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msdrprofessorjessica · 24 days ago

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Alchemists Apathy Character Bio: William Afton

Some of you may forget this guy exists, and that's because The Mimic is cooler, but really, who cares? ... me, I do.

Ah yes, William Afton. That one guy that many people mischaracterize so heavily I think it has probably become a sport at how much people mischaracterize him. It's sad but hey, what are you gonna do? For those who have lived under a rock or are like "THEY GAVE PURPLE GUY A NAME?!?" William Afton was the series antagonist for the first six games and even now, there are people still suffering at the hands of William, thanks The Mimic... asswipe. William Afton was once known as The Purple Guy because back during the first four games, Scott didn't really bother to name him. Why would he? The story back then was pretty simple to follow, guy kills kids, kids haunt robots, and then there's a bunch of fire everywhere. Nowadays, Afton is known for having honestly a really good personality that many people just overlook it and don't care. Such is the way of the fandom I suppose.

A lot of people tend to just not give William a motive. "Can't a girl have a hobby?" they would say. Now, I think that's true... if you are telling a more simple story. With a story as complex as Fnaf 1-UCN, the guy should have a motive instead of just "Uh oh, I fell down into the sewers, guess I'm evil!" (this is a funny reference no one will get). It's what differentiates him from a lot of other murderers, it actually gives him character. Yes, I am well aware that irl serial killers do not have motives and just go on mass killing sprees to get off or something, but this is fiction with a funny blue rabbit that is a boy but has a girls name, give the guy a motive. In this AU, Afton's motives are very similar to his canon incarnation (because there was nothing wrong with canon William y'all are just haters) but since fangames are canon, I sprinkled in some fanon elements to the character as well.

William Afton was born in an unspecified date in the good ol town of, and you guessed it, Oklahoma. Why Oklahoma? I don't know I just thought the name sounded cool. William was born into a fairly rich family that would eventually lose their fortune to unknown circumstances, with the father later dying out of shock. William was raised and loved by many because he was rich, but it wasn't the money that went to William's head, it was the attention. William grew fascinated by the attention, he had many friends that weren't exactly his friends, they just wanted his families money. His parents fed into his delusion, leading him to be the man you see today... William met up with Henry around high school as they both shared a love for old Disney movies and cartoons, in fact, they both went on a trip to Disneyland at one point, witnessing a traumatizing event with one of the mascot performers. William never kept up with Disney after this, apparently he heard they had a track record for strange occurrences (something about an island? He didn't really care), but this event somewhat left and impression on William. William eventually met Melody sometime around the sixties, with them eventually having sex in a storage closet at some theater and that was the deed that had Michael. When William found out that Melody was pregnant, he didn't know what to do. He never had something like this before, he was more angry that it happened rather than shocked. He married Melody because Henry said he had to. "It's the right thing" Henry said, so William did it. This wasn't the start of the facade of William's "perfect" family, but it was a small factor.

William had noticed that everything wasn't like the way it should be when it was a child. He didn't have many friends, he had coworkers, Henry had many friends, Henry was popular. Just to be clear here, sorry Willry fans, it ain't happening. They have wives, though, if it helps anything, William is pansexual and Henry is bisexual. I do joke that if it were to happen, it would either be doomed yaoi or VERY toxic yaoi so take that as you will. Back to the character, William viewed Henry's love for robotics as a threat to himself, William and Henry both studied robotics, but Henry had a deep fascination for it unlike William, who studied it to get a degree like everyone else, he wasn't in love with it. But the way William saw Henry's passion when making the Fredbear and Spring Bonnie characters, the fascination Henry would do to make other mascot suits that could be used for the springlock endoskeletons. It was like... William couldn't describe it. He has three journals filled with mad praise and wild jealousy over Henry. William deemed it unfair, he should be like that. When Henry married, William was not the best man. He should have been, he should have been a better man than Henry ever was. William tried as he might to be viewed the way Henry did, eventually Melody would have twins, and William was okay with this. Most families had three children, William would have his own, be better than most families, be better than Henry's family, which had two children. Twins as well.

As you can tell, during the early parts of the timeline, I play more into William's fascination and jealousy of Henry. The Silver Eyes has always called this out and I always found it super interesting that it did. William was clearly fascinated with Henry, whether that be because he could love and William can't or something else, I always liked that about William's character. So during the early parts of this universe, I see William being more infatuated with Henry and later on, trying to do something else. To step out of Henry's shadow. William's first murder is the fifth friend of Michael's friend group, Lily Brooks. Lily was an accidental murder, just happened to be in the backroom at the wrong place at the wrong time, when William was taking out his frustration. William did everything he could when he was Spring Bonnie, he wanted to one up Henry in terms of theatrics, possibly his true calling. His anger overflowed him one day and he took it out on the first person he saw, who just happened to be a girl who wandered into the backroom by mistake. She was murdered and when William realized what he had done, he was afraid at first and took the body, stuffing it into one of the first ever prototype Fredbear animatronics. It was an accident, but he realized that she might be alive inside of the Fredbear prototype. Even before The Puppet had awakened Lily, the prototype Fredbear had been alive via different means. Maybe it was his anger? His jealousy? William didn't know, but it reminded him of that one time at Disneyland. William began to experiment with emotions, mainly fear. He used some money to secretly start up his own testing chambers directly under Fredbear's, would be easy to have his own victims. It took two months to create the chambers, and William did everything by hand.

The man used his youngest son as a test subject, probably the only thing he was good for. He manipulated his son as well using the Fredbear plush, trying to continue to make him fear everything around him. Michael's torment was the perfect motivator, and of course, those new Freddy Fazbear characters. When The Big Bite happened, William was mad at Michael, but for different reasons. He lost a family member, and now everyone gave their condolences and looked at the family with pity. William didn't need pity, he needed praise, he needed love. He needed to be the man everyone loved. William had killed Charlotte and his wife prior to The Big Bite so everyone already looked at him and Henry with pity, but now it was doubled. William also lost a test subject, and with Fredbear's closed down William was at a loss to continue his experiments. But he realized something, the souls of his wife and Charlotte were alive, Lily was now truly alive inside of The Prototype. There was something to this, and now William had a new goal. His ego, his theatrics, they would all come into play to make William Afton the immortal man he should be.

William's experiments continued with Michael and Elizabeth flip flopping sometimes. As for William, he would go on to continue working for Fazbear Entertainment and eventually go on to kill six children at the local Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Gabriel, Fritz, Susie, Jeremy, Cassidy, and Zoey. This incident was viewed as a huge hit and the suit used for the murders had seemingly disappeared. The bodies were never found, but there seemed to be a trail, and just as the police were picking up on this trail, the animatronics were shipped off to the sister companies facility. They did inspect William Afton, finding everything except for a confession labeled I did it. But they found the Spring Bonnie suit, which had been used for the murders. But due to the lack of bodies being found, William was let go. It was around this time that Fazbear Enterprises fired both William Afton and Henry Emily as they felt like they needed a break. William wouldn't take this lying down, how could they fire him? William's ego blinded him from the firings, Henry would move on, try and rebuild his life using his own copyright free characters which William would call "The Mediocre Melodies". William would make a rival company called "Afton Robotics" and start up his own restaurant... that didn't even open. It had one test run and shut down after that. Everyone was confused why and then it was found out that Elizabeth Afton had been missing for a few days. William kills five more children at the next Freddy Fazbear's Pizza location, with them going on to possess the animatronics. It was around this time William had realized something, when in the Spring Bonnie suit, the children he had killed were none the wiser. They were alive yes, but he could masquerade as one of them, manipulate them. It worked and he basically made a brand new family, one that respected him, listened to him.

With The Puppet in the picture, they stopped listening to him.

The main five were now thorns in his side, naughty children that deserved to be punished. The new set of children he killed didn't last long as Toy Bonnie would end up committing an event known as "The Bite of 87". Jeremy would live, but the animatronics were scrapped. Furious by this, William knew he was at a loss, Michael was off at college, Elizabeth was Circus Baby and anytime he was down there, she was just as annoying as ever, Timothy was gone, and his wife was always foiling his plans. William snapped, he lost it. He broke into Freddy Fazbear's one night after it had been abandoned and destroyed the animatronics, teaching them a lesson. In the end, William was taught a lesson as the ghosts of his past came back to haunt him, scaring him into the Spring Bonnie suit he once used. William laughed as the children still seemed afraid of him, but those laughs loosened the locks just enough to snap back into place. But William didn't mind in the end, he was alone, alone with his newfound immortality.

When brought to Fazbear's Fright, Afton had a sort of love hate relationship with the building. The attraction was all for him, he walked around it, he relished it, it was all about his murders, his legacy, all in one place. William had seemingly got everything he wanted, sure, they might have feared him, BUT, he was looked at. He was popular. They loved him, and when it all burnt to the ground, he was a little sad, but hey, it's better than calling him Springtrap. He was found after the fire and brought to a facility, a facility he knew fondly. At the end, when the facility was rubble, Afton survived once more. He never once thought that he got here through luck, he believed that he truly was immortal. Despite the scratches and scrapes from the facility, Afton was alive. He then heard of this new fangled restaurant, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place. He knew who owned it, he knew who worked there, and he knew what it was. He survived one fire, he survived a facility being turned to rubble. Afton was immortal, and he needed to let them know that he was. His ego blinded him once more. He walked right into the trap, and it worked. The remaining souls were freed, and Afton was sent to deal with his consequences. When William first saw UCN, he realized how WONDERFUL it was. Being surrounded by his own creations, the ones he made, the ones he loved. It brought a smile to his face, but Cassidy knew that. So she when she saw the smile, she brought in others. Afton's legacy had created many murderers, many creations, some linked to Fazbear Entertainment, some not. William would be tormented by it all, going through different loops of torment, going through all the bad memories he made people go through. Some of them revolved Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, some of them involved Fazbear Enterprises themselves, and some of them involved other companies. And it's still going, Cassidy isn't satisfied until William's ego is non-existent... and then some.

William's theatrics and ego blinded him to the blindspots he made, he lied about Circus Baby being based off his daughter (which is mostly a lie with a tiny hint of truth to it) and didn't think for one second that she would disobey and see the murder machine, because William's ego blinded him to it. William had always left a trail, he left everything, he just got lucky. And for once, he didn't stop to think that. With Afton suffering for all eternity, there are still parts of him that exist out there, The Mimic's first look at him was through the emotions Afton imprinted on the Spring Bonnie circuit boards. The Simon Endoskeleton has parts of Afton in his code, with Fritz Glade none the wiser. Project "Clean Slate" made Afton into a caring father who just wants his family to be immortal, and that's how William was remembered. No one knew the real Afton, no one knows that his legacy lives on, or that he's suffering for his crimes. Fazbear Enterprises covered it all up as a desperate attempt to stay in business. But no matter how many times they find a way to cover him up, he will come back.

He always does.

#five nights at freddy's #alchemistsapathy #fnaf au #fnaf #william afton #fnaf william afton #I hope I did a good job characterizing Afton

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ghnosis · 1 year ago

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songs that mean something @ IU Bloomington 2/29/24

notes from my talk at Black Metal is for Everyone. yes I know LI is not black metal. I also don't care! get off my dick :)

IF THE POISON WON’T TAKE YOU MY DOGS WILL

Condensing everything I love about Kristin Hayter into 5 minutes.

Quotes by Kristin Hayter herself come from 4 interviews – 1 following the release of All Bitches Die (2017), 2 following CALIGULA (2019) and a Reddit AMA after Sinner Get Ready (2020); Hayter refers to these works as a trilogy, and I’m thinking of all three while I talk about this song off CALIGULA. Hayter has since completed the Lingua Ignota project and now makes music under her given name.

What’s important to me about Lingua Ignota/Kristen Hayter are her ideas of female ecstatic/religious speech/glossolalia (speaking in tongues) paired with what she has to say about “darkness,” trauma, and extreme music.

Hayter describes the idea that “there is something intrinsically feminine about oracular or ecstatic experience.” My academic work has to do with ways that the marginalized interject themselves into unwelcome space, sometimes through invoking Satan or dark powers; I see female mystics in a similar vein, but on the side of lightness.

Lingua Ignota means “unconstructed/unknown language,” an alphabet attributed to medieval mystic/composer/oracle Hildegaard von Bingen, one of Hayter’s influences.

“Poison” is “meant to evoke the ambience of the Jonestown death tapes,” Hayter is directly quoting Jim Jones in the line “I am the best friend you’ll ever have” – this is something she does throughout her work. On Sinner Get Ready she quotes Jimmy Swaggart, a televangelical involved in some public sex scandals and defrocked.

Aileen Wuornos was “one of the world-building motifs” of Hayter’s work. Although she is commonly referred to as one of the only female “serial killers,” Wuornos herself alleged that her actions were self-defense; the men she murdered had raped or attempted to rape her. Hayter's choice to sample Wuornos on her first album All Bitches Die was a reaction to male extreme metal musicians sampling [male] serial killers as a signpost for “evilness;” Hayter feels that this is overused in the genre to the point of banality. Further, these men are playacting in Hayter’s opinion; they aren’t actually familiar with human cruelty in a real sense. She is interested in “flipping the paradigm” of extreme music, to instead make heavy music for people “upon whom dark shit has actually been visited” - people who, like Wuornos, might have considered homicide as a survival mechanism.

“Poison” opens with “Kyrie eleison,” literally, “Lord, have mercy.” One of the notable times this phrase appears in the Bible is in the story of the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21); she asks Jesus for mercy and he is so moved by her faith that he heals her possessed daughter. The mercy of Jesus/God for the faithful and specifically female divine retribution appears throughout Hayter’s work; I had a hard time choosing between this song and “I Who Bend the Tall Grasses,” which is a song in which Hayter herself demands God kill her abuser, hissing “I’m not asking.”

Kyrie eleison is also often the first sung prayer of the traditional Latin Catholic Mass; Hayter referred to CALIGULA as “golden Catholic bullshit” - Sinner Get Ready is more Appalachian evangelical, experimenting with Christian/Catholic faith in its varied forms.

“Abandon your body/make worthless your body” I’m really interested in the idea of rebellion through deliberate warning symbolism or deliberate ugliness – like Britney Spears shaving her head in 2007, what we as the traumatized can do to take power back or break rules, transcending your body as a definition of yourself, making your body “worthless” to those who might use it to hurt (or define) you.

Hayter describes going “from situations where I was being totally controlled to total autonomy, and it seems crazy but thinking about stuff like — what colors do I like? What clothes can I wear? Has been pretty huge for me." - ideas of self-reclamation, making one’s body worthless to anyone but the person inhabiting it.

#lingua ignota #not ghost #dissrelated #getting a phd in ghost #Spotify

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ggren-mainz · 4 months ago

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Umineko - question arcs playthrough -> ep 2 - 5

last part - All parts and episodes - next part

My gf almost finished the play and she actually thinks its good, yay! I also found subtitles for the second ep as well so yay.

hmm so that's what kinzo wants? to capture Beatrice in a 'cage'? that would check out, especially with his personality.

"ouuuuughhhh beeaaattrriiiiceee plsss comee seee meee agaaainn" *puts anti Beatrice charm right at the door *

helll yeeaaa so true beato. Beat that old man into oblivion.

you ever read something and think to yourself "wow...this is def a metaphor for something....too bad idk what that something is"? Well anyways this can be taken as a metaphor for many things, it's a pretty simple concept. Waited for their death (release?) for so long but they got the taste of happiness and life and now they no longer wish for it. 13y old me vs adult me or something.

Does this imply that Shannon will be the killer this time and that Kanon was the killer last time? Not the killer of everyone that's for sure, but i mean the first 6. As in he fell victim into her game the first time round and did her work? But it wouldn't make sense for him to kill shannon. Tho i am like 80% sure he was the one who broke the mirror the first time.

BITE IT KANON, BITE IT!!!

Higurashi ch 8 moment. (though could it mean he's not the piece that will be used this round? i don't think it's a protagonist thing, we clearly had multiple till now.)

He would be an amazing flat earther/anti-vaxxer. Those facebook posts would slap.

Me omw to explain how mass paranoia and mass hallucinations are actually the answer to anything she brings out, and actually kinzo just poisons everyone with hallucinogenic gas (that also turns everyone gay because of the...woke.)

Is this how the witch's portrait looks this time around?? And also, Beatrice so great she broke my game again, thank god i just saved.

dw about it, she'll just come and say everything (including your lives) is hers. Easy peasy. (feat my mousepad barely scribbled names of the ones talking)

she wants your hearts ( ^ 3 ^) (on a silver platter)

wait wait wait,...wait. I only realized 3 lines later but I know this refers to the proof of how she's related to them but this def relates to the witch and magic stuff as well. Too much accent has been put on it. hm. So then if nothing that's shown to us here is definite proof, then what is? does this say we need to read between the lines? it would help a shit ton, especially to toss away the random acts of magic, but i feel like that's the wrong approach. That's he one Battler took, and we all know he is not the brightest. But for now, we should keep this in mind. It's not that what we see here isn't real, or we can just toss it away, it's just that it's not the truth. (yes i know one spoiler about all the red text being true, idk what that means tho with this new revelation i think i get what it will mean, but mostly i just wanted this text to look cool lmao)

Omggg so she has met Beatrice before!! yaaayyy.

There's so many choices and they all sound like the wrong one. They were both doomed from the start, doomed by the narrative or something.

1- lol as if, the golden witch has chosen you as a sacrifice once, she will do it again. And 2- hm is Genji somehow working with the witch? Like i just thought about it, and it would make quite some sense.

Sent my gf the jp text cause I don't get it. What does this mean? is this a pun? Like ok i get it, she's doesn't look like Kanon but like...there isn't really that much of a similarity. Does she mean "you don't act like kanon"? That's the only thing that would make sense to me.

(ok asked my gf and now it's even weirder because she confirmed the verb after means she's referring to them looks wise. Which is...? because they don't really look alike. So yeah...i think I'm sitting too much on one line)

oh she fr for this one.

woah woah woah, what does this mean? But she sure is way cooler this time around. Go shannon go!!

let's put it simply Beatrice...which one is it... mommy or daddy issues? Mayhaps both?

wow just like with a kindergarten kid. No but I'm loving this Sayo, pls don't get killedddd.

So the rest serve dinner but Kirye asks about Beatrice and chaos falls upon the entire room, as obviously no one from that room invited her. They fight a bit but my issue is... ROSA DIDN'T READ THE LETTERR!!

i am so annoyed at that, i was hoping Maria would pressure her but no apparently. Maybe she'll read it with the adults but still. The kids deserve to hear.

next part

#umineko #umineko playthrough #umineko when they cry #umineko no naku koro ni #ryukishi07 #when they cry

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bigmack2go · 7 months ago

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https://www.canva.com/design/DAGE02N5d0w/vBgIXLeQgdlC-HQ9CcpqDg/edit?utm_content=DAGE02N5d0w&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton @whydontyouputyourseatbelton @crystaltreebee @i-got-personality @aaaaaa-musical-trash

Also here are my notes. Not all of them make sense anymore but some do lol.

So we all know i love musicals and thats why i chose this topic. i knew from the beginning that i wanted to do smt with musicals for this but i wasnt sure whT to chose. I was debating doing the portrayal of death in musicals but nit all of you answered in time whether thya would trigger anybody so that was out. The second option was costumes in musical whoch wooild make sense for us as fashion forst graders but then u realised i could include that in this.

Now obviously there isnt one way to make a good musical and its always a matter of opinion. And while i do have an opinion, i tried to form a critical opinion on everything.

Theres a lot of stuff that goes into musicals. When you think of a good one you may think of one with good lyrics or a cool story. But theres also stuff that you don’t think of at first, that alone couldn’t’make’ a good play, but in combination are the most important parts! Like the light design >insert rest of agenda.< (kannst einfach ablesen, was auf der folie steht!)

story wise i think heathers did a great job. Heathers is about a girl who falls in love with a killer. Ups and downs, and just a generally creative and good story with a good and,,more or less sense-making plot. The layout is very good too: a great hook, some happy stuff, scary and then things go down with a bittersweet ending. Im not sure how to explain what makes a good or a bad plot but for reference imma give you cats in comparison as an example of a not so good plot

Talking lyrics, i dont need to think twice to tell you hamilton! Its about alexander the great and his life. There is no way to convince me of anything else. Its a peotic masterpiece which especially brings out alexander hamitons own lyrical genius. Lin Manuel Miranda is a great fan of motifs and mass rhymes, and methaphors. His stylisation is nit only unique but really really good!

but I honestly didn’t like the choreo: it was sloppy and ensemble based. They were just rearranging furniture and stuff. There was only one song, “Satisfied” that was choreographed well. i do however think that westside storry has an awesome choreo! Westside story is about racism and separation between gangs in the 1960’s new york city. It tells storry but it’s still dancing. Good dancing i mean. They mixed elements of ballet with hip hop, flamenco and countles other kinds of dancing and it came out with perfection

and while the tunes are awesome there, there are better ones. Like Rent. But even better: hadestown. A modern retelling of the story of greek mythology god orpheus and his love interest euridacy. The tunes are everything there! It captured the mood and it was,,, seductive to your ears! The orchestra and composer did a great job! Its not easy to make all instruments work with each other so well. Or in the hights! Awesome composition!

yk what else is great about in the hights? The mood! It has ups and downs. An awesome balance thats brought acroos awesomely! Some would argue that SIX is by far the play with the best mood and don’t get me wrong SIX also has a great mood but i dont think they found a good balance for that. The mood is almost exclusively positive for what its worth and it didnt have enough variety

while its not like in the heights had the chance to, they still didn’t have the greatest costumes… however six didn’t have the chance either, but they still did it. They’re original and iconic and make the characters! Six tells the story of the six wives of henry the eighth who were divorced, beheaded, died, divirced, beheaded and survived. Of course there goes a lot into costume making which makes this even better Theres a lot to concidder:

-cholortheory

-color psychology

-prises

-fabric

And then of course the require some necessary qualities like

-quickchanges

-dancable

-rechognise characters (especially when one actor plays several) and set the ensemble apart

-makes no noises OR make specific noises

-You need to concidder the period in which the play takes place, and clothes aren’t the only complicated part of costumes: wigs/ hair and makeup or facepaint can make a whole look!

And the kind of musical can also influence the kinds of costumes. Some examples are

Types/ways of costumes (I tried to make this as few categories as possibles possible)

(Erklären!!!)

- Normal clothing. Examples: come from away, Illinois, the prom

- Periodically./accurate (unter punkt: seemingly adequate) Examples: newsies, the greatest show, something rotten

- Periodically modernised: Hamilton who had periodical clothes and hair and make up modern,

- Modernised: SIX which was almost robitic, descendants

- Interpretation Starlight express, (where trains and cars wore roler skates), tarzan, and lionking? Possibly? I feel like lionking could be a category of its own though to be honest

- made into outfit:: spongebob, Arielle/the little mermaid, (starlight express)

- Actually just costumes: cats, Shrek, beauty and the beast or wicked

- Inadequate: six

- Portraying: into the woods and parts of starlight express

- Simplified: hamilton

- using the stage: illinois, ride the cyclone

then theres storry telling for which i say cats. cats… which is quite ironic. Cats is about…. Well… cats

They could have done better but i still think it’s the best there is! They TELL their storry. Like in six exept they actually have a present that like,, exists. The lyrics alright i guess but the composing could have had a little more variety, however i did love the stage there as well because it was always the same but still did awesome stuff like the train thingy

talking about stages! I think the stage is such an important part thats often overlooked. There are musicals like dear evan hansen, the prom, be more chill or tuck everlasting that have a variety of different sets with self driving probs but it’s just actually different things and not very creative. There are two versions of good stages. One that take you in the setting, but that only works if your setting is a special place. There are many musicals that made this one very well. My top two are frozen on ice and tarzan they are actually in an icepit with icedanging and stuff and in tarzan they swing around like actual monkeys and spray you with water and stuff. The second type is when there is one element thats used through the whole show and that makes the setting. This is also called a Uni-set. One of the best examples for this is probably the grey cube: Falsettos. It’s about aids and judaism (?)

But whats part of the stage design is the light design which is overlooked even more than the stage itself. I know i said said that i didnt like the stage of dear evan hansen but it does have an awesome light design! In general the technical aspects and also the sound design there is really good! Dear evan hansen is about a boy who pretends to have been friends with a kid that recently passed.

then theres what i call the manipulation aspect which is choices that were purposely made but not pointed out. I think that hamilton did a great job here too. A lot of people talking at once when to much is going on in his life and only him talking when he makes the dumbest decision in his life. Walking in straight lines when thinking simple and good but in circles when it’s complicated and a lot. That sort of stuff.

the last aspect is performance. Its hard to rate this since for stage musicals the actors and therefore the performance changes constantly but i think the original tuck everlasting cast did a great job! Tuck everlasting is about a girl, Winnie, who meets an immortal family

something that i honestly probably shouldnt count but gives bonus points is: every musical should have at least one singer tht seems to not even be able to miss a tune if they tried. Sure all singers should be good i love when theres just this one over the top adelle level person. The greatest showman has one and its epic, like,,, goosbumbs throughout the whole song “never enough” with the swedish nightingale. The greatest showman is about Pineas Barnum- an actual guy- who believed in true happiness and that as long as a smile is real, it doesn’t matter if the ‘cause’ of that smile is. He was the reason for the saying “freakshow”

however those are only the best in their aspects but if you’re asking what the BEST MUSICAL IS I definitely say Newsies! im not saying that because i like it -which i do- but actually critically thinking!

Newsies is a Musical based on the newsboys strike of 1899 where the Newsies working for the World and the Journal held the first ever successful strike in america that was organised by kids in history. The story centres Centers around a Newsboy Jack Kelly and his new friend Davey. They start a strike against the owners of the Newspapers and stop selling because they raised the prices for the papers even tho they have more than enough money, when the Newsboys barely make a living. Davey tries to talk him out of it at first but doesn’t succeed. Eveantually he gives in and actually gets really invested in the strike himself in the end.

Now your prolly thinking: why? Well. This presentation is far from over. (That was a lie. Its almost done dont worry)

Lyrics are honestly great! I have zero complaints about that. If anything, i have complements! Sure, its not as good as Mirandas works but, lets be honest: what is? I think the lyrics were still more than A+! The story is simply great. i personally think its harder to make something that already exists or happened into a storry. It requires much more creativity despite already having a ‘template’ you have to make the whole thing fit and make sense with your own thing and still be accurate and theres a lot about this actually. Newsies did great with that! It’s composed geniusly too. Menken/Ortega outdid himself by far with it. The choreo? Bombastic! Don’t even get me started. Prolly the best I’ve even seen! And I‘m not just saying that. I actually don’t think i’ve ever seen anything choreographed this well before. They have dance breaks in songs, DESPITE DANCING THE WHOLE TIME anyways

Tunes? Through the roof top. (Haha get it— cuz of santa fe— laugh>:()

The mood was great but it had a balance! It was introduced with a good mood, making u invested but still,,, deep and sad.

You just need one picture -and this is gonna sound really bad for my case but- this[bild zeigen] is all you need to know about the show

While the costumes aren’t too original they’re definitely iconic and not too bad.

Story telling is fantastic! There are some talking to yourself/the audience and telling the story! Some telling it WITHIN the plot (which they did a gooood job making it seem natural and not forced info) and some middle grounds. I really liked it. They also blurred the lines there perfectly.

Stages! I love using newsies as an example for a good stage because they have BOTH kinds of a good stage! (sorta) its one element that is rearanged to make a whole different setting. They only needed some little elements that weren’t always the same. Add a few tables and chairs? Diner. Ad fancier chairs? Pulitzers office. Typewriter? Boom! Editors office. I also think that the metall stuff did a really good job reminding u where and when exactly this is taking place and that that combination of time and place: lower manhattan in 1899 wasnt the best mix of time and place to live in so that sorta counts for the first type.

We dont even need to talk about the “manipulation” aspect bc i wouldnt even know where to start. Im not even sure it was all on purpose. What character has what choreo, the double meaning of some things, the reprises, the rhymes and so much more

They have medda and jeremy jordan as jack kelly so they have not one but TWO of those perfect singers!

And Ive honestly never seen a bad performance of newsies . So yes. Chritically, Newsies is the best musical

Anyway my favourite is and always will be

Starlight express

Despite not being on place one in even ine of these

#newsies #my posts #kosa newsies strike #heathers #hamilton #cats #SIX #the greatest showman #come from away #lionking #descendants #tarzan #frozen #starlight express #beauty and the beast #wicked #into the woods #in the heights

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head-post · 7 months ago

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British police prepare for new anti-Muslim riots

British police are preparing for more anti-Muslim riots on August 7 as groups of disgruntled citizens have vowed to attack asylum centres and immigration law firms across the UK.

Britain is gripped by a growing wave of violence that erupted early last week when three young girls were stabbed to death in the north-west of the country, sparking a wave of false reports on the internet falsely labelling the alleged killer as an Islamist migrant.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a former chief prosecutor facing his first crisis since winning the July 4 election, warned the rioters will face long jail terms as he tries to quell Britain’s worst outbreak of violence in 13 years. He told TV presenters:

“Our first duty is to ensure our communities are safe. They will be safe. We are doing everything we can to ensure that where a police response is needed, it is in place, where support is needed for particular places, that is in place.”

In towns and cities, groups of several hundred rioters have clashed with police and smashed windows of hotels housing asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East, chanting “Kick them out” and “Stop the boats” – referring to those arriving in the UK on small boats.

They have also pelted mosques with stones, horrifying local people, including ethnic minorities who feel victimised by the violence.

There have been reports online that immigration centres and law firms that assist migrants will be hit on August 7:

“Guys, Wednesday night. They won’t stop coming until you tell them.”

In response, anti-racist and anti-fascist groups organised counter-demonstrations in cities and towns across the country.

One typical post about a planned protest in the southern coastal city of Brighton read:

“Racist scum are trying to attack an immigration lawyer’s office. We will not let this happen – wear covered faces and masks.”

Former Scottish leader Humza Yousaf said the current unrest in Britain had made him consider leaving the country for the safety of his family. And not just Britain, but Europe in general.

The wife of West Northamptonshire County Councillor Lucie Connolly was detained for posting on social media a call to burn down hotels with migrants, The Independent reports. The official’s wife wrote on her page on X, but soon deleted the post:

“Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f***ing hotels full of the b******* for all I care… If that makes me racist, so be it.”

The woman apologised for her publication, saying she had acted on “false and malicious” information. However, she has been the subject of several complaints to police for inciting violence. Northamptonshire Police said the 41-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred and remains in custody.

Read more HERE

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sjsmith56 · 1 year ago

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It Mattered - Part 22, From There To Here - Bucky Barnes One Shots

Summary: Set during the Blip, Steve Rogers meets with a man who has acquired many official HYDRA files on Bucky.

Length: 6K

Characters: Steve Rogers, named original male character Grant Allman.

Warnings: Grief, disgust with HYDRA, lack of trust in government, Steve missing Bucky.

Author notes: The subtitle on From There to Here is Bucky Barnes One Shots. This part will not have Bucky actually in it, although he will be a topic of discussion. It mostly takes place about a year after the snap of Thanos' fingers, which turned half the universe's population into dust.. For the purposes of this story that tenure will be referred to as the Decimation. It is told from Steve Rogers point of view.

<<Part 21

🗂️

It had been almost a year since Thanos succeeded in dispensing with half the world's population. Six months of disbelief, raw grief, and anger, especially at the remnants of the Avengers for our failure to stop the alien mass murderer, psychopath, sociopath, narcissist and any number of descriptors ascribed to him by the survivors of his purge. It had been almost that long since I last spoke with Tony Stark, blamed by the latter for not being on the killer's home planet with him to deal with that evil presence, even though I was already leading the force against Thanos on Earth. It was unfair; I knew that objectively, but I still felt the guilt, still had nightmares of seeing Bucky, Wanda, T'Challa and so many others disappear in front of me.

One would think that with my early history of being a weakling that I would have adjusted better to losing that fight. As if adjusting to the deaths of billions was easy. It wasn't. Not since I lost Bucky after he fell from the train had I been so angry about not being able to get drunk. It would have been the bender of all time. At least there were still a few Avengers alive; specifically Natasha, Bruce, Thor, and Rhodey. We also had help from a couple of aliens; one of them a cyborg woman named Nebula who spent weeks alone on a space craft with Tony Stark, both of them trying to eke out their fuel and food to make it back to Earth. They were rescued by a human hybrid who apparently knew Nick Fury back in the 1990s. Captain Marvel is what we called her, but she started out as a fighter pilot on Earth by the name of Carol Danvers. She rubbed some people the wrong way with her manner, but Rhodey said if she had been a fighter pilot, she came by that attitude honestly. Her powers were incredible, and she confirmed the effect of the Snap and following decimation on planets outside of our solar system. There was also a talking raccoon named Rocket who came to Wakanda with a walking, talking tree person, Groot, who sadly didn't make it. Rocket and Nebula fixed their spacecraft, and we used it after we found Thanos hoping to take back the infinity gauntlet. But the bastard had destroyed the stones, stopping us from undoing his deadly snap. Thor lost it and killed Thanos outright. We were beaten and had to go back to Earth with our tails between our legs to tell them there was no hope, no chance of fixing it.

But losing the confidence of Tony Stark hurt the most. He'd had it, retreated from everything and everyone. Calls were not returned or even accepted; his email addresses were all erased. He became a ghost. Thor retreated to New Asgard, drinking and eating away the pain of not killing Thanos the first time, in Wakanda. Bruce retreated to Stark's remote lab in Mexico to find a way to combine the Hulk and himself but have them each in balance. I hadn't heard if he made progress. Clint went rogue after his family disappeared. We'd heard rumours that he'd gone on a killing spree of criminals who survived the Snap, but the rumours were hard to confirm. In Wakanda, both T'Challa and Shuri were lost. So much loss everywhere.

I lived in New York City, figured that I might as well stay in a place I was familiar with, but it wasn't the same without the people. There was a feeling of emptiness about it, a sadness that pervaded everything. With the Avengers out of commission I had to do something to pass the time, so I began attending a support group for those of us ready to try and deal with our losses. It helped and I became a counsellor for the organization that funded it. Three afternoons and three nights per week, I led a group of ordinary people to talk about those we lost, the effect it had on us, and how we handled life now. Turned out I was pretty good at it. The supervisor said I was very empathetic but objective enough to handle the depression that most people were feeling, once they got past the anger. Still, whenever someone lost it physically, my strength came in handy to subdue the individual calmly, with dignity, allowing them to get it out of their system without hurting anyone. The rest of the time I boxed, I ran, and I sketched or painted. I didn't date. The only woman I even considered seeing before, Sharon, was lost to the Decimation. I took it as a sign that maybe being celibate was how I was supposed to be. Ma would have liked to see me become a priest, but I didn't believe anymore, not accepting that God would allow Thanos to do what he did and walk away from it. So, I lived a boring life. At least I did until a man approached me after one of my weekend sessions.

He was just an ordinary man, in his late 30s, maybe early 40s, light brown hair, brown eyes, 5 foot 8 inches or so, maybe 170 pounds, muscular. Dressed well, he stuck his head in the door near the end of a Saturday afternoon session then waited in the hallway for me to be finished before coming in. I was stacking the chairs as he approached.

"Steve Rogers?" he asked, extending his right hand to me which I shook. In his left hand he was carrying a small leather case. "Grant Allman. I wonder if I could have a few minutes of your time."

"Were you interested in the counselling sessions?" I asked. "You just missed this session although I have one Monday evening, starting at 7 pm."

"No, I'm okay," he said. "I was already alone when it happened, so I didn't lose anyone. This is about a mutual friend of ours, Bucky Barnes."

He had my attention. "How did you know Bucky?" I asked. "You realize he is one of the decimated."

Grant nodded soberly. "It goes better with coffee and a donut," he said. "My treat. I think you may be interested in information I found out about him, about when HYDRA had him."

Now I really was interested. As soon as I finished stacking the chairs, I grabbed my jacket and locked up. Grant and I walked a couple of blocks, finding a coffee shop. I ordered a black coffee and a glazed donut. He asked for the same and paid for it, leaving the change from a $20 bill as a tip. We sat at a table near a window.

"I met Bucky when he was trying to get to Boston to buy passage on a cargo ship to Europe," he said immediately. "It was just after he met with two old hippies and a teenager in Townsend. He booked a motel room at the place I worked at. I noticed some guys checking out his car and let him know. Figured he was on the run, and they were up to no good so I offered to call some acquaintances who could lead them astray. He gave me several thousand dollars to do it, which surprised the shit out of me." He took a bite of his donut, and a drink of his coffee then studied me for a moment before continuing. "I offered to buy his ticket for him, which is when I recognized him, we talked, and when he found out I was a veteran he opened up more about who he was."

He showed me his infantry tattoo on his left forearm to prove he was a veteran, and drank some of his coffee, waiting for my response.

"Did you help him just for the money?" I asked.

"At first, yeah," he admitted. "I hadn't done so well after getting out of the military. I had substance abuse issues, and the job was all I could get. It was dead-end, minimum wage. But the more I spoke to him the more I realized that he had been through infinitely worse, but he was still a good guy, a really good guy."

We both took another bite of our donuts and drank some more coffee. So far, all Grant had told me was preamble. He obviously had something more to tell me and I wondered if he wanted money before he told me. I decided to cut to the quick.

"You run out of the money?" I asked. "Is that what this is about? You want more money to tell me something I likely already know?"

He smiled in a self-deprecating manner, but he didn't seem offended.

"No, I'm quite well off now," he said. "I've been to rehab, and I've been clean for almost 5 years. I have Bucky to thank for that. He gave me something before I left him in the Port of Boston at the dock of a cargo ship. He gave me the locations of a considerable number of HYDRA safe houses in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Because of his generosity in giving me that information I was able to come by a lot of cash, weapons, and a treasure house of unencrypted and unredacted HYDRA files on him. Some of the files were also marked with SHIELD stamps. So, the reason I came to see you was to see if you wanted them ... for free. It's the least I can do for the guy who literally saved my life."

"But he's dead," I replied bluntly. "It would all be moot, now."

"Yes, and no," said Grant, leaning forward. "I also found something mentioning the woman who founded SHIELD."

"Peggy Carter?" I asked. "There's a file on her?"

"Oh yeah," he said, "but I want you to see all of it because at the least you can clear Bucky's record. He was a victim and people should go to jail for what they did to him. Some of them should be shot."

He stopped talking then, his face set in a hard look. Opening his leather case, he gave me a file folder. I opened it and closed it immediately, so disturbing was the image. Then I opened it again, seeing an actual picture of Bucky in some sort of machine that was obviously torturing him. What was even worse was that the picture was taken at the same moment sutures in his amputated arm burst, spurting blood everywhere. The next few images showed him in surgery, repairing the damage caused by whatever that machine did to him. He looked dead by the time they finished. I stared at Grant, wondering what else he had.

"By the date stamp on it that was in January of 1945," he said grimly. "There are notes at the end, written in German. I had them professionally translated. The machine was basically a conduit for electroconvulsive therapy, ECT, but done at such a high voltage that it would result in severe seizures, followed by memory loss. From the medical experts I consulted about it the result would make the recipient very susceptible to suggestion. With his arm injury still healing the accompanying rise in blood pressure burst the sutures on his arm, resulting in him almost bleeding out."

"Brainwashing," I said. "They were brainwashing him and pushing his body to the limits to get it done."

Grant nodded grimly. It was obvious he wasn't about the money anymore.

"This is just the first file, the earliest one," he said. "The fucking Nazis documented everything as if they were so proud of the torture they inflicted on him as part of their mad science experiment."

He wanted justice for Bucky and I found myself liking Grant for that. As we finished our coffees we made plans to meet up the following day. Grant had an apartment in New York, giving me the address. I agreed to come over at about 1 pm and begin to look through the rest of the paper files he had. He left me with that first file, said that I should find a way to make sure no one ever went through that again.

At home I dropped that file on the coffee table in front of my couch. While I made something to eat, I kept glancing at it, hating what was in it but knowing I had to read it through, to look at everything, to understand what they did to my friend. After I ate I sat down and opened it, once again studying those disturbing images. Then I began reading the translated notes and read how they did this to him, over and over and over again. They had a transcript of what was said by Bucky and by anyone in that room with him.

At first Bucky would repeat the standard phrase all PoWs said to their captors: Barnes, James Buchanan, Sergeant, serial number 32557038. It was all the enemy was entitled to as part of the Geneva Convention, as if HYDRA ever honoured those rules. Then the command would be given for the machine to be turned on. My lips curled and I could feel the bile in my throat as I read through the multiple repetitions of that torture and each instance after. He fought them. God help me, when he told me in the quinjet that he fought them I envisioned him fighting physically but he couldn't even do that, being so injured and then restrained on that gurney. All he could do was endure the torture then fight them with his persistence and his very soul. Looking back it was obvious when I found him in Austria at that factory, that they had started the process there, with the serum injections and the memory wipes. He never said a word about it, was probably ashamed that I would think he had given himself up to the enemy.

"Buck, you should have told me," I whispered to myself. "I would never have put you into danger like I did."

He was probably already halfway to being a super soldier when I rescued him. It's why he survived the fall off the train. Whoever found him took him to HYDRA and they were only too eager to continue the process. My transition was done in one long moment of simultaneous multiple injections and a burst of Vita Ray radiation. Bucky's was spread through weeks, perhaps years of injections of the serum, in between the sessions on the ECT machine, all while still being seriously injured. The realization of the torture he went through hit me and I cried for him, for what the best man I ever knew went through, alone and without hope of rescue. Wiping my eyes and blowing my nose I finished reading that damn file. Although I barely slept that night, I knew that I owed it to Bucky to read the rest and find out exactly what HYDRA did to him.

I arrived early at Grant's apartment. He wasn't surprised to see the look on my face either. I imagine he had a similar one on his face when he began accumulating the evidence. Everything he found were stored in file boxes, marked with the days, months, and years they referred to. He brought us both a coffee and sat next to me.

"Before you ask, the money that I found in the safe houses has made me well off," he said. "I'll admit that. But I promised Bucky I would do good with it, and I have. After I got clean, I began sponsoring other vets with substance abuse issues to get into rehab. I invested some, that's what paid for this apartment and my lifestyle, which isn't flashy, but I do alright. I went back to school, and I offer my services to people who need help, either with a person, or a problem, or a situation. Officially I'm a private investigator. Unofficially I rescue people in trouble. I don't kill. Bucky was emphatic that he was done with that, so I've kept that up as my mantra. Every once in a while, I find someone who is named in these files and if they are HYDRA, I turn them in. If they were victims of HYDRA, I help them."

He turned to me, trying to gauge my reaction and I felt I should respond. "I'm glad to hear it," I said sincerely. "Bucky never did like bullies. It's how we met. He was like my big brother and when I found out he was still alive I knew I had to help him."

"There's another thing you should know," said Grant. "These files have taken me since 2014 to accumulate. They were scattered around all the safe houses, in no particular order. Maybe the people who put them there didn't want everything in one place. I know Bucky kept the list of European safe houses with him when he left. But I don't think he ever used it because I got word of someone trying to sell HYDRA files of him on the black market and that didn't sound like Bucky's style."

"There was a con man," I answered. "After Bucky got to Italy. He must have recognized Bucky and used his knowledge to trick him out of most of his cash and the list of European safe houses. That person might have sold some of the files to the CIA because they knew Bucky was in Bucharest in 2016. I saw the file myself. Bucky told me he ended up helping some Roma people, and they helped him in return. They got him to Romania, found him a little flat, and helped him find work. It gave him the time to get a lot of his memories back."

A small smile creased Grant's face. "Roma, huh?" He shook his head. "If they helped him that means he meant something to them. They must have adopted him. I have a Roma contact in New Jersey I can ask."

"Jovan?" I asked, remembering that name. "Bucky mentioned a guy by that name being from New Jersey."

"Yeah," he replied, nodding his head. "Damn he keeps his hands close to his vest. I came to him about some information for one of my cases, and he never let on that he knew Bucky even though I mentioned finding information on him."

Something occurred to me just then, as it seemed too much of a coincidence to let go. "Do you think he knew about Bucky's sister?" I asked. "She lives in New Jersey, in a very nice senior's home."

"That's a very good question," answered Grant. "If they did, they're probably watching out for her. If they made him family, then she's family by extension. I could check it out if you want. What's her name?"

I told him and we began our session, going through the files of what had been done to Bucky. The documentation was thorough, sickeningly so and I was ready to take a break when I read about the nurse who was shot in front of him because she gave him her name, Anya. They put Bucky through the wringer after that, an endless stream of ECT, serum injections, and torture seemingly just for the hell of it.

"They punished him for showing concern or empathy for people," I noted.

"Yeah, in fact, I only found one instance where they didn't, but it was an odd occurrence," he said, flipping through another box. "This is from later that year, 1950, I think, after he was taken to Siberia. His first metal arm has been attached and he awakens from some sort of anaesthetic, sees the metal hand and goes into a rage, trying to strangle an attendant. They stun him repeatedly with cattle prods and there is a discussion of a failsafe word to disable him quickly. There's talk about them realizing the serum is repairing the damage they've done to his brain, undoing all of their brainwashing. A woman scientist, Dr. Eva Waslewski, recommends cryostorage, as it was her specialty. She suggested it as a way to keep the brain from repairing itself too quickly and that using it judiciously would extend his lifespan, allowing them to bring him out only when needed."

"He thought that was so they didn't have to feed him so often," I said bluntly. "Maybe that's how it ended up being used because he was pretty sure they wiped him before and after each session."

"What is most interesting is that Dr. Waslewski was the sister of the nurse, Anya," said Grant. "It's not in the files but I did some research on my own. They were both born in Poland, were conscripted into the German army, and assigned to HYDRA. The doctor may have been a double agent, as she was seen speaking closely with Bucky, and treating him with kindness, something that was not allowed."

"You think she was working with SHIELD?" I asked.

"If she was, she wasn't the only one," said Grant. "Bucky was ordered to kill her, when she was betrayed by persons unknown. He did so, quickly, cleanly, and after he gave her a tender kiss. That was the only time on record he was not punished for showing mercy. That account comes from another SHIELD agent, unnamed, who sent a report directly to Peggy Carter." I wasn't expecting to hear that she was killed by Bucky or that Peggy knew about it. But Grant seemed to have another thing to say. "Eva and her sister Anya were raised by their maternal grandmother, a Roma, Kezia Pawlowski." He shrugged. "Another coincidence? There are so many and they are buried deep in these files. I don't know if Bucky were still alive, if he himself would remember as surely some of his memories are gone forever. I do think you and I should go to New Jersey. I would like to meet Bucky's sister and I would like you to meet Jovan Sakić. Perhaps we can get some more answers."

It sounded like a good idea to me. I hadn't seen Rebecca for a while, not since before I helped Bucky get to Wakanda. We had a good visit at the time but I had the feeling she kept some things from me. After that small break Grant and I went back to the files where we learned about the American super soldier who fought Bucky in Goyang in 1951. An African American, he was referred to by ugly slur words, as nasty in German as they were in English. They didn't even say his name but he apparently may have been sent to retrieve Bucky and bring him home. Instead, the fight got out of hand and he tore Bucky's metal arm in two. I remember him mentioning that when we came out of the Siberian facility and encountered T'Challa. Bucky told him the arm that Tony shot off was a replacement arm. I think he meant to tell me more but we didn't get around to it. Grant jumped ahead and brought out another file, a SHIELD file that was apparently copied and sent to Peggy. It identified the American soldier as Isaiah Bradley, then reported that he committed suicide in 1953, after being imprisoned on his return to the United States as his reward for defeating Bucky.

"That Dr. Zola had the fix in," said Grant. "He was part of SHIELD as well as HYDRA and insisted on Bradley being kept against his will as a test subject because they didn't know why the serum worked so well on him but not so well on the others." He made a disgusted sound. "They were all African Americans and were told the serum injections were vitamins. I tried to find his family, but I hit a dead end. It's like anything about him went into a black hole."

That angered me. We had our own issues with racism, having Gabe Jones as one of the Howling Commandos. Bucky knew him from the 107th as they were captured together, along with Dum Dum Dugan. Even with his language skills and communications know how, some of the powers that be didn't want him as part of our unit. Said it would give his people the wrong idea. His people ... humans just like me and the others on the team. I wish I had known about Bradley as I would have gone in myself and got him out of whatever hell hole they were keeping him in.

Before I crashed that Valkyrie aircraft, I knew the allies wanted Dr. Zola's know-how to continue on with Dr. Erskine's work. I was against it all the way but was obviously overruled. When Natasha and I found that electronic version of him in the computers in Camp LeHigh it made me sick to see how thoroughly he had infiltrated SHIELD, turning it into the errand boy of HYDRA. I told this to Grant, as I was done keeping secrets. He wasn't surprised having experienced some of the military mindset himself when he fought in Afghanistan. His own experience of how it seemed that everyday their enemies changed as war lords changed allegiances like we change our socks sounded all too familiar. It reminded me of what Bucky had said about the Vietnam War veterans he encountered in Townsend. Wars and soldiers didn't really change but the soldiers always paid the price in the end. With that we decided to call it a day and agreed to go to New Jersey during the week. He would contact this Jovan Sakić person while I would contact Rebecca then we would go see both of them and try to get some more answers.

As it turned out we didn't go to New Jersey that week or for some time after. Grant called me to say that something came up but when I pressed him, he admitted that he wasn't even in the United States. That's all he would say, other than he wanted to keep me, Rebecca, and the information he had already uncovered safe. It was another two weeks after that call before he contacted me again to say we could meet. I met him at his apartment and was shocked at his condition when he opened the door. He held his hand up before I could say anything and beckoned me in, making a show of locking the door behind me. Gesturing to a chair with the hand that wasn't covered in bandages and in a sling, he sat across from me and said nothing while I looked at the bruises that still covered his face.

"You've looked better," I finally said.

He smirked. "I've felt better but they fared worse than me. You know there are still pockets of HYDRA around. Turns out there are some people in the CIA who are "helping" them stay hidden. I contacted Jovan and asked him directly about Bucky Barnes. Turns out we've been searching for the same thing, except his focus has been on Europe while mine has been North America. He invited me to go with him to France because of a sighting of the man who conned Bucky out of the list of European safe houses. You were right, he had been selling the information that he found to the CIA."

I wasn't surprised. The CIA, known as the OSS during World War II, had a stake in Dr. Erskine's research. Their people were witnesses to my transformation. They were also witness to the removal of 12 vials of my blood after Dr. Erskine was killed. Eleven of those vials disappeared into the bureaucracy of the American government. One vial of blood disappeared with no trace, at least according to the SHIELD files that Natasha had released. I always wondered if either the CIA or HYDRA ended up with it.

"We, that is Jovan, some of his associates, and me, found the guy living the high life in Provence," said Grant. "His name was Leon Meier and he told the CIA about recommending Romania to Bucky, told them that he cut his hair and shaved his beard, that he was travelling on a German passport under the name Jakob Schmidt; he basically sold him out for money. That's why when that Zemo guy pulled his stunt it messed up their plans to take Bucky back into the fold. The CIA wanted him for themselves, to be their assassin."

Why was I not surprised? How long had HYDRA used him, successfully, to kill their enemies? It only made warped sense that the CIA was envious of their asset. Once again, someone didn't see the man, they only saw the killing machine they could control.

"So what happened?" I asked, gesturing at Grant's injuries. "Did he fight back? Did the CIA try to come to his rescue?"

"Yes to both," replied Grant. "You have to understand that the Roma were going to deal with Meier permanently. They see Bucky as one of their own, because he stuck his neck out for not just a Roma family but a whole community. He went up against the Russian mob for them and they knew enough about him to be properly scared if they stayed so he basically got peace for the whole Roma community in Zagreb. That's where Jovan met him, after Bucky took multiple bullets in several encounters with the Russian mob before finally confronting the head man there. He didn't kill anyone but he made it clear that he would, if he had to. Jovan had been in the military here, went over to help the extended Roma family when Yugoslavia fell apart and stayed. He drove Bucky to Bucharest, set him up in the apartment and made sure the Roma there watched out for him. But the CIA was also watching and they were watching Meier's place in Provence. They came at us as we were taking him elsewhere."

At this point I wasn't sure I wanted to know more. Grant sensed that and didn't try to justify what the Roma were planning to do to the man who cheated Bucky. Of more interest to me was that this Jovan had been searching for the same information Grant was, evidence of what was done to Bucky, or ... maybe it was evidence of what was done to Anya and Eva.

"Was Jovan related to the two women in HYDRA?" I asked. Grant shrugged slightly but nodded his head just as slightly. Perhaps that meant that the Romani people feel related to all the others of their background no matter where they were from in the world. "Did you find anything?"

"Yup," said Grant. "But Jovan won't give it to us. You know that a lot of Roma people were killed in concentration camps? Because many of them weren't officially registered in the country of their birth there is no official count, but Holocaust experts estimate the number is between 250,000 and 500,000 victims. The Waslewski sisters were Roma, but both were blond, fair haired, and their father was of Polish ancestry. I think they may have been plants to find Roma who were being experimented on by HYDRA and found Bucky in the process. With how quickly the brain washing wore off they would have learned quickly that he wasn't the killer HYDRA wanted him to be. Jovan thinks that somehow, they were able to get word out to SHIELD that he was alive and being tortured into becoming the Fist of HYDRA." He stopped as if he wasn't sure whether to go on. "You'll have to talk to Jovan directly about what evidence he has from the sisters. He knew about Bucky before he met him. Of that I am certain. They've been going after everyone who had a hand in the deaths of those Holocaust victims, and any other Roma victims of HYDRA since."

It sounded like the Roma had their own score to settle with the Nazis, HYDRA, and the CIA. Couldn't say I blamed them. A lot was at stake and Bucky's files were the proof of the spider web that had connected all of them. On advice from Jovan the file boxes that Grant possessed had been moved to a secret location, in a storage facility owned by Roma. Even though Jovan wouldn't give us his files he was willing to let us go and see them, and make copies of them. He was doing the same with the files that Grant had accumulated. I was to be brought into the fold, to be given the location and access to all of it. I told Grant that in the two years between when Bucky and I fought on the helicarrier and when I found him again in Bucharest that Sam Wilson and I had filed official requests for all military, SHIELD, and CIA records on Bucky. We received a lot, heavily redacted but still containing enough information to prove that Bucky was a PoW, abandoned through the efforts of HYDRA supporters within the military, SHIELD, and the CIA, in exchange for favours, and copies of the treatments being forced on him. He shook his head in disgust.

"When you say favours do you mean assassinations?" he asked.

I nodded. "Specifically a very famous one, of a sitting president." I didn't say anything more but Grant's eyes grew large.

"Shit," he muttered. "No wonder they wanted to find him. That's one of the biggest conspiracy theories out there. All of that to keep his existence a secret, to keep him bound to them, until they accomplished their goal."

"You don't know the final indignity," I said. "Alexander Pierce was willing to let Bucky die when he sent him to the helicarrier to stop me. Those helicarriers were to be used to take Bucky's place. From space they could target anyone, anywhere, and kill them with a laser weapon. They wouldn't need him anymore and they didn't care what happened to him. When I destroyed them, they wanted him back because that's all they had left, other than mercenaries, and goons they had turned. He had enough of his will return to realize he could never let them get control of him again. That's why he went into hiding. For two years he lived under the radar, working, not getting into trouble, not hurting anyone. At least now he's out of all of it."

"Yeah, but they still want to keep the secrets about him," added Grant. "We owe it to his memory not to let them get away with it." He stuck his hand out to mine. "Promise me, that we'll do this together. We'll make copies of all of it and make sure it sees the light of day. Bucky deserves that much. So do Anya and Eva Waslewski, and the hundreds of thousands of Roma victims, hell, all of the victims of the Holocaust because I can't see HYDRA caring who they experimented on. We won't let this get buried."

His words were true and I shook his hand. Even though Bucky was dead there were still people bent on hiding the truth about what was done to him. As his friends, fellow soldiers, and as decent men, Grant, myself, and Jovan, who I had yet to meet, were bound together in a pact to honour Bucky's memory by doing the right thing. We would make sure history knew who James Buchanan Barnes really was, and how he was the victim of the world's largest conspiracy, one that spanned decades and involved thousands of willing participants. It mattered, damn it, it mattered.

Part 23>>

Series Masterlist

#bucky barnes oneshot #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #steve rogers #hydra #medical experimentation #torture

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bllsbailey · 3 months ago

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Jamaal Bowman Sets Off Alarm Bells by Suggesting President Biden Should Now Pardon Everybody on Death Row

Fire drill enthusiast Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) set off some alarm bells on Monday, telling a CNN panel that President Joe Biden must use his pardon power on every death row inmate in the country.

Bowman first stunned CNN anchor Abby Phillip by referring to the prosecution of Hunter Biden as a "witch hunt" in justifying the pardoning of the First Son.

"It was a witch hunt, to begin with," the outgoing congressman defended, seemingly a confirmation of President-elect Donald Trump's assertions that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is corrupt.

He also defended the president's move by saying a pardon for one's own son is to be expected, then added that the DOJ under Trump would allegedly target Hunter. Which is a super-odd hot take when you consider he just admitted Biden's DOJ targeted Hunter.

That's when Bowman pivoted to his next grand idea, saying, "Let me also add ... add one thing.”

The "one thing" was a doozy.

“Don‘t stop at Hunter Biden," Bowman demanded. "Pardon the 40 people who are on death row right now to get them off of death row, number one."

"Number two, pardon the 3,000 people who are in federal jail for trumped-up marijuana charges; pardon them as well, so they can get back to their communities and contribute to their economies," he added. "That‘s what the president should do.”

The second half of that statement is a separate argument. Let's focus on the federal death row inmates he is suggesting are deserving of a pardon.

One such individual is Robert Gregory Bowers, the man who, on October 27, 2018, walked into the Tree of Life synagogue in a Pittsburgh suburb and opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle on the congregation. He killed 11 people and wounded six others when all was said and done.

Pardon that guy, Jamaal?

Bowman also appears to be seeking a pardon for a man who committed one of the most heinous racially-motivated mass shootings in the country's history in Dylann Roof.

Roof, motivated by racial hatred, murdered nine African-American churchgoers during a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17, 2015.

He gets a pardon in Bowman's world.

Look, we all know, based on the fire alarm stunt, that the New York Democrat isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. But he now shares common cause with another Squad member, Cori Bush (D-MO). Bush has argued that President Biden should grant clemency to those on death row.

“If [Biden] truly opposes the death penalty,” she wrote in an op-ed for Time Magazine, “he must do everything in his power to stop it for good. Granting clemency to all on federal death row is his most effective tool.”

Perhaps none of this should be surprising. Bowman, after all, as a school principal, once had convicted cop killer Joanne Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur) hanging on his middle school's "Wall of Fame."

Shakur was named to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list under Barack Obama in 2013. She was convicted in the 1973 killing of a New Jersey state trooper but later escaped from prison and fled to Cuba.

Democrats are always seemingly siding with criminals. Bowman is no different. That kind of ridiculous behavior is what led to him and Bush being soundly defeated in their primaries.

Good riddance.

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archangels-bible-annotations · 1 year ago

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Genesis 9

9:1 God tells Noah and the team to fill the Earth. This is similar to the role of Adam and Eve. Noah really is the new Adam of mankind. It is also mentioned here that Noah and his sons were blessed. We continue to see the theme of the exaltation of men in the Bible rather than women. This blessing was most likely brought about by Noah's sacrifice when he left the Ark, showing God's appreciation for man. It kind of seems like God felt like how we would feel on Christmas morning when we open our gifts. Sacrifices might have been the only 'gift' that man could have offered an almighty God.

9:2 Every animal has dread and fear of man (or just Noah?). This is to protect mankind from the jaws of the predators of the world. Would it not be more useful to have this command issued before everyone entered the ark? If animals feared man in the ark, then no one could have been fed and daily ark operations/maintenance would have proved difficult. Since everyone is safe on land, fear leads to avoidance and reverence. In this verse, God mentions the "fish of the sea." This tells us that God, nor the author of this book, have neglected the fish in the mass extinction but they were intentionally left out.

9:3 This line explicitly states that every moving thing that lives shall be food. If the previous generations of man were vegetarian, then now man has converted to being omnivores.

9:4 What is "lifeblood?" This is probably a statement that man should not eat of living things while they are alive but only after they are killed. Another assumption could be made is that blood should be drained before eating of an animal.

9:5 God places importance on the lifeblood of man, stating that there will be consequences to any who decides to rid of the life of a man, whether it be man or beast. God states that if a man decides to kill a fellow man, the life of that man must be required by God. "I will require the life of man at the hand of his fellow man." This command contrasts what happened to Cain. For Cain was saved by God when he murdered, but now man will be killed if he decides to kill. Notice that the life of the killer must be turned to God, rather than having his peers kill him on behalf of God.

9:6 This verse goes over the importance of the previous statement. The reason the killer's life is demanded is because that individual has decided to destroy something that was made in God's image.

9:7 Ending of God's command by telling party to go out and fill the earth.

9:8 Last verse seems like a dismissal, so why this verse saying that God spoke to Noah? It would probably imply that after time has passed.

9:9-10 God states that He will establish His covenant with Noah, his descendants, and every living creature that came out the ark.

9:11-14 Covenant is that water will no longer produce a mass extinction, nor will there be a great flood over the earth. God uses the rainbow to be the sign of this covenant. In verse 13, it states that God made the covenant between "Me and the earth." I assume this means that God formed the covenant with everything on the earth rather than the dust of the earth itself.

9:15 This is the second instance we see God 'remembering' something. This act of remembering is not synonymous with the alleval of forgetting but rather it is God's grace/mercy being shown.

9:16-17 Why does God repeat Himself when talking about the covenant? Maybe to ensure His great stance with mankind.

9:18-19 Statement of Noah's sons. Ham is the only one whose son was mentioned: Canaan.

9:20 Noah planted a vineyard and is noted to be a "husbandman." What is a "husbandman?" This verse says that he "began" to be a husbandman. Also, what is the correlation between a husbandman and planting a vineyard? Looking at the grammatical structure, the comma before the word "and" suggests that these two ideas are separate.

"Husbandman" refers to being a farmer. Husband in this context does not refer to an individual who is married but rather an individual who is the head of a household. This makes sense as Noah is now settled after the flood.

9:21 Noah became drunk off his own wine and lay naked in his house. Ham saw his father in this state and told his brothers. Why does the Bible reinstate that Ham is the father of Canaan? Does this foreshadow something in the future about Canaan?

9:22 The two brothers covered their father without seeing his nakedness. The verse here starts with the word "But." This implies that the intentions/actions of Ham going to tell his brothers did not match the intentions/actions of Shem and Japheth covering their father.

9:23-25 Noah sobered up, learned of what happened, and cursed Canaan. Canaan was cursed to be a servant of the servants to his brothers. Here why does Noah curse Canaan, who did nothing, instead of Ham? This is probably because earlier in the text, Noah and his sons were directly blessed by God. It would have been a grave sin of Noah to curse what God has decided to bless. So instead of cursing Ham directly, Noah decided to curse Ham's only son.

9:26 Recognition of the God of Shem and a statement that Canaan shall be his servant.

9:27 Japheth is asked to be "enlarged" and to dwell in the habitations of Shem. Why would Japheth need to be "enlarged" and what does that mean? If we observe the order of the brothers, Japheth can be assumed to be the youngest one, thus why Shem was mentioned first in the list of blessings. When it states that Japheth shall be in the inhabitations of Shem, it probably means that Japheth shall be accepted and taken care of by his older brother. This verse also states that Japheth would have Canaan as his servant.

9:28-29 Noah lived 900+ years. He might have been the last one with that blessing. Is the statement that man should only live to 120 years continuing with the sons of Noah?

Other Remarks:

Sacrifices were the only thing we could have offered an almighty God as a gift. The only other thing is our actions as a reflection of His creation. That is something that is a longterm gift.

Ham's first reaction to something out of place and incorrect was gossip and shaming. This contrasts the action of Shem and Japheth as their first intentions were to correct the situation in a proper manner.

Questions:

God establishes a covenant with man and states God's part. But what is man's part of this covenant?

Do the sons of Noah live 900+ years or about 120 years?

Things to Add to Prayer:

Let us discern situations and apply moral solutions that appeal to Your will, just like Shem and Japheth.

Prevent us from acting irrationally and enjoying in the displeasure of others like Ham.

-Mikhael

#genesis #bible reading #bible study #noah #adam and eve #ark #flood #Shem #Ham #japheth #Canaan #Covenant #sacrifice #blessings #God

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angelofthenight · 3 years ago

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Last Man Alive Pt.3

(Dano!Riddler x Reader)

(Link to list of chapters)

Warnings: Edward is a yandere, Dark themes, Cops being useless, Paranoia, Watching someone through a camera, Needles, Religious mentions, Rushed writing💀

(She/Her Pronouns, YN is referenced to being wlw)

Word Count: 2.1k

(Y/n) and (R/n) were escorted home but were left with no police protection. (R/n) argued with them, wanting at least one cop to keep watch around their apartment but they told her that serial killers and rapists don’t typically target the same place twice, especially within a close timeframe. (R/n) cursed him out but to no avail.

The two girls slept in the same bed that night after double checking every locked and blocked window. (Y/n) cried herself to sleep which only led to a nightmare about the masked killer of her boyfriend. By the morning she felt numb, feeling as if she cried everything out of her body. She had no more tears left in her.

Throughout the day she felt like her paranoia was driving her mad, the thought of having a stalker putting her on high alert at all times. She got sick of it quick but just couldn’t stop. Before she entered every room she had either her pepper spray without the cap on or holding out her taser in a defensive position.

The most the cops did for her safety was alerting the manager of the apartment complex. Though it sucked that the manager pretended to give a shit then forgot to tell his staff about it. So the roommates were basically on their own as they sat on the couch and watched the TV.

(R/n) kept glancing at (Y/n) who was pressed up against her. She’d been very clingy the whole day though she didn’t blame her or complain. But she felt the need to mention her suspect for the mastermind of her new trauma. “I hate to say it, but I think it might be Batman.”

(Y/n) didn’t need to ask what she meant, already knowing who she was referring to. (R/n) continued, “I know it sucks to think about but it’d make sense. He wears a mask so no one knows who he is, so it wouldn’t be too bizarre to have other masks for other purposes. Plus he knows a lot about detective work so he could easily avoid the police, and you saw him, he’s like a ninja. He can get in and out of anywhere without being seen. And I bet you wouldn’t suspect the detective secretly being the culprit. He could be trying to win your trust and he-”

(Y/n) cut her off by shaking her head, “No, I know it wasn’t him.” (R/n) tilted her head at her. “How do you know?” “Well first of all, the stalker was lanky and skinny. I know because he sat on me. Batman is wide and muscular. And the stalker… his eyes were just… there was something in them. Something animalistic, something so terrifyingly carnal. He didn’t look remorseful for what he was doing at all. And Batman just has the most empty, depressed eyes I’ve ever seen.”

(R/n) remembered his eyes too and slowly nodded, eventually agreeing. She noticed the frown she caused upon (Y/n) so she tried to give her a little nudge. “Then who do you think Batman is?”

A smile spread across (Y/n)’s face and turned to her roommate, her demeanor instantly warming up. “I actually have a really good guess.” (R/n) turned to face her and let their legs tangle up on the couch as they theorized. (Y/n)’s guess being one of the rich football players who survived the mass school shooting at the football game three years ago and (R/n)’s guess being an ex-cop.

Soon their conversation evolved into complete nonsense full of laughs and memory reminiscence. When the hour reached double digits, the two shared a bed again and laid facing each other with their smiling faces only an inch away from each other before sleep took over. In the back of both of their heads the thought rebirthed of what could’ve been if they took the chance when it came all those years ago.

And for one last night, everything felt normal.

A pair of wide eyes were glued closely onto the screen that beheld the scene that made fire feel like it erupted on his skin. The computer camera he hacked into was fortunately left open for his nosy eyes to keep watch on what happened at night in the bedroom of the one who was the embodiment of his sunshine.

But watching that filthy creature lay so close to her ethereal presence caused hot huffs to go in and out of his nose at an unstable and uncontrollable pace. Clenching his jaw to prevent himself from cracking his teeth from pressure. One hand gripped tightly onto a glove as his knuckles turned white, his hand shaking from squeezing so intensely. His other hand clawed at his wooden desk, ripping into the wood through lines.

His mind fogged with the brimmings of dazed insanity, detaching him from what was left of his morality.

The next day the two girls had to go back to work after their two days off. (R/n) worked at a tattoo parlor and had three appointments that she couldn’t reschedule. (Y/n) worked at a popular fabric store and thought she’d be safest in a public area.

They made a plan to make sure neither of them would be in the apartment alone. Since (R/n) got off later, (Y/n) would go over to the parlor and hang out until (R/n) got off. The two got their coffee together once the afternoon came around and (R/n) hung around the fabric shop until she had to go.

“Shit.” (R/n) mumbled as she realized she needed to switch out the tattoo needle. She rolled her chair over to her desk and scrambled around for the needle she needed for the next appointment that was in an hour. She couldn’t find it so she pulled out more drawers to make sure she didn’t just misplace it.

She made more irked noises as it was absolutely not there. Until she thought about how she took that needle home a few days ago. But she swore that she brought it back. “Well obviously you didn’t, dumbass.” She growled to herself before pushing herself to her feet.

She had close to 55 minutes until her second to last client of the day arrived and two hours until (Y/n) came to wait for her to be done. She bit her lip, she knew she wasn’t supposed to go back to the apartment alone but she really required that needle for the specific tattoo she was set to do. ‘I’ll be super quick, in and out. It’d be in my needle case if I really did leave it there.’ She mentally said to herself.

She grabbed her keys and jacket, purposely leaving all her belongings since this was going to be a fast trip, and jogged to the parlor exit where her car was parked in the back. “Hey! Where’re you goin’?!” Her old, biker coworker yelled to her, knowing she had a client coming soon. “I just need to grab my round liner needle from my place, I’ll be back really really soon!” Then she was off into the dusk outdoors. She promised herself she’d be in and out.

The store’s open hours finally came to an end as (Y/n) checked out some fabric she had an idea to use for an outfit. She helped close the shop and pick up all fallen products, she always felt bad for the morning shift crew if she didn’t clean up the mess. She got a ride from her favorite coworker, them being her favorite just because they bought her a pastry and complimented her outfit once, to the tattoo parlor so she wouldn’t have to waste any minimum money on a bus.

(Y/n) bid the workplace friend a goodbye when they dropped her off in the front before she entered the dimly lit one story building. She passed the wall of the shop's most popular tattoos and passed the front desk to get to the work area. “How ya doin’, Care Bear.” The biker tattoo artist said from his seat as he dragged the needle across a middle aged blonde woman’s bicep. He called her Care Bear because she wore a Care Bear shirt when she first met him.

“Hi, Jeff.” She said politely, smiling at the beach blonde in the chair who was squeezing a stress ball as the needle continued to drag. (Y/n) looked around for her friend who was nowhere in sight. She looked back over to the buff bald man, “Is (R/n) in the bathroom?”

Jeff separated the needle gun from the woman’s skin and used a small towelette to wipe the blood before switching needles. “No, she left like 2 hours ago and hasn’t come back since. I’m doing her client for her. She said she needed something from the apartment and said she’d be quick so she left all her stuff, but that was 2 hours ago.”

(Y/n) spotted (R/n)’s desk where her phone and purse was, her eyes gradually getting bigger as panic crawled up her back. “She went… to the apartment?” She slowly said aloud, not really asking but making sure she heard right. She didn’t stick around to hear the answer as she grabbed (R/n)’s bag and phone before sprinting out the door.

She waved down a cab in an aggressive way she’d never done before and paid the driver ahead of time before he drove through the city. She hopped out of the moving vehicle before he could even stop as she moved her legs in an alarmingly fast movement.

‘(R/n), I’m begging you and all the gods ever believed in that you’re okay. I swear I’ll make your life easier from now on, I swear I’ll start doing the dishes when it’s my turn, I swear I’ll let you use my shampoo, and I swear I’ll watch any and every one of your favorite reality tv shows with you.’ She begged in her mind as she sprinted through the lobby and raced up the stairs. She felt like she was being timed, like if she didn’t reach their door in 10 seconds the whole world would explode.

She slid around wall corners and tripped over carpet corners before she threw herself at her door. She jiggled the doorknob to see it was unlocked, her breath hitched on her tongue. She shoved the door open and dropped her and her friends’ bags on the floor. She whipped her taser out before making quick steps to the main room, calling out her roommate's name in a panicked, shaky voice.

She heard faint voices which slowed her feet down as she walked around the corner that led to the small living room. She perked her arms up in a defensive position once she jumped into the room, finding no one present. But the TV was on which explained the voices she heard. She squinted in a puzzled manner as the channel that was chosen to play was the news.

She noted to investigate the TV after she searched the entire small apartment. She went in and out of every room twice, opening and closing every door. She checked hidden spots and even analyzed every window for any hint to a clue. Every last little thing was exactly how they left it. There wasn’t even a sign of struggle anywhere.

She stroked her fingers through her hair as she paced the wooden floor, feeling the sweat form through her pores. Tears stung her eyes from the feeling of hopelessness and stress. Maybe something happened on the road? She hurriedly darted back down the multiple sets of stairs down to the garage. (R/n)’s car was in her designated parking spot. Maybe she was taken before she entered the building and her keys were taken from her?

(Y/n) returned to the lobby to ask the main doorman if he saw her come in. He nodded at her question which only made (Y/n) race back up to their apartment to do another search, but with more attention to detail. She hunted through their home like a dog, now checking smaller places she overlooked. Now there wasn’t an inch of space that she didn’t overly observe like an obsessed detective.

She slapped her hands over her face once she returned to stand in the middle of the living room as the TV continued to display two formally dressed people talking their mouths off.

But one statement caught her attention like a moth to a light.

“-the video is very disturbing.”

#reader insert #the batman 2022 #the batman #Batman #paul dano #paul dano riddler #dano!riddler #the riddler x reader #the riddler #yandere #yandere edward nashton #edward nashton x reader #edward nashton imagine #edward nashton #yandere riddler #battinson #bruce wayne #robert pattinson

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nihilnovisubsole · 2 years ago

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@bourbonpowered replied to your post:

What’s the alternate start mod? Like, more time to bum around the pre-war neighbourhood or Fuck It We Bawl: start with seeing your spouse murdered and son kidnapped?

lmao omg 😂

start me up redux, the one i'm using, is a full overhaul of fo4's main quest, not just an alternate start. instead of playing as one of shaun's parents, you can be a random vault dweller, or one of dozens of wastelander classes, like a raider or NCR ranger. if you pick the "random vault dweller" start - as i have - it positions you as a bystander who witnesses the kidnapping and feels compelled to investigate it. in the wastelander start, you hear a rumor of the kidnapping, then visit the vault and unravel the game's mystery from there.

having to RP as a parent was why i avoided playing fo4, and a few hours in, it's amazing how cleanly this mod excises that. it shuffles preexisting dialogue to remove references to a spouse or son, so your character is still voiced, but you can envision whatever backstory you want. seriously, the mod page says it tweaks over 800 lines! that's dedication. it even adds some pathos to codsworth - he mistakes you for his former owner, and the references to that missing family feel sympathetic, not glitchy.

@nocturnalroostermarch replied to your post:

When FO4 came out, I was so insulted by the voiced protagonist that I refused to play it.

7 years later, I picked it up for the first time a couple of months ago, stuck in a classic camera/voiceless protagonist mod and I'm having a good time. So yeah, right now is the best time to play FO4 imo, lol

yeah, it was interesting to see which features of fo4 were deal-killers for veteran fallout fans when it came out. i promise i don't mean to pick at old fandom discourse - the question of "how much do we define the protagonist?" is a huge dilemma in RPGs. truly open protagonists give the player endless creative freedom, but when you're trying to account for everything, they can become too blank a slate. a voice or a backstory make it easier to write a cohesive character, but the more you add, the more players like me will feel penned in. that friction happened with dragon age too: a lot of players [me included] felt that inquisition's choices railroaded you into playing a certain type of character.

i think it comes down to expectations. it bothered people less with mass effect, because shepard had a really clearly-defined role from the off. [me notwithstanding. it's why the voiced fo4 protag doesn't bug me: i'm already used to irina having the wrong accent.] i also think that "east coast fallout," as we used to call it, puts its player characters in a more explicitly heroic role. you can go off the rails in fo3 and fo4, but it feels like a big departure from the way the intro set you up. by contrast, in new vegas, you're literally Just Some Guy, and benny shooting you diverts your life without changing who you are. that's closer to my philosophy: i can define a character's present, but i'd rather not dictate everything about their past or future.

#replies #bourbonpowered #nocturnalroostermarch #fallout

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fnf-amateur-writing · 3 years ago

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Hey! It’s Fox again! How are you doing? I just started school back up today, so I’ve been busy Xp.

Think you would be cool with writing some Pico with an s/o who is a writer, and tends to ask him about things like “hey, how long does it take someone to bleed out” or other things like that?

I understand if you don’t feel like it, and I hope you��re having fun 😊

🦊

Hello again Fox, I'm doing quite well rn. I'm cool with your prompt, especially since I need more writing material anyways.

Took me a while, because I didn't want to do a hc, but rather come up with a oneshot with a little twist to the style. Well, hope it works well.

Good luck with school, mate!

TW: Mentions of violence, swearing, slight sexual reference, and crime.

Pico with a writer S/O who asks him strange questions

Prologue:

On a chilly autumn morning, you were sitting out on your patio with a laptop and a mug of your favourite beverage next to you. Whenever you looked up, you could see the warm coloured leaves fall as the breeze accompanied you. The whole scene was an aesthetic.

When your boyfriend, Pico, came outside to see this, he knew that the nice environment you surrounded yourself with meant one thing. "You're back in your writing space already. Heh, with that bestseller you published, I thought you were comfy taking a break." You simply smiled and said, "can't waste the inspiration rush I got right now."

Pico had a good point though, with your rising popularity as an author, you were near set to retire before turning fourty. But you wish you weren't given all of the credit, since your boyfriend's stories of his dodgy job has occasionally sparked some ideas for your stories. However the books you wrote in the past were usually meant for the young adult and had few mature themes. This time, you thought maybe it's time to garner extra inspiration from those stories.

You were met with some disappointment when you realised that your mug was empty, only a drop entering your mouth. "Here, babe, I'll ya some more," Pico said, taking your mug and walking inside. "Quick question," you stopped him. "Yeah?"

"What would be the best place for a murder cemetery?"

"... What?"

Chapter 1:

"So you're doing some story about the police hunting down a mass murderer?"

"Pretty much."

"And to think you were gonna write Pixar's next script. Aight' I respect that." Pico takes a seat next to you with a refill of your drink placed next to your favourite writing laptop. "Thanks, Pico. But yeah, I want to branch out to something edgier, and I think you can help too."

"Let me show you what I've got so far." You showed him some of your notes in a little notepad document, detailing the story thus far and your current plans for this chapter. "Oh, that's it? Just looks like boring police preparation mainly," Pico commented. "Yeah, it's not much right now. But it'll get juicy later." "And bloody?" "And bloody."

"Welp, I'm gonna head back in," Pico got up, "let me know if you need anything." He head back inside, closing the door, but then opened it almost immediately afterwards. Pico stuck his head out, "by the way, the guy should use some strong alcohol or something to throw off those sniffer dogs."

Chapter 2:

"And then, because they used a silencer, the police don't immediately notice the--"

"Nope! I'm calling bullshit (Y/N)!" Pico had suddenly interrupted your explanation of the scene you were currently working on. "Silencers can help prevent some hearing loss, sure, but they're not magic."

"Alright," you reply, "no silencer, but the killer still has to kill in a way to not get blood on them, so I thought shooting and killing them from a distance would work." "Well, they're alone. Instead, have the guy get shanked in the neck or something, and have the killer use a plastic bag as a glove. It saved my ass one time."

"Woah!" you exclaimed with a giggle, "you used a knife once? What happened to my trigger happy boyfriend, huh? That's pretty sus."

"I forgot to reload the Uzis, alright?"

"What an impostor would say."

Chapter 3:

"What would be the best way to muffle the scream of someone you kidnapped?"

You two were sitting on the couch together watching a show. You didn't have your laptop on you, so Pico didn't expect you to still be thinking about that book. "I can't say from experience, really," he said as he paused the show. "However, shove a rag in their mouth and duct tape it in, and you should be good."

"Thanks Pico, also one more thing." "Yeah?" "What if our killer also wanted to..." God, this one was gonna be awkward, but you had to say it or else no help. "You know, cut off this victim's willy. How would you do that?"

"Wai-wha-uh-ga," Pico started fumbling his words like never before. He stopped, then took a deep breath. "YO, WHAT THE FUCK?!" "It'll make sense in the story later, I promise!" You watch Pico begin to lose it, breaking into laughter. "Ladies, gentlemen, and others," Pico dramatically stood up, pulling a little Showcaster impression and directing his arms towards you, "my famous 'young' adult novelist partner!"

Chapter 4:

It was in the dead of night, but you awoke to Pico on his phone. His vpn was on and Tor was up. As per usual, he was checking up on his little hitman service, where others could request for a certain someone's guts to fly if they paid him a hefty sum first. Though tired, you ound this to be the best time to ask him some more questions.

"Pico, how do those sites work?"

"Oh, you're awake," Pico blankly stated, sleepy too. But he still answered you. "Basically, some anonymous rich guys in the area give me money and a target, then I just do the thing and send a mission accomplished email." "Do they pay you in person?" "Nah, we use always use Bitcoin. It's a lot harder to trace than real money."

"Thanks Pico. Goodnight," you wish him, yawning and going back to sleep. "You too... So this guy is a hit man too?" "Hush. Tomorrow." "Okay." Pico puts his phone away, leaving it on a nightstand. You then spoon the night away, peacefully thinking of murder as you drifted off.

Chapter 5:

On a morning similar to before, you two sat on the patio with your drinks and laptop at the ready. Pico watched rather awkwardly as you typed away, wondering why you haven't entertained him with another question yet.

"You gonna ask anything else?" "What? Oh, nah," you plainly state. Inevitable, sure, but he was kind of saddened. He liked being able to share his messed up wisdom. "So, you're done?" "Almost." You turn to look at him, "want the spoilers?" Pico smiled, "sure thing."

In the novella you and Pico crafted together, the main character is a cop who hunts down a killer. They eventually notice that there would be two murders at a time for unknown reasons. Well, it was unknown until one victim had left up a dark web hit man for hire site. They that the hit man not only kills the target, but the client as a hidden price for the service.

And any request will be fulfilled, according to the hit man's site.

"Do they catch 'em?" Pico asked. "Well, ANY request is granted. So, if our hero were to... hire him to kill himself..."

"No way!"

"He did. They find both of their bodies in his bedroom."

Pico was a bit impressed with the ending you came up with, but then he remembered something. "Why did that guy get his thing cut off?" "Lol, I forgot," you giggled. "He sent a message to the hit man, saying he wishes the target would choke on his dick."

"That's my favourite part."

Epilogue:

After everything was finished up, you sent the book off to your editor. After the initial joy of knowing how the story ended, you saw that Pico was still in thought. "What's up with you?" "Oh nothing, well it's just... I'm probably just biased, being that I'm a bit of a hitman myself, but it's kind of sad to see the guy go."

"Then I should spoil the epilogue I came up with." Rather than being excited, Pico nervously asked, "what's an epilogue?" He didn't get an answer, only you staring at him. "Sorry, school held too many bad memories for me to pay attention."

"Anyways," you continue, "the rest of the police gang did some background checks, and find that our killer was a normal guy with no criminal history."

"Penilian?"

"No. But I did decide to take a more supernatural approach here. Somewhere across the country, another string of double homicides occur and that site is active once more. And the story kind of repeats itself."

"Penilian."

"You joker," you give him a playful little kiss on the cheek, one that definitely caught him off guard. "So is it canon?" Pico smirked. "Nah, just thanking you for being my cute little co-author." "Oh," Pico started, "so we're flirtin' now, huh. Come here babe!" He tackled you onto the ground, giving you several kisses in exchange.

"Actually, I think we call that 'making out'," you chuckle out, flustered. "But that doesn't mean I said stop'!" You pull him in for more, accidentally bonking your heads together rather painfully. "Nice double kill there, (Y/N)."

#fnf x reader #fnf imagines #pico x reader #fnf pico

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septemberadical · 2 years ago

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I am not close to understanding, I do understand. You want unquestionable faith that your god is real and you speak for him through the bible, and anyone who tries to ask you questions about this god's motivations, ultimate goals, or even where he came from are told they are too puny and stupid to understand. You can justify even the most abhorrent and illogical treatment of others because it's in the divine and, most importantly, ineffable plan and we can't possibly understand it.

For example, your argument is that anybody who opens their heart to Jesus and asks for forgiveness will be granted it and invited into the kingdom of heaven. This kingdom which is presumably the alternative to the hell waiting down below for all the non-believers and there is no middle option like the inventive Catholics espouse. That's a pretty low bar for entry, don't you think? It's well known that Hitler believed he was serving god's interests (certainly killing Jews has been a favourite pass-time of pious Christians so he'll be in good company), and almost every serial killer or rapists or heinous criminal on death row has had the opportunity to see a chaplain prior to their execution and repent. They will all go to heaven. But, unfortunately, because pious Jews or peaceful Muslims, or atheists who have done great works and lived, by all accounts, a virtuous life will be subject to the torments of hell because... why, exactly? And we come back to your answer that we are too stupid to understand it, but it is just since god says so. Why isn't it that those who try their best to live like good people go to heaven and those that don't go to hell? Why is simply 'believing' someone died for our sins enough to get us a ticket to the best seat in the house?

God, I'm sure you will agree, is asking for a lot on blind faith. We have to ignore reason and logic (not to mention overwhelming scientific evidence in biology, geology, chemistry, astronomy, physics, and basically every major discipline that contradicts the bible on topics from the origin of life to the age of the universe and the earth), and believe with no proof that everything the bible says is true (including the earth was created in 7 days, woman was created from man's rib, that a man turned water into wine, and brought himself, and others, back from the dead, among other things - all of which if you told me happened today I'd very helpfully drive you to the nearest mental hospital). And on top of all that, we have to believe it without knowing the reason why any of this craziness is happening?

As for this:

We know the basic facts around Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are corroborated by the best-supported primary source documents that exist for any ancient historical event.

What supporting documents are you referring to? As far as I'm aware there is no record in the Roman Empire, at all, of a Jesus of Nazareth despite apparently having been tried by Pontius Pilate and Rome presumably kept records about those sorts of things. Other features of Jesus' life also fail to measure up to historical scrutiny, including the idea of a national census that led Joseph and Mary back to Bethlehem (censuses were conducted but never on that scale and never forcing individuals back to their great-great-great x10 grandfather's birth city). Or any reports of a 'star' moving across the sky to guide 'wise men' to a manger, or any record at all of the birth occurring or a mass culling of infant boys after it occurred. And it's hard to imagine that there are historical 'records' of resurrection, and lots of people believing something is not any kind of evidence. A not insignificant number of Americans believe that you can tell the future by gazing at tea leaves at the bottom of a cup, and presumably tell their friends all about their insights, that doesn't mean it's true.

Also, not for nothing, but the gospels are far from 'reliable' sources on Jesus and his life. The gospels were written by wealthy Greek converts (as obvious a biblical scholar as you are I'm sure you know Jesus spoke Aramaic and could very probably not read or write, as could most of his original disciples) 30 to 80 years after Jesus' death. At best they are the culmination of a complicated game of telephone that crossed continents, not to mention it's had thousands of years to be edited, changed and completely invented by scribes and church leaders (apparently they don't consider that to be a sin, go figure). (I encourage a reading of Jesus, Interrupted and Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman, two excellent summaries of critical bible study and his speciality of new testament studies that goes into so much more detail than what I say here.)

Why does God allow evil to exist?

Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’

And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭13‬:‭24‬-‭30‬ ‭NASB

“But God is perfect and all powerful, why can’t He get rid of the evil without harming the good?”

Because the evil isn’t just “bad people” among us. The evil is in our own sinful hearts. To get rid of evil, He would have to get rid of us too.

In our Baptism, in Confession and Absolution, in hearing the Gospel, and in Holy Communion, we receive the forgiveness of our sins won for us by Christ on the cross. But while we live here on earth, we still live with our sinfulness - though we are no longer slaves to it (Romans 6).

When Christ returns on the Last Day, then we can finally be resurrected in our glorified, perfected bodies and live with Him without sin and all its consequences. That will happen - just in God’s timing, not ours.

It may feel like we are waiting a long time and suffering under the weight of evil in this world, but when we are in the world without end, this life will seem like a distant memory, a blip compared to eternity.

Almighty, everlasting God, Your Son has assured forgiveness of sins and deliverance from eternal death. Strengthen us by Your Holy Spirit that our faith in Christ may increase daily and that we may hold fast to the hope that on the Last Day we shall be raised in glory to eternal life; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

#christianity #catholicism #anti-religion #radfem #radical feminist #radblr #for those who want book recs #anything by Elaine Pagels is good #Karen Armstrong does an adequate history of the bible but not that great #Richard Dawkins has a chapter in the God Delusion about contradictions and issues with the bible and its messages as well

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mylordshesacactus · 5 years ago

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A Writer’s Guide To Hurricanes, I Guess

I realized with a bit of chagrin that, while I’ve spent years bitching about how it drives me up the wall that nobody (in fandom or, in fact, mainstream media) has a goddamn clue how hurricanes work and yet insists on portraying them anyway...I’ve never actually tried to help by explaining what they’re actually like.

So, here’s a genuine, non-sarcastic, good-faith attempt by a Floridian to help you guys who might want to write this stuff at some point understand it, just a little.

So here we go, chronologically in terms of the storm’s progress.

The storm itself is the least of it.

This is the thing non-hurricane places don’t....get.

You can see a hurricane coming. You can watch it. You have, in fact, no choice. I need to reiterate this.

You have no choice but to sit there and watch a hurricane coming.

I’ve actually talked a lot in another post about what that feels like, and why hurricane parties are a thing. But try to imagine what that feels. Just...try. You have to sit there, for about a week, watching the wrath of God bear down on you.

You watch it come and you hope the path changes. You hope it veers off back into the Atlantic, of course, but you also--you hope it hits somewhere else. You know wherever it goes people will die and you hope it goes somewhere else. And you feel kinda bad about it; but you also don't because these are just facts, this is a fact of hurricanes, they will go somewhere and people will die in that place and all of us hope it goes Somewhere Else and if it does, we know that the people Somewhere Else are praying frantically that it gets back on course and hits us instead and we understand.

(And when it does change course, when it doesn’t hit you, you almost feel....cheated? Because you spent so much time and energy preparing and fearing and coming to terms and accepting and bracing and then it--doesn’t happen.

And the guilt of praying it would go Somewhere Else is nothing compared to being disgusted with yourself for actually feeling disappointed that you were spared the apocalypse this time.)

The wind is different.

If you listen to weather reports on hurricanes you’ve absolutely heard the phrasing “sustained winds of X miles per hour with gusts up to Y” without really thinking about what that means.

Now, of course everyone’s been in windy conditions. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly how the hurricane is....different, so I’m just going to describe what it’s like.

The wind always comes from one direction. There’s no being “knocked this way and that” or whatever; the wind comes from the direction the wind is coming from. Always.

(If you’re near where the center of the storm passes, this direction will slowly change as your position relative to the eye changes. But it changes over a matter of hours--like the angle of the sun.)

The wind is a constant, unrelenting force. There’s no....there’s no dips in the wind. It never lessens, it only spikes and then returns to baseline. In a normal windstorm, no, it’s not that the wind ever stops blowing, but...there’s an ebb and a flow. A hurricane is a wind tunnel in which every so often someone revs the engine and there’s a few seconds of higher wind, but it never drops below where it’s set.

(The wind will snake under plywood and storm shutters; it will rip them clean off, if you haven’t screwed them in properly. Screws, not nails. The wind makes deadly projectiles of anything not fastened down. Plywood and storm shutters can be broken, by anything travelling fast enough. It is standard procedure, if you have lawn furniture or anything else not secured that doesn’t float, to carefully lower that furniture into a pool--if you have one. It will stay untouched, and won’t be flung through your neighbors’ plywood.)

This is why hurricanes take down so many trees, why they do so much structural damage. Buildings in hurricane zones are built to withstand high wind, and most trees in these areas can survive high wind too or they wouldn’t have survived so long. But there’s only so much that nature and engineering can do about sustained high winds, without a moment’s rest, for hours, unending, no respite...

In landfall footage--ie, the stuff you see on the news--you likely see this effect in the palm trees-watch how instead of tossing, they’re just bent. It never lets up. In the instances where a bent tree violent bounces back before bending again, trust me--that’s not a letup in the wind speed. That’s the tree having been bent too far, and springing back from the sheer pressure on its internal structure. That’s the tree being stronger than the wind--for now

It’s mostly not like the TV reports.

There’s a reason I referred to “landfall footage” above. News broadcasts, for a lot of reasons, focus on the storm at its worst. The highest storm surge, the highest winds, the most brutal damage, occurs where the eye wall first crosses from being over water to being over land.

(Remember--by the time a storm “makes landfall,” everything for miles around has been experiencing the storm for hours already. “Landfall” is when the EYE of the storm first hits land, not when the storm “arrives”.)

But hurricanes are...vast. Look up satellite footage of hurricanes. Really look at it. Look at how much sheer area they cover.

Most places do not experience landfall-level disaster. That’s why, when people evacuate--well, when residents evacuate, the tourists and recent transplants tend to panic harder--you’re basically always evacuating to someplace that will still have vanished under that mass of swirling clouds. Evacuation sites are still inside the hurricane, but wind speed, storm surge, etc--everything drops dramatically even a few miles from the eye.

On a related note, the eye itself rapidly starts shedding power the moment it’s no longer over open water. Generally, the simple act of making landfall instantly drops a hurricane at least one category in severity. Hurricanes are eldritch gods; they rise from the sea and from the sea they take their power. Cut off from it, they starve.

Do not think for a moment that just because you’re “only” experiencing Cat 1 winds that this storm can’t kill your ass dead. Do not underestimate what the death throes of a dying god can do.

Storm surge isn’t high waves, and it isn’t rain.

Storm surge is the actual sea level rising. The entire ocean being dragged onto land by the power of the storm.

Particularly wet and slow hurricanes might--rarely--drop enough rain to cause flooding. However, that’s unusual; most places here can handle heavy rain. The rain isn’t the problem.

(Slow hurricanes are killers on another level. It’s everything I’ve already said about the unrelenting brutality of the wind, coupled with the fact that--as, again, the vast majority of the storm has been raging for hours by the time it “makes landfall”, and hurricanes draw power from the Eye being over the water--it now has hours upon hours of fully-fuelled destruction before it begins to weaken by being cut off from warm water. It doesn’t weaken, it just....keeps going. And the storm surge is present that entire time.)

I’m just gonna direct you to this NOAA diagram on how storm surge works.

The northeast quadrant is the strongest.

This isn’t a proper subheading it’s just something I rarely see people not from Florida acknowledge.

No matter where the storm is coming from or what angle it hits at--the northeast quadrant is the killer. You do everything in your power to avoid being caught northeast of the storm.

In hurricane-prone areas, the threat is felt year-round.

All the major intersections? Our stoplights aren’t hung on wires from wooden poles--those blow down too easily. They’re bolted to thick metal pipes, “hurricane-proof”. Major roadways that are above floodlines are labelled as evacuation routes.

Things like that.

Hurricanes make their presence known long before the disaster begins.

You start to get “hurricane weather” days--days--before it hits. The sun is out, the weather is fine except for a...

Well, a constant, low-level breeze, with much less variation in angle and direction than usual, fewer gusts, but still primarily a natural breeze. And then you go outside and you look up at that cheerful blue sky and it’s already there.

They’re called cloud bands. You look up and the entire sky is just fluffy white clouds, racing at speed in one direction...

(The breeze, in those early few days, is light. Present, but light. The clouds are always, always racing as if before a gale. There’s a pervasive, eerie wrongness about this, looking up--the clouds moving much, much faster than the wind that should be driving them.)

A hurricane is not a thunderstorm.

This is the cardinal sin and the clearest, most common misconception. Hurricanes are not thunderstorms. In fact it’s actually very rare to have lightning or hear any thunder at all during a hurricane, compared to an average summer storm in hurricane-prone areas.

People often portray hurricanes as basically....the worst storm they can remember, but bigger, and badder, and worse. Hurricanes aren’t just big and intense, they’re....different. They’re something different.

Hurricanes are...quiet.

Except that they’re not.

You know when people talk about the wind howling? Think of the most intense storm you’ve ever sat through. Think about the sound of the wind.The way it whistles through leaves. Hold that experience in your head.

Now forget it. This is different.

Hurricanes don’t sound like that. Hurricanes are....

The sound a hurricane makes is a howl, yes. It makes palm fronds and grass steps and leaves whistle like a rapier scraped against a sheathe, yes. But you barely notice those shallow details, because the sound a hurricane makes is below that, stronger, more powerful.

Hurricanes moan.

Hurricanes are the entire world around you slowly and steadily fraying at the seams, and it moans, low and deep, agonized and hungry, and it never stops. Never. Not until it’s over.

Hurricanes are a world ending.

The storm passes, and the hurricane has only begun.

Do you think people stock up as heavily as they do, with generators and nonperishables and such, for--what, for a few hours of wind and rain, however alive?

No.

Because once the tempest is past, now you have to...exist.

You will not have power. If you were in a very, very lightly-affected area, you might have cell service. Most of your neighbors have evacuated. Many roads can’t be used because they’re washed out, or there are trees or power lines down across them.

It’s very common to lose water pressure. Common practice in hurricane-prone areas is to fill your bathtub with water before the storm--so that, when you lose water pressure, you can use a bucket to flush your toilet. Because those conditions, assuming you’re in an area that can be repaired and not rebuilt, can take weeks.

Weeks without running water, a flushable toilet. That gets grim fast. You brace for the storm. You prepare for what follows.

A hurricane is an eldritch abomination.

Hurricanes are alive.

Hurricanes are Old Gods.

Sitting through a hurricane is not like sitting through a bad storm or like sitting through a tornado, which is fast and unstoppable but then it’s over like it never existed save for the destruction left behind.

In order to get a clearer understanding of just how much the universe is vast, how much it does not, cannot, even notice you enough to want you dead because you are so small it would not comprehend you as possessing an existence if it tried--you would have to go to space.

And while the world moans around you and something out there, alive, growls at a frequency you can’t hear but you feel--you don’t cuddle for warmth during a hurricane. You just don’t.

You keep the generator running outside in the lee of the house where it won’t kill you all with gas fumes, connected via wires that snake around through a cracked door somewhere it won’t get blown open. You make sure it doesn’t run out of fuel, that it doesn’t get water blown into anything important. You use it to power a TV first--to keep the weather report on. You power lights second, if it’s a decent one. You can’t afford one powerful enough to run your refrigerator; you ate the ice cream before this started.

You play games. We’re human; it’s what we do. We play games in the face of our own helplessness. But while you play, you listen. You can’t not.

It’s always there. The world creaks on its hinges. You feel the edges threatening to dissolve. If you sit for a moment and are quiet, that ever-present moan is there, something ancient and powerful on a scale outside your comprehension. There is no cozy comfort of being bunkered down safe against the storm, not here.

There is no “safe” against this. You sit still and quiet and bear witness.

And when the sun rises in the aftermath, you’re surprised to find the world--even a wrecked and altered world--still exists. It shouldn’t. You were there when it ended.

And--and I cannot emphasize this enough--there’s no fucking thunder.

#hurricanes #uh #writing reference #I GUESS

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