT taking a moral stance on the side of the mages and against the circles reflects badly upon your actual IRL moral compass. And it's not just that you cannot be pro-templar, even being neutral about it or finding the pro-mage characters or the mage narrative uninteresting is treated as an immoral action. People will ask things like 'who would even side with Meredith?' or 'does anyone even save the templars in DAI?' as if the choices you make narratively in a game have to be a moral judgement! Which we all know is nothing new in terms of fandom discourse, but within the mage/templar discussion it is so pervasive and so volatile that it makes it worth noting.
And like, obviously 'people get too serious about fiction on the internet' is such a non-issue that it's barely worth talking about. But I do find it interesting nonetheless as it's been a major part of my experience of being in the DA fandom, which now spans longer than a decade of my life (screams).
People have told me that I shouldn't treat this narrative theme as debatable because they relate to mage struggles as an autistic. And at the time I was pretty young and didn't really have a response to that other than a vague but powerful sense of discomfort. Nowadays, when I'm pretty sure I'm also autistic, I realise I was made deeply uncomfortable by the idea that there was anything relatable for me within the mage narrative. I do not have magic powers and I can't blow people up with my mind, I can't even get out of bed most days. Most people feel like mages to me just for being able to work a job or take care of themselves without help. And narratives of oppression that surround people with inherrent powers that far exceed anyone else just do not resonate! Which ultimately is just a reinforcement of the concept that the way people engage with fiction is not equivalent to actual real social issues, and really should not be treated as such.
#text post#dragon age#bioware#this might even be an autopsy of my own dragon age era since it's highly possible I will not play DA4#given how dreadful bioware/ea has gotten#we will see
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i talk a lot about how dave's relationship with his bro probably fucked him up in a lot of ways and rose probably did with dave too. but also what about the reversal afterwards when dave with his newly found awareness of Bad Parent Relationship Things points out weird ideas rose has developed because of her relationship with her mom that she doesn't realize are weird.
dave: so you dont have any issues with your mom? she was just a completely chill parent?
rose: No. I've come to grow and realize that she truly did care for me and was trying to reach out to me, instead of passive-aggressively taunting and belittling me as I had previously thought in my childhood. It was my fault for not seeing the truth, yes, but now that I know better, I-
dave: oh uh i wasnt really talking about that. whatever thats about. i was talking about the fact that she was like. drunk all the time
rose: Yes, but you do understand she had a lot on her mind back then? As time has passed, I myself am able to just start comprehending the scope of what we are dealing with. Sburb-
dave: yyyyyyyeahh okay but like she was your mom and you were a kid.
rose: Yes, but I've learned to be mature and see things from her perspective. Every adult has their weaknesses. It'd be childish of me to not accept hers, like she was perfect. And besides, it's not like she didn't care. She was constantly offering me things related to my interests, yet I chose to shun-
dave: yeah but for example like you were thirteen and she offered you a vodka martini while completely inebriated and you were thirteen
rose: She also gave me a pony.
dave: how does that not prove my point
rose: No offense, but I think I am quite well-equipped to be aware of if I have any underlying "issues" left over from how my mother raised me in my childhood.
dave: no offense but youre still a child and also i am literally like 23 hours and 547.56̅ milliseconds older than you what makes you think you were more well equipped than i was
rose: I'm sorry, did you read the entire Wikipedia page for Diana Baumrind at ten?
dave: ...
rose: ...
dave: ...
rose: ... Didn't thin-
dave: just so we're clear rose that long pause i took just now was not me getting "got" it was me being wowed by everything you just revealed to me with that statement.
#homestuck#rose lalonde#dave strider#mom lalonde#child neglect#child abuse#alcoholism#bottlehawk text#rose: My personal therapy arc is over. I have self reflected and I have healed.#dave: you havent even begun to start your therapy arc. in fact whatever therapy you gave yourself somehow made your issues worse
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