#also... I dare those certain people to call me alt right -___-

[maddiicake]

Can I just take a moment to talk about FMA03?

Because I honestly don’t think I have talked about it enough as is. So, allow me to make this little post to just throw all my thoughts out at once. I’ve already been excommunicated years ago, so I really have nothing to lose. Plus, I don’t really have anyone to talk about Fullmetal Alchemist with (much less any other shared interests) nor have for years. So, all I can do is just make my own posts. I more than welcome threads added to this post for conversation! That’s what /public/ posts are for, after all ^u^

I will go on the record of saying that I like both FMA03 as well as Brotherhood, and agree that one series did better at one thing than the other, but that doesn’t make that one all-around better than the other. They have their own unique flair to them which makes them both enjoyable in their own way.

Now, I’m not going to make some a antisemetic comment and call Brotherhood fans “BroHood Nazis”, and then proceed to get away with it, meanwhile someone calling me out on my BS by making fun of me in an art piece they’ll make will receive the flood of Tumblr and be called the antisemetic one while I get away scot-free, while being “happy” that that user is told to off themselves. No. I rarely use Tumblr for that reason—the laughable ignorance of of the “Populars” and the alt-left.

Nor, through this tangent will I pull the “White Supremacy Card”, because FMA is an /anime/ made by an /Asian/ person. (If someone can please explain how a non-white person supports or promote “white-supremacy”, I’d really appreciate it. It just irks me when the alt-left pull that card. But, alas, this is Tumblr, so those people are abundant here...)

But, I digress... On to talking about the lovely world of FMA 03:

Where to begin, that’s the real question... I wouldn’t want this post to get far too long, so I’ll just talk about one subject at a time. (And, if you’d like for me to talk about any other aspect of FMA03 that you’d like for me to give my thoughts on, feel free to send me an Ask! Note: As of right now, Anon is turned off, so I apologize to those who would rather keep their anonymity—except for those select few who I know use the anon for provoking reasons; not sorry for you all whatsoever).

Anyway, FMAB was the regular run-of-the-mill Shounen genre anime that followed the plot that Arakawa (a non-white person), the author of the manga, had set up for this fantasy world she envisioned. At the time of the manga’s beginning, the story grew in popularity and an animation studio was quick to pick it up. This is the anime that would be later known as FMA03 (because it was the Fullmetal Alchemist series that debuted in 2003). Now, this was a common mistake that BONES Studio made with many of the anime adaptions of manga that it made—creating the anime long before the mangaka could get though the first half of the story’s plot. Even so, the studio took the information that they had, and, even with Arakawa’s help with some aspects, they created the separate universe of Fullmetal Alchemist from the author’s original universe. And, beleive it or not... Arakawa actually really liked 2003’s adaptation, even if it wasn’t her final vision. If that isn’t “being a Good Sport”, then I don’t know what is.

Let’s break down the key points that made FMA03 unique:

First off, the relationship between Ed and Al was much deeper and more dramatic. It was their story. From start to finish about their beginnings, their goal, which persisted throughout the series. And it even persists all the way to FMA: Conqueror of Shamballa. Al was all that Ed had left, and those two have been close ever sense.

Secondly, the homunculi... just -chef kiss- This is what I love the most for FMA03. I’m a HUGE sucker for the “Sympathetic Villain” trope (when it’s done properly, of course). And, FMA03 did it more than “just properly”. They added an entire aspect of the homunculi and deepened their backstory as well as the basis for their entire creation. While being scientifically considered “artificial humans”, they showed that they were just as human as the actual human characters. So, to say that I was in love with FMA03’s portrayal of the homunculi would be an understatement.

Thirdly, Main villain: Dante vs Father. I honestly can’t say which one I prefer more, because, they both bring their own unique character that furthered and deepens the plot of their respective series. Both had ties to Hohenheim (Father being the Dwarf in the Flask, and Dante being the Ex-wife), both were “the boss” of the homunculi, and both had believable well established modus operandi. While, I believe that, Dante could have been just as great of a villain as Father, her arc was rushed, and, therefore, she wasn’t as developed as Father. Of course, that’s mainly because of the Studio’s budget (which happens with many series, so it can’t be helped or fault the Studio because of it).

I could go on all day about other points, but this post would get way too long. Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, though, I’m more than happy to have a conversation—this is a /public/ post, after all. My ask box is always open too. Anon is off right now for the reasons stated above, just a fair warning.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading the ramblings of the echoes within these crumbling walls within the ruins~! ^u^

[despacitobandito]

alright Skylander OC shit les go

firstly lets start off with our fav bastard (affectionately), Tiphr

(also imma link all Picrews down below for when I'm done)

this lil bastard probably uses tumblr

age is uh around mid 20s, old enough to know better but young enough to not do better

he/she pronouns

intersex as well as genderqueer

lost both his right eye and arm in an accident. he can't get his eye back but he got a wooden arm from Dr. Krankcase

speaking of Dr. Krankcase, he ended up being Tiphr's father (adopted)

the "you're not my real dad" jokes are... frequent to say the least

also from Tiphr's joke department, he'll often say shit like "ah yeah it cost me an arm for this" or if you need help he'll say "need a hand?" and he'll give his entire fucking arm to you

he's a portal master

a headcanon of mine is that all Portal Masters have a "leaning" towards certain elements, which means that those ones are the quickest to control and/or learn. Tiphr's are Life, Tech, Air, and Dark, respectively

he kinda remembers where he was originally from, but most of it is just kinda... lost to time ig

ig since he is from another world, per say, does that make him an alien? the answer is yes

lots of steampunk vibes from this guy, but also with nature. good fun

he likes to call bras "tit jackets." no one knows where he learned it from, no one has been able to get him to stop

his wooden arm makes normal guitars sound like bass guitars

yes he can play guitar

he can be serious when need be, but he does enjoy being a funny source of comedy sometimes

loves plants, is a plant parent (would let moss grow in her room, much to Krankcase's dismay)

uhhhhhhh so here's an Inky boi

his name used to be Inkwash but uh i had to change that

i was in 7th grade when i made him, ooooooof

anyways, this guy is a Dark element

basically, he's an artist. his weapon is ink. oh and he's emo

creativity 100

haha ah well still love my emo wolf boi

listens to whatever the Skylands equivalent of MCR is

probably relates to that one pic of the anime girl where it has two sides and it says "I'm Fine."

godspeed you

has a sad aesthetic tumblr account

actually can kick ass in a fight surprisingly

catchphrase is "A painting of pain!"

my first OC (technically my second but an overpowered shapeshifter self insert doesn't count) which i have changed. a lot

she's a fire/undead element hybrid

catchphrase is "Here kitty kitty!"

has a pair of dragonlike wings (used to have a scorpion tail too but that was too edgy so that got scrapped)

now she just looks like a little charizard with her tail on fire :)

can self-immolate

was originally just a feathercat (like Scratch's race) who was dared to go into the Land of the Undead. she didn't come out the same, though...

was one of the first to be a hybrid element (not counting the SWAP Force but damn what they got going on is unnatural to say the least)

is totally a punk alt girl

likes being petted

you know that one song "go kitty go"? yea she unironically enjoys that

Tiphr makes fun of her for it

also yea Tiphr is besties with Grave

also Grave doesn't mind being called Gravy

so yea that was a long read. i'm not really sure how to conclude me rambling on about my own characters for a game that is kinda dead (not saying the fandom is, godspeed you guys) but yea, hope you enjoyed and here's a link to (almost) all the picrews i used

the other wolf one is from a game on DollDivine called Wolf Maker Unleashed (due to the death of Flash you can't run it on Google anymore but there's tutorials on the website to help you get around this)

[justlurkingintheshadows]

@nutsandvoltsweek I got some soft for that angsty heart, doctor's orders I'm afraid. I REALLY enjoyed this one, much much more than I can actually explain. I started writing this at like 1am because it wouldn't let me sleep, I eventually fell asleep but I got half of it done then so there wasn't too much left when I was able to get back to it.

Day 6, Royalty AU

Of Meisters and Menials

(Alt title which is essentially just adapted meanings of the initial words aka the original title simply explained: Of skill and degradation)

Word count : 1,957

Content tags : King!Watts, Jester!Tyrian, Royalty AU, attempted murder, minor character death

-----

There was something oddly fulfilling about performing for the king, he never looked impressed but deep down he enjoyed the show every time, though he would never admit it. And Tyrian liked to push the boundaries of what was truly acceptable in the king's court, it was something the guards hated him for.

It wasn't uncommon for Tyrian to suddenly approach his Majesty with no permissions, it sparked the natural instinct of the guards to protect their sovereign and there were times that it had almost ended badly had they not been halted by a direct order. King Arthur found it only mildly irksome that he would be approached so easily by the man of many tricks but he knew there was no danger to him and excused it.

Tyrian was adept with his hands, presenting a flourish during the intense telling of stories or at the end of a trick for flair, but it was his juggling that was most impressive, he didn't tend to use the regular means, instead of soft balls to throw and catch he used weapons. It was also not out of the ordinary for the mischief maker to steal the swords of the protective soldiers and balance them atop one another, either point to point or pommel to pommel, maybe sometimes a mix of both, he was able to find some way to balance them, much like he tended to find a way to balance himself almost anywhere too, whether that be a pillar or the king's own throne, a personal favourite spot because it was the most effortlessly irritating position he could find that guaranteed a scowl from many of the sentries, but he knew they couldn't stop him and since he didn't get in the way he was never directly told off for doing so by anyone who actually mattered so he kept doing it, his favourite part was sometimes leaning down to look into the emerald eyes of the only person who was allowed to sit there, they often looked back with raised brows and a comment about how he was perhaps being a bit too cocky and the response was to grin and giggle "Perhaps" yet he still never got chastised. The most negative response he ever got was a sigh. 

He was clearly good at his craft, and there were many who couldn't stand him, thought his enthusiastic spontaneity was dangerous and irresponsible, though it still seemed to please their ruler who was never quite as mad as other observers seven if he didn't make it obvious.

Tyrian was essentially the only person who was actually allowed an unsupervised close personal audience with the king without having to announce himself (eventhough they would have preferred he announced himself beforehand he simply did not), he just appeared to bother his Highness whenever he could. He even had the audacity to incorrectly address the ruler calling him 'My Majesty' instead of 'Your Majesty' and sometimes even just 'Majesty'. In fact it was quite miraculous that he hadn't been accused of mutiny or the like as any other who dared to 'insult' the king in such a way would face death, but not Tyrian, his value to the court was his ability of charm and quality of amusement. He enjoyed showing up when he wasn't at all invited and hovering around quietly, certain visitors almost thought it was inappropriate but he was never truly reprimanded and so kept doing it time and time again, causing no disruptions despite some trying to claim otherwise.

There were other skills that some were less aware of but the most favourites of the sovereign was the unapparent expertise of knife throwing, despite the juggling and balancing you would never expect the jovial jester to truly be able to actually land an accurate hit with barely any effort, this had only been displayed once when someone attempted to cause harm to the crown and the guards had been unavailable or simply too slow to react, the attempted assassin had been the one to throw the blade, the target being the crown head, and yet they were the one who ended up getting hit; in an impressive set of moves Tyrian had pushed his Majesty out of his throne, caught the flying dagger before it struck the fine material, and fired it back in the direction it came, the strike landed wonderfully between the stunned eyes of a fellow trained for hostility. Trained to react against the king and his men but not for the King's court fool. Arthur was rather astonished, a little shocked but barely bruised from being shoved out the way, but entirely amazed at the swift involvement of his apparently innocent jokesmith with a deadly insinuation. While the royal may have been impressed his defenders were not quite so, though they couldn't be entirely displeased with this event. Arthur noticed there was a bit of blood in Tyrian's hand, upon inspection it was observed that in the act of catching the knife he'd caught himself, it was only minor but it was demanded that the doctor see to it, there was even some praise of thanks for saving the life. He was happy to have the attention of the single monarchy, he thoroughly relished in the attentiveness that multiplied after that event.

Years gradually passed and he was always welcomed even more into the castle, it was odd that he felt he belonged somewhere. The life of a fool isn't always so good-humoured.

One day his royal Highness had to leave on business and it was left to his steward to man the castle while he was away, there was only one empirical issue, they didn't like Tyrian at all. In the king's absence they'd ask for entertainment only to appear bored by it or laugh in such a way it didn't seem fair, this wasn't the same chuckle that sometimes managed to escape the mouth of the ruler, this laugh was more mocking and while Tyrian had grown up around those sorts of noises it got him a little annoyed. At one point the steward asked "Why do you insist on remaining so happy and bouncy all the time?" And Tyrian had smiled and responded delightedly,

"Because I know I am loved by someone" he knew that though King Arthur never showed it in reality his Majesty did appreciate his presence and that sometimes his little tricks really did make his day, though again he would never admit it. The steward laughed.

"You really think that the King cares AT ALL about /you/?" The smile faded from Tyrian's face, "Why would anyone CARE about /you/?" They didn't hold back, the jesters smile faded even more, "He pities you because you're pathetic and useless by any other means, it's not that he actually enjoys having you around it's just that he has to endure it to keep you complacent and loyal to his cause, not that you'd be of any assistance loyal or not" at this point the smile had turned to a sorrowful frown, if there was one thing that could hurt the jolly joker it was the thought that there was a chance his King actually couldn't care less about him. It hurt, those wounds cut deep, much deeper than any knife juggling accident could ever have gone. It scarred his soul.

Arthur was away for a while but when he returned he was, despite best efforts to keep emotions tightly reigned in, happy to see his favourite (and only) jester again, even if it was hard for him to express it. Business had been stressful, it was usually because of having to deal with other people for so long, he needed to relax and unwind with a good joke or a short tale or maybe a trick of some sorts but for some reason he could tell there was something not quite right about his dutiful jokester. He never usually had much of a conversation with Tyrian, it was generally one sided and mostly just in the form of a story with no requirements for contribution, so when he approached the young man while they were alone and asked him if everything was okay it came as quite a shock.

"Is everything ok? You don't seem to have as much heart, has something happened while I've been gone?" Queried the man with all the power. Tyrian blinked at him then remembered his manners and bowed lowly,

"Everything is fine Your majesty, nothing you should concern yourself with" he said as politely as he could. Arthur thought this was somewhat odd,

"Are you sure? It just appears that there may be something the matter, you're not acting quite as I recall you did before" there were attempts to hide hints of concern,

"I am simply remaining in my place Your Majesty, it would be improper for me to act wildly." This seemed to be a final straw

"Tyrian," came an oddly unusual soft tone, Tyrian couldn't help but look in utter confusion at this change of voice, "Are you okay? Something happened didn't it?" There was a silent refusal to answer but the shift of eyes to the floor indicated the truth, "You may speak, it is permitted..." He was trying, it didn't seem to work so another tactic was used, "I demand you inform me of anything that's happened to make you act this way." He stated. Tyrian still seemed reluctant but he couldn't ignore an order though he still took time to find the words.

"You need not worry yourself too much Your Majesty, I am aware you do not actually care for me in any way, I've been informed your apparent enjoyment of my display is simply pity…" he started to trail off, it upset him to think about it again.

Then Watts put a hand on his cheek, lifting his head up to initiate eye contact.

"And whom was it that told you that?" The tone was careful but there was an element of danger to it that Tyrian immediately picked up on, it almost made him shudder. Instead of giving a true answer he simply said,

"It is what I was advised" but the implications were there.

"Is that so?"

Tyrian looked into the royal green eyes that regarded him, he felt foolish for wanting to get lost in them, especially when a corner of them harboured some annoyance that was never going to be directed at him. Arthur smiled softly, his warmth threatening to melt the poor Scorpion.

"I don't want you to believe what you were advised, I want you to believe that I say"

Tyrian's eyes were wide and he was trying not to look too dreamy, he stuttered an awkward response "O-okay… I mean yes, o-of course.. Your Majesty" he was starting to feel like a fool

"I would never let anyone else be aware but I do care, you entertain me. Often your jokes and gimmicks tend to be the only thing I won't be so stone-faced about." His smile was slightly awkward, rather unbefitting of the leader of the kingdom, but somehow suitable for Arthur thought Tyrian. There was some mild hesitation as the other hand moved to hold the other side of his face, Tyrian couldn't help but enjoy the warmth of it. They stood there with the jesters face being cupped by an awkward King. Then Arthur touched his forehead to Tyrian's earning a little stunned gasp.

It was a sweet moment that neither really wanted to end, but it allowed the lord to realise that life would be a lot less interesting without his merryman to keep him company. He didn't want to imagine it.

-----

BONUS!!!

King snake and Jester scorpion

-I wish I could actually draw a king Watts with Jester Tyrian hanging over the back of his throne like the dick he is because that's my life and I need it but I will never 😭-

[the-energon-hole]

One more request, I promise! Female human s/o manages to convince TFP Megatron, Soundwave, Knockout and Predaking to come to the mall in their holoform avatars after they lost a bet against her and promised to do anything for her? They are sulking the whole time, especially Megatron and Predaking, until some human guys tries to hit on their mate right in front of them and things get escalated.

((A/N - This ended up being way longer than I anticipated, so it took me a while to get the story that I wanted to tell actually set up. Enjoy!!))

Continuity - Transformers Prime

Character(s) - Megatron | Soundwave | Knockout | Predaking

Genre - Cute

Rating - T

Warnings - Suggested Violence

Word Count(s) - 1434 | 8640 | 4615 | 1360

✏️Written - 05/29/19 - 06/02/19✏️

Megatron

-He was not a very happy mech, and in this instance, he couldn’t even pretend to be- not even for the most important person in the universe to him. He sat there, his consciousness inside of his holoform that was unceremoniously perched on top of probably one of the world’s most uncomfortable chairs, as he watched you practically float with giddy bliss back and forth between clothing racks in this hell space of a place you called a“mall” for what you were calling the “the perfect outfit”. You were right about why his Vehicons were portraying so many signs of anguish and anger, as there was in fact a lack of trust between those who could fly and those who were ground soldiers. He had doubted your knowledge that discrimination existed amongst the lowest rank of his army, and yet, with further investigation you were right that there was this strange cultural stigma that was formed ever since he decided to in a fit of rage to throw a few of his Vehicons over the edge and that those who were unfortunate enough to be vehicles perished due to his uncontrollable anger. Now, in his processor for some reason, he felt he was so correct on this assumption that there was no way you knew more about Cybertronians than he did, that he made a bet with you that if you were right he would owe you a favor… He had no one but himself to blame for this situation really, it was a kind of divine punishment implemented by the all powerful Primus for the crime of doubting his own mate on their intuitions and intelligence- you apparently knew what was causing a kind of dissent in his ranks, while he was blinded with the leadership he possessed to see what was really going on… rest assured… he has learned his lesson to never make a deal with a proverbial devil and to always have trust in what you were trying to tell him. There was a multitude of reasons he has made you his mate- you were oh so observant to certain things that you always managed to notice small details he always seemed to accidentally look over, and you were so quick witted that you always seem to be able to squirm your way out of bad situations using nothing but you sharp attitude and silver tongue- what he means is he will never make a bet with you again if there was even a slim chance he would lose.

-He audibly sneered at his own incompetence as he saw how all the other humans in this place began to scurry past him like rodents with their gaze pointed downwards as to not make any kind of contact with such a hostile looking man, lest they invoke his wrath and direct his terrible mood towards them - don’t misunderstand him, he loved to see you this happy as you had this amazing flush on your face because you were smiling so wide as you held different kinds of garments up against your body to gauge how it would look on you, and he knows deep in his processor that you have been cut off from your culture and civilization for a very long time because of him and his inability to take a break from leading his Decepticon forces to victory… but he just can’t bring himself to grow over his own suffering and self pity in this moment in time. You. He can’t help but be a little bitter over the fact he can begin to feel his real body grow warm and uncomfortable in the hot desert sun just outside the limits of this infernal city as it sat in alt-mode on the side of a cliff to avoid detection by any humans, it also doesn’t help that he can hear all of the hushed whispers from the people around him about how uncomfortable they are being forced to be around such a “scary man”, and what’s worse is he has had to sit here complacently while he watched this stranger “accidentally”bump into you way to many times he was comfortable with! He has gained the knowledge that some humans simply don’t have the concept of personal space, and considering how vastly overpopulated this planet was, he can’t say he really blame anyone for having seemingly rude social habits- but does this infernal worm have to keep being so damn close? Megatron could tell by not only your body language, but also your “aura”, that you were growing increasingly uncomfortable with this other person as you tried again to simply just scoot away to give yourself some space to look for whatever it is you intended to buy. You couldn’t share emotions like normal Cybertronians when mate, but he felt all kinds of things between the bond that you share, even though you lacked the ability to project a field and you both didn’t have a physical neural connection- it was kind of foreign and amazing, being able to share such a strange and new kind of bond so deep that he could feel strange and organic raw emotions that you allowed to spill out from your mind. This was why he hated when other humans tried to encroach on what he thought of as his territory, you were an independent person with your own opinions and ideas, but he can’t help but feel possessive as he stood up quickly when he saw this other human brush their hand against yours. There was no way you didn’t notice what this other person was doing, but you were doing that human habit he hoped he had broken you of, the one where you were so being so “polite” that you were actually just being a form of complacent and docile- you would gasp and apologize as you would scoot away again and make yourself stand off to the side a good distance away while you would avert your gaze to the ground to show forms of social submission. He couldn’t blame you really though, this place was packed full of people and it wouldn’t be a good idea to draw attention to yourselves considering how many looks he is already getting for the way his holoform looked as a tall silver haired man. 

-Making a scene over some aft who didn’t understand what personal space was not a smart on your part- Wait… Did he just see that right?! He saw you jump back so suddenly that you nearly trip over your own legs as you took a defensive stance, he felt it to, your anxiety just skyrocketed as he felt himself basically sprint over to where you were and practically pushed you behind him with such force that you almost lost your balance again as you let out a whimper. Once you gained your footing and were leaning against his back, you decided that this was the perfect time to create that scene you “politely” tried to avoid making.  “This freak just grabbed me!” You screamed as you pointed at the stranger in front of Megatron that had nowhere to hide as a crowd began to form around him. “I did not give you permission to touch me! How dare you!?” Megatron can see what you were doing, and he had to say, he was impressed with your quick thinking and your ability to turn your anxiety around so quickly so you can use it to your advantage. Get everyone in the room around you on your side and he wouldn’t have to deal with the repercussions of potentially killing this human in a public and crowded space. He could hear all the humans around yelling this stranger, telling them they should be ashamed of themselves and that they don’t belong in a public space like this and that they should just go back home and leave normal people alone- it was actually some pretty nasty stuff as he watched this person scurry away like the animal that they were. He heard you huff quietly behind him as you mumbled about how this “asshole” almost ruined your outfit hunting- Primus, he loved you so much, you were so independents and smart that you can turn any situation to be beneficial to you… Proof that he didn’t need to come with you on these little outings, you were perfectly capable of dealing with things on your own, but it was a nice reminder to him that you were not a helpless little human who needed guarding all the time.

Soundwave

-You needed to do a supply run for yourself down on the surface, which was a very normal thing that you needed to do in order to survive on a ship designed for Cyebrtronians and not Humans, but this time you requested that he accompany you on your endeavor to acquire new goods- he declined at first and he felt a little bad when your face began to grow that melancholy look he disliked so much as you looked to the side and made a small noise of disappointment. He knows that things have been very hectic lately, wit the surfacing of these new artifacts on this planet he has been busier than ever trying to dictate all of these missions to the troops so that it ensured that their enemies did not grow stronger with these potential weapons of mass destruction. He can feel how lonely you have become from the bonds in which you both share, he can see how your mood and attitude has taken a  shift as you felt yourself becoming more lonely and those feelings of being neglected began to grow, and he knows that it was partly his fault due to the hectic nature of this ship- this could be the opportunity you were looking for to get away from the confines of this place for a while and just be able to bask in each other;s company without the fear of impending doom looming over you like past situations have. If he would be honest with you for a moment he would tell you that he doesn’t like to leave the ship unless he absolutely has to, and on the special occasions when he was needed elsewhere he was forced to trust others to keep security and order on this chaotic house for Decepticons. Though, he recalls fondly, that the last time he took an extensive mission away from The Nemesis he unceremoniously left you in charge of his whole operation as he had to deal with making sure Starscream wasn’t going to entirely destroy their forces from the inside by giving sensitive information to the Autobot Forces. Apparently, with access to all of his sensitive information, you managed to uncover two plans of mutiny and one case of illegal energon hoarding, he was pretty impressed with your sleuthing skills and it just hit him close to his spark to have such a wonderful reminder about why the universe put the two of you together- there was never a better team to squash disobedience than the two of you. He agreed after some time to muse about it, but it had to be on his “agreeable” terms, which meant you had to wait until the ship was in doc for an energon run from the mines and that you had to wait for him to feel confident enough that nothing bad was going to happen to the Decepticon Ranks while he was away… which was fair. If it weren’t for Soundwave the entirety of this rebellion would have been snuffed out eons ago when Megatron first went missing amongst the stars in search of the rumored Dark Energon. When Soundwave put his processor to something, he did it at 100 percent capacity, that included serving his duties to his master and making sure you were well taken care of with this new and alien lifestyle you were forced to live amongst a ship of non organic creatures.

-The day finally came as all of the requirements were being filled for the two of you to take a small shore leave, and though he felt pretty miserable with is consciousness so far away from his tactically tuned frame, he couldn’t help but feel a morbid fascination with how humans managed to live in such a world he found to be so very uncomfortable. The overpopulation that caused crowding in the streets and made an artificial bustle in spaces made to only accommodate a small crowd, the heat from a lack of ozone around the atmosphere caused by said overpopulation because there was so much resource hoarding and usage that the natural reserves of this world barley had to time to renew itself before being used again and again, and mostly this strange cultural change and shift that was different depending on what region of the world they were located in- there were so many different ways humans lived and behaved that it almost felt impossible for him to understand how all of them worked and functioned as a whole society. You fit right into this strange place however, and if he were going to say it out loud, he actually hated seeing you thrive in any environment that didn’t directly involve him in any way. Was this the emotion of jealousy and inadequacy? He has to say he isn’t a big fan of feeling neglected by you as you searched store after store for all the different things you needed- if he was being frank, he didn’t enjoy being your proverbial extra arms either, as it is true that he may not feel pain in this body but he isn’t enjoying carrying so many different bags full of things he can’t seem to see you having a real use for. He did agree to this however, and he will keep his thoughts to himself until you are alone once again in the confines of your shared quarters- which reminded him that he also needed to acquire more filters for his oxygen contraption that he has created that pumps fresh atmosphere into your room so that even in space you would not need to fear suffocation or sickness from lack of a stable environment. He felt himself become exacerbated though as you promised this would be the last store, the last thing you needed were new garments to keep you warm in a ship that lacked a way to keep the perfect room temperature, which was true because he had not had enough free time to create a kind of device to implement on top of the atmospheric device he has already built… but he got the feeling that you were incorrect when you told him this was the last stop on your list- you appeared to be having too much enjoyment to imply stop and go back to the ship anytime soon. He did not mind as much as he as leading himself to believe though, and he enjoyed seeing that bright look on your face that he had been missing these past few months that he had kept you isolated in your sleeping chambers to try and keep you safe from the wrath of the other frustrated Decepticons.

-He kept himself distracted as he passed through some of these garments as well, though he had very little feeling sin this holoform, he took notice that some of this outerwear was so soft that he could feel it on the tip of his digits- it was actually kind of alluring as he thought about what it would feel like coupled with the soft and suppleness of your skin. He didn’t have a lot of time to think though as he felt a twang of anguish coming from the bond in which the two of you shared, it was strong and it was sharp, and he had to stop himself from acting rashly as he dropped the sweater he was holding to look up to see you briskly walk in his direction with someone he didn’t recognize hot on your heels. Once you were in the safety of his vicinity he pulled you close to his holoform’s body as the person following you came to a halt in front of him and looked up to try and see the man behind the dark glasses he wore in this form. “Sir, are you this young lady’s date?” This guy asked as he went from looking at him to looking at you again, and Soundwave did not like the emotions reflecting in this older gentleman’s eyes as he looked at you as if you were just a piece of food to be consumed. He said nothing as you whimpered and pushed into him harder as he wrapped an arm protectively around your shoulders- he has no idea what this man has said to you to make you so uncomfortable, but he will absolutely make sure this person paid for whatever it was that he did. Soundwave and Laserbeak hack into the cameras of this place to see what happened, and he saw this person strong arming you and trying to pull you away from him- he did not like this at all as he felt the anger inside of his processor begin to bubble up as he grabbed this guy by his jaw. He began to squeeze as he heard the guy yelled out in pain as he tried to pull himself from Soundwaves grip- “Leave.”. Soundwave spoke only one word as he dropped this guy and watched him run away while he screamed obscenities at the two of you. Soundwave said nothing as he began to rub your back in a comforting way while he noticed your body begin to relax in his grip, he made the executive decision that you had enough supplies to last you awhile and that maybe it is time to return to familiar territory. He picked you up off of the ground and escorted you out of this big building as people stood and stared at the odd sight of a man carrying someone out of the building, but he didn’t let it bother him as he began to think about a new design for a temperature device design so you won’t have to keep bundling up in so many layers of clothing.

Knockout

-It was almost concerning to others how tightly you had Knockout wrapped around your little finger, anytime you told him to jump he wouldn’t even bother to ask how high- he would just launch himself upwards in an attempt to please you so he could see that sweet smile he loved so much grace your wonderful face. Though he was beginning to think that maybe all of the others were right about his philosophy about bending to all your whims might actually be a problem now, because as he stood at the end of the ailes watching you stare at the same three sweaters for the past ten minutes, he was beginning to think that maybe this “quick trip to the surface” was going to take much longer than “a few minutes”. It might not have been a problem normally- but today was the day he was going to try out that new sparkly finished wax that he picked up a while ago to give himself an extra shine. He wasn’t angry or upset that you asked him out to help buy supplies in this department store, he was just frustrated that he had something planned and now it was going to have to be put off till later… it wasn’t your fault, he didn’t tell you he had something planned, but he can’t help the nasty little feelings welling up inside his spark as he began to tap his fingers against his crossed arms as he watched you pick up that green sweater for the fourth time! Clear-ly the red and pink one was superior! Primus, it was as if he didn’t even know his own mate!

-You just couldn’t decide! The red and pink one was clearly the superior when it came to appearances, but the turquoise one was much cozier with the fluffier fabric and would keep you warmer, but THEN there is the green one that was absolutely hideous but that is what drew you to it in the first place! Who doesn’t love ugly sweaters?! You hear Knockout huff behind you with so much attitude again for the fifth time since being in the store, but you chose to ignore him as you grabbed all three sweaters to try them on and see which one looks the best- you knew it would be the red and the pink one, but the other two contenders at least deserved a chance to shine. You heard Knockout slump against the door of your changing room as he waited for you to be done with your shopping- you knew he was grumpy about something, but it wasn’t everyday that you got the chance to go shopping as The Nemesis is rarely ever stopped or docked near any kind of civilization! As you began to pull the sweater over your head you began to feel a little guilty for being selfish in this moment, maybe when this is all done you’ll help him shine his finish on the places he has a hard time reaching if there is one thing that always makes him feel better, besides it was always a kind think to help pamper your partner, especially when it helps relax them after a long day of being dragged around the human world by your picky partner who can’t make a simple garment decision! You peeked out from the changing room and noticed that he was no where to be found, you wanted to show him how you looked in the sweater, but you figured he probably found a way to entertain himself as you spent quite a while in that small room.

-“Excuse me, can I say, you look phenomenal in that sweater.” You turned to see a man in the store’s uniform looking at you with an oddly big smile. You thanked him and asked if he could take the other two from your room while you out your regular shirt back on, which he agreed to with a smile and a nod as it was basically his job to put the clothes back on the rack- and you figured that was better than leaving the clothes you didn’t want in the room. As you went to hand him the two sweaters from your room, you felt him grab your arm rather harshly and pull you close to him- you could feel your heartbeat begin to increase as you struggled against his hold. He began to whisper all kinds of uncomfortable things to you as you tried to run away from the vice grip he had on your upper arms. Before the situation escalated any further you felt the pressure on your arm be released and heard a loud thud against the floor behind you, you couldn’t even react as Knockout began to threaten the man he had in his grip as he glared down at him with murderous intent- a crowd started to gather as what you presumed to be a manager came running over trying to be KO to release his employee. You didn’t hesitate to speak out about what happened to you in that dressing room- you demanded justice and for that creep to be punished, and you made damn sure to let Knockout know how much you appreciated the save later on when you were in the privacy of the ship.

Predaking

-You began to hum to yourself quietly as you thumbed through the rack of these cute summer clothes that you found in front of you, true the ship was a rather cold place and you would never have an opportunity to donn such clothing, but you can’t help but feel the allure of a promise of better and warmer weather as you couldn’t help but imagine yourself relaxing on the beach under a warm sun getting wonderfully cozy. You could feel that everyone and their mothers were staring at you in an understandably odd way in this store, not because of the way you looked or because you were humming a tune to yourself, but because there was an angry looking large man looking over you as you just happily looked through this store’s selection of products as if he weren’t even there. You didn’t let their stares bother you as you let all your good vibes seep out as well as you can without the ability to create a field around yourself like Cybertronians could to try and keep Predaking distracted from the uncomfortable pointing and glares- besides, even if you couldn’t produce a field, you knew that Predaking was very in sync with you and you were sure he felt you trying your best to keep him calm without drawing attention to yourselves anymore than it was on you already. You knew he had reservations about coming here with you this from the very  beginning and you figure that  the idea of immersing himself into human culture, in a “fake body”, to partake in alien activities like ���shopping” and “bumming around”. You couldn’t help but want so badly for him to experience humanity before it was potentially wiped away in an oncoming event between the Decepticons and the Autobots, you wanted him to understand what it was like to grow up on a planet like Earth- a world filled with beautiful organic things that did not exist anywhere else. There was such a deep beauty about all of this place, even the ars of the world that had crowded department store that had off season clothing in their racks… and you just wanted him to see it from  your perspective.

-Predaking just stood there with a neutral look on his face in his fake and uncomfortable bipedal body that he was able to create out of sheer willpower, he couldn’t help himself as he stood there behind you scanning the room for any and all potential dangers out of sheer habit of the environment you both find yourselves in the majority of the time. You had told him before that human society was actually a fairly safe place to be when there was a moderate amount of people in the area, and that random violent attacks in the streets are a very rare occurrence- in fact, you showed him statistics that shows most human on human violence is almost always premeditated, almost always planned out and calculated because one human wanted or did something to the other. That did not put his mind at as great of ease as it should have however, as he can see all these humans starting at him in either fear or out of a kind of morbid curiosity that could act as a trigger for them to act in ways of stupidity around them. Humans are just like every other organic life on this planet, they have a fight or flight instinct that drives most of them to act and think the way they do, and he loves you to the ends the universe but he has heard about the kinds of dangerous mods humans and create just by simply being bored. He can’t say he is a fan of all of your species, which is reflected on his face as he glared at someone who just wouldn’t back down in their eye contact with him, as he can feel his “lips” begin to droop more as he grunts a little involuntarily at the premise of all of his worries beginning to come to the surface. He could be wrong, he has been before, but he was going to continue counting down the minutes that they would be out of this place and back into the comfort and safety of his pen on The Nemesis- and he was off put by the idea that he was even slightly excited to go back into that awful hole made the energon in his systems run cold. You were the most important person in this whole universe to him, no question about it, but he did have his limitations as a member of a primitive species- though, seeing you so carefree and trustworthy of him and his sour attitude and angry looks, it made him want to do his best to contain all these negative feelings and make you proud of him. He wanted to please you and make you want to stay with him- such a selfish desire, but when he looks down at you humming a little tune and eyeing all the brightly colored garments he can begin to feel the hard cage around his spark begin to melt.

-As you pulled out a silly and colorful looking Hawaiian shirt and held it to your chest with a warm smile at the idea of how interesting this would look on you, you heard someone next to you clear their throat in a way meant to get your attention. You turned to see a tall blonde stranger giving you an odd smug look as they held their hands behind their backs to feign compliance and submission, you took notice that Predaking whipped around rather quickly as well so you did your best to tactically place yourself between him and this stranger to hopefully avoid any kind of violence in this situation. “I couldn’t help but notice this… brute- just creeping over you! Do you know him? Want me to get rid of him?” … Before you could even have time to answer, this stranger decided it was a good idea to take your hand in theirs and hold it to their face, it was a show to try and make you feel  as if this were medieval times and they were a knight saving a royal from a dragon holding them hostage. You didn’t get a chance to say anything, let alone have time to react before you felt Predaking lean around you and grab this stranger by their wrists. He lifted up the stranger as if they did not weigh anything and lifted them off the ground to come closer to his face- you used your elbow to jab Predaking in the abdomen behind you to signal a release, but his grip held strong as you could see this strangers face conform to that of one of utter terror and primal panic. Predaking did eventually realize them, but only after saying probably the scariest thing you’ve ever heard, “Place your hands on my mate again, and I’ll make sure you won’t have any hands left to touch yourself with.” You could feel all eyes on you as that person turned tail and ran as soon as they were free from the grip of the predacon pretending to be human, you just coughed loudly and began to quickly pull him out of the store and away from the crowds- maybe that is enough shopping for one day. You should have a lesson in human contact when you get back to the ship, because it was very apparent that maybe he didn’t understand that humans were just like that sometimes- you were more than willing to reject that person and tell them that you were here with your loved one, but you didn’t even get a chance to say or do anything before he jumped into action for your sake. It was very endearing on a primal level, but on a civilized level it was rather embarrassing and condescending… but you won’t tell him that, everyone makes mistakes and you won’t ever see those people again in your life so it doesn’t really matter anyways.

[cooltrainererika]

Hetalia Emblem: Once Upon A Hallowed Night (pt. 1)

(Note: This was originally posted yesterday, October 20th, but due to typos, I have reposted it. It is still probably a bit rough, but hopefully there’s less glaring errors. I was also intending to release fic 2 yesterday, though it will be released later today, the third one probably won’t see the light of day for a while)

Hello! This is my entry for this year’s #hetaween #hetaween19/20! The prompt is 10/20; “Crossover”. And I have delivered! At least part of it!

However, this requires some explanation; this takes place in my Samuraiverse/Flagverse AU, or “Hetalia Emblem”, a theoretical Hetalia x World Flags (if you don’t know, it’s this: world-flags.org) x Fire Emblem crossover game. Basically, it’s Hetalia characters, World Flags outfits and weapons (as well as certain character elements; they will become apparent as you read along), and Fire Emblem gameplay, story elements, and lore elements. Unlike “Alt-talia”, the AU I usually write in, I’m thinking I might use characterizations closer to canon instead. Though they still may be slightly different.

So I saw the prompt, and thought this was a perfect place to spread my AU more. Basically, this is a human AU taking place in a Japanese medieval setting with international elements. A summary can be found here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DarthWiki/HetaliaEmblem (Or in my post on the subject)

Now, this requires minimal knowledge of Fire Emblem, though some spell names and skills (basically things that can enhance a unit on the battlefield) and such might be referenced. (Also, if anyone wants to use this AU, go ahead! Please!)

And tonight, I have for you not one fic, but a batch of three! First, a spiritual tale. Second, a fun trick-or-treat story with a twist. And third, an action story (hopefully)!

Also these are being released separately so I can hope to get one out the door by the end of today. Though oh well, it’s the 20th in most of the rest of the world.

Also, this is an idea for a support conversation somewhat modified to fit the holiday. If you don’t know what a support conversation is, they’re conversations that you can unlock between two characters to make them bond more, making them perform better around each other in battle. As such, it was the one I was most sure about. This is based on their C to B conversations, I think (since D conversations are a thing in this game).

I also haven’t decided fully on some names, or whether to use different names than Alt-talia, for those who were never given names or have inaccurate ones. However, I have decided to use the ones here for the time being. And Matthew keeps getting called by his full name because everyone’s name is spelled out in kanji in-universe, and in Japanese “Matt” doesn’t make much sense as a nickname for “Matthew”. Also, while a character mentioned in this fic has a name in Alt-talia, here I decided to keep him unnamed. It is kind of debatable if they’re the same character after all…

I’ll also say that many of the characters here, especially the focus characters, don’t have a set costume design or weapons, but will be assumed to be sword users for the time being until further notice, since it’s most likely they are.

And since these were kind of rushed, they may not be best written. So yeah… sorry about that. The second one in particular may kind of meander a bit.

A final note: this IS NOT shipping! Almost no shipping happens in Hetalia Emblem (so no S conversations in this game), as such pretty much all interactions are platonic by default.

Without further ado… Trick-or-Treat!

……….

On the night of the last day of the tenth lunar cycle, when the harvest is ripe and the harsh winter is nearing, the realms of the mystical and spiritual and this realm are at their nearest point, so close the barrier between them almost nonexistent; it is this one night of the year which is prime time for the departed to see those they had left behind, and for the mystical to give us a visit…

Closure

He had found her some ways away from the camp, bathed in the smoky aroma of incense, her pale hair seemingly glowing in the moonlight.

“Ms. Natallia?”

She turned, the ghouls departing.

“What do you want?”

The boy flinched a bit, but then continued to move towards her, revealing his face. Not that it mattered; his white kimono had made that quite obvious.

Yong-Soo hesitated, his face flushed a shade of pink, sputtering.

“H-hey, Ms. Natallia! Erm��� it’s me again.”

“What do you want? Don’t waste my time again.”

Her voice was curt, cold.

The boy straightened himself out, shook his head, and cleared his throat.

“I won’t. You can talk to dead people, right? I mean, I heard that you have powers like that, despite not being a mage or anything, and…”

She could see exactly when his face turned uncharacteristically serious, she observed. Somewhat perplexing.

“Yes? And?”

“…I need your help.”

Natallia simply blinked.

Yong-Soo took a deep breath and continued.

“I need to tell you something.”

“…”

“…Hyung Yao isn’t my real brother. I used to have a biological brother. A twin brother, actually…”

A brother?

His normally cheerful, jolly voice had a tinge of pain behind it that was small, but as apparent as the luminous moon above. For whatever reason - though she knew why deep down - she felt her heart being tugged at.

“…But one day, he just disappeared. He was gone. I don’t know what happened to him. …I spent a year looking for him, but… I never found him.”

“…”

“I want closure. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. But, if he is dead… I want to at least say goodbye to him.”

No response.

She turned.

“Please… please…”

The teenager’s voice was starting to break, but he didn’t care. He briskly bowed, his head down low.

“Please… Please, I only-“

“Come with me.”

The dancer lifted his head immediately, just as the woman was starting to walk away.

His face lit up, his eyes becoming misty from the shock and joy at her words.

“Thank you! Thank you!”

———

The air inside her tent was heavy with incense, the ominous glow emitted from the small fire in front of Yong-Soo and the sticks of incense giving the dim tent a warm glow.

“What is his name?”

“It is-“

Once she had heard it, she simply nodded, calling upon it thrice in a hushed whisper.

Nothing.

“…He isn’t here.”

“What does that mean?”

“Even if he is dead, he hasn’t visited you. Yet. Now, quiet.”

The boy immediately straightened himself again, nodding

“Yes ma’am.”

————

Natallia had been silent, deathly silent. Even he wouldn’t dare raise a sound. It had felt like time had stopped. Despite the warm glow of the flames and incense, he felt chills; not just any, but a strange chill from within and without. He could have even sworn he saw glowing, fire-like orbs flicker around her.

————

Ion felt the spiritual energy; what kind of dark mage would be if he weren’t. It drifted ambiently in the air, but radiated from a certain, definite place.

It seemed Huong Lien felt it as well, the mage having poked her head out of her tent, her two familiars floating around her frantically, apparently either in distress or hyper-energized by the high concentration of mystical energy.

Somewhere on the other side of camp, Arthur could be heard loudly complaining about a headache.

Ion felt he now had a good idea as to why Yong-Soo seemed so excited when he had heard from him she could see ghosts…

————-

Connecting with the spiritual realm was a strange experience that was unlike any other. It was like being in one place but everyone, trancelike but alert.

On this day, when the other realm was the closest, however, the process was made easier; relatively, at least.

Neither she nor Yong knew how long she had been there, but in time, she found herself fully back in their realm.

Yong’s anticipation reached a boiling point. He couldn’t take it anymore. He had to know.

“…So? Did you find him? Was he-“

“He wasn’t.”

His face started to light up, but with a hint of hesitation, as if barely holding himself back from hoping just yet.

“So… so he’s so alive? He’s still out there somewhere?”

“Yes.”

Tears pricked the dancer’s eyes, as the information fully soaked into the teen’s brain.

Natallia hadn’t noticed herself make a rare, small smile at the sight, though not that he noticed - he finally broke down into tears of joy, repeating “He’s alive! Gods, he’s alive!” to himself.

“Congratulations.”

“Damn it, why did he leave me for so long?! That dastard!”

———-

By the time Yong had left, thanking her profusely of course, she had finally realized she had been smiling.

Natallia couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this… happy for someone outside her family.

But it was as if she saw some of herself in this annoying dancer boy.

Some of that scared, lonely girl and her sister as they called out into the cruel, unforgiving howls of a certain snowstorm.

[aridara]

Fun times: that literal motherfucker of @hominishostilis wrote a response to a post that I made all the way back in 2017. Except that I discovered it just now, because he blocked me a long time ago because I dared to point out that he defended literal Nazis.

Anyway, since I hate him, here’s my reply to him.

1) You’re lying, lol. Not only did you call basically anything “repetition” without actually making any sort of argument, but you also called basically anything “false” without actually making …. any sort of argument.

This is completely false, by the way. For example, Hominishostilis claimed that me calling Richard Spencer “the father of the alt-right” was the funniest thing they ever heard anyone call Spencer. In response, I...

Linked to Wikipedia’s page about Richard Spencer, which describes his views in detail.

Linked to Wikipedia’s page about the Alt-Right movement, which explains where the movement came from and specifically cites Spencer’s webzine “The Alternative Right” as one of the sources of the movement.

I pointed out that Spencer was the one who coined the term “alt-right”.

I pointed out that Spencer is a speaker and organizer of many alt-right meetings.

I pointed out that Spencer promotes the same ideals as the alt-right.

I pointed out that a good chunk of alt-righters looks at Spencer as a leader.

This is NOWHERE near “calling basically anything “repetition” without actually making any sort of argument”, or near “calling basically anything “false” without actually making any sort of argument”.

Kind of like when you ignored huge swathes of things that factually proved you wrong in leu of presenting any actual rebuttal to them.

Note how Hominishostilis will never - and I mean NEVER - actually mention one single thing that 1) was supposed to factually prove me wrong and 2) I ignored without presenting any rebuttal.

2) It’s my post, on my blog - why would I need to link to it?

This requires some context.

You see, in this post, I answered one of Hominishostilis’ posts... without reblogging said post, because Hominis’ post was utter shit, and I didn’t want that shit on my blog. However, I always quoted the bits that I was addressing, without altering them; most importantly, at the beginning of my post, I placed a link to Hominis’ post. That way, if someone wanted to see Hominis’ post in full (for example, to see if I represented his post accurately, or if instead I deliberately omitted important stuff from his post), they could’ve done so.

Hominishostilis threw a shitfit, as you can see in this thread. He claimed that I edited his reply (I did not), then smashed what’s left together, out of context, as some kind of “gotcha” (it wasn’t a “gotcha”). He claimed that I cut out HUGE sections of his argument (because they were useless repetition), snapped up the quotes I figured I could use to misrepresent his argument (I represented his argument accurately), and then blocked him so that he couldn’t even reply (HE was the one who blocked ME). He also claimed that I was wrong to not reblog his post, because apparently I knew that lazy people would just read my response and agree with me (this doesn’t explain why I linked to Hominishostilis’ full post...).

The hypocrisy comes from the fact that not only Hominishostilis did NOT reblog my post; but, unlike me, he didn’t quote anything from the post that he was responding to, and didn’t link to the post he was responding to.

3) You literally can’t prove that, but you continually assert it as some kind of fact.

This refers to my claim that Trump is a fucking bigot. And yes, I did prove it. I asserted it as some kind of fact because it IS a fact.

You present it as a black/white situation while ALSO asserting there’s no other options besides the ones you present,...

That’s because there literally weren’t any options. Trump is a bigot; that is an undeniable fact. People who voted for him either knew that fact, or not; in the former case, they either considered Trump’s bigotry a positive trait, or a negative one. There are no other options. If you voted for Trump, the only possibilities are:

You didn’t knew that Trump was a bigot. You voted for him.

You knew that Trump was a bigot, and considered it a positive quality. You voted for him.

You knew that Trump was a bigot, and considered it a negative quality. You voted for him anyway.

...and that “by all evidence Hillary would have been better” - another assertion you can’t prove, lol.

Note that he never proved that Hillary would’ve been worse.

4) Bigotry “literally” doesn’t kill people.

This claim is completely and utterly absurd, not to mention contrary to all evidence and reason.

It’s also not an excuse to assault people because you *think* they might *eventually* hurt someone.

Yes, it is. If you have reason to believe that someone will harm other people, you’re allowed to act to stop them. It’s that easy.

What people label “hate speech” and “bigotry” has also been stretched over opinions that aren’t even hateful.

This is hilarious, considering that he constantly defends bigotry.

That’s the point you keep conveniently ignoring - you’re still pretending that only the most evil of evil people are the ones being attacked when it’s not. You’ve ignored all evidence of this and dismissed it because that would require you to think critically for two seconds.

No, I did not ignore that. However, I know the following:

One: only a relatively small minority of people on the left attacks inncoent people for no reason.

Two: Hominishostilis is an unreliable narrator. He actively defends neo-Nazis and denies that they did anything wrong. When people correctly called the neo-Nazis at Charlottesville “Nazis”, Hominis falsely claimed that they called innocent non-Nazi people “Nazis”. So, his word isn’t valid evidence. This means that, when he claims that we’re attacking innocent people, we cannot accept his word as evidence.

5) http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Trump+supporter+set+on+fire , you are a moron.

Hominishostilis is trying to rewrite what happened. The context is that he linked me to a video, claiming that it showed “Trump protesters literally sett[ing] a Trump supporter on fire”. I pointed out (correctly) that the video did NOT show what he claimed.

6) He really isn’t. I explained that rather thoroughly, but you again chose to ignore that whole argument and circle back to your “well he DOES STUFF VAGUELY LIKE NAZIS!!”,...

This is false, by the way. Both the claim that Spencer is not a Nazi, the claim that I ignored his “arguments”, and the claim that my arguments bioled down to “well, he does stuff vaguely like Nazis”.

then accused me of “defending him” (LOL) He’s a white nationalist, he’s a racist, but he’s still not a “Nazi”. You’re the New McCarthyists, but instead of The Red Menace it’s “errebody is a NAZI!” Not every racist nationalist is a Nazi.

Presented without comment.

7) Addressed this - it’s not just “Nazis” being attacked, it’s not even mostly “Nazis” being attacked. It’s mostly ordinary people, fellow leftists, and anyone who seems even vaguely conservative these days.

I’m cutting out this bullshit because, besides having been already disproven a million times, there’s the fact that the evidence that he brought to support his claim (his own word)... simply isn’t enough.

8) Nope. Debate them, mock them, show people how indefensible and stupid their arguments are. We’ve gone over this twice now, my guy - it’s not “Nazis” being suppressed.

Blah blah blah, I’m cutting out more bullshit.

Also, fun fact: this entire thing originally started when tumblr user Slimetony wrote: “how dare you advocate violence against people who advocate violence. let them advocate violence in peace. who are you to suppress their right to advocate violence.” Which highlights the hypocrisy of certain people (alt-righters included), who have no problems with bigots advocating violence for no reason; but have big problems with people who advocate for violence against bigots.

Slimetony mocked alt-righters, and showed how indefensible and stupid their arguments are.

Hominishostilis got pissed. He couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t accept the fact that Slimetony highlighted Hominis’ hypocrisy.

9)Until someone acts on it, that’s exactly what they are. They’re just words.

You know, I issued a challenge to all those who claim that hate speech - including advocating in favor of discriminating against / deporting / harming marginalized groups for no reason other that they dare to exist - is protected by “free speech”. The challenge is to:

Find one space (an online community, a country, a political party, an organization...);

Where hate speech (described above) was freely allowed;

Where bigotry did NOT quickly spread within said space, becoming more common and worse as a result.

Literally nobody who tried my challenge has ever succeeded. Ever. Which leads to the following conclusion:

When a space freely allows hate speech, it ALWAYS leads to said bigotry spreading within that space, becoming more common and worse as a result.

So, yes, hate speech, despite being “just words”, leads to violence unless challenged. If challenging it requires fists, I don’t have any problems with it - because it means that said hate speech is quickly leading to causing violence, at which point I’ll have to use my fists anyway.

[ranier-layarte]

LONG Character Survey: Ranier Leveilleur

BASICS.

FULL NAME: Ranier Kyran Layarte Leveilleur

NICKNAME: Ran, Raven

AGE: 21-25 (depending on expac)

BIRTHDAY: 1st Sun of the 2nd astral moon

ETHNIC GROUP: Au ra (Xaela)

NATIONALITY: Eorzean – From Ul'dah

LANGUAGE(S): Eorzean,

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: No

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Isn't this the same as the above?

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Married

CLASS: Weapon Master

• Proficient in almost all martial weapons.

• Tends to carry multiple weapons at all times.

• Prefers Axes out of all the bladed weaponry

HOMETOWN / AREA: Ul'dah

CURRENT HOMETOWN/ AREA: Shirogane Mansion

PROFESSION(S): WoL, Scion, Machinist, Businessman, Crafter

PHYSICAL: Extremely fit, exercises daily. Muscular build

HAIR: Black/Dark Blue

EYES: Crimson

NOSE: Average, straight, roman-esque

FACE: Straight essentially a greek nose. (At least if I had to try and describe it)

LIPS: A bit on the thinner side, very lightly pink.

COMPLEXION: A mix of Fair and Medium?

BLEMISHES: None

SCARS: Scar on left thigh from stab wound, Scar on left midsection, and upper right thigh.

TATTOOS: WoL tattoo on the palm of his right hand. (Working on giving him another)

HEIGHT: 7'4

WEIGHT: 330 LBS/ 150kg

BUILD: Tall, Muscular, Fit,

FEATURES: None

ALLERGIES: None, at least not yet.

USUAL HAIRSTYLE: Long hair parted in the middle framing the face. Pulled into a ponytail and held with a silver bead big enough for the tail.

USUAL FACE LOOK: Around 40% expressionless, 30% Scowling, 20% Reflective, 10% happy.

USUAL CLOTHING: Higher end clothing generally a mix of casual with formal preferring long pants and a short sleeved shirt. Boots of some kind and armor of some kind at all times. Either under or over the clothes having a preference for the bulkier armors.

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR(S): Dying and thereby becoming unable to prevent future deaths and incidents. A fear of the unknown. (Which is part of why he tries to prepare for so many things)

ASPIRATION(S): Being able to amass enough wealth to live comfortably and to continue making the lives of the less fortunate easier. Helping create a better society for all.

POSITIVE TRAITS: Empathetic, Compassionate, Humanitarian, Perseverance, Fairness, Courageous, Loving, Self discipline, Reliable, Thoughtful, Patient

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Bossy, Jealous, Secretive, Grumpy, Harsh, Aloof, Stubborn, Cruel (Only to enemies but that doesn't really matter to people does it?) Arrogant (In some things though less now)

ZODIAC: Pisces

TEMPERAMENT: Mix of choleric and melancholic.

SOUL TYPE(S):  King, Warrior, Server (In that order)

ANIMALS: Raven, Bear

VICE HABIT(S): Training, Fixing machines, Drinking, Rubbing Chin, 

FAITH: The Twelve (Loosely)

GHOSTS?: I mean if you've seen them you can't deny them.

AFTERLIFE?: With everything we see there has to be right?

REINCARNATION?: Yes, it's clear there is.

ALIENS?: Yes.

POLITICAL ALIGNMENT: Leftist

ECONOMIC PREFERENCE: Prosperous, everyone has what they need. Along with the means to go beyond that if they are willing and able.

SOCIO POLITICAL POSITION: I think there’s enough to go on.

EDUCATION LEVEL: Higher end of the spectrum, attended sharlayan schooling for a few years of his life. (Around three) Was home taught and by other teachers. Extensive knowledge in numerous subjects such as Machinery, Technology, Gunsmithing, Gemology, Business. Holding the equivalent of a mixture of Graduate or Masters in the subjects.

FAMILY.

FATHER: Kyran Layarte

MOTHER: Sahar Layarte

SIBLINGS: Kyari Layarte

EXTENDED FAMILY:

NAME MEANING(S): Ranier (Rainier with out the first I Meaning Wise army apparently)Kyran (Beam of Light) Sahar (Early morning or Dawn) Kyari (???)

HISTORICAL CONNECTION?: My families connection to history? My connection? My father was one of the survivors of the hotgo tribe also. Does fighting in the Calamity among all the other events count?

FAVORITES.

BOOK: Whatever has his current interest, it can very.

MOVIE PLAY: Does this mean Movie or Play?

5 SONGS:

• “Shock me” Baroness

• “Up In The Air” Thirty Seconds To Mars

• “Rise” League of Legends, Glitch Mob, The Word Alive

• “Unbreakable” Of Mice and Men

• “Drown” Bring Me The Horizon

DEITY: Halone

HOLIDAY: Valentione's day

MONTH: March

SEASON: Fall

PLACE: Beside his wife or workshop.

WEATHER: Light rain

SOUND: The turning of pages, the sound of rain, metal moving against each other.

SCENT(S): Smoke, Metal, Old books, and sweat

TASTE(S):  Dulcet, Spicy,

FEEL(S): Rocks, Silk, Smooth metals,

ANIMAL(S): This was listed before.

NUMBER: 1? I don't know.

COLORS: Black, Blue, Red, Gold, Silver

EXTRA.

TALENTS: Metalworking, Singing, Sewing, Gem Cutting, Technology, Smithing, Machinery, Dexterous.

BAD AT: Getting rest even now, Not over exerting himself, Not overthinking potential scenarios that may never happen. Dealing with almost all animals, Even now sometimes talking about what bothers him too well, but he’s gotten much better over the years/expansions.

TURN ONS: Caring, Helpful, Courageous, Educated, Aggressive. Listening, Reliable, 

TURN OFFS: Selfishness, Boastful, Belligerent, Cruelty, Intolerant, Racism, Weak willed, Careless,

HOBBIES: Creating new things be it machines, armor, clothes, weapons, tools, etc. Working on the same as before. Reading, Exercising, Cooking. Shopping.

TROPES: Pragmatic Hero, Bad ass boast, Big Fancy House, Chekhov's Gun, Determinator, Don't You Dare Pity Me, Genius Bruiser, Heroic Build, It's All My Fault, No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction, Super toughness, Friend to All Children, The Chosen One, The Ace, Ain't Too Proud To Beg, Always Save The Girl, Berserk Button, Death glare, Excuse me while I multi task, Game face, Hypocrite, Lady and Knight, Not So Stoic, Not So Invincible After all, Red Eyes, Take Warning, Stern Teacher, Undying Loyalty, The Power of Love

AESTHETIC TAGS: Workshops, Tools, Kitchens, Weaponry, Guns, Armor, Fine Clothes, Rain, Feathers, Azure Skies, Romance.

VOICE CLAIM(S): Keith Silverstein, (Speaking voice) John Rzeznik (Singing) John Baizley (Singing)

FC INFO.

MAIN  FC(S): Free company? Azure Talons.

ALT FC(S): What?

OLDER FC(S): What?

YOUNGER  FC(S): What?

GENDERBENT FC(S): What the fuck?

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1: IF YOU COULD WRITE YOUR CHARACTER YOUR WAY IN THEIR OWN MOVIE, WHAT WOULD IT BE CALLED, WHAT STYLE WOULD IT BE FILMED IN, AND WHAT WOULD IT BE ABOUT?:

• I genuinely don’t know. Something with the grandeur of lord of the rings maybe? But with the ability to add comedy and romance in the proper way. I'm all for serious movies but I enjoy the ability to add a well executed joke or sweet moment. It also would probably not just be a single film. Taking the general events and using my fics as material would probably be fine.

I’d have to think about it a lot more than I will right now

As for the name, well, I don't really have many options. But, probably something with Final Fantasy XIV as the main title. Give it a JRPG title I suppose as a sub title. Sort of like Warriors Dissonance or Uncovered Stories.

Q2: WHAT WOULD THEIR SOUNDTRACK / SCORE SOUND LIKE?:

• Ambient, switching to full of energy, able to convey emotion. Again mentioning LOTR, the score by Howard shore is really great and able to accompany many scenes in such a fantastic manner. As for the other bits perhaps the addition of artist tracks such as from favorite bands and those songs that have meaning to him. Like the ones listed above. 

Q3: WHY DID YOU START WRITING THIS CHARACTER?:

• As a way to work on and show that, a character doesn't just have to be overly reliant on tropes and cliches. That those are good as part of them but not as defining traits of them. Along with breaking some of those. Like how all protagonists always have dead parents, what's up with that? I enjoy seeing characters that try to break their molds and be more than that.

Q4: WHAT FIRST ATTRACTED YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?:

• My general thing in any game where you can create your own character has always been. To make who you'd want to be in this universe. I did that and then worked on it and reworked things until I got what I have now. So also, yes, he was a self insert.

Q5: DESCRIBE THE BIGGEST THING YOU DISLIKE ABOUT YOUR MUSE:

• Hard one I suppose but. I'd say how he is capable of doing so much. Even though I work with it as it is a key part of him, it's still hard to make him feel right, feel human when he's got these clear incredible strengths. He's very proficient at so many things some would maybe say he's a mary sue type of character. I make an effort to work on how he became that way to offset it. So it's a lot of extra work than if I had him being a more archetypal hero of his type. I may dislike this the most but I also like it. Love hate relationship you know?

Q6: WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN COMMON WITH YOUR MUSE?:

• A good part of our attitudes and personality though on his end they are greater generally. Along with our want to be as best as we can at certain things. 

Q7: HOW DOES YOUR MUSE FEEL ABOUT YOU?:

• Honestly, and in my current state. He would probably be very upset with me and to just know me or the hand I have in his creation and self.

Q8: WHAT CHARACTERS DOES YOUR MUSE HAVE INTERESTING INTERACTIONS WITH?

• Alisaie Leveilleur – She is the main one being his main love interest, girlfriend, and wife later. Though overall he sees her as an equal and a partner, which is part of the reason their relationship grows as much as it does. Along with giving someone who he can trust in and rely on, and vice versa.

• Finn Hogveart - Who harasses Ranier often enough especially with his pet and regarding moogles.

• Alphinaud Leveilleur - and him sometimes get along strangely due to Ranier's relationship with his sister. For a long time he tried to spy on Ranier and make sure he was good for his sister even though he knew he was a good person.

•  Cid Garlond - Ranier sees him as a mentor of sorts, along with someone that he can bounce ideas off of and work with on projects leading to a solid relationship between the two. The two sometimes bicker regarding their work but it's always just them being passionate for the projects.

• Gerolt Blackthorn – Similar to cid in some ways. Ranier looks up to Gerolt and his ability to continue making such amazing creations. Wanting to learn more regarding the processes means Ranier visits him when possible, bringing some drinks for him when he does. Almost having a relationship like bros. Ranier also sometimes has gone to try and sway Rowena on his behalf to lower his debt.

There are more but I don’t want to make this too much longer.

Q9: WHAT GIVES YOU INSPIRATION TO WRITE YOUR MUSE?

• I do not control the write, also Alisaie.

Q10: HOW LONG DID THIS TAKE YOU TO COMPLETE?:

Uhhhh maybe an hour all together. Over the course of three hours.

==========

Tagged by: @amandafullmetal​ @lyllyan-weiss

Tagging: @heyafinney​ @anikisbox​ and anyone who wants to do it that sees this.

[ganymedesclock]

In your recent post about the hypothetical Sincline ships, you mentioned certain roles(Mediator, Herald, Mystic, etc.) that each ship's paladin fulfills. Could you maybe elaborate a bit more on each of these? The concept of a sort of "Alt Five Archetypes" so to speak intrigues me.

I mean, they’re not so much an alternate five archetypes as much as, I like the idea that Black and White, for example, would have the same archetype- they’re the head and they would both align with the concept of the Paragon, but, they would call to different things, to the point that they’re not quite interchangeable. So Lotor could work with the Black Lion, and probably better than with any other Voltron Lion- Shiro could work with White Lion, and probably better than with any other Sincline Lion- but Black and White are not the same, they call for different things.

Black, is in many ways, a champion in the light, obstinate in the face of any who would subjugate or ask them to hide themselves. You can see this in both Shiro and in Zarkon- these are people that when the world tells them to move they dig their heels in and say “no.” They assert their strength of will and their personal power by doubling down on resolve- any time the going gets tough they get more stubborn. It’s a very direct sense of values.

And that’s not to say Lotor never challenges people, never confronts- if anything, we see that even outside of structured theses where he absolutely dismantles someone else’s morals, Lotor can and will often take passing shots of judgment at people he dislikes, such as while convincing Zarkon he’s not up to anything in s4e3, Lotor subtly digs at how obviously Zarkon is neglecting him.

But it’s what Shiro and Lotor did to survive that differentiates them.

Shiro was the person who buckled down and held onto his ideals in a setting that was doing everything it possibly could to strip him of himself, to make him a tool of the empire- when his name was ignored he, in effect, made a new one for himself, and kept pushing, kept fighting. When Shiro the Astronaut was taken into the empire, Shiro the Champion forged himself as something that they wouldn’t tame.

In a way, Lotor also kept his sense of self alive under incredible pressure. However, that doesn’t become a name spoken at a reverent roar, and the one time it does seem to gain acclaim in s3e1, Lotor calmly suggests that means nothing- their acknowledgement is shallow and will easily go.

Where Shiro is in a way, the visionary in the light- someone who lacks a certain amount of artifice- Lotor is the conspirator in the dark. It doesn’t matter if a thousand people don’t hear him- if anything, that’s how he prefers it. He shows the sides of himself that need to be seen in that moment, and Lotor at his most sincere is Lotor in private, with only the people he wants in his inner circle.

So this made me imagine White as, in some ways, an illusionist. Drawing strength from charisma, manipulating attention, focus, what happens where your enemies can see you and what happens in the dark. Light, but light as blinding, bewitching, misdirecting.

And in another sense, White still embodying the Head, the Leader- again, in the sense that if you look where Lotor shines at his most earnest and authentic it’s when he is alone in company he completely trusts. Just like a Black Paladin, we see that Lotor’s downfall is isolation, that in some ways he seems the strongest of the team and in others he is the most dependent on the limbs to support and guide him.

From there, that creates an obvious interesting relationship with Cyan as the Right Hand. The Black Lion doesn’t really need anyone to announce it in the slightest so Red if anything takes kind of a deferential position as we see through Keith and through Alfor- Red in a way hangs back and supports Black, to rush in during their time of need.

But if we characterize White as an entity who in some ways obscures their own brilliance, it creates an interesting since that Cyan is the one who brings White into the light, that illuminates the importance of her beloved leader. Both to others- (s3e2, “You dare speak to Prince Lotor?”) and to that leader themselves, when the White Paladin might be lost to the darkness they survive in- this isn’t who you are.

In that sense, Pink becomes the counterpart, the left hand, who expresses their loyalty not by pulling White out of the darkness as-needed, but, as the one who accompanies White through the darkness. Speaking technically, while this is because of Narti’s somewhat rude dismissal from the plot, Narti is the one paladin we never see turn on Lotor in any way. As Ezor says, she trusts him. 

And that implies that in some ways, while Acxa obviously takes a sense of importance and relevance from following Lotor, and in s7 seems to describe herself as lost without him (that she had to separate from her other Sincline pilots to find her own path again)...

Narti expresses that same sense of loyalty, of being a Hand, by shadowing Lotor closely. She’s literally the person he calls on to watch his back when he’s summoned for a direct confrontation by Zarkon.

(which further plays into the ideas I have about the White Paladin- Lotor doesn’t hate confrontations, but overwhelmingly Lotor reacts to someone else’s confrontation- in s3e1, Throk was planning something and Lotor merely baited it into the open, in s3e3 Keith chases Lotor first, and Lotor cheerfully demurs keeping up the attack because it’s not the “day of our choosing”. In s5e2, both Black Paladins in a way are open about this confrontation- Zarkon orchestrates it, and Shiro arms Lotor. But the entire time leading up to the fight, Lotor is stonefaced, almost seeming resigned, and that’s how he remains afterwards- he doesn’t relish confronting Zarkon directly, merely acknowledges it as something that needed to be done.)

With Orange and Blue, since the nature of the Blue Lion is mutability and versatility, I would imagine Orange and Blue are the closest to each other. Roughly, I think what differentiates both of the Sincline Legs from Voltron is the sense that Sincline’s legs are more aggressive.

Ezor, the emotional side of the protection is the one who speaks frankly and calculatingly about the future of the team, and it is a very, very grim summation for Sincline indeed when Ezor actually says she’s given up trying to understand Lotor, when in s3, them happy and together, we see that Ezor makes a lot of effort to keep up with what Lotor is thinking.

I imagine in a healthier scenario, with Sincline moving towards apotheosis as a team rather than falling apart, Ezor would be the one most likely to confront and challenge Lotor when he’s withdrawing away from the team, for the same reasons she was the one to first consider pulling away from him after Narti’s death- because she can look frankly at the psychological climate and go “we’re not gonna survive like this.”

The biggest difference between Ezor and Lance- and by connection, Orange Lion and Blue Lion- is that we see Ezor ply her emotional savvy aggressively. Probably the clearest example is in s7- she easily skims the paladins, notice who’s in the most protected position, Pidge, and who as soon as she looks at Pidge, the other paladins start giving her death glares- and she knows immediately that threatening Pidge is going to get her the most leverage the fastest. In s3e2 she does similar things with the Puigian leader, taunting him and baiting him into getting sloppy.

And that makes sense. The Legs are those concerned with protecting the team, with seeing their allies as a mouth to feed, an injury to bandage, needs that call for redress. 

And the biggest difference between Sincline and Voltron is Voltron is a proud champion of the light, a knightly figure of a bygone age, born during peace and a harbinger of hope. Powerful, shielded, closely entwined with this sense of honor, and overwhelmingly, carrying a tower shield and a shining sword.

Sincline is a bandit, not because of a lack of values- because again, I imagine each piece of Sincline embodies much the same values as its corresponding piece of Voltron- but because if you have been starving for years, honor won’t feed you. Sincline did not streak across the sky and deliver itself as a shining beacon of potential to a court of lords. It was born during wartime, it panicked and hid itself; it waited centuries, powerless in the darkness, nestled in a trap it had created to keep itself safe and tear apart any unworthy that might approach it.

There’s a reason Sincline resonates with Lotor and the generals. It’s because they themselves, are fearful, cornered people. They’re not spineless or morally deficient compared to Voltron- but it’s easy to be a knight in shining armor when you have the money to afford the suit and a polishing kit. It’s easy to say that you want to not merely save people, but do so as a moral inspiration, when you have the luxury of not having to choose between the two.

So much of Lotor’s argument with Voltron at the end of s6 basically boils down to “you don’t understand because you were safe. You were safe, and comfortable, because you had people who loved you and hid you from the fire and the wolves at the door. I did what I did because while you were safe, I was out here, with the cold and the beasts, and I did what I had to because I needed to eat.”

So there’s a vein of not ruthlessness or depravity to Sincline, but of desperation. In peace and in plenty, Sincline is just as honorable as Voltron. But it doesn’t forget famine, because it can’t forget them- because it remembers that, and because that echoes in the heart of its chosen paladins. They remember what it feels like to starve, and that memory starts to gnaw on them when food runs low.

And in some ways, that would resonate most in the leg pilots- in Orange who is very versed in fear, in uncertainty, in “can we make it? Can we keep going like this? Should we be hoping in the future or should we be making sure we have somewhere to run to?”- 

And in Indigo, counterpart of Yellow, the team’s shield, who knows that while she might stock heavily in armor and strength, that she’s going to need to stay there and keep holding that defensive line even well past the point that it will hurt her. Hence why Yellow Lion is the Guardian, but Indigo Lion is the Martyr- not that she lacks the resolve to live in any sense, but in a way, Sincline is shaped by the sense that you can’t guarantee everyone will make it, and if you want to try, the best thing to do is to make a decision that if only four people can go home, you won’t waste time deciding before you push your friends to safety.

Though, that sense of Sincline as born out of want, out of necessity, out of fear would ring through all of them- it’s the significance of Cyan’s focus on Honor specifically because as the counterpart to Red, the visionary, Cyan is the one who looks towards that image of gleaming heroes in armor and says “we could get there, I believe in you. You’re worthy of those honors, too. I won’t let anyone forget it.”

It’s the significance of how Pink expresses her curiosity, her focus on knowledge and information- nobody, nobody sneaks up on Sincline on Pink’s watch. Which is, incidentally, the exact reason why in my original post I gave Pink the power to sense and disable cloaked targets- not only does it set her up as a nice rival to Green that way, but it enforces the idea that in canon, the beginning of Sincline’s end was losing Narti- because she’s the team’s vanguard, and from that point on, they had to operate blind.

And it’s the significance of White as a leader who, no matter how charismatic and clever, is not really comfortable being seen as themselves. While it was so brief, I really think it means a lot that in s6 we see that Lotor in an actual comfortable equal-footing environment with the paladins rapidly turns a bit sheepish and cautious- because Lotor’s most comfortable being seen when it’s an image he’s projecting, and it is a very rare currency of absolute trust when he actually lets his shields down, and he wasn’t quite there with many of the paladins yet.

While it’s funny to see Lotor blushing a little at Lance’s enthusiastic clowning, it comes back to the unfunny root that this is because, for most of his life, Lotor has not felt safe being who he is. He has to know he can trust people before he shows his hand. And that tying thematically into how I imagine the White Lion, as a counterpart to Black with that heavy focus on Identity and Self- but White is the concealed, protected Self that refracts itself through mirrors to become power.

[smis-five-creedmoor]

In light of all the news I’ve been hearing of, I need to get this off my chest. This will be a very, very unpopular post, and I’ll probably even lose a few close friends for saying this (you know who you are), but it needs to be said.

But first, some background:

See, I grew up in a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses. As such, I was told to keep an arm’s distance away from any and all non-Witnesses. This made me a very lonely individual. Further compounding the issue was the fact that, at some point in my childhood, there was an individual who abused me to hell and back. All the while discouraging me from being close to anyone that isn’t him. Further compounding the issue was my autism making it hard to maintain what little social ability I had.

Basically, I was kept in isolation for large amounts of time at a time, resulting in me gaining a bit of a reputation of being quiet, weird, and at times unapproachable.

Then, after graduating high school, I was a NEET for about 6-8 months. I had wanted to use those 6 months to figure out what I wanted to do in life. The result is me staying at home playing nothing but Minecraft and watching MLP all day, even further ensuring my social isolation.

By the time I finally chose something for college, I was socially...stunted. I was highly combative, prone to fits, VERY distrusting of people, and just was an unpleasant individual to be around. But by this point I was used to being isolated.

An important tidbit of information here is that when I went to college, I had the whole thing paid for by my parents (mind you it was a fairly short program akin to the US’s “Community College” and I still lived with my parents for this, so the costs were kept fairly minimal).

It was also around this time I was interested in firearms (though, more specifically, air guns at this time).

This next bit of story will seem a little more familiar to the Millenials following me on this site, but with a slight variation. See, I went to school for HVAC-R (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, Refrigeration), and while I was able to graduate, I still had to take a test in order to be fully qualified to be a mechanic. I’ve attempted the test, and I failed three times in the course of one year, all the while keeping social interactions to a minimum. The rules state that if I fail the test three times, I basically had to go back to school to try again.

As you can see, this was a failure. My parents said they would not be helping me with payments for college. And thus, I was back in square one. This was around the time my mental health was at its lowest. And thus, I began looking for any work. My parents supported the endeavour, but was forever disappointed that it wasn’t related to my college education.

Basically, for much of my life, I was isolated. VERY isolated.

Now, what was the point of telling you this (quite frankly long-winded) backstory? This is a chillingly similar story to a lot of the Far Right terrorists I’ve been reading about. However, where I stopped with the backstory is where the divergence begins. See, in my case, after effectively throwing things up at the ceiling in hopes to see what sticks, with a further declining mental health and wallet, I eventually got myself a nice job selling guns to people (I do realize the irony in this and to this day it still makes me chuckle).

Okay, that divergence point wasn’t the only point where I differ. The positive about the air gun hobby (which evolved into gun hobby) is that I was exposed to a bunch of weirdoes (of which I consider to be cool people in my life), which, in many cases, were acting as the only social interactions I had.

See, in my case, I had just a few tiny embers of motivation to keep going, even in the worst of times. In the case of, for example, the El Paso shooter, I see a completely extinguished flame of motivation to succeed in life. A pitch-black pit of ashes and soot. At best this results in suicide (of which becomes, at best, a statistic) that nobody reports on. At worst is what I’ll be talking about next:

I can’t claim to know everything that’s happened to the guy in El Paso, TX, USA (or really any of the Alt Right), but the few commonalities I’ve seen between me and these Alt Right weirdoes is indicative of a problematic pattern:

Isolationism.

Humans are social creatures, and as such talking to one another and having dialogue is crucial. And at the risk of sounding like “hurr dburr technology bad Thomas Edison was a witch”, for all the good the Internet has brought us (and it most certainly has), it’s also acted as a double-edged sword.

I’m not going into a “in the past humans spoke with each other face-to-face myeh~” because that’s, at most, only part of the issue. I don’t know when, but at some point people kept cutting more and more people out of their circles due to differing opinions. This results in those social rejects to seek out anyone to speak with, both on and offline. Now, I do know why that happens. I forget where but I read somewhere that differing opinions trigger the same brain response as when a saber-toothed tiger rushes towards you: a fight-or-flight response.

I don’t know if it’s because of deliberate actions of some nefarious actors or just something that festered over time, but at some point the talking points between these groups of rejects became very extremist. But because nobody else would dare approach them with a 50′ pole (be it because they’re just that well hidden or their actions are really just that repulsive), their views go unchallenged.

Even further compounding the issue is all the news and media attention mass shooters have had received, especially around 2008-2017, but starting from Columbine (even though mass shootings took place before then, see Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal, QC, Canada). And given the nature of Cable News around this time (24 hour coverage of everything ever), this only emboldened a lot of these killers.

Now, to their credit, they did slow down on the reporting on the mass shooters’ profile and what have you, but because there’s enough of a backlog of previous mass shooters, it’ll still be a while before it all dies down. Not helping is that these incidents are becoming weirder and crazier, with the latest one specifically targetting Latin Americans and leaving a manifesto (in the same fashion as the guy in Christchurch, also racially motivated). Why? Because they know it’ll result in The Clicks. It’ll result in The Attention.

The same Attention they never received as kids.

Mix that with the utter nihilism, and this results in a horrific cocktail of terror.

Before any of my followers to the right of the aisle say any sort of Shen Bapiro style quip of sorts, this is not limited to The Far Right. I’m bringing them up because right now that seems to be The Big Discussion Point right now.

You may have noticed that I’ve not mentioned Donald Trump or his rhetoric. Let me first make things clear: I do not like Donald Trump. I do not like a lot of what he’s done, or what he’s said.

But the reason I’ve not mentioned Trump is simple:

This shit’s been happening since at least the Clinton administration. It’s only gotten this insane because it had the time to grow over a very long time.

You may have also noticed that I’ve barely mentioned firearms. Well I can tell you from personal experience it takes more than just a drum mag to drive people to want to kill (I’m so afraid of conflicts that I kept this entire essay below a cut).

I can tell you right now, for every one drum mag used in a massacre, one thousand of them have been used strictly in the range (be it an official one, something cobbled together in some redneck’s backyard, or as gun owners call it: “innawoods”). Most gun owners don’t even like those things for the simple fact that they’re expensive, heavy, and unreliable.

Somewhat off topic, but the whole “sensible gun laws” discussion infuriates me, for the simple fact that nobody can really agree on what “sensible” even is. For some, semi is acceptable but pinned to 10 or 5. Others will say semis are unacceptable altogether. Some will say no guns longer than certain amount, others will say no shorter. Some will say only some guns are acceptable based purely on what they’ve heard, and others will flat out reject guns altogether. Some say shotguns are fine but rifles aren’t, others say rifles are fine but shotguns aren’t.

The fact that everyone wanting “sensible gun laws” have wildly varying ideas of what “sensible” is makes the whole discussion not only pointless, it also assumes that the person declaring their view of “sensible” is in charge of what is sensible, and everyone else must follow it. A very self-centred approach, if you ask me.

All the while having zero clue as to what the hell they’re talking about.

If you made it this far, or just sort of skimmed through everything (I don’t blame you if the latter), here is a scene from Steven Universe that sums up what I’m saying (not perfectly, mind you, but the gist of it remains the same):

So the solution seems simple, yes? Re-integrate these extremists back into society, right?

Well, at this stage it’s not that easy.

And I hate to disappoint, but I don’t really have any answers. At least, one that can be summed up in even just a paragraph. Rather, the way I see it, every individual is a different case study as it is. We all need to approach things in that manner.

Because sweeping legislation of what people can or can’t say, use, or do will only work until it is used against them.

But hey, it’s the fault of a piece of metal and plastic, isn’t it?

[zombiescantfly]

Words About Games - Unreal Tournament 3 (Epic Games, 2007)

Unreal Tournament 3 is nothing short of an utter embarrassment, incompetent at nearly every level, and a gross misunderstanding of a playerbase that was, at the time, nearly a decade old.  I wish I could just leave it at that, but this is the first game I ever felt wronged by.  

This was a franchise killer.  UT3 flopped so hard that it took fans desperate for any sign of a new game ten years to make Epic even consider adding a new entry to the series, and even then it is, as of time of writing, on indefinite hiatus so the handful of developers assigned to it can make more Fortnite dances.  But that comes later.  Unreal Tournament 3 comes first.

The Unreal series was hardly a stranger to hard knocks.  Return to Na Pali was a dull-at-best expansion pack while the much-maligned Unreal 2 missed the point entirely and has since slipped into laughable obscurity, and even the original Unreal Championship on Xbox had to be redeemed with a well-received followup.  I played neither of those, by the way, it's just my understanding that the first one was bad and the second was good.

So what made UT3 the last chance?  What about it was bad enough to kill the franchise that had gone toe-to-toe with Quake and lived to tell the tale?  The real question is what the hell Epic was thinking.

Unreal Tournament 3 lacks a great many things.  At launch, it boasted a meager six gamemodes, and even then only by virtue of splitting 1v1 deathmatch maps off of Deathmatch and into a new category called Duel.  So, our gametypes are: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Duel, Capture the Flag, Vehicle CTF, and Warfare.  That's it.  No Bombing Run, no Mutant, no Invasion, no Domination (double or otherwise), and yet again, for some ungodly reason, no Assault.

I feel like I've done this before.  What else did UT3 leave out?  Facing Worlds!  Yep, it's out again, and this time without a replacement.  That's right, no Face 4 to make up for it.  A new Curse map, a staple of the series since the original Unreal multiplayer, is also missing.  Most of the character factions introduced in UT2003 and 2004 are gone, like the Nightmares, the Robots, the Juggernauts, the Mercenaries, the Gen Mo’kai, the Egyptians, and the Skaarj.  You know, the Skaarj, literally the most important faction to the series at large.  They're gone.  Xan Kriegor, the Big Bad of every Tournament since 1999, the final champ who uses an AI setting above Godlike, who has his own spaceship where the ultimate match is duked out 1v1 in a truly brutal and awesome deathmatch?  Gone.

But that's not the worst of it.  Sure, they stripped out almost everything they'd spent so much time building up throughout character and map descriptions for three games, but even that wasn't enough.  There has to be something else they could take away to really strip the game of its identity.  The Flak Cannon?  No, too easy.  The Shock Rifle?  Almost.  Malcolm, the veteran of all the in-universe Tournaments and arguably the (human) mascot of the series?  I'll do you one better.

They took away the Tournament.

They took away the Tournament.

They took away.

The Tournament.

Unreal Tournament 3 has no Tournament.  

What do we have instead, in Unreal Tournament 3, if not a Tournament?  Calling it Gears of War 1.5 is a good place to start.  

Unreal Tournament never really had a defining artstyle to call its own, but it was still recognizable.  UT99 had its harsh shadows and pockets of bright light on largely cool-colored maps, a very neo-industrial/tech vibe with a smattering of ancient temples thrown in there to call back to Unreal.  UT2003 and 4 turned their tech maps into something a bit shinier overall, left a bit of industrial grunge in, had their fun with future space techno Egypt, and splashed a bit of East Asian architecture in one or two maps for good measure.  Colors were bright, each map had an identifiable pallette, and it's hard to confuse one for the other.

UT3 came out after Gears of War, which means it looked like this:

Not helping matters is the new direction character design was taken, which basically boils down to taking Gears character out of their usual armor and putting them in UT styled suits.  Malcolm’s there and he's put on about 200 pounds of muscle.

Man, just look at all those graphics.  And it's a good thing there are so many, because otherwise how would we know what we're looking at when the dramatic cutscenes play?

Because since we have no Tournament in our Unreal Tournament game, we of course have to have a very dramatic story about a Krall invasion and this guy named Ronin’s quest to get revenge.  

Let's unpack that.

The Krall invaded.  The Krall, the mercenary/slave race kept on retainer by the Skaarj, are the primary antagonists, but not the Skaarj themselves.  Ronin, an entirely new character made for this game, is the primary focus when actual series (human) mascot Malcolm is right there.  And the whole thing is a heroic revenge story, not a Tournament.

I hate this game.

So UT3 forces a series of ladder matches across all of three gametypes into a narrative nobody asked for.  If it had had anything to with the series’ history, it probably could have been acceptable, but it doesn't mean anything as it is.  Matches are now short gameplay segments in between an overproduced narrative about revenge and retribution, and they're given wholly unnecessary context.  Deathmatch is no longer literal bloodsport to entertain the masses but a gritty, brutal battle of attrition until one side wears down the other side’s respawner charges.  Capture the Flag isn't a game, it's you taking a daring and gritty shot at capturing your ugly, inhuman enemy’s Field LAttice Generator to turn off their respawner.  Warfare/Onslaught isn't a fun territory control match, it's a gritty and unrelentingly brutal comment on how war is hell, as you capture territory to destroy the Core that powers your gritty enemy’s respawner.

Do you get it.  Respawners.  Real war.  Not a game anymore.  No fun allowed.

Sigh.

This game came out when I was late into highschool, and was one of the first games I was super excited about.  Back then I didn't actually play all that many games, tending instead to stick to a smallish library of my favorites.  So when UT3 was announced, originally as Unreal Tournament 2007, I was hyped.  It would be one of the first games on the brand-new Unreal Engine 3, and the handful of prerelease screenshots kept my attention for months with their unparalleled lighting and detail.  Blurbs about the changes they were making excited me, talking about how they were putting a bit more speed back into the game to win over the holdouts who thought UT2004 was too slow.  An entirely new roster of vehicles was going to sit alongside the existing ones, and a whole host of changes was coming to merge the best of UT99 with UT2004.

That's what they promised.  What was actually delivered was an anemic blend of half-baked executions.  People don't like double jumping and think UT2004 is too floaty, others like double jumping and think UT99 is missing critical movement options?  UT3 keeps double jumping but makes the total jump height of both equal to a single jump in UT99, removes wall and air dodging, and adds a noticeable recovery delay after dodging from the ground.  Cool, great.

People didn't like the weapon balance changes and replacements?  Toss out the Assault Rifle, bring back the Enforcer, but make it just as inaccurate as the AR!  Make the spread on the Flak Cannon’s primary tighter, but have its alt fire shell fall off even faster than UT99’s!  

That's not to say all of the changes were bad.  Believe it or not, Unreal Tournament 3 actually does have a handful of things I really like, which makes their presence in an overall worse game all the more painful.  Vehicle physics are greatly improved, the new vehicles are amazing, Adrenaline is gone, the Rocket Launcher has its grenades back, a lot of the new weapon designs are superb, powerups are back on the map, you get a hoverboard on Warfare and VCtF maps, and I'm all out of nice things to say.  

The game, visually, is a mess (see above).  A new graphics engine means new effects to play with, but those effects here are bloom and more bloom.  Players get lost in overstuffed scenery because the artstyle inherited from Gears of War is red on brown on gray.  A more grounded overall concept strips a lot of identity from returning maps, taking them from space or exotic locales and putting them in a generic futuristic cityscape.

That's a small complaint, and totally worth dismissing, but it shows a certain lack of respect to the history of the series, to me.  These are maps that have been iconic as a whole that have been repurposed to show off how many pixels can be crammed into a skybox.  When Facing Worlds was eventually re-added in UT3’s first and only content update, it was transplanted from two opposing towers on an asteroid spinning above Earth and just set in the mountains somewhere in China.  

If you're looking at it from a pure gameplay perspective then there's nothing wrong with the change.  But it's just part of an inherent ignorance as to what players wanted from this game.  We didn't want a weird storyline where we watch Epic mush per-pixel lit action figures into each other before graciously being allowed to capture the enemy’s Field Lattice Generator three times, we wanted to mush those action figures together ourselves as we climbed higher up the ladder towards facing the Tournament champion.  We wanted to thunder across whatever alien landscapes the map designer thought up that day and add another piece to the expansive puzzle of the Unreal universe, not spend two-thirds of the game puttering around China or the generic scifi city. 

Also, in going back to get those above screenshots, I discovered something I’d entirely forgotten: there are no map descriptions.  The strongest part of that good old fashioned world building is just gone.  No more short tales of a skyscraper built by a hubris-devoured crazy person, no more small insights into the shipping lines around this or that outpost, no more glimpses at all into the world beyond the game.  For them to suddenly make such a big deal about the story, Epic sure didn’t care about anything beyond their cutscenes.

But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself.  What else is in UT3?

Not a whole lot.  With a lack of gamemodes came a lack of maps, though I suppose 41 maps was still more than you could expect at the time.  The bonus pack that turned UT3 into the “Black Edition” (I have no idea) added 19 more and did, as previously mentioned, re-add Facing Worlds.  Mutators are also lacking, with a fair chunk appearing just as basic gameplay tweaks - no hoverboard, no Orb (we'll talk about the stupid Orb), no powerups, the Arena mainstay, no Translocator (just a game setting in all previous titles), friendly fire (also a previous game setting), game speed adjustments (yep, was a setting before), and your basic Instagib/big head/super berserk mutators like you always get.  

Gone are fun things like quad jump, vampire, big wheels, slow motion corpses, all the “other UT” mutators (UT Classic and UT 2003 Style if you recall), and vehicle arena.  Remember, no fun allowed.

And I sure do wish there was fun allowed, because some things almost are.  Warfare is the star here, or at least it should have been.  Imagine:  a map five times as large as the largest Onslaught map, still joined by paths of dozens of capture nodes linked together to create distinct fronts, laced in between guided objectives reminiscent of Assault scenarios.  Completing these objectives grants you unique bonuses on your path to the enemy Core, if you can make it past the army of players and vehicles ahead…

That's what Warfare was billed as, but that's not what Warfare ended up being.  What did it turn out as?  Literally Onslaught again, but with an Orb now.  

The Orb is a game-breakingly frustrating mechanic.  Here's how it goes:  the Orb spawns at a node you control.  Someone can pick up the Orb and carry it around, shooting a giant pillar of light into the sky wherever they go.  The Orb will instantly destroy and capture any enemy node it's brought to, and will be destroyed in doing so.  The player carrying the Orb can't use any vehicle except their personal hoverboard.  

The Orb either wins games outright or does stone nothing.  See, both teams get an Orb, so what happens most of the time is that one guy uses the Orb to capture a node, then the other Orb is used to take it back.  It's not like you can use it to get a sneaky capture, because of the giant pillar of light shooting into the sky and an icon on the minimap.  The Orb is stupid, and proper control of the map makes sure that absolutely nothing comes from its presence.  So good work Epic, you added another layer to a gamemode you already stripped back to exactly what we'd gotten before, and all that comes of it is absolutely nothing.

The new vehicles are cool though.  Everything from UT2004 makes a comeback with a tweaked design, and new Necris vehicles are added as well.  They're usually just an analog of an existing vehicle except with wiggly scifi tentacles, so you get a single-person hoverthingy and a VTOL jet with lasers and missiles, but they really outdid themselves with some of the other ones.  Filling the spot of the main battle tank for the new vehicles is a giant War of the Worlds style tripod that can clamber over most obstacles and terrain.  The light attack jeep spot is a laser-toting mini-walker that can retract its tendrils and roll around as a ball, squishing people on its merry way.  Like I said, not all bad.  Oh, but only one team gets them, and not all maps support their inclusion.  So only mostly bad.

But they are all that's left of a much larger gamemode that had more and more stripped from it until they were left with literally just Onslaught but with the Orb.  

And the bad things just kept coming, this time in regards to the music.  New composers were brought in again, in the form of Jesper Kyd and Rom DiPrisco, and they make a total mess of the place.  There are a good number of “remixes” present on the soundtrack, but where the musical genius Kevin Reipl took GoDown and made Hyperblast Redux, whichever of the duo made the UT3 remix of GoDown just added some modulation and a breakbeat.  Or maybe the classic Foregone Destruction, where the UT3 version just adds some modulation and a breakbeat.  Mechanism Eight?  Modulation and a breakbeat.  Skyward Fire?  Modulation and a breakbeat.  The classic Unreal Tournament theme itself?  Modulation and a breakbeat.  The instantly recognizable stage music for UT2004’s Torlan, SDG-ONS1?  Surprisingly, a mold-breaker here: no modulation, only an added breakbeat.  And someone wailing over it.  I get that it's supposed to have a vaguely Middle Eastern or whatever sort of vibe, ‘cause the original did and Torlan itself was set in a dusty oasis sort of thing, but they changed the setting for UT3 to be more temperate so I really have no idea.

My point is that the music in UT3 sucks.  Even past the embarrassing quality of the remixes, none of the original compositions are memorable.  There's no energy, there's nothing that plays to the idea of the game, and there's no bombast.  The music probably has its fans out there, but I'm about as far from one of them as you can get.

I’m also about as far from a fan of the game itself as you can get.  When this came out, I was mainly confused as to how it could be so bad.  It’s not like it was the first time I ever didn’t like a videogame, but for Unreal Tournament of all things to turn out so bad, I just didn’t really know what I was experiencing.  UT3 was so bad that within a month I was looking up tutorials on how to use UT2004’s editor.  A year or so later Epic put UT3 on Steam and added a content pack that turned it into Unreal Tournament 3: Black Edition (I still don’t know), but that added so little that it barely made a difference.  Two new gamemodes that just amounted to new types of Deathmatch, a handful of maps, and that was it.  

People made their own maps, sure, and I’m sure if I looked now I could find mods that make it a more bearable experience.  But at the same time, I’m not really sure.  Because see, UT3 didn’t just release on PC this time around, it also came out on PS3 and the Xbox 360.  Epic wanted to bring the award-winning modding scene to those platforms as well, which means the entire process of modding and the number of things that could be modded was cut way down to adhere to guidelines from both companies as well as the much more limited space available on the console’s hard drives.  I only ever looked into mods back around when the Black Edition dropped, and the most popular mods I remember from back then is just adding a Master Chief character model.

To say that Unreal Tournament 3 was a disappointment is perhaps the biggest understatement of this entire essay.  I’m not going to rant on about how it was a betrayal of brand integrity or something, because I’m not entirely that naive, but the failure of this game to do as much right as its predecessors or even impress on any great scale meant a lot for the arena shooter genre.  Id Software had bowed out and wouldn’t reappear with Rage until years later.  Halo was wrapping up its trilogy to critical acclaim.  Call of Duty was rapidly changing the face of shooters with Call of Duty 4.  Fallout 3 was near, Bioshock had come out a year or so prior, and Gears of War 2 would cement Epic’s new direction.  

There was no redeeming followup to Unreal Tournament 3.  Nothing came out to add Assault or Domination or Bombing Run back in.  It came out, bellyflopped, and Epic let it sit in the lovingly-rendered mud full of bloom and speculars that it landed in.  

In the decade-plus since then, the face of shooters has changed again and again.  CoD4 ushered in an unrelenting push towards modern-day settings, a small subset of shooters with RPG elements grew larger, Bungie made more Halo games and then Destiny, a whole indie subgenre popped up to try to let us relive the days of Doom and Quake, then a fantastic new Doom came out, and now everyone has a battle royale.  Even Epic.  

A few years ago on the official Unreal Tournament forums on Epic’s website, a group of fans formed a plan to make their own Unreal Tournament entry under a different name.  Work started, schedules were made, and it caught Epic’s attention as so many remake projects do.  But rather than end with a Cease & Desist like just about every other one out there, a few people from Epic expressed surprise that there was such a massive push and actually pledged their own support to the project.  Unreal Tournament 4 was suddenly an official project.  

It was a strange relationship, of course - Epic’s people gave it a place in their launcher and let it use their official servers, they signed off on all major updates and made everything nice and official, but the weapon, map, and character design was going to be on the community.  We can get into the ethics of that some other time, but the point was this:  Before all that long, there was a playable Unreal Tournament 4.  Maps were using placeholder art and geometry, most of the weapons were just the UT3 models, there was one character model, and all you could play was Deathmatch, but it was coming along.  And it did come along.  The Enforcer, Link Gun, Flak Cannon, Rocket Launcher, and Sniper Rifle were all finalized and modeled, a few maps were finished entirely and look gorgeous (and play really well!), and more character models were added.  

And then Fortnite got big.  

Fortnite, a weird little Orcs Must Die-alike with building and survival elements, wasn’t much of a big name until Epic added a battle royale mode of their own, not too long after Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds swept across the Steam Early Access scene.  What that meant for the UT4 project is that the handful of official Epic people who were getting paid to curate this giant mod endeavor were suddenly reassigned to work on something a little more immediate, namely Fortnite.  

The long and short of it is that Epic killed Unreal Tournament twice in a row.  There are still arena shooters out there.  Toxikk is basically just UT2004 deathmatch with a shiny coat of paint (I played a bit, it’s okay but lacks a lot in comparison); Quake Champions is a perfectly fine hero shooter with a lot of balance problems and way too few maps, plus it’s Quake which means all the problems I have remain; Tribes: Ascend came and went just as fast as players in it moved thanks to a suddenly overaggressive monetization model; and lately I guess Dusk has its multiplayer which I hear is pretty healthy.  

The arena shooter isn’t dead; no genre really can be, and I have firsthand experience with how much work can be done to keep individual games alive, but it’s certainly not a popular choice these days.  If so much has happened to the shooter genre at large since Wolfenstein 3D came out, that much and more can happen again.  More people are playing videogames than ever, technology marches onward, and maybe one day someone in the right position with the right resources will create something that finally puts the public eye back on the most classic of multiplayer shooters.

But until then, the decade of languishing that arena shooters have been the subject of is entirely Epic Games’ fault.

[some-rfa-imagines]

A Big List Of Prompts

i thought ‘why not?’ and made one of these for myself. I wandered around the internet for a while and shoved together a bunch of prompts I thought were interesting. Pick a character and a number (pls specify) and I’ll write you a thing!

Most of these are not mine!!!

hhhhh lets hope i know what i’m doing

Dialogue:

“I don’t think this is the biggest mistake you’ve made. It’s probably like… third worst.”

“Shouting at each other across the room doesn’t count as having a proper conversation about your feelings you know. Wouldn’t you rather all of this be private, anyway?”

“No pressure, honest. It’s not like the world is depending on you or anything.”

“But if they think we’re a couple, we'll get the couples discount!”

“Are you always this prone to bad luck and violence? If so, that’s kind of sad.”

“Can I just whoop your ass… like… right now?”

“Rules? Nope, not listening. I’m not following them. Never have, never will.”

“Did operation steal the cat and return the nuclear codes get completed yet?"

“I call it 'the plan that will save the world and also remove minions for good'."

“what the hell are you doing with (other character)'s dog locked in your garden?!"

“Yeah!, heh, I just uh remembered that, uhm- I have- uh.. I have a few places to see and uh *ahem*, people to go- I mEAN- uhm, yeah,,, I-I’ll- I’ll be right back— oh! Uh, completely unrelated to that, uh, ngh, wheres the nearest cliff?”

“Shut up [name], just because you have the grace and social skills of a drunken ferret, does not mean I must.”

“You’re so convinced that I’ll hurt them that you haven’t considered it’s the last thing I’d ever want to do.”

“What have I told you about listening to your gut more? It’s smart. Do it.”

“Pal, I don’t know where you got the idea that I’m a good person, but if you want to keep it. Leave now.”

“I can be sweet. Sometimes. To certain people. It happens!”

“Stop laughing!”

“Call me [blank] - not that that's my name.”

“So I suppose you want to ask me how I pulled it off.”

“Didn’t you know darling? The key to getting away with a crime is making people think you are peaceful.”

"I hope that what I've said hasn't hurt you too much."

"Move away from the door and let me at him."

"You embarrassed me this evening."

"I want to turn back the clock to before..."

"Try focusing more on your life and less on mine!"

"There's something I need to get off my chest."

"I did a pregnancy test."

"If you get me his phone, I might reconsider."

"I knew you wouldn't be able to see it through."

"You were meant to be watching him!"

"How dare you look down your nose at me like that."

“It’s not my fault you’re short.”

“Tell me right now or I swear on my life you’ll regret everything.”

“You’re back!”

“I missed you.”

“I did my best, okay?!”

“Kiss me right this second.”

“Just do it!”

“I believe you’ll come back to us. I just know it.”

“You’re not a bad person… You… You wouldn’t…”

“I can’t trust you… Not anymore.”

“Don’t leave me!”

“You promised we were in this together…”

“Wait a minute, are you flirting with me?”

“You’re even more stunning.”

“As many as the stars in the sky.”

“CAN YOU EVEN READ?!”

“You’re actually the most insufferable person I’ve ever had the pleasure meeting.”

“I risked everything for you.”

“I… I love you, okay?”

“Who the hell are you and why is my favourite book in a puddle of orange juice.”

“This is a lot harder than it looks and I don’t think you realise that.”

“That’s the lamest pickup line I’ve ever heard of.” “Damn. Well, it was just plan A.” “And what’s plan B…?” “To take you hostage.”

“What the fuck did they do to you in that lab?”

“Ehhh, needles, comas, that deep freeze thing in the first room, shoving these onto my back. Oh also they forced me to eat soggy bread.”

“Love, you underestimate how much food I can shove in my mouth before I need to be stopped.”

“Okay so why did you have to smash that vase again” “I DIDN’T MEAN TO, IT GOT IN THE WAY”

“Welcome to my treasure trove.” “There’s a sword.” “Yeah.” “wHY DO YOU HAVE A SWORD.” “...” “caaaaaan i touch it?”

“Love, I’ve done this before. Every hundred years. For seventeen millenniums.”

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO (NAME)?!”

“Are… Who are these people? They- They look like me…”

“So, what do you want for dinner?” “I’m thinking Italian. Like, Italian.” “BABE.”

“Oooh, look at the detail on that mirror.”

“Okay now you’re just messing with me and you need to stop.”

“Okay, I know I’m idiotic to get lost in a corn maze but who the fuck are you and why are you apparently as idiotic as I am.”

“I was on my way to buy that soul for Satan, who do you think you are. You can’t do that.”

“I’m sure you know who I am.”

“Huh…? Oh, fuck.”

“I swear to god, my little sister will kill me when I get home.”

“Bit rude to swear to God right now, don’t you think?”

“Fuck. I’m going to die. Damn.”

“YOU DEFINITELY WILL IF YOU DRINK THAT.”

“You know you can’t bring (them), Your Highness, (they’ll) be used against you.”

“Don’t hold me responsible, I wasn’t even there.” “Yeah, but you gave me the idea.”

“You know what, fuck you.”

“The fuck did you say they put on my gravestone?!”

“Honey, I don’t care if you’re the fucking queen or an uncooperative cat, get off your ass and live your life you trash bag.”

“Hey, calm down, please, oh god okay, calm aura, calm aura, please stop freaking out, calm down, it’s okay, you can do this.”

“So that’s it? We’re done?”

“Please, just… hold me. Just for a moment.”

“I think I’m just gonna sleep outside and let the snow bury me until I die.”

“So… what are we?”

“Don’t you dare take another step out that door!”

“This better be good.”

“That… was the worst excuse I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“I’m saying you don’t have a rulebook.”

“These kinds of things don’t just come with an instruction manual, [name]!”

“Why, that’s absurd!”

“I would never.”

“It makes me so uncomfortable when people ask me, ‘Where do you see yourself in 'x’ years?’ Like… I see myself cold in the ground, my guy, but that’s not the answer you want to hear so this is an awkward predicament we’re in, huh.”

“Listen up fucker.”

“Let me tell you all the reasons why I won’t do that.”

“HAVE YOU HEARD OF A TURN SIGNAL EVER IN YOUR LIFE”

“I am already the family disappointment, what more do you want from me”

“Do you?”

“Get. Out.”

“If people are watching, we might as well make this entertaining!”

“I’ve absolutely never seen you in my entire life so if you’ll just excuse me now, have a good day!”

“Okay, stop going to sleep at 4am, it makes you philosophical and sentimental and that’s weird.”

“Make me.”

Setting:

The night sky lit up for a second and what followed sounded a lot like the end of the world.

It's not always the case of 'these guys are foolish to only send one guy' sometimes it's 'we should be terrified they only sent one guy.’

Dear reader, I wish I could tell you that you're going to like this story.

Without meaning to, they’d arranged two dates for the same evening.

Everything about [name] was a lie.

They'd only been apart for a week and already he had a new lover hanging off his arm.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.

You guys were taking forever and I was hungry so I baked cookies who wants some?

First Lines:

[Character] had enjoyed ten years of being totally irresponsible.

The pencil had NOT been worth stealing.

[Character] wasn't happy about it, but [pronoun]’d been recalled to life for one reason or another.

If [Character] could change one thing, it would be carrying that gun.

It was enchanting. Either that or [name] was incredibly wasted.

AUs: (many from this blog! Complete credit to them)

Masquerade Ball AU: Person A and Person B can’t recognise each other

Frustrated Customer and Tired Employee AU

Hitman AU: Person A and Person B are hired to take each other out

Assassin AU: After watching B for so long, A has begun to fall for them

Pirate/Mermaid AU

Coffee Shop AU: Why’d you have to smile at me like that, I couldn’t even concentrate on your order oh god I’m blushing why am I so fLUSTERED

Overthrown Royalty AU: Okay so I love you and all, but why the fuck did you have to start a war they’re going to kill you - you’re a dead (queen/king) walking and I hope you know that.

Blood dripped down B’s chin. A knew B was a vampire. A knew they needed blood. But it was a little offensive when B drank from others!Vampire AU

my little sister really looks up to you because she’s going through that phase so she’ll probably kill me again when i get home!Idol AU

Fantasy AU: A is suspicious of the legends. You know, those legends. Everyone knew about them. The ones about the dragons in the hills.

Spy AU: “Fuck, why did you have to be the one to join me on this mission you do realise that it’s dangerous and they don’t care whether we die or not.”

I know my cupcakes are better than your blueberry muffins and that’s what matters and wait holy shit these are actually pretty good!Baking AU

Medieval AU

(Alt) Modern AU

We were both stood up by our dates at this fancy restaurant and they have an ‘at least two to a table’ policy so you need to have dinner with me AU

I know shit all about music theory but I’ve already written and composed hit songs while you’ve been taking lessons for years and struggle with melody please don’t kill me!Musician AU

I answered your weirdly specific craigslist roommate ad as a joke and now we’re living together!Roommates AU

You’re really short and cute and you buy a cup of black coffee every morning but you make weird faces as you sip it and you never finish your drink are you trying to look mature or something!coffee shop AU

reincarnation AU: person A meets their favourite band/singer and realises they were friends in a past life

Hello I’m your boss and you’re the new employee who just saw me shove an entire cupcake into my mouth!Office AU

We’re neighbours and you work at a flower shop and your place is always filled with flowers. I’m too self-conscious to say anything, but I’m allergic af and I look like I’ve been crying every time we meet. Now you probably think I’m in an abusive relationship or something omg

I don’t really know you but we’ve shared a bus stop for years and I just got my first car and I hope this isn’t weird but what I’m trying to say is do you want to carpool with me from now on? Like, to save the environment, I mean.

I can’t give you what you want, why didn’t I leave before we go too emotionally involved AU

I came up to the roof of our apartment building at 2 AM to see this asteroid go by and just as I stepped out you came running at me screaming so naturally I froze and you’re screaming at me so loud I can’t understand what you’re - oh the door locks behind you. Well now we’re both locked out here gdi

someone in the dorms makes amazing cookies and you’re trying to figure it out and walk in on me baking at four in the morning!College AU

I found you duct-taped to a telephone pole thirty feet off the ground

Just to be polite, I held the door open for you but now we’re both insisting that the other go first and we’re seriously about to get into an argument about it and cAN YOU JUST WALK THROUGH THE DOOR P L E A S E

I’m in this museum for a school project, but you are apparently here for fun and good lord you are good looking, so I’m totally going to pretend I know anything at all about the life and works of this random artist…Rembrandt, you say?

IKEA AU: I’m a cashier and when you looked for your wallet about a hundred of our pencils dropped out of your pocket, that’s actually pretty impressive where did you even hide them?

I was rehearsing lines for the romantic lead and I didn’t see you through that window, I had no idea that YOU were playing my romantic interest and now I can’t remember a single line

I tried my hand at this thing called cooking but I ended up making enough to feed a small army. You’re my next door neighbour, so like, are you hungry? You can bring the beer

Soulmates:

Looking around, A tried to spot their best friend when they saw it. Their own handwriting, on someone else’s arm.

A sees B in their mirror every night. They’ve never met in real life.

You can see colours but realise that recently, with each passing day, your world of colours is becoming a little duller and you’re panicking because you don’t know what’s going on, or what it means, or if your soulmate is okay.

We’re having our first argument as a married couple: do we explore this island, or do we stay in bed all day

I can’t give you what you want, why didn’t I leave before we go too emotionally involved AU

You’re not sure if the other half of your tattoo should end with this person’s words, or that one’s—wait, I think it might end with the phrase of that other person too. It’s just a very open-ended sentence…

You’re an Angel and I’m a Demon and we met while hiding in human form and I love you

Author:

Write an apology letter to the character you hurt the most.

Complete the sentence for [character]: “I think the most important thing in the world is…”

You see someone being hit in the street. What superpower would you like to have in this situation?

Write a scenario where you meet your characters.

Would your characters like you? As a person or as an author?

Have a philosophical conversation with your characters.

I would love if you added your own prompts to this! I’ll probably go back and add more later. in the meantime, i’ll go hunt down all the necessary credits! byee~

[mohartproductions]

Approaching Diversity

This is something I've been wanting to express for sometime now. I don't know the best way to put this into words, and generally for everyone to understand, but I feel this recurring trend of bashing a certain product for pushing for representation of minorities has gotten way out of hand. Now in some cases it's not always the audience's fault; sometimes it's on the creative team's part or even the marketing since either or could potentially slip up, especially if they either don't do a good job representing minority characters or send vague or even pretentious messages prior to the release of that project that exposits how diverse it is. (sometimes they would even go far to call someone out as sexist... something which I'll talk about in a bit) But more often as of late a lot of negative backlash towards a product showcasing diversity or representation does tend to be rather callous and even bigoted. Ever since promotional art for the upcoming She-Ra reboot was released it was meat with crass remarks like "Those SJWs are just shoving diversity down our throats again!" or "Oh look, a female character who looks like a queer just like the creator, clearly this is a gay agenda!" or crap like that. Those might not be the exact words but from what I remember they definitely come off as insensitive and even downright bigoted. And with this recent surge of conservatism and right-wing politics taking hold of social media it's definitely worrying. Look I can understand criticizing a project for being preachy, especially if that's how the marketing approaches this tactic, but then there's the matter of bigoted remarks that follow, and what's even worse is the direct attacks at certain individuals for their personal identity when they are merely performers who are just doing their jobs! We've been seeing this happen again and again with Star Wars, and recently with The Titans trailer and the initial casting of Batwoman, and it's NOT okay! (also the news of a new MLP series with Applejack being voiced by a Black voice actress, the reception to that is pretty racist if I must say so myself) The problem with how a product or creative team push for diversity is NOT the idea itself but rather the marketing and the execution of the final product, and that's no more apparent than with the 2016 Ghostbusters film. A movie about a new team of Ghostbusters that's primarily female is actually a good idea, in fact from a meta perspective the premise of that film actually had a lot of good ideas it's just that they weren't used very well, from the characterization right down to the overall narrative of the film's story; then of course there was the marketing campaign and the campaign outright insulting it's potential audience that "They're sexist if they don't like it" just before the film's release... and inevitable flop! Now bare in mind, that movie flopped not because of "diversity," and even if "diversity" was to blame it's only to an extent, the real reason why it failed was because of how the marketing exposited on how it was "diverse" as well as the over all film just not being that good at all. But like I said the film did still have a lot of good ideas going for it, including a female Ghostbusters team, it's just that they weren't used very well. That said, on the tv side of things there are shows that push for diversity and are actually successful, shows like Avatar, Steven Universe, My Little Pony, and Star vs the Forces of Evil are some very obvious examples; pushing for diversity IS a good thing, the only reason why some (if not most) people think it isn't is because of poor campaigning prior to a product's launch, particularly based on vague or pretentious hind sight that either doesn't offer much detail on said product or how it will approach said diversity, as is the case with the recent trailer of "High Guardian Spice," which isn't really a trailer so much as a production sneak peek so already it's been sending vague messages, and it doesn't really "force" diversity so much as just exposit on it's supposed diversity. So yeah I can understand certain criticisms in those regards... BUT then we have problems from the opposite extreme, as I already said before. As of late there has been a lot of toxic reception towards minority characters or even minority actors portraying said characters, and yes they do come off as sexist, racist, and even queerphobic, and simply using phrases like "SJW," Snowflake," Leftists," white genocide" or "cuck" that I dare would not use for standards of decency do not in anyway help their cases; in face phrases like those can practically be taken directly from the Alt-Right dictionary, as I have been docking down from various right-wing themed videos from across youtube by people like Black Pigeon Speaks, Andy Warski, and Aydin Paladin, right next to using "Autistic" as another phrase for "retarded."(which is a word I dare not want to use btw, but I had to so you know which word exactly) In fact of all the phrases, let's talk about the phrase, "Forced Diversity" shall we?! Just like with SJW or Snowflake or Tumblrina, using the term "forced diversity" as a means of bashing a product is also just another Far-Right dog whistling, however unlike the other aforementioned dog whistles that method of pejorative slang is a lot harder to come to grips with because based on mismanaged campaigning in some products it actually sounds much more reasonable, but like all those other dog whistles though it only sounds reasonable until you look more into it yourself and start rethinking about it. In fact here's something profound, maybe forcing diversity can actually be a good thing; now bare with me I did not say that forcing diversity IS a good thing... but it can be, and here's why-- Pushing for more diversity, particularly if you are a creator of a certain product, because it can actually force you to be more creative about how you want to approach a character based on a certain identity; and it can also be a positive for other people who really don't know too much about minorities; more often than not they'll see "we get it" but the surface is only skin deep, there is more to a minority character than just their ethnicity, orientation, gender, religion, or any other cultural background on the surface, while you probably shouldn't be too preachy about that person's personal identity, that identity on the other hand can be beneficial to building that character as well as coming to grips with what it's like for that individual to grow up and live based on that inherent background. Of course you could just leave it as just a trait, but it can go hand in hand with other characteristics to help make that character connect more with the audience be they of that same background or not; so like writing a story with a beginning, middle and end, pushing for diversity in your character roster is also a creator's equivalent to going to the gym, because it helps them to learn more about other people and be more creative in writing your story and fleshing out your character. But if this pattern of vague and pretentious campaigning and following failures for a product do continue then both general public (particularly if most of them aren't a minority) and the higher ups of the entertainment industry will start to think that pushing for diversity is marketing poisoning; and eventually they'll give up diversity altogether... and I for one do NOT want that to happen. I do want diversity, I want more representation of minority figures in entertainment media, especially as a means of educating the non-minority majority (an oxymoron I know) and pushing back bigotry or insensitive bias' altogether. Again I understand criticizing a product for being preachy, or how the campaign for that product is being preachy, but if you simply think a minority character, or a character who is portrayed by a minority performer/creator is a problem, or if the idea of diversity in itself is too political, particularly if you use "diversity" or "sjw" as dirty words, then I'm sorry but you're the one doing the shoehorning a vindictive political agenda, an agenda that practically says "the portrayal of minority characters or involvement of minority performers and creators is what upsets me!"

I know that's not how every non-minority individual who criticizes something thinks, particularly if a character in that product based on their non-majority background is poorly written, although it does seem contradictory to how a poorly written minority character is often associated with "forced diversity" and as "proof" as to why it's bad by those in the majority, while a poorly written majority character doesn't receive similar scorn by either minorities or majority groups. :/ 

Like I said, I know not everyone in the majority who criticizes something is racist, sexist, queerphobic, or religiously or culturally intolerant, but looking back on Youtube conservatives are mainly invested in minority characters and performing individuals getting as little representation or general screen time as possible, be it in movies, television, video games, and especially in comic books; that's why some "critics" of Steven Universe, the recent Star Wars movies, or the upcoming She-Ra series, (when it's not even out yet mind you) as well as a number of superhero comics be they from DC, Marvel or otherwise would pretend that anything like those is trying to push some "Anti-StraightWhiteMale agenda" or start hand-wringing about a matriarchy, especially if this kind of motivational stigma is revealed through the fact they almost always sugarcoat their bias with neo-reactionary right-wing buzzwords like again "Forced Diversity" or of course "SJW;" a term that of course initially was used as an ironic insult, but has over time become so synonymous with actual bigots that it's practically unironic and is basically a billboard that says "I'm an idiot and I don't know what I'm actually talking about!"

If you have the time btw, I encourage you to watch this video by ContraPoints titled "Decrypting the Alt-Right", as she nearly perfectly illustrates alt-right dog whistling and how you can determine who is a bigot based on them.

Now does that excuse campaigns or even creative teams directly for how they handle showcasing diversity?! No, of course not, especially if they don't do it very well... which is the real friggin problem!! (as well as feeble minded dog whistling of course)

All the same, I'm always looking for more diversity and representation as long as it's good, especially if it represents those characters in more complex ways a number of people still don't know about. So don't be afraid push for diversity, expand your horizons, learn more about other people, and even if anyone calls you out as an "SJW"... eh, don't worry about it, heck if anything you can just take "social justice warrior" as a compliment since they're basically saying you're a "warrior of justice." Or you know, you can just shrug off and ignore them. Either way at least you know you're doing something right. ;)

[knightofbalance-13]

https://caddeter.tumblr.com/post/174539392695/for-fuck-sake

Dude, I just left the fandom. Why the fuck are you doing this?

KKKoBias, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Depression

Anger issues

A lack of impulse control

Asperger’s

Take your pick

No, seriously, what the fuck?  You harassed someone for an entire week.  You did nothing but attack they’re opinions and the user just because they dared say something mean about RWBY.  You enabled a portion of the FNDM to attack that user and made a bad situation worse.  And then, when people bring that shit back because A. That’s kinda hard to just forget.  B. You still practice the same behavior that almost caused someone to kill themselves. and C. You bring shit back all the time, no matter how legitimate what your saying is(Which knowing you, it isn’t), you try to make it sound like we’re the bad guys?

Funny hyow you don’t bring up the link in question whereas I did.

And do.

https://comments.deviantart.com/1/619991269/4290345087

Probably because if you looked at the comments, you’ll notice something:

A. While the comment chain began on Dec. 22 and ended on Dec. 27...The person in question only responded on Dec.26. Meaning that not only are you two days short but you’re also three days off. Two days of internet arguing is not that bad.

B. I didn’t enable anyone. I posted the link on reddit but I never encouraged anyone to attack them. And looking through the comments, it did NOTHING to the reaction which is mostly positive. I was wrong to post it on reddit yes, but that ISN’T your argument here so it is not correct.

C. I only bring stuff up when someone tries arguing a moral point. Dudeblade calling the CRWBY homophobic looks a lot less convincing when you see he is guilty of the same thing and still acts like he’s better.

D. I’m gonna be blunt: They weren’t gonna kill themselves. Having looked back at the situation in hindsight and discussed the situation: This was just someone trying to use suicide as a way to end an argument. I never told them they were shit or hell, even insulted them in the slightest or implied anything that would trigger such an event. And immediately afterward, they edited their journal entry with lies about the situation. None of this is like what an actual sucidial person would do.

You harassed a DeviantArt user and block evaded for an entire week, always ignoring when they told you to leave them alone.  You brought this into the RWBY reddit, and knowing you, I’ll be my entire house that you did it to tell them “Hey, look at this idiot.” You didn’t even bother to try and apologize until you were told to, like the spoiled, self-righteous child you are.  You called them a member of a fictional terrorist organization just because they said something you didn’t like and stood their ground.   You claimed you wanted to ‘educate’ anyone who disagreed, as in didn’t like, didn’t enjoy, didn’t find interesting or compelling, several emotional responses, completely subjective things, to see things your way.

A. I couldn’t have block evaded for a week if our conversation was only two days long.

B. Already apologized for it and stopped doing it.

C. https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBY/comments/5khw9y/my_thoughts_on_pyrrhas_death_rwby_and_rt_by_jswf/

I never expressed that sentiment here. So do I get the house or do you just give it up?

D.

Being a terrorist isn't the point of the White Fang: It's the fact that they were once peaceful and in the right. Until their own hatred and anger devolved them into being no better than the force they fought. Kind of like what happened to you and your group. To the point that I see you as below me. And considering I think about killing myself, that's pretty fucking low/

Context disagrees with you: I did it to illustrate that he wasn’t any better than what he fought against.

E. Press Ctrl+F and type in the word ‘educate’.

I only said the word once and

And I never said "educate', just show them both sides of the argument. Just like in Civil War, there is no right or wrong here. Just a difference of opinions. I only aimed to give a balanced view.

It was a response to him saying that I was saying that. I never said that: you’re lying.

And you have the god damn nerve to try and say we’re making shit up?

Context, the link you gave never said that and what you’re referring to could just be me pointing out how you people make stuff up about the show, which is seperate from this argument.

jswb wasn’t and isn’t trying to shame people into not speaking against them, neither is the RWDE tag.  You are trying to scare people into not talking.  This has happened multiple times before.  Someone posts something you don’t like, and you stalk and harass them until they delete the post.  You threatened Kidgecat with physical violence over a shit post. The idea that you nearly caused someone to commit suicide isn’t an impossibility.  The only impossibility is the idea that you didn’t. You’re not some grand anti-hero trying to help the FNDM, you never were and never will be.  The first reason for that is that anti-heroes don’t see themselves as heroes.  The second reason is that every time you get involved, a situation goes from bad to worse as you pull out every underhanded trick, every lie you could tell, every alt blog you need to pull out and make, just because someone said, ‘Hey, I kinda don’t like this thing about RWBY.’  Be it an in-depth analysis or a fucking joke, you don’t stop until they concede, till they say your right and give up their opinion for yours.

1.

The guy I've been chatting with Knight of Balance, has basically says he wants to 'educate' everyone who disagrees with the direction the show has been going, insulting me and others who dislike Pyrrha's death and he wants to silence us. I hid his comments so he wouldn't get a chance to 'educate my audience', his words not mine. He says he 'won't let Miles and Kerry bring Pyrrha back'. Oh really? Let's show him that he doesn't control us. Do not be quiet about how awful, insulting, needlessly cruel, and forced Pyrrha's death was. Don't let them get away with it, let them know how disappointed you are and let your voices be heard. People like him think they can control us, let's show them how wrong they are. 

He says this right AFTER blocking me.

I broke down crying, shaking, nearly throwing up, I read all of those hateful, hurtful, cruel, and insulting comments and I replied to the guy's comment with a off-putting all caps reply telling him know that I was breaking down and was about to end myself and when I did that he backed off, probably feeling like he had won, because he said himself that he was 'metaphorically' willing to drag me down to hell. I was a nervous wreck, I was being overwhelmed and felt like I wanted to die. I grabbed some scissors and nearly killed myself but thankfully I was able to remember all of the reasons I have for living like my family, my friends, the stories I write and the fans I've gotten, the stories I want to continue reading or watching, I realized I had so many reasons to live so I was able to stop myself.

To stuff like this:

*Sigh* Look, I never meant for you to get this stressed out. Hell, I understand where your coming from. Thinking about killing myself is such a common occurrence now I'm not even fazed by it anymore. So putting aside my feeling towards you and your conduct, I want you to listen to what i have to say: Your life matters. No matter what you think I've said, no matter what other people have said, no matter what you say, your life matters. You have friends and family who love and care about you and if you kill yourself, all it will do is wound those around you. It's painful I know but it's true. The best thing you can do is seek help above all else. Trust me, psychiatrists maybe be expensive by by divinty' sake they are miracle workers. And I know you're sick of hearing about this anime but really, look up Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. That anime is a large part of why I get out of bed in the morning even thought I know there's a very good chance I'll choke to death on my breakfast, lunch or dinner or that my life probably doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. It taught me to keep moving forward no matter what I lose or what I suffer because there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The journey is hard and long but it's worth it. I never intended on hurting you. Had I known you were this psychologically fragile or you were this invested in Pyrrha I would have said nothing. I understand where you are coming from and I'm sorry I did so much damage to you. I was wrong and you were right. Good day.

So I don’t think any of THAT is valid.

2. Link ouright contradicts you...And that was froma YEAR and a HALF ago.

3. And you guys have caused mental damage to several people in teh fandom. However not all of it is your fault because some people are just that way. Your reactions of ‘not my issue/fuck that person’ however...

4. Two points. A. Batman sees himself as a hero and he’s the basis for most anti-heroes. B. I stopped thinking myself as someone right a LONG time ago. I just act in what I think is best and trust that if I’m wrong, I’ll fail. I live by a ‘The right are the strongest’ AKA people who are right will defeat people who are wrong philosophy. People have beaten me before in debates and I have immense respect for them.

5A. Like not linking your proof?

5B. Like making up a quote?

5C. Stopped doing that after people told me it was wrong.

5D. Explain why I personally make an effort to care for certain critics of RWBY. Like @faboover who despite disagreeing with about Volume 4, I personally make an effort to help him and encourage him. Explain the CRTQ blog which I was the most active member of and made quite a few complaints about RWBY. Explain the event of this very situation you quote I NEVER call his opinion wrong, just his actions.

6. Then I wonder why a lot of my friends have differing opinions of RWBY.

You know what, screw it.  Not only is this going in the main tag, it’s only going in the main tag, and I’m doing everything I can to make sure the fandom sees you for the self-important, unrelenting, egotistical, uncaring, and cruel person you are.

So you try arguing a moral position while expressly trying to slander me? ... So you contradict everything you’ve done here?

And you got half of these wrong. I’m self important, I’m not egotistical nor am I uncaring. I am unrelenting though it switches from good to bad at times and I do have a sadistic side.

But here’s teh deal:

jswv is self important in thinking that disagreeing with them is hateful.

Sokumotanaka is egotistical because he thinks all criticisms against him are invalid and his opinion is objective fact,

And Dudeblade,someone I KNOW you personally interact with, is uncaring as he suicide baited an LGBT person after talking about LGBT suicide rates and proceeded to make a backhanded apology.

And the last two are EXCEEDINGLY cruel people, as well as sociopathic and bigoted.

So why don’t you call them out?

Easy: They agree with you. You don’t care about other people if they don’t agree with you. I’d bet if jswv was praising RT and I was arguing about how much of an ass kisser they were: You’d fucking love me.

Not that any of this matters: You people crossed the fucking line with that doxxing incident so i ain’t dealing with your shit anymore.

Go find someone else to call your boogeyman.

[cooltrainererika]

Hetalia Emblem: Once Upon A Hallowed Night (pt. I)

Hello! This is my entry for this year’s #hetaween #hetaween19/20! The prompt is 10/20 Crossover. And I have delivered! At least part of it!

However, this requires some explanation; this takes place in my Samuraiverse/Flagverse AU, or “Hetalia Emblem”, a theoretical Hetalia x World Flags (if you don’t know, it’s this: world-flags.org) x Fire Emblem crossover game. Basically, it’s Hetalia characters, World Flags outfits and weapons (as well as certain character elements; they will become apparent as you read along), and Fire Emblem gameplay, story elements, and lore elements. Unlike “Alt-talia”, the AU I usually write in, I’m thinking I might use characterizations closer to canon instead. Though they still may be slightly different.

So I saw the prompt, and thought this was a perfect place to spread my AU more. Basically, this is a human AU taking place in a Japanese medieval setting with international elements. A summary can be found here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DarthWiki/HetaliaEmblem

Now, this requires minimal knowledge of Fire Emblem, though some spell names and skills (basically things that can enhance a unit on the battlefield) and such might be referenced. (Also, if anyone wants to use this AU, go ahead! Please!)

And tonight, I have for you not one fic, but a batch of four! First, a spiritual tale. Second, a fun trick-or-treat story with a twist. And third, an action story (hopefully)!

Also these are being released separately so I can hope to get one out the door by the end of today. Though oh well, it’s the 20th in most of the rest of the world.

Also, this is an idea for a support conversation somewhat modified to fit the holiday. If you don’t know what a support conversation is, they’re conversations that you can unlock between two characters to make them bond more, making them perform better around each other in battle. As such, it was the one I was most sure about. And many, including many of the main characters, don’t have designs yet, as such if I need to describe their weapons they’ll be considered sword users for now.

I also haven’t decided fully on some names, or whether to use different names than Alt-talia, for those who were never given names or have inaccurate ones. However, I have decided to use the ones here for the time being. And Matthew keeps getting called by his full name because everyone’s name is spelled out in kanji in-universe, and in Japanese “Matt” doesn’t make much sense as a nickname for “Matthew”. Also, while a character mentioned in this fic has a name in Alt-talia, here I decided to keep him unnamed. It is kind of debatable if they’re the same character after all...

And since these were kind of rushed, they may not be best written. So yeah... sorry about that. The second one in particular may kind of meander a bit.

Without further ado... Trick-or-Treat!

..........

The night of the last day of the tenth lunar cycle, when the harvest is ripe and the harsh winter nears, the realm of the mystical and spiritual and this realm are at their closest, so close the barrier between them almost nonexistent, for the dead to see those they left behind, and for the mystical to give us a visit...

Closure

He had found her some ways away from the camp, bathed in the smoky aroma of incense, her pale hair seemingly glowing in the moonlight.

“Natallia?”

She turned, the ghouls departing.

“What do you want?”

The boy flinched a bit, but then continued to move towards her, revealing his face. Not that it mattered; his white kimono had made that quite obvious.

Yong-Soo hesitated, his face flushed a shade of pink, sputtering.

“H-hey, Natallia! Erm... it’s me again.”

“What do you want? Don’t waste my time again.”

Her voice was curt, cold.

The boy straightened himself out, shook his head, and cleared his throat.

“I won’t. You can talk to dead people, right? I mean, I heard that you have powers like that, despite not being a mage or anything, and...”

She could see exactly when his face turned uncharacteristically serious, she observed. Somewhat perplexing.

“Yes? And?”

“...I need your help.”

Natallia simply blinked.

Yong-Soo took a deep breath and continued.

“I need to tell you something.”

“...”

“...Hyung Yao isn’t my real brother. I used to have a biological brother. A twin, brother, actually...”

A brother?

His normally cheerful, jolly voice had a tinge of pain that was small, but as apparent as the luminous moon above, behind it. For whatever reason - though she knew why deep down - she felt her heart being tugged at.

“...But one day, he just disappeared. He was gone. I don’t know what happened to him. ...I spent a year looking for him, but... I never found him.”

“...”

“I want closure. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. But, if he is dead... I want to at least say goodbye to him.”

No response.

She turned.

“Please... please...”

The teenager’s voice was starting to break, but he didn’t care. He briskly bowed, his head down low.

“Please... Please, I only-“

“Come with me.”

The dancer lifted his head immediately, just as the woman was starting to walk away.

His face lit up, his eyes becoming misty from the shock and joy of her winds.

“Thank you! Thank you!”

———

The air inside her tent was heavy with incense, the ominous glow emitted from the small fire in front of Yong-Soo.

“What is his name?”

“It is-“

Once she had heard it, she simply nodded, calling upon it thrice in a hushed whisper.

Nothing.

“...He isn’t here.”

“What does that mean?”

“Even if he is dead, he hasn’t visited you. Yet. Now, quiet.”

The boy immediately straightened himself again, nodding

“Yes ma’am.”

————

Natallia had been silent, deathly silent. Even he wouldn’t dare raise a sound. It had felt like time had stopped. Despite the warm glow of the flames and incense, he felt chills; not just any, but a strange chill from within and without. He could have even sworn he saw glowing orbs flicker around her.

————

Vlad felt the spiritual energy; what kind of dark mage would be if he weren’t. It drifted ambivalently in the air, but radiated from a certain, definite place. Huong Lien felt it as well, the mage having poked her head out of her tent as well.

He felt he now had a good idea as to why Yong-Soo seemed so excited when he had heard from him she could see ghosts...

————-

Connecting with the spiritual realm was a strange experience that was unlike any other. It was like being in one place but everyone, trancelike but alert.

On this day, when the other realm was the closest, however, made the process easy; relatively, at least.

Neither she nor Yong didn’t know how long she had been there, but in time, she found herself gently drifting back down, eventually until she was fully back in their realm.

Yong’s anticipation reached a boiling point. He couldn’t take it anymore. He had to know.

“...So? Did you find him? Was he-“

“He wasn’t”

His face started to light up, but with a hint of hesitation, as if barely holding himself back from hoping just yet.

“So... so he’s so alive? He’s still out there somewhere?”

“Yes.”

Tears pricked the dancer’s eyes, as the information fully soaked into the teen’s brain.

Natallia hadn’t noticed herself make a rare, small smile at the sight, though not that he noticed - he finally broke down into tears of joy, repeating “He’s alive! Gods, he’s alive!” to himself.

“Congratulations.”

“Damn it, why did he leave me for so long?! That dastard!”

———-

By the time Yong had left, thanking her profusely of course, she had finally realized she had been smiling.

Natallia couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this... happy for someone outside her family.

But it was as if she saw some of herself in this annoying dancer boy.

Some of that scared, lonely girl and her sister as they called out into the cruel, unforgiving howls of the snowstorm.

————————————————————-

Story 1/3

(BTW, there is an edited version, please read that instead)

[the-energon-hole]

how TFP!Ratchet, Smokescreen, Knockout and RiD! Sideswipe (last bot your choice) react to their s/o standing up before immediately collapsing because their leg is asleep. Their s/o is laughing hard because it's hilarious to them that they can't walk.

Transformers Prime

Ratchet

-You were glad Ratchet was comfortable enough with you to let you sit here with him near his work station- it was nice to just sit and talk while you got to watch him work on his various projects. You weren’t much help most of the time, you weren’t a genius like Raf was, but it was the best quality time you got to spend with him despite you being a little unhelpful most of the time. You took note of how he always mumbled to himself incoherently when he is hyper focused on any give task, it was a cute quirk the grumpy old bot possessed that you wouldn’t dare tell him about out of fear he might stop doing it.

-Sitting here was nice, but you usually ended up getting bad cramps in your legs from always having to be in a scrunched up sitting position. There wasn’t exactly a nice place for you to settle down near Ratchet’s work table, it wasn’t exactly built with a human sitting place in mind. True you can sit like that for hours on end, but sometimes your knees just needed to stretch- and that tingly numbness you felt in your lower legs was an indication that it was about time you stood up to get the blood flowing around your body again. Maybe you will go get some lunch, it was about lunchtime after all.

-You stood up a little too fast, however, and you were unable to correct yourself as you felt your legs give way from underneath you. You met with the ground pretty quick, quicker than Ratchet could react- he jumped when he heard a loud thud from where you were supposed to be sitting. Before he could begin panicking you began to laugh- he was confused and a little angry, you just took a big spill how can you be laughing?! You responded with how can you not laugh- you stood up to dang fast and you just fell over your own feet! You have to laugh at yourself every once in awhile, especially when something funny like this happens.

Arcee

-You were a very patient kind of person, you knew Arcee was a very busy bot- between her duties as a Cybertronian warrior and her caring for young Jack a lot of the time, you two really didn’t get to spend a whole lot of daytime hours together. It was at night time when the busy hustle and bustle lifestyle you both lived that you two were able to spend the most time together. Being able to wind down and relax at the end of the day was actually very therapeutic- but sometimes you just missed her so much you wished there were more hours in a day to spend with each other.

-You had such respect and adoration for what she did on a daily basis, but sometimes you just absolutely missed her. It got boring at night while you sat there on your shared berth just browsing through the internet, mindlessly waiting for that clock to strike a certain time and Arcee would pop through that door with a loving smile and stories about how her day was while you two were apart. You loved hearing everything she had to say, and you know she felt the same way about you- it as a special bond between the two of you, as there were never any secrets or lies.

-When that door slid open early, you could feel yourself beaming as you looked up from your laptop screen, Arcee was home early! It was rare when it happened, but it was always a happy moment that sometimes you act before you think. You gently placed the laptop next to you on the ground as you stood up a little too quickly. You must have been using that device longer than you though, as not only did you get a head rush- your legs just stopped working all together. You met with the ground in a flash, and you felt devastated- how can you be so clumsy in front of Arcee?! That went away pretty quick, as the both of you began to laugh with each other, “I knew you would be happy to see me, but I didn’t think you would be falling all over yourself!” you smiled from your spot on the ground as you have yet to stand up, you were so lucky to have her.

Knockout

-When riding with Knockout in his vehicle mode- he doesn’t allow you to put your feet on the seat, when in reality you find sitting scrunched up to be a little more comfortable than the standard sitting position. Knockout hated that little quirk about you, but it didn’t bother you that he felt that way- no matter what he says it won’t change! You two loved to tease each other over small flaws you have, it was all in good fun, you both were secure in who you were enough to tease in that way.

-He often liked to take you to nice places like this, you both sat next to one another as you star gazed at the beautifully lit sky. Being from a big city you were never able to see the sky so beautifully like this, so you spent hours staring as Knockout pointed out both Earth and Cybertronian constellations. It was times like this that you really enjoyed being in his company, even though he can be a pain in the rear end sometimes. He could be downright romantic when he actually stops polishing his frame long enough to think about other people, and you laugh as he got all huffy with you for saying something like that.

-He stood up and began to stretch as he claimed it was time to head home and get ready to go to sleep, as he bragged about how hard he works and that he deserves every break that he can get. You rolled your eyes as you watched him transform, but as soon as you stood you felt that tingly numbness that happens when your legs stay scrunched up for far too long. Before you could even thing, you felt yourself hit the dirty ground rather hard. You hear Knockout begin to laugh, saying that is what you get for saying he was vain and unromantic, you just laughed along with him- bad karma strikes again.

Smokescreen

-You and Smokescreen’s favorite pastime was going out into the middle of the desert to see how fast he could push the limits of his alt-mode. It was something that you both did almost every single weekend, and it was something that never got old. You always packed one of those folding chairs with you when he wanted to really push his limits, he wouldn’t want you to get hurt on the off chance he ever lost control. You didn’t mind just sitting on the sidelines watching him race himself, it was like having your very own personal nascar to cheer for, one you could smooch later once he was finished trainning. You could watch him for hours and hours on end, he was so elegant as a car, and even more so when he was a bot.

-That old folding chair wasn’t exactly the most comfortable thing in the world, and you have been meaning to replace it, you just always forget until you are actually sitting in the dang thing. You always sat with your legs tucked up under you, as that was much more comfortable than sitting on the cushion less folding chair. It was a position you were used to being in at this point, so you never complained about it out loud to anyone- what was the point of complaining about it anyway, you could fix it if you could just remember to get new chair.

-You were so caught up in watching Smokey racing that you didn’t notice the numb feeling in your thighs, it wasn’t until he was done racing and slid to a stop in front of you with open doors did you notice it a little too late. You jumped out of your chair, only to effectively landon your front when your legs couldn’t handle the pressure you were putting on them. You laughed as you heard Smokescreen transform and give off a noise of concern- he couldn’t understand why you were laughing, and you simply said that it was fine and that is what you get for not buying a new chair. He didn’t get it, and muttered something about humans being a weird species that didn’t make sense.

Transformers Robots in DIsguise (2015)

Sideswipe

-If there was one thing you knew about sweet Sideswipe, and you boasted that you knew the standoffish bot pretty well, it’s that he can’t get enough of showing off in front of you. Well, showing off and garnering all the attention and compliments he can get in one conversation. You didn’t mind it one bit, you thought it was kind of endearing that he tries so hard to keep your interest and attention- true that it has bad roots stemming from the fact he is insecure with himself, but if your attention helps alleviate those negative feelings than you were more than happy to keep your eyes on him all day and all night.

-In these moments, when he insisted that you watch him train even though you have some work to do, you wished you had a better laptop to do your work on while you sat on the ground a few feet from Sides as he portrayed all his new moves for you. You also wish you had a soft cushion to sit on or something, because the dirty ground was starting to make your thighs and bum numb- especially when you could be sitting her for hours on end. Sides always wants to make sure he gets his moves right, and gets a little upset if you call off his little show off session early. It was a good thing he was cute, otherwise you wouldn’t put up with all this tomfoolery- he, of course knew all of this already. Sometimes you suspected he was testing your patience, and you made sure you weren’t ever going to fail that test.

-Once he was done with this training session he began to stretch out his limbs so he wouldn’t be sore later, and you wanted to join in on that too, as your aching thighs would thank you for it later when you can sit down and not feel how much your bum actually hurt. You went to stand, but your legs buckled under your weight and you felt yourself fall backwards right onto the hard ground, thankfully you didn’t land to hard. You heard Sideswipe stop his movements and you could hear him move towards you, he probably wasn’t sure if he should feel worried or concerned. Once you started laughing though, you could hear him chuckle and say “you’re lucky you are cute, otherwise I wouldn’t put up with these things you do”.

[mermaidsirennikita]

February 2018 Book Roundup

I’d that this was a pretty diverse month for me in terms of reading.  Sure, there was plenty of my traditional fantasy in there, but I also went through a biography, some contemporary YA, a historical fiction novel about Eleanor Roosevelt, alt-history, and some very silly (but very enjoyable) contemporary romance.  My favorite book of the month was probably Purple Hearts, the conclusion of Michael Grant’s Front Lines trilogy--but I’d be lying if I said that one of those romance novels didn’t rival it.  Unfortunately, my least favorite book was that aforementioned Eleanor Roosevelt book.  But hey, I tried it.

Purple Hearts by Michael Grant.  4/5.  The final book in Grant’s Front Lines/Soldier Girls trilogy, Purple Hearts sees Silver Star recipients Rio, Rainy, and Frangie return to the European front in World War II.  Rio is battle-hardened and growing increasingly fearful--not of what she faces at war, but how she, a girl very good at soldiering, will adjust to life afterwards.  Rainy is undercover and subjected to horrors that have a deeply personal ring as she deals with the guilt of surviving, killing, and becoming even colder than she already was.  Frangie is struggling with her faith, saving many as a medic but losing more--in ways that she wouldn’t have imagined.  This series--a take on World War II with the premise that girls were allowed to enlist and be drafted in America--really was way better and far more realistic than it had a right to be.  There were clumsy moments, largely because Grant is (I assume) a guy trying to be as inclusive as possible.  But you know--even when certain scenes came off as a bit awkward, I appreciated the diversity.  And the fact is that you have different reasons to bond with each of our leads, and the people they care about.  I’ll always have a soft spot for Rio most of all, because she embodies that “naive innocent turned into a battle-hardened killer” character type I love so much.  But Frangie goes through so fucking much in this book (they all do, but Frangie seemed like such an optimist at first) and even Rainy, the heroine I had the most difficulty connecting with, finally opens up and becomes a fully-realized character.  “Purple Hearts” struck me as the most brutal book in the trilogy, and there are a lot of horrific scenes throughout.  But it was ultimately very satisfying, and a great end to the series.

Empress of the East by Leslie Peirce.  4/5.  Hurrem Sultan, also known as Roxelana, was the first woman in centuries to legally wed an Ottoman sultan, thus becoming an essential empress.  However, like any concubine, she began life as a slave before catching the eye of Suleyman the Magnificent and beginning one of history’s greatest love affairs--that would result in six children and a fundamental change in Ottoman politics.  Peirce has to make a lot of assumptions when writing this book--little is known about Hurrem, referred to by the name Roxelana in this biography.  But she sticks to accuracy whenever possible, and none of her assumptions are all that out there to me.  I’d call this more popular than academic history, but if you’re looking to get into the history of Hurrem and the Ottoman Empire, I think it’s a great start.

Shadowsong by S. Jae-Jones.  4/5.  Six months after leaving her husband, the Goblin King, behind in the Underground, Liesl is attempting to make something out of her life.  Yet her brother Josef, a gifted musician, hasn’t responded to any of her letters and she finds herself unable to compose.  After receiving a proposal from a mysterious benefactor, Liesl goes to further her career in Vienna, only to realize that the boundaries between our world and the Goblin King’s are deteriorating at an alarming rate, and something is seriously wrong with her brother.  Liesl must return to the Underground to figure out what’s going on--but can she do so without losing her sanity?  This book... is a lot.  It’s beautifully written, incredibly dark at points, and takes a pretty bold turn.  Liesl’s story in “Wintersong” was really of self-discovery and sexual awakening, whereas here the story revolves--fairy stuff aside--around her mental condition and her relationship with Josef.  Along with a bit of Goblin King backstory for good measure.  And for the most part, I’d say it’s successful.  Yes, there were points where I was like “honestly Liesl should probably do something rather than thinking about how bad shit is” but... “Wintersong” wasn’t a very plot-driven book either, so I can’t say that I felt that plot was meant to be a priority in the sequel.  It’s all sort of delightfully eerie and morally ambiguous, holdovers from “Wintersong”. But it was missing the Goblin King.  Again, I feel that this book was very ambitious and super interesting and enjoyable, but it was missing something that made me absolutely adore “Wintersong”.  And I’m not ashamed to admit that that something was the Goblin King and all the emo sex he had with Liesl.  There were definitely points where I almost felt like Jones was trying to push back against the fact that most of the praise surrounding “Wintersong” was around how hot her male “hero” (................ ish) was, but I’ve got to say that that story did seem a bit more effortless to read.  Basically, I wouldn’t change the plot of “Shadowsong”, I think it’s a really good book and followup, but I would add more Goblin King and I’m not ashamed to admit it.  Still, I really loved it and was overall satisfied with the book.

Immortal Reign by Morgan Rhodes.  4/5.  I’m not going to bother on a summary for this because it’s the conclusion to a 6 (?) book series that is all very convoluted.  Essentially, Immortal Reign takes all of the characters we’ve followed and concludes their stories in the expected ways, and while I wouldn’t say that the Falling Kingdoms series is good, exactly... it does what it came here to do.  It’s a very trope-y Game of Thrones for teens type thing with a feisty princess and a brooding dark prince at the center taking up the actual plot (which involves some elemental gods or whatever) with their arranged marriage angsty sexual tension shenanigans and honestly?  It’s fun.  All’s well that ends well.

Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan.  2/5.  Sophie, a cossetted politician’s wife, is shocked when her husband James revealed that he had an affair with a young employee.  James is charismatic and prominent, and though Sophie can believe that the affair happened, she doesn’t believe what comes next--the reveal that James allegedly raped the woman he was sleeping with.  Kate, an experienced lawyer, is ready to prosecute James, completely convinced of his guilt.  But which woman is right?  I honestly debated doing one or two stars here, and I think I went with two because I get what the author is going for.  But like... here’s the thing.  We know which woman is right.  We know from the start, especially after James’s perspective is introduced (side note: the way the POVs were handled seemed wonky).  I’m all about the issue of rape being handled in fiction, especially when we’re talking about charismatic politicians.  It’s very relevant.  But the thing is that there is room for doubt in some cases; a very, very small amount, sure.  However, there’s a reason why trials happen in rape cases.  (Unfortunately, those trials often don’t end as they should, but that’s another issue.)  There should have been doubt in a book that touted itself as a thriller, but all I got was preachiness and a “twist” that... did not... impress me.  Kate’s perspective was incredibly holier than thou--so even though I agreed with her beliefs, I felt like I was being *told* how to feel rather than convinced through the story or writing.  Like, obviously I should agree with everything Kate says.  Obviously.  Also, the writing just wasn’t great--slow and strange at times.  The descriptions of people were weird.  Like, way to take your novel about a feminist issue and describe the evil defense attorney in a way that is suggestive of her weight--she’s described as a “weighty” woman who “plumps” herself down.  Which... whatever.  Good idea, downright unintelligent and uninspired execution that probably would have been more interesting if we focused solely on Sophie’s point of view.

White Houses by Amy Bloom.  2/5.  Lorena Hickock tells the story of her decades-long love affair with first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.  Though American history has never been my jam, I was intrigued because the existence of Eleanor’s affair with “Hick” is debated to this day, despite a lot of evidence towards the fact that Eleanor was a) interested in women and b) in love with Hick, and vice versa.  And this should have been so interesting.  Not only is there the inherent interest factor of a first lady having an affair--and with another woman in the early twentieth century, at that--but Eleanor was a multi-dimensional, controversial woman married to a controversial man (who had plenty of affairs of his own).  But Amy Bloom’s writing style and characterization of Hick (who had a horrific childhood that was handled... I don’t know, rather coldly, by the writing style) just sucked the life out of everything.  I won’t say that there weren’t some pretty moments and I feel like the approach to depicting a long relationship was good, but this was too boring.

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann.  3/5.  Alice has recently suffered yet another bad breakup--and the reason why her girlfriend dumped her is especially painful.  Biromantic and asexual, Alice struggles to communicate to her partners how she feels, and how her romantic attraction to them doesn’t mean that she experiences sexual attraction.  Right after proclaiming that she’s done with dating, Alice meets the handsome, kind Takumi, and is immediately head over heels.  But does she dare tell him about her feelings--and her sexuality?  This book was definitely hard for me to rate, because in all honesty...  I didn’t really like it.  I didn’t really hate it, either.  It was fine.  The representation is so important that I feel like I can’t not recommend it--Alice is black, biromantic, and asexual.  That’s huge.  I don’t know if the author is asexual or not--I know she’s black--so I can’t speak to how the book handles asexuality (another reason why I wasn’t sure how to rate it) but I did appreciate that race wasn’t ignored in the book.  The thing is that while Takumi was very cute, much of the book felt more like a Tumblr spiel than a story.  Alice has a right to have her feelings hurt by the fact that her girlfriend doesn’t want to be with her; but I also felt like the girlfriend was a bit demonized for wanting to feel sexually desired, and the fact is that... that’s okay.  Alice’s friends seem to say the right things a bit too often, especially considering how little the average person knows about asexuality.  Alice herself annoyed the shit out of me, for reasons that had nothing to do with her sexuality--she was just so fucking cutesy, and in all honesty I had a hard time believing that a girl her age thought the way she did.  It also felt as if that fed into the perception of ace people as these fairy-like unicorn types who love all things soft and cute, which...  I don’t know.  Maybe an ace person would read this and say otherwise.  I’m not ace, so I have no idea. Basically: good idea, not so sure about the execution, great rep.  Important, but perhaps a little too After School Special for me.

The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden.  3/5.  Following the events of The Bear and the Nightingale, Vasya is left with two choices: marry, or join a convent.  Spirited--and still being mentored on some level by the frost demon Morozko--Vasya is quickly gains the esteem of the Prince of Moscow after a battle with bandits.  But that leaves her disguising her gender, an d in more danger than ever before.  I remember liking The Bear and the Nightingale--but I’m not sure that it left a huge impression on me, because I felt like I was going into this book blind.  I remember the characters--it’s a big cast--but I wasn’t excited about anything but Vasya and Morozko.  I don’t know, it all came off as a bit slow to me.  Beautifully written and interesting, but slow.  I plan on giving it another shot at some point.

From Lukov with Love by Mariana Zapata.  4/5.  At twenty-six, Jasmine is past her prime as a figure skater, and her pairs partner’s abrupt departure has caused her to miss a season.  She should be thrilled to be asked to partner last-minute with Ivan Lukov, the current world champion--but Ivan is also her best friend’s older brother, and her arch nemesis since she was a teenager.  He’s arrogant and stuck-up; she’s got a chip on her shoulder.  It’s a romance novel.  We know what’s going to happen.  But this was one of the most fun love/hate romance novels I’ve read in a while.  Honestly, there’s nothing INCREDIBLY deep going on here--the stakes are relatively low, there aren’t any major obstacles or even a last minute shocking reveal~.  Ivan and Jasmine really just need to stop being assholes to each other and fucking skate.  Also, make out.  But it’s such a fun book.  Like, the writing is nothing spectacular--there’s some repetition and awkward descriptions--but the leads’ chemistry keeps it together and I pretty much wolfed the book down.

The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata.  3/5.  For two years, Vanessa has been the long-suffering personal, assistant of football star Aiden Graves, who acts as if she doesn’t exist.  Fed up with being taken for granted, Vanessa quits--only to have Aiden show up on her doorstep, asking her to marry him.  A Canadian, Aiden is in danger of having his visa expire, and the easiest way for him to stay in the U.S.--the only way he’ll accept--is through marriage, and Vanessa is the best potential (fake) wife.  After Aiden promises to pay off her student loans and buy her a house, she agrees--but can she keep her real feelings at bay?  Another cheesy but charming romance from Zapata, but this one I found a good bit less compelling.  It was likable, sure, but I didn’t feel the chemistry between Aiden and Vanessa on the same level that I did Ivan and Jasmine’s in the above book.  For that matter, while Aiden wasn’t as nasty to Vanessa as Ivan was to Jasmine--well, Jasmine dished it as well as she took it.  Vanessa, on the other hand, was just a doormat as Aiden had her wash his sheets, cook for him, basically handle everything an adult should handle... while acting like she didn’t exist.  It certainly diminished Aiden’s appeal, though I didn’t hate him.  Again, it was fun, but not nearly as good as From Lukov with Love.