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twisting-roads · 2 months ago

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DEBUNKING COMMON RAIN WORLD MISINTERPRETATIONS

The target audience for this was for people who don't know too much about the game as well, so I'm going to explain things that a normal player might already know.

Rain World is known for how it simply throws you into the world with almost no tutorial, and is often praised for it.

But this lack of explanation if you do not go out of your way to find it has also lead to a lot of misinterpretations from those who did not read all the game’s available information, or misunderstood what they were being told. I used to watch some RW lore videos that would explain and summarize these things, and in the past I believed them.

I’ve since stopped doing that after having some time to actually process what I’ve been reading, and I’m here to say...

YOU ARE ALL WRONG ABOUT RAIN WORLD.

Ok, hyperbole. Not everyone believes these, and art can always be interpreted in different ways by different people, and I won’t stop you from having these beliefs. But also, there’s plenty of ingame content which completely disproves most of these unsubstantiated points from those who do not fully research the game before making videos about it.

Looking at you Tale Foundry…

The purpose of this is to pick apart some of the sadly far too common points I’ve heard many times before from Youtube videos, to Tumblr posts, to people I’ve spoken to on Discord.

Starting with my least favorite…

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“The 5 karma were seen as sinful”

Obvious westernization of a game based off fucking Buddhism aside, there’s no ingame text directly supporting this claim. There isn’t any that says otherwise, but we have good reason to believe this isn’t the case.

The 5 natural urges, as they’re sometimes called, were NATURAL. They were what bound you to the cycle. They never worsened your life or made you a terrible person should you keep following them, but an aspect of life on the same level as suffering or ecstasy.

Hey, I’ll break down the 5 karma and their meanings to show you that they're not just "sins"

I believe the natural urges have 2 different meanings: an animalistic one, and a more “human” one.

KARMA 1 This obviously represents violence, as you see one guy stabbing the other. I believe it also represents competition and intense emotions, For example: Artificer experiencing intense grief and lashing out in violence as a result. It was not the violence that started it, but her emotions. (Yes, its Downpour. But it’s a good point.)

KARMA 2

They’re having sex. They’re fucking. They’re- ok you get it. Karma 2 represents reproduction. But, I also believe it’s desire. Joyful bodily experiences, and such. The 2 figures seen here are in a much more playful pose than if they were simply doing this only to reproduce. No, they’re having fun.

KAMRA 3 Connection. Bonding with others. Yet also trade and personal belongings. Attachment to things that are not yourself.

KARMA 4 It’s mentioned ingame that this represents gluttony It’s overindulgence, you know. Similarly to karma 2, it can also be searching for fulfillment. I'm not particularly good at telling what the meaning of this could be.

KARMA 5 Self preservation. Self preservation can come in many forms, from an animal running away from a predator or somebody getting defensive after being accused of something or being threatened, this one is rather vague about its meaning.

I do this to show that the 5 urges have very NEUTRAL meanings. It being positive or negative is entire dependant on context. They’re not sinful, get out of here with that Catholic shit!

The 5 karmas have both positive, negative, and neutral contexts which they can fit into.

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“The ancients hated being alive”

The ancients simply hated the cycle itself and its unknowable properties, as well as being much more aware of things like karma and the urges. Rather, they valued being effortless to disconnect themselves from this cycle.

“This was an eternal dilemma to them - they were burdened by great ambition, yet deeply convinced that striving in itself was an unforgivable vice. They tried very hard to be effortless.” – Bright Green Pearl (DS)

Some practices did of course include things like starving yourself, but as mentioned by Moon, these methods proved to be mostly obsolete. Void Fluid fundamentally changed their culture from what we see. Rather, we do see the ancients enjoying life and valuing it in their own way, which is INCREDIBLY important to some of the games themes, but I’ll get into that later.

"[...]'In this vessel is the living memories of Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel, of the House of Braids[…] Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel nobly decided to ascend in the beginning of 1514.008, after graciously donating all (ALL!) earthly possessions to the local Iterator project (Unparalleled Innocence), and left these memories to be cherished by the carnal plane.The assorted memories and qualia include:Watching dust suspended in a ray of sun (Old age). Eating a very tasty meal (Young child). Defeating an opponent in a debate contest, and being applauded by fellow team members (Late childhood/Early adulthood).’...and the list goes on. I'm sorry, little creature, I won't read all of this - the list is six hundred and twenty items long.” – Deep Magenta (SH)

There’s quite a lot to pick apart here, I had to cut down some parts short, but even the cut parts have important details. Just not important enough for me to bring up here.

The Memory Crypts we see ingame are… well where memories are kept. The qualia (personalized experiences) is stored within these mutated fleshy neural organisms referred to as “cabinet beasts”. These of course, contain the “living memories” or qualia of those who have ascended. There are people smarter than me who have already covered these ideas of course, so I won't go TOO indepth.

The ancients greatly valued titles and achievements just as us. They still lived normal lives. As well as this, they valued personal experiences and memories of the carnal realm so much they built an entire citadel to store memories.

As we can see as well, Seventeen Axes has quite a lot of enjoyable memories from throughout their life. Eating nice food and winning a debate contest and getting validation from their peers? That sounds rather… complacent with the 3rd and 4th natural urges, doesn’t it?

I do not believe this screams “I hate being alive!” as much as people have made it out to be, and is honestly ruins part of the game’s messages of compassion and personalized experiences, especially in the game’s ending where Survivor dreams of home.

“You have no name. I once had! I was embalmed, adorned, readied for the journey. So proud. There was jubilation! My name was sung, loud and clear. Did they know? That I didn't quite leave, didn't quite stay? Should I be ashamed? That I linger here, where my memories are kept? Should I be ashamed that I now envy your flesh prison?” - Four Needles under Plentiful Leaves

This is leaning into personal theory territory, but...

I personally believe that the ancients were somewhat terrified of the unpredictability of the cycle and the fact that life would always have more suffering in it.

RW’s religion is heavily based off Buddhism. This is well known of course. The Cycle is a variation of Samsara. Now, I’m not Buddhist, and I’ve tried to do my research about some of these topics. Feel free to correct me, I’m simply going off what I know. (Also I'd love to hear what you have to say regarding your thoughts on the game!)

In Buddhism, each new life you could be taken into the body of an animal, or even end up being tortured in hell for a very, very, VERY long time if you made the wrong decisions, which made escaping it as soon as you could seem like a rather reasonable thing to do.

The ancients never fully grasped the scope of the cycle, and the prospects of having your soul wake up in the body of some miserable worm with no memory of your past or any ideas of your future might’ve seemed bleak.

Suffering is inevitable. But that doesn’t mean they hated being alive, like I said before.

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“Rain World is post-apocalyptic.”

It really isn’t. There was never any apocalypse. The ancients simply left on their own accord, leaving behind their mark on the world that will slowly be buried once again in the ever so present cycle.

“The bones of forgotten civilizations, heaped like so many sticks.” - Two Sprouts, Twelve Brackets

The world is thriving, even. The purposed organisms left behind have evolved and taken over and become it’s own ecosystem.

The iterators are dying though. Dying very slowly, but soon they’ll all decay and everything will move on.

It’s all just another manifestation of the cycle.

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“The creatures in Rain World cannot die”

This is definitely something I hear from people who haven’t played much of the game and only hear about it from outside sources and watch the gameplay.

Yes, it is easy to believe this. As slugcat, when you die, you wake back up again. This is entirely a gameplay thing and not actually related to the lore. Saying this might seem like I'm avoiding the question at hand here, but the rules that apply to you do not seem to apply to other creatures.

Every creature in the game has a 4 integer ID (it can go higher, but not in a standard playthrough).

This makes every creature you see an individual of sorts with its own randomized values or appearance.

As well as this, creatures spawn from specific marked dens. When you kill a creature that spawns from a certain den, the next cycle, that creature’s ID will never appear again. Instead, the den spawn is replaced by a creature of the same species with a different ID, or a new species entirely.

Through gameplay, you see that the respawn rules that apply to you do not apply to other creatures. I’ve heard many points about how these dead creatures are transported to another alternate universe where they are alive, but I really do not want to delve into that theory. You do that yourself.

Excuse my unprofessional language, but this is kind of stupid. Billions and billions of little timeline splits accounting for every single insect and microbe that dies seems far too complex of a solution. Occam's Razor and all that.

With this gameplay element you see, I also want to give LORE explanations as to why this is incredibly stupid.

1) If death had no impact, the 5 natural urges would not matter

If no creatures died, there would be no point in eating (karma 4), competing with other species (karma 1), or any form of self preservation (karma 5). Reproduction (karma 2) has no role and there would be absolutely no reason to do anything any longer. All natural processes would be useless.

2) Light Blue Pearl

The information received from the cycle is most likely from the Light Blue Pearl, found in Outskirts.

“[...]The repeating mantra is important because it symbolizes the cyclical nature of life and death, and the termination verse is a symbol for ascension above and beyond it. I don't know how familiar you are with the nature of life and death, but I imagine like all living creatures you have some intuitive knowledge? Then you know that death isn't the end - birth and death are connected to each other like a ring, or some say a spiral. Some say a spiral that in turn forms a ring. Some ramble in agonizing longevity. But the basis is agreed upon: like sleep like death, you wake up again - whether you want to or not. This is true for all living things, but some actually break the cycle. That doesn't apply to you or me though, you are too entangled in your animal struggles, and for me not breaking that cycle is an integral part of the design. Our mantras keep repeating.”

“Then you know that death isn't the end - birth and death are connected to each other like a ring, or some say a spiral. Some say a spiral that in turn forms a ring.“

This line is very misunderstood. Moon specifically mentions birth and death. She mentions death. She never brings up the notion that nothing truly dies either.

As well as this, Moon says that “some say”, implying that even the ancients weren’t sure what the cycle was either. This is more important to my point regarding how the unfathomable nature of the cycle was why the Ancients were so averse to it from above, though.

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“Sliver of Straw found the solution.”/"There is/isn't solution"

No she didn’t.

Ok fine I’ll explain.

If you’ve played Rain World you know that the purpose of the iterators is to find the solution to the “Great Problem”, the problem of how to ascend ALL living creatures.

You’ll also know Sliver sent out the Triple Affirmative…

“[...]affirmative that a solution has been found, affirmative that the solution is portable, and affirmative that a technical implementation is possible and generally applicable. She's also one of few that has ever been confirmed as exhaustively incapacitated, or dead. We do not die easily.[…]” - Pale Yellow (SL)

After sending out this affirmative, the iterators became conflicted. They never could figure out if she really ascended and had found the solution, or if it was some sort of catastrophic error.

The answer to the Great Problem is clearly intended to be as obscured as possible. There cannot be an answer one way or the other. The themes of it and the endless tolling of the iterators would not be as impactful if we knew there was or wasn’t a solution.

“[...]Either way, after that these different factions developed, as well as a huge forensic effort to recreate and simulate Sliver of Straw's last moments. Some of the simulations were wrapped in a simulation wrapped in a simulation, in case something dangerous might happen. Nothing much has come from it.[…]“ - Pale Yellow (SL)

Here’s my favorite way of explaining what I mean…

Imagine Schrodinger's Cat, the famous thought experiment. There’s a 50/50 chance that when you open the box, you either find the Solution, or find out there is No Solution.

Except you cannot open the box. And the box is entirely theoretical and nobody’s seen it. It seems impossible, but maybe one day you’ll find that box. That’s what the Great Problem is.

Sliver apparently having found the solution would have completely broken everything. Five Pebbles wouldn’t have ended up hurting himself and Moon had Sliver finding the solution been known with certainty. He was taking a shot in the dark.

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“Ascension is akin to suicide.”

I strongly believe this point harms the role that ascension and the void sea play in Rain World’s narrative. Ascension is meant to be a final destination, a goal you build up to and prepare for when you’ve lived every bit of life you possible could, and can now move on.

Bringing up the Memory Crypt pearl from earlier, Seventeen Axes lived an incredibly fulfilling life from what we see, and ascended happily.

As well as this, Buddhism strongly encourages those who wish to liberate themselves to discover their own path, which is also subtly shown through the gameplay, as there are many many routes you can take to Five Pebbles, Looks To The Moon, and The Depths.

I do also think this is why Five Pebbles failed. He tried to brute force his way to ascension.

Suicide implies that ascension is only meant to be a fruitless escape and that it’s wrong to ascend. I… do not want to go into why suicide is bad. It’s a strong topic and I’m just here to talk about video games. But ascension is a neutral thing that you can choose to do or not do and to wait until you’re ready.

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Conclusion...

I really only have the time to cover these 6 misconceptions, and I believe it should be enough. There have been many others I’ve seen, such as the ancients being malicious or that there weren’t any civilizations before them, but there’s not as much to say about them, and they aren’t as common.

Rain World is a very confusing game. I’m not upset at people who think these things to be true, and I do not believe they’re stupid or don’t have any media literacy. I just wish that the people who did actually cover this game did some more looking into it, and actually discussing it with Rain World fans.

Also I should say, that during this entire discussion I have avoided talking about Downpour- RW’s DLC- as it’s more of a official fanmade project. And so much of what it says may not be entirely in line with Vanilla. Because my life isn’t easy and of course there has to be an incredibly divisive and confusing thing like this that I need to avoid bringing up so that way the conversation isn’t muddled.

Thanks if you managed to make it through all this by the way

#itref #rw #rain world #rain world lore #rain world ancients #textadactyl

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the-cosmic-cauldron · 21 days ago

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♡︎𝓟𝓲𝓬𝓴 𝓐 𝓟𝓲𝓵𝓮: 𝓨𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓛𝓲𝓯𝓮 𝓘𝓷 2025♡︎

Disclaimer: 2025 is going to be an intense year. When you open your reading, please don’t expect it to be entirely positive. We will be entering a nine-year cycle, which brings a significant focus on endings and resolution. Many past issues from the last four, five, six, or even ten years will resurface. This includes personal, social, and global concerns that have remained unresolved.Expect to see a resurgence of social and activist issues, challenges with the law, and government-related problems. Long-standing societal struggles will come back into focus. On a personal level, there will be a notable increase in breakups and divorces as people confront unresolved dynamics in their relationships. Situations that have been unclear for years will finally come full circle, and hidden truths may come to light, offering long-awaited clarity. This will not be an easy year for many of us. It’s important to understand that this isn’t just about negativity; it’s about depth and transformation. For many, this will be a time of purging old patterns, renewing perspectives, and creating space for new growth. The energy of 2025 demands that we face these challenges head-on so we can reach a more evolved state. Globally, it will be a year of heightened awareness around major issues, as events and revelations push humanity to reassess and adapt. This year will be wild, chaotic, and full of change, but it will also offer opportunities for meaningful renewal and progress if we’re willing to engage with its lessons.

𝐏𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝟏

In 2025, the year will be centered on sociability, relationships, and social movement. It will be a time of connection, celebration, and bonding with others. You’ll find yourself rejoicing with friends, meeting new ones, or spending more time with those you already have. You’ll be in many social situations, not just surrounded by people but genuinely having fun and enjoying yourself.

This year, you’ll be engaging in outings, spending time outdoors in nature, and celebrating milestones such as baby showers, weddings, and birthday parties. Family will play a significant role, both your family of origin and, if you’re a parent, the family you’ve created. You’ll likely focus on strengthening your home life, bringing your family together, or even creating a family. For some, this could mean planning for pregnancy or expanding your family.

Parents will find themselves doing more with their children, creating meaningful experiences together. If you’re not in a relationship, 2025 holds the potential for new romantic connections. You may meet someone through friends or while socializing, and these relationships could progress quickly. Engagements or serious commitments may happen within months of meeting someone.

Relationships this year will have depth and emotional richness. This could lead to moving in with a partner, getting engaged, or even getting married. Relationships are placed on a pedestal, and they’ll be a major focus for you in 2025.

Interestingly, for some, an ex may return, offering an opportunity to deepen your bond. Past conflicts or ego battles could give way to peace and emotional reconnection. Similarly, family members or friends with whom you’ve had disagreements may also return, bringing a sense of togetherness and reconciliation. It will be a time of healing old wounds, letting go of ego, and fostering an agape love—a love that seeks connection and peace.

While your relationships flourish, other areas of your life—such as career, school, or daily routines—may face challenges. You might encounter delays in completing projects, missed deadlines, or setbacks in work or academic goals. Progress in these areas could feel slow or stagnant, which may leave you feeling frustrated or out of balance.

Physical energy may also be a challenge, and health struggles could arise, impacting your ability to stay motivated and productive. Financial issues may surface as well, whether through overspending or a lack of sufficient income. You may find it difficult to budget effectively, leading to stress around money matters.

Legal matters could also pose challenges, with potential delays or unfavorable rulings. This could leave you feeling as though life is unfair or that obstacles are constantly in your path. Fear and overthinking may also hold you back from taking decisive action, further contributing to a sense of stagnation.

There’s a possibility that you might need to take a break from work, school, or other responsibilities due to circumstances beyond your control, such as health or financial struggles. Some may find themselves unemployed for a time, taking a pause in their studies, or unable to afford a semester in school.

While 2025 will be a year of blossoming relationships and emotional growth, it will also be marked by delays, setbacks, and stagnation in practical aspects of your life. Your relationships will bring joy, connection, and healing, but challenges in career, finances, and personal progress may require patience and resilience.

Pile 2

This year will be one of immense growth for you. It’s a year where you will step outside your comfort zone, abandon your usual routines, and embrace significant changes. This will be a period of substantial spiritual growth, as well as development in how you take action in the world and choose to live your life. Your creativity will flourish, and you’ll grow in how you pursue your passions and ambitions. Resilience will become your strong suit as you continually push forward, regaining energy and momentum despite challenges.

By the end of 2025, you’ll likely feel like you’ve grown more in this single year than most people grow in five. It will be a busy, monumental year filled with new beginnings. You might travel, relocate, or completely pivot from your current plans. It’s a year of major transformation and self-discovery.

However, the year won’t be without its difficulties. You’ll face challenges in a romantic relationship that feels toxic and unfulfilling. This connection seems to lack healthy communication, and there’s a pervasive sense of tension between you and this person. Conversations may feel surface-level, with neither of you truly understanding or hearing the other. Problems—both obvious and underlying—will strain the relationship.

Despite the difficulties, it appears that neither of you can let go. The relationship feels heavy and burdensome, yet there’s a persistent attachment. Throughout the year, there will be periods where you or the other person decides to walk away to focus on self-love and personal growth. However, even during these breaks, the connection remains intact, pulling you both back into the cycle.

This on-again, off-again dynamic will grow predictable. You might break up for a few weeks or months, only to find yourselves back together. The relationship may feel stagnant, but there’s an underlying divine connection that makes it difficult to fully sever ties. Both of you might hope that time apart will lead to healing and a healthier reunion, but the lack of true reflection and balance in your lives prevents lasting progress.

When you step away from the relationship, your life may become overwhelming. You’ll be “booked and busy,” with little time to truly focus on yourself. Responsibilities will pile up, whether they’re work-related, financial, or personal. You may find yourself working overtime, juggling multiple projects, or taking on extra hours to make ends meet. If you have children, they will demand much of your time and energy.

There’s also a possibility of financial struggles. Overspending, perhaps as a form of retail therapy to cope with emotional stress, could lead to debt. This financial pressure may further add to your stress, leaving you feeling ungrounded and out of balance. The lack of time for self-care, such as journaling, meditating, or healing, could lead you back to the relationship, seeking comfort in the familiar—even if it’s unhealthy.

The year may also involve struggles with maintaining your home or possessions. You might experience issues such as car troubles, broken appliances, or unexpected repair costs. Burnout is a significant possibility, especially if you’re juggling multiple responsibilities like work, school, and family. This lack of balance could prevent you from enjoying life’s simple pleasures or making steady progress toward your goals.

For some of you, this challenging relationship might not even be with a committed partner but someone whose energy heavily impacts your emotional state. Regardless of the nature of the connection, the relationship will weigh on you, making it hard to fully move forward.

Ultimately, 2025 will be a year of profound growth and learning. While you’ll face challenges in relationships, finances, and personal stability, these experiences will teach you resilience and push you toward deeper self-awareness. Despite the struggles, the growth you achieve this year will set the foundation for a stronger, more grounded version of yourself in the future.

Pile 3

This year, I see significant growth in terms of your personal projects. If you’ve been working on hobbies or creative endeavors, they are going to take off and pivot into something meaningful. Many of you will discover a new hobby that becomes a big focus this year.

I also see you spending a lot of time outdoors during the warmer months, truly enjoying yourself in nature. Leisure and relaxation will be key themes for you.

For some of you, this year marks a major milestone in motherhood. You may become pregnant or give birth, stepping into a new phase of life. Congratulations to those of you welcoming this beautiful change!

Some of you will also be buying a home, renovating your space, or completely transforming the style of your home or room. I also sense fashion and aesthetic changes—many of you will explore new styles and embrace a fresh look.

Mothers may find themselves adapting to new approaches to parenthood. For example, some of you will experience the transition of sending your kids to school for the first time, bringing a new dynamic to your life.

There’s also a strong focus on personal appearance and beauty. Some of you will delve into makeup and beauty, perhaps even starting a YouTube channel or creating content related to these interests. Many of you will experience a glow-up—those wanting to gain weight will achieve a curvier figure, while those aiming to lose weight will see progress through consistent effort.

This year will be action-oriented and filled with opportunities to pursue dreams you’ve always envisioned.

I sense that some of you will face health challenges this year, possibly related to burnout or hormonal imbalances, such as PCOS or endometriosis. Others might deal with recurring illnesses or mental health struggles, including depression and feelings of isolation.

This year will call for deep introspection. Many of you will seek out spiritual guidance or take steps toward mental health care, such as attending therapy or pursuing mindfulness practices like meditation. Some of you may explore religion more deeply or attend spiritual retreats to reconnect with yourselves.

Periods of burnout and exhaustion will push you to take breaks for emotional and mental wellness. You may feel overwhelmed and drained by life’s demands, which will require you to prioritize rest and self-care.

For some, this year will involve leaving behind a job, school, a church, or an organization that no longer serves your well-being. Lingering issues from last year may continue to resurface, urging you to seek independence and emotional balance.

There will be periods where life feels repetitive or stagnant, with a focus on routines that lack variety. Some of you may retreat into isolation to heal old traumas and confront unresolved pain. This isolation could be self-imposed or a result of being physically unwell, such as being hospitalized.

For mothers, the demands of pregnancy or parenting may lead to emotional and physical exhaustion. You may find yourself protecting your energy by setting boundaries and withdrawing from others.

Issues with a father figure or baby father may also arise. There could be tension, control issues, or a lack of growth in the relationship, leading to feelings of frustration or stagnancy.

The beginning of the year may feel energetic and action-packed as you tackle projects and new endeavors. However, by mid-year, there’s a shift toward stillness and introspection. You’ll find yourself needing to slow down, rest, and focus on internal healing.

There’s a strong emphasis on catching up on sleep, meditating, and clearing your mind. While this may feel like a pause, it’s actually a necessary phase for rejuvenation.

This year holds both challenges and opportunities for growth. While you may face obstacles, the introspection and spiritual healing you embark on will help you regain balance and prepare for a brighter future.

Pile 4:

For pile number four, let’s start with the positives of 2025 and then move on to some of the more challenging aspects of your year.

In 2025, I see you traveling and exploring new places. You’ll be switching things up, experiencing versatility, and embracing a sense of adventure and zest for life. This year brings expansion, with opportunities related to work, school, or hobbies—allowing you to focus on your craft or interests. Growth is a key theme for you, as you’ll be learning a lot and accumulating wisdom.

You won’t be idle; instead, you’ll take charge of your life, making decisive choices and taking intentional action toward your goals. There will be bursts of high, intense energy, driving your ambition to seize the opportunities that come your way. You’ll act swiftly and won’t let anyone stop you from achieving what you want.

Importantly, you’ll balance this high-energy drive with moments of self-reflection and rest. You’ll know when to rein it in, focus inward, and reassess your plans. This balance between action and introspection will help you make more calculated moves and ensure that your progress is sustainable.

There will be times when you feel stuck, as if nothing is moving forward. You might feel like the past is lingering, with unresolved issues carrying over into the present. You could experience moments where you feel like you’re getting the short end of the stick, encountering obstacles and challenges that slow down your progress.

One significant theme is the need to let go of something that no longer serves you. For some, this could be a job you know you’ve outgrown but are hesitant to leave. For others, it may involve unhealthy habits or lingering situations from the past.

Some of you might struggle with burnout due to overworking or not addressing physical or mental health issues until they reach a critical point. This could lead to forced downtime, such as needing medical care or being unable to work. There’s a risk of neglecting self-care and overindulging as a coping mechanism, which could result in weight gain or financial stress.

Financial challenges may arise, with late bills, debt, or difficulty managing responsibilities. Some of you might find yourself in situations where, despite trying your hardest, you fall into difficult circumstances. Job seekers might face delays or ghosting from potential employers, while those hoping for financial windfalls, like lottery winnings, are unlikely to find success.

Relationships, whether romantic or platonic, may also be strained. Past dramas could resurface, creating tension. In new relationships, misunderstandings or conflicts may emerge, leading to frustration. Some friendships or romantic connections might end unexpectedly, leaving you feeling isolated or unsure about whom to trust.

In terms of mental health, some of you may feel moody, reclusive, or overwhelmed, preferring to isolate yourselves rather than engage with others. You might find it hard to reach out or maintain consistency in your relationships, leading to moments of ghosting or pulling back from people.

This inconsistency may also manifest in your work and personal goals. Progress might feel slow at times, with a lack of forward movement. If you’re trying to pivot in your career, success will take time and perseverance. You may face periods of stress, questioning how to make ends meet, or feeling stuck in a rut.

Despite these challenges, there’s a silver lining. These obstacles will ultimately push you to take action and make changes in your life. You’ll grow tired of stagnation and decide to take the reins, reclaiming control over your circumstances. Through determination and effort, you’ll break out of this rut and embrace opportunities for growth, travel, and self-improvement.

By the end of the year, you may look back and recognize the growth and resilience you’ve gained through these experiences. While 2025 will have its ups and downs, the lessons and wisdom you accumulate will set the stage for future success.

♈︎♉︎♊︎♋︎♌︎♍︎♎︎♏︎♐︎♑︎♒︎♓︎ ♈︎♉︎♊︎♋︎♌︎♍︎♎︎♏︎♐︎♑︎♒︎♓︎ ♈︎♉︎♊︎♋︎♌︎♍︎♎︎♏︎♐︎♑︎♒︎♓︎

#tarotblr #tarotcommunity #pick a card #pick a pile #pick a picture #spirtuality #numerology #astro posts #free tarot #tarot reading

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punkpandapatrixk · 1 month ago

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Full Moons in Aries & Taurus ♦︎ Moon Magick Pick A Card

Heyaa~ I’m so sorry that I’ve been super tardy about the Moon PAC readings. A lot was going on XD And suddenly, we’ve even gone through the next FM in Taurus, so I decided to cover the aenergies of both FMs into this one reading :D

Full Hunter’s Moon in Aries was on 17 Oct; the theme revolved around taking charge of the trajectory of our future expansions! Whatever you dream of right now, if you’re clear that the desires aren’t coming from your Ego, they’re a vision bigger than the mundane that’s been sent you by the Higher Forces! :D Keep the faith and believe in miracles for the Universe is taking care of its manifestation~\`★_★`/

Full Beaver’s Moon in Taurus was on 15 Nov; the aenergy pushed us further into having full confidence in that trajectory of ours being so fun, abundant, and filled with meaningful events! <3 This FM in particular was conjunct Uranus (sudden revolutionary changes); and having Pluto re-enter Aquarius on the 19th, for Lightworkers and Starseeds, this is literally the time you’re being prepared to welcome your Grand Mission.

This sacred period leading up to 2025 is boiling cooking and baking bold dreams for exciting (possibly shattering) world-changing events what will be rolling out in succession in the next 3 years. If you’re reading this, there’s simply no way your future isn’t exciting—so prepare your heart and mind \^o^/

Know that your persistent visions and interests aren’t random. Mayhap…your ancestors whispered that dream in you precisely because it is your calling~ ;P

gnosis: The Fourth Turning Explained in Under 10 Minutes: Does History Repeat? by No Protocol

deck-bottom: XVII The Star Rx, Red Alchemist (John Dee), Priestess of Opulence

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 1 – Walking A Peaceful Path of Your Magnificent Creation

transmission – 5 of Wands Rx

By nature, you are someone who embodies a supernatural ability to sense negativity. You may identify as an empath; someone may have told you that you’re too sensitive or too negative; it could also be that you tend to find yourself easily dragged into negative thought patterns and chaos, even if they’re created by other people around you—or the news!

Your keen sensitivity essentially isn’t a flaw to begin with; it may pose some challenges, but it is for sure not a weakness. You are by nature sensitive to negativity exactly because you’re a positive and peaceful person, and in that awareness lies your true spiritual power that could change the world. You just ought to learn how to navigate this superpower to outsmart the strange Human societies XD

I’m hearing: Use humour and witty banters to get your point across when dealing with veeeeery negative Human beings. They say there is medicine in comedy, but there is even more potent medicine in irony LMAO

translation – Page of Wands

Entering this Aquarius Pluto era, the awakened ones are truly headed towards an awesome future! After all, haven’t you been so devoted to your own personal transformations? Haven’t you been serious enough in your endeavour to transcend above petty conflicts and toxic nudges? Your Spirit Guides are acknowledging your dedication to becoming a good, peaceful and pleasant human being.

So, whatever you’re hearing on the news, if it’s of a negatively-polarised consciousness, that’s for other people dealing with that particular kind of karma to experience. It is not for you. Every miserable person you hear or watch on the news—even some people from your distant past, possibly—they’re the ones who have chosen to still entertain that particular frequency of malady, to spiritually ascend at their own pace.

You? You don’t need to get enmeshed in this spiral of sorrow still enveloping parts of this world. You’ve survived your fair share.

transmigration – 6 of Wands Rx

You’ve established a solid ground for how you can best interact with this Reality. It is your very own unique way of dealing with the streams of chaos crisscrossing the whole world. Sometimes, people who haven’t done the inner work you’ve done for yourself may not understand why you think or say what you say. They could sometimes think you’re callous or uncaring, and on the surface level, it may seem like that if the person you’re dealing with isn’t insightful or intelligent enough.

You’re giving me Tupac, but also Dave Chapelle & Ricky Gervais aenergy. The last two obviously care about many things that are wrong in the world, but they use humour to convey messages that actually reflect the stupidity of human societies back at them, all for them to… Well, reflect deeply upon their own lack of courage to become better Humans that can be relied upon to create better societies, I guess~

Ultimately, these full moons’ aenergies are supporting your daydreams and visions of a more peaceful, higher-quality Future that you’ve been seeing a lot in your daydreams. This reading feels more like a confirmation of the fact that your Future is aligning with your current Reality pretty fast hahah <3

full moon self-care🔻🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘

Silver Astronomer (Galileo Galilei) & Priestess of Luck

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 2 – Harvest, Sweetness, You’re Going Places

transmission – Page of Swords Rx

You have weathered—and survived—a great many storms. If only people knew how much it cost you just to get where you are now. You’re a strong one; you’ve probably heard this but it’s really true when your Spirit Guides say: Most people would’ve died a long time ago if they had to face the challenges you’ve triumphed over thus far! Your determination to survive will not betray you! So many good things, easy things, are yours already <3

This is the Pile that will live a very delicious Life. You’re probably already seeing the signs but if one way or another you’re still struggling right now, best believe it’s just the last remnants of your old BS—belief system XD The old programming gives out in cycles, babe~ You’re doing perfectly alright! Pluto in Aquarius is ensuring your wish fulfilment, and it will all play out more amazingly than you could’ve ever imagined <3

Strength, persistence, protection, change and transitions, reaping good karma. These are all major keywords for you until at least Spring 2025. Your kindness, sweetness, generosity, all returning 3000-fold for the rest of your LYFE~

translation – 8 of Wands Rx

‘ENJOY~<3’ is the loudest thing your Spirit Guides are saying to you right now. In a strange manner of speaking, they’re also saying you can totally disconnect for a while and not look for their guidance for every single little thing you’re considering doing in this mortal world. I sense they’re saying this because you’ve pretty much been quite reliant on their guidance, probably a little too much? XD Meaning, sometimes you didn’t trust your own gut instinct enough to come to a decision.

Which is understandable given you were surviving and struggling so much with so little guidance from your immediate surrounding! That said, they’re simply saying that you can rest and not think of any ‘guidance’ for now and everything will still turn out perfectly nicely! Bad luck or weird uncalled for unfortunate events will not afflict you no more because you’ve practically jumped timelines <3 Most of us tuning into this reading have, dear~

So, be safe in the knowing that you’re practically living in a delicious paradise of a Reality. Things can only get better from here v^o^v

transmigration – Page of Cups

Ah! You have a true soulmate—a romantic soulmate—waiting for you somewhere in this world! Babe, you’re going places! You’re going to meet your Divine Soul Mate or Twin Flame or anything else of that nature! :D Oh, this is so exciting! I’m getting a strong heart-connection between you and your Destined One, like there’s these staggering electrical charges that are pulling you two ever closer together <3<3<3

After all of the pain you’ve suffered, all the betrayal you’ve survived, you’d be so glad to have met this Destined One who’s literally the sweetest and kindest Soul, who’s even more sweet and kind to YOU~

This person may appear to be ‘different’ from you at first glance, but after getting to know each other, you’ll see that your Souls are quite literally made of the same star materials ^-^ You will be speaking the same soul language whereby communication feels so effortless. Ah, how nice :D

full moon self-care🔻🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘

Red Historian (John Dee) & Priestess of Intuition

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 3 – Simple, Clean, Eternally Abundant

transmission – 7 of Cups Rx

‘Ask and you shall receive.’ To manifest wonderful things in this world, first you gotta WANT them. You see, these new-age spiritual teachings that tell you that ‘wanting is bad’ or ‘being in a state of wanting keeps your desires elusive’… is… at best theoretical. In practice, to manifest anything at all you gotta start by desiring it, right? Otherwise, how the fuck do you even attract it in the first place? smh

Ask, and the Universe delivers the answer, guidance, hint and you will be shown the way to align yourself with your Highest Intended Good! <3 That’s how it generally is! Whatever you deem unideal in the world, you must come to a disagreement with it first before you can manifest a change in your immediate Reality. Once asked, sometimes, people find it difficult to believe that the change they wish for can actually come around…

Well, silence the fearmongering monkey and just WANT it nevertheless. You don’t even need to believe it if you still can’t. You just gotta WANT it delusionally! :D

translation – IV The Emperor

Lookie here! You Emperor of all the elements of manifestation! <3 You’ve got the power in you, OK? If this is your main pile, surely you know by this point that you’re a master manifestor? Maybe you’ve heard other people tell you this as well. And well, if up until recently you’ve been struggling with a sense of lack or restriction, that was all just part of your character development. The Universe wanted you to experience juuust for a while how it felt to not have anything—to struggle with even the most basic of needs.

Without such experiences, who knows—you could’ve grown up tone deaf just like many of UK’s overly privileged politicians! Nobody would like you at all tsk tsk… XXD

So you see, you’re done. Fucking done. Pluto in Aquarius, conjunct Uranus, my god, if this is your main pile, get ready for a world-changing shift in your physical Reality pretty soon. With The Emperor being a Major Arcana, you’re being whirled into your Destination! It’s going to be sooo much more fun in the next arc of your Story! Congrats and well done and for fuck’s saké , ENJOY~!

transmigration – VII The Chariot

Another Major Arcana for you, which is rare on this blog LMAO The Chariot here is giving a strong message of upliftment for your career—or whatever you might consider as ‘career’. It could be your Life’s Mission, but it could also be a stepping stone what will lead you closer to your actual Grand Mission in this lifetime. Some of you reading this, if for some reason you’re still unsure about what your true Life’s Purpose or Mission is all about…

You could try to consult your 4H-10H axis and see what it has to say about your Legacy. Then, combine that info with what your North Node has to say about the range of pursuits attainable for you in this incarnation. But, whatever you do at this point, I think you can’t possibly miss your Destiny XD It’s coming to fish you out of the Reality you’re currently in hahah

All in all, quite everything you’re going to experience from this point onwards is going to be easy, simple, straightforward, and you’re going to be effortlessly abundant until the end of your Life. No more worries, hun~

full moon self-care🔻🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘

Silver Physician (John Dee) & Priestess of Integrity

Access full reading + cards on Patreon🌸

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

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roosterforme · 11 months ago

Text

Adult Education Part 23 | Hangman x OC

Summary: Jake has found everything he needs in one person. He knows deep inside that nothing is going to change Jessica's love for him, but he's nervous to tell her what's been on his mind. When he opens himself up to her even more, she gives him everything he wants.

Warnings: Fluff, smut, pegging, anal, language, 18+

Length: 3400 words

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Female OC

This story is part of the Beer Boy and Sugar universe but can be read on its own! Adult Education masterlist

Seriously, who let Jake on my masterlist!? Banner by @mak-32

Epilogue Part Two

Five more months later...

Jessica was just settling down on the couch with a mug of tea when Jake got home from work. "Hey, Baby," he said as he undid the top buttons on his khaki uniform shirt. "How was your day?"

"Not bad," she replied, absolutely loving that her Fridays ended early this term. "I started making a list of what we need to pack for Cabo, and I printed out my final exam sheets. Dinner's in the oven, and I'm about to email Luca back. He asked me if I wanted him to stop by with his skateboard next week. Isn't he adorable?"

Jake smirked as she reached for him. "You made dinner? Seriously?"

She rolled her eyes as she said, "Don't be silly, Smart Boy. I took the pan of lasagna that you left in the refrigerator and put it in the oven."

"Yeah, that makes more sense," he drawled as she looked up at him from the couch.

"Your uniforms are ruining my life," she whispered as she ran her hands along his thigh and took his zipper pull between her thumb and index finger. "Ever since I actually flew with you in your flight suit, I can't get enough of all of these things. I've been enjoying all the role playing."

Jake pressed his lips together, a thoughtful look on his face. "I noticed you've been having a lot of fun bossing me around lately."

She hummed as she kissed his zipper. "That's an understatement. I loved it when you called me Admiral Reed while you wore your dress blues. Speaking of which... I haven't seen them recently."

"Special occasions, Baby. Can't wear them every day," he told her, and she made a disappointed sound as he took one step away from her.

"Where are you going? I was about to give you a blowjob."

To her knowledge, Jake had never turned her down. Ever. Not once in over ten months with him. She sat still on the couch and watched him rake his fingers a bit nervously through his hair. The more she looked at him, the more she realized he didn't quite seem like himself, and she hopped up from the couch and went to him.

"You can tell me what's wrong, Jake," she promised softly. "Did I do something?"

"No," he replied with conviction. "You didn't do a damn thing wrong, Baby. I've just had something on my mind."

"Oh." She was trying to think of a single positive thing that would get this reaction out of him, but she could only come up with negatives. Her mind was supplying scenarios that would be enough to break her heart as he studied her with pensive green eyes.

"I really like that," he muttered, gaze falling to the floor. "When you kind of... take control." His face was flushed a pretty shade of pink, and Jessica couldn't stop staring. He was so obviously nervous, and he didn't meet her eyes until she pressed her palm to his warm cheek. "I like it when you do that."

"Okay," she replied with a little nod. "Then I'll do it more often."

He huffed out an exasperated breath and looked up at the ceiling now. "Jessica... I've never asked for anything like this before. And I don't really know how to do it now."

She used both hands to tip his face down again so he was looking at her once more. His pupils were wide, and his lips were set in a firm line, and she had no idea what was running through his mind that was making him react this way. "You can tell me anything, Jake. You can ask for what you want. I do it all the time. I ask you to buy me lingerie and toys, and you always do."

"This is different," came his immediate response. "I don't know if you'll like it. Hell, I don't even know if I'll like it."

She scraped her nails gently along his stubble and tried to imagine what he wanted. She'd give him anything. "Is it something kinky?" she asked, tracing his lip as he nodded. "You're just going to have to tell me then, and I promise I'll at least consider it."

Jake seemed to be gathering his thoughts as her hand drifted down his neck to his shirt where she slowly traced the letters in SERESIN over and over again until he whispered, "Okay. Baby, you know how we bought all those toys from that one website?" When she nodded, he added, "And you know how we kind of skipped the one category?"

She could picture the night they were curled up on the couch with her phone, adding things to the shopping cart with reckless abandon until they'd spent over five hundred dollars. She could also clearly picture the collection of dildos and straps that were available that they didn't touch at all.

"Oh."

He swallowed hard, his eyes growing wide as he started to pull away from her. "Yeah."

But Jessica wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tighter against her body. He was getting a little hard, and then she whispered, "You want me fuck you like that? With a strap-on?"

She really didn't even need the verbal confirmation, not with the way his body reacted and the soft moan that came from the back of his throat. But she kissed him as soon as he said, "Yes."

-------------------------

Jake was waiting for things to shift. He was bracing himself for Jessica to look at him differently or change her mind. There was a difference between wants and needs, and he knew that. He wanted to experiment with her, because he trusted her. She brought out emotions he'd never felt before which opened them up to some exciting exploration in the bedroom. He was nervous to tell her what he wanted, but he did it anyway.

But what he needed was for Jessica to say yes when he proposed on vacation in Cabo with the three carat diamond ring he bought. He needed her to say she'd spend the rest of her life with him before they went to Texas for Christmas. But if it were possible for someone to fulfill all of his needs and his wants too, it was Jessica. It was always going to be Jessica.

So he was surprised but not unpleasantly so when after dinner, she stretched out on the couch with her head on his thigh and brought the topic back to the items she mentioned earlier. She looked up at him and said, "We should make sure you're happy with what we pick, but there are a lot of options. And I guess if we buy something and you don't like it, we could always try again?"

"I love you," he whispered, now knowing he hadn't done anything to change the way she felt about him. She smiled softly as he ran his fingers through her hair.

"I love you, too," she promised. "And I'm really excited about this."

Jake sighed in relief. "If you don't think it's fun, we definitely don't need to try it a second time." But she was already pointing out a few different dildos that she found on her phone and holding it up for him to see.

"Oh, Jake," she said with a grin that made him pulse with need. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a great time. And this one comes in navy blue... I'm just saying, it would match your uniforms perfectly."

That comment alone left Jake in a state of constant need for the next week while he waited for the goods to arrive. The box was dropped off the following Friday, and Jessica was wearing his robe and smiling like the cat who got the cream when he got home from work. "How was your last day of the semester, Dr. Reed?" he asked softly as she held up the pink box.

"It was good," she replied easily. "And it's about to get even better. We leave for Cabo in the morning, and the new toys are here."

Jake swallowed hard as she handed him the box, and when she untied his robe sash, he was treated to the sight of her in her navy blue lace bra and thong set. "Jessica," he croaked, already turned on and beyond excited.

"Look in the box," she told him, and he realized she had already cut it open. Everything was the same blue color as her lingerie, and he moaned softly when he ran his hand along the smaller of the two dildos. He didn't know if this would feel good or not, but the idea of his girlfriend wearing it was making him hard.

He met her eyes as she said, "If it looks good to you, I'll clean everything and get ready while you change into your dress blues."

"My dress blues?" he asked as she took the box from him.

She bit her lip and moaned. "Do it, Lieutenant Seresin. Put on your dress blues and wait for me in the bedroom."

"Yes, ma'am," he grunted, heading right for the closet without delay. His hands shook slightly as he pulled his uniform from the hanger. He was so excited, he could barely get the tie on himself. He looked at the shoes. Would she want him to wear the shoes? Did he want to skip them and hope for a reprimand? Would she reward him more if he was wearing the full uniform?

He ended up putting them on, and when Jessica walked into the bedroom, he was standing at attention. But his jaw dropped when he saw that she was already wearing the strap-on. No sound came out, but he was gasping for air as she ran her hand up and down the length, casually strolling closer to him.

"This looks good on you, Lieutenant," she purred, and his cock stirred a little more. "I like it when you're dressed for the occasion."

"What's the occasion, Admiral Reed?"

She took his hand in hers and turned the palm up, and then she squeezed out some lube. Then she guided his hand to the dildo, and he helped her coat it up. "You're the one who told me this uniform is just for special occasions, so I'll make it a very special one for you. I'm going to fuck you in the ass until you come."

Jake gasped, his hand tightening around the length, pulling Jessica closer to him. "Please," he whimpered, and she adjusted his hat on his head with her clean hand.

"I can't guarantee this will stay on," she mused, grabbing him by the bicep and turning him so he was facing the bed. Her hands came to rest on his hips from behind, and the toy poked him as she said, "And these definitely won't be staying on."

She reached around and started to undo the front of his pants. This was his Jessica. This was the self assured, beautiful woman of his dreams, and she started jerking him off as his pants fell to the floor. The strap on was rubbing his backside. He could come simply from this.

"Bend over, Lieutenant," she demanded, squeezing his cock with her slick hand before releasing him. He did as he was told, and when his cheek met the bedding, her hands met his ass. "Don't forget, Jake," she said softly. "If you're not enjoying it, the safe word is Sam Adams."

"Thank you, Baby," he whispered, actually feeling a lot more at ease than he imagined. And that's precisely when Jessica's hand landed on his ass with a hard slap.

"Lieutenant Seresin," she barked out. "Your uniform is sloppy. Your pants are on the floor. I have told you so many times to straighten this out!"

"Yes Admiral Reed, ma'am," he replied, his voice shaking with need as his cock twitched against the bed. "I'll do better next time."

She laughed, and Jake could hear her uncap the bottle of lube just before he felt her squeeze it onto his backside near where she spanked him. "You need to be taught a lesson. Or you'll keep strutting around here like the rules don't apply to you."

"Yes, ma'am," he gasped as her fingers slid through the slick mess before easing from his balls right up to his asshole. He was already bucking back against her fingers as she teased him, and he'd never been more aware of the fact that he'd never had anything inside him before.

He looked back at her over his shoulder, his blue jacket all bunched up on his body along with his shirt and tie. When she met his eyes, she smirked and said, "Relax, Lieutenant. Be a good boy. It will all be over soon."

The words Sam Adams were right there on his tongue, and he was ready to shout them out, but he found himself relaxing at her touch as she eased her fingertip along while she whispered, "Just be a good boy."

He grunted at the stretch, because it felt incredible. "Admiral Reed," he whined as she inserted her finger deeper. God, he'd wanted this in the worst way, and it felt so fucking good. Her other hand rubbed circles along his lower back, and when he pressed his hips back for more of her finger, she started to withdraw it instead.

"You want more," she whispered, a statement rather than a question. She could tell he did, but he nodded against the bedding and told her yes. Then her finger was back, slipping inside him as he took fistfuls of the blankets. This was different than he usually felt when they were intimate. Not better or worse, but a different kind of pleasurable. She was easily gliding along a spot inside him that left him a little short of breath, groaning her name.

After long enough that his cock was starting to ache for relief, she said, "I think you're ready for the strap, Lieutenant. And I can't wait to give it to you."

He knew she would be gentle amidst the roleplay, and she was. Jake could feel her coating him up with more lube before she leaned down and kissed his back through his uniform. Then she eased the blunt silicone head to his hole and swirled it around while he did his best to try to relax. Jessica's other hand wrapped around to his cock which was devastatingly hard, and she started to slowly jerk him off again while she pushed.

If the stretch from her finger felt good, the stretch from the strap felt both incredible and also alarming. He was gasping, knuckles white as he clutched the bedding. Jessica pushed deeper and deeper, still stroking her hand along his cock as she filled his ass completely. Her hips were resting against him as he moaned and whined loudly.

He squeezed his eyes closed, sucking in air as she paused, fully seated. "How does that feel, Lieutenant Seresin?" she asked, voice breathy as she kissed along his back again.

Jake tried to find the words to describe the juxtaposition of pleasure mixed with slight pain along with the thrumming desire for more. More of Jessica's voice, more movement, and more pressure. "I like it," he managed, and that was all she needed to hear.

Inch by beautiful inch, she withdrew until that blunt tip was the only thing inside him, and Jake moaned loudly as she thrusted into him faster this time while his body grabbed at the length. "Oh god," he whined when he was full again. "Feels amazing."

She slid her slick hand along his cock and whispered, "You're my good boy," while she fucked him. "You're doing great." She rolled her hips, fucking him with rapid, shallow thrusts while he grunted her name and balled the bedding up tighter. She stroked his length slower as her hips went faster, and Jake's hands shook with anticipation.

"Baby," he moaned as her hips pressed against his ass, holding herself in place as she filled him completely.

"Admiral Reed," she corrected, letting her hand drift slowly back down his shaft so she was squeezing his balls. She rolled her hips back and snapped them forward in one fluid motion, and Jake buried his face in the bedding as he cried out.

"Admiral Reed! I'm close! I'm so close!"

Without slowing her tempo, Jessica grabbed him by his hips, and Jake's cock pressed against the bed. She was rubbing him in all the right places, keeping him full with thrust after thrust, and his cock was throbbing in need.

"Come, Lieutenant. You earned it," she promised, grabbing at his hips and waist and grunting as she finished him off with all of her remaining strength. Just a few more thrusts as she found every spot inside of him that needed relief, and he was coming all over the bed.

"Fuck!" he growled, lifting his upper body slightly to chase that perfect pressure, and he watched his cum shoot across the bedding as Jessica rubbed his electrified skin. Jake collapsed back down onto his own mess, the sticky warmth on his hands and cheek as he whined and whimpered.

He felt Jessica remove the strap one inch at a time until she was free of his body, and she hugged him from behind, kissing at his shoulder. "I love you, Jake. I love you so much," she crooned breathlessly, and he at least had the wherewithal to realize she might need some relief now as well. But he couldn't stand up yet. Not when she was whispering the sweetest things in his ear while his legs shook.

When he lifted his head, she kissed his cheek while he tried to formulate words. Then she moaned and licked the cum from his face. Nothing had changed. She was still his in the same way she had been, and if anything, he loved her more for what she just did with him.

"Jessica," he whispered, kissing her lips, finally. She tasted like him. She tasted perfect. Then he stood, and she was smiling up at him, wearing that pretty strap. And Jake knew. He fucking knew damn well that it was time to ask her.

"Where are you going?" she asked when he reached for his pants, pulling them up high enough so he could walk.

He rushed out to the kitchen and opened the cabinet that contained all of the spices and seasonings. She was still apprehensive about cooking on her own, and this was the last place she would have looked for anything. He grabbed the small box and popped it open as he ran back into the bedroom as quickly as he could. Jessica had removed the strap and set it on the bed, leaving her in that sinful looking navy blue set. She adjusted her glasses just before her gaze fell to his hand, and then he dropped to his knee in front of her.

"Jake?" she gasped as her eyes went wide.

"Marry me. Please, Baby. Marry me. You're a need. A necessity. But you're also somehow the only thing I want. I was going to propose in Cabo, but I can't even wait until tomorrow. Will you marry me?"

Her pretty face crumpled as she sobbed, but she was nodding and reaching for him. Her voice shook as she smiled through her tears. "Yes. I'll marry you. You're my needs and wants, too."

Jake stood and scooped her up as he laughed. She ended up beneath him on the bed next to his cum, kissing him and running her fingers through his hair while he tried to get her to hold her hand still. "Let me put it on you, Smart Girl," he whispered, unable to stop smiling as he took her left hand and slipped the ring into place. He loved the way it looked. And then, as if the massive diamond didn't matter much to her in comparison to him, she had her hands back in his hair. And he kind of loved that, too.

"I can't wait to tell everyone how we got engaged," she said as she laughed and buried her face against his neck.

"You can tell them anything you want, Jess. Just make sure you pack that strap for Cabo along with the rest of the toys."

---------------------------

Thank you so much for coming on this little journey with me! It was really fun to fit Jake and Jessica into the Beer Boy and Sugar universe, and I hope you'll stick around to read about Bob and Anna soon, too! IYKYK...if you follow along with Beer Boy and Sugar, you already knew about Jake and Jessica's upcoming nuptials. More surprises are in store in every corner of this universe soon! Big thanks to @mak-32 @beyondthesefourwalls @sylviebell for all your help!

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@hufflepufftruffle

@cottagecori

@lex-winchester

@schoollover

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cripplecharacters · 1 month ago

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Hey folks, fully abled writer here! I've got a question about nicknames/descriptive names related to physical differences and abilities. I write a lot of fantasy fiction with differing name and language systems than the real world. I'm also fond of using compound names, such as "Dawnbringer, Hardcutter, Bluemark, Bearhunter, etc." So in a fantasy world where much of this society has given names and clan surnames following a specific theme of strength and durability, I have a character that has both his given name but also a nickname many people call him. This nickname is "Firebrand," and I invented him many years ago when I wasn't very critical of my writing or biases and just wanted a cool-sounding fantasy name. He is is a city guard in a city that is regularly attacked by fantasy animals for plot and environment-related reasons, and as I developed this character more I decided that rather than his original dark edgy backstory where he was called Firebrand because he was tortured, he now gains the name Firebrand because he survived a dragon's fire breath and came out of it with burn scars up his chest neck and arms, particularly on his hands that limits some of his movement and dexterity. I intend to make it clear in the story that it isn't a derogatory name, it's part of their society's theme of having names that signify how people survive things.

He likes the nickname and the meaning it has in his culture, because to him it means he's good at his job and he has survived hard times. Right now, the story is told through third-person P.O.V, and he is primarily referred to in non-dialogue narration as his nickname. In dialogue, he usually introduces himself with his given name and surname, but many people including the rest of the city guards refer to him with the nickname . His family and boyfriend will use either name for him depending on the context and company. At a later point in the story, when he and some others end up in a situation where they are dealing with fairies and the magical rules about giving them your name, his nickname gives him an advantage against the fairy rules.

Is this a reasonable concept at all, or is it all very weird to use an injury and acquired physical difference to identify someone with? Or, if the concept is alright but the name itself is bad, do you have any suggestions for how I might want to come up with a different nickname? I'm thinking if the use of the word "brand" in the nickname has too much of a negative connotation, I could try to replace it with something like "Firehand" or "Firebrave" that might have a clearer positive connotation to readers as well as his in-story society.

And although it's not the purpose of this question, I have been doing research about burn scars and treatment; this blog has been helpful! Since the burns were deep and he has limb tremors and cramps as well as scars, he has exercises and ointments to keep his scarred skin flexible, and he takes care not to take long tasks that will strain his hands with fine motor skills or whatnot. When on duty, his uniform includes gloves and a high collar for protection, but in casual clothing his hands are bare and his clothing doesn't hide his scars unless it's for weather protection. I may come back in the future with more questions about that, but I've determined what I need to start with about the physical effects his injuries have on him.

Thank you, and I hope you're all having a good day!!

Hello!

This sounds fine and pretty cool to me. The most important part is that the name isn't intended to be derogatory and that he actually likes it.

As a different disability-related example, "Wheels" and all its variants is a surprisingly common nickname that wheelchair users use (mostly younger guys). Sometimes you have a few of these dudes in one group and three people look at you when you try to call for one of them, it's just a fun nickname. Could it also be a cartoon-bully level derogatory insult if it was used for a character that hates it? 100%. It's very context dependent.

That's the same sentiment that's crucial here I think. Your character likes it and is proud of it? Go ahead. It makes sense in his cultural background and his nickname falls under a similar naming convention so it fits. I like the mention of how it reminds him that "he has survived hard times", since it's something that I've heard from burn survivors who explain why they choose "survivor" over "victim" to refer to themselves.

To answer your actual question: yes, I think it's a reasonable concept that makes sense in the character's setting. In another context yeah, it could be weird to identify with an acquired physical difference like that, but other people will do it anyway, you could as well make it "yours" and be proud of it, wear it as a positive. I don't think it's something that is an automatic "no" even if kinda weird. I'd go case-by-case and in your character's case it seems great.

As for the actual name, I agree that "brand" does have a negative connotation in English, all the criminal/cattle/label associations are less than ideal. I don't think it's detrimental to the concept like some other potential nicknames could be (looking at all the No-Faces and Half-Faces, which I do think are strictly derogatory) but if changing it to something less loaded wouldn't be an issue I'd probably do that. Both -hand and -brave are pretty awesome (the latter kinda reminds me of a warrior cat name but that's definitely a me problem), since they're either neutral or very positive in their connections.

Personally I care more about the fact that you're researching your character thoroughly, don't think that him being a burn survivor comes with some intrinsic negative traits, nor seem to put him in one of the Four Boxes. That's more important than terminology and vice versa - one could use the most up-to-date correct terms to refer to their OC and still make them into an offensive nightmare with bad execution. It doesn't mean that specific words aren't important but they (generally) aren't what breaks or makes representation that people want to see.

You seem to be doing good: my advice is to rethink the -brand part due to its connotations, and just keep researching as you write him.

Hope this helps,

mod Sasza

#mod sasza #valentinerose529 #terminology #burn survivor representation

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aestheteangel · 8 months ago

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Synastry aspects that I personally don’t like.

before i start please read that I am not an official astrologer so take this with a grain of saltttt too haha. Just for fun.

North node square north node ( I’m sorry but each one lives in a whole different worlds, completely different perspectives, mindset, somehow not letting each other move to the next step)

Chiron in 7th house overlay. ( now Chiron isn’t always bad, but there’s kind of.. pain it gives , it’s not any better in other houses, but I’m saying romantically, there could be hurt during the marriage... if you want Chiron overlays in synastry please lmk)

Pluto/Uranus in 12th house overlay. ( now Mose of y’all know 12th house overlays arent so good eventually, but i think Pluto or Uranus being there could be harsher than any other planet , could indicate so many things, one of them unpleasant endings in the relationship, finding truth about something suddenly, betrayal..in worst cases you won’t be able to forget each other )

Saturn 8th house overlay. (Sure y’all know why..)

Mars conjuct Mc/10th house. ( uhhhh it just don’t give me nice vibes when both are seen in public eye. Could be arguing in public a lot, the mars person makes it hard for the 10th person to forgive them. Works even in composite chart )

Mercury square Saturn. ( a lot of judgements and misunderstandings)

Chiron opposite asc/Venus.

Saturn opposite Neptune. (Broo)

Moon opposite moon. (Now tbh Im not really sure of this one since nobody complained about it and it could indicate “slight” emotional understanding difficulties with each other that can also cause attraction. But I’ve seen this aspect with some couple that really can’t stop hurting eachothers emotionally . )

Another moon aspect, ofc moon is the first thing you should observe In synastry s, it simply represents how each other’s emotions play with the other. now moon square moon. Obviously most of y’all know why, literally each one is on different page when it comes to how they view emotions which makes it pretty hard to understand each other’s feelings with the square aspect. ( believe it or no I have this one with my man, even knowing it I’m still with him lol. yes the attraction is definitely there due to other loving aspects and also with this one, it gives attractive energy yes. but still, he don’t understand my emotions and my point of view, struggles with analyzing me sometimes or what I even think , even when I try my best to throw him an obvious sign about something, without me speaking, he don’t get it where everyone else does same goes for me 🤣😭. he sometimes thinks I mean something the opposite of what I meant. Bottom line is with this aspect you need to speak each other’s feelings and what you want to tell the other cause it’s way too impossible to understand eachother with no words spoken. 😓 AAAA THIS IS THE ONLY STRUGGLING PLACEMENT WE HAVE AND ITS NOT EVEN A SIMPLE ONE)

Mars in 5th house, ( Now this is NOT a red flag, bUTTTT i always read about this placement represents a “not lasting relationship “ and tbh every fling I had I had this placement with, literallyyyy very guy I used to dm or talk to even for a couple of days, attraction at first but then boom, you din yourself not talking to them anymore for god knows what reason lol, so there’s something interesting about this placement. 🤔🤣 ( pink for flings 🤣)

Mars 1st house.... ( uhh you know what? Wait for part 2 😛 )

But before part 2 I’ll make my next post positive I promise, I didn’t even want to write red flags placements because it shouldnt be taken seriously haha. So next post will be about .. hmm wait , what you guys want it to be about?

Synastry observations

Natal chart observations

composite observations

Solar return observations

— Y’all literally if u find one of these placements in your synastrys it’s totally okay lol, I have multiple of these w my man and tbh some of them don’t really play this negative way for us, but i just did them for fun , ofc don’t take these TOO seriously 🥰

#astro community #astro observations #astro placements #astrology placements #astrology tumblr #obsessed synastry #asteroids in synastry #d9 chart #elegant #expensive #astro notes #astrology #red flags

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raayllum · 3 months ago

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Seen some discussion on this and I think the big takeaway being "Rayla is taking Runaan's place here as the leader" is underselling it in some ways, tbh, since I think it's a lot more indicative of how S7 is going to challenge Rayla at her core of whether she's like Runaan, and what version(s) of Runaan that means.

Rayla has always had similarities to her father / mentor. Keeping secrets about her own harm, the emphasis on sacrifice, her view of herself as an assassin, goodbye kisses to their lovers, leaving people at home to protect them, her little silver pauldron that matches his, wielding his bow-blade in S5, and her ponytail hair clasp, etc etc. Some of the lessons she's learned from Runaan have been helpful, allowing her to protect herself and her friends; some of them have been less so.

I told you: I am already dead.

I've talked about this before but the bulk of the characters in TDP have a 'shadow self' for lack of a better term—a person in the narrative/history or in their family that they are struggling with whether to be like, if not actively striving against it (Janai with Queen Aditi, Ezran with Harrow, etc). However, it's a bit more complicated than that. As noted in previous metas, Callum's parallels to Viren have gone from being indicative of a mostly negative path (dark magic use to the point of corruption, Aaravos' manipulations, etc) to also indicating a positive path: breaking away from Aaravos and dark magic (5x09) and doing more heroic deeds (6x08) because you refuse to sacrifice the people around you. It's shifted from "Callum is like Viren" to "Callum is like both of Viren's arcs, bad and eventually good," as when he inevitably breaks away from Aaravos' hold, he will ultimately be paralleling his main foil in a positive way as well.

It's a similar matter for Rayla with Runaan, with the way Runaan parallels Viren being a fun bonus, down to being resurrected and deeply regretful of how they've treated their child(ren).

Is she going to be Runaan the assassin, who keeps their oaths/promises no matter what even if that means sacrificing everything they hold dear, including their family? Who believes that the mission is too far gone now for a detour, or to go off track entirely? The Runaan who put duty over love and tried to kill someone he loved, even if it ended up destroying himself, too?

Or is she going to be the Runaan who regrets doing so, who is lost but found through love, who is brought back and brings others back? Who carries Runaan's bravery and guidance but sheds the lesson of sacrifice at all cost, of yourself, of others? And instead is devoted to preserving life, rather than taking it?

CALLUM: Rayla's brave. She saves people. [...] Rayla is selfless, strong, and caring. That's what makes her a hero. That's what makes her Rayla.

As Runaan and Rayla have both had time to unlearn their previous mindsets and build upon new ones, I think they will continue to challenge each other to reject the duty > love mindset, and that they've had to embrace a healthier, more balanced view of love and sacrifice for themselves and its impact on others around them.

#tdp #tdp spoilers #s7 spoilers #tdp runaan #tdp rayla #the dragon prince #predictions #elf fam #im not even gonna put it in speculation bc it is. inevitably what the season is just going to end up doing #intentionally / specifically or not it's gonna track & hold water #analysis series

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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months ago

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Uplinkchump Linkdump

On June 20, I'm keynoting the LOCUS AWARDS in OAKLAND.

It's Linkdump Saturday! This is the day on which I clear the giant backlog of links from the previous week that I haven't managed to post in my newsletter's "Hey look at this" sections. This is my 19th linkdump; here's the previous 18 dumps:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Let's start with some fun and games. Liam is a high-schooler who created "Bad Plumbing," a Jenga-style boardgame using a variety of 3D printed shapes; the game was a smash hit at his local game-jam, so now he's kickstarting it:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/liamclift/bad-plumbing

The shapes are delightful and Seussian, and there's a very ingenious game dynamic that's not just "make the pile bigger." You can pre-order for $30, and for $100, you'll get a version with a custom-designed shape of your specification. I backed!

It's lovely to see something that's both excellent and delightful, but to be honest, the majority of this week's links are excellent and enraging. Most of these links from The American Prospect, which has, under David Dayen's executive leadership, gone from "a magazine I really like" to "the first thing I read every day."

This week saw a the Prospect publish a stunning series of articles on prices, a sacred object for neoliberal economists, who see them as the carriers of the information that allows society to order itself for maximum efficiency and broadest benefit. Unfortunately for these economists, the love-affair with prices is one-sided: they may love prices, but prices hate neoliberalism.

The dogma that says that any government interference in pricing will destroy the economy by "distorting" prices does not survive contact with reality. The instant the government steps away from regulating monopoly, and its handmaiden, fraud, prices go batshit crazy.

This week's Pluralistic newsletters were dominated by this brilliant series in the Prospect. On Wednesday, I wrote about the Prospect's investigations into algorithmic and surveillance pricing:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

And yesterday, it was the epidemic of junk fees:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/07/drip-drip-drip/#drip-off

There's more than I could fit into the newsletter, though, like Friday's excellent piece on the scourge of surge pricing by Sarah Jaffe:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-07-urge-to-surge/

Jaffe's piece was especially interesting given economist Ramsi Woodcock's compelling case that surge pricing is a per se violation of antitrust law:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/26/aggregate-demand/#pure-transfer

The Prospect series was so timely. After decades of pricing orthodoxy, economists like Isabella Weber are making huge waves (and attracting a tsunami of abuse). Weber's interview with Vass Bednar on the Globe and Mail's Lately podcast this week is a must-listen:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/lately/article-the-millennial-economist-who-took-on-the-world/

(Though if you get your econ ideas from the New York Times, you'd miss this whole revolution, as the Grey Lady's views on prices remain mired in the Reagan era:)

https://twitter.com/HalSinger/status/1798849195664916648

Few prices are more important than the price of the roof over your head – after all, "shelter" is only second to "food" in the hierarchy of needs. Dayen's Friday story for the Prospect in NIMBYism gets to the crux of the cost-of-living crisis: people who own houses want houses to be expensive, and will go to enormous lengths to make sure that shelter costs as much as possible:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-06-07-homeowners-want-housing-prices-to-go-up/

Dayen attributes this to "the wealth effect" – that is, most people would like to be richer, and the minority of Americans who have a positive net worth owe that status to rising house prices, and the plurality of Americans who have a negative net worth thanks to a mortgage are counting on rising house prices to flip them into the black.

When America threw off the Gilded Age, we charted two courses to prosperity for working people: labor unions and home ownership. The ruling class cannily convinced us to rely solely on the latter. The housing emergency raging across the country is the inevitable result of that decision:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

The Prospect's consistent brilliance isn't merely an editorial matter, of course. The magazine features a recurring cast of some of the best muckraking writers in the field, and the absolute peak of that impressive pile is Maureen Tkacik. Tkacik's work on Boeing is stunning:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/01/boeing-boeing/#mrsa

Her labor coverage is second to none:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

And no one writes better than her about private equity:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

I am in pure awe of Tkacik's prolific and expert work. So when I read her piece on Long Covid in the Prospect this week, I was stunned to learn that she has been severely disabled by this heavily downplayed – but rampant – chronic illness:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-06-06-nih-perpetuating-long-covid-denial/

The fact that Tkacik is doing this career-defining, high-frequency work while being randomly smashed by a series of acute Long Covid incidents makes her achievements nothing sort of heroic. But Tkacik's Long Covid coverage isn't a lament for her personal situation – it's a characteristically brilliant investigative story about the systematic cover-up of Long Covid by the NIH, which has a long history of dismissing inconvenient illnesses as psychosomatic, from black lung to chronic fatigue.

Tkacik's Long Covid coverage adds yet another subject where I'm learning more from the Prospect than from other sources – part of a host of issues where the magazine leads the pack. An issue far more squarely in its wheelhouse is antitrust, especially the intersection of antitrust and labor rights.

This week, I eagerly devoured Luke Goldstein's story about the latest in a series of lies that Amazon executives were caught making to the US government:

https://prospect.org/labor/2024-06-06-senators-allege-amazon-lied-delivery-drivers/

You may recall when Jeff Bezos lied to Congress, claiming that the company didn't spy on its sellers and clone their best products:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58961836

Or when Amazon posted a lying rebuttal to a Congressman who objected to its drivers being forced to pee in bottles in order to meet its punishing schedules:

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/policy-news-views/our-recent-response-to-representative-pocan

The latest lie: Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy lied to the Senate about the company's relationship to its drivers, whom it insists are "independent contractors" because they are hired through cutouts called "Delivery Service Providers":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

These drivers work for Amazon. It dictates their working conditions. It installs cameras that watch their eyeballs while they drive. It enforces an illegal "no poach" system that fixes their wages. And it lies about all this. To the Senate.

You know what they say, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up. Tech barons go through life in a warm bath of their own bullshit, surrounded by lackeys who are contractually prohibited from calling them on it. They forget that there are people out there in the world who won't offer them this deference – including lawmakers and regulators.

That's why Facebook lied to the FCC when they bought Instagram, withholding key information in order to secure regulatory permission for the merger:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ftc-claims-facebook-withheld-information-152834983.html

After decades of inattention, the world's governments have discovered a newfound energy for busting trusts and smashing corporate power. Five years ago, it looked like maybe this was a fixup by Big Cable or Big Content to take Big Tech off the board so they could claim more dominion over our lives:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/06/04/why-is-there-so-much-antitrust-energy-for-big-tech-but-not-for-big-telco/

Today, every sector is coming in for antitrust scrutiny, and the tempo is only increasing. Just this week, the FTC and DOJ opened investigations into Microsoft, Openai, and Nvidia:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/6/24172868/ftc-doj-antitrust-openai-microsoft-nvidia-investigations

Yeah, there's still a lot of policy focus on tech, but that's because tech has extended its tendrils into every area of policy. That's the end-point of a decades-long process of tech going from sitting alongside important policy questions to being inseparable from them. I've had a front-row seat for that transformation, through my work with EFF, whose brief just keeps expanding as tech infuses every aspect of our lives and rights.

The latest example; EFF's "Surveillance Defense for Campus Protests" by Rory Mir, Thorin Klosowski and Christian Romero:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/surveillance-defense-campus-protests

The military has gone all-in on electronic surveillance, and campuses have gone all-in on militarized policing, so campuses are now sites of electronic warfare, and protesters are vastly overmatched. This is an excellent and timely guide.

Well, this is where this week's linkdump comes to an end. It only falls to me to send you off with one last week: Libro.fm's buy-one/get-one sale on DRM-free audiobooks, with a share of each sale going to an indie bookstore of your choosing! This is a heckin deal, and a great way to start weaning yourself off of the Audible monopoly (also, my latest novel The Bezzle, is in the sale):

https://libro.fm/bogo

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/08/medley/#the-prospect

Image: Cjp24 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Automobiles_in_a_french_junkyard.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic

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dnpanimationstudioclone · 11 months ago

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Niffty Redesign🐛

Made my own take on Niffty for Fun!!!!!!!!💖 I def thought a lot on what to try with her!!!!

Pushed for a more 50’s Housewife aesthetic/hotel maid vibe. She’s wearing a pinafore apron which was very popular during that era and I took the poodle skirt idea and reworked it into the apron, but rather than a poodle it’s a bug 🐛. Also brought back warmer colors like the pilot look had. Pastel yellow was def a pop color!

Also added a name tag as to show she works for the hotel 🏨

Added more splotches and made them bigger on her apron. Polkadots were popular in that time and I think are cute(lot of her concepts had polka dots on her) plus I can see her wanting people to assume she’s a ladybug or Asian Lady Beetle 🐞 (@peeperscreeperz made a take of Niffty being that which is AMAZING and I considered making her that too but I ended up going a different route). I can see her also wanting them to give off flowers…only for most people to see them as blood stains.🌸🩸

Also gave her those iconic cleaning gloves 🧤. Shes the Hotels maid AND cook afterall 🧽 👩‍🍳

Gave her a bandana bow for the housewife and maid look and because I think it’s cute and lowkey gives off antennae. I LOVE the idea of her being a bug demon so I went with that. I was going for a subtle ambiguity of what she’s suppose to be(she’s hiding what she is).

Gave her warmer eye color back! Also made the pupil more leaf shaped 🍃.

Added gradient for her limbs.

Added extra limbs. Great for extra cleaning 🧹 🧼

Her hairs actually antennae…and extra legs 🦵

Gave her three fingers.

Made her eye bigger(bugs often got big eyes! Or for her case eye 👁️)

Added a lil bug instead of a poodle for her apron!🪳

For her color motif, went back to warmer colors and because for mine I’m going with a rainbow motif she’s Yellow💛🌈 the color known for its positives such as joy and friendship…but can also mean negative things such as Deceit, illness and often used as a warning color⚠️ it was also a popular color for Sci-Fi posters(she was based on B-Alien Movies)

Made her skin a kinda warm pastel orange🧡 I missed her having a warm palette but I also get why they changed it due to her roots 🇯🇵. So I went with orange!!!! Her hairs also a more brownish red-orange.

For her bug theme,

I went with something that I figure would connect her both to her ability to take down pests so well and Japanese origins. The Japanese Centipede! Centipedes are great for pest control but apparently to Japan they’re considered symbols of evil and rottenness, plus with how they look they often scare people even those they don’t pose serious threats to humans, which I think fits Niffty’s whole desire to be loved only to accidentally scare people away…shunned & unloved by a world she can’t seem to fit in💔

HUGE Spoiler alert!!!! Hazbin Hotel

With the reveal of Husk being once an Overlord I like to believe the same with Niffty but rather than souls(talked about this with @a-sterling-rose, she was an immensely powerful sinner like Alastor, but alas her form was far too big and scary for people to want to get close to and she was alone…until Alastor offered her a deal he’d provide a more approachable form in return for her eternal service)

A lot of her looks meant to be hiding what she is. Disguising her extra limbs as hair, her body’s color scheme based on a centipedes, poofy dress that could cover extra, even the bug design could be Interpreted as a long centipede. I was also going for a subtle sharp, mini legs for her apron ruffles, giving off her trying to look sweet and soft but could also be interpreted in another way…

I read and learned from a @lovesart23 redesign vid for her that, she was meant to be based on B-Alien Movies. LOVE that and I tried it myself(hardest part was figuring out what bug to make her and what themes to go with) but I ended up going for another Sci-Fi route. Kaiju/Giant Bug monsters. Creatures like Godzilla or those giant bugs creatures like “the Tingler” 1959(which was a centipede monster I read). I figure it’d connect well to both her struggles of fitting in but also her Japanese Roots.

Monsters are tragic beings. They are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy. They do not attack people because they want to, but because of their size and strength, mankind has no other choice but to defend himself. After several stories such as this, people end up having a kind of affection for the monsters. They end up caring about them."

— Ishir⁠ō Honda The Director of Godzilla

Plus some certain Kaijus could qualify as Aliens!.

There’s even a Yokai/demon based on the centipede know as the Ōkumade!

CW freaky Pictures of centipedes and Mice

What do u think? I’d love to know💖

I’ve also done Charlie, Vaggie and Angel🍎🦋🕷️

#Hazbin hotel #Hazbin hotel redesigns #Hazbin hotel niffty #niffty #nifty #niffty redesign #Nifty redesign #hazbin hotel redesign #hazbin hotel fanart #my art #my redesign #hazbin redesign #hazbin redesigns #Hh #hazbinhotel #Overlord niffty #hazbin hotel art #Hazbin hotel rewrite

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scummy-writes · 5 months ago

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Things I've learned about being in fandoms on tumblr

Sometimes when I am navigating fandom, I will have bouts of... depression? negative feelings? regarding it. I think a lot of people go through this, but in the areas of fandom I buzz around in, I don't see many people talking about ways to sort of re-center yourself and take care of yourself in an online space. I thought I would attempt to share some of my habits I try to follow when I hit one of these moods. So here are 14 of them covering various subjects I run into the most. They will not work for everyone, but I do encourage you to think a bit about each point and see if it would work for you.

Feel free to add some of your own, but I am looking for positive advice that is not meant to put down others in a harmful way. I would also like to preface that I've been in fandoms for over seven years, most of them smaller rather than huge, but a lot of this advice is centered around someone just trying to enjoy the space/enjoying it as a fan creator (writing fanfics in my case). The 'you' used in this is a general usage of the word 'you'.

-> It's good to celebrate milestones, whether its how many followers you have, works you've made in a year, or similar.

However... Don't let this become a competition or reasons to compare yourself to others. We're here to have fun and to celebrate us doing so- don't put completely unneeded and unnessacary competition on it. What's the point of that competition other than to make yourself feel bad or to belittle others? This extends further to notes - no number games. none. You can be proud of the numbers you have gotten, but curb all impulses to swing that in a negative way. The second that starts happening, talk to friends. talk to someone IRL. do something that isn't staring at your notifs, immediately. Even if its listening to silly things while washing the dishes- get out of your notifs tab!!! The numbers game isn't a game you have to be a part of, ever.

-> Don't put other bloggers on pedestals.

It's fine to be a fan of someone's work, and to be excited when they post or even talk to you and you're surprised by it. However, we're all just nerds together in a fandom- maybe don't put them up on a pedestal and hold their opinions/words as gospel rather than things you agree with. There's an unhealthy disconnect there for both parties, and can lead to unhealthy habits of a bad comparison game with one party not even knowing you're comparing yourself or others to them. And I promise that no one likes being pitted against others in those.

-> separating my main blog from my fandom blog has done wonders for me.

This one is a lot more of a 'me' thing that MIGHT be helpful towards others, but it's such a nice thing to have a 'normal' space where I don't have to worry too much about fandomisms but want to be online. I want to reblog other things that are not just fandom related and I don't want people from the fandom blog bothering me for. For the longest time I wasn't very upfront with my main blog purely because I wanted that separation, but for others to block me properly I put it up more bluntly.

I also think that this is good when you want to write about some things, but are nervous. In my example, I get nervous writing about my ocs. So what did I do? Made a sideblog for one, briefly mentioned it, and I post untagged drabbles at times when trying to explore her character. It's more practice on not caring about the note amount each post gets for me, and it makes me more at ease with things not getting any notes while exploring different subjects I don't usually write about.

-> Does everyone seem horrible, or are you just not in a good mood?

This is silly and maybe redundant for some, but it's good to keep a track of IRL verses Online. If IRL is weighing you down so much that you use online as an unhealthy habit (self destructive behaviors towards things you worked hard on, lashing out at friends for things out of their control, lashing out on other bloggers for inane things, focusing your bad mood on notes or fake popularity contests...) then try and figure out the big important things: Have you eaten, slept, drank enough water through the day, or are in pain/annoyance with something offline that you're not realizing? Is it one person online making you feel like this? Have you blocked them? Have you taken healthy breaks offline to reground yourself? When i am randomly bitter about the online world, this is typically my frustrations with smth IRL leaking out, and so I do something to help process that or to breathe through it. My personal go to is getting out of the house so I can listen to music, watch silly videos while putting together a simple craft I bought, or doing chores/playing games.

-> Is the fandom full of cliques, or are you witnessing friends just talking to each other?

I get it, it fucking sucks not being involved in a friend group. You know what makes that worse? By looking at other's friend groups bitterly and making up shit in your mind to justify it. The reality is this: people will be friends with a limited number of people, and frequently talk to them because that is who they are comfortable with.

You not being in that friend group does not mean there is anything wrong with you OR them. The honest truth is that it's hard to keep up with a ton of friends at once, and so people may not respond to your messages, or they might mean to but it gets lost in their hectic IRL, or they just don't mesh with you- and all of that is normal!

And... Really... It takes work to build up a friend group. You have to get out of your comfort zone and send the first few messages. You have to embrace the fact that it's possible a friendship won't pan out. It's natural, it's normal, and doesn't mean there is anything wrong with you or the other person. After trying and naturally just talking to people in the fandom, I promise that you will find a friend group of your own.

We are all socially awkward people trying to nervously talk to each other. Yes, even the people you follow that seem like 'everyone' likes them- they are nervous too. we're all just nerds here, remember that.

-> Understand that no one is obligated to do anything.

This ranges from so many things. Here is a list as short as I can manage it to get my point across: No one is obligated to comment, read, like, or reblog any posts. Any posts. No one is obligated to scour for new creatives in the fandom spaces and reblog their work. No one is obligated to tag their posts/creative adventures to your liking. No one is obligated to follow by your DNIs and BYFs. Obligation does not exist. Even your friends are not obligated to do any of this.

It is courtesy to do these things. Blogs will do their best to be supportive by nature, and to try and at least do some of this at any given time, but it's not a requirement. It's NICE to do so and encouraged, but the second you drill it into your head that no one, not even you, are obligated to do this, it's a bit easier to breathe and accept that no, it's a bit insane and difficult to read through 50 fanfics a week and comment a paragraph on all of them while also working on your own things and trying to manage 15 conversations while working 40 hrs a week and and and---

Instead, focus that energy on friends and yourself when you can and accept your own limitations.

-> have other fandoms you enjoy where you DON'T feel pressured to do ANYTHING.

Due to my hard fixation at usually one to two games at a time, I am usually only writing for those at a time- but I need other things to enjoy where I don't feel like I need to make something to post online. I don't feel that pressure from myself, i don't feel the need to try and engage with others. Just a quiet enjoyment for me.

-> If creating is really stressing you out and making you feel worse than better, reflect on the reasons this may be.

Are you hanging out with people who are regurgitating really bad beliefs regarding creation ("shame, you only got twenty notes, that's nothing", "wow fifty notes? that flopped.", "how did this person's shitty work get 30 more notes than me?"). Are you getting anons putting you down? Is your depression convincing you what you've made is worthless? Look at some of the points in this post regarding friends, blocking, and if you're neglecting your body's needs. If that still persists, there may be some self-reflection as to why things get to you so badly. Try to journal out the reasons why until you believe you hit one that is not your depression speaking.

An example: I would freak out about notes because I had friends that would talk around or to me in the examples listed in the previous paragraph. Cutting them off, focusing on friends who focused on the joys of creating, and focusing more on what *I* wanted to write rather than requests... I still get depressed at times but it's been so much more managable now with better support and feeling free creatively. Usually calling myself out at staring at notes helps me shake my head and move on now.

-> Blocking/Filtering is your friend, but maybe don't over do it.

Blocking seems vaguely controversial at times, but I do believe it's needed for a positive fandom experience. Outside of the obvious, the reasons I block people are typically related to how upset I am by something the person has done or said, even if it's related to fancreations. If it's something like them berating others for not believing their headcanon/fanon? Or grossly demonizing some character's mental illness? Or harassing people who dislike some characters and vice/versa? That's all a block for me.

I personally try not to overdo it and make educated decisions based on like, hey, is this just someone misunderstanding and not realizing how they're coming off? Is this someone who I am misreading their tone? Is this just a weird one-off behavior? Ok, then maybe no block button. But if seeing poor takes makes you angry for longer than, say, 20 mins? an hour? It's a week later and you're still all huffy about it and legit pissed? Maybe dig into that while also blocking the person for now.

The Filters aspect of this is similar, but it's a lighter version of blocking for me. Maybe I don't want to block this person but seeing them talk about bugs really stresses me out, so I look at how they tag those posts and filter it out for myself. Maybe I love their fandom blog but they're multi-fandom, so i will filter out a fandom I don't want to see them post about. That's it.

-> Don't be afraid to cut anon off, even if it's for a few weeks at a time.

I feel like those of us who take requests for fan creations are terrified of this a lot, but truly, taking breaks from the anon function should be encouraged. It is indeed a button for shy people, but there are assholes everywhere regardless. When they occupy your time too much or just annoy you, take away their ability to actually say anything to you.

For a creative, sometimes this can feel like the end of the world. But... you Can turn it back on later. I frequently shut it off during major life events, fanfics I am worried I might get weird anons about, when I'm in a randomly bad mood and don't think I can handle it. I Sometimes have it off for months at a time. You can cut it back on. But if anons make you anxious just imagining getting one right now? Flip that off for now. (also please utilize the block function for mean anons!!!)

-> turn those tumblr notifs OFF!!! (mobile) Additional: Turn your status OFF!!!

The only notifications I get on my phone from tumblr is when someone IM's me, and I've had it like this for years. I cannot imagine having my phone constantly going off with random tumblr notifications, I think I would have a bad spike in anxiety having that happen. It would make any negative feelings with notes/followers/number worse for me.

The online status is debatable, some people really don't have an issue with this, but I tend to feel pressured to respond to people asap if they see that my status is online and similar. Those people have not said anything to me regarding it, it's just my personal issue. So..I turn that status off. And it helps me feel better about answering in my own time.

-> Look at who you are communicating with.

Do your friends regularly dunk or mock people on the daily, over shit that is inane and petty? Are you a creative a bit nervous with your work because your friends are pretty rude with how they view other's works? Are you scared to like a character because your friend severely hates them/is attached to them to an unhealthy degree?

There are other subsets to this, but those are ones I find really troubling and try my best to avoid. I dont want to be friends with people who regularly mock others on the legit daily. I don't want to be friends with people who nitpick notes and use notes as a measure on how much worth someone has. I don't want to be friends with people who mock other's creative endeavors.

So... I don't! If I notice things are becoming a salt pit, I try to talk things out at first, but if its clear that's not gonna work, then it's outties for me. It's very true that everyone will salt over something eventually, but it's up to you to decide how severe it is with your friend circle, how it wears you down, and are they really people you want to hang around with if they just make you anxious or stressed all the time?

-> That vaguepost isn't about you.

Friend venting about someone who sounds oddly like you? Does your favorite blog mention something they dislike and you think you fit into that catagory- guess what. It's not about you!!

It's something I struggled with for a while, but eventually I came to terms with it by going "If they truly have an issue with me, they can talk to me one on one. Otherwise, i am assuming that this isn't about me" and gritting my teeth and forcing myself to repeat that until I feel at ease. Truthfully, I also just stopped hanging out with people who do this a ton in a harmful way, so my anxiety about this decreased. If it's an issue, friends should be willing to bring it up to you personally rather than make really meanspirited vagueposts.

-> A personal one I am putting at the end since I believe can easily turn bad, is... Stop looking in the fandom tags if they continiously bum you out.

I will be transparent, I've had bouts of running into a ton of 'why you should love/hate this character' posts over and over, posts that are random but use 50 different character tags, posts about how annoying my fave is, posts from/about bloggers I dislike, etc etc. After a while, I decided to just curate my feed via whoever I was following, and stop looking into tags as often. At most, I do it once every 1-3 months.

Yes, this does limit what all you can see, however... There's only so much information I can take in at once. If I follow people who reblog a ton of fandom content I love and it's different across the board, that's good enough for me and I don't feel negative looking at the tags sometimes.

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xmoonlitxdreamx · 6 months ago

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OW2 Junkrat & Roadhog Relationship (part 1)

Part 2: [click] Part 3: [click] Part 4: [click] Part 5: [click]

Hello! I’ve been curious to try to better understand what Junkrat and Roadhog’s relationship characterization is intended to be in OW2, so I’m gonna take the time to look at various voice lines and other media & try to provide various interpretations of these things.

I'll try to provide both positive and negative interpretations where I see fit, but be aware that I do ship roadrat so I have a bias for interpreting their relationship positively rather than negatively. Overwatch to me though is a franchise that is very loose with its characterization & allows for multiple interpretations of the same characters simultaneously, so I’ll try to be open-minded in the way that I interpret things. Some of these interpretations may also be based on stuff I’ve read in passing from other people here and on twitter, too, so if something looks familiar to what someone else said that’s why. (Apologies for the lack of citations;;)

This first post is looking at Junkrat's OW2 voice lines sourced from this wikia page. (These voice lines may not be up-to-date, and the page does not include many event-specific voice lines) Again, I’ll only be talking about lines that I think give insight into Junkrat and Roadhog’s relationship and how they think of each other.

Anyway! that's that. Interpretations/etc are under the cut!

“So, I was like, Roadhog, mate, just 'cause that's how you see it, doesn't mean that's how she sees it, right? But enough of my earbashing. Let's get out there.”

If taken as truthful: Roadhog goes to Junkrat for romantic advice

If taken as unreliable: Junkrat considers himself as someone who gives good romantic advice, and decided to use Roadhog in his made-up example

In either interpretation: Junkrat considers Roadhog a close enough friend that he talks about Roadhog to other people, and allegedly has personal conversations with Roadhog at some points. (Whether or not Junkrat and Roadhog actually had this conversation isn’t certain since imo Junkrat seems the type to talk out of his ass, but it shows that Junkrat thinks he and Roadhog are close enough that they could have this conversation.)

Unrelated to Junkrat and Roadhog's dynamic, but if taken as truthful this could suggest Roadhog has an interest in women; but if taken as unreliable, it doesn't suggest anything about Roadhog's sexuality

“I feel a sweet verse coming on. Roadhog, give me a beat. …Roadhog?”

Junkrat instinctively commands Roadhog to do things; suggestive of him perceiving himself as “leader” in their relationship.

Roadhog doesn’t listen to him here, so Roadhog likely doesn’t think of himself as subordinate to Junkrat.

This is also a very playful command, so to me it comes from a friendly/playful place that Junkrat wants to sing (rap?) with Roadhog. Could be taken further that Junkrat uses the guise of “I’m Roadhog’s boss and he’s my subordinate” as an excuse to do regular friend stuff with Roadhog.

“Things always go well when you’re working with Junkrat and Roadhog”

Junkrat thinks positively of his partnership with Roadhog, seems to trust him and have confidence when they’re together

“Such perfidy cannot go unanswered!” (respawn line when eliminated by Roadhog)

Perfidy definition from Google: deceitfulness, untrustworthiness

Basically he feels Roadhog is being disloyal to him, indicating that he thinks of Roadhog as someone who’s supposed to be his loyal partner in crime

Possibly suggests that he would seek revenge if Roadhog is disloyal to him, but as usual the delivery is kind of playful, so it might just be more indicative of him acting out this sort of “leader role” for fun

“Guess we know who’s really on top, don’t we?” (eliminating Roadhog)

Suggests that even Junkrat thinks that Roadhog is the one with the power in their partnership, but when push comes to shove Junkrat is the real leader between the two of them

this is innuendo, so this could also suggest that they have sex with each other

not an interpretation, but I actually thought they got rid of this voice line for OW2 so I was surprised to see it on this list lol

“Sorry, old friend..,” (eliminating Roadhog)

straightforward, Junkrat thinks of Roadhog as an old friend

“Bet you never thought you’d see pigs fly! *laughs*” (eliminating Roadhog with concussion mine)

uses pig-related nicknames/etc for Roadhog casually

“Another hogfight for the Cerulean Chancellor!” (eliminating Sigma using Gravitic Flux)

Thb I have no idea what’s going on here, I just thought it was weird he says hogfight. I googled hogfight to see if it’s a common idiom and nothing really came up. No idea if this actually has anything to do with Roadhog, feel free to enlighten me. (idk much abt Sigma)

“That’s what happens when you cross Junkrat and Roadhog!” (to ally Roadhog eliminating an enemy)

Again, suggests he thinks positive of their relationship, indicative that he sees the two of them as partners in crime

“Don’t die on me, you big lug!” (Roadhog downed in PVE)

Worries about Roadhog when he’s hurt; uses affectionate names for him

“They got Hoggie!” (Roadhog downed in PVE)

Same as above, though this nickname is specifically cutesy/endearing compared to the previous

“Who’s gonna revive the roadkill?” (Roadhog yet to be revived in PVE)

Along with affectionate nicknames, Junkrat also uses rude nicknames to refer to Roadhog

Taken in isolation I guess this could suggest that he thinks negatively of Roadhog, but given all the other voice lines where he seems to think positively of Roadhog this is more likely a teasing/playful way of referring to Roadhog

“At least I’m not a hog.” (along with “At least I’m not a rat.” from Roadhog)

Taken in isolation, could suggest that Junkrat doesn’t like Roadhog

Could suggest a sort of competitiveness between the two of them, or possibly that the two of them bicker a lot and don’t always see eye-to-eye

Junkrat: Me mate Roadhog says there's a fetching price on your noggin. Not as high as the one on ours, mind you...

Lifeweaver: He said all that?

Junkrat: It was more like, "Gonna turn that bloke in. Worth a heap, hurrrrrrr..."

Lifeweaver: Thank you for the warning. And the convincing impression.

Junkrat talks about Roadhog to other people

Junkrat hears Roadhog talk enough that he can do a pretty good impression of him—this is potentially indicative of how close they are considering Roadhog is known to not talk often.

Junkrat thinks of Roadhog as his friend (“My mate Roadhog”)

It’s kinda unclear if Roadhog said this stuff about Lifeweaver directly to Junkrat, or if it’s just something Roadhog was saying to himself. If it’s the latter, it’s possible to interpret that Roadhog mutters things to himself & Junkrat pays attention to it. This might suggest that Junkrat isn’t so self-centered when it comes to Roadhog and remembers things that Roadhog says. (kind of a stretch of an interpretation, but hey)

Unrelated but mysteriously, Roadhog seems to speak Australian English in Junkrat’s impression of him (he says “bloke,” which isn’t used in American English). This makes me think Roadhog is supposed to speaking Australian English (which makes sense given that he’s Australian) but in the game he just. Doesn’t. for some reason.

Lifeweaver: Are you and Roadhog together?

Junkrat: Do you ever see us apart?

Lifeweaver: No. I mean, are you a couple?

Junkrat: Yes! A couple of dashing rogues! Not sure what you're missing here...

From an outsider’s perspective (Lifeweaver), Junkrat and Roadhog seem like a couple.

Junkrat and Roadhog are always together (“Do you ever see us apart?” implies they’re never apart)

Tbh there’s a lot of ways to interpret Junkrat’s last line, but I think the most straightforward interpretation is just that he’s oblivious to what Lifeweaver is asking, possibly because of the phrasing. Other possible interpretations:

He doesn’t think of himself and Roadhog as a couple and likewise is oblivious to the fact that they seem like a couple to other people.

Junkrat doesn’t know what couples are (though I think this can be disproven by the fact that he’s “giving” Roadhog relationship advice in one of the voice lines I mentioned earlier)

Junkrat isn’t interested in Roadhog and is deliberately friend-zoning him here

Junkrat and Roadhog are a couple (since he answers “yes,”), but he backpedals because it’s supposed to be a secret

Junkrat’s just messing with Lifeweaver and being intentionally obtuse (unlikely imo, he seems earnest here)

Junkrat thinks of Roadhog as a “dashing rogue”

Roadhog: Say “bacon” one more time.

Junkrat: “Bacon, one more time.”

Junkrat likes to annoy Roadhog

Junkrat isn’t scared of annoying Roadhog

Reaper: You got a problem, Junker?

Roadhog: *chuckle*

Junkrat: I don’t do problems—just solutions!

Roadhog: *laughs* Yeah!

I can’t find the audio for this interaction on the wikia, so I’m not sure what the inflection is. Seems likely that Roadhog is sarcastically agreeing with Junkrat here, but I can’t tell.

Edit: I was told that Roadhog's "Yeah" sounds genuine in-game, so this could be an indication of Roadhog actually following along with Junkrat & engaging in their partners-in-crime dynamic

Edit 2: Roadhog's quotes page indicated that only one of the three dialogue options are triggered by Reaper's line, so Roadhog's "yeah" is most likely not in response to Junkrat's potential line

Summary of this section: It seems like Junkrat thinks positively of Roadhog, thinks of him as a friend, and considers the two of them to be partners in crime. He sometimes uses affectionate pet names for Roadhog, but also uses some crass nicknames with him. There may be a sense of competitiveness between the two of them, where Junkrat thinks of himself as leader while Roadhog thinks otherwise. Junkrat occasionally uses this imagined “superior/subordinate” status playfully as a way to engage in regular friendship activities with Roadhog.

The next section will be me looking at Roadhog's OW2 voicelines. iirc he doesn't mention Junkrat as much as Junkrat mentions him, so I anticipate it'll be shorter and probably less positive lol but anyway! Thanks for reading!

Part 2: [click] Part 3: [click] Part 4: [click] Part 5: [click]

#blab #junkrat #roadhog #overwatch #overwatch 2 #ow2 #ovw #info

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aleppothemushroom · 7 months ago

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Inside Out 2 review

It's a rare thing to have a Pixar sequel that's as good as the original. Now, would I say Inside Out 2 is better than the original? Uuuhhh...no. Not really. Do I still think that it's an incredible film that does right by its predecessor? Absolutely.

For one thing, it doesn't conveniently forget the main character's arc from the first movie. Joy no longer passive-aggressively dismisses Sadness for being "useless." She treats the latter like an equal now, even letting her go on an important assignment.

The movie's message is also unique in how it's not "every emotion is important" and more about self-love. And what I really appreciate is that they don't tell you to practice self-love. They show you how to self-love. They find a way to perfectly visualize how being too hard on yourself is bad for you and how to treat yourself nicer. True, it's probably the only movie that can visualize that, but still it's so refreshing. Really hit home for me (I cried a little but not a lot because I'm a man [totally]).

Speaking of emotions, they're all just as entertaining and fun as they were before. There's a scene with Joy and Anger that particularly stands out. I love the new emotions too. Well...most of them, but we'll to that in a bit. Ennui and Embarrassment are both huge moods. Anxiety steals the show by a landside. She's funny, she's relatable, and she makes a great antagonist without being a "bad guy." She has her place in Riley's mind, she just doesn't exactly know what it is yet and is trying to do what she thinks is best.

Cool transition alert, Riley feels more like a...character in this? In the first movie she felt more like a vessel for the emotions, while here she feels way more independent and her own person rather than just an extension of the emotions (which is actually a major theme in the story).

The movie is also very funny. I'd even say it's more funny than the first. (Riley's hidden secrets are a huge highlight).

Now, what's holding Inside Out 2 from being better than the first movie to me? Well, let's get the minor nitpick out the way, I don't like Fear's new voice. Tony Hale's doing a fine job, but it does not sound like Fear. Which is weird because Disgust's new voice sound fine. Could they have not found someone else who sounded a bit more like Bill Hader? Like, there's gotta be a voice double you have on speed dial somewhere.

Now for actual criticisms, Envy. I like the concept behind the character. I like the design of the character. I do not like how they use this character. She doesn't really feel like "Envy" to me. The movie mostly just treats her as second-in-command to Anxiety. There's a few moments where she acts more envious, but it feels more like the movie is trying to remind us who she is rather than having her be consistent throughout. By the way, I'm gonna get into some spoilers, just to let you know.

SPOILER WARNING! ABANDON YEE WHO BE WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE!

That scene where Joy breaks down and Anger helps reinvigorate her spirits comes way too early. Which makes the scene where Joy is at her lowest moment and doesn't know what to do get resolved way too quickly.

Joy's arc in this one seems a bit undercooked. Like, I can see an inkling of her starting to believe that she's useless in Riley's growing mind, but it's only an inkling that gets resolves anyway.

Another arc, a story one, of the emotions learning to let Riley grow and develop on her own is also not fully developed. The movie tells us that's what the characters learn but like...did they? I like the idea, I like the resolution, I just didn't see the build-up. And if it was there, it was not that noticeable.

But while I had some complaints, I think the positives outweigh the negatives. This is an excellent Pixar sequel and I would not mind (HA!) if this became their new big franchise. I just hope that Disney doesn't learn the wrong lesson from this film's destined success and starts pumping out sequels like crazy.

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