#just critiquing his methods
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ionlydrinkhotwater · 7 months ago
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OK but I really love how unhinged Neil comes off in other people's POV cause looking back at the first three novels he was so damn weird
Take what happened in Colombia
Imagine what Andrew was thinking
Holy crap this binder WTF?!?! OK he's sus as hell I've gotta test him, I'm gonna mess with the tags when I refold his clothes but like...I doubt even he's THAT crazy
*Neil barges in and starts shouting in FRENCH*
OK so he IS that crazy (and French?!)
OK I'm gonna spike his drink and get some answers in a minute just gonna leave him with Aaron and Nicky for a sec while I satisfy my Gay panic this runaway has inspired in me with Roland and then I'll just...WTF DID HE JUST PAY A GUY TO KNOCK HIM OUT?!
OK I'm gonna pick up some breakfast and when I get back to the house I can interrogate the....OK ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME THIS DUBIOUS TWINK CRAWLED OUT OF THE BATHROOM WINDOW?!
OK so he's not around let's get back to Palmetto he probably got a ride from one of the upperclassmen
OK he didn't...did he run away? I guess that makes some sens... OK wait he HITCHHIKED?! THE FUCK?!
OK THIS ASSHOLE SPEAKS GERMAN TOO?!
OK he's on the run from the mob...there are a lot of holes in this story but at this point I'm gonna take his word for it that he's isn't a danger to my people cause I don't have the energy to continue to pursue this anymore. This fucking guy is more unhinged than what I was prepared to deal with this weekend.
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imogenkol · 4 months ago
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SORRY IF IT'S ALREADY BEEN SENT but can't say imogen iwtv au and not expect me to jump on that. (alternatively would love top five ways a fc5 imogen suffers in the spread eagle)
THANK YOU LIZ here’s the iwtv au BUT I would love to talk about a fc5 au for Imogen as well. Really I just view this au as the dumbest series of unfortunate events. Imogen’s terrible horrible no good very bad day, if you will
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Imogen is just passing through, she has zero interest or intention to spend any amount of time in a place like Hope County. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know about the cult stuff and gets run off the road by some peggies who try to kidnap her. RIP to them but also RIP to her cool car 🕊️
With no choice but to try and hitchhike to the nearest town, she gets picked up by Hurk Jr and tries her absolute best not to grab the steering wheel of his truck and kill them both once he starts tapping. She would have just stolen his truck, but she wouldn’t be caught dead behind the wheel of that thing under the most dire of circumstances.
There’s very few instances where Imogen needs a drink, but today is one of them. She gets to the Spread Eagle (has a hard time forcing herself to step through the front door tbh) and to her dismay their beer selection is horrendous and the music makes her ears bleed. She settles for water. Then Mary May gives her the terrible news that because of said cult Imogen is likely stuck in the county indefinitely. Imogen decides something a lot stronger than beer might be appropriate in this instance. Mary May gives her a jar of moonshine. Imogen fucking hates it.
People in the bar find her interesting. She has a funny accent. She has a background in war and mercenary work, it seems. Some of the older folks ask if she’s a commie. Imogen swears she’ll burn down Fall’s End herself.
But she needs a car. Now that she knows about the blockades they won’t be much of a problem for her on her own. The generous people of Fall’s End offer her a bitchin’ ride of her choosing if she does them one little favor….. help them take down this cult.
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amoeganism · 4 months ago
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PROJECT PARTER HCS (he wants you so bad) haikyuu
ft: aran, kita, atsumu, osamu, suna
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ATSUMU:
HES TRYING!!! but is it successful? (no)
literally cannot shut up the entire time you two meet up but it's ok because he's funny
"hey you wanna see pictures of my teammates" "yeah sure" he pulls out a blurry .5 of suna's nostrils
offers you protein bars and osamus leftovers as snacks
compliments you on literally everything
you wrote two words? he starts cheering and clapping his hands like you're shakespeare presenting a new play
loves pretending to be your strict teacher whenever commenting on your work
makes up for his lack of preparation by making you laugh and flustered
"i think you can add a little more to this part" "you look so sexy calling me dumb"
if you two meet up at a cafe he ALWAYS!!! pays for you
started off as a mistake because he asked you for your order in front of the barista
but he thought for a moment and decided you're worth an extra $5 out of his wallet
always loses his pencils but has dozens of erasers?????
SWEARS by wooden pencils. he sees a mechanical pencil and jumps 5 feet into the air and starts screaming
last few days of the project he looks constipated every time you two are together
"do you need a diaper" "I WANT YOU"
you accept his confession because you unfortunately like him back and because you want a good grade
also because you don't want him pooping his pants
ARAN:
the sweetest!!
always asks how you're doing before pulling out his notes
digital note taker 100%
loves loves loves writing with erasable pen and only uses pencils for exams
is a "let's work on everything together" kinds guy
he says it's to make sure there aren't any disagreements in content and aesthetic (he just wants to talk to you)
if you guys aren't at your house, always offers to walk you back!!!
great academically but if you're making a poster or slideshow do NOT let him decorate it... pls watch out
"does this look good!" "i'm gonna hold your hand when i tell you this..." "omg you want to hold my hand 😍"
starts giggling to himself in his head whenever you guys accidentally touch
you catch him staring at you one day and you don't know what to say so you just stare back
he thinks its so romantic
you're just confused but go along with it
after presentations you think you guys are gonna go back to being friendly classmates but he finds you after class and asks you out :)
KITA:
ACADEMIC WEAPON TEACHERS FAV EVERYONE LOVES HIM
"do you want to read my notes?" he pulls out 5 notebooks with everything color coordinated, sticky tabs, perfect handwriting, and factually correct
he can sit and work for 5 hours straight and still somehow have perfect posture
first time you asked him for help on something you were about to piss yourself because you thought he would call you stupid and send you to hell
he gave you a small smile and started walking you through it with an unmatched level of patience
that was the moment you folded and had to physically restrain yourself from grabbing his cheeks and kissing his face
always offers you tea when you come over and brings out a small tray of snacks
"are you comfortable? do you need any help?"
is suuuuper meticulous but kind with his 739273 different corrections
he swears by the sandwich method of compliment-critique-compliment
"your analysis is amazing in this section but i think you can expand a little bit after because..."
you're the one who confessed first because you thought you would explode from cuteness aggression if you didn't
and also because you thought even if he did reject you, he'd do it in the most painless way
was super happy and bursted into a bright red face but shy smile!!
still told you to go back to the assignment though...
SUNA:
menace i hate him (no i don't)
literally doesn't understand anything that's going on and probably doesn't process what you're saying at first
realizes you're serious about this assignment and forces himself to lock in
asks a BUNCH of questions and jots them down on a google doc
loves to make random conversation when you two are working
actually insane gossiper
nosiest birch you know
allergic to minding his own business that mf has shit on everyone
are you slightly scared of what he has on you? yes. do you still want to hear everything he knows? yes
"i'm taking this info from page 175 of the textbook" "got it, but did you hear that kato is trying to get with his exs best friend??"
leaves notes on your project that are both unserious and encouraging
"omg u are literally einstein"
folds origami when bored
will give you paper cranes, frogs, foxes, and cats whenever you see each other
you discovered that there's small doodles in the posts it's he uses to make them
one day there's your name and his surrounded by hearts like the corny mf he is
confronted him and it and he was just like "oh you found that? well, do you want to go out with me?"
he was NOT SLICK with the way he skipped home and whistled to himself that day after you said yes
OSAMU:
HES TRYING HIS BEST!!! (pt. 2)
can only meet up after school because of volleyball so he offers to cook for you before starting to work
takes notes in class but doesn't understand half the stuff he jots down
writes actual bullshit but half a page in decides to abandon his pride and ask you for help
leans in a little too close whenever listening to what you're saying
tries to make sure your knees are touching and that it's all an accident when your fingers brush (he prepared each scenario in his head before sleeping the night before)
down bad LOSER
spends his time doing his portion of the project while sneaking glances at you
doesn't know how to decorate presentations for the life of him so he is on doodle duty
gives surprisingly good suggestions and takes your corrections to heart
one of the best project partners because of how willing he is to learn and contribute!!! (also because he wants to impress you)
talks shit about his brother to you
atsumu has walked in while osamu was telling you an embarrassing story
they start fighting
osamu gets super embarrassed when you laugh at him
then gets overly confident when you tell him you were rooting for him
will not stop dumb smiling whenever he sees you after that
asks you out after the project is turned in with his hands in his pockets with how they're shaking so much
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thoughtless-muse · 8 months ago
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“for whom the tongue craves to taste,” [d.d]
“the cdc showers”
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a/n: quick disclaimer – this is actually just a snippet of a larger piece that I’m putting together (a smutty 5+1 prompt, five times daryl made you cum, and the one time he let you return the favor) but as it’s my first real attempt at smut, I wanted to post this as a means to garner some constructive criticism before finishing the piece. If you’d be so kind to read and lmk your thoughts/critiques, I’d really appreciate it!
EDIT: I know it’s not how the majority of 5+1 prompts are done, but I’ve decided to post each segment as they are finished. I just think it’s an easier/less stressful method for me, so I hope you guys don’t mind the posting choice. the posts will be linked together for easier access.
the cdc showers – arrow mishaps lead to frisky fun – ever done it in a loft? – cold iron bars – the watchtower – I want a taste, too
c/w: explicit sexual content, cunnilingus, shower cunnilingus, tongue fucking, fingering, language, dirty talk, undisclosed age gap, 18+
word count: 2.4k
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that morning, had anyone scooped you off to the side and told you that mere hours after arriving at the pipe-dream that was the CDC you’d be corralled into a hot shower with none other than daryl dixon squished between your thighs, you’d have laughed straight in their face and directed them towards the nearest mental institution – not that that would do anyone much good, given the state of things; but had anyone declared a statement that outrageous, you’d have thought their mind already gone, much like the drooling, shuffling, decaying bodies wandering the earth.
yet here you were, a steady jet of hot water battering the sore muscles of your back, liquor-laden torso slightly slumped, thighs spread open by broad shoulders and daryl dixon’s wicked tongue licking your little cunny straight to nirvana.
how the fuck did you even end up here, anyway?
it was so uncharacteristic of you – you knew next to nothing about daryl dixon. he was simply a mutual stranger. you’d never even had more than a few fleeting conversations with the man, for fuck’s sake; if you could even call them that. daryl was brusque and wholly unapproachable, and his attitude left a lot to be desired. due to his unpleasantness, you’d opted to keep your distance and observe rather than to interact. to be completely honest, you’d been more judgmental rather than observant of the man before, back at the quarry, internally critiquing his sour attitude, accent and frayed clothes; and, shamefully, even at times presuming that he was some forty year old virgin that had been holed up in his mother’s basement before the world went to shit – but, fuck, were you ever wrong.
maybe he was forty, maybe he had been holed up in his mother’s basement, who the fuck knows, but he sure as fuck wasn’t a virgin – at least, his tongue wasn’t. the way he moved it, fucked it into you, made a mess of you with it, there was no way he wasn’t experienced with it.
you let out a loud, trembling gasp when daryl suddenly broke his tender tongue-flicks to slide his teeth gently against your clit before wrapping his lips around it and sucking.
okay, fuck, scratch that. he was experienced with his whole mouth.
unlike the few other men you’d allowed to taste the heaven between your legs, daryl used his entire lower face to devour you – his tongue was the star of the show, of course, but his lips, nose and chin made a hell of a supporting cast. when his tongue was busy fucking your walls, his nose was right against your clit in its place, his head shaking side to side, applying just enough pressure to bring you pleasure but not enough to stimulate you into orgasm; and then, as if he could simply innately sense when you were becoming desperate for more, his tongue would slip from your hole and return to your clit once more, circling and flicking it with expert movements, quickly bringing you right back to that sweet precipice.
how long had he been at it?
the water wasn’t cold yet – or maybe your body was just too hot to register that it was; but with the amount of times that daryl had built then robbed you of your orgasm, you drunkenly surmised that it had to of been a good fifteen minutes. any other man would have tapped out from exhaustion already.
of course, there were times when his tongue would get tired, but even then, unlike your previous lovers, he seemed loathe to leave you without any contact – he would alternate between giving your clit chaste little kisses and moving his lips against your entire cunt as if it were a second mouth that he was intent on claiming; then, when his tongue was rested enough, he would dive right back into devouring you.
it was absolutely wrecking you, in the best and worst ways.
maybe it was simply the affects of the alcohol swimming through your veins that fed you the illusion of this being the best damn head you’d ever received; maybe it was because you certainly didn’t have a lot of other experiences to compare it to; or maybe it was the warmth that came with the comfort of hot water and a full stomach that made it so much better – either way, you were almost at the brink now, again, thighs quaking with the effort of holding your body upright and staving off your impending orgasm; you knew daryl would more than likely take it away if he sensed it, and you weren’t sure if you could handle that.
“oh, god,” you hissed out when daryl flattened his tongue against your clit, flicking it with short, harsh movements, before slipping it down to part your folds and lick up your slit. he transitioned between the repetitive movements at a near imperceptible speed, without ever having to trade out accuracy and rhythm for it. it was a dangerous cocktail of pleasure that had you damn near seeing stars. each harsh swipe of his tongue against your clit sent zips of electricity up your spine, and built a familiar tension within your gut.
“ya like tha’, sweetheart?” daryl parted from your cunt just enough to inquire huskily, his voice so low that you barely even managed to catch it over the volume of the hissing spray. you nearly whined at the loss of his tongue, and, rather than answer his question, which you could hardly even decipher at the moment, you reached a hand down to tangle your fingers into the short hair at his nape, using what leverage you had to push his head forward until the tip of his nose brushed against your sensitive clit once more.
“no, d-don’t – don’t talk…” you slurred out, tugging at his hair insistently and pulling a deep, rumbling chuckle from the man below you.
“some manners you have,” daryl drawled, but to your delight, returned his tongue to your slit, parting your wet folds and slipping it past the rim of your tight entrance. your fingers twitched against his nape as you released a high, airy sigh, and your hips began to move of their own accord, humping your cunt against his face and pulling even more vibrating vocalizations from his throat. you just wanted firmer friction, damn it.
your stomach was stirring, tight, that pressure slowly mounting. it felt fucking good, the way he was thrusting and wiggling his tongue against your gummy walls, fucking you with the thick muscle, his nose bumping into your clit and sending subtle jolts up your spine, and those vibrations and sounds, fuck! – but it just wasn’t enough. you needed something different, something more.
“do… do what you were doing before…” you requested breathlessly, hips trembling, fingers digging into the skin of his nape in desperation. “‘m so close, daryl… just need more.”
the thought of keeping your impending orgasm away from his awareness seemed to have slipped away in the midst of the tremulous pleasure he was bringing you, and maybe you shouldn’t have let the information out, but you were so desperate. your tummy was so fucking tight, that coil winding and winding to a painful climax, and holding it in just seemed impossible, you needed to let it go – and at the moment, the only way you could possibly reach orgasm was through daryl.
daryl flicked his eyes up to meet yours, and though your vision was a bit hazy from the steam and alcohol, you swore the man was smirking up at you from within your cunt. daryl was silent for a moment, all movements against your cunny paused, before he leaned back slightly and said, lowly, “why don’ I do somethin’ better, instead?”
before your drunk, horny, fuddled mind could truly decipher his words daryl was in motion; his warm hand gripped the back of your knee, bending your leg easily and hoisting it atop his shoulder – distantly, you registered a strange sensation against the skin of your calf (was that a shirt? was daryl fully clothed right now?) – and once your leg was stabilized, he skirted the fingers of his other hand up your other leg, the one that was still planted to the floor of the shower.
his fingertips grazed your knee, then the plush flesh of your thigh, before reaching between your hips. you jumped slightly when you felt the pad of his finger run over your slit, the thick digit parting your folds smoothly, the tip dipping ever so subtly into your entrance every so often. like he was testing the waters, or something.
“d-daryl, what are you doing?” you inquired, heart tripping over itself, apprehension twisting in your gut for the first time since he’d invited himself into your shower and initiated this whole thing.
wait, had he invited himself? or did you do that?
you couldn’t remember.
“shh, jus’ trus’ me, sweetheart. This’s gon’ blow yer mind.” daryl responded back, calmly, warm breath fanning over your sensitive clit as he spoke. your breath shuddered in your lungs, but any further objections died in your throat when daryl’s hot tongue met your sex, circling, flicking, flattening, devouring – his pace was much faster and firmer than before, the pleasure much more intense than what had previously been given.
“o-oh, fuck! daryl!” you moaned, your hand sliding up from his nape to the crown of his head, fingers fisting into his hair to hold his head still as you rutted your hips forward to meet his skilled tongue.
“shit, that’s it, baby,” daryl panted, muffled, into the slick heat of your cunt, tongue drawing lazy circles between his words. “jus’ fuckin’ lose it. use my tongue, sweetheart.”
it felt so fucking good. it felt like your cunt was melting right into daryl’s mouth, searing hot and drippy, sloppy, coating his lips, jaws, nose, and neck with copious amounts of your arousal – all the while daryl growled, groaned, and moaned as he slurped it down, as if it was the very nectar of life itself.
your gut felt like it would burst – at any moment, with any flick of his tongue, in time with any of those vibrating groans, you’d be exploding all over daryl’s face, releasing every single ounce of the pent-up arousal daryl had inflicted upon your body over the last fifteen minutes in a single second.
“daryl, daryl, god, yes… fuck, don’t stop… don’t s-stop.”
you continued to repeat those words, falling like a river from your mouth, a mantra that seemed to keep you grounded as daryl’s tongue threatened to send you floating away –
a sound akin to a scream bubbled in your throat when daryl suddenly slipped two of his thick fingers into your cunt; the sensation was far from unpleasant but far too close to overwhelming – and when he began to pump them in time with the flicks of his tongue, and curled them just so on every outward pull, scraping against something at the top of your gummy walls, you simply couldn’t hold it in.
your entire body locked up, muscles freezing as your lips fell open to release mute moans, both hands now swinging down to grip daryl’s hair.
those silent moans you were releasing quickly morphed into loud, wanton, downright sinful vocalizations as daryl pumped his fingers into your cunt, still rubbing that sweet spot, fingerfucking you through your high and bringing stars to your eyes. you pressed daryl’s head impossibly closer to your cunt, humping whatever you could and burying his fingers deeper inside your walls with desperate, short, shaky movements, releasing a litany of his name and curses in between breathy pants and moans.
when the waves of your high had begun to recede, you slowed your hips until they came to a complete stop, your chest heaving from the deep lungfuls of steamy air you pulled in. your body felt incredibly fuzzy, your mind pleasantly foggy; but your body, and everything else, felt too hot, too cramped, too everything, and when daryl decided to give your throbbing, sensitive clit one last tiny flick of his tongue, you damn near smacked him in the head.
if only your arms would move.
a small gasp was pulled from your lips when daryl slipped his fingers from your sloppy cunt, the friction against your sensitive walls almost enough to have your entire body seizing, and it was only when daryl lifted his hands up to grip your wrists were you able to disentangle your fingers from his hair; only with his help, of course.
daryl then grasped the plump flesh of your thigh, the one that was still tossed over his shoulder, and pulled it down slowly, not releasing his hold until your foot was planted firmly on the wet floor of the tub.
when your balance was secured daryl scuttled back from between your legs, and when he’d rose to a standing position, his chest now centimeters from your own (which you distantly realized was bare) you couldn’t help but stumble backwards until your back hit the cold wall. your lids felt incredibly heavy, and exhaustion gnawed insistently at your muscles; but through the fog, you were able to register daryl, who was indeed fully clothed, the fabric of his shirt and jeans soaked and clinging to his body like a second skin – and you were certain that was a smirk on his lips.
a smirk that said he knew he had just blown your mind, even if you would never admit it to him.
it seemed as though your orgasm had sobered you up a bit, because when daryl sidled up to you, right beneath the harsh spray, and placed his large hands on your naked hips, you were able to lift your hands and plant them on his chest. he didn’t attempt to move closer to you, but his hands didn’t fall from your hips either; and when he spoke, his voice was chock-full of cockiness that you found simultaneously alluring and irritating.
“if ya ever want yer mind blown again, ya know where to find me.”
with that, daryl slipped his hands from your hips and turned, ripped open the shower curtain with little effort and then stepped out, as if he hadn’t just performed an intimate act on you. water dripped noisily against the linoleum floor as he stalked away, and, not one to give up the chance at having the last word, you croaked out,
“in your dreams, dixon.”
the only thing you got in reply was a haughty chuckle, echoing into the bathroom from somewhere within the quarters you’d claimed for the night.
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transmutationisms · 9 months ago
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i would love to hear more about your criticisms of the BITE model! for me it always feels.. unfalsifiable? it seems to do poorly at distinguishing a cult from any other community, if you squint at the definitions
yeah so first of all i'm not particularly keen on even trying to defend the category of "cult" in general. obviously abuse and control methods can and do happen in groups, but i don't think it's particularly useful to talk about this like there's a strict dichotomy between evil malicious groups and all the others. and i think generally, when people do try to sort groups into strict categories like that, what you actually see is that the differentiating factor is less to do with the degree of control exerted by the group and more to do with how much the person doing the sorting is bothered by the group's ideology or doctrinal commitments lol. like, this is sort of baby's first cult concept critique but yknow, a group setting where you're being extremely openly financially controlled is your job and yet most workplaces, however abusive and surveilled and controlling, are not typically designated a 'cult' unless they're also peddling some kind of heterodox religious or medical claims or something.
anyway in regards to BITE in particular, yeah i think it does a really poor job of distinguishing between a 'normal' level of social pressure to say/do certain things, and the kind of control that ostensibly characterises a cult. for example steven hassan has called both MAGA and online trans communities cults, and a lot of this comes down to his persistent and pretty open belief in the power of 'mind control' and hypnosis as mechanisms of cult control. ofc any group of any political persuasion could engage in abuse and high-control of its members! usually this occurs by financial means, social isolation, etc. but hassan's BITE model isn't really good at identifying these kinds of material factors despite paying lip service to them, because it's more motivated by his desire to root out these kinds of shadowy quasi-occult forces of mental reprogramming that he fears.
i just find the whole model to be pretty silly and used mostly as a way of justifying dislike of lots of different social, religious, and political groups---some of which are genuinely mistreating members, some of which are just saying things their critics disagree with---because it's perceived as a reliable social-scientific designation and therefore name-dropping it helps the speaker feel that they're making some kind of objective scientific observation rather than a judgment dependent, as are all judgments, upon their own perspective and values. i think instead of this kind of haggling over Which Groups Count As An Evild Shadowy Cult it would be infinitely more productive and helpful to vulnerable people to talk about how high-control groups operate, what sorts of methods specific groups are using to control and abuse their members, and what sorts of resources those members are dependent on the groups for and need access to from other sources: financial and material provisions, social support networks, etc.
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erwinsvow · 10 months ago
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“I want them to like you,” you say, tugging on Rafe’s arm to drag him away from his truck and towards the beach. “I want them to love you.” He’s standing still, feet planted firmly on the pavement. 
You’ve wanted Rafe to meet your friends for the longest time, so much so that it’s the only thing you’ve been thinking about recently. It’s not exactly accurate—he has met them before, many times, actually, but they’ve never been good encounters. You recall a bruise on Pope’s back and JJ’s busted lip, back before they knew Rafe was your boyfriend and he was just public enemy number one.
But things are better now—really, they are. You try to convince yourself all of those incidents are in the past, that everyone’s over it now. You want your friends to like your boyfriend. You want your boyfriend to like your friends. You want it so bad you’re willing to drag Rafe to the beach yourself, if that’s what it takes.
“They can’t stand me,” Rafe replies, scanning the surroundings. He doesn’t like them, but he doesn’t want to hurt your feelings either, if they overhear the two of you right now. “Can’t stand them, either, y’know.”
“But you like me, don’t you?” you ask, smiling wide, all cheery and bright. Like he has to tell you again. He rolls his eyes, making you laugh.
“Not at all. What gave y’that stupid idea?” You roll your own pretty eyes in a matching response.
“C’mon, Rafe, look, they’re already here-” you whine, pointing at the giant, junky thing your Pogue friends call a car. He doesn’t let you anywhere near the thing anymore if he can help it—drops you off and picks you up because that thing is a death trap, even more so with one of the stoned idiots driving it. “I don’t wanna be late, so move-” you start pushing at his chest, but he doesn’t give you an inch. 
You huff, hot sun beating down on you, muscles tired from trying to move your entirely too strong boyfriend. 
“Fine,” you finally let out, giving up. “I’ll just go by myself.”
“Good girl. I’ll swing by to get you in a couple hours and then we can go for dinner-”
“Sounds good,” you interrupt, causing Rafe to look at you with an eyebrow raised—you never interrupt him. “I’ll just have Pope put the sunscreen on my back for me. Since you won’t be there.”
“Wait a minute-”
“And JJ’s been dying to teach me how to surf. Y’know, last time I tried though, my top fell off. But I guess it’s no big deal. I bet John B can put it back on for me.”
Rafe thinks he’s mastered the look of not caring sometimes, face blank, eyes showing nothing but mild disturbance. This is not one of those times. You smile, because you can’t help it, watching your boyfriend’s ears turn bright pink, the muscles in his jaw clench, his fist tighten around your pink beach bag.
You put your hand over his, gently, trying to take the bag so you can walk away with it. You’re not sure if your plan worked until he snatches the bag back, hand holding your wrist tightly. 
“Come on, kid,” he mutters, heading in the direction of the beach. “Pain in my ass,” you hear him say quietly, but you feel giddy that he agreed to join you after all. 
Your friends are set up by the water, towels haphazardly thrown on the sand, a case of beer resting in the shade under the umbrella. JJ is waxing his board, Pope is standing next to him, critiquing his method. John has just crushed a beer can down, and chucks it at Kie, who ducks and starts yelling about how inhumane littering is. 
“Hey!” you hear Pope beam, a smile lighting up your face. “Look who’s here-” and Kie joins in with an excited yell, tossing the empty can back at John B and hitting the back of his head. 
“Thought you’d never come back to us now that you’re a fancy Kook girl. Where’s that-” JJ goes silent, watching Rafe walking behind you, staring blankly, looking pissed. “-asshole boyfriend. Nevermind, I found him.”
“I brought Rafe,” you say, a big smile taking over again. You look expectantly at everyone, and then stare until they give you the reaction you want. They mumble hi and hey, Kook, and you turn back to Rafe, taking your bag and figuring out where to put your towels—pink, like the bag, like your bikini. Rafe’s shorts are white, with little pink stripes to match you. 
You both sit down on the sand before you finally offer him the bottle of sunscreen and lay flat on your stomach so he can put it on. He squirts some onto his hands, rubbing them together to spread it out and then first slaps your ass, leaving a sandy, white handprint on the skin. Your body jerks, whining against the towel.
“Had to. Practically asking for it. M’not apologizing,” he says, quiet enough that only the two of you can hear. His hands rub the sunscreen onto your back and arms, but then you decide everything he does is too erotic for public, so you turn back, insisting that’s enough sun protection. You just got here and you don’t want to leave because you can’t resist your boyfriend just yet.
You turn your head, noticing Kie walking towards you with a can of hard seltzer, the fruity kind she knows you prefer. The boys are by the other umbrella, tossing beers at each other. You tug on Rafe’s arm again.
“Why don’t you go get a beer with them. You can talk. It’ll be nice!” 
There’s nothing he’d rather do less. 
“Came here to hang with you, not them,” he says curtly, head resting back on the towel.
“Rafe!” The things he does for you. “Please?” He shouldn’t have looked at you—that was his mistake. Five seconds of your pout and your sincere eyes is enough to make him do whatever you want.
“Five minutes, then I’m coming back. That’s it.”
“Thank you,” you sing sweetly. Kiara comes and settles down next to you. “Is it strawberry? My favorite!” he hears you say, followed by the hiss of you opening the can, as he gets up and stalks towards your friends.
Their conversation dies when Rafe steps up—something he doesn’t like. He could care less about these idiots, but he really doesn’t want you to get caught in the middle of this shit. He can see it already—your pretty face covered in tears, crying because you care too much about him, care too much about your friends.
Rafe knows you’d pick him over them, he just doesn’t want to force you to make that choice.
“What’re you drinking?” he questions. Three pairs of eyes stare at him blankly. A retort bubbles inside him angrily—Stupid and deaf? You losers can’t catch a break, huh? He turns to look at you, hoping you’re in conversation with Kie and sipping your sugary drink. You’re not. You’re staring at the four of them with a hopeful smile.
He swallows the comment and turns with a forced, hard smile. “Beer? That’s great. Toss me one.” Pope does as he says, and then goes back to drinking his own. 
“S’like weird, to see you smile. Didn’t know you could do that,” JJ comments, crushing his own beer can up now that it was empty. Rafe wishes you were here, listening, because-
“What the hell am I supposed to say to that?” John B lets out a laugh at that, Pope joins in. Rafe cracks another smile, they’re pretty goofy, just like you had said. “Nah, I’m just saying, like, didn’t think you could be nice. Must be, if she likes you.”
Rafe turns to look back at you again, quickly. You’re talking to Kie now, head thrown back, laughing. You look prettiest like this, when you’re happy. 
“Yeah, for her.” Then he takes another long chug of the beer, looking back at them. “You idiots don’t make it easy.”
“It’s not easy for us, either,” Pope interjects. “I mean, you did hit me with a golf club.” Rafe runs a hand through his hair, unsure what to say, because he did do that. 
“Yeah, I, uh-” he trails off. “Sorry, sorry about that.”
“It’s okay,” JJ says.
“All in the past,” John B tacks on. 
It must be several beers later, because you hear the boys laughing and… getting along? You decide to walk over, just to make sure your eyes and ears aren’t deceiving you. The box they had just bought earlier today was filled with the empties, the unmistakable sound of your boyfriend’s laugh filling your ears, your friends all engaged in conversations. You decide to turn back rather than interrupt, giddiness filling your heart that everything worked out. You don’t catch the end of their conversation, already back to your towel and opening another drink with Kie.
“And then I went there,” JJ starts, “-and I was like should I leave, because then her parents might wake up, because I forgot the condom-”
JJ stops to take another sip of the beer, and Rafe cuts him off.
“Wait, you guys use condoms?” 
Three pairs of eyes turn on him.
When you two walk back to his truck a little later, he swings his arm around you and presses a kiss to your forehead.
“What was that for?” you ask, happy and tired.
“Yeah, I don’t think they like me much.”
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cy-cyborg · 8 months ago
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Dealing with Healing and Disability in fantasy: Writing Disability
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[ID: An image of the main character from Eragon, a white teenage boy with blond hair in silver armour as he sits, with his hand outstretched. On his hand is a glowing blue mark. He is visibly straining as he attempts to heal a large creature in front of him. /End ID]
I'm a massive fan of the fantasy genre, which is why it's so incredibly frustrating when I see so much resistance to adding disability representation to fantasy works. People's go-to reason for leaving us out is usually something to the effect of "But my setting has magic so disability wouldn't exist, it can just be healed!" so let's talk about magic, specifically healing magic, in these settings, and how you can use it without erasing disability from your story.
Ok, let's start with why you would even want to avoid erasing disability from a setting in the first place. I talked about this in a lot more detail in my post on The Miracle Cure. this line of thinking is another version of this trope, but applied to a whole setting (or at least, to the majority of people in the setting) instead of an individual, so it's going to run into the same issues I discussed there. To summarise the points that are relevant to this particular version of the trope though:
Not every disabled person wants or needs a cure - many of us see our disability as a part of our identity. Do difficulties come with being disabled? absolutely! It's literally part of the definition, but for some people in the disabled community, if you took our disabilities away, we would be entirely different people. While it is far from universal, there is a significant number of us who, if given a magical cure with no strings attached, would not take it. Saying no one in your setting would be disabled because these healing spells exists ignores this part of the community.
It messes with the stakes of your story - Just like how resurrecting characters or showing that this is something that is indeed possible in the setting can leave your audience feeling cheated or like they don't have to worry about a character *actually* ever dying. healing a character's disability, or establishing that disability doesn't exist in your setting because "magic" runs into the same problem. It will leave your readers or viewers feeling like they don't have to worry about your characters getting seriously hurt because it will only be temporary, which means your hero's actions carry significantly less risk, which in turn, lowers the stakes and tension if not handled very, very carefully.
It's an over-used trope - quite plainly and simply, this trope shows up a lot in the fantasy genre, to the point where I'd say it's just overused and kind of boring.
So with the "why should you avoid it" covered, let's look at how you can actually handle the topic.
Limited Access and Expensive Costs
One of the most common ways to deal with healing and disability in a fantasy setting, is to make the healing magic available, but inaccessible to most of the population. The most popular way to do that is by making the services of a magical healer capable of curing a disability really expensive to the point that most people just can't afford it. If this is the approach you're going to use, you also typically have to make that type of magic quite rare. To use D&D terms, if every first level sorcerer, bard, cleric and druid can heal a spinal injury, it's going to result in a lot of people who are able to undercut those massive prices and the expense will drop as demand goes down. If that last sentence didn't give you a hint, this is really popular method in stories that are critiquing capitalistic mindsets and ideologies, and is most commonly used by authors from the USA and other countries with a similar medical system, since it mirrors a lot of the difficulties faced by disabled Americans. If done right, this approach can be very effective, but it does need to be thought through more carefully than I think people tend to do. Mainly because a lot of fantasy stories end with the main character becoming rich and/or powerful, and so these prohibitively expensive cure become attainable by the story's end, which a lot of authors and writer's just never address. Of course, another approach is to make the availability of the magic itself the barrier. Maybe there just aren't that many people around who know the magic required for that kind of healing, so even without a prohibitive price tag, it's just not something that's an option for most people. If we're looking at a D&D-type setting, maybe you need to be an exceptionally high level to cast the more powerful healing spell, or maybe the spell requires some rare or lost material component. I'd personally advise people to be careful using this approach, since it often leads to stories centred around finding a miracle cure, which then just falls back into that trope more often than not.
Just outright state that some characters don't want/need it
Another, admittedly more direct approach, is to make it that these "cures" exist and are easily attainable, but to just make it that your character or others they encounter don't want or need it. This approach works best for characters who are born with their disabilities or who already had them for a long time before a cure was made available to them. Even within those groups though, this method works better with some types of characters than others depending on many other traits (personality, cultural beliefs, etc), and isn't really a one-size-fits-all solution, but to be fair, that's kind of the point. Some people will want a cure for their disabilities, others are content with their body's the way they are. There's a few caveats I have with this kind of approach though:
you want to make sure you, as the author, understand why some people in real life don't want a cure, and not just in a "yeah I know these people exist but I don't really get it" kind of way. I'm not saying you have to have a deep, personal understanding or anything, but some degree of understanding is required unless you want to sound like one of those "inspirational" body positivity posts that used to show up on Instagram back in the day.
Be wary when using cultural beliefs as a reasoning. It can work, but when media uses cultural beliefs as a reason for turning down some kind of cure, it's often intending to critique extreme beliefs about medicine, such as the ones seen in some New Age Spirituality groups and particularly intense Christian churches. As a general rule of thumb, it's probably not a good idea to connect these kinds of beliefs to disabled people just being happy in their bodies. Alternatively, you also need to be mindful of the "stuck in time" trope - a trope about indigenous people who are depicted as primitive or, as the name suggests, stuck in an earlier time, for "spurning the ways of the white man" which usually includes medicine or the setting's equivalent magic. I'm not the best person to advise you on how to avoid this specific trope, but my partner (who's Taino) has informed me of how often it shows up in fantasy specifically and we both thought it was worth including a warning at least so creators who are interested in this method know to do some further research.
Give the "cures" long-lasting side effects
Often in the real world, when a "cure" for a disability does exist, it's not a perfect solution and comes with a lot of side effects. For example, if you loose part of your arm in an accident, but you're able to get to a hospital quickly with said severed arm, it can sometimes be reattached, but doing so comes at a cost. Most people I know who had this done had a lot of issues with nerve damage, reduced strength, reduced fine-motor control and often a great deal of pain with no clear source. Two of the people I know who's limbs were saved ended up having them optionally re-amputated only a few years later. Likewise, I know many people who are paraplegics and quadriplegics via spinal injuries, who were able to regain the use of their arms and/or legs. However, the process was not an easy one, and involved years of intense physiotherapy and strength training. For some of them, they need to continue to do this work permanently just to maintain use of the effected limbs, so much so that it impacts their ability to do things like work a full-time job and engage in their hobbies regularly, and even then, none of them will be able bodied again. Even with all that work, they all still experience reduced strength and reduced control of the limbs. depending on the type, place and severity of the injury, some people are able to get back to "almost able bodied" again - such was the case for my childhood best friend's dad, but they often still have to deal with chronic pain from the injury or chronic fatigue.
Even though we are talking about magic in a fantasy setting, we can still look to real-life examples of "cures" to get ideas. Perhaps the magic used has a similar side effect. Yes, your paraplegic character can be "cured" enough to walk again, but the magic maintaining the spell needs a power source to keep it going, so it draws on the person's innate energy within their body, using the very energy the body needs to function and do things like move their limbs. They are cured, but constantly exhausted unless they're very careful, and if the spell is especially strong, the body might struggle to move at all, resulting in something that looks and functions similar to the nerve damage folks with spinal injuries sometimes deal with that causes that muscle weakness and motor control issues. Your amputee might be able to have their leg regrown, but it will always be slightly off. The regrown leg is weaker and causes them to walk with a limp, maybe even requiring them to use a cane or other mobility aid.
Some characters might decide these trade-offs are worth it, and while this cures their initial disability, it leaves them with another. Others might simply decide the initial disability is less trouble than these side effects, and choose to stay as they are.
Consider if these are actually cures
Speaking of looking to the real world for ideas, you might also want to consider whether these cures are doing what the people peddling them are claiming they do. Let's look at the so-called autism cures that spring up every couple of months as an example.
Without getting into the… hotly debated specifics, there are many therapies that are often labelled as "cures" for autism, but in reality, all they are doing is teaching autistic people how to make their autistic traits less noticeable to others. This is called masking, and it's a skill that often comes at great cost to an autistic person's mental health, especially when it's a behaviour that is forced on them. Many of these therapies give the appearance of being a cure, but the disability is still there, as are the needs and difficulties that come with it, they're just hidden away. From an outside perspective though, it often does look like a success, at least in the short-term. Then there are the entirely fake cures with no basis in reality, the things you'll find from your classic snake-oil salesmen. Even in a fantasy setting where real magic exists, these kinds of scams and misleading treatments can still exist. In fact, I think it would make them even more common than they are in the real world, since there's less suspension of disbelief required for people to fall for them. "What do you mean this miracle tonic is a scam? Phil next door can conjure flames in his hand and make the plants grow with a snap of his fingers, why is it so hard to believe this tonic could regrow my missing limb?"
I think the only example of this approach I've seen, at least recently, is from The Owl House. The magic in this world can do incredible things, but it works in very specific and defined ways. Eda's curse (which can be viewed as an allegory for many disabilities and chronic illnesses) is seemingly an exception to this, and as such, nothing is able to cure it. Treat it, yes, but not cure it. Eda's mother doesn't accept this though, and seeks out a cure anyway and ends up falling for a scam who's "treatments" just make things worse.
In your own stories, you can either have these scams just not work, or kind of work, but in ways that are harmful and just not worth it, like worse versions of the examples in the previous point. Alternatively, like Eda, it's entirely reasonable that a character who's been the target of these scams before might just not want to bother anymore. Eda is a really good example of this approach handled in a way that doesn't make her sad and depressed about it either. She's tried her mum's methods, they didn't work, and now she's found her own way of dealing with it that she's happy with. She only gets upset when her boundaries are ignored by Luz and her mother.
Think about how the healing magic is actually working
If you have a magic system that leans more on the "hard magic" side of things, a great way to get around the issue of healing magic erasing disability is to stop and think about how your healing magic actually works.
My favourite way of doing this is to make healing magic work by accelerating the natural processes of your body. Your body will, given enough time (assuming it remains infection-free) close a slash from a sword and mend a broken bone, but it will never regrow it's own limbs. It will never heal damage to it's own spinal cord. It will never undo whatever causes autism or fix it's own irregularities. Not without help. Likewise, healing magic alone won't do any of these things either, it's just accelerating the existing process and usually, by extension making it safer, since a wound staying open for an hour before you get to a healer is much less likely to get infected than one that slowly and naturally heals over a few weeks. In one of my own works, I take this even further by making it that the healing magic is only accelerating cell growth and repair, but the healer has to direct it. In order to actually heal, the healer needs to know the anatomy of what they're fixing to the finest detail. A spell can reconnect a torn muscle to a bone, but if you don't understand the structures that allow that to happen in the first place, you're likely going to make things worse. For this reason, you won't really see people using this kind of magic to, say, regrow limbs, even though it technically is possible. A limb is a complicated thing. The healer needs to be able to perfectly envision all the bones, the cartilage, the tendons and ligaments, the muscles (including the little ones, like those found in your skin that make your hair stand on end and give you goose bumps), the fat and skin tissues, all the nerves, all the blood vessels, all the structures within the bone that create your blood. Everything, and they need to know how it all connects, how it is supposed to move and be able to keep that clearly in their mind simultaneously while casting. Their mental image also has to match with the patient's internal "map" of the body and the lost limb, or they'll continue to experience phantom limb sensation even if the healing is successful. It's technically possible, but the chances they'll mess something up is too high, and so it's just not worth the risk to most people, including my main character.
Put Restrictions on the magic
This is mostly just the same advice as above, but for softer magic systems. put limits and restrictions on your healing magic. These can be innate (so things the magic itself is just incapable of doing) or external (things like laws that put limitations on certain types of magic and spells).
An example of internal restriction can be seen in how some people interpret D&D's higher level healing spells like regenerate (a 7th level spell-something most characters won't have access to for quite some time). The rules as written specify that disabilities like lost limbs can be healed using this spell, but some players take this to mean that if a character was born with the disability in question, say, born without a limb, regenerate would only heal them back to their body's natural state, which for them, is still disabled.
An external restriction would be that your setting has outlawed healing magic, perhaps because healing magic carries a lot of risks for some reason, eithe to the caster or the person being healed, or maybe because the healing magic here works by selectively reviving and altering the function of cells, which makes it a form of necromancy, just on a smaller scale. Of course, you can also use the tried and true, "all magic is outlawed" approach too. In either case, it's something that will prevent some people from being able to access it, despite it being technically possible. Other external restrictions could look like not being illegal, per say, but culturally frowned upon or taboo where your character is from.
But what if I don't want to do any of this?
Well you don't have to. These are just suggestions to get you thinking about how to make a world where healing magic and disability exist, but they aren't the only ways. Just the ones I thought of.
Of course, if you'd still rather make a setting where all disability is cured because magic and you just don't want to think about it any deeper, I can't stop you. I do however, want to ask you to at least consider where you are going to draw the line. Disability, in essence, is what happens when the body stops (or never started) functioning "normally". Sometimes that happens because of an injury, sometimes it's just bad luck, but the boundary between disabled and not disabled is not as solid as I think a lot of people expect it to be, and we as a society have a lot of weird ideas about what is and isn't a disability that just, quite plainly and simply, aren't consistent. You have to remember, a magic system won't pick and choose the way we humans do, it will apply universally, regardless of our societal hang-ups about disability.
What do I mean about this?
Well, consider for a moment, what causes aging? it's the result of our body not being able to repair itself as effectively as it used to. It's the body not being able to perform that function "normally". So in a setting where all disability is cured, there would be no aging. No elderly people. No death from old age. If you erase disability, you also erase natural processes like aging. magic won't pick and choose like that, not if you want it to be consistent.
Ok, ok, maybe that's too much of a stretch, so instead, let's look at our stereotypical buff hero covered in scars because he's a badass warrior. but in a world where you can heal anything, why would anything scar? Even if it did, could another healing spell not correct that too? Scars are part of the body's natural healing process, but if no natural healing occurred, why would a scar form? Scars are also considered disabling in and of themselves too, especially large ones, since they aren't as flexible or durable as normal skin and can even restrict growth and movement.
Even common things like needing glasses are, using this definition of disability at least, a disability. glasses are a socially accepted disability aid used to correct your eyes when they do not function "normally".
Now to be fair, in reality, there are several definitions of disability, most of which include something about the impact of society. For example, in Australia (according to the Disability Royal Commission), we define disability as "An evolving concept that results from the interaction between a person with impairment(s) and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others." - or in laymen's terms, the interaction between a person's impairment and societal barriers like people not making things accessible or holding misinformed beliefs about your impairment (e.g. people in wheelchairs are weaker than people who walk). Under a definition like this, things like scars and needing glasses aren't necessarily disabilities (most of the time) but that's because of how our modern society sees them. The problem with using a definition like this though to guide what your magic system will get rid of, is that something like a magic system won't differentiate between an "impairment" that has social impacts that and one that doesn't. It will still probably get rid of anything that is technically an example of your body functioning imperfectly, which all three of these things are. The society in your setting might apply these criteria indirectly, but really, why would they? Very few people like the side effects of aging on the body (and most people typically don't want to die), the issues that come with scars or glasses are annoying (speaking as someone with both) and I can see a lot of people getting rid of them when possible too. If they don't then it's just using the "not everyone wants it approach" I mentioned earlier. If there's some law or some kind of external pressure to push people away from fixing these more normalised issues, then it's using the "restrictions" method I mentioned earlier too.
Once again, you can do whatever you like with your fantasy setting, but it's something I think that would be worth thinking about at least.
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xclowniex · 1 month ago
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I always find it weird, that when leftists get called out on antisemitism, often times for specifically believing and spewing antisemitic conspiracy theories, instead of taking ownership, reflecting and doing better to keep antisemitism out of their criticism of Israel, which is very achievable, they opt for the route of using another antisemitic conspiracy theory to plead their innocence.
Instead of them actually participating in antisemitism, there must be this (((zionist))) lobby controlling jews to accuse anyone of being antisemitic as soon as they say anything bad about Israel.
When in reality, whilst the line can be blurred at times, there is a difference between valid and genuine criticism of Israel and just being straight up antisemitic.
David Hirsh wrote in his book, Contemporary Left Antisemitism, that he calls it the Ken Livingstone affect, names after Livingstone, who favors this method of reaction when called out for being antisemitic.
His particular offense is one common with leftist antisemites. That hitler and Nazis as a whole, were zionists and supported zionism until they simply just "went mad" and killed 6 million jews.
However that has never been the case. It was based on a 1932 proposed policy that Hitler wanted to bring in. And the motivation for the policy certainly wasn't because he supported jewish self determination, the core belief of zionism which all branches stem from.
Hitler supported jews moving to at the time, British mandated Palestine because he hated jews and thought we were ruining Europe. He never supported jewish self determination, he just wanted us gone.
Killing as many jews as possible with the goal of killing every jew, was not hitler just "going mad" for no real reason. It is only the next logical step after wanting to expell all jews.
You also cannot deny the antizionist framework that hitler was inspired by, the protocols of elder zion.
The protocols is a book written by some of the first antizionists. The book was fake notes from the real first zionist meeting and is infamous for being essentially the antisemitic book. These antizionists did not care for palestinians whatsoever. They were white supremists to put it bluntly. To the first antizionists, if jews had our own country, it would be a lot harder to kill us.
Hitler was greatly inspired by the protocols with his attitudes towards jews.
But instead of recognizing that they might have been partaking in antisemitism and learning what I explained above and making sure to only have genuine criticisms of israel, it is much easier for people to double down with the Ken Livingstone affect and be more antisemitic by believing in and propagating yet another antisemitic conspiracy theory that jews are weaponzing jewish trauma en masse to silence people critiquing israel.
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tragedy-of-commons · 9 months ago
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bare (my soul)
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kaeya x gn!reader | wc: ~550
tags/warnings: domestic fluff w kaeya's baggage, he's soggy
notes: i love him
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“Kaeya, this is egregious.”
You gesture wildly at his barren walls and the desolate living space more fitting of a Favonius jail cell than a home (or so you complained moments earlier).
“Shatter my heart into pieces, why don’t you?” he sighs, then pokes your side in jest. You’re just too adorable not to play around with - even when you’re critiquing his admittedly subpar interior design skills. “Weren’t you the one who insisted on moving in with me?”
“Only because I’m generous enough to consider proximity to your workplace,” you grumble, trying in vain to balance three boxes of your things in your arms at once. “If you had moved in with me, you’d probably have to run a marathon everyday to captain your non-existent cavalry.” Kaeya plucks the top box from your stack, revealing your unimpressed face to him. He grins. “Careful. If you keep saying things like that, I just might think you like me.”
You move to set your boxes down on the floor beside his boring, singular sofa. “I could wax poetic all day about my love for you–” “Oh, I’m dying to hear it, sweetheart–” “–But we seriously need to do something about your.. lifestyle.” You imitate a pompous noble, splaying the back of your hand across your forehead in distress.
Kaeya Alberich has heard many complaints about his lifestyle. Sometimes it’s in the form of Jean criticizing the way he handles certain intel, or the way he ostensibly slacks on the job. Other times, it’s in the form of rumors that he’s especially privy to; Captain Kaeya who loves his drink a little too much, or Captain Kaeya who uses underhanded methods to deal with threats to Mondstadt.
“We’re going furniture shopping at your earliest convenience!” you beam.
Yet you’re just referring to his apartment. What a miracle you are.
He sets the box he stole earlier down, humming thoughtfully. “Is it truly that horrid here?” (It is. He steps out every chance he gets, preferring a noisy tavern or your former place over whatever husk of a building Kaeya Alberich calls “home” these days.) “Yes. Minimalists shall never be forgiven.” “Well, I’d hate to be in your bad books.” Not once do you let him slip away during the unpacking process, practically shoving your trinkets and knickknacks into his hands for him to “make the call” about where they should live. You also sneak into his closet to try and scare him, but the jingle of one of his ornate belts catching on your person gives you away. He throws the doors open with a flourish. When you pout about him being no fun, he just slides in there with you, clicking his tongue and simpering about how you’re such a troublemaker. It’s quiet and you squint through the slits of the closet door at the surrounding bedroom. “Kaeya, I know what’s been missing!” you whisper-yell at him, head knocking against a hanging cape. 
You, he wants to say, It’s always been you. What comes out instead is your voice, effectively cutting him off. “An ugly vase!”
He can get behind that too. Maybe one day he’ll show his full hand, lay out every card, and wait for the swinging axe to take off his head - and maybe you’ll just pull him along to haggle with antique dealers in the name of ironic decoration. “You read my mind, sweetheart.”
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bioethicists · 11 months ago
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my wife brought up a brilliant point this morning: a huge problem with the way we view psychology (a problem which is frequently exploited + used to justify a lot of just. shitty work) is that it lives in a no-man's land between "social sciences" + "natural sciences" in the collective imagination.
consider: one of the first works which spurned my interest in psychiatric abolition was durkheim's work on suicide. as a sociologist ("social scientist"), he uses pretty rigorous quantitative methods to show that suicide is much less correlated with levels of depression than it is with cultural factors (like religion, country of origin, marriage rates). however, people do not respond to the medicalization of suicide by saying "well, durkheim proved that suicide isn't a mental illness symptom, so this is unscientific"- this is obviously a drastic oversimplification of his work + it's commonly understood that sociology does not "prove" immutable social truths.
similarly, i would not comment on a study which identifies changes in t-cells over time among hiv+ patients by arguing that it didn't deeply explore the social environments or past traumas they had experienced, (even though those could have an impact on t-cell count), because i understand that is not the purpose of the research + ultimately they had to choose to control for these factors without centering them in order to obtain important medical information. "this information is meaningless because it doesn't include each patient's trauma history" would be an absurd critique.
among the general population + many self-assured researchers, psychology gets both the privilege of being a "social science" (so we can't expect it to be TOO exact; it's complicated; it's not really saying that's ALWAYS true; if it proves inaccurate that's because culture/social factors must have muddied it up; we can't really expect PROOF for most of it) as well as a "natural science" (you can't question its basic presumptions or you're a science denier; the dsm describes real things which existed even before it was written; it obviously is rooted in biology even if we haven't discovered how yet; reducing its measures to quantitative evaluation is fine + unproblematic).
my point here isn't to argue that psychology is a "social" or "natural" science, but rather that we need to rethink what work those categories actually do + whether the distinction between them is as strict or meaningful as we believe it to be. our strict dichotomies between "objectively proven truths" + "social observations which are ultimately just informed opinions" are exposed when we look at a field which seems to be uncomfortably situated within both. what kind of work might become possible if we abandoned this dichotomy, rather than bickering over whose work belongs in which club?
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femdomlieeh · 1 year ago
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Pink Blush (m)
First time Sub!Haechan ✧ Secretly Dom!Reader
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WC—1.8 k
THEMES—new relationship ✧ nsfw fluff (?) ✧ borderline smut
WARNING—punishment ✧ teasing (m!g) ✧ masturbation (m) ✧ use of handcuffs & strap on ✧ praise ✧ light degradation ✧ pet names "mommy", "channie", "bad boy"✧ mentions of gender stereotypes (ew), safe words & (future) pegging
NOW PLAYING—Tattoo ✧ Loreen
[A/N.] old xiumin (exo) version
When this post gets 100 votes I’ll publish a stray kids group reaction chapter👍
M.LISTS—nct 127 ✧ dream ✧ latest updates ✧ wp version
All rights reserved © femdomlieeh
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"Come on~! Show me~!" Haechan whined in your ear for the umpteenth time today.
Like all the previous times, you answered no.
Yesterday your boyfriend had found out that you had a mommy kink and liked being dominant in the bed (You had left a wattpad tab open on our shared laptop because you were apparently too tired to click on the cross), and, although that should've been something positive, you didn't want him to know.
On a daily basis, he already got critique for being younger (looking younger) than his partner, and being too 'feminine' and 'cutesy' – so, to want him to submit to you and make him match other people's perception of him was selfish and thus something you refused to do.
The theory of genders having specific power roles was something you'd always been opposed to, as you do not believe a gender determines a level of power. Truthfully, you couldn't care less if your boyfriend wanted to break gender stereotypes or not — damn, he could wear 'girly' clothes and/or put make up on if he wanted to — but you did care about what he thought of himself.
He didn't like it when people commented on how much younger he looked than he was. He didn't like it when people described him as feminine instead of masculine. He didn't like it when people [excluding you and some of his friends] called him cute. He didn't think that having any of those characteristics was wrong; he just didn't want people to call him those things.
"Please?" He attempted to lure you in with his gleaming puppy eyes – which usually worked – but that method didn't work this time around, because the great amount of vexation he had brought to you today had made you fully resistant to his cuteness.
"No, I don't want to hurt you," you answered with a blank face, trying your best to find a seemingly interesting movie on Netflix, that you hadn't already seen, so your boyfriend could give up his dumb quest. It was a little confusing why he wanted to try these types of thing with you, knowing how he felt about being belittled by others.
"I thought you said that we should always be honest with each other and always be ourselves," he argued, making a valid point since you had said those words from the start of your relationship.
"But I also said I never wanted us to hurt each other," you retorted in defense, feeling more and more irritated by the second.
Leaning and sinking down a little bit on the sofa, Haechan wanted to be more comfortable as he knew this conversation would be long. Chewing on the strings of his pink hoodie, he looked at and studied you; frown, annoyed sighs, hard grip on the remote, darker lips from biting on them – everything pointed at you being mad, and thus rather sensitive.
Then a bulb lit above his head.
"But what if I like it when you hurt me?"
You turned your head to his side. There it was. Exactly what he wanted to see. An expression on your face that told him that if he continued this route, he would get fucked. Whether it was literally or metaphorically, he wanted to find out.
"I'm leaving," you announced and stood up as quickly as the short sentence ended. You had to leave, because Haechan was pushing your buttons and you knew that if you stayed for longer you could end up doing what you had been trying to avoid since he had found out about the femdom part of you.
His face changed from calm puppy to clingy puppy with separation anxiety, scared of its owner leaving. This was not the reaction he had tried to get from you. He stood up and followed your fast steps to the bedroom. As soon as he saw you throw one of your biggest bags onto the floor, followed up by some clothing pieces, he felt his blood freeze. Were you leaving as in leaving the relationship?
"Why are you packing?" he asked, scared of your answer.
"I'm going to Irene's. I can't stay with you when you're making me crazy like this." What you said was true; you were sure he'd crack your patience and make you go full sadist on him if you stayed in the same room as him for another minute – or even worse: another hour or whole night.
He felt relieved that you weren't breaking up with him over a silly argument, but he still didn't want you to stay over at your friend's when you both knew that it would be smarter to solve the tension instead.
"Stay with me," he pleaded lowly, sensing he didn't have many other options than pleading and hoping it'd be persuasive enough for you to stay with him.
"We need a night without each to calm down and have an adult discussion, alright?" you tried to explain, grabbing your now-fully-packed bag, and heading to the door to continue your journey to your awesome best friend.
When Haechan didn't talk back, you turned away from the doorway and to the bed to see why he was being quiet and not protesting some more like he usually would. He was looking you in the eyes as he pulled the hoodie off his torso and threw it your way. You caught it in your hand. Proceeding, he pulled down his pants, making sure he did it slowly enough to send you signals that he wasn't planning on putting on his PJs.
As he stood in only his boxers in front of you, a new bulb lit up above his head – and this one was even brighter than the last one – maybe he did have more options than to plead and strip.
With a smirk he sat down on the foot of the bed, maintaining eye contact, and pulled down his boxers to reveal his hard cock. You were speechless when he had stripped down to almost full nudity, but what shocked you the most was that just speaking to him disrespectfully had turned him on.
The moment he started touching his cock and moaning like a bitch, you realized that he had purposely been naughty so you could punish him. He had whined in you ear all day, stripped and masturbated when you wanted to leave because he wanted this; he wanted to be punished.
So, you decided to do it.
You dropped the bag and went to your wardrobe, taking out a box you'd kept secret from Haechan. He looked your way curiously, analyzing your reaction while still stroking his cock rudely. Damn, he hoped you were doing something femdom related.
"Safeword?" you asked, examining the nostalgic box of memory-making apparatuses, trying to decide which ones you wanted to use to make memories tonight.
"Sun," he answered, smiling at the victory; he was going to get fucked literally.
"I hope you understand that I'm going to have to punish you for being such a naughty boy."
"Yes, Mommy," he said oh so naturally.
You looked back at him after he said the last word, watching him lay down on the bed, boxers in a random corner of the room. He seemed experienced or like he'd had a fantasy about calling you that word for a while, no stutter, and thankfully that made it easier for you decide on which toys to use on him.
"Naughty boys don't deserve to touch Mommy," you turned to him with a pair of pink, fluffy handcuffs. He blushed a little, not expecting the object you chose to punish him with to be so adorable. Did he seriously think that was all you were going to use as punishment when he'd riled you up like this?
How cute.
Walking slowly to him, you threw the cuffs onto the bed beside his legs and startled him a bit at the suddenness of the action. He had teased you, and you wanted to make sure he'd feel teased as well – and what better way to do that than to use one of his biggest weaknesses against him? Smirking, you pulled off your shirt, leaving your upper body in only a bra – a pink one. He had always liked that color – though he denied it since it wasn't manly to like pink.
You climbed on top of his body and took the cuffs in your hands again, getting ready to restrain him. He was breathing heavily, getting aroused by your body above his, and especially by your boobs that were clad in such a lovely color. Although he liked the bra, he would've loved to see your boobs without anything covering them.
"Hold your arms up for me, Channie," you ordered, to which he listened to instantly. He held them up against the bed frame, assuming you were going to cuff him to it. But he was wrong. You didn't want him to predict his punishment; you wanted everything to be a surprise that not even his fantasy could come close to.
Instead of cuffing his wrists to the frame of the bed, you cuffed them to nothing. Yes, nothing. It may sound boring to restrain your partner to nothing, but it was the opposite; restraining him to air meant that he still could choose to disobey you further by bringing his arms down. "You're going to keep your arms here, and if you at any point put them down and touch me it'll add to your punishment, understood?"
"Yes, Mommy."
"Oh, don't act like a good boy all of a sudden. You're getting punished for a reason, Haechannie," you scoffed lightly, feeling soft from the sweetness that seemed to ooze naturally whether he tried to or not.
"But I am a good boy," he pouted, adding to the cuteness you adored so much.
"Only if you can manage this punishment, but until then you're a bad boy," you explained and turned back to the box to grab the last part of the punishment. He continued pouting, until he saw the object you took out: a strap on. After removing your pants, you put the fake dick on and adjusted it to your hips.
The strap wasn't bigger than the average dick as you didn't know how used he was to having dildos shoved up his ass – and even though you wanted to hurt him, you were still cautious over how harsh you were with him. He was your squishy Haechannie after all.
"You ready, Channie?" you asked as you crawled back to him, searching his face for any uncertainty. His big eyes and toothy smile hinted at him anticipating what you were about to do, but you still wanted a verbal answer as you wanted to make sure he was OK with being pegged.
He nodded quickly, "Yes, Mommy, I'm always ready for you."
✧ ੈ ✧ ‧₊˚ * ੈ ✧‧₊˚** ੈ ✧ ‧₊˚ * ੈ ✧‧₊˚** ✧ ੈ ✧
❝ Violins playin' and the angels cryin'
When the stars align, then I'll be there
No, I don't care about them all
'Cause all I want is to be loved
And all I care about is you
You're stuck on me like a tattoo
No, I don't care about the pain
I'll walk through fire and through rain
Just to get closer to you
You're stuck on me like a tattoo ❞
—lorine zineb noka talhaoui; 2023
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iridescentprose · 1 year ago
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Try again - Luca x reader insert [The Bear]
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summary; in which you catch the chef smiling at you.
author's note; short but sweet fic about Luca. Just fluff. Please enjoy!
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"Worse. Try again."
"Yes, chef."
It was 5:36am.
The numbers of the digital clock above you weren't moving any faster. You had been here for less than an hour and already you were being critiqued on how to properly layer strawberries on top of a crème brûlée custard.
Whatever plans you had of pleasing the chef next to you were slowly diminishing. Your hands shook with self doubt as you pricked at the red fruit, angling it so the mandala spirals could continue. You stepped back, overall pleased with what you had done.
"Better."
It was all you were going to get for now, you knew. But you took his response with pride. After all, you had made significant progress in the past week. Your shoulders relaxed, though your victory was short-lived.
"But."
You lifted a brow. "But?"
He shifted closer to you, his tattooed arm brushing up against yours, making butterflies flutter in your stomach. Your eyes remained downward, concentrated on the different doodles that littered his skin. You wondered what each stroke of ink meant and if they were drawn with intent or if they happened to be the result of a reckless decision.
Or decisions.
"You lack confidence," he said. Even though his eyes were focused on the custard, you could tell he was doing this on purpose—teasing you. The furrowed brow, the slightly scrunched up nose, and the craned neck. What gave away his concentrated act was the corner of his lips, tugged in a meaningful, if not, arrogant fashion.
Despite the heat spreading across your cheeks, you didn't take his criticism to heart. It was true. After all, Carmy set this all up for a reason. You needed the extra practice to hone in on your skill before the upcoming opening. But opening day was weeks away and you already felt too far behind to make a good impression.
"I'm exhausted," You said without thinking. It wasn't the best excuse for your lack of confidence or skill, but it was all you could muster in response. You dropped the miniature metal tongs and braced your hands on the edge of the silver cooking island.
You could hear him chuckle but you didn't bother lifting your gaze to defend yourself. A week of private training wasn't enough to increase your knowledge as quickly as you had hoped. You wanted to be good—better than good. You wanted to be the best version of yourself and you wanted others to experience that through your desserts.
"Good," he said, as you kept your gaze downwards, fixed on his shoes that were inching closer to yours. "For a second I was worried you weren't." He smirked. "Here, try again."
You lifted your head and straightened your posture as he reached across the table for the metal tongs. He handed them to you and you took them into your hand automatically, prying a strawberry that happened to be cut in half, from a small bowl.
Slowly you guided it towards the custard, though it didn't make it's final destination without a little help. In a ghostly fashion, Luca's hand loomed over yours. His rough palm settled over your knuckles — which happened to be stained with flour and vanilla extract.
He did most of the heavy lifting, using a method of confident concentration that you had been trying to master all week. Your hand shook as the strawberry reached its destination, overlaying the endless spiral masterfully.
"Slow and steady wins the race," he mumbled, his breath fanning your cheek. He gently squeezed your fingers prompting the metal tongs let go of the red fruit. "Consistency is key."
The pads of his fingertips brushed over your knuckles as he let go of your shaking hand. Smudges of strawberry paste lingered on your skin as he pulled away.
"Understand?"
You lifted your head, your eyes meeting his. He looked relaxed, if not intrigued by your bravery. A glimmer of a smile came to his lips, though it vanished before you could capture it in your mind. You shook your head free from whatever trance you were under.
"Yes, chef."
With a nod, he swiftly reached for the towel that hung off his shoulder and tossed it to you. You took it, swiping the remnants of sweet ingredients he left on your fingers from his demonstration.
You turned to look over your shoulder, finding him leaning against the metal cabinent, arms crossed and muscles tight.
He met your gaze quickly, almost as if he had been caught watching you. His slight smile diminished, and you couldn't help but shake your head in amusement.
"Again, chef?" You asked.
Testing his reflexes, you tossed the towel and he flinched, but caught it with ease as it hit his chest. A shade of red - the same pigment that stained the towel you had used to wipe your hands - was visible in his cheeks. His lips flickered upwards as he fought the playful smirk flirting with his mouth.
"Yes, chef," he mumbled, tossing the towel over his shoulder and taking his spot next to you. Naturally, his arm brushed up against yours again as he began cutting up more strawberries. "Again."
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scarletwritesshit · 11 months ago
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📏 Dr. Ratio x Reader 📏 If I were Smart, I Would've Titled This with a Math Pun
This wasn’t the sort of rigorous stimulation that you were hoping for, but it was Dr. Ratio who suggested it, so you couldn’t exactly expect anything different. You blinked at the page that was laid out before you, dumbfounded. The problem on the page was rather complex even by your standards, almost as if it were written in some otherworldly script, which had a fair chance of being true. No worries, just break it down piece by piece to solve it? All...seemingly one thousand parts of it.
Dr. Ratio stood across from you, staring directly at you while tapping his foot on the ground with his arms crossed. You were quite surprised that he had not yet donned his stone-faced disguise, and quite frankly, you wish that he had. He was eyeing you up with a gaze that just screamed, "I could’ve had this solved 20 times by now, incompetent idiot." Which, was probably true.
It took a painfully long time, but at long last, you solved it, or at least you thought that you did. Your fingers went limp and released the pen from your hand, letting it almost roll off of the desk. You laid your head face down on the desk after circling the answer with a thick yet scribbly circle, emphasizing the results of your treacherous labor. At the sound of Dr. Ratio’s footsteps getting louder, you looked up at him to still see the same glint of disappointment in his eyes.
"I take it that you have reached your final conclusion?" he asked.
Without saying a word out of fear of premature judgement, you pushed yourself up from the desk so that he may freely observe and critique your work.
He skimmed over every extra page of your work quite rapidly, and in what felt like mere seconds, he pulled out a red pen and promptly marked your paper.
"Zero marks," he said bluntly, writing a massive red X over your answer.
You had a sinking feeling from the start that this was your inevitable fate, but hearing the actual words from him somehow stung a lot worse.
"In fact, I do not believe that I have ever seen anyone mess up so…horribly," he commented. "In fact, there are mistakes within mistakes, all among the most preposterous that I have ever seen in my life."
"...Thanks?" you said, as personally having the honor of making the most mistakes that Dr. Ratio has ever seen was better than your efforts simply being disregarded.
"My words were not intended to be interpreted as compliments, but rather, as a degradation of your overall performance and attitude towards your studies.”
"So?" you said, indifferent, "I’m still thankful that you spared some of your precious time to personally put me down."
"There must be something deeply wrong with your cognitive functions," he said, twirling his pen around between his fingers, "for I have never seen anyone quite enthusiastic about insult and utter disappointment."
"There are far easier ways to call me stupid, you know," you said, mockingly.
"Is your intelligence truly so challenged to the point that you cannot comprehend my direct words without the most basic of forms being utilized within a sentence? Why, you could not solve the simplest of problems if I asked of you!"
"You think I’m that dumb? Want me to prove it?"
"Oh, I believe you plenty, but since you proposed the offer, might I ask you for your interpretation of the answer to one added onto three?"
"I’m dumb, remember? Simple terminology, please," you said.
Despite his usage of overly complicated roundabout terminology, you knew exactly what he was asking of you. He was asking you to add 1 and 3 together. A simple question that anyone, even someone with your abilities could answer with ease. But, you wanted to see just how far you could push Dr. Ratio, before he caught onto your methods of toying with him. His patience was impressive enough considering how by now, you would’ve expected him to simply mark your paper with a failing score and walk off without another word.
With a noticeable twitch of frustration in his eyes, Dr Ratio said, "Fine, what is one plus three?"
"Five," you said, quickly and confidently.
"Are you positive that that is your final answer?"
You nodded yes. Dr. Ratio, no longer holding back his annoyance, leaned in closer and lifted your chin up with the back of his pen, forcing your eyes to meet his.
"You cannot possibly look me in the eyes and say that so…matter-of-factly," he said, frustrated.
"Oh, but I can,” you said with a smile. “And I just did."
"It is arguably a miracle how you have made it this far, not just in your studies, but in life as a whole. The fact that you fail to comprehend the most basic of tasks when I personally made the decision to allow you to study beneath me is well beyond my comprehension."
"Really? I was led to believe that you knew everything."
"It is physically impossible for one who is temporarily existent to learn all that our universe has to offer. Your stupidity, however, stretches even beyond the limits of our universe.”
"You’re saying that I’m so stupid that I’ve managed to become incomprehensible? Even to you?" you said with a proud grin.
"Regrettably, yes," he said, allowing the pen to fall down between his fingers, freeing his hand so that he could hold your chin up, "unless I perhaps study you for myself?"
"Study me? What is there to study, if I am as empty-headed as you claim?"
"How someone with intelligence comparable to a warp trotter has made it this far."
"But warp trotters’ lives don’t involve solving math problems, or whatever you’d call what you gave me."
"Which is why it is so baffling that you have made as much progression in your life as you have," he said, his grip tightening around your chin. "If it were anybody else, I would have promptly excluded you from my teachings."
"Anybody else?" you asked, tilting your head. "You mean, you’re going through all of this just for me?"
Dr Ratio went silent for a moment, and the grip that he had on your chin became a bit gentler. His eyes narrowed, yet his overall expression became softer. He seemed to be at a complete loss for an appropriate response to your claim. Either he was so baffled at your stupidity that he couldn’t quite find the words to express his annoyance, or you simply caught him off guard and red handed. The latter seemed more likely, as if your suggestion was truly so preposterous, he wouldn’t have wasted the time in putting you down.
"...A most fascinating conclusion," he finally said.
"Sounds like I got you now."
"I do have to applaud you for deciphering me in such a way, despite how you greatly lack otherwise."
"And after all of that, you still think Im an idiot? The answer to your question is four, by the way."
"Did it truthfully take you such an extended period of time to arrive at the correct answer?"
"No, I knew all along."
Knowing how he was the one outsmarted now, Dr. Ratio accepted defeat with grace, and laughed a little at his defeat. It wasn’t a laughter intended to put either of you down, but rather, a genuine expression of amusement, perhaps at himself for allowing such a situation to become so comedically blown out of proportion.
"Toying with me as a jest, I see. I will admit, it was rather clever of you to do in such a way, yet I still feel the need to observe you further."
"That is an unusual way of saying that you want to spend more time with me," you said with a laugh.
"Perhaps, but if it was nothing more than a jest, does this mean that you do not require my assistance with the problem before you? It seems an awful lot of effort to put into feigning intelligence, or lack thereof."
You lifted your face up from his hand and turned to look at the papers on your desk, with a large red X marked on your answer on one of the sheets. Right. You had completely forgotten about that.
“No…that I actually put my best effort into.”
“I shall see that you put your best effort forward into it during our second attempt together,” Dr. Ratio said, walking behind your chair. “Now, let us start fresh.”
He instructed you to tidy up your initial attempt and set it off to the side while he took out a fresh sheet of paper with a problem identical to the one you previously attempted on your own. He reached for the pen that was still dangling at the edge of the desk and laid it parallel to the side of the paper. As he loomed over you, you thought that he would be behind you the entire time, having to hear him critique every little mistake you make directly against your ear.
Your assumption was proven half correct when he leaned over you, placing his hands on opposite sides of you and practically pinning you to the desk. You looked to your side to see his face directly at your shoulder, able to feel his every breath against your face. Dr. Ratio smiled with an enthusiasm that seemed far too great to be suited to the likes of a basic education.
“Now then,” he whispered, “let us try our first time together.”
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stealthetrees · 6 months ago
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I would first like to apologize for the short chapter 3 for my fic Incident Reports from the Coruscant Guard. I keep having ideas for much later chapters and feel the need to write them. Also I don’t know how to write action. Pester me about it and I will feel guilty for not writing and may finish it sooner.
Anyway here’s the chapter when the Corries got Fives. For context, just after the Guard faked Ashokas death (bc she was a wanted criminal anyway and now they can use her to con people) Fox decided to try and break into the evil looking building they sometimes see Palpatine go to bc he’s convinced it’s an evil fortress that could have valuable information about the war. He got electrocuted and yeeted out a 5 story window.
He squinted at the clone in the bed next to him. “Do I know you?”
He flinched at Fox’s raspy voice, and his hands fluttered nervously around the blankets as he avoided eye contact. “Uh, no I don’t think we’ve met.”
“You don’t look like one of mine,” said Fox, wondering what he could have missed while he was out. He tried to sit up but was met with sharp pain in his chest. The hiss of pain summoned a vindictive medic like magic.
“Electrocution and nearly broken ribs. As a medical professional I’d recommend not trying to break into an evil sith fortress again,” said Cherry smugly. Fox had always suspected his medics secretly fought over who got to deliver news like that to him.
Giving up, he flopped back down. “Did I miss anything big?”
“Some ARC figured out The Conspiracy but fumbled it so bad the long necks told the Jedi his ‘aggression inhibitor chip’ broke and they believed it,” Cherry rolled his eyes and used air quotes. “Dogma’s pretty psyched cause they knew each other before acquisitions, oh! And this is Tup, fresh out of a lab. Also one of Rex’s Idiots.”
Tup waved nervously. Fox tried to give an encouraging smile. “We’re glad to have you, Tup.”
The words only seemed to make him feel guilty, as he turned away again.
“His inhibitor chip went off and he killed a Jedi during a battle. It’s been removed and we did some brain scans just in case. No further anomalies have been found, but we’re keeping him for observation just in case. For your mental state if nothing else,” Cherry directed the last part at Tup. “No one here hates you for something out of your control.”
He looked back at Fox, “Thorn has your armor and Vixen is directing offworld operations. It’s been pretty calm so I wouldn’t feel bad about sedating you if you try to escape. Follow instructions and it’ll only be a day or two. Call if you need anything.”
Cherry swept out of the room before either of them could argue. Fox and Tup looked at each other with mutual understanding and contempt for medics.
The next few days had troopers coming in and out through the visiting hours. Dogma and some of the other Idiots came by several times in between missions to talk to Tup. The familiar faces went a long way to cheering him up. They dragged Fox into conversation as often as they could, possibly trying to acclimate Tup to the wildly different social structure that made up the Coruscant Guard.
The constant distractions helped time pass, despite being banned from caff and work. The medics seemed almost disappointed to clear Fox for light duties. Lucky came by to bring him his armor and laugh at how fast he got Tup to call him dad.
“I’ll be your security today, Havoc got drafted into a drug bust,” said Lucky cheerfully.
“And you don’t have anything better to do than follow around someone with a 50,000 credit bounty everyone is too afraid to touch?” Fox asked sarcastically.
“Nope!”
“Greeeaaaaaat.”
Fox got about two minutes of silence, which only got them onto a train before Lucky started yapping about Separatist droid factories and how the different production methods could best be crippled. He even shows Fox the spreadsheet he was working on.
Fox gave some suggestions and critiques as the train slowed to a stop at their station. The mass of bodies flowed out onto the platform and the two soldiers were swept along, detangling themselves to push out onto the street.
Lucky finally looked up from the data pad. “This isn’t the way to the Barracks,” he said, frowning.
“I need to make sure Palpatine doesn’t do anything rash after what happened with the ARC,” Fox explained. “And get some caff.”
“I’d be surprised if he doesn’t,” Lucky muttered. “Oh! I almost forgot! The date for Scipio was moved up to this Thursday, everything else is the same though.”
“That’s perfect timing,” Fox sighed in relief. “Once the system is lost and Palpatine takes control of the banks we wouldn’t need to be so careful with illegal transactions. Has Slicer changed his passwords recently?”
“He finally made a bot to do it every time his blood pressure gets too high,” Lucky laughed.
Fox burst out laughing as they rounded the corner and nearly ran face first into Captain Rex.
He was fully armored and tense but the sight of his little brother reassured Fox in a way he couldn’t explain. He knew logically he’d still be mad about Ashoka but that didn’t matter in the moment, Fox was just glad he was still alive.
Rex punched him in the face, knocking Fox off balance and he didn’t bother trying to find his footing.
“Yeah that’s fair,” Fox muttered, taking the time to enjoy the ground.
“Hi Captain,” said Lucky somewhere above him.
“Did you know about Fives?” Rex demanded.
Fox jumped up at that, “Fives? What happened to Fives?!?”
Lucky failed too many tests on Kamino and was going to be decommed but another battalion happened to be there and smuggled him out as a shiny. Fox took him in bc Coruscant is a better place for him than an active battlefield. The Guard adopted him as their baby brother and all contributed to finishing his training. They got him when he was almost 17 but Fox didn’t clear him for duty until he was 19 cause he’s protective like that. Bc everyone was so worried about Lucky, the kid got the most varied and in-depth training of any clone ever. He could thrive in any position, even a commander. He knows slicing, mechanics, field medicine, strategy, Quinlan Vos even helped teach him about undercover and investigation stuff. He all knows how to fight force users and carries a slug thrower.
I love Lucky dearly. He’s o happy and cheerful your first impression of him is a little kitten, until he gets into a fight and then he’s a honey badger on crack.
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nectardaddy · 7 months ago
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falling - inumaki toge
cw: language, drinking, drinking in anxious situations, drunkenness, allusion to bickering/arguing, really cheesy flirting lol
notes: written with fem in mind (no pronouns used though), ex inumaki, non-curse au (we got him speaking lads!!), giving college au vibes, request by @inumakisser I changed a few things up though oof, I also just kinda gave up on editing at the end so if you see mistakes in the last couple of paragraphs no you didn't
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"Is that who I think it is?"
Turning your attention towards the feminine voice, you raised a brow to the red head next to you. Rolling her eyes as she saw you look to her instead, she motioned towards the figure adjacent to the doorway. "Yuuji- you didn't," she warned.
"Ah fuck," the man began, groaning as he sat back in his chair further. "I always invite him," he began lowly, earning a sharp smack to his head from the woman next to you. Letting out a yelp, and holding his head, and tried to defend himself. "He's never shown up before! How was I supposed to know this time was different?" Another smack, "ouch! Jesus, Nobara! Okkotsu probably forced him out, not me!"
Tracking their gaze, your heart sank to your stomach to the figure that stood adjacent to the doorway. Platinum hair and stark violet eyes catching your attention, you suddenly felt incredibly small. "I need another drink," you suggested to the pair, desperately trying to shy away from your own emotions.
The red head let a chuckle pass her lips before rising from her seat, offering her hand out to you as she did. "Forget the drink, let's get you a shot!" Smiling at you through her words, "hell, get drunk and find a whole other guy - forget about him." Her words earned a cheer from Yuuji, but you contemplated leaving the party all together.
It was easy to say forget, but once put into motion was incredibly difficult. It had been three months since you had even seen the man, whisking himself away as if it were too easy. Leaving your heart in shambles, a rather nasty break, that Toge seemed all too comfortable with. He never texted, never called; while you yearned on late nights to do only that. It was as if you were a complete stranger again - a stranger that still, after all this time, had feelings for him.
"Fuck it," you shrugged and cast your eyes upward to the woman. "Let's get drunk," you announced with a chuckle, finally deciding to take her hand.
As the night continued on, as did your growing intoxication. The effects of the shots and drinks Nobara, relentlessly, handed you, hit you in your now swimming mind. Your eyes were blurry and your skin felt scorched, the sticky, humid air around you clinging to you. It was, supposedly, a small party; the people that drunkenly lined the walls and danced amongst the living room proved otherwise. It made the room inconceivably warm, too many people in such a small area.
Nobara was no where to be found, gone off with Maki earlier and hadn't yet returned. Yuuji on the otherhand, sustained his presence with you, a cheerful smile the entire time. However, the poor soul hadn't found his tolerance for alcohol, finding himself draped across a couch at his own party, completely out cold. With a sigh, and another sip of the liquid what only further made you woozy, you leaned against the wall.
"I'm surprised you're here. You always hated parties," a lower voice next to you catching your attention. Turning, much to your dismay, you saw the only man you fervently did not wish to speak to. Slender fingers wrapping around a bottle, and violet eyes looking you over. You wished you had felt more anger in the moment; something, anything, other than the void of emotion. Too drunk to care, but too drunk not to say something.
"Says the guy who never went to them," you quipped. "A shut in can't critique a wallflower." You couldn't hide your obvious intoxication, booze hindering your speech to slow, methodical statements rather than sly, quick witted, remarks. Part of you wanted to step away right then and there, the other desperately craving any conversation the man would allow.
"Yikes," he grimaced, now placing himself next to you. A foot of distance between the two of you didn't feel like enough, truly you wanted him as far away as possible. "I'll give you that one," he spoke, tipping the bottle to his lips before sighing. "How have you been?"
"Did you really come over here to ask that, Inumaki?" You asked, taking a small breath and letting out through your mouth. The huff of air, and use of his last name, caused him to recoil subtlety, internally regretting his own decision to come speak to you. The conversation, or lack there of, gave you a sense of panic. Not knowing what he wanted, as it surely had to be something, you took a large sip of the contents in your cup.
He watched as you tipped the cup back, taking down the liquid as if it were your lifeline in the moment. He knew better than to speak to it; he couldn't tease or poke fun anymore, knowing it might very well lead to a slap in the face. So he sucked in a breath through his teeth, swallowed his pride, and faced his reality. Toge wanted nothing more than to talk to you again, craving it so deeply it itched. But he could never find the right words, how could he possibly when things ended so terribly? "I'm regretting it now," he mumbled.
You only managed to let a hum pass your lips, biting the side of your cheek as to not let anything further slip. You wanted to tear into him, rip him piece by piece with your words - just like old times. But now you didn't want to give him the satisfaction of merely pissing you off. Without a second thought you tipped your cup to your lips once more. Sipping the drink, the tangy taste of shitty fruit punch and liquor invaded your senses.
He noticed as you blinked hard from the taste, watching you teeter from foot to foot to keep yourself stable, and knew your words were sluggish and off. "Jeez- you're fucking trashed, aren't you?" He asked, genuinely not meaning for the words to leave so harshly. "You ok?"
"You're caring now?" You proded, your words biting a bit harder than you first imagined. "I didn't know you knew how to do that. Why's it matter anyway?" You shrugged, looking over to him with blurred vision.
"I've always cared," he retorted. "Don't be such a-"
There was a moment of pause between the two of you, a heavy silence hitting you both from the weight of the words, or lack thereof. He desperately wanted to back track the conversation, to take all of his sly remarks back - too late now. He knew it was too late as he heard a laugh pass your lips, a pained chuckle forcing its way out from his words. "Bitch?" You asked rhetorically, "go ahead and say it. Didn't stop you before."
"Alright, alright" he began before taking a small breath. "There's a lot of things I shouldn't have done," he admitted begrudgingly. "But that's a conversation to have when you're not piss drunk." Albeit, he didn't want to have the conversation at all. The feelings that prickled inside from having to admit his wrong doings made him wretch, add alcohol to the mix and he wanted to vomit right then and there.
"I can't believe I actually missed you," a drunken slip of the tongue, the statement so casually leaving your lips. Realizing immediately what you had uttered, you closed your eyes and groaned. You wanted to regret saying it, but the gentle nag at your heart said differently. Completely blitzed, you couldn't find a single care in the world left on what you said. "Seems stupid admitting it out loud," you chuckled, a silly, alcohol induced, smile on your lips.
He felt his shoulders slump at your statement, realizing you didn't feel much different than he. Two idiots still hopelessly attached to each other despite such a murky break; a classic situation of 'right person, incredibly wrong time.' While he wasn't inebrietated, the bottle in his hands warm as he held onto it throughout the night, he felt his mind scatter at the thought. "It's not stupid," speaking as he shook his head. "You always were a sap," he added, a smirk daring to grace his lips. He toed the line gently, testing waters to see if he dared tease you once more.
"What does that make you?" You asked, deciding against your better judgement to play along. But he made it so easy, so comfortable, an aura so warm and inviting he made it hard to stray away from - ex lover or not.
"A god damn moron for letting you go," he spoke with a small chuckle. But he was far from comedic with the sentiment. He missed you whether he liked it or not, an urge so deep down in his soul he simply couldn't ignore it. He often found himself wanting to call, to text, to simply do something; he second guessed himself often. He didn't want to be that guy, more often than not believing he would make matters worse if he were to speak to you.
"Oh-" you snorted, "that was smooth I'll give you that." Your musings made him chuckle in response, leaning against the wall next to you and feeling a bit less on edge. "I still miss you, y'know?" Liquid luck was the only reason you allowed yourself to say such things, sobriety would have you double down and wholeheartedly deny as such. "Dumbass," you added with a small, genuine smile.
"Yeah?" He asked rhetorically, a playful smile pulling at his lips. "This is a first. You compliment my pickup lines and you say you miss me?" His teasing tone returned, one of which he thought he could never have again with you. He would be lying if he said it didn't make his heart swell.
"I can take it back, Toge," you quipped, and to his words you tried to nudge him, but you drunkenly misjudged his distance from you. Although he wasn't far from you, the distance was enough that your body weight started to fall from the lack of contact with him. He quickly grabbed your arm to center you, but couldn't help himself as a loud laugh passed his lips.
"The jokes write themselves!" He spoke between laughs, "looks like you're falling for me again," he noted between giggles. He watched as you shot him a mischievous glare, resulting in him only laughing more. "Oh come on, I never stopped falling for you," he admitted with a smile. "Was only a matter of time before you did it too."
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might make a part 2?? idk but I really enjoyed writing this!!
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transmutationisms · 1 year ago
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hi! was wondering if you have any recs for some good critiques of Foucault’s historical method (or lack thereof)?
I enjoy reading his theory but I know his methodology can be lacking and would love to learn specifically how. ty <3
i don't have a text off the top of my head that is solely dedicated to making this critique of foucault (usually it's scattered into various historical literature) but i can just tell you:
foucault the historian has the consistent problem of relying on too few primary sources, almost all of which are french or english, meaning his claims are often only applicable to limited local cases (even the differences between the highly centralised, bureaucratised french state and the british situation tend to get flattened). his sources also tend to be authority figures like doctors and government officials, and he frequently makes the assumption that the powers they claim to have (or claim they SHOULD have) are powers they actually do have, which leads to a 'top-down' history that presents authorities and institutions as almost infallible in their efforts to repression, with virtually no attention paid to how people actually received any such mandates, and whether they were actionable, or subverted, or both. he also has a real problem conceiving of liberty in any terms but individual; politics for him is frequently characterised by a group vs individual struggle, which is a problem if what you are trying to understand is, say, the history of class struggle.
as a philosopher foucault articulated some general methodological guiding principles that remain useful in history: genealogical and archaeological methods, the call to historicise (meaning, to problematise; to contextualise) institutions and ideas presented as timeless or transcendent. there are also concepts in his historical narratives that other people have since fleshed out further, nuanced, and grounded in better evidence and 'bottom-up' histories, like biopolitics. so it's not unusual to see his name pop up in historical footnotes, especially in an introduction or conclusion where he may form part of a conceptual framework the author is using to interpret their evidence and turn it into a viable argument. but even these usages are certainly subject to critique (eg, the emphasis on individual liberty that suffuses his conceptual work; the extent to which his arguments can apply beyond the specific early modern metropolitan french contexts about which he was writing) and he should pretty much never be cited as a historian because his methodology in that respect was at best lacking.
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