#being ludicrously thorough

[stillness-in-green]

Chapter Thoughts — Chapter 423: One For All vs. All For One

At the request of a few asks, have some chapter thoughts. I will warn everyone in advance that some portions of this post are extremely bitter. This is less salty than it is bile-flavored. It's also not quite as thorough as other posts have been, as my disillusionment with the material limits my willingness to comb the chapter for details to muse about beyond the ones that jump out at me.

None of which is to say that this post is short.

CONTENT WARNING: Confrontational rhetoric about irl prisons and the hypothetical of committing suicide to avoid them. I have strong personal feelings about some of the language I've been seeing from defenders of this chapter and I'm in no mood to prevaricate around them.

o Danger Sense continues to be some real bullshit.  My initial response to the leaks was that it was yet another dumb contrivance to make things arbitrarily harder for the villains than equivalent things would be for the Heroes, but reading the official release, I actually just think it's dumb that AFO thinks Danger Sense would have alerted him to his/Shigaraki's failing body at all.  Why would it?  Danger Sense nominally (nominally) activates based on hostility, and where's the hostility in super-regeneration failing?  If it were the remnants of Shigaraki/OFA attacking him from within his own body, that'd be one thing, but that doesn't seem to be what the first few pages are getting at. 

Rather, it's just that the power of OFA is being too much for his body, in the same way it was for Deku at the beginning.  As if, you know, Shigaraki hasn't already been surgically modified to handle both AFO and, presumably, OFA the whole time.  Ujiko only mentioned the former specifically, but given that the plan was always for AFO's new vessel to be able to steal OFA, why wouldn't that also be accounted for?  The best I can think is that AFO and Ujiko didn't know that OFA would put such strain on the body, but it's not like AFO couldn't have observed that the quirk's been growing stronger over the generations.  If he and Ujiko just failed to calibrate the body correctly, it's a failure of Ujiko's warped genius as a mad biologist and quirk scientist—which again takes us back to dumb contrivances that make things harder for the villains than they would be for the heroes.

    

o The Kurogiri scene would be very touching if it, you know, actually amounted to something.  If it didn't apparently end with Bakugou coming in to murder him.  Except we don't even quite get that level of commitment because Kurogiri was falling apart already, so you get the impression that he would have collapsed with or without Bakugou's intervention.

    

o This in turn makes Bakugou's intervention really silly and pointless.  My god, I don't care.  I do not care!  I do not care about Bakugou pushing Deku two steps forward past a barrier that was already failing.  I do not care about Bakugou getting one last stupid victory lap when he's already dramatically endured a severe beating and emotional assault, stood back up from the stupidest heart surgery in the history of fiction, and faced down everything AFO could unleash on him, far outstripping that same villain's climactic efforts fighting All Might in Kamino in what remains AFO's only semi-emotionally resonant battle in the whole manga.  As it is, this is just one more ludicrous handwaved magical cross-country teleport like every other one the Heroes have been enjoying through this whole fight.

    

o Yoichi paying attention to AFO now?  Man, imagine if we could have just skipped a bunch of bullshit and gotten this way back in Chapter 368, when Yoichi first told AFO that it was over.  Imagine if Vestige Yoichi had something like this when his actual for-real flesh-and-blood brother died, rather than having zero reaction to it whatsoever, not even looking over Deku's psychic shoulder and making a sad face about it.

o It actually kind of offends me that Horikoshi thinks he can get away with taking a stab in the direction of making AFO "sympathetic" now.  Now, after he's spent the entire endgame portraying AFO as a two-dimensional Demon Lord who was literally Evil In Utero.  And, you know, I'd buy AFO as being Evil In Utero but also capable of loneliness, sure. And I'm even more than on board with interpreting AFO as a man who's spent the last century working 24:7 to convince himself that he's heartlessly evil to deal with the loss of the only family he ever had. But the fact that this statement has been put in the mouth of Deku, who has never indicated the faintest trace of sympathy or understanding, much less compassion for AFO?  Fuck off.

    

o All that Yoichi hyping up Deku's incredible finesse in attacking Shigaraki with the stored-up OFA quirks makes me think is, "Welcome to My Hero Academia, where the stakes are made up and the past doesn't matter!"  I am so abominably weary of the endgame's—and the series in general's—willing to just baldly lie to the audience's face about what is actually happening at any given point in the story.

That was the moment when we should have had a response from Yoichi, what with Shigaraki having apparently torn AFO's vestige limb from psychic limb and Bakugou overseeing as the real man rewound out of existence.  That Yoichi didn't respond back then just made him seem like he'd written off his brother generations ago; it makes his sorrowful-yet-grateful act in this chapter incredibly unearned.  Of course, the actual reason we didn't get a beat like this back then wasn't for any reason consistent with Yoichi's feelings about his brother, nor because Yoichi was too far away to know that the brother he has a psychic bond with was dying.  No, it was because Horikoshi was already writing towards this beat instead, so he didn't need to bother.  The last time Yoichi looks the real AFO’s way was the chapter-ending Bakugou blast of 409, when it takes the first eight pages of 410 for AFO’s Rewinding death to finalize itself.  The Hawks vestige talked more to All For One in his last moments than AFO’s own brother did.

    

Internal monologue is placed where internal monologue cannot possibly exist.  Characters' plans are backdated to points in the story which are completely irreconcilable with how those characters were behaving at the time.  Surprise and dismay are pantomimed from characters who are revealed to have anticipated and planned for the very eventuality they're acting so shocked about.

The main character, a kid who was once characterized by his tendency to mutter his thoughts out loud, who had a running gag of tightly packed, densely worded speech/thought balloons, has been reduced to an empty marionette, devoid of internal monologue, scoured of thoughts more complex than the multiplication tables of his quirk combinations.  The story can retroactively say that Deku did—intentionally and willfully!—anything it wants and not have to worry about belying its phony stakes and made-for-Twitter cliffhangers because it has deprived Deku of his own capacity to reflect.  He can't spoil twist reveals of his own true intentions if the narrative completely locks us out of his head!  Nevermind how much of his final battle has occurred inside a shared goddamn psychic space.

All of this has made it totally impossible for me to read the story as a story.  Not only do I see the strings, the strings have become all I can see.

Of course the vestiges are back one last time for a dramatic punch, despite multiple chapters swearing up and down to us that we were seeing a big emotional sacrifice play.  Last chapter we witnessed the word vomit that was Horikoshi trying to justify Star's pilots surviving their planes blowing up, because that's how determined Horikoshi is that no one on Team Hero actually die.  Of course the vestiges came back.

Who cares?  Truly, who the fuck cares?  I don't care about them; I don't care about whether they'll be back again in the epilogue; I don't care about why Vestige Might and Shinomori are missing from the punch; I don't care about the story finally trying to pretend that anyone in its pages has ever given a single starving river rat's ass about All For One's humanity.

—NOW ENTERING FULL-FLEDGED RANT ZONE—

I care about the only characters who have ever been facing actual stakes in this war: Shigaraki and his followers.

    

o Even though I care, I don't have it in me to weigh in much about Shigaraki's seeming death here, and especially not his last words.  I'm far too jaded about Horikoshi's cliffhangers to think that anything I say now about Shigaraki dying and what it means for both Hero Society and the people Shigaraki leaves behind can be assumed to still be accurate two weeks from now.

I hope it's a fakeout.  I hope a chunk of Shigaraki's body fell through Kurogiri's last portal and the hyper-regen can kick back in once he's no longer being assaulted on all sides by the allies of the kid who was trying to “save” him.  I hope Horikoshi has one last stupid asspull up his sleeve.  I hope for a complete Karma Houdini ending for Shigaraki and the rest of the League.

If we don't get that, it's gonna suck, and it's gonna turn Deku into a fraud and a liar.  I don't care if the story wants me to think Shigaraki was saved; I don't care if Deku is satisfied with having saved "that crying boy."

I have not forgotten that "that crying boy" gently refused to accept Deku's "save" when the bell rang to go home. He wanted to go back to his friends, instead; he reiterated his desire to be a Hero for the Villains.  The crying child returned to the form of Shigaraki Tomura and then AFO devoured him.  Deku didn't save the child then, and he hasn't saved him now.

Remember how Eri didn't count as truly saved from Overhaul until the first time she could smile fully and freely?  Guess what stops you from doing that?  Right—being fucking dead.

And those touching last words of Shigaraki's won't do Spinner much good on account of him still being brain-damaged from a bunch of extra quirks no one can remove, because the only people who could are, again, fucking dead.

Unless, of course, the theorists are right and Deku is going to be not only not quirkless in the epilogue (meaning all that drama and emotion about sacrificing OFA is going to be another fucking lie), he's going to have the "unified" OFA+AFO quirk via Shigaraki's fistbump.  Meaning Deku can remove the extra quirks, presumably just before telling Spinner that Deku saved-via-killing the love of Spinner's life.

Solidarity among outcasts is false and toxic.  Everyone should just rely on Heroes more, no matter how much Heroes have failed them in the past.

o One last thing I want to address, less about the canon and more about the reactions I've been seeing elsewhere to the prospect of Shigaraki (and any combination of Dabi, Toga and Spinner) being dead: the idea that being dead is the best possible outcome for them because if they don't die they'll only have to spend the rest of their lives "rotting in jail."

Great job, team; nice message to take home.  Everyone pack it in.

    

Firstly, and to get this out of the way, that is a false binary that totally ignores the long history of Shounen Jump villains getting absurd Karma Houdini endings where they walk off into the sunset free as birds because they've changed their minds and resolved to be better, or at least have decided mass murder is no longer worth their time and effort.  (Vegeta wasn't the first mass murderer a Shounen Jump story rewarded with freedom and friendship, nor was he the last.)

But more importantly, that false binary is one that could only be presented by someone who truly does see prison as a fate worse than death.  No rehabilitation is possible.  No supervised release or house arrests in the care of assigned guardians who want better for them.  No lenience can be granted in recognition of the League's mental states; they can be admitted to no mental hospitals focused on therapy.

The "better death than prison" line is the product of a perspective that has never had to seriously consider the prospect of living behind bars.  It's a childish imagination of prison as a nebulous Bad Place where Bad People go to be Punished For Being Bad, or a self-righteous fantasy of a cold hell where sinners are sentenced to suffering eternal.

People can tell that the League have suffered too much to sentence them to Forever Bad Times, so they comfort themselves with the idea that at least they died happy, instead of living forever in a pop-culture-informed crayon doodle of concrete and solitude.

I’m not here to tell these readers that there aren't people in the world who would rather die than live under watch for the rest of their lives.  I won’t deny that Japanese prisons are bleak and there’s every chance that the prisons in Horikoshi’s fictionalized Japan are even worse.  But I am asking people espousing the view that death would be better than incarceration to seriously consider all the angles on what that sentiment means.

If it were you facing the life sentence, are you so sure you would prefer to take your own life?  If it were someone you loved who would rather die than face imprisonment, would you help them—hand your older brother the gun, or your younger sister the knife?

Or would you want to hope that they could get some help instead, have an opportunity to connect to something meaningful—find religion, take up reading classic literature, connect with someone inside or via letters?  Would you want them to accept the lawful punishment for what they'd done rather than evade it by ending their lives?  Would you want them to hold on in case their case could be reassessed someday, that they might eventually finish serving their sentence or be moved to someplace that would focus on helping them rather than punishing them?

Would you want a glorified cop in a cape making that decision for them—or you—based on that cop's ability to "forgive"?

If you think prison is a fate worse than death, why is it okay that people like Gentle Criminal or the Shie Hassaikai Trash Trio have to endure it, while mass murderers, serial killers and insurrectionists like the League get to escape through death?  Think of every purse snatcher who gets paraded in front of cameras with their arms bound and their face muzzled; think of Twice at sixteen; think of Mr. Compress now.  Do these people deserve to suffer in the kind of torment you're imagining prison must entail?  Would it be better for them to die rather than endure it?

If prisons in BNHA's Japan are so terrible as all that, isn't that something the kids should try to fix?  Shouldn't that be a part of the mass societal improvement project people are swearing up and down the kids will have nicely sewn up in the epilogue?  If the kids aren't going to fix these prisons—these places that take suicide risks like Ending and spit them out worse than ever; these places like Tartarus where the wardens call the people in their charge monsters and animals—then why should I believe the kids are going to fix literally anything else?

Or is it simply the case that it's perfectly fine that prisons should be this way; shitty prison conditions are only bad when it's the villains whose sympathetic backstories we know who're facing them?

"It's a shame, but the League has to pay for their crimes."  But why does that “have to be”?  Isn’t it because no one involved—not the characters, not the author, not the people who accept this ending—can envision a world where the “has to be” could be otherwise?

That's the problem with, "Killing someone can be a way of saving them," and, "They would have just spent the rest of their lives in prison anyway."  It's a stunted mentality that leaves no room for the radical reforms and systemic improvements that are necessary to stop this whole cycle from repeating.  Worse, as I very much suspect we're going to see in the epilogue, it's a mentality that says the system is actually fine as it is—the only real problems were caused by a tiny handful of bad actors, and now that they've been removed, everything else will self-correct, and things will go back to normal.

    

That precious, perfect status quo that Deku swore to return: this is the way he brings it back, it and everything that comes with it.

    

o In summary: if this ending sticks, then what we have in My Hero Academia is thus:

A world that played at being grounded, but which turned out to run on arbitrary rules, magic thinking and Evil Babies.

Characters that were presented as radically kind, but whose endgame resolutions represented a cruel underlining of the status quo, in which only those who suffer in silence deserve not to have to.

A story that wanted to be staunchly idealistic but which ultimately entrenched to hollow, meaningless platitudes.

o P.S. So like, Nana’s vestige saved Shigaraki off-screen, right?  So even after all her fear that Shigaraki would have to die, even after all the efforts she and Deku made to help Deku break him down, at the very last moment, she wanted to save him.  And she did so in the only reason she could, as one psychic scrap to another: she held his soul together when he was shattering apart.  But when Deku comes to the very last moment, when Shigaraki’s body is shattering apart, does he do anything to try to hold Shigaraki together?  Try to tell Shigaraki how to use Black Whip to hold his body together, call for Sero and his tape, Aizawa’s Erasure, anything like that?

If it doesn't stick?  That I'm less sure of.  But I'm pretty sure Deku's fucked as the Symbol of Hope no matter what.  There’s no way, at this point, to fix his portrayal as the kid who has a drive to save that eclipses all common understanding.  Every part of the story, before and after that declaration of Yoichi’s in Chapter 287, has served to undermine that claim.  This is just the last nail in the sky coffin.

    

Nah.  Instead, he just administers one last punch to finish the job.  The boy with the drive to save that eclipses all common understanding, everyone.

[ihopeinevergetsoberr]

I love the at a canes length story.

The power dynamic of him just reclined back watching his partner in their knees for him just does something yk?

Any ideas for him bossing around his partner like that? Or him being able to do what he want and they are not allowed to touch him, even if they beg? (All consensual ofc!!)

we’re all into our darling tease viktor, aren’t we? btw, i’m naming this drabble after my favourite am song.

cw: gn reader, smut, dirty talk, nipple play, i got too carried away and wrote a poetic filthy little thing.

word count: 700~

Normally you wouldn’t dare to complain about your lover’s hands — deliciously nimble, they never failed to tame you with the length of each cautiously curious finger, the callousness of them tortuous, yet professionally precise — just the right spoon of tar in a barrel of sweet honey. They were the hands of a pianist, attached to those lanky, just as much fitting for a musician arms — had your brain stupidly doomed whenever their defiant owner rolled up a ruffled sleeve just high enough to tease you with a sight of a pointy elbow or a weave of cerulean veins under the translucently pale skin. 

However, tonight — they became the hands of a jeweller, short nails the figurative tweezers gently piercing into each pretty bud of your nipples, restraining you with the unbearable thoroughness of Viktor’s most sensual touches — all lazy tugs and languid circles besieging the aureoles. Pure torment — nothing more and nothing less, increasingly intricate considering the utter complacency in the pair of amber eyes ogling your naked chest — not a single bead of sweat left unnoticed or unkissed away.

And this tactic — although insanely efficient — made you hiss numerous pleas into the softness of a dump pillow, back an impatient arch above the clinging to your sticky skin sheets. Because jewellers are impeccably methodical — most importantly, slow, and slow was never your pace of choice, despite all its charming offers of savouring. You wanted him now, invariably inside, shirtless, with spitslick lips and open against the curve of your shoulder mouth: fast, and deep, and eagerly frantic — something a pianist might allow, but a jeweller must strictly avoid. How truly devastating. 

Or, perhaps, not?

His tongue is an unexpected tool — it gently soothes the pinched nipple, dripping with generous, thick moist onto the awakened goosebumps — a welcomed diversity, most perfectly combined with the dexterity of his skilful digits, and you meet it with a string of breathless curses — grateful for the little mercy, yet still not nearly satisfied enough. 

The ‘no touching’ rule effortlessly slips your mind when Viktor’s mouth lingers there — wrapped around the relentlessly teased bud, sucking at it so gently you might just melt into this very bed. You impatiently clutch his tie, clumsily pulling him forward into a pathetic attempt of stealing an open-mouthed kiss, and Viktor instantly regrets he didn’t free his slender neck off it earlier, silently remorsing the missed opportunity of tying your wrists together. 

He sighs, reluctantly peeling his right palm off your covered in saliva chest, and it insistently nudges you off the tie and leads right back where your hands belong — nailed into the pillow right above your head. 

“Was I not clear enough when I kindly asked you to avoid touching me?” his voice is soft — raspy and gentle, not upset with you in the slightest — just genuinely curious, ludicrously polite for a man so eager to torture you. “Or, perhaps, patience is simply not one of your virtues?” 

He offers you a smile — a chaste one, oh that specific stretch of thin lips into an unbearably handsome line — worthy of whatever foreplay-durations he wishes for. 

Now it’s your turn to sigh. 

“It’s just that… I’m afraid you might not be done with me even until dawn,” you mumble sweetly, fingers already itchy to intertwine with his hair — and you wonder if he might be willing to consider this compromise. He simply arches a thick brow, humming with a playful half-turn of a head. 

“I was not aware we were in a rush,” he chuckles, and — oh heavens, finally! — hovers above your flushed face for a split second, picking a feature to award with a long-awaited kiss. 

You’re not surprised when his warm gaze drifts over your lips, evidently recalling the irresistible softness of them. No matter how much into denying it Viktor might be, he is a needy man in the very depth of his heart — and these rare occurrences might just be your favourite moments of his vulnerability. And when you’re almost ready to release an ardent tongue into the blissful heat of his mouth — your precious inventor smirks, cruelly changing his route. 

“Besides,” he whispers — cheeky, and so unbearably hot, brushing the tip of his sharp nose against your earshell. “You’re underestimating me. I intend to proceed until at least next noon.” 

[carionto]

Whoever said "Fear is an illusion" was wrong

After receiving Joannie du'Preeste's report, the Governing Body was understandably concerned. Cooler heads reassured everyone that, until further analysis and a much more thorough scan of the entire interior of the planet is made, we should not jump to ludicrous conclusions. There is an unknown structure beneath the surface of the Earth that resembles a massive biological entity and it could just be a peculiar formation that our brains in their typical fashion interpret as such.

Then we did do a full scan of the planet and isolated the relevant layers and material compositions and

HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT'S CTHULU

Okay, don't panic, everyone. I SAID DON'T PANIC!

How did H.P. Lovecraft know?

*Breathe in, breathe out*

We're not losing our sanity, right? But how would we know...

Stop that, not productive, think rationally.

How? It's a literally planet sized eldritch creature in a sorta fetal position and we can't agree on basic details!

I'm veering on the side of it defies understanding. Even the computers give different answers every time we ask how many arms it has, which, obviously, doesn't make any sense. Plus each of us hear different answers as well, so let's be smart and not try to understand it specifically, but address the potential consequences of its existence instead.

Well, obviously we can't tell anyone else.

We should discreetly inquire if any of the aliens have made similar findings though. Maybe this is no big deal.

YES. Please, I need that to be true.

Hopefully, but we need to prepare in case this is unique. It's position may indicate it is sleeping, whatever that may mean for a god-being.

The report said earlier scans showed weaker consolidation of the structure. I think it is reasonable to assume the explosion that created the Pacific Abyss and the subsequent expulsion and shifting of magma is a contributing factor.

Wait. Don't tell me we are waking it up?

Oh MY GOD!!! I'm panicking!

Hmm, what if other gods and the like are real too?

That is plausible, assuming this is an entity with supernatural powers. We only have anecdotal evidence of passive perception manipulation. I would hope the alien species of the Coalition have withheld certain secrets from us. If not, we will need to strategically share this discovery and manipulate a number of experts to perform innocuous activities that would indirectly examine and test various hypotheses.

If it's become somewhat observable because of that explosion, what's gonna happen when we can no longer maintain Earth's structural integrity and it fully collapses in, what was it, 95 years?

.....

I'M PANICKING!

[moutainrusing]

fire

When Dorcas was a kid, she burnt the carpet.

She had always been drawn to fire. On each of the seven nights of Kwanzaa, a harvest celebration derived from the phrase “matunda ya kwanza,” which meant “first fruits” in Swahili, her family gathered in their living room together, and a child lit one of the candles on the Kinara, the candleholder. After the candle had been lit, a daily principle, one of the Nguzo Saba, was discussed. For example, on the first night, they had to light the black candle in the centre of the Kinara, and discuss the principle of Umoja, unity.

Dorcas loved it when a candle was lit. The flame flickered, orange, white, emitting warmth, a soft glow, and it was mesmerising. Her eyes were hooked on its movement, tracing its trails in the air, the tendrils of ashy smoke, the shine it made in her family’s eyes. It was fuzzy around the edges, blurry, almost as if it were an illusion, a splotch of light seared onto the backs of her eyelids. She felt like she could watch it burn forever.

Then it was her turn to light the green candle, the furthest to the right of the centre, on the seventh and last day, to discuss the principle of Imani, faith, and she took the lit match between her thumb and forefinger. But it was hot, and the flame was creeping along the thin, wooden stick, closer and closer to her fingers, which were barely gripping it anyway, because she couldn’t let the fire come near her. She loved fire, but she couldn’t be near it, because it was scorching, yet she couldn’t bring herself to move, to light the candle… the match slipped out of her fingers.

And now, more than a decade later, there was still a black, sooty scorch mark distorting the red and gold geometric patterns on the carpet. Her mother had immediately quashed the flame with the heel of her sandal to stop the spread, and after a thorough telling off, she wasn’t allowed near a match. She wasn’t complaining. She and fire weren’t meant to be, and she could only ever love it from afar.

The same obviously applied to the fire that was Marlene. Because, damn, that Gryffindor burned. She was hot and fiery and truculent, craving fights and arguments and danger. And unfortunately, Dorcas was in love with the way Marlene flickered rapidly, the way she scorched her mark into the skin of the Earth, the way she glowed with her warm colours, her rosy cheeks and golden hair. She could watch Marlene burn forever. From afar.

Unfortunately, Slughorn and Mary had other ideas. Firstly, it was Slughorn’s fault for always pairing Potions partners up alphabetically by surname. Secondly, it was Mary’s fault for not taking Potions at NEWT level, meaning instead of Mary Macdonald being partnered with Marlene McKinnon, Marlene McKinnon was now with Dorcas Meadowes.

“Hi,” Marlene nodded, unceremoniously dumping her textbooks and quills on the desk. Dorcas nodded stiffly in response. Marlene spared her a glance, probably deeming this as unreasonably rude. But Dorcas didn’t really care. A girl such as herself didn’t have time for girls like Marlene.

Today they were practising how to brew Amortentia, the strongest love potion, for their final exams. Which was funny, because Dorcas didn’t need any love potion; she was already thoroughly enamoured with the girl beside her. She grimaced at this ludicrous thought process. Just to her luck, Marlene turned to face her again, saw the sour look, and scowled in return.

“I’ll get the ingredients from the cupboard, you prep the equipment,” she snapped, stomping off. Dorcas shook her head in amusement. Marlene was such a lovely flame. Then she shook her head again, because she really shouldn’t be thinking that, and went to grab a heat mat, a tripod stand, a gauze mat, a cast iron bowl, and a gold cauldron from the shelves.

The fact that Amortentia had to be brewed in a cauldron made from a real, solid gold alloy just went to prove how potent it was. No wonder Slughorn wanted them in pairs; it was far safer, with two sets of eyes keeping vigilance, making sure the powerful, dangerous infatuation-inducing potion wouldn’t be used with malicious intent. Although perhaps the safety had been significantly reduced when Dorcas was paired with the fire she was terrified of. Honestly, Dorcas’s obsession with Marlene should’ve really been a factor considered when assigning pairs.

She cleared space for the heat mat in the centre of the desk, then placed the tripod stand upon it, with the gauze mat atop of that, and the cauldron on top. Lastly, she kept the cast iron bowl beneath the tripod stand, and while in the midst of dreading what it would be used for, Marlene returned, dumping a pile of muddled ingredients onto the table.

She frowned, “You haven’t put the firewood in the cast iron.”

“I was getting to that,” Dorcas muttered. She quickly grabbed a handful of wood from a nearby shelf, and threw it into the bowl.

Marlene raised an eyebrow. “Easy there.” She then looked at Dorcas critically, “Are you still scared of fire?”

Dorcas froze in the middle of sorting out the ingredients. “What?”

Marlene grinned slightly, seeming happy to launch into a story and leave Dorcas to weigh out the Ashwinder eggs. “In third year, James and Sirius thought it’d be hilarious to release Boggarts in the castle for Halloween. And before they were punished and given a very appropriate amount of detentions, because they were absolute dickheads for that, the castle was in chaos. I remember your Boggart. It was fire.”

Dorcas’s cheeks felt very hot. She was extremely glad for her dark skin tone, or else the blush would’ve been obvious. “You remember that?”

“Well, duh. You were the only one who didn’t run away screaming. You seemed kinda hypnotised with it, actually. It was strange.”

Dorcas felt her blush increase out of embarrassment. “Oh, thanks,” she muttered, gaze firmly fixed to the rose petals she was crushing in the mortar.

“Not in a bad way. Like, it was interesting.”

Dorcas hummed. Finally, she said, “Yeah, I’m still scared of fire.” She put all the prepped ingredients into the cauldron, and continued, “So would you mind if you lit it and heated this up while I stood over there?” She jabbed a thumb towards a shelf at least two metres away.

Marlene gave her a very unimpressed look. “Face your fears,” she ordered, before casting, “Incendio,” and setting the firewood below the cauldron ablaze. Dorcas yelped, and jumped back from the desk.

Marlene burst out laughing. “Aw, don’t worry, it can’t hurt you.” She curled her hand around Dorcas’s wrist to drag her closer, which only made more flames erupt across Dorcas’s skin as Marlene’s touch practically set her alight. She yanked her hand away, yet it was still hot and tingling from the burn.

Not realising her hellish effect, Marlene simply rolled her eyes. While the potion heated, or burned actually, because the heat Amortentia required was ridiculous (really, why couldn’t they just use basic heating charms, why fucking Incendio), she casually started, “Y’know, I also noticed your Boggart because you’re always staring at me. You’re hidden amongst the Slytherin crowd, all gathered ‘round each other ‘cause you can’t bear being near the filth that is Muggle-borns and half-bloods, but I can make out your eyes, and they’re glued to me.”

“I—” Dorcas dumbly responded. Marlene saw her staring? She genuinely thought she hid it pretty well, amongst the “Slytherin crowd.” Not just Slytherins, actually. Her eyes always sought out Marlene, no matter the crowd she concealed herself within. But Marlene didn’t know that bit. She just thought Dorcas was being a typical “Slytherin.” So Dorcas clenched her jaw, and instead focused on, “I’ve never thought Muggle-borns and half-bloods are filthy.”

“But you’re a pureblood Slytherin, who’s always staring at me, a half-blood, and who, when paired with me, reacted with the utmost disgust.”

“Just because I’m a pureblood Slytherin doesn’t make me automatically prejudiced. The fact that you assume that is prejudice in itself. And I don’t stare at you ‘cause I hate you. Really, if I hated Muggle-borns and half-bloods, shouldn’t I be staring at all of you in disgust? Why would I only stare at you?”

Marlene looked increasingly frustrated. “I don’t bloody know! And when I noticed you staring, I started looking at you! And so I saw your Boggart, and then I fucking remembered it, because— because, well, I don’t stare at you ‘cause I hate you either!”

Dorcas blinked. Who knew fire was so hyperactive and confusing? Marlene was a complete blur of unrestrained emotion, and Dorcas didn’t understand half of it. “Sorry?”

Marlene just grumbled under her breath. She spoke up, “So you don’t hate me then?”

“No.” Of course not, Dorcas wanted to laugh.

“Right. Okay. Good.”

Dorcas nodded amusedly. Although her amusement soon faded when Marlene grinned wickedly. “Oi, Remus,” she called to the desk in front, where for some reason, Remus Lupin had decided to roast some fluffy Muggle sweets over the flame in front of him with his stirring rod. His partner, Jabari Kimani, was looking on with the well-known expression of confusion, exasperation, amusement and concern, typically worn when dealing with a Marauder.

Remus turned around, slowly chewing one of his roasted creations. “Yeah?” He mumbled around it.

Marlene nodded to the packet in his hand. “Could I have some of ‘em?”

Remus shrugged, and dumped a couple in her hand. “Don’t be obvious,” he advised sagely, turning back to roast another for himself.

Marlene waved her successfully acquired sweets in Dorcas’s face. “Marshmallows,” she grinned. “Remus is a bloody sugar-addict, but we love him.”

“We do?”

“Mhm,” Marlene nodded vigorously. “Okay, taste one.” She proceeded to jam it into Dorcas’s mouth.

Getting over her initial shock, and the breach of personal space, because she couldn’t really blame a fire for being invasive, Dorcas chewed thoughtfully. “I don’t see the appeal.”

For some reason, Marlene only looked happier. “That’s ‘cause they need fire.” She stuck one onto her stirring rod, and brandished it over the flames. Then she blew on it for a few seconds and stuffed it into Dorcas’s mouth.

And wow. It tasted like a molten miracle. Marlene smirked. “Want another?” Dorcas nodded enthusiastically. Marlene’s smirk seemed to soften at that, and she stuck another one onto the rod. Then she passed it to Dorcas. “Make it yourself.”

“What?” Dorcas’s eyes widened at the rod in your hand. “But then I have to go near the…”

“Exactly. Go on. It’s tasty, innit?”

And maybe Dorcas was a little bit addicted. To Marlene, to marshmallows… so she took a hesitant step forward. Okay, it was a tip-toe. Then another millimetre shuffle. And even though she was moving at the pace of a snail crawling through syrup, Marlene was still smiling at her encouragingly, and finally, she held the rod above the flames. They were hypnotising.

An arm yanked her back. “Alright!” Marlene cheered. “That’s well cooked!” She looked at the marshmallow held between both their arms proudly, blew on it, and pushed it towards Dorcas’s lips. And while Dorcas chewed, she looked at Marlene’s lips, and wondered if they would taste as meltingly delicious as the molten marshmallow.

Maybe she could be near fire. Maybe Marlene could always be there to pull her back. Maybe Marlene could wrap her arms around her and roast her like a marshmallow, because even if she ended up a little scorched, the outcome was only sweeter, softer, lovelier.

“Guys!” Remus had turned around. “Your potion’s gonna overheat!” Frantically, he cast, “Aguamenti,” at their flames, and a jet of water extinguished them. He waved a careless hand, gesturing vaguely at their bodies, “You can do whatever mating ritual this is later.” Then he turned back around and muttered, “Honestly, turning my marshmallows into foreplay, I question what this world has become.”

Marlene winked at Dorcas, before leaning over the desk and whispering, “Like you wouldn’t kill for some marshmallow foreplay between you and Sirius.” Without sparing her a look, Remus flipped her off, and she cackled.

“So, Dorcas,” she suddenly faced her, eyes gleaming with… something. “Meet me in the third floor broom cupboard if my lil’ mating ritual worked.”

Dorcas opened and closed her mouth like a gobsmacked fish. She finally managed to say, “Okay.” And then she whispered into Marlene’s ear, “Set me alight.”

- - -

They were twenty, and she and Marlene were celebrating their first Kwanzaa together. Dorcas clicked a lighter, and lit the black candle in the centre of the Kinara.

She stepped back, and Marlene grinned at her, “Umoja today?”

Dorcas smiled. “Yeah. The principle of unity.”

Marlene wrapped a hand around Dorcas’s waist, eliciting flames across her skin, and pulled them together. “Like how you and I are united,” she breathed over Dorcas’s lips.

“Yeah. And how every human on this planet is united, no matter their race, skin colour, magical ability. The unity between families and friends.” She looked at Marlene. “The unity between lovers.”

“I love you too,” Marlene whispered, pressing their lips together. Uniting their lips. Making them one. Spreading the heat to Dorcas until they both went up in flames. Who knew fire could be so sweet? (Dorcas did.)

[riverofrainbows]

Why are people so batshit off in dream land of no critical thinking or even basic logic or even a shred of scientific methods when it comes to weight.

I'm seriously questioning the reputability of every health care professional who doesn't question this shit.

It's fucking bananas to talk to someone who is otherwise a thorough thinker and capable of processing new information, and able to recognise biases in other topics, and then watch them turn off their brain in real time to say the most fucking stupid ass out of whack things you can think of. Whenever it comes to weight and diet culture and fatphobia.

Tw: Body descriptions, weight talk, talk about food. Don't proceed if you aren't up for that!

Why do i have to read that the official recommendation for pregnant people is that they eat low fat and carbs? You know, consuming energy and essential body building blocks, the things you might want to do to grow a whole baby.

Why does my endocrinologist, who is an actual good doctor on most other stuff, telling me, a skinny person who is just recently getting out of underweight territory, not to gain too much weight? Because i am "close to an overweight bmi". And insist on that, even when i remind her that muscles weigh weight too, and while looking right at me (i still have trouble fitting adult size wrist watches).

Bmi as a whole.

Why do i have to read an otherwise properly researched and well done article insist that being underweight is notably less risky health wise than being slightly overweight? And not even overweight at all, it specified 'slightly overweight'. Like that is fucking ludicrous. In the same article, they described the unique and dangerous health risks of being underweight. But that couldn't possibly affect their foregone conclusion (that being fat is the worst thing).

Why do i have to listen to a presentation by a person who rates weight gain as a worse side effect of medication than seizures and strokes???????? They built that part up in a way that i thought it would be risk of developing cancer or something, but then they said it will lead to weight gain of on average 2 to 5 kilos. In a population that might even struggle with being underweight due to the underlying condition this medication is prescribed for. Weight gain. And on average just a couple kilos.

Like how am i supposed to take these people propagating that seriously? As people, but more relevant also as professionals?

How could you, how are you, supposed to trust someone with your healthcare, and possibly even your life, after they demonstrate that where dogma comes into play, they shut off the critical thinking part of their brain and are willing to endanger your life because you might be less fuckable to them afterwards?

How are you supposed to trust the professional opinion of someone, and specifically also their ability to evaluate and apply medical research and other sources, after they demonstrate that they can't? Or, more accurately, that they apply these skills selectively.

It makes them spineless principle-less bad scientists, and it's fucking scary to witness.

Because these people hold power. They're gate keepers of people's means to bodily autonomy. And they're not acting trustworthy or qualified.

If you're a medical professional reading this: please evaluate your biases around weight and nutrition. Unless you're already aware of medical fatphobia, you can do better and your patients will thank you.

Try applying critical thinking to what you're told and what you're reading on these topics, and try to see where people start with unquestioned foregone conclusions and don't actually apply the data and information at hand.

[locustheologicus]

The infamous Project 2025 can be found here for all to see. It presents itself as a thorough conservative agenda, which it is, but at the level of completely undermining our already weak democratic system and gutting the last remnants of economic regulations.

The video above does a good job in offering a broad overview of the expressed concerns. Most groups shine a light on the issue of reproductive rights, however. For my part, I am deeply concerned about two items. The erosion of our democratic systems, in lieu of a self-perpetuating conservative recruitment process, and the gutting of any existing and already weakened economic and ecological regulations. Two such concerns of the latter point are what Project 2025 plans to do to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Security and Exchange Commission. "Financial regulators should remove regulatory impediments to entrepreneur­ial capital formation." Here are the word for word recommendations.

Congress should abolish the CFPB and reverse Dodd–Frank Section 1061, thus returning the consumer protection function of the CFPB to banking regulators

The SEC on the other hand will continue to exist but serving the executive agenda by removing any independant oversight.

both the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)... should be abolished, and their regulatory functions should be merged into the SEC.

Politically, people will focus on the reproductive rights issue, but I think the pro-corporate agenda should be a greater concern for all of us. Just look at how it will completely undermine any social issues in Favor of corporate profit.

Prohibit the SEC from requiring issuer disclosure of social, ideological, political, or “human capital” information that is not material to investors’ financial, economic, or pecuniary risks or returns. The proposed SEC climate change rule, which would quadruple the costs of being a public company, is particularly problematic.

Repeal the Dodd–Frank mandated disclosures relating to conflict minerals, mine safety, resource extraction, and CEO pay ratios.

Oppose efforts to redefine the purpose of business in the name of social justice; corporate social responsibility (CSR); stakeholder theory; environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria; socially responsible investing (SRI); sustainability; diversity; business ethics; or common­good capitalism.

Prohibit securities regulators, including SROs, from promulgating rules or taking other actions that discriminate, either favorably or unfavorably, on the basis of the race, color, religion, sex, or national origin of such individual or group.

Now, it seems that Candidate Trump is attempting to distance himself from this agenda. But as you can see, he is clearly wedded to this for his potential administration.

I have mentioned some of my earlier concerns with Project 2025 when I first heard of it. Now, as Candidate Trump seems to be inching ever closer to the Presidency again, it is more important than ever to be aware of this policy paper and its repercussions. Here is a further analysis on the democratic concerns we should all have over this agenda.

Thanks to the Lincoln Project, here is a tongue and cheek presentation of what we can expect from Trump and Project 2025.

[cannonfullofcanons]

I don’t care how many times Capcom says damsel in distress, Rebecca is not someone to be trifled with. If you look at her skillset, and I mean really look at it, you’ll see what I mean.

July of 1998, she’s the rookie to STARS Bravo Team, and that’s the image painted by the storyline. But her skillset speaks for itself. She’s a gifted chemist who supposedly just finished college with a bachelor’s degree at 18 (meaning it is HIGHLY likely that she graduated high school early - she’s got one hell of a high IQ), and was scouted by STARS for this. But chemistry wasn’t her only skill - she had extensive knowledge of anatomy and medicine even then, and then paired that with combat training, largely being trained by Richard Aiken, Brad, and Forest in firearms and hand-to-hand combat. She even played basketball, thoroughly enjoying the sport, and that helped keep her in shape.

Now pair all that knowledge together. Chemistry and biochemistry - she can make poisons as well as panaceas. Anatomical and biological knowledge - she knows every weak point in the body, knows which spot would hurt the most, which spot would most quickly incapacitate, where to strike to paralyze. She knows where she can slash you to make you bleed out in less than 60 seconds. And then add on thorough combat training and tactical knowledge, because no one joins STARS with average police training. She’s a living, breathing death threat.

It’s easy to forget, with her small stature, babyface, and kind disposition, that she could kill you without even breaking a sweat, with minimal effort. She may be the rookie, but this rookie’s armed to the teeth.

And now, modern day, she’s a doctor of virology. She’s just as knowledgeable in reverse-engineering to cure viruses as she is in engineering new viruses. And with a doctorate she’s even more familiar with the human body. Her combat skills may be rusty, but she’s more knowledgeable than she’s ever been. And through that, more than likely more of a threat. She can defend herself and then some, so the idea of her being utterly helpless against a human or humanoid monster is ludicrous to me.

[thatonebirdwrites]

Chapter 11 of my Book 2 (Excerpt of the Book)

Notes: This is an excerpt of my TLOK: Shared Moments Book 2. I thought this would be a fun one to share because Asami fretting about having a crush on Korra is cute, and Korra being adorable and not realizing she's flustering Asami is hilarious to me. This scene also exemplifies some of the changes I did to Book 2: Korra breaks up with Mako earlier, they investigate the Southerners that went into hiding, and it's the start of their Spirit Investigations. You can read the whole series here: Shared Moments.

Day after Winter Solstice, Northern edge of Wolf Cove

Asami had to admit that sleeping at Korra’s parent’s home made it easier to prepare for the journey with Katara, mostly because they had the sorts of supplies needed for polar expeditions. Items she would have never considered packing. After Korra had left, Senna had chatted with her about if she felt well enough for this - Asami would never admit she wasn't, far too stubborn for that -- and then they went through supplies. The woman was thorough and highly efficient. Each item Senna put in the packs she explained why, and Asami wished she'd taken notes.

The biggest downside to staying at Korra’s parents’ home was the awkwardness, especially when Korra returned grumpy, only to crash by the fire. Which meant Asami woke up next to Korra. As in, Korra had rolled in her sleep to cuddle by Asami’s side, one arm lazily thrown over her, while Naga curled around them both. The arrangement didn’t bother Asami. She found she rather liked it. It was how much she liked it that had her troubled. It brought back painful memories that she’d tried to put out of her mind for the past few years.

The second issue was her being between Korra and Naga. It didn’t exactly leave room for her to slide out easily, so although she woke quite early, far before the appointed hour, she found herself stuck between a very warm and fluffy polar bear dog and a very warm and cuddly Avatar. At least Korra had remembered to pick up her red bag and drop it within reach. 

Her clothes on the other hand were not within reach, so she hid under the pile of blankets, feeling increasingly self-conscious about Korra’s proximity to her and how she couldn’t even have the dignity of proper clothes for this arrangement. 

So she was left with little choice. 

She pulled her idea journal out of her bag and sketched the ludicrous situation. 

Her brain refused to focus on anything else, so it wasn’t as if she could work on her airship designs or anything productive. Asami was quite certain she’d laugh over this later, but for the moment, she was a trifle mortified that Korra’s parents had witnessed this arrangement and left it as is. Like nothing out of the ordinary. Totally fine for two women to cuddle each other and a polar bear dog. Which then left Asami wondering if there was something wrong with her for simultaneously enjoying this immensely and feeling mortified at the witnesses. 

Sighing, she stretched her legs a bit, glad to feel the pain mostly gone, and attempted to see if she could wiggle free. 

Korra grumbled and only rolled closer. 

So that wouldn’t work. Back to the sketch she supposed. Except now, with Korra nudged up so close that her breath was on Asami’s neck, her focus on drawing had scattered entirely. She set her pen in the journal and turned her head to look at the Avatar. Korra must have pulled out her wolf tails, as her brown hair lay in a halo around her head, and mingled with Asami’s own black hair. The firelight played across Korra’s brown skin, giving it a warm glow, and her thick muscles twitched a bit in her sleep, her arm still splayed across Asami. 

Did Korra realize how breathtakingly beautiful she was? Likely not as her hair needed a proper brushing, Asami counted at least half a dozen snarls. She was tempted to run her fingers through them to try to gently untangle, but would that wake Korra? They still had some time before they had to be up to prepare for the journey, and the past few days had been pretty intense for the Avatar. Asami didn’t want to wake the girl before it was absolutely necessary. 

Gently, she brushed some of Korra’s hair from her face. The touch seemed too intimate. She pulled her hand away and looked up at the ceiling. Painful memories she’d tried so hard to suppress trickled back into her mind. She recalled the one of the big fights she’d had with her father a year prior, when her father had found her lesbian romance book.

Her father entered the library, where she’d been reading by the windows. “Asami, we need to talk.” He held out a book.

Confused, she put down her current book, then paled at the sight of the other one. She snatched it out of his hand. “Why were you in my room?” The book was a romance between two women, a gift from Sana at the dojo where she practiced. Two weeks ago, she’d confessed to Sana how she often felt stronger attractions to women than to men, and it had resulted in the most wholesome conversation she’d ever had with a girl her age. Sana had gifted her the book a few days later. Asami had hoped it was a sign she had finally made a friend.

He pulled up a chair and sighed. “I wished to discuss an upcoming event with you. Why are you reading such books? It’s unbecoming of someone of your status.” 

“Because…” Asami realized she had no defense. She’d never considered her father finding the book. Her fingers trailed over the cover. “It was a gift,” she said finally.

“From who?” His voice was angry.

“Why do you need to know?” Asami shot back, defensive. He’d never cared before what she read. This reaction made no logical sense to her.

“Such a person will sully our reputation. I cannot allow you-” he started to say, but she interrupted him. 

“Father, this is ridiculous.” Asami stood, her tone switching to the socialite that the school had drilled into her. “The book was a gift, and the person who gifted it is inconsequential to your company. I am capable of reading whatever book I wish.” 

Her father’s face darkened. He grabbed her arm. “You are my daughter, Asami. And you must not let these idle fantasies distract you. Eventually, you will need to find a man…”

“No, I don’t.” The words were out of her mouth before she even realized she’d said them. Oh spirits, she hadn't meant to say that, and it wasn't like she didn't have some attraction to men. She just preferred women. Looking at her father, she was about to clarify but then stopped. The look on her father’s face, his shock and confusion, hit her like a block of earth to the chest. She immediately regretted her words.

He sighed heavily, his hand dropping to his side. “Perhaps I’ve been too lenient with you. This cannot continue. What you do reflects on me and my company. If you are to inherit my work, then you must not let this…. this… nonsense taint your mind.” 

“This nonsense taint my mind?” she repeated, flabbergasted. Anger overruled her regret. People like Sana weren't nonsense. “Same sex couples exist. Many get married and are recognized just like any other couple. It’s you who needs to adjust to our changing times.”

His shoulders drooped, and he looked suddenly much older. “I need you to focus, Asami. Future Industries' reputation requires both of us to do our part. We need to work together to continue to hold the spotlight, to continue to build a better world.”

Not that argument again. Last time he’d threatened to fire half the benders at the company claiming it was to build a better world, and that had turned into a yelling match. She was not doing that again. Pivoting, she marched out of the library. Her father called after her, but she ignored him. The walls of the mansion felt suddenly stifling. Tears stung her eyes, and she held the book tightly. Could Sana be wrong? Maybe queer couples weren’t as accepted by society as she had claimed. 

Asami slammed the door to her room, locked it, and dropped down beside her bed. She dug under it for a battered box and pulled it out. This was where the book should have been, but she’d been reading it last night under the covers. She placed it over all her drawings of women at the dojo. Grabbing her toolkit, she worked a floor board under her bed until it pulled up enough for her to shove the box inside. She carefully readjusted the board back to its original position, then climbed into bed and cried.

The memory incited a wave of anger, and now that she’d seen his journals, she knew he had been far along his path of hatred by the time that conversation happened. And to think it held such influence still! She’d dated Yanchen not long after that conversation, hated it, then tried again with Song, that also barely lasted a few weeks. Mako was the only one she actually felt some attraction, but that hadn’t gone well either. Trying to pretend that side of her didn’t exist certainly hadn’t worked as Korra kept distracting her by being so damn beautiful. Thinking about her father just added a layer of fury and grief as well as shame to the situation, and she hated how he haunted her still.

No, whatever she felt toward Korra, she shouldn’t let it distract. First, they needed to be better friends, then she had to figure out this mess with her company. Besides, it was unlikely Korra would ever like her like that anyway. She sighed and opened her idea journal. The rough sketch of the scene needed some polish, but she shut it instead, and laid her arm over her eyes.

This mode of thinking was not productive. She needed to be useful, which meant she needed to get into proper clothes and check their packs again, verify supplies. Asami shimmied closer to Naga, so that her back was to the polar bear dog’s side. Korra’s arm still lay across her, though she no longer was pressed up as close. Gently, she picked up Korra’s arm but paused at the thickness of her muscles. Asami would never get over them. She swallowed hard and carefully laid Korra’s arm between them. Korra grumbled, but she thankfully didn’t wake. 

Part one completed. Asami pushed herself to her knees, blankets slid off. Her body still felt sore, shaky, and now cold. Likely needed more food and water. She reached and grabbed her clothes then looked around. She had no idea where to go for a bathroom, though she vaguely remembered Senna helping her to a room where she could squat and wash with warm water. A lot of yesterday was a blur, most of it in and out of consciousness and sleep. 

Korra was still asleep at least. Asami pulled on her shirt and jacket. Leveraging herself against Naga, surprised the bear dog tolerated it, she pulled on her inner liner and pants, socks, and boots. It tired her, and she leaned against Naga, breathing heavier than she liked. The dog nuzzled her sleepily. She stroked her fur and wished life wasn’t so frustratingly complicated. Too bad she wasn't a polar bear dog, then she'd just hang out with Korra, and wouldn't have a failing company, a group of Southerners angry with her possible deal with Varrick, and that confusing and worrisome claim that her technology could make problems worse with the dark spirits and Northern troops. Problems that Asami had no idea how to tackle, and that irritated her even more.

Footsteps came from the side rooms. Senna entered wearing her furs. “Awake?” She spoke softly. 

Asami nodded. “May I wash up?” She was still sort of between Korra and Naga, her legs at least, and the blankets were a tangled mess at her feet.

Senna walked over and held out her arm. Asami grasped it and leveraged herself to her feet. She still felt a bit dizzy, her legs still weak, so she leaned against the older woman.

“How do you feel?” Senna led her into the side rooms past a room with a thick curtain and into the bath area. It wasn’t technically a bath per se, but more of a wash area and a place to relieve oneself. Senna pulled out some wash clothes and soap. 

“I feel better.” Asami ducked her head to try to hide her blush and burst of shame. “Was extra warm last night.” 

Senna smiled with a shake with her head. “You were shivering, even with almost all our blankets. Korra ordered Naga to keep you warm, then just went to sleep.”

“Is… she like that with others?” Asami asked, hesitantly. 

Senna shook her head. “No, but then, she’s never had such good friends as all of you. Thank you for being here with her.” Senna squeezed Asami’s shoulder. “Go get washed up. I’ll make breakfast.” Senna left the room and the curtain fell into place.

Asami looked down at the soap and water basin. Korra wasn’t like that with others? She had no idea how to process that information, so she put that out of her head. Turning on the spigot to warm up the water, she cleaned herself up the best she could.

When she left the bathroom, she kept her hand along the wall to steady herself. Being this weak was infuriating. To her surprise, Naga met her at the entrance to the side rooms. The dog waged her tail and nuzzled Asami again. Looking past her, she saw Korra sitting up and stoking the firepit. The girl yawned and blinked sleepily at Asami. 

“You sleep okay?” 

Asami nodded and wondered if Korra had purposely cuddled her or if it had been all done in her sleep. Okay, there goes her trying to put it out of her mind. She felt irritated with herself. Leaning against Naga’s shoulder, she pushed away from the wall. Her legs still felt weak and that prickly-numbness still burned faintly off and on. Naga seemed to understand and walked slowly back to Korra, while Asami kept hold of her to stay upright. 

“Huh.” Korra watched, surprised. “Naga, you’re such a good girl.” She reached out and ruffled the dog’s fur behind Naga’s ears. “Caring for Asami.”

Asami leveraged herself back onto the pillows using Naga’s bulk. “Does she do this a lot?”

Korra shook her head. “Only with me. Well, apparently you now. How you managed to charm my Naga is a mystery.” Korra laughed lightly. “Definitely a polar bear dog whisperer.” 

Asami looked off to the side to hide the blush again. “Did… you sleep okay? I… saw you slept out here?” That was the closest she would come to mentioning anything about this morning.

“Yeah.” Korra shrugged. “You were cold, and Naga's warm. I figured I’d sleep nearby. In case you needed stuff.” 

More than near, Asami thought, but she didn’t say it out loud. “Thanks for grabbing my things. Senna already packed our bags.” Asami gestured to the ones by the door. 

“I saw.” Korra poked the fire again then blurted, “I… I think I might have broken up with Mako.”

“You did?” That was not as surprising as Asami would have thought. 

“Yeah. I mean, I didn’t specifically say it’s over? But I guess I strongly implied.” She sighed. “We had a big fight. And he got all weirdly possessive and protective?” Korra flicked a one of the stones on the side of the firepit. “It’s just...” 

Asami pulled her legs up against her chest and balanced her chin on her knees. She wasn’t sure what to say. So she waited and looked at the Avatar. 

Korra looked up at her. “He got really insistent on coming with us. Demanded it. Said he needed to protect me. I don’t need that. And just… I said he couldn’t come. Why couldn’t he accept that? And, like, I didn’t want Dad with us on that South Pole trip, and Mako goes and tells him? He knew how I felt about Dad trying to dictate my training. Ugh.” Korra waved her hand at the fire in frustration. “I still care about him, you know? But I can’t figure out how to make it work.”

“Sometimes relationships don’t work out,” Asami said, softly. She felt like she ought to say something else, something more supportive, but her mind kept going back to this morning, even despite all attempts to shut that out of her mind. It left her feeling ashamed and off-centered.

“I guess. Makes me sad still.” Korra sighed and stood. “I’ll go wash up. Thanks for listening to me.”

“Always.” Asami watched her go to the side rooms. Korra really had no idea of how she’d woken up, did she? Frustrated with herself, Asami leaned her face into Naga’s soft fur. “Naga,” she whispered. “I can’t have a crush on her. It’s not right.” The dog didn't reply, but then she hadn't expected a reaction. She sighed and did what she’d done for years now. Shoved that side of her tighter into her heart and shut the door.

By the time they finished breakfast with Senna, Master Katara had entered leaning against a walking stick. “Good morning.” She smiled. “And I see Asami convinced you to come, Korra?” 

Korra looked up with a smile. “Good morning. And yeah, Asami’s pretty convincing.” 

Senna gestured to a pillow. “Would you like tea and breakfast, Katara? We have some left.” During the meal, Senna had chatted with them mostly about mundane topics like what Asami’s work was like and about life on the tundra. Asami had learned a lot about dog sleds, how to train the dogs, caring for them, and how they made the sleds. Then she'd learned there was eight clans within the Southern Water tribe, all focused on different styles of hunting and gathering depending on their location. Far more complex than her research had indicated.

“No, I ate already. Thank you, Senna.” Katara looked at Asami. “How do you feel, dear?”

“Better.” Asami put her down her tea cup. She stretched out one of her legs and winced a bit at the prickly feeling in the lower calf. “Still a bit shaky in the legs. Sporadic numbness, but it’s been fading.”

Katara studied her, thoughtfully. “I see. Korra, did Asami explain this journey?”

Korra nodded. “That there’s Southerners that can calm spirits, that the place is secret, and you are taking us?”

“Good. Senna, prepare Asami? I believe she needs better snowpants.” Katara looked pointedly at Asami’s black work pants. Even with its fur lining, the pants hadn't kept her all that warm, so she wasn't too surprised the older woman viewed them inadequate.

Senna nodded. “You’re a little tall.” She tapped her chin. “I have an idea.” She headed into the side rooms. 

Korra grinned and nudged Asami. “Your clothes got vetoed again.” Asami smiled back, sheepishly. She wished she’d gone out and bought better clothes the day before Solstice, but she’d been too frustrated and feeling anti-social to do much more than muck around her lodgings and work on plane and airship designs.

“Korra, load up your bear.” Katara nudged her with her walking stick. “And stop playing around.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” Korra jumped to her feet. She nearly tripped over herself to grab the bags Senna had packed and to tie them onto Naga’s saddle. Her dog shook herself but then sat on her haunches to allow Korra to attach the packs and saddle. The scene was almost comical to Asami.

Senna returned with thick blue snow pants. “Here.” She helped Asami to her feet, though Asami found herself leaning against Senna again to stay upright. Katara walked over to help hold her steady as she slipped into the snowpants. The length fit, but the waist did not, and Asami realized this was likely Tonraq’s. Senna quickly got to work adjusting the fit with her sewing kit, until the waist was snug against Asami’s own. “There.” Senna stood back, hands on her hips, to survey her work. “Not my best, but it’ll do.” 

“Wonderfully warm,” Asami admitted. Much better than her own. 

“Good. No more hypothermia for you.” Katara handed her the coats, and Asami donned them with Senna’s help. By the time she was ready, bundled up like an otter-penguin complete with a face mask, Korra had finished packing up Naga. “Thank you again, Senna," Katara said. "If all goes well, we’ll be back tomorrow at the latest.”

Which meant Asami would miss her appointment with Varrick. Part of her suspected that’d be so. She needed information, and Korra needed to learn more about her people. “Can you let Bolin know that I won’t make my appointment?” She asked Senna. 

The woman nodded. “Safe travels, all of you.” She took Asami’s arm and helped her outside. A dog sled waited, the sled part small with a seat and packs tied to the back of the chair. The artic dogs barked and yipped in excitement. Naga barked back and sniffed a few, who turned skittish. Korra pulled Naga away. Twelve arctic dogs in total, all roped together to the front of the sled. Asami had never seen one up close. 

Both Korra and Senna helped her onto the back of Naga, and Korra took the front. Asami realized she was going to have to hold on tightly to Korra’s waist to stay on. Great, that was not going to help her resolve to keep that part of herself shut off. Behind them, Senna stepped back into the doorway and held up her hand in farewell.

Katara settled into her sled, lashed down down her stick, and signaled her dogs with a few clicks. The sled hurtled forward, surprisingly fast. 

“See you soon, Mom! And please stay safe!” Korra waved at her mother. Asami did the same, then grabbed hold of the girl when Korra urged Naga into a jog to stay abreast Katara’s sled. So they were off into the unknown. Asami hoped desperately that this would help. Yesterday things had seemed so clear, but today she felt scattered, unfocused, and troubled.

Read the full story here!

[wildcardjoey]

so, I've had this theory (or theories, rather, that play off each other) for a while and have been working out the kinks and decided to finally put all my thoughts out in writing.

First off, the hero of ten thousand years ago, the sheikah, and the royal family. No one seems to notice that they had the idea for the divine beasts and gaurdians and prepared them in advance. They were expecting Ganon to manifest as he did, when he did. They were prepared for an event that had happened before.

But how could this have happened before? We've seen what happens to an unprepared hyrule. Without the gaurdians, you're still left with a monster of astronomical power that is no longer in this scenario being restrained. If ten thousand years ago they were preparing for a repeat of an even that occurred 20,000 years ago (a ludicrous number, but we'll get to that later,) then it must have been stopped in the past, so how was it stopped then?

Positioned in three out of four corners of the map are complete skeletons of long dead beast. Each resembles the skeleton of a known benevolent servant of Hylia seen in other games. Around Lanayru tower, we see the usual uptick in scattered leviathan bones normally reserved for regions where you would find a completed skeleton.

Taking the uptick in bones around Lanayru as an implied fourth skeleton, we get four leviathans located in simmilar areas to where the divine beasts would later be positioned to strike Ganon, and many more scattered leviathans located closer to Ganon but still near the completed Skeletons.

I believe the levianthans paid the ultamate price in wounding the Calamity, the weaker ones buying time and being ripped to shreds as the greatest of them prepared a four pronged strike on the Calamity, ones that left them exhausted and costing them their lives. These events would inspire the creation of the divine beasts and gaurdians.

Why don't those three brothers know this story? Either it may have been forgotten durring the calamity, or they do know it and simply don't take it at face value. They're scientists who recognise that that story may simply be a way people in the past explained the bones that very clearly dot the landscape of hyrule, and most would not assume they simply died of natural events because similar creatures also feature as powerful beasts that aided or were aided by heroes in their religion.

The second is related to that number... 20,000 years ago. That's two entire irl recorded human histories worth of time and neither would have been when Ganondorf was sealed by the green-arm-energy-producing gold band, as the arising of the Calamity is a symptom of the seal on Ganon allowing his malice to slip out and build up over time.

A known symptom of linguistic and mythological drift is it can leave a story taking place entire exponents of time further in the past than the events that inspire them. It's more likely for the events described having taken something more like a millenia apart.

So Ganon arrises every 1,000 years? Even with linguistic drift, that seems hard to not have as a known peice of history.

I don't think so. Another known tendency of myths is events being added. The events as described in ballads and legends of the hero of ten thousand years ago always sound almost too thorough when describing how the plan is to work. It's almost like myths that are intended to describe agricultural processes, or the weather associated with when a certain constellation is in a specific part of the night sky.

The story was made up to record the plan the Sheikah had come up with to ensure future generations knew how to use them.

now without the story of the divine beasts' and gaurdians' intended purpose and the plan to seal the Calamity, you're left with "10,000 years ago the Sheikah built these machines to aid in the defeat of Ganon, but were forced to bury them when they sparked unrest due to uneasyness and distrust among the peoples of Hyrule."

With the addition of the Leviathan theory, we get "20,000 years ago, the leviathans sacrificed themselves to weaken the Calamity significantly, and 10,000 years ago the Sheikah built these machines to aid in the defeat of Ganon, but were forced to bury them when they sparked unrest due to uneasyness and distrust among the peoples of Hyrule."

Finally, with the assumption that linguistic or mythological drift, if not storytellers simply exaggerating the age, caused the much larger timescale, we have the Sheikah, following the defeat of the Calmity with the sacrifice of the Leviathans, realizing that the next time the Calamity arises will be dissasterous for Hyrule if they don't have something of equal power to the leviathans by then. They begin attempts to create this answer artificially and manage to create the divine beasts and gaurdians, as well as towers, shrines, the Sheikah Slate, and weaponry. All of this technology, however, is designed for war and appears unsettling and unnatural to most, and unrest begins to stur among the populace. The Sheikah are ordered to abandon their technology, burying it beneath the earth (something that they are specified to have done in the story and simply would not have been recorded in a myth normally) but creating a myth of a hero and the technology to ensure it is known how it is to be used when the need for it to be used arises.

But then how did Ganon know about the gaurdians to be able to control them? The Yiga snitched about the same time they defected.

[themainspoon]

In discussing this I think bringing up “A Mathematicians Lament” by Paul Lockhart would be extremely relevant.

“A Mathematicians Lament” is an essay by mathematician Paul Lockhart about the state of mathematics education. I’m gonna paste the introduction below, because I didn’t even get around to reading all of it and it still completely changed the way I felt about Mathematics, I would 100% recommend reading it.

The main take away though is that the answer to "When are we going to need this?" should be never! Math is taught like some highly critical life skill, like we are all going to need to know everything we are taught to be successful adults when that simply isn't the case. We are taught how to use formulas to work things out and not about who created the formulas, or how they made the formulas. We are taught to answer questions with the 'Correct Working", not to devise our own methods to solve the issues put in front of us. We input numbers into the same formulas over and over again instead of being asked to explain how the formula actually works. Schools train us to be flesh calculators, not mathematicians!

He laments the loss of the uncountable number of revolutionary mathematicians who hated mathematics in school, because they had no interest in the mind numbing, thought terminating, and soul crushing exercise in pointless monotony that is math class.

He argues that ultimately the person who answers the question "what is wrong with maths education?" correctly isn't the politician who rants about standards and curriculum's, nor the teachers who complain of under-funding and under-staffing. It is the teenager who sits at the back of class, rocking on their chair talking to friends, who doesn't do their homework and who gets C's and D's who will tell you that the problem with their maths education is that "It's fucking stupid and boring and it fucking sucks."

We have a problem with how math is taught, and the only people whose advice we aren’t listening to are mathematicians and the students who have to suffer through the maths curriculum.

“A musician wakes from a terrible nightmare. In his dream he finds himself in a society where music education has been made mandatory. “We are helping our students become more competitive in an increasingly sound-filled world.” Educators, school systems, and the state are put in charge of this vital project. Studies are commissioned, committees are formed, and decisions are made— all without the advice or participation of a single working musician or composer.

Since musicians are known to set down their ideas in the form of sheet music, these curious black dots and lines must constitute the “language of music.” It is imperative that students become fluent in this language if they are to attain any degree of musical competence; indeed, it would be ludicrous to expect a child to sing a song or play an instrument without having a thorough grounding in music notation and theory. Playing and listening to music, let alone composing an original piece, are considered very advanced topics and are generally put off until college, and more often graduate school.

As for the primary and secondary schools, their mission is to train students to use this language— to jiggle symbols around according to a fixed set of rules: “Music class is where we take out our staff paper, our teacher puts some notes on the board, and we copy them or transpose them into a different key. We have to make sure to get the clefs and key signatures right, and our teacher is very picky about making sure we fill in our quarter-notes completely. One time we had a chromatic scale problem and I did it right, but the teacher gave me no credit because I had the stems pointing the wrong way.”

In their wisdom, educators soon realize that even very young children can be given this kind of musical instruction. In fact it is considered quite shameful if one’s third-grader hasn’t completely memorized his circle of fifths. “I’ll have to get my son a music tutor. He simply won’t apply himself to his music homework. He says it’s boring. He just sits there staring out the window, humming tunes to himself and making up silly songs.”

In the higher grades the pressure is really on. After all, the students must be prepared for the standardized tests and college admissions exams. Students must take courses in Scales and Modes, Meter, Harmony, and Counterpoint. “It’s a lot for them to learn, but later in college when they finally get to hear all this stuff, they’ll really appreciate all the work they did in high school.” Of course, not many students actually go on to concentrate in music, so only a few will ever get to hear the sounds that the black dots represent. Nevertheless, it is important that every member of society be able to recognize a modulation or a fugal passage, regardless of the fact that they will never hear one. “To tell you the truth, most students just aren’t very good at music. They are bored in class, their skills are terrible, and their homework is barely legible. Most of them couldn’t care less about how important music is in today’s world; they just want to take the minimum number of music courses and be done with it. I guess there are just music people and non-music people. I had this one kid, though, man was she sensational! Her sheets were impeccable— every note in the right place, perfect calligraphy, sharps, flats, just beautiful. She’s going to make one hell of a musician someday.”

Waking up in a cold sweat, the musician realizes, gratefully, that it was all just a crazy dream. “Of course!” he reassures himself, “No society would ever reduce such a beautiful and meaningful art form to something so mindless and trivial; no culture could be so cruel to its children as to deprive them of such a natural, satisfying means of human expression. How absurd!” Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a painter has just awakened from a similar nightmare…

I was surprised to find myself in a regular school classroom— no easels, no tubes of paint. “Oh we don’t actually apply paint until high school,” I was told by the students. “In seventh grade we mostly study colors and applicators.” They showed me a worksheet. On one side were swatches of color with blank spaces next to them. They were told to write in the names. “I like painting,” one of them remarked, “they tell me what to do and I do it. It’s easy!”

After class I spoke with the teacher. “So your students don’t actually do any painting?” I asked. “Well, next year they take Pre-Paint-by-Numbers. That prepares them for the main Paint-by-Numbers sequence in high school. So they’ll get to use what they’ve learned here and apply it to real-life painting situations— dipping the brush into paint, wiping it off, stuff like that. Of course we track our students by ability. The really excellent painters— the ones who know their colors and brushes backwards and forwards— they get to the actual painting a little sooner, and some of them even take the Advanced Placement classes for college credit. But mostly we’re just trying to give these kids a good foundation in what painting is all about, so when they get out there in the real world and paint their kitchen they don’t make a total mess of it.” “Um, these high school classes you mentioned…” “You mean Paint-by-Numbers? We’re seeing much higher enrollments lately. I think it’s mostly coming from parents wanting to make sure their kid gets into a good college. Nothing looks better than Advanced Paint-by-Numbers on a high school transcript.” “Why do colleges care if you can fill in numbered regions with the corresponding color?” “Oh, well, you know, it shows clear-headed logical thinking. And of course if a student is planning to major in one of the visual sciences, like fashion or interior decorating, then it’s really a good idea to get your painting requirements out of the way in high school.” “I see. And when do students get to paint freely, on a blank canvas?” “You sound like one of my professors! They were always going on about expressing yourself and your feelings and things like that—really way-out-there abstract stuff. I’ve got a degree in Painting myself, but I’ve never really worked much with blank canvasses. I just use the Paint-by-Numbers kits supplied by the school board.”

Sadly, our present system of mathematics education is precisely this kind of nightmare. In fact, if I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child’s natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn’t possibly do as good a job as is currently being done— I simply wouldn’t have the imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education.

Everyone knows that something is wrong. The politicians say, “we need higher standards.” The schools say, “we need more money and equipment.” Educators say one thing, and teachers say another. They are all wrong. The only people who understand what is going on are the ones most often blamed and least often heard: the students. They say, “math class is stupid and boring,” and they are right."

"how is this math useful like what's the point of it" you'll notice people do not ask questions like this of all the fiction they make you read in english class. very few people will expect to require direct knowledge of shakespeare in their life, after all.

this is because the statement is being slightly misinterpreted, i think. the "point" that is missing is more like the "point" of a story. like, ok, you are explaining something to me, but what is interesting about it? why is this something you'd find rewarding to figure out in the first place? what desire does it sate?

these things are important to set up. you need to make them want to know.

[ellischaplow]

Corruption in Elite Sport. Money or Fans?

Get ready to uncover the dark side of elite sport. As we sit in 2023 inclusivity within football is pinned back by the hierarchy of football governments when talking about their profits being more important than the fans themselves. The suspected corruption in football has put a huge downfall on the game loved by so many, having affects on the fans regarding equal opportunities and fairness. This stems from biased decisions to unequal treatment of fans throughout the game, with footballing governments targets of maximising their profits has compromised the inclusivity within football. Join me as we look into the many allegations and scandals that have been put forward to footballing government ‘FIFA’ surrounding the topic of corruption and how this is having a massively negative impact on the game for everyone involved both players and supporters.

Practises such as bribery and match fixing don’t only swing unfairness in the game but also damages the trust and loyalty relationship between football and its fans. The way in which profits are aimed to be maximised in football by FIFA the repercussions that has on footballing fans are damaging. It has been well documented there has been many allegations towards FIFA regarding corruption within football over the past years. The most recent accusation being about bribery of the bidding process of the 2023 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, questioning its credibility.

FIFA have been accused of being bribed by the Qatar government. This would of unfolded by individuals within FIFA being offered more money in aid of securing the World Cup for Qatar. The reports were that FIFA individuals where offered bribes in return for exchanged votes. This is extremely unethical and goes against everything FIFA promote surrounding the topic of fairness within the game.  

FIFA knew by having the World Cup in Qatar it would provide them a huge amount of cash. The income from the Qataris will have been a ludicrous some of money which is also why FIFA wanted to hold the World Cup in Qatar. This bid came with FIFA knowing the issues with having Qatar as a hosting country but still took into account the cheques before thinking of any of the fans around the world.

The idea about inclusivity in football, the feeling that everyone can be involved, people from different cultures, religious beliefs, backgrounds, communities as well as having the human right concerns in Qatar, was completely diminished by FIFA in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. FIFA promote football in a way in which everyone is welcome but holding the world cup in Qatar were beliefs about women and the LGBTQ+ communities are looked down upon and aren’t allowed within Qatar affected them particular fans purely as they didn’t feel welcome to come to Qatar due to being scared of going to watch their county play in Qatar.

Being in Qatar also affected the amount of fans getting there. Getting to Qatar especially in winter right in the middle of the season disrupted fans getting there for multiple reasons. The amount it would cost to get there alone, not including the price of the match-ticket itself. It really affected how the fans took viewership on FIFA as more and more signals came across as treating the fans as if they were worth nothing.

Journalists Heidi Blake and Johnathan Calvert, working for the Sunday times, with Heidi Blake being a member of the investigation team and John Calvert being the newspapers chief investigator, did a piece with Discovery UK YouTube channel as they spoke about when they were investigating the corruption allegations aligning with the World Cup that was held in Qatar.

(Uncovering FIFA Corruption: How Qatar Won the World Cup | The Men Who Sold the World Cup - YouTube)

At the start of the interview Blake spoke about how she didn’t know too much about football until she had done some thorough research and went onto to say ‘it wasn’t until I did my research I realised how corrupt world football was’.

The interview was clear about it’s investigation and Blake spoke about the actual difficulties when carrying out the investigation which showed glimpses of FIFA and sources close to the bidding process having something to hide. The source that had the information around the so called ‘bidding process’ were strict with the investigators. Blake explained the procedures in which they were enforced to carry out. “They made us operate under intense security and were not allowed to tell friends and family. We were monitored constantly by cctv and all activity we did was monitored by keystroke monitors on the computers. We couldn’t download anything and couldn’t take anything away with us” Blake explained.

Corruption within FIFA seems to be a reality and Blake explained without saying how corrupt it is. It just huge suspicions towards the whole process of the bid from Qatar as the source that was giving Blake and Calvert the information were very strict and were keen to hide as much as possible. It evidently provides support this corruption allegation as they seem to not want anything public about it and want everything kept behind closed doors in terms of the explanation of the procedure for this particular World Cup. It doesn’t help their defence at all in anyway.

When the bidding for this World Cup was held the FIFA president was Sepp Blatter and the Qatari president of football was a billionaire called Mohammed Bin Hamman. Blake stated in the interview that Hamman had bankrolled Sepp Blatter when he was campaigning for his presidency. “It was actually Hamman who bankrolled Sepp Blatter’s campaign for presidency in 1998”. Blake then went onto to discuss about Hamman’s secret meeting with multiple members of the African football federation presidents. “Leaders of African football were invited to a private audience and Hamman was rumoured to be very generous in handing out brown envelopes stuff full of cash” Blake quoted. This is more evidence to the suspicion surrounding corruption in football showing how money can change to outcome of any circumstance or regulation debates within the sport.

In this interview it was discussed how unsustainable and dangerous Qatar was as a country, with FIFA knowing there wasn’t enough space for it to be hosted with having no infrastructure and nine stadiums needing to be built. The workers were put under sever pressure and treated awfully being put on long hours all day for months in boiling heat with a minimum wage.

FIFA knew full well the issues and concerns surrounding Qatar as a country with the human right problems within the country and what work was needed in creating this a suitable venue for one the biggest sporting competition in the world to take place. The conditions the workers were put under were horrific as well as fans not wanting to travel due to being petrified of the sanctions they would receive for their beliefs Qataris go massively against which in 2023 should not be an issue. It just showcases more evidence to the footballing community that FIFA prioritise their own pocket without taking into consideration the fans of the sport that mean so much.

This isn’t the first time FIFA accused of bribery either which is what is concerning for many football fans around the world. Sky Sports reported that President of South Maericans governing body CONEMBOL Ricardo Teixeria accepted bribes to vote for Qatar in this world cup at an executive FIFA committee meeting in 2010. Sky Sports also had reported that Russia had bribed to host their World Cup in 2018 with bodies such as CONFAF and the Guatemals federation being bribed with millions of pounds in aid of putting votes towards Russia’s hopes of having their country the home of the 2018 Fifa World Cup.

Bribery happening at the head of footballing government FIFA, is an occurrence showing the fans that there best interests is business and gaining huge wealth rather than taking inti account the fans around the world that make up any football club. There drive is simply financial gain which comprises the credibility of any of their decision-making processes that occur within the game.

Bribery hasn’t been the only link to corruption in football as match-fixing is another corruptive link that has occurred in the sport massively in past times. Match-fixing is a basic example of how footballing authorities can gain huge profits which is more important to them than it is to fan-care. It is a way of manipulation in which their financial reward is a greater pleasure rather than having fair, honest competition for the fans the enjoy.

ESPN covered the story about the Calciopoli scandal in Italy, surrounding Juventus was an on pitch corruptive scandal rather than an off the pitch saga like the Qatari bid for the World cup with FIFA. Italian high courts investigated the matter and found recordings pf telephone conversations using Swiss sim cards with the referees chief executive at the time as well as some actual referees where used to arrange to fixing. The Calciopoli scandal in Italy was a corruptive allegation regarding Juventus and two men called Luciano Moggi and Antonio Giraudi where they were accused of match fixing and use of manipulating the referee appointments of Serie A games to favour Juventus.

Match-fixing is a way of ensuring decisions goo for your team as in this case Juventus in attempt to win games via cheating to become more successful to gain more money. This is a prime example of where higher end management with football clubs choose to prioritise their profits than thinking about their own people and supporters. In attempt of gaining success and money it costed them massively with relegation to Serie B which let down all of the Juventus fans just for the sake of gaining money and success unfairly in a cheating manor. Put themselves before the fans and fairness of the game. This scandal still hurts Juventus to this day. Another risk that was taken which backfired in attempt to gain more profits instead of thinking about how it would affect not only the club but the people and supporters of Juventus. It undermines the integrity of the sport and again destroys any trust between fans and the governing bodies when talking about the fairness of games being looked upon.  

Howver football hasn’t been the only sport with allegatios of corrption. Horse racing has had its dounts put towards them as well.An article on 33 square was written by a current horse trainer who gave his first personeedd details on the sitation of corruption in the sport of hirse ravcing. Horse racing has had multiple allegations thrown towards them in relation to corruption and there have been a variety of tactics thrown to fix races. These include performance drugs (painkillers to stimulants) where the horse would benefit massively throughout the whole race as it would not feel any pain along the way as well as being more stimulated for the race giving it a huge advantage. Alternatively electro-shock collars under the horses saddle in which it can remotely zap the horse to gain more speed and holding back which is where jockeys blatantly restrain the horse at the start of the race to gain advantages to other contestants.

An example of one of these tactics being used was In races throughout the year 1994 jockeys throughout britains most historic tracks were found to have bbee using the electic buzzers to shocj the horse in aid of gaining large avaatve when the hrse is capable o running faster for longer.

Millions of people bet on horse racing and by jockeys and punters corrupting the sport with the use of these tactics in results in people loosing out on a lot of money and punters receiving more money whilst also not loosing out on as much. Once again this sort of corrutoon decreases the crdiblity of the sport and allows it’s fans to suffer as it creates unfairness and doubts for all horse racing fans across the world. These big companies within the betting industry and the horse racing governing bodiss priotise their profit as they favour specific jcokeys and allow for betting odds to become a inaccurate prescne wen disccusing plac,ent s and winners within a race.

In an interview on A current affair youtube channel {Inside the horse switching scandal that rocked Australian racing | A Current Affair - YouTube} Robert North broke his scilence on the Fine Cotton racing scandal in a interview held by Dan Nolan. The Fine Cotton sncadal 1984 was huge in Austrilai and blew up all over the world. The ring-in tactic was used in which you enter a slow horse into a race, ensuring odds are high so there’s lots of mney at stake to be won and at the last minute swap in for a faster horse in attempt no one achlonges the switch. “The orgina plan was for a Fast horse called dashing solitaire be ring in for slow one fine cotton” quoting from Dan Nolan. On the day of the race dashing solitaire was in injured leaving the only other trained horse in camp to come In as a replacement named bold personality. Their multi-million pound masterplan was at risk when noticing the signicant differences in hooves between the pair. In the inteeview Nolan explained what they tried to do to cover up, “they tried to wash out the die but fine cotton had distinctive white markings”.  They solved this by spray painting white markings and straopping white banages around the back two hooves.

Corruption throughout this scandal was evident to see, with the attempt of cheating for the sake of putting loads of money in their back pockets meaning fans lost out on unfair money and the betting odds were drastically changed. This is a prime example of where corruption in elite sport puts their best interests into their profit rather the people surrounding the sport.

[dudemanauthor]

Totally Legitimate Cookie Addiction Therapy

Author's Note: This one was one I wrote for someone else, so yeah, this one wasn't my idea. Hope you like it, though.

Weiss didn’t really want to do this, she told Ruby. It was for her own good, she told Ruby. It was absolutely not an excuse to tie her friend up and stuff her for her own enjoyment, she told Ruby. She wasn’t sure if she had convinced Ruby, and she wasn’t exactly sure if she had convinced herself either, but here she was and she was sticking to her story. Ruby had her hands and feet bound behind her back and a big box of cookies and a tall jug of milk with a funnel on top of it sat on top of the shelves between the dorm room bunks. She was reluctant letting Ruby be on her bed with her boots, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and she didn’t want Ruby out of her regular combat gear. For her part, at least, Ruby was being surprisingly well behaved, sitting nice and still while Weiss got set up.

“Look, we have to deal with this ludicrous addiction one way or another,” Weiss asserted.

“You know I can just buy more, right? They’re not that expensive,” Ruby replied. Weiss let out an exasperated sigh.

“That’s not the point. The point is that once I’m done with you, you won’t even want to look at a biscuit.” Weiss folded her arms and looked sternly at Ruby.

“Never gonna happen, but go nuts,” Ruby said with a shrug. With that, Weiss grabbed the box and began to shovel handfuls of cookies into Ruby’s mouth. She expected this to be hard for Ruby, but Ruby was just sucking them down like a vacuum cleaner, not even leaving crumbs behind. After a few handfuls, Weiss switched the cookies for the jug and funnel. She would have forced it in if she needed to, but Ruby’s mouth seemed all too eager to open up for Weiss. Weiss poured the milk down into the funnel and into Ruby’s mouth, and was surprised to see how well Ruby was taking it. Ruby chugged almost half of the jug in one go, only stopping because Weiss had stopped, and did it flawlessly, probably helped by Weiss being careful not to send a torrent of milk Ruby’s way. Weiss put the jug back down and slipped the funnel out of Ruby’s mouth.

“Finished yet?” Weiss interrogated. Ruby stuck out her tongue.

“Not even close, Weiss,” Ruby said with a smug grin, one that seemed more at home on her sister Yang’s face. Still, it was all Weiss needed to hear. She grabbed the cookies again and shoved the rest into Ruby’s mouth. The cookies were gone in moments, leaving only the crumbs at the bottom of the box. Weiss decided to be thorough and finish the job, pouring the last little remains of the cookies into Ruby’s mouth. Weiss was almost disappointed with how easily Ruby was handling this. She had just eaten an entire box of cookies, as well as half a jug of milk, and still had her innocent, cheery smile on her cherubic face. It honestly felt like a waste of time even bothering with the last of the milk, but Weiss had already gone this far, and it wasn’t as if there wasn’t any effect. Weiss could see Ruby’s little round belly, bloated and pushing against her waist cincher, pulling the strings so tight and squeezing enough that Ruby’s breaths were slow and shallow. Weiss poured the last of the milk into Ruby’s mouth, slowly and steadily, gently and carefully. After all, Weiss just wanted to teach Ruby a lesson, she wasn’t malicious. The last half of the milk went down as easily as the first and then the pair were done. Ruby seemed like nothing had happened, even if her belly was very clear evidence that something had definitely happened. Weiss was doing her best to hide how just plain flabbergasted she was at Ruby’s ability to put away all that food and drink.

“W-well, I hope you’ve learnt your lesson, Ruby Rose,” Weiss said as she moved around to free Ruby from her bindings. “Otherwise, we’ll keep doing this every single day until you finally give up.” Ruby’s smug grin reappeared on her face to help really hammer her reply home.

“Nah.”

---

Weiss had poured two jugs of full fat and creamy milk down Ruby’s throat, and yet Ruby was still ready to keep going. Ruby’s belly had grown bigger than any belly Weiss had ever seen before, bloated and sloshing loudly with every slight move that Ruby made. It looked like she had tried to sneak a basketball under her pyjama top, but the pale sphere of a belly that pushed her top up and surged outwards said otherwise, and said it loud and clear. Ruby was panting for air as her flushed face looked up at Weiss’.

“Weiss, my tummy’s sore,” Ruby whined, putting on her best puppy dog eyes. Weiss was worried that Ruby had been practicing this for a similar occasion.

“Good, that should help you learn to stop eating so much,” Weiss said, maybe a touch more curtly than she had intended.

“Can you give me a belly rub? Please?” Ruby pleaded, turning her needy, adorable look all the way up, until Weiss couldn’t help but help Ruby out.

“Okay, but only because you asked nicely,” Weiss asserted, hoping she had convinced Ruby. It sounded like it worked, judging by the drowsy cheer that came from Ruby. Her gentle hands went to work, gliding all across Ruby’s belly. Weiss’ touch was soft and soothing on Ruby’s tight as a drum stomach. Ruby let out a sigh of relief that turned into a moan of pleasure halfway through. Weiss felt a warming sensation between her legs, but she did her best to just ignore it and just focus on Ruby.

“Ooh, Weiss, you make me feel so good,” Ruby moaned, her hips seemingly moving on their own, making her full belly slosh loudly as the milk splashed around inside. Drawn in by instinct, Weiss leant in, one hand pulling Ruby’s top up enough to reveal all of her firm, globular belly and another supporting Weiss. Then, she cradled Ruby’s rock-solid belly with both hands and leant in further, until her lips met Ruby’s belly. Ruby’s belly was warm, very warm, yet still nice and soft as Weiss’ lips and hands went to work, sending Ruby into an ecstatic state that was wordless but anything but silent. The heat between Weiss’ legs was building. Weiss couldn’t tell why, but something was driving her to please Ruby more and more. Weiss’ hands moved faster and massaged firmer. Her lips peppered Ruby’s big, round belly with soft little kisses, occasionally sneaking her tongue into Ruby’s navel, which seemed very close to turning from an innie into an outie. The heat rose higher and higher.

“Yes Weiss, more. More!” Ruby asked, squirming like crazy. Weiss’ hands began to drift, slipping higher, a hairs breadth away from sliding under Ruby’s shirt, and dropping lower, teasing at the waistband of her pyjama pants. Then, suddenly, the heat between her legs reached a tipping point. An intense wave of energy forced Weiss’ eyes shut as it shot through her. It was strange, but definitely not unwelcome. It surged out from her core, lighting every single inch of Weiss’ body with that pleasurable energy. She held Ruby tight as she fought to keep her mouth shut and quiet. The occasional tiny squeak of a moan slipped out. Then, as fast as it came, it faded away. Weiss opened her eyes, and woke up.

Weiss shot upright, panting for air with short, sharp and urgent breaths, covered in hot sweat, yet still shivering. It took her a moment to pull her surroundings into focus. Instead of the featureless void with just her and Ruby, she found herself in her team’s dorm, in her bed, that she was definitely not sharing with anyone else. It was dark and quiet, and her teammates all seemed to be sleeping like the dead, so it was safe to assume that whatever nonsense just happened was all in her head and that no one else had even noticed. Once that was figured out, the warm, glowing aftermath of her orgasm made itself known, making her shiver with pleasure. Again, it felt amazing, more powerful, wider spread and frankly just plain better than any other orgasm that she had ever had, and all of this happened without her even stimulating herself. At least, not physically. She hated to admit it, but that bafflingly strange dream had to have been the only stimulation she could have had and, unfortunately, that wet dream had to have been what brought her to orgasm. Weiss held her head in her hands. This couldn’t be real, she thought. There was no way she was into something so weird. She’d go back to normal soon, she thought, she hoped. For now, there was just going back to sleep and hoping for the best.

---

It turned out that just hoping that the dreams would go away definitely didn’t work. All that happened was that the weird dream turned into a recurring dream, with a handful of them becoming wet dreams, and her regular sessions with Ruby had managed to make those dreams worryingly close to reality. That was worrying enough for Weiss, but then there were a few more little things that began setting her off. The sheer number of calories that Weiss was putting into Ruby had had an effect on Ruby, and for some reason Weiss just couldn’t take her eyes off of them. There was the way Ruby’s slowly growing potbelly squished around her cincher when she wasn’t sucking in her gut. There was the way her belly snuck under the hem of her pyjama top and started making a muffin top as it just barely began to hang over her waistband. And there was the way that the buttons on her uniform jacket were pulling tighter and tighter by the day, getting more difficult for Ruby to button up, and even once it was buttoned her increasingly tight shirt eventually started becoming visible through the gaps between the buttons. It wasn’t having quite the same effect as her wet dreams, but she was definitely feeling it.

The tipping point came one day, with an early morning session one Sunday. Weiss had just finished getting set up, and Ruby was just getting out of bed. She’d leapt off of her bed and landed in front of Weiss. As she landed, Weiss couldn’t help but notice Ruby’s soft belly jiggle like jelly, taking a few seconds to stop. It didn’t help that Ruby’s tight pyjama top was riding up, revealing a pale strip of pudgy belly that bunched and hung over her pyjama pants. Weiss could feel the heat building again in her panties. She knew what it meant, and she needed to deal with it one way or another. Ruby only made things worse by giving her belly a few firm slaps, making a meaty thud as she set her jiggling belly off again.

“Time for another stuffing. And you still haven’t stopped me from being a cookie addict. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were enjoying this,” Ruby teased, getting right up into Weiss’ personal space, so close that her belly just barely managed to touch Weiss’ near concave stomach. This was it. This was the final straw. Weiss had to deal with this once and for all.

“Ruby, there’s something we need to talk about…”

---

“Ah, this is so much better,” Ruby said with a content sigh. Weiss was cuddled next to her, slowly and steadily feeding cookies into her with one hand and rubbing her hefty gut with another, a soft look and gentle smile on her face.

“I whole heartedly agree,” Weiss said, nodding slowly. She moved a little to get more comfortable, find a softer patch of Ruby to rest her head on. Ruby had a lot of soft patches nowadays. She had definitely plumped up a bit since Weiss had confessed her attraction towards Ruby and her preferences when it came to feeding Ruby. Fortunately, Ruby’s preferences matched up perfectly with Weiss’, by some miracle. The lessons had ended, but Weiss was still feeding plenty of cookies and milk to her new girlfriend on a very regular basis. Weiss was less stressed out from having to repress her desires and Ruby was loving Weiss’ new doting attitude during stuffing sessions. Weiss’ extreme doting and wish to satisfy Ruby led to a very surprising event, one that didn’t even happen when Weiss was trying to teach Ruby her lesson.

“Weiss, I gotta stop, I’m too full.” Both Weiss and Ruby were surprised that Ruby had said that, or had needed to say it. Weiss raised an eyebrow.

“Who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend?” Weiss asked, smiling softly, trying to stifle a chuckle.

“Hey, not my fault my stomach can only fit three and a half boxes of cookies and a jug of milk,” Ruby grumbled, before a big yawn and a quiet burp snuck out. “Trust me, I wanna finish that box.”

“Well, why don’t you rest up? There’ll be more boxes tomorrow,” Weiss suggested as she sat up. Ruby agreed, and it wasn’t long before she was out for a nap. As Weiss gently stroked Ruby’s short, smooth hair, her eyes caught the cookie box, and the leftover cookies inside of it. ‘What made these so addictive in the first place?’ she asked herself. Tentatively, she reached over and plucked out a bit of a broken cookie. ‘Just a little bit won’t hurt,’ she naively thought. She placed the cookie in her mouth, and the moment the cookie touched her tongue she could feel an explosion of sweetness. She slowly crunched down on the cookie, chewing and swallowing, savouring the taste. Before Weiss knew it, she was reaching for more. ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ The worst, she quickly found out, was that she did not want to stop. Cookie after cookie disappeared into her mouth. She wasn’t even hungry, but she still wanted more. She was hooked, and she knew it. Her hands moved faster and faster. Her mouth worked quicker to eat up the last of the cookies, she was done with savouring them. Next thing Weiss knew, her fingers were scraping the bottom of the box, with nothing to find but the crumbs. Once she had snapped out of her gluttonous haze, her full belly made itself known, gurgling away and just beginning to ache. She felt a burp coming and brought her mouth up to stifle it. One quick burp later, she was feeling better. Full, but still better. She had to admit, being full felt nice. It was a content sort of feeling as she rubbed her full belly. She saw that Ruby’s fat belly dwarfed her own, but nothing said that Weiss’ had to stay small forever.

---

Ruby and Weiss’ heads popped out from under the covers, their faces flushed and panting for air. Their nude, soft bodies were buzzing from her orgasmic energy that permeated every fibre of their bodies as they pushed tightly together to fit on a bed that was starting to get a bit too small for the couple.

“Oh, wow, that was awesome!” Ruby cheered, before giving Weiss a big old smooch on what was just starting to become a chubby cheek. Weiss gave Ruby’s body a quick squeeze, enjoying the softness from all over Ruby’s body. Ruby was well and truly fat, definitely overweight, possibly even obese at this point. Everything was full and hanging out. Her massive gut was so big, Ruby only bothered with her cincher when she wanted to show off to Weiss, mostly showing off how it didn’t fit anymore as her gut rested on her wide thighs. Her plump rear was like a pair of basketballs that bounced with every move Ruby made, they even made her a touch taller when she sat than she used to be. Her thick thighs had doubled in size, one of her thighs nowadays being the size of both put together before she started gaining. Her chest had also grown to respectable handfuls, but they were definitely dwarfed by the rest of her body.

Weiss hadn’t exactly been a slacker with her own growth. Sure, Ruby had had quite the head start, but Weiss had been doing a good job of eating like a starved animal, not just during feeding sessions, but all the time, and she was more than happy to put in the work to catch up. Weiss’ weight distribution wasn’t too far off of Ruby’s, even if she was a bit smaller. Still, Weiss was catching up quickly, and had plenty to extra squishy padding for Ruby to play with. Before they could get too distracted playing with each other, Weiss reached under her bed and grabbed a few boxes of cookies.

“I don’t know about you, but that incredible sex worked up quite the appetite,” she commented as she handed Ruby a box.

“That’s why you’re the brains of this relationship!” The couple tore the boxes open and tore into the cookies. There was the occasional break for Weiss to reach down and procure more boxes, but the couple were happily stuffing their faces, turning the pillowy soft bellies into firm, heavy masses with a soft layer of fat above them. Their swollen, bloated midsections lay across their legs as they moaned and groaned in enjoyment and satisfaction. The bed creaked loudly, making the sensible part of Weiss’ brain remember that she needed to get the beds reinforced, since they definitely wanted to keep this up.

“Oh, Ruby, if I wasn’t so full, I would definitely want another round,” Weiss moaned, squirming as much as her solid gut would allow. All that jostling disturbed her stomach, and with a gurgle and a belch, Weiss stopped and sat still.

“Or we could just chill, digest all those cookies and work on getting nice and fat,” Ruby said with a grin sweeter and more innocent than what she was suggesting.

“That sounds… That sounds nice.”

[swan-orpheus]

07.09.19. Keep calm and study on. 🥀🕸🌿🐯

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/16/2022: GRIMCUTTY

N.B. This review is very spoilery.

***

I love internet scare movies. I watch them all. It makes no difference to me whether they're as sophisticated as Kiyoshi Kurasawa's PULSE, as ludicrous as FEAR DOT COM, or as repulsive and pretentious as David Schwimmer's TRUST; expressions of paranoia about the interweb are invariably interesting to me, and often funny. Part of the problem is just the basic unfilmability of the online experience—it almost always comes off as silly unless it's as worked up as THE MATRIX. But the luddite hysteria that underwrites so many of these movies always brings to mind the backwards farmers in GLEN OR GLENDA who gravely warn, "If God had wanted us to fly, he'd have given us wings!" Truthfully, I do believe there are problems with social media and being chronically online, but my level of caution is nowhere near that which is evoked by the absolutely hilarious 2013 Canadian TV show Darknet, which I found utterly fascinating in its fantastical fearmongering. As a fairly online person myself, maybe there is something comforting about the outrage expressed by many of these productions, that is so hyperbolic as to be totally unreal.

I didn't mention Tate Moore (left) in this review because I just wasn't being that thorough, but she's really excellent and I hope she makes more horror movies.

GRIMCUTTY is satisfying to me because ultimately, it isn't really about what happens online—and it specifically does not accuse young people of being brainwashed, overstimulated potential victimizers and victims. Writer-director John Ross's movie clearly references Slender Man-style phenomena in which a meme metamorphoses into a real life threat, but his film is ultimately about parenting, and specifically about the dangers posed by not trusting one's children. Sara Wolfkind plays Asha, a teenager who sparks her parents' ire when she drops out of the track team. Although Asha is just not as interested in sports as her parents think she should be, they blame her choice on internet addiction, and begin implementing increasingly strict rules about device use and screen time. Unfortunately, this conflict corresponds with the growing popularity of a dark online game in which a monstrous entity called Grimcutty coerces kids into self-harm and violence against their parents. Grimcutty is real, but the gag is that it is actually feeding on the paranoia of controlling adults, and faith in it is spread not through antisocial web forums, but by a psychotic mommy blogger who is poisoning the minds of very online parents.

Asha's parents are played by the extremely funny Usman Ally in a great horror turn, and my secret girlfriend Shannyn Sossamon. Amusingly, Sossamon is in a 2005 internet scare movie called DEVOUR, in which a gang of misfit teens get hooked on an online game where they receive threatening phone calls from their own future selves that command them to do bad things. It's hard to describe because it's hard to understand, but it is an early reflection of meme-y internet challenges like the Blue Whale game, which is said to have driven young participants to suicide. GRIMCUTTY seems to refer most directly to the Momo challenge, which grew out of a decontextualized image of a sculpture by Keisuke Aiso, resembling an extremely scary chicken lady. This game takes the format of Blue Whale in that players are given increasingly dangerous dares that culminate in suicide. Of course, it's hard to parse the hoaxes and hype from the real damage done in at least some cases by these challenges, but an even bigger matter of curiosity is, why would anyone agree to participate in one of these games? The adults in GRIMCUTTY blithely remark that kids will do literally anything that becomes trendy, and it is exactly this condescending attitude that contributes to the ensuing horror.

The point there is salient: GRIMCUTTY becomes real not because kids are assholes, but because parents are willing to believe the worst about their own children. Oddly, the movie currently has its own entry on knowyourmeme.com, which the site notes is still being researched and evaluated. One of the pieces of information collected there is a negative review from Mashable that laments the movie's inability to "discover even deeper horrors within the depths of online culture." I think this completely misses the point of the movie, and I suspect maybe a lot of viewers are missing the point in a similar way. This is not about teen lemming mentality, nor is it about the dark bowels of the internet into which we should go only by the grace of god. It's about the threat young people face of being dehumanized and disempowered by adults who can't let them participate in the authorship of their own narratives. I'm not lauding it as a new masterpiece, but having seen a lot of movies in this subgenre, I can say that GRIMCUTTY takes an approach I find very refreshing.

[narrans]

A Tall and Small Collection | S2.26 | Ambushed

ADVISORY: sensitive message ahead mentioning intense, traumatic experiences during a physical confrontation

~~~~~^*^*^*^*^~~~~~

It was an odd sensation. After the sickness passed, Soren and his brothers were, unexpectedly, welcomed warmly. It had been just over two weeks since they began their efforts in helping the community. They distributed medicine and the broth throughout the community and, very soon, many of them were back on their feet.

Ashlynn did have to call the building manager who had the “suspected room” inspected. Thankfully, there was no need for an invasive search of the walls because, according to their tests, the opened bedroom window in that one apartment was the primary source, and it hadn’t spread to any of the other apartments in the building.

It was a miracle to say the least and other than the filters and the specific apartment walls needing new insulation and a thorough clean, the rest of the building was fine.

Everyone, especially Soren, gave a huge sigh of relief, and they weren’t the only ones. The rest of the community was thrilled the sickness was over. Something like this happened many years ago, but not to such a severe state.

Now that the illness had passed, Soren noticed that the others recognized him and his brothers as the quote unquote “medicinal daredevils” of the building. The past three times they went to the market with various “borrowings” of medicine and broth from Ashlynn, they were congratulated and thanked, even invited to dinner by a few different families.

For habitually solitary and isolated beings, the Borrowers here really came together and lived up to the reputation they created as a community. It wasn’t the reaction Soren expected, but he couldn’t be disappointed at the result.

Either the Borrowers of the community didn’t suspect where or how they obtained medicine that wasn’t expired and the food or they knew and chose to ignore it.

Whatever the case, Soren was beyond grateful and was not about to question their recent good fortune. At any rate, he had a lot of things on his mind and decided to take full advantage of it while he had their home to himself. He worked on the chores of the house as his mind toiled over recent events and thoughts churning his mind.

Dorian spent the night at Tiron’s house. Rey was walking the halls with Mayzie. Ashlynn was…

Ashlynn…

She was at work. Soren knew working for a human was important, but why did it have to take so much time? He wanted her to be home so they could talk about everything and nothing.

Why?

No. Soren shook his head free of those thoughts.

Why did he even want this?

Well… he suspected why… but…

No.

It was ludicrous… but it was getting harder to deny.

Besides, they were so different.

But were they really different?

Soren was startled out of his thoughts when he heard a firm set of three knocks on his front door. What was this about? They’d never had visitors before. No one other than the Rafter family should have known where to find them, right?

Soren cautiously approached the door and listened. Perhaps it was just the sound carrying from the apartment below?

“Anyone home?” called a voice from just outside the door. Soren didn’t recognize the Borrower’s voice. “Hello? You home? W-er I’m friends with the Rafters. Just wanted to say thinks.”

Something didn’t quite set well with Soren, but stranger things had happened recently.

Soren was about to reach for the door when…

WHAM!

The door suddenly burst inward, practically taring it from the wall. The door had been kicked in and, before Soren could even flinch, a fist collided with his jaw. Soren, by some miracle, was still conscious but couldn’t stop himself from tumbling to the ground.

He barely made it to his feet when the wind was kicked out of him by the brunt side of a leg. Three Borrowers Soren didn’t recognize stepped across the threshold and stood over him.

Heart thundering in his chest and lungs desperate for breath, Soren coughed and forced himself onto his hands and knees.

One of them was scarred and burly, obviously one of the lifters and carriers of the community. He had dark hair and Soren didn’t recognize him, but the scars were distinct. This was the one who had hit him. The other two had more of his body type like Soren’s, lean and flexible. There was undoubtedly power behind those fists. One of them had light brown hair that was pulled back into a partial ponytail, either side of his head shaved. The other was also dark haired, but his pale blue eyes reminded Soren of Brady’s eyes.

Soren couldn’t think about that now. He had to do something – anything – to subdue his attackers.

“What… do you want?” he asked between forcing in air, choking back his gag reflex. Maybe getting them talking would give him an advantage. It at the very least would give him a temporary reprieve from whatever these three had in mind. “Take what you want.”

“What we want? Easy for you to say – pet,” spat the lean dark haired one as he stepped over to Soren and grabbed a fistful of Soren’s hair and wrenching his head backward.

Soren, thrown into shock from everything happening all at once, suddenly knew what this was all about.

Ashlynn and their family.

Was there any sense in trying to deny it to them? Soren had to try something. He reached up and seized the hand that had gripped him and tried prying it off of his scalp.

“That’s not how it is,” Soren said through gritted teeth.

“Oh, that’s right. You’ve been brainwashed. You can’t think for yourself anymore. Let that human do the thinking for you, right?” chimed in the scarred Borrower as he came through and tipped one of their tables over, knocking the contents into the floor.

“So, tell us. How does it work? You tell your owner about where we live and where to find us and she leaves your family alone?” asked the guy with light brown hair as he began poking through the cupboards and storage shelves in their kitchen.

Soren gritted his teeth as they grabbed him and began dragging him further into his home.

“Get off of me!” growled Soren. “We didn’t do anything to you.”

“No?” asked the one as he wrenched Soren’s arm behind his back, pinning him to the ground. “You sure? You told the human where we were. You told the human we were sick and defenseless. You had the audacity to all but announce where your loyalties lie, and it is with those humans.”

“You realize what could’ve happened if those humans had to go into the rest of the apartments? Into the walls? We would’ve been exposed for sure. What then?” demanded the other as he found the storage crate for Soren’s borrowing supplies and began to pull out the rope and hooks.

Soren’s chest felt like it was going to explode. He struggled against the grip but was only wrenching his arm within its socket.

“Ashlynn wouldn’t have let that happen,” spat Soren.

“No?”

WHAM!

Soren received another harsh punch to his side on his back. The fist drove into his ribs into his lungs, making him gasp.  

“She’s the one who called them in the first place, right? You sure have a lot of faith in that human of yours,” asked one of the Borrowers. “Let me ask you. Why are you pretending to be a Borrower? You stay down there with that human. You eat and sleep down there.”

“You’ve been spying on us?” grimaced Soren as he tried to struggle again against the grip that had him pinned down to the ground.

“You and your whole family,” continued the one as he got right up in Soren’s face. “You’re not Borrowers. You’re pets, and all good pets need a cage.”

“Soren?”

Soren’s heart dropped into his stomach as all eyes turned to the door to see Rey standing there with Mayzie by his feet. Both of them looked terrified. In that moment, Soren could only think of protecting them.

“Rey, get out of here! Run! Protect Mayzie!” shouted Soren before the receiving another harsh blow to the back of his head.

Rey had seen something like this before – when Soren was pinned beneath the mousetrap. He didn’t want to leave his brother, but there Rey’s instincts kicked in. He seized Mayzie and ran into the darkness of the halls.

For a brief moment, one of the assailants took a few steps toward the door before Soren thrashed against his assailant’s grasp.

“Don’t! Just leave my family alone. Leave them alone!” shouted Soren. Another harsh punch to his spine.

“Oh, we will. We’ll leave them alone for now, but they’re pets too.”

This was bad. This was really bad. It was beyond clear they wouldn’t see reason. Nothing Soren could say would stop what was about to happen. The only thing he could do was attempt to defend himself.

“You know nothing about us, so shut up about my family!”

Soren knew it was going to hurt, but there was nothing else he could do.

Soren twisted his arm out from under his body and reached up, grabbing the hand that had a fistful of his hair and digging his nails into his attacker’s flesh. He exclaimed in surprise and, for an instant, his grip slackened. That was all Soren needed.

Soren twisted his body around and raised up, cracking his skull against his assailant’s head and busting his nose. He cried out in surprise and reared back, letting go of Soren’s other arm.

In a flash, Soren pried himself off of the ground and kicked out. His foot collided with his assailant’s leg and instantly the Borrower crumpled. Soren was back in the game.

He stood and lunged at the nearest intruder, grabbing him around the collar and throwing him against the wall. The Borrower’s elbow snapped to the side and clocked the deep bruise forming on Soren’s jaw, but Soren held firm and landed a few blows to the gut and the eye before he felt himself being grabbed from behind.

Soren wrenched around and punched out, landing one single blow to the last Borrower’s face just in time for him to receive two harsh knee kicks to the gut. Once again, Soren was thrown to the ground. In that moment of recovery, Soren’s attackers grabbed either arm and pulled them tight. They kicked his knee out, leaving him kneeling with his arms behind his back.

Soren’s small victory was short lived, but the blows he delivered would be hard to explain to the community. All three of them glared at Soren, but the grin of their leader made Soren’s insides churn.

“Gents, I think he needs to cool off.”

Soren only remembered a harsh pain to the side of his head before everything went black.

~~~^*^*^~~~

An unimaginable, frigid cold was the next thing Soren remembered when he opened his eyes. He was in a freezing, pitch black place. His limbs were stiff. Everything hurt. The bruises in his body. His hands and feet.

What was this place?

Soren forced himself upright and felt around. The ground was slick. He reached out and touched the floor and the cold substance. Instantly, his body went rigid. He knew what this was.

Ice!

A knot formed in the pit of Soren’s gut. He knew exactly where he was placed. He forced himself to stand and limped forward toward a wall – any wall – and pressed his hand against it. Sure enough, there were ice crystals on the wall.

Those traitors.

They put in him the freezer.

How? How long was he unconscious? How did they get him down? There were three of them, but had they really gone through all of that effort just to put him here?

Soren shivered violently and pulled his limbs close to his chest. It was painful to move. How long had he been in here? Soren knew that freezing temperatures were dangerous, even deadly. Borrowers were durable and could survive in a lot of conditions longer than humans, but not a lot longer.

Soren tried pacing back and forth, but it soon became unbearable to move. Shivering, he sat near where he suspected the entrance was and kept his arms and legs close to his chest.

There was no way out.

There was nothing he could do.

He was trapped, and he could only hope that someone would find him in time.

But who?

Rey was protecting Mayzie…

Wait…

The boys!

Mayzie!

They were going to be next!

Soren gritted his teeth and hoped that, if nothing else, they would be safe and stay hidden long enough for Ashlynn to get home.

But when would that be?

~~~^*^*^~~~

Rey watched it all happen. He ran to one of the cabinets by the kitchen that let him see both the living room and the kitchen clearly. He had to use his emergency hook to belay off of one wall and practically fly to the ground, Mayzie in tow. The stinging heat along the middle of his palms told him he had a terrible rope burn.

Mayzie was crying and Rey was shaking with adrenaline. Not only was he shaking with nerves and shock, he was shaking from a seething anger and petrifying fear. He watched, horrified, as those three strange Borrowers they had never seen before carry Soren to the freezer.

It took a minute for them to open the freezer door and carry him inside, but Rey couldn’t do anything but watch.

How?

How could other Borrowers be so cruel? What did they want? Anything? Nothing?

All he knew was he felt torn into pieces. He wanted to save Soren. He wanted to tell Dorian what was going on so he could be safe. He wanted to beat the living daylights out of those three. He wanted Ashlynn home because despite his best efforts to stay calm and focused, Rey was one more thought away from completely breaking down.

Rey focused what little energy he could spare on soothing Mayzie, unable to win the debate with himself to bring her and expose their hiding place in the hopes of getting Soren free. Did he leave Mayzie and tell her to stay hidden? No. She was too little and wouldn’t listen. She couldn’t be left alone.

Besides, he didn’t have the physical strength to . He had none of his gadgets to pry open the freezer door that took three Borrowers to open it. He actually had some inventions back at home, but it was probably being watched from an ambush or, worse, ransacked. So, he couldn’t get to his inventions.

Why was this happening? Why his family?

What was going to happen now?

It was then that there was a familiar jingle of keys and the front door opened.

Ashlynn was home.

~~~^*^*^~~~

Ashlynn had already shown the houses she needed to for the day and the couple of cancellations meant all she needed to do was file the paperwork, and she could do that at home.

It was actually a really good day. She had a surprise for Dorian’s birthday, and it finally came. It was an iPod and mini microphone she saw on one of her social media page. It was the perfect size for Dorian. It was refurbished and discounted, but that wouldn’t matter to him.

Now he could get everything set up for his music and not have to rely on her phone – not that she was complaining. His stuff was good – really good. Ashlynn could only hope other listeners thought the same thing. She got a few things for the others too.

Rey talked so much about wanting to make something that could help them get around and was fascinated with flight and space. She found just the right sized drone and remote control. Soren was a little harder to find something for, but Ashlynn had found the cutest highchair for Mayzie.

First things first though. She stepped inside and set her things down as always and headed off to her room to begin setting up the iPod for Dorian when she heard something. It was her name, and it was being shouted from the living room on top of the far cabinet. It was Rey, and he sounded panicked. Was something wrong?

“Rey?” she called. She pried her shoes off of her feet and stepped out into the main room again to see where his voice was coming from. “Rey? Are you there?”

“ASHLYNN! HELP!”

In a fraction of a second, Ashlynn tensed, and her heart sank into her shoes. Rey sounded distraught. She searched desperately around and finally spotted him on top of the cabinet. He was holding Mayzie and he was shaking. Mayzie was crying and Rey look like he was about to join her. Memories flashing back from when she first saw Dorian on the floor and Soren asking her for help.

Ashlynn instantly rushed over and held up her hand flush with the top. Rey stumbled onto her hand, keeping Mayzie close, and tried organizing his thoughts as fast as possible as Ashlynn lowered him down so she could see him.

“Rey, what’s going on?” asked Ashlynn. Rey was shaking and so was Mayzie.

“Ashlynn, they… they broke in…” Rey was quickly losing the order of events.

“They?” asked Ashlynn, feeling her blood beginning to boil. “Rey, are you hurt? Is Mayzie hurt?” Rey gritted his teeth and shook his head. He only managed to choke out one word, which instantly sent Ashlynn into a blind panic.

“Soren.”

It felt like the world stopped. Everything stopped. Soren? What happened to Soren? Rey and Mayzie were safe, but what happened to Soren? And what about Dorian? Her heart tripled in pace but every thought in her head instantly fixated on one thing, which was figuring out what happened.

Breath congealing in her lungs, Ashlynn forced herself to think clearly and cleared her throat.

“Rey, tell me what happened? Where is Soren? Is he…” Ashlynn watched as Rey shook his head over and over. “Rey!” Ashlynn said firmly to snap him out of his hyperventilating spasm. She hated to speak loudly and seeing Rey flinch out of his mental spiraling, but it was the only way to find out what was going on.

“They… came in… they beat him up. T-t-they h-hurt him, Ashlynn. I don’t know w-w-what we did wrong. I don’t know what we did wrong,” stammered Rey.

“Rey, where is he now? Is he in the walls still?” pried Ashlynn.

“Fr-re-eezer,” stammered Rey. “Ashlynn….”

Ashlynn’s insides churned. Her chest clenched. How long had he been in there?

Now Rey and Mayzie weren’t the only ones shaking. Now, Ashlynn was shaking too. Ashlynn wanted to sink to her knees. She wanted to bust down the walls and confront this so-called community and demand justice. All of the questions faded away into one and only thing to do.

Ashlynn hurried to the kitchen and set Rey and Mayzie down on the counter, making sure no one else was there on the counter as she did, before stepping up to the kitchen appliance. Just before she opened the freezer, she saw a note scrawled on top of the refrigerator which would have sent her into a blind rage if she weren’t so scared.

PET.

Hands shaking, she threw open the door to the freezer and, instantly, her heart dropped to the floor.

There, laying on his side curled up into himself, was Soren. There were ice crystals in his hair and his skin was pale and turning blue. Even with his discolored skin, Ashlynn could see the deep bruises on his face. Where else was he injured?

One other thing.

He wasn’t moving.

No shivering.

No wince with the sudden rush of light.

He was still. Too still.

Ashlynn didn’t realize she was shaking so harshly until she reached out and laid her fingers against Soren’s body, stroking him to see if there was any reaction. Ashlynn couldn’t breathe. Every first-aid trick she learned was out the window. It felt like her world stopped as she stared at Soren’s bruised body.

She carefully pressed her fingers into his back and lifted up.

THERE!

A wince!

It was faint, but it was there.

Ashlynn could have jumped to the moon she was so exited and relieved.

With every ounce of control she could exert, Ashlynn carefully lifted Soren from the frozen surface of the freezer shelf and into the palm of her hand. Soren winced and seemed to lean into the warmth, but barely stirred otherwise.

Ashlynn didn’t know how to cure hypothermia or even where to begin. What she did know was he needed to get his core body temperature up, and one solution immediately came to mind.

She maneuvered him so he wouldn’t be upside down, being as ginger as she could while moving him. Keeping Soren cupped in her palm, she pulled her shirt down just enough so she could hold him to her chest by her collar bone. His skin felt like a cube of ice against hers, but she cradled him to her chest nonetheless.

She closed the freezer door, revealing Rey shivering on the counter. Mayzie was trying to walk around back to the walls, obviously trying to get home where she saw her dad last. Rey was wrestling with her, trying to get her to hold still, but was losing this uphill battle quickly against the determined toddler.

When he saw Ashlyn close the door, however, his efforts almost stopped completely as he focused on Ashlynn for some kind of confirmation. His blue eyes searched desperately for reassurance, and one look gave him what he needed.

Rey collapsed to his knees in a silent cry of relief as Ashlynn nodded and knelt. Mayzie, not being fought with anymore, made it two steps toward the electrical cover before seeing Ashlynn and toddling toward her outstretched left hand.

“He’s alive. Soren’s alive,” she choked out as she tilted her hand to show Soren tucked against her chest. “He’s unconscious and probably has hypothermia, but he’s alive.” Rey stumbled over and looked at his brother curled against Ashlynn’s chest resting in the palm of her hand.

“Soren? Soren!” Rey shouted. He wrapped his arms around himself as he heaved in breath after breath. Mayzie, on the other hand, curled instinctually into Ashlynn’s palm, laying her head against Ashlynn’s thumb as if she knew her human friend would take her where she needed to go.

“It’s okay. He’s okay.”

Ashlynn said this over and over, telling Rey and also herself. She leaned closer to the countertop so Rey could watch his brother’s color begin to change from pale blue to an almost sheet white. Mayzie got off of Ashlynn’s hand at one point and walked over to wrap her arms around Rey’s neck. Rey simply held onto his little niece, and Ashlynn slowly moved her left hand to rest near the two young Borrowers.

After several minutes, Ashlynn looked around and suddenly realized Dorian wasn’t there. It felt like another hole was punched right through her.

“Rey, where’s Dorian?” asked Ashlynn, praying that he was hiding somewhere else nearby or that he had gone to get some materials back at home. Rey’s expression instantly shifted and sank into panic and worry.

“He…” Rey sniffed and wiped the gathered tears from his eyes. “He spent the night at a friend’s house.”

“A friend?” asked Ashlynn. “Which friend?”

“Hero’s brother, Tiron,” said Rey. “I…” Rey paused as a sudden, determined look hardened his features. “I have to go get him. I have to bring him back. He doesn’t know about the attack.” Rey pulled Mayzie’s arms off of him, stood, and began hurrying to the electrical cover on the counter.

“What? Rey, you can’t,” urged Ashlynn.

“I have to,” he replied bluntly as he pressed forward quickly to the wall. Ashlynn, in a flash, reached out with her left-hand past Mayzie and grabbed Rey’s left arm between her thumb and index finger and held him in place. Instinctually, Rey looked back to Ashlynn, eyes filled with an ingrained panic all Borrowers possessed, and tried to pry his arm loose.

“Let me go, Ashlynn!” Rey demanded.

“Rey, it isn’t safe. Whoever did this thinks you all are pets. This is personal. If you’re out there on your own…”

“Dorian doesn’t know what happened. Something worse could happen to him. He could be in worse condition than Soren. He needs to know, and I need to bring him home. Please! He’s… he’s my brother. He’s in danger…” Rey pleaded.

Ashlynn knew all of this was true. Dorian probably didn’t know and was in danger, but she couldn’t get over the sinking feeling that letting Rey go on his own would put him in worse peril than what happened to Soren.

Still, the determined look in Rey’s eyes told her that Rey would resent her for the rest of his life if she didn’t let him do this. Dorian needed his help, and if Ashlynn didn’t let him go, she would live to see it haunt her. Rey couldn’t help protect Soren, even though he had guarded Mayzie successfully.

Rey was quick and could handle himself, but he needed to know he wasn’t going in this alone. There were going to be repercussions if he didn’t return. With a fierce look, Ashlynn looked into Rey’s eyes to make sure he understood completely.

“If you are not back in twenty minutes, I’m coming after you. Understood?” stated Ashlynn.

“That’s not enough time. I have to make it all the way to the elevator shaft and everything,” argued Rey.

“Thirty minutes then, and I’ll help you into the walls. Where do you want to be?” breathed Ashlynn.

“Home. I know it’s dangerous, but I have some equipment that could help if it wasn’t taken,” stated Rey. Ashlynn nodded twice and tilted her hand to let Rey step on, which he did in a heartbeat. Mayzie also climbed on, and Ashlynn was back at the wall entrance to their place in an instant.

Before letting him off, Ashlynn pulled her hand down from the entrance and looked into Rey’s eyes.

“Rey, I’m sorry for grabbing your arm. I…”

“It’s okay Ashlynn,” said Rey. “You’re trying to protect me, but right now I need to do this.” The earnest look in Rey’s eyes showed Ashlynn he was telling the truth. With as much of a stiff upper lip as she could, she nodded and lifted Rey to the crawl space entrance.

“Thirty minutes, or I’m coming into the walls after you. Get it?”

“Got it,” replied Rey. With that, Rey jumped off of her hand and vanished into the walls. Ashlynn lowered her hand with Mayzie still aboard and headed back into the living room. She placed Mayzie on the couch in a tangle of blankets before pulling out her phone and typing in the best way to cure hypothermia.

“Hold on, Soren. Just hold on,” she muttered.

~~~^*^*^~~~

The timer went off two minutes ago. Two minutes! Sure, Rey had another ninety seconds to go, but it was too close for Ashlynn’s taste.

She had pulled up every article in the meantime on hypothermia and how to best treat it. Turns out, skin-to-skin was an effective method, but she needed to make sure Mayzie was tended to as well. Ashlynn fished out a heating pad and covered it with blankets, creating a makeshift blanket tent to place Mayzie and Soren in.

His color was returning and, after about twenty minutes, his eyes fluttered open to see Mayzie curled against his chest and Ashlynn’s hand wrapped around him. Ashlynn heard him ask something, but she couldn’t tell what. Instead, she filled him in.

Rey went to get Dorian. He should be back soon. They were safe. He was going to be alright. Soren was barely conscious for the next few minutes before slipping back into sleep.

That ninety seconds came and went, and Ashlynn gave it another two minutes before standing and preparing to go into the elevator shaft via the emergency hatch when she heard someone calling out from the trim by the baseboard in the living room.

“Ashlynn!”

She leapt up and practically flew the living room from her bedroom and spotted both Dorian and Rey, though it wasn’t as welcome of a sight as she wanted.

Rey had Dorian’s arm slung over his shoulder and was clutching his own arm close to his chest. Dorian was limping, but both boys managed a smile when they spotted Ashlynn. That same, sickening rage blended with the relief of seeing them, creating a vengeful loathing.

For now, however, she decided to set it aside and fester over plans against the brothers’ attackers later. Ashlynn fell to her knees and scooped up the boys to set them on the coffee table as she retrieved her medical kit. Meanwhile, the boys sat next to Soren before Ashlynn returned.

“What happened?” she asked as she poured peroxide over a cotton swab and gave it to them to press against their bruises and cuts.

“Ambushed,” muttered Rey. “On our way back. They chased us.”

“They did this too?” growled Ashlynn.

“Not exactly,” replied Dorian. “On our way back, they confronted us. They got in one good swing before we started running. They tried cutting us off, but that crazy device of Rey’s saved us. We just landed a little harsher than we thought. I braced with my leg, and he braced with his arm.”

The device Dorian was referring to was patterned after a device Rey saw in an anime clip Ashlynn showed him. It was a hook he could shoot with a powerful spring that acted like a grappling hook which could then help reel him back in. The rope held, but the speed of the swing down made them hit the wall hard. When they braced themselves, Rey sprained his arm and Dorian sprained his ankle.

They were rattled, but okay. At any rate, they were more scared about whether or not Soren was going to be okay. Ashlynn reassured them he was awake for a minute and that his color was returning. The next hour was spent bandaging the boys and making sure they were really okay before they heard Soren stir again. He was groggy, but there and aware enough to listen to Rey and Dorian’s experience.

They all sat together in the soft blanket tent, Ashlynn by their side, as they fully absorbed what had just happened.

They were attacked, and they were attacked by their own kind – Borrowers.

Was this an isolated incident? Or was someone or, more terrifyingly, a group coming after them? Would they try again?

They didn’t know.

What they did know was, like when they were sick a few weeks ago, they would be staying down in Ashlynn’s room as a group. Mayzie curled into Soren’s lap, and he held her tightly to his chest. They were alive and safe, which was all that mattered.

At least… that was all that mattered to the Borrower boys at the moment.

Ashlynn had something else weighing on her mind ever since she saw Soren curled up in her palm, nearly frozen to death.

She couldn’t help but think of everything that had been brewing in the back of her mind. She couldn’t help but think about how she felt and how, if things had taken a turn for the worst, that he would’ve slipped away without knowing what was in her heart.

Seeing the Borrower family together kept her from saying anything, but Ashlynn knew that she had never been more terrified in her entire life for the family she knew and loved.

The differences didn’t matter anymore. She needed to speak her mind. He needed to know how she felt.

But when would the timing be right? Would it ever be right? And was she already too late?

~~~~~^*^*^*^*^~~~~~

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A Tall and Small Collection | Soren

ASK ME ANYTHING

~~~^*^*^~~~

Snippet/Tease for A Tall and Small Collection | S2.27 | Confessions to the (Un)Conscious

[monsterkissed]

30, 47?

very sorry for the late reply i went to work and my soul vacated my body for the duration

30. Rank your order: Jojo main villains

diavolo is not a good villain in the sense of being good at being a villain. he causes all his own problems at significant personal loss for obscure and silly reasons that he expects everyone else to not only support but intuitively understand. he is not good at very much except being pretty and even then he's kind of cheating by getting scored twice. if this were a ranked list of villains who could have won their entire part by doing absolutely nothing he would also be at 1. he sucks so much. A+.

if this were a list of villains i think are cool and sympathetic and interesting and actually competent at the things they do instead of just the ones i most enjoy rotating pucci would be at the top.

kars is the ultimate asexual being, his motivations are very simple, his stats are ludicrously specific, his looks are all peak, he likes dogs. what else can you ask for?

phantom blood dio is incapable of just being normal about his one-man class war plan and if he were not pitted against a great dane's humansona his part would have been a lot shorter, which would have been tragic bc we would have missed out on my favourite dio fact: that on becoming a vampire and escaping to a remote town to wreak havoc he made a bunch of very silly and kinda gross human animal hybrids, Somehow, and then sat back and said, "in retrospect i don't know why i ever thought this would be good"

stardust crusaders dio is just here to chill in various states of undress and be sinisterly alluring and probably spends 85% of his strength holding back all the innits and geezers and bruvs and you what mates that would dispell his magnetic aura instantly

i am kinkshaming yoshikage kira but i am copshaming the morioh police force way harder. do not talk to me about incredibly thorough evidence-destroying bombs, when your missing persons department gets more calls that the traffic cops you don't have an excuse for failing to even harbour a suspicion about the man who introduces himself with a confessionary monologue. i like his suits and killer queen is prolly my fave stand design of all the villains tho.

i like funny valentine's little tadaa flourish and i really like that his name is funny valentine but much like his design his evil plan only becomes more and more generic as the part progresses. i will concede tho that his final play being a psychological gambit rather than wholly offensive was really cool until the moment araki chickened out of it and just had him be planning to shoot the hero the whole time. special mention to diego for having imo both a fun arc and the best death of any of these guys.

i have not read jojolion yet so that guy escapes my cyberbullying this day

47. Moment you wish could have happened?

traitor fugo 100%. in broad strokes i'd have liked a lot of other characters to get more development and screentime, some other fight match-ups or ability extrapolations i think could have been really cool, characters who seem like they'd have had interesting encounters who don't meet, but if it's a single specific event i think would have been really cool and interesting and potentially emotional as hell it's traitor fugo all the way. i think his reason for not going with the rest of the team is entirely sympathetic (not wanting to die is imo Quite Reasonable) so i wouldn't want a whole face turn or to see him "punished" or something like that, i just think it would be both an interesting angle on the themes of fate and how you make it and a cool and potentially depressing fight with a guy who's almost main villain levels of deadly.