#conceptually it should be good but it just take decides to

[marxistcomedy]

The term commodity fetishism objectively should bring to mind the way economic actors, both rich and poor, declare themselves powerless before the pressures exerted by the world of commodities (“I’m sorry I have to fire you, but the market told us your services aren’t needed”). It’s conceptually quite similar to Adam Smith’s much-celebrated liberal notion of “the invisible hand of the market,” but rather than benevolent and wise Marx invites us to see this system as a sinister cult. The term commodity fetishism was never meant to scold people for liking material things; it’s not meant to generate guilt after the realization that one craves certain consumer goods (“I’m so bad, but those new shoes sure look pretty”).

Commodity fetishism describes the objective fact that in capitalism we don’t generally relate to each other as humans asking each other to do things, but rather indirectly command each other through commodities. If I go to a restaurant, I don’t beg the cook to make me a meal and the waiter to deliver it, nor do I imperiously threaten them with violence, nor do I cajole them into it. I just buy the meal. The meal itself then appears to command them to move, like a little god! And I in turn must similarly follow the commands of commodities in order to acquire the money to purchase such meals. This is how the factory comes to want to be used, and how the tropical fruit comes to want to find its way to Stockholm. As Marx puts it:

“To [producers], their own social action takes the form of the action of objects, which rule the producers instead of being ruled by them.”

From this perspective, one of the central tasks of communists is to liberate workers not from work or desire itself, but from a generalized lack of decision-making agency in the face of crude economic fetishism. People should decide what people do, not commodities! Looking for alternatives to enslavement by commodities, some look back to feudal, religious, and romantic patriarchal forms of despotism, but socialists look ahead, towards socialism’s multidimensional interaction and negotiation, demotic and democratic.

[cuubism]

more physical therapy au

--

Dream comes to his next physical therapy appointment marginally--marginally--less apprehensive than before. When he'd first gone, he'd expected to be told he was being melodramatic. That he should just be grateful that the surgery was successful and he has some functioning. That he should just give up on his art, that it didn't matter, that it was hopeless.

He doesn't know why he thought that. It's been hard to have a charitable view of people, lately.

But Hob wasn't like what he feared. Hob was... kind. To him.

So he goes back.

He has, in fact, been doing the exercises that Hob gave him. It is not as though he has much else to do with his time. Other than setting up his new flat, where he now lives after fleeing what had once been his home. Even a few months later, the place is fairly... minimalist. Which is not Dream's style. But he'd left with little more than his art portfolio and the clothes he was wearing, deciding that it wasn't worth going back, and he hasn't had the energy to replace anything since.

Or the two functioning arms required to move things.

His flat is depressing enough that even the physical therapy office feels warm and welcoming by comparison. Hob gives him a big smile as he comes in. It's pathetic that it makes his heart flutter.

He goes over to Hob, setting the folder he brought on the table.

"You look cheerful," Hob notes. Dream highly, highly doubts that. But he is perhaps slightly less morose than last time. Nevertheless, he finds Hob's optimism... somewhat cheering. Normally, he would find such a thing annoying. But there is something very steady and reassuring about Hob. Not much in Dream's life has felt steady in some time.

"I have tried finger painting," Dream tells him. He takes the piece out of the folder and shows it to Hob.

It had been interesting, at least. Distracted him for a moment. Made him think about the way children make art, before becoming mired in theory and technique.

He had considered bringing one of his usual pieces to demonstrate to Hob what he's meant to be able to do, in case that would be helpful, but it's still painful to look at them.

Hob takes the painting and stares at it with wide eyes. "How is this actually good?"

Dream should probably be offended by his incredulity but instead he just finds it amusing. "I had lots of time to spend."

He has, once again, painted a bunch of cats, all different colors, cluttering the page. It's simple, and lets him avoid thinking about his more conceptual pieces he hasn't been able to work on.

"Wow," Hob says, propping the painting carefully against the wall by his computer. "Okay. Good work going above and beyond on the instructions, Dream."

That praise alone shouldn't make something in his chest start glowing. But it does.

"It did not hurt... much," he says tentatively, before Hob can ask. "However, with a brush..."

It is incredibly frustrating. It's like his body continually wishes to betray him. He's lost his home and everything he owns and now he cannot even have his art.

"Give it some time," Hob says, reasonably. He is much more patient, and optimistic, than Dream.

He makes Dream draw and write again. It's... perhaps marginally easier after the exercises Hob had given him. Still, he finds himself getting frustrated by the weakness of his grip. And the more frustrated he gets, the tighter he grips the pencil. He knows he shouldn't. But.

"Lighter," Hob tells him, and Dream glares at him. Hob raises his hands. "Not telling you how to do your art. Just telling you how not to hurt your hand."

Dream bites down on his annoyance, but loosens his grip.

He doesn't see very much progress, but Hob seems satisfied. He makes Dream run through some other strengthening exercises, which... don't hurt as much as Dream was expecting them to. He'd expected that this whole process would be nothing but gritting his teeth through agonizing pain, to minimal results. Perhaps Death is right, and he should be less pessimistic.

In any case, Hob seems proud of him at the end. Even if Dream doesn't think he's done anything to be proud of.

But he does leave, perhaps, slightly more hopeful than he entered. And he wants to come back. At least to see Hob again.

~~

Hob doesn't know if it's patronizing to be proud of Dream, but he is. Over the last few sessions, his grip has improved a lot. Dream doesn't seem to see it, but that's alright. Hob does. He's been keeping all of Dream's drawings. They are getting better.

Hob is pretty good at optimism. But even so, it somehow hadn't occurred to him that quiet and morose wasn't Dream's natural state. That is until he sees the joy that lights up in him the first time he's able to draw a cat without his hand shaking. Dream smiles so wide, like he isn't even aware Hob is still watching him, and Hob realizes that there is lightness to him. It's just been buried down.

The time after that, Dream even brings some of his old art to show. Hob's been dying to see it for ages, but hasn't pressed. And Dream's art is gorgeous. Hob can understand, now, why he'd been dissatisfied with those first cats he'd drawn, no matter how charming Hob had found them. His big pieces are so finely detailed, so precise. It's... possibly going to take a bit more time to get him back to that than Hob had thought. But he's determined.

But Dream seems happy to be sharing his art, doesn't fold in on himself this time just to mention it. He talks with enthusiasm about his process, the most words Hob's heard him say in... well, ever. Hob tells him that he's made enough progress to pick up painting--with brush, not fingers--again if he wants, but not to beat himself up if it doesn't look the same as his old ones. And for once, it seems like Dream actually accepts the instruction not to berate himself.

All of this is, most certainly, the reason Hob does the insane thing he does next.

He's organizing his records, having already walked Dream out, when he hears raised voices from out on the walkway. The front door is still open a crack, he realizes, so the sound carries.

"Come on, you're overreacting," says an unfamiliar, male voice. "I said I won't do it again, didn't I?"

"Do not," Dream replies, voice anxious, but determined, "follow me."

"Well if you'd just pick up your phone--"

Hob steps outside. An unfamiliar man--the ex-boyfriend, Hob assumes, he doesn't know his name, hasn't asked, doesn't care--has Dream cornered in the doorway. His posture doesn't immediately scream rage or aggression, which is more unnerving rather than less, considering this is the same person who'd snapped and broken Dream's hand.

And Dream looks scared. Under the mask of stoicism he likes to wear. Any cheer or hope he'd gained from today's session has evaporated, and he looks like he did before, when he'd first come to Hob's office, curled in on himself. It breaks Hob's heart. And makes him angry.

"Stop being selfish and just--" the ex-boyfriend continues. Hob means to cut in and diffuse the situation. Tell him to leave in a reasonably professional manner.

Instead he punches him in the face.

Ex-boyfriend's nose goes crunch in an extremely satisfying way, and he reels back with a shriek, hands going to his face. Dream startles back, hands clutched around his art portfolio.

"What the FUCK!" yells ex-boyfriend, voice nasally from the blood running down his face. "You can't just-- this is assault! I'll call the cops!"

Oh he wants to go there, does he? "You wanna talk about assault?" Hob says, voice rising in volume. Dream edges behind him, though Hob's not sure he's fully aware he's doing so. "You want to get police involved, that's really what you want?"

Ex-boyfriend looks from Hob to Dream and back, hesitating. That's fucking right, Hob thinks. Not so easy to kick someone around when there's consequences, huh?

It helps that Hob is visibly stronger than Dream, and spends all day physically moving people around. If ex-boyfriend tries anything he's going to get put on the ground.

Finally he retreats, though with a look of rage towards Hob. Once he's gone, Dream finally seems to relax, some of the tension easing from his shoulders.

"You did not need to," he murmurs.

Hob shakes his head. "No one gets to come and threaten you here. Particularly not that dickhead."

Dream huffs a small laugh. Then he picks up Hob's hand, studying it. Hob winces. It's certainly going to bruise.

"Now you will need physical therapy," Dream says, lips twitching. Hob's glad for the humor in his voice.

Hob laughs. "Worth it."

"No one has..." Dream starts, slowly, "done something like that. For me."

It hurts, to think that no one's stood up for him. Or even let him know that someone should stand up for him.

"If he comes back I'll do it again," Hob says, and gets a tentative smile from Dream.

Then asks, "Does he know where you live?"

Dream frowns. "I do not think so."

"Want me to walk you home?"

He doubts Dream's ex-boyfriend will come back to the office now that he knows Hob's willing to deck him, but that doesn't mean he won't try to corner Dream elsewhere.

Dream deliberates, then says, "Would you?"

"'Course, love. Just let me lock the place up."

He doesn't realize what he's said until he's already turned back to lock the door. Shit. Today has already gone so far beyond what he's supposed to do as Dream's physical therapist, and now...

In the end, Dream doesn't call him out on it. But he does stick close to Hob's side as they walk, and occasionally when Hob looks over at him, he catches a tiny smile on his face.

[it-was-summer]

Video Killed the Radio Star - Tape #3 (Spencer Reid x Fem!reader)

A/N: I am exhausted this weekend so if at some point you feel like the writing shows that DON'T BE ALARMED. It is simply just me fighting back the urge to go to bed. The chapter does contain a good amount of sexual assault and violence so please, please, please be mindful of that while reading. I love all the comments here and Ao3, they make my day! I have also been noticing a lot of love towards the original of this series and I appreciate everyone for taking their time to read the remake! Please know that as of right now this thing IS NOT PROOFREAD I JUST NEED TO GET IT OUT! Stay safe, healthy, and happy! -Love, Em.

Video Killed the Radio Star Remake Masterlist

Link to the Ao3: Video Killed the Radio Star

Previous Chapter: Tape #2 > Next Chapter: Tape #4

WARNING: Cancer mentioned, sexual assault, blood, knife, cutting, mentions of death, death threats. Remember that you are not alone.

Tape Contents: Spencer and Derek are sent to discuss your abduction with Adeline. You fight back a sexual and physical attack from Heather. Heather reveals her plans for what will happen if anyone finds you.

Word Count: 4,029

March 5, 20XX

Spencer wasn’t too fond of hospitals, but he was fond of children. He interacted with them, loving that he could see how they processed information–new and old—every day. He loved Henry to bits, the way the kid was so willing to listen to Spencer’s ramblings or the way he was so amazed at a magic trick Spencer was doing. 

Sick kids were a tragically different story, not that he didn’t like them. He always felt like… well, he was having a hard time conceptualizing it as he weaved through the crowded lobby. The pediatrics oncology unit was too packed for his liking. Statistically, he knew that one in two hundred eighty-five children could be diagnosed with some form of cancer before they hit twenty. That didn’t mean he had to like weaving through a small crowd of parents, doctors, and nurses on the way to room two hundred thirty with Morgan. There it was –the words for that feeling– watching someone younger than himself not being able to experience life at thirty. 

After finding the friendship keychain, Hotch decided that Reid and Morgan should find your alleged ride-or-die, Adeline Smith. Meanwhile, Hotch and Prentiss would drive to Norfolk to talk to your mother. Rossi and JJ were handling some information with the police, so they were all paired away. 

Derek and he slipped into the hospital room that housed Adeline and her daughter, Nicole. His chest tightened involuntarily at the sight of a mother stroking her daughter’s head, a smile on both of their faces. Derek was quick to speak, “Excuse me,” The mother and daughter jumped at the noise, and their eyes snapped to the hospital room door. “I’m Special Agent Derek Morgan, and this is Doctor Spencer Reid. We just have some questions.” His hands dug into his jacket pocket to pull out the badge, muscle memory for both.

Adeline’s hand fell from her daughter's hairless head to her shoulder, her fingers giving it a light squeeze. “Questions regarding?” She asked with a curious expression as she stood up, a skeptical look in her eyes. 

Spencer’s eyes met Nicole’s for a second, a small smile rising to his lips, and she gave him a nervous smile right back. He moved his gaze over to Adeline, who was now standing with her arms folded across her chest as she waited for the two men to answer her question. Derek looked over his shoulder at Spencer, then back at Adeline. He gently motioned for her to follow him to a slightly more private area to talk to her, the two moving to a corner of the room near the bathroom.

“Were you aware that Y/N L/N was being stalked?” Derek’s voice was calm as Spencer approached Nicole’s bedside chair and sat in it awkwardly. 

Spencer motioned towards the girl’s stuffed animal, a bright orange cat that sat in between her legs. “I love cats,” he said in a soft voice. 

Nicole beamed at him, grabbed the stuffed cat, and happily petted the top of its head: “Me too! This is Bee.” 

“Bee? Do you like Bees?” 

Adeline’s eyes strayed to Spencer's conversation with her daughter, and she nodded a little at Derek’s question: “We talked about it. She went to the police.” She said, a little numbly, before her head suddenly snapped towards him. “Why?” 

“She was taken from her apartment on March third. She recorded videos for the police to send to us, the Behavioral Analysis Unit, to help find her.” Derek explained gently as he watched Adeline’s face go pale. 

Adeline grabbed her clothed chest and searched for a breath, her eyes wild as she looked at Derek’s face. Her eyes began searching for some hint in his face that he was lying, but she found none. She couldn’t stop the tears that were filling her waterline, and she turned her body away from her daughter and Spencer in a desperate attempt to hide her tears from her daughter. Her knees felt weak as she tried to breathe. 

Spencer glanced back at Adeline and Derek, scooting a little to obstruct Nicole’s field of vision. He didn’t want the young girl to see her mother cry. Nicole shook her head slightly at his question, “No, not really. Auntie Y/N got her for me, and she loves bees.” She laughed softly, her words making Spencer’s heart melt a little. 

“Is Bee your favorite?” 

The girl covered the cat’s plush ears and smiled like she had a secret. “No, but she is my second favorite.” Her fingers scratched the stuffed animal’s ears gently. “Mr. Business is my first,” she whispered to him. 

“Ah, and where is Mr. Business?” His eyes searched her hospital bed, and then he spotted a stuffed cat, a tuxedo cat. He grinned a little, and he motioned to the stuffed animal with his eyes, “Mr. Business is a very fitting name, I think,” 

Adeline held out a hand for some space from Derek, and the hand clutching her chest came up to her mouth as she tried to keep from vomiting all over him. She had been stuck in this hospital when you had called her that first night. Having always loved talking to you, she answered enthusiastically. Still, the more she listened to the situation, the more she realized she didn’t have the emotional strength to comfort you the way you needed. And she said that to you. She said that to you. She couldn’t help you then, and she couldn’t help you now. She couldn’t even help her own daughter. 

A sob rose in her throat, and she shook her head rapidly. “No, no, no, we talked on that day. Th-That night,” She recounted softly to Derek through her tears. 

“What did you talk about?” Derek whispered the question softly as his eyes searched the room for some tissues, but his search was futile. He places a gentle hand on Adeline’s shoulder instead. 

“We talked about college; she wanted her mind off of things, so we talked about our apartment when we were in grad school. It’s been two days! What have you been doing for two days while my best friend went missing?” Her cheeks were red, her fingers pointing accusingly at him before she sobbed softly, and her hand was moving back up to wrap around her mouth to muffle the sound. 

“She didn’t show up to work on March fifth. That's when she was reported missing. We’re doing everything we can. What time did the two of you talk?” 

“W-we talked around nine, maybe nine-thirty?” She whispered back softly before she started to breathe heavily again. “Why didn’t I call? I should have called again. It was getting so late, and she had locked all the doors, and I thought she was just being anxious. I should have called her again. I should have left the hospital to visit her.” Her mind was spiraling, the neverending rabbit hole that showed her all the ways she could have saved her best friend, unhinged its proverbial jaw and swallowed her whole, ready to digest.  

Morgan wasn’t necessarily new to the information, as Penelope had already told him about your call logs from that evening, but he always liked to hear it be confirmed. It also helped him place an estimate of the time of your abduction. “Could you tell me about anyone, anyone at all, that might have been a little too into Y/N? Any ex-boyfriends that refused to leave her alone? Did she break up with anyone around Christmas?” 

“No, she hasn’t dated anyone for almost a year.” Adeline sighed thickly and shook her head as she tried to calm down. “No, all her ex-boyfriends, they were always so mousy. ” She sighed, “And they always look alike,” she paused and gave a soft, sad chuckle, motioning over to where Spencer was as he continued to entertain her daughter. “Well, they all look like your Doctor friend, if I’m being honest. She’s always been too nice for her own good, even in college.”

Spencer tried to talk over the sobs that could be heard from the corner of the hospital room, clearing his throat or laughing as Nicole stumbled through a story. “She’s a loud crier,” Nicole whispered with a gentle pat on Bee’s head. 

Spencer frowned as his efforts failed him, and he looked over his shoulder at Morgan, who was looking at him with a similarly sympathetic look on his face. He was about to say something when Nicole shoved Bee toward him, “You should give this to Auntie Y/N. Mommy said she was sad the other day. Bee always helps.” 

Spencer turned the stuffed animal over in his hands, and he debated telling her the truth, but thankfully, his better judgment decided against it. “It’ll be the first thing I do when I see her,” Spencer promised softly as Nicole smiled wide at him. 

As Derek and he walked out of the hospital, Derek’s eyes stayed on the stuffed orange cat in Spencer’s hands. As they pushed past a small group of people, Spencer found himself almost slamming into a pretty nurse, a gorgeous nurse. Her blue eyes blinked as she shuffled to one side, only to be unintentionally blocked by Spencer once more. She sighed a little and gave him a once over with a frown. Her eyes lingered on the gun holstered against his hip before she gave him a polite smile and said, “Excuse me,” and slipped past the two men with a determined look in her eyes.  

Derek only said something when they got into the parking lot, the two of them walking to the black SUV, “Did you pick one up at the gift shop?” 

Spencer groaned softly, making Derek chuckle as he walked around the car’s front to the passenger seat. “Open the door,” He said bluntly. When they were both inside the car, Spencer carefully placed the stuffed animal in his bag, and Derek chuckled again at the sight, turning the key. 

“You didn’t even buy me one,” 

March 5, 20XX

You were assuming Heather was angry with you. The assumption wasn’t baseless as the hunger in your stomach growled. You were quick to find that the harmony between a full stomach and morphine did matter and that harmony had left you many hours prior. You also were basing the assumption as you had spent what must have been a whole day fighting off tears and nausea. 

The sick part was that you were beginning to get used to how your body got swarmed with heavy, hot, and benevolent warmth. The dull pain in your ankle was silenced under the warmth’s blanket of kindness. It reminded you of a heated blanket in a strange way. 

You had finished the sips of your water before falling asleep and regretting it. You had learned that the bucket off to the side of the dresser was the perfect distance from the bed. Your broken ankle was dragging against the carpet with every movement.  The chain around your good ankle didn’t snag as you sluggishly managed to hold your body up against the wall to pee into the bucket.

Once you were done, you hopped on your good leg and managed to pull your clothes back on. Your body fell face-first onto the bed, eliciting a soft groan from your lips as you found your body reluctant to move from its new home. 

You closed your eyes and fell into the position, letting the bed sink in deeper. Your eyes snapped open with a sense of alertness that you hadn’t felt in hours as you heard the first click of a lock. Your arms weakly managed to push yourself up into a sitting position, pushing yourself back to your former position against the headboard. Your head throbbed at the fast movement, and your vision blurred as you tried to focus on the door. 

When it slowly opened, you sucked in a small breath of air, watching as Heather slid into the room with a tray of food. “Hello, my Catherine.” She sighed as she shoved the keys into her scrub pocket with one balanced hand. “My, my, someone is looking pale today.” She asked as she sat down in the chair off the side of the bed with a gentle, pretty smile. 

You nodded a little. Your lips were numb as you licked them. “What day is it?” Your voice came out quiet and strangled. 

“Monday,” She stated simply as she twisted the top off a bottle of apple juice. She handed it over to your already waiting hands before she carefully lowered the morphine drip’s intake level. You greedily drank the juice without thinking twice, desperate to get something in your stomach. 

You panted lightly as you pulled the half-empty bottle away from your lips, “Th-the date, I mean,” 

“March fifth,” She rolled her eyes as she carefully rearranged a neatly made turkey sandwich on a paper plate, slowly placing the plate on the edge of the bed for you to take. “You moved in here early Saturday morning, don’t you remember?” she laughed out like it was the silliest thing she had ever heard. 

You felt your mouth start to move to correct her, to tell her that you didn’t move in; she had kidnapped you. But as you stared at the turkey sandwich on the edge of the bed, you realized that playing along would be better. Playing along meant more food and less nausea. Playing along meant living longer. “Right,” You said breathlessly as you pulled the paper plate to your lap. “How could I forget?” 

Heather smiled a little as she watched you bite into the sandwich, happy to see you adjusting. You were eating so fast that she was a little worried about your empty stomach. She didn’t want to make feeding you so sporadically a habit. But yesterday, when she came up with a food tray, she thought about your rudeness and how cruel you had been to her. It made her stomach twist into angry knots. She decided that not feeding you for a day would be a lesson.

“I’m so happy our first fight is over. I hate to be angry with you, Catherine.” Heather’s sweet tone wasn’t lost on you as she touched your arm gently. Your chewing slowed for a second before you swallowed, your eyes glued to her hand on your arm. 

“I picked out every gift just for you,” She sighed softly as she traced soft circles against your skin. You fought back the urge to pull your arm away. “You’re a hopeless romantic, you know? You remember in college when you and Adeline dressed up as Lizzie and Jane Bennet. No one got it but god,” She sighed, her eyes finding yours as you stayed frozen. 

The hand on your arm slowly reached for the paper plate on your lap. Your fingers twitched a little as you fought back the urge to grab the food as she placed the plate on the nightstand beside your bed. Everything was happening so fast and yet incredibly slow at the same time.

Then she stood up and crawled onto the bed, swinging one leg over your lap before stranding you with a white smile. Her hands came to cup your face and tilt it up. A soft sigh fell from her lips. “You’ve always been brilliant,” 

You shook your head in her hands lightly. The warmth of the morphine was slow to leave your body, but as your body filled with an intense feeling of dread, you could feel everything. Your ankle throbbed sharply, and you were starting to feel like you were about to be sick again. “I’m not,” 

Heather threw her head back and laughed as if it was the funniest thing she had ever heard. When she lowered her head to meet your gaze again, she leaned closer, one of her thumbs reaching up to trace your bottom lip. You cringed a little at the feeling, a sight that she ignored. “You’ve always been so humble, too. How did I get so lucky?” She whispered as she leaned in to kiss your lips softly. 

You felt your lips tighten and bile rise to your throat, and you swallowed it. You let her kiss you once, then twice, then a third time. Your lips stayed closed in a tight line as you tried to imagine yourself in a different position, but with every touch Heather placed on you, the more you stayed cemented in your reality. 

Heather pulled back with a look in her eyes that you could recognize as crazed lust. You didn’t want to. You didn’t want to know what her hands felt like anymore. You bit your lip to silence a whimper. Her hands pulled roughly at your shirt as she grabbed the hem of it and pulled it over your head with a simple yank. 

You shook your head quickly now, “No, Heather, I-I’m not ready. I don’t-” 

She shushed you softly with a gentle smile as she traced the swell of your breast slowly, the touch eliciting your tears to pool over your waterline. “I know you’re worried, but I’m going to take care of you, I promise.” Her eyes lingered on the prominent bruise on the center of your chest. She frowned, leaning down carefully to kiss the blue and black patch of skin. 

“No,” You cried softly, your voice soft before you decided that you couldn’t take it anymore. “No!” You yelled, causing her back to straighten and sit up. 

“I’m sorry?” She asked with a soft scoff. 

“I-I can’t do it, I’m not ready. I don’t want to, Heather. Please don’t make me.” You begged softly as tears rolled down your face. “I’ll try next time, I promise. I just, please, please don’t make me.” 

Heather frowned a little before she let out a harsh laugh, her arms folding over her chest tightly. She looked down at you, “You know I saw your precious little Adeline today,” 

You felt your back tense at Adeline's mention, “What? I thought you worked in pediatrics, not pediatric oncology. W-why did you see Adeline?” 

Heather reached out a hand to press on your bruise roughly, the feeling making you wince. “I work in pediatric oncology. Sometimes, I help Nicole. I loved it when you visited her at the hospital. It was almost too easy to steal the copy of your apartment key from Adeline. She doesn’t love you as much as I love you, you know that, right?” 

You shook your head, and you cried harder as you realized that you had never even noticed her at the hospital. Your focus has always been so zoned in on Nicole or Adeline that you didn’t even register Heather’s presence. Would Adeline remember Heather? You doubted it. 

“She talked to some agents or something and was inconsolable. Fucking useless friend of yours. Anyway, I ran into them in the hallway. Scrawny kid with some buff guy, I’m sure Adeline called them.” 

You found your hands grabbing her hand on your chest and shook your head side-to-side. “No, Adeline doesn’t know. I didn’t tell her anything. I didn’t, I promise.” 

Heather’s eyes met yours briefly before they trailed down to your bare chest and your hands holding onto her wrist. “Say you love me more than her then,” 

“I-I, what?” 

“Say it.” 

You opened your mouth, but all that came out were gentle sobs as you tried to form the words, terrified that she was about to do something to Adeline. The thought of Heather hurting Adeline had you gasping softly for air. 

Her eyes were on yours again as you panted softly, “You don’t love me?” Her spit hit your cheek as she hissed the words in rageful disbelief. She was off your lap in seconds as she moved to the dresser and quickly pulled out a small pairing knife. 

“Wait,” You cried softly as you tried to hurry away from her, making a vain attempt to get up from the bed that was meant with a howl of pain from your ankle and your body slumping over the edge lamely. 

Her hands grabbed your ankles, good and injured, and pulled you roughly to the edge of the bed. A scream left your throat at the contact. “You think I’m going to let them find you?” She questioned in a suspiciously calm voice as she grazed the smooth side of the knife against your collarbone.

You stayed frozen as she leaned in closer, her lips at the shell of your ear, “If they ever found you, Emma. I would kill you and then myself. I’ve already decided. We have to be together,” Her voice in your ear had you breathing harder as she slowly pressed the tip of the knife into the area above your heart. 

The knife only stung at first before it felt like a ripping pain. Heather dragged the knife into your skin with a deliberate sense of control. Not too deep, not too superficial. Something she wouldn’t have to stitch up. She made a diagonal line before staring a few inches apart from the other cut. “We belong together, Jane.” 

You cried out again as she started dragging the knife into your skin once more, “Please,” 

“You just need to open your heart. If they ever found us, I need to mark where to shoot. Stay still.” 

As Heather got close to completing the ‘X’ mark on your chest, marking you as a possible target. You felt your body thrash under her weakly. The edge of one of the lines skewed to the left, and Heather let out an annoyed groan before she pulled the knife away from your chest and to your lips. “Stop fucking crying,” She growled as she slashed at your bottom lip. 

You hissed at the feeling as blood coated your chest and filled your mouth. You stared up at her as soft sobs kept leaving your mouth, “Fuck you.” You muttered before gathering as much spit as you could in your mouth and shooting it directly at her. 

You laughed as it made contact with her cheek, and she wiped the bloody spit away with the back of her hand. She laughed harshly as she nodded a little, “Okay, so you want to be a brat.” She laughed. 

She was sliding off the bed now, leaving you lying on your back, her chest rising and falling quickly as she gripped the pairing knife in her hand tighter. “Enjoy the rest of your meal. It’ll be your last one, Emma.” She snapped at you before stomping to the door and flying it open. 

Once she was gone, you stayed there, staring up at the ceiling wordlessly. You licked at the cut on your lip gently as blood flowed freely into your mouth. You swallowed the copper-tasting liquid as you let the consequences sink in. She was going to kill you if they found you, and you had already called for a team of highly trained professionals to come to find you. 

You almost laughed at the irony. You didn’t want them to find you. You did want them to find you. It was almost hilarious. You tried to smile with your cut lip but found the action too painful to manage. 

You didn’t want to die at twenty-eight. You wanted to see your mom again, Adeline, Nicole, hell, you wanted to go to work one more time. You rolled onto your stomach and cringed the way the fluffy comforter grazed the bleeding “X” on your chest. You reached for the morphine drip and rolled it closer as you slowly turned a knob and upped the intake. Your shaking hands then moved to the sandwich on the nightstand with a sigh. 

She could kill you when they found you, but if she thought you weren’t going to try and manipulate the situation, she was dead wrong. You weakly bit into the sandwich while trying to think of a plan. 

You refused to die without leaving a mark.

TAG LIST: @babyspiderling @cocobean16 @kodzukenie333 @mmmunson

[eveningrainstorm]

my take on teenage raz and lili!

some design notes under the cut:

They're intended to be about 16 here! I didn't go for anything too drastic in terms of changes -- these are largely just what I'd consider natural evolutions of their canon designs

For Raz, my main focus besides just making him look older was to add a bit more resemblance to the other Aquatos in his design, since his relationship with them wouldn't be strained like it is during canon

Raz is shown with very straight hair in canon, but since most of his family's hair is more wavy or curly I tend to imagine he styles it that way on purpose as part of his Sasha Nein cosplay or whatever. He wouldn't still feel the need to do that at this point, though, so for this design I wanted to make it more curly, similar to Augustus or Frazie, while still similar to his canon style. This turned out to be incredibly difficult and I'm still not entirely happy with where I landed, but it's good enough

I didn't think he would still wear the helmet but I didn't want to discard it entirely, so the goggles were a compromise. I meant to give them some visible scratches and wear and tear since they're presumably the same goggles he's been wearing since he was 10, but I forgot. rip

Obviously the most notable change to Raz's outfit is the scarf -- I wanted something that would tie him visually to the other Aquatos while still fitting with his general look. I imagine they gave it to him as a gift, sort of an acknowledgement that even if he doesn't perform with them as an acrobat, doing his Psychonaut work is his own way of being an Aquato

Raz's outfit here is honestly very similar to his PN2 outfit. This is because in my eyes "long coat and turtleneck" is Peak Character Design and cannot be improved on. (Hence why I may not be the best person to redesign Raz.) He has an actual coat rather than just an oversized blazer this time though, so that's an improvement. With the turtleneck I was was vaguely intending for it to be color-wise something of a middle ground between the Sasha-style green striped turtleneck and the Aquato blue/green and white stripes, but it ended up basically just being the PN1 stripes with the PN2 color. which, you know, that works

I went back and forth on what their heights should be -- I thought it would be kind of funny if Raz ended up short and Lili ended up taller than him, but then I decided to just make them more in line with their families, with Raz being tall and lanky and Lili being average verging on short. Except then I accidentally made Lili tall anyway because I was only vaguely considering her height relative to Raz. I guess Lili's probably taller than her dad now? good for her ig

Most of their facial features are just slight variations of how they look in canon -- slightly smaller eyes and so on. the only real specific change is that Lili has a more defined nose now, similar in shape to her father's

Lili's outfit here is more different from either of her canon outfits than Raz's is, but there's still not much that really requires a ton of explanation. The goal was to make her look vaguely cool and fashionable, although as I am neither of those things I cannot guarantee I was successful

I tried a couple different hairstyles for Lili, and I'm still not entirely set on this one -- Originally what I settled on was to give her two braids, which I did like, but I kept doing sketches of her where I just drew the top part of the hair and was like "ngl this kind of works on its own" and so I ended up going with the short hair. I also briefly tried an asymmetrical haircut but I couldn't get it to look right. I think this one suits her though

Lili's tattoo (on her left wrist) was a later addition to the design, and even in the later stages of drawing this I wasn't sure whether to keep it. I like it conceptually I just haven't figured out a consistent design for it yet, only that it has to be of plants

god these notes got way longer than I meant them to be I am so sorry. Uh basically I'm still figuring out the details of these designs but for now here's Raz and Lili, they're teenagers now, thanks for reading

[dorianwolfforest]

Hello I can’t stop thinking about all the stuff Harry can just. Carry around. And therefor I’ve decided the frittte bag is actually a bag of holding.

///

“Please tell me you brought everything with you when we left.” Jean has barely stepped foot into the precinct when a realization seems to come over him. You’re not sure you understand. “The gun, for example. Please tell me you have all of your shit, on your person, with you, because I’m not driving you back.”

“Oh sure”, you say, raising the frittte bag you used to haul things around with you. “Should be in here.” You didn’t need to pack as you left, everything you picked up during the investigation, you would keep in the bag.

“Should be.” He repeats with barely concealed disdain. “Check.”

You stick your hand into the bag, fingers latching onto something cold and metallic. That’ll show them, you think, as you pull out… the Kvaalsund multi-tool. The gathered crowd stares in silent disbelief at the small, pathetic little plastic bag which had somehow held both the length and weight of the multi-tool. Okay, that wasn’t your gun. Try again. The chain cutters, prybar, and flashlight all come out as you fish around for metallic objects. Kim doesn’t mention that those are technically his and probably shouldn’t be in there at all. The rest of them blink slowly as a green monkey pen, a cube that looks too valuable not to sell for some kind of substance, and several tare bottles which you insist you found on the street, appear on the desk in rapid succession. You even fish out a board game that Judit picks up and looks over. She considers telling the rest of the precinct it could be a good bonding exercise, but the realization hits that the rest of the precinct would turn it into a drinking game. Kim must realize it too, because he doesn’t tell Judit how great Suzerainty is and how you should all play it sometime. You guess you’ll have to raise that brilliant idea to the group on your own.

Eventually you tire, and turn the bag upside-down. Piles upon piles of clothes, some worn, some not, all stolen, spill out in droves on your desk. Your badge lands gently on top. No one says anything. It’s too weird to say anything, as if reality itself will hear them point out that the bag shouldn’t be able to contain most of these things and realize what a conceptual horror exists within it. You stick your hand in one last time, and finally your fingers clasp around the barrel of your gun.

“Bada-bing, badaboom!” You shout, triumphantly, as you pull it out. Attached to the other end, as if glued to the handle, is a small child’s hand, followed by an arm. Cuno’s red hair and face follow the gun out of the frittte bag.

“Fuck does Cuno care! Finders keepers, pig.” He spits, and tries to pry your grip off of the gun. Was he attached to the gun when you put it in there, or did he crawl into the bag himself as you were about to leave?

It would be so fucking funny to let him go, INLAND EMPIRE whispers, it would be so funny to just drop the gun and let him run wild in the precinct. He could live in the walls, with a gun! You give Cuno a small smile, and he scowls back, questioning your intention. Clearly, you two aren’t on the same soundless communication wavelength yet, but Kim notices it. Jean notices it. As your hand loosens around the gun, they descend upon Cuno like wolves upon a chicken.

Kim’s “Absolutely not, officer!” and Jean’s “What the fuck do you think you’re doing!?” are drowned out as you bellow “RUN, CUNO, RUN!” And Cuno takes off, deep into the precinct, shrill laughter scattering against the halls like light bouncing off of a disco ball. Possibly never to be seen again. Yeah, you’re pretty proud of that decision.

LOGIC - “He definitely got in on his own. You would have noticed a child attached to your gun.”

[fipindustries]

my joker

i already made a post where i descrived my personal favourite version of the DC trinity. now, under the light of the joker sequel apparently sucking ass (dont spoil it, i still want to see it) i decided i might as well share my personal favourite interpretation of the joker.

to start with i like to see him as a bit of a tragic figure, and very patently just a man. i have no interest in the current primordial agent of chaos, madness and anarchy that popular culture has been so infatuated with as of lately.

this is going to borrow heavily from the 90's DCAU and the old comics, before we had all this nonesense about the batgod who laughs or whatever. first of all he is a criminal, he commits crimes because they are useful to him. he has two modes, resource gathering and big project. first he steals from banks or extorts rich people or takes parts of the city hostage and demands the police or the mayor to give him money. he then uses the money for some absurd gigantic "prank" on the city. like releasing a bunch of rabid gorillas in tutus and boxing gloves, or making cats and dogs rain. is all about the stupid silly gags. i dont think having him return to silly cartoon gag comedy would necesarily make him any less horrifying since a lot of these things (dropping pianos on people, painting fake tunnels so that cars crash into them, hiding spring loaded boxing gloves in mail boxes that can genuenly kick your teeth out) are sufficiently horrifying on their own when you bring real world consequences into them. but the key thing is that he should be genuenly funny. to us. the readers, safely protected behind the fourth wall. where we can laugh at the jokes because this is fiction and these are just drawings on a page and so we can appreciate that the concept is actually clever and hilarious. i really dont like it when they make the joker commit attrocities and just because they put some smiley faces on top of it is supposed to be funny. is so lazy when the joker's plan consists on throwing a bunch of bombs but because they had the words "HAHAHA" painted on them its conceptually related to comedy. no! the pranks the joker pulls should actually work as funny pranks that people would probably actually laugh at if they saw them in a looney tunes cartoon or if noone died.

i like to think of the joker as someone who is a little lost in his own sauce, as someone who on a certain level doesnt get that his pranks are truly that bad. like sure, he understands its "illegal" or whatever and that people generally dont like to be blown up or poisoned. but also, seriously, what's the big deal? its funny! its all a joke! i dont think someone should go to jail for genuenly funny crimes your honor. is it really that bad is everyone is laughing at the end? and if they are not laughing, well they just didnt get the joke.

as for his relationship with batman, i always loved how they are clearly such a distinct dichotomy. batman is dark and scary but he is good. joker is funny and colorful but he is evil. its the simple irony at the core of it.

and i think this is the main obsession with him, he wants to make the batman get it. Moore already decried the killing joke as flawed and not very good, and i see where he is coming from, but one aspect of it i really take home is the joker trying to make the batman understand. trying to make him get the joke. this is the tragedy at the center of the character, he wants to connect with batman. and if there is one thing that upsets him to no end is that the batman never fucking gets it, he just comes in as a party pooper with a stick up his ass, ruins the fun, doesnt crack a joke, is all grimm and morose and scowling like a bad parody of judge dread and then goes away after putting him in jail. he is personally offended by this, he gets genuenly aggravated, how is it possible? get over yourself dude. dont you see how ridiculous you look? you are dressed like a giant bat! and im a clown! come on, you have to admit this is at least a little silly, you HAVE to at least crack a smirk!

when the first trailer for the dark knight came out there was a beat the trailer kept going back to over and over. a line that now is a popular catchphrase on every t-shirt. when i heard that line, with heath ledger's particular delivery of it, out of context (which made it sound like it was adressed to the bat directly, perhaps during their last confrontation when they are at each other's throats) i thought they got it. i thought i was going to see the joker as i had envisioned him all those years ago. because truly nothing could capture better the feeling of a man trying desperatly to make another understand its all a joke, than the pleading, growling, almost desperate question: why so serious?

[incorrectbatfam]

Who's rhe first to call Selina mom?

When she started dating Bruce Wayne, Selina was aware of the package he came with. The demons, the sleepless nights, the weight of the city—hell, sometimes the fate of the universe—on his shoulders. While she didn't set out to fix him, she was ready to take some of the burden.

She was also aware of the other components of the package. Once the initial surprise wore off, the sight of jackets and batarangs strewn about became something she expected. At any given moment, there was a quarrel to break up or a homework assignment to find five minutes before they were supposed to leave. If she had a balloon for every time Dick used up the fancy shampoo, she could finally fulfill her April Fool's dream of filling the entire Batcave.

Conceptually, she knew what she was getting herself into, but it didn't psych her up the way getting indicted to the Justice League did. It was a given. The sky was blue, Harley loved Ivy, and Bruce Wayne collected strays.

The M-word never crossed her mind. She wasn't one. She was just Selina. Selina, who tied Jason's tie the first time he went to a gala. Selina, who packed Cass's patrol snacks, helped Duke with his science project, and took Damian to buy new shoes. But those were simply tasks, like any others that Bruce or Alfred did. She didn't rescue them off the streets or give them any reason to trust her. She showed up, looked around, and decided that in a place like Gotham, this wasn't the worst room to be in.

After some trial and error, she found her place their routine. Which included nights like these, when the city was calmer and they only needed half capacity. Batman had taken Robin, Orphan, Hood, and Signal out with him. Dick was treating Barbara to a well-deserved date while Alfred manned the computers. Tim was working on either a case or office work—she wasn't sure—in his room (which, by the way, needed some serious vacuuming). And Selina, who had a sudden craving for breakfast, flipped an omelet over in a sizzling plan.

The fridge beside her opened. After rooting around for a minute, Tim emerged with the pickle jar under his arm. He nudged the door shut with his foot as he scrolled through his phone, music audible through his earbuds.

"Careful, you don't wanna lose your hearing," she said.

He turned it down. "Do we have any peanut butter?"

"Check the top right pantry."

"Cool." He sniffled.

She turned the stove down. "Something wrong?"

"Just a little under the weather," he said.

She touched her hand to his forehand. "No fever. That's good, at least. Remember to take breaks."

He hummed and went back upstairs.

Selina started the electric kettle, and while it boiled, she finished her food and loaded her few things into the dishwasher. Then, she grabbed one of her cat mugs, poured the water in, and steeped a chamomile tea bag for a few minutes before bringing it up.

She knocked softly. After getting the "come in," she carefully stepped over a box of case files.

"This should help," she said, setting the tea on his desk.

"Thanks Mom," he said, eyes glued to the screen.

She smiled. "Don't stay up too late." And gently closed the door behind her.

[the-owl-tree]

I'm sorry if I've asked you this before, I genuinely don't remember, but why does everyone dislike yellowfang's secret? I like it a lot as a story, I find her powers silly but no one seems to have that issue... What is it?

It's been a while since I've read it so I'm going off of memory but my general reasons why I had so many problems getting through the book were:

Yellowfang herself isn't really Yellowfang? She's not snappy or grumpy and doesn't really act in the same way she does in TNP. She's just kind of the punching bag of the book without any of her signature sass to at least make her as a protagonist enjoyable.

The power in itself is an unnecessary retcon, it's only there to force Yellowfang into becoming a medcat and, well, there lies an even bigger issue: we are once again recycling the plotline of a cat forced to be a medcat when oooghgh they just wanna be average :( it's frustrating to me that Yellowfang gets so much of her own autonomy ripped away in this book, to the point where she can't even CHOOSE to be a medcat.

Her backstory in the original books was that she was a Warriors turned medcat and that's interesting. The life of the warrior is glamorized, it's the ideal life for Clan cats, so characters who CHOOSE to turn their back on it to heal are really interesting conceptually! The powers completely ruin this, it's a cheap cop out that's forgotten as soon as the book doesn't have to force Yellowfang into a job she should've wanted.

Why do books treat this position like a punishment or something embarrassing. It's Bad Writing above all because the position is important! It is a necessary part of the Clan to function, medcats should be treated with respect! But that's a whole other response.

That's also where Sagewhisker comes in, the mentor figure who, uh, pressures Yellowfang into doing something she doesn't want to do and yet the narrative continues to affirm is Correct.

I could go on but Bonefall has a good post on Sagewhisker that I personally agree with that adds screenshots and details.

It's just....miserable watching Yellowfang be dragged into a position she doesn't want and I don't know why they would choose the most miserable possible route with this character.

That's not even getting into Raggedstar, the good ol' abusive male love interest who's actions are swept under the rug as he guilt trips, berates, and generally treats Yellowfang like garbage! Despite an entire super edition of abuse and the website acknowledging he's abusive - his actions will never fully be held accountable and he will consistently be portrayed as the Nice Leader who just wanted what was best for his Clan <3

His own abuse of Yellowfang is never acknowledged and fuck's sakes the books play the Nightcloud card and go "well, guess what, it's a WOMAN'S fault that Brokenstar happened!"

In a book already swimming with misogynistic writing, the authors decided to up the ante and introduce Lizardstripe: the mean bitch mom who doesn't want to be a mom and that's all you need to be told to know she's an abusive evil woman.

The book will never actually show you scenes of her being abusive, they will literally just write scenes of her saying she doesn't want to be a mother as a shorthand of her being abusive.

I'm sure this definitely doesn't factor into the writing team's incredibly conservative ideology towards motherhood's and women's roles.

I'm gonna link Bonefall again, he's just good posts that really delve into the problems with this and I'd honestly just be reiterating a lot of his posts if I talked on my own lol

Yellowfang's Secret takes everything interesting about Yellowfang and just flat out ignores it or makes it worse. It's miserable to read, it's just page after page of Yellowfang getting beaten down.

And you could argue that's the point, that Yellowfang believes she deserves her troubles, but I don't think that's the case. I think the book is just troubling in its handling of motherhood and abuse, it handles them poorly.

Bad Book i guess. sucks! i think Yellowfang as a character could fill up an entire super edition, but the one they wrote is miserable garbage.

I can't even remember the plot outside the medcat stuff. Idk mean clan cat invasion time for no reason?? Uuhh kittypet attack?? i don't find it memorable outside of the stuff that actively upset me.

[tyrantisterror]

You Don't Remember Muncher

Sony, as a film-making company, has reeked of desperation for at least a decade at this point. They have IPs that they know SHOULD be making them more money but they just. Can't. Get them to. And sometimes this results in them taking some big creative swings, to be completely fair - I love the Spider-Verse movies, and you don't get movies that expensive and conceptually heavy with a studio executive who's playing it safe. And I think the fact that they keep taking these big swings even when some of them end up duds like Sausage Party is commendable.

But I do think one of their big problems is this inability to understand that 1. films are a form of art and 2. what art is. They're good enough to understand that artists know what art is, which is more than a lot of studio leadership can say, and those big creative swings they take come from trusting artists to do their art thing. And even their misfires tend to have laudable stuff - Sausage Party may be an SNL gag that someone decided to stuff full of the most dated racism and bigoted jokes imaginable to get up to movie feature runtime, but the animation in it is oddly beautiful, even when depicting things that are repulsive. Like a protestant on the way to Dracula's castle, the heads at Sony seem to treat their artists with respect despite not understanding why they gave them a rosary and other primitive superstitious charms to protect them from vampires.

But when they have to make choices themselves, hoo boy, those poor bastards. They don't know what they're doing.

So Ghostbusters is one of those valuable IPs Sony is desperate to monetize, right? They just know they can have a huge hit on their hands with Ghostbusters. It was popular in the 80's, and things that were popular in the 80's are HUGE now! Look at that Stranger Things, baby!

Now, the heads at Sony may not be able to understand art, but they try. They are at the very least good at picking apart a piece of art and sussing out what ingredients made it, like Claire Saffitz trying to recreate an oreo. For their 2016 reboot, they correctly deduced that the original Ghostbusters was 1. a comedy 2. starring at least two actors from SNL and using their star power for promotion and 3. was liked by nerds because the heroes are out-of-shape nerds rather than chiseled Rambo/Arnie types. Also it has ghosts in it, probably.

Now, the problem is, the SNL actor-led comedy was taken out into a dark alley and slowly beaten to death by Adam Sandler and his cadre of goblin men starting somewhere around the time Little Nicky was made. It gave way to the era of cringe comedies like The Hangover and Judd Apatow bromances, which were led less by SNL stars and more by actors and actresses who'd gotten their start on NBC thursday night sitcoms - a minor difference, perhaps, but notable I think. And, like, even then, by 2016, that era was also pretty much over. The cringe comedy was a dying genre. Comedy itself, at least pure comedies, was kind of losing its place in film, being supplanted by action movies with more quips than they used to have. We were three years deep into THE WHEDONING.

But being three years behind the curve has never been a problem Sony worried about. I mean, historically it should be, but they never do. So Sony tried to assemble the best Ghostbusters they could make from the ingredients they could suss out, using the closest equivalents they could make. Grab some of the actresses from Bridesmaids, and an SNL star or two if you can. Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy have a pretty good banter going on ala Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd, really put them front and center. Oh, and we sussed out another ingredient! The original Ghostbusters had Sigourney Weaver as a love interest, and she was the star of Alien, which our Sony genre determining bot claims is an action movie, so let's get a hot action star as a love interest. Chris Hemsworth! Oh, we can make him be a silly goober like we did with John Hamm in Bridesmaids! People love handsome guys being silly goobers! (in this, Sony is correct)

The result was... fine, I think, if missing a few crucial ingredients. You know the ghosts in Ghostbusters? First syllable of the title? Most of the ones in the 2016 movie are just, you know, transparent humans, maybe a bit bluer than normal, making maniacal faces. Whereas in the original:

Well, they got some fucked up freaks in the original.

A lot of fans didn't like the 2016 movie, some for stupid sexism reasons, some for "I don't see why you need to remake Ghostbusters at all really" reasons, and some for, like, just personal taste reasons. It did not provide the big box office hit Sony wanted. Their first attempt to recreate the oreo was a failure.

So they go back to the drawing board, listening to the loudest, angriest criticism and looking to what's working outside of their influence for answers. Fans thought the 2016 movie was too different, not reverent towards the original as the perfect golden calf of Bill Murray comedies that it is. So this new reboot would be oozing with reverence. Fans didn't like the cast of ladies, so, yes, got it, scrap the lady-led ghostbusters.

Star Wars Fans loved that J.J. Abrams Star Wars reboot, The Force Awakens, for being a sequel rather than a full reboot, but also for just telling the same story they already love but slightly different. And nerds in general still fucking love that Stranger Things show - they even had an episode where the Stranger Things kids wore ghostbusters costumes! Hey, there's a million dollar idea, Stranger Things kids... as ghostbusters...

Now, the one thing they can't take from The Force Awakens is copying the tone of their original movie, because they tried copying the irreverent tone of the original Ghostbusters and fans did not like it. They need to be reverent to the original, because that's what The Force Awakens, even if showing reverence at all is antithetical to the tone of the original movie itself (which it is, because Ghostbusters is an irreverent Bill Murray comedy, like that's its whole schtick). But if they can drape this new-found reverence in 80's nostalgia, maybe, just maybe, nostalgic fans will be too dumb to notice.

And hey, they love that Stranger Things, which is a big homage to The Goonies and E.T. and Steven Spielberg-esque stories about pubescent kids going on perilous adventures where they face bad guys and learn life lessons in the process, reverent but dated in the same time period as Ghostbusters. And what an idea... Stranger Things kids... as ghostbusters...

This was admittedly a lot of preamble to get to the actual topic: Muncher. See, in that Force Awakens style, they needed to not only bring old characters from Ghostbusters back, but also make new characters who are really just the old characters but slightly different. For example, The Force Awakens brings us BB-8, who's basically just R2-D2, but visually different enough to feel new, and maybe a little cuter. Instead of moving on treads, he moves on this big ball, which is more complicated from a puppetry aspect and thus looks a lot more impressive and just a bit more "modern" while still basically being R2-D2 again.

Such was the genesis of Muncher.

Slimer (originally called Onionhead by the production staff and John Belushi's Ghost by Bill Murray) wasn't intended to be the franchise mascot, in part because Ghostbusters was never meant to be a franchise. He was a one off ghost who's iconic design and role as the first ghost to be busted made him a fan favorite, and eventually became, like, the ghostbusters' dog in the cartoon series. We love that for him, but the fact remains that Slimer's success was accidental.

Muncher, by contrast, was an attempt to recreate Slimer. But different! He's a gross gluttonous monster, because that's what Slimer is, but there's a lot less focus on wet goo when he eats and more solid chunks. See, it's different? And you know what's popular now thanks to, like, a cracked article or something? Tardigrades! They're these cool little microscopic things that everyone's making into monster designs now, they're even on a Star Trek! Why, if we made Slimer 2 - err, that is, Muncher have some tardigrade elements, he'd look weird and, like, modern - but not too modern! Like Slimer, but different!

Before Ghostbusters: Afterlife came out, there was a LOT of Muncher merchandise. A lot. Which makes sense, Slimer had so much goddamn merch in the heyday of the original Ghostbusters. There was fucking Slimer toothpaste. Toothpaste! From Slimer's teats!

It looked identical to Slimer bubblegum.

But, for whatever reason, Muncher did not connect like Slimer did, and so Sony did a last minute trend-chasing pivot and tried to focus on the new hotness: cute baby versions of characters who were old and not cute in the original movie.

I don't know if this scene was planned to be in the movie before The Mandalorian was a big success, or if it was a hasty addition to it, but it doesn't matter, because what does matter is the late marketing shift to focus on these little fuckers, and giving them lots of toys. They're already in the marketing for the sequel, where Muncher is nowhere to be found.

Because you don't remember Muncher, do you?

Muncher didn't connect. They took a swing with Muncher and they fucking whiffed. They made a shitload of Muncher toys and all those little blue fuckers ended up clearanced to Hell. Muncher is a failure, a loser.

You don't remember Muncher.

And you never will.

[mothmothwoth]

I don’t think Shilo really understands consent.

Like- as a required and good thing. He does know theoretically what he does is bad. He understands that his manipulation and domination of people is a violation but it seems very soft of a boundary to him. Despite what people tell him over and over about how wrong his constant domination of mortals or other vampires is he doesn’t stop. He thinks he knows better, and so he does it with no regard for the other person at all. And if he is told that what he did was horrible he tries to explain that his fix was important and helpful, not considering the possibility that the act itself is the problem. You can see when Emizel confronts him with what he did to Theo, he is defensive of his reasoning first and only when Emizel doesn’t back down (because that’s not really the issue here) does Shilo offer to maybe fix Theo (It’s also telling that he does this by adding another command instead of nullifying what he did previously)

I don’t think he understands why taking away someone’s free will and choice is bad. It’s the thing of like yeah you’re told doing this is bad, but you can get what you want by doing it and no one ever explains how it hurts people or why it’s wrong so you just get better at doing it when no one’s looking. Shilo sees he has the power to do this, and thus he does. It’s about being above the people he does this to, he knows better then them, he’s more powerful so he is entitled to this. And I think his worldview is so interesting when considering Shilo’s own treatment and lack of autonomy. Because it’s a system of abuse.

Shilo has lived in the castle his whole life, trapped in his room. He isn’t allowed to leave, he isn’t allowed to talk to people, he isn’t allowed books outside of what is approved, he is taught by his uncle, he attends lessons when told to, he eats what they provide him, he sees his mother when she wants to see him. Shilo isn’t allowed to be a person. Shilo wants to go outside, and to see what his books talk about, to have experiences. But Shilo is weaker than his uncle, weaker than his mother, so he cant. If he was better, if he was smarter, if he was more powerful he could have control. But he doesn’t.

He uses the guards, because since they are weaker than him they don’t get to have control. He does not care if he gets them killed, because if you are above someone you get to decide their life. It’s the strong’s right to own the weak. It’s how Shilo is obedient and submissive because he knows his place. He was never allowed autonomy so that’s how he sees everyone else too. He doesn’t see that this was wrong and so perpetuates the cycle. He acts within the rules of that system he has grown up in when that system doesn’t exist. The things people are expecting him to already know he can’t comprehend. Consent isn’t something he was ever taught or shown, so he can’t internalize it. Because of this lack of understanding he also can’t fully explain or process what happens to him.

There is a lack of really talking about or processing what Edward did to Shilo by the characters. And Shilo specifically hates Edward but in an almost disconnected way if that makes sense. He does not want to see Edward and doesn’t like to think about it but when they talk about hating the guy and planning to kill him Shilo talks about how his face is weird and that he’s an asshole but not really about the blood bond or anything. I think Shilo can’t actually conceptualize why this event, waking up in a creepy guys house in a robe forcibly bonded while unconscious and then tricked into it again under false pretenses all while being in this guys bed with him trying to seduce you or something, freaks him out so much. Because to him that should be completely in line with the system, it’s normal so he shouldn’t be feeling like this, it isn’t a big deal. But it is and Shilo doesn’t know why. He can’t explain really what it was to anyone either because he doesn’t know what made it so bad. And since he can’t get it, he can’t learn anything from it, he commits to the system harder and plans revenge. Shilo gets worse and the cycle goes on.

I don’t really have a way to end this I just- Shilo makes me crazy. I hope he kills people next season.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing ‘til the break of dawn - Pt10

<Pt9

(TWST Zombie apocalypse AU where Yuu beast tames just a little too close to the sun)

Yuu sighed internally as he watched Trey and Cater chat. They were hitting it off, though Yuu was hardly surprised about that — Cater was pretty obviously desperate for social interaction, judging by the entire radio broadcast he had thrown together to get his voice out there, and Trey was rather amiable.

He seemed like a nice guy.

But.

Yuu was struggling to ignore the fact that he was, apparently, holding someone captive. ‘For their own good’, yes, however…

Well, Yuu had gone through that himself. He could more or less ignore Ace’s… strange tendencies, in large part because he hadn’t yet had to deal with being eaten, and therefore it wasn’t all that easy to conceptualize the true horrors of what he was doing. But Yuu knew exactly what it had been like to stay trapped in a house for an extended period of time with no one but your captor to talk to.

It had… not ended well.

After all, Yuu was now allowed out. He could even talk to people, now, without Grim immediately trying to kill them! Even Grim had acknowledged, implicitly, that letting people outside so they can interact with others is necessary.

Yeah, everyone that had survived this long was clearly not a great person (save for Yuu himself, of course), but humans are social creatures. Most social interactions may end in attempted murders, but damn if they aren’t something!

So, what should he do to deal with this?

Yuu groaned, his head tipping back against Ace’s shoulder so he could see his face. “I’ve decided being a good person is for losers. Help me be evil.”

Ace’s eyes lit up, as if he had been not-so-patiently waiting for this day. “You’ve come to the right guy! I’m an expert in all things evil!”

“I know.”

Ace sent him a dirty look. As if he hadn’t totally walked into that one.

Then, he hooked his arm through Yuu’s, dragging them both up and over to where Cater was standing.

“Hey, Cater, I’m taking Yuu out. Can we borrow your gun, so he can defend himself?”

“Not a chance!” he said, cheerfully.

Yuu and Ace sulked. Now how were they supposed to steal it?

Whatever.

Yuu walked over to where Deuce was still trying to figure out how to fix the radio station. He, too, was sulking, but for a different reason:

“You won’t want to come on this trip,” Yuu said.

Deuce opened his mouth to argue.

“We’re getting Grim and me some food, you won’t want to be there for it,” Ace cut him off.

Deuce’s mouth clicked shut. He looked at Yuu, his eyebrows raised.

Yuu ignored the silent question, kneeling to pluck a hammer out of the toolbox. Deuce made a sound of protest at the blatant theft that had happened right in front of him.

Yuu kicked his bat over to him. “This should work well enough. Besides, I don’t think you’re going to be doing any hammering, since you’re mostly just reconnecting wires.”

Deuce scowled, but went back to work.

That done, Yuu went to the closet for Grim. The zombie immediately clambered up his pant leg and found a place in his hoodie pocket, only his head peeking out.

It, honestly, didn’t put as much strain on him as it probably should have. Which was nice, he supposed, he personally preferred not being in pain. However, he couldn’t help but be a little worried. Oh, his baby was practically skin and bones! He must have been so worried for him. The poor thing. Yuu slid his hand into his pocket, rubbing the place beneath Grim’s chin that the cat always loved.

“Is — is that a zombie?” Trey asked, his voice much higher in pitch than it usually was.

“Yeah…” said Cater, resignedly.

“He’s perfect. No notes,” Yuu said, ignoring the fact that Grim had started baring his teeth at Trey in warning.

“… no normal people in the apocalypse,” sighed Trey.

“I’m normal! You’re all just too abnormal to see!” Yuu said, immediately, his face reddening.

Ace poked his cheek. “Hey! Don’t talk like that! You’re not going to get evil with an attitude like that.”

Yuu scowled. He hated this already. Why was he doing this, again?

“Be safe out there!” Trey called, still a little faint, but clearly trying to be supportive.

He gritted his teeth and dragged Ace outside with him. He really should just start letting Ace kill people. Slightly less mental turmoil that way.

~

He should not let Ace kill people jesus fucking christ holy shit why is Ace so terrifying?!

Yuu’s grip tightened on his hammer as he watched Ace take down the poor, unfortunate soul who had just so happened to be within the vicinity. He pinned them to a nearby wall by the shoulder. With his knife.

Yuu realized that he had never actually seen Ace attempt to kill someone before (outside of that one time he didn't want to think about… not that it really counted anyway, considering the circumstances…).

He had known, intellectually, that it would be brutal. Ace used a knife as his preferred weapon, after all, but… it was one thing to know something and another thing entirely to see it with your own two eyes.

Yuu reminded himself that the poor girl wouldn’t have lasted that long regardless of what she did, thanks to Grim’s misogynistic streak.

It really didn’t soothe him all that much — it was much easier to just let Grim kill her and get it over with! Barely any moral dilemmas involved! Grim needs to eat humans to survive, and Yuu does not want to be one of those humans! It’s a simple trade off.

One that he could no longer afford, it seemed.

Ace turned to Yuu, smiling. “Right, your turn!”

“What?” said Yuu, jolting back into the moment.

“She’s not going to be able to get away, and she can’t scream anymore, either. So, it shouldn’t be hard for you!”

Is that why Ace had torn out her tongue?! Should Yuu be thanking him?! Because he doesn’t think he can open his mouth right now to do so, he would definitely throw up.

“She’ll die anyways,” Ace said, when Yuu stood there, unmoving. Barely even blinking. “She’ll bleed out. If anything, you killing her will be a mercy.”

Yuu… couldn't. Ace had clearly gone to the effort to make this as easy a transition for his conscience as was possible, but he just couldn’t.

He couldn’t he couldn’t he couldn’t —!

He felt a weight shift in his pocket, and a blur of green was the only warning the pair of them got before Grim had sunk his teeth into the girl’s leg.

It didn’t take long for the infection to set in. It never did. It was an almost scarily quick process, watching the green creep over her exposed skin, her eyes draining of all life. A small patch of moss formed over the infection site, as if to try and cover it up.

For a moment, it was silent.

And then Ace fell to his knees. “My food…”

“I mean, you could still try to eat it,” Yuu said, still hugging his hammer like a lifeline. “It could be an interesting science experiment.”

Ace gave him a mildly incredulous look. “You do it then!”

“Nah, Grim would be mad.”

Grim nodded once, firmly.

Ace sighed and shifted to sit, his knees pulled to his chest, his knife held in a deceptively loose hand.

‘Deceptively’ because Ace’s eyes never left the monster in their midst. It didn’t matter that Grim had long-since proven that he wouldn’t kill him, he would never risk it.

(The zombie was new, too, still trying to figure out how to move around, Ace could overpower it with ease, if it ever came to that. But old habits die hard.)

After a beat of hesitation, Ace patted the ground beside him.

Yuu’s nose scrunched. There was a puddle of blood on the floor. He did not want to sit in it. Fucking gross.

Ace raised an eyebrow at him.

He… sighed and sat down, mumbling that they would need to stop by a store and get new clothes after this.

Yuu felt Ace’s head come to settle upon his good shoulder. Ace had been far more openly affectionate as of late. Whether that was because he was just that rattled that Yuu had almost gotten shot or if the cuddle session they’d had afterward (that Yuu would claim he didn’t remember until the end of time) had broken a dam mentally, he really didn’t know. Either way, he was only mildly surprised by the person leaning on him.

“I don’t… get you,” Ace said, after a while, his eyes still tracing the zombie’s movement as it stumbled towards a nearby alley to try to disappear. “Why are you so… against it?”

“I think most people are averse to murder, Ace,” Yuu said flatly.

Ace snorted. “Not here, not anymore. And I get that you have Grim, so you probably haven’t had to kill as much directly, but...”

Yuu snorted. “My kill count is both zero and well into the thousands.”

He looked at him for a long moment, as if hoping he could find the answers in his face. Yuu, kind of, hoped he could, too, because he was kind of concerned that Ace might try to literally dissect him to figure everything out if it came to that.

Yuu looked away. The zombie was gone. Grim had left, too, seemingly to give them space to talk. Yuu didn’t know if he appreciated that or not. He hated talking.

He ran his thumb along the grip of his hammer for a moment, feeling the rubber ridges.

For a moment, Yuu wanted to admit that he was, in part, at fault for the apocalypse. Sure, he couldn’t have known, but that didn’t change the fact that, had he left that ‘stray’ by the road that day, things might have been far different. He had just wanted to help, he hadn’t expected —!

He swallowed, thickly, his head coming to rest atop Ace’s.

“I, um… I don’t want to…” he took a deep breath. “I’ve… done a lot of terrible stuff to survive, since this all started. I mean, there’s a very real chance that, if we kill Grim, the entire thing will go up in flames. That’s what happens in the movies, when you kill the center of the hive mind, after all, but…” He bit his lip. “I’m… scared. I’m always so scared. I don’t want to risk it.”

Ace didn’t say a word.

“A lot of people have died because of me, Ace, I can’t… I can justify it if you or Grim kills someone, because you’d be doing that anyway, but… with my own two hands… if I do it, then I’m the one doing it.” He gave a laugh, but it was halfhearted, and, embarrassingly, sounded closer to a sob. “God, it sounds kind of stupid aloud, yeah?”

Ace gave a snort.

After a beat of hesitation, he reached over and pulled the hammer from Yuu’s hand.

“I — uh — kind of get it? In a weird way? I…” Ace grimaced. “The first few days of the apocalypse, I… wasn’t… okay. I barely understood what was going on — no one knew, back then. It kinda just seemed like everyone had gone fucking insane. I remember — I… took down a zombie. I didn’t know it was a zombie, then, but that’s what it was. But, um… well, it wasn’t great.”

Yuu remembered that time. He hadn’t been let outside, then, but he could still see out the window. Could hear on broadcasts, back when the electronics still worked (and wasn’t that a strange thing to think about, these days?). It had been chaotic, to say the very least.

“I… after my first ‘kill’, I kind of thought I was… irredeemable. And so I…” He groaned. “I said, ‘Well, if I have already done that, why not sink as low as possible? I will end up going to hell, anyway.’ It was… freeing, in a way? I guess? If I just say ‘Yeah, I am a bad person, so what?’ then I don’t have to deal with all the… all of the…” He waved a hand, vaguely. “Y’know.”

Yuu did know.

He snickered. “Oh. So, we’re just opposites, then.”

Ace hummed. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Yuu sighed, turning his head just slightly, to look at him. “I’m sorry for bringing you all the way out here just to chicken out.”

Ace snorted, lifting his head just slightly. “I’m going to be honest, here, since it seems like the thing for today: I really didn’t expect you to go through with it.”

Yuu wasn’t sure whether he should be offended or not. Regardless, he smiled a little when he joked that, “I could kill someone! You don’t know!”

“I do, though,” Ace said, something soft in his eyes as he tipped his head forward to rest his forehead against Yuu’s. “Don’t worry, though, I’m here to save the day! So, you can just sit back and look pretty, I’ll deal with all of the gross, morally complex shit for you.”

Yuu felt warmer than the early autumn air should have allowed for.

But they had already meet their genuineness quota for the day — for the whole damn month, actually — so…

“Awwww, you think I’m pretty?” Yuu teased, batting his eyelashes.

“Well, it’s not like I can call your scrawny ass handsome, so…”

He pushed Ace’s face away. “Rude.”

Ace only laughed.

~

Yuu hummed as he looked through the clothes options at the random store they’d found. Grim still wasn’t back, but that was fine — he’d find them whenever he wanted to, he had eyes everywhere thanks to his hive mind.

So… they can concentrate on clothes shopping!

Yuu picked up a light purple shirt. “Do you think this would look good on me?”

Ace barely even glanced over as he pulled a rather thick, red varsity jacket off of the rack. “Nah, that color’ll wash out your face. Try something a little darker. And! You should be focusing on finding long sleeves! Winter is coming!”

“Yeah, okay, mom,” grumbled Yuu, putting it back on the rack.

“You asked for my opinion!”

“YoU aSkEd FoR mY oPiNiOn.”

Ace rolled his eyes. He plucked a dark blue jacket off of the rack, probably for Deuce. “Just grab yourself a hoodie like usual so we can be done with this.”

Yuu huffed and pulled out a sweater instead, just to spite him. And it was an off the shoulder one, so he wouldn’t have to worry about anything chafing against his wound.

But it would make his injury pretty obvious to anyone who might see…

He pulled it over his head, pushing wet hair out of his eyes. “Alright, let’s go.”

Ace hesitated, playing with his knife.

“… fine, we can try to find someone for you to eat, but if we don’t find anyone by sundown then we’re going back!”

Ace beamed.

~

They stepped back into the radio station the next morning to very little fanfare.

Cater was still fast asleep, in a corner, his gun hugged close to himself like a childhood blankie. Deuce, too, was asleep, curled up on the floor, around Grim.

Trey was awake, tinkering with the broken broadcast console, looking very much lost.

Ace walked over to Deuce and, gently, set the new jacket over him and Grim.

Yuu, however, made his way over to Trey.

Trey looked over, raising an eyebrow, smiling softly. “Yes?”

“I want to meet your friend. You said you can’t bring him here, but surely you can take us to him?”

Trey dropped his screwdriver in surprise.

~~~~~

Pt11>

[physalian]

A Case Against “Redemption = Death”

“Redemption = Death” is, in my opinion, one of the laziest “telling not showing” cop-outs you can write, and it happens over and over and over again. It’s manipulative, it’s cheap, it kneecaps the character’s development, it undermines the meaning of a true redemption, and it promotes a message that some people are so evil, the *only* redemption for them is the ultimate sacrifice.

**Taking an aside here to plainly ignore religious connotations and focus on the success or failure of a satisfying character arc**

I hate this trope. I have never seen a flawless execution of this trope in its basest form: Evil bad guy is evil for 99% of their story, and in the 11th hour has an out-of-character realization that they’ve done wrong and sacrifices themself for the heroes, whom they don’t actually care about, for ~drama~.

Today’s writing advice is pretty straightforward: Please stop doing this. It tends to happen in action movies like the superhero genre, but also in action-heavy sci-fi and fantasy where rich character development is sacrificed for spectacle and cool battles. I love action movies, even the stupid ones, and I firmly believe that they can do better.

1. It’s manipulative

A malignant evildoer who shows zero remorse for their entire story, commits heinous acts of violence and abuse, who murders, steals, beats, cheats, betrays, and uses other characters does not earn any shed tears over their ultimate sacrifice.

Time and time again, the big bad will do a 180 and leave the protagonist distraught over how to react to this, often with lines like “maybe he was a hero all along,” or “you know he really wasn’t that bad”. (a la Snape before we all woke up and realized he's a whiny Nice Guy)

Nope. He was actually that bad, and his final act of terror was convincing you to give a damn about him and regret not being able to save him (and it is always male characters. It’s always men. Find me a story where it’s a woman and I will gladly read it and complain about her, too).

This character has only themselves to blame for their Tragic Backstory. They were never a tragic hero, they didn’t fall from grace. There was never any hope or expectation that they could do better, the hero isn’t even trying to redeem them, it just happens in an attempt to engineer depth where there isn’t any.

2. It’s cheap

A hastily-written “redemption” tips the author’s hand, showing that they didn’t plan for or can’t conceptualize how to fix the mess they’ve made. Now, maybe the villain dies in the last chapter of the book and the story has no room for the aftermath anyway—that’s fine. It’s only a problem when the villain gets an unfounded “he wasn’t so bad” reflection by the survivors to scribble a deeper meaning and message for the story in the final lap.

If you’re planning from the start to have your villain be “not that bad,” provide any evidence other than them deciding maybe they don’t want the world to burn as the clock on the nuke counts down to zero.

This would be like if Gandalf told Pippin Denethor was actually a decent guy as the man flings himself off Gondor's tallest tower after nearly burning his son alive.

3. It kneecaps the character’s potential

Character deaths, whether they’re permanent or not, are generally treated by the other characters as permanent and final in the moment. There’s tears, there’s funerals, there’s grief and regret over what could have been, what might’ve been, what should have been.

And all of that development goes straight to the surviving characters, not the one that died.

Your dead evildoer can’t prove they’re trying to do better once they’re dead. They can’t show their remorse, they can’t show how they planned to fix all their mistakes, they can’t follow through with choosing the path of “good”. They’re dead.

You killed them to avoid the hard work of having to write them as a good guy.

4. It undermines the meaning of a true redemption

Self-sacrifice is a noble end, but self-sacrifice because a character can’t imagine actually committing to the long and bumpy road of fixing all their mistakes is cowardice. The people they hurt are still suffering, the wrongs they committed still need answering for, the damage they’ve done still needs rectifying and dying leaves all that work to those who survive them.

They’ve done nothing to prove they’re worthy of redemption except to stop digging their hole deeper and at that point they’re not “redeemed” they’re only marginally defined as a “tragic hero” by the skin of their teeth, depending on what catastrophe they prevent with their death.

5. It argues that some people aren’t worth redeeming

Ironically, “redemption = death” proves the exact opposite of the case you’re trying to make. They die because they’re convinced they must, because not a single other character could either talk them out of it, or cared enough to show them death wasn’t the only option.

“Redemption” is only for those who everyone thinks aren’t worth redeeming. But he’s irredeemable! Is he? Or do you just want to see him punished and have zero faith that he can’t at least try to right his wrongs?

This would be like if Zuko showed up at the Western Air Temple and instead of becoming Aang's fire bending teacher, he died fighting Combustion Man or Azula in a blaze of glory, all because Katara would not budge from her "he's evil and always will be" stance.

Or, if Zuko died in the last agni-kai, taking Azula down with him, as if the story said "yeahhhhh, we just gotta go clean slate here and expunge the whole Fire Family, but hey, Zuko did stop Azula in his blaze of glory".

—

But what happens when “redemption = death” is actually satisfying? Aka, not a redeemed villain, just a tragic hero. So let’s look at a famous example: Darth Vader.

This is a character that checks two boxes: He has one pillar of light determined to save him, and he’s shown before his moment of sacrifice to have some remorse. It doesn’t come out of nowhere.

He’s not redeemed, though, because his one act of murder-suicide may end the war (ignoring the sequel trilogy) but doesn’t undo all the damage and lives lost and planets destroyed. He’s just a tragic hero.

Sometimes, however, this character knows the only way all the evil ends is with their death. They know they’re doomed because by their continued existence, evil persists, and they literally cannot live on to fix things because things will never be fixable so long as they’re still breathing. Or, they’re terminally ill and incurable through their own machinations with the Big Bad and will die no matter what they do, might as well go out swinging.

Greed, from Fullmetal Alchemist fits here. He spent more time as a reluctant good guy occasionally doing bad and selfish things because his essence is chained to a good guy, but he cannot survive the story, because by his very nature, he’s a piece of the main villain.

But even then, Greed’s redemption comes *before* he dies, we all already love his character, this is just the tragic icing on the cake. His realization that, in his final act, he becomes the most selfless character in the show—the antithesis of his entire being.

Your mid-redemption character redeems themselves as much as they can while they still breathe. They help the other heroes, they teach the team everything they know, they show their plans for a better future and have even built tools to help the survivors thrive. They’ve dreamed about being a part of this future that’s barred from them. They’ve fully understood and accepted the consequences of their actions. They understand that their final punishment is never living to see the paradise they nearly destroyed.

Even if they can’t change the world with their actions, they’ve done all the emotional and personal labor they can manage with those that they’ve hurt. They’ve made friends, allies, even romantic endeavors.

And when they die and the heroes mourn, they mourn the hero that this redeemed villain became, not who they imagined this villain could be if they tried, if they'd made different choices. At that point, redemption didn’t even equal death for them, redemption was the short road to recovery before the consequences of their actions finally caught up with them.

[the-journey-was-the-point]

Modern AU Oneshot

The funny thing is, I normally don't do Modern AU's, but when people on the discord server asked what our OC's would be like in the modern day, the concept got me on a chokehold and I ended up writing this short thing O__O

Premise is wonky. It's all conceptual, mostly vibes, really!

Summary: When he felt himself beginning to slip, Callonduin decided to take a gap year from university. In his travels, he looked back on his life, and noticed its mysteries. Like how his father never explained what life-saving procedure was done on his twin brother Calarphain as a kid, and how the two brothers haven't seen each other since.

At 8:09pm, Callonduin left his father a message to tell him he arrived at the airport and would be meeting his friend soon. He stood in the middle of a different city and looked to the tall white building in the distance, wondering what his brother was doing right now

He didn't say much else, but his father never asked anyway. Good. At 8:15, he entered a cafe and ordered an upsized latte and double chocolate muffin-- he would need the energy tonight. He called Fíli and thanked him for agreeing to lie about their staying together. Fíli wished him well and reminded him to be careful.

At 8:30, his phone buzzed. He didn't answer it, he knew he wasn't supposed to. He left to meet a contact who would help him get whatever he needed to sneak into a secure facility.

At 9:02, the barista began to close shop. In walked a stranger wearing shapeless white clothes. They had pale skin and long, light hair. The barista couldn't tell if this ghostlike figure was a man or a woman, only that they reminded them of a hospital. The barista sighed and decided to take one more order.

Calarphain looked at the menu with a lost look on his face. He didn't have much on him, just some change he picked up on the street. He saw a weekday promo: half off for a small, brewed coffee.

"What does that taste like?" he asked. The barista said something about beans and undertones. Calarphain placed the order.

"Creamer and sugar are over there," said the barista.

".... are those free?" was his response.

Calarphain sat with his coffee and a small pile of packets. He decided he should try it plain first.

Before he could even lift the cup, a blonde man with an athletic build entered. Even the barista couldn't help but stare. Before they could say anything about the cafe being closed, the man walked straight to the other customer's table.

Haldir sat across the all-white figure.

"Calarphain," he said patiently, "what are you doing? You know you're not supposed to have caffeine."

Calarphain's shoulders slumped. He kept his gaze lowered as he replied. "How will I know if I've never even tried it?"

"The doctors would say it's best not to risk it," Haldir said, but all Calarphain could hear was how it would mess with the "clinical integrity of the experiment".

Calarphain looked out the cafe's large glass window, taking in the sight of nearby shops closing. He came here because he always saw this district from his own window, but there's no way he'd tell anyone that. He liked his window.

"Come on," Haldir tried once more, keeping his voice soft in both volume and tone, "the doctors don't even know you're gone yet. We'll be back before they do."

Calarphain bit his lip and didn't respond, only staring at the door as Haldir took his coffee and returned it to the counter. I could run, he thought. His back is turned, I could run. But he didn't. He sat frozen in place and only moved to follow Haldir to the car.

He pocketed a sugar packet in defiance.

—-

The next day, Callonduin would wake up to news that at 9:20pm the night before, a man named Haldir was ambushed and killed outside the city's food district. Haldir worked security at the facility Callonduin traced his brother to. There were no other bodies on the scene, and the only evidence left were his car, some bullets, and a packet of sugar from a nearby cafe.

[donnerpartyofone]

This morning I went over to the church to see my favorite guy, who is so often surprising and challenging. He seemed a little out of sorts today, stammering and losing his place; I sometimes worry about this old guy, and I was paying attention. Then at the end of the mass he said that they're having air quality problems in the rectory and the EPA is involved. I hope he's not getting brain damage!

It was sort of funny, though, because the homily was about having trouble focusing--not being able to concentrate, and having anxiety about the future. That was pretty relevant to me, medically and otherwise. I'm writing this on the morning of the new moon, just to be extra flaky, about how much trouble I have forming goals.

Pursuing goals is also hard, but step one should be having a vision, and that's the really impossible part. When I was a little kid I had two ambitions: to be a writer, and to be dead. The latter thing represents one of the main motivating forces in my life, which is pain avoidance. I think this is the chief motivator of many people without them even realizing it; comfort-seeking itself can be a form of pain avoidance. Pain avoidance is not a legitimate goal, it's more of a reflex, and it can become a preoccupying distraction from any kind of actual ambition (especially as fulfilling ambitions often involves some amount of discomfort). Focusing on what you do not want is not equivalent to focusing on what you do want.

I never had a very good idea of what I want. I found this out when I went into therapy as an adult; I couldn't formulate any notion of what I wanted out of life. I couldn't even come up with any masturbatory, pie in the sky fantasies. I might vaguely be able to say something like "a bigger, nicer apartment", but I can't come up with any compelling ideas about what that would even look like. I try, but I know I'm faking it. Certainly part of my interest in religion and occultism is the idea that I could train myself to really clearly conceptualize any kind of goals or desires. In the case of occultism specifically (and, let's be honest, many forms of self-help), visualization is always a key element. In recent years I learned that I am abnormally incapable of forming mental images, and I have come to believe that this is intimately connected to my inability to figure out what I want or how to get it.

Nearly all of my thinking is verbal. I found out what aphantasia was while talking to my dad, who is extremely visual with an excellent grasp of spacial relations (something I have almost no concept of). He was shocked when I said I can't really picture anything, asking me "Then how do you do anything?" He said when he decides to make a sandwich, for instance, he automatically sees himself performing the actions of sandwich-making, and sees the aspirational sandwich in his mind's eye. Visualizing is essential to his entire executive process. It so happens that I am aphantasic and I have a lot of executive dysfunction. I no longer think this is coincidental.

(I'm also very faceblind, and I think this is connected; something to do with the ability to reconstitute a visual memory and relate it to something that is presently in front of me. But anyway...)

Perhaps oddly, I am an artist, or at least I have been. But I've never been able to draw from my imagination, like at all. The best work I've ever done is all swipes; I am a great believer in swipes, it can reveal a lot about your personal style and obsessions and when you re-draw someone else's art. But I can't just sit and think up something fun to draw, even when I try to just doodle I'm usually responding more to the lines I see emerging on the paper than anything I'm thinking or feeling. I think this is related to the fact that I'm an obsessive scopophile; I take in a lot of detail from my environment, and I watch movies with the same attitude and frequency with which most people listen to music. Recently I started to joke that I have an image deficiency and that's why I have to consume huge amounts of visual media, I need the external infusion. But like, it's not that much of a joke, maybe.

In my 30s I randomly developed this condition where scar tissue grows over your corneas, and I had to have a series of freaky eye surgeries. My doctors always asked if I grew up somewhere warm and sunny and windy, if I do a lot of outdoor sports (sometimes this condition is called "surfer's eye"); I thought this was pretty funny since I couldn't be more of an indoor kid, although maybe cycling is somewhat at fault. Still, my preferred diagnosis is that I watch so much trashy and violent crap that it literally scars my eyes. It's as good an explanation as any! And it does have this weird synergy with my other visual problems.

Anyway, it's not as if I've done absolutely nothing with my life. Quite a few personal achievements piled up in just the last couple of years; certainly I've benefited a lot from luck and the good will of others, but nothing would have happened without my own creativity and commitment. I just wish I had more, you know. Vision. I spend too much of my life "taking one day at a time" and waiting for things to happen to me, assuming I don't have much control over my experiences. I'd rather be able to imagine something that I want to happen and act on it; regardless of whether the thing is going to happen, I'd like to be able to formulate a goal other than paying the rent, or like, not waking up and going to sleep in a state of stark terror. I'm not sure how to get myself to that place, but maybe saying that that's what I want can count for something.

Anyway here are some photos of the thoughtfully planted shrubbery from the church. I missed the full bloom of the weeping cherries, but as soon as they die off the shrubs below turn bright red, pink, yellow, and white. It's pretty inviting I must say.

[foxgnomesworld]

This thread and especially the linked dissertation annoyed me so much that I decided to actually post on Tumblr for the first time.

I wanted to give this a fair shot and read the thread. While it acknowledges certain critiques of astrology, it concludes that astrology skeptics are ignorant of developments in the field and need to do more research. So, I went to the linked dissertation to learn more. Link

The problem is that the dissertation is bad. Now, it's clearly an undergraduate essay that has likely never been edited by anyone other than the author. Perhaps it is not fair to expect more. However, since it was linked as a resource, I feel critique is warranted.

First off, if you're hoping the essay addresses any of what was mentioned in the thread, you're out of luck. Notably, there is no mention of how astrologers are addressing the many concerns of skeptics.

The essay itself is poorly argued. There are many claims made with little evidence, e.g. that the practice of astrology has changed profoundly since the 70s. Obviously it's online now (just like everything else), but that doesn't prove there have been fundamental shifts in the field.

The author's claims are not explained and lack underlying logic, as in this section of the essay:

How exactly does astrology validate a person and their experiences? What if the chart contradicts a person's own perceptions? If the goal is to understand the self, why use astrology at all?

An underlying tension in the essay is the unwillingness to engage with the question of whether astrology is "real." Do the planets actually have an impact on behavior? This is critical to address. After all, why should astrology be embraced if it is based on falsehoods and might make people more willing to believe in other pseudo-scientific ideas? Self-understanding and validation are valuable. However, there are ways of attaining them that do not rely on pseudoscience.

Instead, the author fails to understand criticism, or to engage with it in good faith, as you can see here:

1) Evaluating whether people "believe" in a field is entirely separate from the question of whether or not it is empirically valid.

2) Whether a skeptic believes in astrology or not is irrelevant. The question is how the practitioners conceptualize their own field. Surely, the people who position themselves as astrological experts should be able to communicate their thoughts on how the field functions, and why their practice can reveal truth!

This leads to the most troubling part of the essay. One of the claims in the thread is that astrologers have been addressing critiques about the dangers of astrology. Fake promises of good health were given as a specific example.

Yet in the essay, the author takes a very different stance. A critic who is concerned about the growing popularity of various pseudosciences and how this might affect scientific literacy is treated with scorn and mockery.

Read that highlighted section. Do the quotes provided say anything about "doom" and "irremediable societal downfall"? No, not at all. The author's defensiveness toward criticism of astrology is on full display. There is no genuine engagement with the topic: the danger of a population that doesn't value science or critical thinking.

Instead, the critic is mischaracterized, and the author gives incredibly weak defenses. She states that astrology never negatively affected society in the past (a claim she doesn't even try to defend). Worse, she writes that people make irrational decisions anyway, so what does it matter if they believe pseudoscience?

Finally, there is this: "Never mind […] that correlation does not equal causation."

This quote is damning. It is nonsense. It showcases the scientific illiteracy of the author. In the critique given, there are simply no mentions of correlations, or claims of causation. This cute line is meant to convince you that the author understands science, but it actually betrays her lack of statistical reasoning.

Such a phrase has an actual meaning and utility. It can be employed when a researcher tries to assert a causal connection between two pieces of data that mathematically correlate, yet lacks evidence to prove one trend drives another. In this context, though, it means nothing, because the reader has been shown no statistical claims.

Frankly, I am disappointed. I did not expect the essay would change my mind about astrology as a whole. However, I had hoped from the thread that it would shed some light on why people find it compelling, and how astrologers are addressing potential problems and criticisms. Neither is true. The essay gives the obvious answer about astrology's popularity: life sucks now, so people (often marginalized) turn to things that promise them truth.

However, that alone does not mean that the rise of astrology is positive or even neutral. Rather, to someone like me, this shows that it is indeed a field that targets the most vulnerable. It convinces them to dedicate their time and energy to a practice that relies on magical thinking and might lead them to believe further pseudoscience.

Finally, if you need proof that astrology is still used to judge and insult others, look no further than the quote tweets on the post:

The original critic of astrology is unfairly labeled as someone who just hates her astrological sign, and insinuated to be a "sensitive crybaby." All of her thoughtful commentary is dismissed by these strangers in favor of making assumptions about her character and motivations based solely on her sun sign.

The most damning evidence against astrology as a liberatory practice is to simply look at the attitudes and behaviors of people who believe in it.

[dykedvonte]

Ty for answering my asks! Recently, I saw some fanart of the gender bendered crew and it got me curios, how much would the plot change if Jimmy was a woman. I mean, she would still be emotionally abusive (esp to Fem!Curly), but at lest, I guess, the crash would've never happened (?)

Also, her relationship w/ Anya: if she was assulted still, it prolly would've been dissmissed, since it's between 2 women. Or, if Anya is male in this scenario, he couldn't really be able to talk abt it, since society decided that "women can't r*pe men", so it's not serious and he should suck it up. Man, it's just sucks to be Anya in any scenario my poor girl 😭

What do you think? If you have an opinion on that at all, that is

-💀

I think the scenario's where the gender was flipped or any level of gender based intersectionality is expanded makes it so much more complex.

If this is the scenario with fem!Jimmy, it comes with the territory of questionable internalized homophobia. Does Jimmy brush it off in this scenario because she doesn't think lesbian encounters are real ones? Is she struggling with her identity and taking it out on Anya who may be openly queer compared a fem!Curly who is either straight or just not interested in Jimmy? Perhaps it's a sort of weird entitled that can occur in female dominated spaces "We're both girls, I know what you have, it won't matter." It's still is something I don't see Jimmy denying in this scenario, he never really denies it in canon just talks around it with Curly. Here I can see it's less about the pregnancy and more so about the internalized homophobia. Not seeing Anya as anything but an unwanted aspect of her femineity and the allure of it, there's a lot more objectification of both Curly and Anya in this alteration as I would believe feels better thinking of them in that light if they are just fodder in her mind. Guilty pleasures that no longer bring her such. It's a careful situation because I don't want this to fall into predatory lesbian stereotyping, Jimmy is just a person who does not respect other people or their choice, if it conflict with what he wants or perceived is owed.

The idea of Curly having to report it and outing her not only as a rapist but queer and the denial, especially in the case Anya and Curly are both out as she feels a sort of resentment she can't be secure with herself that way. If it is masc!Curly, there could be the jealousy of him being able to actively pursue relationships he wants while she feels she can't, Anya and Curly playfully flirt, its casual but it's something she longs for in the same way she doesn't. She obsesses over Curly because she wishes she could be Curly in a social sense in both aspect male or female Curly.

If it's fem!Jimmy and masc!Anya? It's a much more delicate situation. In this scenario Jimmy gets pregnant. Maybe Anya does a blood test after the incident and finds out Jimmy is pregnant. It's a very sensitive matter because if it's fem!Curly her first assumption is Anya may have done something. That is just the immediate assumptions in cases like this. I think the fact that Anya is telling her would make Curly think it's not that simple, especially since Jimmy isn't brining it up or really caring but everyone reacts differently. Jimmy is pregnant however, and that's a big deal, she'll figure that out eventually on her own but how will she react? Curly knows it won't be good, Anya knows too.

I think the crash is instigated in this scenerio by fem!Curly actually doing more, refusing to sweep it under the rug because she can conceptualize that fear, likely she and Jimmy are the only girls on board. She trusts everyone, well did trust everyone, but it's just something you live with. She can't just live with that double standard but I feel like she really doesn't know how to address it. How does she bring it up to superiors without implicating Anya? What does she do with Jimmy, it still feels like she's catering to Jimmy but now the concern is primarily focused on the life this baby will be born into. If it is born at all. I don't think Jimmy would try to kill Anya in this concept but try to spin the narrative it was mutual up until she got pregnant. Curly doesn't really buy it but it's a lot of processing, a lot more he said she said but what Jimmy is saying just doesn't make sense. It gives Jimmy too much time to really settle with the fact she's pregnant and likely can't support a kid nor wants to give birth out in space. Jimmy feeling like she's being othered from the only other woman could also be a factor, maybe even starting into her thinking Curly is behaving like a "pick-me" for siding with a guy over her. The crash is more spiteful in terms of having to protect herself alone, due to Curly not outright supporting her delusions.

It really adds a certain horror to Jimmy's pregnancy hallucinations because after the crash they are about her, her symptoms the sign of showing. She doesn't want the child either and considering what being pregnant can do to your mental/physical state, especially some of the more negative symptoms, I doubt she is handling it well. A lot of Anya's struggles are with the stigmas around male victims. His body reacted so did he want it? He's gonna be a father and courts likely will make him pay or care for the baby even if they take Anya's side, their world is just like that. Would the other's blame him for not doing more, he is a man after all? Should he be considered lucky a woman was that into him? It's eating away at him because not only does he not feel safe, he actively blames himself.

In the case Curly is still a cis guy, its that weird feeling guys often get when talking about male victims of assault. I don't think he'd victim blame but he likely asks or thinks about how it could've happened, why wouldn't Anya just overpower Jimmy? Maybe he couldn't? Maybe Anya didn't have it in him to strike a woman. He wouldn't. Now he thinks of what he would have done if Jimmy did something like that to him. SImilary to my trans!Curly post, he's wondering if it could've been him. It's likely one of the first times in his life he has to think of that type of vulnerability in terms of himself and other men and against likely his girl best friend. I think that arm pat right before Jimmy crashes the ship would really make him feel weird, not like he'd have the time to really dig into those feeling but y'know WERE GONNA CRASH!!!.

In terms of Jimmy and Curly's specific relationship, it just gets messier if they aren't both guys or girls. There's a lot of misogny on Jimmy's side with fem!Curly. He often points out she's a woman captain or makes a point of her being one of the few independent woman in her field and how certain men hate that. It's insidious but Curly doesn't think about or like to cause she likes to believe Jimmy isn't one of those guys. He can be a bit antiquated, maybe a bit of a pig but no ones perfect! Here a lot of his resentment is more gear toward a woman having that power over him as Captain/filling the typical male roles he fails at. He can't stand that she's above him in almost aspect and he likely takes it out on other women. Similarly, fem!Jimmy and cis Curly is just as bad. It's a fact of not knowing if she wants to be him, wants him or wants to destroy him. It's obsession without anything positive. She feels entitled to his space and life and time and he has a hard time setting up boundaries cause, well, Jimmy's a girl, his bestfriend and it comes with all the stigmas around boygirl best friends. To him it's a sort of oppressive doting, he feels wrong telling her not to pick and like he's being controlling. That's how she'd spin it whenever he'd try to make boundaries with her.

They are still just friends but most people can't tell even if they can tell it's not healthy, in both cases. Either way I feel like if they were opposite genders to each other there would a specific infatuation Jimmy would have with Curly that would be less hidden but sort of unaddressed because the idea of Curly rejecting them would make them lash out in a way Curly may just leave for their safety. It's also Jimmy wouldn't want to be with Curly specifically but just want what would consistently provide/available.

If they are both girls, its envy. It's that sort of hate that someone fits the standards you don't, wanting them to be picked second or crack. She likes to get into Curly's head, point out flaws and act like it's just her being helpful. She wants Curly to be a girls girl but only for her. There's a sort of possessiveness like purposely jeopardizing relationships because why would a man come first? That girl hates me and is a pick me, why are you friends with her still, Curly? Like this is silly but think about how Regina George treats Gretchen Wieners and that's effectively how fem!Curly and fem!Jimmy would work but technically Curly has the sway of Regina.

I believe the crash would always happen. Jimmy would try to escape responsibility or really thinking about what they did in any world, any gender. It's about facing the consequences, losing things he refuses to let go of or having to deal with responsibilities he's not ready for. The switching of sex or gender really doesn't change those core aspects.