#like i know in the us we have so many mass shootings they all have kind of faded into the noise

[master-gatherer]

"no one's going to post how they firebombed a Walmart on a public platform 🙄" if you successfully firebombed a Walmart I think we'd all hear about it even if you don't post a full breakdown online

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Predicting the present

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/09/radicalized/#deny-defend-depose

Back in 2018, around the time I emailed my immigration lawyer about applying for US citizenship, I started work on a short story called "Radicalized," which eventually became the title story of a collection that came out in 2019:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250228598/radicalized/

"Radicalized" is a story about America, and about guns, and about health care, and about violence. I live in Burbank, which is ranks second in gun-stores-per-capita in the USA, a dubious honor that represents a kind of regulatory arbitrage with our neighboring goliath, the City of Los Angeles, where gun store licensing is extremely tight. If you're an Angeleno in search of a firearm, you're almost certainly coming to Burbank to buy it.

Walking, cycling and driving past more gun stores than I'd ever seen in my Canadian life got me thinking about Americans and guns, a subject that many Canadians have passed comment upon. Americans kill each other, and especially themselves, at rates that baffle everyone else in the world, and they do it with guns. When we moved here, my UK born-and-raised daughter came home from her first elementary school lockdown drill perplexed and worried. Knowing what I did about US gun violence, I understood that while school shootings and other spree killings happened with dismal and terrifying regularity, they only accounted for a small percentage of the gun deaths here. If you die with a bullet in you, the chances are that the finger on the trigger was your own. The next most likely suspect is someone you know. After that, a cop. Getting shot by a stranger out of uniform is something of a rarity here – albeit a spectacular one that captures our imaginations in ways that deliberate or accidental self-slayings and related-party shootings do not.

So I told her, "Look, you can basically ignore everything they tell you during those lockdown drills, because they almost certainly have nothing to do with your future. But if a friend ever says to you, 'Hey, wanna see my dad's gun?' I want you to turn around and leave and get in touch with me right away, that instant."

Guns turn the murderous impulse – which, let's be honest, we've all felt at some time or another – into a murderous act. Same goes for suicide, which explains the high levels of non-accidental self-shootings in the USA: when you've got a gun, the distance between suicidal ideation and your death is the ten feet from the sofa to the gun in the closet.

Americans get angry at people and then, if they have a gun to hand, sometimes they shoot them. In a thread /r/Burbank about how people at our local cinemas are rude and use their phones in which someone posted, "Well, you should just ask them to stop." The reply: "That's a great way to get shot." No one chimed in to say, "Don't be ridiculous, no one would shoot you for asking them to put away their phone during a movie." Same goes for "road rage."

And while Americans shoot people they've only just gotten angry at, they also sometimes plan shooting sprees and kill a bunch of people because they're just generically angry. Being angry about the state of the world is a completely relatable emotion, of course, but the targets of these shootings are arbitrary. Sure sometimes these killings have clear, bigoted targets – mass shootings at Black supermarkets or mosques or synagogues or gay bars – more often the people who get sprayed with bullets (at country and western concerts or elementary schools or movie theaters) are almost certainly not the people the gunman (almost always a man) is angry at.

This line of thought kept surfacing as I went through the immigration process, but not just when I was dealing with immigration paperwork. I was also spending an incredible amount of time dealing with our health insurer, Cigna, who kept refusing treatments my pain doctor – one of the most-cited pain researchers in the country – thought I would benefit from. I've had chronic pain since I was a teenager, and it's only ever gotten worse. I've had decades of pain care in Canada and the UK, and while the treatments never worked for very long, it was never compounded by the kinds of bureaucratic stuff I went through with my US insurer.

The multi-hour phone calls with Cigna that went nowhere would often have me seeing red – literally, a red tinge closing in around my vision – and usually my hands would be shaking by the time I got off the call.

And I had it easy! I wasn't terminally ill, and I certainly wasn't calling in on behalf of a child or a spouse or parent who was seriously ill or dying, whose care was being denied by their insurer. Bernie's 2016 Medicare For All campaign promise had filled the air with statistics (Americans pay more for care and get worse outcomes than anyone else in the rich world), and stories. So many stories – stories that just tore your heart out, about parents who literally had to watch their children die because the insurance they paid for refused to treat their kids. As a dad, I literally couldn't imagine how I'd cope in that situation. Just thinking about it filled me with rage.

One day, as I was swimming in the community pool across the street – a critical part of my pain management strategy – I was struck with a thought: "Why don't these people murder health insurance executives?" Not that I wanted them to. I don't want anyone to kill anyone. But why do American men who murder their wives and the people who cut them off in traffic and random classrooms full of children leave the health insurance industry alone? This is an industry that is practically designed to fill the people who interact with it with uncontrollable rage. I mean, if you're watching your wife or your kid die before your eyes because some millionaire CEO decided to aim for a $10 billion stock buyback this year instead of his customary $9 billion target, wouldn't you feel that kind of murderous rage?

Around this time, my parents came out for a visit from Canada. It was a great trip, until one night, my mom woke me up after midnight: "We have to take your father to the ER. He's really sick." He was: shaking, nauseated, feverish. We raced down the street to the local hospital, part of a gigantic chain that has swallowed nearly all the doctors' practices, labs and hospitals within an hour's drive of here.

Dad had kidney stones, and they'd gone septic. When the ER docs removed the stones, all the septic gunk in his kidneys was flushed into his bloodstream, and he crashed. If he hadn't been in an ER recovery room at the time, he would have died. As it was, he was in a coma for three days and it was touch and go. My brother flew down from Toronto, not sure if this was his last chance to see our dad alive. The nurses and doctors took great care of my dad, though, and three days later, he emerged from his coma, and today, he's better than ever.

But on day two, when we thought he was probably at the end of his life, as my mother sat at his side, holding the hand of her husband of fifty years, someone from the hospital billing department came to her side and said, "Mrs Doctorow, I know this is a difficult time, but I'd like to discuss the matter of your husband's bill with you."

The bill was $176,000. Thankfully, the travel medical insurance plan offered by the Ontario Teachers' Union pension covered it all (I don't suppose anyone gets very angry with them).

How do people tolerate this? Again, not in the sense of "people should commit violent acts in the face of these provocations," but rather, "How is it that in a country filled with both assault rifles and unimaginable acts of murderous cruelty committed by fantastically wealthy corporations, people don't leap from their murderous impulses to their murderous weapons to commit murderous acts?

For me, writing fiction is an accretive process. I can tell that a story is brewing when thoughts start rattling around in my mind, resurfacing at odd times. I think of them as stray atoms, seeking molecules with available docking sites to glom onto. I process all my emotions – but especially my negative ones – through this process, by writing stories and novels. I could tell that something was cooking, but it was missing an ingredient.

Then I found it: an interview with the woman who coined the term "incel." It was on the Reply All podcast, and Alana, a queer Canadian woman explained that she had struggled all her life to find romantic and sexual partnership, and jokingly started referring to herself as "involuntarily celibate," and then, as an "incel":

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/76h59o

Alana started a message board where other "incels" could offer each other support, and it was remarkably successful. The incels on Alana's message board helped each other work through the problems that stood between them and love, and when they did, they drifted away from the board to pursue a happier life.

That was the problem, Alana explained. If you're in a support group for people with a drinking problem, the group elders, the ones who've been around forever, are the people who've figured it out and gotten sober. When life seems impossible, those elders step in to tell you, I know it's terrible right now, but it'll get better. I was where you are and I got through it. You will, too. I'm here for you. We all are.

But on Alana's incel board, the old timers were the people who couldn't figure it out. They were the ones for whom mutual support and advice didn't help them figure out what they needed to do in order to find the love they sought. The longer the message board ran, the more it became dominated by people who were convinced that it was hopeless, that love was impossible for the likes of them. When newbies posted in rage and despair, these Great Old Ones were there to feed it: You're right. It will never get better. It only gets worse. There is no hope.

That was the missing piece. My short story Radicalized was born. It's a story about men on a message board called Fuck Cancer Right In the Fucking Face (FCKRFF, or "Fuckriff"), who are watching the people they love the most in the world be murdered by their insurance companies, who egg each other on to spectacular acts of mass violence against health insurance company employees, hospital billing offices, and other targets of their rage. As of today, anyone can read this story for free, courtesy of my publishers at Macmillan, who gave permission for the good folks at The American Prospect to post it:

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-12-09-radicalized-cory-doctorow-story-health-care/

I often hear from people about this story, even before an unknown (at the time of writing) man assassinated Brian Thompson, CEO of Unitedhealthcare, the murderous health insurance monopoly that is the largest medical insurer in the USA. Since then, hundreds of people have gotten in touch with me to ask me how I feel about this turn of events, how it feels to have "predicted" this.

I've been thinking about it for a few days now, and I gotta tell you, I have complicated feelings.

You've doubtless seen the outpourings of sarcastic graveyard humor about Thompson's murder. People hate Unitedhealthcare, for good reason, because he personally decided – or approved – countless policies that killed people by cheating them until they died.

Nurses and doctors hate Thompson and United. United kills people, for money. During the most acute phase of the pandemic, the company charged the US government $11,000 for each $8 covid test:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/06/137300-pct-markup/#137300-pct-markup

UHC leads the nation in claims denials, with a denial rate of 32% (!!). If you want to understand how the US can spend 20% of its GDP and get the worst health outcomes in the world, just connect the dots between those two facts: the largest health insurer in human history charges the government a 183,300% markup on covid tests and also denies a third of its claims.

UHC is a vertically integrated, murdering health profiteer. They bought Optum, the largest pharmacy benefit manager ("A spreadsheet with political power" -Matt Stoller) in the country. Then they starved Optum of IT investment in order to give more money to their shareholders. Then Optum was hacked by ransomware gang and no one could get their prescriptions for weeks. This killed people:

https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/malicious-threat-actor-accesses-unitedhealth-groups-monopolistic-data-exchange-harming-patients-and-pharmacists/#

The irony is, Optum is terrible even when it's not hacked. The purpose of Optum is to make you pay more for pharmaceuticals. If that's more than you can afford, you die. Optum – that is, UHC – kills people:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/23/shield-of-boringness/#some-men-rob-you-with-a-fountain-pen

Optum isn't the only murderous UHC division. Take Navihealth, an algorithm that United uses to kick people out of their hospital beds even if they're so frail, sick or injured they can't stand or walk. Doctors and nurses routinely watch their gravely ill patients get thrown out of their hospitals. Many die. UHC kills them, for money:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-08-16-steward-bankruptcy-physicians-private-equity/

The patients murdered by Navihealth are on Medicare Advantage. Medicare is the public health care system the USA extends to old people. Medicare Advantage is a privatized system you can swap your Medicare coverage for, and UHC leads the country in Medicare Advantage, blitzing seniors with deceptive ads that trick them into signing up for UHC Medicare Advantage. Seniors who do this lose access to their doctors and specialists, have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for their medication, and get hit with $400 surprise bills to use the "free" ambulance service:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-12-05-manhattan-medicare-murder-mystery/

No wonder the public spends 22% more subsidizing Medicare Advantage than they spend on the care for seniors who stick with actual Medicare:

https://theconversation.com/taxpayers-spend-22-more-per-patient-to-support-medicare-advantage-the-private-alternative-to-medicare-that-promised-to-cost-less-241997

It's not just the elderly, it's also the addicted and mentally ill. UHC illegally denies coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment. Imagine watching a family member spiral out of control, ODing, or ending up on the streets with hallucinations, and knowing that the health insurance company that takes thousands of dollars out of your paycheck refused to treat them:

https://www.startribune.com/unitedhealthcare-will-pay-15-7m-in-settlement-of-denial-of-care-charges/600087607

Unsurprising, the internal culture at UHC is callous beyond belief. How could it not be? How could you go to work at UHC and know you were killing people and not dehumanize those victims? A lawsuit by chronically ill patient whom UHC had denied care for surfaced recorded phone calls in which UHC employees laughed long and hard about the denied claims, dismissing the patient's desperate, tearful pleas as "tantrums" :

https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-insurance-denial-ulcerative-colitis

Those UHC workers are just trying to get by, of course, and the callouses they develop so they can bear to go to work were ripped off by last week's murder. UHC's executive team knows this, and has gone on a rampage to stop employees from leaking their own horror stories, or even mentioning that the internal company announcement of Thompson's death was seen by 16,000 employees, of whom only 28 left a comment:

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/unitedhealthcare-tells-employees

Doctors and nurses hate UHC on behalf of their patients, but it's also personal. UHC screws doctor's practices by refusing to pay them, making them chase payments for months or even years, and then it offers them a payday lending service that helps them keep the lights on while they wait to get paid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frr4wuvAB6U

Is it any surprise that Reddit's nursing forums are full of nurses making grim, satisfied jokes about the assassination of the $10m/year CEO who ran the $400b/year corporation that does all this?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/leading-medical-subreddit-deletes-thread-on-unitedhealthcare-ceos-murder-after-users-slam-his-record/

We're not supposed to experience – much less express – schadenfreude when someone is murdered in the street, no matter who they are. We're meant to express horror at the idea of political violence, even when that violence only claims a single life, a fraction of the body count UCH produced under Thompson's direction. As Malcolm Harris put it, "'Every life is precious' stuff about a healthcare CEO whose company is noted for denying coverage is pretty silly":

https://twitter.com/BigMeanInternet/status/1864471932386623753

As Woody Guthrie wrote, "Some will rob you with a six-gun/And some with a fountain pen." The weapon is lethal when it's a pistol and when it's an insurance company. The insurance company merely serves as an accountability sink, a layer of indirection that lets a murder happen without any person being the technical murderer:

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

I don't want people to kill insurance executives, and I don't want insurance executives to kill people. But I am unsurprised that this happened. Indeed, I'm surprised that it took so long. It should not be controversial to note that if you run an institution that makes people furious, they will eventually become furious with you. This is the entire pitch of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century: that wealth concentration leads to corruption, which is destabilizing, and in the long run it's cheaper to run a fair society than it is to pay for the guards you'll need to keep the guillotines off your lawn:

https://memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-the-21st-century/

But we've spent the past 40 years running in the other direction, maximizing monopolies, inequality and corruption, and gaslighting the public when they insist that this is monstrous and unfair. Back in 2022, when UHC was buying Change Healthcare – the dominant payment network for hospitals, which would allow UHC to surveil all its competitors' payments – the DOJ sued to block the merger. The Trump-appointed judge in the case, Carl Nichols – who owned tens of thousands of dollars in UHC bonds – ruled against the DOJ, saying that it would all be fine thanks to United's "culture of trust and integrity":

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-antitrust-shooting-war-has-started

We don't know much about Thompson's killer yet, but he's already becoming a folk hero, with lookalike contests in NYC:

https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/1865472577478553976

And gigantic graffiti murals praising him and reproducing the words he wrote on the shell casings of the bullets he used to kill Thompson, "delay, deny, depose":

https://www.tumblr.com/radicalgraff/769193188403675136/killin-fuckin-ceos-freight-graff-in-the-bay

I get why this is distasteful. Thompson is said to have been a "family man" who loved his kids, and I have no reason to disbelieve this. I can only imagine that his wife and kids are shattered by this. Every living person is the apex of a massive project involving dozens, hundreds of people who personally worked to raise, nurture and love them. I wrote about this in my novel Walkaway, as the characters consider whether to execute a mercenary sent to kill them, whom they have taken hostage:

She had parents. People who loved her. Every human was a hyper-dense node of intense emotional and material investment. Speaking meant someone had spent thousands of hours cooing to you. Those lean muscles, the ringing tone of command — their inputs were from all over the world, carefully administered. The merc was more than a person: like a spaceship launch, her existence implied thousands of skilled people, generations of experts, wars, treaties, scholarship and supply-chain management. Every one of them was all that.

But so often, the formula for "folk hero" is "killing + time." The person who terrorizes the people who terrorize you is your hero, and eventually we sanitize the deaths, and just remember them as fighters for justice. If you doubt it, consider the legend of Robin Hood:

https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/1865554985842352501

The health industry is trying to put a lid on this, palpably afraid that – as in my story "Radicalized" – this one murderer will become a folk hero who inspires others to acts of spectacular violence. They're insisting that it's unseemly to gloat about Thompson's death. They're right, but this is an obvious loser strategy. The health industry is full of people whose deaths would be deplorable, but not unsurprising. As Clarence Darrow had it:

I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.

Murder is never the answer. Murder is not a healthy response to corruption. But it is healthy for people to fear that if they kill people for greed, they will be unsafe. On December 5 – the day after Thompson's killing – the health insurer Anthem announced that it would not pay for anesthesia for medical procedures that ran long. The next day, they retracted the policy, citing "outrage":

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/05/health/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-anesthesia-claim-limits/index.html

Sure, maybe it was their fear of reputation damage that got them to decide to reverse this inhumane, disgusting, murderous policy. But maybe it was also someone in the C-suite thinking about what share of the profits from this policy would have to be spent on additional bodyguards for every Anthem exec if it went into effect, and decided that it was a money-loser after all.

Think about hospital exec Ralph de la Torre, who cheerfully testified to Congress that he'd killed patients in pursuit of profit. De la Torre clearly doesn't fear any kind of consequences for his actions. He owns hospitals that are filled with tens of thousands of bats (he stiffed the exterminators), where none of the elevators work (he stiffed the repair techs), where there's no medicine or blood (he stiffed the suppliers) and where the doctors and nurses can't make rent (he stiffed them too). De La Torre doesn't just own hospitals – he also owns a pair of superyachts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/#charnel-house

It is a miracle that so many people have lost their mothers, sons, wives and husbands so Ralph de la Torre could buy himself another superyacht, and that those people live in a country where you can buy an assault rifle, and that Ralph de la Torre isn't forced to live in a bunker and travel in a tank.

It's a rather beautiful sort of miracle, to be honest. I like to think that it comes from a widespread belief by the people of this country I have since become a citizen of, that we should solve our problems politically, rather than with bullets.

But the assassination of Brian Thompson is a wake-up call, a warning that if we don't solve this problem politically, we may not have a choice about whether it's solved with violence. As a character in "Radicalized" says, "They say violence never solves anything, but to quote The Onion: that's only true so long as you ignore all of human history":

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-12-09-radicalized-cory-doctorow-story-health-care/

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

Been thinking a lot about how lesbians have to pretend they never experience any adverse feelings to rejection in order to avoid the "predator" stereotype. When we get rejected by a straight woman or even just get hit with the reality that most women are straight, we're not allowed to be upset or angry or hurt about it.

I am not saying that lesbians should be allowed to verbally abuse a straight woman for saying no, but I don't feel like we're allowed to be angry at all. Even privately. Having those feelings at all makes us 'bad'.

The truth is that it very much so sucks to watch women you love choose men over you. It sucks to know that no matter how attractive and sweet and kind you are, most women will simply not be attracted to you in the slightest and there's nothing you can do about it. It sucks to know that men get to freely love women while you have to hide from bigots. It sucks to have strong, tender feelings for women that they simply do not return.

It's perfectly normal to feel deep sadness and anger over this. I'm talking bubbling violent anger that leaves you feeling like you're a descendant of the Greek goddess Lyssa. Wishing deeply that your feelings for women were returned doesn't make you a predator. Having extremely negative feelings towards the men that catch your crush's attention doesn't make you a bad person. That is all incredibly normal.

Straight men get rejected one too many times and commit mass shootings... You feeling private rage doesn't make you a bad person at all.

I just really hate that it seems like the only appropriate reaction lesbians are allowed to have to heartbreak is demure acceptance.

[emeraldstorms]

Born Again Trailer and Foggy

Under the cut, I will be addressing rumors, leaks and (potential) spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again.

I have been doom-posting about Foggy’s fate in DDBA as much as the next person. If he dies, I will curse everyone involved. delete my NMCU based fics and art and demand nobody talk to me about the MCU ever again.

But for now? The trailer actually gave me hope. And I wonder why so few fans seem to see this? I wasn’t the only one to notice, of course, but the pessimistic posts didn’t cease and I see few who talk about the scene in question.

So, I will talk about why I think Foggy lives/has a fake death after all. Bear with me.

Let’s start with the scene itself. (The screen in the trailer captures more, but everything relevant is visible in my gif)

First: the stretcher. I think the person on it, that’s Foggy. 

Yes, it’s far away and zooming in you can’t make out a face. But hair and clothes match, in my opinion. I know an Elden Henson superfan and she is also convinced it’s Elden as Foggy. Looking closely, I think you can see the pattern of his scarf.

The head piece of the stretcher is lifted. For a dead body it would be flat and he most likely would be covered with a sheet. Or they would have put him in a body bag.

But I admit, it’s hard to see and the stretcher argument may not appeal to everyone. lol

So moving on to “Foggy’s Bloody Spot”. From the leaks we know roundabout where Foggy lies after getting shot

In the helmet fall scene, that should be here. 

For one, Foggy isn’t here. I don’t think ambulance crews would move dead bodies on a crime scene. They’d leave them in place for the police investigation. But since the ambulance isn’t done yet, the police haven’t even started investigating. Some say, the falling helmet hides Foggy’s body, but… why? Why would he be there?

For two, the stuff left behind. Yes, that is a lot of blood. But also what looks like wound dressing, bandages etc. Someone tried to stop the bleeding and it wasn’t a passerby with makeshift tools. This looks like medical supplies. So at least one paramedic thought Foggy was worth spending time and resources on. Which probably means he was alive when they arrived on scene and someone tended to him. At the site of a mass-shooting that has to mean something. You know, triage- wise. Paramedics have no time for dead people when many others are injured.

Of course, that doesn’t mean he survives. But I think it debunks the rumor that he died on scene while Matt was fighting Bullseye. Because then he would still be lying there. 

And if he makes into the ambulance or even the hospital, a fake out is possible. If he is close by, Matt couldn’t be fooled, but out of Matt’s hearing range, they can in theory do a switch.

But then what line was crossed??? 😱

Oh, of course, the “line”. Before the scene with the falling helmet is shown, Fisk asks Matt why he stopped being a vigilante and Matt answers “A line was crossed”. Many, many people interpreted this line crossing as Foggy being killed.

But to me that makes no sense at all. Criminals like Bullseye always cross lines. That’s Matt’s problem with them and the reason he does fight them, not a reason to stop fighting them. 

However, of himself Matt expects to stay on the right side of the line. So I think he isn’t a vigilante anymore because he did something that crossed a line. Especially since Fisk answers “It’s hard to come to terms with our violent nature. Hating the power it has over us.” That only makes sense when Matt’s “violent nature” is responsible for whatever he is referring to.

Which is why I don’t believe the line that was crossed is what Bullseye did to Foggy but what Matt did to Bullseye.

So yeah, new hope for Foggy.

If you read this far, thanks for indulging me in my rambling.

[kt-the-lee]

No Longer Ruined - Hazbin Hotel Tickle Fic (HuskerDust)

A/N hi everyone!! this is my first fanfic on this account, i used to write a fair bit on my old deactivated account but I stopped for a couple years so i’m a little bit rusty, but i just love these two so much that i simply HAD to write for them! (this was also really self-indulgent for me to write so i hope you enjoy AHHHHH)

inspired by this post by @duckymcdoorknob : “We interrupt our usual programming to bring forth Angel Dust who is terrified of being tickled (bc of Val) until Husk shows him that it doesn’t have to always be torturous.”

Lee!AngelDust, Ler!Husk

warnings: very brief mentions of Angel’s job (not very much detail but important context to the story), sad!Angel

Word count: 2,133

One thing about Angel Dust is that he HATED being tickled.

Well, that wasn’t a complete truth. It was his favourite thing in the world once upon a time, but then it got ruined by various jobs that Val made him undergo. And that did make him quite sad, he wished he could have it in his life again, but he feared it was associated with one too many bad memories at this point.

And now, the thought of it terrified him.

This was made all too apparent when Charlie (the resident tickle monster of the Hazbin Hotel) decided to attack Vaggie in the middle of the lobby one afternoon. This was a regular occurrence, and everyone usually watched fondly as the usually stoic Vaggie let herself laugh (that is until the tables turned and Charlie then gets absolutely destroyed, she may initiate most tickle fights but usually ends up spectacularly losing them!). However, this was the first time Angel had witnessed this spectacle.

And he just couldn’t bring himself to watch.

The laughs mixed with screams, the squirming, the panicked breathing, it just sent him to a dark place. Where the masses chuckled and cooed at the girlfriends’ antics, Angel felt his breathing hitch and an unpleasant anxiety building in his stomach. Tears pricked in his eyes and he tried to inconspicuously leave the room, unnoticed. Or so he thought.

“Hey, what’s up, you okay?”

Angel turned around and saw Husk, head tilted, a concerned look on his face. Panic shot through him; “oh shit, did everyone notice me leave? That must’ve looked REALLY fucking weird, how am I going to explain-”

“Relax, nobody else saw you go,” Husk said gently, sitting on a nearby couch and directed Angel to take the place next to him. “Everyone was far too distracted watching those dumbasses wreck each other, although it’s a frequent occurrence it does never get boring!” he chuckled as the laughter from the lobby turned up a notch, but then frowned when he saw Angel visibly flinch at the sound.

“I’ve… never seen ‘em do this before,” he explained as he took the seat next to Husk, tensing up slightly as a paw was placed around his shoulders but immediately relaxed. He trusted Husk, perhaps more than anyone in this godforesaken place. But could he explain this?

Husk looked at the spider with concern in his eyes. He was triggered, clearly, but he couldn’t quite piece together why the girls tickling each other had caused this.

“Do you wanna talk about it, Angel? We don’t gotta, but you know I’d never judge you for anything. We’re both losers, don’t ya forget that, so nothing is off-limits.”

Angel looked up at the cat, debating for a full minute as to whether he was going to indulge. However, as he heard Charlie squeal from the room over from them and physically had to hide his head in his hands, he figured an explanation was desrved.

“I… just…” he stuttered, trying to find the words. “They’ve been ruined for me.”

Husk looked slightly confused. “What have? Tickles?”

“Yeah… there was a week-long shoot a few years back, and it always got taken too far. Lotta ignoring of safewords and not stopping even though I begged and begged and begged, my body felt like it was going to shut down-“ Angel shuddered as he remembered. “I’ve done a lot of weird shit for this job, Husk, ya know? And you know I love to relinquish control. But this, by far, was the one time I felt the most trapped and suffocated.”

The usually stoic Husk felt his heart shatter into a million pieces. Sure, tickling was torturous, that was the POINT. But it was also supposed to have an aspect of fun and trust and love behind it, and the fact that Val had taken that from him made him both upset and absolutely fuming.

“Fuck me, that’s intense.” Husk couldn’t find the words for awhile. “And also fully understandable as to why you’d be triggered now.”

A scream and a giggly “NOHOHOHOT THEHEHEHEERE” from Charlie in the other room made Angel tense somehow harder than he was before, and Husk tightened his hold around his shoulders.

“If it’s any reassurance, the girls’ dumba ass tickle fights are nothing like that, there’s a lot of silliness and love behind it and it would never ever get taken that far” said Husk, trying to reassure the spider. “Infact, I’m fairly sure they both love every second of it, no matter how much they protest in the moment.”

“Oh I know that, really I do.” said Angel. “ I know what they’re MEANT to be like, it’s like I said, they were ruined for me.”

Oh?

So that meant…

“You used to like being tickled?” Husk enquired, a slight grin in his voice as he enjoyed the thought of his sweet spider enjoying something so silly. That thought was fleeting as he realised how that was no longer true because of his job, and Val. God. the things he could do to that bastard for breaking Angel like this…

Angel nodded, cheeks burning slightly. “A whole lot, used to ask Cherry for it all the time. But I fear I’m too far gone now, I’m too scared it’ll go too far and people won’t stop.” Angel sighed, and flinched again as the laughter somehow got EVEN LOUDER through the walls (what on EARTH was Vaggie doing to Charlie?). “I want to like it again, I do think about it a lot still.”

“We can try now, if you like?”

Husk looked into Angel’s eyes to gauge his reaction. He couldn’t tell by that one sentence if he had just put the fear of god into him, or hit the nail on the head with exactly the best way to fix this.

Angel couldn’t tell, either. On the one hand, the thought of being tickled again terrified him. He had managed to avoid it as much as he could outside of work, and even in work he would try and steer the content towards other things. However, he knew deep down that he wanted this back in his life. He trusted Husk, so maybe this would be the perfect way to ease back into it? He deliberated, and made his decision.

“Yeah… okay.”

Husk breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t overstepped a boundary, and felt the grin returning to his face as he figured out the best way to do this.

“Anything I should know before we try this out? Now is the time for boundaries, my little spider-” said Husk, a teasing tone already etched into his voice which made Angel chuckle and roll his eyes.

“Stop when I tell you to-“

“That’s a given, dumbass, I was gonna do that anyway.”

That made Angel relax, he wasn’t used to people listening to his pleas. Maybe this would actually be okay…

“Oh… okay! Uhhhh, no foot stuff please, that was always Val’s… yeah. Favourite. So that’d probably send me into a panic.”

He thought for a second.

“Otherwise…. youregoodtogo-“ he mumbled as he buried his face in Husk’s chest, preparing himself. Oh god, what if this was a bad idea? What if he just hated it no matter what? What if he yelled at or hurt Husk? What if-

All thoughts in his head were silenced as the paw that was placed on his shoulder began to walk ever-so-gently around his bicep. Husk traced his entire upper arm slowly and delicately, before moving all the way round to where Angel’s underarm met his ribcage.

“This okay?”

Angel could only nod, a trace of a smile forming on his lips as Husk began to lightly scritch the spot. Nothing too intense, nothing that would overhelm him. But it couldn’t be ignored.

Husk felt the spider tense up below him as he used one claw to dance lazy, gentle circles around Angel’s ribcage. He glanced down to make sure he was okay, but it seemed to be more of a tickly flinch than an uncomfortable jerk away, so he persisted, adding more claws to slowly intensify the sensation.

It was then that he heard it.

The giggles.

And it was just the sweetest sound Husk had ever heard.

In fact, he got so distracted by the sound of Angel’s giggles that he subconsciously stopped tickling him to listen. Which, of course, stopped the giggles.

“Hey, ya didn’t need to stop!” said Angel, surprising himself.

“Oh I know… I just got distracted by something” chuckled Husk, beginning the movement of his claws again, as slow and as gentle as before. Angel tensed and giggled again, but didn’t seem to be protesting too much.

Angel had missed this. He had missed being in a safe place where he was free to be held and just let someone dote on him for a bit. Head empty, no control, no expectations, to just relax and feel happy. He couldn’t help his arm flinching against Husks gentle tickles around his ribcage, but he also noticeably lent into both Husk himself and his paws on his ribs.

Husk took this positive body language and gentle giggles to turn it up a notch, scratching with slightly more intent and pressure, making wigging motions with his paw. He also walked his fingers down from Angel’s ribcage to the sides of his stomach.

The spider’s gentle giggles quickly became slightly louder laughs as Husk did this, and initially felt a zap of panic. However, it was impossible to feel unsafe in the arms of the cat, so he let himself feel the sensations. It wasn’t TOO intense, but it was certainly enough for him to squirm and cackle, especially when Husk added a second paw to mirror his actions on the opposite side at the same time.

“Hehehehehey!!” laughed Angel. “Thahahahat was uncahahahahalled for!!”

“Oh was it now?” teased Husk, feeling a little more confident that he wouldn’t end up overwhelming Angel at this point. “Because I don’t hear you protesting, baby. Infact, I’d probably say you’re having a pretty swell time right now!”

“Shuhuhuhut uhuhuhup” protested Angel, cheeks burning redder than the skies of Hell itself. “Teheheheasing mahahahahakes it wOHOHOHORSE-“

Upon the last word of his sentence, Husk moved both of his tickling paws to the front of his stomach, spidering the spider’s belly like there was no tomorrow. Angel SQUEALED, throwing his head back into Husk’s shoulder as he tried and failed to whine about quite how mean he was being right now.

Despite this, there was one thing that Angel couldn’t deny. Fucking hell, he could never deny how much he’d missed this. To be able to enjoy being tickled again without the fear of boundaries being disrespected and his every part of his body panicking as strangers took advantage of him, under Val’s perverted instruction.

“You doing okay down there?!” Husk chuckled, checking in as Angel arched his back and fell backwards onto the couch. Husk had one paw kneading into an armpit whilst the other made various shapes into his tummy. This seemed to be a killer combination as Angel snorted in his cackles and basically folded his body in half.

The cat slowed his attack to let Angel catch his breath, which may have been perfect timing as the spider managed to breathe out a “Stohohop nohohoho mohohore” through his depleting giggles. This made Husk briefly panic, thinking he had took it too far and this had all been for nothing. But the persistent grin and sniling eyes of Angel reassured him that he hadn’t put a foot wrong. Or, rather, a paw wrong.

“Thahahahat was fun” said Angel, residual giggles still pouring from his mouth as he sat himself up, rubbing the leftover tickly feelings away from his torso. “Might take a few goes and a bit of practice, but it certainly is an improvement to fifteen minutes ago!”

Husk felt his heart melt as Angel cuddled back into him and, as the room silenced, the laughter from Charlie and Vaggie’s ordeal STILL could be heard through the walls. However, now it made Angel smile fondly as opposed to being terrified for his life.

“How are they STILL going?” pondered Husk, shaking his head fondly at the sounds from the other room

Angel shrugged, and laughed as he heard Charlie let out a noise not too dissimilar to a squeal that he himself had produced moments earlier. “Shall we go and observe?”

Husk grinned and nodded, tweaking Angel’s side before taking his hand. Angel flinched and tutted at the cat, but couldnt hide the endearing look in his eyes as they ventured back into the lobby to observe the girlfriends tickle fight.

It certainly was a happy day in Hell.

[benzodiazepinica]

Alexandre Bissonnette edit + infopost

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The edit is for you to see some photos of him!

I want to say I don't support any actions !!

My content is because I love true crime and political cases ~~

if I like the person is for him/her personality, appearance or manner. But I do not support hate crimes or murders

Event summary

Alexandre Bissonnette, 27, entered a mosque armed with a pistol and killed 6 men, injuring 19 more, one of the victims was left paraplegic for the rest of his life

Family, social life, curiosities

Bissonnette has a twin brother with whom he shared an apartment four miles from his parents' house. But Alexandre Bissonnette often slept at his parents' house on weekends.

He was Canadian, born and raised in Quebec City. He was always described as a simple and ordinary man. Bissonnette had already taken antidepressants, but it was stated that his mental state had absolutely no influence on the crime, as he was considerably stable and fully conscious.

He had a Facebook page and also a Tumblr page, where he posted about his daily life, food, etc. However, on Facebook, he made a lot of political comments. Emails from Alexandre and his father were also found that spoke negatively about Muslims. Many people believe that Alexandre received this prejudiced upbringing from home. He and his father used to practice shooting at an outdoor range and Alexandre would often hang out with old friends. However, he did not have a girlfriend, and was described as a shy and somewhat introverted man.

The father, and also Alexandre himself on social media, stated about the problems the boy had with alcohol. However, according to a blog by Bissonnette, he had stopped drinking because, according to him, it "is very bad for your health!" and he reported, with these words, that he was "very happy about it!" However, even with this abstinence from alcohol, the shooter told the authorities that he drank sake the entire day of the massacre.

Security camera footage from a depanneur shows Alexandre Bissonnette buying a drink minutes before the Quebec City mosque attack on January 29, 2017

"Throughout his life, until January 29, Alexander had never demonstrated violent behavior in words or actions toward anyone. "Alexander is the last person we, and all those who know him, could imagine doing something so out of character," Alexander's father said.

Bissonnette was a political science student at Université Laval in Quebec City. He also works and had a steady job, but was on three weeks' leave when the shooting happened. Alexandre had a history of bullying, probably because he was quiet and reserved, but this did not seem to have a direct impact on the case. In any case, he was described as an "ordinary" man.

about the bullying he suffered his father said: "Realizing that nothing was getting better, Alexandre simply stopped mentioning it to us. I can't tell you how much I regret not doing more to make sure Alexandre was safe at school."

In 2014, Bissonnette was introduced to firearms by a friend. He went on to apply for a license, falsely reporting that he had no history of mental health issues or suicidal thoughts. Over the next few years, he would legally acquire six guns.

Bissonnette told psychologists during interviews that he had always had thoughts about mass shootings. Interestingly, Alexandre was fascinated by the Columbine Massacre.

Alexandre had also thought about carrying out a massacre in a shopping mall, carrying weapons in his bag and everything, but he gave up.

ideologies and thoughts about Islamists

Alexandre was an actively political person in his speeches and discourses. He seemed to be very interested in the subject, and it was no wonder that he was studying Political Science. However, Bissonnette's political positions always leaned towards a more extreme side, related to violence. He was a nationalist, but a nationalist who preached the unity of white people only. He also supported Marine Le Pen's party in France and Donald Trump in the United States. He frequently posted on his Facebook page against immigrants, against pro-immigrant policies, against Muslims and against feminists.

Historical context of the city and the mosque

Before talking about the massacre, it is essential to talk a little about the state of mind of the city and the mosque that suffered the attack.

Quebec City has always had questionable positions on ethnicity, immigration and Islam. The mosque has previously suffered an Islamophobic attack, in which a pig's head was placed on the mosque and a note reading "Bon appétit" in French (the local language).

The Quebec City mosque mass shooting on January 29, 2017

In the month leading up to the shooting, Bissonnette was on leave from his job at Héma-Québec with an anxiety disorder following an altercation with a co-worker. During this month, he obsessively visited the Twitter accounts of several right-wing media personalities, including Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, David Duke, Alex Jones, Mike Cernovich, Richard B. Spencer, and Kellyanne Conway. Bissonnette checked Ben Shapiro's Twitter account 93 times in the month leading up to the shooting. He was also on leave from his university political science program. He was scheduled to return to work the day after the shooting. During his free time, he regularly visited Islamophobic websites and searched the web for information about mass shooters.

When Alexandre Bissonnette heard about Justin Trudeau’s famous tweet welcoming refugees to Canada, the frail-looking 28-year-old political science student told police he went crazy. A few hours after watching a television report suggesting that Canada would accept immigrants rejected by President Trump

On the day of the shooting, Alexandre spent the day drinking and finishing his research on mass murders, immigration and Islamic terrorism, including checking news reports on crimes committed by Muslims in the country. That night, he went to his parents’ house for dinner and then sat in a corner, fiddling with his computer. At 7 p.m., he left the house armed with a 9 mm pistol and a Czech semi-automatic rifle of .223 caliber. He left home in his parents' car, saying he was going to practice shooting. At 7:37 p.m., he hesitated to continue shooting, so he went into a store and drank some vodka. Then, afraid of being seen carrying a large weapon, he decided to return to the mosque to carry out the attack.

He arrived at the mosque around 7:53 or 7:54 p.m. Outside, there were two brothers, at whom he pointed the rifle, which failed, jamming. Alexander appeared relaxed, smiling, throwing the rifle on the ground and pulling out his pistol. He fired several shots at both of them, in the arms and abdomen, then got close and shot the brothers in the head, with the pistol pressed against them.

Two more mosque worshippers announced that there was a shooter, and chaos soon broke out. Alexandre entered the room, firing ten shots, then reloaded. Bissonnette re-entered the prayer hall. He would fire 30 shots in 30 seconds during the second wave, and would target mainly people trying to take cover.

Aymen Derbali, crouched near the gunman, attempted to distract him from the busier areas of the mosque by staggering toward him, but was shot in the knee and chin.[31] As Derbali fell and crawled on the ground, Bissonette shot him 6 more times, but Derbali would survive.[32] Bissonnette then targeted 44-year-old Aboubaker Thabti, murdering him at close range with three shots to the skull.

The gunman returned a second time to the lobby to reload his weapon, then returned to the prayer hall and killed some of the worshippers who were already wounded and others who were wounded. He then pocketed a bullet, intending to take his own life in a nearby forest, and then left the mosque at 7:57 p.m.

According to an initial report, a man who came forward as a witness said that two assailants dressed in black and with a Quebecois accent entered the mosque and shouted "Allahu Akbar" before opening fire. Police later determined that there was only one shooter, and that was Alexandre.

Later, at 8:10 p.m., Alexandre Bissonnette called emergency services (911) and turned himself in.

Alexandre Bissonnette was sentenced to life in prison for the 2017 Quebec mosque attack. He was originally scheduled to serve 40 years before being eligible for parole. However, in 2020, the Quebec Court of Appeal reduced that sentence to 25 years, ruling that 40 years without the possibility of parole constituted cruel and unusual punishment. In 2022, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld that decision, maintaining his eligibility for parole after 25 years. Therefore, Bissonnette will be eligible for parole in 2042.

Victims

The six murder victims were Ibrahima Barry (39, an IT employee for the Quebec government), Mamadou Tanou Barry (42, an accounting technician), Khaled Belkacemi (60, a professor at Laval University), Aboubaker Thabti (44, a pharmacy technician), Abdelkrim Hassane (41, a computer analyst for the Quebec government) and Azzedine Soufiane (57, a grocery store owner).

[hellskitchenswhore]

EDIT: Like genuinely I want to know how you authors think Matt would feel about all this. I genuinely do not know how Matt would react to this. I don’t know how he’d feel about so many things, how he’d cope with it. But at least he has an outlet, a way to go blow off steam about the injustice in his world. At least he can feel a little like he’s doing something about it (even if most of his feeling is guilt that he’s not doing enough).

How would he cope with a reader who’s so in grief over it all?

——————————————————————

I am begging you. This is a plea, this is a cry for help.

I need a very special writer (or writers) to write about Matt comforting a reader who is losing their goddamn mind over the political state of this country.

Because

little girls are being forced to birth their rapists babies in Texas (literally hundreds of thousands of rape-related births have been forced to happen since the overturning of roe v wade, and now we won’t even get decent statistics because the newly appointed head of that committee is the Queen Bee of all forced-birth psychopaths)

Women in Idaho are bleeding out in front of doctors who aren’t allowed to touch them for the sake of mis-implanted fetuses that have long since died and gone necrotic, killing the women for literally no reason at all

Mass shootings are happening right next door and they’re so commonplace you don’t even hear about them on the local news anymore

PFAS are in every single fucking thing and somehow toxic chemicals are now a “democrat issue”

Boeing is just flat out killing their whistleblowers who are desperately trying to warn the public

Our two options for buying bananas are “corporate-funded militia murdering already horrifyingly impoverished women and children” and “the literal overthrowing of the sovereign state of Hawaii”

The federal government has sent twice as many tax dollars as would be required to provide universal healthcare (which we supposedly couldn’t possibly afford) to an overseas nation where our congressmen have also gone to proudly sign their names on the bombs destined for more innocent civilians

We’re watching the US-funded massacre of millions on live-stream, held hostage by corporations and our own government who control the water, the food supply, the housing, and are supported by a police force that indiscriminately kills those who protest against it

And there is laundry to do and a genocide to stop and the world hates women and

HOW DO WE LIVE LIKE THIS?

[giggly-squiggily]

Midnight Thoughts (Jojo's Bizarre Adventures)

*Walks out with folded hands* Ehem...I had a vision. And I went with that vision- and after so many months I finally finished it :D I love these dorks so much, your honor! Please enjoy some good ol' stardust crusaders antics!

CW: Swearing!

Summary: Polnareff and Kakyoin can't sleep. Antics ensue when they decide to make it Jotaro's problem aswell.

Cloud 9 (Taglist Peeps):

@gladdygirl18 @t-wordiiish

“Superman is only super on earth, yeah? Do you think he’s just an average joe on Planet Krypton?”

“Kakyoin.”

“Please, have you seen him? He’d be an absolute hit with the ladies back home.” “Polnareff-”

“Yeah but what if that’s just the norm there? What if in Planet Krypton he’s considered boring or even ugly?”

“Guys-”

“You really think someone like Superman could be considered average?”

“I’m just saying- Superman to earthlings is like someone revisiting an early level in a game after making it the final few levels.”

“Would you shut the hell up!” Jotaro sat up with a glare, his eyes shooting daggers at the pair across the way. “It’s one in the fucking morning!”

“Technically it’s only 12:20 AM.” Kakyoin pointed at the clock on the wall, the face glowing softly in the dark room.

“Did we wake you? Apologies, Jojo.” Polnareff grinned from his spot across from the redhead, unfazed at the death stare he received. “All this traveling and stand fighting- it makes it hard for one to relax their mind.”

“Good Grief. Find some booze and drink until you pass out. Or go find somewhere else and play sleepover.” Jotaro grumbled as he laid back down, closing his eyes. He could understand the restlessness- there were many nights he would lay there and stare at the sky for hours- waiting to pass out from exhaustion or for morning to come.

That said- he spent those nights in silence. A simple courtesy he wished the two idiots would share.

“Wow, someone’s grumpy. It’s those moody teenage hormones, huh?” Polnareff teased, sharing a look with a smiling Kakyoin as he stood, walking over to the opposite bed. “Or is it that you’re feeling left out?”

“Neither- I want to sleep. Get out.” Jotaro glared before pulling the blanket over himself, the silent equivalent to slamming a door in someone’s face.

“Aww, don’t be like that, Jojo.” Kakyoin came over as well- crawling into the bed and flopping against the mound of blankets. “Here’s a question- do you think Star Platinum could win in a fight against Superman?”

Silence. Polnareff and Kakoyin shared an amused look.

“I know you're not asleep, Jojo. I can feel you brooding.” Kakyoin teased, tugging at the blanket gently. He received a low growl in return.

“Jojo~ Don’t be mad at us!” Polnareff climbed in on Jotaro’s opposite side, shaking the mound. “We’re your friends!”

Still nothing. Jotaro was stubborn as ever.

“He’s like a little kid- all pouty and such.” Kakyoin cooed.

“You know how we handle those kinds of guys, right Kak?” Polnareff teased with a wink.

The threat was there. Jotaro dared to peek over the blankets, making his look as scary as possible. “Touch me and you fucking die.”

“Bet?” Kakyoin grinned.

“Bet.” Polnareff agreed. Jotaro exhaled deeply.

Silence. 

Then there was chaos.

“You’re not getting away!” Kakyoin yelled in glee, charging the bound of limps and blanket blindly. Jotaro was like a bull in the pit, all flailing limbs and sharp swears as he swung in every direction. “Come here, Jojo!”

“Give in! Just let it happen!” Polnareff was a mess of giggles, putting his muscular mass to use as he threw himself on top of the teen. Once there, he wrestled his wrists down until he they were pinned, straining. “I got him! I got him! Get him, Kakyoin!”

“On it!”

“Get the hell of-HMMPH!” Jotaro’s shout of anger was quickly muffled as Kakyoin dug into him through the blanket, raking his fingers up and down his sides. His squirms increased in frequency, leading to him nearly sending Polnareff flying once more. “Cut the shit! K-Kakyoin!”

“Oo, he’s feeling it now! Get him good, Kakyoin!” The knight giggled in delight as he readjusted his seat, putting maximum weight onto Jotaro and worming his fingers against his neck. “Here I come, you damn brat!”

“Not you too- get! Gehehehhahhaat!” Jotaro’s defenses melted when fingers dug into the middle set of his ribs. Not even the blanket could protect him from the ticklish feeling shooting up his nerves. “Dahahahahahm yohohohohou! Aheahhahahahaha!”

“Aww, don’t be like that, Jojo! You love us too much to say that!” Kakyoin tugged at the blanket with one hand while his other carried on tickling. Despite his current state, Jotaro was adamant on hanging on to the damn thing. “Fine then- you won’t give up the ghost, I’ll just come and take it!”

With that, he dived beneath the nearest corner of the blankets, squeezing his way towards Jotaro like an inchworm. Polnareff scooted some to give more room, preparing.

In a matter of seconds, the room was booming.

“AH! AHEHAHAHHAA YOU FUHUHUHUCKER!” Jotaro howled when his sides were grabbed once more- no blanket or shirt for that matter to protect him against Kakyoin’s claws. “GEHEHEHEHT THE HEHEHELL OHOHOHOFF! AH! NOHOHOT YOU THOOHOHOHO!” Polnareff had begun to double his efforts, worming a hand into any tickle spot within reach. “SCREHHEHEHW YOOHOHU TWOOOHOHO!”

“So mean! To your dear friends too, Jotaro!” The frenchman chided, drilling a finger into the birthmark and making him scrunch with an undignified squeal. “Take this! And that! And this and that!”

“You can’t get rid of me, Jojo!” Kakyoin laughed through his teases, clinging to the bigger boy with all his might as he scribbled into his ribs and stomach. “I’m stuck to you! Forever and ever- AH!”

Jotaro put his strength into use; twisting hard enough to send Polnareff flying. He crashed into the bundle of Kakyoin, rolling off the bed and inadvertently bringing Jotaro with them. They landed in a crash of blankets and sore limbs upon landing.

“Ow! Oohohoho my god, that hurt! Jota-ROOHOOHO!” The frenchman was about to check in with the boys when hands suddenly grabbed his waist, kneading his sides rapidly. “AHEHAHHAH WHOOHOHOHO?”

“Hehehe, tickle tickle tickle, Polnareff!” Kakyoin was truly a gremlin. “Gonna getcha good! Jojo, help me!”

“Nohohohohohohoho! Pleahahahahse, Aihihihihiites Pihiihihihiteehehehehehe!”

Get off me, you ass!” Jotaro yelled through the chaos, wiggling free from the bodies pressing him down. Despite this, he was grinning- a new light of playfulness in his expression. “Good grief- you two are annoying. All right- I’ll help.”

“Nohoohoho! Johohootaro! Johohoohtaro EPARGI MOOHOHOHI!” Bodies crashed once more as Jotaro threw himself at the pair, tickling with all his might. Alongside Polnareff’s squeals in french, Kakyoin’s own hysterics joined the fray as he pulled and shoved at Jotaro’s hand.

“DOOHOHON’T GEHEHEHT ME, GEHEHHET POHOHOHOLNAREFF!” The redhead squealed at the top of his lungs, writhing like a worm beneath the hand squeezing the life out of his thigh. “JOHOHOHOJOHOHOHO!”

“JEHEHEHEHE DOOHOHOHNE! JEEHHEHEHE DoHOOHOHNE!” Polnareff squealed as his upper ribs were dug into, swatting and kicking through giggly hiccups. Jotaro didn’t know much French, but he could tell Polnareff was at his limit with how red he was.

Releasing them, he sat back with a crossed arm glare, watching them groan and gasp for breath. “You two done?”

“Ehehehe..hehhehe yeahhahah, whehehe’re gohoohod.” Kakyoin wheezed out, Polnareff nodding through another round of hiccups. “Dahahahng, and yohoohu didn’t eheehven use your sthahahnd!”

“Didn’t need it.” Jotaro got up, tugging his blanket out from under the redhead before climbing back into bed. “Not with how ticklish you two are. Go to bed.”

“Pardon? What does that mean, exactly Jotaro?” Polnareff leaped into the bed once more, resuming their previous position. “I’d say we gave you quite the fight tonight, non?”

“Yeah! You were squealing and everything!” Kakyoin was on his open side once more, smiling brightly at Jotaro’s heated glare. “I’d say out of all of us…”

They paused, considering.

“Yeah, okay. Fine. I’m the most ticklish.” Kakyoin finished with an eye roll. Polnareff giggled and Jotaro smirked beneath his blanket. “But your reaction is super cute, Jojo!”

“Shut up.” The brunette waved him off before pulling the blanket overhead, hiding away from their devious grins. He waited for them to move, or to attack once more. Instead, the bed shifted as they got comfortable, taking up the minimal surface space. “Don’t you two have your own beds? Sleep in them!”

“No way, yours is suddenly so comfy!” Kakyoin snuggled close, pressing his face into Jotaro’s shoulder. “I told you already, you’re stuck with me.”

“Same here, Jotaro! Get used to it!” Polnareff laughed as he dragged over extra blankets and pillows, making a sort of fort for them. “Bonne nuit.”

Kakyoin let out a sleepy “Oyasumi” in response. Before long, the pair were fast asleep- tucking Jotaro between them. The brunette sat there frozen for a few moments before rolling his eyes, a rare but genuine smile on his lips.

“Goodnight, knuckleheads.” He let himself relax for the first time this entire trip, the sounds of his friends breathing on either side of him.

Thanks for reading!

[flanaganfilm]

I tend to get obsessed with scenes where actors have a particularly outstanding performance. I find myself revisiting them over and over again just to relive the moment. Several examples of this, but one that I just love is in Midnight Mass when Kate and Zach are on the rowboat. What's it like experiencing that live, during production? Are you aware in the moment of how special it is or does that become more evident in post? Love to hear any and all details behind the scenes of how those get made. Also curious what scenes from your favorite movies/TV standout as particularly compelling performances by the actors.

This scene is a strange one, because it was the first thing we shot of the whole series. We had been shut down since March 2020 when the initial COVID lockdown hit, and were the first show in North America to go back into production that summer. We didn't know how to do that, and were juggling constantly evolving safety protocols as we tried to figure out how to shoot in this new world. Because a lot of our sets weren't ready to shoot when we came back, we opted to start easy - on our stages, with blue screen work. The boat scene is shot entirely on blue screen, we didn't even have water - the boat was gently rocked back and forth by grips. Kate and Zach were asked to do this huge, heavy, insanely difficult and emotional scene ON OUR FIRST DAY. I had asked them a few weeks prior if they'd be okay with that, as I was worried - they hadn't built their characters yet. They hadn't put a single scene down to draw from. But both said they'd do it, and so we threw them into the deep end.

(That's DP Michael Fimognari in the boat, trying to adjust lighting through his goggles) It was a VERY weird day. We were all wearing KN95 masks and goggles, the actors had to wear full masks and face shields when we weren't rolling. It was absolutely surreal and just about impossible for anyone to get into any headspace that felt like we were doing scene work. I had been fitted with modified motorcycle goggles, as I needed eye protection to be near the actors (it was all more than a bit ridiculous.) There was a ladder on set - you can see it behind Michael in the picture above - and I started the day by climbing it to address the cast and crew. About ten words into my speech, my goggles completely fogged up and I couldn't see anymore. I had to be helped down the ladder by several grips. I remember the first rehearsal was insane because the actors weren't allowed to take off their masks, per Netflix safety protocols. I was also required to wear my mask and goggles throughout, so giving direction to actors who couldn't see my face was a brand new and deeply strange thing (I'd continue to work this way for the next two years, we all got used to it, but this first day was fucking WEIRD). Kate and Zach couldn't even really hear each other through the masks to rehearse, as it was such a quiet and intimate scene. I was standing a few feet away and couldn't hear a damn thing. It was additionally weird because all of the elements of the scene outside of the boat wouldn't be added for many, many months as we got into VFX. There was no water, no stars, nothing at all to look at but hanging blue curtains and masked crew members. I don't know how Kate and Zach were able to put all of that aside and deliver the performances they delivered - oh wait, I suppose I do know. It's because they are exceptional actors. Kate later told me she was so outside of her comfort zone that she had to just dive in and trust every single thing around her. The scenes in the boat ultimately came together beautifully, but I did apologize to both of them later in the shoot. It wasn't fair that we asked them to do that, to start like that, without letting them build any foundation. But both waved it off. Production is chaos, and that particular production was the very first out the gate with COVID, so everything was crazy. They took all of that vulnerability and uncertainty and discomfort and fear and turned it into a handful of scenes that roar with honesty. It's among my favorite moments in what may always be my favorite Intrepid series.

[candyredmusings]

Harvester (1996) Sentence Starts

A whole mix bag, but mostly NSFT and/or crack Change pronouns/gendered terms as needed!

"You killed your family?"

"You always were a kidder, [NAME]!"

"You can't live without a spinal cord, son. Nothing unnatural about that."

" You'll rot your mind playing games like that..."

"Is God a jar of strawberry preserves, a size 12 sneaker, a footlong Hogie, an all-expense paid trip to Brazil, or a NEWWW CARRRRR?"

"Pot roast isn't for backstabbers. For persecutors! I won't share my meat with him!"

"Hello, [NAME]. Care to stay for some pot roast?"

"My meat! MY MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!"

"Ah, shit! Ah, shit on a stickaroo!"

"What are you talking about, this TV is brand new! There are no TVs with color on them."

"When a bee stings, it rips itself apart and dies for its audacity. This appeals to those worshipping a God that demands sacrifice and atonement. But the wasp is promiscuous. They are not as sympathetic to the masses because they don't die when they sting. They live to sting another day... and they take pleasure from that."

"Cut the crap. We both know you set that fire."

" I'm not threatening you...I just want to help."

"You can't shoot me... I'm an American! I have rights!"

"Ahhh... art's for Commies, anyway."

" You're a little vain, huh?"

"Uh, you're not that hot... get over it, toots."

"Yeah, I offed him all right."

"Nah, a nice fairy left it under my pillow."

"You're welcome to have this evidence, with my compliments."

"But what about civic responsibility?"

"You're a little brat."

"But you're a woman."

"Sure, I'd love to get it on with the ladies!"

"What's communism got to do with anything?"

"How can you SAY something so horrible?"

"[NAME]'s a swell name! My dog's name is [NAME]!"

"Nothing like an exploding head to get the blood pumping. . . . Literally, that is."

"The hell it is! You always were a kidder, [NAME]. Any real news to tell me?"

"I mean I don't know anyone! I don't remember anything! How many times do I have to say it?!"

"I need to feel something again."

"Yeah, I know what that crazy little bitch said, but it's not true!

"What makes you so sure she needs a penis?"

"I'd rather die than become as twisted as you."

"Would I kid about something like that? Why won't you believe me?"

"Screwing in the school broom closet. What will people think?"

"I did not speak, but my mind touched yours."

"I expect nothing. What must unfold will."

"Sure would be nice to have one'a them girly pi'cher books..."

"I don't know what it is about marriage that turns even the bravest man into a coward!"

"[NAME] has a... a liking for me. I'd call it a crush, but that's too innocent a word."

"That child needs a father. . . and [NAME], well she needs a good, hard penis."

"Money isn't everything for a woman. Can money keep you warm at night? Can you wrap your thighs around it, or rake bloody gashes in its back with your painted, harlot fingernails?

"There's things you don't know about the family business... but you'll learn."

"I am glad to see you taking an interest in the business in your dad's absence."

"Safeguards? There ARE NO SAFEGUARDS ... This is the fifties."

"Sometimes I hide in there beforehand, and daddy-o, I seen some stuff that's real nasty!"

"You were always a smiley bear."

"I know it's a mystery to you... The sacred things husbands and wives do behind closed doors."

"I could use a little relaxation ... But since [NAME] isn't here, I guess I'll talk to you."

"I'd rather die than become as twisted as you."

"You insult my beauty?"

"Well that didn't work."

"Shocked? This is the mystery of motherly love."

"Everyone says motherhood is fulfilling, when in reality it's draining."

"Violence is as American as apple pie and low SAT scores!"

"From the start, children are parasites. That's what you've got to understand."

"How about some cookies? There's some rejects in the trash!"

"I'm not a person, [NAME], I'm an object."

"Young man/woman/one, we really have nothing to say to each other."

"Say, can you spare a dime for a buckaroo who's down on his luck?"

"Things'll never be the same now. Guess I'll be watching TV tonight..."

"Well, I hope you're proud of yourself ... Killing my clientele."

"Excuse me, you can't come in right now, I just mopped the floor."

"I don't remember you."

"Land's sakes! Stop your joshing, wont you?"

"You look just like my mom ... Except for the hair."

"There's nothing bizarre about baking cookies."

"Only those who seek enlighten warrant my attention."

"I've never believed in the old adage, 'spare the rod and spoil the child' ... A rod is too thin. But baseball bat, that works quite nicely."

"My stars that was exciting!"

"Good women can be awfully hard on a man's needs, don't'cha know."

"That man gives me the willies ... Speaking of willies, how's your father?"

"That's right, I am the law ... And I'm on my lunch hour."

"Sometimes, I hide in there beforehand and daddy-o! I've seen some stuff that's really nasty!"

"Are you blackmailing us, you little shit?"

"Why are you covering up for him [NAME?]"

"Obviously, [NAME] is a lesbian."

"Lack of respect for authority ... A fine trait!"

[sol-consort]

Krogan romance course Pt.1

Krogans canonly play dating sims to practice courting and learn romance!?

Notice: Social Interactions

From: Gulnaz Bin

All right, everyone, most of you are used to either gender-segregated camps back on Tuchanka or mostly male mercenary work offworld. But now we're all together, and it's time for us to make the most of this "probletunity."

With females sending breeding requests and males asking many questions about fertility, we've had some good dialogues so far, and in most cases, everyone has already recovered from their injuries. To that end, we've added some mandatory cultural education.

🎉Krogans in Andromeda are officially gender integrated🎉

Blasto 6: Partners in Crime: Notice Blasto and Blasto's partner's sister agreeing to engage in mating rituals. Blasto's partner does not attempt to assert authority over his sister or shoot Blasto for mating with his sister without permission.

Humans are also faulty of doing this! I'm glad to see we have bad traits in common. Friendly reminder that Blasto's partner in the movies is an elcor, so this is our first hanar/elcor relationship representation.

Fleet and Flotilla ll: Belicus and Shalei are good models for behavior of a couple that is interested in courting despite cultural differences. Do not sing, though. Nobody sings while mating. That's just a thing they do in vids sometimes. I cannot stress that enough.

There is a famous romantic musical about a human from the fleet (or a turian?) and a quarian from flotilla falling in love? Is it the same one Tali showed us in Mass Effect 3? And krogans started singing like in musicals because of it.

Krantt Hardly Wait: Now I know some of you got offended by having a young krogan court a human female, but since the vid is literally about a krogan male trying to learn appropriate courtship behavior, you are all going to shut up and watch it. Also, Vega Bull Jr. does a great job as the human female's father, and he should be made an honorary krogan.

I adore everything about this. From the fact Krogan/human relationships are frowned upon in krogan society, that despite everything that is the brutal krogan culture, courting a human is what they clutch their pearls at.

To the fact this is the second time a human is elected an honrary krogan. The first was Shepard by Wrex, and now this.

Asari Confessions 26: True Blue: Couldn't hurt.

After that, we recommend that you try some "edu-tainment" in the form of one of the dating-sim vids available at any kiosk I can think of few better ways for us all to learn about romance than by playing an interactive game on the subject.

1) There is a massive genre of asari dating sims. The previous time this genre came up was during Mass Effect 2 Citadel visit when a salarian informed you about an asari/hanar game.

2) Krogans treat dating sims as an actual reliable source to practice flirting and courting rituals, see also, krogans taking romance musicals singing as a fundamental part of the romance.

[lovethatmakingcoffee]

So!

how many more content creators are going to be accused of being called a pedophile with no hard evidence, a police warrant, anything physical and it's by an anonymous tweet from some stranger online who would rather tell social media than I don't know... HAVE THEM GET ARRESTED BY THE POLICE?!

How many more creators, huh?! How many?! How many more YouTubers, twitch streamers, singers, animators, artists?! How many of you are gonna jump on them???? And it's so easy if it's a guy, right? So easy! And no matter how they react, whether it's calm and calculated, shutting down their channel as a whole, or answering immediately yet obviously angry about it- they are always ALWAYS GUILTY. what happened to innocent until proven guilty? And eo is this person? That they are willing to fan the flames and accuse someone of something so terrible online??? Who are u?????

Why do this now? Why do it how at the HEIGHT of Forever's popularity? Why not do it before so he was never on the qsmp or even long before that? Or in the middle at all???? Why now? That is my question? If this is all true, why now? And why use social media? Why not go to the police if he really did a crime? You are accusing someone of a very terrible thing. Why not do it properly instead of searching for Internet clout? What're we supposed to do? The only thing we can, huh? Cancel. Because that's what u want. Is to cancel him. When he was obviously so loved by the masses yesterday. When he had all those cruise pic photos showing how good his life was. Yeah, I don't think u want him arrested or lynched. No, u want to cancel him. Making me wonder if there was ever a real çrime.

Which I wonder quite often with these cases.

And GUYS. HEADS UP! You know whose next? Hm? It'll probably be Wilbur, probably being said that he approached some underage girl on tour or whatever. Or maybe it'll be quackity or hell, even Philza! Oh, Etoiles got cancelled not so long ago, let's cancel him again! Oh what about Bagerha or Cellibit? Let's throw Charlie into the mix. Ironmouse will be hard to cancel cause she's been locked inside of her room all her life and has a very dedicated fanbase, but I'm sure you bastards will find something.

So mhm, everyone is nexted because antis have proven it to be so easy to get rid of someone they don't like. Gone the next day. All of them are suspectable to it. Cause u know why? Cause they are stupid humans who have said stupid shit! And you will just take anything they said and did and run with it!!! Every time! So it's only a matter of time until someone new gets targeted. And depending on how tough skinned they are, they will disappear in a matter of seconds.

Let's just throw all of qsmp away while we're at it! No more eggs, no more community, blah blah blah! Something problematic will happen and you all will jump on it and say 'oh, I never liked them anyway'. Which is such a lie! Such bullshit, u are all bullshitters.

And I know for a fact that y'all aren't saints. We have all said disgusting jokes. Race, lgbt, whatever! We've all done it- don't lie! Here, I'll go first. I joked about a school shooting the other day with my friends. There, cancel me. I gave you the ammunition, now take your fucking shot.

This happens every god damn time someone u enjoy gets popular too fast. They get called a pedo, or a racist, or a transphobe or anything easy to spark the mob. I have seen it time and time again with creators running away because theyve been chased off their respective platforms. I saw an artists make the most beautiful art ever, get accused of being a pedo by one person, everyone joined in for some reason and chased her away. I will never not be bitter about that. I HATE ALL OF YOU WHO DID SUCH A THING AND IF I EVER GOT MY HANDS ON YOU I SWEAR TO GOD. But I am sick of people 'finding' or bringing shit to light or whatever and then just post it online! Like fuck! If he really did a crime! Arrest him! But he didn't, did he? Cause that's the fucking game we are playing rn.

Such hypocrites, it's fascinating. Literally yesterday you were kissing this mans feet and exhaling him, but one anon person saw that and chose violence. And you just.... changed your minds???? Like that? Like a switch of a button? Crazy, actually crazy, and childish.

How come everyone flips and flops so easily on the internet??? How is it so easy for you????? And how can u other supposed fans just accept it so easily??? I will never understand and I will bite and claw at all of you. You all loved him 24 hours ago and now with the bare minimum of evidence you flip? You all would be terrible on jury duty. I hope none of you ever get on jury duty.

Anyway, I'll probably get a ton of backlash from this post and delete it later, waking up in the morning with tons of hate. But I don't care. Prove him guilty. Get the hard evidence that he is a pedo and I will believe it when I see it. Have him be in damn cuffs. Get the mugshot. If that is at all true! But I'm not putting my life and art on pause for conveniently timed discourse.

Maybe I'll delete this post tomorrow. But now I'm fuming at all of you.

And yeah, as for me, I had a shit disgusting last year, qsmp and especially forever was one of the few things that got me out of it and calmed me down. And you guys are going to be talking about how wrong and problematic the things he said that was (what was it?) 8 years ago!!! Then guess what, I love a very problematically spoken parent that would make all of you quake and vomit the moment she opened her mouth. But also, that woman saved me from being homeless. For giving me a place to stay after being DEPORTED. So, if u need a little kindergarten lesson today, internet, is that people will say all sorts of horrible cancelable shit, but it's what they actually do, that really matters.

Goodnight.

[mariacallous]

Like so many of us, I was dispirited to wake up a few weeks ago to learn that Donald Trump will be back in the White House. This time he was aided by the world’s richest man and professional spaceship-crasher, Elon Musk. Among the many charming aspects of their partnership is a fondness for some highly unsavoury views on genetics. Trump is an enthusiastic advocate of “racehorse theory”, which he shares with white supremacists; the belief that he is personally superior and that this is rooted in his “good genes”. It’s a vapid idea, but it directly informs his toxic views on immigration, where he argues the country needs to be shielded from the “bad genes”of outsiders.

Meanwhile, Musk has his own equally baffling take on genetics, infused with a characteristic messiah complex. Like some of his fellow tech moguls, he is determined to “save humanity” by producing as many offspring as possible, convinced that our future depends on it. This might all be laughable were it not for the fact that Trump and Musk now wield more power than they ever have before. The shared thread running through their rhetoric is genetic determinism: the idea that who you are, and what you can achieve, is all down to your DNA. Nothing else matters.

The problem is that genetic determinism, with its odd fixation on the “master molecule”, is annoyingly pervasive. When James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA in 1953, they hailed it as the “secret of life”. In 2000, President Bill Clinton declared that sequencing the human genome was like learning “the language in which God created life”. Of course, science always carries the potential to be this thrilling; I don’t want to kill anyone’s science buzz. But I worry that in all the excitement, we can forget that DNA does not define us.

This language has leaked far outside the world of science, to marketing that raves about cars “with adventure in their DNA”, or a discussion of a football club’s “DNA” – it has become a synonym for everything from “characteristics” to “values”. The ubiquity of rhetoric that conflates DNA and identity risks propping up some insidious ideas. This is the language Musk and Trump thrive on, making exclusionary policies look like rational decisions grounded in science. Because, if genes are everything, why bother with policies aimed at tackling inequality? Why waste time and resources addressing social problems when we’re all just products of our genetic code?

In debates surrounding genetics and social policy, it is easy for the language of genetic determinism to lure you into an ill-advised “nature v nurture” debate. You know this debate: maybe she’s born with it; maybe it’s the pervasive conditions of social inequality? But this debate misses the bigger picture entirely: it should not be seen as a binary choice. The truth is, humans are born with genes that require a good environment to thrive. It’s not either/or, but a complex interaction between the two that determines who someone becomes. We have a nature that requires nurture. Good science accounts for this complexity, rather than reducing it to a simplistic binary.

Along with making it harder to argue for progressive social policies, genetic determinism also has a long history of being used to justify violence, particularly by the far right. In 2022, a gunman in Buffalo, New York, cited genetics as part of his rationale for a racially motivated mass shooting. The gunman took various scientific ideas, most notably from genetics, but also environmentalism, and blended these with white supremacist conspiracies such as the “great replacement theory”.

The prospect that real-world violence might once again emerge from a warped interpretation of genetic science isn’t just a theoretical concern; it’s a dangerous reality. So how do we stop genetics from being weaponised? It’s not just about calling out dodgy interpretations of the science: in some ways, that’s the easy part. The harder question involves emotions. Why are people – often driven by anger or fear – liable to co-opt genetics to justify their reactionary political ideologies?

In trying to answer this question, one important thing to note is that science is not just a selection of facts, but also a form of culture. As such, it is subject to “cultural poaching”, as the sociologist Michel de Certeau put it – an unauthorised borrowing and re-contextualising of ideas. Take “survival of the fittest”, for example. When Charles Darwin and other evolutionary scientists used that phrase, they had a specific idea of what they meant by “fittest”, and were referring to how well-adapted an organism is to its environment. But in wider culture, the idea has taken on a life of its own, whereby “fittest” is just a synonym for “best”, or “strongest” – the phrase is often deployed to give bigoted ideas a scientific veneer.

There is evidence that some on the far right are tracking particular academic fields and broadcasting flawed interpretations of scholarly research papers as soon as they are available. Rightly wary of this kind of activity, some scientists are now publishing journal articles discussing how to stop genetics being co-opted by extremists, while science ethics organisations such as Cera provide resources to the same end.

With figures such as Trump and Musk wielding huge power, and the “alt-right” keyboard warriors helping them spread disinformation, genetic science has been forced to the frontline. As uncomfortable as it might be, it is more urgent than ever for people working in the field to ask: “How might my work be poached, and what can I do to stop it?”

[gwendolynlerman]

Things that surprised me as a European tourist in the United States

This is based on my experience as a Spaniard traveling to the United States (specifically New York City and Washington, D. C.).

Like many people around the world, I have grown up in contact with U.S. culture through literature, film, and music, so I didn't experience much cultural shock, but some things still surprised me.

All vehicles (cars, trucks, school buses...) are huge! Most cars are pickup trucks or SUVs. The most common brands came from the United States, but I also saw many Japanese cars, especially Nissan and Toyota (mostly Prius, USAmericans seem to love this model 😂).

Customer service is great, not only in restaurants or places where one is expected to leave a tip but also in museums and subway stations.

I heard many different languages spoken by locals, including Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish, as well as European languages spoken by tourists, such as French, German, and Portuguese. (I think that this is mostly the case in big cities, and especially NYC.)

People wear face masks more often, although I guess that this is transient due to flu season. Still, way fewer people wear them in Spain.

Taxes are not included in the price. (I was aware of this but used to forget about it at first.)

Toilets are not as deep as in Europe (the water is really close to your butt 😖), and many flush automatically. Public restrooms always have seat covers but normally do not have a toilet lid.

Doors are really heavy! No wonder many people (mostly men) held them open for me. I once had to throw myself against the door to open it. What is the deal with doors in the U.S.? (Is it a NYC thing only?)

People were quite loud (and this is coming from someone who grew up in a country that is renowned for how loud we talk) and played music/videos without headphones in the subway 😑

Cops are surprisingly chill despite the reputation that they have. A guy was insulting a couple of them from across the subway platform, and they just smiled and waved at him. In Spain, it is a crime to insult a police officer, so I was surprised that they were so calm about the whole situation.

On that note, there were a lot of cops around the city at all times (even at 5 a.m.). I counted nine of them in Penn Station!

Drivers honk all the time because of every minor inconvenience. On Thanksgiving Day, there were a lot of traffic jams, and people were honking as if that would magically clear the streets... And, of course, if one person honked, the rest honked as well, so walking on the street on the main avenues was really deafening 😐

Traffic lights are quite far away from where cars have to stop.

Fire truck sirens are really loud and sound like emergency alarm systems. (It reminded me of those TikTok videos ranking them.)

People say "Excuse me" in the subway when going in or out, which was a nice change from the shoving and pushing I'm used to in Madrid.

I saw a lot of people carrying around huge reusable water bottles. (Here's an explanation for why USAmericans drink so much.)

People called me "Ma'am" instead of "Miss". I know it's the polite way to address people, but it was very weird 😂

New Yorkers love to use cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) when giving directions. Someone once told me, "Go west on Broadway" and I was like "I have trouble orienting myself when I use Google Maps, do you think I know which direction I'm going in at all times??".

There are lots of caution signs about worker safety on construction sites, both in English and Spanish, which leads me to think that there are many work accidents 🤔

As a solo female traveler, I was a bit concerned about my security in a city that I have heard is dangerous and in a country where mass shootings are a relatively normal occurrence, but I felt mostly safe. I was surprised to see many posters that read, "If you see something, say something".

Related to the above, I was shocked to see "This is a gun free zone" posters in public places and "No guns allowed" posters on supermarket doors.

I was really surprised to see ads with phone numbers with words in them, like the one below. After doing some research, I discovered they are called vanity numbers and are easier for people to remember. (If, like me, you're wondering how to dial these numbers, apparently you just press the number that corresponds to the letter on the keypad.)

I smelled marijuana everywhere! Although illegal in Spain, you can also smell it sometimes, but it seemed ubiquitous in NYC. (I personally hate the smell, which is why I noticed.)

[cocomochicakes]

I WAS THROWN INTO A FANTASY WORLD AND NOW I'M A SORCERER [CHAPTER 1]

A/N:: WOW YA'LL! This is my first FF in over 6 years and it was inspired by @nim-arts and this post to write and create a BG3 Isekai story. I had to give it a title like a play on so many Isekai anime where it's exceedingly long and ridiculous bc why not? This may be a tad cannon divergent toward the end but it's pretty close to at least the original story (I tried my best). Please let me know what you think!

(And if you wish to be tagged for updates, please comment below!)

RATINGS: T-M (may change)

WARNINGS: Adult language, Crude Humor, Sexual comments, Implied sexual interaction

PAIRINGS: undecided

SPECIAL TAGS: @susstardust @mushi42 @underdarque

[Chapter 2] [Chapter 3]

Tip. Tap. Tip. Tap.

A mess of tousled hair stirs beneath coarsely woven blankets and furs with a groan, turning the mass of fabrics and sending a pillow tumbling off of the bundled mass.

"Gooood morning sleepyhead! Time to rise and shine and slice and dice and all that fun stuff!" a loud feminine voice bellows somewhere nearby. It's close, too close.

Tip. Tap. Tip. Tap.

The bundle stirs and once again groans begrudgingly at the foreign sounds that have suddenly become all-too grating, grasping at a well-worn blanket before violently pulling it over the splayed mess of brown hair that has become entwined in the chaotic heap of pillows, pelts, and blankets and letting forth an unintelligible slew of words.

“Oh come on! You have to get up, we agreed to be up and out by midday! Gale even made you extra eggs this morning,” the voice says with a hint of enticement upon the mention of eggs. The bundle mumbles another slew of words lost beneath the layers of blankets as a shuffle of footsteps on gravel and dirt approaches. Gravel and dirt. The bundle shifts uncomfortably patting the hard ground beneath their blankets as the fog of sleep begins to dissipate and the mental cogs begin to turn slowly towards an uncomfortable realization. “I’m on the ground….I AM ON THE GROUND. Why am I on the ground?!”

There’s a sensation of panic bubbling up within her bowels and threatening to boil over.

Tip. Tap. Tip. Tap.

The fine hairs on her body begin to stand skyward and her eyes shoot open underneath what she now realizes is not her blanket and this is most certainly not her bed. Her heart is racing and her breathing begins to escalate as her mind floods with thoughts. Was she kidnapped? Is she being trafficked? Did someone break into her apartment and is now suddenly holding her hostage at an unknown location and is using her for ransom? In the midst of her spiral, the forgotten footsteps have suddenly stopped.

An irritated huff.

 It’s mere feet away and she’s trapped under an unknown blanket without anything to defend herself and there’s a stranger in her vicinity. She curls up ready to flip over and run as fast as she can.

“Okay since you’re not getting up on your own, I’m coming in! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

There’s a rustle and suddenly, the warmth and comfort of the pelts and blankets is gone and staring down at her is a giant red woman with golden eyes and horns. Horns. There’s a moment of confusion as the blanket that was violently tossed from her body settles off to her right before a scream of terror escapes her lungs.

“OH MY GOD THIS IS A DREAM” she screams as she scurries on all fours beneath the giant red woman with horns and golden eyes, her hands grasping for purchase on coarse dirt and rocks before she is able to bolt upright and face the woman who is now staring at her confused with both hands raised before her to indicate non-threat.

“It’s okay Soldier, it’s just me, Karlach. Sorry to startle you but I suppose you were having a bad dream. It’s okay, you’re safe” she coos softly, her bellowing voice dropped to a gentle lull as she crouches over and slowly approaches.

“By the gods! What the sweet hells is all this ruckus?” an irate voice calls from behind.

Slowly removing her eyes from the woman in front of her, in a frozen state she cautiously turns her head and torso in a singular languid twist and sets her sights upon a man in a loosely ruffled white shirt with eyes as red as rubies and delicate white strands of hair curling around a set of pointed ears.

Pointed ears?

Pointed ears.

POINTED. EARS.

She halts her movement. Her breath stills before suddenly her body grows limp and the sky turns black behind her eyes. The last thing she remembers is an ache deep within her skull and a flash light on a screen.

••••••

“Oh no! Is she going to be okay?!”

“Karlach, what the hells did you do!”

“I didn’t do a think Fangs, I swear it! I just went to wake her up and then she-“

“Make some space!” a woman commands. “Tav can you hear me? Can you wiggle your fingers to let me know you’re okay?” the soft feminine voice says from above her as a sudden flood of comforting warmth undulates in waves over her body. Her head and shoulders have a dull ache that is slowly subsiding as the warmth passes over her body and she carefully opens her eyes, her blurred vision becoming clearer as the seconds pass.

“What…what happened?” she asks, blinking, her eyes remaining fixated on the sky above. Her mind feels fuzzy and her fingers and toes feel numb.

“I was about to ask you the same thing. We all heard you scream and the next thing I know, I hear Karlach and Astarion calling for me and you’re on the ground collapsed.”

She shoots upwards and her head nearly makes contact with the head of a woman with green eyes and black hair whose hands were glowing. Glowing.

Hazel eyes dart back and forth as her heart hammers inside her ribcage and her chest begins to heave. “Wher-what, h-how? This can’t be real, there’s no god forsaken way this is real. Is this my voice? WHY DO I HAVE AN ACCENT?!” She can hear the words spill from her lips but the voice sounds foreign and her tongue is contorting against her teeth in an unfamiliar manner. She begins to mutter words under her breath and no matter how hard she tries, they don’t come out the way she intends them to. Her o’s are long and her a’s are hollow. This isn’t her voice. Hazel eyes are blown wide like a deer in the face of death and she can feel herself spiraling into a panic attack, chest tightening as her breathing begins to increase rapidly.

“Tav, I need you to breathe for me” the woman with green eyes and black hair says.

Tav?

Who’s Tav?

Unmanicured hands grasp at an all-too-loose linen shirt before they begin to pat over a chest that doesn’t feel like hers with calloused hands covered in fresh bruises and scratches that surely do not belong to her. Kicking her legs and rocking into a standing position, her eyes dart around her. Her chest is heaving. There’s a river, a lake, ruins, tents with knick-knacks and mirrors. Mirrors. She breaks out into a sprint toward a mirror resting upon a table at a red tent. What she sees suctions the breath from her already compressed lungs: glowing hazel eyes, a dainty pointed nose, light freckles dusting her cheeks, and beneath a messily braided mop of chestnut hair, two slightly pointed ears.

“Oh no…oh gods…OH GODS” she says in horror, her hands patting and touching at the expanse of her face and pinching the pointed tips of foreign ears that were somehow attached to her face.

“Tav, are you quite alright? Wyll, Laezel, and I have just returned from scouting ahead and we heard you yelling?” a man with warm brown eyes, dark brown hair peppered with grey, and a finely trimmed beard says placing down a basket of various plants.

“Gale…YOU’RE GALE!” she practically yells, her body leaning backwards onto the damaged wooden table. He tilts his head befuddled, his brow knotting itself deeply as he eyes her suspiciously.

“The one and only but I feel as though I have clearly missed out on an event that I might need to be privy to. Shadowheart, can you please enlighten me on why our resident leader is looking at me as if I had already sprouted tentacles?”

“While I would like to say it’s the tadpoles, your guess is as good as mine to be quite frank with you.”

“Hmm intriguing…” he trails off, crossing his arms in front of his chest and resting his chin between a thumb and finger as he glances over and evaluates Tav, who looks like a hare corner by a predator.

“Oh come now Gale, Tav looks terrified. Maybe we should give her some space for a moment?” a man with dark skin, massive curled horns, and mismatched eyes says.

Gale exhales before stepping back, firmly crossing both arms and shifting his weight to a leg before he tilts his head quizzically. “Yes I suppose you’re right Wyll,” he acknowledged “and apologies Tav! I merely am concerned since you seem quite…alarmed.”

She closes her eyes and takes deep, focused breaths. In, one, two, three, out, one, two, three. Her heart beat slows to a calm flutter.

Suddenly, the sound of scraping metal rings out from her left. “Her mind is slipping and she is but mere moments away from losing herself to madness! Move out of the way before she turns into a ghaik!”

Wyll races to move towards the woman with green skin whose eyes are set in a murderous rage “Laezel she’s not turning this has to be something-“

No sooner than he steps in front of her to speak, she is shoving him to the side with her forearm and quickly encroaching on Tav’s heaving form slouched against the wooden side table. Just as Tav finally succeeds in bringing her breathing into a normal rhythm she looks up and no sooner than she does, it’s as if time slows. A blade is swinging downward toward her body and whether it be by chance, instinct, or pure fear, as she puts her hands out in front of her, a buzzing sensation wells from within her palms and two mysterious words tumble from her lips: dolor.

In a flash of radiant red light, she feels the air part from her hands and a thunderous echo radiate across the cliffs behind her, a flock of birds cawing and screeching fearfully departing in droves from a nearby treeline. There’s a palpable vibration slowly fading from her hands and as she opens her eyes and unclenches her jaw, a shocked silence washes over Tav.

There before her and everyone in the camp lies the groaning form of Laezel blown some distance away, her sword cocked off to the corner a significant length from her hands. Tav looks to her hands in awe and then again at Laezel, who appears disoriented grasping at her head and wobbling to a very unsteady standing position.

“ISTIK HOW DARE YOU! I am saving you from misery!” Laezel shouts, her voice rasping. However her angry yelling falls upon deaf ears as Tav is lost staring at her hands and the buzzing electricity she feels sprinkling into her fingertip from her palms. She just did magic. SHE. JUST. DID. MAGIC. Tav is vibrating out of her skin.

“Oh my god I did magic…I DID MAGIC!” she yells in excitement before her mind switches to Laezel’s form being held back by a pleading Wyll and a Karlach who had rushed over whilst her mind was in limbo. It then hits her that she just blasted Laezel directly in the chest and the excitement once again turns to fear and panic, her voice stammering “OH GOD I’M SO SORRY! I-I-I don’t know how I did that I didn’t mean to hurt you like that!” Tav is power walking to Laezel to apologize profusely before Gale clears his throat to interject.

“Tav while that was a fantastic Eldritch Blast, I do believe we all best avoid further animosity first thing in the morning before we head to the Goblin Camp. Our energies are best spent on actual enemies, not each other.”

Astarion huffs and clicks his tongue at Gale’s commentary, crossing his arms dramatically “Oh dear old Gale, aren’t you simply just the biggest spoilsport. And here I was getting my hopes up for a little fight to the death first thing in the morning.”

“Hmm I must side with Astarion on this. It really would have made for a fine show and one less headache down the road” Shadowheart admonishes, a single brow quirked and her lips pursed in displeasure. Laezel clicks her tongue and growls low in response, shaking off Wyll and Karlach before stomping over to get her sword.

“I really am sorry. I honestly don’t know how I did that,” Tav says, her hands together at her front, eyes downcast. Her mind is reeling. Should she tell them the truth or should she lie and try to pretend? Pretending would have been great but she knows she’s already blown her cover with some of the things she had said as well as her panic attack moments earlier. Internally Tav weighs her options in silence as her companions begin to bicker amongst themselves. She considers her current predicament and comes to the conclusion that perhaps the truth would be less stressful for her to endure than lie and keeping up false pretenses, especially knowing that she is capable of accidental explosive magic in moments of intense emotion.

In one, out two, Tav breaths until she can finally look towards the band of misfits before her. She’s thinking about how to form words and tell these people her identity however, before she can recall even her real name, a pain strikes the side of her temple, forcing her to the ground with her head in her hands. The shock subsides and before she even opens her mouth to speak, the pain strikes her down again with equal ferocity. Her skull is pounding behind closed eyes and gritted teeth.

No one speaks, but a concerned Gale is immediately at her side, a hand on her back as he kneels down beside her. As he is about to speak, Tav waves her hand to shush him and suddenly it’s as if a celestial nebula crashes through her mind, memories exploding and overwhelming her senses. She sees flashes of books, a home, a grey sky beneath steel wings, illuminated letters clicking under her fingertips, a hall of statues and paintings. No sooner than the images collide and implode upon one another in her mind, her body stills, the pain fades, and the images cease.

Tav lifts her eyes to Gale and then to everyone who has come closer to surround her. “I…I think there’s something all of you need to know. I can’t tell you my real name or the name of where I come from but what I can tell you is that this is not really me. I am not the ‘Tav’ you think I am.”

[animatorweirdo]

When the Dragons Fly (Book 3)

You, Baelen, and Aelon remain behind to buy time for the rest of the host to get through the mountain. All goes well until one of the worst creatures known in Middle Earth appears and you are forced to use desperate measures to ensure the orcs won't follow your people into the mountains.

[] = High Valyrian

Chapter 9

Warnings: violence, fighting, shooting arrows, burning orcs alive, some graphic description, cold, explosions, escaping, falling, and causing an avalanche.

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The sound of the wind nearly deafened your ears. The night had become pitch black as snow flew around everywhere. Torches did their best to light up the front yard and the gate where at the front stood an army of orcs, stomping their feet to the ground and shrieking in excitement to spill blood. 

You stood with Baelen in the fortress, overlooking the orcs and the defenders who were in position and ready to attack. 

When the orcs began running toward the blocked gate and attempted to climb its walls, you signaled the archers to send arrows on their shoulders. 

The archest began to shoot arrows at the orcs, especially when they began to climb each other to reach the top of the wall. They also tried hitting the blocked gate. The rocks stood on their ground, barely moved by the mass behind them. 

The arrows struct the orcs down over the wall, sending them flying back. However, since you had a few archers and more orcs, they couldn’t keep up as the orcs reached the top of the wall. 

You gave Aelon the signal to fly down and burn them. 

Aelon quickly gave his dragon the order to fly. Falconer shrieked, gliding down from the mountain and toward the orcs on the road. 

“[Dracarys!]” Aelon yelled through the wind. 

Falconer released his fiery breath upon the orcs at the gate. The orcs screamed as they burned and Falconer’s fire lit up the road. The rocks at the gate managed to tolerate the flames, leaving only the orcs burned as Aelon flew away to return to his position for the next signal. 

You felt relief when no more orcs tried to climb the wall. The people hiding in their positions released small cheers over the small victory. They soon fell quiet since it was only the first wave. 

“You know, we might have a chance to wind this if we keep this up,” Baelen stated. 

“That would be the best outcome, but I do not think the enemy would be this stupid,” you replied as another wave approached. You mentally frowned as the first wave was meant to test and see how well your defenses took. 

As another wave of orcs approached the gate, you saw something bigger following them. When it got closer, you realized what it was when you heard the sound of its roar, a troll. 

“They’re sending a troll to break the gate. They’re more resistant toward fire due to their thick skin, ” you stated, then looked toward the archers. “Focus on the troll. Don’t let it reach the gate!” you ordered, then pulled out your sword. 

“Get ready. We will most likely have to face the orcs who get over the wall,” you said as Baelen unsheathed his sword. 

The orcs were the first to reach the gate. Some of the archers shot them down, but since you ordered them to focus on the troll, orcs started climbing over the wall. Luckily, you had ordered the gate and the wall around it to be made steep and hard to stand on, so when the orcs climbed over, they quickly fell and landed on the spikes you had set below, piercing them to death. 

The trap stalled them for a while. The orcs screamed as they tripped and fell into the spikes that pierced them through the armor. However, the trap soon became useless as the orcs began using the dead to jump over the spikes and attack the first defender on their way. 

You and Baelen soon joined the fight when more orcs got over the trap. You two fought them and tried to keep as many of your men alive as possible. 

The troll got closer to the gate. The archers sent arrows at the creature’s head, but the troll’s thick skin allowed it to persist. The troll roared and began using its large fists to punch the gate. The rocks shook from the force. You noticed them starting to move and get weaker from each hit the troll sent them. 

“Kill the troll! Kill it!” you yelled at the archers while blocking a blade sent by an orc. 

The archers picked up their speed, shooting arrows at the troll. One lucky arrow struck the troll through the eye, causing the creature to shriek and fall dead in front of the gate. 

When you heard the creature die, you quickly gave Aelon the signal to fire again since too many orcs were climbing over the wall. 

Aelon quickly acted, flying down and finishing the rest of the wave at the gate. 

You and Baelen managed to kill the remaining orcs that got through and take a breather. Baelen looked around your men. 

“Is everyone still alive?” he asked and to your relief, most of the men were breathing and slightly injured. You had not yet lost a life. 

Baelen looked toward you. “If we survive one more wave. I think we have bought enough time for Torim and our host to get halfway through the mountains,” he stated. 

“Let’s then give our all to survive this. I’m afraid that troll spent most of our arrows,” you replied.  

You all then heard something.

“What is that sound?” Baelen questioned as you heard it again. It sounded like something heavy was approaching you. 

You quickly ran up to the tower to see over the wall and gate. 

A large flaming creature flew down from the sky, landing in front of the orcs army. Its large and flaming wings stretched out on its back. Its skin was flaming with fire and ash. In its left hand, it wielded a large black axe. The creature’s horn drilled around its face and when it looked toward you and the gate, it released an ear-piercing roar. 

Your heart fell heavy with fear and dread as the creature was none other than a Balrog. And if your memory serves correctly, it's the same balrog who brutally killed the high king of the Noldor. 

“Oh—- shit!” Baelen uttered when he saw the Balrog. “It looks like Morgoth really wants you and your dragons captured,”

“I think we have to forget about facing the third wave,” you saw a flaming whip appear on the balrog’s hand. 

Your eyes widened when the balrog spun the whip around and then sent it flying toward the gate. 

“Get out of the gate!” you yelled toward the men who were still in the yard, but it was too late. 

The hit from the balrog’s whip was too much for the rocks, and they were sent flying with a huge explosion. The men who were near the gate, screamed as the force sent them to fly back and some were killed by the rocks that struck them hard enough to tear their limbs apart. Even you, Baelen, and those far away were affected by the blast, falling to the ground from the force. 

The whole gate was blown open by the balrog’s whip. It was cleared of the spikes and the dead bodies that once surrounded it. There was now nothing that would stop the orcs from coming inside. 

You and Baelen recovered from the blast. 

“Kill them!” the balrog roared and the orcs began running toward you. 

“The plan is broken. Get everyone you can inside the mountain and block the path,” you ordered. “I will fulfill the last part of the plan so you won’t be followed,” you added as you turned toward the trebuchet that had luckily been left unharmed from the blast. 

“What about you? Don’t tell me to leave you here all by yourself?” Baelen questioned with a frown. 

“I will be fine. I will join you at the end of the mountain. Your job is to get whoever is left to safety,” you said. 

Baelen looked hesitant. 

“Do it!” You yelled at him with a commanding tone. 

Baelen looked at you startled before looking toward the remaining men. 

“Into the mountain! Now!” he yelled and the rest of the men began running toward the fortress. 

“(Name)! Buy us some time to block the path!” Baelen yelled before running into the mountain himself. You subtly nodded, turning your attention toward the orcs that came through the destroyed gate. 

You struck down all the orcs that came in your way while making your way to the trebuchet. 

Aelon flew down from the sky. Falconer roared as he released flames upon the orcs that came through. 

Baleria was itching to join the fight, sensing your nervousness and anxiety over the situation. However, you ordered her to stay put. It was not yet the time for her to join the fight. 

You and Aelon held back the orcs that came through. You managed to reach the trebuchet and watched as the orcs burned in the front yard. Some of the archers stayed, shooting down the orcs, but quickly retreated into the mountain path. After Baelen ensured everyone got in, he began blocking the path with rocks and everything that would make it difficult for the orcs to get through. 

You killed the orcs that reached the fortress, ensuring none of them would reach the cavern entrance. 

After ten minutes, you finally saw no one in the fortress and that the path was properly sealed. You allowed Baleria to fly and signaled Aelon to retreat. 

You then sheathed your sword and prepared to launch the trebuchet. You aimed it toward the top of the mountain where it would cause an avalanche, but before you could launch the weapon, something appeared on the front yard, striking you and everything else down with a heatwave. 

You fell to the ground with a heavy slam. Groaning, you stood up and to your dread, the trebuchet was broken by the impact. 

You quickly grabbed your sword when you saw the balrog standing in the front yard, looking at you.

“A woman?” the lord of balrogs questioned when he saw you. A hint of surprise and confusion in his voice.

You quickly stood up and the balrog then sent his whip toward you. You blocked the coming with your sword, and surprisingly, a bright glimmer came from Night Whisperer’s steel when it made contact with the balrog’s whip. It managed to repel it, but unfortunately, the impact was too strong for you and you were sent flying from the fortress’s floor to the ground in the front yard. 

The balrog stood back from the flash your sword caused to its eyes then glared at you.

You groaned as you got up, feeling bruises and struggling to stand up after the fall. 

You looked up at the balrog and then toward the mountain behind him. You reached out to Baleria through your bond, telling her through your emotions what you wanted her to do. She reached out in return, letting you know she understood what you wished of her. 

“I don’t suppose you are here because of our dragon,” you started as you wielded your blade. 

“Indeed. We did not believe there could be a flying dragon when we first heard of it and now I see it's true. My lord had given me clear instructions to see if it was true and bring them to him. I think he would not mind if I bring him an extra gift.” the lord of balrogs, Gothmog, answered while looking down on you. 

“You fought back admirably, but if you and your creature surrender now, then I promise we won’t hurt you,” he said.

You sensed Baleria getting closer. 

“And when since have Balrogs lived up to their promises?” you questioned, keeping your calm and trying to buy time.  

“Of course, that will depend on your complicity,” Gothmog replied.  

“But if you swear loyalty to my master. I’m sure he will have great use to you since you managed to last things long,” he said. 

“That’s quite an offer…” you uttered as you saw Baleria’s shadow in the sky. “But I’m afraid I have to refuse,”

“[Dracarys]!” you yelled from the top of your lungs. 

The balrog stood back when you yelled with such a voice that it sounded like the roar of a beast, but then he turned his eyes toward the mountains as Baleria released her flames upon the hills. 

As Baleria fired down on the mountaintop above the fortress, the mountains shook beneath your feet. Baleria flew away when rocks and snow began falling toward you in a great avalanche. 

You began running away as quickly as possible. Gothmog sneered and whipped down on your feet, causing you to trip and fall into one of the cracks in the fortress. The balrog then stretched its wings and flew away as the avalanche fell upon the fortress and the road. The orcs screamed as they were taken by the avalanche, soon all the torches that were lit were snuffed out and the ancient fortress crumbled under the weight. The whole fortress fell to the bottom of the mountain, covered in darkness and no one climbed out of the snow. 

“(Name)...” Aelon uttered as he was flying at a safe distance, having watched the whole thing happen. He saw no sight of you or Baleria, but with a heavy heart, he ordered Falconer to continue flying. Tears ran down his face as he feared the worst but hoped that you made it out. 

You fell a deep distance after falling into the crack. Your back hit one of the rocks that then tossed you to another rocky cliff. You gasped when you felt an awful pain in your rib and struggled to hold on to stop your fall. Your hands slipped from the icy rock, and then you continued falling. You then dropped into what seemed to be water at the bottom. You shrieked as you were encased by the freezing water, but forced yourself to swim to the surface. 

Gasping, you pulled yourself over to the stone floor. You began shivering, as your body ached in pain, and the cold air encased you like a freezing blanket. Your ears fell deaf to the sounds above as the cave slightly crumbled and snow fell from above. 

You turned around on your back, struggling to breathe and remain conscious as you were in pain and still shocked by the sudden dip in the water. You stared at the ceiling as snow and ice around you were the only thing giving light. You practiced breathing and pondered as you were momentarily stuck beneath the earth. 

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