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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months ago

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How finfluencers destroyed the housing and lives of thousands of people

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

The crash of 2008 imparted many lessons to those of us who were only dimly aware of finance, especially the problems of complexity as a way of disguising fraud and recklessness. That was really the first lesson of 2008: "financial engineering" is mostly a way of obscuring crime behind a screen of technical jargon.

This is a vital principle to keep in mind, because obscenely well-resourced "financial engineers" are on a tireless, perennial search for opportunities to disguise fraud as innovation. As Riley Quinn says, "Any time you hear 'fintech,' substitute 'unlicensed bank'":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/01/usury/#tech-exceptionalism

But there's another important lesson to learn from the 2008 disaster, a lesson that's as old as the South Seas Bubble: "leverage" (that is, debt) is a force multiplier for fraud. Easy credit for financial speculation turns local scams into regional crime waves; it turns regional crime into national crises; it turns national crises into destabilizing global meltdowns.

When financial speculators have easy access to credit, they "lever up" their wagers. A speculator buys your house and uses it for collateral for a loan to buy another house, then they make a bet using that house as collateral and buy a third house, and so on. This is an obviously terrible practice and lenders who extend credit on this basis end up riddling the real economy with rot – a single default in the chain can ripple up and down it and take down a whole neighborhood, town or city. Any time you see this behavior in debt markets, you should batten your hatches for the coming collapse. Unsurprisingly, this is very common in crypto speculation, where it's obscured behind the bland, unpronounceable euphemism of "re-hypothecation":

https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/05/10/rehypothecation-may-be-common-in-traditional-finance-but-it-will-never-work-with-bitcoin/

Loose credit markets often originate with central banks. The dogma that holds that the only role the government has to play in tuning the economy is in setting interest rates at the Fed means the answer to a cooling economy is cranking down the prime rate, meaning that everyone earns less money on their savings and are therefore incentivized to go and risk their retirement playing at Wall Street's casino.

The "zero interest rate policy" shows what happens when this tactic is carried out for long enough. When the economy is built upon mountains of low-interest debt, when every business, every stick of physical plant, every car and every home is leveraged to the brim and cross-collateralized with one another, central bankers have to keep interest rates low. Raising them, even a little, could trigger waves of defaults and blow up the whole economy.

Holding interest rates at zero – or even flipping them to negative, so that your savings lose value every day you refuse to flush them into the finance casino – results in still more reckless betting, and that results in even more risk, which makes it even harder to put interest rates back up again.

This is a morally and economically complicated phenomenon. On the one hand, when the government provides risk-free bonds to investors (that is, when the Fed rate is over 0%), they're providing "universal basic income for people with money." If you have money, you can park it in T-Bills (Treasury bonds) and the US government will give you more money:

https://realprogressives.org/mmp-blog-34-responses/

On the other hand, while T-Bills exist and are foundational to the borrowing picture for speculators, ZIRP creates free debt for people with money – it allows for ever-greater, ever-deadlier forms of leverage, with ever-worsening consequences for turning off the tap. As 2008 forcibly reminded us, the vast mountains of complex derivatives and other forms of exotic debt only seems like an abstraction. In reality, these exotic financial instruments are directly tethered to real things in the real economy, and when the faery gold disappears, it takes down your home, your job, your community center, your schools, and your whole country's access to cancer medication:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/08/greek-drug-shortage-worsens

Being a billionaire automatically lowers your IQ by 30 points, as you are insulated from the consequences of your follies, lapses, prejudices and superstitions. As @[email protected] says, Elon Musk is what Howard Hughes would have turned into if he hadn't been a recluse:

https://mamot.fr/@[email protected]/112457199729198644

The same goes for financiers during periods of loose credit. Loose Fed money created an "everything bubble" that saw the prices of every asset explode, from housing to stocks, from wine to baseball cards. When every bet pays off, you win the game by betting on everything:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_bubble

That meant that the ZIRPocene was an era in which ever-stupider people were given ever-larger sums of money to gamble with. This was the golden age of the "finfluencer" – a Tiktok dolt with a surefire way for you to get rich by making reckless bets that endanger the livelihoods, homes and wellbeing of your neighbors.

Finfluencers are dolts, but they're also dangerous. Writing for The American Prospect, the always-amazing Maureen Tkacik describes how a small clutch of passive-income-brainworm gurus created a financial weapon of mass destruction, buying swathes of apartment buildings and then destroying them, ruining the lives of their tenants, and their investors:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-05-22-hell-underwater-landlord/

Tcacik's main characters are Matt Picheny, Brent Ritchie and Koteswar “Jay” Gajavelli, who ran a scheme to flip apartment buildings, primarily in Houston, America's fastest growing metro, which also boasts some of America's weakest protections for tenants. These finance bros worked through Gajavelli's company Applesway Investment Group, which levered up his investors' money with massive loans from Arbor Realty Trust, who also originated loans to many other speculators and flippers.

For investors, the scheme was a classic heads-I-win/tails-you-lose: Gajavelli paid himself a percentage of the price of every building he bought, a percentage of monthly rental income, and a percentage of the resale price. This is typical of the "syndicating" sector, which raised $111 billion on this basis:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-housing-bust-comes-for-thousands-of-small-time-investors-3934beb3

Gajavelli and co bought up whole swathes of Houston and other cities, apartment blocks both modest and luxurious, including buildings that had already been looted by previous speculators. As interest rates crept up and the payments for the adjustable-rate loans supporting these investments exploded, Gajavell's Applesway and its subsidiary LLCs started to stiff their suppliers. Garbage collection dwindled, then ceased. Water outages became common – first weekly, then daily. Community rooms and pools shuttered. Lawns grew to waist-high gardens of weeds, fouled with mounds of fossil dogshit. Crime ran rampant, including murders. Buildings filled with rats and bedbugs. Ceilings caved in. Toilets backed up. Hallways filled with raw sewage:

https://pluralistic.net/timberridge

Meanwhile, the value of these buildings was plummeting, and not just because of their terrible condition – the whole market was cooling off, in part thanks to those same interest-rate hikes. Because the loans were daisy-chained, problems with a single building threatened every building in the portfolio – and there were problems with a lot more than one building.

This ruination wasn't limited to Gajavelli's holdings. Arbor lent to multiple finfluencer grifters, providing the leverage for every Tiktok dolt to ruin a neighborhood of their choosing. Arbor's founder, the "flamboyant" Ivan Kaufman, is associated with a long list of bizarre pop-culture and financial freak incidents. These have somehow eclipsed his scandals, involving – you guessed it – buying up apartment buildings and turning them into dangerous slums. Two of his buildings in Hyattsville, MD accumulated 2,162 violations in less than three years.

Arbor graduated from owning slums to creating them, lending out money to grifters via a "crowdfunding" platform that rooked retail investors into the scam, taking advantage of Obama-era deregulation of "qualified investor" restrictions to sucker unsophisticated savers into handing over money that was funneled to dolts like Gajavelli. Arbor ran the loosest book in town, originating mortgages that wouldn't pass the (relatively lax) criteria of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This created an ever-enlarging pool of apartments run by dolts, without the benefit of federal insurance. As one short-seller's report on Arbor put it, they were the origin of an epidemic of "Slumlord Millionaires":

https://viceroyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Arbor-Slumlord-Millionaires-Jan-8-2023.pdf

The private equity grift is hard to understand from the outside, because it appears that a bunch of sober-sided, responsible institutions lose out big when PE firms default on their loans. But the story of the Slumlord Millionaires shows how such a scam could be durable over such long timescales: remember that the "syndicating" sector pays itself giant amounts of money whether it wins or loses. The consider that they finance this with investor capital from "crowdfunding" platforms that rope in naive investors. The owners of these crowdfunding platforms are conduits for the money to make the loans to make the bets – but it's not their money. Quite the contrary: they get a fee on every loan they originate, and a share of the interest payments, but they're not on the hook for loans that default. Heads they win, tails we lose.

In other words, these crooks are intermediaries – they're platforms. When you're on the customer side of the platform, it's easy to think that your misery benefits the sellers on the platform's other side. For example, it's easy to believe that as your Facebook feed becomes enshittified with ads, that advertisers are the beneficiaries of this enshittification.

But the reason you're seeing so many ads in your feed is that Facebook is also ripping off advertisers: charging them more, spending less to police ad-fraud, being sloppier with ad-targeting. If you're not paying for the product, you're the product. But if you are paying for the product? You're still the product:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#adfraud

In the same way: the private equity slumlord who raises your rent, loads up on junk fees, and lets your building disintegrate into a crime-riddled, sewage-tainted, rat-infested literal pile of garbage is absolutely fucking you over. But they're also fucking over their investors. They didn't buy the building with their own money, so they're not on the hook when it's condemned or when there's a forced sale. They got a share of the initial sale price, they get a percentage of your rental payments, so any upside they miss out on from a successful sale is just a little extra they're not getting. If they squeeze you hard enough, they can probably make up the difference.

The fact that this criminal playbook has wormed its way into every corner of the housing market makes it especially urgent and visible. Housing – shelter – is a human right, and no person can thrive without a stable home. The conversion of housing, from human right to speculative asset, has been a catastrophe:

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

Of course, that's not the only "asset class" that has been enshittified by private equity looters. They love any kind of business that you must patronize. Capitalists hate capitalism, so they love a captive audience, which is why PE took over your local nursing home and murdered your gran:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/23/acceptable-losses/#disposable-olds

Homes are the last asset of the middle class, and the grifter class know it, so they're coming for your house. Willie Sutton robbed banks because "that's where the money is" and We Buy Ugly Houses defrauds your parents out of their family home because that's where their money is:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/11/ugly-houses-ugly-truth/#homevestor

The plague of housing speculation isn't a US-only phenomenon. We have allies in Spain who are fighting our Wall Street landlords:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#fuckin-aardvarks

Also in Berlin:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/16/die-miete-ist-zu-hoch/#assets-v-human-rights

The fight for decent housing is the fight for a decent world. That's why unions have joined the fight for better, de-financialized housing. When a union member spends two hours commuting every day from a black-mold-filled apartment that costs 50% of their paycheck, they suffer just as surely as if their boss cut their wage:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/13/i-want-a-roof-over-my-head/#and-bread-on-the-table

The solutions to our housing crises aren't all that complicated – they just run counter to the interests of speculators and the ruling class. Rent control, which neoliberal economists have long dismissed as an impossible, inevitable disaster, actually works very well:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

As does public housing:

https://jacobin.com/2023/10/red-vienna-public-affordable-housing-homelessness-matthew-yglesias

There are ways to have a decent home and a decent life without being burdened with debt, and without being a pawn in someone else's highly leveraged casino bet.

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/2024/05/22/koteswar-jay-gajavelli/#if-you-ever-go-to-houston

Image: Boy G/Google Maps (modified) https://pluralistic.net/timberridge

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monsooninn · 4 months ago

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Berakhot 10a: 22. "The Jell."

While we wait for the peanuts to destroy the planet, the Mishnah says we need to discuss brand new outfits called coverings. The best covering process is called bronzing in the Eye of Ha Shem, a process called Hor, "breathing in the light." To Hor, one must go to Horeb, also called Sinai:

"The word "Horeb" is thought to mean glowing place, or dry place in Hebrew, which could be a reference to the sun. Some believe that Horeb and Sinai are the mountains of the sun and moon, respectively, with Sinai possibly deriving from the name of Sin, the ancient Mesopotamian moon deity.

God is not just a tanning booth, however. The Mishnah and the Liturgy state God is an artisan that follows a specific design using raw material in order to hand the universe over to man. He has supplied us with the same plans not in the Torah or the Talmud but in the Tanakh.

The Torah creates the canvas or the pedestal but it is the Tanakh the supplies the paint pigments and the specifications for the ornament or implement and member of the Jewish Kingdom allows himself to become.

Tanakh means to "wake up". Ha Shem can supply the light and the breath, but only we can wake ourselves up. Tanakh means "the perpetual river of God's attributes" from Tana Naten Akh, "an aquatic creature hired for cash to seek the sex pleasure of finding his own identity, to find lovers among the nations by dangling the bioluminescent self as bait; to break the surface and praise God."

The verb יתן (ytn) does not occur in the Bible but in cognate languages it denotes permanence or perpetuity, especially of water. The only extant Hebrew derivative of this root is the adjective אתן or איתן ('etan), meaning perennial or ever-flowing.

This word refers to wadies that never run dry, which is of course an important feature in a dry land such as Palestine, but it also serves as a beautiful metaphor for God's never ceasing mercies (Deuteronomy 21:4, Amos 5:24, Psalm 74:15, Micah 6:2). This word occurs 13 times in the Bible.

The verb תנה (tana) means to hire. The connotation of this verb seems disproportionately often negative, and usually having to do with prostitution. But it should be noted that even though nowadays we recoil in horror at the thought of prostitution, back in Biblical times the prostitute was one of the few social archetypes. In the same way that a king could be known as a father (of all his people), and the nation as the mother (hence motherland), and the citizens as the sons, so a certain specific society could be known as a prostitute.

Obviously, this could be a society with many sons but typically no husband, that means no central government. Instead, this sort of society sways every which way the gettings are gotten, with no social identity or formal legislation or even military protection.

In Hosea 2:14, Israel contemplates wages that her lovers have given her. Similarly, in Hosea 8:9-10, Ephraim has hired lovers, and those lovers hire allies among the nations.

This verb's only derivative, the feminine noun אתנה ('etna) means reward or hire, and occurs in Hosea 2:14. Only through its appearance in Psalm 8:2 may we learn that this verb is not only applicable to negative situations; David exclaims how majestic YHWH's name is in all the earth, and how he has displayed his splendor above the heavens.

The root תנן (tanan I, in most dictionaries listed as II) isn't used as verb in the Bible but it obviously has to do with the above. Its sole derivation is the masculine noun אתנן ('etnan), which is closely similar to the feminine noun אתנה ('etna), and denotes the hire of a harlot (Ezekiel 16:34, Hosea 9:1, Micah 1:7).

this whole root cluster has to do with a luring and scavenging. Abstractly, our cluster describes creatures without a "husband" (without a centralizing dedication), which any wind can blow or which may migrate to wherever the gettings are to be gotten. These creatures obtain their gettings by enticing the rightful owners into giving them up, which in turn results in the death of the latter, or else by scavenging already available carrion.

In human culture, this phenomenon obviously occurs in the oldest profession: a prostitute lures someone with promises of pleasure and such, and takes that person's cash and sends him on his way depleted of stamina and valor and for evermore unable to enjoy those moments of true surrender that occupies almost all of mankind's art ("her tracks lead to the dead; none who go to her return again, nor do they reach the paths of life" — Proverbs 2:17-18). But the same mechanism is evident in the drug trade, where grand promises lead to total ruin, and appears barely diluted in the pervasive fields of commercial advertising and political propaganda.

This same conceptual principle became brilliantly personified in Greek mythology as the Sirens — in his Vulgate, Jerome even translated the plural of our word תן in Isaiah 13:22 rather helpfully with sirenae, to the chagrin of later commentators who understood neither the Greek Sirens nor the Hebrew tanim. In the biosphere we see this principle applied by sweet-smelling and lavishly colored but quite carnivorous plants, and even those freaky deep-sea fish that dangle their bioluminescent lures right in front of their dark, gaping mauls.

The Psalmist mentions the Lord breaking the heads of the tanin in the waters (Psalm 74:13), but in the end, even the great tanin and all the deeps will be compelled to praise YHWH (Psalm 149:7)."

Also:

Ta= the chamber

Tan=gives

Tana=the assertion

Kh=How

22. Mai "There is no craftsman like our God" - there is no painter like our God."

So while we wait for the world to end or to begin again, either way, we should be soul searching without pause through the Handbooks in the Tanakh in order to find faith in the Self, to yearn to believe it's not over yet. This is what Moses, who is nicknamed Mai was tasked with when God told him to stop following the Israelites into the Promised Land and to find their way on their own.

It is doubtful Mai could have predicted the Mormons and their friends were going to make a grand effort to kill everyone before they could do it, but still we must try.

The Value in Gematria is 2330, בג‎ל‎, "The jell in the wave."

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likeabitchylamb · 1 year ago

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I'm gonna add some context here, and ramble for a bit, since I watched that video when it came out and sorta have some context and lots of opinions about this-

Here is what Jacksepticeye is asked in the clip, verbatim-

Q: Do you like mr beast? / A: No. (truthful)

Q: Do you think mr beast Ruined YouTube? / A: Yes (truthful)

Q: In all honesty, why?

A: because it became more about views, money and popularity than it did about having fun.

When asked to clarify his comment about them having fun, Jack says (verbatim)- "If he had fun doing those videos, they'd be longer... we'd see the fun."

Mr. Beast, as seen above, basically ignores what Jack is actually criticizing and throws a hissy fit. to clarify: JACK IS NOT complaining about Mr. Beast's charity work. HE IS NOT hating on how Mr. Beast "inspires others" and HE DOES NOT THINK Mr. beast should spend his money in non-charitable ways like mansions and cars.

Jack is saying that Mr. Beast as a brand and channel affected YouTube as a platform and that affect is negative. That single channel (yes i know he has other channels stfu) changed how other's need to post in order to get views, and how the algorithm favors that method. if you see people talk about "mr beast era youtube" this is what they're talking about.

"I gave ONE LUCKY subscriber a LAMBORGHINI" / "I spent ONE MILLION DOLLARS on..." / "I gifted ONE THOUSAND V-bucks..." The thumbnails all look the same. Wide open faces. Shocked. Heart eyes. Amazed. Emojis. words like "HUH" or "WHAT???" "OMG" and "WOW" in big font covers the picture.

THIS is what Jack is talking about, but Mr. Beast doesn't focus on that. instead he focuses on the "fun" comment and dismisses it because he doesn't know what it means. Well i do. (at least i think) Jack started out on youtube posting for fun, and over the years has had to keep a mindful approach to YouTube so he keeps having fun so he can stay sane while posting for so long. His ideal YouTube is everyone else having fun and posting and garnering channel viewership of likeminded people who also like what they post. (I wholeheartedly agree) Mr. Beast's impact on YouTube has made the platform favor soulless clickbait titles that hinder that creativity and promote an almost corporate viewpoint on how often they should post: daily. constantly. dont stop that grind! Bigger Is Better! Jack hates that mentality when it comes to YouTube videos. It takes away the appeal of posting on the platform, regardless of if someone wants a hobby or a career.

He's also commenting on video length. I took a quick look at mr. beast's channel and looked at every video until the timestamp said "2 years ago". There are 34 videos. Only one video goes above 20 minutes. 6 were below 10-15. He keeps most of his videos around the ten minute mark, which last I checked was the optional time for watch minutes or whatever the youtube algorithm wants. Yeah, a lot probably gets cut, but at least mr. beast isn't too keen on showing all the "fun" he has while filming if it makes the video a bit too long for the algorithm. Again, showing us that business comes first and fun second.

It's honestly funny to me. The question right before the clip started was about Jack's opinion on how YouTube as a platform has changed over the years, and if that was a positive or negative change. Jack responds negative. Tommyinnit's (who posted the video and is asking the questions) next question was "on an unrelated note...do you like Mr. Beast?" Even without saying WHY, Tommy gets why Jack said negatively and knows what Jack is going to say. And that's what prompted this whole thing.

Finally, with it being nearly 1:30 am as I type, I want to say "fuck you" to mr beast about those snide comments about Jack's content. "obviously there is so much i can say about his content but i'll just take the punches and be the bigger man. Sigh." He types like a middle schooler trying to sound cool. One Last Diss before logging off. Actually, it's not even a diss. It's an implication of a diss. Not saying something, but saying you could say something is weak. It's meaningless. It's empty. Compared to this, I'd actually have a smidged of respect for him if he HAD said something. One Single Insult. Come on Jimmy. If it's OBVIOUS you can say something. Say. It. lol

Also fuck you, your last video was crushing a lamborghini and you AND your friends absolutely own mansions and sports cars and idc about you actually owning that shit- youtuber makes an obscene about of money and ive seen your viewcount- i care about you acting like you dont in that tweet. "would you rather i spend it on mansions and sports cars?" YOU DO! saying that implies you don't and idk if you meant that or not but that phrasing was AWFUL.

Jack in the clip isn't even disrespectful. What he's saying is true. Mr. Beast's content lives and breathes clickbait titles and thumbnails and is designed to play to the algorithm. Mr. Beast just can't take criticism in any form. Even from someone who is well respected on the platform and has more experience with youtube.

anyway sorry for the rambles. it's just late and i wholeheartedly agree with jack so seeing this tweet mildly pissed me off. i'm not actually mad though lol i'm just tired and wanted to chat some shit. if you actually read all this shit...

*gold star* and an apology for the length. sorry! i'm gonna head to bed.

why are jacksepticeye and mrbeast beefing

#i speak #long post #under cut #discourse #fuck mr beast #anti mr beast #might edit later

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babysizedfics · 4 years ago

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i dislike mondays. ugh. but because monday is piano day i wanna know do any of the sides play an instrument?? & how did they react when virgil showed up, how long did it take for them to become comfortable? -🌙

i cant think of the instruments atm hshshhs i dont wanna mix concepts

how the light sides reacted when virgil showed up and how they decided virgil could move in permanently

TWs: angst (hurt/comfort style), anxiety attack mentioned, mention of abuse (in mentioning that this is NOT abuse)

virgil arrived trembling very late on an autumn night

logan was already asleep and roman was in his room doing something, only patton heard the gentle tentative knock on their front door

when he pulled the door open, he saw what looked like a child with a large backpack hurrying away from the door, so he called out "excuse me? Did you knock?" and it isnt until the person freezes and turns around that patton realises it's virgil - one of the sides he hasnt actually seen in YEARS

virgil hugs himself tightly, scratching harshly at his hoodie sleeves, mouth opening and closing wordlessly, not able to speak to someone so unfamiliar

patton can see tear tracks on his cheeks

"hey, kiddo, do you wanna come inside?" patton asks very gently, holding the door open as wide as it will go and taking a step back to give virgil space

it takes a good few moments of virgils eyes darting between the door and pattons shoulder and the sidewalk behind him and his feet but eventually he tiptoes up to the house and hesitates a moment before stepping into the warmth

as he passes by patton is reminded of how young virgil is compared to all of them, he's so small, just above five foot patton reckons, with lanky legs and the slightest baby fat on his cheeks still - he's only 16 if patton remembers correctly. last time he saw virgil was when he was 10.

he's different sure, his hair is no longer white but dyed a dull black, hes taller and clearly wearing makeup - and either he lost his freckles or he owns very thick foundation - but patton recognises the tentative tiptoe walk and the way he looks at the ground and hugs himself. he's still the same vulnerable child patton wished he could have seen more of all those years ago were it not for janus distancing the dark sides from them all

virgil is shaking like a leaf and still hasnt spoken (patton has never heard him speak besides whispered one or two words phrases to janus when they used to all attend meetings together) but patton guides him through to the kitchen quietly and makes him some chamomile tea which he knows is meant to be good for anxiety

he doesnt get much of an idea of why virgil is there since he still hasnt spoken a word - patton doesnt know at this point that virgil is autistic or selectively mute - but he knows that there must be a reason that paranoia felt the safest place to be was a totally new environement. something must have happened at home

he doesnt actually ask virgil what happened, knowing if he wanted to say he would, and simply tells him that he is safe and nothing will hurt him here. its late, if he would like patton can drive him back ((virgil instantly goes wide eyed and teary and shakes his head and breathes faster - patton holds his hand up and gently continues)) but if not then he can stay the night and they can talk in the morning

theres no negative response to that so once virgil has finished with his tea (only drinking about a third of it) patton shows him to the spare room, points out where the bathroom is, and gets him settled

((continues below cut))

it isnt until the next morning at breakfast that patton informs logan and roman what happened and that virgil is still in the room upstairs. roman is completely offended that it happened without any prior warning, that an intruder snuck under his nose, and logan is merely shocked and curious as to what happened.

i wont develop on that first day much more at the moment - but essentially the sides can only be outside of their own abode for 7 days (rounded up to midnight on the last day). if they are in the OTHER house (subconscious or conscious) by the time that week is up, their function will adjust and be reassigned to that part of the mind

virgil stays for six days - after the second day he was comfortable enough around patton to speak to him if they were on their own, but not at length. mostly whispering and never more than a sentence at a time. he told patton that he had a fight with janus and that he didnt want to be in that house anymore but he didnt share any details.

patton didnt feel he NEEDED details. if virgil felt uncomfortable in that house he didnt see why virgil should be made to stay there.

roman refused to speak to virgil the entire time he stayed there

on the seventh day of virgil staying with them, logan tried to speak to him in the morning, explaining that he must go back to the other house before midnight, thats just how its meant to be. it triggered virgil to have an anxiety attack right there in the living room and logan very bewildered helped him get through it.

patton took virgil back up to the spare room and reassured him that if virgil didnt want to do something he didnt have to - that included living with the others. virgil whispered that this is how things are meant to be - repeating logans words - and patton was internally furious. he told virgil he would soeak to the other two

that evening in the last couple of hours before virgil is due to either go back or be destined to stay with them forever, patton has logan and roman sat in the kitchen and refuses to give up his case

i wrote this dialogue a few months ago but this is where it begins:

P: He's just a child!

R: He's hardly an innocent little lamb, Pat

P: Don't you two remember being 16? Roman when you were that young you were still in school, you still had braces

R, blushing: No need to reminsce...

P: Logan when you were sixteen he hadn't even been created yet, not for another year. You were still figuring out how the mindscape worked!

L: I... was it really so long ago?

P: And when I was sixteen Roman and-- they were still-- *sigh* We were all just children. We were confused and scared but at least we knew where we belonged.

L, gently: Patton. He belongs in the subconscious with the others

P: You're both ignoring the fact that the must be a reason why he doesn't want to be there anymore. Why he doesn't want to be with them

R, angry and ready to fight: Are you suggesting they abused him??

P: No!! No, he said thats not it--

L: The mindscape would have alerted us in some way. And we are all essentially facets of Thomas; even if we all behave differently and hold different values, it is not in any of our natures to be maliciously cruel.

R: then what did patton mean?

P: I mean you know what the others are like. How they behave, how they live. Virgil has been with us for six days now and I can't be the only one who's noticed how different he is from the rest of them. He's quiet and cautious and gentle. He's frightened

L: Janus and Remus are not above feeling fear

P: I know but... He obviously doesn't feel safe with them. He doesn't fit in there

R: Well he doesn't fit in here either!! We've already got our dynamic all worked out - The brains, the brawn, and the beauty! A fourth doesnt fit into that!

P: well then we'll adapt so he does fit in

R scoffs and storms toward the closed kitchen door

P: Roman, please--

R opens the door and everyone freezes to see Virgil stumble back from it, clearly having been listening to their conversation

P: Oh kiddo... We were just--

R, bitter: Eavesdropping, huh?

V remains silent and glares at romans feet, hugging himself tightly

R: see, paranoia can't even look me in the eyes! He's obviously up to--

V: virgil

R, shocked because its the first time he has heard V speak and its quiet: what?

V: n-not paranoia. virgil.

everyone is silent and V immediately regrets speaking. he turns and hurries back up to the spare room

L looks from where V ran away, back at P's dejected look, and nods to himself, taking a deep breath

R sees this and instantly knows what it means - Logan has made his mind up. and what he says goes

R, sarcastic: great

R storms out and runs up to his room, slamming the door hard enough for P and L to feel it rumble from downstairs

After a moment P starts to stand up to go check on R and V. Then L's hand stops him

L: He can stay

P looks at L, eyes full to the brim with tears, looking so so hopeful and relieved. he sinks back to his chair and takes L's hand tightly

P: really?!

L nods and pulls his hand from P's hold: Really. If the mindscape thought it necessary to Thomas' psyche it could have prevented Virgil from even finding his way here. But it didn't

P wipes at his eyes and smiles wobbily

L: And we do have a spare bedroom. Which honestly always baffled me, I didn't request it of the mindscape... I daresay this may be the exact reason we were equipped with a four-bedroom house

P gasps: You mean this was destiny??

L: That is a highly emotionally charged way of putting it. But yes quite possibly

P sniffles and instantly pulls Logan into a tight hug. L very awkwardly returns it, then pulls back

P: Logan thank you so SO much, you have no idea--

L: I have one condition though

P instantly nods and looks at L very intently with a big smile

L, hesitating: You need to inform Janus before midnight

P's smile drops. his eyes drift to the digital clock on the oven - 23:34

L: At exactly midnight the change will be made permanent. While this was within Virgil's right to have a say in the matter, Janus is still his legal guardian. He--

P: he deserves to know...

L, sympathetic: I can handle telling Roman and--

P, desperate: I want to tell Virgil!

L, smiling softly: as you wish

...

23:42

P holds the telephone to his ear and dials janus' number. It only rings once

J: Hello? Virgil??

P: It- It's Patton.

J: Is virgil still there??

P: yes he-

J: For goodness sake Patton, do you have any idea what day it is, what time it is!! He was only supposed to stay a few nights!

P: I--

J: are you dropping him off? Do I need to pick him up?? I'll get in the car right now

P: Janus, I'm sorry he-

J: is he hurt?!

P: No! No he's not hurt

J: Then why the hell isn't he back yet! You know we don't have much longer!!

P: Janus-

J: I swear to GOD if anythinf has happened to him-

P: he isnt coming back

J: ... what?

P: Virgil, um... He's staying here. For good

P: Janus, I--

*janus hangs up*

Patton stays frozen, hand over his mouth and eyes burning with unshed tears. he slowly lowers the phone back to the table, then sees movement in the corner of his eye. he gasps and quickly looks up.

virgil is standing just around the corner and jumps at pattons reaction, clearly highly strung. patton smiles reassuringly despite the tears in his eyes. "hey kiddo. sorry if i scared you"

virgil shrugs a little stiffly. it makes his backpack fall down his arm - and patton realises virgil has packed all his things in his bag again

"um.. do i- do i need to walk?" virgil asks, shaky and small

patton bites his lip and very slowly and carefully approaches virgil, stopping when virgil took a step back

"do you want to go back?" patton asks sincerely

virgil shakes his head immediately, strongly

patton nods to himself, but still prompts "are you completely sure?"

virgil slumps a little, voice even quieter. "i-i can go if you want"

"no" patton quickly says "no kiddo, i didnt mean that at all. youre allowed to stay if you want to"

virgil actually meets pattons eyes for the first time in his life - only for a second, but it blows patton away a little - "really??"

patton smiles sadly. "really really" then he turns serious. this is a serious matter after all. "but its permanent, okay? and if you change your mind or not thats completely fine but you have to do it in the next-" he checks his phone "-7 minutes so that I have enough time to drive you back"

virgil blinks hard and takes a big measured breath at that. he even sways a little and patton holds his arms out - not touching virgil but offering him something to hold if he needs to

virgil tentatively holds onto the sleeve of pattons fleece. "can, um... am i allowed to sit down?"

"of course, kiddo, come on" and patton leads him to the living room

they sit on the couch, just a couple of feet between them. by virgils doing - pat sat down first and let virgil sit wherever he pleased. when virgil didnt take the seat furthest and instead sat right next to pstton, the older side knew virgil must need comfort

and for the next few minutes virgil just sat and breathed a little too shallow and fast and looked at his phone every moment to check the time. it was the longest few minutes of either of their lives, sitting in silence and waiting for virgil to make up his mind

at least thats what patton thought, until he saw the time reading 23:58

it was well past the time they had to leave if they could get virgil back in time. virgil wasnt making up his mind - he was counting down the seconds until he was officially free from the subconscious

and then the clock hits midnight and virgil goes deadly tense and still, as if he's waiting for his phone to blow up in his face or something. neither of them moves or speaks, its been silent for minutes but this is deafening

but after a minute or two with no exploding phone or whatever else virgil expected, he breathes a big shaky sigh. he looks hesitantly up at patton, eyes falling just to the right of his head to avoid eye contact "is-is that it?"

patton nods slowly, a little stunned himself. "i guess so. do you feel any different?"

virgil blinks and frowns. then whispers "i'm... anxiety."

"you feel anxious?"

virgil picks at a loos thread on his ripped jeans. "y-yeah but... but my function"

"oh!" patton gasps, not knowing what else to say. he goes for reassurance. "well that's okay. whatever you are, you're still virgil."

"i... do i live here now?" virgil whispers, and the hope and relief in his voice is just too much for patton not to smile

"you live here now" he assures, feeling his heart swell when he sees the tiniest hint of a smile pull at virgils lips - the first sign of joy he's shown since being there

"can i please hug you virgil?" he asks

virgil hesitates, ducking his head a little, but then he nods very subtly.

patton carefully scooches closer on the couch and hunches down to wrap his arms around virgil firmly but softly. virgil is tense in his hold, so patton only hugs him for a brief moment before pulling away and smiling down at him

"welcome home kiddo" he whispers

...

so as you can see patton clearly warms up to virgil quickly - it doesnt take logan much longer though virgil is intimidated by him at first and they dont get very close for at least a year. roman hardly speaks to virgil for weeks, and beyond that their interactions are limited to arguments and insults for at least two years. it isnt until virgils third year living there when he helps roman realise he has undiagnosed adhd that they start to get along more, albeit reluctantly at first

i do know a lot more about this time period in the au (and some of it is written) so if you have more questions pls do ask!

#little/big concepts #little angst #asks #🌙 anon

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yeaahishowedupatyourparty · 4 years ago

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Disney’s Truth Booth.♥️

You can read this as OOC or an IC interview, I really don’t mind!

GENERAL QUESTIONS

1. Please state your full name: “Disney Cosette Hamilton” 2. Does your name(s) have any kind of meaning? If so, what is it?: “My Mum never wanted Park and I to have the same name as any other children around at the time - there were a lot of Lauren’s and Rebecca’s and so on...My middle name is my Mum’s - and my own - favourite character from Les Miserables.” 3. Do you have any nicknames?: “None that are said to my face, ha.” 4. Where were you born? And in which country?: “I was born in auteuil, which is in Paris, France.” 5. What is your date of birth?: “The 15th December 1995.” 6. Of course, the following question; what is your Zodiac sign? “Sagittarius.” 7. Do you believe in Zodiac signs? “Yes, but I don’t want to hear what you have to say if you don’t know your Big Three. I know many, many, many Sagittarius people that I can’t relate to because our charts are so different.” 8. Where do you live? “Violet Springs, it isn’t permanent. I plan to move to New York after.” 9. What is your home situation like? (ex. do you live with your family? Your partner etc.?) “I live with Brody and my two daughters, Dixie and Fleur, as you guys all know.” 10. Do you have any siblings? “I have a twin brother and two younger sisters.” 11. Do you have any kind of allergies? “Nope.” 12. Do you own any pets? If so, what kind of pets are they? “We have a dog - a Pomeranian called Marilyn - and then two ragdoll cats; Eliza and Angelica.” 13. Why did you apply to St Jude’s? “It was really by chance. I was initially going to go to Cambridge, but I also wanted to keep going with my acting career and St Judes just felt like a better option.” 14. Did you had to go through a lot audition rounds? "No, I didn’t technically audition. I was accepted on my resume and my previous work I’d done before coming here.” 15. What is the current course you’re following? “Acting for screen and stage.” 16. If you can switch courses, which one would you switch to and why? “Probably producing and directing. I feel like that’s an area I want to look into at some point anyway, whether I switch courses or not.” 17. What is your proudest project you’ve done? “Gigi on Broadway...The last person to have the role before me was Audrey Hepburn. How do I top that?” 18. What is the proudest project that someone’s else has done? “I feel egotistical for saying so because I’m in it, but Mason’s Gossip Girl was really before it’s time. I personally haven’t starred in a project I’ve been as invested in as that.” 19. Do you like FanCons? “Not particularly.” 20. What do you like about FanCons? “Meeting genuine supporters who have something to say for themselves, rather than just screaming at you and shoving a camera in your face.” 21. What don’t you like about FanCons? “The screaming and excessive selfies.” 22. A fan memory that always stuck with you? Can be positive or negative. “I’ve really started to enjoy getting to know the fans who work at our store. It’s really good to see them grow as people and have their own dreams - rather than just chase around people who are already living theirs.” 23. Your favorite event so far? “Good question, I really love Springs Festival.” 24. What kind of event would you like to see in the future? “I’d like to see more international events; we’re based a lot in London and the USA.” 25. Would you recommend St Jude’s to friends, family. etc? “Yes, but I’d push for them to go to Liberty or Sulayman if they could.”

PERSONALITY QUESTIONS

26. What are your positive traits? “Loyal, an overachiever and I’d say I have a good eye for aesthetics.” 27. What are you negative traits? “I don’t have any negative traits. Just ones people can’t deal with.” 28. What would other people describe you as? “Probably a perfectionist.” 29. What are your pet peeves? “People who put on a front because they want to be seen as a certain way. It’s so annoying that people would rather spend their lives pretending than actually working on themselves.” 30. What makes you happy? “My children.” 31. What makes you upset? “Things that have no place or excuse to exist nowadays; racism, homophobia, I could go on.” 32. What is something you love? “I love acting and fashion, also travel.” 33. What is something you dislike? “People who completely disregard veganism without really looking into it.” 34. What are you strengths? “Standing by my word and making things work in my favour.” 35. What are you weaknesses? “I might have a compulsive shopping problem. It’s completely possible.” 36. A misconception people often think of you? “I think a lot of people assume that I’m conservative or my family is conservative. They’re always surprised when we believe in the rich paying higher taxes, being pro-immigrant, being allies to the LGTBQ+ community. People seem to assume we’re all anti-that stuff.” 37. Do you have any fears? “Poor hygiene.” 38. What scares you the most? “Being satisfied. Imagine just, stopping? I couldn’t.” 39. What do you do to entertain yourself? “Work or shop.” 40. What is your MBTI? “I’m an ENTJ.” 41. How do you deal with stress? “I shop, or sometimes exercise if I’m feeling it.” 42. Are you a determined person? Are you a stubborn person? “I am absolutely both.” 43. Do you consider yourself selfish? “Yes. It’s not a bad thing.” 44. Would you like to be different? “Absolutely not.” 45. Are you more introverted (focused on your inner world) or more extraverted (focused on other people and the outer world)? “I would say I’m more extroverted. Although, I don’t agree with those definitions. Being an extrovert is getting your energy from external places; time with friends, the world around you...Introverts tend to be drained by it and prefer solo activities.”

ROMANCE QUESTIONS

46. What is your sexual orientation? “Heterosexual.” 47. Current relationship status? “Married.” 48. When was your first kiss? “I was eleven and it was at our family’s Christmas party.” 49. Do you remember your first date? If so, with who was it? What did you do? “It was with Brody, we were thirteen and it was after filming High School Musical 1...It was something really lame, like the cinema, but at the time it was the best thing ever for both of us.” 50. Have you ever experienced heart-break? “Yes.” 51. Have you ever been in love? (If yes, skip to question 53) “Yes.” 52. If no, how so? 53. How do you know when you’re in love? “You just know, I think it’s different for everyone. The same way that you know if you’re sad, happy or excited. It’s nothing special compared to those other feelings - people just put for weight on it.” 54. What would be your ideal date? “I’ve had it and it’s something I’d rather keep private.” 55. What is your perspective on marriage? “If it’s for you, that’s good, but nobody should feel pressured. Its not something you have to do.” 56. (only for non-virgins) Are you a sub, dom or switch? “I’m not answering that.” 57. What do you think of relationships? “They aren’t necessary but again, if it is something you want then you should go for it.” 58. What do you think of one-night stands? “They’re fine.” 59. Are you still a virgin? “I’m not.” 60. Most attractive trait in a different person? “Confidence. I hate talking to people who don’t mind or have no real opinions. I’d rather be with somebody who’s my complete opposite but stands by what they say, than someone who just borrows the opinions of others.” 61. What matters most to you when it comes to a relationship? “Perseverance.” 62. Are you comfortable with PDA? Or would you be comfortable with PDA? “In moderation, it can come off tacky if you do it too much.” 63. Are you more of a type to be asked out or the type to ask the other out? “I don’t pursue people. I’m only ever pursued.” 64. How do you express love to the other? “If I’m allowing you to vent to me or generally be in my presence for longer than a few moments and have more than surface level conversations, I obviously love you.” 65. Who is your celebrity crush? “Prince Harry.”

GETTING DEEP QUESTIONS

66. Do you regret anything? “No, regret is the enemy of progress.” 67. Is there something you woule like to re-do? So, start all over again? “No.” 68. What is something you would never share with anyone? “Yes, a lot of my personal memories. Some things between my family and I are just that.” 69. When was the last time you cried? Why did you cry? “It’s one of those never share things from the last question.” 70. Most memorable event that happened in your time in St Judes? This could be anything: “Can you remember when we all almost died in the Caribbean?” 71. One thing you wish you could do all over? “Nothing, didn’t I answer this?” 72. Someone you miss? “I miss my Grandmother a lot, we don’t see her half as much as I’d like. Especially now we have the girls.” 73. Something you wish you could forget? “Again, there isn’t anything.” 74. Who has the biggest impact on you? “Probably my Dad, there’s a lot that he’s taught me that I think has helped me with success up until now.” 75. What is your perspective on love? Is it beautiful? Does it scare you? “Neither. Love is something that you either choose to pursue or you do not. My perspective of love is that it’s been romanticised and turned into something where people go above and beyond to prove that they are more in love than someone else...I think love and romance get far too blurred. One is a lot better than the other.” 76. What has hurt you in the past that you don’t want others to go through? “I’d rather not say.” 77. What is something you have gained, something you have lost and something you let go of during the past year? “I’ve gained two daughters, I’ve lost too much sleep and I’ve let go of drinking. I was never a huge drinker anyway, but I drink even less now and it’s nicer than you’d think.” 78. Have you ever lost a friend? do you wish you would still be friends? “Yes and no. Anybody I lose, I lose for a good reason.” 79. Do you have any triggers? What is the history behind these triggers and are they related to any disorders or mental illnesses? “That’s a very personal question.” 80. If you could meet your 16 year old self, what would tell them? “Not to have so much self-doubt because you’re becoming exactly who you’re supposed to be. I think my 16 year old self was definitely more clued up than the average 16 year old. Also, you don’t have to dress like Cher from Clueless everyday.”

RANDOM QUESTION ROUND

81. Summer or Winter? “Winter.” 82. Cats or dogs? “Cats, I love both but cats are more independent. If they were people, they’d be better.” 83. Beach or mountains? “The beach.” 84. Phone calls or texting? “Texting.” 85. Have you ever skipped class? “Yes.”

#sjudestruthbooth #itsdisney

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rp-meme-central · 5 years ago

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Stargate: Atlantis - Tao of Rodney - sentence starters

1. “No one wants to hear any more stories about how poor you were as a child, all right. We already feel as sorry for you as is humanly possible.”

2. “I was hit by a mysterious energy pulse. How can that possibly be fine?”

3. “I need to be put under guard. Who knows what I could become?”

4. “Oh, believe me, I find this as disturbing as you do.”

5. “I’m not sure, but I think I might actually be getting smarter. It’s hard to say for sure, because I was pretty smart to start with.”

6. “Does super-ego count as a power?”

7. “Seriously. Me, a superhero. Who would have thought it?”

8. “Come on, you can’t keep me cooped up in here forever.”

9. “You may not be sick, ______, but I think we can both agree that what’s happening here is far from normal.”

10. “Please. ‘Mutation’ has such negative connotations. ‘Advancement’ is more like it.”

11. “I’m still me. Besides, it’s not like you or any of these _____ could stop me from leaving anyways.”

12. “You know, we could be a team. You could be my sidekick.”

13. “Oh my god, I can read minds. Oh, this is cool.”

14. “I can read your mind. Everyone’s, actually. I thought it was very cool for the first ten seconds, there, but now I’m finding it a little disturbing.”

15. “I know you have every right not to trust me, but I promise you, I am going to make things much, much better, okay?”

16. “_____ wants you to shoot me if you think for even one second that I might be trying to take over the _____ for my own evil purposes.”

17. “Is your weapon set to stun? Wait, never mind. There. I did it myself.”

18. “Can I shoot him/her/them now?”

19. “______ tries to hide it, but deep down, I’m the wind beneath his/her/their wings.”

20. “Don’t you hate it when people interrupt right when things are getting good?”

21. “I know ______ is some super-genius now, but I find the flickering lights incredibly unnerving.”

22. “What do you mean I’m going to die? I’m not even sick. I feel great, never better.”

23. “I invented a new math. It’s going to change the human understanding of the universe as we know it.”

24. “From the beginning, there was a part of me that knew this was too good to be true. Nothing this great could ever happen to me without really, really bad consequences.”

25. “I think ______’s having a hard time accepting that this can’t be solved with science, no matter how brilliant he/she/they is/are.”

26. “I don’t think this is going to work with you hooked up to the machine.”

27. “My knees are killing me. How does anyone ever relax like this?”

28. “I don’t care what you’re gonna say, I’m gonna keep working on this, all right.”

29. “You saved my life, so the least I can do is try to save yours, you know?”

30. “I hope you can find a way to forgive me for all the things I have said and done to you. You deserve much better than that.”

31. “I don’t know how much time I have left, so I’m just going to cut to the chase here. Ask you a rather personal question. Hopefully you won’t just hit me in the face.”

32. “I try not to let things I can’t change bother me.”

33. “You’re not still trying to find a way out of this for me, are you?”

34. “You’ve taken a lot of crap as the leader of this ______, and I just thought someone should leave a record of all the good things you’ve done. Everything you’ve done right.”

35. “Sorry if I’m not a very good writer. It might be a bit overly-maudlin in places.”

36. “Look, if you have to keep asking, then you’re obviously not getting it. This is about letting go.”

37. “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like you to read my eulogy.”

38. “I’m actually feeling a sense of peace. Interspersed with moments of sheer terror, of course.”

39. “As far as this ______ thing... I know you didn’t have much success, but at this point, what have you got to lose?”

40. “You’re a good person. Know that we love you.”

41. “This is torture! I can clearly remember exactly how important this all is, but I cannot figure out how or why.”

42. “See? You love me! It’s true, you’ve said it, now I know. I always suspected it.”

#rp memes #sentence starters #Stargate: Atlantis #Tao of Rodney #tw: mentions of death

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writeanapocalae · 5 years ago

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Nano Last Updated 12/11/2012 Part 59

The door opened again and another few people entered. Jace watched them enter, but Raz and Stoker only had eyes for each other. Looks like he’d already found a partner for the night.

Most of the newcomers were young looking in bright colors. They looked like the belonged in clubs and finally the bright neon lights had a purpose. They bounced off of bright clothing, fake jewelry, and glittery makeup. They ignored Petunia and didn’t get any drinks, just heading to the dance floors.

Following them quietly, his eyes on the ground, was a man that Jace had never expected to see in a vampire bar. He had long black hair and a thick mustache curling over his lips. His eyes were sad and a piercingly iceberg blue. The only thing that really made him stand out was a white collar surrounded by black.

Were vampires even allowed to be priests?

He smiled sadly as he saw the three at the bar, heading over and clasping Stoker on the back before sitting beside him. His security flexed their muscles as he touched their employer.

“Devin! You’re here!” Stoker smiled and hugged the priest, surprising the darker man. He was hesitant to return the embrace.

“Of course. I thought I would stop by for a drink on my way home. You put on a good show.” The priest’s voice was soft and warm but as sad as his eyes.

“This is Raz and his friend, uh…”

“Jace.” Jace offered.

“And this is Devin.” Stoker pointed out, “Well, Father Devin.”

“I didn’t know vampires could be priests.” Jace admitted.

Devin rolled his eyes, it was obviously a question he had heard many times before, “Your faith is not defined by what you are, but how you believe. I practice my faith and I am good at my work. I am very faithful and I have helped a lot of people. My being a vampire has nothing to do with how I do my work.”

Jace thought about that. He hadn’t heard of an all vampire church, so he must not have been turning the congregation. He still doubted that it should be allowed, vampires not having the best morals, killing people and drinking their blood, but if he was giving religion, he couldn’t be all bad. He had never heard of the guy so there hadn’t been any problems with him thus far.

Petunia gave him a drink, another tall red one with lemon, and he drank it slowly, savoring it as much as was possible. He didn’t seem to like the taste though.

Some song came on that Jace didn’t know. It was loud and the bass was high, the words something about fireworks. It was terrible. Unfortunately, Raz was bobbing his head to it. Stoker smiled as he saw that before standing up and walking over to him, tapping him on the shoulder.

“You want to go to the floor?” he asked.

Raz beamed and choked down the rest of his drink. He didn’t cough on it, used to scotch being plain and rose to his feet.

Jace grabbed his sleeve as he was about to walk off with the singer, “Hey, I thought you were sticking with me”

“I’ll be right over there.” Raz gestured, “If anything happens I’m sure I could hear you shouting.”

Jace glared at him. He did not want to be left there. But left there he was as Raz followed the slim rock star over to the dance floor, where there were already a few girls dancing in flashy clothes.

He had never been one for dancing but now he was itching for it, he had been too inactive for too long. He wanted to move. Raz was having fun and that was good, Jace just wished he could calm down and enjoy himself a bit better.

“What happened to your leg?” the priest asked, moving to the stool beside him.

“Work related injury. I’m guessing you don’t get many of those.” Jace didn’t want to let him know that he was NHPF. This wasn’t a safe place to be open about that. He didn’t want anyone to freak out over who he was. It would be more than negative attention; it could be quite dangerous for him and Raz.

“I can’t say we do.” Devin confirmed, “It used to be quite dangerous, but I no longer have to do all of the repairs. You can hire people for that these days.”

Jace chewed on his ice, finishing off his drink. “What are you drinking?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t want to think about it.”

“Then you don’t want to know.”

“Petunia?” Jace called her over, “Can I have something a little bit nicer?”

She rolled her eyes again but poured him another glass of whiskey on the rocks. Her eyes must have been close to falling out of her head she rolled them so much. She punched the glass down and some of the liquid splashed onto his hand.

“Can you even drink alcohol?” Jace asked, absolutely curious.

#my writing #old writing #nano 2012

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terselylove · 5 years ago

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50 Ways Parents Screw Up Their Kids Without Even Realizing It

1. Punishing them for doing something good. For example if the kid is in his/her room for a long time while guests are over, and when he/she comes out of their room the parent says, “Look who came out of their cave.” This highlights the fact that they were in their room and will worsen social anxiety in the future.

2. Praising them for their intelligence, rather than for working hard.

Children internalize that they have some quality that makes them better than others on some level in that they can do well without trying. They learn that their worth is based on this intelligence and that it’s the thing that generated success.

A lot of children go on to coast through high school, with everyone telling them how intelligent they are.

They never learn to study or work hard for something and then at some point they fail a test or get rejected for a job, or get fired, whatever. Now they are questioning their self worth. If intelligence was what led to success, and now I’m failing, that makes me a failure. Suddenly they have to learn how to apply themselves and what it means to work hard for something which is much more difficult to learn at that age.

3. Using your kids as therapists. My mother has always relied on me to talk out everything that happens to her. I proof read her texts and emails and it has absolutely ruined any chance of me having a mother, I’m so busy caring for her she can’t care for me.

4. Make promises they don’t keep. Good or bad — it is as bad to not give a punishment that should have happened as it is to not do that trip to Disneyland you said you would. You become unpredictable.

5. Being overprotective and strict, you’re just teaching your kid how to lie and hide things from you, you aren’t making them a better person.

6. Arguing in front of each other, as well as with other people constantly.

7. Compare them to other “better” kids.

8. Making them dependent on you for life by not allowing them to work, to get a driver’s license, to do any housework, not giving access to education, basically intentionally crippling them so that they have to depend on you.

9. Not respecting a child/teens privacy. Yes, kids will do things wrong but not every secret they keep is something negative. Treating everything a child keeps from an adult as something bad will bring on trust issues later in life. Personal growth is something that is learned and it takes mistakes to accomplish this.

10. Vandalizing their kid/teen’s privacy, like reading their journals and going through their phone without their consent.

11. Overemphasizing the importance of grades.

12. Setting them up to have an unhealthy relationship with food.

13. Going from 0 to 100 on anger scale for small things.

14. Being a hypocrite. No way the kid will function normally if (s)he thinks that’s normal.

15. Not saying a word to their kids for hours or days at a time, and never explaining why the parent is mad or upset. The child is left alone, trying to figure out what’s going on in their parent’s head.

16. Take their anger out on their kids and never apologize for it.

17. Berate and belittle them when opening up. Then wonder why, as adults, they don’t call you or answer your calls.

18. Constantly repeating the same lecture over and over again as if I’ve never heard it.

Like mom I get it, you were once poor. Even if I occasionally don’t finish my food, that doesn’t mean I’m ungrateful.

19. Every time they, especially if they’re boys, express a kindness to someone of the opposite gender, “Oh is she your girlfriend?” Ensue snickering. Or indicate they’re “horn dogs” or constantly thinking about sex. Shy people are built with this shit. Knock it off.

20. Constantly worrying about their own appearance and/or judging other people’s appearance in front of the kids is something I feel my mother really screwed me up with and I think a lot of parents may also do this without realizing.

21. Tell their kids that when they misbehave or mess up it makes them (the parents) look bad. My mom did this all the time and I still get anxiety about the things I do, it’s always in the back of my head, ‘Will this make my mom look good? Is this something she’d be proud of?’ Uggggh

22. Tell them to be honest then punish the child when they are. It teaches the kid to lie when they do something wrong rather than understanding what was done wrong and why the corresponding consequence is needed.

23. Try to make their kids little versions of themselves. You were not cloned you made a person with there own thoughts feelings and ideas of success.

24. Force/guilt their kids into hugging/kissing/touching people. There is almost always a reason why little Jimmy doesn’t want to touch grandpa. And no matter what “I don’t want to” is a good enough reason not to make your kid touch someone.

25. Giving a kid anything they want. All this does is make them grow up to be snobby adults that think everyone has to do things for them and that they’ll get anything they want. You see so many stories of athletes going through hardships and coming from terrible families and becoming the best at what they do. How often do we see success stories where the kid was allowed anything he wants at anytime, not as often. Overprotection and babying a kid through his/her life can be just as harmful as a child growing up with a family that can’t provide as easily and makes the child work for things. Long story short: be hard on your kids.

26. Treating waiters/retail workers like shit and/or whining like babies at said places whenever anything doesn’t go their way.

27. Blaming every character or physical flaw on the kid’s hobbies and activities and completely ignoring genetic and environmental factors.

My parents blame all of my problems (Introversion, Myopia, even Depression and other mental issues) on my PC use. They don’t listen when I argue otherwise.

28. Using gifts and basic necessities against them as guilt. Ie. “I can’t believe you think (other opinion) I give you shelter and bought you (insert birthday gift).” Or expecting you to agree to do whatever they ask because they bought you something for a holiday. I’m 21 and still really uncomfortable with being given anything by anyone or asking for any help, because I’m worried it’ll be used as leverage against me.

29. This isn’t a big screw up, but freaking out every time a young kid gets a bit hurt. Children learn a lot of their reactions by observing their parents, and you’ll often notice that after a small tumble or bump kids will look to their parents first and gauge their reaction, and then respond. If their parent is worried and immediately runs to try and soothe them, the baby is going to cry. If their parents are worried, they believe they should be worried as well. If their parents aren’t worried, they won’t cry. Over time, these reactions will become internalized and will develop similar responses to stress when they get older.

And obviously, if they’re really hurt, don’t play it off, but you will know when they’re hurt. A lot of the time, you notice a few second gap between when the incident happens and when the baby starts crying, and that’s when the baby is gauging their parents’ response. If there’s no gap, then they’re truly hurt and need attention right away.

30. Stigmatizing substances. Alcohol and pot are things to use with respect and moderation. I know that if I was introduced to alcohol much earlier in life and taught how to enjoy properly, I wouldn’t have gone through my rebellious period of binge drinking and smoking until I can’t feel feelings.

Legit. Teach your kids when enough is enough early.

31. Not make time for them.

32. Isolate them from other kids for years by homeschooling them and not socializing. Fucked me pretty good for a while.

33. Acting like their kids opinions don’t matter just because they don’t agree with it. Be a person and treat them like a person and have a conversation. In the end you can still say no for whatever reason because you’re the parent, but at least hear your kid out and make them feel like they have a voice.

34. Not vaccinating them.

35. Force them into religion.

36. Mocking them.

37. Ignoring signs of mental health issues and then when they end up in the hospital they act like they don’t know what went wrong.

38. Comment on their weight or appearance.

39. Put an iPad or something similar in their hands to shut them up.

40. Hitting them and not teaching them empathy or emotional intimacy.

Both of those things have royally fucked me up in a fair few ways.

41. Zero chores or pressure ever… then they move out and can’t handle themselves.

42. Leaving for extended periods when angry.

43. Forcing them to do their dream career when the child does not like it.

44. Removing any obstacles in their way that might otherwise help them learn and grow.

45. Punishment for honest accidents, accusing them of not caring if they forget about something. People forget, kids forget, it doesn’t mean you don’t care.

46. Slut shaming a girl when she’s a virgin and knows absolutely NOTHING about how a girl gets pregnant.

47. Thinking that they’re the same kid as when they were 8 and being confused when their now teenager has different interests and wants. Causes a lot of fights and misunderstandings.

48. Making them feel that they owe them for feeding them and taking care of them like it’s not their fucking responsibility since they decided to have a child.

49.��Alcoholism. Don’t drink around your kids.

50. Emphasize “success” over happiness, and happiness over meaning.

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talistheintrovert · 6 years ago

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The 100 Ask Game

I was tagged by all these fabulous cuties @peraltiagosclarke @prophecy-gurl @mamabearsdontthink @thelittlefanpire and I adore them 💖

1. What Station on the Ark would you be from? Probably Arrow Station, because it sounds rad?? I don’t have many space applicable skills, because my maths is terrible and I can’t grow anything, and we don’t know what the Arrow Station people did, so I can say that they were the keepers of library and it could possibly be true. I would probably be an archivist or something.

2. What would you get arrested for on the Ark? Something similar to Clarke? I’m not really the illegal activies type, but I like to think I wouldn’t just sit aside while injustices happened, and if I’m an archivist, I’ve probably got access to lots of information about the Ark that people don’t want the general public to know.

3. Would you take off your wristband when you landed on the ground? Probably? But I’d probably have given it to Monty - don’t want to be skewered by the other delinquents, but I don’t want to be unhelpful and that’s a happy medium.

4. What would the necklace Finn would make for you look like? (Clarke: deer/Raven: a raven duh..) Maybe a book? Or a dragon. Either or 😅

5. If you could resurrect any MINOR character who would it be? WELLS MOTHAFUCKING JAHA. OBVIOUSLY.

6. Create a squad of 5 characters to go on missions with. Who are they? Clarke, Bellamy, Murphy, Monty and Raven (but if we’re counting season 6 Raven so far, then I change my answer to Emori)

7. What Grounder Clan would you belong to? Probably Podakru? I fucking love lakes man.

8. What would your name be in Trigedasleng? The same, probably? Tah-liss maybe???

9. Thoughts on Finn? Some people hate him, and others love him, so I’m curious. I think he’s a well-written character who served his purpose; we were supposed to love him in the start and grow to dislike who he became. His arc is one of the better written ones in the show.

10. Be honest. How willing would you have been to take the chip without knowing all the horrible things it does? Not very. Pain is how we know we’re alive. Living with depression, I know what it’s like to feel completely numb. Pain is better.

11. What character do you relate to most? Clarke/Bellamy/Murphy. All three of them, for varied and complex reasons, but in particular as of season 5, Clarke.

12. What character do you like the least? ............Echo. Because I don’t like badly written characters and it bums me out that she wasn’t written better when they made her a main.

13. Describe your delinquent outfit. (Would you wear something like Murphy’s jacket with the spikey red shoulder patch or have a trademark like Jasper’s goggles? Be creative, yet practical) Black jeans, Doc Martens, large loose v-cut shirt tied off at the side, fingerless gloves.

14. Favorite type of mutant animal? One of the water ones. Imagine being a giant mutated river creature just fucking with people and living your life of solitude??? 10 out of 10.

15. What would your job be on the Ark? Archivist/writer/scribe.

16. Would you have willingly pumped Ontari’s heart if Abby asked? Yep. I’m not that squeamish and I’d do ANYTHING to help Clarke Griffin while she saves the world.

17. If Lexa wasn’t Heda, but she was still alive, then who would have made the best commander? Indra.

18. How would you act if you ate the hallucinogenic nuts like Jasper and Monty? I’d probably either get supremely paranoid like Jasper does or cry to my mum the way Clarke talks to her dad.

19. How would you have dealt with Charlotte’s crime? A more John Murphy approach or Bellamy Blake approach? I am the Bellamy Blake of my own life, so

20. Who should have been the Chancellor, if anyone? No chancellors, in this house we have a round table where every member of the government is on equal standing and there is a speaker of the house, but that person isn’t given extra power, just the ability to control the meetings.

21. Would you have been on Pike’s side like Bellamy or on Kane’s side? Or Clarke in Polis? I would have been on Kane’s, or I would have left, probably to find Clarke.

22. Mount Weather had a lot of modern commodities. (example: Maya’s Ipod) What is the one thing you would snatch while there? iPod, speakers, anything to play music on. I truly can’t live without it.

23. What would your Grounder tattoos look like? Hairstyle? War paint? No war paint, red hair in a bi-bob, tattoos would probably have words on them.

24. Favorite quote? “Your life can be more than just impossible decisions and a tragic end. You can choose to live.” - Wells Jaha

25. If all of the characters were in the Hunger Games, who would have the best shot at winning? All of them??? Shit... probably Anya or Luna?

26. Least favorite ship? Favorite canon ship? Favorite non canon ship? NOT INCLUDING CL OR BC OR BE Least favourite canon ship is Becho, but non-canon I feel it’s important to mention that I loathe JORDAN WITH OCTAVIA. Or, Jordan with anyone at the moment, really - let him learn to be a whole person before he gets a love interest, I’m begging you.

Favourite canon ship: Marper

Favourite non-canon: Ice Jaha (Wells/Roan) or Wells and anyone really. I miss my soft son.

27. A song that should be included in the next season? If there had to be another guest star like Shawn Mendes on the show, who would you want to make a cameo? Any song by Faouzia would be fabulous, or Florence and the Machine. And if there was going to be a guest star I’d probably want a niche british actor that I love, like Andrew Scott or OH FUCK, Robert Sheehan would be AMAZING.

28. What would you do if you were stuck in the bunker with Murphy for all that time? Probably the same as Murphy - sing, go through everything, slowly devolve into depression and madness. Pull each other out of it by making bets about how long it would take blarke to get together.

29. You’re an extra that gets killed off. How do you die? Shot in the head, probably? That seems fast.

30. A character you’d like to learn more about and get flashbacks of? DIYOZA DIYOZA DIYOZA

31. A character you’d bang? Probably Murphy? He seems like he’d be fun. Or Monty because he’d be sweet. (listen, i wanna fuck clarke and bellamy as much as the next bisexual, but i am WAY more invested in them fucking each other, so)

32. Would you stay in the Bunker? Go up to Space? Or live on your own in Eden? Live on my own in Eden, because I, like Clarke, enjoy isolation as my main unhealthy coping mechanism.

33. In the Bunker, would you follow Octavia? What would you do to pass the time underground? Probably? Path of least resistance and all that. And I’d write, maybe document the events as well as writing stories.

34. What crime would you commit in the Bunker that lands you in the fighting pits? Writing something negative about Blodreina, I suppose;

35. Up in Space, who would you bond with first? Who would be the most difficult for you to get along with? I’d bond with Murphy first, we’d both isolate ourselves to one side of the ship to avoid the love-in. I’d probably never get on with Echo.

36. How long do you think you would last on Earth by yourself? Not sure. Depends how bad my depression is versus my anxiety.

37. When the Eligius ship lands what do you do? Run and hide, boys - run and hide. I’ve always been the sniper type more than the attack type: get the high ground.

38. Favorite Eligius character? Least favorite? Fave: MY GOOD BITCH DIYOZA.

Least fave: McCreary, that slimy fuck.

39. Would you Spacewalk? Maybe... depends on if my anxiety would kick in really hard. Probably not???

40. Would you prefer to eat Windshield Bugs, Space Algae, or Bunker Meat? Windshield bugs.

41. Would you start a war for the last spot of green on earth? What would your solution be to avoid it? I’d try to avoid war at all costs. I’d probably try and broker a way for the eligius people to help rebuild Polis, and then create a city there and have trade routes built between them - the farmers would move to the valley and the warriors and other types would stay in Polis.

42. Would you rather dig out flesh-eating worms or stick thumb drives into bullet holes? Dig out flesh-eating worms - that way I’m saving someone, not killing them.

43. Are you willing to poison your sister for the Traitor Who You Love? What would you do to stop Octavia? Depends how bad my sister was behaving - if it was Octavia bad?? Yeah, but I’d be Peak Bellamy Levels Of Stress about it. And I would honestly do my best to discredit her before I took any physical action - spreading dissent works, surprisingly well: look at politics.

44. Would you go to sleep in cryo or stay awake like Marper? Sleep? Depends who else was awake, but probably sleep.

45. Who are you waking up first to explore the new planet? Clarke and Bellamy, as Marper decreed, followed by Murphy, Emori, Raven, Shaw, Diyoza, Jackson, Miller, and probably even Echo, because every mission needs a redcoat and it shouldn’t have been Shaw.

I’m tagging some faves @clarkgriffon @hostagetakerandhistraitor @nvermindiseeyou @anne-shirley-blythe @foreverandalwayscrysis @chase-the-windandtouch-the-sky and anyone else who wants to do it!!

#the 100 #tag game #the 100 tag game #mutuals tag #favourite bitches tag #this was HARRRRRRD #but it was pretty fun

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unlimitedskyeproductions · 6 years ago

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100 Random Things About Blake Riley

(I got bored at 4 am so I wrote down some stuff about my OCs This is not the only 100 Random Things sheet that I have so that should warn you of what's to come) 1: his full name is Blake Riley Bates but he always goes by first and middle names rather than first and last 2: 25 years old 3: birthday is February 15th 4: born on a Saturday at 4:37 AM 5: blood type is O-Negative 6: he was involved in a public bombing by terrorists which left nore than 75% of his body completely mangled and destroyed so he had to be fixed up with robotic prosthetics and as a result he's super self-conscious about the fact that he's "not a complete human" 7: favorite color is, obviously, red 8: GAY AS FUCK but super subtle about it despite being way too flamboyant to be legal 9: LOVES FASHION 10: also loves shopping because like ;;;;; pretty clothes are awesome 11: loves roses and if you give him one he'll love you forever 12: he's generally pretty chill about shit but if you mess with someone he cares about then be prepared to get punched with a robot arm 13: he pretends he doesn't believe in supernatural stuff like ghosts but if he hears a weird noise in the middle of the night he'll probably want to move out the next morning 14: hates coffee but ironically loves coffee cake 15: always a little cold??? for some reason??? 16: he likes to poke people and make them shiver 17: likes being cuddled 18: LOVES spooning when he cuddles someone and he really doesn't care whether he's the big spoon or the little spoon as long as he's cuddling 19: really flirtatious and totally not shy about it like at all 20: he loves spoiling the people he loves and making them feel happy 21: he'll flirt with you all day if you let him but as soon as YOU start flirting with HIM he just becomes this dorky little blushing mess and it's adorable 22: WILL. FUCKING. NOT. stand for people insulting his physical appearance 23: loves peanut butter but not peanuts 24: he can't really swim all that well but he's very good at floating 25: like he can swim properly without drowning but just not all that gracefully (he looks like a fish out of water when he's in the water) 26: has a really weird obsession with snow globes??? he collects them and owns over 50 and they're all alphabetized 27: possibly a bit autistic but Nobody Really Knows For Sure 28: he's a fucking genius (seriously his IQ is fucking insane) 29: it's easy to turn him on but it's really hard to make him calm down afterwards 30: you could literally bump into him at a weird angle and there's a 50/50 chance he'll just randomly get a boner from that alone 31: when he gets going he'll kinda whine and try to flirt with you until you give in but in reality he'd never force you into something you don't feel like doing 32: if he happens to get riled up but has nobody who'll do anything about it (or just doesn't feel like it) he'll end up reading smutty novels all night 33: an incredibly passionate lover 34: he doesn't know the meaning of personal space and he'll just come up behind you for no reason and invade your space with hugs 35: he owns 23 pairs of shoes in total and 18 pairs of them have high heels 36: he's not really a blanket hog but if he goes to bed before you do you're sure as fuck not getting that blanket 37: loves spending time with kids (he really wants to be a daddy) 38: loves pickles for some reason 39: he will literally eat an entire jar of pickles all in one go and then drink the juice when he's done 40: he's really weird about people invading his personal space when he doesn't want them to 41:dO nOT tOUCH hIS hAIR wITHOUT cONSENT oR hE wILL sLAP yOU 42: always sings really shitty pop songs in the shower 43: he rarely watches anime ever at all but he fucking LOVES Sailor Moon 44: he went to a costume party one year before the "incident" and he literally dressed up like Sailor Mars 45: full miniskirt and everything and he looked fucking gorgeous???? but why wouldn't he honestly 46: his weakness is caramel and caramel chocolate and basically anything with caramel in it 47: he's not super clingy but he'll insist on really long hugs before leaving to go home or like do thngs (and I'm talking about super close full-body pressing against each other bear hugs for five minutes -minimum-) 48: he often has recurring nightmares about the "incident" and it's actually not uncommon for him to wake up in the middle of the night crying 49: this happens anywhere between twice in four months to six nights per week for nearly a year 50: when this happens he requires lots of gentle cuddles and sweet words of reassurance that he's okay 51: he acts super flamboyant and sassy but in reality he's the most sensitive man you'll ever meet 52: it's super easy to hurt his feelings so please watch your tongue when you're around this sweet little redhead 53: it's totally not uncommon for him to just randomly start blasting Britney Spears on the stereo with the volume all the way up 54: loves wearing sexy lingerie and just feeling pretty 55: there's rarely a time when his nails aren't painted (never any color but red) 56: he's an expert at beer pong for some reason 57: also a master at bottle flipping and mario kart 58: has three sisters named Tanya, Sharon and Abigaile 59: he acts all pure and classy when in reality he owns a hardcover copy of 50 shades of grey and he's read it at least 30 times by this point 60: never goes anywhere without checking himself out in the mirror 5 times first 61: he has a really bad issue with never shutting up during movies 62: if he thinks of something funny to say he'll lean over and whisper it to whoever he's watching the movie with and this will happen every few minutes during the entre movie 63: he's a virgin but like????? he sure as fuck doesn't want to be at this age 64: SUPER fucking ticklish 65: worst spots are his sides and his stomach 66: he has a really sweet and pretty laugh, almost like music 67: he gets really smarmy whenever he starts tickling someone (sort of like he gets a rush outta teasing them) 68: he doesn't often start tickle fights but holy shit he'll fucking end them 69: generally always an uke rather than a seme 70: he's that one friend who'll come over to your house at 3 am because he made ramen noodles and wants to know if you want some 71: can play the violin and the piano beautifully 72: it's super easy to make him cry but he'll never actually cry in front of anyone, he'll just politely excuse himself from the room when he gets upset and go into a random room and sob his heart out until he feels better (quietly, of course) 73: has the mindset of "if you like me I'll let you bother me, but if I don’t like you then fuck off in a fire" 74: despite that he's super nice to everyone unless provoked 75: bacon is honestly his muse 76: he'll eat an entire pack of that shit for breakfast and he'd honestly eat more than a single pack if you let him 77: if you don't watch him carefully he'll wander off and go missing for the whole damn day, and when he comes back it's with an entire car full of shopping bags because guess what he went on aNOTHER fucking shopping spree 78: he's super high maintenance but at the same time he isn't??? 79: like he's just as excited with a super expensive jewelry gift as he is with a bag of burgers from McDonald's 80: he's weird like that 81: he'll pretty much eat anything he can get his hands on and his metabolism is scarily high so he never gains any extra weight despite the fact that if he didn't have that high metabolism he'd honestly be like 400 pounds at this point because he loves food and can't control himself 82: loves cute things 83: also loves soft and fluffy things 84: always wants to dress up his friends in cute clothes and do their hair (and their makeup if they're girls) 85: his parents have no idea he's gay but his sisters do and they're very supportive of him 86: his dad is a super strict military man so like????? He's Fucking Terrified To Tell Him 87: there's honestly never a time where he doesn’t want to go shopping 88: you could call him at 6 am and be like "hey there's an awesome new shoe store that just opened" and he'd be pounding on your door not even fifteen minutes later like "BITCH GET YOUR COAT WE'RE GOING SHOE SHOPPING" 89: despite everything he's actually really super shy and it's really hard for him to talk to people and make friends 90: but once he trusts you he relaxes and he's able to act like himself 91: loves flowers 92: he's absolutely insufferable when he gets sick but at the same time he also apologizes profusely for being so snappish 93: once spent an entire night chained to a radiator 94: he never talks about it but he's made it very clear that he was NOT kidnapped 95: he may or may not own a whip and a tazer 96: for practical use only, of course 97: loves sweets and candy 98: when he gets excited he acts like he has ADHD and can't focus on anything 99: probably knows the lyrics to every Lady Gaga song by heart 100: in general he's a great guy and a loyal friend

#unlimitedskyeproductions #blake riley #oc info #i did this instead of sleeping

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thiefking · 6 years ago

Note

Do every single one from the danganronpa ask meme. All of them. Every question

HE HE HE…

obviously spoilers for entire danganronpa series under the cut, along with very specific character hate, a TINY dash of ship “hate” which should not be taken seriously, me being indifferent about characters you might like, and also me being fairly morbid. my opinions are all over the place! boy do i have a lot of them. some of them probably won’t be yours, because people can have opinions. all kinds of em! fascinating stuff. please oh please, let this post not somehow make someone start arguing with me because i didn’t put a thousand asterisks everywhere

1. Favourite game?

sdr2 is the best just like factually speaking

2. Favourite Protagonist?

i tried to answer this and my answers were “komaeda. wait he isn’t-- KIRIGIRI! wait no” so there’s that. i like all of them though

3. Favourite antagonistic character?

i assume this means the Rival characters right... i like komaeda and ouma. in my danganronpa rp server, i had my oc rob and also humiliate and cyberbully togami, and drew a squirtle on his stupid bald head because hagakure asked him to, so there’s that

if antagonistic also covers the characters who are murderers + masterminds/villains, then... ok gonna be real here? there’s only one character i am familiar with who i know i hate and it’s t*ruteru

4. Favourite character?

entire sdr2 cast (except t*ruteru), most of the dr1 cast (hifumi is gross, i don’t honestly care either way about leon or sayaka, and for clarification i like togami as a character but dislike him as a person), most of the v3 cast (i haven’t actually played v3 yet and once i do it’s probably gonna be more like all of them or all of them except one. i do know the general plot and characters, it’s just that i get way more emotionally invested when i actually play the game)

5. Best girl?

don’t you go making me choose...

6. Best boy?

the same as above except the answer is komaeda and we should all hurry up and acknowledge this

7. Favourite class trial from all the games?

i have multiple favourites but because it was the first one i thought of, i’m gonna give kudos to the third trial in sdr2. it was especially interesting because the murderer seemed obvious if you only took in the basic facts, but when you know what kind of person mikan is, it seems completely preposterous that she’d do such a thing-- which makes the solving of it all the more DELICIOUS... oh it was so good i loved it... the whole time i kept searching and searching for any answer other than mikan and coming up with nothing, and knowing that, i knew that it had to be her, but i couldn’t fathom the why and that alone was enough to keep me in doubt for ages... the very end when she starts to break down eliminated my doubt but my questions of “why” only increased tenfold and it made it even MORE delectable i fucking LOVE puzzle’s and mystery’s

8. Least favourite character?

i am physically incapable of summoning empathy for t*ruteru even with his sad backstory. i hope they tossed him in another volcano after the dr3 anime was over

9. Least favourite class trial?

i actually legit keep putting off playing v3 because i know who dies first and it makes me so mad

10. What would be your Ultimate SHSL Title?

HMM... i think i’d be a shsl ??? which i understand isn’t a real title but like... that’s sort of just... how it’d be, considering my personality and the existing characters i kin... later would be the reveal of my actual title, though i’m not too sure what it’d be myself. probably something like shsl detective, shsl writer/storybuilder, shsl puzzle/mystery enthusiast, shsl kinner of mysterious smart autistic bishies with pretty hair and ptsd... something along those lines

11. Favourite cast?

sdr2. next

12. Favourite Danganronpa 3 character?

the teacher, the large gay bodyguard guy, the small gay animator guy, and the chick who komaeda went to for his constipation issues

i don’t remember any of their names

13. What’s your opinion on the Danganronpa 3 anime?

forgettable but the parts with sdr2 kids’ school life is blessed and so is the happy ending

14. What do you think about Danganonpa 1 anime?

i saw it when it first came out and not once since. i will probably not watch it again because i prefer a more hands-on mystery-solving experience, even when i already know the answers

15. Your absolute OTP?

OUMAMI!!!!!!!!!!! IS CANON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

also komahina good

16. Your absolute BROTP?

sdr2 cast is all best friends. some of them are also dating but most importantly, they are all friends

17. Do you have an OT3? Which one?

i probably do but i can’t think of any serious business ones because i’m too busy thinking about a ship that came from rp called “horsepack” that consists of souda/momota/hinata

18. Favourite rare ship?

okay get ready for this: fuyuhiko/chihiro

it came to me in a dream once. fuyuhiko was like yo chihiro check this out and he showed her a box with a bunch of mice in there and she was like :O! and then the two of them just like. took handfuls of mice and hung out like that. it was good.

the laws of shipping fuyuhiko and chihiro are these: fuyuhiko is a trans boy and bi, chihiro is a trans girl and also bi, and they have to hold handfuls of mice together at some point

19. Who do you think is an underrated character?

i refuse to acknowledge the fandom for long enough to notice which characters are classified as underrated for the most part because i live in my own brain palace where i can love every character and that is all that matters. that being said, i think it is fairly obvious that hoshi from v3 is underrated just... factually speaking? people do not pay attention to him very much it seems but it also seems he is a good little man. i know little about him, but that is the technical definition of underrated, so that is my answer i guess

20. Who do you think is an overrated character?

again i don’t know if he even IS overrated in the fandom but i think leon is kinda boring. i don’t hate him or even dislike him necessarily because i don’t... care enough about his character for that... i could probably be influenced by someone who is passionate about him, but right now he’s just kind of existing

21. Favourite voice actor?

megumi ogata snatched me bald. megumi ogata didn’t even leave me with my scalp

22. Favourite talent?

shsl luck is a neat concept to play with, shsl adventurer is flat out aesthetically Pristine, shsl detective is fun, and shsl ??? is delicious and interesting even if it’s not a real title

23. Favourite mascot?

my brother got me a monokuma plushie for my birthday and the first thing i did was choke it. also, monokuma is hilarious and i hate his slutty little ass but love to watch it go, which is the same opinion i have about dimple from mp100

also, i’m really sleepy writing this and i don’t know what the fuck i am saying right now

24. Favourite Monokub?

i haven’t played v3 and i already know the answer is none

25. Least favourite mascot?

none probably? maybe?

26. Favourite execution?

okay this question INVITES morbidity so. like. i get to be morbid.

the ones that make me laugh the most are celestia’s and (look i was very sad but i can explain) alter ego’s because ... when i see them i can’t stop thinking about two specific vines. celestia’s execution is funny on its own but when i think about this fucking vine it gets worse and HERE. LOOK. I LOVE ALTER EGO BUT THIS MAKES ME GO HAM

the most brutal and ultimately chilling? leon’s, by far. it was EXTREMELY well done and sets the tone for the game so well

the one i like because the character deserved it? gee i wonder if it might be t*ruteru’s just can’t tell

and then there is only one that fills me with a sort of mysterious, enigmatic emotion-- very strong, but indescribable and neither positive nor negative. junko’s. really, junko in general elicits this emotion from me, she’s very interesting. what an excellent villain

27. Least favourite execution?

gonta didn’t deserve that and he definitely didn’t deserve such a weird-ass fuckin execution either

28. Favourite unused execution?

i don’t know any actually El oh el

29. Which character should survived in your opinion?

rantaro and ouma actually ARE alive and v3 is fake

oh also... all the characters i like. those ones should have lived

30. Which character would’ve deserved to survive?

hey i dunno how this question is different to the last one so i’m just gonna say that actually, you know how in sdr2 everyone is in a virtual reality and they’re shsl despairs being cured? the same is true in v3 and izuru also revives all the v3 kids. this is fact, and kodaka signed the rights to danganronpa over to me

31. Is there a character you think who shouldn’t have survived but did?

t*ruteru

also, realistically? like not because i dislike him. the opposite is true, i like him a lot. just realistically speaking. the fact that souda somehow survived sdr2 without dying seems almost unrealistic, not because anyone would have killed him but because he’s a dumbass

32. Least favourite protagonist?

none

33. Character with the best clothing?

take a wild kinnie guess

34. Best character design?

celestia, sakura, chihiro, sonia, gundham, gonta, touko, korekiyo, kirumi, chiaki, and junko

and once more, take a wild kinnie guess

35. A character who should’ve got more character development?

all of them lol

36. Character who looks amazing but you don’t like?

i mean. junko sucks as a person, does that count even though junko as a Character and villain is immensely interesting to me

37. Favourite minor character?

komaeda’s pet dog

38. Favourite eyes?

*kinnie answer*

39. Smartest murder plan?

once again, while it’s really obvious the most likely culprit is mikan, the DRASTIC contrast between her personality and the concept of murder ITSELF, let alone the way she went about it, is enough to cause some pretty goddamn severe doubt, though not enough for her to get away with it

actually all the murder plans from mikan’s onwards were really smart and very fun to solve

40. Favourite culprit?

(i count sakura and komaeda as victims, not culprits, and kaede and chiaki are also excluded)

culprit who as a character i just love dearly: gundham

culprit who made things the most interesting: gundham, mikan

culprit who offed a character i didn’t like: celestia

41. Person you’ve never expected to become a culprit but they became? (Doesn’t include Chiaki)

mikan, gundham, and... junko probably counts, eh?

42. Honest opinion on Tsumugi Shirogane?

she’d have a really bad twitter account with a smug anime girl icon and do nothing but post just the worst tweets about the worst anime. she watches sword art online and thinks it’s a masterpiece

43. Describe Monaca Towa in 3 words!

didn’t play drae

44. Describe Nagito Komaeda in 3 words!

kin me id

45. Unpopular opinion?

komaeda doesn’t deserve to be treated the way y’all treat him and i wish you BEASTS would treat him with any decency considering he’s actually a very interesting character but no y’all just gotta treat him like a meme. fingers in his ass isn’t even funny, man... it’s really not... it’s like the epitome of Haha Sans Undertale Cringe Epic XD why don’t you calm down and find a real jokes

46. Unpopular headcanon?

all of my headcanons are popular in my brain palace, so actually i don’t have any unpopular ones

47. A headcanon you have about a character?

i have a lot but i’ll pick just one... uhhhh oh how about this fuyuhiko and nidai are both trans men and fuyuhiko is a lil jealous/Self Conches because nidai passes better than him but nidai is actually extremely supportive of fuyuhiko and validates him every time they see each other and they become buddies

also, nidai runs warriormale

48. Favourite OST?

sdr2 island 5 theme

also enjoy the intro theme, dr1′s execution & hangman’s gambit themes and... like, a LOT of the music in general. excited on the Stonecold Jam front for v3 that’s for sure

49. Favourite mini game?

i assume this means the in-trial minigames....? i actually kinda like logic dive especially because it also happens in ace attorney which is hilarious to me, also the end comic thing? but that one is less about the minigame and more about the ART STYLE they use for it... it’s so nice

50. Favourite game design?

you know the bonus parts where it’s basically just a dating game and nothing bad happens? ign 10/10

51. Character you thought you were gonna dislike but loved in the end?

i can’t really remember, probably ouma just because i saw him and was like “oh god his hardcore stans are gonna be terrible aren’t they” but turns out he’s my little rat baby and his boyfriend is rantaro

52. Character you thought you would like but disliked in the end?

t*ruteru... what a disappointing little wretch...

53. Favourite game end?

sdr2 because everyone lives

54. Least favourite game end?

v3 is fake, refer to my above True Facts about how it’s actually in reality sdr2 again

55. Favourite love hotel scene?

i haven’t played v3

that being said i like how rantaro’s isn’t even remotely sexual or even that romantic at all but if i went into my rantaro headcanons/analyses that’d take way too long, also i’m only halfway through this thing and it has taken forever and i am so very sleepy

56. Best free time events?

basically all the sdr2 ones but ESPECIALLY komaeda fuyuhiko and gundham, i haven’t done the dr1 ones yet..., also rantaro’s

57. Character who should’ve lived longer?

rantaro

58. V3 Pregame! headcanon?

I THOUGHT THIS ONE SAID PREGNANT

59. Favourite moment?

EVERYONE GO AMUSEMENT PARK AND BE HAPPY!!!!!!!!

60. Saddest moment?

danganronpa existing

61. Character who looks like the love child of ???

this one is dumb and i’m starting to rush this because i wanna go to bed and play acnl til i pass out. also rantaro, n harmonia and kirumi are siblings in an alternate universe

62. Describe Mikan Tsumiki in 3 words!

good lovely wonderful

63. Describe Kyoko Kirigiri in 3 words!

good lovely wonderful

64. Which character seemed like they were gonna be a culprit but they wasn’t?

“but they wasn’t”...

fuyuhiko is my answer

65. Who did you never expected to die but they died?

when i saw komaeda’s body discovery my mouth was legitimately agape and i just sat there staring for a few seconds

66. Describe the last trial from V3 in 3 words!

didn’t play yet

67. Which character would you never want to meet in real life?

are you fucking kidding me have you PLAYED danganronpa even amongst the characters i love are ones i literally could not physically or mentally handle being around in real life for extended periods of time. if nidai came up to me screaming about shitting i’d cower like a tiny trembling mouse

68. Which character would you like to meet in real life?

sakura oogami... i can trust her

69. Choose one character which you would take with you on a trip.

sakura oogami again because i get tired easy and she can just like... carry me if my legs get bad

70. Character you would have a sleepover with?

chiaki, chihiro, naegi, sonia, gundham, gonta, twogami. silly but not overwhelming and the perfect crew for some video game fun

71. Character you can relate to?

komaeda rantaro we been knew

72. Character you can relate to but you dislike them?

i’m just gonna start responding to the questions i have no answer to with things i made in blender by mixing animations/textures or just fucking with the models to incredible results

73. Character who deserved better?

this is a funny joke question since the answer is obviously god damn near all of them

74. What do yo think of Hiyoko Saionji?

i like her. little gremlin girls are good

75. Describe Gonta Gokuhara in 3 words!

baby boy. baby

76. Favourite research lab?

77. What do you think of the fandom?

it was hell in 2013 and i know without a doubt it’s still hell now but i have the wisdom to avoid it

78. Favourite random/unnecessary scene?

part in dr3 anime where the sdr2 kids play video games in class together

79. Which character has the cutest design?

chihiro is just a little baby ...

80. Hope or Despair?

hope

81. Could you be the Ultimate Lucky Student?

my boyfriend gets mad at me almost every time i send him a screenshot of one of my 10/10+1 pulls in bandori or sif

82. Favourite chapter?

sdr2. just, sdr2. also final chapters of dr1

83. Least favourite chapter?

84. Which character do you easily forget?

mahiru... also it’s weird like. she was put in the game As a tsundere, but whenever i read her Tsundere lines it genuinely feels out of character for her, even though she’s literally in her source material. it’s strange

85. Could you be a Dangan Protag? Why?

no, because i’m WAY better suited to the mysterious assistant character who actually knows what the hell is going on way ahead of the protag lmao

86. Favourite Anthology chapter?

i don’t know if i should know what this means or not SO

87. Describe Peko Pekoyama in 3 words!

good lovely wonderful

88. Describe Mondo Oowada in 3 words!

domestic bakery au

(just think about it. just a little bread shop that he and ishimaru run as husbands. chihiro helps out there)

89. Least favourite Danganronpa 3 character?

i don’t think i managed to end up liking the guy with white hair despite dr3′s best efforts

90. Do you like Junko?

yes she’s interesting

91. What do you think of Monokuma?

he’s funny and i hate that he is. he sucks, but he’s great

92. Least favourite Monokub?

93. Did you like the Monokubs?

haven’t even played v3 but the answer is no. some freak in a server i was in cemented this dislike

94. Did you like the Warriors of Hope?

i am so fucking tired and it’s been like almost a year since i last played any danganronpa game i don’t know what this means

95. What do you think of Gundham Tanaka?

he’s perfect and looking at him fills me with happiness

96. Who’s an overrated character you dislike?

(i didn’t make this one but i was partly responsible for its existence also looking at it makes my fucking sanity drop like looking at the grunt for too long in amnesia)

97. Overrated ship which is your NOTP?

sai*uma is fake, oumami is canon and also, rantaro would treat ouma right and actually put forth effort to understand him

98. Outfit you dislike?

tenko honey i’m sorry but what on earth is with that skirt... also gonta please put some shoes on

99. Your absolute NOTP?

komaeda/any woman but especially junko what is wrong with people

100. Opinion on all the Protagonists!

#momijisohma #asks #abt #long post under the cut

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peinde · 6 years ago

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Character Development Questions: Hard Mode

1. Does your character have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with? Yes. She’s closest to Nepeta. 2. What is/was your character’s relationship with their mother like? Her relationship with her lusus was one of love, but very smothering. Gl’bgolyb adored her, but was frankly terribly overbearing. There was also the matter of her threatening to destroy the galaxy should Feferi stray too far or if she didn’t feed her on time. As soon as she died, Feferi ran for the hills and ditched her previous life, but as things didn’t work out, she started feeling ashamed for abandoning her lusus’ words. She now feels that since she didn’t live as Gl’b told her, she failed at life. Her ancestor despised her, even more than a normal empress hated her descendant. As the Condesce strayed further from Gl’b influence, the latter’s love shifted to Feferi. Condy wasn’t Gl’b’s favourite anymore, and it enraged her. The only contact Condy and Fef had were through the multitude of drones the former sent to assassinate the latter. Each failed attempt just added to her fury. At first, Feferi did nothing but reject Roxy as her legal guardian. She wanted to live with Meenah, but Meenah didn’t want her. It didn’t help that she was going through the worst time in her life. She became an adopted mother’s worst nightmare, and it didn’t improve until she finally emancipated herself and moved out. It took years for them to build a good relationship, but with the help of Feferi’s wife, they’re finally on good terms. 3. What is/was your character’s relationship with their father like? She has no father. 4. Has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know? No. She’s experienced plenty of things that fundamentally changed her, but she’s never witnessed anything changing. 5. On an average day, what can be found in your character’s pockets? Her phone, lipstick, poisoned dart and house keys. 6. Does your character have recurring themes in their dreams? She doesn’t dream. 7. Does your character have recurring themes in their nightmares? She doesn’t have nightmares. 8. Has your character ever fired a gun? If so, what was their first target? Yes. It was a disobedient gang member that Vriska wanted her to “take care of”. 9. Is your character’s current socioeconomic status different than it was when they were growing up? Yes. She’s still just as rich, but now anyone can be as rich as she is. 10. Does your character feel more comfortable with more clothing, or with less clothing? She loves owning lots of clothing, but she normally wears little clothing. 11. In what situation was your character the most afraid they’ve ever been? She doesn’t feel fear. 12. In what situation was your character the most calm they’ve ever been? Her first pap session with her wife. 13. Is your character bothered by the sight of blood? If so, in what way? Not at all. 14. Does your character remember names or faces easier? Both. She has an excellent memory. 15. Is your character preoccupied with money or material possession? Why or why not? Yes. No matter what, she absolutely refuses to be poor. She can be as depressed as all hell, but she’ll be DAMNED if she can’t afford whatever her heart desires. 16. Which does your character idealize most: happiness or success? Success. To her, happiness is only found in success. 17. What was your character’s favourite toy as a child? She used to play with her pets. 18. Is your character more likely to admire wisdom, or ambition in others? Wisdom. She’s a highblood. She’s surrounded by nothing BUT ambition. Very few have ever shown true wisdom to her. Ambition bores her. Wisdom is exciting. 19. What is your character’s biggest relationship flaw? Has this flaw destroyed relationships for them before? It used to be that she didn’t feel anything. She would get into relationships just because she was asked, but then would cheat on all her partners. When it would all come to a head, she’d dump them and move on. Since falling for Gamzius, that’s all changed. Her biggest flaw now would be that she feels far too much for her own good. She gets her heart broken very easily, and often causes friendships to go sour. 20. In what ways does your character compare themselves to others? Do they do this for the sake of self-validation, or self-criticism? She used to do it for the sake of self-criticism, but now she compares herself to her alts to tell herself she’s the alpha. 21. If something tragic or negative happens to your character, do they believe they may have caused or deserved it, or are they quick to blame others? She simply believes she deserves it. 22. What does your character like in other people? She loves bodies. She loves each person’a physical history. Scars, moles, birth marks - it all fascinates her. 23. What does your character dislike in other people? Prejudice.

24. How quick is your character to trust someone else? She doesn’t trust anyone but her wife. 25. How quick is your character to suspect someone else? Does this change if they are close with that person? She suspects everyone, and it never changes. No one is to know who she really is save for her wife. 26. How does your character behave around children? She’s nice, but very awkward. She hates children, but would never be mean to one. As a result, she often has a small, awkward smile plastered on her face with very little movement. 27. How does your character normally deal with confrontation? There’s a plan. First, she denies a problem exists. Second, she’ll apologize profusely. Third, she’ll ditch the saccharine act and brush them off. Fourth, if none of those work, she’ll kill. 28. How quick or slow is your character to resort to physical violence in a confrontation? It’s the last step in her plan. 29. What did your character dream of being or doing as a child? Did that dream come true? She dreamed of ruling Alternia. Obviously, it didn’t happen. 30. What does your character find repulsive or disgusting? Prejudice. 31. Describe a scenario in which your character feels most comfortable. In her lab performing experiments. There, she can be as sadistic as she feels pleased. 32. Describe a scenario in which your character feels most uncomfortable. Being made to tell the truth. 33. In the face of criticism, is your character defensive, self-deprecating, or willing to improve? She used to be self-deprecating, but now she’s defensive. 34. Is your character more likely to keep trying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately move on to a different solution/method? It depends on the situation. 35. How does your character behave around people they like? She’s very nice and accommodating. 36. How does your character behave around people they dislike? She’s very curt and dismissive. 37. Is your character more concerned with defending their honour, or protecting their status? Protecting her status. She doesn’t give a rat’s ass about her actual honour, but she wants people to THINK she’s honourable. 38. Is your character more likely to remove a problem/threat, or remove themselves from a problem/threat? Again, it depends on the problem/threat. 39. Has your character ever been bitten by an animal? How were they affected (or unaffected)? Yes, many times. It’s just something that happens. 40. How does your character treat people in service jobs? Very nicely. She’s warm, friendly, non-demanding and often tips VERY generously. 41. Does your character feel that they deserve to have what they want, whether it be material or abstract, or do they feel they must earn it first? She must earn them. 42. Has your character ever had a parental figure who was not related to them? Yes. 43. Has your character ever had a dependent figure who was not related to them? Yes. 44. How easy or difficult is it for your character to say “I love you?” Can they say it without meaning it? It was never hard for her, but now she actually means it when she says it. 45. What does your character believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them? Nothing. She can’t die. It doesn’t so much scare her as it does depress her.

#long #not glubbing 38(#fis)(canons #((the more i fill these out is the more i realize Fef's an actual sociopath #((she's learning to be better but like holy shit

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eldritchsurveys · 7 years ago

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o24.

1. A Song you’re ashamed of liking >> LMAO you tried it.

2. Favourite lyrics >> *rolls dice* “Every night, in every pore, the scales that do slither deliver me from... Freeze without an answer, free from all the shame; then I'll hide, ‘cause I'll never... never sleep alone.” (The Mars Volta, The Widow)

3. Favourite band/artist >> *rolls dice* Pearl Jam.

4. Top 5 Favourite songs at this moment >> Hmm... Turbo Killer by Carpenter Brut; Blood in the River by Zeal & Ardor; Exist by Avenged Sevenfold; Fundamentally Loathsome by Marilyn Manson; Rotlaust tre fell by Wardruna.

5. Latest song that made you smile >> I don’t remember the latest one, but a song that makes me smile is Feathers by Coheed and Cambria because I think of the ridiculous ass video.

6. An overrated band >> I don’t know what it means to be overrated.

7. An overrated song >> ---

8. Latest song that made you cry >> Probably that track from Interstellar, Cornfield Chase.

9. Artist/band that saved your life >> Creed, Pearl Jam, My Chemical Romance, and AFI all had their hand in it, I’m sure.

10. If you could see any band/artist live, who would it be >> I’d love to see Wardruna!

11. What song/album/band/artist always brings back memories for you >> The Dear Hunter, Black Sandy Beaches. I was listening to that when the plane started to descend into Colorado Springs the... last time, I think? Whatever time. But that’s what I always think about, how that felt.

12. saddest song you know >> A sad song I know in general, one that makes me really sad just to hear, is A Perfect Circle’s 3 Libras.

13. Favourite song to sing in the shower >> Blood Red Summer, Coheed and Cambria. Or any of the Doomstar Requiem songs.

14. If you played an instrument in grade school, what was it >> I didn’t, I was a choir nerd since the beginning.

15. What song would you like to have your first dance to at your wedding >> I don’t know.

16. 5 Songs to have sex to >> Fundamentally Loathsome, as fucked up a song as it is, it has such a sensual groove that really hits me in the no-no parts, just sayin. Rev 22:20 by Puscifer. Helvegen by Wardruna is a... I think it’s a dirge, actually, but I guess I like the idea of having sex to strange songs. Leave me alone. I can’t think of any others at the moment, but that’s enough insight into my weird kinks anyway, NEXT.

17. One band you’d have get back together/bring back from the dead >> One more Type O Negative album might have been cool. IDK.

18. You’re forced to listen to only one album for the rest of your life, what album is it >> Hm.

19. A song that gets you through shit >> I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday, David Bowie. Just... *clutches chest*

20. A song to shut everything out >> I’m thinking like... doom or sludge metal here. But I can’t think of any songs off the top of my head, I just know that particular sound works great for shutting out the world.

21. A song that’s a joke between you and your friends >> ---

22. A song to jam out to at 4am >> Morte Lumina, Dethklok.

23. A song that punches you in the gut every single time >> The Ghost of You, My Chemical Romance.

24. A song that calms you down >> Love Boat Captain, Pearl Jam.

25. A song that makes you feel alive >> There She Goes, My Beautiful World, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.

26. If you could get any lyrics tattooed, which would you choose >> Oh man, I couldn’t even begin to choose. Do you know how many lyrics I’d have to choose from?!

27. What band/artist would you get your children addicted to at an early age >> I mean, I think they can get themselves addicted to whatever band or artist resonated with them.

28. Can you play any instruments, if so, which >> Nope.

29. If you could be a member of any band for one show, who would it be >> I really don’t know, lmao.

30. CDs or Vinyls >> Vinyls are fun!

31. 25 songs to play at your funeral >> 25?! That’s way too many, lmao, just play Death is the Road to Awe and call it a day. Then go get drunk.

32. What are some song titles that you love >> Most of Fall Out Boy’s, lol.

33. If your life ended today, what song would you choose to represent it >> Nope.

34. Can you give me a 10 song playlist on ____ >> I guess this is for if you use it as an actual ask meme, and the person that sends you this one is supposed to fill in the blank.

35. A heart wrenching song >> Ich Dachte Schön, Selig. For me, anyway.

36. A band/artist you’re proud of >> Janelle Monae!!!

37. A song that has a lot of meaning to you >> Nothing As It Seems, Pearl Jam. That song’s been with me through a lot.

38. A song that reminds you of school >> Prayer, by Disturbed, because that was out when I was in high school and I used to watch the video on the school computers all the time. Also, I drew like 16-inch-tall chibi versions of the band from a screencap of the video, and I laminated the David Draiman one and would just carry it around school with me all the time. So, you know, there’s that.

39. A song not sung in your native language >> Percées de Lumière, Alcest.

40. An instrumental song >> The Final Fantasy Prelude song is the first thing that came to mind. :p

41. A classical song >> Elegy, Adam Hurst...? What counts as classical, does it have to be old?

42. A song with no percussion >> Guaranteed, Eddie Vedder.

43. Something you’ve heard performed live >> For the Love of God, Steve Vai. Amazing.

44. Something you’d give ANYTHING to hear performed live >> No Leaf Clover, Metallica.

45. A song from a band/artist that’s from your town/city/state/province >> Uh, I think Anthony Kiedis lived in Grand Rapids at some point and I don’t feel like looking up bands who are from GR and hoping I know at least one of them, so I’m just going to go with this. Otherside, by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

46. A song made suddenly precious because of a special someone >> May It Be, Enya (for Can Calah).

47. A song made suddenly painful because of someone special >> I can’t think of any.

48. A song that demands lip syncing and a makeshift microphone >> Oh man! So many! But I’ll go with The Emperor’s New Clothes, Panic at the Disco.

49. A song from a band/artist you met/know >> H.O.R.S., Mother. (They’re from NYC. Click through to hear it on YouTube.)

50. A song that you would rock at karaoke >> No One Knows, Queens of the Stone Age. I cheated on this one, because I have rocked this at karaoke.

51. A song you can’t help but dance to >> Big Freedia’s Empire State remix.

52. A song that makes you want to dance on a table >> The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret, Queens of the Stone Age.

53. Your 10 song striper playlist >> Oh man, I don’t know if I have 10 songs for this! I’ll have to make a stripper playlist one day and come back to this.

54. Favourite Disney song >> Hellfire, obviously. It’s me, after all.

55. A song that starts with the first letter of your name >> Lady Grinning Soul, David Bowie.

56. A song from an artist still alive >> Younger, Seinabo Sey.

57. A song from an artist who’s dead >> Lazarus, David Bowie.

58. A song you love by an artist/band you hate >> Meh.

59. A song you love with a colour in the title >> Orange Crush, R.E.M.

60. A song you love with a number in the title >> One, Creed.

61. A song that reminds you of someone you would rather forget about >> Meh.

62. A song that needs to be played LOUD >> Skeksis, Strapping Young Lad.

63. A song that makes you think about life >> These Things, Fuel.

64. 15 Songs that get suck in your head easily >> Oh no. Here is A song that gets stuck in my head easily: Terra Novum, by Michael Curran, which is the Sid Meier’s Civilization V: Brave New World theme. It gets stuck in my head all the time because one of my tags on my main blog is a lyric from it.

65. A song that you think everyone should listen to >> Uh.

66. A song that makes you want to fall in love >> LMAO I’m not sure?

67. A song that makes you think about ‘him/her’ >> I don’t know who the ‘him/her’ is supposed to be here... like an SO? Ok then... Noll, kent; Someone New, Joywave; Work Song, Hozier. One for each.

68. A song that you remember from your childhood >> All Coming Back to Me Now, Celine Dion. My JAM.

69. A song that reminds you of you >> Gravity, by Steven Price, for the movie of the same name.

70. Okay what’s the real answer to number 1 >> I AM NOT ASHAMED OF THE THINGS I LOVE. GOT IT?

#surveys #survey #music survey

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your-dietician · 4 years ago

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Why Police Have Been Quitting in Droves in the Last Year

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Why Police Have Been Quitting in Droves in the Last Year

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — As protests surged across the country last year over the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police, Officer Lindsay C. Rose in Asheville, N.C., found her world capsized.

Various friends and relatives had stopped speaking to her because she was a cop. During a protest in June around Police Headquarters, a demonstrator lobbed an explosive charge that set her pants on fire and scorched her legs.

She said she was spit on. She was belittled. Members of the city’s gay community, an inclusive clan that had welcomed her in when she first settled in Asheville, stood near her at one event and chanted, “All gay cops are traitors,” she said.

By September, still deeply demoralized despite taking several months off to recuperate, Officer Rose decided that she was done. She quit the Police Department and posted a sometimes bitter, sometimes nostalgic essay online that attracted thousands of readers throughout the city and beyond.

“I’m walking away to exhale and inhale, I’m leaving because I don’t have any more left in me right now,” she wrote. “I’m drowning in this politically charged atmosphere of hate and destruction.”

Officer Rose was hardly alone. Thousands of police officers nationwide have headed for the exits in the past year.

A survey of almost 200 police departments indicated that retirements were up 45 percent and resignations rose by 18 percent in the year from April 2020 to April 2021 when compared with the previous 12 months, according to the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington policy institute.

New York City saw 2,600 officers retire in 2020 compared with 1,509 the year before. Resignations in Seattle increased to 123 from 34 and retirements to 96 from 43. Minneapolis, which had 912 uniformed officers in May 2019, is now down to 699. At the same time, many cities are contending with a rise in shootings and homicides.

Asheville was among the hardest hit proportionally, losing upward of 80 officers, more than one third of its 238-strong force.

The reason has partly to do with Asheville itself — a big blue dot amid a sea of red voters in western North Carolina. Residents often refer to the city, a tourist mecca of 90,000 people tucked into the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains, as the South’s version of Austin, Texas, or Portland, Ore.

Protests are commonplace, although none in recent memory had roiled the city quite like those prompted by the death of Mr. Floyd. Asheville has removed its three Confederate monuments, including the obelisk that dominated the central square for more than 100 years. In June, the City Council agreed to earmark an initial $2.1 million to pay reparations to the Black community of more than 10,000 residents.

The police already had come under criticism in recent years, churning through half a dozen chiefs in the past decade amid widespread complaints about overly harsh policing. Often cited is a case in 2019, when an officer pleaded guilty to assaulting a Black man after an argument over jaywalking — at night with few cars on the road.

The past year’s racial justice protests brought these long-simmering tensions swiftly back to the surface.

“There was a cloud over the building,” said Chief David Zack, 58, adding that younger officers were particularly traumatized by the events. “We knew we were going to be in trouble. I don’t think we ever anticipated getting to this level.”

The fact that the protests were directed at them pushed many officers to quit, he said. “They said that we have become the bad guys, and we did not get into this to become the bad guys.”

A sense that the city itself did not back its police was a key reason for the departures, according to officers themselves as well as police and city officials. Officers felt that they should have been praised rather than pilloried after struggling to contain chaotic protests.

Low pay deepened the frustration. With a starting salary around $37,000, few officers can afford houses in Asheville, where housing prices have sharply increased in recent years.

Finally, officers said they were asked to handle too much; they were constantly thrown at tangled societal problems like mental health breakdowns or drug overdoses, they said, for which they were ill-equipped — then blamed when things went wrong.

Officers who left said they endured a barrage of “good riddance” taunts on social media. Some said they were accused of leaving because the higher level of public scrutiny meant they could no longer beat up people of color with impunity.

One sergeant who quit after a decade on the force, who did not want his name published because of the aggressive verbal attacks online, said last summer had chipped away at his professional pride and personal health. He could not sleep and drank too much.

In September, somebody dropped a coffin laden with dirt and manure at the front door of Police Headquarters. “The message was taking a different turn,” Chief Zack said. “The message was not about police reform, but, ‘We endorse violence against police’.”

Of the more than 80 officers who left, about half found different professions and the other half different departments, Chief Zack said. New careers included industrial refrigeration, construction, real estate and pharmaceutical sales — anything far removed from policing.

Some officers decided that Asheville was the problem. Alec N. Dohmann, 30, a former Marine infantryman, could not afford a house in the city, and the rage directed at officers during the protests shocked his wife, who watched it live on Facebook. He took a police job in nearby Greenville, S.C., and bought a house.

“It is night and day,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ll be in uniform and someone comes up and shakes my hand, thanking me for what I do.”

The George Floyd protests in Asheville lasted just four or five nights, far less than in other cities, yet many activists said they remain alarmed by the degree of force police used against demonstrators.

Officers fired tear gas to disperse them, and in one widely criticized incident, the police ransacked a medical tent, chasing off the volunteers, slashing water bottles and destroying first aid supplies.

City officials seemed torn about how to respond. At first Chief Zack defended the officers over the medical tent episode, saying water bottles were constantly heaved at officers, but he apologized amid the subsequent uproar.

Mayor Esther Manheimer dropped into one daily police briefing, lauding the department’s efforts. The very next day, she publicly accused the police of mishandling events, several officers said.

Ms. Manheimer, mayor since 2013, said in an interview that the city was facing a “clash of cultures,” and that she had “obviously not perfected” her efforts to “thread the needle of supporting law enforcement employees, but at the same time demanding and calling for needed change.”

Calls for defunding the police have continued, with many Asheville residents saying the department’s problems started long before last year’s protests.

Rob Thomas of the Racial Justice Coalition grew up in what he described as a “drug house” in the now gentrified North Side. He said the Black community has long felt targeted, and he learned early that there was an unwritten rule among police officers that they would beat anyone who ran from them.

To him, the officers’ leaving is not a big concern.

“The ones who left are collateral damage of people advocating for change,” he said. “It is not these individual officers who are so bad or so wrong; the system itself is kind of messed up.”

Recruitment all over the country, given negative attitudes toward the police, has also become a slog, prompting Asheville to approve a modest salary increase. Several other cities, hearing about the mood among the police in Asheville, put up billboards there hoping to attract officers who were ready to move. It takes roughly a year to train new officers in Asheville, and of seven who started in December, six have already quit, Chief Zack said.

To make do, the A.P.D. has trimmed its services even as shootings and other violent crimes escalated, a trend that has been seen across the country and which many experts have connected to disruption from the pandemic. The police received about 650 calls for “shots fired” last year, Chief Zack said, and there were 10 homicides, compared with seven the year before. Aggravated assaults were also up.

The department shuttered a downtown satellite office, stopped bicycle patrols and is making fewer traffic stops. It published a list of 10 incidents to which it would no longer dispatch officers, including some vehicle thefts, and urged citizens to file simple complaints online rather than calling.

All but one of the seven officers who investigated domestic violence and sexual assault left, so the department is trying to get three officers up to speed on the skills needed.

“A lot of our experience is walking out the door,” Chief Zack said.

With a third of the police force gone, some activists and residents said they worried that the city would squander an opportunity for change, hiring replacements instead of exploring alternatives.

Justin Souther, the manager of Malaprop’s Bookstore, said that what he considered police overkill during the George Floyd protests renewed his conviction that Asheville should not be as reliant on law enforcement for dealing with issues like the homeless people who inhabit downtown. “People need help, not punishment,” he said.

Jill Coleman in the Spice & Tea Exchange echoed those sentiments, yet admitted that she was worried when she heard about rising violent crime.

“People might be feeling a little shaky with not seeing police around, but it is also exciting to think that change is coming,” she said.

Officer Rose, leaving the police after seven years, first worked for a moving company started by a fellow officer who had also quit. She felt angry, tired, disgruntled and like a failure all at once, she said. She slept badly and had no appetite.

“My story is not unique,” she said.

Some time in January, she decided she wanted to retrieve her badge, to give it to her grandfather, who had pinned it on her when she had completed her training.

She had to apply to Chief Zack to get it, she said. Leaving the police had been the hardest decision of her life, she said, and the chief dangled a job as a community liaison officer designed to make the department more transparent to the public.

Plus in an effort to “humanize the badge,” he had relaxed some of the rules. She could now wear short sleeves, for example, displaying the bursts of floral and other tattoos on her arms. Her wife, an Asheville native, endorsed her return as well.

She said yes.

Officer Rose said she still nourishes the idea first planted when she joined the police that she can make a difference in people’s lives, but she is more wary. “It was a rude awaking,” she said. “It’s like you are in a loving relationship, and then all of a sudden you are dumped and you don’t know why.”

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