#like a sane and ethical person

[gummy-axolotl]

STOP FUCKING USING AI VOICES!!! STOP IT!! COSPLAYERS, ANIMATORS, EVERYONE!!! SHUT THE FUCK UP!! STOP FUCKING USING AI VOICE COVERS!!! YOU ARE VIOLATING ACTORS AND STEALING. DON'T. FUCKING. USE. AI.

[evilminji]

Behold! o/ The Face Of Benevolent Evil!

Mr. Principle! A professional hero and educator!

Also possibly some sort of stoat hybrid! Certainly a chimera of Japanese fauna! With the Quirk High Specs, he is one of, if not THE, smartest beings on the planet of which he resides! With a background perfectly justifying a decent into hatred and villiany, he instead chose to channel his incredible world shaking intellect into the shaping of future generations!

He likes to fuck with people!

For FUNSIES~☆!

What can he say? It keeps a man young and mentally stimulated! Plus the hysterical screaming of his staff and students is HILARIOUS. He can even argue it makes for good reaction training! Unforseen situations, children! React!!! *psychotic chortling*

Mmmmm, yes. We all have our trauma responses. Ways we deal with them. He should probably find other means... but he won't! Tea and tormenting the student body make for good future heroes, you know! They adapt!

But! You may ask! Why am I introducing you to this... *polite yet somehow deeply threatening smile* c-completely sane and normal individual!? Esteemed educator that he is! Ha ha...

A good and not at a under threat question!

Villains? Are fuuuuuckin STUPID!

Doesn't matter how many PHDs you possess! In fact! That makes it WORSE! You moron! You absolute fool! No traveling circus would have you, you sub-rate CLOWN of a jingle jangle dunce jester! You have a god damn PHD! Possibly MULTIPLE PHD!

And you thought "ooooh I should go into cwiiiiime~☆"?

Do you hear yourself when you talk? DO YOU?! Ooooh boohoo. They won't let you study what you WANT to study. It's called an ETHICS BOARD. And YEAH, NO SHIT! Maybe get over it and keep you fucked up fantasies to your SELF.

Or? If you REALLY can't hold it in? Lay the ground work like EVERYONE FUCKING ELSE! You're not special! Everyone wants to play god! It's FUN! They let you have the COOL toys! But you have to EARN that shit! Not jump straight from graduation to "fucked up superscience"!

And? If it's NOT the Ethics Board? But just some bureaucrat on a power trip? You don't have to fucking STAY. This? This RIGHT HERE? Is why I-Island fucking EXSISTS.

APPLY.

They are SO MANY countries you could move too. SO MANY other labs. You actual DUMBASS.

But NO! You decided to commit to a fucked up underground Villian Lab. As though HUNTING THOSE isn't the PERSONAL fucking passion project of THE SMARTEST BEING IN JAPAN. Frankly? You deserve this. You deserve this and our school doesn't know you. Never heard of you. You whoms't?

Coulda changed the world. But instead all you did was piss of The Fuzzy White Demon Lord of UA. Rest in pieces. *click*

*sound of doors smashing open*

*violent Raid Upon Your Labs noises*

But! You may ask? What's IN the Lab?

What MAKES this a DP crossover?

I like your question asking spirit! Good one! And the answer? You know what's better then ONE(1) Nedzu? A second one that you can ACTUALLY control this time! After all! You could consider Mr. Principle a prototype. A proof of concept, if you will. If you were able to make ANOTHER.....

Well, you would set off EVERY. SINGLE. ALARM. Nedzu has set up!

All of them!

Because he don't PLAY THAT.

He has long last trauma from the labs and is the SOLE FUCKING SURVIVOR. There WERE others. They Did Not make it. And their slow agonizing deaths are carved into his brain for the rest of his life. Truely "The living shall envy the dead"; it was a place that made hell seem merciful.

When he declare Never Again?

He fucking MEANT Never Again. He will BURN your empires to ash, with you in them. No More Labs.

So :) You can IMAGINE :) HOW HAPPY HE IS :)

That someone out there is trying to RECREATE his SUPER traumatic childhood, on ANOTHER CHILD. Ha ha! Gonna be a second Nedzu huh? Planning to torture HIM like you did me, HUH? Shove him in a cage and treat him like an animal? Force him to watch as the others die? Collars and whips and cattle prods? Mazes?!

Nedzu may lose his shit.

Juuuuust a little bit.

But if anyone there knows what good for them? They saw NOTHING. What's a little PTSD flashback between friends? Now what is the baby?

Smashcut to said baby!

Because it was a TEAM effort, Danny was successful in "Nuh Uh!"ing out of Rulership. But NOT out of governance. Since he DID help. He's a Councilman now. It's? Not as bad as it could be, honestly. Since it's opened the Zone up to a more democratic system.

Still held by "kick the ass of the person you wanna replace" but still!

Babysteps.

Thing is? There was apparently this weird? Leak? Like a couple hundred years ago, in this one area, that was never addressed. Everyone just moved their doors and stuff. Treated it like the floors flooded. But now that they HAVE someone to complain too?

They all want their territories back.

"Go fix it!" What are we? Janitors?

Danny looses the rock, paper, scissors competition. He's pretty sure Boxy cheated. But like? Dude has a kid to go home too, so Danny doesn't fight him to hard on this. Uuuuuugh. Just remember the Spider-Man motto. Great power~ blah blah blaaaah~

And? Wow is it fucked out there.

The whole PLANET has to be limnal as FUCK. Yikes.

Problem is? When he and his team (Because YES, he HAS learned from his mistakes, Jazz.) get close to the... frankly the Zone here looks like distorted spiderwebbing. With him leading the charge, obviously.

....something happens.

It's... it's not a portal. Wrong color. It's like someone USED the weird spiderwebbing effect to... to reach INTO the Zone? But they are severally Limnal. Clawed hands, blue tint. But that's not the problem.

No, the problem.

The Horror.

The thing that his team can only watch on in agonized terror as it plays out... is that hand? It shoots out of nowhere. Ghostlike in the Zone. Meaning it must be living. And PLUNGES directly into Danny's chest to wrap around his core.

Time seems to slow.

He can't even scream in pain. At the violation. His team, acquaintances, yes, but friendly ones. Can not even cry out in horror, as they watch their friend and team lead be butchered before them. Before that uncaring hand is ripping back. Perfect ice and starlight in its uncaring grip.

For a terrible moment... he is in two places at once.

Then he is crushed in a burning grip. Like molten bars. Watching his own body dissolve into nothing in an instant, pain and horror still etched upon his face. The beginnings of screams ripping from his team as they jerk away from the nightmarish threat.

Then he can not think at all.

He... he TRIES. Knows he has been captured. Is certainly not the sort to give up easily. But... he's so tired. His body feels? Weird. Not wrong, per say. It's HIS. But... small and weird. Like he's shape shifted into a new form and hasn't adjusted yet.

....

.......

...........

He's getting really sick of all the goop against his whiskers and in his ears. It feels WEIRD against his fu- WAIT a second... did those assholes shove him into an animal? Why?! To contain him? Ha! Jokes on them! He's DONE THIS before!

For FUN!

He once spent a whole ass summer as a tiny dragon just 'CAUSE!

Unfortunately, said assholes notice him waking up. Dump him in a glorified hamster cage. But like.... a SHITTY "I don't care about the pet I bought" hamster cage. Dude. And he's naked.

Is that Japanese? Ooooh! It IS! Thank you, Tucker's Weeb phase.

......actually, never mind. Lotta dehumanizing language there, my guys. What is this? The GIW international? You couldn't even give me PANTS? Swear to God, call me an "it" ONE more time and the next time I have to go? I am going to aim through the bars at your-! *alarms going off*

....wasn't me.

I mean, be all means, ha ha and get fucked, but? Wasn't me. Oh hey! Some one exploded the doo-

AND? In Lab 4?

Nedzu finds a child with fluffy, ungroomed black and white fur, and the curious yet cautious eyes of a survivor. They are the most magnificent green, pale and luminous they glow in the laboratories lighting. Paws too big for his small frame, delicate ears on the swivel, equally large. Yet to grow into either. Adolescent, at best.

He watches the child take him in. Note his features and the chaos behind him. The injured scientist under his feet. Come to him conclusion. Nedzu will not rush him. Now that he... he stand the chance to be the hero he himself never had. It is a strange feeling. At once cathartic and unbearably painful.

He is given the equivalent of a cheerful grin, as the lad points the the lock on the cage. Is asked if he happened to bring a spare pair of pants. He can not help his amused chortle as he makes quick work of the lock. The unbearable RELIEF he feels.

He... he was not too late.

These monsters had no chance to crush the boy's light. To make a monster of him, like they did with him. He survived his laboratory, his hell. But not all of him left that terrible place. He knows that. Some innocence, some goodness, died alone in the dark. But here? He insured there would be no chance.

With amusement, he watches the boy turn the lab upside down until he finds spare scrubs. Triumphant, he then considers his own, tiny claws. Dismisses them. Attempts to hop up on a chair to retrieve something sharp. It? Is unbearably cute. To watch him rip and shred, problem solve. His little mind churning away. Whiskers twitching as his eyes dart around, considering his options.

Nedzu offers one of his spare knives.

Watches him light up.

Adorable~

@legitimatesatanspawn @hdgnj @nerdpoe @babbling-babull @lolottes

[leohtttbriar]

the sequence of “deadlock” to “thaw” to “tuvix” to “resolutions” is so interesting. a sequence of traumatizing events about: what it means to be intimate with no one but yourself, intimate with fear as a simulated person until you both fade from simulated reality but remain in the material one, and intimate with a merged half such that it's not two halves but one whole--and then with an equal with whom, by position and consequence, no intimacy can be allowed to exist. which i guess is just a different kind of intimacy?

it's like a cycle in which janeway learns she is alone in a fundamental way, making decisions and hard calculations with no other cooks fixing the broth, and while there could be a new and equivalent love, there actually can't. no matter the small acknowledgment, she walks back onto the ship to the start of the cycle, again. sacrifice, fear, choice, sacrifice, fear, choice, sacrifice--

in a meta way, there's an interesting read regarding how mulgrew didn't want janeway and chakotay to get together, and how she was right for it: the first female-captain character of this enormous franchise couldn't be the first to also have an explicit romance with her second-in-command. to be in a specific singular position requires constructing some scaffolding that might not otherwise be needed. in this is the implication that, while other captains would be as lonely as janeway, they might not be quite as actually alone. and it's like how strachey describes queen elizabeth i, forever unmarried, but in the most cunning of ways--prevaricating on committing to the personal, leaning into the tension but never breaking it, pledging only in the quiet so it can't ever be interpreted as contractual, all to retain a hold on centered power. a power which, in many ways in the story, is the ethic driving the crew back across the galaxy and acting as infrastructure for the culture of their unbelievably distant home, through sheer will. it's a kind of compromise of personhood to the position that seems particular to janeway, because of her gender and the fact that she's the highest-ranking officer of a distant culture's diplomatic and governing organization for 70,000 light years.

she has to be aware she's more representative than real at this point. like, it's almost an idea somewhat suggested by her brief duplication and her brief simulation. (and like of course she split tuvix back up--she only thinks now with two bodies instead of one, kathryn and captain, and it's inconceivable these separate persons might genuinely fuse.) the solitude of janeway makes either her insane or, as strachey put it, "a sane woman in a universe of violent maniacs."

[elodieunderglass]

is PCRF still where you recommend people donate, or do you have another recommended group? I would like to donate but haven’t had time to do research.

(In reference to fundraising campaign I did for PCRF)

One of the most important things I have learned about conflict and healthcare and devastation, from someone who deals with them for their living, is that it is fractal, each piece of it containing unimaginable complexity, and that as a human you can’t really deal much with fractals that get more complex than, like, ferns. I am oversimplifying here. But the thing is that you cannot get bogged down endlessly in debating the nature of fractals. You decide on the level of complexity you can manage , perform an action and move on. You cannot take responsibility for every mathematical pattern that follows from your action; if you were a sort of cosmic weatherman, affecting the fates of people you’ve never met through some vague alchemy of intention, you’d know about it already. Therefore do not obsess too much over The Good Place levels of ethics and research, spiralling into fractals in search of the perfect. Therefore, also, if you want to give £2 to someone, feel free to ignore people who say “ah but if you give £2 to that guy they’ll spend it on something bad, and the whole fractal is rotten and broken.” You can only ever claim your own actions, a small piece of the fractal: to insist on your power over distant pieces of mathematical patterns is bonkers. It is religious nonsense. This is what I’ve learned and I thought it was pretty good, from someone who’d know.

So I believe the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund is not able to operate in Gaza at the moment, like many non-profits; I believe Medeciens Sans Frontiers aren’t in Gaza at the moment and that’s pretty dire indicator. However, they are mobilised in Lebanon.

The reasons why I selected PCRF to support include the fact that they have been able to deliver material aid, had pragmatic routes to evacuate children, and were reporting some success in providing/stabilising healthcare infrastructure. They have stated from the beginning that their intent was to support, and ideally restore, healthcare infrastructure, without which you cannot run a nation. I have known healthcare professionals who traveled with PCRF to work on complex cases prior to this conflict and I personally know/respect one of their prominent supporters, which helped me to make this choice. I also was hoping in the future that Gaza would have restored healthcare infrastructure and PCRF had stated their commitment to doing so.

I have received and listened to criticism about this choice, and I firmly believe that no matter what choice you make to support a cause, you’ll receive some measure of criticism (the fractal! Elodie you must consider the fractal nature of reality at all times! Scrupulous frantic morality is necessary at all times !), and that this should not stop you. To explain a bit about this, the criticisms I’ve received have mostly fallen into two camps:

- “the wrong sort of charity” - one concern is PCRF are not able to promise that their work will never support Hamas supporters or their families. This has been raised as “PCRF support Hamas”. but genuinely, given the realities of conflict, it is not practical or sane to require that people bring proof of political affiliation when seeking healthcare for their children. I’m comfortable saying that this, like other risks of fundraising/donation, is always possible but not a major consideration for me.

- “the wrong sort of fundraiser” - conversely some people stated they’d prefer I support individual families seeking evacuation through GFMs. This is also fine but my choice in the charity was partly in thinking about families who do not have GFMs, and children who do not have families. I also felt, at the time of fundraising, that supporting healthcare infrastructure was very worthy in a different way - after all, at the time the same people doing GFMs were also using/needing what healthcare was available.

My shoulders are broad, and I’m comfortable with these criticism. I am fully aware that this is not a complete solution but I personally continue to support the charity. I am explaining this to indicate that there will always be criticisms; you must accept that you can only take a small piece of the fractal, and you must accept that quite a lot of the fractal was never in your gift to control.

The situation is constantly changing and with the departure of organisations there is genuinely less hope of materially restoring the infrastructure in Gaza. At the moment donations to PCRF will likely be mobilised to Lebanon. It may be that this speaks to you. It does still speak to me.

Ultimately while it’s important to do research, it is always going to become fractal, especially in conflict situations. Nobody’s ever going to be able to point to a perfect thing that will fix everything and absolve us of criticism, you know? You will always only be able to pick up a piece of the fractal.

Now moving away from “what I personally support” there are many people more informed than myself and I would like to direct you to them as well. @gothhabiba is someone I follow who has posted several very useful posts about this and has been extremely informative, and spent a lot of time and attention on this, so I would defer to the resources and fundraisers they’ve put together. Her response to a similar question has been “pick 1-3 personal fundraisers” - this is a piece of the fractal. At the moment if what you want to do most is “materially help people in Gaza” that seems like the best option.

Also he doesn’t post much on social media, but when you get the opportunity to read a scientific article or anything by https://x.com/sullivanprof it’s worth stopping and processing. To me, Richard’s life work really shows how a piece of the fractal unpacks to reveal the whole world. I think if you have emotional space to research, it’s honestly a good investment to read some of his “manifestos” on intersections of healthcare and conflict.

[cutiechaser]

FAQ Friday - on the board today: aftercare

Kink play often releases a flood of hormones including but not limited to endorphins, epinephrine, and enkephalins.

endorphins are neurotransmitters released by your pituitary gland and your hypothalamus (both parts of your brain). endorphins are released when you do anything pleasurable: eating, seeing people you enjoy, exercise, sex, etc. endorphins are really cool in that they can lower your stress response by regulating your nervous system, improve your mood, and alleviate pain.

epinephrine aka adrenaline is also a neurotransmitter. this hormone is produced by your adrenal glands which sit atop your kidneys. its most commonly recognized in its role in the acute stress response (fight or flight) but as a neurotransmitter it plays a smaller but still important role in panic, excitement, focus, attention, and even metabolism. in kink play, the epinephrine released is produced by nerves and has a less intense but still identifiable impact than in the cute stress response.

enkephalins are neuropeptides. for simplicity’s sake, consider them smaller and simpler protein. they are primarily concentrated in the brain but are also present in the cells of the adrenal gland. they are a weak pain relief that work by activating opioid receptors. they are often released alongside epinephrine as part of the acute stress response.

overall, endorphins alone can produce a high stronger than morphine. combined with epinephrine and enkephalins, amongst other hormones, you can often experience a high that many people refer to as subspace/domspace/etc. despite lots of interesting pilot studies on the matter, there is no medical distinction that denotes the existence of these or any other “spaces”. however, the hormone release is certainly identifiable.

once the happiness from your high begins to fade as you conclude a scene, you may find yourself inundated by feelings of anxiety, physical pain, low self-esteem, depression, etc. as you “drop” from your high, what was your normal prior to the scene will feel worse. this doesn’t mean that you are, for example, depressed. simply, the hormones released during the scene made you feel so good that temporarily your baseline feels bad. you may also feel a similar drop in emotional state after other events that induce similar feelings of euphoria like a great date with a romantic partner or a significant event like a concert or a major personal development like a championship match etc.

in kink play, we can anticipate this emotional drop and prepare for it by informing our partners what we enjoy. anecdotally common ones I’ve found are physical affection, verbal affirmation, electrolyte drinks, foods like chocolate (dark chocolate is actually found to boost endorphin production), etc.

the time to discuss aftercare is in initial negotiations. I cannot emphasize this enough. please please ask your partners what they need and prepare it beforehand if needed. you do not want to be scrambling around after a scene when everyone is already vulnerable. this applies to everyone. subs need aftercare, dom(me)s need aftercare, switches need aftercare. anyone engaging in play has an ethical duty of care to their partners.

purposefully leaving your partner vulnerable in order to exploit them and emotionally manipulate them by withholding aftercare is emotional abuse. fucking cut that shit out.

stay safe, sane, and consensual

if you have questions, feel free to inbox or dm me.

[respectthepetty]

I still feel bad for Top.

And . . . I think he is the only sane one of the group.

Mew - When Top slept with Boston again, no matter how much Top wanted to be Mew's boyfriend, Mew had Top down in the "just talking" stage, so he didn't cheat. Boston even pointed this out. Also, Mew wasn't upset that he has sex, but instead he was upset that it was with Boston.

Boston - Top always has to fight off Boston or give in to him and even he told Boston in the elevator that he is tired of fighting off Boston while Boston told Ray he is just greedy for Top.

Nick - He recorded both Boston and Top having sex, then told Top to leave Boston alone (the audacity). Top even warned Nick that Boston was trash pero Nicolas no le importa.

Sand - Top has tried to let the past stay in the past both times he has encountered Sand in the wild, but Sand has gone left both times and Top has matched his energy. He even tried to get Sand to call a truce, but instead, Sand stole the sex tape off of Nick's phone and gave it to Ray.

Ray - Top knows Ray is in love with Mew, which is partially the reason that Ray hates Top, but I don't know if Ray didn't spill the beans about the sex tape at the party in front of everyone because Mew already knew or because Ray has some level of ethics that these other people lack. Either way, this is why he is my #1.

Chueam - This is a me thing, but homegirl is really strange about Top. She always talks about him being top-tier TO HIS FACE and mentioned Mew losing his virginity to a top-tier guy one too many times for my liking.

YET NONE OF THIS IS EVEN ABOUT TOP!

Top is not seen as a person to any of these people and is a pawn in Boston and Mew's weird competition with each other. We done been knowing this isn't about Top.

This is about Top being the prize trophy in this toxic ass friendship!

Mew doesn't like Top. He likes the idea of Top. Because instead of making the sex about Top, Mew makes it about Boston.

Mew and Boston are two sides of the same damn coin!

Look at Top's face with both of them. He can't wrap his brain around the mental gymnastics these two are doing in order to make everything about each other. Which is why they have continued to use Top as a prop in their Toxic Ass Friends Olympics.

Then, insert Nick and Sand.

Nick is so obsessed with Boston that he Jolene-ed Top which is humorous since Top doesn't understand why anyone would openly want Boston. And Sand is so obsessed with avenging his broken heart (which is ironic that he told Ray to focus on him instead of Mew, yet this shit all went down because Sand was so focused on his EX CHEATING ON HIM that he dragged Ray into his plot for revenge!) that he won't let the past stay dead and buried, but instead decides to walk it around like a pet zombie.

Ray, even though he is in love with Mew, is the only one who got this right.

Top isn't a prize.

He isn't a cheater.

He isn't just a body for sex.

He isn't the villain.

He isn't a pawn.

He isn't a Jolene.

He is an asshole.

Surrounded by a bunch of fucking dicks.

And they all want a piece of him.

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

My argument, therefore, is not that we cannot reject God, but only that we cannot do so with perfect freedom. The power of choice in itself is not true freedom of the will. In a sense, a lunatic has a far larger range of real options than does a sane person, but only because he or she also has far less freedom. The lunatic might choose to run into a burning building on impulse, to see what it will feel like to die in flames; a sane man, because he can form a rational judgment of what can and cannot satisfy his nature, lacks so expansive a “liberty”. . .

What, then, of the claim that hell could be the ultimate free choice of a rational spiritual nature? It is meaningless. To the very degree that a rational creature might reject the one transcendent reality that can alone satisfy its deepest needs and desires, that creature is in bondage. An injured, damaged, and deluded person might behave in such a manner, but never a free person. Freely, sanely, deliberatively to elect misery forever rather than bliss would be a form of madness. To call that madness freedom, in order to soothe our consciences and to continue to reconcile ourselves to a picture of reality that is morally absurd, is to talk gibberish. And, too, there is a deeper metaphysical logic here to be considered. It turns out, on any careful consideration of the matter, that only God himself — the infinite and transcendent Being, Goodness, Truth, and Beauty that is the source and end of all reality — could be the true necessary “final cause” for any really free rational creature. So no perfectly free will can choose any ultimate end other than God, and to the degree that a rational nature attempts to reject God it is simply deluded.

[hetafice]

Hi! Could I request the allies with an overworked s/o? Thanks!

hi! as usual reply is beneath the cut.

America:

It could go one of two ways with Alfred.

Alfred’s solution to the problem may just be to have you quit your job and find a new one.

As someone who gets paid to occasionally loaf off, he might not understand whatever incentivized you to stay at a job you weren’t completely in love with. In his eyes, if your job is too boring or too hard, just leave!

And should you try to explain that you do enjoy your job, just not the overbearing workload, he would be at even more of a loss. 

Another possibility is that you both end up being overworked together and forming a sort of late-night ritual where you work side by side. Sometimes talking, sometimes complaining, sometimes eating, sometimes sitting in comfortable silence as you both hustle to meet a deadline.

Although he is free by nature, Alfred is also keenly aware of just how constraining responsibility can be. To complete his duties to the fullest, he can also lose himself in pursuit of perfection. As someone who’s constantly moving the goalpost for himself, it’s sometimes difficult for him to slow down, to pace himself. As such instead of encouraging you to leave a situation that does not suit you, he might instead choose to remind you of your commitments and why you chose them in the first place.

He isn’t a complete robot, however. He understands the toll that hard work and sacrifice bring, so he’ll try and do something nice to take your mind off of things. It would likely involve one of his favourite coping mechanisms - food. Expect him to either drop food in front of you while you work at random increments or to be pushed into the car and accompany him to the closest fast food drive-in window.

Russia:

To Ivan, there is no such thing as success without a little bit of blood, sweat, and tears. While he may sympathize with you on some level, he believes that struggle is a necessary part of working hard and actualizing one’s dreams; and that to aid someone along the way is just to coddle them. 

On one level, you are someone he deeply cares for, and so he does not wish for you to suffer. However, he also knows from personal experience that without learning the lessons that come out of hard work, you are likely to take things for granted and make simple mistakes in the process of completing your goals. To help you at all would teach you that weakness can still beget success, which would not only then inspire weakness in your future endeavours and prime you for failure, but also place a massive target on your back.

In his eyes, weakness of any kind is ripe for exploitation and is to be avoided at all costs.

Besides, given his history, he knows that people can get pushed and pulled far beyond their limits before they break, so consider this a sort of litmus test. How far can you be pushed before you can’t take anymore? Where do your limits actually lie?

Canada:

Matthew has likely experienced the same things before and is naturally empathetic, so he is a great person to confide in in this scenario.

He would try his utmost best to ease your burdens in whatever capacity he could. If you were busy with work or school, he would compensate for that by doing most, if not all the work around the house. He would check up on you throughout the day to see if you need help with any tasks or even just a general morale boost.

He is more than happy to lend a helping hand or a shoulder to cry on. His advice is usually pretty sound, and he could help you think of ways to better organize your time and/or minimize your workload. If that isn’t an option he could offer various mindfulness and wellness tips to help you keep sane until your workload naturally tapers off.

China:

With his work ethic and general philosophy on life, Yao would push you to be stronger, go harder, and do more. 

In his eyes, hard work is a unanimously good thing. If you are feeling overworked it means you're just coming closer to another limitation that can be surpassed. You may be dealing with uncomfortable feelings, but this discomfort will teach you a lesson and lead to character growth. What bad has ever come of that?

To be completely honest, he may very well be the one overworking you. 

If you are enduring mistreatment in the workplace, or it looks like things may be too much for you, he may try to offer a few words of advice. He would propose that the knowledge this experience would give you was well worth all the struggle, that it would likely aid in cultivating your character, and that you shouldn’t let an opportunity like this slip through your fingers; or worse yet, quit right before the finish line.

Should your body start to take a toll from the overwork, he would offer reminders to take care of your health, but his general stance would not change. Yao is not the type to intervene when things like duty and honor are concerned.

France:

Francis would not understand why you would willingly put yourself through this.

If it’s getting to be too much, why not just leave your responsibilities behind? If your superiors are giving you too many assignments, why not raise hell about it? Meekly sitting in silence is doing nothing to help the problem, and only teaches others that they can walk all over you. Why not just take a few weeks of leave and lounge around with him?

If for some reason, the prospect of potentially missing out on opportunities in favour of spending uninterrupted time with this man is not your style (shocking, I know), he would support you in your endeavours and try his best to help you unwind at the end of every day. He would make sure you ate regularly and continued to sleep well, while also providing you with as much wine as you needed to get you through it.

England:

As he has matured, Arthur has gotten better at consoling people. With that being said, he’s still not the best at it.

Expect an awkward, albeit endearing pep talk coupled with a bit of well-intentioned advice.

He may not be the best with words, but he’s the most concerned when he sees signs of physical exhaustion in you. Despite finding it a bit awkward to voice his concern for you, he’s seemingly always nearby with a cup of tea for you and refuses to head to bed unless he knows you are right behind him.

He’s more than willing to accompany you on those restless nights. Sitting beside you, either reading a book or getting ahead on a few of his assignments. He still remembers his younger days when he frequently worked late into the night. At the time, he secretly wished for a companion, and so now he happily fulfills that same role for you. 

A part of him also feels less worried knowing that should things go on for too long, he can step in and stop you before you work yourself too hard.

[harrysmimi]

Date Night

Synopsis: One where Harry finally manages to convince his partner on a fancy dinner date

CW: mentions of anxiety, depression and body dysmorphia.

More of my work

It was a Friday night, YN had gotten off work early.

Well, to be honest she got nothing done today. Working from home comes with it's own pros and cons.

She liked to stay the weekend at home, buried in her bed. Maybe binge watch some random show on a random OTT site. Or just sleep.

Since the pandemic, YN had fallen into a dark place mentally. She could work from home but she was stuck in country over seas from her family.

She works at the London branch of Columbia Music label, in the marketing department. That's where she met Harry, now her boyfriend of almost two years.

Harry actually slipped her a personal email after a zoom meeting on planning a strategy to market his new album, asking for her number. YN was the team leader of the team who'd work hard on coming onto new ideas, so she had to be present in the meeting, explaining the presentation whilst her foster kitten walk all in front of her camera as she talked.

At first, YN was very sceptical about the e-mail. It was under his name, but it could be anyone. People hack into random zoom meeting all the time now. But again how did he get her e-mail?

So she just deleted that e-mail.

The next session though, he slipped into her private messages asking if she got his email. Of course she gave him his number as he said that he wanted to be involved in the process. She understood, it was his album, he spent days and nights working on it with his friends, he has to have a say in how it's marketed. Well, he partially lied. He just grew a tiny little infatuation on her, he wanted to get to know her.

It was her first project as Team Leader ever. She had just been promoted and it was sort of new to her when corporate decided to give her the position. Of course she was energetic going head first into the new responsibilities given to her. Especially for one of the company's biggest clients.

Her new responsibilities came with so much scrutiny as she was the youngest and least experienced person to be put up in a position of a leader. Disregarding her work ethics, her leadership skills and strengths, plus her qualifications.

It took a huge toll on her.

Talking to Harry was only thing keeping her sane in that moment, even though they had never seen each other in person ever before.

Whilst her parents and siblings were supportive of her in every single way, but yet, everytime she called them they'd be complaining about one another jokingly and never listen to her. She tried talking to her mother, but did she it never worked out as her entire family was stuck in one house.

Harry and her started dating around the time he was back in London. Their first date was on a FaceTime call. She was having some leftover rice she made the night before for dinner, and he was eating a Chinese take out and a homemade salad he made.

The salad was for balance, he said to her.

She was sat in living room/Dining room/bedroom/office; her coffee table, whilst he was comfortably sat at his fancy dining table at home. She didn't had her foster kitten to lurk around anymore, it got adopted very soon.

They continued to talk to one another over calls, texts, FaceTime every chance Harry got to be free. YN was basically free all the time, she works from home- unless she's in an online meeting. They'd fall asleep on FaceTime with one another. It was a long distance relationship even when both of them were in same place because of the pandemic restrictions. But both of them felt safe enough to move forward with their relationship.

Of course, Harry saw her falling into a dark place mentally. In fact she came forward and shared it with him finally as she was tired of being ignored by her family. He suggested her a few things which never worked out for her, and she is yet to find out a therapist she resonates with.

The first time Harry visited her flat to see her, it was like he has always been living there. He knew where everything was. That's when he took her to a very fancy dinner date. Their first and last fancy dinner date ever.

This time, Harry was in town finally after an exhausting yet memorable leg of tour in the States. He was dress fancy, the Prince Of Wales jacket from his own collection with a baby blue shirt underneath it, pair of black pants, and a random black coat because it was cold outside.

He walked into his girlfriend's flat buried in her bed, watching some gruesome murder documentory without a sliver of expression on her face. Her eyes and lips red, she probably cried whole day whilst working.

"Hey darling!" He dropped his coat and a bag he brought with him on the sofa and walked straight towards her bed. "What's wrong baby?"

"I don't know." She sniffled pausing the show she was watching. Pushing her laptop aside she straight away went in to hug him tight.

"Oh my angel!" He squeezed her tight closer to his chest. "It's alright baby, I'm here for you."

"I don't know why I'm crying all day. I just feel so numb." She mumbled, her face pushed against his neck.

Well, she's been stuck in her flat for about three months now. She only ever goes to buy groceries now, which she doesn't have to for two week straight. Her appetite has died a little bit from not getting much excercise done.

"I know baby, I know." He rubbed her back. "I came in to surprise you on a date, do you think getting out of the house would help you?"

"I seriously don't know." She shook her head, still hugging him close.

"How about we at least try, yeah?" He suggested, "you might feel better today by getting out. I'll have us a fun day planned for tomorrow as well." She whined in protest to that, "come on now, I've missed you. I promise we can leave if you don't feel like staying, okay?"

"Okay." She agreed, pulling away from him.

"Alright, I got you something." He with that he fetched her the bag he left on her sofa.

Inside was a cat plushy he saw a random store when he was out and about with his friends, he bought it because it reminded him of her. Along with it was a little bracelet he bought from yet another local business. But the cat mattered most to her in that moment.

"Thank you!" She cooed.

"You like it!" He flashed his dimples smile. "Now do get ready, we have a reservation at eight-thirty."

It was quater past five.

"Harry..." YN sighed, "I don't think I want to go to a fancy place."

"It's not that fancy."

"Harry, you took me a seven star restaurant saying the same thing." She groaned.

"I promise, it's not that fancy." He assured her, "wear the blue dress you impulsively bough online the other day, please?" He dragged her to her closet.

"I don't think it's going to fit me now," she made an excuse.

Or was it an excuse? It was a dress which is supposed her fit her figure like it was her skin at the bodice, doesn't matter if it had puffy long sleeves or it was hemmed at the floor length. She had obviously gained weight lile almost everyone else in the world during the pandemic.

Well, Harry was an exception. He's in more shape than ever. In a very healthy and very fucking cool way.

She had nothing else to wear though to a fancy restaurant, she rented a dress because their first date was planned days ahead. So she had no other option than to wear it.

Harry waited patiently for her to take a shower and het ready, he in fact helped himself with some tea and helped her with her with the pile of dirty dishes. Even made her bed and folded the pile of clean laundry making neat stacks on her bed so she can put them away as she wished. All while he heard the shower go off and the hair dryer running.

Her house was pretty much clean apart from being messy. He know however she may be feelings, she doesn't like when a foul smell lingers around her flat or there is garbage laying around. She's just messy with her personal stuff.

He did not dare to touch her work desk though. She's very protective of that part of her flat.

She'd fine if he'd go through her personal valuables of documents, she hates it when anyone touches her desk or even moved a pen on there.

"Harry?" She called from the bathroom.

"Yes, love?"

"Can you please zip up my dress?" She asked opening the bathroom door just to pop her head out to look at him. He is always happy to help her.

He knows if she was in a good mood he wouldn't even let her put it on before they had a quickie. Keeping his mind out of gutter he helped her.

"You look so pretty baby, you were doubting yourself for nothing!" He placed a delicate kiss on side of her neck.

"I don't know, it doesn't look good."

All she saw was her perfectly normal tummy and her arms showing through the sheer fabric sticking out like needles in her eyes. She was doubting when the dress arrived in mail, she tried it on then showed it to Harry on FaceTime. It was a little loose and didn't fit her well. It doesn't now either.

"Come on, you know how hard I'm trying to keep my hands to myself now?" Harry genuinely find it difficult, he's not saying it to hype her up.

She just took in a deep breath and nodded, excused herself for wanting to do her makeup which wasn't much just some mascara and eyeliner she smoked out with concealer to hide her dark circles and eye bags and a pink lipstick. All the while Harry was sat there on the edge of the shower/bathtub admiring her. He helped her pick out the right pair of earrings, she already had the necklace she wears everyday, her dad gifted her on her 16th birthday. And they were set to go.

......................................................................

YN followed closely behind Harry, pulling out the micro fabric fibers from the cuff of his coat. It won't ruin it. But she's very anxious, well aware of her actions she stopped when the hostess welcomed them and showed them to their table.

It was in the more private and upper level of the restaurant, it was still a five star restaurant. Hardly anymore people there other than a group of six people, and two more couples enjoying their time. It seemed very empty considering the place was huge.

Soft talking and laughing noises seemed to have fade out as the waitress handed her and Harry the menu for drinks. Well, she doesn't drink but it gave her anxiety to even ask for some cold water. She'd gotten so used to ordering everything online, without having to interact with another human being.

"I, I, I will, uhhh..." YN looked at the menu again, "ummm... I, I'll have water please."

"Okay, would you like mineral water or regular water?" The waitress asked, completely disregarding that YN was stuttering and basically sweating.

"Any, any kind would be find. Just, just cold please." She tried to smile the best she could.

The waitress got taking Harry's order, with complete changes in demeanor. It made YN feel more insecure about herself. And maybe that girl was trying to flirt with him, which went completely ignored from his side. But that didn't YN at ease what so ever.

Harry was quick with his order. Maybe the waitress just wants to get back home soon tonight. It's weekend!

Maybe she's the problem here. Yeah!

"Harry?" She called quietly, trying to gulp the lump in her throat, "I, I jist need to, need to use the restroom, I'll be back."

"Okay." He nodded.

"I, I'll leave my purse here." She left her purse with him. In her mind she was letting him know she's not going to runaway, if that ever comes to his mind.

......................................................................

Harry sat there, waiting for his girlfriend. But it's been more than five minutes she's gone. Luckily she took her phone with her. So he tried to text but she was back.

"I'm sorry." Her nose was stuffy, like she cried.

"Hey, baby what's wrong?" He reached for her hand accross the table.

"I, I'm fine." She assured him.

When it was time to order again, YN was on the verge of having a heart attack there. Harry asked for another five minutes to look through the menu.

"Baby you sure, you're alright?" He asked again, "you seem all flustered. Your face has turned all red. Want to go somewhere else, or go back home?"

"I, I just..." YN was finding it very heavy to breathe there, "I want some fresh air. I don't know. I'm sorry."

"Hey, never apologise for wanting to get out of uncomfortable situation, okay?" He assured her, "we'll wait for the waitress to come back out and tell her we don't find anything interesting to eat on the menu, then we'll leave."

"Mhmm," she nodded with teary eyes.

......................................................................

Harry unlocked the door for his girl, like a gentleman he is he stood there with the door open to the passenger seat.

"I'm sorry about that." She mumbled.

"Hey, I told you it's alright." He assured her, "you want to go somewhere else to eat? We can go through the Burger King drive thru and I can order for you."

"I'm not hungry anymore." She shared, "I'll make you something to eat back home." That's when her tummy made a noise.

"Mhmm, I can hear that." He placed a delicate kiss on her forehead, "come on, get in."

......................................................................

"Here you go, Madam." Harry handed the bag of food to YN as he drove ahead and parked in the empty parking lot. "Are you still planning to go see your parents this summer? I mean, summer there at your place?"

"Mhmm." YN nodded talking a bite off her burger, "do you want to come along?"

"You're asking me to go see your parents?" He teased her.

"I have met your family, I want you to meet mine. Please?"

He could see now that she's getting comfortable, her anxiety vanishing away. Not that her parents don't know about him, they love him in fact. It's like they've adopted him. Especially YN's mum, she has sent loads of homemade goodies especially for him, her dad approves of him. Her little sisters are best friends with him now, they sent him little handmade birthday cards on his last two birthdays.

"Okay." He shrugged. "Are you going to show me around where you grew up?"

"Of course, of course!" She got excited, "I'll take you to my school, then we'll go see my college campus and take you to the local markets."

"Sounds fun, baby." He chuckled, "can't wait to go with you."

They sat there eating their fast food dinner, dressed as fancy as fancy can get. Harry's new playlist for YN playing in soft volume in the background.

"You alright now, lovie?" He enquired, "you want to talk about earlier?"

"I, I don't know what happened honestly." She stuttered, "I, I think I got a little, I, I think I was a bit claustrophobic in there. And uhhhh... the, the waitress was making me feel a little uneasy there."

Harry knew exactly what she was talking about. She got insecure there, he's well aware that the waitress was trying to flirt with him which he didn't not pay any mind to. He can also understand where YN is coming from on this.

"I'm glad you're feeling better now." He started, "and I didn't pay her a mind darling, if that's what you're trying to say. I know she was trying to flirt and all but I had and still have my eyes for you and you only. I hope I'm not assuming anything out of line here."

"No, no, you're not." She shook her head and took in a deep breath of relief. It felt like a weight being lifted off her shoulders. "You know it felt so good to finally be able to talk my feelings out and have someone understand me!"

"What about your therapy baby? Are you going anymore?" He got confused a little.

"I'm yet to find a therapist I can really talk to. I feel so judged, which is not right, right?" She looked and sounded very frustrated.

"Mhmm it's not right." He nodded, "do you feel like you can talk to me about anything which is bothering you?"

"Mhmm." She nodded, "I do."

"Then you know you can share anything and everything with me, baby. You know I want to be there for you. Whilst I can't offer you any professional help but you can still talk your heart out to me, hopefully talking helps you. I promise, and you know I'll listen to every word you say. Until you find a therapist who works with you, you can talk it out to me, yeah? If not we'll figure something or other out." His assuring words sure made her emotional there.

"I love you so much Harry!" YN leaned over the centre console to hug him tightly. "So much!"

"I love you so much too baby!" He reciprocated with a returning hug.

N O T E :

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Okay, I cried writing this.

I hope you liked reading this. Reviews are appreciated here, and they mean a lot to me. And pls leave a vote that helps me know that y'all are enjoying my work and I should continue.

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[homunculus-argument]

One fun way to give depth to characters that might otherwise be a bit too one-sided is to give them one exception to the rule they live by, in a way that doesn't detract from the plot or characterisation. A character who's all about being Fancy and Sophisticated is really into exactly one (1) trashy activity, food or music genre, a character who's all about being bold and brave is scared of ladybugs (but not other insects, just that specific one because for some reason those crawling red little beads are creepy to them), a character who's the worst person you've ever met has one specific thing they're moral and ethical about.

One of my book ideas had Beunir Fisher, the One Sane Man of the entire book who is constantly pointing out how idiotic everyone else is being. He doesn't take offense to people saying "fishers have no sense of honour", not because he'd agree with the idea that his people are without morals, but because he's seen too many good people getting themselves killed because they put honour before reason. If this is what "honour" means, then fuck it, he's glad and proud that fisher folk don't understand what it means. He's the angry mom friend yelling at everyone for making stupid choices.

Having grown up in the streets, pickpocketing for survival, he had never had money to spend. Clothes are just something you wear to protect you from the elements, and whatever you can manage to steal from an unattended clothesline and then wear to literal rags is good enough. Due to circumstances that are actually perfectly sensible in context, he ends up being raised from a stray into a baron, and he is informed that going about dressed in rags is no longer fit for his station. Being a sensible man, he doesn't argue this.

Visiting a tailor - who is delighted to figure out how to combine the elements of traditional fisher folk clothing with the correct fabrics and styles of the military nobility class - Beun spots a coat that he likes, being displayed in the shop as a demonstration of the tailor's skills. It's bright kingfisher blue and embroidered with a sparkling pattern that resembles the traditional nets that fisher folk used to make and use, so he says he wants something exactly like it, or for that particular coat to be tailored to fit him.

The tailor becomes embarrassed, explaining that the coat was originally commissioned by a tumbler from a performing circus troupe, who rejected the work for being too over the top and looking too flamboyant on stage. He can't let a baron walk out of his shop wearing something that was too ridiculous for a circus performer. Beun insists on it anyway, if he is the first husband to the first Fisher Baroness, then he gets to decide what is appropriate for a man of his kin and status to wear.

So he dons the coat, and nobody can say shit about it. Once he is re-united with his friends, their immediate question right after "holy shit, you're alive" is "what the fuck are you wearing." It turns out that when given the means and the opportunity to choose how to dress himself, the most logical, pragmatic and sensible man in the Empire who never made a single impulsive, impractical or frivolous choice in his life, has the most bizarre and ridiculous sense in fashion.

And nobody can tell him shit about it.

[abattre]

Can anyone become the Hokage outside of, like, blatant nepotism? Like the Konoha council just gets to decide who the next Kage is and the rest of the village has no say, there's no voting. The only requirement is apparently being strong, and yet the students or relatives of former Hokage's are the only ones ever considered for the position. Also, why does being able to kill the most people out of everyone mean they are qualified to be a politician and also the most powerful person ever because that reads as,,, very plainly a bad idea. Even outside of the megalomaniac complex that comes out of having that sort of physical power,,, just logistically no sane person wants someone comfortable with mass murder running their country. Literally every Hokage in OG/Shippuden has killed like dozens of people at the very least and doesn't seem very concerned or apologetic about any of that.

Do they even have the education to make them competent at lawmaking and running a country? Tsunade fucked off to drink and gamble for like twenty years, Minato thought putting a traumatised kid who watched his best friends die into black ops assassination work was somehow a sensible idea, and Hiruzen let Danzo do the most fucked up shit ever and apparently just didn't comprehend the concept of wellfare. Tobirama had the brains I guess but he was also very racist and thought human experimentation was an okay thing to be doing to people so I think an ethics course should have been a requirement at least maybe.

[arkiwii]

Kristen Arknights is giving me brainworms this cannot continue

Before Lone Trail, I was really convinced that "ah yeah so she's really evil", like what, she approved and conducted the Diabolic Experiment? She approved the experiment at Site #359 and was probably looking at the giant Hub from her window, presumably while eating popcorns, and when Saria arrived to scream at her "WHAT THE FUCK" Kristen just replied "Oh hey I knew you would solve it"? She also funded Loken's Watertank and collected his data on children experiments after he got arrested??

Any sane person would be calling her an egoist, a betrayer, a seeker, a loner

And yet, she was a pioneer.

Lone Trail dropped and now, I don't even know what to think anymore of this character. Like I don't approve what she has done, but also, I don't hate her. She put me into a state of mind I can't think straight anymore. This dog is TRULY fucked up.

She was obsessed, truly obsessed by her dream. She wanted to achieve what her parents had failed to do. She wanted to honor her family, to prove something to the world. To find the truth. To break the sky.

And she fucking did it. She absolutely did. She achieved it, she had done what nobody has ever done before. Regardless of the methods, regardless of morals and ethics, what she did was HUGE. That night, everyone on Terra looked up at the sky. She made a huge step forward, she revolutioned and changed things. The moment she pierced the starpod, a page in the history of the world had been turned, a new era has started. This event was major. And countless scientists will look up upon her, and for ages, her name will be praised.

And she did at what cost? Everything. Her own life, her friends.

I can't stop thinking about how much she tried to keep Saria away from her. I thought that Kristen was using Saria, that she didn't care about her, but actually it's... Something else. She does care about Saria, but it's Saria who was completely obsessed with Kristen. It's Saria who refused to let go. Of course, Saria devoted her life to protect Kristen, she wanted to stay with her until the very end. Kristen did not wanted it, she wanted Saria to continue to live on. It's her dream, and she's ready to die to achieve it. Not Saria's. Nor Muelsyse's.

I can't stop thinking about how she tried EVERYTHING to stop Saria. She studied her Arts, found ways to supress them, created Power Armors to neutralize them, she showed coldness to Saria to keep her away. But god, Saria was clingy as hell. If Kristen had to get to install a trap door in her spaceship SPECIFICALLY for Saria, that's to say how much Saria did not want to let go.

Saria was ready to die for Kristen, she was ready to stay with her until the very end. But Kristen always had in mind to go alone.

And in the end, she had to show Saria that she deserves to live, to continue, that there's still people who need her. Rhine Lab needs her. Ifrit needs her. Silence needs her. Rhodes Island needs her. She can't join Kristen like that. She can't die yet.

Even if Kristen was obsessed by her dream, she was still able to care enough for Saria and the people around her.

And god fucking damn I'm crying

Kristen is absolutely the best antagonist of all Arknights there's absolutely no way we can't do better, I'm standing on my ground

[bookishdaze]

Welcome To The Monkey House

I swear I didn't mean to write this much. I only wanted to know the title of the novel, but noooooo. I just had to overanalyze this single moment in the movie.

Remember this book Mae picks up?

I had to squint at this shot for longer than I'd like to admit. I could only see the author's first name, and I struggled to pick up the last name when Trevathan said it. Forget about making out the actual title. Fortunately, after a bit of digging, I found it! It's 'Welcome To The Monkey House' by Kurt Vonnegut. Very fitting, given Mae's circumstances. Welcome to the monkey house indeed, Mae, haha!

The book is a collection of 25 short stories, one of which is actually titled 'Welcome To The Monkey House.' Kurt Vonnegut is known for weaving satire and science fiction into his stories that explore themes and his criticisms of war, religion, science, and politics.

And so, like any normal, sane person would do, I whipped out my tinfoil hat and read the story with my POTA goggles on and tried to find any connections and similarities to Kingdom. Here's a link to a free PDF version for anyone curious.

First, a very quick summary.

Warning: It features sexual assault and a questionable portrayal of women. That's the 60s for you.

Earth is facing an overpopulation problem with 17 billion people. The world government decides to tackle this problem through two methods. One is through Ethical Suicide Parlors where people go to volunteer to be put to sleep. The other is the government mandating everyone take ethical birth control pills, which make one numb from the waist down. People are still able to reproduce, but the pleasure of sex has been taken away.

Nancy is a hostess at one of these parlors, and she's told by the local sheriff there's a criminal called Billy the Poet who is known for kidnapping hostesses and forcing them to have sex with him. He's a nothinghead, which is someone who doesn't take the ethical birth control pills. They're called nothingheads because they are "bombed out of their skulls with the sex madness."

Billy succeeds in kidnapping Nancy, waits for the effects of the ethical birth control pills to wear off, and takes her virginity. However, the story portrays this assault as a necessary evil. Billy's previous victims actually help him with kidnapping Nancy because they're grateful and understand why he did what he did to them. Billy is remorseful about what he did to Nancy, but he does it because he believes the law is wrong and this is the only way to make others understand.

It ends with Billy giving Nancy a bottle of normal birth control pills that will allow her to feel pleasure and not reproduce. The label on the bottle says Welcome to the Monkey House.

Okidoki! Now lets overanalyze this baby. I'm no Vonnegut expert, and I've only read this single story of his, so any Vonnegut enthusiasts will have to forgive me for any inaccuracies, lol.

Before I continue, I'm not saying this is necessarily what the filmmakers intended. They most likely included the book because of the title and they thought it was clever. The other most likely reason is that both Kurt Vonnegut and Pierre Boulle, the latter who is the author of the original Planet of the Apes novel, were writers who used scifi to explore themes of science and religion in their books. However, where's the fun in the simple answer? JOIN ME IN MY DELUSION!

Nancy Reminds Me Of Mae

Okay, kinda? They're two vastly different stories, but let me explain.

Both Mae and Nancy have been raised to believe the government is right on how to solve humanity's main problem, even if it's wrong. Mae believes the world belongs to humans and not apes, and will do whatever it takes to complete her mission that will help put humans back on top. Nancy believes nothingheadedness and sex are to blame for the world's problems, so people should follow the law and take the pills that strip them of their pleasure.

Mae and Nancy dislike people from another group. Mae has been raised to fear and hate apes. Nancy's disdain for nothingheads is apparent when after the effects of the ethical birth control pills had worn off, she tells her captors, "I may be a nothinghead now. But that doesn't mean I have to think like one or act like one."

Finally, Mae and Nancy's worldviews start to change after their encounter with a person from the other group. Mae believed apes are to be feared and despised, but meeting Noa challenges those beliefs. Nancy is shocked to learn that the women who helped Billy kidnap her had gone through the same thing, foreshadowing that Nancy's beliefs will change just like theirs. Both Mae and Nancy don't completely switch sides by the end, but seeds of doubt have been planted in their minds, and with time, will come to understand that what they've been raised to believe is wrong.

Welcome To The Monkey House Meaning

Okay, remember that label with the phrase Welcome To The Monkey House on the normal pills? Let me explain the reason for that.

The story explains how the ethical birth control pills were originally used on monkeys. The creator of the pills had decided to take his eleven children to the zoo's monkey house after church on Easter, but was appalled to find monkeys...um, well, playing with their little rocket, if ya know what I mean. This led him to create these pills for the monkeys so that visits to the monkey house are more appropriate. Now humans are mandated to take these same pills or risk jail.

So when Bill gives Nancy a bottle of normal birth control pills with the label Welcome To The Monkey House, it sounds like a call to join the other side. For Nancy to join the nothingheads. Join the ones that are seen as sick with sex madness, when in reality it's just normal human sexuality. The phrase suggests the nothingheads are like monkeys, inappropriate and out of control. Comparing other groups of people to animals is a common way to dehumanize them and portray them as evil, but in 'Welcome To The Monkey House,' the real dehumanization is stripping people of their sexual pleasure, an integral part of being human that is also observed in many animals, including monkeys and other primates.

Now if I were to continue drawing parallels between Mae and Nancy, the phrase Welcome To The Monkey House would quite literally mean just that for Mae. Mae would join the monkeys. Well, in this case, the apes. Through her relationship with Noa, she'll realize humans and apes are the same, and that she is no better or worse than this other group she sees as animals.

Okay, I'm Done.

One last thing. This part made me chuckle. Both Mae and Nancy are capable of choking people and breaking their necks, apparently!

[ach-sss-no]

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Boromir's response to the guard was chosen via poll. I never know what the internet will do, and in this case, the majority chose...

....sane and reasonable, the most surprising possible result on the internet! (boromir is not taking the audacious move of trying to get away with pretending he's not bringing another person into the town; but he is also not trying to explain gollum, which i suspect would only serve to confuse the guard and make gollum anxious.)

Needlessly long minutiae under the cut

I do not like to pick specific dates in this AU because I will get them wrong and I am a coward. But this is meant to be slightly into the Fourth Age.

Gollum has been ring-free and essentially in therapy for 4-5 years. There is related fanfiction if you want his situation explained in excruciating detail; all you need to know is that he's just here and has compellingly shown the other characters that he is no longer a threat. He does need care/supervision and can't be ethically released to the wild (primarily because he does not want to go). He's been living in Minas Tirith, if that wasn't clear.

Frodo has set sail, so I am sorry to say he will not be in this comic unless there are flashbacks to when he was still living on the continent. (Ditto everyone else who was on the boat with him)

This is also long enough post-Scouring that I thought Bree would be getting more relaxed about letting people in again, at least if it's just one dude and one hobbit and there are no visible weapons and they have a letter from Pippin Took, famed anti-bandit local hero. Boromir is still thinking about the bandit problem, though.

Staddle is a suburb of Bree to the east. I know this from LOTRO. If you were in Bree and you saw a hobbit turn up at the east gate, creature known to stay at home and not live east of the Misty Mountains, a hobbit, you would probably assume he was coming in from Staddle and not... Gondor, a place a zillion miles away that you've possibly never heard of, where there are no hobbits.

This is the website I got 'ramreth' from and if the site is accurate (it looks accurate) it literally does mean 'wall climber'. I'm not really a conlangs person <_<;

"I had a chance but did not take it" = In this universe where Boromir lives (and is ambulatory/can travel), Boromir was given the offer to travel with the other Fellowship members all the way to Bree if desired, but he left the group earlier than that for personal reasons (chiefly, not wanting another extended absence from Gondor) (but now he regrets that because it turns out there was bandits and also he had more limited opportunity to see certain people again in this life than he realized)

Anyway, if you read all that. Here's a poll, as a treat

[sephirthoughts]

The Ghost of Shinra Manor 👻

It's still spooky season till after Día de los Muertos so it's not technically late!

summary: It's been two years since the events of Dirge of Cerberus. Cloud visits his hometown, and investigates a rumor of a ghost, haunting Shinra Manor. If you're surprised by who it turns out to be, you are beyond my power to save, comrade.

tags: g-g-g-ghosts!!! sefikura, sephiroth x cloud, sane!sephiroth (sort of), post advent children, post dirge of cerberus, canon timeline, delusions, intermitten amnesia, low drama, enemies to…whatever the hell they have going on

NOTE: i was raised by outdoorsy, log cabin, roughing-it parents and there will be a lot of details about this type of living because that is what i like

warnings: references to death, PTSD, past abuse, etc. all of hojo's greatest hits, mention of animal death in the context of ethical subsistence hunting/fishing, canon-typical violence, technical nudity but i didn't describe anything so you'd have to imagine it yourself which is not on me, pervert

rating: teen and up [for now]

Part 1: Reunion

A big, black, Fenrir model motorcycle roared up the dirt road, leaving clouds of dust in its wake. Its golden-haired rider adjusted his goggles and pulled his black scarf up, over his nose and mouth. It was late spring, which was still mid-winter in the Nibel region, and as he drew nearer to the mountain, the wind grew colder and sharper, till it felt like it was full of tiny, icy needles.

He had a little hunting cabin, up there, that no one else knew about. They knew he went somewhere, it was just that he didn’t specify the location to anyone but Cid and Vincent, who had helped him fix the place up, and were sworn to secrecy.

Why didn’t he tell the others where it was? Why would he? He went there to be alone. To decompress, when the weight of people’s lives got too heavy to carry. When their voices began to cut into his skull like buzz-saws, and he felt the thread of his tolerance strained to the snapping point.

Even for a person with a normal brain and no life-altering trauma, things would have been claustrophobic, in their little house. Marlene and Denzel were underfoot every minute of the day, and their continued presence meant that when Cloud wasn’t out on long deliveries, he and Tifa had to share a bedroom. He couldn’t fall asleep, with another person in the room, though, so they didn’t use it at the same time. He was a night person, anyway. 

She tried to act like she wasn’t hurt by his refusal to share a bed with her, but she was a shit actress. He had attempted to make her feel better by explaining that he didn’t have those kinds of feelings for girls—or for anyone, really—but he could tell she didn’t really believe it. Or that she at least thought of it as something they could work on.

Everyone (except Vincent) thought that. That something was wrong with him, and that he’d get better, if they persevered in telling him so. The way he was didn't make sense to them, therefore it wasn't normal, therefore it was a problem that needed to be solved. Hooray for the neuro-typical majority.

No one ever asked Cloud what he thought. They just told him what he should think, and then made decisions for him. Most of the time, it was easier to just go along with it, especially since he didn’t want everyone to be mad at him. Them being mad at him meant they’d talk to him even more, and use louder voices. He hated that.

He should have insisted on getting his own place, a long time ago. He and Tifa had been playing house from necessity, at first, but there was nothing actually keeping them together, now, aside from habit. Habit and guilt.

Who knew when she started to think of it as a real family. As if she and Cloud were a mother and father, with a couple of kids. As absurd as that was. They were barely more than kids, themselves.

When Cid and Vincent got married, people got even more obnoxious with the hints and "jokes" about when him and Tifa were going to tie the knot. She’d act all embarrassed and explain that their relationship wasn’t like that, but she’d glance at him, with that look in her eyes, when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. 

He sighed, as he rounded a long curve in the road. He knew himself well enough to know that he’d probably wind up giving in and just marry her. Didn’t seem like a very happy ending, for either of them, but who got one of those, these days? 

It did seem like an especially shit deal for her, though. Marry the kid no one liked, from your backwater hometown, live in a shithole two-bedroom over a bar, slinging booze and taking care of two adopted kids, while your asexual husband spends most of his time away, for work. 

Asexuality was a spectrum, though, and Cloud was somewhere near the middle. It just wasn’t the heterosexual middle. He made an earnest effort, once, but he couldn’t get it up for a woman, no matter how hard he tried, and it just wound up being awful and making the girl cry.

Fucked a couple of guys back when he was a trooper, but that was rare. Not that there weren’t plenty of interested troopers and even SOLDIERs, it was just that he had never wanted any of them. What he had really wanted was Sephiroth. 

Cloud was nine years old, when he fell in love with the perfect face, that he saw on television and the recruiting posters, that were always plastered all over every vertical surface, in town. The obsession only grew stronger, as he grew older. 

He joined up as soon as they’d take him, at age fourteen. The training was miserable and grueling, but he gritted his teeth and worked his ass off, keeping his idol firmly in his sights. Whenever the opportunity came up, he applied to the SOLDIER program. For all his diligent efforts, he met with rejection after rejection.

Several years passed, that way, with disappointment weighing ever more heavily on his heart. But just when he was losing hope that he’d ever meet the object of his worship face to face, he was assigned to a mission with the silver soldier himself. Wouldn’t you know it, that mission was to check on the reactor, in his very own hometown. 

They say never to meet your heroes, but the implication is that you’ll be disappointed. Cloud was not disappointed. Sephiroth was everything he had ever imagined, and more. Ten times more beautiful, and a hundred times stronger and faster. His legendary height was one thing to know logically, and another thing entirely to experience in person. He was literally superhuman.

And yet, despite his angelic appearance and godlike strength, he wasn’t arrogant or demanding, at all. He was thoughtful and soft-spoken, and obviously cared for his subordinates. He asked their opinions, and actually listened. Encouraged them, rather than berating them. He even learned and called them by their first names. It was the most humanely Cloud had been treated by any superior, apart from Zack.

Following those two around, on that mission, Cloud fell more hopelessly in love with his silver-haired deity, than ever. He loved Sephiroth with his whole young soul. Right up to the moment he watched that famous blade pierce his mother’s heart. 

Cloud Strife died, that night, as surely as Claudia had, and whatever this thing was, that he had become, was born. This thing capable of killing gods and monsters. This thing that survived years in a mako tank, being tortured by that bastard Hojo. This thing that had absorbed Zack’s memories, and remembered everything but Zack. This thing that hated Sephiroth, with every fiber of its being. Hated him as much as Cloud had loved him.

The sun was low in the sky, behind a blanket of grey clouds, when he finally pulled up to the clearing, where his unassuming cabin was tucked away.

He swung his leg off the saddle, then he winced and clutched his chest. His heart had been aching more and more as he approached Nibelheim. Not in the metaphorical sense, because of the tragedies he’d been through there—it was actual, physical pain.

He wasn’t exactly sure when it started, though, bcause he was so used to pain, it just got shoved to the back of his mind. Which it did again, now. It wasn’t bad enough to incapacitate him, so he ignored it, and unbuckled the leather panniers, which he slung over his shoulder.  

The cabin was locked up tight, just like he left it, with all the traps and wards in place. Not surprising. No one came up this way, anymore, since the reactor shut down.

Fortunately, the cabin didn’t need the reactor, for power. He’d bought an old, Wutaian, nuclear generator, to heat the water and supply electricity, and hooked it up with Cid's help. Thing was expensive as hell, but it was quiet, reliable, and would last literally forever. 

He stepped inside and typed in a code on a wall panel. When the generator hummed to life, he switched the electric lights on, and took a look around. The place was a little dusty, since he hadn’t been there since last summer, but otherwise, everything was just how he left it. 

It was a simple, single-room cabin. Nothing fancy, except he and Cid had redone the insulation and added the electrical wiring. Water came from a dedicated well, deep enough to take advantage of the Nibel region’s unique geothermal situation, and not freeze.  

There was a bed in one corner, with a frame of roughhewn logs, and a cedar trunk at the foot, where the blankets and pillows were stored. The bathroom door and the kitchen were on the other side (just a stove, small refrigerator, a few cabinets, and a sink), and the fireplace was central. In the opposite corner to the bed, there was a steel camp table, with two folding chairs, as if he’d ever have a guest here.

He tossed his panniers on the bed and went right back out to carry in firewood. Supply was getting low. The cupboards were pretty barren, too, but he’d go into town tomorrow to stock up on canned and dry goods. Those were just a supplement to the main source of food, up here, which was hunting.

When he was a kid, hunting was a long and grueling ordeal, with uncertain payoff. Now, augmented by Sephiroth’s cells and whatever else Hojo did to him in that lab, it was as easy as a trip to the grocery store. He left and returned with a brace of rabbits, within half an hour. It was late spring, so they were already nice and fat, too. 

With the ruthless efficiency of a seasoned survival hunter, he skinned, cleaned, and washed them, and set them roasting on the iron spit, over his little hearth. He was out of anything resembling spices, but the meat was good enough roasted, with just a little salt. 

That night, as he lay in bed, that ache in his chest seemed to grow worse, and made him toss and turn restlessly. When he finally drifted off, he dreamed of being impaled on Masamune and lifted into the air. Sephiroth’s green cat-eyes, staring up at him, with that deranged smile on his beautiful face. Black feathers fell like snow all around him.

I will never be a memory…

In the morning, Cloud went into town. Despite the reactor being shut down, Nibelheim was more lively than ever. With no Shinra, there was no one to pay mortgages to, so the residents weren’t eager to leave the homes which now belonged to them, free and clear. Then the WRO came in and added infrastructure, opened a school and clinic, and paid subsidies to local shepherds and artisans and the like, so the little town was actually prospering. 

“Howdy, Mr. Strife!” the round-faced, balding man at the general goods store said cheerfully, when Cloud brought his purchases to the counter. “Been nigh on a year, since I seen ya. Stayin’ a while?”

“Little while,” Cloud answered noncommittally. “How are things, in town? Anything needs looking into, while I’m here?”

The man scratched his chin. “Nothin’ particular. Just the usual rumors, is all. Monsters in the woods. Creepy things goin’ on at the old manor. That kinda thing.”

“Let me guess. The vampire, again?”

“Nah, nah, ain’t heard nothin’ about that fella in a long time. These days, it’s a ghost.”

“Fiends, or something else?”

“Folks are sayin’ it’s the ghost of a woman, with long, white hair. Don’t do nothin’ but wander around inside the manor, wailin’ and moanin’. They say if you go over there, at night, you can hear her, but if she catches ya snoopin’ around, she sucks out your soul.”

Cloud snorted. “Sounds like the usual bullshit.”

“You ain’t kiddin’!” the man laughed. “Folks got too much time and not enough to do, these days, so they get to tellin’ tales. Y’never know what they’ll say, next. Maybe devils or goblins.”

“Well, if it keeps kids away from the manor, the ghost stories are probably for the better. It’s a dangerous place,” Cloud said, taking his full grocery bags. “I’ll be heading over there, tonight, to clear out any monsters that may have got in, over the winter. I’ll be sure to look out for the ghost.”

“Haha, you do that! Have a good one, Mr. Strife!”

Despite his reticence and flat indifference to overtures of friendship, Cloud was rather popular with Nibelheim’s current residents, because whenever he was in town, he’d deal with any local wildlife problems. Even if no one had anything pressing, he always checked Shinra Manor, since the ruins attracted a lot of monsters, and if they started establishing nests, they could pose a real threat to the townsfolk. 

He spent the rest of the day chopping and stacking firewood, fishing using a thundaga materia and a net (which was technically cheating, but he was fishing for food, not sport), and scouting around for signs of dens, near the town. When the sun got low, he strapped on his sword and began the short, two-mile hike to Shinra Manor.

When he emerged from the woods, on the bumpy, neglected dirt road, it was already dark. The hulking ruin of the house loomed like the desiccated corpse of some titanic beast, off in the darkness, behind the bent and rusted iron fence. Cloud kicked the creaking gates open and strode in.

The property was overgrown with brambles and sedge grass, and ugly, grey vines, with huge thorns covered much of the half-collapsed structure. The front doors had long fallen off the hinges, so the entrance was just a yawning, black hole, like the mouth of a tomb. 

Cloud faltered and clutched his chest, as he approached the house, but not for any fear of the supernatural. He’d killed too many supernatural creatures to care about even the biggest and vilest ones. Besides, he knew firsthand that the scariest thing in Shinra Manor had been a living human being, named Hojo. 

It was just that the pain in the area of his heart had gotten steadily worse, on the walk here, and now it was throbbing insistently, aching so badly it was getting hard to ignore it.

What the hell could it be? He’d chopped wood and done other physical labor all day, without noticing it. Why was it getting worse, now, after a relatively light walk? 

He was thinking about this, in mild annoyance, when he heard a noise inside the house. In the blink of an eye, his sword flashed out and he shifted into combat mode, all senses on alert. 

As he stepped inside, the stench of dry-rot hit him in the face, like a wool blanket. He paused and surveyed the area. It was pretty dark, in here, but he had excellent night-vision, so it was more like dim twilight, to him. 

The noise was coming from the upper level, somewhere. A rasping sound, like dry corn husks scraping the walls. Every once in a while, there was a burst of creepy cackling. His lip curled. He knew exactly what that was. 

The main stairwell had collapsed, so he leapt lightly up to the landing on the next level, and stalked down the hall. Around the corner, the doors to all the rooms (which were miraculously intact), were closed tight. The scraping sound was coming from…pretty much all of them. How did those things manage to get into the rooms and shut the doors behind them?

“Dumbshits,” he grumbled, and kicked the first door open. 

Sure enough, a bunch of floating fiends, with markings like stupid jack-o-lantern faces on their balloon-like air-sacs, were bobbing around the room cackling at each other. When the door exploded inward, they shrieked and rushed at Cloud. With a casual swing of his sword, he obliterated all of them at once. 

Their dying howls riled up the ones in the other rooms. Apparently they couldn’t figure out how to get out, though, so they just rasped and thudded around, cackling like idiots. Cloud kicked the next door down and blasted those ones, too. 

He repeated this process, for each room, making his way down the hall, till he reached the room with the secret passage, to the basement levels. There was no noise from this one. He tried the knob. It clicked easily, and the door swung open, with a hollow creak. 

No fiends in here, but the passage to the basement was open. He’d better go down there and clear out anything else, that might be lurking. Monsters loved dark, dank places like that.

Slapping his sword back onto the magnetic holder, he hopped down the black hole, and landed on a stone floor, three full stories below. 

The impact of his boots was still echoing in the stone-walled chamber, when he heard it. A low, eerie moan, that seemed to come from somewhere far off. At the same time, that pain split through his chest like a crack of thunder, making him grab his heart and gasp for breath. 

The moan stretched out into a wail, rising in pitch and wavering, before it dwindled again. The sound sent chills racing up his spine. Things like ghosts and monsters held no terror for him, but this was different. He wouldn’t even call it fear. It was more like…a rush of numinous awe.  

He threw a firaga burst, to light a couple of the torches on the wall, and surveyed the crypt. Vincent’s coffin was gone. The others had been tossed about and smashed to bits. Bones littered the floor.

Step by step, he descended deeper into the basement. Toward that old library. Toward that horrible place, where he was stuck with needles and probes, cut open and sewn back together, had his eyes blinded with chemicals and his lungs filled with burning mako, till his throat was too scorched and raw, to even beg for death.

His stomach churned and cold sweat was beading on his forehead, but he kept going, compelled by that ghastly moaning and the splitting pain in his chest.

He passed through the library, still scattered all over with heaps of old books, smelling heavily of their musty scent. The door was open, on the other side. The moaning had turned into a low whimpering, punctuated with choking sobs. It didn’t sound like a woman’s voice, though.

Drawing his sword again, and clenching his teeth against the agonizing ache in his heart, he stepped into the next chamber, all his hyper-tuned senses on high alert. There were collapsed pillars and scorch marks, and slashes made by huge claws in the stone walls, from their fight with Vincent, in his beast form. 

Along the far wall, were several heavy, steel doors, with locking bars on the outside. The one the noise was coming from was ajar. It wasn’t the lab he’d been confined in. It was on the opposite end of the long chamber—the one with those strange vats, labeled Project-S, which Vincent had taken umbrage to them entering, back then. 

Cloud pushed the door the rest of the way open and scanned the room. In the inky, underground darkness, even his night-vision was pushed to the limits, and he could only see very dimly, but it was enough to spot the source of the noise. 

It was a naked, ash-white, human figure, curled up in the corner of the room, trembling and whimpering. Its pallid body seemed insubstantial, almost transparent at the edges, like it was fading out of reality. That was probably just an illusion, brought on by the heavy darkness.

He used a materia to summon a little ball of light, and as the white glow filled the room, the figure gave a hoarse cry and curled up tighter.

Cloud squinted at it. This must be the ghost, people claimed was haunting the place, but why would they say it was a woman? Its back was to him and its head was down, wrapped up protectively in its arms, but he could see that it was a man, from the broadness and muscularity of the shoulders.

“N—no, please,” the ghost stammered, in a weak half-whisper. “Please, don’t hurt me. I’ll be good. I won’t…I won’t ask about her anymore, I promise. Please.”

“Hey. What’s wrong with you?” Cloud said. 

His own voice startled him, sounding solid and very loud, compared to the feeble murmurs of the ghost, which were muted and distorted, as if Cloud was hearing them through water.

“No, g—go away! Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!” the thing wailed, as Cloud stepped closer. 

“Will you shut up and listen to me?” Cloud said, keeping the sword trained on the huddled figure. 

The ghost’s piteous pleas cut off abruptly, but it kept trembling and cowering. 

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Cloud soothed. “Calm down, ok? What are you doing here? Did you get lost?”

Hesitantly, the figure lifted its head. 

Cloud’s heart stopped.

Time seemed to stop.

Long, silver hair hung over the ghastly-white face, and cascaded to the floor, pooling around its bare feet, like water. From between the moon-colored strands, pale-blue eyes peered up at him, with slit, catlike pupils. 

“Who…who are you?”

[lifesteal-headcanons]

I have had some ideas for a SCP and Frankenstein au... Basically, it's a foundation with a bunch of lifestealers but like some of the members are creatures and some of them are (very sane, and ethical) scientists.

Currently I have 2 situations with people, so the first one is that Squiddo is researching a glitch illness (the secret is that she has it and its like totally making her a freaky creature (watcher type thing), but doesn't tell anyone, she also has some clones that help her) and she just got transferred to a team lead by Red that's researching Ash because he has it. (Reds totally not planning to break Ash out, a Squiddo clone will probably still keep tabs on them after the escape) .

The second is that this place recently got a guy who like seems normal but also totally isn't (branzy) and the head researcher for his case is Clown and he like down bad... (Branzy will probably use the chaos when Ash escapes to also escape then will meet up with Clown on the outside and hid in his house.)

I really just want an excuse to make some people do really unethical science (Clown's doing experiments on himself for personal gain and Squiddo's not experimenting with the fabric of reality at all)

.