#also no like contract to start with so if I really cannot handle it I just leave?

[mzcain27]

Everybody tell me to take the job and all the reasons it will be fine and all the things I can do with money

[chilfucked]

You guys ever think about how terrifying and violating this scene must have been for Chil? (analysis under cut)

I want you to put yourself in Chil’s shoes for a moment. You’re at minimum a head smaller than everyone in your party. The only combat skills you have are long range and mostly support, plus you don’t even have your gear right now. You’re balls deep in the dungeon. You’re starving. You just had a near death experience when your party did NOT have the means to revive you (nothing to replace calories. assuming the mimic beat you). And now the people you’re essentially stuck with are ganging up on you.

I get that this is played as a gag but. This is like. Real fear in his eyes. He’s actually scared. TERRIFIED. And rightfully so.

Here you have:

Senshi: The guy you just met who clearly doesn’t respect you or you autonomy not only suggesting to use your tools against your will, but he’s actively physically restraining you. Something that is known to be very demeaning for his entire race and especially to him.

Marcille: The girl you only met a couple of adventures ago who also kind of doesn’t respect you, like, at ALL who’s just sitting there watching.

And Laios: The ONE GUY HERE that even remotely respects you that you’ve just BARLEY started trusting, who is now betraying that trust by being the one to take your belongings and use them against your will. In front of you. After you told him to stop.

Like. Don’t get me wrong, the cutaway gag to this was funny, but that doesn’t change the actual disdain he’s feeling here. This is someone realizing he’s stuck with people he cannot trust in a situation far too dangerous for him to deal with on his own. There’s no respect for him. His autonomy. His belongings. Nothing. None of what he believed earlier is present. I don’t know if this was a contract breach or not, but it was a personal one for sure. I can only begin to imagine what’s running through his head right now, and how powerless he feels here to the mistreatment by people he doesn’t know and or JUST started warming up to.

Sure, he has a moment to justify it to himself here. Everyone’s tired. Hungry. They didn’t mean any harm by it, and in the end it was better for everyone, right? (Ignoring the fact that they could’ve de-shelled the mimic using Senshi’s wok but that’s neither here nor there I guess.) But deep down he knows that doesn’t really make it right. That doesn’t change the fact it wasn’t handled properly. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s not being respected at all in this decision. Not even being taken into account other than to be removed from the vote entirely.

And, at the end of it, you’re still being demeaned. Still being treated like a child who shouldn’t get a say. Your justified anger just being used against you to show how immature you’re being. The louder you yell to be taken seriously, the less seriously you’re taken.

Sure, everything works out in the end. He’s made some of the best friends he’ll ever have in his whole life, but here? Now? Chilchuck is alone. Isolated from anyone he could go to. Trapped, used, disregarded, and more closed off than he’s been in a very long time. Because he was actually starting to trust the people around him again. And for what? It just happened again.

[itsdeniini]

𖹭 SUNOO'S FUTURE PATHS IN CAREER 𖹭

(₊˚ʚ🪼₊˚✧ ) note ᰔᩚ ⊹ㅤㅤ۫ㅤ𓆜ㅤ𓈒ㅤׂㅤ🪩 𓇼

i am a self-taught tarot reader, and the interpretations i provide are personal. if anyone would like to share their own insights, i would be more than happy to hear them! please be kind <3

career atm!↪

《ten of wands, eight of swords, the devil》

:c Ah, how do I start? Well, you deserve much better, Sunoo. MUCH BETTER. At the moment, he feels extremely drained, like he's so exhausted by everything that's happening at the moment. it's too much to handle, and the pressure on him is going overdrive. But... he's standing on both feet strong to not disappoint engene. There are a lot of tears, late-night talking, and thoughts like, "Am I doing everything right? I suppose I'm doing a good job and I should push it more; it's still not enough, and I still have a lot of things to bring to the table, but... I feel like losing my ground, and there is a lot of competition surrounding me. How can I maintain myself in a good mood and do my best at the same time when it's so tough and I'm almost worn out? Hm, I should be patient and keep working hard." I've been going through the oracles and they're literally saying that he's been feeling lost and excessively restricted in his career. There is a lot of self-doubt that is plaguing him. deep inside, he wishes he would have the chance to take some control over his own career, but he understands that now that's something surreal, and he has to keep agreeing to the terms of his hard obtained contract and follow the rules that were set for him. And those are impediments that are literally suffocating him and his artistic soul, making him feel like he's not moving further and standing in the same place for too damn long. that's not something that has been happening for just a few months; no, it's been almost 4 years, and there are still a lot of fears to overcome and challenges to face. His inner child may be happy that his mature self managed to pursue his dream career, but at what cost? 

However, he feels a bit more at ease lately as he's getting some opportunities to showcase himself. It's not like he's feeling satisfied with the bare minimum though; that's not even something he's associating himself with because Sunoo is aware he's got the talent, the visuals, and the overall presence that can carry him through his whole life. He knows it's not just a natural gift that was given to him; it's constant hard work he's been putting in for a long time now, and he wants the seeds he planted as a young man to blossom until the time he reaches his peak. That's why now he's trying to snatch every opportunity in his way (in fact, there were a lot of them in the past, but they were all fumbled because of be-) .. ANYWAYS 😌 Sunoo is really thriving at the moment with those little lucky chances he's getting; he knows that's his time to shine, and he wouldn't want to stop any soon.

future career paths! ↪

《the magician, the star, the ace of pentacles》

GRANDIOSE PLANS!

Sunoo will get involved in a lot of activities in the future, BUT there is something... 🐟 .. yeah, something FISHY will be going on. I think there will be a big crew that will manage Sunoo's career, and some of these crew members may not exactly be his perfect co-workers. There will be people who may want to screw him by creating behind-the-scenes rumors or even a whole scandal that revolves around him. It feels like echoes from the past will also reappear and will make themselves known. It will be an unexpected blow to his career. Everything will fall on him at once, and this will be one of the most difficult periods of his life. From here, the energy breaks off, and it’s a little unclear to me what he’s going to do next, since the picture seems to be that this is a fatal knockout that cannot be avoided, but knowing Sunoo, I think he won’t give up without a fight. Still, some outcome is foreseen. This story will have an ending.

But let's talk about the good stuff now!

He is a entertainer. He knows how to 🌟ENTERTAIN🌟 the public!

First of all, he is an incredible fit for the variety shows (and that's not a secret to anyone), so... I think he's most probably thinking of one of his own. It may be a podcast or daily talk show where he would be able to express himself and maybe even talk about his own activities, like something casual, his daily routine, for example, but mainly about photo shoots, his involvement in the media, and most importantly, about his ACTING! Yeah, actor Sunoo is coming, and that career branch of his can even potentially overtake the singing one. Like, we'll be GAGGED when he gets that male lead role (he'll be starting with something BIG; this opportunity will be one of a kind and thus will give him a boost that many newbie actors would wish to have). He will be all over the place, and his singing capabilities will also be used rightfully (he will probably sing an OST?) to attract the audience and gain more attention to his new beginnings in this field. And of course, a lot of individuals will not be happy with that situation because, as I said, some echoes from the past will be sure that this success is thanks to them, and they're the ones who made him famous. This battle for justice will last for some time, and the outcome will become clearer with time. Some things may indicate that the initial stages of this conflict are already behind the scenes at the moment, and when it all becomes public, there will be THAT period when everything will collapse at once.

In addition to the things that I mentioned earlier, there is also the possibility of him starting his own brand, which will initially generate passive income, but then grow into something with a fairly larger impact.

Sunoo may start as a muse for a brand (🧴🌬️) and take this as experience for creating his own thing later. He wants to participate in the making process of his product and then translate this on his platform so he can show everything, from how the idea appeared to how you use it.

Something cute and practical like this, hm?

That was it, I wish Sunoo all the best, I know he'll make it through and we'll be so proud of him! >.<

[panxramic]

Tallulah and Promises

Something I’ve always liked keeping an eye on and is so bittersweet about Tallulah’s character is her relationship with promises. I’m not quite sure when it became so intense, maybe it’s been there since the beginning, but Tallulah for a long time has had a unique relationship with making and keeping a promise.

I want to say that first and foremost, how she handles promises can be incredibly childish. Both because they can be nonsensical and “immature” AND because well, she’s a child. What kind of promise do you expect from a child?

A promise is everything to her, it’s a contract. Its words set in stone and written in the stars. A promise CANNOT be broken. Doesn’t matter who it is, a promise is a promise and you keep it. And it’s not all bad. Things like this can be reasonable right? She’ll get upset of course when someone makes a promise or when she can’t keep hers. She uses promises as a way to hold out hope. She uses them to keep herself and those around her accountable, so she has the assurance that they’ll do what they promised and she’ll do what she promised. That no matter what happens in the world, no matter what life throws at her, she can count on those promises.

So when someone breaks it, when she can’t live up to her promises, it shatters her world view.

And then the problems start to stack up, especially when we get into the realm of false promises, it starts becoming a mess. A mess of false hope. Because remember, to her, promises can be translated to hope (another big part of her character).

Gonna breeze pass through this one but she did make a promise when she first joined the island. A promise to someone, who never kept up his end of it, and she held on to it for MONTHS. For months that child held out her promise and repeatedly brought it up again and again that no matter what she was gonna be alive for when he came back and when he needed her. With not a sign of him returning that promise to her. And this promise was also hope. Hope she wasn’t gonna be left alone again, abandoned.

And that’s when we get into false promises. Because although Tallulah does value them a lot, she also asks for people to promise her things that sometimes cannot be done. There have been countless of times she has tried asking q!Phil to promise her something, but q!Phil has rarely ever promised her anything (with a handful of exceptions). He’s careful, he’s always very careful about what he promises to her because he doesn’t want to make a promise he can’t keep. And whenever he doesn’t promise her something, I feel like a part of Tallulah’s hope gets cracked. Because without a promise, how positive is she that q!Phil will keep his word? How hopeful can she really be that everything will be okay?

She hangs onto promises like a lifeline. They’re the one tether that can keep her hope afloat. And she remembers them, remembers her promises like a burn on her skin.

She’s done the same thing to q!Bad. Has asked if he could promise things, like promise that he wasn’t dying, but q!Bad never could. And when people can’t promise something, she has little hope that everything will be okay.

And some promises she asks for can be so… nonsensical. Promises we know, and I KNOW she knows, cannot be made. But she asks for them anyway. Because she’s a child. A child who just wants everything to be okay and wants her Papa Phil to promise that nothing bad will ever happen to him, to promise that he will never leave them, because she’s a terrified kid of being abandoned again and not having that reassurance, that solid ground, that things will be okay.

But q!Phil can’t promise that. And it aches.

One time she broke that barrier, she couldn’t take it anymore. She asked q!Bad to promise her something and he refused to. And afterwards she just told him to promise it to her even if it’s a lie. She full on broke that glass wall and was transparent.

Pinky promise to me you would not die

At least lie to me

And he did.

Because promises make her feel better. She holds onto them until she can’t, even if it is filled with lies. Because sometimes a child asks for a promise and they don’t expect the truth, they just expect comfort. Because it’s the only thing they can handle.

It’s so sad to watch her hold onto promises that she KNOWS deep in her heart can’t be kept. But still she wishes and she hopes and she believes in these lies as if they’re the only thing holding her up above ground.

Sometimes the promises she asks for can be unreasonable. She puts up a wall to protect herself because reality is scary, it’s terrifying. Tallulah values the truth like no other. She hates lies and she hates when people like q!Phil and Chayanne hide things from her. But when it comes to her dad potentially abandoning her, when it comes to him dying and leaving her, she’d rather believe everything will be okay than face the harsh reality of what’s going on.

And this topic has a lot of nuances I won’t get specifically into. It’s a blend of promises and lies and hope and truth. The lies the promises hold aren’t the same as someone straight up lying to her face and hiding things from her. It’s different instances of a lie.

Anyways, again, a lot of different things I can get into and definitions to go through BUT I will to say that it’s not wrong of her to want to believe everything will be okay. I’m an optimist at heart. ‘Hope’ to me is important and I think it isn’t wrong to have it even when things are looking down. But, something specifically for Tallulah is that alongside that hope, she also is terrified of reality (rightfully so) and tries to erase it by making a promise. And essentially, that’s not how the world works.

It’s such a childish way of thinking. You cannot erase the bad things from happening with a promise. And that’s what Tallulah sometimes does. If she makes q!Phil promise that he won’t leave her, then surely he won’t. That’s how promises work right?

Tallulah holds herself to these promises too. She does everything in her power to keep her word. When she doesn’t, when she breaks a promise she makes, she beats herself up for it.

That first promise she made? She broke it during purgatory and it broke her. It was one of the many accumulated reasons why she hated Purgatory island and everything associated with it. And when she broke that promise a piece of her hope broke with it.

Whenever Tallulah makes a promise to q!Phil she engraves it in her mind. She does everything in her power to keep it. And when she’s accused of breaking a promise, she panics and becomes defensive. She looks back into her mind to see if she ever DID make that promise and if she didn’t she starts defending herself. The conversation begins to shift from the actual issue to “no I never made that promise I didn’t promise you anything I didn’t break anything.” Because it’s SUPER important to her. The idea of breaking a promise is like a rock to glass. So she remembers the promises she makes.

Promises for Tallulah are a childish way for her to rewrite reality. But they’re also a way for her to have hope. There’s a balance when it comes to having hope and being able to see reality for what it is. And it’s something Tallulah struggles with. And I don’t blame her for it.

A child who cannot cope with reality will make pinky promises of clear skies and sunny days. A child who cannot handle the possibility of being abandoned again will make someone promise her to never leave even if she knows things are out of his control. Because in the mind of a child, a promise cannot be broken.

A promise is sealed. It’s a binding rope that should never give. So if Tallulah can make q!Phil promise her things, then that means he will never leave her, that means he will never hurt her. If Tallulah can make q!Bad promise her he won’t die then she can live in the lie that he will be okay. If she can promise to always be by her brothers side then surely they will never be separated again.

Because promise can’t be broken.

Right?

(Deep down inside, she knows).

[ultraviolet-cello]

Today's episode analysis is number 7 - Wolfwood. Now from here on out I get wild abt theories so do watch out hehee

Spoiler warning for tristamp and trimax, general tws for most of those, and enjoy my analysis/details if you want :]

@tristampparty

TL;DR, there's still something fucked up with Livio and Razlo

I CANNOT believe this MOTHERFUCKER is wearing a seatbelt, but still reading a book and controlling the car steering with his mind. I hate him.

Okay so when Livio gets up here, he's been down for the count for a while, the mask has seemingly. Broken a little bit, his irises have contracted a noticeably amount, and the way he moves is different. So I could attribute that to just, whatever brainwashing EOM has on Livio is falling apart, but I think it's more likely Razlo is stepping into front in some way or another. If the remote-switch mask theory has anything to do with it, the breaking of the mask could be tugging them both into a rapid-switch state.

In any case; something is clearly different - Livio's fighting style as we've seen is very steady, holding the guns in place and just walking forward. Maybe-Razlo here just gets up and flings himself at Vash, starts running, absolutely whaling on the Punisher with the Double Fangs (Which is accurate to Trimax - if you read their pages closely, Livio and Razlo have very different ways of moving that then converge into a more semi-coherent style post volume 10)

Also like, it doesn't have to just be one thing. All of the things I point out here can also be interpreted as just the breaking free from brainwashing thing. Could be both!

I'm Not Done with this scene yet because then uh. Livio-Maybe-Razlo starts looking a little dizzy, starts wobbling, hands shaking. So with Dissociative Identity Disorder, the difference between that and OSDD-1b (Another type of system) is usually the dissociative aspect. When alters switch in, it's usually accompanied by a period of dissociation, which looks to an outsider like the person is dizzy, vacant, or blank. The dissociative period is also common in rapid-switching. I read Livio and Razlo as a DID system and it is definitely the most well-known type of system, so if Studio Orange is trying to portray them as a system, they'll most likely be characterized as DID.

MORE VASH FIGHTING STYLE STUFF!!!

So aside from being just a physical martial artist, I dabble in traditional okinawan kobudo (weapons) as well - one of these being the tonfa, which is a baton type of weapon. Vash in this scene is using his gun similarly - holding it by the handle and swinging the muzzle to block and strike. In the second image you can see him winding up to get the full arc of the swing in for more power.

These are what tonfa look like, so I especially appreciate how similar Vash's gun functions! You hold the handle in a loose-ish grip and can swing them overhead and around for extra Thwack Power

Oh you can actually see him spin it back in that blocking position (holding the long end against your forearm so you can just lift and block with your forearm, since the part of the tonfa is shielding you) here! Come to think of it, when blocking with the Double Fangs, Livio uses them similarly.

Once again Roberto calling out that Vash is not human - again he's had the longest time to Hear about Vash's reputation and now he's seeing it firsthand. Imagine spending all your life knowing of a legendary guy and then when you actually see him he looks. like 20, and at least some of his fighting prowess is true.

I guess I'm also curious about like. The mask has been breaking for a While now, and then when it completely powers off that's when Livio starts coming back to reality, which could lend to it being neural-connected in some way. I think it's really really interesting that EOM has specifically suppressed or trained Livio's mind so well that he barely recognizes Wolfwood - But how did that happen without Razlo's interference? Did he agree to this, was he manipulated into it, did Livio make that decision and it was too late for Razlo's protectiveness to kick in? Or is this a means to control both of them? Season 2 please please please ple

I'VE GOT MY ONE FRAME OF RAZLO EVERYONE GO HOME

Okay seriously though I do want to uh. Has Razlo just always had that idea of what he wants to look like or is there some kind of Very drastic change going on lmao. Because there is no way Stampede "Twink" Livio has the body to pull this off, no matter how much hair gel and tits out clothes Razlo can put on. If that sort of image was created by eom as an intimidation thing (because Razlo is Chapel's golden child) though, that's fucked up especially because like. Razlo and Livio struggle sharing a body enough by themselves.

Not grabbing a screenshot but it's uhm. Well. Livio shoots himself in the head specifically, which does seem to be the weak spot for EOM agents, which uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Like we've seen Razlo foreshadowing Right There there's not a chance he's actually dead, but it's probably gonna fuck him up. Further. I wonder if there's gonna be some body construction fuckery going on later on?

Roberto just sitting down and giving up is kinda funny but also like. Yeah. What do you do in the face of such alien, incomprehensible odds and events. Roberto's very,,, chill about dying, which is an attitude that lots of people would have on Gunsmoke/NML (I know it's nml. but i like gunsmoke). He just wants to go out drinking on his own terms (which... well, he does.)

Meryl's decisions in the control room are so so fascinating. Meryl in Trimax is a little bit insane about Vash (following him, quite literally, through the apocalypse), and we're starting to see her belief and trust in him in this scene. She believes in him And in Wolfwood. and Roberto, Roberto who has always said that he'd take the path to live, believes in Meryl, enough that he's apparently ready to take the chance to die with her, even when given the option to leave by himself.

Meryl is also taking control of her own agency in this situation; she has been an extremely reactive character up till now, but here she gets to say what Meryl Stryfe would do in this situation. Not getting yanked around by people bigger and taller than her, not having to report to her seniors, just making a choice on her own that she knows might kill her. Women on Gunsmoke/NML aren't afforded a lot of agency (Rosa had to try and capture Vash for the bounty so Tonis could live, Meryl in any iteration deals with a lot of adversaries using her as leverage against Vash or taking control away from her, hell, Tristamp Elendira isn't being afforded the agency to grow up! She's been like that for 20 years there is definitely some fuckery going on, whether it's Tesla cells not allowing her to age past the point Tesla was when she died, or Conrad or Knives keeping her that age for some reason). It's nice to see Meryl's arc revolve around taking that agency for herself.

OKAY NORMAL AGAIN. the fucking MUSIC in this scene is insane, it's so,,, I don't know how to explain it but it's so Big and Vast. Also the ion cannon laser looks much like a Punisher laser. Which uh. Woag, if that's the case. And Razlo gets three of those bitches? forget the deadly weapons everyone's gonna just die looking at the light show.

A design element I really like for Legato is his hair and how neatly it's trimmed. I drew a parallel to Knives cutting off a slice of his hair when they first met each other, but I do genuinely think that Legato might be so meticulous about it specifically because of that. Knives means so so much to Legato, and Legato seems to reclaim his body from his past sexual abuse by devoting himself to Knives in an act of empowerment (or at least that's how I read it), which,,, I mean it's hair, but i really am a curtains are blue guy.

Tristamp Wolfwood is often. A tad shorter than Vash which is extremely funny to me. Nightow said Wolfwood's taller and everyone, including the guys making a 3d animated love letter to trigun, said no he isn't ^_^

I need to start collecting these fucking smiles that Vash gives Wolfwood. It's specifically,,,, Trimax and 98 Wolfwood call Vash out on the fake smiles. But Tristamp Wolfwood doesn't, because most of the true smiles we see from Vash are directed at him. Or something. Idk i'm normal

Wolfwood has been holding the Punisher like this all episode, and it's ~~really cute~~ (Tristamp Wolfwood gives me awful cute aggression) but also,,, maybe self-soothing. Keeping the Punisher directly in front of himself as a shield. Looking out over Hopeland as the Punisher acts as a barrier.

White Girl Wasted :pensive:

Vash's hair looks like a little flower here :]

Annnnd Vash down for the count!

So there's so many things, always, to do with these episodes, and I will Not be stopping lmao

Thank y'all who left nice comments on my last analysis post, i'm glad everyone had fun reading it!

[orangerosebush]

(prefacing by saying I haven’t yet read the fowl twins series so maybe that fixes things but I don’t it) I’m forever salty about the real lack of time spent on exploring Artemis and Juliet’s whole dynamic, because in theory it would be so interesting!! The inherent tension between her being a Butler but also the only other person really near Artemis’ own age growing up could have led to some interesting character moments between them, and I feel like we just get nothing?? Even in TEC when she finally gets to join the main team I feel like she and Artemis barely interact!!

Not-so-fun fact: :( Juliet is not in the sequel series outside of the following sentence:

“In times like these Angeline missed the Butler family, who had been bodyguards to the Fowls for centuries, but Artemis had swept one Butler off to Mars with him, and the other was in the United States pursuing a career as a professional wrestler.”

TFT: Deny All Charges

There are a few things that strike me about Juliet's character -- many of which are related to why she's tricky to slot into the narrative after TEC. The Fowl-Butler contract is interesting to think about RE: Artemis and Juliet as the next generation of each respective family.

While continuing the family legacy places particular burdens on Artemis, one must note that continuing the family legacy places the specific burden of subservience on Juliet. Her dreams would necessarily be put on hold for a Fowl.

After the first book, Colfer realizes that leaning too far into certain aspects of the Fowl-Butler historical dynamic reads as strange-to-troubling for a book set in the 21st century.

At least in the English version of the books (I cannot remember how this is handled in the French translation), Butler only calls Artemis "young master Fowl" in the first book.

Now, the lack of an explicit title does not change that functionally, Artemis occupies a certain station in contrast to the station Butler occupies. But it is at least a gesture at smoothing over parts of the Fowl and Butler dynamic that beg questions the books are not equipped to explore.

As such, just as Butler's dynamic throughout the series with Artemis does not allow for the narrative possibility of Butler starting a family (resulting in Artemis being supplanted by Butler's biological child as the focus of Butler's life), so too does Juliet's status as a Butler place her in a strange place narratively.

On the one hand, Colfer has Juliet choose her own aspirations over her status as a Butler in TEC; Juliet disappears from the later books to pursue her dream of wrestling in America.

Yet on the other hand, Juliet is pulled back into her role as a Butler when the twins are born -- albeit as "nanny" rather than bodyguard (though... much could be said about the emotional role Butler plays being more demanding than the physical role).

We do get some insights into how Artemis and Juliet relate to one another, early series, outside of Artemis' role as Butler's employer. There's this scene in the first book:

“'See to it, Juliet. To the letter.’ ‘Yes, Arty.’ Artemis frowned, but only slightly. For reasons that he couldn’t quite fathom, he didn’t mind terribly when Juliet called him by the pet name his mother had for him.”

I specify "early series", as, well -- I have to think that the way Juliet relates to Artemis would shift after Artemis:

Gets Butler shot (TLC)

Goes missing for 3 years in a way that is mildly traumatizing for Butler

Results in Butler having a heart attack (TTP) (“Butler had enough strength for three words. “Go…to…hell.” Then he clutched at his arm and collapsed. “Oops,” said Opal. “Heart attack. I broke him.”)

Uses Juliet to get to Butler when Artemis has the Complex

Results in Butler having another heart attack (TLG) (“He’s okay,” [Holly] panted. “But that bolt stopped his heart for a while. If it hadn’t been for the Kevlar in his chest…”Holly didn’t finish her sentence, but Artemis knew that his bodyguard had escaped death by a whisker for the umpteenth time, and umpteen was the absolute limit of the number of extra lives handed out by the universe to any one person. “His heart will never be the same, Artemis. No more shenanigans. He’s going to be out for hours,” said Holly, checking the fuselage’s porthole.”)

Dies again in a way that is moderately-to-very traumatizing for Butler (TLG)

[makethatelevenrings]

Hawkie Talkie // S. Riley x gn!disabled!reader

Requested? Yes!

Warnings: gun violence, blood, canon typical violence, reader is in a wheelchair which shouldn’t be a “warning” per se but just so any able-bodied bitches get bent out of shape you can’t say I didn’t warn you, swearing but it’s COD so

Summary: When the base you’re at is overrun with hostiles, Ghost is especially concerned about their intelligence officer. You’re fine, aside from your jokes.

Frankly, you could do without the ear splitting alarm that was shrieking through the base. Yeah, yeah, it was to alert that hostiles were active and encroaching on the base, but it was also really fucking distracting.

You pushed your wheelchair towards your door and locked it before moving back to your desk. Pulling open the desk drawer on your right, you grabbed the slim plastic case you were looking for and opened it to reveal a small comms unit. The earpiece settled in your ear and you strapped the collar around your throat before turning it on. Voices immediately assaulted your already battered ears and you winced.

“I take it there’s a slight problem?” you quipped. Your fingers flew over the keys in front of you as you pulled up a map of the base with coordinating CCTV.

“Hawk,” Simon’s voice came over the comms, every bit sharp and dark. You had to remind yourself that he wasn’t your Simon at that moment, but Ghost. “How copy?”

“Office is secured and from what I can tell, no hostiles nearby. Same cannot be said for you, Gaz. Two coming in from the left.”

Two shots reverberated through the comms and you smirked. Hawk, they called you, due to you being the eyes of the operation. An intelligence officer contracted by Laswell to work for the 141, you made sure they got the information they needed before and during their missions coupled with any threat assessments and cyber security. Being in a wheelchair might restrict you from being in the field, but your job proved to be a lot more important.

“Who are these guys?” you asked. “Let me rephrase that, who the fuck did you all piss off enough?”

Soap snorted at your question. “Looks like some remnants of AQ trying to get revenge.”

“Hawk, do you have a visual on the whole base?” Price interrupted.

“Have had it up since the alarms sounded, Captain. What do you need to know?”

“How many hostiles and where?”

Your eyes scanned over the screen, correlating the data with the cameras. “Twenty-six active hostiles. Looks like they started with forty, four groups of ten attacking from each direction. Ghost, you’ve got three on your tail.”

“I’m heading your way,” the phantom snapped.

“Negative, Lieutenant. I’m fine.” Truly, you were. Your office was near the heart of the base so you were decently far from the action and the pistol in your desk drawer would help out if anyone did get past the rampaging soldiers out there.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Worried about me, Ghost? Price, two heading your way on your left.”

“Less flirting you two,” Price said before gunfire erupted over his end. You waited for it to subside before you changed your cameras to focus on Soap’s location. Shit. Ghost was handling the northern quadrants, Gaz and Price to the south, and Soap was on east. That left the west undefended.

“The west quadrant is unprotected. Anyone able to engage?”

“Give me five minutes,” Gaz shouted. You watched as a diamond formation started making their way to the heart of the base.

Towards you.

“Hawk, get out of there,” Ghost barked. You opened your bottom drawer and opened your gun safe. As you checked the ammo and turned the safety off, you scoffed at Ghost’s suggestion.

“Yeah, let me just roll myself into the middle of a shootout. That sounds like a brilliant idea. I thought you were supposed to be an expert strategist.”

You could hear the echoes of gunfire in the distance and it wasn’t just over the comms. Flipping the lights off of your office, you quickly set your monitors to sleep in hopes that it would look as though your office was unoccupied. You pushed your wheelchair back, sliding up against the back wall. Your gun sat in your lap on top of the little blanket covered in Casper the Friendly Ghost that a certain Mancunian gifted you.

“Hawk,” Ghost hissed. “I’m close to your location.”

“Yeah, well, so are they.”

You could hear the other offices next to yours being raided. The 141 wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight, but they had elected to stay late to wait for you while you finished up some paperwork before you headed to the pub. Dumb fucking luck.

For these motherfuckers, that is.

The handle of your door rattled and you steadied your hand on the grip of your pistol. The glass next to the door shattered but you didn’t flinch. A hand reached through and unlocked the door.

The second it opened, you laid the leader out with a single shot to the head. Gunfire erupted at random from the next two, but you dispatched them cleanly. A strangled gurgle and choking sound came from the final man and his body was dumped onto the ground with a knife clearly sticking out of his neck.

There he stood, the phantom that haunted his enemies. Blood streaked across the armored part of his mask and splattered across his uniform. You offered him a smirk as you wheeled out from your hiding place and glanced down at the corpses around you.

“You good?” you asked. His chest heaved with a heavy breath and he strode forward, yanking the edge of his mask up to rest across the bridge of his nose. Ghost bent down and his glove curled around your jaw, forcing your face up, and collided his lips with yours. It bordered more on the edge of pain than pleasure as your teeth clashed and tongues battled for domination. He groaned into your mouth and you grinned wickedly. Only you could pull those noises from him.

Without looking, you raised your gun and fired over Simon’s shoulder, directly hitting the hostile who aimed to sneak up on you. He collapsed into a pool of his own blood and Ghost finally pulled away to look at your latest victim.

“Jesus bloody H. Christ, love,” he grunted. Ghost tugged his mask back down and studied the path to the door. He quickly nudged the bodies out of the way so you had a clean path out of the office to follow him out.

“Hawk good?” Soap asked over the comms.

“Hawk’s bloody fucking brilliant, that’s what,” Ghost grunted.

“Hey guys, what type of phone does a hawk use?” you quipped as you followed Ghost out. “A hawkie talkie.”

Simultaneous groans erupted over the comms, but it did nothing to lessen your shit eating grin. Price muttered something about transferring you to Antarctica, but you ignored them all. You just glanced at the goliath of a man beside you, seeing his mask move with his muted laughter.

[aconstantstateofbladerunner]

Something I really appreciate about your writing is that you make the kids feel like actual teenagers. I have to ask, how do you get the characterization down when your writing? It's something I struggle to do, even when I go back to the original source.

Going back to the original source is a good start. Characterization goes deeper than simply ‘this character is nice’ or ‘this character is funny.’ Let’s look at Izuku for example. He’s kind and smart, but so are several other students. Something specific to him is that he doesn’t have much of a sense of humor; he doesn’t tell any jokes and rarely laughs at those made by others. Compare this to someone like Uraraka, who occasionally makes teasing comments about her friends, versus Sero or Mina who make jokes at the expense of their classmates pretty often. Back to Izuku, this fact about him contributes to a general sense of his social awkwardness, which my writing interprets in a few additional ways. I feel like his lack of humor and awkwardness would extend to trouble with nicknames, giving or receiving, further evidenced by his struggling in canon to call Tsuyu by the nicknames she wants to be called by. Kacchan on the other hand is out of habit, which combined with his issues visualizing One for All as a part of himself early on indicates he has a hard time breaking habits once he’s set on them. Even the fact that it took him so long to realize that he could adopt a kicking fight style is more evidence of this. And then a reoccurring feature in my fics is that Izuku isn’t a touchy-freely person. There’s not much evidence in canon for this, except that despite him and his Mom being close, they don’t touch often. This might not actually be the case, but that’s part of where my idea came from, and it fits back into that awkwardness. Little things like that can say a lot about a character and how they approach different situations.

As for writing teenagers in general, a common mistake i see in both fic and original content is the assumption that all you need to write believable teenagers is to throw in a bunch of modern slang and references. Think Riverdale, bad crack fics, and 90s anti-drug PSAs. Not only is this often handled poorly (incorrect slang use or misjudged references) it also quickly dates the writing. Memes can take years to reach big names in the entertainment industry, and then it takes another few years for a movie featuring those memes to come out. By then, the meme is dead and cringe. In this day and age, memes can have a much shorter shelf life, living and dying within a week. Even if you release an fic chapter during the peak of a meme’s life cycle, it’s only going to be funny to the people who read it then and there; everyone who jumps on the fic later will just cringe. And there’s no way to tell which ones with have the staying power of something like a rickroll or a classic vine.

The solution: don’t do this. Avoid overusing slang and meme speak, and instead implement more general/timeless dialogue. Slang like ‘dude’ has been in the lexicon long enough that it feels normal, and while ‘mood’ and ‘vibe’ are fairly new, they aren’t as obtrusive as ‘bae’ which is falling out of style, or ‘boomer’ which references a specific group of people. Basically, the more general and common, the better. And keep the time period of your story in mind; MHA for example takes place at least a century in the future, why would the kids of that era still be complaining about boomers? Teenagers still act immaturely sometimes and make jokes, but try and find the humor in the specific situation of the story rather than quoting something else. Teens are also more openly casual than adults. Teasing, touching, maybe saying something rude or inappropriate. One simple way to convey casual speech is to use more contractions; i.e. ‘can’t’ instead of ‘cannot’ or ‘we’re gonna’ instead of ‘we are going to.’ This is my advice for all dialogue: read it to yourself outloud and ask if it sounds like something a real person would actually say. Exaggeration is also good. ‘My life is over!’ when their crush doesn’t like them back, or a big group groan at a pop quiz.

As for the internal experience of being a teenager, the thing i remember most about being that age in the tension between suddenly being expected to be ready for things and take care of myself when i didn’t feel ready, but still being treated like a dumb child in other ways i thought i was ready for. You start understanding more things when you get older and want people to take you seriously as a result, but you’re also insecure about the things you don’t understand and maybe overcompensate. In short, being a teenager comes with a lot of confusing, frustrating changes, some of which are absolutely unfair, but there are a few you genuinely bring upon yourself.

Hope this helps you get started. If not, or you have other questions, the ask box is always open.

[irish-urn]

Battle of the Bands

I can't help it, I adore Sheldon. I am a Schleppette.

Sam, being the realist to Derek's dreams. I do like that Derek needs a right hand man to remind him of, like, reality.

Sheldon wants to be liked by Derek SO BAD. I cannot blame him. Also, Casey looked SO PRETTY just then and I cannot blame Sam for being sad.

I can't believe they're actually practicing in front of the family. I already have second-hand embarrassment. Although, I guess this is what starts LWL Derek's career, huh?

he's not the absolute worst but it's not great.

"Yeah it was awesome when you all stopped playing." Lizzie, I adore you.

(I forgot how cute Ralph is??? DOES HE HAVE PIERCED EARS???)

Derek's little offended nostril flare when Casey says they're awful. What a drama bean. And now he doesn't want to sing because he's self conscious WHAT A LITTLE SOOK.

HE REALLY CAN'T USE CHOPSTICKS. THAT'S KICKING HIM WHEN HE'S DOWN.

EDWIN AS THEIR MANAGER IS THE BEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN.

POOR DEREK. he just wants a cool band to remind people that he's still cool after the DISASTER that was Class President elections. And his family is unsupportive, his friends are distracted, and his only choice... Is Casey. Who makes his life incredibly difficult AND DEFINITELY ISN'T COOL.

Lizzie I adore you playing Casey's agent. THEY HAVE CONTRACTS. WHAT LOSERS.

I love Ralph. He is loving watching Derek and Casey fight. Sam is used to this show and is just happy to munch. I respect you, Sam Richards.

Lizzie is the MVP of the episode.

IT'S SO SLOW. I CANNOT HANDLE THIS. IT WAS A BAD SONG.

I adore Paul. So much. He's so good at his job.

Aw dude. Derek you look so scared. And Casey wants so badly to do the right thing whatever that is.

Derek's FACE. HIS FACE. I always thought he was checking her out, but I think it's more SUCH RELIEF. He was absolutely terrified. He was Puking. He thought he was just going to be a screw up again, but this time in front of the whole school and Casey SAVED HIM. CASEY SAVED HIS BUTT.

This is even worse than finding her hot. This includes FEELINGS.

🎶Sheldon you're a star🎶 Your song is no better or worse than D-Rock's.

I really wanna know who did Derek's makeup. Marti? Maybe?

Okay, I need to take a moment to talk about how well they handled the Sam and Casey thing. They both obviously just... Genuinely like each other as people, even if they know they don't work as a couple. But there's a lot of awkwardness and bruised feelings, but they WANT to be friends. And I'm so proud of both of them for talking it out.

I also love how, at the end, Derek and Casey are just chatting and talking like equals, like friends, both annoyed that they lost to Sheldon because they are incredibly competitive, but neither blaming the other because they know they did their best. And then them both getting the hell out of lame-ass dodge and the family jam session... Like: it's a glimpse of what they COULD be.

also, was it just me, or did the camera angles make Derek VERY tall compared to Casey in this episode? Sometimes they have them look almost the same height, putting them at the same level, but there were quite a few scenes where their 5-inch height difference was VERY CLEAR. I don't know what that means, but it means something... A reminder? That this is Derek's thing, not Casey? Hm... Something to think about.

[houxe]

The Problem with writing Sentient Characters that Like being considered as Pets, Objects, Owned, etc.

TW for discussion of slavery, oppression, suicide, mentions of SA, and abuse.

It took me some time to really admit out loud to someone why this troupe is so bad and harmful, and now that it’s finally off my chest, I want to make a post about it.

I don’t have much influence in the writing world, but this is the least I can do to get people to hopefully understand.

As the title states, there’s a big issue with writing sentient characters (sentient as in on par with humans or whatever creature is ‘owning’ them) that like being pets, objects, owned, etc because it touches far too close to slavery or oppression acceptance.

As in people that like being enslaved or oppressed.

Now, I am not saying that this is every circumstance of a character liking this, nor am I talking about trauma writing, kink writing, or consensual objectification. Characters who know it’s wrong but are too broken down to fight back and the narrative treats it as something bad, dystopian writing, the character is choosing to be loyal but pet/object is used as an insult rather than them actually being a pet/object, or even a character of a different species not knowing the other character is sentient and later fix how they treat them, don’t fit into this category.

What I am talking about is writers who merely write this sort of thing because it's 'not real and it's fun' or it's 'interesting to play with' and have not faced this sort of trauma and don't see or care for the very real harm it can cause and the historical context of treating someone like this. Or those who also then proceed to go on in their notes, interviews, or whatever else, and say this treatment of someone is okay and fine or call it cute and infantilize the victims and abusers.

Characters who know they’re being kept like an animal or property or used by someone or by a corporation like they're an object for entertainment and are fine with it because they ‘they’re happy with it eventually and get to do whatever they want’ or ‘they’re treated well as long as they obey their ‘owners’!' or even 'but they're loved by their 'owners'!', and the narrative treats it as something good and it's very blatantly not consensual objectification, are a problem. This adds up even more when everyone in the story and, again, authors outside of the story, dismisses it as something that isn't bad. Like the Fifty Shades of Gray author.

You cannot treat someone or something that's as sentient as you, like this. It's abuse, it's extremely damaging, and even if you say you 'love' them, you don't. Because if you did, you wouldn't be treating them like this and thinking it's okay or it's fine because they eventually start liking it. Sentient creatures on par with humans (or whatever sentient creature you're using as the 'owner': like a fae, god or alien 'owning' a human, dragon keeping another dragon as an object in their hoard, witch forcing sentient familiars into abusive contracts against their will, etc) cannot handle this kind of treatment. Historically they have often killed themselves, or others, because of it.

It's literally excusing fantasy racism/slavery/dehumanization to a T.

There's a difference between species having different morals amongst themselves, or rival species disliking each other, compared to being racist and oppressing/enslaving or owning an entire species (or even their own species) that's just as smart as them.

Whilst I understand that this writing is fiction and people like writing dark subjects (I do too, believe me, you can see my work), there are limits to what you can write that can be dismissed under fiction/dark fiction and this 'character is fine with being a pet or property' subject is not one of them.

This is very different from stuff that's messy, or toxic; or something like enemy to lovers, dysfunctional, Stockholm-like relationships, etc.

Why? Because being treated like a pet or property has massive and historical ties to slavery and oppression, (look up the disgusting 'breeding' they'd do create more enslaved people or the 'human zoos' that only ended in the 1960s) and as I said before there is a lot of historical and current context to treating people, especially minorities, like animals. Writing a character who’s okay with being treated like that, because they come to like their position eventually and are 'treated well and 'loved', or get what they want', is damaging to a large group of communities and it is something that continues to affect them to this day.

Enslaved people were not the only ones to be treated like this, either. Many communities (people with disabilities, people of color, and people with genetic conditions) were treated like this constantly and still are.

It's harmful to write like this. Especially when writing characters in such position (pet, object, etc.), to be in a sexual relationship with their 'owner'. (And not in a kink or consensual objectification way, that's not what I'm talking about here.)

Do not do that. It is literally SA. There are many real life stories of enslaved people and people without power being forced to please their abusers in such a way and, almost always, whatever children they unfortunately had were still enslaved and owned like property or sent away or killed. It's not cute, it's not some dark interesting thing to write and play with just because it's fun, it's extremely harmful and should not be something written and toned down with different words or portrayed as 'fine' or 'they're a different species so it's not the same' or 'they like it eventually' in any sort of way.

This goes double when you're writing from the abuser's perspective and are actively humanizing them (the abusers) and having them dismiss what they're doing or talking about it like their victims are just cute little things they keep for fun and that 'it's fine' or 'it's different because they're not the same (species, skin color, clan, etc.)'.

There are limits to what can be romanticized, and this behavior is not one of them.

Just recently there was a large creator online, on TikTok, spouting off bullshit about how they’re sure that ‘some slaves liked being kept as slaves’ and writing content where a character likes being kept as a pet or object is only adding to that rhetoric.

Especially when literal governments and hate groups are actively trying to rewrite history to make slavery and this type of 'ownership' and oppression not seem as bad as it actual was.

It is dangerous.

And what a lot of people don’t understand, or don’t know about, is that victims of slavery, oppression, people with disabilities, etc, were kept as pets and animals (human zoos, slavery 'breeding' done on plantations, court dwarves, etc.) because they weren't viewed as equals and being a slave already dehumanized them into an animal or property.

People have too specific of a view on what slavery and oppression actually is and as such, don't point it out when it's being shown.

There are multiple accounts in history of slavers or kings keeping people who were 'different' as pets or items of entertainment (like Eugenia Martínez Vallejo, Sarah Baartman, etc.), and perpetuating the idea that someone is ‘happy’ or ‘fine’ with that just because it’s fiction or under a different name than slavery or oppression and ‘they like it eventually’ or 'they're loved though' or 'they're different species, they think differently', is wrong and harmful.

It’s literally like writing the house elves in Harry Potter. It’s saying the same thing. ‘They’re happy to do everything in a house, they don’t need money! They like it!’ or 'They're not human though, they think differently so they like it!' Those are slaves, they are talked about like property, like animals, and have you noticed so many people defending it because J.K. Rowling doesn’t outright call it slavery? Yeah, that’s why writing someone as a pet, object, etc and having them genuinely like it, or 'it’s normal for them', or 'they’ll be okay with it eventually', is a problem.

And you are a part of the problem if you can’t accept that some of what you’re writing does have an influence on people and that it’s damaging and hurtful to many communities. (Like, look at what Fifty Shades of Gray did to the BDSM community.) Especially when it comes from, and is reflective of, a very real and disgusting practice that killed millions of people and still does.

Again, I'm not talking about writers who portray this to help with their trauma or write it in a kink type of fashion.

But if you are someone who's doing this just because it's 'fun to play with' and 'it's not real' or 'it doesn't affect anyone'? Well, it says far too much about you if you’re comfortable with this cute 'master' and their happy 'pet/object' and cannot see how dangerous that sort of writing is. Or at the very least, how it is far too close to slavery and oppression than anyone should be comfortable with.

Obviously, I’m not saying it’s you’re fault if you just don’t know. Unfortunately our world is full of biases, people who have not lived through this trauma, and is more intent on erasing history instead of teaching it. But these kinds of subjects (pet, object, etc.) are things that you have to tie into the real world, they do not exist in a vacuum, and you have understand the consequences and impact it can have on readers.

This kind of dehumanization is happening in the real world to many communities who are at risk because of rhetoric like this. You can’t negate the affects and damage of doing this to someone just because it’s ‘fiction’ when this fiction is dangerous. There are certain subjects in writing fiction where you can’t just ignore the huge historical and current context they have.

It's like trying to write a character enjoying SAed (Not talking about CNC) and that should never be written as something 'okay' because it's 'fiction' or 'fun to play with' when it's such a prevalent and disgusting issue in the real world.

Fiction has been well documented to affect people's perception of reality for a very long time. It is a well known phenomenon. It's quite literally why there is so much backlash whenever people stereotype ethnicities in books, shows, media, etc.

So why is it different to write other dark/messy themes as fine but not stuff like this?

Because toxic, dysfunctional, Stockholm-like relationships do not have the historical and current context that are specific to oppressing many communities like pet/object does. Nor do these themes reflect and spread the rhetoric that a large groups of people, even fucking governments, in real life genuinely want slavery, oppression, and dehumanization to return for people of color, people with disabilities, people with genetic conditions, houseless people, etc.

They do not continue to normalize something that is already very normalized and perpetuated against many marginalized communities to this day.

Other dark troupes are not normalized like this is real life.

Murder, kidnapping, Stockholm Syndrome, hostage situations, etc, are all things the majority know are bad and are taught to be bad. Some of them can even have good reasons for why they're being done. However things like slavery, oppression, keeping someone as a pet/object, and treating someone as an animal or object, are things many people don't believe are bad nor are they taught that it's bad and are typically targeted towards marginalized communities. There is also never a good reason to treat someone like this unless it's their personal accommodation (kinks, mental health, consensual objectification, etc.) and something they agreed to rather than something they like 'eventually'.

These kinds of abuse are things that our own governments condone and even help support. To the point where the people who want to see these communities as 'less than' are, as I stated earlier, actively trying to change history to say the communities forced into this position had 'benefited' from their abuse.

It's extremely dangerous and extremely tone deaf to write like this when it's a growing thought process of many people in real life.

It's why no one thinks Debbie Grayson and Omni-Man's relationship from 'Invincible' is 'fine' and is actively treated with disgust when he admits to loving her like a pet, even when he treated her well. Especially when you tie in the historical context of how Asian women are often fetishized and dehumanized into objects for pleasure because they're 'obedient'.

It's just not a something to write as 'good' or 'eventually liked'.

Again, troupes like enemies to lovers, forced proximity, fake relationships, kidnapping, hostage situations, villains/heroes, Stockholm syndrome, etc, are not as problematic to write because all of them do not help spread rhetoric and carelessly diminish the very real harm and historical context of treating people like animals. Especially when it's something that is still affecting communities today.

In fact, for those who don't know, Stockholm syndrome actually originated in a 1973s bank robbery, because the victims of it got their attackers to humanize them. To be equals. Their attackers even protected them from getting hurt, once they got to know them, or accidentally shot by police, even when their hostages were freed.

The police in Stockholm made up the entire syndrome as a way to blame the victims who were, rightfully, pissed at their incompetence and having to be protected by the robbers instead of the police. Stockholm Syndrome is not even a real syndrome yet people often mischaracterize it anyways lol.

Though note, this does not mean I agree with their actions, this is merely to point out the difference between Stockholm syndrome and treating someone like a pet/object, because some people assume they're same thing, when they're very much not.

This is just to show how one of them (obviously Stockholm syndrome) didn't and doesn't continue harm entire communities. Because while yes, Stockholm syndrome is often used in dehumanizing pet/object stories, the two actually should not coincide. Which is why it's not such a problematic issue to write Stockholm syndrome or dysfunctional relationships/dark topics similar to it (Forced proximity, etc), like it is to write a character that enjoys being treated like an animal or property. It's not spreading rhetoric, especially when it's based on learning to view someone as an equal in a poor situation.

This is even a direct quote from one of the attackers who had a hand in creating the term:

'--They [the hostages] made it hard to kill. They made us go on living together day after day, like goats, in that filth. There was nothing to do but get to know each other.’

This is humanizing someone. It is not the same as keeping someone as a pet or property because the abusers/'owners' in those situations do not humanize their victims. That is literally why they're treated like that, they're not viewed as equals no matter how many 'luxuries' or 'privileges' they get. No matter the fact that they're 'able to do whatever they want' for obeying, or how much 'love' they're given.

They are not equals to the ones 'owning' them. They are viewed as objects of pleasure and amusement. To them, it is literally like spoiling a dog by giving them gifts or letting them run around.

Pet literally means: 'a domestic or tamed animal kept for companionship or pleasure.'

You do not tame people. That's an absolutely crazy thing to say.

As I've stated before, just to drive the point home, this isn’t like writing other dark/messy themes (true enemies to lovers, Stockholm syndrome, fake relationships, etc.) and you should be checking the historical context when writing about certain subjects (like you would when writing goblins or ogres or gnomes because of the historical context of antisemitism, racism, and the fetishization of little people in fantasy).

Other dark, messy, toxic themes do not have historical ties to such a specific abuse and dehumanizing multiple marginalized communities that still damage those groups to this day.

Writing someone that likes being a pet or property and is clearly not writing Consensual Objectification/kinks is like writing 'The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas'. No character would have fun or enjoy being in a concentration camp where they killed the children first, nor should you humanize Nazis. Just like you shouldn't humanize slavers and oppressors. And by humanize, I don't mean talking about them like they're human (they are and that's a scary truth), I mean using instances like 'it's normal in their world so it's not bad' or 'it's how they love they can't help it' or 'it's from their trauma so it's not bad' as a reason to excuse and diminish the awful thing that they're doing.

Hundreds of thousands of people have killed themselves because they’ve been treated like animals and property. Don’t ignore that and say ‘the character likes it!’ or ‘they’re okay with it because they're loved and can do whatever they want as long as they listen!’ or ‘they’re being treated well though so it’s fine!’ or even ‘but they like be treated like this later! They just didn’t like it in the beginning!’ just because you’re reading or writing fiction. All you’re doing by saying this or writing it into the story is perpetuating a harmful thought process that we’ve seen convince people that it’s fine (the house elves from Harry Potter).

Especially because it's a dehumanizing rhetoric that, again, is spreading rabidly in the real world right now.

Obviously I don’t think this will get very far nor will everyone agree with my opinion, but I do hope people who write this stuff in my community and other communities, realize the damage they’re doing by writing this and dismissing it because the character ‘likes being a pet/object’ or ‘they’re being treated well by their 'owner' so it’s fine’ or 'they're a different species though, it's not the same.'

Treating someone like a pet or an object stems from extreme, generational abuse, oppression, and slavery of many marginalized communities, something they're still feeling the affects of, and it shouldn’t be dumbed down into softer words and dismissed or brushed off because ‘it’s fiction/dark fiction’ or 'but they're different species so it's not the same' or even ‘everyone in the story treats it as fine and the ‘owned’ character is treated nicely/loved so they’re okay with it.’

Humans, minorities, are not animals. They are not property. There is a difference between something like treating someone like this for their own personal accommodation, and treating someone like this just because you can or because you think it's 'interesting' or 'fun' to play with. Again, you need to remember the historical context of things like this.

Your writing and your thought processes are hurting a large group of people. You are not in a vacuum.

It is my hope that by talking about this and pointing it out, we can start to notice the damage we may be causing without realizing it and hopefully write in a way that isn't so reflective and promoting of a harmful rhetoric that has been growing.

So please, do research before writing topics like these.

Even if you think writing this does no harm, that just unfortunately isn't the case.

Also, again, to clarify just in case: this is not talking about trauma or kink/fantasy or consensual objectification writing in any sort of way. If you write this subject because of a kink or trauma you are valid and not who I'm talking about.

As usual, do not attack anyone who does write this, this post isn't for that intention nor censorship. It is merely to spread awareness and discussion to grow as a community. People are more than free to write what they want, but sharing how some plots and ideas can be harmful is important to learn.

Remember, just because something isn't censored, doesn't mean it's free of consequence or harm.

(EDIT: Also I tend to edit this often so the wording isn't censorship promotion or too reactive and/or personal (as someone who is disabled lmao), so this is just a PSA!)

[karla-the-elemental-dreamer]

Enter Young Cricket (DG)

If anyone saw the showcase cards that I made for my dream guides (DGs), Young Cricket is included in them. What is going on here?

Young Cricket's entrance, and journey since his time of entry is an interesting story to tell. TBH I never would have chosen him, but this is how he got 'magnetised' to me:

---

It all started on the 8th of May when my family were seeing grandma off at the airport. Riku went and was a strong figure that night. 18-Volt isn't a DG these days, but he decided to tag along too. Terra was weak at the time, but I still wanted him to energetically help me out. He couldn't make it. His Warioware replacements at the time were Kat and Ana, but I thought 'how are they going to handle all this'? I didn't expect them to show up, let alone anyone from Warioware... Enter Young Cricket.

Riku led the charge, 18-Volt just moseyed along in Jak's place. Young Cricket started communicating with Riku and asking to be filled in on what was going on. What's with this sudden interest? He stated to Riku that he was told by Master Mantis that they needed some help.

What narrative was Master Mantis cooking up to Cricket, and what was Master Mantis hiding from him? As the story goes on, it will be made apparent that Mantis volunteered and signed up Cricket to be a dream guide. However, I thought it was only legal to have 3 slots as I didn't want to break any spiritual contracts of greed over over-possession or anything else construed as materialism unless viewed on compassionate grounds. I guess this story also goes to show how God surprises and blesses us in ways we least expect.

Now, back to the actual story. After the 8th of May, I wrote in my book to ask Cricket what was going on, but he didn't communicate with me very clearly, or it's like he was apprehensive about something.

Also, with how Jak got super aggressive in 2023, I said that there would now be a formal application process if any dream guides wanted to pile on... So that they cannot make the excuse "I didn't sign up for this! This is not what I wanted!".

There are three imaginative recruitment exercises I devised for Young Cricket, to prepare and then present in-front of a panel of 3: Riku - The lead DG atm. And he loves me so much, he just casually slid into a sort of HR role. Selvian - Lead teddy commander with a sharp spirit. Reminds me of Mantis and is an INFJ just like him. Dreamy WB - Sole female DG since 2017 and was the leader before Riku. Still assumes herself as de-facto leader and Maternal face of the Astral. She and Riku get along quite well now. Real WB -> ESFP. Dreamy WB has ended up as an ESFJ.

The 3 recruitment exercises for Young Cricket were: 1 - Main Interview 2 - Written piece rebuking specific parties; willingness to be on the 'right side of history'. 3 - His results from the test on 16personalities.com

Despite Cricket really not knowing what was going on, and not wanting to do anything, he did exceptionally well during his interview on the 13th of May, and with his homework.

Dreamy WB said no, but Riku and Selvian said yes. He passed.

Also, this will serve as an integral part of the story going forward. Cricket got ISFJ. I would have never chosen Cricket due to him being an ISFJ: On a get-along chart I found on the internet, that no longer exists, apparently ISFJ were amongst the bottom 3. I have also been very receptive/sensitive to the negative aspects from all 4 ISFJs I know in my life; including trust issues with one. So I have been quite damaged by ISFJs up to this point. (I apologise to all the ISFJs reading this 😅. If there are good ones (/non-temperamental) out there, feel free to provide evidence)

Now looking at Young Cricket, he's a hot-headed Aries, Chinese ISFJ. What a combo. Aaaand apparently he's terrible (incompetent) around girls.

---

So come 14 MAY, he 'got the job'. But the next two months would be far from easy.

He'd be slacking off in a sense, not really doing anything. And when I would try to have any sort of communication with him, he'd either withdraw, or if he couldn't, then he'd lose his temper.

As the weeks went on, Cricket would sort of apologise, but those were short-lived with further outbursts. There were also unfortunately times where Cricket would suggest that he'd rather a boy than a girl, or would just be outright annoyed with me. Or he would ask why I was a certain way, or why I couldn't do xxx. I would explain to him in my writing book why this was so, and even tried to offer some compromises, but he would refuse to listen completely and just fly off the handle every time, trying to yell out towards his Master about why he got put with me. It sadly got to a point where Cricket was exuding narcissism, and the cycle of outbursts was quite vicious, with apologies being quick, but next to nil-impact. Riku and Selvian both had to deal with him on a regular basis to honour Master Mantis' request but prevent any real damage from being done to me.

The effects of the June Full Moon began to occur on June 19. Here, Cricket was able to witness some horrible events between my dad (the ISFJ I lack/lacked trust with) and I, and the fallout of it. It seems like Cricket understood what was going on, but again, his chronic anger and now apparent egoic weakness always got the better of him. Despite learning what NOT to do as an ISFJ, Cricket still cracked it with me when it came to his own issues with me, and was damaging me.

Come July, the outbursts and damage from Cricket were getting quite severe. Because as I'd shock him with some truth, his ego would retaliate. And my integral DG team as well as myself decided that enough was enough. Cricket was sent to the teddy therapist, Josephine, for professional help.

Here, Cricket came to learn more secrets about me, in which he also started to question his behaviour towards me more seriously. This is also when Master Mantis finally stepped in and decided to break the news to Cricket, as he was obviously on the brink of failure. Cricket was told why Master Mantis signed him up, and the outcomes he had hoped for Cricket to achieve.

His Master talking to him and revealing everything was the nail in the coffin for Cricket, and was the thing that eliminated his ego. The combination of Cricket being spoken to by Mantis, as well as learning about me being on the 'spectrum' and what that was, and that Cricket had significantly damaged my heart and soul is what made him break down from shock and pretty much enter his first proper major Dark Night of the Soul.

End of the first week of July and the day of Therapy, the wounds were still fresh, so I decided to send Cricket 'home' for the week around 15 July. I did not want Cricket being caught out by extremely bad rumoured energies and doing some 'square 1' things again. He was tasked to learn about me further, rest, and work on himself.

His absence only lasted for under 2 days before he came back... 13 July. Cricket DOES only listen to his Master, but this made him again see the reality of the whole situation. Cricket said he couldn't leave me for a whole week after all the terrible things he's done, and that he admitted he'd just be running away from his problems (like he was doing from 13 May - 13 Jul).

Since coming back on the 13th and committing himself, Cricket has not had one single outburst, and has been rather patient and even properly affectionate as a DG. It's unfortunate that his first real task is getting me through a cold/flu.

---

It has been realised that Cricket had/has the following purposes as to why he was sent to go with me: - To have a chance at redemption for the 'New Earth'. He will finally achieve 'mastery' lol. - To know how to deal with girls AND relax around them. - To expand his social circle beyond just Master Mantis. - To learn what it's like to be a teacher and have his own 'student' (even if not to teach Kung Fu) - To learn about others like him (ISFJ) >> Esp. seeing his weaknesses in others. - To break the ISFJ curse in my field.

[plethoraworldatlas]

I'm really over all this weird hate Lin Manuel Miranda has started getting. Like, he's not perfect, some of his work is very phoned in just for a paycheck or part of a contract, and yeah he should be criticized for the times he's fumbled or worse about racism, but a lot of the criticism this website is throwing at him is just off the mark. Like, you absolutely cannot deny the impact he's had on theater, Pop Culture, recent music, etc.; Of course, people do try and minimize or flat out deny any impact he's had, and they flat out have to lie or misrepresent reality to do it. Hamilton, while obviously worthy of its criticism, definitively made an impact with race blind casting and emphasizing diversity; It's not fully his fault Disney remakes saw people liked race-blind casting once and decided all their remakes have it now regardless of the legitimate criticisms he got from it. Speaking of remakes, a lot of Tumblr people hating on him hard-core right now are specifically hating on him in relation to the Little Mermaid remake, and... I hate to defend it, but Tumblr should really understand by now that not everyone is hating on an admittedly bad remake for the same reason, and in this case a lot of them are hating on it for very obviously racist reasons, and yet because they share a hate for LMM, people just reblog without looking, and now tons of Leftist or Progressive Tumblrs are regularly reblogging Lite to big time racist/fascist Tumblrs. Like, come on, isn't this website the one where everyone was all smug about not falling for "obvious" Right Wing Pipelines? Look, they guy is earnest and imperfect, and I've never really cared about him before now, simply because I recognized the flagrantly stupid "He WaS nEvEr GoOd" takes and recognized the pipeline that was coming because of Little Mermaid. He's just a guy who made it big and kinda gets used a lot, and who works a lot because he likes music and really doesn't want to do anything that could mess up his dream projects; So he takes on some subpar projects for cash or because he's contractually obligated to, so many actors and artists do that, at least he still tries to make it fun. And, in regards to a lot of common criticism, he seems to genuinely be learning and actually trying to better himself and better showcase diversity and darker skinned characters in his work, he's trying which is a whole lot more than honestly most; He seemed to genuinely think the policies he supported for Puerto Rico would help but now he shows regret for supporting things that hurt it. Honestly, he's handling going from "hero of diverse storytelling and music who tries to help more diverse creativies" to "literally as bad as a fascist while also justifying people being racist towards him and calling it progressive" better than most would.

[implausiblyjosh]

Let's Play A Terrible Wrestling Video Game, TEW 2020

I've been feeling the call to play TEW 2020 again. This is a text-based pro wrestling management video game that just sucks so much ass. That screen you see above? That is the main window and it cannot be resized. Seriously, I'm fairly certain every menu in this game is just an image file with clickables put over it. Nightmarish.

Anyways, the cool thing is that people make their own mods for this game, either building up entire fictional wrestling universes (the game comes with it's own version of this, the CornellVerse, that has been building and changing with each entry) or mapping out the mod-makers approximation of the real world. Today, we're going to be making a new company using Real World Chronicles 2023, the June 2023 edition.

Anyways, let's start our save!

Now. I'm playing with a larger mod database, which means there's a lot of data to crunch, but like... this hangup happens anytime I play this game unless I'm playing an "organic" save (you start w/ the bare minimum in the database and let the game generate new stuff), but this always freaks me out.

Now we have to pick who we're playing as and folks... this list is a doozy.

Usually what I like to do is start with a created User Avatar (I think that's what this game calls player characters), where I set their stats up basically to the max but I never have them do in-ring work, usually just commentary. I... forgot to do that this time. I don't wanna back out, so I'm just gonna pick someone who is closest to me in age. In this case, I'm playing as Poppy who I guess has worked closely with WWE's NXT brand to make music for them??? She's 28, I'm 29, I've already imposed this rule on us.

The second thing we set is "User Talents". These traits (Negotiating, Motivating, Creativity, Leadership, Diplomacy, and Silver Tongue) will help and hinder us in certain ways, and we will get more points for every X number of shows we run. At the start we have 30 points, along with some template options. Usually I do not care about this and pick Jack of all Trades to get 5 across the board. But let's go full chaotic and do Lucky Dip. This will give every one of our stats a random number, so our total could be higher or lower than the initial 30.

That's... not great? So negotiating is maxxed out, which means we can really have our way in contract negotiations. Diplomacy is also high at 9, which means when incidents happen back stage we should be able to handle them better. Leadership of 5 is basically neutral, and would give us a passive bonus to backstage/locker room morale. Creativity of 3 is less than neutral, and handles Gimmick changes and Heel/Face turns. Silver Tongue at 1 is awful, that handles how we can talk workers into doing angles/matches they may not be jazzed about. Finally, Motivating is at 0 and this means our workers will likely have loads of "off" days. This is 28 points total, so we missed out on 2 points and the spread is bonkers. We cannot reroll this. We must move on.

Next thing we can tinker with is Preferences. This will impact how our matches and promos are rated, which impacts how our shows are rated, which impacts how our audience perceives us, and on and on. There's a lot here, but I keep it on "Standard" from the drop down and also add "Enable Dirt Sheet" since that will tell us what is providing positive or negative impacts on matches and promos. It'll really help us figure out what is or isn't working on our shows!

Now we could start with an already established company (WWE, Impact, AEW, etc) with this, but I always prefer to make my own way in the world. We will start as Unemployed and make our own company!

Here's our start screen. It's... a lot. This will be good to see when new wrestlers get generated, or when other companies go under or let go of people, but for right now we do not care about this. We care about the "Start Own Company" button. And I happened to throw together a logo and a name, so we should be good to set up True Power Wrestling. And it's time for yet another awful menu.

This used to be better and worse in some ways. In the last game, TEW 2016, you used to build your own product based on a handful of different axis ("Mainstream", "Realism", "Comedy", etc.) and how important they were to the types of shows you were putting on so you could fine-tune what you wanted your audience to care about, and what may or may not be fit for television. It was a worse menu, but allowed you some cool options to really make the product you always wanted. In TEW 2020, the devs have effectively laid out that people were "gaming" the product setting system, and there's only so many distinct types of wrestling that exist or could exist, so they've just made a drop-down of all the wrestling products they think are possible. If you have an idea for a product type you think is missing from the game you can ask nicely on the forums and they will maybe add it in a future update.

I'm not gonna go over what each and every product is, but I'm going to use the Family Friendly Pro Wrestling product you see above. In my mind I'm thinking "what if my idealized version of 90s/2000s Cartoon Network had a wrestling show". 70/30 Match and Promo split for TV shows, 85/15 for events, wrestlers are rated 30/70 on in-ring performance vs popularity, and we really want the matches to be family friendly. No high-risk moves, no spinal-impact moves, and "called in the ring" means that our workers will know how long a match needs to go and who's winning, but otherwise no other planning is happening.

Additionally, I'm starting under the "Rock Hard" conditions. This means our company will be barely known, have 0 prestige, and start w/ $2,500 in the bank. We will be changing that dollar amount soon, but I love to play "Backyard to Global" style where we start as complete unknowns and see how popular we can get before I run out of steam.

We have started True Power Wrestling. This will be our actual main screen, as this hellish menu will be how we make changes to our product. But first, let's see what the internet says Poppy's net worth is.

Uhhh I forgot how nightmarish those types of sites are, but the number I'm getting is between $1-3 Mil. I'll say Poppy is putting $1 Million of her own Net Worth into True Power Wrestling.

Now we gotta start looking for workers. Poppy is a Personality, which means she'll talk on-screen and be a personality, but she's not gonna do any in-ring work. She will not take a pile-driver. So we gotta find literally everyone else: Wrestlers, Refs, Announcers, Commentators, Road Agents, & Managers. Let's look at the "Workers" tab.

An overload of information, but! We're only looking for a couple things right now: Psychology, Popularity, if they will work for us, and if they are a good backstage presence. Psychology is just a rating of "can they tell a good wrestling story in the wrestling ring", so that'll be good for our actual show ratings. By clicking "Search" we can narrow down what workers will show up in this tab.

I'm not going to go through every single worker we add this way, but know I'm messing around with these filters to get us workers. When I find a worker who looks like they may be a good fit, I click negotiate and I get this:

Now you gotta make a contract offer. There are handshake deals and written deals, with either of them having the option to be "exclusive" so they can't work elsewhere. I usually try to make the numbers multiples of 10, and a little higher than what the game tells me to give just so the workers are in a good mood. As a backyard promotion, even with $1 Mil at your disposal, there is no way you're going to get exclusive deals this early on so I just make regular written agreements. This way everything is locked in for a set time and the payments don't fluctuate before contract negotiations, and if I let them go before the contract is up they gotta be paid which is just good for these digital workers.

When I do this, I usually make 2 templates at first: 1 Yr Wrestler and 3 Yr Worker. For wrestlers, especially just starting out your company, you don't know who is or isn't gonna work or be Your Guys, ya know? This way they get a year of work in (about 12 shows) and you can get a feel of who you wanna build around. For the 3 Yr, I keep that for Everyone Else. I think of it like superhero comics, ideally even if the writing team changes, there's some aesthetic connections and stability if you keep the pencilers/inkers/colorers the same. My commentary team, my refs, my on-screen personalities, my road agents, they are that aesthetic stability. And it means I don't have to worry about them on top of my wrestlers.

After spending the better part of 15-30 mins looking through the workers I can hire, here are notables: Shane McMahon (dunno what I'm gonna do with him, but it won't be in-ring work), Brian Zane (commentary, I watch this dude's YouTube videos!), and the Da Vinki guys (The Voros Twins! Guess I have to have a tag division for them). Usually what I'll do is grab who I can, about 10-20 wrestlers, 1-2 refs, 1 road agent, 2-3 commentary people, and then wait for the negotiations to come back. From there I can see who has tag partners I didn't hire yet, and see if I missed any other types of workers.

I still have other things to do while I wait. First, let's look at our Title situation.

A normal menu. I'm going to create our Primary title, the True Power Title, and our Secondary title, the Rising Star title. True Power will be our World Heavyweight, the top title everyone has dreams of. Rising Star will be the stepping-stone, our equivalent of a US or Intercontinental title. Might even have it so in-universe the champ of the Rising Star title can vacate their title to make a True Power title match, add a little Money In The Bank flavor.

You can actually purchase a retired title, which is kinda handy! As a backyard promotion, the True Power title only has a prestige of 30. There are some on the market with 45 prestige! But I'll hold off on that, we'll wait to at least have our first year of shows before doing that.

Now... we wait. I don't have any workers, negotiations don't happen the same day, so we gotta move forward. I click those double arrows on the upper left hand side and tell the game to advance a week, for next Monday. The game stops at Wednesday, and we have some updates! The Voros Twins and Brian Zane wanna join in on this, along with about 5 other workers. A ref who I didn't realize was retired rejected us, but this is why we put out so many feelers!

Since we have Zane as a commentator we'll set him for every Event moving forward. We haven't scheduled any yet since we don't have our full roster just yet, but that's okay! We're ready. Let's move forward in time a little more, still aiming for Monday of Week 2, June 2023.

Thursday of Week 1, June 2023 and we get basically everyone else signed on. We've got a ref, we've got a road agent, we've got it all! We don't need a minimum number of wrestlers as we're such a small promotion, but we do need enough to run shows using a Heel/Face split (good guy/bad guy split) and we need at least one of each of those other non-wrestling positions.

I push us forward once more to Monday of Week 2, and we get stopped again. On Friday we sign Shane McMahon. My idea with him is to have him be some type of personality, probably a CEO trying to destroy True Power Wrestling? I dunno, we haven't even done our first show yet.

All this, and we still haven't run a show. And we still won't! I'm tired and don't wanna play anymore today lmao. Next time we'll plan and run our first True Power Wrestling show!

See ya!

[mermaidsirennikita]

plssss when you have the time also list the "pregnancy important to plot" recommendations, too ❤❤😊

--The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham. The heroine suffered a traumatic late term pregnancy loss when she was young, and has since become an accomplished rakes~ who avoids emotional intimacy. She starts a no-strings affair with a widowed single father who's also very leery of pregnancy because he lost his wife and youngest to a hard birth. They actually use Ye Olde Condom, but it falls off, and she gets pregnant (and attempts... to hide it--he finds out in the most dramatic way possible).

--Rules for Engaging the Earl by Janna MacGregor. Heroine and hero were childhood sweethearts, he went off to war and she married another man and got pregnant. Husband dies before the baby is born, and turns out he was a bigamist, so her marriage is invalid; in order to secure her baby's legitimacy, she marries the childhood friend/sweetheart right before the baby is born. He can't deal with his feelings for her and his shame about his mobility issues post-war, and he leaves for like... a year before she forces him to come back and be a husband. I really liked that this one also dealt with disability and accommodations they make during sex to prevent pain.

--The Viscount and the Vixen by Lorraine Heath. Hero's father is this batty old man, and he brings this young lady to the estate all of the sudden--turns out dad put an ad out for a new wife, promising 10,000 pounds to the woman if he didn't follow through on the marriage. Son is sure that she's just a gold digger, so he finds a loophole in the contract--and marries her instead. Turns out she's not a gold digger, but unbeknownst to him she's left an abusive relationship and is pregnant. She decides to pass the baby off as the hero's, but this becomes a lot harder as they fall in love.

--Waking Up with The Duke by Lorraine Heath. Recommended this a lot recently, hero is responsible for best friend's disability/impotence, best friend asks hero to impregnate his wife for him. Hero and heroine fall in love during the babymaking process, it's all very tense and fraught and emotional and AMAZING. There's a scene where they're alone and he's pushing her dress up and she's like "uh we cannot have sex right now" and he's like that's not what this is about... and he just wants to kiss her belly and feel the baby.... pain...... he also gives her a foot massage..... he's amazing.

--The Earl Takes All by Lorraine Heath. Recommended this a lot recently too. The hero goes on a safari with his identical twin because twin's wife is pregnant. Twin is killed by a gorilla (yes). Before he dies, the twin requests that the hero pretends to be him so that the heroine doesn't miscarry (which she has several times prior). Hero therefore pretends to be his brother, and gets home when the heroine is around 7-8 months pregnant. There's a lot of him caring for her while she's pregnant, carrying her around so she doesn't have to walk, doting on her. He also tries to use the baby as one excuse for why he's not having sex with her, because he doesn't wanna hurt it--this... does not work for long.

--Cold-Hearted Rake by Lisa Kleypas. This is more towards the end of the book, but the third act issue the hero and heroine (who have been having an affair after he inherited her husband's estate) involves her... riding him a bit too aggressively (she's inexperienced and doesn't realize how close he is, it's not a purposeful Daphne Bridgerton situation) and them having an oops baby crisis that he handles very! Badly! Resulting in a grovel.

--Lord of Darkness by Elizabeth Hoyt. Hero and heroine got married because she was pregnant out of wedlock by another man (who died). She miscarried right after, and they then lived separately for four years, which he was fine with because he's a widower who isn't over his first wife. She returns and basically is like "put a baby in me, don't worry about falling in love". He acquiesces.

--Duchess by Day, Mistress by Night by Stacy Reid. Heroine is a widowed duchess with a young son, hero is a self made man from the wrong side of the tracks. She hires him to find her governess after the girl disappears, and he... would rather not be paid in money. An affair begins, she knows sexual pleasure for the first time, etc--and then she gets knocked up. He's all excited about it, she's hesitant to be with him publicly, LOTS of hurt feelings abound (and the rare heroine grovel).

--Accidentally Compromising the Duke by Stacy Reid. Heroine plans to compromise a friend by slipping into his bedchamber and getting caught on purpose to avoid being betrothed to a sexual predator, accidentally compromises local scary single father duke. He marries her, but is determined to not have sex with her because he's all scarred about his first wife dying in childbirth. This becomes "well I'll have sex with her, but only, like, oral". This becomes "well I'll put it in her but I'll pull out". He fails, she gets pregnant, he blames her, they separate, THE GROVELING AND ANGST IS A LOT.

--The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt. Heroine is a classy upper class hiress, moves to her new estate and begins an affair with the rough and tumble steward. She gets pregnant, and he actually doesn't want to marry her because self-loathing and social class issues--it's very Lady Chatterley. Has an incredibly satisfying and dramatic ending. Think... Shrek.

--The Courtesan Duchess by Joanna Shupe. Hero and heroine have an arranged marriage, he ditches her right after the altar without consummating it. They're separated for like... 6 years, during which he lives on the continent carousing. She has threats breathing down her neck and needs his heir to secure her future, so she basically... trains to look and act and like a courtesan (and mind you, she's heavily made up and wearing a wig when they reunite, so he doesn't recognize her at all). The hero actually totally falls for her during their fling when he thinks she's a courtesan, and once she's gotten what she need (semen it's semen) she runs back to England. He figures out what happened and shows up in their house and she finds him WAITING FOR HER IN THE DARK SMOKING A CIGAR LMAO. And he's all "THE OTHER SHOE JUST DROPPED" and whisks her away in a carriage, and she's like "I'm pregnant" and he's like "well you're a lying liar who lies so I bet you're lying" to which she vomits on his boots. It's hilarious. I love it.

--This Scot of Mine by Sophie Jordan. Hero is Scottish and comes from a long line of men who all die right after their first child is born due to a family curse. He totally buys this and is very gloomy about it--enter an English girl who's been exiled from her family because she's pregnant out of wedlock. They have a physical attraction and he's like omg great compromise, I'll get an heir by just adopting her baby, and he proposes marriage. Problem: she does not know about the curse, and she is actually not pregnant. She made up the pregnancy to avoid a bad marriage. So her natural impulse is to just... have sex with him and get pregnant, and they have this amazing wedding night (or morning) sex, and then he realizes she was a virgin and is like "great, I'm cursed to die when my first baby is born, and I probably just got you pregnant" and she's like "well you probably didn't knock me up in one shot" (he did) and then she's all "well the curse is surely fake" (enter like five near death experiences for this man immediately).

I will also add that Never Seduce a Duke by Vivienne Lorret is out in February, and that one features a heroine on vacation before she goes on the shelf, who gets into this very convoluted and hilarious game of cat and mouse with a SEXY GLASSES-WEARING STERN DUKE, and they fall in love and fuck and then through a series of events and miscommunications they get separated and she goes home thinking he doesn't give a fuck.... and.... OOPS. A fabulous book, I love it so much.

[byenycfm]

Event 04 - Immunity Part Two: Results

When: December 13, 2023 Where: The Wexley Penthouse Ballroom Who: All Residents

"Everyone, please, I just have a few things that I'd like to say before we get started." Hands rising to silence the crowd gathered once more in the Ballroom, Tobias took a brief breath to steady his nerves, resisting the urge to fiddle with his hands when they came back together in front of him.

"These results, I know they feel... heavy, for all of us. The temptation for Human beings to separate ourselves into us and them is sometimes overwhelming. It's in our nature. But the thing that sets us apart from other animals, from those things out there, is that we have the ability to overcome the worst parts of our nature, and to choose to come together for what's good for all of us. The results of these tests will be used to better organize ourselves, our resources, and to implement forward thinking planning on our future here in The Wexley.

Together as a community we stand facing a world we don't recognize, with no idea what lay beyond the skyline, but what is also in Human nature is our innate drive to survive. The future may be more unknown to us than ever, but if we continue to stay a united front, and take care of each other, I fully believe that no matter what is thrown our way, we will handle it without fail. Our strength is in our bonds, in our community, and these results, no matter what they say, are a tool toward these ends. Please, do not let them divide us, for myself, as the head of our little village here, can tell you now that I am not immune, nor delayed, as are the majority in this room.

Those that are immune... with that immunity comes added responsibility to look after those around you. It does not make you invincible, but it makes you better equipped to assist us all as we move forward. We also request a blood sample for testing by our new resident CDC official. For those who find they have a delayed response, any foray outside will mean a brief physical examination upon return, and an increased quarantine time to forty eight hours."

As he spoke a single fold out table was set up to one side, Lane and Liam setting down the test cards with their marked results in white envelopes out in piles by the hand written names on the front alphabetical order.

"Please line up single file at the table and give your name, your results will be provided to you inside an envelope for privacy reasons. The only people with knowledge of all results are myself, those who processed the results, and my staff. I'd also like to ask now while the line is forming, for volunteers. With winter really starting to bare down on us, no matter the results of the tests, we will need as many teams of two or three as possible to go out in the nearest vicinity buildings for supplies before the snow gets any deeper. Anything non-perishable, hygiene products, warm clothing in all sizes, medications, etcetera. Please come to me after receiving your results so we can take a head count and start pairing up teams."

With a little clap of his hands and a brightly optimistic smile, Tobias held up his hands and waved the people toward the table as he stepped off the raised platform of a stage. "Things are looking up, and from what I hear Charlie and Rosie from the diner are still putting up tree this year and preparing a Christmas feast for Christmas day! I for one am looking forward to a bit of Christmas spirit to pick us all up!"

The results are as follows:

Immune:

Rhiannon Wells

Charlotte Rose

Zach Sanders

Eric Sanders

Delayed Reaction

Ashton Ryder

Rosie Smith

Kang Jackson

Yeon 'Seven' Du

Vincent Blanche

Everyone else has no immunity and will change within twenty minutes if bitten. They cannot transmit nor contract the virus.

Infected people with delayed reactions can spread the disease through their saliva having direct contact with another's broken skin or mucous membranes in the eyes, nose, or mouth. This makes infected people with delayed symptoms asymptomatic carriers until their symptoms start to present within two to four months after initial infection.

Those who's characters would volunteer for the next event, which is the large scale supply run, please message the main or the admins on discord so teams can be put together before the next event is posted.

[oasis-makcr]

I mean, you can have this ask be the start on how all the wrong things Crowley did wrong.

Oh, Seven, where do I start. I've only been here for two years, but there's so much. I think he's mostly gotten worse this year, though.

Very easy to bribe.

Unfortunately that's why he let me transfer to NRC. My father paid him a generous sum of money to let me attend school here, and I'm still not exactly sure how much money. All I know is that it was enough to completely renovate the Scarabia dorms -- keep in mind that every dorm has its own pocket dimension -- and then STILL enough to fill an entire room with gold, jewels, all kinds of valuables, and I know it didn't put a dent in the family finances. At least some of the money was so that I could take the role of Housewarden as a freshman. You know, despite the fact that I had no idea what I was doing, and had not even asked for the role.

This is also why he lets... a lot of things at the school slide. An example I find honestly a little more egregious is that he made a DEAL with a STUDENT attending the school here to let him open up a cafe in their dorm for the rest of campus. The cafe isn't what I have a problem with; what I did have a problem with is that this student would then go on to make deals with other students who couldn't possibly meet the terms of the contract, and would be forced to work for his establishment and effectively be at his beck and call. And Crowley did nothing about it because... ????

Said student has since gotten better about how he runs things, and no longer makes contracts like that, which is why I'm not naming him.

Again, the problem is that the Headmage really will let you get away with just about anything if you have the money for it.

Little to no regard for student (or really anybody else's) safety.

Crowley sees no issue with endangering the lives of his students due to his laissez-faire style of handling problems on campus. Well... perhaps laissez faire isn't quite the right term. It's laissez faire right up until he decides to blackmail students into helping with problems on campus that should almost CERTAINLY be handled by, oh, I don't know, the college staff? Granted, there have been some situations where I'm not really sure what the professors would've really been able to do, but I feel like that's even more reason to not place that kind of situation in the hands of their students.

Abduction of a student by a ghost which could have ended in that student's death due to how marrying a ghost works? Well, why not just send the students in with a specific ring that enforces the "til death do you part" part of marriage while asking the students to woo the ghost princess who's decided that one of our students is the love of her life and that she cannot be dissuaded from changing her mind?

The Faeland faeries have taken the magestone that helps regulate temperature and weather in the dorms to make into a piece for the Fairy Gala and they have to have a good gala or else it will remain winter for the rest of the foreseeable future? Sure, let's send some students in and disguise them as fae, if they cause an international incident and throw the climate of Twisted Wonderland into chaos it's not my problem! Aren't I so magnanimous? Oh, the students don't like this idea? They think the staff should handle this? I'll threaten to hold them all back a year until they help!

(Though attending to be part of the fashion show and dance WAS really fun. Still was one of Crowley's worst ideas.)

There's just a very consistent pattern about this and I know Crowley thinks this is a good thing, and while I don't think it's a terrible idea to let students solve their own problems, you can't do that with bigger situations like this. You really just can't.

Little to no regard for the well-being of students who rely on his so-called kindness to get by (the Ramshackle situation).

So I feel like at a school - and I've never been to school before NRC - it should be the responsibility of the staff to look after the wellbeing of their students. I feel like this is a reasonable expectation?

At the start of this year, a student from another world showed up in one of the coffins we have in the Mirror Chamber, which is where we also host a lot of our ceremonies. All freshmen get to be in a coffin because it symbolizes leaving behind your old life to become a mage, I think it's a nice notion, it's not really the important part but I felt like I should state this to explain why the start of the school year was weird.

Well in one of those coffins was a direbeast (Grim) and a human not from Twisted Wonderland (Cloud). They get out of their coffins early, it's a weird debacle, Grim set my ass on fire, it was a bit of a circus. Cloud isn't assigned to a dorm because while he DOES have magic, his magic is just different enough from ours that the Dark Mirror doesn't know what to do with him. So from what I know, he had to fight to be accepted as a student, same with Grim, who also is perfectly intelligent and capable of magic.

(Crowley also said he was tempted to turn Grim into dinner, which is a complicated subject for another time.)

What bothers me is that Crowley was more than willing to kick out a kid around my age with nowhere to go and be forced to fend for himself, and while he's given Cloud permission to be a student and ALSO a job as janitor, I'm still under the impression he's not being paid well, AND they live in Ramshackle, which is... I've seen the place during Halloween, the place doesn't have heating or A/C, there are holes in the roof and walls, Cloud essentially lives somewhere that should be condemned if it hasn't been condemned already.

Crowley also promised to find Cloud a way back home, but has done nothing on that front, but... I guess I'll give him a pass for that because Cloud has said repeatedly that he doesn't want to go back home, and from how he talks and acts, I think that's definitely a good thing for him.

The other problem is that Crowley also seems to 'forget' to even ensure that Cloud and Grim will even get food during school breaks because, again, they have nowhere to go home to, this basically IS their home, and it just! Pisses me off that Crowley's just allowed to do all of this and that there's really nothing I can do on a more official level because if I figure out a way to get him removed from his position, news about the overblots might come out, and that might put everybody on campus in a WORSE position.

But to make a long post short, I have no respect for the Headmage, and I'll tolerate him because that's what we're all expected to do, but otherwise I'm not happy about how he handles things.