#manifestation without woo

[creature-wizard]

Manifestation Without Woo: Avoiding Unhealthy Thought Patterns

The whole "don't give any attention to the old story, ignore the 3D" advice can get toxic when you end up ignoring real problems, but there is a grain of truth in that advice.

What is that truth, you might ask?

Don't give into rumination, don't entertain catastrophic thoughts, and don't beat yourself up.

Rumination is when you keep thinking about negative stuff for a long period of time. It can be your fears, bad things that happened to you in the past, or unpleasant things about your present that you can't really change right now. It's a very unhealthy behavior, and it's good to practice mindfulness so you can catch yourself if you start doing it. Anyone can ruminate, but it's especially easy to get caught up in it if you have OCD. There's a lot of info on managing rumination out there, which you can search up. Here's one page: 8 Ways To Stop Repetitive Thinking.

Catastrophic thinking is when your brain starts spiraling into worst-case scenarios. For example, you might make a post and someone might respond in an angry way, and you might spiral into fears that you're a horrible person or no one will love you. Another form of catastrophic thinking is spiraling into a fear you can't heal from trauma or toxic indoctrination, and you're doomed to be where you are right now. Again, there's lots of info out there on managing this, and one page you can start with is How to stop catastrophizing.

Beating yourself up is essentially a form of psychological self-harm, where you indulge negative thoughts about yourself. You might do it because you think it'll help you become a better person, or let you atone for your wrongs. (It won't do either.) If you find yourself indulging these kinds of thoughts, you can try the strategies in the articles linked above. One strategy many people on Tumblr have used is deliberately thinking positive thoughts about themselves whenever they catch themselves thinking a negative one. For example, if you find yourself thinking, "I'm so ugly," quickly think to yourself, "I'm incredibly fabulous."

Practicing mindfulness in general is always good, and if you continue struggling with negative thought patterns, it might be good to seek professional help.

And remember, thinking negative thoughts can't make bad things happen on their own. They can be highly stressful and keep you locked in fear, but they can't make bad things manifest out of thin air.

[theinfinitedivides]

ok hold on holy f*ck we are getting a Beethoven musical and it is having its world premiere in Korea January of next year everyone stay calm—

[love-belle]

ishq wala love !!!

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ in which they're the blueprint for true love and everyone's in love with their love.

or

for when you find a love that feels like love. ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

social media au // charles leclerc x fem!reader

warnings - language

author's note - im back (im so sorry) i really hope u like it <3 thank you so much for reading, i love you <3

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by kiaraaliaadvani, carmenmmundt, lilymhe and 968,426 others

yourusername ishq wala love ( love like love )

tagged charles_leclerc

13,627 comments

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carmenmmundt 💓

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-> charles_leclerc yeah that makes complete sense 👍

charles_leclerc mon soleil ( my sun )

-> yourusername meri jaan ❤️ ( my life )

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≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by yourusername, landonorris, danielricciardo and 875,486 others

charles_leclerc joyeux anniversaire mon soleil 💌 here's to spending my life with you under the sun. ( happy birthday my sun )

tagged yourusername

6,628 comments

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*liked by charles_leclerc*

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arthur_leclerc maman says that you cannot hog her the whole day and she wants to go shopping with her belle-fille ( daughter in law )

-> charles_leclerc she's literally my girlfriend

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[pinkaditty]

If it's not inconvenient, I would like to order Leona with a female reader with prompt 5 18,20 and 30 (if you can't do everything, you can choose just one prompt, I don't want to leave you overwhelmed)

okaaaaaaaaay y’all really poured in req after req after req! like seriously! i was thinking to myself “hmm ill manifest 15 asks” i have fucking 20. (/pos) love u guys woo!! these will get done over the span of a while, but i do ask you all to be patient with me! i am disabled in multiple ways and that does get in the way of my productivity sometimes, but ill do my best to crank these out at least on an evenly-spaced schedule. thank you!

a/n: sub!reader… so many sub!reader asks… i will write these to the best of my ability but i don’t write it often (i don’t really know how to be a sub lol?) so ill do my best to write this in an appealing way without it being cringe. ALSO if u have submitted an ask. I SEE IT I PROMISE!! none of the asks i have received as of now have been against my rules or too much for me to write. I promise I will get to your ask! Please be patient with me!

cw: omegaverse!au (a/b/o), size difference, cock warming, dacryphilia, penetration, fem!reader, sub!reader, not proofread, and leona being a pos as per usual (/lh).

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT PLEASE AND RESPECT MY BOUNDARY! THANK YOU!

Whenever the haughty prince, Leona Kingscholar, was in a rut, everyone in the palace knew.

Everyone.

The two of you were not quiet, and since he doesn’t like to go anywhere, you would stay cooped up in his room, and all palace staff and residents would make it a point to avoid that area to spare themselves the noise and embarrassment. Neither you nor Leona cared, though. As long as you had time to yourselves, that was all that mattered.

You were currently seated reverse cowgirl on his barbed cock, your puffy cunt stretched wide over the sheer girth. No matter how many times he fucked you silly with it, you could never get used to the size. Thick and long, it filled up the entirety of your cunt and then some, the pointed tip pressing into your cervix. You were shaking and could hardly feel your legs any longer, staying obediently upright on his cock. You didn’t dare move much more than your trembling. He was stretched out on his bed, his arms crossed behind his neck, his eyes closed. If you didn’t know any better, you would think he was sleeping, but the smirk on his face was a dead giveaway, as well as the gentle twitching of his cock within your heat.

The reason your body, quite small in comparison to his, was seated on his groin was to keep yourself plugged up from endeavors just passed. He insisted on it every time. You just had to sit and wait until he was at full mast again, at which point he would tell you to start moving. If simply sitting on his cock was enough to have you trembling, you were sure feeling him slide against your walls would destroy you.

But until then, you were simply seated on his cock. You curled and uncurled your toes, already getting antsy while waiting for some movement. It was becoming pure torture. You knew he was enjoying this. You didn’t have to look at him to know that a devilish smirk accompanied the amused scoff you just heard.

You felt him twitch inside you again. Whether he was doing this to tease you or simply because the buildup was hard to bear, you didn’t know. What you did know was that he was hard, and rapidly approaching full mast. You only had so much longer until his twitching tip eventually kissed your cervix, and you would know it was time to start moving again. You still don’t dare to move much, trying to breathe deeply and keep yourself from losing your mind. Even though you’d been sitting for a while, he was still stretching you out. It’s already such a feat, your small hole somehow managing to fit Leona’s impressive girth. You didn’t know how you were going to take much more, even if you knew you could. You start to get a little dizzy, the overwhelming girth becoming hard to bear. Tears prick the edges of your eyes from the odd mix of pain and pleasure. To better get yourself used to his size, you squeeze your walls around him, squeezing your eyes shut at the same time. Tears roll down your face as you clench yourself tightly, desperately attempting to accustom yourself to the enormous length.

You feel him smack your ass, and you yelp at the sharp pain. You slowly turn your body, your cunt twitching at the sensation of movement, looking at him with tears in your eyes. He whips his tail back and forth in satisfaction, a wide smirk on his face. His sharp eyes narrow at your tears, and his smirk only grows wider as a light chuckle escapes his lips.

“Turn around. Let me see you."

His cock twitched in your heat. He was at full mast.

You slowly turn yourself, gently moving your legs the best you can. Your legs feel like jelly, and you struggle to turn while keeping him inside you. You lift yourself with your arms, gently twisting your legs around. Your cunt twitches more at the movement, and you whimper and bite your lip as you twist. When you finally fully turn, facing him, your arms are struggling to hold yourself up, your legs curled behind you. You are slightly lifted off of his cock, and trying to prepare yourself to slide him back in. You don't dare to look at him, already knowing that he is simply enjoying the show. You slowly lower yourself back down, tears spilling from your eyes. You squeeze your eyes shut at the length filling you again, and a small whimper escapes your lips, tightly pursed to prevent moans from slipping out. Tiny sobs slip out as you finally reach his base, your heat having fully taken in his girth. Your whole body is shaking, and despite knowing what's coming, you hope for a little bit of rest in between. But Leona won't afford you that. No, he likes to be entertained.

“Start moving."

You sob at his words, not sure how you were going to manage this on your own. You'd be a liar if you claimed to not enjoy it, though. You liked how he ensured he was always in control, always entertained. You bite your lip and begin to obey, sliding yourself up and down his length. The sensation of him rubbing against your walls is far too much to bear. Your legs are trembling and your lips are no longer pursed, moans slipping from your lips as you ride him. As painful as his girth is, it is also insanely pleasurable, rubbing against all your sweet spots. He grunts, reaching out to grab your hips and steady your movements. You can tell he's resisting the urge to thrust upwards, clenching his jaw and narrowing his eyes. The sound of skin on skin, wet copulation, and loud moaning quickly fills the room.

Your eyes roll back, tears still spilling from them. You grab Leona's wrists, attempting to stabilize yourself. You keep moving, lifting and dropping your body carelessly over his length, simply chasing the ecstasy-inducing friction and the building orgasm threatening to rip through you. You can barely focus, your vision all bleary, but you glance at him and notice his wicked smile, staring at your expression. Of course he enjoyed your tears, an obvious sign of how good it all was. You can feel it approaching, and you dig your nails into Leona's wrists, gasping for air at the feeling. Leona is not in much better shape, grunting and groaning, clearly letting the sensations get to him. To spur him on further, you clench your walls on him again, tightening yourself around him. You curl your toes and loudly sob, feeling the orgasm coming. You keep bouncing, chasing it, addicted to how it feels to be full of such a large girth.

Finally, it comes, and rips through you, causing you to clench your walls even tighter and moan loudly, arching your back at the feeling. Leona thrusts upwards only once, burying his length within you, and releasing deep inside you. His hot cum fills you up all at once, and you relish the feeling, the warmth seeping into your womb and settling in.

The two of you pant heavily as you come down from your high. Your muscles slowly relax, and you begin to slouch, catching your breath from the endeavor. Leona recovers far quicker than you, and pulls his arms back, slapping your thighs and smirking at you again.

“Stay put."

And so, you were to stay put, plugged full, at least until he was hard again and ready for another round.

a/n: wooow writing sub!reader is so new and unfamiliar but I did it???? I did it!!!! this is only the first of MANY, MANY asks that I have received. it's like a new one is there every day! thanks so much for submitting all these asks! anyways, I really really hope you all enjoy this, whether you requested it or not! thank you so much for reading, and don't be afraid to like, comment, reblog, or put in a request yourself (please make sure to read the rules and my masterlist)! thank you!!!!

[vampireistic]

chapter 45 nb spoilers（╹◡╹）♡

well this chapter was certainly…special, in some ways. of course we had the “beel eating too much cliché” but despite this chapter sounding like it was supposed to be very “beel centric” (since you know…this was HIS exam), it really ended up just being a showcase of satan, and i kind of enjoyed it that way.

the wording and this entire sequence was very interesting; satan has quite literally done nothing to warrant him going off to cool down apart from maybe some subsequent guilt that he’s putting the one he loves in danger but, once again, that’s not necessarily his fault as it is the sponsor’s who organised this test. the question is why? why does satan feel so sensitive to the point he initiates affection with MC (something that you know, quite rarely ever happens regardless of the character).

then again, it is a dangerous situation so you can just boil it down to mere fear that he could lose MC somehow and be unable to protect them (woo foreshadowing…)

and well…he’s not entirely wrong here? as we’ve seen, past!MC teaches him how to be “gentle” by introducing him to cats and their feisty yet loving nature (once you get them to trust you at least), it’s that reason that helps him become much more tolerable and less destructive especially in regards to his brothers — this is the same case in the original timeline except they didn’t introduce him to cats, just unconditional love and patience.

in a way, that’s keeping him “safe”. safe from his self-destructive tendencies, safe from letting everything bother him till it manifests into him being hyper-violent and aggressive, safe to become what he wants. but regardless of the cute nostalgia, it’s still a rather odd thing to say..? perhaps he’s just reminiscing, but given the context of the situation, this is a little surprising coming from someone who’s a little more reserved.

hey, solmare — why has MC nearly fallen off of something two times in a row now? once again, there’s intent behind every little detail, this clearly isn’t just a way to give diavolo more screen time or to show that he finished first, there’s more to it. this made me think back to this one theory i read that the reason MC keeps repeatedly landing on satan after using. teleportation spell, is because they’re somehow intertwined.

MC is the only one with a connection to lilith, while satan is the only one with a connection lucifer — and perhaps somehow that’s something that makes their fates cross paths, and that’s what this chapter is trying to show.

beside that, the two times we’ve now nearly died is a clear indicator; we fucked up somehow. it may just be coincidence, but it really is highly unlikely this was just a random implement. even if it was, it still does show a very important thing; MC is very vulnerable. almost too vulnerable to the point it’s a little worrying, that time they spent in the past has clearly affected them.

we’ve seen previously that simeon has been struggling a lot more with his recently acclaimed humanity, he feels a little more sluggish and out of place, which is for sure warranted given the fact he’s lost the one thing he’s always had and has been forced into a position of powerlessness, but even so, it does feel like there’s something more happening behind the scenes that would make simeon act in such a way.

it still hasn’t been properly addressed whether simeon is technically classified as a human or just an angel without actual angelic properties, but even so, this change must be costing a lot of physical and mental energy for simeon — and yet he’s choosing to face through it alone.

[firelxdykatara]

also, also! phoebe is the one who needed to get the power of premonition because she was the only one who would not question or hesitate to act on what she saw from the jump. prue is able to ignore the small incidents when her power manifests because she doesn't believe in any of this magic stuff to begin with, and while piper uses her ability to her advantage in the moment she immediately freaks out about it and tries to call phoebe because she's the one into all this witchy woo stuff in the first place!

but if either of them had just started seeing things, having randomly unexplained intrusive visions, they most likely would've tried to rationalize it away--at least until something horrible happened that only after they realized they could have prevented.

phoebe, who bought in from the jump, who was the one to activate their magic, had to be the one with the Sight. she complains later on about being the only one without an active power, but it's her visions and her heart that the charmed ones rely on.

[patchwork-crow-writes]

Kralsei is Doomed (and that's why I love it)

To me, Kralsei is a commentary on the idea of being in love with the idea of being in love - that is to say, being enthralled with the anticipation of courtship and falling in love, without really taking into consideration how the ensuing relationship would... actually work.

The depth of longing that is evident in Ralsei towards Kris is indeed intoxicating, and as I've mentioned previously, the game itself seems to push this pairing in the way that certain events are made to happen - most notably the acid tunnel of love running parallel to Noelle and Susie's heart-covered ferris-wheel ride. And add to that the whole nature of dark worlds as synonymous with dreams, fantasy and imagination. From a narrative perspective, the relationship seems almost destined to occur.

But I think Ralsei might find himself a bit adrift if and/or when he actually succeeds in wooing Kris... or the player, or whoever is predominantly in charge by that point. Like a dog chasing a car, I'm not certain he'd know quite what to do if he got what he was after, because at that point it stops being a flight of fancy and becomes real... which is very much the domain of the light world, and outside the darkness's purview.

And when getting swept up in the thrill of romance stories, it's easy to forget that the "struggle" does not end just because the couple share a tender kiss or whatever. Reality can, and often does, quickly ensue, and questions of long-term compatibility in the face of waning desire can spell doom for any relationship, no matter how "destined" it might seem in the run up to it.

This does not even take into consideration the biggest obstacle to this relationship - to exist in a form that we as players might recognise as reciprocal, it'd have to either be entirely confined to the dark world, or there'd have to be some way to bend the rules of Deltarune's reality to allow Ralsei to manifest in the light world, which... presents entirely new problems, not least because of the whole "Roaring" shindig.

Indeed, the more likely scenario, aside from the whole thing fizzling out or otherwise coming to an unfortunate end, is that Kris begins wearing the horned headband that is supposed to represent Ralsei, which as romantic a gesture as that might be, does not exactly live up to the promise that the pairing hints at... although in a strange way, such an outcome might end up strengthening the fantasy element of Kralsei, as a nascent relationship brought to a tragic end by the unflinching and immutable rules of light and dark. Such relationship never has to be actually tested by reality, which allows it to exist in a sort of crystalised state, a seemingly-perfect snapshot of a love that can perpetually exist in an idealised form.

It might be worth watching in future chapters to see how Kris and Ralsei's friendship develops, as it might give hints as to how Deltarune itself might end. Should the above come to pass, and the two come together only to be tragically wrenched apart by outside forces, it will suggest that the dark worlds will not be completely closed off, as the fantasy of Kralsei will be allowed to persist unchallenged by reality. If, however, they drift apart, or decide to remain friends only, or perhaps even if they break up mid-game, it would allow for a cleaner break between light and dark, suggesting some sort of sundering of the bridge between the two.

This, of course, sidelines any other interpretations of their relationship, such as an extended metaphor for self-love and acceptance, or of a coming-to-terms with the past, though I don't see that these can't co-exist alongside the above.

One final note: much of my focus has been on Ralsei rather than Kris, and there are grounds to argue that Kris does not wish, nor will they ever wish, to pursue a relationship with Ralsei. However, the fantasy of Kralsei's potential that exists both in Ralsei's head, and in players receptive to the game's suggestions, almost renders Kris's feelings and opinions on the subject moot. In other words: the reality of what Kris might want, even if that DOES end up wanting to be with Ralsei, is supplanted by the fantasy of their potential thrilling romance story.

In this, the core themes of Deltarune are again reinforced - Kris's choices do not matter, even if their choice would align with the fantasy-romance being suggested. This is not to suggest that I do not care what happens to Kris, but it does highlight that there is a narrative reason for Kralsei, or at least the idea of Kralsei, to exist in the game, and lends further weight to the idea that it is ultimately doomed to failure, regardless of the wishes of its participants.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The long bezzle

Going to Defcon this weekend? I’m giving a keynote, “An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet’s Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse,” on Saturday at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826

When it comes to the modern world of enshittified, terrible businesses, no addition to your vocabulary is more essential than "bezzle," JK Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/09/accounting-gimmicks/#unter

The bezzle is contained by two forces.

First, Stein's Law: "Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop."

Second, Keynes's: "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

On the one hand, extremely badly run businesses that strip all the value out of the firm, making things progressively worse for its suppliers, workers and customers will eventually fail (Stein's Law).

On the other hand, as the private equity sector has repeatedly demonstrated, there are all kinds of accounting tricks, subsidies and frauds that can animate a decaying, zombie firm long after its best-before date (Keynes's irrational markets):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

One company that has done an admirable job of balancing on a knife edge between Stein and Keynes is Verizon, a monopoly telecoms firm that has proven that a business can remain large, its products relied upon by millions, its stock actively traded and its market cap buoyant, despite manifest, repeated incompetence and waste on an unimaginable scale.

This week, Verizon shut down Bluejeans, an also-ran videoconferencing service the company bought for $400 million in 2020 as a panic-buy to keep up with Zoom. As they lit that $400 mil on fire, Verizon praised its own vision, calling Bluejeans "an award-winning product that connects our customers around the world, but we have made this decision due to the changing market landscape":

https://9to5google.com/2023/08/08/verizon-bluejeans-shutting-down/

Writing for Techdirt, Karl Bode runs down a partial list of all the unbelievably terrible business decisions Verizon has made without losing investor confidence or going under, in a kind of tribute to Keynes's maxim:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/08/10/verizon-fails-again-shutters-attempted-zoom-alternative-bluejeans-after-paying-400-million-for-it/

Remember Go90, the "dud" streaming service launched in 2015 and shuttered in 2018? You probably don't, and neither (apparently) do Verizon's shareholders, who lost $1.2 billion on this folly:

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/07/02/verizons-sad-attempt-to-woo-millennials-falls-flat-face/

Then there was Verizon's bid to rescue Redbox with a new joint-venture streaming service, Redbox Instant, launched 2012, killed in 2014, $450,000,000 later:

https://variety.com/2014/digital/news/verizon-redbox-to-pull-plug-on-video-streaming-service-1201321484/

Then there was Sugarstring, a tech "news" website where journalists were prohibited from saying nice things about Net Neutrality or surveillance – born 2014, died 2014:

https://www.theverge.com/2014/12/2/7324063/verizon-kills-off-sugarstring

An app store, started in 2010, killed in 2012:

https://www.theverge.com/2012/11/5/3605618/verizon-apps-store-closing-january-2013

Vcast, 2005-2012, yet another failed streaming service (pray that someday you find someone who loves you as much as Verizon's C-suite loves doomed streaming services):

https://venturebeat.com/media/verizon-vcast-shutting-down/

And the granddaddy of them all, Oath, Verizon's 2017, $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo/AOL, whose name refers to the fact that the company's mismanagement provoked involuntary, protracted swearing from all who witnessed the $4.6 billion write-down the company took a year later:

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/12/12/if-youre-surprised-verizons-aol-yahoo-face-plant-you-dont-know-verizon/

Verizon isn't just bad at being a phone company that does non-phone-company things – it's incredibly bad at being a phone company, too. As Bode points out, Verizon's only real competency is in capturing its regulators at the FCC:

https://www.techdirt.com/2017/05/02/new-verizon-video-blatantly-lies-about-whats-happening-to-net-neutrality/

And sucking up massive public subsidies from rubes in the state houses of New York:

https://www.techdirt.com/2017/03/14/new-york-city-sues-verizon-fiber-optic-bait-switch/

New Jersey:

https://www.techdirt.com/2014/04/25/verizon-knows-youre-sucker-takes-taxpayer-subsidies-broadband-doesnt-deliver-lobbies-to-drop-requirements/

and Pennsylvania:

https://www.techdirt.com/2017/06/15/verizon-gets-wrist-slap-years-neglecting-broadband-networks-new-jersey-pennsylvania/

Despite all this, and vast unfunded liabilities – like remediating the population-destroying lead in their cables – they remain solvent:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/verizon-sued-by-investors-over-lead-cables-environmental-statements-2023-08-02/

Verizon has remained irrational longer than any short seller could remain solvent.

Short-sellers – who bet against companies and get paid when their stock prices go down – get a bad rap: billionaire shorts were the villains of the Gamestop squeeze, accused of running negative PR campaigns against beloved businesses to drive them under and pay their bets off:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/30/meme-stocks/#stockstonks

But shorts can do the lord's work. Writing for Bloomberg, Kathy Burton tells the story of Nate Anderson, whose Hindenburg Research has cost some of the world's wealthiest people over $99 billion by publishing investigative reports on their balance-sheet shell-games just this year:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-06/how-much-did-hindenburg-make-from-shorting-adani-dorsey-icahn

Anderson started off trying to earn a living as a SEC whistleblower, identifying financial shenanigans and collecting the bounties on offer, but that didn't pan out. So he turned his forensic research skills to preparing mediagenic, viral reports on the scams underpinning the financial boasts of giant companies…after taking a short position in them.

This year, Anderson's targets have included Carl Icahn, whose company lost $17b in market cap after Anderson accused it of overvaluing its assets. He went after the world's fourth-richest man, Gautam Adani, accusing him of "accounting fraud and stock manipulation," wiping out 34% of his net worth. He took on Jack Dorsey, whose payment processor Square renamed itself Block and went all in on the cryptocurrency bezzle, lopping 16% off its share price.

Burton points out that Anderson's upside for these massive bloodletting was comparatively modest. A perfectly timed exit from the $17b Icahn report would have netted $56m. What's more, Anderson faces legal threats and worse – one short seller was attacked by a man wearing brass-knuckles, an attack attributed to her short activism.

Shorts are lauded as one of capitalism's self-correcting mechanisms, and Hindenberg certainly has taken some big, successful swings at some of the great bezzles of our time. But as Verizon shows, shorts alone can't discipline a market where profits and investor confidence are totally decoupled from competence or providing a decent product or service.

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

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/2023/08/10/smartest-guys-in-the-room/#can-you-hear-me-now

[rei-ismyname]

Do you have any thoughts about the new mutant kids from both exceptional and Uncanny?

Hey!

I loved Trista from Exceptional. They're likeable, vulnerable, really personable, kind but willing to push back against some pretty fucked up oppression. You only get one shot at a first impression and the moment a young mutant 'manifests' is a classic for a reason. It's tough to get all that across when a character is going through something terrifying and traumatic, but I think Ewing pulled it off well.

We get to meet their grandmother briefly who's super cool, and I found it endearing that they reached for friendship with Kitty. I'm not the right person to break down the race/mutant dichotomy there, but it shouldn't surprise that they look for allies and strengths in response to such an incident. I have a feeling we're going to see more of them and I'm eager. We've seen so many new mutants come and go without sticking around and it's one of the few sources of lasting change Marvel has.

Definitely a sweet and character establishing sequence.

As for the kids in Uncanny, we don't really get to know them very well. There's four of them (except one is not a mutant and says multiple racist/weird things) and the fight is super contrived IMO. It's like woo here's these kids, and we're fighting them for some reason, and they're winning for some reason, then they're not. It showed us they can throw hands which is cool, but I couldn't tell you their names or powers without looking them up and I've read that book double digit times to review it.

Dirty goblins, WTF? The goth kid is great though. I'm a sucker for weird goths that say odd shit and have gnarly powers. Not sure what those powers are, but the army of dead folks behind them are a hint as to what a 'Cyanide Dream' is. Could they be this Endling (last of their kind) people keep talking about? Maybe.

Super weird that two separate children have yelled that Rogue is hot in both issue 1 and 2 of Uncanny. I don't really get it tbh. For that matter, Rogue keeps talking about sex at odd moments.

Here's where we meet them properly. Deathdream sticks out again for me, simply because they're not talking like you'd expect them to. They could be just a goth kid who says fucked up stuff, or they could have wild death powers. Likely both. Them stinking of death is interesting, and I flipping the question back on 'Logan of the Trees' in Japanese (that they know he understands)was slick. Not sure I trust them but I want to know more.

Jitter didn't make much of an impression yet, and Ransom would be the same except for the 'Brotherhood' comment. (I swear that better not be about the Alaskan X-Men.) Calico... I'm not sure. I need to see more tbh. As a group I'm curious and see potential, and I'd like to see where this goes both narratively and characterisation-wise. 50/50 they're not what they seem, and I wonder what 'voice' directed them here. Xavier?

Thanks for the ask! What did you think of them?

[creature-wizard]

Manifestation Without Woo: Changing Your Brain

So let's talk about your brain. Every life experience changes the way your brain works in some way.

If a beloved family member favors a certain kind of candy, your brain will likely wire itself to produce positive feelings when you see that candy. But if someone cruel to you favors a certain style of shirt, your brain will likely wire itself to produce negative feelings when you see that shirt.

If you grew up with caregivers who neglected you or broke their promises, your brain probably wired itself not to trust other people, and to only rely on yourself.

If you grew up in poverty, or if your parents always refused to get you nice things for any reason, your brain may have wired itself to see nice/expensive things as inherently unattainable.

If you were always comparing your looks against glossy airbrushed celebrities, your brain may have wired itself to perceive the way you look as inadequate, maybe even ugly.

If people were always telling you that you were stupid, ugly, lazy, worthless, or whatever, your brain may have wired these beliefs in.

Thus it's possible to accumulate many negative beliefs that get in the way of happiness and self-fulfillment. And it sucks. But there's good news - your brain structure is changeable. This is called neuroplasticity.

So how do you do it? Simple: You make your brain re-wire itself by telling and showing it a different narrative.

Techniques and practices such as affirmations, writing scripts, visualization boards are all excellent ways to do this. All of those techniques for changing your self-concept are really techniques for rewiring your brain!

Also, your brain will rewire itself better if you're less stressed out and getting proper nutrition and hydration. This is why stuff like meditation, "healing frequencies," moving around and getting exercise, adding more nutritious foods to your diet, and making sure you're getting enough water can be very helpful.

It's also important to be mindful of things that might reinforce the narrative you're tying to overwrite. For example, if you feel like you're worthless because you're ugly, hanging out with people who call others ugly as an insult probably won't be good for you. If you're insecure about your intelligence, you might want to hold off on watching movies that feature supergeniuses as main characters. If there's anything that might be feeding your negative beliefs, try and cut it out of your mental diet for awhile, and see if it makes a difference.

Affirmations, scripts, etc. that reinforce a narrative of needing to be better than others, or needing to meet some arbitrary level of success to have value can also reinforce negative narratives. Are you telling yourself that you're the most beautiful/handsome? Stop that. Tell yourself that you're attractive, period. Are you telling yourself that you're a "high-value person"? Again, stop that. Just tell yourself that you deserve love and respect.

Also, if you're dealing with mental illness, you shouldn't really expect this to be a full-on cure for it. You might be able to rewire your brain in a way that your mental illness is less impactful, but that doesn't mean you won't stop experiencing symptoms in some way. It's okay if you still need medication, professional therapy, etc.

Finally, remember: what you are doing is a natural, organic process - you're making your brain grow differently. This means it'll take time! You can't expect yourself to get overnight results any more than you can expect an acorn to turn into a whole oak tree overnight. Anyone out there telling you that you can just do this overnight without any effort has probably already rewired their brain a lot more than they realize, and underestimates how much work it took them to get where they are.

[captainjoongki]

The way they keep emphasizing HW always saving HI's life is stressing me the f*ck out he's her savior and he keeps saying he'll save her life no matter what I really think they might actually give us him dying in her place and donating something to her after an accident or something and the ending is her pregnant and healed. I will be so heartbroken because they both deserve to live, Hyun woo didn't spend the last years of his life cleaning up after her family while they treated him so badly and then the last few months doing every single thing to protect hae in and them even risking his life multiple times for him to die when he was just starting to be happy again.

omg babes ABSOLUTELY NOT we are not putting this bad energy into the world!!!! haein who wants to be married to hyunwoo in every life cannot lose her man as much as he cannot lose her they’re pathetic without each other this would be licherally awful.

manifestations of a good happy ending for both of them idc how unrealistic it is we need GOOD VIBES only just like tvN 🧿

[tamlinweek]

Prompt List, Part 1: Days 1 - 3

It’s January! Tamlin Week 2024 is in April, and it will be here before we know it! Are you feeling the pressure to make something, but you’re not sure what yet? Here are some ideas to get you started!

Day 1: Heir of Spring/Human Tamlin

“Oh, I can play a mean fiddle, but High Lords’ sons don’t become traveling minstrels. So I trained and fought for my father against whomever he told me to fight, and I would have been happy to leave the scheming to my brothers. But my power kept growing, and I couldn’t hide it—not among our kind.” ~ACOTAR Ch. 19

Heir of Spring

What was Tamlin's childhood like when he was growing up?

What was his relationship like with his mother? His father? His two older brothers?

How did his blossoming powers manifest?

When did they start to appear?

What would his life have looked like if he had become the traveling minstrel he had always wanted to be?

As the last of his line, what does it mean for the future of the Spring Court if he does not produce an Heir of his own?

Human Tamlin

In ACOTAR, Tamlin was born a High Fae, and a High Lord's son at that. In the original Ballad of Tam Lin, the female protagonist named Janet asks him if he was ever once a mortal man. Tam Lin says he was, but he was kidnapped by the Queen of the Faeries when he fell off his horse.

How would Tamlin's story have changed if he was once mortal, like Feyre?

What if the roles were reversed, and he was the mortal hunter, and Feyre a High Fae?

What if Tamlin found a way to become human, to forsake his immortal life?

Would that be a selfless act, or a selfish one?

Day 2: Poet/Warrior

Poet

“Your list of words was too interesting to pass up. And not good for love poems at all.” When I [Feyre] lifted my brow in silent inquiry, he said, “We had contests to see who could write the dirtiest limericks while I was living with my father’s war-band by the border. I don’t particularly enjoy losing, so I took it upon myself to become good at them.” ~ACOTAR Ch. 19

When did Tamlin first start writing poetry?

When he wanted to become a traveling minstrel and play the fiddle, did he write his own songs?

What were the dirty limericks contests like?

What other kinds of poetry did he write, if any?

Warrior

“I never expected—never wanted—my father’s title. My brothers would have never let me live to adolescence if they had suspected that I did. So the moment I was old enough, I joined my father’s war-band and trained so that I might someday serve my father, or whichever of my brothers inherited his title.” He flexed his hands, as if imagining the claws beneath. “I’d realized from an early age that fighting and killing were about the only things I was good at.” ~ACOTAR Ch. 19

How old was Tamlin when he was forced to join his father's war-band?

When did he first meet Rhysand? How did they meet?

What was it like living in the camps with his father's war-bands?

We know that Tamlin participated in dirty limericks contests. What else did he do while training?

What was training like?

Who else could he have met in the bands?

Which side of Tamlin do you find more captivating? The warrior, or the poet? Or do you prefer the dichotomy? Romantic vs destructive; soft vs sharp; light vs dark? There is no wrong answer!

Day 3: Mates/Flower Language

“High Fae mostly marry,” he said, his golden skin flushing a bit. “But if they’re blessed, they’ll find their mate—their equal, their match in every way. High Fae wed without the mating bond, but if you find your mate, the bond is so deep that marriage is … insignificant in comparison.” ~ACOTAR Ch. 19

Tamlin may not have a mate in canon, at least not yet(!), but what if he did?

Who is it, and how do they meet? Or, perhaps, is his mate someone he’s already met?

If you’re not fond of mates as a trope, how would he woo a significant other? With flowers, perhaps?

Flower Language

There will be a separate post in the future discussing the Language of Flowers in depth, but for now, let's take some inspiration from Shakespeare:

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance: pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies, that's for thoughts. There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you; and here's some for me: we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died: [Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5, Line 175]

"Rosemary is particularly associated with remembrance of the dead, and pansies get their name from pensées, the French for thoughts. Fennel represents marital infidelity and columbine flattery or insincerity. Rue, also known as herb of grace, is very bitter and stands for regret, repentance and sorrow. Daisies are a symbol of innocence and the violets, now withered, mean faithfulness." - source

Now let's consider the language of flowers as it pertains to ACOTAR:

After a while, I paused in the rose garden. The moonlight stained the red petals a deep purple and cast a silvery sheen on the white blooms. “My father had this garden planted for my mother,” Tamlin said from behind me. ... "It was a mating present." ~ACOTAR Ch. 19

Tamlin's father planted the rose garden for his new mate. What do the roses represent, and how do the colors impact their meaning?

What other flowers might be important to Tamlin?

Aside from expressing affection, what other messages could be sent using the Language of Flowers?

Consider flowers signalling a secret meeting, or sending a warning, or, if you want to get cheeky, consider the Tumblr-based Flower Shop AU: "How do I passive-aggressively say "F*ck You" in Flower?" as a way to explore floriography in the Spring Court.

Even though the prompt encourages the use of Flower Language, there is more symbolism to plants than flowers alone. What trees or herbs could be used to enhance a message in the Spring Court?

Let your imagination run wild!

We hope these questions and prompts have inspired you! Part 2 discussing the next three days of prompts will be coming soon!

[alexlwrites]

𝑱𝒖𝒏𝒈𝒌𝒐𝒐𝒌'𝒔 𝑱𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒂𝒍

✿𝑷𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈: Jungkook x Reader

✿ 𝑺𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚:  The one where Jungkook, a second year student in the Auror Academy, keeps a journal to vent about his unsuccessful attempts at wooing you.

✿ 𝑻𝒂𝒈𝒔: crack, humor, romance, Harry Potter Au

𝑨/𝑵: This is a Harry Potter AU but you don’t have to read Harry Potter to understand it. If you have any questions just let me know!

°•. ✿ .•°

(<<< part one)

November 5th, 10am

There are a few things I have previously done in my life that I believe could’ve added to the cosmic debt I am now paying, such as:

-Telling Jimin that “top me” is a muggle slang for “be my friend” and watching as he asked people to top him.

-Stealing leaves from Professor Sprout’s garden to figure out which ones were smokable and therefore profitable (up until I ended up with a third nipple from some hacky hocus-pocus weed).

-Jinxing Namjoon. Twice. But I stand by that. 10/10 would do it again.

All of the above and many countless other things are finally catching up to me. Maybe I should get my shit together, do charity work or something. Maybe if I had actually helped Taehyung with his Divination homework like I said I would instead of just making up all the shitty ways to die written in the stars, karma wouldn’t manifest itself in the shape of first years kicking my fucking ass in hand to hand combat without being allowed to fight back.

“Lovely demonstration on the effects of a throat punch, Jungkook” Coach Jin said, clapping his hands.

“I think the name is self-explanatory enough” I replied, voice cracking from the aforementioned punched throat.

“You never know”.

Coach Jin hates me. I am 100% sure of that. The reasoning is unclear and I’m honestly afraid to find out.

In the interest of maintaining myself less punched, I should invest some amount of energy to get him to like me.

November 5th, 11am

No energy was required to find out why that motherfucker didn’t like me. Now his dislike is fully reciprocated. I hope he chokes on his own pretty, juicy lips.

See, what happened was that one of the first years had gotten pretty carried away by the prospect of punching my pretty face and knocked me straight out, sending my karma-striken ass to the Infirmary, ears ringing and nose bleeding.

Now, I repeat that I am not the most romantic dude on earth (but I’m trying, okay? I even started reading Twilight to pick up some Hot Tips) but when all the signs are pointing towards that one person, who are we to go against fate? How can we spit on the forces of the universe like that? On Trelawney’s weed-filled legacy?

How can I not interpret Y/N doing an internship at the Academy Infirmary as the highest, clearest sign that we are meant to be? I am a student at the academy prone to causing and suffering accidents and she is a healer! The only way this could be more perfect was if she was a 100 years old vampire and I were a very pale high school student.

But alas, every great love story has its Jacob.

November 5th, 12pm

In retrospect, I do realize that my metaphor was flawed, cause if Jin was Jacob, he would’ve been into me, Bella - also why did I put myself as Bella and not Edward? - and if Jin was indeed into me he sure had a very weird way of showing it, completely ignoring me bleeding to probable death to flirt with the nurse, who I had claimed as my wife through the very legal power of “dibs”.

“Hi, Y/N” he said, leaning on my bed, hand resting on my bruised leg, making me whimper in pain embarrassingly, but also in a very manly way.

“Hello, Professor Kim” she said, professionally, not even bothering to look at him while tittering with her supplies.

“You can just call me Jin, you know. I’m only a couple years older than you.”

“That would hardly be appropriate” she answered, swatting his arm away from my bed. I think she said something else, but I honestly couldn’t hear shit when she cradled my face between her soft (so soft!) hands and for a split, dream-like second I thought she was going to kiss me.

“You shouldn’t let your students get so carried away.” she ended up saying “Poor Mr. Jeon. Look at him!”

Damn. 

I guess I did look kind of pitiful, all sweaty, bloody and bruised. 

Probably looked like I’ve been french kissed by a bludger. 

Coach Jin shrugged “He doesn’t look any worse than usual to me.”

The disrespect?

Before I had the chance to tell him very maturely to bugger the fuck off, Y/N stepped in “Then maybe you should be my next patient so I could get your eyes checked” she snapped and maybe those punches hit me harder than I initially assumed or maybe there was just something fundamentally wrong with me (place your bets!) but I thought that was very hot of her. Specially when she then proceeded to completely ignore Coach Jin’s presence and turn to me “How are you feeling, Mr. Jeon?”

“You can call me Jungkook, you know.” I mumbled. At least there was no stutter this time, so I would count it as a successful interaction had she not proceeded to ignore what I said too. 

“I’m going to give you an ointment for that bruise and it should disappear in a couple hours. Luckily nothing seems to be broken, but I would avoid any sort of exercises or tiring activities for the day.” she said as she ushered me out of the room with a funky looking jar thrusted into my hands “And hey” she called as I was about to leave the room with a very sour looking Coach Jin “take care of yourself, Jungkook.”

WELL.

WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT.

Before I could fully express my happiness, Y/N closed the door to my face, but not even the hardwood hitting my bloody nose could wipe away my smile as I turned to my sullen coach. 

“Whatever” he grumbled “Don’t think you’re off the hook. You’re still with me tomorrow, Jeon.”

Bugger. 

I guess if worse comes to worst, at least Y/N can still look after me.

Actually, that’s not a bad idea at all…

°•. ✿ .•°

Jungkook's Journal taglist is open <3

 [Permanent taglist: @imknewattis ; @dreamamubarak ; @onlythebest-106 ; @betysotelo18 ; @havetaeminforbreakfast ; @uno7 ; @chimchimmarie ; @anaya123world ; @namjooningelsewhere ]

[intothecometverse]

in honor of february ending, here's what i manifested this month!

🐬 this one time i was practicing a bit later than usual and i was like FUCK ION WANNA EAT DINNER AND THEN GO TO ORCHESTRA REHEARSAL WITHIN HALF AN HOUR THAT'S NOT ENOUGH TIME and then i got an email for the rehearsal schedule and i got at least half an hour more than usual until i had to come. funny enough i was thinking to myself like plz don't make me come until later plz plz plz plz plz plz and then i got the email for the rehearsal schedule so yippe

🐬 going on to that i had to fucking take a shit and ended up arriving to the rehearsal room ON THE DOT (which is late for orchestra standards 💔) but luckily there were still ppl waiting outside while the conductor was dealing with the basses and cellos only (which was the reason why ppl who weren't basses and cellows didn't have to come until half an hour later) so i wasn't late woo! and on my walk there (i was speed walking lol) i was affirming to myself i'm not gonna be late im not gonna be late there are still gon' be ppl waiting outside then boom that happened??? like im god hello??

🐬 having dinner + getting to go on a mini walk with my goth sp (i asked them and they said yes)

🐬 also manifesting conversations with my goth sp just by thinking about experiencing it seconds beforehand

🐬 oh ja and i also manifested being released early from orchestra rehearsals thru just thinking abt it seconds before too 😭😭

🐬 manifested seeing another sp during my regular day activities (their dorm room is around the corner from mine so we see each other a lot xD) like whenever i think abt them boom they pop up 😭. manifesting interactions next 𓆩♡𓆪

🐬 (me personally i think this was my most putting-my-foot-down manifesting moment) i overate one time and felt like throwing up, like i was feeling ALL the symptoms i usually do before i throw up so i was like "I'm not gonna throw up im not gonna throw up, remember who's in control. I AM in control, nothing else! the 3d will conform, because i said so, IT'S GOING TO CONFORM, NOW" and then i felt fine, just like that :D

🐬 not needing to get out of bed and take a piss one night when i was rly tired (affirmed "i don't need to piss" until i fell asleep 😭)

🐬 my room being opened one night when i got locked out at like 1/2 am

🐬 my grade in jazz history being raised from a D to a B- (and hopefully an A by the end of the quarter)

🐬 also i have all As in all my other classes

🐬 getting to have a fun hangout before February ended lol

🐬 having friends my age who live in dorms near me xD

🐬 my eczema getting healed without special ointment or anything

🐬 birf control (technically manifested it way back in December bc that was when i got a confirmed appointment but wtv. i got the implant this month so xD)

🐬 clearer skin

🐬 i have super long hair and the ends didn't dry out (technically this is like a continuous manifestation but i just wanted to mention it. basically I've been affirming "the ends of my hair is immune to split ends and drying out as it gets longer" and it worked!)

🐬 being better at trumpet :D (i told my trumpet teacher how much i practiced during one lesson, and continued to play during our lesson even when i surpassed my usual amount of time playing during an average day and he said I've gotten stronger due to playing for so long yet still sounding relatively fresh. and recently I've kept playing for longer amounts of time during the day and I've still been fine so yippe

what i'm looking for manifesting-wise in march:

🦞 shifting lmao

🦞 being successful in my job

🦞 being successful in all areas of life actually

🦞 getting to hang out with both sps + them getting along as friends so we could be a whole trio :3

🦞 my sps texting me first along with me texting them first (like yk how they say it should be like a 50/50 thing with who starts the convos and shit)

🦞 supernatural shit like powers, wings, horns, and like those king sombra kinda smoky eyes

🦞 WORLD. PEACE.

hope this inspired you, and remember, anything is possible, and u are loved!

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

[maulfucker]

I saw you had a post where you thought abt Dathomirian culture and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on how specifically Dathomirian queer culture manifests. I'd like to come up with things myself but I don't actually know a lot in general abt Dathomir yet, so I want other opinions. I've got two ideas tho

-Dathomirian queer ppl call each other "family" like some queer ppl did in our world

-Trans men might like earn their horns thru hunting and using animal bones and stuff as their horns? Idk like I said I don't know much

Good question! I haven't actually thought that much about queer culture in Dathomir despite having a gay nightbrother oc,,

I think the calling each other family thing probably wouldn't work very well since they already treat their clan as family and call each other brother and sister even without blood relation, but I love the idea of trans nightbrothers earning their horns! Dathomirians as a whole seem to be pretty open to body modifications, with tattoos being so natural in their culture, so hunting animals to use their bones or teeth or something to produce "prosthetic" horns sounds very fitting. It could be a whole thing for both trans and cis nightbrothers, using the extra horns as a way to show off their strength. plus it opens up the possibility of nightbrothers implanting horns in whimsical shapes such as smiley faces, stars or penises

I think as a people composed of multiple isolated communities, there's probably not a uniform queer culture across the planet. But also as people who tend to live in single-sex communities they are likely far more queer on average than what we see in the rest of the galaxy, like how cowboys were famously queer. They supposedly spend most of their lives around the same gender, so it wouldn't be unusual for that to be the gender they express attraction to more often. Though, much like how cowboys have been "reinterpreted" as a symbol of straight white masculinity, there's probably also a popular misconstruction of their culture as extremely straight, and/or extremely celibate. The "Nightsisters rule over Nightbrothers" reading of their culture is very obviously meant to show them as a reverse-sexist society, making the nightsisters a sort of "girl power" icon — they are strong independent women who can pick any man they want (implying that they do want men), which is like saying cowboys are strong fearless men who woo every damsel that crosses their path. which. sure, cowboys did have sex with women. sure, nightsisters do have sex with men. but more often than not they will be around other nightsisters, so they will more often than not have relationships with women (even if they're not really gay).

but I am not usamerican and my brain has the consistency of molten ice cream, so my knowledge of american cowboy culture is. basically just that. (the brazilian cowboy culture is quite different, especially considering there's like three distinct cowboy "sub"cultures, each with their different history, territory, and associations) So that's as far as I can take the cowboy comparison, but cowboys can be a pretty good source of inspiration I think. maybe look into that?

A quick look into medieval monasteries (another famously gender-segregated culture) says they were also pretty gay. And that the sexual persecution that is so commonplace in christianity today was not really a thing yet back then, which is also something to consider when trying to conceive the queer culture of a people who have nothing to do with our modern (overwhelmingly christian) society — do they have a reason to reject queer people and relationships, or are we just projecting our own worldviews and experiences onto a people who have none of the sociohistorical context that shaped our experiences?

I think homosexual/romantic and even polyamorous relationships would be pretty normalized, since there's not really any reason to only accept hetero relationships if they rarely ever live in mixed-sex communities. That said, there's probably still some expectation of heterosexual activity, in the form of the Selection and its implied procreation purposes. Dathomir is a very isolationist world, so to keep their population stable they need to procreate, even if it "goes against" an individual's sexuality. And this is where I think polyamorous relationships have reason to be encouraged: if a nightsister or nightbrother who already has a partner takes part in a Selection, why not bring their partner(s) into the relationship as well and increase the likelihood of producing offsprings?

As for the gender side of queerness.... well that's probably A Lot more complicated than I have time to discuss here. The gender binary seems pretty enforced in their culture from what little we see, and their sexual dimorphism probably makes trans and/or intersex people stand out A Lot more

I've mentioned this before, but I headcanon that the skin color difference is not a sex-chromosome-bound characteristic, but instead a sex-hormone-related expression of pigmentation, like in some birds such as peacocks. Both males and females are shown to have a range of skin tones, but in females it manifests as grayscale while in males it manifests as a color scale from red to yellow. So intersex people might have colors that are in-between, or that don't "match" their apparent sex, and trans people who undergo their equivalent of hrt might slowly change skin colors over time.

As for how nonbinary people work.... well as someone who is from a latin american country and speaks a romance language, I would like to imagine their "nonbinary" is a lot like ours — there is no "neutral" gender, they simply play with their presentation to be between one and the other, leaning towards whichever one might be considered more "transgressive" at the moment.

I don't think trans people would be forced out of their clans for being a different gender than everyone else, but it's possible their role in the clan might change to something more "befitting" of their new gender I also think there's probably a lot more contact between different clans than just the Selection, so it's possible for people who decide to start over as a new gender to take one of these moments of contact as an opportunity to "visit" another clan and never come back.

..... aaand it's almost 2 am so I gotta hit post

[artbyblastweave]

Team Fortress Two: Parahumans Edition

Like eight different people asked about the specific powers I had in mind for the wormverse iteration of Team Fortress. Here’s the reddit write-up, updated and expanded, now with additional Ms. Pauling and Administrator.

(Read more under the cut; this absolutely got the hell away from me. This is so so long)

The Scout: The Youngest of Nine Brothers, The Scout triggered as a One-upmanship thinker/brute/changer; his power is the manifestation of “anything you can do, I can do better.” He can designate a broad area of human endeavor- usually, the extremely broad field of "athletics"- and, after a few hours of practice, will become slightly more competent at it than the most competent person in his company. Applying this power within his family dynamic bumped him up to about the level of an Olympic athlete. In the company of eight other parahumans his athleticism pushes into the superhuman, allowing him to make impossible standing jumps and run at the pace of a slow-moving car for hours on end without tiring.

Scout is loosely aware of his power, but he isn't aware that he can consciously apply it to anything other than his physicals, and furthermore hasn't caught on to the scaling mechanic at play. This has enabled his Casanova wannabe tendencies, as he subconsciously uses his power to become slightly more socially competent and charming than whoever he's currently attempting to woo. The emphasis, though, is on slightly- Scout’s power is optimized for groups approximately the size of the one that prompted his trigger event. In extremely small groups- three or less- his enhancements, physical, social or intellectual, tend to short out at inconvenient times, and if he currently associates himself with a truly massive group, his power simply doesn’t activate. The defining element is scrutiny- his power is nothing without an audience that Scout, on some level, esteems. 

The Soldier: An anti-GesselSchaft vigilante who was motivated to travel to Europe and attack the group in the mid-90s out of a rabid patriotism mixed with an “End-of-History” Ennui, soldier triggered after his incredibly poorly-planned attack on the group-which went well at first due to sheer dumb luck- ended when he tried to escape from a burning, Nazi-infested hovercraft using a homemade bedsheet parachute. Torn between panic at his impending splattering and his heartfelt conviction that his plan was utterly foolproof, Soldier triggered with a subtle but versatile brute/breaker power that shields him from harm in direct proportion to how bad of an idea his plan was.

The result of Soldier’s power is that an enormous number of incredibly stupid game plans are lubricated and made viable for The Soldier, and only for The Soldier, and never for the reason that he thinks his plan is currently working. His power shields him from the incidental blast damage of using high-explosive weaponry at unsafe ranges, it allows him to blast jump hundreds of yards with only minimal charring, and in addition it’ll shift his weight and density on the fly to make the bad landings less impactful. Blasting a horn to “rally the troops and strike fear into the hearts of his enemies” has limited effect on morale, but it does temporarily render him resistant to the smattering of gunfire now headed his way. Less overtly, it allows him to survive on a diet of expired rations and keep overtly rabid Racoons as pets with no ill effects.

 Soldier survived his trigger event with only a sprained ankle and has yet to realize that his power is more complicated than a simple low-level brute rating; This largely due to the fact that a mental complication of his always-on breaker-state is that he’s literally psychologically incapable of self-critique, and thus always barreling forwards in search of a plan so patently awful that even his power won’t be able to cover the deficit.

The Spy: Soldier was in fact a brute-oriented ping of a more-mature European cape, The Spy, who was also in the Gesellschaft base that day on an unrelated job. The Spy has a stranger power that increases the efficacy of his disguises in direct proportion to how unconvincing they are. The use of a paper mask with someone's likeness on it is sufficient to convince viewers that The Spy looks exactly like that person. Not that he is that person, mind you, but that he looks exactly like them; the effect doesn’t extend to his voice, and shatters if he attempts to do anything that the person he’s impersonating wouldn’t be physically capable of doing.

Unique on the team in that he’s actually very good at mercenary work and spycraft sans powers, Spy triggered midway through his career when a job went south and he was forced to attempt a “knock-them-out-and-take-their-clothes” gambit on a guard with a comically ill-fitting uniform. Spy actively resents his power, feeling that it forces him to make a mockery of his distinguished profession and behave like a boorish amateur, and providing him only marginally better coverage than the ill-fitting uniform should he face real scrutiny. Indeed, Spy is only really effective because he combines his power with a genuine talent for martial arts and sabotage; he got more of a power boost from the access and connections being a middling parahuman provided him than from the power itself, and he benefits massively in the field by being surrounded by a group of massively flashy morons who distract from his flimsy disguises.

The Heavy. A Russian dissident arrested on trumped-up charges of being an unregistered parahuman, along with his entire immediate family. After orchestrating a breakout from a Red Gauntlet internment camp, he triggered  during the grueling trek to a pre-arraigned extraction point, pushing himself to collapse after giving all his rations to his ailing family. 

Misha triggered with a brute power that exaggerates positive input on his body. Eating a spoonful of food meets his caloric needs for a week, eating a normal meal induces an extremely powerful short-term healing factor, consistent low-level exercise makes him strong enough to carry an artillery weapon free-hand, and various medications work positive effects on him almost instantly (in line with his own perceptions of what the medications ought to be doing!) While essentially set for life himself, his power does nothing to meet the needs of those around him; this pushes Misha to throw himself on the grenade as often as possible in order to resolve situations quickly and keep those he views as under his protection out of the line of fire. Misha is a major driver of Scout’s power, and his innate receptivity to medical intervention also gives him good power synergy with....

The Medic. An Implant Tinker, Dr. Humbolt is capable of building almost any kind of tinkertech device imaginable, as long as the device is mostly or completely embedded inside a living person. This includes the normal set of Bonesaw-like durability enhancements, bone reinforcements, organ meshes and the like, but it also extends to more esoteric technologies like teleportation recall modules, internally-mounted skin-tight forcefield generators, and (in one-notable case) rapid onset clone gestation within the target host. 

At one time a decently competent transplant surgeon, the medic triggered after being abducted by Gesellschaft and forced over the course of weeks to try and implant looted tinker tech into other captives. (Gesellschaft had no real expectation that this would work; it was as part of an experiment in causing a tinker trigger.) This culminated in a kludged implant backfiring and vaporizing both the current patients skeleton AND the supervising Gesellschaft doctor; resulting in a do-or-die sense that he either had to come up with something his captors would find usable NOW or get shot to death. He was saved from having to respond to the situation only by the soldier falling through the skylight wrapped in a makeshift bedsheet parachute.

Medic’s power has a surface-level armorfaceyness to it; he triggered because he couldn’t make tinkertech implants and got a power that let him successfully make tinkertech implants. Under the surface, however, his power is laced through with an allergy to respectable, replicable procedure, which he actually valued fairly heavily pre-trigger; he triggered as part of what (he) perceived to be a search for a process but instead got a trigger that let him jump straight to a successful outcome, that he himself has limited under-the-hood understanding of. There’s no process he can figure out that will make his captors let him go; there’s no innovation he can make that can become general industry practice; there’s no way to divest himself from his work. His singularly useful ability forces him to constantly append himself to cape teams that can protect him and act as vectors for his technology, lest someone press-gang him into circumstances similar to that of his trigger event. This has had deleterious effects on his mental health and professionalism; why bother taking shit seriously if it’s almost certain to pan out agreeably? All else being equal, why not do buckwild shot-in-the-dark things with whale glands and baboon uteri? In for a penny, In for a pound.

The Engineer:  Dell Conagher was an early beneficiary of the “skateboard trick” tech boom instigated by the tinkers; prior to his trigger, his small, fly-by-night engineering firm was able to make a small fortune by observing shard-enabled robotics in the field and then working backwards to create extremely advanced conventional prosthetics, automatons and security systems based on observed principles. Unfortunately, a search for funding brought him into the orbit of the nascent Elite; a subsequent falling out lead to Conagher’s remote workshop coming under siege from a group of Elite legbreakers. Rather than a straightforward smash-and-grab, the Elite sent a group of strangers, night-hag-style environmental breakers, and movers, intended to harass Conagher into insanity over days or weeks; the goal was to send a message. They’d unfortunately failed to account for the fact that Conagher was completely insane and had wired his house and workshop to the gills with security countermeasures and booby-traps, resulting in an extended tit-for-tat siege. Although he put up a decent fight, Conagher’s limited countermeasures began to run dry, and he triggered out of fear that he’d overcommitted, that he’d overestimated his own ability to counter parahuman abilities through conventional engineering, and that they were going to take everything that he’d worked so hard to build.

A Siege Tinker. Conagher specializes in building resource-Un-intensive, quick-to-deploy, hardy, easy-to repair defensive emplacements, and emplacements that make it easier to repair other emplacements, such as teleporters and dispensers; his combat specialty is squeezing blood from a stone, lowering the overhead of committing to, or retreating from, a fight. The tradeoff is that he has extreme difficulty expanding the total number of discreet emplacements included in his set-up, having a much easier time iterating upon and gaining razor-thin margins on the performance of his handful of existing devices; working down the alternative tech tree of a weaponized prothesis delayed his progress for years in other areas, and his power curtailed his ability to think about non-tinkertech designs without his thoughts drifting back to his defensive emplacements.  His power solved his inability to defend his valuable work by sharply curtailing how much work he can do that’s valuable enough to need defending.

The Pyro. An individual of imprecise origin and ambiguous gender, The Pyro was Dell Conagher’s business partner, bodyguard, and possibly either his ward or his relative. Noted for never appearing in public outside of their full body protective gear and gas mask; ostensibly related to their work with Dell’s company as a chemical engineer, although it was commented on more than a little that they apparently never took it off. 

The Pyro was caught up in the siege that caused Dell’s trigger event was in charge of running maintenance on Dell's various defensive measures during the seige, both before and after his trigger event, as well as contributing jury-rigged incendiary weapons to flush out the encroaching strangers. However, the stress of playing whack-a-mole refueling the more energy-intensive machines under fire caused them to trigger with a bud from their associate. The Pyro is a shaker with the ability to increase the longevity and energy output of chemical reactions within a certain radius. Pyro is a lowercase t tinker, using an arsenal of makeshift incendiary weaponry only made practical by their power. Their homemade flamethrowers can be fired continuously for hours, and the fires they set burn abnormally long. In their hands, a flare gun or a can of gasoline gains output equivalent to a military firebomb. If they superheat a blade, it'll retains that heat for hours on end. Crucially, their mere presence in a vehicle allows it to run for thousands of miles on fumes. 

The Pyro’s powerset is nominally complementary to that of the engineer; much of his tinkertech was built in conversation with Pyro’s ability to enhance the battery life and fuel efficiency. The downside, though, is that the power induces a Burnscar-adjacent form of delusional pyromania. When using their power at a low burn, Pyro is calmed and mildly elated; when using their power to amp up explosions and wipe away intruders in a cleansing fire, Pyro is both Euphoric and detached from reality. This is because, as a response to Pyro’s immediate situation, the intended use of the power is a knot-cutting, scorched-earth anti-stranger measure, meant to flood an environment with heat that burns hot enough and long enough to scour all life, probably at the cost of whatever (abstract, probably not really worth it) value you were defending that area over in the first place. Anything Pyro does with the power that’s more subtle than that is downstream of their continued attachment to their partner.

The Sniper. The brainchild of an undersea tinker collective off the coast of New Zealand, The Sniper had a rough go of it as a kid. His mother, a callous fermentation tinker, modified his biology so that all of his excretions were violently acidic and lightly alcoholic, essentially making him a bargain bin Newter. Then his father, a propulsion tinker, loaded him into a rocket to see if he'd designed a user interface intuitive enough that a three-year-old could operate it.

He hadn't. At the age of three, Sniper triggered with a thinker power related to calculating the angles and trajectories of moving objects in times of great chaos and stress. His newfound abilities allowed him to merely crashland in the Australian outback instead of plowing into Ayers rock and dying instantly. He roamed the bush as an urban legend until he was adopted by a pair of kindly farmers. Although his power proved almost useless for competitive shooting in a controlled environment, he realized at a young age that reckless, life-or-death attacks on the local wildlife brought out the best in his abilities, and eventually realized that he had the chops to cut it as a mercenary in the States. A loner by nature and inclination, the fact that his power only functions optimally when things have gone to hell essentially forced him into the company of Team Fortress, whose baseline idiocy provides a comfortable cushion for his power.

The Demoman. Originally a competent but unpowered demolitions expert, The Demoman triggered with a bud of The Soldier's power after an ill-advised drinking game between the two of them was interrupted by a surprise Behemoth attack, which Demo was then forced to face with a bad case of alcohol poisoning. Prior to meeting Soldier, Demoman’s life had been defined by aggressive mercenary rigor, inculcated by and shaped in reaction to strict militant parents. He drew firm lines in the sand in regard to his work-life balance, never letting the boisterous party-animal tendencies he formed out of rebellion leak into the strict hours he kept as a mercenary, until Soldier finally wore him down during a middle-of-nowhere-shit-shift. His trigger was thus heavily influenced by a sense that the first time he’d ever indulged himself while on-call had been smacked down hard by a karmically-inclined universe.

In addition to increasing his overall durability, Demo’s Brute/Thinker power causes his aim, courage under fire and overall competence to scale up to superhuman levels based while intoxicated.... and to sap to below what he was capable of pre-trigger when he's sober. His power carried him through the crisis of his trigger event with ease, but now forces him to constantly mix business with pleasure, constantly drinking on the job to maintain any semblance of competence. An additional complication of the power- which took some time to become obvious- is that any information or skills that Demo acquires while either drunk or sober becomes gated, hazy and slippery while in the opposite state, resulting in an almost Severance-like dichotomy of personhood. The sheer amount of personally important events that have happened to him on the job thus encourage Demo to stretch his buzz further and further outside of work-hours, pulverizing his ability to effectively compartmentalize or maintain a work-life balance; turning him into the always-on-call hypercompetent soldier they wanted in a way his still-living mother finds repugnant.

The inaugural Team Fortress lineup was formed in the aftermath of the shitshow at the Gesselschaft base; Soldier, Medic and Spy were joined by Heavy, who had been hired by Spy’s handlers in the EU as a last-ditch extraction option should things go south in the exact way Soldier caused them to. The swath of carnage the quartet generated during their escape both demonstrated their power synergies AND painted them as a unit in the eyes of Gesselschaft and the collective parahuman underworld, incentivizing them to hang together out of self-preservation. After returning to the States following a running fight through Europe against Gesselschaft, the Team picked up The Engineer and The Pyro when the duo hired them for a retaliatory strike on the Elite’s southwestern holdings, picked up Scout while cooling their heels from that stunt in the Northeast, were approached by Sniper after becoming a sufficiently-renowned laughingstock that he realized the potential power synergy, and finally picked up Demo for a gig that required a bomb guy and then just sort of kept him around.

The team became truly untouchable, however, after they picked up Ms. Pauling.

Ms. Pauling is a buck-passing Thinker; She has a PTV-style ability to redirect the fallout, blame for, and censure of wrongdoing; in any given situation, she knows who to throw under the bus in such a way that she’ll walk away clean. She knows what evidence she has to plant, and where, and what steps she needs to take to make sure she isn’t fingered while executing the frame job; she knows what to say, and in what intonation, to make people believe or at least not interrogate her transparently flimsy alibis. Her power works best when actively and intentionally used to someone else's detriment, although it can muddle through if there’s no obvious scapegoat for a disaster besides Ms. Pauling herself. The Primary beneficiary of Ms. Pauling’s power is Ms. Pauling; however, she’s capable of expanding her self-conception to include any organization or group of people she’s reasonably attached to, folding them into her getaway plans. A born company woman, Ms. Pauling labored for years prior to her trigger as an assistant at an international industrial concern whose corporate ethos she truly believed in; she spent years smoothing over scandals and allegations of corporate malfeasance in good faith, only to realize when it was too late that by making her the relentlessly loyal face of the company’s crisis response, her bosses had deliberately maneuvered her into position as a scapegoat when the bottom inevitably fell out and the SEC closed in; her attempts to throw her bosses under the bus using her new power was thrown off by her ingrained subconscious attachment to the company, resulted in her coverup mostly bouncing off and destroying the lives of hapless third parties; this incited a break into moral nihilism on Pauling’s part.

In the aftermath of her trigger, Pauling was recruited by a powerful Cauldron Cape known as The Administrator. The administrator was a Master/Brute who could stave off her terminal illness by visually observing violent conflict; the act of observing the conflict would also increase the bloodlust and durability of all observed participants while also stunting their critical thinking skills. The Administrator used her immense inherited corporate wealth (with which she had purchased the cauldron vial) to funnel dozens of powered and unpowered mercenary teams into pointless scrimmages over utterly useless remote properties through a host of shell companies so that she could feed off their violence via a mass surveillance wall; Team Fortress was one of many teams pulled into the set-up. Pauling was tasked with using her power to cover up the immense corporate malfeasance necessary for the plan to work; she was strung along with the promise that the immense violence was in service of a higher purpose this time. (This was partially true; the op was Cauldron-enabled and guided, with the intention of generating an experience mill for villains and mercenaries.) Pauling fell into Team Fortresses orbit because they both made good scapegoats for her power AND frequently got into jams that the Administrator would order her to get them out of; when the Administrators’ set-up inevitably imploded, Pauling remained attached to the team as an unofficial tenth member for a lack of anywhere better to go.

In the years following the end of the Gravel Wars, Team Fortress has roamed North America as a subdued mirror of the Slaughterhouse 9. Mildly heroic if mercenary in their ambitions, there’s no situation they can’t make worse through their cartoonish disregard for consequences, and no consequences that Pauling can’t find a way to make everyone else's problem. The team maintains a strange doublethink brand-image; they’re small-timers, they’re harmless, they’re clowns, they’re unstoppable, they’ve never failed a job (never succeeded, either.) You don’t want them involved; you want them on your side if they ARE involved. They fight for the highest bidder; they almost always end up fighting the highest bidder; you can hire them, but you shouldn’t, but you’ll only learn that the hard way because thanks to Ms. Pauling the story at the end of each job is never, ever about how the team is a risky hire.