#but it is plainly not the world we live in

[tanadrin]

#words#can't believe tanadrin reminded me about that#gonna be fuming all day now#is it really so wrong to be miffed#that the average person's mental and verbal sloppiness#deprives humanity of the ability to communicate important things with more accuracy precision and parsimony?

Semantic drift happens in all domains in language, it just tends to follow very specific patterns sometimes. It's still perfectly possible to communicate the idea "I mean this in a literal sense, and not as a generic intensifier"! Fluent speakers of English have lots of strategies for clarifying this sort of thing when it's important, leveraging either specific English constructions or sort of general Gricean-maxim-style universals of human communication.

It's not down to anyone's "verbal or mental sloppiness," either. At least, no one is more sloppy here than you yourself are: the feature of language that causes this kind of semantic drift is intrinsic to how the human brain handles abstract communication in general, and even if how individuals speak did not change over their lifetimes, it would not be possible to transmit language from one generation to the next without some degree of semantic (and phonological and grammatical) change.

But it's also interesting to me what when people level this sort of complaint, there's not actually any fundamental miscommunication in play. Anon is not confused about why people are using words like "unthinkable" in this way, or confused about what they really mean. The act of communication is not being impeded. The reason people actually complain about this sort of thing is generally identity politics. I mean this in the expansive, morally neutral, sociological sense. Because how we use language is an important marker of the social groups we belong to, complaining about how other people use language, or policing language use, is a way to engage in both social differentiation ("I am not like those other people, who use sloppy/crude/pretentious/foreign/etc. language") or as a form of boundary maintenance ("If you want to be considered a member of our social group, one of the cool kids, etc., use language in my/our preferred way").

People levy the same sorts of utterly banal complaints about how other people dress, what other people eat, how other people walk or gesture, etc., etc., but all those behaviors generally have some material component, whereas language carping is utterly immaterial. It literally has zero consequences if someone uses language slightly differently than you would prefer. This doesn't mean you're not allowed to complain about language use. But recognize it for what it is--extremely silly, extremely low-stakes stuff. It's Kids These Days Are On Their Damn Phones All Day bitching and moaning. (And do keep in mind while it is a minimal vice 99% of the time, it's rude to do it to someone's face, and people who really aggressively police other people's language are actual assholes, so be on guard against that sort of thing.)

My contrarian take is I'm just really sick of hearing some disaster be described as "unprecedented" or "unthinkable" when it's entirely thinkable, very well-precedented, and even expected. Maybe worse than in recent memory? Sure. Influenced by serious underlying systematic factors? Sure. But it's only ever "unthinkable" because people choose to ignore obvious risks that have always been there.

intensifiers have a pretty regular lifecycle where they enter common parlance, go through semantic bleaching, and become generic. getting worked up over this is a bit like getting worked up that "very" doesn't mean "literally" or "truly" anymore.

[beanghostprincess]

I mean… wlw content get overshadowed by mlm ships everyday so it is insensitive a little

Not to sound too mean but what do you expect me to do? I get that sapphic ships get overshadowed and underrated all the time in comparison to achillean ones. Believe me. I am a lesbian who is constantly pushing their sapphic ships everywhere.

But you can't expect people to suddenly stop posting about the achillean ships they enjoy just because they're more popular than YOUR favorite ships. Is it bothersome that achillean ships get more attention for the sole reason of being a male pairing while sapphic ships get ignored or not even suggested? Yeah!!!! It's frustrating.

But if you want some change in the amount of content you see then it's YOUR fight only and others should be allowed to post whatever they like. If you want to post only sapphic ships or you're bothered by them being talked in the same light as achillean ones, then it's YOUR choice to make.

Fandom is NOT activism!!! Fandom is meant to be enjoyed in whatever way you want. Fandom is to interpret media in your own way. So, honestly, if I want to make a simple post comparing two ships I like, why should I be trying to defend myself here for that? If people don't like it, then they can just block me, scroll, move on, etc.

To think a post about comparing fictional ships is insensitive is insane to me, tbh.

[puppybotz]

To everybody claiming that luigi mangione really is the guy.

This is the manifesto the cops say they found

“To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”

like "ohh yeah we got our guy, he was holding the murder weapon, a manifesto that says "Hey feds! I did that crime and did it with this gun!! this is because the US has the most expensive healthcare but we don't even live as long as some other countries? and its the fault of the american public who I hate!" anne 10 grand! is obvious that this is our guy, and he's just a low down criminal who hates your! the american public"

also if they did find him with that why would he respond to their arrest with immediate legal defense rather than dignified resignation like the manifesto implies.

[felassan]

SAG AFTRA news update:

"SAG-AFTRA Members Who Work on Video Games Go on Strike July 25th A.I. Protections Remain the Sticking Point SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director & Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, acting under the authority delegated by the SAG-AFTRA National Board, and with the unanimous advice and counsel of the Interactive Media Agreement Negotiating Committee, called a strike of the Interactive Media Agreement, effective July 26 at 12:01 a.m. Today’s vote to strike comes after more than a year and a half of negotiations without a deal. The convenience bargaining group with whom SAG-AFTRA is negotiating includes Activision Productions Inc., Blindlight LLC, Disney Character Voices Inc., Electronic Arts Productions Inc., Formosa Interactive LLC, Insomniac Games Inc., Llama Productions LLC, Take 2 Productions Inc., VoiceWorks Productions Inc., and WB Games Inc. Any game looking to employ SAG-AFTRA talent to perform covered work must sign on to the new Tiered-Budget Independent Interactive Media Agreement, the Interim Interactive Media Agreement or the Interim Interactive Localization Agreement. These agreements offer critical A.I. protections for members. Negotiations began in October 2022 and on Sept. 24, 2023, SAG-AFTRA members approved a video game strike authorization with a 98.32% yes vote. Although agreements have been reached on many issues important to SAG-AFTRA members, the employers refuse to plainly affirm, in clear and enforceable language, that they will protect all performers covered by this contract in their A.I. language. “We’re not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse A.I. to the detriment of our members. Enough is enough. When these companies get serious about offering an agreement our members can live — and work — with, we will be here, ready to negotiate,” stated SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher.   “The video game industry generates billions of dollars in profit annually. The driving force behind that success is the creative people who design and create those games. That includes the SAG-AFTRA members who bring memorable and beloved game characters to life, and they deserve and demand the same fundamental protections as performers in film, television, streaming, and music: fair compensation and the right of informed consent for the A.I. use of their faces, voices, and bodies. Frankly, it’s stunning that these video game studios haven’t learned anything from the lessons of last year - that our members can and will stand up and demand fair and equitable treatment with respect to A.I., and the public supports us in that,” said Crabtree-Ireland. “Eighteen months of negotiations have shown us that our employers are not interested in fair, reasonable A.I. protections, but rather flagrant exploitation. We refuse this paradigm – we will not leave any of our members behind, nor will we wait for sufficient protection any longer. We look forward to collaborating with teams on our Interim and Independent contracts, which provide A.I. transparency, consent and compensation to all performers, and to continuing to negotiate in good faith with this bargaining group when they are ready to join us in the world we all deserve." said Interactive Media Agreement Negotiating Committee Chair Sarah Elmaleh.  For more information and to search whether a video game is struck, please visit sagaftra.org/videogamestrike."

[source]

[augustinewrites]

cw: it’s just angst

“i’m not mad.”

satoru closes and locks the front door, trailing after you into the kitchen, apprehension rising in the space kept between you. “really? because you seem kind of mad…”

“it’s fine, gojo.” you snap. “i’m fine.”

he watches you, quiet as the two of you go about your evening routine. leftovers from meals brought to the infirmary stowed away. week-old laundry tossed into the basket. you don’t say a word to him, emotions you don’t know how to make sense of still simmering.

“i’m sorry,” he says plainly as you’re both putting away the dishes. 

you wipe your hands on the tea towel, glancing over at him. “do you even know what you’re apologizing for?”

he shifts, unsure. “no…”

“of course you don’t,” you sigh. 

“then tell me,” he insists, exasperated. “i don’t want to fight.” 

“i don’t want to either,” you snap. “but you’re doing it again.” 

“doing what?”

“you just spent a week in the infirmary. you were hurt.”

“c’mon,” he laughs weakly. “there was no real chance of me dying.” 

“that’s not the—” you voice rises, then immediately quiets when you realize the kids are asleep. “that’s not the point. you’re losing yourself in it again. soon you’re going to drift away from us— from me,” you tell him, bleeding into the pain you’ve felt the last few days. “like you did when we were in school.”

because for as long as you’d known gojo, his drive was to constantly do more. be more. the period of time after the failure that was the star plasma vessel mission was the first time you’d witnessed it. gojo satoru doesn’t do anything halfway. he won’t permit himself to.

that’s what really scares you. he doesn’t know when to stop.

“i’m sorry that i worried you,” he apologizes, sincerity etched into his expression. you know him, know that he’s scared to say the wrong thing, that he’ll mess this up or somehow make it worse. “i had to. the higher ups—”

“satoru,” you interrupt, walls crumbling right in front of him. “i’ve always liked that you care about the jujutsu world. i just don’t want you to only care about it. not with where we are in our lives right now.”

“i don’t—”

“you do! you always have, and i get it. i know the world needs you…but things are getting worse, and we need to start thinking about the future—”

“everything i’m doing is for the future. for the future generation of sorcerers all over the world—”

“i don’t care about the world! i just care about you, and that’s the problem. one person always cares more in a relationship and that’s always been me.” 

“that’s not true,” he insists, a desperate edge in his voice. “all i’ve ever wanted is you. all i’ve never needed is you—”

“i need you too! maybe that sounds selfish or needy, but i don’t want there to be a day where i have to tell the kids that you’re not coming home. if you can’t understand that—”

he doesn’t think you realize you’re crying, frustrated tears gathering in your eyes and threatening to spill over. satoru reaches for you out of instinct, your argument the furthest thing from both your minds at this moment. you let him pull you into his arms, let him hold you. 

but you’re exhausted. 

this is fight you’ve been having since the moment you’d met him, and you don’t think he’ll understand the impact of it until you walk away.

“if you don’t understand that,” you continue softly, “then maybe we need to take a break.”

_____

outside the apartment door, nanami and shoko sit side by side, sharing a bottle of "welcome home" wine.

"guess they forgot we were coming over," the doctor mutters, pressing her ear against the door to see if jujutsu tech's favourite couple was still fighting. “it’s way too quiet in there. you think she killed him?”

nanami sighs, loosening his tie. “it’s quite possible.” 

“i’ll be the alibi and you’ll get rid of the body?”

“of course.”

[starstruckmiraclekitty]

“I think we should break up.” Simons words were like a ton of bricks, nearly taking the wind out of you. He stated it so plainly, without any hesitation that it had your entire world spinning.

“Wait, what?” You asked, struggling to blink away the hot tears that were threatening to fall. “Simon, you don’t mean that.”

“I do.” His eyes landed anywhere but you, a trick you knew he had in order to keep his composure. There was something more he wasn’t telling you.

“But why? What’s changed?” Your voice was quivering now, praying the man you loved so dearly would just look at you. “Simon, what’s going on?”

Simon said nothing, his eyes glued to the floor as he tried to steady his breathing. He couldn’t look at you. He knew if he did, he’d go back on his word.

“Simon Riley, you answer me right now.” Tears were flowing freely down your cheeks now as you were no longer able to keep your composure. “Simon!”

“I don’t deserve you alright?” Simon finally looked up at you, the harshness in his tone causing you to flinch. “For fuck sakes, I don’t. You are everything I’m not. You’re gentle, you’re kind. You care about everyone so selflessly, and you deserve someone who can be on that level with you.”

“Si.”

“No.” Simon cut you off before you could speak, his eyes flickering back to the floor. “I’m a broken shell of a man, Y/N. You deserve someone who can take you on dates. Someone who can bring you home to their family. Someone who you’re not waiting months on end for, wondering if they are even alive. You deserve anyone but me.”

You choked back a sob, the words of your lover causing your heart to shatter. Is this truly how he felt? Had you failed as a partner to make him feel that he is worthy of love?

“I got my family killed. My best friend died because I wasn’t there fast enough. Everywhere I go, death follows me.” Simon continued. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you.

“Look at me.” You spoke, your voice stern as you blinked away some of the tears. “Simon, look at me.”

Simon’s gaze lifted, and the sight of him caused your tears to flow down your cheeks once more. He was crying. His cheeks were blotched red, something you’d never once seen on him in the years you’d been together.

You took a step forward, slowly moving your hand to cup his cheek, breathing a sigh of relief when he didn’t pull away. “I don’t want, nor need anyone that’s not you.”

Simon blinked, clearing his throat to speak, but you cut him off. “You are the man that I want. You think you’re a broken shell of a man, but every single person on this planet is broken, in their own way. I want every part of you.

I want the late night phone calls when you’re on the other side of the world. I want the reunions when you come home, the feeling that I’ve finally got you back. I want the corny at home movie dates. I want the burnt dinners, the late night fast food runs. I want the man who so deeply cares about everyone but tries so hard to deny it. I want the man that would put his life on the line for anyone who he considers a friend. I want the dry humor, I want the witty remarks. Simon, I want you. Always.”

Simon’s tears now flowed freely down his cheeks, his lips quivering as he struggled with what to say. His arms wrapped around your torso, holding you tightly to him as a sob wracked his body. “I fucking love you, Y/N. I don’t deserve you but gods I’ll fucking try to.”

Little did he know, he never had to. You’ve loved him from the moment you met him.

[nagitosstolenhand]

i don't like the growing opinion that people are being 'too hard' on deku for his failing to save shigaraki.

i've seen quite a few people complaining that a lot of the bnha-critical crowd are being too mean to deku for getting tomura killed, arguing that it isn't really his fault, and that hes a 16 year old child soldier who's been failed by almost every adult in his life, why should we be putting all of this on his shoulders? hes just a kid after all?

and the truth is, they're right. deku IS a 16 year old boy whos had the fate of the world thrust on his shoulders. but the story itself just plainly refuses to acknowledge this.

the narrative doesn't acknowledge how fucked up having a school that trains literal children how to be combo cop-celebrities is. it only tentatively acknowledges the fact that a universe having combo cop-celebrities is fucked up, and even then the only people who ever point this out are antagonists, who are portrayed and treated in-universe as untrustworthy. the narrative doesn't care how fucked up dekus circumstances are. the narrative treats deku like hes a fucking messiah here to touch the hearts of the evil depressed villains with his magical empathetic heart of gold before they get blown up or just sent to fucking superhell for daring to challenge the status quote.

deku isn't a person. he's barely even a fucking character at this point. he's a plot device, and a mouth piece for the objectively shitty themes bnha is trying to spout. the themes that tell you that if you're mistreated by society and want to do something about it, you're a villain. that disrupting the status quote and refusing to repent to some random teenage boy spouting empty platitudes at you means you deserve to get sent to fucking superhell. the themes that portray people fighting for civil change as mass murdering supervillains. the themes that look the audience dead in the eye and can call deku the greatest hero to ever live.

deku, who barely spared a second thought to lady nagant telling him the truth about the hero commission. who spouts meaningless platitudes about heroism and morality at nagant, and aoyama, and toga and shigaraki, when even the thought that he should question the world around him comes up. who's constantly talked about as this truly kind, empathetic person, but hasn't spared an empathetic thought to literally anyone who is classified as a villain. who listened to every authority figure around him except the ones who asked him to question his worldview. who saw la bravas tears, shigarakis various breakdowns, himikos plead for understanding, chisakis catatonic state, lady nagants truth, and barley batted a fucking eye. deku, who killed tomura shigaraki.

people don't criticize deku for failing shigaraki because they just hate deku. people criticize deku because of what he represents. because hes a mouthpiece for the atrocious morals and themes of this ideologically rotten manga. because any character he had was chopped up to bits in favor of the incomplete husk we have now. people criticize deku because hes the main character of my hero academia. theres nothing more damning then that.

[hazel2468]

I have already seen a post CELEBRATING that tomorrow is October 7th. The one year anniversary of the day that over a thousand people were slaughtered, many more wounded and tormented. The day that people- MY people- were taken hostage.

I am going to put this as plainly as I can. If you in any way support what Hamas did on October 7th. You are a monster. If you in any way excuse what Hamas did on October 7th of last year, you are not worth the fucking air you breathe. We have not had a chance to mourn because the SECOND our blood was spilled, people started cheering for more, and instead of having the time to process and grieve all those we lost. Jews around the world had to turn and defend ourselves, justify our existence over and over again.

No more. I will not justify my right to live, to exist, to be Jewish.

We will dance again. Am Yisrael Chai.

[lovebugism]

hello sweetheart, i read your prompt list and saw this one "hug?” “clingy, much?……” but hugs them anyway and my heart melted, i don't know if you already did this, but can we have something like that with our sweet but grumpy eddie? 🤍

ty for requesting! — eddie doesn't know why you're avoiding him (fluff, ditzy!reader, 0.9k)

Eddie lost sight of you ten minutes ago. 

You were squished between Robin and Steve on the loveseat last he saw you, giggling into your solo cup while they belted Total Eclipse of the Heart to you — at you — over the music and in their best Muppet impressions. 

He only remembers it so vividly ‘cause he was jealous. Not jealous because you were subjected to Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum’s drunken antics, of course, but jealous because you were with them. And so, so far away. 

Now you’re gone, and he misses you like a stray dog — aggressive and hungry and hurt. He walks up to Steve in the kitchen just the same. Hair wild. Button eyes glittering. Slightly reluctant. 

“Where’d she go?!” he shouts over the music, half-muffled into his drink. He uses the plastic cup like a shield ‘cause he doesn’t want people to know he’s missing you. The metalhead freak from the wrong side of town isn’t supposed to need the ball of sunshine from the suburbs. 

But alas.

“Uh, I don’t know,” Steve slurs, half-distracted as he pours himself a drink. He doesn’t need Eddie to tell him who she is. There’s only one person in the whole world he’d go looking for. “She went outside with Robin, I think—”

Eddie spins on the worn heel of his sneaker before the words can properly leave his mouth. He ducks through the bustling, drunken crowd and finds you sitting lonesome on the porch outside. Prettier than the full moon and all the stars in the velvet black sky combined. 

He walks to stand beside you, shoes thunking heavy on the wooden deck. You tilt your chin to smile brightly up at him while he slips a cig into his mouth. He cups the stick as he lights it. Pretends that’s what he came out here for. Not to see you, of course. 

Definitely not.

“What are you doing out here by yourself?” he mumbles beneath the cigarette in his mouth.

“Robin just left,” you answer plainly, half-shy.

“Why didn’t you come find me?” he asks with an air of nonchalance, still trying to play it cool. ‘Cause there’s nothing less metal than yearning.

You shrug. “‘Cause you were busy?”

It’s easier than telling him that you thought he wanted the space. Or that you actually spent the whole night aching to hang on his side — too scared of embarrassing him in front of all his friends to act on it. 

You know who you are just like you know who he is. Bubblegum pink doesn’t always go well with black. It gets in your hair. Makes everything go all sticky. It’s an acquired taste you know Eddie’s still getting used to — too much of it, and his stomach will start to hurt. So you figure it’s best to keep your distance.

You just didn’t think he was as grieved by it all as you were.

Eddie scoffs. I’m never too busy for you, he wants to say. He might’ve if he wasn’t such a coward. Instead, he blows smoke from his lungs and jokes, “I wouldn’t call keeping Argyle from crowd-surfing in the living room busy, sweetheart.”

A laugh tumbles from his plush lips. The golden sound falls over your skin like stars. You smile absentmindedly back at him as you rise from the creaking rocking chair. You plant your feet ahead of his and smooth your palms beneath his leather jacket, over his warm sides.

Eddie meets your twinkling eyes with narrowed chocolate ones. “What?”

“Hug?” you ask in a mousy voice.

The boy laughs like he’s too cool for affection, though he’d be lying if he said your offer doesn’t have his chest sparkling something fierce. He flicks the cig to the ground — sheepish gaze going with it — before snuffing it out beneath his sneaker.

“Clingy much?” he scoffs.

You nod with a proud smile. 

Eddie’s chest swirls with an unfamiliar feeling. You’re strangely brave about all this — affection and love and all things sweet enough to make him gag. 

It makes him feel like he can feel brave, too.

He wraps his arms around your shoulders and holds you with all the intensity of someone wanting to swallow you whole. You hug him back just the same. “I missed you,” you murmur with your cheek squished against his chest.

“Then what’re you avoidin’ me for, huh?” he teases, chin bobbing against your head.

You pull slightly back to squint at him. “I’m not avoiding you.”

“You’ve been hangin’ out with Steve and Robin the whole night,” he grieves, hiding his sincerity behind boyish theatrics. With a feigned pout that feels totally real, he says, “And you didn’t even sit next to me when we played Never Have I Ever.”

“I thought you wanted the space,” you confess in a hushed voice.

His face screws up like he’s tasted something sour. “Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know…” you shrug. “You always talk about how much you like being alone and stuff, so—”

“Well, yeah! I like my space— just not from you!”

It’s likely the least metal thing he’s ever said.

“Oh,” you hum, mouth contorting into a sheepish beam. “Well… Sorry.”

“Yeah. You should be,” he scoffs, mostly joking. He pouts softly and pulls you back into him again, nosing at your hair until his chapped lips brush your temple. “Just don’t let it happen again, alright?”

[heritageposts]

In his seminal The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon could be writing about Gaza when he said: “In all armed struggles, there exists what we might call the point of no return. Almost always it is marked off by a huge and all-inclusive repression which engulfs all sectors of the colonial people.” In Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, that point has arrived. From Gaza to the Red Sea, on all fronts the West is now unmasked as a lawless killing machine in terror of losing control. Genocide, starvation and war, defended with Olympic-level diplomatic double-speak, are its only answers to the fact that the Global South, and the nations of the Middle East (if not their leaders) no longer wish to live under US hegemony. Jean-Paul Sartre, in his preface to Fanon's work, wrote of western colonialism: “Our Machiavellianism has little purchase on this wide-awake world that has run our falsehoods to earth one after the other. The settler has only recourse to one thing: brute force… the native has only one choice, between servitude and supremacy.” Fanon was a revolutionary thinker and a practising psychiatrist of colonial racism and its psychic impact on the colonised, and the coloniser. He and Sartre were writing about France’s imminent defeat in Algeria after seven years of brutal war. [...] Western powers are involved in conflicts thousands of miles from home, as they were in Fanon's time in Algeria, Congo and Indochina. Today the western political class has united behind Ukraine and Israel, but for millions of people it is no longer clear that the wars are worth fighting.  As Yemen’s spokesman, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, put it: “The war today is between Yemen which is struggling to stop the crimes of genocide, and the American and British coalition [who] support its perpetrators. Every party or individual in this world has two choices that have no thirds… who do you stand with as you watch these crimes?” Fanon, writing 63 years ago, agrees: “The colonial world is a Manichaean world… at times this Manichaeism goes to its logical conclusion and dehumanises the native, or to speak plainly, it turns him into an animal. The native is declared insensible to ethics; he represents not only the absence of values, but the negation of values… he is the enemy of values, and in this sense he is the absolute evil. “The native knows all this, and laughs to himself every time he spots an allusion to the animal world in the other’s words. For he knows he is not an animal, and it is precisely at the moment he realises his humanity that he begins to sharpen the weapons with which he will secure victory.”

. . . full article on MEE (1 Feb 2024)

You can also find a free copy of Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth on the Internet Archive (available as a PDF, EPUB etc.)

[gallusrostromegalus]

You can lay blame for this second ask at @hoifne 's feet, I saw their comment on the post and had to:

How did folks react to the moon landing?

"You're ready? No Big Regrets?" Renji asks. He always asks. He'd done hundreds of Konso rituals now that he was doing his mandatory tour of duty in the living world, but he never wants them to feel 'routine', so he talks to the ghosts. Hypes them up a bit for the afterlife, tries to keep his heart in it.

Especially when it's a kid.

"Well, it's not really a big deal..." The ghost Suichi considers. He was maybe ten or eleven years old. Thick prescription glasses, face round with puppy fat, very loved. Love won't stop a freak electrical accident though. Young Suichi is handling his sudden departure really well, all things considered, so maybe love does stop despair. "-but its a bit of a shame that if there's no TV in the afterlife, I won't be able to watch the moon landing."

"Yeah, we're a bit behind the times, but I'm sure one of the mad geniuses in the 12th will invent one sooner than late-" Renji grins ruffling the boy's hair before the rest of the sentence registers. "-The What Landing?"

"The Moon Landing!" Suichi lights up with excitement. "They just launched the rocket yesterday! But in just three days, man will walk on the moon!"

"...The Moon?" Renji blinks, bewildered.

"Yeah!"

Renji points up over his shoulder into the sky, gripping the boy's shoulder, eyes wide. "THE MOON IN THE FUCKING SKY?"

---

The lights of the Fifth division offices reflect blankly off of Captain Aizen's glasses as he attempts to process the news. He is entirely still, save for his eyebrows which are writhing like overcaffienated caterpillars, unable to settle on an emotion to convey.

"The Moon?" Lieutenant Ichimaru squints at Renji even harder than usual, pointing up out the window behind him. "The Moon in the fucking sky?"

"Yeah!" Renji spread his hands. "I didn't believe it either but the humans have managed to work out some neat trick with the way the world turns to like, throw the spaceship like a slingshot..?" he tried to explain.

"So, so there's three guys in a boat-" Captain Aizen tried again, reaching up under his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose.

"It's really more like a sealed metal tube, but they call it a Space Ship because it does sorta sail through space..." Renji tried to explain, holding up the newspaper from the living world he'd brought back to substantiate his claims and also provide helpful images to explain what was happening.

"So there's three guys in a metal tube and they... threw it into the sky so hard that instead of falling it started flying instead?" Aizen tried. "How do they even throw something that hard without Kido?"

"So the men are up in this little itty bitty bit at the top that looks like a cap on a vaccine needle-" Renji pointed at the image of the Apollo 11 rocket. "-All the rest of this is the uh. enormous amount of extremely coordinated high explosives they used to launch it. The. The whole thing is like... It's a little over three hundred fifty shaku and only 12 shaku of that is where the humans are. The rest is um. Air they smooshed so hard it became liquid and then they set that on fire and look at the picture you can see the kaboom!" Renji tried to explain, pushing the paper across Aizen's desk for his captain to read.

Aizen certainly pointed his face at the image and accompanying article, but 'read' may have been a bit beyond him at the moment.

"Oh, is that all it took?" Ichimaru hummed with interest. "Well fuck, why haven't we done that?"

"Oh yes, how very silly that the humans have beaten us at the trifling matter of FLINGING OURSELVES INTO SPACE, WHAT THE *HELL* ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ICHIMARU??" Aizen objected.

"Well like. Idea's sound. Moon goes around the earth, so a smaller thing should too. And we can absolutely make a sealed metal container and kaboom bigger than that." Gin shrugged, as though this were plainly obvious. "Betchya the clown that runs the twelfth has the stuff laying around- we got a meeting with him later today anyway, why not ask?"

"Oh sure, that's a great Idea!" Aizen beamed. "Why hello Kurotsuchi-taicho, curious news from the human world- do you think you could spare a few parts and several tons of explosives to send some guys for a stroll on the moon?"

There was a moment of silence where Renji and Gin shared an awkward glance (or at least, Renji gave meaningful look to the narrow slits where his lieutenant-commander's eyes theoretically were).

"...he'd agree to that in a heartbeat, if he hasn't started work on his own Spaceboat already." Aizen groaned.

---

"No." Grunted Mayuri.

"No? Why not?" Aizen asked, head cocked to the side like a confused spaniel.

"Look, what the old man doesn't know about budget expenditures won't hurt him!" Gin smiled encouragingly. "Think of all the scientific data you'd get to research!"

"What the old man finds out about budget expenditures after the fact can and will hurt me." Mayuri growled. "It's not cookie money, kitting an expedition to the living world to engineer a spaceship with atomic matter instead of Reishi- No, much more efficient to let the humans do it for us and poach the date from them."

"...Why would we need to go to the Living world?" Aizen blinked, confused. "I can see the moon from the window right here?" Aizen pointed out the window of Kurotsuchi's office.

"What? That moon? You can't go to that moon!" The clownish chemical engineer cackled."

Aizen and Ichimaru stared at him blankly.

"Is. Is the moon here different than the one in the living world?" Aizen asked, bewildered.

"Different? It doesn't exist!" Mayuri laughed, waving his hand at them.

Aizen and Ichimaru stared at him, then leaned back in their seats, looking out the window at the moon, which still looked as physical and present as it ever did.

"...Oh don't tell me you didn't know." Mayuri frowned, pouting. "No, spirit world doesn't have a moon. The thing up in the sky is a Tulpa- there's a "moon" because everyone who comes to spirit world thinks there should be one, and there's so much ambient spiritual energy even weak souls can exert some force on the nature of reality and when millions of them are all certain there should be a moon, a moon manifests. Or at least, a thing that looks like a moon. Doesn't act like one, changes size and skips around it's phases all the time and if it really were a round object in space, that's NOT what a crescent moon would look like."

Aizen and Ichimaru looked back out the window at the "Moon", whose crescent arced a full three quarters of the alleged satellite's circumference.

"Seriously? this is some really basic stuff." Mayuri glared at them in disappointment. "You never noticed that the moon is always visible out any random window at night, no matter what time it is? It doesn't even go east-to-west more than half the time!"

"But. But we have a lunar calendar..?" Aizen muttered, an edge of genuine distress in his voice.

"Oh yeah, the moon *used* to be regular as clockwork- everyone literally set their watches to it." Mayuri shrugged. "Then sometime about eh, two and a half, three thousand years ago? Right around the same time the first captain-class spirits started appearing, the moon started doing this 'Full Moon Thrice A Month If it Feels Like It' and 'Visible At Improbable Angles' nonsense."

Aizen's eyes were wide and Gin's very nearly open with alarm.

"That's uh- that's terrifying?" Aizen sputtered, now outright frightened.

"Yeah, anybody know what coulda caused that?" Gin muttered.

"The going theory is that the precipitation of a new class of spiritually hyperpotent souls like us has caused disproportionate tugs on the desired appearence of the the "Moon", but that's only a theory- my predecessor's predecessor once attempted to send a camera to the 'Moon' for a closer look, but it never actually *got* any closer." Mayuri explained, casually inspecting his fingernails- he seemed to be growing out the middle one for some godforsaken reason. "-Your theoretical starboat would likely far worse."

"...Okay but that's worse. You understand how that's worse, right?" Aizen demanded and Mayuri waved him off.

"No, no hit makes sense-" Gin nodded, and Aizen glared at his lieutenant. "Think about it! There's what, three and a half billion human on earth? Millions die every day, but only a couple hundred ever turn up every day at the intake queue in the 7th, and nearly everyone is from just the one part of Japan. We're one afterlife of many- ugh, could you imagine if the missionaries were sent here?- anyway, our world is nowhere NEAR as big at the Living World, so the moon-moon is just a geographical feature in the living world, and there's only a couple million people living here. We got disproportionate swing, so we pull on the collective conciousness more. It's fine!"

"That's AWFUL!" Aizen shouted, dismayed.

"I mean I think we all understand God is an Asshole, but what are you gonna do about it?" Mayuri shrugged before tapping on the crate beside his desk. "-Anyway, do you want these Polio Vaccines for the rukongai outreach program our not?"

"I- yes. Please." Aizen muttered.

"Good man, sign here." Mayuri tapped the sheet on his desk. As Aizen tried to read over the provisions release paperwork, the small "Electronic Mailer" on Mayuri's desk pinged. "Oh, the word got out- Kyoraku-taicho wants to hold another moon-viewing party for the occasion. Do me a favor and attend so you can explain to him why we can't go to our 'moon' for me? I don't want to go, and I really don't want to explain it to him through a hangover either."

"If you don't wanna go Boss I'll stand in for you. Promises to be a real riot." Gin grinned.

"Yes, you have your young friend, don't you? Miss Matsumoto?" Aizen smiled fondly at his second-in-command.

"Oh, she probably already got her invite- she an' Miss Nan- er, lieutenant Ise are real pals from the academy." Gin laughed. "Nah, I was gonna drag old blind bones along."

"...Captain Tousen?" Aizen asked, befuddled. "Whatever for?"

"Stars ain't exactly braille, y'know?" Gin explained, wiggling his fingers. "He knows even less than we do an' I wanna watch Rangiku and Kyoraku try'n 'splain the whole thing to him." Gin grinned.

"Sounds lovely! Take your shit and get out of my office." Mayuri threatened.

---

Renji exhaled, still bewildered, laying on his back on the grassy hill just outside the 2nd division training grounds, staring up at the moon as it rose opposite the sunset behind him. Or, maybe not? There had been some lecture about how the moon in spirit world wasn't a moon back at the academy that he didn't really remember-

"You sound like you're in the throes of a moral conundrum Red." Shuuhei teased, looking up from the strange contraption he was setting up.

"Huh?" Renji blinked. "Oh, no I'm just- Those guys in the Spaceship gotta be somethin' else, going to die thousands of miles from home."

"What? The Astronauts? They'll be fine! -Probably." Shuuhei laughed. "They're definitely insane, getting in that contraption at all, but they still gotta come home with all the rocks and whatever they get from the moon for the lab techs to look at."

"...How the hell are they getting back?" Renji frowned, rolling up onto his elbow to frown at his senpai. "I thought they blew up all the rocket getting off the planet?"

"They got a bitty rocket in the lunar landing craft that will get them between their ship and the lunar surface, and then they will angle the ship a bit and the moon will fling them back to earth the way earth flung them at the moon." Shuuei explained, not looking up from the weird bass-drum looking object he was messing with.

Renji opened his mouth, realized his friend probably understood it way better than he did, closed his mouth, shrugged, and changed topics. "So what is that thing you had me haul up here?"

"It's uhhh... Experimental. Haven't got a name for it yet." Shuuhei muttered, placing a level on top of it and frowning at the bubble before adjusting the legs bolted awkwardly to the side of the drum. "-But with all this excitement about the Lunar Landing, I realized Tousen-Taicho is... I mean he gets left out of a lotta stuff, y'know? But it's not like he can see the stars, or the spirit-moon, and I don't think he really understands orbital mechanics-"

"I sure fuckin' don't." Renji muttered.

"Yeah, because you're the kind of moron who put a ham sandwich in a VCR-" Shuuhei rolled his eyes.

"That was ONE TIME, and Matsumoto Senpai told me it was a Panini Press!" Renji sulked.

"-and then pressed "Fast Forward", but Tousen is actually smart as hell- I'm the one who can't explain it without gestures he can't see." Shuuhei continued. "...but I can use a camera obscura and reiryoku-sensitive film to sort of take an old exposure image of the night sky. I'm hoping that if I treat the exposed film right, that the light and dark parts will turn into different textures for him to read, like a braille sky."

"Oh." Renji muttered. "That's really nice of you actually."

"I mean, we'll see if it works." Shuuhei shugged, examining the level again. "Hand me the allen wrenches- What about your boss?"

"Captain Aizen? Uh- honestly? He seems a little freaked out by all this and I saw him fuckin' slam the newspaper into his wastebasket when he got back from the twelth." Renji winced. "He's weird like that. Sweet as cake most of the time but then there's these weird flashes of anger... and I'm not sure how much longer he's gonna be my boss."

"As in you got ambitions, or you think he's gonna get fired?" Shuuhei asked, staring at the level again.

"As in 'Tetsuzaemon Iba got in another brawl with his mother about him only being fourth seat when she made captain, and Liuetenant Madarame asked me if I'd updated my resume recently." Renji winced.

"Woof. Talk about a lateral promotion." Shuuhei winced. "Still, the pay raise would be nice. You could afford to take your girl Rukia somewhere up to her brother's standards!"

"IT'S NOT LIKE THAT!" Renji snapped, rolling over and jumping to his feet. "-It's -I'm sorry. It's kinda complicated." Renji sighed.

Shuuhei was silent for a minute as Renji sat back down on the grass, face in his hands. After a minute of fine-tuning the drum to keep it level, he spoke up. "You're more than good enough."

"Huh?" Renji jolted. "Oh, yeah- I'd be doing all the eleventh's paperwork but there's no way it's worse than the fucking rice subsidies accounting board-"

"That's not what I meant." Shuuhei glared.

"...I know." Renji groaned. "It's just. It's complicated, okay?"

"If you say so." Shuuhei shrugged. "Alright, hand me the flat box- thanks. It'll be ready for exposure in a minute, and I want to get it done before those clouds roll in." He gestured at the distant thunderheads threatening to bloom into a summer storm on the edge of the city.

The process was quick- the shielded plate went into the gap under the drum, and the light of the night sky was reflected onto it from a pinhole in the top. Once the metal plates were pulled back, it needed a few minutes to pick up enough light, before Shuuhei pushed the metal shutters back in and locked the plate in darkness until it could be developed.

"It's for taking pictures of the stars, right?" Renji asked as Shuuhei started disassembling the camera. "You could call that plate an Astrograph."

"Hah! Futuristic. I like it!" Shuuhei grinned. "C'mon and help me with this thing before the punishment squad turns up to kick my ass for having a camera within a mile of the second."

[theharlotofferelden]

The Manifesto posted to Substack is fake

I've been seeing people uncritically share this (now deleted) substack article claiming to be Luigi Mangione's manifesto. If you believed this was real you should know that it's fake.

The real manifesto wasn't posted up until a day ago by Ken Klippenstein. You can read the manifesto here:

“To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”

And on the subject of disinformation, you should know that the "Countdown to Truth" YouTube video people were claiming was uploaded by Luigi was also fake.

Please share this. There's too many conspiracy theories going around right now without believing disinformation.

ETA — editing this post to debunk this manifesto I’ve recently become aware of. I haven’t been able to find anyone talking about this one online, but using Whois to check when the website was created reveals it was made December 9th, which is the day he got caught. It also shows the website was registered by someone living in Reykjavik, Iceland.

ETA 2 — I didn’t think I would have to say this on a post trying to combat disinformation, but since that person called me a “narc” after calling them out for trying to derail this post with conspiratorial thinking, I feel the need to say that at the time of me writing this post, Luigi Mangione is, at most, the main suspect in the murder of Brian Thompson. I make no claims that he’s the perpetrator (although I will admit the evidence is stacked against him). I am in support of a trial by jury and am in favor of a not guilty verdict (and jury nullification).

[thecrabbybarista]

We should talk about The Lords in Black I'm gonna do that right now because I wanna talk about their trope subversion and symbolism and shit.

So obviously The Lords in Black are a subversion of Cosmic/Eldritch horror and I'm gonna explain how using an ant metaphor

So the classic ant metaphor for cosmic horror is to imagine that you're an ant encountering a piece of human technology, right? I believe it's usually a circuit board. The whole point is you're witnessing something deeply incomprehensible and unfamiliar.

The ant metaphor for the Lords in Black is: imagine you're an ant and a teenager starts burning you with a magnifying glass.

It's still incomprehensible, but not in the way the complexities of a circuit board is. If you were suddenly stricken by a scalding beam of light, the only way you could rationalize that is that it was an act of a god. You and your ant colony would invent and fear this god.

The Lords in Black each represent a kind of strange and inscrutable cruelty that the modern world offers, the cursed lasers that cut into our souls, from places we have no power over.

Wiggly is obviously the idol of capitalism. Animalistic desperation, commodity fetishization, and the exchange of money, products, and emotions. All of the things that the other Lords represent stem from elements of capitalism, hence why Wiggly is THE Lord in Black, the leader of his brothers. What Wiggly offers will never be enough. He is what leaves you always unsatisfied.

Nibbly is the idol of the consumption of human beings as products. Obsession with self image and presentability, trends of all kinds, and the beauty and fitness industries. People in the modern age are desperate to be consumable, and some would go to any lengths to do so. This is an attitude that especially impacts women, who feel that they need to wear make up every day just to earn respect. And when we feel the need to change to be respectable, the need to look appealing and to be consumable, the bourgeois eat well. Our quest to look special makes us like any other customer, filling. It's no mistake that the two leads of Honey Queen are women desperate to be noticed and respected. It makes them all the more eager to be eaten.

Tinky is the idol of infinity and repetition. Dead end jobs, middle class suburbia, and the inability to escape one's circumstances. It's no coincidence that the first time we see Tinky is at a wedding, a ceremony dedicated to eternal commitment, or that he's associated with CCRP, a company in which most of the workers do useless busywork all day. When you look at the life you have ahead of you, it can feel crushing. Will you ever have a real career to be proud of, or will you be stuck at this job until you die? Will you ever not struggle to make rent? Will you really love your spouse forever? What if you don't? Isn't it just easier to continue the routine than to address the problem? After Ted is driven to insanity by the Bastard's Box, after he discovers that he can't escape the person he's become, he becomes homeless, one of the most terrifying eternities a person can find themselves in, fully dependent on random acts of kindness to survive while your situation drives you further into insanity.

Blinky is the idol of the panopticon. Gossip, public drama, and unwanted attention. One of the first things Blinky does on screen is sexually objectify a girl who's fresh out of high school, and this plainly displays a consequence of living in a content driven world. There is constant scrutiny and interpretation given to your every action. At any moment, you could have over a thousand eyes on you, whether you want them there or not. The panopticon we live in captures us in moments of time, and turns the person we were in that moment into an object deserving anger, embarrassment, lust, admiration, judgement, or anything else a watcher might assign. But Blinky also targets another fear, the fear that we feel when we can't see the danger, and cannot protect ourselves or those we love. Alice's anxiety that Deb might cheat on her when she's not around are made manifest in Watcher World, and Bill's frustration at not being let into Alice's life are used against the family. We are inclined to both want and fear the panopticon. We hide, and we seek, and we expose.

Pokey is the idol of tyranny. Complacency, sedation, and obedience. The world revolves around the few and uses the many in service of this. We are all expected to fill some role in service to the rich, to work for a corporation and to buy the products of those corporations, and when we cannot fill these roles we are at risk of starving, or being kicked out of our homes. We must join them in their quest for profit, or die. But we must also accept their pacifiers or we will be driven insane. We must choose between complacency or despair in confronting our place in the world as a pawn, as an ant in the colony. Isn't it easier to accept the comforting lies? Your job is important. Corporations give people what they want. People in power deserve their power. People in power are using it well. We are happy. America is great.

These are the magnifying glasses that are being used to torment us, that we cannot make reason out of, that we've made dark gods out of. But this isn't the first time humanity has encountered scorching light from the heavens. When the people of ancient Greece witnessed burning rods of light, falling viciously from the heavens, they invented Zeus.

But we know where lightning comes from now. We know the science behind electricity and its place in the world. We know what keeps lightning away and what attracts it. We can protect ourselves from it.

But there's an important difference. Lightning is natural. It's existed long before we have and it will continue when we're gone.

The unorthodox cruelty of being alive today is not natural. We cannot logic our way into surviving it because it does not operate under a sound logic. But we can make things a little more bearable by focusing on what is sound, understandable and natural.

There is humanity. There are families friends and lovers who would go to the ends of earth to protect each other. As long as we have this humanity, we have hope.

That's why Miss Holloway's deal with the Lords erases her from living memory after her temporary deaths. To have the powers that she does she gave away the power most important to have under the Lord's rule: human connection. The only real thing we have left.

Alice and Bill escaped Blinky's manipulation through the love they have for each other

Emma survived the longest out of any character in tgwdlm because of the genuine hope Paul gave her of a better future

Lex snapped Tom out of Wiggly's control by reminding him of what his son really means to him

Ted couldn't escape Tinky's plan for him because he was too jaded to make a genuine connection with a woman.

Linda was eaten by Nibbly because she didn't have a loving connection with her father, because her father always made her believe that she was never good enough, because this mindset led her to take for granted the connections she did have in her life.

The world no longer cares about us. We have to care for each other. It's the only thing we have left

[devonpink]

Conversion in the Deep

Far from land and deep in the sea, lives a world undiscovered by humanity. In an underwater kingdom where merpeople not only exist but thrive. Ruling over them is King Lyle, his wife, and his only offspring, Prince Dorian.

On the morning of his 25th birthday, Dorian was not his usual cheerful self but distressed, swimming back and forth in one of the castle's many gardens. "What kind of a birthday surprise was that?!" He was utterly flabbergasted over what his father had sprung on him only a half hour ago. "An arranged marriage?! With a mermaid, no less! When is he gonna get it through that thick head of his that I'm gay! Gay, gay gay!"

Unbeknownst to Dorian, his future bride, Princess Alana, was not far behind, watching and following him in curious wonderment. She couldn't help but eavesdrop. Neither could the royal guards. "It has to be a joke?" Dorian questioned, trying to keep his head on straight. "I'm sure that's what it is! There's no way my father is that-" Dorian was too lost in his own head to realize Alana had swam up behind him. So when he abruptly flipped around. Boom! They smacked right into one another, face-on. They were mere centimeters away from accidentally kissing, causing Dorian's face to immediately blush from embarrassment—he was redder than a cooked crab. "Oh! I'm so sorry! I wasn't paying attention!"

"It's okay! I should have said something." Alana insisted, hoping to soothe Dorian's embarrassment. She smirked slightly, thoroughly amused with how awkwardly cute Dorian's nervous expression was. That pared with his muscular build making him even sexier. She swam back slightly to give them some breathing space, easing him further. However, she couldn't help but give in to her feminine wiles. "I hope you blush as cutiely on our wedding day."

"About that," Dorian anxiously gulped, assuming Alana was just kidding but didn't like the glimmer of sincere lust in her eye. He took a deep breath, hoping to reason with her. "Look, you must think this whole arrangement is as crazy as I do, right? I mean, we don't even know each other! It would never work out! I'm just not made for this kind of marriage!"

Alana looked confused, almost hurt by what he said—her heartbroken expression made Dorian uneasy, filling him with bizarre guilt. "Why not?"

Dorain gently grabbed her by the arm and pulled her over to a nearby rock formation, out of the guard's sight. "I don't know how to break this to you other than spitting it right out: I'm gay. I'm incapable of giving you a happy marriage."

"Well, I wouldn't say that." Alana smiled slightly, inching herself closer to him. She laid her small hand on his massive bicep, making him unexpectedly quiver in titillation. "They don't call marriage hard work for no reason."

"What?" Dorain was surprised by her reaction or lack thereof. It's as if his confession went right over her head. "Didn't you hear me? I'm gay. Like, really gay!"

"You think you're the first?" Alana plainly said, brushing her fin against his. "It's not like this hasn't happened before. It has, and it's worked out." Dorian was stunned, frozen in disbelief but her calm demeanor. Throwing him off further, she swam around him, eyeing him like a delicious piece of meat. "Just take my parents for example."

Dorian's eyes lit up in shock, watching her confidently swim around him, trying hard not to stare at her perfect tits. "What do you mean?!"

"A long time ago, my father was in the same position you're in right now," Alana nonchalantly answered, stopping back in front of him. She seductively bit her bottom lip, still processing how unbelievably muscular Dorian was—a true muscle god.

"You mean, King Trenton is gay?!" Dorian questioned in disbelief. He couldn't figure Alana out or why he felt so funny. The more Alana talked the more smitten he weirdly became, confusing him more.

"He is, well, was. I guess you can say it's complicated, but love will do that. "Alana answered, her eyes kept making their way to his genital slit. She swam closer to him, forcing him back against the large rock formation behind him.

Inside Dorian was a swirling mess of emotions. He felt both frightened and turned on by her, which didn't make sense. He was gay, but her obvious lust for him was making him unbelievably horny. He suddenly felt overwhelmingly enamored with her as if a switch abruptly went off in his brain. "I don't understand?"

"I'm not surprised," Alama smirked, with an all-knowing look. She moved her hand up his ripped chest, making him quiver. She then gently grazed his firm nipples, which made him gasp. He was blushing uncontrollably. "God, you're so cute when you're nervous."

"Alana, please. I can't!" Dorian's heart was racing, enthralled with her heavenly touch. How could he want her so badly?

"Do you want me to show you?" Alana seductively asked, purposefully ignoring Dorian's growing concern. She moved her hand back down his perfectly toned body, heading for the genital slit in the front of his tail.

"Show me what?" Dorian asked, trying his best to keep his voice down to not draw the guard's attention. He wanted to moan so badly but kept it from coming out, which was hard to do. A few minutes ago, the idea of being in this type of situation with a mermaid repulsed him, but the reality of it only turned him on. It felt as if his body was acting on its own, out of his mental control. Was it primal instinct? Was it pure madness?

"Do you want me to show you exactly how my mother turned my gay father into a mermaid lover?" Alana rephrased, eyeing Dorian's plump lips in lustful hunger. She put her other arm around him, feeling up his manly backside. "How?" Dorian nervously asked, afraid yet intensely curious of the answer. Alana moved her hand over his slit, sensually rubbing it. His prehensile penis was in danger of popping out. "Oh, fuck." Dorian quietly moaned, trying not to alert the guard's attention. "Why aren't I stopping her?!" He thought. "Why does her touch feel so right? Why is her voice pure music to his ears? Why do I want to fuck her like a primal sea beast? How could I suddenly be so damn horny for a mermaid?!" He couldn't help but moan in sexual agony. "I don't understand why I feel so-?"

"Horny?" Alana answered, already knowing what he was gonna say. Her tone was dripping with lust, she was just as horny as he was.

Dorian sensually moaned again, unable to resist letting his massive prehensile penis finally emerge from its slit, all 13 inches of glorious man meat. Alana licked her lips, reached out her hand, and gently grasped it. Dorian moaned again, only this time more desperate. She stroked him, unable to believe the enormous size of his throbbing member. He instinctually grabbed her waist, unexpectedly loving how manly he instantly felt. They gazed at each other like lovers, as if they would passionately kiss at any moment.

"What's happening to me?" Dorian loudly pleaded, not caring if they got caught. Actually, the thought of his gay self getting caught with a mermaid was an unexpected turn-on. He then moaned loader, letting himself give in to his lust even more.

"My family's powers," Alana finally answered, after stroking him a bit more. "The mermaids in my family have a certain way with mermen. We can bring out whatever we want from them, able to mold them like clay. And the best part, the mermen love it. It's a win-win. Everybodys happy. Even if it takes a little persuading to get there." Alana slowed her stroking and played with the tip of his tapering penis with her finger, edging his lust even further. "You can't tell me it doesn't feel good, that I don't make you feel good."

Dorian moaned again in lustful agony, reluctantly loving how her finger teased his sensitive tip. None of it made sense, but he was starting to not care. All he knew was he felt good and beginning to enjoy himself. As hard as he tried, his lust was winning. He looked her straight in the eye, his gaze burning with passion. He didn't want her to stop. Damned it be her doing or not. He wanted more.

"There must be a part of you that's always secretly wanted to be normal, to be the prince your father always wanted." Alana picked her pace back up, grasping him tighter. She could sense his temptation to fully give in and was hellbent on making sure he did. "Allow me to make that secret desire a reality. Give in to me."

"Oh, fuck!" Dorian aggressively moaned, grasping the ridges of the rocks behind him. Her touch was pure heaven, winning him over. His gay resistance was hanging on by a tread.

"I'll be the perfect wife," Alana assured him, knowing she was close to fully having him. "And will make the most beautiful babies."

"Alana… I-" Dorian could barely speak, only able to moan in utter pleasure as Alana stroked him even faster. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the guards watching them with cocky grins.

"I want to breed with you," Alana hornily begged, wrapping her tail around his. Her smutty confession surprising Dorian but turning him on more.

"I want…" Dorian bit his lip, not wanting to let the rest of his words escape. The small part of himself that was resisting cried out, not wanting to give in. However, the second after Alana ripped off the shell bra off her huge tits to reveal her juicy nipples, it was over. Any last shred of resistance evaporated. With that, he finally let the truth bubbling inside him surface out of his quivering mouth. "I want to breed with you, too!!!"

And thus they finally kissed—french kissing, indulging themselves completely in their lust for one another. Her small feminine body against his massive masculine frame was electrifying. He plunged his rugged face into her huge soft tits, sucking on them like his life depended on it. Seconds later he had his thick fingers in her tight slit, making her moan like a merslut—fueling his testosterone even more. Never in his life had he felt so masculine. He didn't give a damn if the guards were watching. In fact, he wanted them to watch. He wished everyone was here to see him finally become a real man. Dorian figured this new way of thinking was all Alana's doing, but he didn't care. It felt too good to fight. Still gay or not, it didn't matter. He was hooked and couldn't wait till the wedding night.

[haine-kleine]

The entire manga ending is a burning trash fire that falls on its head in all of the established thematic purposes, but what was done with Shigaraki's character might be one of the stupidest and plain evil writing decisions.

Shigaraki was established as an immature and arrogant AFO's heir and since they were separated after Kamino, his journey was all about learning to stand on his own, developing his own agenda, establishing and chasing the goals he set out for himself. In other words, since AFO's imprisonment, Shigaraki was gradually healing from years of grooming, brainwashing and social isolation.

His backstory revealed in the My Villain Academy arc had challenged the readers and their views of this character, showing his extreme trauma, his guilt as a 5 years old boy who had killed his entire family in a quirk accident. It also finally explained Shigaraki's fervent devotion to AFO, the only one who had reached out, who wanted to help, who cared.

Of course we were aware AFO's motives can't be pure. He was preparing Shigaraki as a future vessel for himself, a means to achieve his dream of living forever.

Then, by the last war arc, Shigaraki has all the agency, individuality, autonomy ripped away by AFO stealing his body. He spends the entire second war fighting for control, silenced by AFO and the narrative barely giving him any chance to talk. One of his main goals was protecting his comrades and their dreams - this is taken from him as well, the League spent the entire second war separated, not even getting one final chance to see each other. Shigaraki dies while thinking of his friends, of his goal to save them, which he will never be able to achieve. While Izuku was at least given a chance to directly confront Shigaraki on his final quest of trying to save him, Shigaraki spent the entire time even before the second war delirious, and until his death, he had never even learned what happened to his friends, the people who chose to follow him, trusted him and supported him.

The very last thing that happens to Shigaraki before his death, is learning that his entire life, everything that had happened to him, was caused by AFO and his schemes. This strips Shigaraki of the last of his agency, turning him into a martyr. His story is no longer one about the unfairness of the heroes-adoring society and hypocrisy, good VS bad victim, trauma and coping with it. His story is about becoming a victim of a creep who had been grooming him since he was 5. One who had tried his best to make a life for himself outside of his abuser, and then had this life cruelly taken from him. Shigaraki doesn't even get to talk or react to the fact he has to sacrifice himself for AFO to die. Izuku doesn't ask him, doesn't apologize to him, he just presents the fact plainly. Shigaraki just has to deal with it.

He went from a victim to a martyr and the story barely even acknowledges it. Deku and Shigaraki were the only people who had learned the truth and neither talks about it or is allowed to share this with the world. Shigaraki died an unwilling martyr, and is remembered as a monster no better than AFO. The public draws no line between the abuser and his victim. Izuku or Allmight don't exhibit any intention to reveal the truth, and we already have Dabi's example on how this turns out.

What is the point of this character ending? Life is unfair and everything is horrible? Just deal with your trauma without causing problems for others, or you will be punished? Always abandon your ideals and your friends if a cop tells you to, or you will be murdered?

[letsgetrowdy43]

Settling down—

Quinn Hughes x reader

Request: Can we get a Quinn getting mad at his brothers for fucking around and making his gf uncomfortable. They didn’t think he was that serious about his gf. He told them “She’s important to me”

Quinn had met her at some Canucks charity event in the early fall.

The breath was knocked right out of his lungs as he bumped into her while trying to get some fresh air, drinking up the way her silhouette looked in her floor-length gown. He was a goner. Now she sat curled up in his lap as they lounged on his boat, a soft smile on her face as he dragged his fingertips up and down the length of her spine.

Jack, Trevor, Luke, and the others were very skeptical of their relationship, she was nice, but she seemed so far from their world of hockey that to them there was no chance that she was a keeper. Plus the fact that she was an absolute smoke show, and he was just Quinn, showcased just how too good she was to be true. Quinn thought otherwise though, to anyone who wasn't blinded by idiocy, like his brothers and co., you could plainly see how he watched her with such love in his eyes.

A dopey grin grew on his face as she whispered in his ear, her fingers running through his messy hair as she placed a kiss on the high point of his cheek. Her smile grew as Quinn's lopsided smile took over his expression, "You are the prettiest, y'know that?" she mumbled into his ear as his face broke out in a flustered mess. "You're one to talk," he mused, her head leaned up against his chest, goosebumps on her skin as a gust of wind kit her bikini-covered body. "I gonna go join your mom on the beach, and get my sweater," she said getting up off of Quinn's lap, sending her boyfriend a wink as she walked to the front of the boat hopped off and onto the beach they were parked on.

Her ears perked up as she walked past Quinn's brothers and close friends, hearing her name in the jumble of their conversation. "She is just some wet dream he's living out for the summer, he's been lonely in Vancouver, it seems temporary," she knew that voice well, Jack, her brows furrowed as she dug through her bag for her sweater and shorts. "He's in a phase where he thinks he's ready to settle down, he's only twenty-three, and she's got him brainwashed!" "It doesn’t even matter, she's hot, he deserves some of the extra attention she’s been giving him," Her jaw dropped as she finally dug up her clothes, a frown on her face as she made her way over to the older woman who laid out on a lawn chair on the beach.

"Hey sweetheart," the woman said as waved the girl to sit down next to her, offering her some of the remaining white wine in her bottle, which Y/n gladly accepted, "You okay?" "Yeah, just a little drained from the sun," she grinned sadly as she took a sip of the wine out of the solo cup she was given. "Heat stroke is the worst, I won't mother you though, I'm sure Quinn will baby you the moment he gets home, just make sure to stay hydrated." "Do you think?" "He's gonna go full mother on you, you mean a lot to him, I know my son, and I can tell," she grinned at the young girl who nodded with flushed cheeks, looking over to her boyfriend who was laughing along with his friends.

Later that night after they'd arrived back at the lake house, eaten, and showered together, the couple laid in bed, her pressed up against his chest as they watched a movie on her laptop.

She turned around to look at him, her fingers brushing over the stubble on his chin as she watched his concentrated face as he watched the movie. "You're staring," he grinned as his eyes found hers. "I'm just feeling really lucky right now," she fluttered her eyes closed and hugged herself deeper into his chest. Quinn licked his lips as he tightened the arm that lay across her torso and pulled her in even closer, "I'm the lucky one," he whispered.

The conversation she overheard hours before was still lingering in the back of her mind. If his brothers and friends thought that there was no place for a future between the two of them, then what was he saying to them?

She pulled away a little to look at him again, "You see a future with us, right? cause I think it would break my heart if I was all in and you weren't," she mumbled as she watched Quinn's face break out into a look of confusion. His hand tucked her hair behind her ear so she could see him better, "Of course, I wouldn't have brought you to meet my family and let you basically live with me," he confessed as she nodded. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I was doubting this, you're just too perfect to be real" she shook her head as she took his hand and kissed his knuckles.

Quinn was still confused as to where this was coming from, and then he remembered a conversation between Trevor and him when she first arrived, one where Trevor made a comment about how he was stupid for wanting to settle down already. "Did one of the guys say something to you?" Her lips formed a straight line, deciding whether or not she wanted to out the boys for the chat she had eavesdropped.

The long pause was telling enough for Quinn, "Don't listen to them, they are all in their egotistical frat era," he laughed unbelieving of the stupidity of his brothers and friends, "they don't get it yet, but this, us, I'm certain is something that I want for the rest of my life," he confessed as he sat up beside her.

"Don't tell them I heard anything," she said sitting up next to him, "I don't want to drag this out, it's stupid." His face softened as he listened to her, knowing that this was in fact nothing, but she was willing to put it behind her to get along with his family. "I won't, but if you hear anything else like that you tell me," he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in for a kiss, a giddy smile on her face as he pulled her into his lap, smothering her in kisses before they both laid back down.

the moment she fell asleep Quinn snuck out of bed and into the rec room where his brothers and company were drinking and playing pool.

"You guys are fucking idiots," he said with his arms crossed as all the guy's attention was averted to him, a frown on his face as Luke paused the music, "I'm so serious I have a really good thing going on with Y/n and I really like her, and you're all fucking it up" "Calm down Huggy," Trevor said as he grinned at the annoyance on the older guy's face. "No, I can't, 'cause she thinks I'm just fucking around with her feelings 'cause you idiots feel the need to openly talk about my relationship while my girlfriend is around." "We didn't know she was listening," Jack tried to reason but was shot down with a glare from his older brother. "This relationship is important to me, she is important to me, so respect that!"

With that, he left the rec room, quiet tension filling the room as Quinn made his way back up the stairs to his shared room with Y/n. Her brows furrowed as he slid back under the comforter, "where were you?" she mumbled quietly. "Just needed some water," he whispered back, the girl lifted her head and placed a sleepy kiss on his cheek before wrapping her arm around him and hugging him closer to her.

"Love you," she mumbled, half awake as her head buried itself in his arm. The words took him aback for a second, surprised that she said it, for the first time, while half conscience. "Love you too," he mumbled before closing his eyes.

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