#are moralizing sadists who would not know real compassion if it bit them in the ass

[tanadrin]

I think this is a really good example of a consistent cycle of human civilization, where people experience a kind of suffering, metabolize it socially by ascribing meaning to that suffering, and pointing out some fringe benefits of having to overcome that suffering, and then declare that because of the imputed meaning of that suffering and the fringe benefits that they personally experienced, that specific form of suffering is of primary importance, and it would be wrong to abolish it completely.

To break this down in a more focused way:

One: First of all, people in the replies to my original post seem to be ascribing what IMO are exaggerated effects to GLP-1 agonists. The early indication isn't that these are magic personality-altering drugs that can, e.g., obliterate the concept of Ambition from your soul. The indication seems to be that these are drugs that can blunt certain physiological feedback mechanisms people experience as an immediate craving for something, a sensation which is frequently at odds with longer-term or higher-level goals. I think most people can point to an experience of having, like, a compulsive urge toward something that is superficial in its orientation (yielding to it satisfies nothing other than the craving itself) yet unpleasant to resist.

Two: There's a sense, yes, in which we are made of meat and thus any alteration to our meat is an alteration to our "self," but there are parts of our self that are more surface level and more deeply-seated; my hair is a part of my meat and thus my self, but it's not a big part of my identity and I don't care how it's styled. For a lot of physiological experiences like these superficial cravings, they are in fact ego-dystonic, and so blunting or removing them is strictly a net gain. There are psychiatric drugs that can act on our meat in more fundamental ways, producing much more profound effects on the mind and thus on our conception of self, but AFAICT these concerns are wildly overblown when it comes to GLP-1 agonists.

Three: Self-control is a good and useful virtue. GLP-1 agonists are not a magical substitute for self-control. Different human experiences of being physically embodied are, well, different, and some people experience physiological cravings much more intensely than others. I found it easy to quit smoking in my 20s; I experienced nicotine cravings, but not overwhelming ones, and mostly missed smoking in certain situational contexts, like having a cigarette with a cup of coffee. This is an atypical experience, I gather--for many people, nicotine is so overwhelmingly addictive that quitting smoking can be a lifelong battle. The whole point of my philosophy is that here I showed no special virtue. I had no special capacity for self-control. Actually, I probably have below-average self-control! But by virtue of being physiologically lucky--experiencing weak nicotine cravings after deciding to quit smoking--I was able to do something comparatively easily, with a minimum of personal angst, that other people struggle with for years and experience profound shame over.

To say to the person who quit smoking easily, "you are virtuous" (even though they are manifestly not), and to say to the person who struggles "we will deny you a thing we know will be very helpful, in order that you might learn a virtue you are sorely lacking" isn't just callous, it's actively, deliberately cruel. And it's the kind of cruelty that's born of conflating the occasional secondary benefits of suffering (see above) with the question of whether it is good that that suffering exists in the first place. Human societies fall into the trap of justifying the status quo on such grounds all the time--people have defended everything from hitting their children to mandatory military service on this kind of "I had to suffer, and it was good for me, so you should have to suffer to" basis, and I think it stinks.

Yes, this opens up the possibility that the suffering we experience in life was ultimately not necessary and might have been, in the grand scheme of things, meaningless. That's a scary thought. But our fear that our suffering does not make us special is not a reasonable justification to demand that other people experience similar suffering, or a reasonable basis to withhold the remediation of that suffering. I feel very strongly about this!

Four:

Because guess what, just throwing meds at a psychological problem might help by pressing the reset button on someone´s habits and moods but it sure won´t change their circumstances or personality.

I'm sorry, but this reeks of "how dare drug addicts take the easy way out instead of suffering like they should"! I have no sympathy for this take. Opiates and nicotine and alcohol are not addictive primarily because of people's personal flaws, they're addictive because they subvert powerful pre-existing physiological reward mechanisms in the brain and (in the case of opiates and alcohol) physiological dependency so profound that withdrawal can kill you. Addiction is a complex social phenomenon in which social context and personal inclinations may play a role, but this is the profound central truth of addiction to these drugs: the human body did not evolve to negotiate with heroin!

Now, GLP-1 agonists are probably not a cure-all--the reporting I've seen indicates that these medications often blunt, but do not usually totally remove, the kinds of ego-dystonic craving we're discussing here. So it's good to continue to provide addicts with other supportive services. But this kind of pharmacological Calvinism, where the question of medical intervention is treated as totally irrelevant to whether a person is intrinsically depraved or is one of the redeemable Good Ones, who will demonstrate their membership in the elect and thus their deserving our pity, is repellent. It's not a sober consideration of tradeoffs, it's just a desire to see the evil addict does not escape his condition without the right amount of suffering.

Five:

Take the antidepression comparison for instance. One could argue, and I will, that failing to adress issues such as alienation, poverty, abuse, systemic oppression, and on and on, in favor of just giving people a pill has not had the desired effect. Do we see less people with depression nowadays? No. Do all of the people with depression get help from antidepressants? No. Some do (like me) and that's great. Many end up taking antidepressants their whole lives, with steadily diminishing effects.

This is where I hit full-on "go fuck yourself" territory. You seem to identify staying on antidepressants lifelong as some kind of moral failing, again because you are a pharmacological Calvinist who has imputed to all medication the aura of something morally suspect, and this is, to put it mildly, really stupid. On that basis, you cannot believe depression might arise an intrinsic disorder of the brain (far more severe conditions do!), because you have internalized the belief that, on some level, depressed people are faking it, or have been bullied by society into faking it. I have taken antidepressants for a long time, and will probably take them until I die; this is a good thing, because they enable me to keep living, and I like being alive quite a lot. This is no different from trans people taking HRT all their lives, or organ donation recipients taking anti-rejection drugs their whole lives, or nearsighted people wearing glasses their whole lives, and so on and so forth. In no other realm of human existence do we accept the need for ongoing lifelong medical intervention as evidence for a failure of medical intervention--instead, the fact that we have the option at all of relieving the suffering that arises is celebrated as a success!

Except, of course, when it comes to drug addicts. And the reason is clear: millions of people secretly or not-so-secretly believe that despite all the sympathetic noises they are socially obligated to make, drug addiction is fundamentally a failure of character, and drug addicts deserve to suffer and to die.

Last week's WITH was about the pursuit of treatments that might do for addiction what GLP-1 agonists do for cravings for food, and the guest had an interesting point about how you can have phenomena with very complex causes (the main examples here being opiate addiction and the general rise in obesity) that do not require you to untangle or address those causes in order to procure solutions. Like, is addiction a disease, a social ill, a product of trauma, a failure of willpower, or all of these things?

It doesn't necessarily matter! It turns out that "craving stuff" is a pretty basic neurological feedback loop and it may be tractable to pharmaceutical intervention. Heck, GLP-1 agonists may be that intervention: people have reported (and clinical trials are being conducted to study) that these drugs, among their many effects, simply blunt cravings, to the point where people have as a side effect of taking them for diabetes or weight loss also found they helped cut down on drinking, or gambling, or using other drugs.

So even if GLP-1 agonists don't have all the miraculous effects reported (there are some reports they may be effective as an Alzheimer's treatment!), it would be crazy if we have discovered a drug that allows us to better marshal our faculties to decide which cravings to give in to, a drug that simply imbues us with self-control. And I think that's really interesting, because it's an outright clash between two ways of seeing the world: a moralistic one in which virtues are the product of individual decisions, and in which taking a drug to achieve some outcome that "ought" to be a product of virtue might be seen as cheating, and one that reminds us that, for better or worse, we are meat, and all our complex behaviors arise as the result of the state of the meat that we are--and from which view, refusing to acknowledge the mutability of your meat in aid of achieving your goals, or even broader social benefit (addiction is really bad and there very few good options to treat it), is simply goofy.

But a lot of people's reaction to the existence of GLP-1 agonists--or for that matter any medical intervention for things which are moralized as willpower problems--includes contempt founded on being wedded to that moralizing framework. I think a lot of moralism develops as a response to conditions of existence being imposed on us that are objectively pretty miserable, and that when we discover the occasional intervention that liberates us from that pretty restrictive framework, our attitude should be one of jubilation: hear, O ye people, that what was long believed to be an implacable trade-off of human existence is no more. But I think a lot of people's reaction is to double down: I had to suffer, or someone I know had to suffer, therefore you ought to suffer as well, or else our suffering has no meaning.

[young-dumb-and-vaccinated]

The Sommelier (Hannigram x Female!Reader) pt. 25

Y/n puts an end to everything.

@dovahdokren @deadman-inc-bikeshop @lov3vivian @wisesandwichshark @scpdragon

⚠️HUGE⚠️ trigger warnings: rape, drugging, sex trafficking, VERY graphic descriptions of violence, physical violence (please let me know if I leave anything out)

Hannibal could walk through a valley of human suffering and not even flinch. You couldn't tell if that made him subhuman or superhuman. You, however, were just human.

You wanted to be a badass. You wanted to kick the door down and make a scene. But one woman was enough to break you.

She was wearing only a large t-shirt. A cloth bandage covered in blood covered her pubic area like a makeshift pair of underpants. She laid limply against a stone. Her arms were punctured where needles had been.

"I don't..." she mumbled, clearly intoxicated beyond function. "...don't make me..."

You knew you couldn't afford to stop. But compassion kept your feet firmly on the ground in front of her.

"What is Chase making you do?"

"I can't-" She said, pressing her forehead against the rock. "I can't be an unwoman-"

She began to slam her head against the rock with clear intent to take her own life. Without thinking, you grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her into the grass. She sobbed, a bloody, but thankfully, survivable, gash on her forehead.

"Tell me your name." You demanded, squeezing her shoulders.

"...Tiffany." She said with a sudden lucidity.

The name unlocked a memory in you. It was the still image of a sunny young girl, immortalized on a faded missing person's ad hung up at the grocery store. Tiffany Rose Pierce, it read.

"I'm gonna get you out of here, Tiffany." You whispered. "I'm gonna get all of you out of here."

"Vanguard won't like that." She said, slipping back into a state of minimal consciousness.

"Stay here." You instructed, pushing yourself back to your feet.

You readied your gun and slowly, carefully pushed the cabin door open. Suddenly, the stained glass window was the least of your worries.

The entire area was lined with cheaply-constructed bunk beds, like an overgrown henhouse. Women with distinctively long hair were shackled to the lower bunks. Their shaven counterparts, the unwomen, were forced to be the slavedrivers. They held the chained women down.

You heard the rattling of chains coming from the right. It was accompanied with screaming and wet slapping.

"Take daddy's cock you filthy fucking broodmare." A familiar voice grunted.

The only way you could look at him was behind the barrel of your gun. He was exactly how you pictured him while listening to his voice in the car. Unremarkable, middle-aged and serpentine.

"Pastor Armitage!" You yelled.

To hear someone call him by his title in the midst of violating a person was enough to send him into a panic. He sputtered and his entire face turned red.

He didn't suffer for long, though. A 12 gauge shell right through the face took care of that. Fragments of his head, his blood and brain matter splattered everywhere. His knees buckled and his limp body collapsed.

The room fell silent. Smoke trickled out of your barrel.

"Where's fucking Chase?" You asked the room.

Someone weakly pointed up the stairs. You met her eyes and nodded.

"Sorry about the mess."

Now you knew how Hannibal felt. Blowing someone's head off made you acutely aware of your own head on your shoulders. You held it higher. You felt no remorse as you ascended the staircase with your gun blazing.

You came across a room with some words etched in the door. 'Skin room'. You launched your foot squarely into the door, causing it to violently swing open. 

You examined the room from behind the gun. Chase had done a hell of a job dressing up this cheap cabin bedroom like a hotel suite, but the smell hit you before you could be fooled. A brick chimney, a wine cooler and a mahogany desk were positioned so the eye would gravitate towards the luxury while the nose picked up the brutality. The stained glass window was suspended in front of the real window, absorbing the mid-morning light and giving the room an eerie sepia tint. 

You cocked your gun to announce your presence. You heard the sound of running water, and then a side door swung open. 

“You’ll forgive me a couple minutes to freshen up.” Chase said, shaking his hands dry. “Cleanliness is close to godliness, after all.” 

You said nothing. You didn’t want to dignify him with a conversation. 

He bent over and pulled a bottle of wine from his cooler. He placed it squarely on the desk. You looked at it, then did a double take. He grinned sadistically. 

“Is that...” You leaned in to get a closer look. “1907 Heidsieck Monople Gout?” 

Chase shrugged. “You tell me. You’re the wine expert.” 

You’d heard many a conflicting story about the legendary 1907 Heidsieck. Some said as many as 2,000 bottles were pulled up from the depths of the freezing Baltic sea. Some said a single bottle could go for half a million dollars. With that kind of precedent, you never thought you’d ever have to worry about it. Yet, there it was. Right in front of you. 

“I’m saving it for a special occasion.” Chase said, suddenly reminding you where you were.

You returned to your gun. “For when you kill me?” 

“For when I save you.” Chase smiled, his unnaturally white teeth glistening in the sepia light. “See, Miss [F/N], you survived two of my attempts on your life. God has smiled down on you.” 

“Or, maybe,” You interrupted. “You’re just horrible at killing.” 

Chase raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

"A knife through the hand hurts like a bitch, but it isn't fatal." You shrugged. "And you didn't do a good enough job beating the fear of death out of Catherine. Else she might have actually gone through with it. Maybe if you'd sent Tiffany-"

"God loves you." Chase interrupted before you could poke more holes in his attempts on your life. "Why you're still alive when so many less deserving of death have died is beyond me, but god works in mysterious ways, doesn't he?"

"She sure does." You smirked.

Chase cleared his throat. You'd pegged him as the type to get irrationally angry at the implication of god being a woman, so his reaction surprised you.

"Well, let's get down to business, shall we?" He gestured to a seat across from him.

You narrowed your eyes. "I don't think so."

"Pity." He pouted. "Not even for poor Mr. Graham?"

It dawned on you that he probably still thought he had Will, and you could use it to your advantage.

You held your gun at your side and hesitantly sat down in the seat. A gluttonous smile spread across Chase's face.

"So it wasn't wine after all." He said. "It wasn't even your own life. You're only willing to save your soul for the sake of your precious Will Graham."

"What do you care?" You growled through your teeth. "This is just a power grab for you. You wouldn't know what genuine empathy for another person feels like."

He grinned, as if someone had just flipped his 'on' switch. "Jesus does."

"Did Jesus use his influence to lure teenage girls into a sick breeding ring?" You sneered. "I don't remember that from VeggieTales."

"Genesis 1:28." Chase said. "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply."

"I suppose you also don't eat shellfish or wear mixed fabrics." You rolled your eyes.

"It's always the same arguments from you atheists." Chase scoffed, adding a distinct bite to the last word. "When are you going to show some actual proof that the bible isn't an infallible model for human morality?"

"Maybe when you stop eating shellfish and wearing mixed fabrics." You repeated.

"They are minor sins at best." Chase grimaced. "I have gotten right with Jesus. You, on the other hand, oh, you. Your sins are weighty."

"I did just blast a rapist's head off." You admitted. "And it's going to be two very soon if this one doesn't get to the fucking point."

"I know about your exploits." He squinted. "With Mr. Graham and the man with the Nazi accent."

"He's actually from Lithuania, which, if you wanna be technical," you corrected, just for the sake of being annoying. "Is an ex-Soviet state, but whatever."

Chase tensed up at being corrected. "I know about your hedonistic sexual activities with two men, your exploration. But in the bible, Satan approaches these two people called Adam and Eve..."

"No he didn't." You shook your head. "It was a serpent. The devil wasn't a concept when Genesis was written."

Chase gritted his teeth. "God made one man and one woman. Each to fill each other's sexual desires, within the context of marriage, entirely-"

"But Adam had two spouses, didn't he?" You cocked your head and smiled. "Eve wasn't even the first woman in Adam's life. That was Lilith."

Chase heaved a frustrated sigh. "How do you know that?!"

"I was raised catholic." You said in the tonal equivalent of smacking him upside the head. "I was forced into religion at a young age and brainwashed to hate myself."

"See, that's where we agree." Chase tented his hands, thinking he found a genuine point of connection. "Organized religion is a cancer on society. Christianity is fundamentally about a relationship with god."

You laughed. It was the first real, good laugh you had in a while.

"Don't laugh." He scolded. "I am sorry that that was your experience with religion and that the Catholic church modeled a false teaching of who god is and what he wants. Not all christians-"

You wiped a tear from your eye. "Homie, you killed four people in front of me."

He placed his hand over his heart. "And christ forgave me. And he can forgive you too."

"Alright, this has been fun and everything," you said, standing up. You aimed your shotgun and cocked it. "But, I did come here to kill you, so, open wide."

Chase put his hand squarely over the barrel and pushed it out of the way. "You don’t have the guts to pull the trigger."

You pulled the trigger and blasted his hand clean off. Any hope of reattachment was shattered, as bits of his hand painted the walls and floor.

You opened the gun and let the two empty shells fall to the ground while Chase screamed in agony.

Instead of going through the motions of reloading, you smashed him over the head with the gun. He wrapped his good hand around the barrel and attempted to wrestle it away from you. You took this as an invitation to corner him against the wall with the still-hot barrel against his neck. He smashed his forehead into your nose, sending you tumbling backwards.

The shotgun fell to the ground. You pinched the bridge of your nose to control the blood flow. Chase wrapped a champagne towel around his stump and picked up a small revolver on his desk. He let off a shot, which lodged itself into your shoulder. By the time he let off the second shot, you were on the ground. The third shot didn't fire, just let out a flash and a bang.

"Goddamn blanks!" He cursed.

He tore open a drawer and rummaged around for bullets, giving you a window to come up from behind and gouge your fingers into his eyes. He screamed, dropping a handful of bullets. He flailed aimlessly, then charged backwards, slamming you into the cheap drywall.

He felt around for the bullets without the advent of eyesight. You knew you wouldn't be able to take aim with your shotgun with a bullet lodged in your shoulder, so you dove for the revolver.

Chase grabbed you by the ankle and dragged you down. You hit the floor with a thud, the collision making the bullets jump. Chase grinned, using the sound to place them. He turned around and reached for one, while you scooped up another that had rolled under the desk.

You scrambled to your feet. Chase's hand was just centimeters from the revolver. Thinking fast (but not so thoroughly), you grabbed for the revolver. You wrapped your hand around the barrel, putting yourself at a disadvantage if he fired off another blank.

Chase, however, wasn't that forward-thinking, and opted for a childish game of tug-of-war instead. Knowing he had the brute strength advantage, you waited for him to pull back and released your grip. Chase tumbled, cursing on his way down.

With no thought on your mind but ending this, you launched your foot into his sack, causing him to scream and drop the gun.

Just as you thought it was over, just when the gun was in arm's reach, he kicked your knees backwards and you fell. You swallowed the pain and army crawled for the revolver.

"I don't think so." Chase spat, smiling like a maniac. He grabbed your face with his good hand and his fingers slithered down your throat.

"Choke..." he demanded. "Choke, demoness."

Strengthened by animalistic instinct, you crushed his fingers under your teeth. The sound of snapping bone filled the inside of your head and a sudden rush of blood flooded into your mouth. He withdrew his hand, leaving a finger behind to limply fall down your throat.

You coughed and gagged while Chase screamed. A single bloody digit dislodged itself from your windpipe, flew across the room and landed on the desk.

Chase sputtered something resembling a laugh. "Maybe you're not such a dumb bitch after all."

You grabbed the gun and pushed yourself up with the help of the desk. The finger stared up at you as you loaded the single bullet.

You positioned the finger onto the trigger and guided it with your gloved hand. Then you aimed it at his forehead. Dead by his gun, by his trigger finger. Bleeding on the ground in his private bunker while the empire he built collapses around him. A coward's death. It was poetic enough an end as he deserved.

"You want to say a prayer before you meet god?" You offered.

"My soul is saved." Chase said through ragged breaths. "My place in heaven is secured."

Bang. One bullet, right between the eyes. A bloody fingerprint on the pistol. You dropped the revolver and collapsed. You just laid there, listening to your phone buzz.

[sou-ver-2-0]

Maybe I'm thinking too much about the Persona games today, but are there any characters that you would pair any tarot arcana with?

What a fun question! I think that tarot cards have like, the coolest aesthetic ever. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about tarot arcana, so I went on a deep dive into Wikipedia to try to understand it. I’ll apologize in advance that A. E. Waith’s definitions for these cards feel very heteronormative. I’m working with the traditional definitions, but I try to make them work for a modern story.

Here are the character-card combinations I came up with:

0 – The Fool: Folly, mania, extravagance, intoxication, delirium, frenzy, bewrayment. [If the card is] Reversed: Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, vanity.

Joe Tazuna

Joe Tazuna is our gaudy, “extravagant” fool! The fool represents the “everyman,” and is often the “protagonist of the story” in Major Arcana. Joe, who is good-natured and clumsy, has the type of personality you’d expect to see in a story’s protagonist. Ironically, he is one of the first to die. His “absence” is deeply felt by our real protagonist, Sara, who must go on the “Fool’s Journey” “through the great mysteries of life and the main human archetypes” without him.

1 – The Magician: Skill, diplomacy, address, subtlety, pain, loss, disaster, snares of enemies; self-confidence, will; [it signifies] the Querent, if male. Reversed: Physician, mental disease, disgrace, disquiet.

Reko Yabusame

Reko is our “skilled,” “confident,” strong-willed musician magician! (And she often uses masculine pronouns, so why not give her a masculine card?) Reko has also suffered through “pain, loss, and disaster,” which has shaped her current mature, kind personality. And in the past, she was a “disgraced” rebellious rock star who burned through bands.

2 – The High Priestess: Secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed; the woman who interests the Querent, if male; the Querent herself, if female; silence, tenacity; mystery, wisdom, science. Reversed: Passion, moral or physical ardor, conceit, surface knowledge.

Tia Safalin and Maple

This card made me think of both villainous ladies. Tia Safalin has knowledge of science, while Maple seems to also have mysterious wisdom about human nature and the future.

3 – The Empress: Fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days; the unknown, clandestine; also difficulty, doubt, ignorance. Reversed: Light, truth, the unraveling of involved matters, public rejoicings; according to another reading, vacillation.

Sara Chidouin

The Empress can only be our Sara! The girl who takes “initiative” and becomes the group’s leader! She seeks to bring “light” and “truth” to discussions, and she “unravels mysteries.” And yet, she also suffers from “doubt” in herself, and “ignorance” of her surroundings.

4 – The Emperor: Stability, power, protection, realization; a great person; aid, reason, conviction also authority and will. Reversed: Benevolence, compassion, credit; also confusion to enemies, obstruction, immaturity.

Mr. Chidouin

We don’t know much about Mr. Chidouin, and I do not trust him one bit. However, he seemed to be a suitable companion to his “Empress” daughter. Kai Satou certainly thought he was “a great” and “benevolent” person, though he has an “immature” way of speaking.

5 – The Hierophant: Marriage, alliance, captivity, servitude; by another account, mercy, and goodness; inspiration; the man to whom the Querent has recourse. Reversed: Society, good understanding, concord, over kindness, weakness.

Kai Satou

The words “servitude” and “captivity” suit our homemaker Kai, who always lived in service to others—either Asu-Naro or the Chidouins. Kai is a “good” man, but he is also shown to be one of the “weakest” participants since he dies early on.

6 – The Lovers: Attraction, love, beauty, trials overcome. Reversed: Failure, foolish designs. Another account speaks of marriage frustrated and contrarieties of all kinds.

Nao Egokoro

I know that Nao’s story doesn’t have much romance in it, but I liked the duality of “trials overcome” combined with “failure” and “foolish designs” for our poor, brave Nao. She is a girl who grew a lot, and her heart was overflowing with love for her new friends, but in the end she was doomed to failure with the Sacrifice Card.

7 – The Chariot: Succour, providence; also war, triumph, presumption, vengeance, trouble. Reversed: Riot, quarrel, dispute, litigation, defeat.

Alice Yabusame

So many aggressive words in that description made me think of our “Murderer,” Alice! Alice was “triumphant” in his last fight with Original Sou, but he can be “defeated” by Rio Ranger.

8 or 11 – Justice: Equity, rightness, probity, executive; triumph of the deserving side in law. Reversed: Law in all its departments, legal complications, bigotry, bias, excessive severity.

Keiji

Of course I had to give “Justice” to everyone’s favorite self-proclaimed policeman, Keiji! Keiji lays down the law in our group, and don’t we all hope he’ll favor the “deserving side” instead of showing “excessive severity.”

9 – The Hermit: Prudence, circumspection; also and especially treason, dissimulation, roguery, corruption. Reversed: Concealment, disguise, policy fear, unreasoned caution.

Rio Ranger

“The Hermit” feels like a strange card to give to our childish doll villain, but I liked the descriptive words associated with “corruption” and “policy fear.” Rio Ranger commits “treason” by directly killing a participant, and he also “conceals and disguises” himself with masks and other people’s clothes.

10 – Wheel of Fortune: Destiny, fortune, success, elevation, luck, felicity. Reversed: Increase, abundance, superfluity.

Sue Miley

Sue Miley is the villain who introduces us to our destiny with the Practice Vote and the First Main Game. She sadistically wishes everyone “luck.”

8 or 11 – Strength: Power, energy, action, courage, magnanimity; also complete success and honours. Reversed: Despotism, abuse of power, weakness, discord, sometimes even disgrace.

Q-Taro

Q-Taro suits “strength” perfectly! His character arc is all about learning what true strength is. He begins the game from a place of cowardice and selfishness, but he becomes courageous and honorable.

12 – The Hanged Man: Wisdom, circumspection, discernment, trials, sacrifice, intuition, divination, prophecy. Reversed: Selfishness, the crowd, body politic.

Shin Tsukimi

How could my favorite doomed antagonist have any other card but “The Hanged Man”? Shin is cursed from the beginning of the game with a “prophecy” that he will die. He relies on “intuition” more often than logic and he can be very “selfish,” but he is also “wise” enough to want to protect the most vulnerable among them, leading to his “sacrifice.”

13 – Death: End, mortality, destruction, corruption; also, for a man, the loss of a benefactor; for a woman, many contrarieties; for a maid, failure of marriage projects. Reversed: Inertia, sleep, lethargy, petrifaction, somnambulism; hope destroyed.

Ranmaru Kageyama

I liked the card “death” for our main dummy Ranmaru, who has died and transformed. The words associated with “sleep” and “lethargy” also reminded me of his final moments, where he commented that death felt like going to sleep.

14 – Temperance: Economy, moderation, frugality, management, accommodation. Reversed: Things connected with churches, religions, sects, the priesthood, sometimes even the priest who will marry Querent; also disunion, unfortunate combinations, competing interests.

Kazumi Mishima

“Temperance” sounded like a good card for a wise character who lives in “moderation.” Mishima was cursed with an “unfortunate combination” of votes in the Practice Vote.

15 – The Devil: Ravage, violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality; that which is predestined but is not for this reason evil. Reversed: Evil fatality, weakness, pettiness, blindness.

Original Sou Hiyori

“The Devil” is the most perfect card for my favorite villain! He is “violent” and goes to “extraordinary efforts” to manipulate the participants, but he has also suffered a “fatality.” I thought the phrase “predestined but is not for this reason evil” was especially intriguing for Original Sou, since I often wonder how much free will he could exercise within Asu-Naro.

16 – The Tower: Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin. It is a card in particular of unforeseen catastrophe. Reversed: Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, vanity.

Gashu Satou

Gashu brings a terrible “unforeseen catastrophe” in the Second Main Game, when he would rather kill himself then give our characters a chance to escape! He is undoubtedly the best character for “The Tower.”

17 – The Star: Loss, theft, privation, abandonment; another reading says--hope bright prospects, Reversed: Arrogance, haughtiness, impotence.

Kanna Kizuchi

Kanna has suffered “loss” and she may be “abandoned” by the people she loves. However, her survival also brings “hope” and “bright prospects” in spite of the Death Game’s cruelty.

18 – The Moon: Hidden enemies, danger, calumny, darkness, terror, deception, occult forces, error. Reversed: Instability, inconstancy, silence, lesser degrees of deception and error.

The Dummies

The words related to “hidden enemies” in the “darkness” reminded me of our dummies, who are tasked with killing the human participants.

19 – The Sun: This card is generally considered positive. It is said to reflect happiness and contentment, vitality, self-confidence and success. Sometimes referred to as the best card in Tarot, it represents good things and positive outcomes to current struggles.

Gin Ibushi

Gin Ibushi is a light in our lives who brings Sara emotional comfort! In spite of having no tokens to defend himself in trades, nobody sent him the Sacrifice Card, which is a wonderful thing.

20 – Judgment: Judgement, Rebirth, Inner-calling, Absolution, Karma, Causality, Second chance

The Man from the Memorandum

The Man from the Memorandum, the winner of the Previous Death Game, seems to be the Mastermind of a new Death Game and is calling for a “second chance” for the High School Girl to survive. He pronounces judgment on every victim.

(It’s entirely possible that the Man from the Memorandum is Mr. Chidouin himself, which would make my distinguishing between them silly in hindsight! For now, I’ll assume they’re different people.)

21 – The World: Assured success, recompense, voyage, route, emigration, flight, change of place. Reversed: Inertia, fixity, stagnation, permanence.

The 17-Year-Old School Girl

Is 15.5% enough to “assure the success” of the High School Girl? Is that enough to “change her place” from dying in the First Death Game? Or will she be “permanently” dead? The entire “world” of the Death Game seems to hinge on this critical role!

[make-it-mavis]

Homesick (Entry #36)

(cw: discussion of addiction/violence, suicide mention) ----------

01/24/88   6:30 PM

Hey.

Once I’d chosen my “higher power”, the rest of the program really began to interest me more.

That isn’t to say that I had suddenly seen the light and knew exactly how to fix everything, no. I was still on wobbly legs and I knew it. The goal was to shift my entire worldview, and that sort of thing does not happen overnight. But I had an idea to go off of, which was more than what I’d had before. And the more I sat with it, the more the idea unfurled itself. 

There are no absolutes in a world of color. No rules, only choices. I thought I’d lived my life as a rainbow, but I’d been painting with one color for so long. I was indigo -- cold, proud, with the depression of blue and the aggression of violet. I was the color of bruises, the sort that are almost beautiful, but hurt something awful. All of my choices were touched by a shade of pain. I never really thought there was another way to be.

But this new theory of mine challenged that with the phrase: ‘There’s always another color.’

I didn’t know which ones exactly I wanted to move forward with, but I sort of figured that keeping an open mind and paying close attention would reveal them to me. And that, as it turned out, was sort of what step three was all about.

Step three is Surrender. We were expected to surrender to our higher power, and hold it in greater importance than our own selfish desires. My own desire was to learn to live by my new worldview anyway, so it seemed easy enough. But I was told that swallowing my pride would be a tough thing to maintain, so I had to stay on top of it. Well, duh. Of course it’s been hard. You and I were always some of the most prideful little beasts in the arcade. I still fail regularly, but I haven’t given up yet. Which is really what matters. Or so I’ve heard. 

I’ll admit something sad. Sometimes, while I’m doing all this work, I wonder if you could have benefitted from anything like this. Like, maybe it would have helped you sort out all that darkness in your head. Maybe it could have saved you, and you’d be sitting right here beside me right now. I don’t know… maybe not. I’m not sure how you’d have ever been convinced to try it. I mean… it took a monumental catastrophe and threat of imprisonment for me to even consider it. If only you had been lucky enough to survive your own… catastrophe. Then, well... maybe.

It hurts so much to think about.

If nothing else, it makes me want to succeed for the both of us.

I was still on step three by my fourth session, but I was preemptively worrying about the upcoming step four. It had been causing me a fair bit of anxiety since the beginning, and I was almost afraid to complete step three and arrive at it. Step four is Courage, which involves pretty much digging deep into your code and listing all the bad things you’ve ever done. A ‘fearless moral inventory’, they called it. I just had no idea how I was going to tackle that. Others might have been able to make a list based on things they felt bad about. I was going to have to think a little harder about mine. Not that I have any shortage of misdeeds to list -- I probably have a hundred for every day of my life. I just… didn’t feel bad about most of them. Feeling any kind of remorse or regret for my actions was never something I was very good at. 

I began to wonder why that was. Probably for the first time ever.

While I considered it, I just listened in to all the shares from the other members. During step three, I’d been going along with the challenge I issued myself before, the one meant to lessen Worluk’s effect on me. It was going alright. As I paid more attention to them, the other members had started to take on their own colors in my mind. I definitely got to know some of them a bit more, and even found that listening to their stories helped me gain better perspectives of my own.

I feel a bizarre need to respect the anonymity of the program even here, so I won’t name names. But I’ll name their colors.

An NPC sprite who gave me pinkish-mulberry vibes told us about his experience with step five, Integrity, which I’d been trying not to think about. He seemed near tears as he spoke, just brimming with emotion.

“I’d been so afraid that she would turn me away when she heard about the things I’d done… but she just hugged me. She said that she would have been there for me sooner if I’d just opened up to her… but I think I’d just been so ashamed, I didn’t even think I was worthy of help. I never knew how important that was. Just to feel like you deserve saving.”

That one reminded me of you a little bit, which hurt. I thought about how you had only chosen to let me in on our very last night together. How you barely gave me any time to help you. I hoped you felt like you were worthy of help, but I also kind of doubted it. 

It also raised questions about my own self worth... but I tried to tuck those away for later.

A Bad Guy sprite with an orange air about him piped up in response, saying he could relate. But in his case, the sprite he had tried to make amends with turned him away. “It was awful,” he said. “It was everything I’d been afraid of, but all the same… I had to accept it. I’d done wrong by them. I have to live with the consequences of that and choose to be better. Even though my fears came true, I’m still alive. I’m still okay. And that’s kind of freeing.”

Again and again, fear played a heavy role in their struggles. And the more I sat with it, the more it sank in, and the more sense it made. As much as I hated to entertain the idea, maybe I’d been afraid, too. Of what, exactly… I couldn’t really say for sure. But I took a look at my life for a moment, and all the things I loved to do, like drinking and fighting and breaking the rules… and felt kind of sick. Like… maybe it wasn’t always just about chasing freedom. Chasing one thing… could also mean running away from another.

But I could hardly be blamed for that, could I? I’d felt alienated for so long, like different rules applied to me because my Easter Egg role sucked so much. Like my pain validated all the bad things I did. It was only fair, right?

But that was when Worluk spoke up. Her voice didn’t strike quite as much terror in me as it had before, but even as small and raspy as it was, it demanded my attention.

“I’ve tried apologizing to the boys. To everyone, really,” she said, a quiet, tired frustration in her voice. “But they won’t take it. They see right through me. I did a lot of things that hurt them while I was neck deep in buffs. And I’m sorry for hurting them, I really am. But I’ll be real with you all. I’m having trouble regretting the things I did. They were all things I wanted to do already. It just felt like buffs made me actually go out and do something about it.”

“That’s understandable,” Clyde said. “But none of us are exempt from regret. None of us here can decide that we’ve done no wrong. The sprites around us, the ones we hurt, are the ones we need to listen to in order to understand the gravity of the things we’ve done.”

Worluk shook her head a bit at that, refusing to look. “I know. I get that. I do. But if you had only seen what I’ve seen, you wouldn’t say that…”

“Pain is the one thing all of us have in common,” Clyde reminded her calmly. “No addict is free of it. But pain only explains our behavior. It does not justify it.”

I winced. 

It felt like that sentence saw my thoughts and slapped me hard for them. His words hung over my head and forced my gaze to the floor. I wanted to argue. I didn’t want it to be true. I needed to keep being the exception in order to justify my actions. After everything I’d been through, I couldn’t be held to the same standard as everyone else.

But, to my dismay, that also seemed to be how Worluk felt.

I knew firsthand how unjust her actions had been. I knew that she had no excuse. Her decision to attack me was nothing but misplaced rage and overwhelming bloodlust. She was nothing more than a dangerous, sadistic lunatic in my eyes, and she deserved to be locked up. She didn’t even deserve to be in that circle with the rest of us.

It was unspeakably frightening to me, then, that we could have the same thought. That we could be the same in any way at all. Yet, I was helpless to deny it.

We were very similar.

We had both used our pain to justify some pretty horrible things. We both refused to take responsibility. And the scariest part was, even though I hadn’t attempted to murder anyone, who’s to say that I wouldn’t have gone down that route if I hadn’t gotten help when I did? I mean, I did threaten someone just to get their buffs. If the circumstances were right, could I have done the exact same thing as Worluk?

Wouldn’t I have killed to avenge you?

I felt sick. I couldn’t let it be true. I had to be better than that. Better than her. 

But in a weird sort of way, I kind of... wanted her to do better, too. Not out of compassion. It was sort of selfish, actually. I felt like she and I were, unfortunately, in the same sinking ship. I could have just let her drown, but I’d just be watching her suffer a fate that would quickly come for me after. If that makes sense. I hated her. I still wanted to rip her antenna off and feed them to her. But if she was beyond help, then so was I. Somehow, I had to believe that it was possible to turn things around, even after we had sunk as deep as we had.

And counselling is hard. Really hard. And boring. But she had to do it, same as anyone else there. She had to swallow the same giant pill that I did, so maybe I could jam it down her unwilling throat. 

Maybe I could take things into my own hands, just a little bit.

I didn’t want to speak to her directly, because I might have lost my nerve and started screaming at her. But I thought up a way to get my point across. Whether it was a good idea or not, I didn’t have time to assess. I only had until my turn to plan, so it was going to be mostly improv.

It was time for more rolling with the proverbial punches.

Once my turn came, I found myself trembling with the severity of what I was about to do. This bug sprite had caused me so much pain and suffering. But I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I could paint with a color outside of revenge if I so chose. So I loaded my brush with exactly what the dreaded step four called for -- courage.

“Hi, my name’s Mavis, I’m an addict,” I began as usual, leaning on my knees. “I’m on step three tonight, but... all I can think about is step four.”

I was met with some knowing nods. Someone muttered, “That’s a tough one.”

I flashed a half-smile and continued, “Honestly, a big part of why it’s so daunting is, I mean, I’ve probably done more bad things in my life than good things. I could try to list them all, but then I’d be on step four for the rest of my life.”

There were a couple chuckles.

“But listening to you guys and your stories about, y’know, opening up to sprites you care about, I, uh…” I paused. “Well, I’m really not good at… being helped. I never really have been. A big part of that’s just pride, but I think, uh… everything that goes along with lettin’ people in has never been my forte, and that’s only gotten worse ever since, uh… well, lately. I haven’t let anyone in on what I’ve been going through. But... well, I guess, keepin’ with step three like I oughtta, I feel like... it’d be surrendering to my higher power to-- Okay, I don’t know quite how to word it, but I need to paint with a different color. That much is clear. And I thought… y’know, I could start right here. So… I’ve got a story I’d like to share, if that’s alright.”

“Please,” Clyde prompted.

“It’s an ugly one,” I warned him.

“There are no judgments here,” he reminded me with a smile.

I took another deep breath and sighed. Here goes, I thought.

“Well, it’s probably no secret to y’all that I haven’t exactly been the most popular sprite in the arcade since… y’know. Everyone’s got their opinion. And some sprites, uh, share it more loudly than others. Throwin’ stuff, yellin’ at me, that all sucks, but I guess I can deal with it. The thing is, though, someone… took it to a whole other level. Back before I got hooked on GC, someone, well… tried to kill me.”

That got everyone's attention.

Clyde turned blue. There were several horrified gasps. Sprites leaned towards me, their eyes wide, so many emotions growing behind the shock on their faces. Worluk's antennae perked up as she listened. Obviously, she knew that I knew who she was. But I don't think she knew what I was doing. She looked less angry and more curious -- maybe she was curious to see if I'd be dumb enough to try to accuse her.

When Clyde came to his senses, he asked me worriedly, "Have you told the Surge Protector about this, Mavis?"

"Well… yeah, I did eventually," I told him. "But not ‘til a couple weeks ago. Right after the attack, he helped me across Game Central, but I just-- I couldn't talk about it then. It was weird."

Before I could continue, a little sprite with lavender vibes interrupted, quivering in alarm, "Wait, wait, I think I saw-- I saw you! With Surge! And your shirt was all--"

"Yep."

"You mean, that was when you’d been--"

I nodded and swallowed. "Yep. Sure was."

"Oh no," the little sprite put their hands near their mouth and looked at everyone. "I saw her, everyone, she looked awful. She could barely walk. Her-- her legs were bleeding!"

"Actually," someone else added, "I remember seeing her, too. I just-- I didn’t look too close 'cause there was so much blood on her face…"

I felt myself going red. It was embarrassing to have them remember just how awful and abused I looked. But it felt like the point of the program was to get used to embarrassing myself, so I tried to take it as a good thing. 

"What did Surge say?" Clyde asked.

"Well,” I said with a defeated laugh, “he said there was nothing he could do. I have no evidence. I don't know who it was. I didn't even see them. I was blindfolded and tied up."

So many horrified eyes were fixed on me. I glanced at Worluk just for a moment, and saw just the slightest hint of nerves in her body language. She was glancing around just a bit more than usual. I figured she would never get my point if she got too defensive, so I decided to cut to the chase.

“Look, settle down, everybody, okay?” I put my hands up with a half-smile. “I’m okay. I mean, I’m here, right? And I’m not here to give anyone nightmares with the details. I just wanted to get that off my chest, because I’d been keeping it to myself for so long. It was one of the big reasons I got into GC. I wanted to drown out the memory. I’m not even totally sure why I didn’t tell anybody. I think… maybe I didn’t wanna seem weak. Or something like that.”

“How could that make you weak?” The lavender sprite asked. “You’re incredibly strong to have survived that.” 

My ears felt hot. I didn’t know what to do with that. “Uh… thanks. The thing is -- and this has puzzled me ever since it happened -- whoever did it… they left me alive. I was totally at their mercy, but they left me alive. For a while, I sort of thought that they might have done it to be cruel. Leave me alive and humiliated. Let the fear consume me ‘til I’d corrupted myself on buffs. Let me tell you, what they did to me screwed me up real bad. It ended up in all my bad trips in one way or another. And I spent many a sleepless night just imagining what I’d do to this sprite if I met them. The revenge I’d take for all they put me through.”

Worluk was watching me dead on for what may have been the first time. I hated admitting that she had made such a significant impression on me, but I tried not to return her gaze too obviously or tense up under her scrutinizing glare.

“But nearly dying of corruption, and blacking out and nearly burning down Tapper’s, it, uh… it put a lot of things in perspective, y’know. ‘Cause, uh… my attacker -- well, attackers, there were actually four sprites there, but the ringleader -- I never did get to see her. But I heard her, and I could tell… she was definitely high.”

Soft gasps. Solemn nods.

“And I’ve sorta realized how lucky I am to be here now. Not just to be alive, but to be getting help. Because really, there’s no denying that I could have gone down that same road if I had more time. And with that, y’know, I wonder… would revenge even make me happy now? Now that I know it could’ve been me? Now that I know how similar she was to me?”

I chanced a glance. Worluk was frozen stiff, her expression intense but unreadable. My words were making an impression. Good or bad, they were doing something to her. An encouraging rush of adrenaline coursed through my body. Don’t stop now, it told me. 

Finish it.

“I never understood why she left me alive, but I think I get it now,” I indirectly spoke to her, my heart pounding. “She’s not a nightmarish monster, she’s just a sprite. A sprite who, when it comes down to it, knows the difference between right and wrong. Who knows that killing me would not actually make her happy. She must have realized that we’re not so different. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be alive right now. Buffs make monsters of all of us. But I can’t condemn her for that, not without condemning myself, too. Wherever she is, she’s not beyond redemption. And neither am I.”

“YOU DON’T DESERVE REDEMPTION!!”

The whole room jumped out of its pixels, and everyone was upright in an instant, reacting to the screeching bug that had leapt to her feet, her yellow wings spread out and quivering with rage. She screamed in a voice that was suddenly far closer to how I remembered her:

“I LEFT YOU ALIVE BECAUSE THE BOYS BEGGED ME TO, NOT BECAUSE YOU DESERVED TO LIVE!”

Well.

All bets were off.

My first instinct was to fight. She was threatening me. Challenging me. Surely, she was about to dive right into me and we would lock into our fated fight to the death, just like I thought we would from day one. But as my hand snapped to the empty space at my hip where my brush would be, my path to her was suddenly blocked. A few other members had stepped in front of me. It took me just a second to realize that they were not barring me from her. 

They were barring her from me.

I’ve felt alone to many varying, crushing degrees in this story, regardless of who was actually there for me. I’m not sure why, but that split-second moment when those sprites stepped in front of me was when I realized I wasn’t alone. I had never been alone. The thought that everyone in the arcade wanted me dead was never true. There were always allies waiting for me.

I had barely a moment to process that.

That was also the moment when the big, buff security guards leapt into action. Two of them were upon her immediately, gripping onto her arms and wings as she thrashed and buzzed. The third guard disappeared entirely, surely out to call the Surge Protector.

Voice deep with horror and disbelief, Clyde called out to her, “Worluk… You’re not really saying--?!”

“YES,” she snapped, “I’m SAYING. Don’t lie and tell me none of you ever thought to do the exact same thing! How can any of you say you trust this lying glitch?! You know she was in on the Roadblasters attack -- she even went all Turbo on Tapper’s, for Pong’s sake!”

A couple of voices came to my defense. I think they said that Tapper’s was a buff-related accident. That Worluk had no proof of my involvement in the Roadblasters incident. That I was just as much a victim as anybody.

I barely heard any of it. All I could hear, echoing again and again, drowning out all coherent thought, was your name said in her voice.

I wanted to push through everyone and rip out her tongue. I wanted to snap off her mandibles. I wanted to mangle her vocal cords just for thinking for one second that she deserved to say your name.

I didn’t do that. I stood there, breathing hard, flames roaring in my belly until I finally shouted the question I’d wanted to ask since the night of the attack.

“Why the HELL would I be in on it?!” 

Everyone’s gaze turned to me. I was shaking, on the verge of tears from pure, raw emotion. Hearing that bug’s horribly familiar screams brought back harrowing flashes of the emotions and sensations I felt the day she tortured me. I felt that fear and helplessness once again, and that fact kicked up seething, scorching rage. I would not be her victim again. I locked eyes with Worluk, sharpened my voice to a deadly point, and demanded, “Why would I help my best friend kill himself?!”

She gave a single, ugly, humorless laugh. “He didn’t kill himself. You just didn’t save him. The plan went sideways, and you failed.”

I shook with so much fury, I felt like I was going to burst out of my own skin. I could barely stand to stay in one spot, twitching and tensing with animal rage. My allies started to lift their hands, trying to keep me under control and preparing to try to catch me if I leapt over them, which I was dying to do. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, YOU SCUM-SUCKING BIT-BAG?! WHAT DO YOU CARE?! YOU DON’T CARE! YOU DON’T KNOW ME -- YOU DIDN’T KNOW EITHER OF US! YOU’RE JUST SOME SADISTIC FREAK WHO NEEDED SOME FRESH GORE TO GET OFF ON!”

“I CARE,” she roared back, fighting against the security guards’ arms, tendons in her neck straining as she threw herself into her wet, hissing screams, “BECAUSE I WATCHED YOU LEAP RIGHT OVER MY SISTER’S BURNING BODY JUST TO SAVE A MURDERER -- AND YOU COULDN’T EVEN DO THAT!” 

That threw me. I blinked hard. “Your sister?! What sister?! What are you talking about?!”

“YEAH, MY SISTER! HER NAME WAS GARWOR! SHE WAS SWEET AND INNOCENT AND YOU COULD’VE SAVED HER, BUT NO, YOU WANTED TO SAVE THE MONSTER THAT STARTED THE FIRE IN THE FIRST PLACE! YOU REALLY WANNA LIVE, KNOWING THAT? IF I KILLED YOU, IT WOULD’VE BEEN A MERCY! I WOULD’VE SAVED YOU FROM YOUR OWN FILTHY, PATHETIC EXISTENCE!”

I didn’t understand. She had to be lying. 

But the massive memory gap concerning the time of the Roadblasters incident scratched and dug at my brain. I still didn’t remember that day. But from the stories I’d gathered, there was a blast. There was fire. Always with the fire. It felt like her words were sharp fingers digging into my brain and trying to forcefully uproot my mind. A sharp, pounding headache hit my skull, and I couldn’t speak. 

Before I could manage a response, Surge materialized in the room with a flash of static.

“Alright, alright now,” he said firmly, standing between Worluk and the group and holding a hand up to both sides. “Someone better tell me what’s going on here.”

“Gladly,” Worluk answered without hesitation. “Surge, I confess to the attempted murder of that scrawny waste of pixels over there named Make-it Mavis.”

Surge stood a bit straighter. He seemed surprised at how easy that was. “Is that right?”

“That’s right. I’d rather quit this stinkin’ program and be locked up for life than sit in here and have to pretend she and I are the same for a second longer.”

And, amazingly… that was it. I wish that I had said something more. Anything, really. Just to have the last word. But life doesn’t always work out that way. My head was so muddied up with the explosive stress of the encounter, I could barely speak.

Surge took the confession as the proof I wasn’t able to give him, and he cuffed her, and recited her sentence and rights to her as he and a guard escorted her out of the room and out of sight. To say everyone was shaken would have been an understatement. A couple sprites cried. One nearly had a panic attack and needed to be calmed down. No one came into the meeting that night expecting such a harrowing confrontation. Not even me.

I had come into the program wishing so badly that I could get rid of Worluk. Then, almost the second I convinced myself to live and let live, she got rid of herself for me. I think we really were very similar, in the end. I very easily could have left the program in a similarly explosive fashion. But the only difference between us was that I chose to do better.

I think that was really the moment that sealed my faith in the ‘colors’ idea. It really did come down to choice. She chose to give up.

And I could choose to heal.

That was my surrender. That was step three.

But at the end of that session, I was raw. I was fragile. I felt terribly sick. I made sure to thank everyone for defending me. It really did mean a lot. But I told everyone I’d take a session or two off just to rest and recover. They all understood, of course. A couple others even said the same. But we’d all be back, we promised.

I just had a lot to process.

[lucarioisinthevoid]

swap personalities au. Jeremy is to be feared and puppet is an uwu. mike is soft no cuss man. Henry has a lorge soul and feels all emotions v much. thats all i got lol

Okay, this escalated into half an AU, so I’ll put a read more, because this really is long as hell. Tldr though, Jeremy is a horrible sadistic cunt using religion to justify his hatred for others and his bad treatment of them, Mike is constantly unsure of himself and tries to be nice but is fairly miserable, Phoney is the happiest guy on earth who LOVES life, Dave is a sociopath, but a well-adjusted, serious one, Marion is an innocent being constantly crying in his little box- And Henry has done a lot of mistakes in his life and is now stuck in his suit, his fear of life turned into nothing but mourning, while being tortured by one of his victims for all eternity. Frankly though, I’m still trying to figure out if their goals and moral stances would still stay the same if their personality switched, HMMMM- I’m having fun with this, this might become an actual AU. I just wrote out a segment as a writing exercise, heh. -

Fredbear’s was Jeremy’s favorite place. It wasn’t as much the attractions there, as it were the employees he worked with. Though, then again, there was one attraction he was REALLY fond of. Comfortable he sat on the music box, the melody being accompanied by loud and agonized sobs. They wouldn’t let him sleep. The box’s mechanism needed electricity to work, using the crank charged it all up, causing the soul inside immense pain. It was his favorite attraction, because the sound always reminded him of his father, back in his childhood. It was familiar. Nice. Comforting. “It’s not because I hate you.” He causally told the box, drawing another muffled howl from within it. “It is more because I’m bored. I want to listen to music. It is not my fault you are in there, you see? Not my fault at all.” Slowly he winded it up one more time, smiling to himself as he heard footsteps approaching. Not the Phone Guy, no. He was too prone to mind his own business. There was only one person who could step up like this. Hesitant, despite already being here. “What is it.” Jeremy finally asked, cold and snappy, suppressing another smile at the wince coming from the other employee. “I- I think you might- well- if you could- you know- I-“ “Hurry the fuck up. I don’t have all day.” Sharply Mike sucked in the air through his teeth, close to tears, but trying to force a smile. “H-hey, maybe you should- not- wind the box?” “Oh? Why?” “B-because the crying, it’s- I-“ He took a shaky breath. “Idon’tlikeit-“ “You don’t?” Pretending to be surprised, Jeremy put his hand in front of his mouth, “I’m SO sorry! You see, crying is actually quite the nice sound. It is the sound of being needed! But of course, a cruel man as you yourself would not understand how wonderful it is to bring comfort to other beings. And it is not like anyone is getting hurt. You are not trying to say the machines have REAL feelings right? Don’t be stupid.” “N-no, not-“ “See? Nothing wrong with that.” “But-“ “What is it with you? Why are you still trying to bother me about this? Are you having an episode again? Are you going to try to hurt me? I know there is a small part within you that just wants to HURT people. You disgust me.” Mike opened his mouth, but was incapable of saying anything. “Yes, that “demon”, that sometimes causes you to black out and wake up surrounded by nothing but agony. You are delusional with your talk about it being Fredbear. Maybe you should just accept that you are horrible and a danger to be around. Maybe you should just leave. Never come back. This world is better off without dangerous sinners like you.” Finally it was enough for Mike and he turned on the spot running off. Jeremy watched after him, disinterested. He wouldn’t do anything more exciting than that. Too much of a coward to take the last step. Though then again, he would tattle on him. Groaning the boy stepped off the box, looking back at it. The sobs have quieted down. The foolish soul inside still trying to keep ahold of its optimism really intrigued Jeremy. Sure, he did god’s work, trying to convince the soul to leave by any means possible- after all, nobody was allowed to hide from the fires of hell- but it was so utterly stubborn. Despite nothing being left, no inkling of a motivation, he stuck around. God must really hate him. Everyone in this restaurant really. But before he could think about it any further, from behind there was a small cough. He turned around, facing the owner of the location. It always took a second for Jeremy to remember it weren’t the man’s glasses that shined, but the eyes behind it. The Purple Guy looked down at him expressionless. “Did you harass Mike again.” It wasn’t even a question, he knew the answer. “No.” Fully confident he said. “But I would not expect a sociopath to understand the difference between harassment and a normal talk.” “… sociopathy is not depriving me of being able to understand and listen to my employees, Mr. Fitzgerald. Nor does it take my morals. I can still recognize your behavior as abhorrent. Why did I even hire you?” “Because you’re into small boys?” He grinned widely, then shrugged as though he hadn’t just leveled an abhorrent accusation at him. “Because I’m the only one willing to deal with Henry?” “… how about you do what you do what you were hired for then. Mr. Fitzgerald.” “Sure, sure. Oh, but maybe you should shortly check behind you, slightly to the right, where Phoney is putting a stack of party hats on fire and trying to put them onto his head?” He started laughing as William quickly turned and rushed off to save the wild Phone-headed man from probably damage, potential death. No way in hell that Jerry would tell him he was the one constantly smuggling in the lighters, since the grumpy guy at the price corner refused to do so. Instead he sneaked into the saferoom of the location, though he probably didn’t have to. Inside there only really was one thing. An old, slowly rotting golden suit. But that never fooled Jeremy. He might was surrounded by idiots, but so far the brain rot hadn’t hit him. “Well, Henry, how are we doing today?” The suit didn’t react. “Aw. Another day of no attention? What is it? Cannot even give me the littlest bit of appreciation for keeping you from breaking into pieces and making your existence even more painful?” Nothing came back. “… well then again, you probably think you deserve it. Which you absolutely do. Not even hell wants you. Nobody wants a child murder.” The suit’s clawed paw twitched, making Jeremy giggle in delight. “That NEVER fails. Fantastic. But is that all I am getting?” He proceeded to grab a bucket from the side, filling it with warm water and soap. “It’s really pathetic. You made that suit as your protection. Your shield from the world you cared too much about. You used the suit to play the big man, to tell people off, Fredbear was a rude bastard and it was the only way you could protect anything you loved. And now? The least you could do would be to go out there and bite all of these heathen’s heads off. But you won’t. Because Fredbear was just a suit and you’re just a coward.” Bemused he started to sprinkle water on the unresponsive suit. Washing, oiling, keeping it in check. “Too bad. I guess I have to wait until the locust descend to feast on their flesh during the end of days.” There was still nothing. Finally Jeremy quieted down, uncomfortable. Just wash it and get done with it. “… bad people deserve bad things. And bad things happen to bad people.” He quietly mumbled. “I’m not wrong with this. I’m not even that bad towards them. They would fucking kill me or worse if that would profit them. They are heathens without any sort of moral compass pretending to be all harmless and nice.” He hadn’t noticed Fredbear’s head slowly moving to the side to be able to look at him in his position. The chuckle made him snap up however. “… projecting… won’t protect you… from your shame…” “You- YOU-“ The boy squeezed the rag, soapy liquid running down his arm. Then he laughed, abruptly and harshly. “Oh NOW you are talking. To accuse me of NONSENSE. Meanwhile your friend William is broken up about your passing and you just sit here- like you COULDN’T if you WANTED. Shows how much you care. Just move on to the afterlife and take your punishment.” Once more there was nothing. Jeremy gritted his teeth, trying to control his temper. “You will NOT make me act in wrath. You will NOT drag me down. You will burn on your own, you creature lower than DIRT.” Outside Mike had finally calmed down, staying around Simon for a bit really had lifted his spirits again. There was just something about his unbridled joy about being alive that nobody could escape. But there was something he had to do. The customers had cleared out, so he could allow himself to sit down next to the box, without feeling bad about putting more pressure onto the other dayshift workers. “… h-hey. Can you… can you hear me? I’m- hey, how about- I might could take you out of there if you- if you would like to-“ The crying had subsided, but the lid stayed firmly on. “Nobody would mind! I think. I mean, I’m sure. Yes. Please, you… don’t have to be alone in there.” A weak voice sounded, muffled. “… no thank you.” “Ah- s-sorry. I just- I hate what is happening to you. I- I wish I could do something. I’m so sorry.” “… it’s not your fault.” “It sure feels like it though.” Gently Mike sighed. “Hey… I could… tell you a story maybe? I really want you to feel better…” There was hesitation from inside. “… can I tell you a story instead?” “Is- is it a nice one…?” “… no.” There was a short break. “But I hope you will listen to it anyways…” “O-okay. No problem. Not- not at all!” He quieted down to listen. From the distance, Old Sport leaned against the wall, watching on. Phone Guy attempted to sneak up, but was quickly frozen in place by a glare. It softened up however and he waved him over. “Phoney. Still alive?” “Alive and well and wouldn’t want it any different!” Happily the man agreed. “What about you?” “Eh. Neither truly happy nor truly alive, but still optimistic.” “What’cha looking at?” “… Mike. Kinda worry for him. He seems so unsure about everything.” “Oh, I’m sure he’s just nervous about this new job. We’ll get him out of that shell, and if we have to drag him!” “That… sounded like a threat.” “Oh. Oh no! I didn’t mean that!” Quietly Old Sport chuckled and patted his pal on the head. “I know. Just wanted to give you a heads up. I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.” “Trouble? I don’t want any trouble, that’s true! But a lot of so called “trouble” is just an adventure waiting to happen!” “… sometimes. Not in this case though.” “Awww, that’s too bad.” Both of them looked onto the tormented smile on Mike’s face in the distance. Again Old Sport sighed and looked at Phone Guy. “Do me a favor and look after him, alright? I worry for him.” “Everything will work out. I promise! I’m the manager, it’s my job to take care of everyone! Even Jeremy. Especially Jeremy. Poor boy has some issues too. But nothing that can’t be fixed with patience and love!” “I take your word for it.”

[crazycoke-addict]

My one problem with Shane’s new series

For the past two weeks and so, The Mind of Jake Paul by Shane Dawson has been his most watched series than his other series in the past. In the first video, he talks about how this was originally going be about Sociopath and if your favourite Youtubers might be one, however when he was researching Jake Paul and how many people call him a “Sociopath” because the things that he does or the way he treats his friends and ex-team 10 members in the past. In the video, Shane says he’s not saying Jake’s a sociopath, but it’s more of the could he? Although I’m in enjoying the series so and I understand what Shane trying to do. But to me, I feel like he’s doing it the wrong way.

One of my issues with the series is that he talk to the wrong person about Sociopaths. In the second series, he goes and meet another youtuber named Kati Morton. Kati Morton is a licence family and marriage therapist in the state of California who talks about mental health on her channel. However while she was talking about Sociopaths, she was only talk about them in a negative way. It’s like how the Hollywood industry and the media would portray them as serial killers because they believe if you have antisocial personality disorder, you gonna become a serial killer or a mass murderer. Shane even uses bad examples like they might drive too fast, they tattooed their body meaning they are harming themselves and they don’t wait for other people to cross on intersection. You know who else does that? A person who probably lives in the fast life and is impatient to stop and their probably aren’t even sociopaths.

I gonna tell you what a sociopath is, However I found by research on the Internet because I didn’t study psychology nor Am I a therapist. According to Psychology Today, Sociopathy is an informal term refers to a pattern of antisocial behaviour and attitudes. In the Diagonatic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, sociopathy is most closely represented by Antisocial Personality Disorder. Outwardly, those described as sociopaths may appear disturbed but can also show signs of caring, sincerity and trustworthiness. In fact, they are manipulative, often lie, lack empathy and have to act recklessly or aggressively, even when they know their behaviour is wrong. Many people believe that Sociopaths is the same as a Psychopath, when in reality they are actually different things. Though both describe someone who lacks a moral compass, a psychopath has no sense of right and wrong and is generally bolder, more manipulative and more self-centered than a sociopath. Research indicates that while sociopathy and psychopathy share common traits, the cause of psychopathy is more likely to be innate or genetic, and psychological in nature. Sociopathy is more likely the result of an environmental influence, such as childhood trauma.

Sociopaths tend to be nervous and easily agitated. They are volatile and prone to emotional outbursts, including fits of rage. They are likely to uneducated and live on the fringes of society, unable hold down a steady job or stay in place for every long. It is difficult but not impossible for Sociopaths to form attachments with others. Many sociopaths are able to form an attachment to a particular individual or group, although they have no regard for society in general or its rules. Any crimes committed by sociopath, including murder will tend to be haphazard, disorganised and spontaneous rather than planned. I like to point out that not all Sociopaths are violent, sadistic, serial killers, this is considered to be a myth that many people believe in. Sociopaths have a constant need for stimulation and that can sometimes manifest itself in a malicious or violent acts, particularly if those are opportunities that regularly present themselves to the sociopaths. They aren’t sadistic people and not all of them become serial killers or mass murderers. There are many violent people in the world who probably aren’t even sociopaths and might not have anything wrong with them.

In the fifth video, Kati Morton agreed to go undercover as a producer to evaluate Jake Paul. In the video, she mentions hasn’t done anything involving the mental disorder, Sociopathy. Her main ones are usually eating disorders. This would make people a bit more concerning, she knows about Sociopathy based on what she’s been giving, but she hasn’t had any experience or even had patient who suffers from Antisocial Personality Disorder. In the video, she says that Jake seems nervous and doesn’t know wether or not, that’s a good thing. They also believe Jake convincing Shane to do something as a manipulative. I don’t think Kati Morton was right person because she doesn’t really have any experience on Sociopathy and I also don’t think a Therapist would agree to go undercover like she did. Shane should’ve found someone maybe not a youtuber, whom is a therapist that not only is professional about Sociopathy and even Psychopathy, but also had patients who were Diagnosed Antisocial Personality Disorder. What Shane could’ve done was contact that person, tell them about Jake, but saying something like “there’s this guy and many people believe that he’s a sociopath because....” I don’t think the therapist would give Shane the answer he’s looking for and Shane could tell him that he’s meeting Jake and he’ll give him some feedback what Jake Paul and the therapist can give some advice on what to do.

Do I believe Jake Paul is a Sociopath?

To be honest, I don’t know. I don’t like Jake Paul but I’m not call him a sociopath because he doesn’t crazy things. I’m not his therapist so I can’t diagnose him and I feel like maybe Jake Paul might have mental health issues, but the question is could sociopathy be one of them? The reason why people accused Jake Paul as a sociopath because how he does crazy things in his videos and sometimes it involves around other people. People like Alissa Violet and the Martinez Twins said that Jake Paul wasn’t a good friend to them. However David Dobrik does the similar thing like pulling pranks on his friends for the video and so much more, but nobody ever says “David Dobrik’s a sociopath”. David and Jake are similar but one is more hated and is controversial than the other.

NOTE: I forgot to write on the whole do I think Jake Paul is a sociopath? Situation is that you don’t have to like someone like Jake Paul, but you can’t call him something that you only heard from Society and the movie Industry but don’t know what the definition really is or the real information.

[asleepinawell]

Silhouette

A Story About Shaw

(AN: About two weeks ago I posted Destinations, a story about Root and liminal spaces. I knew I wanted to do a companion piece for Shaw, but I couldn’t figure out the theme. The phrase that kept coming to mind was negative space, but it took me awhile to figure out why my brain settled on that. The result was quite different from Destinations, but it kinda had to be. Silhouette was...much harder to write and might be more polarizing than the last for a couple reasons, but nonetheless I hope you enjoy it).

After the accident, Shaw comes home one day to find a framed picture in her bedroom. It's a photograph of herself from a few years ago. In it she sits solemnly between her mother and father who are both smiling, laughing. Her father’s hands is resting on her shoulder.

Shaw is puzzled, unsure why her mother chose to put this picture on her dresser. By this point she’s realized that people surround themselves with photographs to feel connected; the photos are a reminder of the things pictured in them, a shortcut to the emotions those things evoke.

The day the picture shows up on her dresser, all solemn in its heavy black frame, Shaw stares at it, trying to understand what her mother expects her to do with it. She’s...not content with her father’s absence, but she’s not sure how a picture is supposed to help. She stares at it for hours, but only ends up with a headache. When she moves to a different, larger room the next year, she leaves the framed photo behind on the dresser. Her mother notices, of course. She doesn’t say anything, but the photo shows up on the desk in Shaw’s new room the next day. Shaw stares at the picture again, but still comes up blank. Her mother must have had a reason for moving it, so she keeps thinking about it, tracing the implications of the actions and expectations. Tries to understand why it’s so important to her mother that she keep it. A year later they move to a new house. This time it’s the first thing she packs.

She’s sitting in her apartment at three in the morning, bouncing a tennis ball off one wall and catching it. She knows her neighbors can hear it, that they’ll probably call the building’s super tomorrow to complain. She keeps bouncing it. She catches the ball on the rebound and looks around the room. There’s some light coming in through the shades from a street lamp outside, casting bright lines across the bare wood floors. Her desk is the only real furniture aside from her bed, and the books and papers on it are stacked neatly. She wonders if she’s supposed to throw that all out now, light the dumpster on fire. Is that the proper way to conclude a chapter of her life? They’d told her she didn’t care about her patients, that it didn’t hurt her when she lost one. She can’t argue with that exactly. But…. But after her patient, Loftin, died she’d spent the next evening reviewing every action she’d taken, trying to find places to improve technique, hone reactions. Sure, she didn’t feel sad, or guilty, because there was no reason for her to. She knew she’d done everything it was possible for her to do at the time; all that was left was continuing to improve so that the next time she’d have more options. Would having a good cry help her next patient? She’d stumbled upon another resident sobbing in the bathroom one day. The distraught woman had just lost her a patient, her first, had asked her how she dealt with it. Shaw had been irritated, told her to get better at her job so it wouldn’t happen again.

Wasn’t that the obvious answer? She throws the ball at the wall again, harder this time. By the time her neighbors complain the next day, she’s already moved on.

Apparently she isn’t suited to saving lives, but maybe she’s suited to taking them.

She understands the contradictions of being a soldier. Taking lives, and, by doing so, saving lives. But saving lives isn’t the skill she’s congratulated for, and isn’t what catches the attention of the ISA. No one asks her why she wants to join the marines, but then no one had ever asked her why she wanted to be a doctor.

She sits in a room full of very fresh corpses, her gun trained on a man named Lewis who’s staring at her in horror. She knows that operational procedure suggests she should shoot him, not leave any loose ends, but as of about an hour ago she doesn’t work for the ISA any longer. And, while she wouldn’t lose any sleep over putting a bullet between Lewis’s eyes, he isn’t a threat. She didn’t take the job she just lost to shoot the Lewis’s of the world. He runs away into the night as she sits on the couch surrounded by the men she just killed and the absence of the one she let go.

“I read your file and I’m kind of a big fan.”

Shaw’s biggest fan apparently has a thing for her sociopathic tendencies. The more time they’re forced to spend together, the more she wonders why. This…Root seems to generally dislike people, finds them useless, and Shaw decides the flighty, homicidal sadist must think she’s found a kindred spirit in her.

Except… sometimes Root’s face softens when Shaw’s pulling a bullet out of her or checking a bandage. As if somehow Shaw’s actions are louder than her irritated retorts.

As if Root sees that what Shaw does is sometimes more telling than what she is.

There's never any question of her not holding onto the kid's dumb medal.

That framed picture her mother had given her never did anything for Shaw, but it hadn't cost her anything to leave it on her desk. And sometimes her mother would see it there and smile.

She hangs the medal on the light by her bed.

Harold tells her she has a binary moral compass and she has to suppress the urge to roll her eyes.

Root’s still stuck in her cage in the library and Reese is off on his suicide revenge mission. She rather likes Reese; he doesn’t pry where he’s not wanted, and she can appreciate his decision to hunt down Quinn. But Finch wants her help and apparently his conceptions of right and wrong outweigh Reese’s desire for retribution. She’s not sure what Finch thinks her motives are for beating up half of Brooklyn, because it isn’t like she doesn’t want Quinn dead as well. But Finch would hardly be the first employer to assume she’s casually violent without cause.

The thing is, she doesn’t like many people, but she’d liked Carter, respected her. And while she recognizes Reese’s claim on this revenge, she wants to make sure he gets it.

But, well, Finch is the boss, and Reese is in bad shape, too damn lost in his own head to acknowledge that he needs to stay alive at least long enough to pull the trigger. And things might be dull without him around, so fine, she’ll play along.

But Reese keeps managing to stay ahead of them, and time is running out.

Of course, there’s an obvious solution.

Shaw has (mostly) gotten over the taser incidents. She got to punch Root in the face (which had been immensely satisfying) and then Root had sat in a cage and had Finch preach at her for days on end which Shaw can only imagine was excruciating. They’re probably even now.

And all that is irrelevant anyway because the mission is finding Reese, and Root is the fastest way to that goal.

Finch is having none of it, though, too enmeshed in his owns fears. She wonders again exactly how emotions help save lives.

Root is dangerous, unpredictable, and a pain in Shaw’s ass, but she’s also a valuable asset, and they don’t have the luxury of requisitioning help from the morally unimpeachable (if such a thing even exists, which Shaw highly doubts). But Finch is unable to see past the parts of Root (and, Shaw realizes, the Machine) that terrify him to the parts that could be invaluable to them now.

Shaw finally gives in to the urge and rolls her eyes. Binary moral compass, her ass. Someone here's got one, but it sure as shit ain't her.

She doesn’t say that though and eventually, when it’s almost too late, she gets her way.

Reese lives.

Root examines her apartment as if she can see something beyond the bare walls and lack of furniture.

“What?” Shaw asks, but Root only shakes her head.

“It’s very you,” she says.

Shaw holds back a scowl, strangely disappointed by the answer. She knows she doesn’t let it show on her face, but Root seems to pick up on it anyway.

“I meant, it’s…” Root tilts her head, searching the ceiling for inspiration. “…it’s direct.” She lets out a frustrated sigh, still unhappy with her word choice. “There’s nothing here that doesn’t have a reason to be. It’s…honest, and you can see the important parts easily.”

“Nothing here’s important.” Maybe the guns in the fridge, but even those are more practical and she knows that isn’t what Root meant.

She's suddenly very glad she'd pocketed that kid's medal right when they'd gotten here. Something tells her Root would have immediately honed in on it.

Root’s smiling now, like she knows something Shaw doesn’t. “Maybe the things you find important aren’t things that can be put on shelves, Sameen. Not that you have any shelves.”

She probably thinks she sounds clever, insightful. Shaw rolls her eyes, something she does a lot these days, especially around Root.

“Whatever.”

Maybe inviting Root here was a mistake.

She doesn’t kick her out though.

She finds she likes working with Reese even more than she’d expected. He does have an irritating habit of flying off the handle and running headlong into needless danger, but he’s otherwise easy to be around. 

He teases sometimes, and it’s almost affectionate, his awkward way of showing he gets it, he gets her. Not completely, but more than most people do.

She’s glad they saved his life.

She’s used to being thought of as a blunt instrument, and so she’s a bit nonplussed by the way Root keeps insisting she cares. That’s not something anyone’s ever accused her of before and she’s annoyed by it as a reflex.

She’s annoyed by it the entire ride out of the darkened city on a damned bike, and when she steals a car on the other side of the bridge, and all the way across bumblefuck New Jersey to make sure Root doesn’t get shot before she can tell her how annoyed she is.

She watches her own shadow biking furiously alongside her over the bridge. That’s all most people see, she knows. Her shadow, empty and dark, miming out her movements because it can’t do anything else.

Root predictably insinuates she was worried about her and Shaw isn’t nearly as annoyed as she’d planned to be.

“Did Harold tell you anything?” Root’s fidgeting with her jacket, uncomfortable.

She’s shown up tonight out of nowhere, the first time Shaw’s had word of her since the hotel incident.

She doesn’t think she’s ever met anyone as prone to getting shot as Root. She’s got some sort of nutso martyr complex that should make Shaw steer well clear of her. And yet here she is in Shaw’s apartment. Again.

“Tell me what?”

She’s pulling her medical kit out already because god knows Root probably did a half-assed job getting her wounds treated.

“Nothing. It’s not important.”

“Okay.”

She wonders what Root had said that Finch thought she wouldn’t care about. He might have been right about that, in some fashion. In a way that made sense to him anyway.

She’s glad the Machine doesn’t tell Root this time, about how she’d once again gone to try and find her. Because then Root might tell her whatever it was Finch hadn’t and Shaw isn’t sure she’s ready to hear that.

She’s not ever going to be able to tell Root what she thinks she wants to hear. That’s not who she is.

But there is one thing she can do.

Back when she’d left for college, she’d brought that picture her mother had put on her dresser, been sure to let her know she’d packed it. She’d put it on the desk in her dorm room, the only decoration she allowed. 

She hadn’t put it there for herself.

The first time her mother had come to visit, she’d seen the framed photo and had beamed at it just like Shaw had known she would.

Root doesn’t smile when Shaw kisses her. Definitely doesn’t smile when she locks her in the elevator.

But then Root had already known, or at least strongly suspected. Or at least hoped. And now she knows for sure, a parting gift, the only one Shaw can give.

(And maybe, Shaw admits to herself (because if it’s the last chance she has she might as well be honest), that kiss had been for herself, too).

Do the others know now? Were her actions finally loud enough to drown out the deafening quiet people could sense within her?

She supposes she’ll never find out now.

When they’d trained her in the ISA they’d gone on and on about detaching the mind, taking it someplace safe. She’s never been able to detach her mind like that because she’s never needed to. Nothing has ever been able to get inside her head enough to do damage.

At the time she’d assumed a safe place was an actual place, a location. She finally understands why the exercise had been a waste of time for her back then. And why it isn't a waste anymore.

Samaritan can’t figure it out. With all its power and knowledge, it’s still ignorant when it comes to her. It knows what she is and (like so many before) it expects her to act according to her programming. When she doesn’t it tries again and again, convinced she’s only being stubborn and that eventually she’ll act as it expects.

She wonders if it knows that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Eventually it tries a new approach, but now it’s gone too far in the other direction. It expects her to react like Reese or Finch might, to be swayed by its mathematics of human lives.

She remembers her first meeting with Root, how she said torture almost never works. Torture is about getting inside someone’s head and now she’s glad Root never did get a chance to try and get inside hers.

Because she’s the only one who stood a chance.

She’s unsure of everything when she breaks free, off-balance in a way that’s completely alien to her. But she knows that going back, getting near the others, near Root, is the wrong thing to do. She has to keep her safe.

Root will understand because she always does.

She enjoys her time in the desert. It's quiet, and the wide open spaces are soothing after all her time imprisoned.

She thinks it might be nice to stay here a while, away from all the complications of the world. She'd lost track of time while she'd been locked up, why not lose a little more?

But she doesn't stop walking, headed in a straight line towards the one place she can't go.

Her shadow lags behind her across the landscape.

She can go anywhere in the world now that she’s free. Anywhere that isn’t New York City. Root is almost definitely still in the city, so she absolutely cannot go anywhere near there and that's all there is to it.

She heads straight to New York.

She won't let herself look for Root or the others, but she won't leave either and eventually the inevitable comes to pass.

And it turns out she’s the one who doesn’t understand (and apparently Samaritan doesn’t either), because Root points the gun at herself and suddenly Shaw’s annoyed and mildly worried, things she hasn’t felt in quite some time. At least not in this way.

They sit in the park most of the night, in a spot Root promises is free from surveillance. Samaritan might not be watching her, but Root sure is. Her face practically glows.

It brings back whispers of the simulations, of Root swearing she’d never given up looking for her, and Shaw raises a hand to her ear without meaning to.

“Hope you didn’t miss me too much,” she says, unable to stop herself from dangling out a line from the script she’s long-since memorized.

Root’s silent at first, her eyes full of things she won’t put into words.

“John and I almost blew up Control after you...after everything,” she says at last. “Fired a rocket at her car and then stuck her in a cage and tased her.”

She tilts her head to one side and manages one of her mischievous grins. “Well, I tased her. John brooded threateningly in the background.”

Shaw’s surprised at the choked laugh that escapes from her throat. This was one response she’d definitely never heard in a simulation. And even Samaritan hadn't been able to predict the weird fondness Root has apparently developed for Reese.

She wonders what else she's missed, how much everyone's changed. Where she fits in.

“I’m glad you came back here. To New York, I mean,” Root says and Shaw is reminded of that first time Root had been in her apartment, all that nonsense about the things that can't be put on shelves.

“Pretty bad idea under the circumstances. Would have been safer for you if I’d stayed well away.”

“No. It wouldn’t have been.”

There’s an expression on Root’s face she can’t quite define, and she thinks that maybe staying away wouldn’t have kept her safe. Not from some things.

On some level she must have already known that. After all, she’d come back here.

It’s a little overcast the next morning, standing there under the bridge, and she casts no shadow. There’s nothing to see here but her.

From the other’s expressions she can tell that her absence left a hole and she wonders what that looked like to each of them, what part of their world had been missing.

Looking at the others makes her think that maybe she understands a little about what Root's expression last night had meant. That there hadn’t been a Shaw-shaped hole in Root’s world like there had been for the others.

If the Machine’s silence had torn Root’s world to shreds then Shaw’s absence had surely demolished what was left of it. There couldn’t be a hole in a world that was gone.

But that’s not the expression on Root’s face now.

The others stare at her in wonder and disbelief, like she’s not real.

But Root….

Root looks at her like she’s the only thing that is.

(AN: I’m aware that ‘Shaw’ is not her real last name and she wouldn’t have had it as a child. I chose to use it for consistency since referring to Shaw as ‘Sameen’ when writing in her POV feels weird to me.)

[awed-frog]

spn alignment chart (round table)

So, I’ve gotten quite a few interesting answers and asks to my flawed attempt at making an SPN alignment chart (thank you, guys!), so I decided to pool them all in one post. I’m putting this stuff under a cut because it’s likely to be long and I guess not everyone’s interested, but you’re of course welcome to reblog and add your own ideas.

Just as a caveat - I’m an idiot, and I only now realize, thanks to one of the asks I received, that this exercise may not be, in the end, very useful. An alignment chart is, really, an extremely schematic way of looking at things, and probably not the best way to describe characters we’ve known for years.

[The original post with my alignment ideas is here, and here’s the description of how to classify characters according to this system.]

I'm thinking about your alignment chart and the various challenges people are making to it, and I was wondering whether you think intentions or actions are more important when it comes to the characters? How about what the character would think of themselves vs. how they are interpreted by other characters? Does a character's personal view of themselves mean nothing if you don't agree with their insights? Castiel, for instance, has certainly challenged his sense of right and wrong over the years but I don't think he ever stopped wanting to do the right thing as his ultimate goal. I do think his obsession with keeping the Winchesters alive at all costs is wrapped in his concept of doing the right thing, because that is one of the only unambiguous correct choice he ever made. He trusts Dean and Sam to do the right thing, so keeping them alive is Cas doing the right thing. (I don't agree with this, but I do think that's Cas' thinking). His intent is good, even if his actions aren't always. (via @anon)

Yes - you are so right about all of this. This is mostly why this discussion, for me, will end with this post - because ultimately, real world building is too complex to use an alignment chart. Thanks for pointing it out, anon. I liked the idea of updating the chart because I’d seen so many versions of it (and, interestingly, it’s mostly Sam who moves around - but then, we already knew he’s a mysterious character), but I now realize all of this may be a bit pointless. Making an alignment chart may be useful for RPGs, when you need to know important stuff about characters you’re only just making up, but if we’re talking really developed fictional characters, then - ideally - they become like real people, which means it’s not possible to reduce them to these basic traits. 

(If anyone’s interested in why I put Cas down as a true neutral, I answered that here.)  

Don't you get it? This is all meaningless. Heaven, Hell, this world. If it ever meant anything, that moment is past. Nothing down here but a bunch of hopeless distraction addicts, so filled with emptiness, so desperate to fill up the void... they don't mind being served another stale rerun of a rerun of a rerun. You know what my plan is? I don't have one. I'm just gonna keep on smashing Daddy's already broken toys and make you watch. Lucifer=chaotic evil. (@anon)

As I said here, I’m struggling to see Lucifer as a chaotic anything. Sure, this is what he says, but if he looks at his actions - he’s deliberately put himself into situations that would give him love, adoration, obedience, and an audience. Even his creation of a Nephilim is more the symptom of a midlife crisis than anything else. Plus, my understanding is that a true chaotic evil would accept damage to themselves, as long as the hero is harmed in some way. This doesn’t seem to be the case with Lucifer, who’s doing all he can to save himself and not sent back in the Cage. On the other hand, it’s also hard to define what a chaotic evil even is, and if any character fits the characteristics (I’ve been thinking about villains all morning, but I can always find a reason why I’m not quite happy with classifying them as chaotic evil). Here’s an interesting discussion on the subject, but it’s mostly about videogames characters I know nothing about. This is an excellent blog entry on the subject, but, again, I can’t find any characters who really fit - maybe more someone like the guys from Natural Born Killers - but they were inspired by real people, so I’m not sure it counts.

Personally, I’d switch Mary and Cas. Mary has been making far more decisions that aren’t ‘good’ ie nearly killing Jody, or working with the BMoL to wipe out monsters so that her kids can have a 'normal’ life, which to me seems more neutral than good. Cas, on the other hand... Sure, this season has seen him making more decisions closer to true neutral (killing Billie to save the Winchesters), but I believe that he is too inherently good to be overshadowed by this. He's going back to Heaven, despite the fact that this probably won't end up helping him personally, because he thinks he and the angels can help with the nephilim (although what happens with that will be the true test of everyone's alignments ah I refresh my dash and see your post about Cas just after I sent you that ask! What you say is true, Cas has made many decisions to save the Ws that screw others over, but on the other hand, many of Cas' decisions have been about saving humanity (and not just Dean lol) from the angel's self righteousness and haven't solely revolved around the Ws. For example, all of the various times he's gone back to Heaven to try to repair the messes/prevent the apocalypses (ex S5-stopping Raphael, S9) (via @quiescentcastiel)

Mary was a big problem, and I’m not happy about I classified her. I sort of think that, even after an entire season, I simply don’t know enough about her motivations to put her anywhere. Because here you see it again - yes, maybe she’s hunting to make the world a safer place for her kids, but the thing is, she likes it. She relishes it. And not those other parts of the hunt, which the BMoL helpfully took care of so she wouldn’t have to (the ‘get this’, the ‘is this even a case’, the asking around and talking to terrified witnesses and putting the puzzle together); no, what Mary seems to like, whatever she says, is the killing. Unlike Ketch, she’s not a sadist, so she doesn’t draw it out, and she doesn’t enjoy the pain of others, but there is still something about the kill that she likes - needs, even - and this is why, in the end, I don’t like her all that much as a person. She may tell herself she’s acting for her sons, but the thing is, given who she is, this is probably the only way she can be there for them. Sam and Dean didn’t need her to kill monsters for them, and they certainly didn’t need it back when they were infants (what if she’d been killed? with John unaware of his wife’s activities, they wouldn’t even have known what had happened to her). And I’m not saying this because she’s a woman - I mostly dislike this character trait in men as well. So, anyway, I don’t know what to make of her.

As for Cas, I’ve already said why I put him down as true neutral, but you make some good points. The thing is, though - is Cas working with the angels to truly save the world from the Nephilim (after all, he’s met another Nephilim, and the Antichrist, and both were nice, decent people and why did that never come up?) or does he realize that this will be a messy fight, especially now Dagon is involved, and since the Winchesters won’t lose interest in it any time soon, they’ll need all the help they can get? We don’t know, of course. If Cas had gone back to Heaven to fix some kind of thing that had no influence on Dean’s life whatsoever, then I might be more inclined to agree with you, but as it is, I still think the more Cas falls in love with Dean, the more his moral compass gets unbalanced and wobbly. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, of course (I think all of us would do anything to keep those we love safe, if we had the power to, so this shows Cas is simply becoming more human), but given his powers, it’s still dangerous for everybody involved.  

i’m not sure i agree with those alignments for mary and sam but the others i do. i feel like sam might be more neutral good and mary perhaps true neutral or neutral neutral but she’s trickier to pin down (via @thejabberwock)

Yep, those are two characters I really struggle with. Who even knows.

You’ve got Mr. “Make a deal, keep it” as chaotic? I agree with the neutral part, given his wavering between good and evil these days, but I would have put Crowley at Lawful Neutral, or maybe True Neutral, but he’s certainly not chaotic. (via @thayerkerbasy)

You’re right, but - I really didn’t know where else to put him. Like, in that post evil is described as ‘impeding the heroes is their main goal’, and good, of course, is about helping the hero - neither fits Crowley. Neutral is more about being selfish in some way, which I’m still not happy with, but whatever. As for the chaotic part, I simply feel Crowley’s been acting a bit erratically this season (which may be bad writing tbh). This whole ‘keeping Lucifer around’ thing - that’s almost chaotic evil territory, because Crowley wants to hurt Lucifer so badly he doesn’t much care if he himself gets killed in the process (because, yes, he may have put in place all the fail-safes ever invented, but this is Lucifer - how likely it is, really, that one of them won’t fail?). He was almost a chaotic good when he broke that lance, but a true neutral who didn’t care about anyone but himself when Sam and Dean were in that secret prison (and, again, I feel like my Crowley would have busted them out of there, but whatever). And this applies to last year too - stopping to have an orgy and kill a few people when there were a million urgent things to do - that was very chaotic evil of him, but doing his part to work with TFW, and even God, to bring down Amara - that was back into almost lawful good territory. 

I think the conclusion here is, Crowley needs his own spin-off and I want to write that.

I strongly feel that Dean is actually LG. He has a strict moral code that, while different from society’s, is still pretty inflexible. Saving people, hunting things. He’s softened on it over the years, but he doesn’t act unpredictably. I’d say Cas is more CG; he’s always trying to do the right thing but he’s lost without the guidance of Heaven. His loyalty is to the Winchesters, but his application is less than consistent. Sam is NG; he does whatever he has to do protect others, including sacrificing himself, drinking demon blood, etc. (via @destielmixtape)

Those are all excellent points, and I completely agree.

[amycvscarrows]

+ during his hogwarts days, amycus carrow was known for two things: his devil-may-care shit talking attitude & his penchant for bedding any female that came in his vicinity ( although he'll tell you he was somewhat selective ). really it was to fill the void caused by his emotionally neglectful and at times abusive household. there were few people besides his twin sister alecto that knew the real amycus under the bluster and brash and those people he could count on one hand. + as graduation came closer and closer, amycus started to drift deeper and deeper into his shell. part of the reason was because of the state of his deteriorating friendships namely with alice fortescue, who was once his best friend moral compass. when she closed the door on their friendship he felt like there was no point in ‘doing good’ when all people would see you as was ‘bad’. so he did what he did best, give into the idea.  + shortly after graduation, he was given a small trust to pursue some sort of ambition. but the truth was he had none, rabastan and him just kind of wanted to party? so they did, for the first six months all they did was smoke, drink, and throw away money. finally, his father rattled his cage a bit and told him he needed to find a real purpose in life. so amycus & rab ( did the next best thing ) got together and bought a bar over in knockturn alley. taking the saying ‘turn your hobby into your job’ a little too serious. + when alecto enlisted for the death eaters, amycus of course signed up for the dark mark, he wanted to be there for his sister because wherever she went he would go, without question. and also because a part of him didn't trust voldemort. he still doesn't trust him completely, and voldemort knows this and loves to make life difficult for amycus. he's fairly lowly ranked but eager to prove himself as an elite death eater because of course he has to be the best at everything. + his father has tried to arrange his marriage to a number of pureblood princesses and amycus has disregarded most of them. he wants to be single for as long as humanely possible besides trusting people??? finding genuine affection???? lol. he has been non stop flirting with that sadistic bitch sage krum, just on and off banter tbh. and he's intrigued because she's dangerous and venomous. but he likes having her around at the bar and looks kind of forward to talking to her everyday when she stops by. + he's starting to spiral and he can feel it. everyday the naive broken boy he used to be at hogwarts slips away from him and everyday he has to confront the man he's becoming, or rather the monster he's becoming. the blood on his hands becomes easier to clean every day and the attraction he has to chaos it's growing and consuming him.

[journeysintowebcomics]

Worm Liveblog #2

UPDATE 2: The Wannabe Heroine’s First Outing

Last time Taylor had introduced herself, shown the awful place that’s her high school, and showed her powers. Also she wants to be a superhero and plans to try get into that world very soon. Let’s see if her dreams are torn to shreds in this update.

There were no doubts Taylor takes seriously her training, and if anyone had doubts, she proceeds to dispel such doubts by describing her exercise regime. Running, mostly. There was a time jump here, straight to the day when Taylor will try her hand at being a hero. That was quick! I was sure it’d take longer than that, that there’d be a couple scenes more at school, but nope! Here we are, she’s ready to go outside and kick ass. You know, I had been warned a couple times that Worm had a slow start – slow burn, is that what they call it these days? – but this wasn’t slow at all! It took just like 5000 words! That’s like the blink of an eye! It’s almost as ridiculous as when one calls a 4000 chapter in a book ‘a long chapter’.

But yeah, Taylor is prepared and dyed her costume, buying the rest of the pieces to save time. Some of the armor wasn’t ready so she went ahead without it. I really hope that won’t be as troublesome as I have the impression it could be...you sure you know what you’re doing, Taylor? Her mask design includes lenses and bug mandibles. I admit I’m a bit surprised there’s no antennae, but that’s a good election. Antennae would provide foes a way to grab someone. It could be said the same about long hair, now that I think about it, but it doesn’t sound to me like Taylor has unnecessarily long hair, so she should be fine.

While Taylor walks to the bad side of the town, she proceeds to do some worldbuilding for the reader’s benefit. ‘From pretty much any point on the Docks, you could see one of Brockton Bay’s landmarks, the Protectorate Headquarters.  Besides being a marvel of architectural design with its arches and towers, the PHQ was a floating base of operations that a squadron of local superheroes called home, outfitted with a forcefield bubble and a missile defense system.’ That’s cool. Not the subtlest of headquarters, but at least it has defenses. I thought the superheroes’ need for secrecy would include not having headquarters in middle of the city like this, but I suppose not as much secrecy as I thought is needed. Just enough to keep their real identities away from their hero work. I wonder who are the three leading members of the Protectorate. Surely they’ll appear at some point in the story.

The need for money and the lack of work made the blue-collar workers of Brockton Bay fueled the supervillain population of the city. Henchmen are always on high demand, aren’t they? And this is a job, so those workers had to join and do their best. Hope they at least got good enough pay for that. Villains thrived until heroes started to fight them, and now there’s a balance between the two factions. It’s all a familiar setting, in some ways. It feels like I have heard something similar to it before.

Now that Taylor finished her worldbuilding, she arrives to the bad part of Brockton Bay, where she avoids anyone she sees. I had been about to comment it was amazing no one in the Boardwalk or anywhere before that had seen her and commented about her costume or anything, but then I reread and noticed she was going outside after midnight. Either way, she encounters trouble. A gang, called ‘Azn Bad Boys’. They’re no small fries, and their leaders are said to be people with powers, and given that they’re all gathering and doing thuggish faces, something is afoot. Be careful, Taylor.

There he is! The big leader of the gang makes his appearance, and he has all the signs of being the bad guy. ‘He had an ornate metal mask over his face’. That screams that he’s the leader, yeah. His powers are interesting, though. He transforms gradually the more he fights, gaining advantages and making him a tougher match. Oh, and also can control fire. Hm. He’s not...exactly the best target for the first fight as a hero, especially since he has overcome superheroes that surely had more experience and skill than Taylor.

Honestly? I think Taylor has bitten way more than she can chew. I don’t know how Mr. Wildbow starts his stories – or if he has written anything else before Worm – so I don’t know if he’d start a tale with the main character being badly beaten up. I won’t be surprised if it happens. Frankly, I’d be surprised if she does manage to hold her ground.

So, the leader’s name is Lung and he’s giving orders to the gang members. To listen better, Taylor decides to take a risk and climb a building, thankfully having made her outfit with soft soles. Once she’s on a nearby building, she listens to Lung’s commands. “…the children, just shoot.  Doesn’t matter your aim, just shoot.  You see one lying on the ground?  Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure.  We give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?” ...alright, that’s certainly alarming. Any chances of aiding the targets escape instead of confronting the gang members, Taylor? That seems to be like it’d work better than fighting the gang members directly.

‘They were going to kill kids?’ Yeah, apparently they will. The chapter ends here. It was mostly a chapter of worldbuilding. I suppose the next chapter will be when Lung and his gang start doing what they plan to do. Children, hm...well, I know pretty much nothing about what Lung may have in mind, but I doubt he routinely gets his gang to kill children just because. I mean, it wouldn’t be unheard of, but I’d like to believe there’s a reason to do it. Maybe those children are important to someone else. Maybe they’re in the way of something. Or maybe Lung simply hates children. It’d be boring if it’s villainy for the sake of villainy, despite the powers. Either way, next chapter, please!

The first thing Taylor does is wish she could call other heroes – quite significant she calls them ‘the real heroes’, that is a detail that shows how much Taylor is doubting herself right now. Kudos, Mr. Wildbow -- and makes mental note to carry a cellphone and spare change next time. Then she tries to see if there are any alternative meanings to what Lung said. ‘Children’, did it really mean ‘children’? But no, Taylor doesn’t think that, she’s thinking why anyone would go out of the way to kill children. There’s no time to think about that for long, a car comes by and the group starts walking down the street.

‘As much as I didn’t want to face it, there was really only one option that I could have no regrets about.’ And that is to try to stop them, of course. Looks like Taylor has her moral compass aligned correctly at this point of the story. All swarms in the vicinity, every single bug around, is ordered to attack them. Hmmmmm...well that is bound to deal with the normal gang members. Guns and knives aren’t good against insects. Lung, though, I really doubt that’ll affect him. His powers give him the edge here. If there’s something Pokemon has reinforced in me, it’s that Fire is super-effective against Bug. Hah! Kidding, of course that doesn’t matter here, but my point is that it’s going to be very difficult to attack Lung with bugs if he can control fire. The gang members are more or less defenseless, and if Lung directed his fire against them in an attempt to kill the bugs it’d kill them.

So, the fight starts! Taylor stays on the roof of the building she had gotten on last chapter and directs the swarms from there, using the data she feels from the insects to know what’s going on. It doesn’t take long for Lung to use fire. Taylor isn’t worried about it, though, she’s...suppressing a laugh. It’s the adrenaline.

‘Was that all he could do?  I directed the swarm to gather, so those who weren’t already biting and stinging were in the midst of the gang.  If he wanted to turn his flames on the swarm, he would have to set his own people on fire’. Oooooh, she realized it! Nice, I’m warming up to Taylor. Not enough for me to really think of her as an invaluable character, but she’s decently clever and can see how the situation is like. It also speaks well of the author. It’s often said smart characters can only be as smart as the author is.

Hm. It’s a disappointment that it’s not said what the gang members are doing right now other than being bitten and stung, if they’re panicking or if they’re even screaming or loudly wondering what’s going on or anything. That was a missed chance, it could have added a sense of franticness that would have benefitted the scene. You kind of dropped the ball here, Mr. Wildbow.

Taylor decides to go into the next part of the fight: attacking Lung with the poisonous bugs. She knows she’s going to need to overwhelm him with venom to affect him, and the fact he’s large and strong makes it even more difficult. She’s running out of time to do anything, he’s starting to get covered in armor.

‘I felt a sadistic glee as I organized the attack on Lung’ Is that so, Taylor? It never speaks well of a main character when one feels something like ‘sadistic glee’ without the conscience coming by to douse it with guilt. It’ll be fine –and frankly I think it’d be awesome-- if Mr. Wildbow decides to go on have a main character who does feel things like sadistic glee at causing pain on her foes...as long as he doesn’t try to paint her in some kind of positive light later. I have seen many authors do that kind of mistake way too often with some flaws.

Taylor doesn’t play around; she goes straight to causing as much pain to him as possible and that involves doing the proverbial punch below the belt, just that here it’s done with bugs. Haha!

Oh, there it is! In the next paragraph. ‘Rationale aside, I did feel a stab of guilt about taking pleasure in someone else’s pain’. I see, I see. Taylor had no trouble quieting that stab of guilt by telling herself Lung was going to kill children. Interesting. Not that Taylor now has long for things like dealing with the guilt, Lung explodes in a ball of fire.

The explosion pretty much cripples Taylor’s swarms, leaving her in disadvantage. He’s furious! Methinks you should start going away now, Taylor! Lung and the gang have been alerted there’s something going on, the gang members must be in quite some pain from being stung who knows how many times...I don’t think they’re in state to do whatever they were going to do tonight. It doesn’t mean they have been stopped – other different gang members may do it – but it’ll at least be inconvenient. But nope, luckily for the children Taylor is willing to go all the way to the end. She prods Lung with some harmless swarms, testing him, but he’s indeed getting stronger and that’s bound to continue.

The gang members still are inexistent. I’ll pretend they ran away or something.

‘Despite my earlier glee, I wasn’t sure I could win this anymore.’ Yeah, I think you’re over your head on this one. Not that it stops Taylor from trying her best, she decides to get creative and meaner. That involves aiming wasps and bees at Lung’s eyes. There’s a rather effective description of stingers on the eye. It wasn’t descriptive to the point of gore, but it certainly painted a vivid image that made me cringe. Jeez! I’m both impressed and dismayed at the same time, hahaha. Bonus points to Mr. Wildbow for remembering the existence of eyelashes and blinking.

Lung had enough of this all and sets himself on fire, effectively disabling any attack Taylor could hope to make. He’s also getting even more armored than before. Taylor figures that the gang members were unable to carry out any plan and that it was time to leave. Yeah, that’s what I thought, Taylor! But unlike me, she also plans to contact the Protectorate Headquarters, just in case. That’s...something that didn’t cross my mind. Oops. Not a bad first outing as a hero! Taylor starts her retreat, steps on the gravel and that’s enough to alert Lung. ‘A victorious roar filled the air, less human than the outcry he had made earlier, and I felt a kind of resignation.  Enhanced hearing.  The package of powers the bastard got from his transformation included superhuman hearing.’ Well I suppose it was illogical that everything would go okay...even if I honestly had gotten so engaged in this I was hoping she’d get away safely. Dang. Well it was kind of a foregone conclusion that something would go awry at some point. Worm isn’t the story of a successful superhero, after all. I don’t know where this’ll go now, but she wasn’t going to get out of this as a celebrated hero. Oh well.

That’s where the chapter ends. Good show of strategy and action, nicely done, Mr. Wildbow. Next chapter!

Lung is less than elated to find the person who may or may not have anything to do with the insects that ruined the plan. Yeah, if he wasn’t sure, I bet once he sees Taylor’s mask he’ll confirm she’s the one who did it. He jumps almost all the way to the roof and Taylor quickly thinks about her options. Luckily for her, Lung is taking quite a while in climbing the building, so she has enough time to consider what to do. Escaping isn’t going to work, so what’s in the proverbial utility belt? Or...utility pocket on her back, same thing.

...I forgot chalk dust was for gaining traction on the hands while climbing or doing anything like that. I had thought it was to throw into people’s eyes. Hah, my bad. But yeah, looks like Taylor’s items won’t be very useful against a superhuman madman that’s covered in fire. The pepper spray is her only option. Hm. It’ll be difficult to get close enough to someone that both has a metallic mask and is on fire, right? I mean, the heat is going to be a problem here. Taylor seems to have decided it’s worth a try, though, and she gets ready. Once Lung appears she goes ahead and shoots...missing the first time. The second time it’s a hit, and...Lung is actually affected by the pepper spray! Alright! Not that it does much other than making him even angrier than before. Now that Taylor sprayed him, she...she decides escaping is wise. Hnrg. Maybe you should have done that instead of taking your chances with the pepper spray...or maybe not. Lung has superhuman hearing right now, he could have heard her try to escape and would have stopped climbing the building.

All in all, this is an extremely dangerous situation. I can’t think a way for her to get away unharmed.

Lung managed to hit Taylor! Thankfully nothing of her is set on fire. She falls and gets in fetal position, waiting to see what she could do because...because yeah, things look bad and Lung keeps advancing. The pepper spray seems to have been a lucky move, though, it has blinded Lung enough for him to not be able to see that well in the darkness. He aims flames to the roof of the adjacent building, which has the perk of not being where Taylor is at right now, and she tries to look at what he’s aiming at.

Huh. Taylor is certainly lucky. Guess it’s true what people say, fools can be lucky sometimes. Yeah, this was kind of a foolish endeavor for her, but it’s too late to repent about it. What matters is that three people arrived along with beasts! Beasts that look like a cross between a lizard and a tiger and also no skin. Not the shining image of heroism, I’d say, but given that Taylor wants to be a hero and she has bug powers and costume I think it isn’t fair for me to immediately assume those things’ owners aren’t superheroes. ‘He was dressed entirely in black, a costume I realized was basically motorcycle leathers and a motorcycle helmet. The only thing that made me think it was a costume was the visor of his helmet.  The full-face visor was sculpted to look like a stylized skull, and was as black as the rest of his costume’ There aren’t many heroes either that wear skulls as their emblems!

The newcomer with the helmet tries to help Taylor stand up, but she doesn’t trust him. Good. He doesn’t seem to really care, instead he reveals they were Lung’s target. “When we got word Lung was aiming to come after us tonight, we were pretty freaked.  We were arguing strategy for the better part of the day.  We eventually decided, fuck it, we’d meet him halfway.  Wing it.  Not my usual way of doing things, but yeah.” So these are the children Lung was talking about. Huh! Certainly not what Taylor was imagining, I bet, and certainly not what I imagined. There was the chance Lung hadn’t meant children, but I had chosen to take it more or less literally.

The fight is over before I know it. Lung has been driven away by the beasts despite the many advantages Lung has, so either he was defeated despite them, or he knows he doesn’t have a chance. The second in charge Oni Lee is around but he’s such a non-entity to the chapter right now he isn’t even shown. Hah! Oh well. The guy with the black helmet sounds kind of impressed that Taylor did something that hurt Lung like that, and one of the other girls describes all that happened. How long were they around while Taylor did her work, I wonder?

‘“Introductions.  That’s Tattletale.  I’m Grue’ Tattletale. Hah! Of course she’s called Tattletale, look at what she just did. Grue as in ‘gruesome’, buddy? Ah, yeah, and the other girl ‘“-We call her Bitch, her preference’ Edgy, but who am I to criticize what she wants to be called like? If she says Bitch is her name, then that’s what I’ll have to use here. The last person is Regent, but...but I’m not sure who Regent is. May be introduced later.

What’s important here is something Grue said in middle of the introductions: “...interests of being P.G., the good guys and media decided to call her...” The good guys, he says. Hoh. So this is it. These are the villains Taylor will join. This certainly wasn’t how I thought she’d meet them. That’s awesome! Taylor doesn’t seem to notice it yet, though.

Regent gets his description, no hint about power or role in this band. Now that Grue finished the introductions, he asks Taylor if she’s okay. Tattletale continues doing honor to her name and reveals Taylor is shy, which seems accurate enough to me, and suggests it’s time to leave. Taylor is offered a ride on one of the dog creatures. Ah, yeah, forgot to point that, they may be dogs. They’re not a cross between tigers and lizards, they’re like dogs. Where did Bitch get them, did she make them appear out of thin air? That’d be impressive! Taylor rejects riding one, but it isn’t like there’s much time to be picky here.

“Well, Bug, a cape is gonna show up in less than a minute.  You did us a solid by dealing with Lung, so take my advice. Someone from the Protectorate shows up, finds two bad guys duking it out, they’re not going to let one walk away. You should get out of here,” Bug. Oh well. Leaving the newly christened name aside, that’s advice I can’t measure. Would the Protectorate believe Taylor if she stayed and said she meant to stop Lung and his gang? I mean, it doesn’t seem like Lung has been subdued. She can’t offer a villain to the group and introduce herself as a hero. It’s possible they’d say she screwed up, which’d be unfair, but what else would one think without proof? Besides, if Taylor rejected the offer, that’d be...suspicious for them, right? And who knows, Tattletale may even find out why she stayed, if Taylor doesn’t go straight home. I don’t know how Tattletale’s skills works, but better safe than sorry. Hm.

...yeah, looks like Taylor got into something she never imagined, hahaha. The group leave Taylor alone, not having insisted with the rides. Lucky for her! But Taylor finally realizes what everything that happened means.

When I realized what had just happened, I could have cried.  It was easy enough to pin down Regent, Tattletale and Bitch as teenagers. It wasn’t much of an intuitive leap to guess that Grue had been one too.  The ‘children’ Lung had mentioned, the ones I had gone to so much effort to save tonight, were bad guys.  Not only that, but they had mistaken me for one, too.

Sad trombone music goes here. Hah, but no, really, that was certainly a deviation of plans I hadn’t thought would happen. Everything I read in these three chapters were pretty much unexpected for me. In hindsight, what I imagined last time that would happen in Taylor’s first time as a superhero was kind of illogical. I’m pleasantly surprised Mr. Wildbow went in this direction and subverted my expectations. The writing was rather good, too. There were some flaws – the biggest one being the missed chance I pointed earlier – but other than that he did a rather good job with the pacing of the action. I think I may have learned a thing or two from how he did it? Writing action scenes is very difficult, but I find the way he paced it and how he used descriptions and movements be rather vivid and fun to read. It’s something one as a writer and as a reader can appreciate.

All in all, I’m starting to warm up on this story, I think I can say I’m starting to like Worm. I’m not modifying the meter in this update, but if it manages to subvert my expectations again I’ll do it. Not that...I honestly have any concrete expectations right now. For the moment I’m letting Mr. Wildbow lead this wherever he wants, I’ll just sit back and see where it goes.

Next update: next time