#and i absolutely do not trust the companies marketing this shit to kids

[shinylitwick94]

Kids be vaping all the time and going "there's no real side effects" and I'm like my parents thought that about tobacco when they were your age too and you don't wanna see their lungs

[jaythelay]

I can't think of a single thing I was actually trusting and interested in that was an ad. It has always been trusting and good will from strangers and established reviewers or friends.

If I see an ad, and I basically haven't since before Bing.tv tried forcing me to turn them off (Byyyyeeee!) I actually do make a conscious effort to never support them because of the fact that, if they can afford ads?? They can afford to fuck off, they'll be fine.

I only trust and buy products based on reccomendations, not skeezy marketers wasting my time.

Consider this, you go outside, and what's that in the road? Oh, a Mcdonald's bag, or a Polar Pop cup, or a reese's cup package. Or a beer bottle, or bottlecap, or even a faygo bottle and Dr. Pepper Can.

That's off the top of my head. There's also signs. Lord above, these companies are littering the earth with a pollutant of advertising.

Yet they still have to advertise even when you're home. Everything bought has a logo, the mail is spam, your email is nothing but spam, you go online, there's Still Ads with Sounds Somewhere (The Whole reason I have Adblock, Frebreze wouldn't shut the fuck up during Nostalgia Critic Time) and lo and behold it turns out you haven't paid enough attention because you're not allowed to watch the content you want before watching 5 unskippable ads.

Or you can add yet another subscription for a service previously better and Guaranteed they're gonna sneak ads in eventually anyways. So you go to the TV (which I hadn't since I was 9 years old, Internet Grown) and realize the average number of ads went from 9 to 13.

Branding should be illegal. Just put your name and purpose out in as bland a 5 seconds or less as possible and fuck off. All this personable shit is beyond manipulative, it's corrupt.

It paints companies as positive entities instead of just the fucking door to door wife fucking salesmen and human meat tent vendors they always have been and should remain. I know these companies are evil, the issue is, do children?

Some of the aim is to indoctrinate kids into lifelong purchasers. Seriously ask when's the last time you got something to drink not owned by Peepser or Cockacooler. If not you, someone you know.

Make sure to make your local youth absolutely never trust companies. In fact teach them to trust strangers before companies, they'll actually be safer.

[lonita]

A little bit of Marseille

When I was sixteen years-old I went to visit my mother in France for the first time. For the first three of the fives weeks it was just the two of us - her husband was still in Senegal finishing up some business for the company he was working for at the time - and it was just fabby. Since she didn't have a license, we spent most of our time in Marseille just tooling around the city. I think one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen was the Friday morning flower market in the downtown area - one side of the long main street was nothing but flowers from one end to the other. Gorgeous seems too plain a word for it, but sublime is a bit much, so let's just say it was both and somewhere in the middle. We did a lot of visiting of friends of hers - including one family who had a son about age 20 who loved Simple Minds and was absolutely the most gorgeous thing I'd ever seen in my life (up until that time, at least). My poor little teenage heart had a crush on him for months afterwards. Another one of her friends was the person who got me liking pine tree seeds. She served them with what was possibly the best roast of beef I've ever had in my life. Mmm. The apartment building where my mother and her husband own the apartment in Marseille, is not an apartment building at all really - it's a 200 year-old house that at one time belonged to the Hugarian ambassador to France. It's a bloody gorgeous place that faces the Mediterranean. I could, if I wanted, be out the door and in the ocean in less than five minutes. Watching the sunset over the Mediterranean is one of the most beautiful experiences you could imagine. Anyhow, the apartment building is a co-op - which is great in one sense, but not when it comes to having the facade of the building redone due to sea-salt and Mistral damage, because one of the current tenants is a real bitch. Doesn't want to have to pay for anything, but is the first to complain about anything that's wrong. I digress… The tenants had a big dinner in the back patio one day - more or less a combination of tenant meeting and "welcome the Canadian kid". The table was lovely, right down to the name cards on the plates. That's the one and only time I've ever been to a dinner that had name cards. Mine said "Fille de Canada", because they couldn't remember my name apparently, so they referred to me as the "daughter of Canada". The company, for the most part, was quite nice - even though I couldn't understand but maybe twenty words out of the mish-mash of French that was floating around my ears. None of them spoke English at all, though a few did try a little. It's funny how language barriers don't disguise certain things, though. You don't need language to tell you what kind of person someone is - not when their body language and tone of voice are doing all the work. That, coupled with the fact that I'm not an idiot, was enough to tell me that Madame Beirot's (I can't remember the precise spelling) boyfriend (who coughs like a frigging lunatic all night - trust me on this one. You could hear it through the walls) was a grobian () of most annoying demeanour. I don't know where the hell it was coming from, but this guy was one of the most patronising louts I've ever met. Perhaps it was my age, or the fact he's a jackass, but I could tell (despite the French) that he was being a shit. I mentioned it to my mother later on in the evening, and she confirmed. She wondered how I could tell. I just could. The oddest thing about the whole trip was getting used to topless women on the beach. After a while you just don't notice it anymore, but it does take some getting used to. It's hard, though, to sit down at a beach cafe table and not feel a little awkward talking to someone that you'd just seen bouncing around half-naked on the sand. * grobian [n] - A rude or clownish person; boor; lout

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Facebook algorithm boosts pro-Facebook news

Facebook is a rotten company, rotten from the top down, its founder, board and top execs are sociopaths and monsters, committers of non-hyperbolic, no-fooling crimes against humanity. They lie, they cheat, they steal. They are some of history’s greatest villains. Because Facebook is a terrible company run by terrible people, it periodically erupts in ghastly scandal. Sometimes whistleblowers or reporters reveal historic crimes, including (but not limited to) deliberately helping to foment genocide.

Sometimes, the scandals are contemporary: either Facebook blithely announces it’s going to do something terrible, or we learn of some terrible thing underway from leaks or investigations.

Thanks to a history of anticompetitive mergers — Whatsapp, Instagram, Onavo and more — based on fraudulent promises to antitrust regulators, Facebook has grown to nearly three billion users — except FB doesn’t have users, really — it has hostages.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/dont-believe-proven-liars-absolute-minimum-standard-prudence-merger-scrutiny

As Facebook’s own internal memos show, the company doesn’t just buy up competitors so users have nowhere to flee to, it also engineers in high “switching costs” to make it more painful to leave the system.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

For example, Facebook’s internal memos show that the manager for its photo products set out to seduce users into entrusting FB with their family photos, because that way quitting Facebook would mean abandoning your memories of your kids, departed grandparents, etc.

Everybody hates Facebook, especially FB users. The point of high switching costs, after all, is to increase the pain of leaving so that FB can dole out more abuse to its users without fearing that they’ll quit the whole enterprise.

FB’s mission is to increase the size of the shit-sandwich they can force you to eat before you walk away. But they’re not mere sadists: shit-sandwiches have a business model: the more hostages they take, the more they can extract from advertisers — their true customers.

The polite term for what FB has is a “two-sided market” (selling advertisers to users and users to advertisers). The technical term is “a monopoly and a monoposony” (a monopsony is a market with a single buyer).

The colloquial term?

“A racket.”

A scam. A bezzle. A blight.

Facebook gouges advertisers on rate cards, then lies about the reach of its ads (like when it lied about the popularity of video, evincing a media-wide “pivot to video” that bankrupted dozens of news- and entertainment-sites).

Facebook didn’t set out to destroy journalism by price-fixing ads, lying to advertisers and media outlets.

FB set out to acquire a monopoly and extract monopoly rents from advertisers and publishers, with a pathological indifference to how these frauds would harm others.

Having shown a willingness to destroy journalists and media outlets to extract a few more billions for its shareholders, Facebook has attracted a lot of enemies in the media.

If you’re a whistleblower with a story to tell, there’s a journalist whose editor will allocate the resources to report your story out in depth. The combination of a rotten company and a lot of pissed off journalists produces a lot of bad ink for the company.

But the fact remains that FB has a vast pool of hostages, billions of them, and it gets to decide what they see, when and how. I used to joke with my human rights activist friends that the best use for Facebook was showing people why and how to leave Facebook.

FB’s response was predictable. As Ryan Mac and Sheera Frenkel write in the New York Times, FB’s Project Amplify is a Zuckerberg-led initiative to systematically promote positive coverage of FB and its founder — including articles that originate with FB itself.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/technology/zuckerberg-facebook-project-amplify.html

That is, FB staffers are charged with writing puff pieces about how great the company is, and FB’s algorithm will push these ahead of reporting by actual journalists who present detailed, factual, multi-sourced accounts of the company’s fraudulent and depraved conduct.

Project Amplify marks a pivot from FB’s longstanding policy of issuing insincere apologies for its scandals. Company sources told the reporters that everyone figured out these don’t convince anyone, so the company turned to pushing happy-talk quackspeak instead.

One of the leaders of this project is Alex Schultz, “a 14-year company veteran who was named chief marketing officer last year,” but the major impetus comes from Zuck himself, one of the most hated men on the planet.

Amplify is just one of FB’s strategies for distorting the discourse about itself. In July, it neutered Crowdtangle, an widely used analytics tool that showed that FB’s top posts were unhinged far-right disinformation and conspiracies.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/15/three-wise-zucks-in-a-trenchcoat/#inconvenient-truth

And Facebook has declared all-out legal warfare (accompanied by a disinformation campaign) to kill Adobserver, an NYU project that tracks paid political disinformation on the platform.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/05/comprehensive-sex-ed/#quis-custodiet-ipsos-zuck

By shutting down Crowdtangle and Adobserver, FB hopes to control the academic findings about the company’s role in disinformation, hate, and harassment. The company runs its own research portal where academics are expected to access data about the platform.

But as with the journalists who report on it, FB has heaped abuse on the academics who research it.

Its portal data was bad, leaving PhD and masters’ theses are at risk of retraction. Mid-dissertation researchers have been set back to square one.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/2020-election-misinformation-distortions#facebook-sent-flawed-data-to-misinformation-researchers

In retrospect, Facebook’s decision to game its own algorithm to push pro-company quackspeak seems inevitable. It’s not just that no one believes the company’s apologies anymore (if they ever did) — it’s that the company seems incapable of hiring competent spin doctors.

Take the WSJ’s blockbuster “Facebook Files,” a series of reports detailing the company’s willingness to harm children, commit fraud, and allow millions of favored, powerful people to violate its rules with impunity.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-09-16/facebook-s-promised-to-gain-the-public-s-trust

FB’s response was genuinely pathetic. In a perfunctory blog post, its top flack — the widely despised British politician Nick Clegg, paid millions to front FB on the global stage — vilified the WSJ’s reporting without producing any factual rebuttals.

https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/what-the-wall-street-journal-got-wrong/

It’s the kind of ham-fisted policy advocacy that Facebook is (in)famous for. Who can forget the absolute shitshow in India over its Internet Basics program, when it bribed telcos to exempt FB and the services it hand-picked from their data-caps?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/12/facebook-free-basics-india-zuckerberg

This Net-Neutracidal maneuver, falsely billed as a way to bring the internet to poor people (something is absolutely does not do), was the subject of a consultation by India’s telco regulators.

FB pushed deceptive alerts to millions of its Indian users, tricking them into sending a flood of form-letters to the regulator urging it to leave Internet Basics intact.

But whoever drafted the form letter didn’t bother to check whether it addressed any of the questions the regulator was consulting on. That made these millions of letters non-responsive to the consultation, so the regulator ignored them.

FB lost! It’s almost as though people who are good at fighting policy battles don’t want to work for Facebook, and the only talent they can attract are the kinds of opportunistic blunderers that no one takes seriously and everyone hates.

Weird, that.

[thefanficmonster]

Lucky Me (Sequel To Unlucky)

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Swearing

Genre: Fluff

Summary: You aren’t always born with luck. Sometimes, you meet people who bring it to you. In short, they are your lucky charm.

Requested: Yes, but not in a typical way. A big thank you to all the wonderful people who read, liked, reblogged and commented on part one - Unlucky.  

@susceptible-but-siriusexual  @simonsbluee  @save-the-sky  @hacker-ghost  @itsminniekat  @bi-andready-tocry  @imtiredaffff  @jazzkaurtheglorious  @hereforbeebo  @fandomgirl17  and many more ❤❤❤

They are the reason this story is being written. What was originally supposed to be an elaborate one-shot turned into the most liked piece I’ve ever written. I can’t thank you enough, guys. You are amazing and I hope you like this one just as much or even more than the previous. Love you ❤❤❤

Y/N’s POV

I’m grinning at my reflection in the mirror as I put on a pair of earrings. My face is already touched-up with a little make-up and my hair is looking on point. I can almost see my own reflection in the shine of excitement in my eyes. I take in my upper body via a quick once-over in the full body mirror opposite me, and I finally relax my muscles that I didn’t ever realize I was tensing.

“OK, now I’m ready.“ I say as a form of encouragement as I reach behind me for my phone that’s sitting on my bed.

You might be wondering where I’m going? Who I’m going with? What’s the occasion behind this many preparations and pampering?

The answer: Nowhere. No one. Nothing. I’m literally not even going to leave my house.

It might seem ridiculous to someone else, but to me, to my hypnotized mind, it’s perfectly reasonable to be getting so amped up over a FaceTime call. Yeah, you heard me correctly - a FaceTime call. 

Well, you see, this isn’t the first time we FaceTime, but it will be the first time we’ll see each other’s faces. I wanted to level the field so I didn’t let him on to what I look like, where exactly I live, etc. Basically, he only knows my name, which I am still prepared to call unfair, considering I don’t know his real name. 

A brief backstory to my first ever real interaction with Corpse: I was introduced to him by my friends. They are the ones I always turned to with all the scary shit happening in my life. Often times they didn’t know weather to comfort me or laugh at my curse. My friends suggested I start sharing it to a youtuber named Corpse Husband. You see, I love YouTube narrators and I’ve always been a fan of Mr. Nightmare and I, to be perfectly honest, always kept the idea of sending him my stories in the back of my mind. Nevertheless, I bit the bullet and checked out on of this Corpse Husband guy’s videos. And then another. And another. And before I knew it I was having a marathon after which I was too paranoid to get online, walk home alone at night, leave my curtains open etc. It wasn’t all thanks to the stories themselves. A lot of the fear factor these stories strike with should be credited to the way they are read. Let me tell you, this guy had it all figured out with the reading. Not sending him my stories would just be wrong. So I did, I sent him my first ever creepy encounter which was with a stalker from my high school and it took me only two days to forget about it. It only crossed my mind when my friends blew my phone up, demanding I watched Corpse’s new video. I kid you not, I got more scared by the story when he read it than when I lived it. That’s what settled it for me - I decided to send him each and every story.

And then one day, out of the blue, my life changed for the better in more ways than one. It got turned completely upside down, like a rollercoaster, and I just had to hold on and enjoy the ride, embrace the adrenaline rush and excitement, knowing full well that I chose to get on and there’s no way I can get off halfway through. 

I’m being too metaphorical. He sent me an email. He freaking reached out to me. And I was posed with a rough choice. Took me a minute, but I chose to reply to him, I chose to trust him, and I couldn’t just leave him on read one day simply cause I chickened out. Yes, I’m unlucky and these things don’t happen to unlucky people. I mean, they do, but they are nightmares disguised as a dream come true. I’ve lived all my life cautiously: if something sounds too good to be true it’s either not as good as marketed or not true at all. If it’s dark and late and there are no people around, FaceTime someone. If your Uber driver’s sketchy, cancel the ride. I take all the precautions and I still find myself in the worst situations. Or at least...

My thoughts are interrupted by the ringing of my phone. A simple ringtone I hear every time he calls me. A simple sound that causes me butterflies when I hear it and ultimate devastation if the caller ID doesn’t read the name I want. It always gets me excited, probably more than it should. This time is different, however. It’s scary almost. I’m nervous, anxious, scared, hesitant - all things I never feel when I’m about to answer his call. 

With shaky hands I pick up the call and find myself looking at the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. Now I know why I would have never initiated this meeting, because I know what color my face is right now. I know my voice has let me down before I even attempt to speak. I know I look like a mess. I know my obvious crush is showing.

Corpse initiated this meeting. He said he was getting too curious and he wanted one of his best friends to see him and for him to finally see her. It’s been about seven months since we first started texting and I haven’t let out a single peep about it to a single soul. It’s just between him and I. We are each other’s safe space away from the rest of the world.

“Thought you weren’t gonna pick up for a second there.“ His voice is not as confident as other times when we’ve talked. His trying to hide his own nervousness and all I wanna do is hug him and tell him he doesn’t have to. I kept telling him over and over again that we don’t have to do this if he’s not sure that he actually wants it. I even offered to show him what I look like, not expecting to see him in return but he declined, saying it was now his turn to even the field.

“I was in another room.“ I manage to say, my voice only shaking a little.

We spend a few moments just looking at each other. Admiring one another. For someone who prefers digital interaction, I am surprised to realize I wish he was actually standing in front of. I wish I could hug him. A long hug of comfort, mutual understanding and hidden feelings.

He lets out a short laugh, shaking his head which causes a few strands of hair to fall over his eyepatch, “I’m sorry...It’s just-...Fuck I’m stumbling.” He chuckles nervously, “I just...can’t believe you are real. You are a real person. And the most beautiful person I’ve seen. That’s corny, isn’t it.” He looks away from the screen, his face now a shade of red. “But I mean it. I’m embracing my corniness. You are beautiful, Y/N. Not that I’m flexing or anything, but I’m lucky to have met you.”

I laugh, feeling my eyes stinging from the tears that have suddenly formed. I don’t want to let them fall, but I don’t have much say in that. “Well, mister Corpse, I can’t begin to compare. I mean...that hair! I still cannot believe it’s you. You are not just a deep voice in my mind. You are....you are...”

“Everything you imagined and more?“ he jokes, making my whole body heat up. “I told you you could trust. I mean, if the hair doesn’t confirm I’m who I say I am, I don’t know what will.”

“Actually, I never tried to imagine what you looked like. I knew those visions...I knew they didn’t matter. Faces don’t matter to us, Corpse. I think you realize that.“

And just like that, all I’ve been keeping hidden is pouring out. I don’t try to stop it - you can’t stop a hurricane with bare hands.

“I never needed a face to imagine us. I always saw as talking on the phone, playing Among Us. Reading scary stories to each other on Discord. I never needed a face to imagine your company. To imagine what we could be...“ I trail off, letting the first tear slip down my cheek.

The most sincere look appears in his eyes, “Fuck, I wish I could hold your hand right now. Never mind, I wish I could hug you, Y/N. Hug you and not let go for a long time.”

I laugh halfheartedly, my chest burning from the intensity of this moment’s intimacy, “I can always tell you where I live.” I’m only half-joking. I really want to see him in real life, not just through a screen, but even this call is out of his comfort zone, let alone a physical meet up.

He surprises me yet again, “Saturday. I’ll bring the take out, you pick the movie.” he says with a smile that is literally saying ‘you didn’t see that coming, did you?’

“How are you sure I don’t live in a different state, or a different continent all together?“ I tease, making an attempt to put my composure back together.

He smirks, “I pay way more attention to your stories than you’d think.” I laugh, shaking my head as a pointless method of fighting the pesky tears that he has 100% noticed by this point. “By the way, just because we’re....” he thinks for a second, “in a weird zone between friendship and...something more, doesn’t mean you have to stop sending me stories. I absolutely love reading them for my audience. They love em too.”

I just realized I am yet to tell him the crazy miracle that has happened. “Well, the thing is...I don’t have any.” His eyebrows shoot up in shock which makes me laugh, “Yeah, I know, it’s crazy. Since the day we started talking I have not experienced a single scary thing. Deadass. I swear on my life.”

If I wasn’t so head over heels for this man already, the baffled expression on his face would definitely send me falling for him. He’s just that adorable. “Wow.”

“I know right.“ I nod, “Seems to me you have enough luck to share with me.��

His eyes light up at that comment, showing just how meaning full it is to him.

“You’re my lucky charm, Corpse.“

“I will never be more proud of any other title, Y/N. That I can promise you with no hesitation.“

“Deadass?“

“Deadass.“

[nightswithkookmin]

Hi Goldy! I am curious about your take on how Jikook are edited in the behind the scenes clips since October (such as the ones for the Life Goes on music video, ABC Holiday Dynamite, and the Japan one (search on youtube for BTS japan shoot || behind the scene of Japan)). Do you think Jikook are interacting less, being just friends, being more professional, or is BigHit editing their interactions out? It just seems so different from the ones before Oct (FILA, Dynamite MV, Season's Greetings 2021)

Huh???😲😲😲

BigHit is doing what what now?😥

Do you mean that as a fact or theory?🤔

Why though?👀 They are not Tae Kook? 😥

There's Bangtan video of Jimin with his third leg dangling loose in the air somewhere on the internet, I don't think BigHit is that savvy.

Lmho. I mean I see what you mean but they are editors and cutting is what they do for a living. But this is Jikook sis. I don't see BigHit's incentive for 'cutting' Jikook's moments and you shouldn't assume that-

Unless...

You don't think Jikook's been groping eachother homoerotically on set lately have you? Cos, chile I'll believe that! I don't trust Jikook anywhere near eachother's vicinity and personal space.

I've seen enough to traumatize the devil himself. Chilee. Lol.

Bighit, in recent times, mostly tend to cut scenes and moments if they are a bit risqué. Like JK shoving his butt in Jimin's groin face, sliding his hands down Tae's chest...

Often times too they cut moments if its redundant. If a part of a scene is already in the main content they don't bother showing it in the behind scenes. From my observation.

When an interaction is awkward they skip it too, I feel. I mean I am still waiting to see JK touching all over Jimin and feeling him up in Run 106- honey, I'll pay to watch that shit with my kidneys. Lol.

Often too they save some scenes for memories or some other shit that they use all those pent up footages for. Lol.

BigHit is a business, they produce content that per their research and analytics garners more engagement, audience retention and a whole other metrics. They put a lot of creativity into what they do as creatives and artists- I mean if the baby noises is anything to go by. Those bites are tired!

But often times too, they're tired and they're lazy, and they just put anything together and toss it out there without giving it much thought- isn't that how they leave Jin or Tae out of packages, how certain Jikook moments that should have never made it into screen time ended up in screen time- how JM's third leg made it to the internet? They should have cut that shit before uploading it with those subtitles and yet here we are.

I think people give BigHit too much credit- talking about JK shouldn't gay panic and run away from certain moments with JM if he knows BigHit editors are going to cut those moments.... JM's dixk begs to differ. Chilee, Jimin you should have just worn pants. Can't trust these phony ass editors my guy.

The editing is really not a big deal. Not to me. But I love your question anyway. Especially the bits about what's different about Jikook and the content BigHit has been putting out since October.

Well something sure did go down in October, I don't care what anybody says.

I keep saying BigHit banks on the bond and intimacy of the boys, and the boys are more than happy to showcase their bond for the cameras just as Tae said and confirmed in a recent interview- Tuktukkers y'all did an Oopsie on the whole Taekook don't like to show their bond on cameras! Lol

Tae said it himself not me- he lives to showcase his bond with the other members. *where is my skull head emoji. Lmho.

I think what has changed since JM's birthday in October to now, to me where BigHit is concerned, is the general marketing strategy of the company.

It seems to me the company is adopting a marketing module opposite of the strategy they had been using before the pandemic. I think I've talked about this though...

Hate to say I said it, but I said it. Lol.

They are limiting access to the boys to drive sales as and when. BTS dominates the internet and have amassed greater reach and attention partly due to the free content they put out on the internet. But those were never monitised- not in a direct or significant way.

In the wake of the virus, they've had to monetize their online presence. A single tweet from their Twitter account is a phone brand promotion as I pointed out in past posts. There's been an increase in their sponsorship collaborations, in Soop and many of the content they've put up this year. They even turned on ads on their YT channels it seems.

Like I've been saying, this situation is global and novel, they are going to experiment with means and methods till they find that sweet spot and that is what I feel we are experiencing- amongst other things.

Unfortunately for us, our access to Jikook is gonna take a hit like I said before because the numbers are in their favor. I mean go to their YouTube page and see the metrics for yourself.

Jikook's holiday remix pulls way ahead of their counterparts. If their going to monetize any ship brand in BTS it's Jikooks. Trust. But that doesn't mean any ship in BTS is spared.

Someone asked me a while back, when I talked about this, whether all these changes the company was going through was going to affect the way Jikook interact on camera and I couldn't answer that with conviction then.

But I mean we are seeing a subtle, if not drastic change in the way Jikook interact with eachother and with their glass closet.

What that means for us, I think, is the company is going to choose when and where to show us content and certain interactions but that doesn't mean Jikook aren't interacting- know what I mean? I mean they have them. The juicy moments that's gonna make us slap our mamas. BigHit has it all. They are just gonna save it for as and when based on their marketing strategy, if you know what I mean.

I mean we all saw that blackswan performance, we all saw the holiday remix performance etc.

And you are right about the less interactions post October and I've shared my thoughts on it so I won't go into it. But I will state again that they are not broken up either, not to me. Lol.

I think we need to examine what interacting less means. To me, I consider Jikook interacting less if they have an opportunity to interact and they don't interact in a way that is usual of them.

Majority of the content we've gotten in recent times are pretty much very official contents, interviews, etc. The entire BE era, as I said is not about Jikook or even BigHit.

It's about BTS, all seven and Jikook can't monopolize the shine like they tend to do in other BigHit marketed contents in my opinion.

Jimin tried to be funny and chill in the dynamite mv and RM nearly went ninja turtle on his ass when he called him out for not taking things seriously enough during the shoot- Left to grandpa Joonie, the kids will sleep at five. Lol.

Seriously though, there is a huge gap between what BTS views as marketing and marketable and what Jikook or even BigHit views as marketing, in my opinion. And conversations like that between RM and Jimin goes to prove it.

Another interesting thing about this whole marketing approach is how BigHit isn't substituting any other particular pair in Jikook's stead. I see them giving equal screan time to the individual members- well not in a technical sense but I think you know what I mean.

Are Jikook required to be professional in certain situations, absolutely. And in previous years, I think they took too many liberties with it. But as I said, now more than ever they are learning and need to learn to read the room because they wouldn't be able to get away with much if they don't.

BE is a self produced project, after Soop- after when they were isolated to help them bond and repair fractures in their bond. If there were anything they were not happy with that led to Soop, trust that they are going to fix it post Soop and it's going to reflect in every sphere of their interactions.

RM for example has chilled on his monitoring and censorship of Jikook, Jikook have been pretty considerate of the group and have tried not to do anything to have RM pop a vein, Tae has been stepping up too- with the members going out their way to praise him and push him to the fore front of the group unlike in previous years *cough cough I don't want trouble but chilee.

I mean Jimin pointed it out in the Be behind when he said Tae was working hard and putting his best foot forward because the members had been showering him with lots of compliments in recent times and he wasn't kidding.

In the LGO comeback live, RM praised Tae for working hard forgetting it wasn't just Tae and JM's reaction was telling. Of course he backpedaled to compliment JM too.

Suga did the same thing in the Be behind video when he was talking about JM and praising him- I mean it's Suga and his Jimin, uWu. But then he too backpedaled to compliment Tae when he realized what he was doing and I was like CAN SOMEONE PRAISE KOOKIE TOO PLEASE AND THANK YOU. Lol.

Anywho, the company is equally chilling on their Jikook agenda which I have speculated on several ttimes so won't get into- it's all so very kumbaya and God, I hate it. Lol.

Give me the chaos goddammit!

I feel Jlkook loosen up in contents that aren't like super official business moments and that's when you see their domesticity. Lol.

You see them having their me time in the background of some of the content, and in one of the interviews where they were sat a good feet apart but they kept moving closer and closer till eventually after their lunch break cut, they were sat very close to each other.

I'm not a fan of the cameras being shove in their faces during their private moments- Kookie certainly doesn't appreciate that either.

But they are working for a living nonetheless and making content is what they do for a living. So we are definitely gonna get the content from them alright, the fanservice, the organic moments passed off as fanservice, the moments that should never make it to screen- all nine. Lol.

We are just not going to get them in a way we are accustomed to. And it certainly doesn't help that they are each on their own personal growth journeys- gradually disconnecting from their fanbase, I mean Jk's been long gone duh, and Jimin did say he has come to the realization not everyone in the fandom loves him and he is learning to react less strongly to them; which to me translates as bye bitches you don't deserve me. Lol.

I mean dude didn't bother posting for new year this year- y'all Jimin is done with our ass. We might as well pack our bags and join him in Kookie's Casa. I call dibs on the broom closet under the stairs. Lol.

Jikook gets called fanservice and other creepy slurs in this fandom but people forget all of this is their choice too. They choose, are choosing to share all the bits of them they share with us, with us. Inspite of all the hate and insults, they choose to do that- if they did it for the fanservice don't you think they would have called a time out on it long ago because it's not worth it?

I hate it here.

I guess what I'm saying is, you are right about these observations you've made and some of the things you've pointed out are facts.

But we have talked about all of that so it really shouldn't be anything new? Kindly check my previous posts. I think I shared my point of view on what I think is going on with Jikook, BigHit and BTS.

Other than those, I don't think there is anything major up with Jikook honestly. I keep saying I don't think they are broken up. I don't see either of them closed off, emotionally open to connecting with the others.

If anything I said I feel Jimin is falling in love all over again with Kook. I mean when he looks at him he looks to me as if he is seeing Kook in a different light.

And it's funny how all through out 2020 he kept reiterating how his friends and family and relationships were important to him, shading the ef out of Kook during the Japan Stay Gold promos claiming his relationships were important to him and was what was Gold in his life.

He even went on to talk about picking an accent spending time around his friends and talking with his friends around his birthday but suddenly in the Be behind scenes he was talking about how he's come to the realization BTS is his only true friends and how friends come and go.

Clearly he's had an epiphany of a sort and has been through something post his birthday that has him setting his priorities straight in the aftermath.

In his Weverse magazine, he mentioned how he's recently discovered something about himself, about how he loves to be loved. He then went on to clarify that when during festa he talked about having a desire to perform with the members for a long that that he meant to say he wanted to be with them for a very long time.

But then JK said Jimin said that bit to him first. And if this is the interpretation Jimin is giving to that statement then- one plus one is two honey. Numbers don't lie.

Dude don whispered those sweet empty nothings in JK's ear telling him he wants to be with him for a very long time and shit.

And now homeboy out here setting up roots in gay boulevard. I don't think their well is drying up any time soon. Lol.

They are in a honeymoon phase again and they are not showing us. Stingy bastards! Lol

And when JK said to JM in response, that BTS is his home- wow. He really said that...

He is Jimin's home. Literally. Please, my heartu😭

Jikook is real. Please support them.

Signed,

GOLDY

[currentfandomkick]

Marinette did not sign up for this part 10: Mari plots plotting

So long time no post. I live. Ish. Also finally figured out readmore on mobile, so yay. Will take forever to edit posts now though. Explanation at the bottom First part here previous part here. Ao3 here

Marinette wanted to go on record that Mandeliev did not, in fact, give her an extra day or so to study for the test. Why? Instead, she was told she may do a paper on the application of physics in gymnastics and principles of evasion in urban areas and how to combine the two to maximize one’s ability to run away from akumas and other dangers.

Or as Nino put it: “I am tormenting you into running better, the eight page essay.”

Alya dubbed it the “Run Better Paper.”

Aurore said it should include more formulas when Marinette showed her the draft. (as Adrien would complain about lack of theories and how she should have used this advanced formula she’d never heard of instead and then Marinette would have to forcibly stop him from taking over her paper. Again.)

Kim had taken to keeping her in his hoodie, escorting her to the bakery and didn’t leave her alone until Adrien said it was his “Marinette Anxiety Watch” shift.

Which she would like to go on record, is just plain mean to say. She has Liar 100% under control when world ending things and metaphorical bomb drops aren’t happening to her constantly.

—-

Bruce tried to contact Diana and Arthur again. Hal was off world, and therefore useless.

Why?

As his missing son hadn’t contacted them yet. Was still in the Miraculous team’s custody. And he saw the footage of Robin—Damian—being hunted by a lving shadow, an element casting swordswoman, and a strategist that seemed to know exactly what to do to keep Robin cornered in battle. The living shadows—Chat Noir—tried to kill his son with Cataclysm.

That was when they were in public, and had Hal watching over them.

He didn’t want to think about what the kids might do unsupervised to someone that tried to kill Ladybug, openly stalked her civilian self, and apparently tried stalk her again, in broad daylight. And possibly may have revealed her secret identity…

From the comments, it seemed that the Parisians hadn’t connected his sons aliases to the pair, writing it off as “Copy-cat Vigilantes” thankfully. And none of them were revealing more than “so the Fashion Disaster tried to go after Chat and Ryuko’s civvie… Not A Smart CopyBird” was the most he was able to get.

His children, on the other hand…

——

“I Fucking KNEW IT!” Tim yelled. “I knew it was her!”

“But,” Jason smirked. “You didn’t tell us.”

“Soup girl, baby bat!” Cass said gleefully.

“Wait, we both talked to her—and you didn’t say you thought it was her either Cass!”

“So what I’m hearing, if my ears don’t deceive me,” Jason continued. “Is that you all lost too.”

“What—“

“Wait a minute!”

“No way—”

Cass shrugged. She was the least invested in winning. She got to meet soup girl, who is very nice and her parents are safe for Baby Bat.

“We don’t have proof,” Dick pointed out. “Didn’t you say something about her being a mouse?”

“I—”

“Well—”

“Yes.” Cass cut through Tim and Stephanie’s waffling. “She is.”

Dick rubbed his forehead. “How many secrets can one kid have?”

“Five?” Jason said without much thought. “Limit is definitely five.”

—-

“Let me get this straight,” Miss Sting began, watching Ladybug very, very carefully. Rena and Carapace were busy that night and couldn’t act as the team’s Common Sense Filter in person. and texts only went so far.

So the job fell to Aurore. To talk (probably Marinette) Ladybug out of a Very, Stupendously, Inconceivably Bad Idea.

“You want to trust Robin—the kid who tried to kill you—to contact his mother—an assassin—to talk strategy about how to take down Hawkmoth’s civilian life’s business, not kill him, and trust that they won’t kill you?”

“…I’m bringing Chat with me.”

“Ladybug.”

“What, do you want me to use a Lucky Charm to prove this is our best bet?”

“You know what?” Miss Sting threw her hands up. “Yes, yes I do.”

“Fine.” Ladybug threw her yoyo skyward. “Lucky Charm!”

A red, spotted ball with an 8 on it came down.

“… you have got to be kidding me.”

Ladybug shrugged. “Uh, Magic Eightball, is it okay to trust Robin with this?”

One shake later and the floating die window read “Without a Doubt.”

“Give me that.” Miss Sting scowled, shaking as she asked. “Should she bring someone besides Chat and Robin—like someone from our team or Wonder Woman or Aquaman?”

The ball answered “Outlook not so good.”

Miss Sting glared at the magic eight ball. “I can’t believe this!”

Ladybug shrugged. “Lucky Charms are Lucky Charms—and I gotta go.”

Miss Sting checked her beeping spinning top. Someone was just akumatized.

“Re-charge first!” Miss Sting yelled before swinging ahead.

—-

“Oh, hey, when’s Demon Spawn going to contact us?” Jason asked as other bats calmed down.

“He’s not answering his communicator.” Bruce growled. “Hal took it earlier.”

The bats paused at that.

“Well then. Trackers?”

“Disabled—what? We didn’t need anyone crashing the apology and he ran off before I could stop him,” Dick defended. He is not Damian’s keeper. Just his Batman (as yes Bruce, he is Damian’s Batman and Damian is his Robin. Current masks not-withstanding).

“Then how are we supposed to find him?” Stephanie asked as the room grew uneasy.

No one answered that.

“How’s this,” Tim began. “Me, Steph and Cass agreed on who Hawkmoth probably is, each of us has a different set of evidence for it—and I’m counting breaking into his evil Liar and the cameras catching him mid-act a few minutes ago as absolute proof.”

“I’m sorry, you did what!” Stephanie leaned over Tim’s shoulder to see. “Oh shit. Isn’t that guy—”

“One of her friends? According to their private Instagram accounts, more like partner in crime and possible Chat Noir. I mean, he’s the one that calls her his “everyday Ladybug” and voices Chat Noir in everything." Tim answered idly. “My money’s on him not knowing at all.”

Bruce twitched. Then began to add ‘stalking social media feeds’ to his to-do list tonight.

“So,” Tim stepped forward. “I suggest we send this to the Wonder Woman and ask for Robin’s comm to be returned, and failing that, I bugged the video so anything they play it on, we get access to its IP and can find where they are.”

“Have Oracle go over the bug, just in case,” Bruce told them. “In the mean time, the rest of you suit up for the night. Gotham needs its vigilantes.”

—-

Marinette wanted to go on the record that her plan (to keep the bats away) was going well. Deciding what to do with Mu—R—Damian. Damian. Damian and his offer, was a challenge.

For obvious reasons, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Aquaman were against her asking a bunch of assassins for their help. Chat has more than a few reservations. Carapace, Rena and Miss Sting gave her looks for that plan.

But.

But it would work. She needs more information on how to make the plan burning in the back of her mind work. It’s a lot of chaos (and she may thrive in chaotic battles but this wasn’t her usual battlefield, and her team didn’t know who they were going up against for once). And Marinette? She needs to know its not just her doing this when its so out of her depths.

So despite literally everyone and their disagreements she had Chat on her right side with Damian on her left, meeting up with his Crazy, Semi-Immortal mother. And possibly his Immortal, former Black Cat candidate, grandfather.

Why?

As Marinette isn’t trusting the likely cult that makes up the Gotham Ghost Gang (Batfam if you like them) when she can get real advice and vague directions to immortal and allied (loyal and terrifying) assassins.

And yes, she wasn’t sure if Liar was wrong or right when they said it was a bad idea too.

But fuckit she’s already got Kaalki at her shoulder, looking a bit bored at the deserted rooftop that Kaalki chose for their meeting.

“داميان*,” the woman smiled at her son. “It’s good to see you.”

“Mother,” Robin greeted. “This is Ladybug and Chat Noir. Ladybug wished to speak to you about potential strategies to take down an enemy outside of battle without violence,” Damian stressed.

“I am well-aware of the Kwami and their Chosen, اِبْن.**” The woman spoke calmly. “The League of Assassins formed to act as the Black Cat to restore the world to balance and un-burden the Order with its maintenance.” The woman offer Ladybug her hand. “I am Talia al Ghul, and I am at your service, with or without violence Ladybug.”

Marinette took her hand. “Thank you Talia. Our target being directly exposed like I planned would have…” Ladybug trailed off, thinking over the ramifications not only to Adrien, but to the whole of Gabriel’s brand, workers and all that worked with them. “Some intense ramifications I’d rather avoid.”

Talia nodded her head, waiting for more information.

“I believe its possible to topple them without affecting their employees by uncoupling them from their business, but doing so is, well, stocks and economics isn’t my strongest point.” Ladybug admitted a bit sheepishly.

“I would suggest,” Talia began, “to create a bit of chaos in the stock market. Perhaps a rumor here and there, let investors pull out and grab the abandoned stocks quickly. Consolidate them under one owner and become the company’s owner.”

Marinette twitched a bit at that. “That… sounds complicated.”

“Oh, but it isn’t. My son knows just how to that, or did you forget our lessons?” Talia asked coolly.

Damian twitched at Marinette’s side. “I did not.”

“You know,” Chat chimed in. “I do know a few things about those things. If its general chaos, well…” Chat’s face twisted in a way Marinette forgot he could do after that Chat Blanc episode.

“… I will take that into consideration.”

“Anything else?” Talia asked, watching Ladybug and her son. Specifically, how her son seemed glued to the girl’s side. “I am certain my son is able to take out your target, if all else fails.”

Damian scowled at Marinette’s side.

“However, I do believe that whatever is happening, whatever has you active, might require a more… experience hand.”

Damian brushed against her side. Code for ‘Possible Danger.’

“Thank you for the offer,” Chat moved in front of Marinette. “But mi’lady and the Guardians have that much handled.”

Talia’s eyes shifted from Chat to Ladybug, staying on her. “Is that so?”

“Yes. I merely needed more information on how to execute this type of plan, that’s all!” Ladybug almost, almost slipped into Marinette while Liar, while silenced for the moment, prodded the back of her mind. “I want to minimize collateral damage as much as I can, to everyone. The kwami already said they get to chose the target’s punishment.”

“Ah, I see.” Talia relaxed then. “You are following the kwami’s wishes. I will respect their wishes as well, Chosen.”

Marinette categorized this interaction as one of the “not too horrible, but will avoid a repeat” once they left.

—

*Damian in arabic

**son

so we have Talia now as a Player, sort of. she plays by her word pretty well so hopefully its a cameo more than anything else.

any ideas on how JL will handle the video, and if Miraculous Team should see it and freak out or only LB and keep on the dl while JL assissts in her Chaos Plot?

End of update. Will have to repost from ao3 on my phone now as desktop tumblr is being exceptionally rude. Tags always open, just takes me a bit to do—sorry to vixen for vanishing from tags

TAGS:  @heldtogetherbysafetypins @laurcad123 @raisuke06 @chaosace @jeminiikrystal @toodaloo-kangaroo @kris-pines04 @bisha43rbs @izang @dreamykitty25 @emu-lumberjack @vixen-uchiha

[doodle-empress66]

Hazbin Hotel: Perma Frost Full Bio

General

“It’s BULLSHIT that I’m down here! Stuck in this ugly ass form! I did the shit I did to SURVIVE! No one has ever watched out for me! So I watched out for myself the best way I knew how!”

- Perma Frost to Charlie

Full/True name: Petra  

Nickname(s) or Alias:  

Perma Frost, Perma

Perm

 The Killer Frost Demon

Kid (By Husk)

Ice Queen (By Angel)

Little Girlie (Niffty)

Young Miss (By Alastor)

Bruja de hielo (By Vaggie)

Gender: Female

Species: Human (formerly), Ice Demon

Age: 14

Birthday: Jan 6th 

Sexuality:   Autochorisexual-Aegoromantic

Nationality: Icelandic

City or town of birth: Vik, Iceland

Currently lives: The Outskirts of Pentagram City

Native language: Icelandic  

Relationship Status: Single  

Appearance  

Height: 5'5   

Figure/build: Slender, somewhat curvy build, with long, dark blue icicle-like fingers. Powder blue skin

Hair color: Light Blue (Normally),   Transparent light blue (when angered or frightened)

Hairstyle: Long and unruly  

Eye color: A glowing icy blue hue that shifts

Tattoos: A snowflake on her back    

Preferred style of clothing: ALWAYS wearing a large hooded jacket/coat that covers the entire top half of her body. Large black snow boats. And navy blue tights

General Past life  

Human Name: Petra (She renounced her last name)

Birthday: 6th Jan 2005

Age of Death: 14

Cause of Death: Froze to death/Blood loss

Death day: 23 Aug 2019

Personality 

Perma is an intense, cautious, volatile, and resentful teenager. She’ll do whatever it takes just to make it through the day regardless of who she has to harm or fight. She loathes adults and doesn’t trust them or their judgement, and always believes they're going to hurt her. Nor does she like being told what to do. So she often gets into a lot of fights with older demons, Perma will at times rush head first into a fight without thinking things through due to being blinded by her violent nature and past trauma. She has little to no friends or acquaintances because of the sheer brute force of her powers, somewhat lack of control and unwillingness to listen to people. Despite being unapproachable most of the time, deep down Perma wants a kind soul to turn to for love and guidance. But, pushes away this feeling due to the bad hand life and death has handed her. 

 History  

Born in Vik, Iceland in 2005, since she could walk; Petra knew nothing but misery and neglect. Abused and mistreated by her egg and sperm donor, growing up in a strange cult certainly didn't help little Petra. Forced to deal with going hungry and cold from the old shredded clothes she was forced to wear. As well as participating in her mother's questionable practices. Her family often took part in the ancient art of Icelandic witchcraft. Writing questionable symbols everywhere in the blood of animals they caught. Reading from old books with disturbing otherworldly images. Even carving up their own bodies as a sign of devotion to some strange dark entity. Petra didn't understand these events but knew only bad things could come from it.

Life didn’t get much better for the young Icelandic when she was set up to be a sacrifice in one of the cult's shamanic ceremonies, she managed to slip away and ran until she arrived at an old rundown village. Only 9 years old at the time. From there, the next 4 years were awful. Petra had to survive on scraps she found in the trash or steal food and clothing from unsuspecting villagers. Years on the street, being treated like dirt from those around her, a child no one wanted around, caused Petra to grow hateful to world and the vile people who inhabited it. No one had any concern for her. No one cared about her. Her life meant nothing to ANYBODY. So after that, the lives of others didn’t mean a damn thing to her.

At 11, Petra committed her first murder. She was low on scraps and slowly starving. Following a frail elderly woman with a bag full of food, Petra took out an ice pick she had swiped from some workers and drove it into the back of the woman’s head. 

Soon after, the dreaded streets Petra wandered were now becoming littered with the bodies of the people she stole from. Little did she realize, these malicious acts were changing in ways that were beyond human understanding. Something malevolent and cold started growing inside her body. Warping her soul.

Two years, this continued...until Petra chose the wrong target. A lanky young man, who looked a few years older than her, was smoking in an alley. Driven by survival, bloodlust and greed to what type of goods the man had on his person, Petra struck with her signature ice pick. Too bad, the man wasn’t unarmed. Nor was he alone. That’s all she remembered from that specific day. And how she wished she just kept walking.

The man was part of a group of sex traffickers looking around for young girls and women to add to their market. And 14 year old Petra was added to that collection.

The following year was a new level of Hell for the young girl. Beaten, abused, used in the most vile of ways by these men and others. Petra resisted at each turn but the suffering increased more and more. Then the vile concoction, meth they called it, they forced her to take each day. Told her that it would make her more “enjoyable company”. Some days and nights blurred into each other. This...drug made her forget the pain, the misery, the horrid existence she was subjected to. But reality came back full throttle to punch her in the face once it wore off. It made Petra feel disgusting and free at the same time. Just like the girls around her, empty shells with blissful smiles on their faces.

  She was right at the edge of just ending it, but the stubborn part of her refuse to give her tormentors the satisfaction. One night, while she was getting prepared for a client, Petra managed to break away and shank one of the guards with an icicle she snatched from outside of a window. That kill was easy, but the second guard managed to let out a shout before Petra rammed the spike into his eye.

Petra rushed out into the winter forest, away from the building she was held captive. Wearing nothing but a pair of booty shorts and a flimsy tank top and armed with a bloody icicle. The traffickers hot on her trail with guns and rope. Each day of hiding, running, and avoiding bullets was made worse with trying to fight the freezing cold. One bullet managed to pierce her side. On that night, Petra finally found a small cave to duck into, her feet and hands black and swollen. She was practically a light blue.

Using the last of her strength to make a small, pitiful fire, Petra packed her bullet wound with snow as a sad attempt to stop the bleeding. She leaned against the cave wall and closed her eyes. Thinking back to all the events that transpired that lead her to this. The memories slowly getting darker and darker...

She woke up abruptly from crashing down onto the ground. The teen shot up, disoriented and looked around. Her eyes fell onto a large sign reading, “Welcome to Hell.”

Sins committed to get into hell: Theft, Murder, Assault, Manslaughter, Prostitution (Not her choice)

Any regrets in what they have done: No...depends 

Likes:  

Doing whatever she wants

Warm food

Parkour

Heavy metal music

Necessary Violence

Beating up adults

Animals

Children

Being left alone

Dislikes:  

Adults

Being touched

Limited freedom

Being told what to do

Guns

Silence

Drugs

Anything sex related

Short clothing

Frozen Food

Fears/phobias:  

Men touching her/being near her

Being tied up

The sight of her own blood

Dark rooms

Cults

Sexual acts of any kind

Being drugged

Favorite color: 

White 

Hobbies:  

Ice/snow surfing

Brawling/Street Fighting

Reading scary stories

Parkouring

Stealing

Talents/skills:

Great at the drums

Ice skating (lol)

Parkouring

Intimidation

Fighting

Very Observant/ Quick Learner

Favorite food(s):  

Skyr (Yougurt)

Harðfiskur (dried fish)

Reykjavik's Hot Dog

Favorite drink(s):  

Slushies

Pineapple Soda

Hot Chocolate

Significant/special belongings:  

Her icepick

Spiked choker

Combat  

Fighting skills/techniques:  

Very good street fighter/brawler

Excellent stabbing and hacking skills

Weapon of choice (if any):  

Ice Pick

Unique Abilities:

Cold Magic- is able to perform a form of magic that allows them to utilize cold, either magically manipulating it

Cryokinesis- can create, shape, move, control, interact and manipulate ice.

Cold manipulation- can create, shape and manipulate cold by reducing the kinetic energy of atoms and thus making things colder

Atmospheric Freezing- an freeze the air/atmosphere itself regardless of air quality, abundant and trace gases, air temperature, etc., allowing her to either convert that air/atmosphere directly to ice or simply super chill it.

Absolute Freezing- can freeze anything, from tangible targets to intangible energy such as fire, or concepts such as time, even a person's mind.

Cold Embodiment- acts as the personification or manifestation of cold in their reality and has limitless control over coldness and can use coldness in different ways.

Cold Breath- able to generate and manipulate cold energy within her in a way that allows her to shape the exhaling of the effect.

Cold Presence- has the ability to project a field that lowers the temperature around her, creating a constant chill.

Cold Weaponry- create or wield weaponry with power over cold, which grants Perma a wide variety of cold-based abilities, including slowing down molecules, freezing a target solid, and limiting healing.

Cryo-Phasing- combines intangibility and ice powers to freeze the objects she passes through.

Cryogenic Bodily Fluids- possesses freezing cold bodily fluids (blood, sweat, saliva, etc.

Cryokinetic Creature Creation- is able to create beings of ice or shape existing ice into wanted shapes and purposes. She can grant the beings varying levels of independence (controlled, automatons/programmed, semi-independent) and existence (momentary to permanent) and delete the creature once she is done with them.

Cryokinetic Claws- can project and retract razor-sharp claws of ice from her fingertips for offensive purposes.

Cryokinetic Combat- able to utilize ice manipulation with her physical combat, allowing her to both create tools and weapons for attack and manipulate the environment for her advantage

Cryokinetic Cloning- can create clones of herself, others and/or objects by using ice.

Cryokinetic Surfing- controls the ice in a way that increases her ability to move and/or maneuver either by granting her abilities she otherwise lack or allowing them to ignore normally needed equipment.

Cryokinetic Regeneration- can use ice to regenerate her bodies with the amount of ice used defining the speed of healing.

Demonic Ice Manipulation- One of her most powerful attacks. She can generate and manipulate mystical demonic ice, which cannot be melted by mortal means, drawn straight from the darkest fears sentient minds have about winter, ice and arctic areas, including the fears of treacherous ice breaking, burying/devouring, damaging or tripping the victim in malicious awareness.

Demonic Ice Breath - able to generate and manipulate demonic ice within her in a way that allows her to shape the exhaling of the effect. These shapes can include bursts, streams, spheres, even a mist of it from the mouth.

Dark Ice Manipulation - More powerful attack. She can create, shape and manipulate the ice of a darker, detrimental nature; that which damages, destroys, and consumes anything/everything she comes across, representing the hazardous destructive side of ice, which in turn ignores most of the limitations and weaknesses of the normal ice. In essence, this is about solely controlling the negative dark powers of ice.

Frostbite- can freeze up any part of an enemy's body where she can turn the tissues and flesh into solid ice making the victim shatter into pieces due to freeze drying, or cause a swelling making it hard to move for the victim.

Frozen Surface- can cause surfaces (often floor) to emit ice/cold, causing ice/cold-damage on anything in contact with her or the ice.

Hail Generation- can generate and project hail.

Ice Aura- can release and surround herself in/with ice/cold for defensive and/or offensive purposes, possibly becoming almost untouchable and granting her various abilities/attacks.

Ice Vortex Creation - can generate spirals/vortices composed of ice. The vortex can be projected as a long ranged attack or as a tornado of ice for both offensive and/or defensive purposes.

Omnidirectional Ice Waves- can release massive amounts of ice in every direction at once for almost unlimited scales. This power allows Perma to dispatch many foes at once and destroy large areas like cities/villages.

Snow Ball Projection- able to launch spheres of snow at targets with varying degrees of force.

Snow Solidification- can solidify or give solid-like properties to snow-based substances with the level of solidity going from loose jelly to metal-like hardness or beyond. Alternatively, Perma can also harden snow to make it denser and harder to break.

Un-melt able Ice- can generate and project snow/ice that is extremely difficult to or cannot by melted by normal means, such as extreme heat or fire.

Weaknesses in combat:  

Intense heat/fire

No control when pushed too far

Turns to solid ice when she goes overboard

Due to her constant chill, she can’t sneak up on people

Strengths in combat:  

Wide and short range attacks

Nearly indestructible ice walls

Hidden demon form 

Wild unpredictable street fighting style

Can create ice creatures, structures, and weapons

Relationships

Past life Relationships

Parents: Unknown 

Siblings: None  

Other Important Relatives: None  

Children: None 

Best Friend:   None yet

Other Important Friends:  None yet

Acquaintances:  None yet

Pets: None  but wants one

Enemies:  

Anyone who tries to mess with her.

Alastor (Frenemy-ish)

Hazbin Relationships: 

Charlie- Put off by her eagerness and determination to redeem sinners. Didn’t trust her at first and kept her distance. Slowly warmed up to Charlie’s kindness and learned to trust her and others.

Vaggie- Disliked her attitude, and authority. Would tick her off with snide comments and constantly freezing her and/or Charlie. Started to bond over their dislike of Alastor and men a bit. Told Vaggie of her life and hardships, now have a big sis/little sis connection.

Angel Dust- Because of his sexual nature, she was terrified of Angel and avoided him. Even freezing him solid a few times out of fear/self-defense. Calm down a little once, she learned that he’s gay. The two became close once Angel shared his own stories of abuse. Also adores Fat Nuggets.

Alastor- Instantly loathes Alastor due to his disregard for personal space and creeper smile. Sees him as a closet pervert and often talks trash about his radio broadcasts and calls him an "a limp dick old man". Perma was unaware of Alastor's reputation, but sees him as a sicko who likes to inflate his own ego and harrass those he sees as beneath him. One of the few demons who doesn't fear Alastor, but that's due to her own ignorance and inexperience. Often tries to start fights with him by crude derogatory comments. Or freezing him.

Husker- Didn't think much of Husk at first, but liked the fact the he's a cat. The two barely interacted until she sang to herself in German and Husk responded back. They slowly began to converse with each other more and more. Husk actually listening to her woes and offering some advice. Vice versa. Due to Husk keeping to himself and respecting boundaries, Perma respects and listens to Husk more than anyone. Calms down whenever he's around. The two soon form a father/daughter like relationship.

Niffty- Was put off by Niffty's persnickety and energetic persona. Also irritated her by the frost she leaves behind. But they grow to tolerate each other over time.

Trivia 

Sin - Wrath

Can speak 5 languages: Icelandic, German, Polish, English, and Dutch. This is due to the men she came in contact with during her time on the streets and while trafficked

The spiked choker she wears was a gift from one of the older trafficked girls. It was the first time she was given ANYTHING nice.

Speaks with a thick Icelandic accent

Her lips are dark  blue from her cold

Given her sexual abuse, Perma doesn’t just hate sex, she’s TERRIFIED of it.

Perma keeps to herself and talks to no one unless confronted. 

She knows nothing about the Overlords or power scale.

She keeps her distance from friendly people. To her, everyone is out to get something.

Perma loves heavy metal, it helps her release the pain and fury she feels

With enough patience and practice, Perma could fight on par with an overlord

She likes animals, they never harm you

She eats warm food, to feel ‘alive’. 

One negative act towards her, no matter how small, can set her off

[arcticdementor]

Stefanie Gray explains why, as a teenager, she was so anxious to leave her home state of Florida to go to college.

“I went to garbage schools and I’m from a garbage low-income suburb where everyone sucks Oxycontin all day,” she says. “I needed to get out.”

She got into Hunter College in New York, but both her parents had died and she had nowhere near enough to pay tuition, so she borrowed. “I just had nothing and was poor as hell, so I took out loans,” she says.

This being 2006, just a year after the infamous Bankruptcy Bill of 2005 was passed, she believed news stories about student loans being non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. She believed they would be with her for life, or until they were paid off.

“My understanding was, it’s better to purchase 55 big-screen TVs on a credit card, and discharge that in a court of law, then be a student who’s getting an education,” she says.

Still, she asked for financial aid: “I was like, ‘My parents are dead, I'm a literal fucking orphan, I have no siblings. I'm just taking out this money to put my ass through school.”

Instead of a denial, she got plenty of credit, including a slice of what were called “direct-to-consumer” loans, that came with a whopping 14% interest rate. One of her loans also came from a company called MyRichUncle that, before going bankrupt in 2009, would briefly become famous for running an ad disclosing a kickback system that existed between student lenders and college financial aid offices.

Gray was not the cliché undergrad, majoring in intersectional basket-weaving with no plan to repay her loans. She took geographical mapping, with the specific aim of getting a paying job quickly. But she graduated in the middle of the post-2008 crash, when “53% of people 18 to 29 were unemployed or underemployed.”

“I couldn't even get a job scrubbing toilets at a local motel,” she recalls. “They told me straight up that I was over-educated. I was like, “Literally, I'll do your housekeeping. I don't give a shit, just let me make money and not get evicted and end up homeless.”

The lender Sallie Mae at the time had an amusingly loathsome policy of charging a repeating $150 fee every three months just for the privilege of applying for forbearance. Gray was so pissed about having to pay $50 a month just to say she was broke that she started a change.org petition that ended up gathering 170,000 signatures.

She personally delivered those to the Washington offices of Sallie Mae and ended up extracting a compromise out of the firm: they’d still charge the fee, but she could at least apply it to her balance, as opposed to just sticking it in the company’s pocket as an extra. This meager “partial” victory over a student lender was so rare, the New York Times wrote about it.

“I definitely poked the bear,” she says.

Gray still owed a ton of student debt — it had ballooned from $36,000 to $77,000, in fact — and collectors were calling her nonstop, perhaps with a little edge thanks to who she was. “They were telling me I should hit up people I know for money, which was one thing,” she recalls. “But when they started talking about giving blood, or selling plasma… I don’t know.”

Sallie Mae ultimately sued Gray four times. In doing so, they made a strange error. It might have slipped by, but for luck. “By the grace of God,” Gray said, she met a man in the lobby of a courthouse, a future state Senator named Kevin Thomas, who took a look at her case. “Huh, I’ve got some ideas,” he said, eventually pointing to a problem right at the top of her lawsuit.

Sallie Mae did not represent itself in court as Sallie Mae. The listed plaintiff was “SLM Private Credit Student Loan Trust VL Funding LLC.” As was increasingly the case with mortgages and other forms of debt, student loans by then were typically gathered, pooled, and chopped into slices called tranches, to be marketed to investors. Gray, essentially, was being sued by a tranche of student loan debt, a little like being sued by the coach section of an airline flight.

When Thomas advised her to look up the plaintiff’s name, she discovered it wasn’t registered to do business in the State of New York, which prompted the judge to rule that the entity lacked standing to sue. He fined Sallie Mae $10,000 for “nonsense” and gave Gray another rare victory over a student lender, which she ended up writing about herself this time, in The Guardian.

Corporate creditors often play probabilities and mass-sue even if they don’t always have great cases, knowing a huge percentage of borrowers either won’t show up in court (as with credit card holders) or will agree to anything to avoid judgments, the usual scenario with student borrowers.

“What usually happens in pretty much 99% of these cases is you beg and plead and say, ‘Please don't put a judgment against me, I'll do anything… because a judgment against you means you're not going to be able to buy a home, you’re not going to be able to do basically anything involving credit for the next 20 years.”

…

The passage of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 was a classic demonstration of how America works, or doesn’t, depending on your point of view. While we focus on differences between Republicans and Democrats, it’s their uncanny habit of having just a sliver of enough agreement to pass crucial industry-friendly bills that really defines the parties.

Whether it’s NAFTA, the Iraq War authorization, or the Obama stimulus, there are always just enough aisle-crossers to get the job done, and the tally usually tracks with industry money with humorous accuracy. In this law signed by George Bush, sponsored by Republican Chuck Grassley, and greased by millions in donations from entities like Sallie Mae, the crucial votes were cast by a handful of aisle-crossing Democrats, including especially the Delawareans Joe Biden and Tom Carper. Hillary Clinton, who took $140,000 from bank interests in her Senate run, had voted for an earlier version.

Party intrigue is only part of the magic of American politics. Public relations matter, too, and the Bankruptcy Bill turned out to be the poster child for another cherished national phenomenon: the double-lie.

…

Years later, pundits still debate whether there really ever was an epidemic of debt-fleeing deadbeats, or whether legislators in 2005 who just a few years later gave “fresh starts” to bankrupt Wall Street banks ever cared about “moral hazard,” or if it’s fair to cut off a single Mom in a trailer when Donald Trump got to brag about “brilliantly” filing four commercial bankruptcies, and so on.

In other words, we argue the why of the bill, but not the what. What did that law say, exactly? For years, it was believed that it absolutely closed the door on bankruptcy for whole classes of borrowers, and one in particular: students. Nearly fifteen years after the bill’s passage, journalists were still using language like, “The bill made it completely impossible to discharge student loan debt.”

…

The phrase “Just asking questions” today often carries a negative connotation. It’s the language of the conspiracy theorist, we’re told. But sometimes in America we’re just not told the whole story, and when the press can’t or won’t do it, it’s left to individual people to fill in the blanks. In a few rare cases, they find out something they weren’t supposed to, and in rarer cases still, they learn enough to beat the system. This is one of those stories.

…

Smith’s explanation of the history of the student loan exemption and where it all went wrong is biting and psychologically astute. In his telling, the courts’ historically sneering attitude toward student borrowers has its roots in an ages-old generational debate.

“This started out as an an argument between the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers,” Smith notes. “A lot of the law was created by people railing against draft-dodging deadbeat hippies.”

He points to a 1980 ruling by a judge named Richard Merrick, who in denying relief to a former student, wrote the following:

The arrogance of former students who had received so much from society, frequently including draft deferment, and who had given back so little in return, accompanied by their vehemence in asserting their constitutional and statutory rights, frequently were not well received by legislators and jurists, senior to them, who had lived through the Depression, had worked their ways through college and graduate school, had served in World War II, and had been paying the taxes which made possible the student loans.

Smith laughs about this I didn’t climb the hills at Normandy with a knife in my teeth just to eat the debt on your useless-ass liberal arts degree perspective, noting that “when those guys who did all that complaining went to school, only rich prep school kids went to college, and by the way, tuition was like ten bucks.” Still, he wasn’t completely unsympathetic to the conservative position.

…

This concern about “deadbeats” gaming the system — kids taking out fat loans to go to school and bailing on them before the end of the graduation party — led that 1985 court to take a hardcore position against students who made “virtually no attempt to repay.” They established a three-pronged standard that came to be known as the “Brunner test” for determining if a student faced enough “undue hardship” to be granted relief from student debt.

Among other things, the court ruled that a newly graduated student had to do more than demonstrate a temporary inability to handle bills. Instead, a “total incapacity now and in the future to pay” had to be present for a court to grant relief. Over the course of the next decades, it became axiomatic that basically no sentient being could pass the Brunner test.

…

In 2015, he was practicing law at the Texas litigation firm Bickel and Brewer when he came across a case involving a former Pace University student named Lesley Campbell, who was seeking to discharge a $15,000 loan she took out while studying for a bar exam. Smith believed a loan given out to a woman who’d already completed her studies, and who used the money to pay for rent and groceries, was not covering an “educational benefit” as required by law. A judge named Carla Craig agreed and canceled Campbell’s loan, and Campbell v. Citibank became one of the earlier dents in the public perception that there were no exceptions to the prohibition on discharging student debts.

“I thought, ‘Wait, what? This might be important,’” says Smith.

By law, Smith believed, lenders needed to be wary of three major exceptions to the non-dischargeability rule:

— If a loan was not made to a student attending a Title IV accredited school, he thought it was probably not a “qualified educational loan.”

— If the student was not a full-time student — in practice, this meant taking less than six credits — the loan was probably dischargeable.

— And if the loan was made in an amount over and above the actual cost of attending an accredited school, the excess might not be “eligible” money, and potentially dischargeable.

Practically speaking, this means if you got a loan for an unaccredited school, were not a full-time student, or borrowed for something other than school expenses, you might be eligible for relief in court.

Smith found companies had been working around these restrictions in the blunt predatory spirit of a giant-sized Columbia Record Club. Companies lent hundreds of thousands to teenagers over and above the cost of tuition, or to people who’d already graduated, or to attendees of dubious unaccredited institutions, or to a dozen other inappropriate destinations. Then they called these glorified credit card balances non-dischargeable educational debts — Gray got one of these “direct-to-consumer” specials — and either sold them into the financial system as investments, borrowed against them as positive assets, or both.

…

Smith thought these practices were nuts, and tried to convince his bosses to start suing financial companies.

“They were like, ‘You do know what we do around here, right?’ We defend banks,” he recalls, laughing. “I said, ‘Not these particular banks.’ They said it didn’t matter, it was a question of optics, and besides, who was going to pay off in the end? A bunch of penniless students?”

Furious, Smith stormed off, deciding to hang his own shingle and fight the system on his own. “My sister kept saying to me, ‘You have to stop trying to live in a John Grisham novel,’” he recalls, laughing. “There were parts of it where I was probably super melodramatic, saying things like, ‘I'm going to go find justice.’”

Slowly however, Smith did find clients, and began filing and winning cases. With each suit, he learned more and more about student lenders. In one critical moment, he discovered that the same companies who were representing in court that their loans were absolutely non-dischargeable were telling investors something entirely different. In one prospectus for a trust packed full of loans managed by Sallie Mae, investors were told that the process for creating the aforementioned “direct-to-consumer” loans:

Does not involve school certification as an additional control and, therefore, may be subject to some additional risk that the loans are not used for qualified education expenses… You will bear any risk of loss resulting from the discharge.

Sallie Mae was warning investors that the loans might be discharged in bankruptcy. Why the honesty? Because the parties who’d be packaging and selling these student loan-backed instruments included Credit Suisse, JP Morgan Chase, and Deutsche Bank.

“It’s one thing to lie to a bunch of broke students. They don’t matter,” Smith says. “It’s another to lie to JP Morgan Chase and Deutsche Bank. You screw those people, they’ll fight back.”

…

In June of 2018, a case involving a Navy veteran named Kevin Rosenberg went through the courts. Rosenberg owed hundreds of thousands of dollars and tried to keep current on his loans, but after his hiking and camping store folded in 2017, he found himself busted and unable to pay. His case was essentially the opposite of Brunner: he clearly hadn’t tried to game the system, he made a good faith effort to pay, and he demonstrated a long-term inability to make good. All of this was taken into consideration by a judge named Cecilia Morris, who ruled that Rosenberg qualified for “undue hardship.”

“Most people… believe it impossible to discharge student loans,” Morris wrote. “This Court will not participate in perpetuating these myths.” The ruling essentially blew up the legend of the unbeatable Brunner standard.

Given a fresh start, Rosenberg moved to Norway to become an Arctic tour guide. “I want people to know that this is a viable option,” he said at the time. The ruling attracted a small flurry of news attention, including a feature in the Wall Street Journal, as the case sent a tremor through the student lending world. More and more people were now testing their luck in bankruptcy, suing their lenders, and asking more and more uncomfortable questions about the nature of the education business.

In the summer of 2012, a former bond trader named Michael Grabis sat in the waiting room of a Manhattan financial company, biding time before a job interview. In the eighties, Grabis’s father was a successful bond trader who worked in a swank office atop the World Trade Center, but after the 1987 crash, the family fell out of the smart set overnight. His father lost his job and spiraled, his mother had to look for a job, and “we just became working class people.”

Michael tried to rewrite the family story, going to school and going into the bond business himself, first with the Bank of New York, and eventually for Schwab. But he, too, lost his job in a crash, in 2008, and now was trying to break the pattern of bubble economy misery. However, he’d exited Pennsylvania’s Lafayette College in the nineties carrying tens of thousands in student loans. That number had since been compounded by fees and penalties, and the usual letters, notices, and phone calls from debt collectors came nonstop.

Now, awaiting a job interview, his phone rang again. It was a collection call for Sallie Mae, and it wasn’t just one voice on the line.

“They had two women call at once,” Grabis recalls. “They told me I’d made bad life choices, that I lived in too expensive a city, that I had to move to a cheaper place, so I could afford to pay them,” Grabis explains. “I tried to tell them I was literally at that moment trying to get a job to help pay my bills, but these people are trained to just hound you without listening. I was shaking when I got off the phone, and ended up having a bad interview.”

Two years later, more out of desperation and anger than any real expectation of relief, Grabis went to federal court in the Southern District of New York and filed for bankruptcy. At the time, he, too, believed student loans could not be eliminated. But the more he read about the way student loans were constructed and sold — he’d had experience in doing shovel-work constructing mortgage-backed securities, so he understood the Student Loan Asset-Backed Securities (SLABS) market — he started to develop a theory. Everyone dealing with the finances of higher education in America knew the system was rotten, he thought. But what if someone could prove it?

The 2005 Bankruptcy Act says former students can’t discharge loans for “qualified educational expenses,” i.e. loans given to students so that they might attend tax-exempt non-profit educational institutions. Historically, that exemption covered almost all higher education loans.

What if America’s universities no longer deserve their non-profit status? What if they’re no longer schools, and are instead first and foremost crude profit-making ventures, leveraging federal bankruptcy law and the I.R.S. code into a single, ongoing predatory lending scheme?

This is essentially what Grabis argued, in a motion filed last January. He named Navient, Lafayette College, the U.S. Department of Education, Joe Biden, his own exasperated judge, and a host of other “unknown co-perpetrators” as part of a scheme against him, claiming the entirety of America’s higher education business had become an illegal moneymaking scam.

“They created a fraud,” he says flatly.

…

Grabis doesn’t have a lawyer, his case has been going on for the better part of six years, and at first blush, his argument sounds like a Hail Mary from a desperate debtor. The only catch is, he might be right.

By any metric, something unnatural is going on in the education business. While other industries in America suffered declines thanks to financial crises, increased exposure to foreign competition, and other factors, higher education has grown suspiciously fat in the last half-century. Tuition costs are up 100% at universities over and above inflation since 2000, despite the 2008 crash, with some schools jacking up prices at three, four times the rate of inflation dating back to the seventies.

Bloat at the administrative level makes the average university look like a parody of an NFL team, where every brain-dead cousin to the owner gets on the payroll. According to Education Week, “fundraisers, financial aid advisers, global recruitment staff, and many others grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009,” which is ten times the rate of growth for tenured faculty positions.

…

Hovering over all this is a fact not generally known to the public: many American universities, even ones claiming to be broke, are sitting atop mountains of reserve cash. In 2013, after the University of Wisconsin blamed post-crash troubles for raising tuition 5.5%, UW system president Kevin Reilly in 2013 admitted that the school actually held $638 million in reserve, separate and distinct from the school endowment. Moreover, Reilly said, other big schools were doing the same thing. UW’s reserve was 25% of its operating budget, for instance, but the University of Minnesota’s was 29%, while Illinois maintained a whopping 34% buffer.

When Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice looked into it, he found many other schools were sitting atop mass reserves even as they pleaded poverty to raise tuition rates. “They’re all doing it,” he said.

In the mortgage bubble that led to the 2008 crash, financiers siphoned fortunes off home loans that were unlikely to be repaid. Student loans are the same game, but worse. All the key players get richer as that $1.7 trillion pile of debt expands, and the fact that everyone knows huge percentages of student borrowers will never pay is immaterial. More campus palaces get built, more administrators get added to payrolls, and perhaps most importantly, the list of assets grows for financial companies, whether or not the loans perform.

…

“As long as it’s collateralized at Navient, they can borrow against that,” Smith says. “They say, ‘Look, we've got $3 billion in assets, which are just consumer loans in negative amortization that are not being repaid, but are being artificially kept out of default so Navient can borrow against that from other banks.

“When I realized that, I was like, ‘Oh, my god. They’re happy that the loans are growing instead of being repaid, because it gives them more collateral to borrow against.’” Smith’s comments echo complaints made by virtually every student borrower in trouble I’ve ever interviewed: lenders are not motivated to reduce the size of balances by actually getting paid. Instead, the game is about keeping loans alive and endlessly growing the balance, through new fees, penalties, etc.

There are two ways of approaching reform of the system. One is the Bernie Sanders route, which would involve debt forgiveness and free higher education. A market-based approach meanwhile dreams of reintroducing discipline into student lending; if students could default, schools couldn’t endlessly raise costs on the back of unlimited government-backed credit.

Which idea is more correct can be debated, but the one thing we know for sure is that the current system is the worst of both worlds, enriching all the most undeserving actors, and hitting that increasingly prevalent policy sweet spot of privatized profit and socialized risk. Whether it gets blown up in bankruptcy courts or simply collapses eventually under its own financial weight — there’s an argument that the market will be massively disrupted if and when the administration ends the Covid-19 deferment of student loan payments — the lie can’t go on much longer.

“It’s just obvious that this has become a printing money operation,” says Grabis. “The colleges charge whatever they want, then they go to the government and continuously increase the size of the loans.” If you’re on the inside, that’s a beautiful thing. What about for everyone else?

[nightcoremoon]

advertising is bullshit. not just for the carbon emissions, not just because they don't work, not just because they gather information on individual users, not just because unbridled capitalism is fundamentally broken without consistent regulations and control, not just because businesses are putting ad revenue ahead of human life.

here's the thing

you ever heard of acorn?

no not the video streaming service

there's an app called acorn that enables short form investment capital. you put in pennies to businesses to financially support them and if/when those businesses are successful then the amount of money you invested gets to be a lil bit more. so it's basically the stock market. you cannot eat the rich if you don't know what they eat. anyway it's a way to make supplementary income that's as far as I know untouchable by the IRS. but that doesn't matter. the thing is that this thing exists.

I can guarantee that 9 out of 10 people reading this has no idea that this app existed. and it's probably because you don't ever see ads for it. they don't really advertise. it seems to be some sort of communal hub for mass mutual financial growth among corporations and investors since that's how stimulating economics works. you don't hear about it on tv, radio, internet, video games, magazines, whatever. so clearly they have a tiny if not nonexistent budget for ads.

gambling ads are fucking everywhere. you got casinos, you got fantasy football leagues, you got horse racing, you got private pools for F1 and nascar, you got lottery scratch off tickets, you got fortnite overwatch battlefieldfront etc lootboxes, you got so much shit shoveled out every orifice of society, media, social media, radio tv websites and magazines. everywhere. they have a huge budget for ads because they are traps designed to steal money from gullible idiots privileged enough to have extra cash. and they take maybe 10% of that and sell out adspace to attract more gullible idiots. it's a predatory business model and it WORKS and it works because people are stupid and they're still clicking on ads and buying lootboxes and scratching scratchoffs and betting on football.

gambling doesn't serve society. it's a for profit model that the privileged elite use to suck up extra cash from sad pathetic losers who chase that high from a squirt of serotonin from hitting three lemons or a solid gold ak47 skin or a jpeg. so they can afford to throw cash away on ads.

but sheena, I hear you ask, what about all of the businesses that DO provide valid services to society?

spotify makes enough money from ad revenue to shill out Premium™ to people who happily vomit up $5/monthly en masse. even though there's plenty of ways to listen to music that a) directly benefit the creator or b) are 100% free.

places that serve food make so much extra money from sales that they can afford to fuck over they're employees by paying them dirt and shill out for ad spaces even though nobody's gonna watch a commercial for red lobster on tv and think OOOHHH I WANT JUMBO SHRIMP and you know why? because people who are rich enough to eat ad red lobster on a whim all have enough income they probably have dvr or Premium™ streaming and don't see ads in the first place. they're gonna spur of the moment think mmm cheddar bay biscuits (because when the fuck has red lobster shilled their delicious biscuits??? NEVER, THEY SHILL THEIR SCAMPI LINGUINI AND L O B S T E R.

(red lobster did not finance this post and you can easily find imitation recipes anywhere on google but damn what tasty cheesy bread).

United States Military spends $100 MILLION dollars on shilling ads to join the army on poor people's tv to boost enlistment for their blood machine instead of the government taking that money and using it to finance our schools. we can literally cut our military budget from $780 BILLION dollars to $779 billion- that's B as in billion- remove all military ads from our TVs and buy new textbooks for every single school in the entire country. I don't know why learning institutions hide knowledge behind class gates and why historical mathematical scientific and artistic groups don't just fucking give copies of one textbook about the subject to everyone, or why the publishing companies want so much goddamn MONEY from FUCKING SCHOOLS for LITERAL CHILDREN to LEARN but whatever I'm just someone who succeeded in high school in spite of its hundreds of open glaring flaws but whatever. anyway the point is the military could give money to groups that want to end wars but no they want poor people with nowhere else to go to oil the gears with their entrails so we can continue bombing the shit out of the middle east to steal their petroleum. and ads is how they do it.

charities who claim to want to help kids with cancer or endangered animals will gladly take vast portions of the money well meaning idiots send in, pocket 1/4 of it, put another 1/4 in the tv commercials, give 1/4 to some female adult contemporary singer who isn't famous anymore to sing a sad song over the sadness porn and then give the remaining 1/4 to people who are constantly failing to cure cancer, save animals, and just give up and join the nonprofit orgs that actually accomplish things instead. if a charity can afford to spend millions of dollars on fuckin ADVERTISING, they're a bunch of bloated and corrupt bastards who shouldn't be trusted with a goddamn penny. their members should be promoting shit FOR FREE if they actually care. not buying ad space on the cw tnt cbs & nbc. unless the businesses DONATE ad space. but they don't do that because all CEOs are evil. lol

what does wikipedia do when it needs cash? it POLITELY ASKS FOR MONEY IN A BANNER IN THE CORNER OF THE WEBSITE. ao3 does it too. and if dumb motherfuckers wanna shit on wikipedia for being the most accurate and communally moderated source of information on the entire internet "inaccurate"[citation needed] or ao3 for being the last bastion of independent fiction against federal censorship whores and virtue signaling white-knight moral guardians who don't actually care about victims of rape and csa "having incest fics", and yet say absolutely nothing to greedy conglomerates who destroy the planet, commit genocide and enslave coastal & island nation child residents, spread eugenics & other evil pseudoscientific propaganda, sexualize infantilize and fetishize women, and let millions die from cancer every day? then they're just as culpable.

fuck advertisements.

unless you're an independent content creator or something in which case that's not ads it's marketing and publicity which is different.

[urfangirl18]

As promised here is the first chapter of my fan fiction 💜

1. One Fateful Meeting

'why did it take you so long to pick up Mei-ah'

I laughed at the pouting face of my best friend Jiwoo as she artlessly sat down on the seat in front of me looking as gorgeous as ever in her off white lacy dress that she paired off with open toed sandals and a black jacket. Her cheeks were pink from the cold and she smiled at me graciously as I pushed the warm cup of caramel latte towards her.

'mian Jiwoo-ah I had to rush a couple of things at the office but I'm here now.'

I said as I took a sip of my hot tea grateful to be inside this cafe while looking at the soft pitter patter of raindrops on the window. It gave me peace amidst my ever busy life in Seoul.

'have you heard?' she asked as she tapped my hand on the table and pointed at my open macbook.

'my laptop? what about it?'

'for someone who graduated with honors in 4 courses way back in college how can you be such a pabo sometimes?'

I smiled and shrugged my shoulders at her 'I have no clue...soo spit it out Jiwoo-ah and no I am not dating your dongsaeng or any of your friends...please.'

She pouted while shaking her head 'why not?? it's been so long since you dated someone...who was he again?'

I flinched at the reminder of that awful date and shook my head as I motioned for her to continue with her news and what made her point at my laptop.

I was currently checking the website I was working on as much as my eyes were wanting to rest from reading codes after codes that I dealt with in the office earlier.

'I have awesome news from your imaginary boyfriend...' she said with a smile 'open google please and type his name.'

'imaginary boyfriend my ass' I mumbled knowing that I was blushing like mad at that moment. 'what about Satoh-san?'

She grinned at me while typing something on my laptop. She frowned a bit as she saw that I was working and smiled again as she found what she was looking for looking obviously pleased with herself...should I tell her that she looks a bit like a Cheshire Cat?

'clear your schedule this Friday until Sunday...you my gorgeous chingu will be modeling for my clothing brand with Takeru Satoh.'

'oh sure...'

I nodded clearly not believing a word she said for how can she and the management secure a modeling contract with the ever busy Takeru Satoh.

'no shit Jiwoo!!!' I said as I sucked my breath at what I was reading 'how the hell did Yuna and Georgie manage to snag this?!!'

I wanted to scream for joy but since we were inside a cafe all I managed to do was grasp for my bestfriend's hand in support.

Indeed the management and Jiwoo finally snagged a contract with the Takeru Satoh, the famous Japanese star.  My mind was reeling with questions as I was reading the news about it. It happened this morning while I was swamped with work and couldn't check my phone.

'that's why I was calling you!! You're perfect for this Mei-ah and I know you wouldn't want to miss being in the same set with your one and only love.'

'how did we afford him? This man is worth thousands no millions when it comes to a modeling contract. There is absolutely no way we can afford this...how do we get that investment back?'

Jiwoo grinned at me and shook her head in disbelief. It was then I forgot...she can very well afford to get even the highest paid actor in Hollywood for who am I kidding? Even without the help of  her influential and very affluent family my bestfriend owns one of the most successful fashion boutiques in Asia and Europe.

'I can't believe this...' I muttered 'I don't think I can model for this...maybe hire a professional for this Jiwoo...it's too huge of an investment if I don't pull this off.'

'ohh no!! you are not backing out of this Jeon Mei Lin. There is no way I am letting you say no! His agency wanted you to be his partner for this shoot.'

I would have fainted right at that very moment when I heard what she said.

'his agency? why?? we have plenty of models...why me? I only work part time.'

'they were mesmerised by your beauty and charm as simple as that and we know you're a perfect fit for their star as well.'

she whispered as she slowly took my glassess off and untied my bun. I squinted as I tried to get my eyeglasses back from her but knowing my bestfriend she won't give them back unless she has her way.

'for how long will you keep hiding yourself behind these glasses Mei? How long will you be depriving the world of your beauty?'

I rolled my eyes at her compliment and sighed...if only I can tell her. If only I can tell her the reason why I choose to hide my eyes beneath my glasses then maybe instead of convincing me to model along with the man of my dreams she would be helping me look for a husband so my family could leave me be and we could all live in peace.

Sadly all I can do was keep my mouth shut and nodded at the offer given to me. No one can know and no one must know. It's safer that way.

'alright I'll do it...I'll take my leave on Friday and Monday. Anything for Satoh-san and your boutique.'

I told her with a smile to which she jumped up from off her seat and gave me a bone crushing hug. For a tiny thing Jung Ji Woo sure can hug...makes me wonder where she got her strength from.

'kamasahamnida Mei-ah!! Don't worry everything is taken cared of all you need is to relax and look all pretty on Friday.' she then smiled and added 'should I accidentally book a hotel room for the both of you?'

I groaned and shook my head at what she was planning. I doubt anything can happen if she does that. This man whose pictures has adorned my phone for as long as I started being his fan would never notice me. He was just way out of my league. He travels the same circles as Jiwoo and her family or my cousin's also very affluent family. I didn't belong there...or should I say I don't even belong in this world. I was made for something else and I have been trying my best to not think about it.

I was destined for something else and the longer I dilly dally the more my head starts to pound. Is it too much to want what other girls have?

I hid my sadness in my cup of tea as I found Jiwoo smiling while looking at her phone talking to her fiancée no doubt. Whereas my single ass was in dire need of a fucking date but then again with the hideous glasses I wear I doubt anyone would want me.

*Satoh's POV*

'your flight for Seoul is on Thursday night Takeru-san and here is your schedule during your stay there.'

I smiled in gratitude at my assistant Takei-san who handed me an ipad as I took a break from work. It was a warm day in Kyoto and I was just finishing up the last few takes of a modeling stint for Versace and I was looking forward to a cold drink.

I sat on my chair inside the cool shade of the villa we were in and stretched my back. It was a long day but I had fun. Unbeknownst to everyone I was not just into acting or modeling though my family approved of it and allowed me to pursue what I love provided I don't forget to help run the business empire that our family has.

The money and the power my family has gave me the freedom to do whatever I love but it doesn't mean I don't work hard for it. My success wasn't handed to me on a golden platter I worked thrice as hard to get to where I am and to amass whatever success I hold

After that modeling stint with a very famous fashion line in Seoul I would finally get some much needed rest and to check on some of my businesses in Korea including my new baby which was a game and software development company which is now doing exceptionally well in both Korea and Japan. It was also starting to gain recognition in the US as well.

Personally I want to congratulate one of my lead game and software developer there who produced a game that has now over millions of downloads and users all over the globe. I also want to discuss another software app that I have in mind with him.

Yes I was all about business but maybe just maybe I may get a chance to rest a little bit when I get to Seoul.

'and the management of Meijiwoo agreed to our request. The shoot will be held privately and your partner is someone they deeply trust.'

I nodded as I checked the ipad and the profile of the model I will be working with. Looks like I would be having fun with this shoot. I smiled as I checked the portfolio they have sent...the girl in the photos could surely be a professional model in Seoul for she has the beauty a master artist would want to paint. She wasn't overly beautiful like the rest of the girls I had worked with or even the women I dated but there was something very alluring about her. It was then I saw her eyes. They were a brilliant shade of blue and the more I look at them the more beautiful they were getting.

'what's her name? is she a foreigner?'

I asked Takei-san to which he shook his head and said.

'she's korean, that's what the management told us but I can get some more information about Mei, Mei-san.'

So this beauty is named Mei...looks like my trip to Korea is getting more interesting and Friday couldn't come any sooner.

I smiled as I continued checking her portfolio most of the modeling she has done was for Meijiwoo and some korean make up brands. She was a beauty and for sure her agency wouldn't find it difficult to market her abroad. With her enchanting blue eyes this girl could conquer to world and it made me wonder why doesn't she have any other works than in Korea it was a shame to not let the world know of this beauty.

'Takei-san make sure to find out who her manager is maybe we can arrange a deal with them for a contract. Her beauty shouldn't be hidden.'

I said as I handed him the ipad and closed my eyes...looks like I have another business in mind. My parents would be so pleased that in whatever I do I always put business first forgetting myself sometimes.

I sighed and got a drink from the table and walked towards the window admiring the zen like beauty of the garden outside. The glass of whisky in my hand mocking me. I am now at the top of my game, of my career. I have achieved everything that I could ever want but why do I feel hollow inside?

Amidst the fortune I have from all the years of hard work why do I feel lonely everytime I go home? It's as if the more I surround myself with luxury the more empty I become.

'I probably just need to get laid...'

I muttered as I took my phone and checked who among my female friends are free and mentally reminding myself to buy her a gift as a token of my gratitude. It was always like this...after hours of pleasure I still feel so damn empty inside.

[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

Color explosion  (stenbrough x reader)

A/N: This was requested by @stanleyurisgirl​. Thank you so much for the request! I hope you like it! Let me know what you think! Also yes I’m aware the titel sucks 😂

Summary:  If possible could I request a soulmate au where the reader's soulmate's are Stanley Uris and bill Denbrough, could it be where soulmate's are colour blind until they meet their soulmate and can see in color?

‘Can you fucking watch where you’re going?’ Your loud voice called out angrily to a woman who without even looking around flipped you off. You huffed, adjusting your skirt before continuing on your way. You grumbled the whole way, still wondering why you had said yes to this meeting in the first place. You were a illustrator for a marketing company, and you were on your way to meet the famous Bill Denbrough. You had read a few of his books, and beside the general outrage, you actually really liked the ending to his books, and you had a Knick for reading regardless of who the author was, but that didn’t mean you were all that excited for this project. You were supposed to read Mr. Denbrough’s new book draft, and design a book cover for it, but this was the third time already that you had tried to set up a meeting.

The first time mister Denbrough had cancelled, he said he had some family problems, and he had to go back to his hometown, though he didn’t offer up any other explanation. You had felt a bit annoyed, as you lived for away from Atlanta, where the meeting would take place, and you had already been in a hotel when he had called. Still, you understood that sometimes things could come up without any notice, so you politely said nothing and returned to Ohio, where you lived. You had never met Mr. Denbrough before, and the only reason he had your phone number was because your boss had given it to him. The second time your phone had rang and Bill Denbrough’s name popped up, he had said it was a ‘boyfriend emergency’.

Stanley Uris, you thought his name was. In the  radio interviews you had listened to, solely to prepare yourself for your job you insisted, not because Bill Denbrough seemed like an interesting man, he had talked about how much he loved his boyfriend. Stanley Uris was apparently just as blindingly pretty as Bill himself was. You had never seen either one of them, not seeing the point in that, but your friends had, and they loved to tell you all about them.

They suited each other. They weren’t pretty in the same way, Bill looked like he was a laid-back looking man. He wore a lot of plaid shirts, and he dressed casually, but somehow he made it work. Stanley Uris looked more fancy, he wore a suit and tie, his curls tamed as much as they possibly could, and his posture rigid. Both of them looked like models in their own way, and together, they looked even better. Of course, that wasn’t your perspective, but you did trust the judgment of your friends, so you were excited to finally meet him.

A coworker of yours gossiped that Stan and Bill had another soulmate that they hadn’t found yet, as Bill had once mentioned that he and Stan could only see blue colors, which was unusual to say the least. When people met their soulmates, they found out what colors were. It was a universal given, that everyone had a soulmate, and once you met them, you could finally see what the big fuss about  clothes were, your dad often joked that he wasn’t your mothers soulmate, because she still couldn’t match clothes at all. Your mom would huff lovingly and roll her eyes at that. It was rare to have more than one soulmate, but it did happen, yet it was very rarely talked about.

Having a second soulmate was seen as taboo, so when your coworker had told you Bill Denbrough had admitted to it on live television, you doubted it very much.  When people with more than one soulmate met their first one, they would see only one part of the color scheme, until they met their other soulmate(s). You didn’t know if that was the case with Mr. Denbrough and Stanley Uris, but you weren’t too bothered about it. Being happy is always the most important thing.  

You had also heard that Stanley Uris ended up in the hospital, though you didn’t know for what, so while it made sense that Bill was taking care of him, you felt irritated that you had yet again came to Atlanta for nothing. The hotel your boss made you stay in was comfortable, but it didn’t do anything to make you miss your own home any less. You missed your dog when you went away, even though your dog was content to stay with your parents for a couple of days. You had once more said nothing, instead wishing Mr. Denbrough luck. Afterwards though, you reached out to your boss. You weren’t close to her, but that didn’t stop you from telling her that if Bill Denbrough canceled one more time, you were not going to design his cover any more. Your boss complained, but ultimately agreed, which brought you to Atlanta for a third time, and you swore to your parents up and down that this would be the last time that you would drop your dog, stitch, off at their house.

They didn’t mind, in fact, they loved the fact that you were gone. Your mother told you one time that it might be the time Where you would finally meet your soulmate, which caused you to dismount very quickly. Soulmates were a touchy subject in the family, considering you had still not, found your soulmate. Your mother had often pushed on the issue, saying that your biological clock was ticking,

And that she would love to become a grandmother before she died. She had said it in a joking way, though you knew she meant every word of it. She had been pushing you to find your soulmate since you were only 12 years old, and so many fights in the family between your mom and dad went about you. You didn’t even know if you wanted children, because you refused to bring a child into this world that would have two bickering parents all the time.

Your words ran through your head though, and you had looked around Atlanta thoughtfully, hoping that you would suddenly see color. This was the third time you had been here though, and you still had no luck. You were starting to think that you may not even have a soulmate, that you were destined to live your life in a black and white world, I’m a world where you would never be able to match your clothes, or pick out wall colors. It upset you sometimes, like when your best friend got married and you couldn’t help her pick a dress because you couldn’t see the color it was in, but for the most part you had just accepted this as a part of you, and you were okay with it.

You had finally reached the address Bill had given you, not too far away from the train station which you had used, and took a deep breath before knocking on the door. You’re face lit up with a fake smile right away, because you were a professional, and even though Mr. Denbrough got on your last nerve, you were going to be polite

You were surprised that you had actually gotten an address from Mr. Denbrough, as the previous times you had an appointment, you were supposed to meet in a cafe nearby. It seemed like he know that you were close to quitting and decided that having you come over to his home would mean that you could relax a little more. You knocked, and for a few minutes nothing happened, then the heavy door creaked open and a woman stood in the door opening. She was smiling, and she looked absolutely beautiful, even without you being able to see color. ‘You must be Y/N? I’m Beverly, come in, Bill’s caught up in writing again.’ As she said it she extended her hand and you politely shook hers.

She lead you into the home, past the living room where shouting voices could be heard, ‘eat shit trashmount’, but Bev led you over to another door, opening without hesitation. She turned around motioning for you to get in and smiled once more. ‘Don’t get too caught up in how he looks, I swear he’s a professional’, she winked, before walking back to the living room. You wondered if you looked okay, considering you had no idea which colors you were combining.

You stepped into the room, the first thing you noticed was that it was messy place. There were papers everywhere, cups of coffee on the floor where you were sure you there shouldn’t be, and in the middle of it all sat a man, with his back towards you. In front of him, there was another door, leading into a room you couldn’t see from this angle. The man hadn’t appeared to hear you come in, too busy typing furiously.

You coughed lightly, trying to get his attention. His head shot up, and he turned around. ‘Oh I’m so sorry, I completely forgot you were coming today, you must be’. He cut himself off. You suddenly had a pounding headache, so extreme you stumbled backwards, keeping yourself upright on the door.

You squeezed your eyes shut, breathing deeply in through your noise as you tried to calm down. You heard Bill’s breathing pick up a notch, but you were too busy trying to deal with your own pain. After a few seconds of this, your eyes blinked open, heavy and you squinted against the light coming in through the window. Suddenly, your own breathing picked up.

You could see, what you guessed was the color red. It looked so beautiful, and you nearly cried. It was the color of Bill’s shirt, and a deviant of the color was on the walls, orange or pink, you remembered. When you were a child, your school taught tried to teach you colors, but it was hard when most of the kids hadn’t met their soulmates yet. You barely registered Bill, slowly rising from his chair. You looked down, and saw that you had were wearing a lighter red jacket. With tears in your eyes you looked at Bill, who himself was looking at you with tears in his eyes. ‘Hey, Bill would you like a drink’? Someone called out from inside the other room, his voice like velvet.

A confused frown appeared on your face, didn’t Bill have Stan as a soulmate yet? You looked around the room once more, and noticed that some of the colors still weren’t visible to you. You suddenly remembered what you coworker had told you, that Bill had said that he and Stan still hadn’t found their other soulmate. He was so close to you now, if he took one more step forward, the two of you would be pressed together.

Bill ignored his words, instead calling out a quick, ‘Stan, Stan get in here now please’.

Almost immediately, another man came running into the room. He looked scared, but when his eyes landed on Bill he let out a sigh of relief. Bill glanced at him quickly before turning back to you.  The man followed suit, and the second your eyes met, you felt the same pain once more. Your knees buckled, but Bill acted fast and caught you in his arms. You collapsed against him, but this time you opened your eyes quicker than before. ‘Stan’, Bill breathed, and ‘Stan’ looked up at him. His eyes were open as well, and he looked around the room in wonder, before his eyes settled on you, his mouth dropping open slightly.

You looked up at Bill, who helped you stand up again, but kept his arms encircled around you anyway. His eyes were blue, an amazing ocean blue. A smile took over your features once more, you could see every color now. Dark, light, bright, not so bright. Every single one of the colors were full of life, and you couldn’t get enough from watching them. Your friends were right, both Stan and Bill looked absolutely stunning in their own way. Stan’s curls were a dark color, and you reached up and whipped a curl out of his face.

Stan smiled, his hand cupping yours, grabbing your hand tightly. Bill turned your head, leaned down, and kissed you without thinking twice. You kissed him messily, at first hesitant, but after a few seconds the both of you pushed your nervousness aside, and kissed like your life depended on it.

You felt dazed, so full of happiness. Stan and Bill shared a kiss too, and you felt a bomb of happiness in your heart. You had not one, but two soulmates, how lucky were you?

Stan leaned forward a bit, but instead of kissing you on the lips, he pressed a kiss to your forehead. ‘I’m sorry’, he murmured, ‘I’m not good with germs’. You laughed, reaching your arms around his midsection, shaking you head. ‘Don’t apologize.’

‘I’m Bill, but I think you already knew that’, Bill laughed, his hand reached out for Stan, who immediately took it.

‘I’m Stan’, Stan continued, still leaning close to you.

Still dazed from the amount of love you were feeling, and from all the color attacking your eyes you merely replied with; ‘I have a dog called Stitch.’

The loud laughs both Stan and Bill let out made you laugh too, and you had never felt more at ease than you were now. Thank god for your boss.

[shellheadtm-a]

while i’m sitting here nervously chuckling to see if we go into curfew mode/shelter in place...

amanda’s guide to 616 tony’s relationships with characters you know from the mcu.  otherwise known as how things are very different.

pepper:  tony’s not married to pepper.  he’s never been in a relationship with pepper.  they pined after each other for a while, pepper got married to happy, happy died, she and tony banged, and then tony deleted his brain and that was pretty much that.  by the time tony got around to asking pepper out, she was seeing someone, the weight of happy’s death was there (she asked tony to cut happy’s life support with extremis), and they’d both moved on.  they definitely do not have a kid - 616 tony is childless.  they’ve been good, good friends over the years, but now have mostly grown apart, and pepper’s doing her own thing as rescue.

rhodey:  not much changes here besides the fact that rhodey is a former employee of tony/former ceo of stark/former iron man.  while tony was pulling his life together while in recovery, rhodey was iron man.  then he became war machine, and is also a liason to the us military for stark.  he and tony are still pretty much bffs, despite the fact that they’ve had their spats over the years.  tony loves rhodey a lot and tells him that frequently.  they use ridiculous code names for things like mama hen and papa bear.  when rhodey died tony rebooted him out of death.  it’s like that.

happy:  happy was pretty much the same.  former boxer, tony hired him as a chauffeur.  tony saw pepper and happy making eyes at each other and did his best to push them together.  happy was in and out of tony’s employ for literal years, sometimes doing his own thing, for a while running literally all the pr and charity stuff (and doing a damn bang up job of it too, during the stark solutions days), and eventually was beaten into brain death during civil war.  tony caused the blip in his life support at the request of pepper because happy didn’t want to spend his days like that.  tony misses him a lot.

peter:  616 peter is a good deal older than mcu peter, and tony wasn’t really a mentor.  instead, you can argue he kind of adopted peter as a little brother (which was a much better take on that friendship, no i do not take criticism).  but civil war happened, tony convinced peter to reveal his identity for the sake of regristration/keeping peace, aunt may got shot, everything went to hell, and there’s been a long, slow healing process between the two of them.  they can work together nicely enough...usually.  but during the parker industries days there was some serious animosity going on - slapfights via the stock market.  now, though, they’re starting to move on, and be able to act like grown adults and talk.

steve:  oh boy.  tony has some major fucking heart eyes for steve rogers.  the avengers found steve in the ice, and he’s been tony’s literal attached at the hip bestie ever since, even though they break up more than a junior high school couple.  instead of bickering, these two are all unnecessary touching and waxing poetic about each other and acting as each other’s biggest fans.  tony has a captain america memorabilia collection.  steve’s temporary death utterly destroyed tony completely.  look for one, and the other probably isn’t that far behind.  the avengers always function better when these two are in sync.

bruce:   complicated.  super complicated.  bruce was a founding member, tony will tell you he is absolutely bruce’s friend, and he really is!  but their relationship is...tumultuous.  tony saved bruce’s life, but inadvertently caused the hulk as a literal manifestation via gamma bomb.  he does love bruce, he does.  but he’s also done shit like shot bruce into space because he’s something of a danger in the eyes of...well.  just about everyone.  (to be fair, that was the illuminati, and boy do i have opinions on the illuminati.)

thor:  616 tony and thor have been through the shit, both together and against each other, and have come out the other side still friends.  the big three (tony, steve, thor) is called that for a reason.  they’ve got a super tight relationship.  but they’ve all three fought hard against each other, as well, and there was a point in time (after the thor clone particularly) where it looked like tony and thor were quitsies.  not so much, apparently, thor’s a big tony supporter when tony and steve are feuding.  tony (and also steve) have pretty much told odin to get fucked over their boy.

nat:  nat and tony met while she was still a russian spy.  that’s right.  nat started off as an iron man villain.  but once she switched sides and joined the avengers...listen.  nat and tony have in the past had this...on again off again thing. how serious it’s ever been is up to you to decide, but they’ve been a thing.  nat drags tony into things and he goes along willingly because he trusts her completely.  he always believes nat has a good reason for doing what she’s doing.  it’s been pointed out before but like...the level to which he did not care she had all this info on him (and clint, and bucky, and logan) could not have been more in the negative numbers.  tony loves nat.  tony trusts nat.  enough that he doesn’t spaz the fuck out when she breaks into his bedroom and sits there waiting for him to wake up.

clint:  clint was part of cap’s kooky quartet, when the og avengers left for some personal time.  even so, tony and clint did spend a good amount of time out west with each other, during tony’s recovery and when he finally picked up the iron man mantle again.  tony made clint’s hearing aids.  it was tony and steve who were there when clint was going blind.  they bicker and pick on each other like...a lot, but if clint calls, even for something as stupid as detangling his fucking cable box, tony’s there to help.  they’re friends, is what i’m getting at.  clint was the first person tony offered the shield to after steve’s death, to be the next captain america.

carol:  instead of barely existing in the same space, tony is friends with carol.  he loves carol like...a whole lot.  they might argue, and they might disagree (and i think it’s because in reality carol and steve are a lot alike and tony is a good foil to the both of them), but ultimately tony loves and respects carol like...so much.  he’s her aa sponsor.  he’ll be there to help at the drop of a hat.  hell, even after she’s broken his windpipe and finally explains herself to him and thor he’s more than willing to do what needs to be done.  she’s the one he trusted with the whole...mmm...hinky shit that was going on behind the scenes after civil war bc he had to have someone and who better than carol danvers?

wanda:  sorry but the mcu screwed the pooch completely with wanda all the way around.  wanda was another one that was part of cap’s kooky quartet (along with pietro) and like...she was one of them for so long, you know, like...she and tony have actually led teams together, he brought her into force works.  i honestly don’t think he holds any animosity for shit that happened before civil war, enough that he can make jokes about it now.  it’s not this weird...you’re grounded bc i said so bullshit with them.  tony will call wanda sweetheart at the drop of a hat.

vision:  tony didn’t create ultron, that was hank pym.  the vision is a bit of a weird case in 616 but he’s tony’s???  friend???  enough so that during age of ultron (616′s aou) tony was as blinded as everyone else that ultron had been using the vision to fuck with them from the future.  he’s the one who worked to get vision’s self-repair to function after avengers disassembled and it eventually kicked in.  he’s the one who helped vision with viv.  and he fixed viv’s dog???  like???  he’s not the creator of either of the things that came out of ultron initially but he is vision’s friend, thank you and goodnight.

sam:  yeah sam and tony aren’t like.  best buds.  they view life and being a hero too differently, i think.  but they’ve been on teams together and worked fine together.  they were able to get their shit together after steve’s assassination.  i’d argue tony initially gave sam a chance because he was steve’s friend, and then gave his respect on his own once he saw who sam is as a person.  especially when he was filling in as cap.  not best buds, can work together just fine.

scott:  hey so uh.  tony’s friends with scott!!!!  i hate!!! what the mcu did!!!!  tony’s the one who took a chance on scott when he got out of prison.  he hired him.  he’s supported scott as ant man, scott’s been an avenger, tony’s uncle tony to scott’s daughter cassie!!!  tony’s the one who begged cassie to please, please stay out of superheroing bc he’d lost scott, and he didn’t wanna lose her too.  when cassie was little she used to be at stark industries parties!!!  like...there’s none of his mean-spirited bullshit there, tony has no problem going to scott and being like hey.  i need your help.  they’re friends!!!!

t’challa:  they’re friends, karen.  like t’challa’s been on and off avengers teams for years, and these two have enough in common it’s probably no surprise they can??  get along just fine??  they were part of the illuminati together there toward the end of the incursions (along with steve until they, you know, wiped steve’s mind).  they went after the avengers when that toxin was let loose at mount rushmore, because tony, the idiot, broke them out of jail.  they have an information sharing agreement between tony’s company and wakanda.  they’re friends.  and tony’s always been kinda in love with him, lbr here.

bucky:  how about a complete one eighty from the mcu?  actual friends.  didn’t start off that way, no, bucky tried to kill tony the first time they met.  because bucky’s...well.  he’s bucky.  instead he ended up being the new captain america, bc tony took one look at this idiot and said “oh no he’s dumb i have to protecc.”  tony knows where bucky lives in indiana - you can bet your ass not everyone does.  tony can and will drop everything if bucky calls him in the middle of the night and says “hey, i need you.”  he does the work on bucky’s arm that bucky can’t.  alpine likes him.  he’s willing to support bucky’s solo gig.  keep the oatmeal angst, this is the tony and bucky content i’m here for, with bonus small town fireworks.

guardians of the galaxy:  they come as a group in this because.................................tony used to be one!!!  he likes them just fine!!!!  he used their ship as a space crashpad for a while and got into so much trouble with them!!  jfc, tony and peter set up the quill network!!!  he and gamora had sex like once in which she was not impressed!!  he and rocket bickered and dickered back and forth!!  angela!!!  they all met angela together!!!  i hate!!! the mcu take!!!!

edit: stephen:  i forgot stephen.  because i’m dumb.  anyway!!  yeah so...stephen and tony don’t bicker that way.  they’re friends.  stephen never answers his damn phone, but they’re friends.  stephen was long time illuminati just like tony was, and they all got up to hinky shit together.  it was stephen that wiped steve’s mind at tony’s go ahead.  they weren’t on the same side during civil war, but since they mostly get along just fine, and aren’t like...Like That with each other at all.

and as for people like...harley, ig.  sorry, pal, they don’t exist in 616 so there is no comparison.  tony wouldn’t know who the hell they are.  but there you have it.  it’s done.  i did it.

[cloudyjoongie]

Love at First Boba Milk Tea (Kim Hongjoong Imagine)

Hellllllooooo I love boba and kim hongjoong; put it together and voila! Y'all enjoy this okieee ✌😅

First day at your very first job. Great.

Since you moved in to town, you've been solitary and wrapped yourself within a bubble of just you as your main company, but soon realized that this wasn't going to pay the bills. As soon as you found a milk tea shop with a flyer in the front door that says "WE ARE HIRING" you gave in to the posted advertisement and quickly submitted at application.

You stared at the store label for as long as you could to prepare for the battle you were about to engage in with a hard puff of breath.

"Alright! I can do this! " you thought to yourself and marched inside the shop.

The manager welcomes you in as he introduces to you the environment within the counter of the shop, other crew members greeting as you go. He goes about the rules to follow and the food safety information you needed to know then dressing you in the store apron.

"Today, Hongjoong here will be training you. He is your supervisor here in this shop." He says as the man walks up to you. He smiles at you warmly with a hand out to properly greet you and you return the favor. Hopefully, today wasn't going to be bad.

Hongjoong taught you how to make the basic milk tea flavors and how the boba should be cooked properly and the time dots for every batch that is made. You admired how much he knew about making the drinks and also enjoyed making them when boba was your favorite drink ever. The funny thing too about Hongjoong is that he'd have a couple of tricks on his sleeves with the drink shakers, dancing till it frothed perfectly. Although his purpose was to make you laugh and succeeds victoriously. That time, you swore that this was not bad at all.

You know what's the worse case scenario for a new employee? A weekend at 12 in the afternoon when shit gets busy with the customers start rolling in.

You were at the back with Hongjoong, helping him with the overflowing orders. He was incredibly fast that you being there was not needed but still, you made yourself useful by bagging up the drinks and dispatching the orders to the customers who waited both with understanding and impatience. It was just until the dispatched orders have returned with wrong drinks and at this point, you were confused as to what to do. Hongjoong, leaving out the pending orders, came to your rescue to help you communicate with the customers in an almost perfect way, correcting the mistaken orders for a few minutes before going back to making the drinks. Your anxiety level rose up, unclear of the situation right in front of you as more people showed up to the counter with receipts in their hands.

Then, as soon you were going to return a complained drink to Hongjoong, your rapid turn had made you spill the drink on the chest of the manager himself. His face was in total remorse, reddened with anger towards you.

"Sir, I am very very sorry." You grap a couple of napkins to even attempt to dry up with wet shirt.

"Pls, do not touch me and step out of the way so we can get this line rolling. You are of no use at the moment." Hongjoong hears these harsh words and confronts him.

"Sir, I don't think this is the way of speaking to her like this."

"Hongjoong, get back there and make the drinks and I'll dispatch the orders." And just like that, you walked away to the bathroom with flood of tears streaming from your eyes. You locked yourself in as you bursted out sitting on the bathroom floor. You couldn't get anything right on the first day, what more of the days to come then? It started to hurt in your chest and your throat, but you stayed there in order to calm the storm away.

You have sat there for as long as time went by with the thought that you were sure you were not allowed to come in the next day again. But in the middle of you reevaluating yourself, a soft knock comes from the door and you got up instantly, realizing that it must have been a customer waiting this whole time. After you were sure that you looked less as if you cried, you opened the door not to find a woman, but Kim Hongjoong with two sealed glasses of milk tea in hand.

"It's break time and I thought that it was only right to spend it with the new girl." He says as you come out of the bathroom, but slowly sitting down on the floor against the wall. Your mentality was not just ready for today that even effected you physically. Hongjoong sits next to you, offering you the other glass of milk tea.

"You know, you remind me of myself back then." He breaks the silent. You look at him with confusion.

"Nahh, clumsy? I don't believe that." You shake your head at him.

"I meant your silence and seclusion. At one point, I also loved isolating myself and I am sure you do too." You look at him in the eyes and nod at him.

"I guess so. It's a new town for me and even before coming here, I'm not a good communicator." He smiles at you.

"I understand. It does get you sometimes having to expose yourself to everyone. But this is not a bad life, just a day that did not go right. I came here as the silent kid, but I told myself that I had to get out of my comfort zone because not only did it boost my way of talking to people, but also my performance."

"No wonder your quick on your feet."

"I wasn't always. I started out far worst, trust me. It takes time, and you don't have to worry, I'll guide you to the process and you'll just be like me or even better, who knows." You smile at his comment as you poke the straw to your drink.

"Thank you, I really appreciate that."

"Cheers?"

"Cheers." Both of your raised your glasses and took a sip on the drink. This drink was nothing like the ones Hongjoong had made and was a lot better than your favorites. Your shock had urged you to ask him.

"Heyy, what drink is this?" He laughs softly.

"That, my friend is a secret. Maybe someday I'll teach it to you, but for now, this drink you have st your hands right now is my signature drink. Have it released on the market and it will end even the top shops in the country." You laugh at his dramatic voice.

"And what is the name of this undefeatable drink?"

"It is called Hong Milk Tea. The drink for those in need of comfort." You laugh once again at his beaming wit, instantly lightening up the mood from earlier. Along with you, he also laughs at his own joke, only wanting to earn the sound of laughter coming from you. Little did you know that in Hongjoong's mind, he did not see a weak girl, but someone who is beautiful and has yet to come out of her shell.

In just a few moments, Hongjoong was deep down interested getting to know you more.

In just a few moments, he has fallen in love with a girl who had absolutely no clue of his thoughts that was soon to be filled with you.

[flatsuke]

The Tragedy of Eisuke, or another Eisuke Meta

So I’m back on my bullshit, and I’m going to go on yet another tangent on Eisuke, so please bear with me if I ramble on at times lmao. For the purposes of this meta, I’m going to use screenshots from both main stories, POVs, and substories. Even if the substories happened in AUs, his characterization and personality are still canon. 

Disclaimer: This is all my opinion and in no way am I claiming this is the absolute truth lmao. This is just how I interpret Eisuke and the events in the game. Also, this is going to be a very long post peppered with memes (ty Screenshots of Despair) and game screencaps, so good luck reading through this really long post.

I’ve replayed some of Eisuke’s stories again, and wow, sometimes I feel like I discover facets of him that weren’t obvious to me before. I think I’ve said this many times before, but man....Eisuke’s such a complex character that it’s so fun to dissect him. 

The first thing I want to bring up are the recurring themes present in his characterization: power and utilitarianism. In almost all of his stories, power is explored in different ways — from the most superficial point of view, we see Eisuke exhibit his economic ad social power as a internationally renowned hotel mogul. There’s the power he has as the boss of his company and the leader of the bidders. 

That aside, Eisuke values utilitarianism to a nigh obsessive extent. Every decision he makes is based on how it’d benefit himself and his interests, and his standard for measuring a person is based on how useful they are. Basically, he quantifies everything and everyone.

The interesting thing I wanted to point out was the he didn’t start off that way, rather, he grew into that. There was once a time when he was idealistic and still had faith in people. But that time is long gone. 

(RIP that smile)

I think it’s tragic to see what Eisuke could have been. We see how he was as a kid in the Examination of the Heart Story. In this AU, he never experienced his mother’s death and family’s downfall. He was a kind, caring, and thoughtful child. He went out of his way to visit MC almost every day to take care of her. He even goes to medical school all for the sake of curing MC’s heart disease! I’m inclined to think that if the Kuga family was never separated, he would have grown up to become softer and kinder.

Sadly, the canon timeline has a much more unfortunate turn. Eisuke ended up adopted into the Ichinomiya household at seven years old after his family separated. The seed of self-doubt and insecurity was planted, and it only grew downhill from there. 

He grew up in an environment where all his actions were judged because he wasn’t a real Ichinomiya. He was constantly scrutinized and judged, so he couldn’t afford to trust anyone. The fact that he was never an Ichinomiya became a lifelong insecurity for him. According to Akira, Eisuke was a lonely child.

That lonely child grew up into a cynical and apathetic teenager. Teenage!Eisuke believed that since his path was set for him, he didn’t have to try hard to do anything. So he slacked off in school, only bothering to do the bare minimum of everything. He never thought about the consequences of his actions, either; he picked fights with pretty much everyone who pissed him off and he spoke his mind, not caring about what would happen to him or to anyone around him. He was never held accountable for anything, so why did he have to bother? Let everyone shit on him like they always did since nothing could bad could happen to him. 

This all changed when Frank, the headmaster’s son, framed Eisuke for starting a fire in one of the buildings at their boarding school. Here, Eisuke starts to realize that his complacency towards everything is biting him in the ass. The seed of insecurity in him morphed into a seed that hated himself for being weak and powerless This is where Eisuke’s fixation on power comes from. 

It only becomes worse when Luke takes the fall in Eisuke’s place. Here, Eisuke truly understands that his lack of power doesn’t only affect himself, but also the others around him. What’s sad is that Luke willingly took the heat for Eisuke out of  affection; he expected nothing in return from Eisuke because Luke viewed it as an act of friendship. However, Eisuke doesn’t think like that — he sees it as transactional. Eisuke becomes downright obsessed with paying Luke back for everything. In fact, it becomes a core facet of his personality.

He views debt as a sign of weakness. He even sees his relationship with Akira as transactional; Akira took him in raised him, so he felt like he had to pay Akira back. Eisuke felt like everything he owned had to be earned. He studied business and economics because that would benefit the company the most. Hell, his entire motivation for making the Ichinomiya Group the huge conglomerate it is today was because he wanted to prove to everyone that he deserved his place because he worked for it. 

On that subject, Eisuke always feels like he has to prove himself. He does everything he can to make himself useful so people can’t tear him down for being a liability. This is why he views everything with a utilitarian lens; if he isn’t useful, then he’s worthless. I was reading his Bidding on Eisuke Story and these lines really got the point across:

In this AU, MC is the owner of the Tres Spades and Eisuke a nameless nobody. She rescues Eisuke from the black market auctions by bidding on him. MC tells him he’s free to go. But the first thing he does after that? He offers himself as payment. The story doesn’t go into detail about his past, but it’s implied he was used mainly for sex. He didn’t have anything to offer her aside from his body, and he didn’t want to be seen as useless. So the most logical course of action in his head was to offer sex to her. In the process, he effectively dehumanized himself just to pay back what he perceived as a debt.

It’s easy to see him as arrogant, and ostensibly, he is. But I really think he has a crippling sense of self-worth because he bases it on how powerful and useful he thinks he should be. In essence, he has an inferiority superiority complex; he acts haughty and prideful, but that’s only because he’s afraid of being replaced, rejected, and abandoned. 

(Nothing screams Eisuke more than Oh No! by Marina and the Diamonds lmao.)

I’m not sure if he actually even loves himself, to be honest. Sure, he’s confident on the outside, and he believes his merit and abilities got him to where he is today ...but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s happy with himself. His self-esteem is so fragile because he always quantifies everything he does. If he isn’t perfect, then he’s not worth it. This is why he always pushes himself to the extreme (and I daresay this is why he overcompensates with MC when it comes to sex, giving gifts, etc.).

Luke even says so himself:

The sad part is he probably isn’t even aware of it. He’s probably one of the lesser self-aware bidders, if not the least. He knows that his lot in life wasn’t the best, but he doesn’t realize how this affected his emotional state. He is by far, the least emotionally mature among the bidders because he literally cannot process his feelings properly. His Main Story POV gives us a really good example:

On a base level, he’s aware of what jealousy is and what it entails, but he’s so repulsed by the idea that he can feel jealousy that he vehemently denies it. After all, why should he be jealous of the others if MC likes him the best? At least.....that’s what he tries to tell himself anyway. Again, he doesn’t realize how insecure he really is.

If he isn’t repressing or denying his feelings, then he’s turning to sex as a coping mechanism. If I has to list every scene where Eisuke has sex with MC to fend off his anxiety, this post would be too long lmao. In Eisuke’s mind, dealing with feelings scares him so much that he’d rather bury them or distract himself. Still, that doesn’t mean his feelings go away, no matter much he wants them to.

(It’s a cold day in hell if Eisuke isn’t actively repressing his emotions.)

With all this considered, Eisuke definitely knows he isn’t easy to love. Hell, I think he expected to get through life without anyone ever loving him. Meeting MC was a literal miracle because she is the One Person who could love him unconditionally. Loving him takes a lot of understanding and empathy, and he knows he’s really fucking lucky he has MC in his life. I’m honestly not surprised at how possessive and protective he is over her. Deep down, I think he’s insecure that MC might leave him one day, so he tries his best to keep her satisfied (especially physically) so she doesn’t have any reason to go (again, this is a manifestation of his utilitarianism).

Even though he still sometimes feels like he has to prove his power and usefulness to her, he’s slowly (and I say very, very slowly) getting comfortable with the idea that maybe, he can let his guard down around her. Intuitively, he knows she won’t think he’s weak for being open.....but that seed of self-doubt in him hasn’t completely gone away yet. 

I think it’ll be a long time till we can see him completely open up to her, but part of what makes his story so interesting is the slow process he goes through to reach emotional maturity. He’s not quite there yet, but he’s trying, and I think that deserves some credit.

In conclusion,

He needs a goddamn hug 

[marnivanross]

★ have you seen [ MARNI VANROSS ] since the storm? some say they look like [ zoey deutch ] but they’re [ 21 ]  & go by [ THE SKEPTIC ]. [ she’s ] lived in halloway for [ 12 years ] & they are originally from [ LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA]. before the town vanished they were studying [ astronomy ] and lived at [ UNI BLVD ]. most people knew the [ CISFEMALE ] as [ + INTELLIGENT ] but i’ve heard they can also be [ - COLD ]. for some reason, they feel [ uneasy ] about the town’s disappearance. ( pepper, twenty three, s he/her, est )

ABOUT THE MUN.  what is that? that freaky thing? yes, that’s right, it’s a naked mole rat.

hello all, my name is pepper and what you’re about to see is about to be peak mediocrity. i am usually pretty decent at intros but i really have spent most of today watching love island, and i just spent the past two hours watching pilot pete make horrible decisions, so my brain is officially mush. that said i am going to do my best to make this coherent. to start, a bit about me, i am a taurus. i like trash tv. i’m really craving chicken fingers. i have never met a plate of nachos i didn’t like, and if i could be anything other than a human person i’d be a cloud i think. alright onto the good stuff. 

BIO. *has my feelings surgically removed*

first of all here is her pinterest board (keep in mind marni was kind of the skully inspired muse in a scooby doo rp so that’s why stuff looks a bit spooky)

marni was brought into the world into a weird situation by anyone’s standards, but especially by hers. to start, both her parents were hippies. yes, weed smoking, chakra cleansing, organic grown kale that they got from the farmer’s market where the only store clerk walked around with her tits proudly out, hippies. but they weren’t just any hippies, they were rich hippies. and that somehow made it worse. 

clint ‘storm’ vanross and clementine vanross were the proud owners and entrepreneurs of a whole food organic grocery store (think whole foods or trader joe’s), and clemetine later went on to ride the success of their company to create her own website and brand (think goop basically. yes, marni’s mother has sold a candle that smells like her vagina, and yes marni is deeply ashamed of it). both businesses were wildly successful, and so clem and storm quickly went from living and travelling the world in their van to having about six mansions across the world. marni came into their life as their first child around the time they bought mansion two. she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but that spoon’s handle was made of moon quartz and the silver was organically sourced. 

from there on out marni was raised in a weird way. you’d think because hippies were all about free love, that marni would be raised with an abundance of it but that wasn’t exactly the case. her parents were all about giving marni her aunotomy fairly early in life, which sounds good, but really means that marni was simply treated as an adult from the moment she could walk by herself. and she was the adult really. after all, marni was the one who had to convince her parents to enroll her in school (they were determined to let the world be her teacher, and marni simply wasn’t having any of it), the one who had to fix her own meals when all that was left in their fridge was raw tofu, the one who had to clean up her mother’s vomit whenever she went a bit to hard on the moonshine. yes, marni had parents, but she also had forty-something year old children in boho chic attire.

and marni’s parents never understood it. after all, with the way they were they could never understand how their genetics combined to make such a serious girl. one who would look at the moon and not just admire it, but ask how it stayed up there in the first place. how far away was it? how could she get there? and when told to simply enjoy and love it for what it was, would instead march herself to the library and find out the answers herself. marni’s parents and her truly never saw eye to eye, and at a certain point marni stopped trying to. she wasn’t expecting her parents to follow suit, but follow suit they did. marni’s parents gave up on trying to understand her her around the time she was nine. that’s when she moved to halloway, or rather, that’s when they moved her to halloway. 

they said it was because of business. the fact was, marni’s parents had been marching her around the world, from state to state and country to country whenver they wanted to start up a new store or run down a new story. yes, sometimes they would leave her (alone, in an empty house, with only the occasional eccentric ‘aunt’ or ‘uncle’ to come by and make sure marni wasn’t dead) for a while for short business trips (the longest being about two weeks) but they always came back eventually. but this was different. her parents set her up in halloway with a nanny named paola, and then they left for the foreseeable future. her mother, to go down to africa to chase a story. her father, to go down to europe and expand the business. they both promised to be back within a month, and they were. but then they left again. and again. and again. 

but it was fine. marni and paola got along great. she learned very quickly how to forge her parents signature on school forms. she didn’t need them. she didn’t miss them. but she did desperately want them to want her, and it took marni a long time to realize they just didn’t. 

marni was the new girl for a while. she struggled a bit to make friends as the little girl who got more excited by science experiments than barbies. the one who was always the first to raise her hand in class, and the one with the famous parents. most of the kids didn’t know who the vanross’ were but the parents did. and having the occassion adult come up to marni and tell her how they just loved her mother’s zuchini bread recipe, or the all organic popcorn they sold at her father’s store was just... weird. and other kids found it weird too. marni struggled for a while, and was picked on quite a lot but what was she to do other than accept it? all that marni had in her arsenal were facts and scathing words, and mean kids didn’t usually tend to let those stop them. 

eventually marni grew up. she went to high school. skipped prom. remained fairly anonymous other than becoming president of the chemistry club, valedictorian and being known as the girl known for making friends with her teachers. she got accepted to harvard and yale for university, but not knowing if it was because of her own accomplishments (which were countless) or because of her parents, she refused them both and decided to stay in halloway. to go to university here. to try and make her own way. 

honestly in university marni’s life was similarly uneventful because for the most part she was the quiet type that went to class, went home, and back. she didn’t cause any stir unless you could hear the occasional scathing comment murmured under her breath, or you were a neighbour who marni was screaming at to keep it down. she didn’t even attend a single party unless coerced. she was nobody, and honestly that was how marni liked it. she had never been one for the spotlight. she genuinely preferred to be more behind the scenes, unless there was a need to rise to the occasion. 

and then all of this happened y’all. it really went to shit huh. marni is terrified honestly and she just wants to know what’s going on. a lot of people who barely know who she is have probably seen her speaking up and asking questions and getting almost frenzied in her attempt to find the truth because the mystery of all this is driving her insane. no she doesn’t miss her parents particularly, but she does miss what the world used to be and she wants to go back to that, desperately, but she also really just wants to know. like if marni understood what was happening here or even just played a part in future generations understanding, and she was literally still never able to get back... honestly she could still die pretty happy i’m ngl.

PERSONALITY. *eyes snap open at 3:52am* nobody likes me

blunt. painfully painfully blunt, god. if marni thinks you’re an idiot she will tell you to your face, she really does not care and that absolutely will get her into trouble one day

painfully curious! wants to know what’s happening with this whole situation, god desperately wants to know the truth and mechanics behind it. 

cold honestly?? like marni doesn’t know how to comfort people really, she was never really taught how. she isn’t very compassionate, she’s genuinely more on the logical side. will give you the most rational answer even if it does sound kinda of cruel

the voice of reason! the person in your friend group who is the designated driver. also the person in your friend group who would say ‘i told you so’

an overachiever. lives for academic acknowledgement, like those little gold stars on your papers in elementary school are what kept marni going man. huge ass nerd. huge ass bookwarm. 

super stubborn. refuses to even entertain the idea of anything magical happening here, and is honestly kind of judgmental of people who think that way because of her parents like marni has very little respect for any hippies i’m not gonna lie 

skeptical as hell but we been knew 

a know it all! think she’s right about everything !! she usually is but still !!

does not know what to do with emotion. has had a couple, and does not recommend it. would rather die than admit to a feeling. 

trust issues galore! does not trust literally anyone ever. if marni trusts you than you’re truly special

HEADCANNONS. it takes me 3-7 business days to process my feelings

has never learnt to ride a bike cause her parents never taught her rip

loves the smell of books

laughs at horror movies generally. the kind of person who is really hard to scare. 

was raised a vegan but loves eating meat. stress eats meat when she’s truly like anxious, and so is really bummed about the dwindling meat supply for more reasons than one. 

needs coffee to survive, so the rationing has got her going a bit crazy even though she knows it’s necessary. 

has never really gotten truly drunk. 

keeps a detailed journal about all of her thoughts about all of this and takes meticulous notes. 

is left handed. 

can shoot a gun and does have one on her person pretty much at all times. i headcannon that her nanny paola taught her to shoot, and marni isn’t strong at all but she’s a pretty good shot. it’s the only way she has to defend herself honestly. 

is redheaded/strawberry blonde zoey and redheaded/strawberry blonde zoey ONLY

bi as hell!

WANTED CONNECTIONS. baby’s first words are ‘i’m not here to make friends’

i really am too lazy to make a whole ass sexy list rn and i apologize sjsdjjdf but !!! best friends, friends, confidantes, someone who used to drag her to parties, someone who used to pick on her, someone who used to defend her, flings, exes (marni is a horrible gf and she probably DIPPED the moment she started to feel something so give it to me folks), crushes she used to have in high school or middle school or elementary school, people who had crushes on her in high school or middle school or elementary school, current crushes on either end, enemy (just someone she butts heads with man!), old academic rivals, partner in crime in trying to figure this shit out, someone who hates her man, sibling like relationship, a girl squad, someone who tries to get her to loosen up, someone who is really chill and okay with the current situation who marni just wants to strangle with her bare hands!!! and anything else your heart desires okay, thank you for listening to me ramble ilu already.