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lovifie · 8 months ago

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An Offer You Won't Refuse

Bottom Price x Top Gaz | Smut - 2.543 words (Back to Masterlist)

CW: handjob, meanish Price, blowjob, rimming, anal sex and a kiss on the lips hehehe

Price knew how important it was to have the team at its peak condition, and to do so; he knew it was important to boost the morale of the team and help with… pent-up energy.

Especially when they would find themselves tucked in a safe house, keeping guard to make sure no enemy could sneak up on them. Which usually required one of them to remain stuck to a window with a sniper, keeping an eye out for any approaching vehicle.

Simon was an expert at it, the man was able to stay in position for days if required. No need for breaks, no reduction of attention while doing the job, the sniper gun one more limb of his body.

Price was second to it, the years of experience making it easier as times passed, but as his responsibilities grew so did his number of distractions, making him lose his focus more easily.

Soap had his own approach to sniper duty, while usually the soldier would stay lying down with the sight on the scope, the scotsman usually remained seated using his own eyes to look out; swiftly moving down to the gun the second he saw anything.

Gaz struggles the most with the sniper position. Too restless, constantly switching positions, unable to stay still for too long. The captain finds it endearing how the sergeant would try his very best to stay still, futile attempt after futile attempt.

He knew it was a tic-tac bomb when he was looking out the window, still; he always loved to sit behind the sergeant. Seeing how he tried to concealedly rub his growing erection against the ground looking for some kind of friction. Cute.

The four men were used to spending months together, within the same walls more of the time or cramped inside a minuscule tent. More than once have they need to turn a blind eye to something that was obviously happening under the covers.

And just as many times have they ignored when two of them have suddenly decided to take the first turn to take guard. Whatever keeps their mind focused on the important task.

So when the young sergeant seems more focused on fucking the floor than keeping an eye out, Price is quick to call him out.

“Focus, Garrick.” His deep voice travelling to the man, the vibrations of his voice running almost through the ground to his dick.

“Shit, Cap’tain, can you… He groans, obviously aware he has just been caught red-handed. “Can you get in for a sec? Need to wee.”

“Don't lie to your captain, Kyle.” Price says, pushing himself from the wall he was leaning on to walk to the sergeant. He can hear Kyle groan, defeated. Price stands next to him, looking down at him and he notices how Gaz’s hips are elevated from the ground.

An evil smile appearing on Price’s face before he set his boot on top of the sergeant’s ass pushing his hips down making him hiss. It makes Price chuckle, slightly rolling his boot over the younger man’s body to create more friction between him and the ground.

He notices Gaz’s hands shake on the gun and he removes his boot from his body, instead lying down next to him, looking up. He turns his head to look at the sergeant, smile still on his face. “So… wanna try that again?”

Kyle’s eyes furrow, not understanding the captain's question. “So-sorry, sir?” He asks, side-eyeing him for a second before looking forward again; he knows he is already in trouble, he doesn't need to make it worse.

And although Price likes to pride himself on his self-control and ability to keep his instincts and needs out of his mind; he too, has fallen for the sergeant’s charm. For his full lips, honey-coloured eyes and perfect smile. The fact that the sergeant also has the best ass he has seen in his life is just a bonus.

That's why only Gaz is surprised when Price moves his hand between the sergeant’s chest and the ground. Slowly but swiftly moving down.

“It's important to focus on the job, Kyle. You can't be distracted with external things.” Price says, looking at the sergeant's face, seeing his slightly opened mouth.

“I know, sir.” Kyle says, eyes focused on the scope, trying his best to ignore the wide hand moving down his body.

“Better to take care of… the distractions, right?” Price asks him, his fingertips resting over the buckle, teasing him.

“Affirmative, Sir.” Kyle answers, fighting every urge to take his clothes off himself.

Price takes a long time to answer, wanting to make the man wait. “This is a really important mission, Sergeant.”

“I know, sir.” He answers, repeating his words. He moves his weight to his side, urging the man to move without talking.

“There is a lot at risk.” Price continues, after a long pause again. His hand still resting on the buckle, not giving Kyle the pleasure he so badly wants.

“Sir, please.” Kyle says, sighing when he no longer can see when all of his senses are on the feeling of his captain's hand so close to his groin. “I can't focus like this… please.”

Price chuckles beside him, his eyes catching how his lower lip trembles, pupils dilating every time his hand twitches. The Sergeant still hasn't looked at the Captain once, so well-behaved that even Price is impressed.

That's why he pities him, getting his belt and pants undone so he can finally free his hardening dick.

The feeling of the captain's calloused hand around his length it's what finally makes Kyle close his eyes, sighing at the satisfaction of finally getting the desired friction.

Price smiles, enjoying the little game that he has created. He was already aware of the power he had over the sergeant, blind trust and obedience in him; but still, it was a different feeling from seeing the man buck his hips against his fist.

His hand is dry, not even having bothered to spit in it; but Kyle doesn't seem to mind the burn of the dry skin against his most sensible member. His head falls down, biting his lips to keep himself from moaning, but his hips still move in a disordered rhythm, as if his mind was telling him not to do it but his body was moving against his will.

“Eyes on the objective, sergeant.” Price orders, smile still plastered on his face when he sees Kyle whip his head back up, eyes on the scope and in the search for any possible threat.

But Price's hand still moves along his shaft, tugging at it on his way down, making the sergeant move his hips along. It's Price the one that manages to get Kyle's hips into the rhythm, making him move them up when he moves his hand down and vice versa, his fist meeting his pubic bone when Kyle thrust forward.

Such delicious sounds and cries fell from Kyle’s mouth, urging the Captain to give him more, make him cry louder, thrust harder, make him unable to hold the gun. But it is his fault for choosing such a great soldier, because from his chest up, the sergeant is focused on outside of the building.

So Price changes his strategy, instead of working along with Kyle, he makes him work for it. He stops moving his hand, keeping it within reach but barely past the middle of the sergeant's thick length. It makes the sergeant thrust lower, his exposed tip rubbing the hard floor making him hiss. “Cap’tain…”

Price looks down, to where the angry tip of the sergeant keeps hitting the ground, the pleasure from his hand enough to make the pain worth it. But he pities him, moving his hand lower and engulfing the sergeant tip on his fist.

“Fuck, harder, please…” The sergeant whisper, his hands twitching on his hold of the gun almost wanting to move it lower along with his captain’s to fuck his fist the way he wants.

“Don't tell me how to wank you off, Garrick.” Price chuckles with an eyebrow raised, closing his fist just a tad harder than what Kyle wanted making him groan as his hips buckle.

“Sorry, sir.” He moans the apology. It was a delicious torture, the touch of his captain borderline painful but still making him unable to hold still, the gun that was resting on the floor still weighed a ton with the way he tried to keep his hands from slipping from it.

He just wants so badly to grab both of Price’s hands, making them cup his lengthy dick and fuck them, his angry tip poking through them with each thrust; spitting on them just to hear the squelching sound of his saliva between his captain fingers.

Instead, he can only shallowly thrust into his hand to prevent himself from peeling the skin of his dick against the floor, trying his best to keep himself from whining at the lack of more friction. But still, the barely there feeling of his captain's hands has him losing control of his lower body.

Price’s eyes are stuck on his ass, on how his asscheeks clench whenever he thrust forward, the sergeant's dick twitching on his hand with his approaching orgasm. He looks at the sergeant’s face, smiling when he notices he has once again let his head fall down. Eyes closed and moans sliping easily off his open mouth, and he decides to make him an offer.

"C'mon, sergeant... I thought you were pent up and that's why you wanted to change positions… I offer you something... If we kill this motherfucker before the week is over... I'll let you fuck the real thing."

And it is that what throws Kyle over the edge, splattering his seed over his captain's hand and onto the floor. He grunts as he does, his captain’s name spilling from his mouth in barely a whisper.

Price wipes his hand on the floor, propping himself on his elbow to pat the sergeant's butt. “That’s a good boy, you can relax now, sergeant. Ghost has been on the top floor for half an hour now with the sniper.”

Price still thought it has been hilarious to tease the sergeant like that, both with making him look out the window during the whole ordeal and with the way he took advantage of the neediness of him to give him the half-assed handjob he gave him.

What he didn't think was so funny, was when Thursday afternoon hit and the head of the organisation they were following got the top of his head blown off and Kyle turned to Price, who had almost forgotten about his offer and said: “My room or yours, sir?”

He still found it slightly comical, the way the sergeant was so eager to close the door, locking it, when he entered his room. Because the last thing Price was expecting from the sergeant was the way he ended up blowing his back.

It all started with the sergeant urging him to take off his clothes, sitting him down on the edge of the bed. The sergeant's hands were roaming his body like it was his possessions, and when his mouth entered the equation, Price didn't really mind.

He felt bad when he felt himself slide down Kyle’s throat, feeling mean for the excuse of a handjob the man had received in comparison. But then Kyle's mouth moved lower, licking his heavy balls like it was a delicatessen, and it was when he felt the sergeant's tongue probe at his ring of muscle that had him throwing his head back.

The sergeant had him in the most committed position he had ever found himself in; both metaphorically and literally. Because with him laying on his back, with his legs clutched to his chest, his sergeant tongue deep into his ass and his hand fisting his length, he has never had more gratitude to the lock of the door.

Price can feel himself clench, his orgasm surprising even himself, wanting to hold the sergeant's head to push him impossibly closer to his body. But before he can, Kyle pulls back, licking his lips and orders the captain. “Turn around, sir.”

Never did he think he would see the hungry and lustful expression on his sergeant's face, intimidating and promising enough to make him roll over easily. The sergeant behind him tugs his own length, slapping it between his captain's hairy cheeks making himself groan.

He uses his hand resting on his captain's cheek to spread him, giving him free access to his spit-covered hole before letting his tip catch on it. Not pushing yet, but he bends forward, coming to rest his head on the captain's shoulder. “C’mon, Cap’tain, eyes on the objective, yeah?”

Price turns his head to look at him, confused with what the sergeant means, but it's the smile on his face when his tip finally enters and makes Price’s mouth open at the intrusion that he understands that the sergeant only wanted to see his reaction.

Kyle chuckles behind him. “What’s there to lose, right?” He says, before kissing his captain on his lips, moaning into each other's mouth when Kyle slowly pushes forward. The both of them feeling more coy because of the intimate kiss than for what is happening below waist level.

The sergeant only waits until Price has gotten used to his girth before he starts to snap his hips, pushing in and out with ease and picking up the pace. His hands find the waist of his captain, using it as leverage to stand kneeling behind the captain.

Price's body is flat against the mattress, his dick chafing against the sheets, but with the way Kyle holds his waist, pulling him back to meet every snap of his hips, the only thing that he can do is moan the younger man's name.

Although he is aware of Kyle’s stamina, it still surprises him when the man doesn't seem to be able to tire himself out. The speed, depth and constant stimuli to Price’s prostate have him babbling nonsense, having come undone more than once at this point, his dick not even able to get hard anymore and spilling out onto the puddle of cum between his flaccid dick and the mattress.

He can feel the bruises forming under his sergeant's fingertips, but he can only grab the pillows, face buried into the mattress as he moans loudly and shamelessly at his sergeant’s mistreatment. It's after he comes after who knows how many times, that he hears the sergeant grunt, his thrust becoming sloppy and irregular, and after what feels like hours he feels him spill deep inside of him.

He can barely keep his eyes open enough time to see the sergeant pull out, laying next to him; only for him to slap the captain’s ass hard, making him hiss and saying: “That's a good boy, Cap’tain.”

And because Price is a good captain, and he perfectly knows how important it is to keep his soldiers happy and with the morale high, he knows too that he would definitely make the same offer to the sergeant in the future.

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alexanderwales · 19 days ago

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Recommendations for societies with mixed halfling/human races follow. The average halfling is assumed, from demographic estimates, to weigh 30 pounds (14 kg) and stand approximately 3 feet (1 meter) tall.

All public places where people are expected to be seated need a mix of regular/small seating. Ideally, all chairs and tables will be adjustable, but this comes with cost considerations.

All doors must be accessible for people of all sizes. This presents a challenge for doorknobs and door handles, and the recommendation is a long vertical bar accessible for both, along with low "minimum force" levels for opening and closing. Problems with locking mechanisms remain, and while floor bolts are height-neutral, they're more suited to secondary locking mechanisms.

All restaurants, cafeterias, and vending machines should stock two differently sized portions. The average halfling consumes roughly a third the amount of food as a human. Because of various frictions (packaging, labor), prices are expected to be more than one third for a halfling portion. Because of this, it's best to have systems in place that allow splitting human-sized dishes, or bringing home leftovers, or making packages resealable.

Housing presents a serious problem. A single-family dwelling for a halfling family requires roughly one fifth the volume as for a single-family human dwelling, though costs do not scale down at the same rate. However, if built to halfling scale, the interior of the dwelling will only be accessible to halflings, which presents serious problems for e.g. police, firefighters, social workers, repairmen, or anyone else who might have cause to go into the interior of the home, to say nothing of friends and coworkers. Building for halfling scale is attractive for a variety of reasons, with cost being one of the biggest, but this might result in de facto segregation, and puts considerable strain on civic infrastructure and city markets due to duplication. Another social concern is that all interactions might, by default, take place inside human homes which have worse accommodations for halflings. Special note should also be made of mixed-species couples, who suffer extra burdens within the household. These problems are intractable, as some trade-off must always be made.

Tools, household goods, and clothing are naturally split into two markets. For clothing, near-complete segregation is expected. For everything else, partial segregation is expected: a halfling cannot effectively use many human tools due to differences in grip strength and grip circumference, to say nothing of brute strength. However, many consumables can suit both species, and it's expected that cost reduction efforts will inevitably result in a single offering for both in cases where that makes remotely makes sense. Purchases using refillable containers from bulk are encouraged, as each person can determine what's best to fulfill their own needs.

Due to lower costs (housing, food, clothing), halflings can in theory work for lower wages. For certain jobs, particularly those requiring physical strength, humans are more capable on average, and for others, particularly those requiring manual dexterity, halflings are more capable on average. For jobs which do not have significant differences, wage discrimination is recommended by contentious, and is an ongoing conversation.

There are a number of "segregationist forces" in society, driven by convenience, culture, and market forces. Once segregation has become, there is every expectation that it will snowball: a neighborhood which is inaccessible to humans will have businesses that cater only to halflings, and once halfling business is concentrated, any "mixed" business has less incentive to cater to halflings. Legislation can counterbalance these forces by requiring that all businesses be able to service both humans and halflings, and accommodate both human and halfling services, but this admittedly comes at enormous cost.

Overall, there are certain recommendations that are nearly costless and can be implemented as best practices immediately, and more complicated, costly reforms that will take significant political will and budgetary consideration. Beyond that, there are questions of social engineering and the level to which it is important or preferable that these things be done.

#worldbuilding

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femboycatofmystery · 9 months ago

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Hey folks let me anti-doomscroll you for a quick second:

Batteries and Solar have been getting cheap very quickly for a long time now and not only is it not stopping, but even at the rates it's at the economics of energy are shifting rapidly. The costs of decarbonizing all forms of electric power are now more down to infrastructure and planning than bulk cost. Compare and contrast to the turn of the century when Solar was so prohibitively expensive that saying we'd meet any meaningful fraction of our needs with photovoltaics would have gotten you laughed out of the room.

Meanwhile, although there are lots of complicated moving parts and a surprising amount of gross politics attached, gas cars are now less good in most ways than electric. Again, at the turn of the century this would have sounded laughable.

Many industries have specific needs that prevent direct conversion to electric, but hydrocarbon fuels are not intrinsically fossil fuels and can be made as a storage medium for solar. Hydrocarbon fuels made in this way are intrinsically carbon neutral. The technology is relatively young, but from a basic math perspective looks very doable.

Inflation actually has more to do with the above than it does with whatever it is the federal reserve does, and pulling down a supply of energy from the sky that requires less infrastructure to get (which is true because that's why it's cheaper now) directly helps.

The current "business as usual" scenarios with global warming are lower than they used to be, because the solar transition is just sort of happening because of economics without a lot of government help. All of the above lower the amount of friction and pushback we face when trying to get the government to do something.

By the way, the Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Joe Biden a couple years back, is explicitly designed to accelerate these trends.

As disastrous as the current projections for global warming are, it's important to keep two things in perspective: first, that they are exactly that, disasters, not the end-of-the-world kind but more sort of the hurricanes and floods kind, and second, while they certainly will get worse before they get better, they can and will get better. What we do now from a policy perspective has an outsize impact on how much flooding, droughts, and other weather-related costs we will face in the decades to come, but "human civilization ends" is not actually particularly likely. It is much more realistic to say "we could have a huge number of climate-related disasters or a moderately increased number, and every little bit of policy work helps move the needle".

We can and we will solve global warming, the question is not if but when, and how many lives can we save or improve by acting as soon as possible. Imagining this as an almost-certain death sentence for the future of humanity and nature is not merely unrealistic, but wildly counterproductive. It is paralyzing and enervating when what will do the most good is planning, policy, and communication.

Remember, despair is not a tool for positive change. Hope is the real language of revolution.

#hope #solarpunk

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nothorses · 10 months ago

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I think there's a Thing where any transphobia known to be against a transfem gets called "transmisogyny", which is fine I guess, but idk I feel like transmisogyny is supposed to be the word for the Specific Type of oppression that trans women face, not "transphobia that in this case is against a trans women". Does that make sense? Like if somebody misgenders a trans woman and that's it, that isn't anything more specific than "transphobia", right? Like if somebody were to call me a faggot, I wouldn't consider That transandrophobia simply because I Am a trans man, I would just think of it as generally anti-queer. Does that make sense, or am I misunderstanding the terms transmisogyny, transandrophobia, etc?

No I think you're right, and tbh I think it's a manifestation (and a really good example) of the "identity = oppression" framework a lot of folks are operating under in these conversations.

It's not something anyone really says out loud, but I've noticed it as a pattern in certain circles; mostly a lot of primarily young, online queer circles.

It's the same framework that, imo, spawned "Transmisogyny Exempt/Transmisogyny Affected" (or "TME/TMA") in which one's identity is directly equivalent to the oppression they experience.

The logic goes: If you identify as X, you experience anti-X oppression. If your identity is not X, you do not, and cannot, experience anti-X oppression.

This is also where we get, like, "misdirected misogyny" as a concept: the logic is that trans men* do not identify as women, therefore they cannot experience oppression meant for women.

Or "slur discourse": if you do not identify as X, you do not experience anti-X oppression, you have never been called this anti-X slur, and therefore you cannot reclaim this anti-X slur.

A lot of other gatekeeping arguments follow similar logic, as do a lot of arguments against acknowledging "transandrophobia" (or anti-transmasc bigotry as a specific concept). Personal identity is understood to be directly equivalent to experiences with oppression, and trans men's identities are thus broken down into their two parts, and assigned corresponding experiences:

Trans experiences

Man experiences

Even understanding "trans man" to be a third identity, with additional, unique "trans man experiences", creates a lot of friction within this framework: a lot of the unique "trans man experiences" we talk about arise from interactions between transphobia and misogyny. But misogyny must be woman-only; our experiences with misogyny are considered incidental, or "misdirected".

If we consider identity to be directly equivalent to oppression, then what, exactly, could these unique "trans man experiences" be?

In this framework, they can only ever be the combination of "trans experiences" and "man experiences"; and "man experiences" cannot contain any unique "man oppression" (unless all men are oppressed just for being men), so "trans man experiences" can only ever be "trans experiences".

When people say "transmisogyny" to refer to any and all oppression that impacts trans women, it's because they understand identity and oppression to be one and the same. Trans women's experiences with oppression cannot be understood as complex & nuanced interactions between different systems of oppression- they are always considered transmisogyny, because the person experiencing them is a trans women, and the oppression of trans women is called "transmisogyny".

It's a reductive and honestly immature understanding of how identity and oppression interact with and relate to one another, but I find it really helpful to understand it when breaking down the flaws in arguments like these ones.

*Some trans men (as well as other transmasculine people) can and do identify as women, and this logic is often applied to transmasculine people as a whole, which erases those folks as well. I'm just not sure what the most accurate term to use here is, honestly.

#transandrophobia #transmisandry #anti transmasculinity

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myfriendtheurbanlegend · 28 days ago

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The Carter/Reese kiss came up on my dash again...

I've always thought John Reese can love and care about more than one person at a time for different reasons. This doesn't do a disservice to any character and I find it incredibly reductive to think so.

Behind the scenes, it was an emotional alternative take that the writers chose to include in the final cut of the episode, despite the showrunners' apparent disinterest in a Reese/Carter relationship. Both actors said the lines sort of called for it and I can see what they meant. I fail to see how the kiss ruined anything about Reese and Carter and Finch, unless one thinks character roles are radio buttons and you can't check [BADASS] without unchecking [LOVE INTEREST].

Reese's relationship with Finch is special; Finch gave him a purpose and the means to fulfill it but that doesn't cancel the fact that their story starts with Finch wanting something out of Reese and effectively getting it through manipulation. There is a lot of friction and distrust in the beginning and Reese is smart to be wary. It might be me, but I like the ups-and-downs of this relationship, the arguments. Nonetheless, Finch proves himself to be magnitudes better than his old bosses, a leader he can follow. Instead of leaving him to the wolves at the end of Number Crunch, the "middle-aged cripple" comes for him, and saves his life. Reese puts his life on the line for him when he's kidnapped, and so on, and so forth, they stumble along together, trying to right their wrongs.

Carter on the other hand doesn't have that kind of baggage. It's not the same dynamic. She takes one look at him at the station and understands what he's going through. She is a working woman, a single mom and she was in the same path as Reese to an extend but she made good decisions and ended up different. I think Reese recognized that when they first talked. She did what he strove to do and failed and he feels that with the power Finch and his machine granted him he can protect the ideals she upholds even if he can never live up to them. He does say the world can't afford to lose her and has always, from S1 tried his damnedest to protect her. Now this isn't very well communicated in the show because Reese's active suicidal tendencies were cut (they wanted to have Reese dangling from a bridge but the city prohibited filming there) but this is what I think the "You changed my mind" line means. Carter, being the person that she was, gave him a nudge in the police station. When he was on his feet, she became his anchor, through her good work and character.

In the end, Finch gave him the purpose, the means. Carter was the ideal that he was fighting for.

#i saw the careese kiss again in hd and slowmo and got a little emotional here is an incoherent essay #i just feel that reese is a complex character with complex emotions and complex relationships with other complex characters #but it all gets reduced down to trope labels #same with carter #now a truly reductive canon relationship is reese/iris but that's a whole barrel of worms and im not opening it #person of interest #john reese #joss carter #harold finch

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tauforged · 5 months ago

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i just find it really interesting how i’ve been seeing a handful of people deciding that of all the hex, quincy is The Biggest Hater and that he’s markedly more mean/rude than anyone else when in actuality, ARTHUR is usually the one reacting harshly towards HIM in a lot of their back-and-forth during the gameplay demo. he’s dismissive of arthur when he asks about his keys, yeah, but not really moreso than anyone else was — amir ALSO tells arthur not to bug him cuz he’s busy and is pretty short with him too, at least relative to the rest of his dialogue, but we don’t hear too much about that in comparison for whatever reason… and then during the actual gameplay, when he’s shooting down targets before arthur can get to them, arthur gets pissy with him about it when quincy is Literally just watching his back and helping him. he signs his note to arthur about parking his bike wrong ‘with love’ and is equally on board as everyone else with them all working as a group when arthur gears up to head out rather than letting him rush out there on his own, something that arthur seems a bit bothered by.

i think the conflict between them is much less ‘quincy is a hater and doesn’t like arthur’ and much MORE ‘quincy is clearly skilled and confident in his skills, arthur is more of a loner and seems to have mantled the leadership role in this situation, so he feels almost ‘threatened’ when quincy’s competence approaches or even surpasses his own and suddenly he isn’t The Only Man For The Job anymore” type thing. quincy isn’t immediately deferring to him as The Guy In Charge and that seems to intimidate him, most likely because he thinks that quincy is trying to undermine him rather than considering that quincy might just want to approach this situation all on equal footing like allies rather than having ANYONE default to being The Leader. like honestly regardless of if quincy is genuinely just being friendly and trying to help sincerely or if he’s fully aware that it pisses arthur off when he snipes enemies right in front of him and is doing so anyway — either to be passive aggressive about arthur’s attitude OR because he just doesn’t care that arthur’s ego gets bruised so much as he cares about keeping everyone alive as his top priority, not tallying who gets the most kills — there’s really not a lot of outward antagonizing one another AT ALL between the hex that we’ve seen so far. they each comment on finding someone annoying or resenting them or not trusting them to themselves, yeah, they butt heads over things here and there, and there’s obviously a lot of friction caused by each of them having their own baggage and being in a high stress situation. but i think characterizing ANY of them as being Mean On Purpose is kinda reductive and honestly ignores the potential for much more interesting interpersonal dynamics that could be going on here that i’m personally hoping to see more of

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leebrontide · 5 months ago

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Thinking today about my favorite ever work nemesis.

I couldn't fucking stand this woman. She had a habit of making everything going on in the office about her, would regularly get riled up because she had decided, with crystal clarity, that someone had said the exact polar opposite of what they had said and demand an apology from them, and would actually yell and storm out of staff meetings.

She, similarly, couldn't stand me. Probably because I would actually roll my eyes when she got dramatic, I wouldn't apologize to her for complimenting her on an area of expertise when she had decided I had somehow said the opposite of what I had said, and because she decided I was invalidating her, specifically, for accurately noting that I have a grandfather who grew up on a reservation.

So. Animosity.

But here's the thing- we knew we needed to work together anyways. And through it all, she did actually care about the clients, and so did I.

So whenever we'd have friction, she'd find an excuse to wander over to me sometime later that day, or even within the conversation we were having, and ask to see pictures of my then-infant daughter.

She genuinely liked babies and pictures of babies. I was always down to show off my extraordinarily cute child. We could have a nice, de-escalated moment. Was she handling me? Absolutely. I knew it. But I appreciated the effort. It did lower the tension level. It gave us a common ground.

I don't have any real point here except that sometimes it's good to have a de-escalated moment with someone with whom you share mutual antipathy. It was honestly mature of her to mitigate like that. It improved the work environment.

In some relationships you just don't have standing to ask someone to change in any deeply ingrained way. And that's what it would have taken for us to actually like each other or even feel truly neutral about each other. But yay for harm reduction.

The other lesson here is that my child is so adorable that she inspires peace and harmony by merely existing and being seen.

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elgaberino-mcoc · 2 years ago

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During the Initiative, when Hammerhead wanted to furtively undermine Kingpin’s territory, he tried to hire an intuitive pair of potential Science champs: the sticky guy Trapster and the slippery guy Slyde. Slyde is far too obscure to be a priority for the Wishlist, but he’d be a good obscure Champ, given his potential for interesting kit dynamics and the fact that he’s appeared more than a couple dozen times, including in an animated television show.

#obscure pairing #Slyde #Jalome Beacher #Matthew Beacher #NYPD #friction reduction #slippery #burglar #Spider-Man rogue #mcoc class science #villain #Black #Wishlist Cleanup

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siryouarebeingmocked · 4 months ago

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Found an Self-Insert Cyberpunk fanfic.

Except it's not the usual type. It's the type where it's told entirely from the perspective of people other than the SI, which makes it more interesting.

Problem 1: Current events.

Almost all the references people make are ones you'd expect from someone today, like Batman or other pieces of pop culture.

Cyberpunk 2077 often references fictional in-universe media. Like the dead rock star stuck in V's head. In a world where everything and everyone is disposable and temporary, why would people usually reference 80 year old media?

At one point, a character explicitly compares another character's clothing to Danny DeVito in Matilda.

Okay, the CP timeline divergences mainly started in the 90s. So it's possible that the movie was still made, but it's still odd. Especially when the same characters don't recognize that the story's lead is heavily based on Walter White. Shaved head and everything.

Except he's using his chemistry potential for good, not evil.

And it's not just media. It's also Current Year memes, like V describing certain people as a "corpo bros who watched too much American Psycho", or himself as a "disaster bisexual".

Oh look, a segue.

Problem 2: Rainbow connection.

The story puts a lot of emphasis on LGBT characters.

There's Judy Alvarez, obviously. But also, V's in with Meredith Stout is Stout's explicitly non-binary ex who, you guessed it, is they/them.

Adds nothing to the story. The SI provides that info, and Meredith tries to trip V up, but he sees through it.

Since Meredith is a Militech Corpo, and V is an Arasaka ex-Corpo (who still isn't over it), why doesn't V…just use that connection, somehow? Militech and Arasaka are rivals. There could be some friction there. Or V could sympathize with how Stout would do anything to keep her job.

Why are non-binary characters always just they/them? Why not he/she/they? He/She? Xi/xir? or Lunagender? Or using regular He or She interchangably while IDing as enby? Why is it always the basic, simple, "normal" version? Got a Rochester's Wife situation going on?*

Also, in fanfics, things like this often suggest even more awkward left-wing political insertions, down the line.

Problem 3: even more awkward left-wing political insertions.

Well, just one.

Panam Palmer just didn't fit. This wasn't rare in Night City. Lots of people who didn't fit in, were awkward, had no social groups, didn't choose to be loners. She expected to be alone in the city and no one cared. But it was personal hate. Her skin color, nomad markings, speech, just being a woman. The list went on and every day there was some new jerk who needed to find out, because they messed around.

Panam is canonically native American, according to the devs, but she looks like a random white biker lady wth a tan. Wouldn't be the first white-passing Native woman I've seen.

Also, she lives and works around Night City. Which is extremely diverse.

Judy Alvarez and Jackie (both Hispanic) were both POV characters, and race wasn't really mentioned. You'd think ex-Arasaka V or someone would mention Arasaka's racism, but nope. River Ward was a viewpoint character, and he's much more visibly non-white, down to his necklace and dreamcatcher (if romanced).

He only brings it up in the fic when Misty asks him if he ever had his fortune told. Apparently his granny did a "spirit walk" when him and his sister were born.**

I've seen playthroughs of the game, and I don't remember sexism really being a thing. Why would skin color matter much when anyone can change that and other ethnic features at will?

Why did race only come up as a significant thing now?

I'd expect Panam to get the most stick for being a Nomad, not brown, or a woman. Especially in a city where any woman could sprout mantis blades and go Cyberpsycho at the drop of a hat.

This feels…reductive. Like the writer wanted to give Panam challeges to overcome so she could be a Tough Woman™, and just…piled too much on, like a Chicago hot dog.

I would've gone with something more subtle. "Her back itches without her Nomad tribe behind her, and she's uncomfortable in a city instead of a desert, or a road. Even the echoes sound wrong."

So, yeah, this was the last straw.

Also, I checked the writer's profile, and, very stereotypically, she's from Portland.

*Also, you might recall that there was a nontroversy over an soda ad in the game featuring a lady with, ahem, a rather substantial bulge. Based on an actual trans woman. Somehow, portraying a (possible) trans woman in the same sexually objectified way as ads featuring non-trans people is transphobic.

I never worked out that logic.

My best guess is that some people were uncomfy with it, and it's about a trans person, so it's must be *phobic somehow.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the ad was just Photoshop in universe? Or the in-universe model was a non-trans woman who strapped on the junk just for the ad?

(Though depending on who you ask, that still counts as being a trans woman, somehow.)

**Come to think, that kind of feels like it's stereotyping. I can't find evidence Pomo Native Americans do spirit walks, but maybe my Google-fu is just weak.

#cyberpunk #fanfiction #long #personal

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rin-and-jade · 1 year ago

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Petrified like Medusa: A Post about Catatonic Dissociation. (more like how catatonia and dissociation work, creating a devastating combo. oof!)

Have you ever got that feeling where you cannot move your limbs, say a word, or even breathe? Do you feel like all your functions had stopped as if it's a statue? Where everything ceases to a halt as your body betrays whilst doing your daily activities? Something else might felt wrong and odd too;

It's not just your imaginary,, it is something real that us, systems sometimes experience. May this post bring you understanding of today's topic!

The difference between catatonia and dissociation

Catatonia is similar to freeze response, the only difference lies on the reason, which is: it is usually a byproduct of something (usually by overwhelm), while freeze activates from stressful situations. Being catatonic means:

Stuck in a position, no matter how uncomfortable or what pose you're at.

Find it hard to execute/keep up with basic actions such as eating, drinking, breathing, or even blinking!

You find yourself actively struggling/fighting against the heavy friction of the unmoving body. Or is absent from any forms of thoughts, seemingly empty inside out.

Stiff, rigid movements, making soft skills harder to perform.

Dissociation on the other hand, is an active defense that works by flinging you out from there by any means. Making you feel physically + emotionally detached, and mentally not engaging the situation. It is a veil that blurs the details and such, minimizing as much damage as possible.. it can look like:

The world looking a bit slow, distorted, or unclear.

Tactile sensations and sounds feel toned down and damped.

Your thoughts and movement may or may not get sluggish/lagged.

Memories feels fuzzy, preventing clarity of the situation.

How it affects us, systems..

Catatonic dissociation can happen when we are faced with inevitable, stressful moments. Depending on how bad the situation is,, when you're dissociating, catatonia can slowly creep up on you and petrify everything from top to bottom.. like medusa; This alone can hinder the communication and body coordination in systems.

Luckily, you can be aware of the warning signs soon before it sets in, pay attention to:

Feeling a huge reduction in movement, or have confusion of it.

It's harder to speak clearly, possibly restricting volume or vocals.

You are unbothered when someone is pushing you, for example. And stayed passive/still trying to process what happened.

Finding yourself standing/sitting/etc longer than you'd expect to.

A change in switching patterns, or show clear struggle in attempt.

Things feels like it skipped a beat, and you 'snapped out' every few moments. As if you were put into a trance.

Additionally, catatonia-like dissociation can also happen when you are in the middle of the process of a switch, feeling extra blank and unmoving until a new fronter completely took over, too! To minimize discomfort and possible injuries, practice caution by choosing a safe, comfortable spot beforehand.

The takeaway and tips to overcome this:

This episode is temporary, lasting from a few minutes to an hour or two (there might be instances that it will be longer). Frequency is subjective,

There are things that can be done to ease and lesson such discomfort or struggles; starting from planning a tactic for this situation, minimizing current triggers/stressors, finding a spot to lay down/sit although it'll be hard.. so take this step steady, and stay comfortable until it disappears by itself. Grounding techniques could help, though i have not tried them myself, feel free to test the theory.

Lastly, this concludes the end of the post! Thankyou for helping me decide which to do first, so please expect the other one to be out in a few weeks as i go down the rabbit hole, yet again. If you find this interesting, or helpful, or worthy of being shared to other people, i will appreciate every one of you who had read 'til the bottom of the post <3

- j, a very happy one

#did #actually did #did community #did osdd #did system #dissociative identity disorder #sysblr #plural #system stuff #jeducates

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