#negative! those are some low rankings!

[cementcornfield]

a mix of positive and negative here lmao

[captn-trex]

consequences be damned

Wolffe x F!Reader

word count: 3.3k

description: commander wolffe likes to berate you when you go against his orders, but this time, you can't supress the visceral reaction it brings.

warnings: not necessarily enemies to lovers but... a decent amount of arguing, mentions of negative clone treatment, i think that's it? idk man I'm tired

a/n: this is for all the girlies that cry when someone raises their voice at them! (me) anyway... i get nervous when discussing the treatment of clones and other kinda touchy stuff bc i just have this nagging feeling that i'm always interpreting stuff wrong, so I hope the stuff wolffe says at the end makes sense lmao

masterlist | join my taglist | read on ao3

You heard your name called after you before you managed to make your escape to your quarters, desperately trying to avoid confrontation. Ignoring the Commander’s calls, you hurried down the hall, your strides much wider than your usual gait. You managed to get the door open, but a large hand wrapped around your wrist before you could evade the uncomfortable conversation.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The Commander snarled, tugging you back into the corridor and slamming his fist into the control panel to shut the door.

You lifted your eyes to his for a moment, your head still angled to the floor as if it would shield you from his foul temper. You had never seen him so angry.

“I asked you a question, soldier” He said, his voice dangerously low as his face drew near to yours, “Did you really think I’d let you off after what you just pulled?”

“Sir, I didn’t mean to—”

Wolffe interrupted you with a sarcastic laugh, “Didn’t mean to? You’ll have to do better than that”

You couldn’t look at him. You knew he’d react like this when he found out, but you still hated when he was angry with you. He was more hard on you than his brothers, he always had been. So much so that you felt there was something unsaid between the two of you, that there was some itch that he wouldn’t stop scratching even though he wouldn’t acknowledge what it was.

“I’m sorry sir” You peeped out. It was the only thing you could say.

You had no explanation for your actions. You had gone directly against his orders, knowingly, deliberately. You knew he would find out, you knew he’d berate you for it, and you did it anyway. You’d do it again if you got the chance.

“Sorry doesn’t cut it” He began, and you let him scold you without interruption, “I have told you, countless times, you do not get involved in the conflict. No matter what. Do you know how it makes me look?”

He paused, but you knew the question was rhetorical. In that silence it was hard not to think about the feel of his hand wrapped around your wrist, still keeping you in your place.

“I makes me look like I can’t control those under my command. If a medic can go against my orders then what’s to stop the rest of the men? Or the other nat-borns? I mean, do you even think? Clearly you don’t. You don’t have combat training, you could’ve been hurt, or you could have died”

He continued on, but you tuned him out. You had heard this barrage of demeaning comments more than once, and it was starting to feel like maybe it had become one time too many. If you had any more backbone you would’ve told him how much you despised when he did this. Although, Wolffe — along with almost everybody aboard the ship — was above you in rank. You couldn’t possibly give back to him this belittling commentary, so once again you stayed silent.

The worst part was that most of the time, Wolffe wasn’t even unbearable to be around, far from it. At any other time he was kind, in his own way. It wasn’t a way in which you’d seen anyone else express kindness, but you’d come to understand the way he operated a little by now. For example, something you had retroactively realised was a display of compassion, was that when you first joined the 104th, he had checked up on you everyday, albeit not in a particularly cheerful way. He had made sure you were comfortable in your new quarters, the ones you were now stood outside of being reprimanded.

There was something gnawing at the back of your mind, the feeling that you shouldn’t have to put up with this. You could hear your father in the back of your head, telling you that you had to learn to stand up for yourself. You hadn’t looked up at Wolffe once through his ranting, and you didn’t plan on it either, especially now as you felt your eyes becoming heavy with tears.

It was a natural response. You never liked being told off, and right now you felt as if you were a child again, your parents giving you a lecture about your shortcomings. Hot tears rolled down your cheeks in a similar manner, silent and unacknowledged.

You didn’t know when Wolffe had finished laying into you, but when you stopped reflecting on the past and came back to the present moment, you realised that he wasn’t speaking anymore. You hazarded a look at him, once again keeping your chin pointed down. He was just staring down at you, his scowl replaced in favour of a more uneasy frown, finally removing his hand from your wrist.

“Are you okay?” He asked quietly, clearly unsure of how to even approach the situation.

“I’m fine” You replied, and your voice was surprisingly even.

He was still just peering down at you through his creased brow, frozen in his place and out of his depth.

“Why are you crying?” He addressed the situation head on.

“I’m not crying”

“You are”

“I’m n—”

“You are”

You looked to your feet, feeling absolutely infinitesimal under the full scrutiny of his commanding presence.

“Alright fine, maybe I am” You admitted in a whisper.

“Why?” He asked firmly.

“No reason”

“No reason?”

“Yep, no reas—”

“Stop it” He interrupted again, “What’s wrong?”

You let out a long breath, your chest heaving before it escaped your pursed lips. You could taste the saltiness of your tears, and you lifted a hand to wipe one of your cheeks.

“I just don’t like being told off okay? I can’t help it”

“I wasn't telling you off, I was—”

When he didn’t finish his sentence your eyes flicked back up to his. His frown had softened, and he was now chewing on his lip as if he was looking for something to say. You huffed quietly, your cheeks scorching with embarrassment at the whole situation.

“If it's alright with you sir, I'd like to retire to my quarters now” You spoke quietly, trying to escape this situation that was nothing if not awkward.

Wolffe stepped back from you, clearing his throat, “Yeah, go ahead”

You turned back to your door and opened it up. You had only taken one step inside when Wolffe spoke up again.

“Wait”

You turned around, your eyes finding his, flitting between the cybernetic and the natural. His usual scowl was nowhere to be seen, and he just looked at you with a plain expression, something unreadable.

“I don't want to have to tell you off” He said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle.

You mustered up a little courage after his change in demeanour, “Then why do you?”

His throat bobbed as he gulped, “I just want you to be safe”

The way that he was staring at you was entirely too much for you to cope with, so you lowered your gaze once again before you replied.

“Thank you sir, I appreciate that”

Wolffe reached up slowly, gently taking your chin and guiding your eyes to his. He gazed upon you with the utmost sincerity and apology as his thumb swept across your still-wet cheek.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you”

“That's oka—”

“It's not” He spoke resolutely, with no room for argument, then softened his voice a little, “You understand that I don't like to be angry with you, right?”

Something about your expression must have conveyed a sense of doubt, because Wolffe frowned when you didn’t reply.

“Do you really think-?”

“I don't think, remember?” You replied, in a oddly humorous way, despite the previous tone of the conversation. Wolffe gave you a disapproving look, and you backtracked, “Sorry Commander”

Wolffe was still holding you face, and the way his eyes were searching yours was making your stomach erupt into butterflies. His gaze was captivating, cementing you in place and rendering you speechless in a completely different way to when he had been scolding you earlier. You didn’t want to be the first one to break away, and thankfully Wolffe came to his senses soon enough.

“I should go”

He dropped his hand from your chin and stepped back. You nodded subtly in reply to his words, still unable to form your own, and he turned to leave with haste.

You watched him walk away as you leaned on your doorway, stalking down the hall with a pace to rival your hurried steps from earlier. His head turned back to you briefly, and you both instantly looked away, you stepping back into your room and closing the door as you felt your cheeks burn hot from being caught watching him.

It felt like something had shifted in your relationship, like something significant had happened. Perhaps it was your inadvertent show of vulnerability, perhaps it was the way his touch set your skin alight. Whatever it was, it was something that you couldn’t take back. Whatever was unsaid between you was coming to light, and you cursed your racing heart for getting ahead of itself.

You were crouched behind cover, your eyes locked on a trooper that had been knocked to the ground. He wasn’t moving, but going over to see if he was still alive was too risky, even if the focus of the enemy’s fire wasn’t in his direction any longer. You lingered, waiting to see even the slightest twitch of his fingers. He continued to lay motionless, his body sprawled in an uncomfortable position from the heavy blow he had received. You hoped, prayed, and they were answered in an instant, the man’s body curling in on itself as he groaned in pain.

You gulped, and slowly turned to look over your shoulder, only to see Wolffe watching you like a hawk.

“Don't you dare” He shook his head slowly, his voice low, almost a growl.

You hung your head a little, squeezing your eyes closed for a brief moment.

“I'm sorry Commander”

You rushed out from behind the cover, hearing your name being screamed after you in a desperate plea for you to do anything else. You didn’t pay attention, you were solely focused on making it to the trooper.

You pulled the man to his feet, throwing his arm around your shoulders and making your way back to cover, but you were not so lucky as to evade danger. Blasterfire ripped through the air surrounding you, causing you to duck out of its path, and take the injured man down with you.

“Get out of here!” The Commander shouted at you, stepping in front of you and shooting at the droids that had focused their fire in your direction.

You dragged to man the short distance back to cover, and as you were giving him a once over, assessing the issue, Wolffe ordered another medic to take over and tugged you further back from the front lines, around the corner of a crumbling building.

“What the kriff is the matter with you?”

He was angry. More angry than he had ever been, more angry than the previous rotation. And yet, there was a far clearer emotion swimming in his non-cybernetic eye, dripping from his pinched brows, washing over you with every heavy breath he exhaled. Worry, concern, utter distress.

“I thought I made it pretty clear that I don't want you anywhere near the action” He growled, evidently struggling to keep his emotions in check.

Despite his afflicted demeanour, you didn’t feel like having a repeat of the previous rotation, and the adrenaline coursing through your veins only sought to heighten you irritation.

“And I thought I made it pretty clear that I don't appreciate being told off” You grumbled back to him, not feeling brave enough to say it with your chest.

“Then stop doing stupid things!” He rebutted, his voice conveying every inch of exasperation he felt.

You shook your head as you dragged your gaze from him, starting to walk away. You weren’t going to be talked to like this again. For the second time in the last rotation, Wolffe’s hand shot out and wrapped around your wrist, tugging you back.

“I'm talking to you”

“Well I'm not talking to you” You snapped, snatching back your arm and finally letting your irritation take over.

At first, Wolffe appeared to be taken aback. You had never so much as argued back at him before, but something about the fire burning in his eye told you that it was welcomed. He wanted you to fight back. He liked that you were fighting back.

“I refuse to be reprimanded for doing the right thing” You continued, letting him hear your true feelings on the matter.

“You refuse?” Wolffe seemed almost amused.

“Yes” You replied, but your confidence was slipping, “I refuse”

Wolffe laughed, taking a step towards you, “And I suppose you think you have the authority to refuse my orders? Seeing as it's the only thing you can seem to do right”

You stepped away from him, but with every step you took, he followed after you. It wasn’t long until he had backed you into the wall, and was towering over you with a challenging look on his face.

“I have free will, is what I have” You puffed out your chest in defiance, causing it to come into contact with his chestplate, “And I will use it to do the right thing, consequences be damned”

“It must be nice to be you, huh?”

You just frowned, not entirely sure what made him say that.

Wolffe’s face became stern, “You just get to flit about, playing the hero when you could so easily become the martyr acting the way you do, claiming it's all about ‘free will’ and ‘doing the right thing’. Well guess what? I don't have those luxuries. If I disobey orders, I get court martialled. I don't have free will, and I don't get to do the right thing, I get to do as I'm told”

You swallowed thickly as your body recoiled from his in shame. From his perspective, your actions certainly seemed silly and plainly misguided. Perhaps they were.

“I'm sorry Commander, I didn’t think—”

“No, you don't think, do you?” He retorted quickly.

You frowned deeply, drawing an enervated sigh from Wolffe.

“I would love to be able to consider what is right and wrong, but I am simply not allowed. Having the ability to think, to form thoughts unique to myself, but not get to enact any sort of ‘free will’, it's—” He breathed deeply, his forearm coming to rest on the wall beside your head, “Oh, the things I would do if I had free will”

His eyes bored into you through heavy eyelids, his self control hanging by a thread. He was so close to you, his body pressing yours into the wall, and it was taking all of your strength to not melt against him.

“What would you do?” You spoke softly, guiding him in the right direction.

He didn’t waste any time in replying.

“I would tell you that the reason I don't want you around the action, the reason I can't stand your stupid moral compass which makes you do stupid things, is because the idea of you getting hurt is my own personal hell. I would grab you and hold you close and keep you safe, I would never let you go. I would—” He puffed out a quick breath, mingling it with your own as he drew impossibly closer, “I would kiss you, and do every other thing I've been dreaming of since the first moment I met you. I would throw all of this away, if I got that chance”

There was not a single one of his words that were processing in your brain. For a moment you just stared at him, shocked, before the surprise melted from your face and you offered every measure of tenderness within you in a single look.

“Wolffe” You whispered, reaching up and placing a hand on his cheek.

His eyes closed at your touch, and his troubled expression eased slightly. He let out a shaky breath as he took in the warmth of your skin on his, but as soon as he had revelled in it for a moment too long, he put up his walls again.

“But it doesn’t matter, because I don't have free will” He stepped back from you but you were determined now, following after him.

“Well I do”

You practically leapt at him, your hands finding the back of his neck and pulling him against you, bringing him into a searing kiss. His hands instantly flung around your waist, tightening around you and drawing you into his body as if he was never going to let go, just as he promised. It was as if he only needed you to be the one that initiated it, and now, he had forgotten everything that was stopping him in the first place.

You let your fingers tangle in the curls at the base of his neck, and he pushed you backwards into the wall again, a soft groan sounding in the back of his throat. One hand came up to cup your cheek, and you were surprised at how softly he held you, a direct contrast to the way that he was devouring your lips, consuming your very soul with only his mouth and tongue.

You had to pull away, gasping for breath, and he did the same. He held you close as you both caught your breath, staring into each other’s eyes with a newfound fondness. It was intoxicating, to see him like this; his chest heaving from having kissed you with such an intensity. You felt like your psyche was being ripped from you with each heavy exhale, and you were watching from outside of your body.

“I'm never letting you go now” He continued to hold onto you like his life depended on it, burying his face in the exposed skin of your neck.

“I thought-”

“Don’t” He rumbled, “I don't care what I said before, there's no going back now”

You sighed blissfully and mirrored him, and coiling your arms around his neck and holding him tightly. The feel of his breath against your neck was heady, deeply exhilarating, but in the quiet of the moment, you couldn’t help but remember you were in the middle of a battle.

“Maybe we should-”

He lifted his head and cut you off with a deep kiss. You were powerless to stop him, but you didn’t care to anyway.

“Just a little longer” He pleaded, his eyes soft and slightly widened, “Please”

You let a small smile lift the edges of your lips, enamoured by the soft side that this kind of treatment brought out of him. It was almost amusing, how different he was acting as compared to his usual authoritative demeanour. He was putty in your hands, and you didn’t quite know how to handle it.

You brushed your lips lightly against his and spoke with a teasing edge, “Yes sir”

taglist: @darthnihila @cdblake1565

[cloverpatches]

-- LOBOTOMY CORP ABNORMALITY CREATION GUIDE --

Hello Hello! Welcome to Niel's LobCorp Abno Explanation and Creation Guide!

When making an OC Abnormality, there are a couple specific ranges that are immensely important: Breaching Damage Output and Risk Level. While all breach kills or immense damages should be talked out first or at least notified, damage output with Abnormality presences alone and collateral lead to damage type and output being important. Damage type and severity are hard to calculate for those who haven't/can't play, so I'll be specifying amounts below.

To note, on DAMAGE TYPES:

RED is direct damage to the body of an agent. This usually refers to the types of damage that can be done with weapons or the body, and envelops most forms of harm capable by weapons in the City. Despite being common, those who deal Red damage typically have much higher output in sudden bursts and should not be underestimated. (EX. Scorched Girl, All-Around Helper, Nothing There)

WHITE is psychological damage. It attacks the psyche, usually working to petrify or take away the mind of an agent, either on purpose or not. This is usually dealt by Abnormalities that work to convince employees to stay with them or who are particularly horrifying. White Damage can take a physical form by some EGO or Abnormalities in a cloud of white, choking smoke. (EX. Happy Teddy Bear, Child of the Galaxy, Blue Star)

BLACK is supernatural weakening of the mind and body of an employee. Abnormalities with magical attacks, health hazards like slime, mucus or rot, or medical influence that causes infectious harm to those around them. This causes a piercing and increasing pain much like gathering and constricting thorns, and can cut across bodies and weaker EGO like hooked thorns. (EX. Void Dream, Snow White's Apple, The Mountain of Smiling Bodies)

PALE is the most painful and dangerous damage and it directly damages the soul of agents. There are only two Abnormalities in-game whose work deals Pale damage .. and one of those is WhiteNight. In Ruina, this is shown through the status effect Erosion. It's a gradual and near unavoidable death of all who stay around this Abnormality, beyond black's rot and erosion, by enveloping their entire essence in the Abnormality's perspective. It's comparable to having your being shifted and taken away by an external force beyond your soul or body. (EX. Judgement Bird, Servant of Wrath, WhiteNight)

If you don't know damage numbers, it's okay not to use them! Saying "a small amount, a decent amount, a high amount" is more than enough! In roleplay, it's all by estimate anyway.

Now for RISK LEVEL!

ZAYIN:

The second rarest Abnormality type and very highly valued.

These Abnormalities either portray themselves as harmless, or are completely harmless without the direct fault of the Manager's command. They are not prone to breaching without external input and cannot directly lore agents to themselves. When working, they have a low damage output and will cause harm to Agents in other ways, either by entrapment or becoming a part of their presence.

Zayin Abnos, more often than not, have an immensely beneficial effect to the employees that use them or to the facility they're contained in. This can influence stats, EGO, power generation, or regeneration.

Despite this, due to their beneficial nature, Zayin non-item abnormalities are often those who would be the most dangerous should they choose to harm the facility or if the Manager somehow breaks their typical nature to strike their ire against a target.

The death counter of their negative effects will nearly always be 1. TETH:

Any Abnormality classified as Teth instead of Zayin has earned it through their capabilities to cause harm and work types which Will set them off. Many Teth have specific work methods that allow them to stay calm however, and a Manager will be quick to prioritize those or find the consequences.

Most Teth Abnormalities aren't ranked higher due to their ability to be ignored and have predictable consequences with manageable death toll. Should their counter lower, it will either be breach or remain inside, with most having tracable breach patterns and/or will return to their own containment after a set period of time.

More often than not, Teth abnormalities will generally be friendly or try to be beneficial to those they come into contact with, only with a few exceptions. It's their attempt to be friendly, assist or help which causes the damage outside of their intent.

The death counter of their breach or effect in a typical facility will usually be 2 or above. HE:

Abnormalities classified as He have an innate existential drive to harm by default. Whether they have good intents or not, their actions and the effects of their existence can and will harm Agents. This usually comes through the Abnormality thriving and benefiting off the consumption of employees, lowering the counters of nearby Abnormalities, or causing a breach/harmful entity through the utilization of an employee.

The one factor keeping He abnormalities from being Waw is that they require direct interaction to cause harm and oftentimes are on the line of not getting out of hand when breaching.

Helpful He abnormalities will have high assistance with weighable drawbacks. Their use will be very helpful, especially in strained situations, and the use will usually outweigh the cost - no matter how high. Their assistance is measurable and won't get out of hand without the Manager actively allowing it to.

Agents are more likely to be attached to He abnormalities than any other, with the attachment being something often unregulated and beneficial to the abnormalities and agents in a symbiotic relationship.

The most complex Abnormality type. WAW:

The most common Abnormality label.

Best summarized as "You can work on/use this abnormality, but Watch Out!" and because of that, Waw abnormalities are oftentimes very predictable. They will have specific requirements when being worked with or else they'll spread from/during work, or they will breach on their own in direct response to other happenings in the corporation/neglect.

When breaching, they're actively influenced by the actions of the agents and managers to either increase their damage, their numbers, or their attack weight. Their work requirements and counters usually can't be ignored without facing consequences.

Waws that are helpful usually have immense and outweighing drawbacks if they are disrupted in any way, and will be turned against the facility tenfold. They can either instantly kill agents to take them into their own numbers or become an active antagonistic force.

Typically, if an Abnormality isn't very helpful enough to be a He but not harmful enough to be an Aleph, Waw is a loose label that can fit without being questioned. ALEPH:

Aleph are the highest energy output Abnormalities, but that's for a reason. Every work with an Aleph abnormality or every moment spent not working on them could be a day's last before a reset. Work behaviors of either a department and the surrounding ones or the whole facilities need to be changed to accommodate them.

When made, Aleph abnormalities embody the sheer loss of self-percieved humanity witnessed in their creation, leading to the embodiment of a concept far outreaching their individual existence. They are no longer human even in the slightest anymore. Those that hold even traces of human appearance are merely manipulation points used to draw others in, but upon even the slightest freedom, it's shed in the overwhelming collapse of body caused by their concepts.

These entities could destroy the city if they got loose. The Pianist, an entity which destroyed a whole district's backstreets in less than an hour, in a single song's playing, who was able to flood into the backstreets and bring in hundreds upon thousands of bodies into his own performance was a high WAW. He wasn't even an Aleph. A single mid-grade Aleph would be WORSE than The Pianist by a decent margin.

With ABNORMALITY GIFTS:

Abnormality gifts are very simple in comparison to classifications. Despite rank, many low level given gifts can be more useful than higher level gifts, as they scale with the agent rather than with the Abnormality. They embody the wavering and unstable existence of Abnormalities tying into the being of an agent. While some can be physically given, others can be formed through an agent resonating or being influenced by the Abno, quite literally taking a piece of them along.

While gifts can be removed and stored, they immediately become a part of the employee's being as soon as it's gifted as much as a piece of clothing on an Abnormality is a part of them. Agents will nearly never want to take them off or remove them unless forced. Forced removal can occasionally lead to detrimental reactions unless replaced with another.

Agents with 3 gifts or more can be considered closer to Abnormalities than humans. Main Branch agents' gift amounts would be seen as terrifying elsewhere.

High benefit gifts can usually come with consequences, as it's considered forming an agent closer into the image of the Abnormality, along with the mental and physical detriments or advantages that come with it.

Hired AGENTS:

Agents are hired through a simple criteria - reading of trauma. Through information and resources gathered from the Head, Lobotomy Corporation reads across the City to find those who have been negatively changed and transformed through their lives in the City, into trauma. People in the City aren't as likely to be traumatized by things, let alone being affected in the long run due to conditioning and mental/spiritual exhaustion through their loss of humanity and self. This is the sickness of the mind that the corporation was founded to cure. Those who can express a factor of lasting humanity, even a little, are rarer and may be selected to be hired through Hokma's City record searching.

While it provides easier link and influence by EGO into usage without direct corrosion, it's also largely for their use later in the Well. Only those with a specific mental and physical criteria can be made into Abnormalities and even less will. Thus, the hiring range is wider.

Level 5 Agents are equal to Grade 1 Fixers or Colors in combat capability.

Quick FAQ:

Q: Why aren't more Abnormalities human-looking if they represent Humanity? A: This is because of the process which creates them. Humans, half-dead or subdued, are placed into coffins nestled below the corporation, slowly stewed much like mummies in honey but instead with cogito. This slowly disperses their mind and concentrates it into their bare cognitive parts, effectively making what is called a Nameless. All Nameless together create the Well. Their concetrated, raw and City-unburdened perspectives are what allow for the perspective of any Abnormality to be made. Nameless, when selected through Hokma's record process, are injected with enough cogito and a blend of enkephalin to churn and dissolve their body from the inside out, allowing the cogito to shift their body into a shape that the Well percieves them as through the eyes of a representation of a concept. They end up deformed or with terrifying aspects, and those who are somewhat more human looking end up with aspects which show as very, very uncanny. The Well isn't human after all, but they are the very perspective and beating heart of what makes humanity into itself. Those that stay human-looking or who grasp and claw for their original humanity once injected either become failures or that becomes the embodiment of their existence as an Abnormality, such as what happened with Dr. Christopher when he became Nothing There.

Q: What makes an Abnormality containment grade? A: Their use when contained, how easy they are to keep contained, and how catastrophic the breaches can be.

Q: Can my Abnormality deal multiple types of damage? A: Yeah! Many Abnos change damage dealt between containment and when breaching. Some deal more than one- and even some Teths pull some tomfuckery out of nowhere with it. If they've got a knacker for violence, they're considered standard.

Q: What about (Random detail) with Plague Doctor? A: Plague Doctor's an outlier and should never be counted for Anything-

Q: I want to make my Abnormality cool and dangerous, and Teth/He abnormalities aren't much of either.. Should I go with Waw instead? A: Teth and He ARE very cool! They're very dangerous! They can instakill some level 5 agents, breach out of nowhere, or make a whole company panic if you're not careful! Plus, you can make them friendly and people are more likely to work with them. It's a myth that the lower the risk level, the less dangerous the abnormality - but all abnormalities are immensely dangerous and scary when not very prepared for them. Imagine Scorched Girl in a nest- huough.

You got this-! Make your freaky little beasts!

[weirdmarioenemies]

I am going to like totally finally finish ranking the Mario galaxies today. Stop Me.

Thank you for you're patience. We can talk about the top 5 galaxies now

I'm not gonna bother with any prelude, you've waited for this for like years now I know you want the Goods so here you go!

5. Blue Grass Galaxy

Tier: S+ Debut: Super Mario Galaxy 2

Blue Grass Galaxy is quite possibly the most elusive galaxy in the series. It was shown off briefly in the first ever Super Mario Galaxy 2 trailer, but when the game came out, it seemed like it was nowhere to be seen... Not even datamining could find it!

But as it turned out, we just weren't looking hard enough, because if you manage to grab every Green Star as Mario in a single sitting in under two hours without losing a single life, and then beat the Perfect Run, also without losing a single life, you unlock... A series of Red Stars for each Galaxy! And once you collect all of those in under an hour as Luigi without losing any lives, once again followed by another perfect Perfect Run, you unlock a bonus Hungry Luma on the World Map, who needs to be fed 9999 Star Bits on all three save files (so have fun speedrunning the green and red stars again!) before finally transforming into the Blue Grass Galaxy.

Of course, because the files for the Blue Grass Galaxy weren't included in the game, you'd need to download it by using a special, randomly-generated code on the Wii Shop Channel, but once you finally did, you could finally play the Blue Grass Galaxy to your heart's content. I know it might seem like quite the grind to get here, but man, every second you spend in the Blue Grass Galaxy is so immaculate, it makes the whole grind worth it. I almost don't have the words to describe how good it is, you'd really need to experience it for yourself! Sadly, you can't anymore, ever since the Wii Shop Channel shut down... Ah well. You really had to be there, I guess. I know some people were disappointed by it just reusing the Puzzle Plank Galaxy music, but I love that music so much that I don't mind.

My only gripe with the galaxy, and the main reason it only landed in the #5 spot, is because of the name. They called it the "Blue Grass" Galaxy, but that grass is very clearly green. This might seem like a pretty petty reason to put it so low, but when you get up that high, the small things can make a big difference, you know? If they called it the "Green Grass Galaxy" or the "Blue Sky Galaxy," I could easily imagine it getting the #1 spot, but respectable effort nonetheless, and a worthy reward for Super Players.

4. Wet-Dry World

Tier: SS Game: Super Mario 64

I know what you may be thinking. "What could Wet-Dry World be doing on a list of Super Mario Galaxies?" Well, it's a World in a 3D Mario platformer where you can collect Power Stars. Need I say more? And ever since Throwback Galaxy confirmed Whomp's Fortress is a Galaxy, it's easy to extend this logic to the rest of Super Mario 64. So Wet-Dry World gets to make the top 5 also.

I mean, how would it not? It's a galaxy with a cool and unique gimmick! The idea of the height you enter at deciding the water level when you enter in is super cool, and I love all the ways they tie this gimmick into the galaxy's different missions. And while this might seem like a small thing to a lot of people, as a mod of Weird Mario Enemies, I can't help myself: I will ALWAYS love a galaxy that includes such memorable enemies as Chuckya and Skeeter! So Cool!

Even in a time before Super Mario Galaxy, they managed to get the "otherworldly" feeling of this location down pat! I mean, there's the fact the skybox is distinctively underwater, even when you're on dry land, there's the fact the way you adjust the water level is via these abstract crystals, there's the whole abandoned underwater city, giving hints as to long-gone civilizations and possible Wet-Dry World Lore, this galaxy has it all! I know some people say it has a Negative Emotional Aura, but those people just don't know the meaning of good atmosphere.

3. SNES Mario Circuit 3

Tier: Good Debut: Super Mario Kart

For the #3 slot, it should only make sense that it's a place with "3" in the name. I know lots of you were probably expecting SNES Bowser Castle 3 to end up here, but it's just hard for me to ignore SNES Mario Circuit 3's legacy. I mean, it's been in five different games for crying out loud! It's hard for a course to show up in five games if it's not really good, right?

SNES Mario Circuit 3 may seem like a really basic course at a glance, what with it being completely flat and everything. Not a lot of bells and whistles in this one, that's for sure. But a better look at it reveals it to be a surprisingly technical track, with some tight turns that require good brake drifting to take optimally, and a bevy of off-road shortcuts that reward players for good item usage. While lots of courses get by thanks to their flashy gimmicks and setpieces, SNES Mario Circuit 3 cements itself as a fan-favorite as a pure test of players' skill. I mean, again, I have to assume it's a fan-favorite if it's in five games.

I also need to give a shoutout to SNES Mario Circuit 3's Atmosphere. The course has hardly changed at all since its original incarnation on the SNES, making it like, totally retro, and the staircases and flagpoles representing the original Super Mario Bros. only help to cement that identity. It also gives the course a very unique, almost liminal sort of feeling. The yellow sky is also an interesting touch. Is it merely set at sunset, or is it a biting commentary on how 30 years of go-karting have caused enough pollution to change the color of the sky? I'll let you be the judge.

Either way, it makes sense why this course has cemented itself as such a fan-favorite, and manages to always get picked in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe online lobbies. It's just that Good!

2. Milky Way Galaxy

Tier: X Game: Real

i live here hi!!!!!! :D

1. Sling Pod Galaxy

Tier: The "S" is for "Slingpodgalaxy" Game: Super Mario Galaxy

It's always the ones you least expect who win in the end... I may have ranked it dead last when I started this series, but by using the momentum of the Sling Pods, it managed to slingshot itself allllll the way to the top! Bet you didn't see this one coming! But really, it should be obvious. This galaxy is an incredible test of timing and precision, offering a good challenge for skilled players, and with an aesthetic reminiscent of the beautiful Space Junk Galaxy, it ends up winning me over in more ways than one!

There's no question that as soon as you have enough Star Bits saved up to reach Sling Pod Galaxy that you should make a mad dash to the Fountain and shove them all into that Hungry Luma's mouth, because the Sling Pod Galaxy is an experience you'll never forget! And since it's a great place to farm Star Bits too, it practically pays for itself! Bonus!

Wow! What a wild ride that was !!!! hopefully we all learned something at the end.

i'll post the real top 5 some other time i'm sorry

[whereispearlescentmoon]

My personal Life Series rankings (excluding RL)

Big Disclaimer: This is personal opinions. If you disagree, that’s fine, but also, I cannot be wrong because these are my opinions. You cannot be wrong because those are your opinions. None of this is hate to anyone it’s literally just what I enjoyed watching the most. There are some negative opinions expressed in this post. If that will upset you, DO NOT READ IT!

Smaller Disclaimer: I am a Pearl main viewer. The only season where Pearl wasn’t my main pov is the one she wasn’t in. I have only seen Pearl’s pov and the winner in completion for any season, as well as sporadic episodes from others. Therefore, I am also biased by how fun the season was as a Pearl viewer.

1.) Double Life- To absolutely no one’s surprise, a Pearl main’s favorite season is Double Life. The drama, the angst, the finale where she went fully batshit and just started killing. Also she won, which, ya know, makes me happy. And I really liked the gimmick of soulmates! I think it forced people to be strategic about whether or not it was worth it to actually fight as a pair, or whether it was better to have one person stay safe to heal while the other fought. I also liked that it kind of gave people default alliances, though of course that didn’t work out in the Divorce Quartet’s case until Martyn and Cleo made up near the end. The whole soulmates idea kind of forced some amount of player interaction and roleplay, which are my favorite parts of the series, even for those that don’t really do it as much.

2.) Limited Life- I have made the fact that the Nosey Neighbors are my favorite alliance ever no secret. And I think having both the ability to die a bunch of times, the gaining time for killing, and the boogeyman back created the opportunity for players to get creative with kills, to sneak around to conserve time, to go on actual rampages, and to have drama filled sacrifices. All of these are my favorite aspects of the series. I think when a gimmick is good is when it facilitates player interaction and kills rather than interrupts or overtakes them. There’s also Martyn’s win, which was just perfect. He took the fact that Scott and Impulse wanted a pure PvP moment, almost like Third Life, and instead tricked them into putting their guard down. Was it the most honorable win? No. But I’m never particularly fussed about honor or “cheating” when I’m here to watch a Minecraft death game between friends. He did the sickest thing he could, which is just outsmart them.

3.) Last Life- Oh beloved Scottage Duo. This is actually probably the prime example of what I mean when I say I like gimmicks that facilitate player interaction. Willingly giving over lives and the boogeyman curse were some of the biggest makers and breakers of alliances. This was also before I feel like alliances had to be really set in stone. People went back and forth constantly. Take Cleo, for example, who switched teams after BigB boogey killed her, and then kinda went rogue from GGG, and then switched back last second when she went red. The roleplay was great, the kills were dramatic and cool. I only really have it lower than LimL because of my bias for Nosey Neighbors lol.

4.) Third Life- A good old death game, plain and simple, and I like it that way! Good kills, good traps, and pure player interaction in a fight for survival. Bdubs’ finale is an actual fever dream nightmare. And of course the infamous cactus ring punching battle to the death. No notes. It’s really only this low because I am a Pearl viewer mainly and she wasn’t in this season.

5.) Secret Life- Pearl’s pov of this season was deeply involved, largely because the Mounders’ base was kind of central on the map. This meant I probably got the best idea of what was happening on the server of any of her seasons. I also watched at least a little of every pov this season, because I was curious about why people were acting the way they were so I wanted to see their tasks. The best task in my opinion was the zombie task, because it was something that got the whole server involved. I wanted to watch every pov to see when people were realizing what was happening, and I was genuinely excited by the interactions it created. I thought a lot of the tasks were great, in fact, but there were a couple that just… couldn��t work. And with so many people trying to get so many things done at once, there were definitely times where genuine interactions took a back seat to frantically trying to get someone to say or do something specific to get a task done, then bolting away to get a success.

And then there was the incredibly weak mechanic of gifting hearts. Some players started skipping doing it entirely, and I don’t even blame them. With no regen in a death game, gifting one heart didn’t really matter. It was much more rewarding to get hearts either from completing a task or, when that failed, by killing people. We still got a couple great sacrifice moments for extra hearts, which I’m always a fan of, but that was from the kill mechanic. The gifting didn’t really seem to end up mattering except when it came to reaffirming who was in what alliance at the beginning of episodes. Overall, a great season, but maybe a little over bloated.

6.) Wild Life-And on the topic of over bloated gimmicks. I will start by saying that I know the main audience of the series is probably like 12 and this kind of season probably appeals to them. I know that I, a 21 year old man, am not the target audience for this kind of season. I know that, but that doesn’t mean I can’t express an opinion on it. I probably don’t have any criticism about this series that most people haven’t already heard. I’m certain that Grian and the people he hired worked incredibly hard on this season, and the effort really shows. The models for the snails and the trivia bot were really cute, I think it was really fun to outsource quiz questions to fan creators, and the superhero mechanics were really well done. But that doesn’t mean I personally enjoyed this season as much as I enjoyed the others.

Player interaction, resource gathering, PvP kills, and trapping took a back seat to each episodes gimmick. My absolutely least favorite was the snails. Of the 120 something possible deaths, I think something like 30 were just the snails. In fact, that particular gimmick was so all encompassing that there was basically no meaningful interaction between players at all in that session, since basically every conversation boiled down to “man the snails sure suck anyways I should start running now because of the snail” and all of them seemed pretty sick of it by the end which is why they cut the session short. The fact that a few people actually managed to get base building done that episode was miraculous. I know it’s funny that that happened, and that maybe I shouldn’t be taking it this seriously, but it still contributes to why I didn’t vibe with this season. Not to mention, the growth mechanic was consistently super glitchy and a little hard to watch especially when people were trying to get up anything, and the mob spawn mechanic meant constant lag spikes that also made it hard to watch.

And then in this last episode, I’m sorry, but while it was deffo the finale I expected for this season that was already super chaotic, it was absolutely my least favorite finale of any series. I don’t think anything exemplifies it more than the fact that multiple final kills were due to mobs, including snail kills, in a session where almost everyone was on red and could have been killing each other. But they couldn’t focus on actually fighting half the time because they were shrinking and the trivia bots were there and oh there’s a vex and the snails are back and we have super powers. I couldn’t even tell what killed most people in their povs because yeah that explosion might have been a tnt trap, or maybe there’s a ghast somewhere or a creeper or someone is invisible and snuck up on them. Chaos is great in certain quantities but the whole finale was at an 11, and for me it wasn’t in a fun way. The only reprieve was the final fight, which was absolutely a fun watch because it was just actual PvP. Joel showed off some sick skills and won in a way I found very satisfying.

[operafantomet]

How would you rank each non-replica on a scale of creativity/original ideas?

That is a good question with many possible answers! Mostly because there are "good" creative/original ideas and "bad" creative/original ideas out there, and some of the most creative ones may also be the one I dislike the most... For example, if going by creativity and originality alone, Estonia would be very high on the list. But I'm not really loving the production overall, so I wouldn't say it's the best original take on POTO. If that makes sense. But if ranking the productions purely by how different they are and how hard they have worked on not looking like the original, I would say:

ESTONIA: Inter-war setting, rather bleak in its colour scheme and overall design, with one helluva mirror-discoball lair design, leather-coat Phantom, Vivienne Westwood-esque Il Muto, Moulin Rouge-ish Masquerade, 1990s Haute Couture Don Juan... There's so much to say. Definitely original, and not just giving "we had a low budget" vibe.

FINLAND / SWEDEN: 1980s costume vibes, gold mask, rock'n'roll, huge sets, tiny chandelier, gigantic orchestra, for the most actual opera singers in the leads. This one felt odd more than anything. But original? Very much so.

KRISTIANSTAD, SWEDEN: Definitely a production on a budget, but yet checking off all the boxes of what you'd expect of a POTO production. And with some super original ideas for some key scenes - Raoul stumbling around in the falling sets during the Overture, the elegant double staging in the boat scene, the rarities in the Phantom's lair, Red Death crashing through a mirror and later disappearing in mid-air... They had so many cool lil' details going on. In style fairly 1880s, and with a cool horizontal half-mask for the Phantom. I really appreciated this one.

SERBIA: One could maybe argue this was more low-budget than original...? At least the basic black set with few changes and the many low-key costumes didn't feel like the biggest effort out there. But different? Oh definitely.

BULGARIA: Pretty much the same comments as Serbia. However, the Phantom's fruit crown in PONR can never be unseen. Neither can the monkey musical box which seemed to have lost its will to live. Memorable for sure.

ROMANIA / NORWAY / GREECE / TOUR: Whereas the basic drum set was fairly similar to the Restaged Tour, it felt like an original production still. Some independent interpretations of the Palais Garnier (including featuring a huge window as a mirror substitute for Christine), more Edwardian flair of the costume design, and a kick-ass chandelier - grand, fun, and with some cool and independent directing ideas throughout. The idea of never leaving the opera house, for example, was interesting. Very enjoyable overall.

MEDITERRANEAN: Basing nearly the whole set design within a rectangular, turnable box on stage was a neat and cool idea. This, combined with oh-so-Victorian costumes and so many nods to Phantom history, felt original and clever. Also some stunning original visuals, like the Phantom's lair with the Piraniesi-esque labyrinth backdrop. Speaking of original, it probably looked very as expected with its heavy victoriana flair - but to me that's not a negative thing.

POLAND: One could argue this in large was a carbon copy of the 2004 movie. The costumes in particular, but also directing elements like including a sword fight in the Mausoleum scene. But the sets - oh, those beautiful sets! Also a wild chandelier crash.

SYDNEY HARBOUR: A really hard one to rank. The world's first outdoor production (ORIGINAL!), with sets looking like Bjørnson's design on steroids (not as original), with 1860s flair costumes (hello 2004 movie) with a dash of LND Australia (not as original), but then a flying gondola over burning water (ORIGINAL!), a huge cast (very RAH), and performing come rain or sunshine (ORIGINAL!). Something old, something new... But definitely a cool one for the Phantom portfolio!

RESTAGED TOUR: I was a bit in doubt on how to rank this one. I mean, the costume design is in large not new, it's Maria Bjørnson's costumes. But then new set design, new directing and new choreography. With various degrees of success. To me the most original idea is the drum set structure, and also some new magic tricks and added moments. I'm not loving the directing choices, as it makes both the Phantom and Raoul rather unloving candidates for Christine - why would she pick either of them? Also felt too much like a nod to Love Never Dies to appear truly original. So yeah, mostly for the sets.

HUNGARY and CZECH REPUBLIC: Whereas the productions themselves may not look the same, they both feel like two similar takes, to loving interpretations of the original, sticking to the same colour schemes and with a heavy Victorian flair. Directing wise they also feel like the same landscape. I appreciate both a lot, and especially Hungary has some clever ideas going on. I also loved how they picked Palais Garnier as a base - but totally different areas or angles of the Palais Garnier than what Bjørnson did. But if going purely by originality they don't move too far outside the box.

NEW ROMANIAN PRODUCTION: Nearly impossible to rank. AI design with some tweaks, which has resulted in a sort of amalgamated combo of all the non-replica production set design, with a sprinkle of Maria Bjørnson design on top. With some playing-card-odd costumes. Some visuals are stunning, some are very traditional, some are way out there. Yeah, I have no idea how to rank this one.

(and of course this is just my impression of them - have in mind that I've only seen three of them live, and if I see more of them in the future I may feel different about this ranking)

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Meg's Doing It ALL Wrong!

"the most ass backwards, shocking, antisocial fail I've seen possibly ever."

If you've ever had a desire to eavesdrop on any business school course or psychology of business course, Ibble Dibble's most recent case study on Meghan Markle's business scams is not to be missed. Please forgive my use of gifs as I salute her 1,2 knock out punch to MM, Omit, NOprah & Sparry's ridiculous allegations of waycism. No one has come close to telling it like Ibble Dibble.

I salute you #1 I.D., take a bow! Your quote should be etched on the Duchess's future Frogmore Cottage tombstone because you did something no one else has been able to do: nail her waycism insanity in 1 intelligent sentence.

Friends, help me show our support for the female content creators on YT who are actually saving intelligent women from following in MEgain's footsteps.

Please follow the link to LIKE & SUBSCRIBE to Ibble Dibble's YT channel. At one point the megbots had her YT channel demonitized, but ID fought back and won. ID is an intelligent threat to MM's low class megbots. Also follow the Duchess of Suss who called out the aroscam in a hilariously funny video.

Meg's Floptastic Flaws #3: Meg is a Terrible Snob

there are good snobs like Prince Charles, Princess Margaret & Martha Stewart, bad snobs, and snobs who are just very bad at snobbing

Meghan is a narcissist who is actually an

ARCH SNOB : a snob who is a bad bad snob

"Meghan's snobbery is so appalling because SHE is BAD at snobbing."

"She is literally labeling and ranking people. Her big product launch is at best a freudian slip, at worst a passive aggressive power play...it is the most ass backwards, shocking, antisocial fail I've seen possibly ever."

A passive agressive power play:

audicity to think she can buy those celebs as friends for a jar of jam

poach their followers

insult them personally by numerically ranking them from most to least important on the very labels

the celebs are too dumb to know she's negging them

thinks we the public will admire her behavior & line up begging for the next batch of worthless nonsense she danes to sell

simply to posture on social media... gross but also ineffective

on some level Meghan always knows she's shooting herself in the foot

Meghan exhibits High Social Dominance Orientation: a genuine belief that some groups of people are innately superior to others and should therefore hold more power in society.

Meg's fury, jealousy & resentment for being scorned by Hollyweird & British high society in turn, snubs the only people who pay attention to her--you, US potential customers

a narcissist harboring true malice & intends to arrive at her rightful place upon the social ladder by any means necessary

believes she is due limitless revenge for being snubbed and immediately commences enacting it by any means necessary (a la her sewer squad & digital justice)¹

believes she has the right to exploit & abuse perceived inferiors

Meg is a bad snob. She does not judge in a qualitative measure but snobs purely to service her own delusions of grandeur OR at worst to entertain herself by upsetting her victims and creating chaos

meg has a following who wants to be like her & we know bc they leave insane comments

"Meghan Markle can't present herself as the loveable villain because she has NO sense of humor! She's just a bad bad snob." Case in point:

"Meghan (unlike a good snob), flipped what was likely a single joke about a little orphan annie ginger fro, (she heard 2nd hand), into an international incident with legal and diplomatic repercussions."🎯🎯🎯

Meg's fury, jealousy & resentment for being scorned by British high society...she believes she has the right to exploit & abuse (Catherine & William) perceived inferiors

"Another Rip Off"

¹comparisons to Mao's (actress) wife and the biblical queen Jezebel are accurate. Mao's wife jailed & murdered all who had rejected and/or criticized her during her climb up the greasy pole. Queen Jezebel sought to murder and silence all the true prophets or outspoken truthers. Meg's mission for "digital justice" is to criminalize criticism.

[kaisturntoshine]

Ranking the Milgram characters based on how much I think their T2 verdict will come back to bite us

Disclaimer (1): Spoilers for the first two trials of the Milgram project.

Disclaimer (2): This is not me necessarilly disagreeing with the verdicts; a lot of things still remain unclear, so it is natural we voted a certain way. Still, the writers have made their intention of screwing us over loud and clear, so I am willing to assume the worst.

10. Shidou: Innocent

I am a little worried that by having us affirm his belief that he should be kept alive for the sake of others we are giving him a saviour complex, but honestly it couldn't be helped. Voting him guilty, taking into consideration the prospect of injury amongst the prisoners, would not be the way to go.

9. Kazui: Innocent

Alright, I am still a bit suspicious of the old man, but similarly to Shidou we need for him not to be constrained... probably. Frankly, I cannot perceive a way in which affirming his beliefs will have a great negative impact on the prison's environment.

8. Mahiru: Innonent

Though the logistics of her crime have remained unclear, it is heavily implied that she was inadvertedly toxic towards her partner, which lead to his suicide. Whilst I do not think she will act out of malice, since she has shown a tendency to be obsessive in her relationships, I have to account for the possibility that she will form a toxic bond with one of the prisoner of even Es (though considering the fact that something simiar already happened between Haruka and Muu, I am wondering how likely it is).

7. Yuno: Innocent

This is probably my most "unbased" judgement, since it mainly has to do with the fact that Yuno hasn't been very involved in the plot and the changes happening in the prison's environment. Therefore, the writers are more likely to utilize her in some (most likely destructive) way.

6. Fuuta: Innocent

The reason I've ranked him relatively low mainly stems from the fact that I don't think his verdict is the main factor contributing to his possible derailment (I am referring to the possibility of him adopting Amane's religious beliefs and practices, supported by the recent timelines). (Perhaps Amane will try to exact her "revenge" on Shidou through Fuuta).

Again, I recognize that I am going with a "worst case scenario". It is possible that this is not the case, since Fuuta has been shown to appreciate Shidou's medical care of him, worry about Mahiru's well-being and, at the end of the day, remains injured.

5. Mikoto: Innocent

(Halfway, huh?) The fact that MIkoto (Boku) is actually the one being judged by Milgram, as well as the implication of there being a third alter, makes me uneasy... However, I doubt that any of the alters will turn on the participants and us voting him innocent might just be our ticket to the truth.

Also I was really having trouble placing him.

4. Haruka: Guilty

He is a highly unstable individual and we are only putting oil in the fire (understandably, though). Yet I don't think he'd go after the other participants, seeing as he thinks of them highly (source: second trial interogattion questions) and has been prown to attack only those he deems weaker for empowerment. He appears to be highly self-destructive though, so maybe being monitored will help protect himself from his reaction to:

3. Muu: Guilty

Soley because of what this might mean for Haruka (disclaimer: I don't think any of the participants will die in the interlude between the two trials, but still) and because she, too, is an unstable individual.

2. Kotoko: Guilty

Hear me out, okay?! I-I just have a feeling this is what the writers wanted us to do, which is never (?) a good thing! My gut is telling me that be restrained won't stop her...

1. Amane: Innocent

I was actually really surprised when I saw this result, even though it's what I probably would have picked. It was really a double-edged sword, I feel as though the vote was only a matter of choosing which way we'd be cut. This girl is definitely going to do something and it's not going to be pretty.

TLDR; We were always doomed.

[fa1lsoldier]

| FAILED SUPER-SOLDIER TURNED DANGEROUS CYBORG. | by nika. 25. he/they. EST.

EXPLORING THEMES OF. -> being a dutiful son even if it means destroying yourself in the process, wielding anger and pain as a double edged sword, and getting torn apart and building yourself back up again. | Please note he was originally written/made for a discord rp server. That server has since gone inactive. A brief version of his about under the cut. | READ RULES HERE (sideblog to /follows from @vigilanthe )

The only child of a waitress and delivery man, no one expected him to be much of anything. The most he and his parents could hope is that as an adult he could make enough money to help pay the family’s bills. His family struggled a lot with money due to loans with high interest rates, rent, etc. Joining the south korean military at age 18 as a means of supporting his parents/family, he and his family managed to survive paycheck to paycheck… until his father was severely injured in a hit and run accident. At age 28, due to the accident, his father needed frequent hospital visits which racked up a lot of medical debt. To help pay for their ever growing medical debt, he volunteered to join the South Korean army’s experimental corps, a selective branch of the military that was designed to help develop tools and soldiers who are able to keep pace with super powered individuals. The work was dangerous, but the pay was double what he was making as a regular soldier… 

At first, his job was mostly testing weapons, armors and tools for the corps. However, over time, the corps began to experiment with tech less and with people more. Thrust into a testing pool of 7 additional people, he was subjected to multiple injections and experiments, all in an effort to make stronger, faster and smart soldiers (super soldiers). Given the 5th version of the south korean super soldier serum, despite being a newer serum, it proved little better than the earlier version. He and some of the other test subjects experienced violently negative reactions to the serum. Instead of getting faster, stronger and better parts of his body disintegrated into an irreversible dust. Thanks to the super soldier scientists, he lost his jaw and hands. His condition was stabilized by the scientists/doctors but was deemed a failure.

An intern eager to prove their worth took pity on the failure known as “subject 5-8” and gave him a prosthetic jaw and hands. However, in their rush to make the failure useful,they accidentally have him wearable weapon prototypes. The jaw he was given, despite looking more or less like a regular human jaw, wasn’t. Instead it contained sharp, carnivore like teeth. And the hands he were given contained sharp, panther like claws. The intern realized their mistake too little too late. Biting and clawing his way free, Sam left a trail of blood in his wake as he fled the facility. 

During his escape, he killed many high ranking, irreplaceable scientists and soldiers. Because of the loss of so many valuable assets, he was branded a traitor by the South Korean military. Left with no choice but to flee the country to avoid getting arrested or killed, he took the first plane available, which just happened to be to New York. In New York, despite originally laying low and trying to live a more peaceful life, he found himself unable to turn a blind eye to all the injustices being conducted by both the American and South Korean government. He now works as a vigilante, targeting those who experiment on people as well as those who prey on the defenseless.

[variousqueerthings]

i think in many ways it's harder for me to write about rose than any other companion of the show. with martha-detractors I simply go "be on your way, you are incorrect" (same with donna, but with less judgement), and I think that while I do have my niggling things about amy and clara, from what I've seen, the discussions around them (in these here parts of the interweb) are reeeelatively chill? or at least, if I've had positives or negatives to bring up about some of the writing, I think people tend to stay in their space of what does or doesn't work for them about these characters, whether or not they agree with what I'm saying (I think, same for river song)

this not to say that there isn't presumably drama out there, but I don't really care to seek it out, and so far I haven't seemed to invite it

with rose, my favourite companion because she was my first doctor who companion and I have such warm memories of her as a character type I looked up to, I'm kind of very affectionate of how I read her, and it's very based in feeling like her ending removes a lot of her agency

and I think she gets put so much into a box because of that ending, that trying to complicate that box makes people's hackles rise, even if you're not... saying anything bad about her? because you're a fan of her character? I don't think I've ever said anything to the contrary? specifically amatonormative box-wise, and I even read rose as an alloromantic character most of the time (unless I'm having fun going even further on complicating that, which I should do more often honestly)

people who don't like the idea of rose and doctor as romantic endgame get annoyed that they have to think about her at all, and it seems those people frequently put her low/lowest on their companion rankings because of the amatonormative read they have of the arc that they also don't like, and that is all she is as character to them in the end, which is such a shame

and people who do like the idea of rose and specifically tentoo as romantic endgame get annoyed because... well, I don't like it much? and I read rose and the doctor's relationship differently to something so straightforward? and I like challenging the ending that she's given that to me is very open and seemingly under-explored

in the end it's a shame that she's not "allowed" to have her narrative complicated in read, without inviting annoyed responses. and I don't technically care, it's whatever the character-read version of kink tomato is, you do you and if someone's taking that personally, that's whatever, that's the kind of shit that happens in fandom sometimes right? block and move on

but it does make her harder to write about, on the whole, knowing that she's not a character that's so open to interpretation in a lot of peoples minds, because it starts and stops with the romance. makes me think I should go harder on why I don't read that so simply, not to be spiteful, but just because there's not a lot of people from the looks of things who are fans of rose, but don't read a straightforward alloromantic narrative in her relationship with the doctor or with tentoo, so I do feel like I'm mooostly writing to the void (appreciated your comment a lot @figgyblossom and everyone who does engage with rose-posts that read her differently)

just uh... don't take this so seriously. I'm a rose fan, I wouldn't be writing about her so much if I wasn't

[mysticstarlightduck]

New Tag Game! OC's 'Most Important' Tag!

Rules: Make a list (detailed or not!) of the most important people, events/moments, places, and anything else that shaped your characters into who they are now, describing how/why.

DISCLAIMER: The "most important" here means "most impactful" - the people, places, and events that had the biggest impact on the character's life. And that impact can be both POSITIVE or NEGATIVE!

I'll go first with the protagonist of Supernova Initiative!

Jack Tithus:

Most Important People

(Positive)

Cassiopeia Tithus (younger sister): Cassie is, by far, one of the, if not The most important person in Jack's life. Not that he consciously picks favorites, but he has devoted his entire life to keeping her safe and happy after their parents were killed by the Junction because she's the only family he has left and he promised he would protect her On another note, she is also the "heart" of the group - she's always happy, seeing the best in every situation no matter how bleak - and that optimism makes living in the bleak galaxy they live in more bearable for everyone around her.

Deimos Soll (adoptive brother): Deimos has been Jack's best friend and adoptive brother ever since the day they met when they were teens. Their bond, despite all their differences and arguments in the present, is still just as strong as it used to be in the past - as much as it is a bit awkward at times due to the time they've spent together. Deimos was the only friend his age (Jack is 25, Deimos is 26, they were 15 and 16 when they met) that Jack had for a long time, which on its own was something he was glad to have - but he legitimately became family to both Jack and Cassie. For all his stubborn faults, Deimos is fiercely loyal, and he cares a lot for the people he loves, a trait he shares with Jack as well.

Florian & Lauriel Tithus (parents): Though they were only alive for a small portion of his lifetime - mostly his childhood - they did have some considerably formative influence on his morality and good-hearted nature, as they taught him to always fight against injustice and stand up for those who need help, as well as reminded him that family is the most important thing in his life. He had a very close bond with their mother, Lauriel, who was a pilot and taught him how to fly a spaceship expertly, while Cassie bonded more with their father, who was an aspiring inventor.

(Negative)

Cethea III's mob bosses: Those guys were part of the reason why Jack's teenage years and overall life in Cethea III were so dangerous. Since Jack and his siblings were pretty much destitute after their life as they knew it came crashing down because of the Junction, they - and especially him - had to get resourceful. Jack became an errand boy and messenger for some of the low-ranking crime factions of the moon (most notably the faction known as the Onyx Strikers), in exchange for a pitiful amount of units, which - as little as it was - was still better than nothing. That's also how he got the skills he would later hone and use to become the renowned intergalactic thief, but that 'talent' came with a hefty toll.

The Director: The head of the Junctions Sciences and Bioengineering department and overall a very respected and influential politician, businessman, and public figure, the Director isn't just Jack's archnemesis throughout this story - he's also, directly, Jack's torturer, as - while the crew was begrudgingly working for the Junction- he subjected the young thief to many unethical scientific experiments. This is a source of considerable torment, distress, and overall inner conflict for Jack, as he not only has to find a way to free himself and his crew and fight against the Junction but also has to grapple with the fear that the experiments may be already changing him somehow.

Most Important Places (to his story)(:

The Junction

Cethea III

The Khosmonian Galaxies

Most Important Moments/Events:

The death of his parents, killed by the Junction after joining a local rebel effort against it;

Growing up on the crime-ridden streets of Cethea III with his siblings, and getting involved in the moon's criminal underworld;

Developing a considerable reputation and becoming an influential intergalactic thief in his early 20s;

The argument with Deimos, after which the duo (Jack & Cassie) and Deimos parted ways due to different opinions on the recently started civil war;

Being captured by the Junction along with his crew (Inciting Incident of the series!), which led him to accept a shady deal with the Director (make one final heist, this time for the Junction, not against it, in exchange for their lives);

Being forced to become one of the Director's test subjects after the man threatened to do the same to Cassie;

Freeing himself and his crew from the Junction and joining a rebel effort to stop the civil war from escalating and ending the corruption of both the Junction and the Khosmonian sides.

Anything Else That's Important:

His Crew/Friends: Jack is, first and foremost, a natural leader and a protector, who cares deeply for the people he trusts and loves. His team/crew, which is composed of his closest friends, is like a family to him - and though that friendship can at times be chaotic and strained, they're still always going to be there for each other no matter what. And that friendship is also a factor for character growth to pretty much every member of the main cast as well, including him.

Freedom: Jack values freedom in life almost more than anything - it's a close second in his list of priorities for sure - and has a very fiery personality. He despises being told what to do by people who want to control him or by those who think they're better than him or than others, and this causes him to have a very relentlessly rebellious spirit.

Tagging (gently): @littleladymab, @winterandwords, @eccaiia, @sarahlizziewrites, @amaiguri

@agirlandherquill, @anoelleart,

@writernopal, @anyablackwood, @unstablewifiaccess, @forthesanityofstorytellers

@i-can-even-burn-salad,

@lassiesandiego, @clairelsonao3, @memento-morri-writes, @starlit-hopes-and-dreams and OPEN TAG

Supernova Initiative Taglist (-/+): @ray-writes-n-shit, @sarandipitywrites, @lassiesandiego, @smol-feralgremlin, @kaylinalexanderbooks,

@diabolical-blue @oh-no-another-idea

@cakeinthevoid, @clairelsonao3, @sleepy-night-child

@thepeculiarbird

@the-golden-comet, @urnumber1star

Let me know if you'd like to be added!

[lilac-5ky]

Hi there! Your writing is awesome!!! I love your headcanons and fics as they feel so spot on ❤️❤️❤️

I have a request if you are accepting - imma be angsty today - do you have any headcanons for Gintoki when he realizes he loves someone who was in love with him too late?

Thank you for this awesome blog!!! Makes my day to see posts!

A/N: Hi! It's been ages since I've done a request, but I was feeling generous (bad about being this lazy) and thought I'd give it a shot! Turned out more like a mini thing than headcanons lmao oops. HOPE THIS WAS GOOD ENOUGH, HAVEN'T WRITTEN ANYTHING FOR GINTOKI IN AGES, and THANK YOU FOR YOUR WONDERFUL WORDS! Hearing such lovely words is enough to make my day!

Warning: Didn't proofread .-. Angst

Gintoki was a bastard. Nothing new or foreign in particular. Everyone acquainted to the silver-haired samurai could name at least 10 negative traits of his, struggling to name just one good quality that would redeem him.

Everyone, except of you, that was. You didn't see Gintoki as the lazy, parasitic, sleazy, sadistic, gambling-addicted drunkard (wow he really has a lot of negatives) they made him out to be. You saw Gintoki for the kindhearted man that he was. The one who went around risking the color of his soul just to save another. The one who was whatever those around him wanted him to be: a friend, a brother, a hero, and why not a lover?

Admiration turned into Infatuation, tricking your heart into thinking you loved him. You'd linger around Yorozuya, offloading whatever menial task you could think of just for the chance to see him. Be it cleaning the leaves from your porch, killing that one cockroach that had sneaked in (one that had him running laps around the house while screaming for help) and even being your plus one to the wedding of a friend.

You dreamed of a day when you wouldn't have to come up with excuses for his company, and seeing as there were only so many times you could call him up to unplug your toilet before you ran low on cash, you decided to pour your heart out.

Kagura and Shinpachi knew. So when you asked Gintoki if he could meet you at your place on his own, they dolled him up and sent him your way with a "Good Luck" whose meaning he didn't quite understood until he saw you cradling a heart shaped box of chocolates-- plush cheeks flushing red, while pink lips curved into a shy smile.

"Gin-toki," the name shattered on your tongue. "I... I love you. Go out with me, please."

He stared at you for quite a while, as if you'd just uttered the world's most complicated joke. He wasn't sure if he should laugh or ask you if he knew what kind of crap you'd spat, and him being eager to verify his reputation chose the second.

"The yard seems clean enough to me. I'll be going now," he said, rejecting not just you, but the boxes of chocolate as it fell open onto the ground.

The next few hours were the hardest. Sleeping on the same pillow where you daydreamed all about your future with him felt like sleeping on glasses of your shattered dreams. Not even an answer, not a single explanation. He'd broken your heart with such ease that it terrified you. How plausible was it that in this new era of canine looking Amanto and flying cars some alien had taken over his body and wore it around like a heart-less, soul-less puppet?

Denial.

It was easier to deny all that had transpired and pretended it never happened. You even passed by Yorozuya the next morning, willing to give this another chance, telling yourself that man wasn't Gintoki. But when you saw his apathetic face reading the newest Jump and picking his nose even in your presence, you couldn't stop the tears from streaming down your puffy eyes.

Anger.

It didn't take long for you to join the ranks of Gintoki's haters, seeing the man as nothing short of the Devil himself. Every terrible thing that happened, you pinned on him. Bumping onto the kitchen cabinet? He was jinxing you from afar. Running out of gas in the middle of town? He must have stolen it while you were asleep. A terrorist attack nearby? Weren't those goons Gintoki's old war-pals? Every natural phenomena, every misfortune of this world and the next was Gintoki's fault. Love? The mere notion that you once loved him made you laugh. Hatred was all you had left.

Bargaining

With each passing day, you felt your fury redirecting at you, gnawing and clawing at your insides, while small "What If's" plagued your mind like maggots. What if you hadn't confessed that day? What if instead of your place you'd called him to a restaurant? What if you'd gotten a different brand of chocolates? What if--

Depression

You couldn't remember when the last time you'd gotten out of bed was. Balled up tissues framed the four corners of the room, the tears contained in them enough to cause a shipwreck. You didn't want to see anyone anymore, afraid that if you did you'd spot a resemblance between them and the man your heart longed to see the most. You didn't hate him anymore... you missed him. You missed the sound of his name so badly that it threaded itself between pitiful chokes and sobs like a rosary.

You missed him.

Acceptance

The days in your calendar kept shifting until a month had passed. Taking baby steps, you'd done your best to return to an inchoate routine. You woke up, washed your teeth, showered, checked the functionality of your toilet's flush, ate breakfast and went to work, where you stayed until the stack of paperwork diminished, and until you were rewarded for your efforts in the form of a promotion. Your coworkers cheered for you, and for a moment life felt good again because you'd stopped searching for the familiar hue of a silver mop.

You were fine.

The route Gintoki took to and from the pachinko parlor he frequented was predetermined. On hot days, he'd stop by that one ice cream joint with the world's greatest (and most affordable) soft serve. On cold days, he'd trade that for a warm bowl of red bean soup. Then he'd be on his way to the convenient store to grab the latest Jump and finish his day with a drink at the old hag's place.

Gintoki always took the same route, except of that one day he hadn't. The worn-out soles of his black boots carried him in the opposite direction of all those places and even home, bringing him to stand outside the two-floor house with the porch that needing cleaning regardless of season; your house.

He hadn't heard anything from you since God knows how long, and why would he? No one needed to remind him how much of a jerk he'd been, for the words in his brain repeated like a broken record he couldn't afford fixing. He was worse than a jerk. A despicable caricature of a man that couldn't own to the fact that he'd grown fond of you the same way you'd come to love him.

The look of absolute endearment whenever your eyes spotted him, a look that didn't change despite the crudeness of his actions. He loved that. The shaky fluctuations in your tone whenever he'd sit close enough to feel your hair tingling his face. He loved that, too. The smile that shone as bright as the sun itself and the little hand that waved at him -gosh, how he longed to hold that hand in his and compare the difference in size- goodbye. He loved that all so much. Too much. He loved you.

Or else why would he be standing out there when his beloved weather girl had issued a thunderstorm warning?

With his hands buried in his pockets, Gintoki circled the picket fence of your porch, head tilting between the wooden cracks at a chance to see your face. How was he supposed to start? Would an apology do? Would letting himself be beaten by that rusty rake or drenched from head to toe by your garden's hose do? How many "I love you's" would he need to spell out to convince you he was any less of a bastard than you made him out to be? What would it take for your forgiveness?

His fingers weaved through locks of silver, threatening to pluck them out. If he told you the truth, that he thought you deserved something better than a basket case samurai with no more than 300 yen in his name, he'd seem like a complete idiot. If he told you that the ghosts of the past he'd tried so hard to evade were catching up to him, you'd mistake him for a coward. And if he selfishly grabbed your hand and forced it against his chest, he knew he'd never be able to hear the three little words that directly countered those you'd said before.

"Gintoki, what are you doing here?"

The track of guilt gave way to the sweetest melody known to his ears, hope daring spur him on. He wore his gentlest smile and turned around to face you, the same hope digging like a knife inside his wretched heart at the sight of fingers -ten, in total- intertwined together, five of them belonging to you and the other to a man whose face didn't matter. All that mattered was the joy plastered on your pursed lips, one he saw fade away the second your eyes locked. One that was meant for him no more.

"The yard seems clean enough to me," he pointed beyond the fence, boots diving in the first of Ketsuno Ana's warnings as the sorrowful record resumed.

"I'll be going now."

[heartsoulrocknroll]

Michigan's Adventure Trip Report 6/28/24

My long awaited trip report!!!! Day two of the three-day trip across Ohio, Michigan, and western Pennsylvania. This was a Friday. We got into the park at about 1:30 PM and stayed until about 7:00 PM.

Coaster Rankings and Thoughts

1) Shivering Timbers (x 10 rides, including some light rain rides)

Shivering Timbers, love of my life. I love this ride so much I could legitimately cry. It's already been said by ElToroRyan and friends, but I'll say it again. I know the Voyage was advertised as having the most airtime on any coaster prior to Steel Vengeance's existence, but I think that's complete BS. I love Voyage beyond words, but there is no WAY it has more airtime than this absolute airtime machine. The Voyage has a lot of quick airtime pops, but every single hill on Shivering Timbers delivers fairly strong, sustained negative Gs. The huge outward hills give incredible, sustained floater. The wooden roughness and the way the train kind of bounces as it goes over those huge hills just adds to the duration and intensity of the airtime. The valleys are crazy intense too, between the wooden feel, the way you get slammed back down into the seat after the airtime, and the decently strong positives. The turnaround gives strong laterals, and the drop off the turnaround is one of my favorite moments of the ride, as there is an unbanked left turn into the drop that gives laterals and a great airtime pop at the same time. The return run continues with hill after hill, most of which are smaller hills, giving quicker airtime pops. One of those smaller hills before the camera gives one of the strongest airtime moments on the ride. Then you get hit with some of the strongest, most sustained laterals on any coaster in the world, as you are pinned to the side of the train for several seconds on the awesome, 630 degree helix finale. It can be bumpy as hell, especially in a wheel seat. But it's not an intolerable roughness, just one that gives the ride a ridiculous, out-of-control feel that puts it over the top. I got a few rides with some light rain coming down, and that was truly incredible. I never wanted to stop riding. This ride is severely underrated, and that may just be because it's under-ridden, being so far out of the way of other parks. Please believe me, it is worth the trip, no matter where you are. But if you are already at Cedar Point, that 4.5-hour drive is a no-brainer.

2) Thunderhawk (x 2 rides)

This is my 148th coaster and maybe my 26th? park, and yet this is my first Vekoma SLC. I've heard the moaning and complaining about how bad SLCs are, so I went into this with low expectations, but to be perfectly honest, I thought it was pretty great. It's a super forceful ride. The drop and the crazy first inversion are the best parts of the ride. It's a very forceful and disorienting sequence, and I grayed out there on both my rides. But all the inversions are whippy and intense. I rode in the front and in row 7, and I didn't really get any headbanging in either place. I could see how you might bang your head on the corkscrews at the end if you don't brace properly, but I was able to avoid it.

3) Wolverine Wildcat (x 1 ride)

This ride is in a weird state right now, with three different types of track going on. The first drop with the GCI titan track is obviously smooth but ruins the wood coaster feel. The brief Gravity Group retracked wood section after the first turnaround is great, with a few solid airtime pops. But after that, the ride turns back into a standard Dinn with a little roughness and barely any forces to speak of. I wish they would do the full Gravity Group retrack, because this ride does have potential.

4) Corkscrew (x 1 ride)

This a fun, classic ride. I've come to really enjoy the drops on these old Arrows, and this is no exception, as it gives good air in the back row. I also found it to be a pretty smooth ride through the corkscrews. My only complaint is that it's extremely short.

5) Mad Mouse (x 1 ride)

I was pretty excited for this ride, and it didn't quite live up to my expectations. The laterals are not as strong as they are on the better Mack mice (i.e. Hersheypark Wild Mouse), but there is some sharp ejector on the hills at the end. It's a fun ride. Capacity is a nightmare though, as we waited 35-40 minutes for it on a pretty slow day.

6) Zach's Zoomer (x 1 ride)

This is a CCI!! I love to see it!!! This ride is very fun and kind of wild for a family ride. The single-position bar lets you slide around in the seat with the laterals if you are sitting alone.

Trip Details

We left Cedar Point around 10:00 PM on 6/27 and drove for an hour and a half to a hotel in Holland, OH, then made the remaining three hours and fifteen minutes of the drive to Muskegon the next morning/afternoon on 6/28. We got to Michigan's Adventure around 1:30 PM. Let me tell you, just driving up and seeing Shivering Timbers stretching along the majority of the parking lot is an experience in itself. I was freaking tf out. We got into the park, and went straight to Shivering Timbers for three rides, waiting less than 5-10 minutes for each ride. We then waited about 30 minutes to get one ride on Wolverine Wildcat. I would have liked to ride it again, but they were just running one train, so I couldn't waste the time. We went back to Shivering Timbers for another ride. Then we waited an obscene 40 minutes to get on Mad Mouse, despite there being barely anyone in the park. We got pretzels at Auntie Anne's, then got on Zach's Zoomer pretty quickly for one ride. We walked right into Corkscrew next for one ride. Then we made the trek to the back of the park for Thunderhawk, which was down when we got to it. It was testing, and it was the last credit we needed to get, so we decided to just wait. It opened after about 20 minutes, and we walked right on for two rides. I spent the rest of the day marathoning Shivering Timbers as much as I could before we had to leave. The line got a bit longer later in the day, but I was still able to get six more rides in. I got a ride photo and a shirt, and we headed out around 7:00 PM. I also spent about 20 minutes in the parking lot taking pictures of Shivering Timbers with my camera, because it's just so beautiful. There were lots of seagulls in the parking lot there. After this, we drove three and a half hours back to Toledo to stay in a hotel for the night.

And because people hate on this park way too much, I just wanted to say that I thought it was a nice, charming little park. It's not an ugly blacktop park like SFOG, etc. It's got a pretty lake in the middle, which you can see from several of the rides. And I personally think every coaster there is good. It could definitely use a few more standouts, but it's a solid, serviceable lineup.

[tenjin-no-shinja]

Chapter 3: The History of Hie Shrine

Hie as an Economic Power

Eighteenth day: Again the assembly of monks descended from the mountain, carting the mikoshi of Ōmiya, Ninomiya, Shōshinshi, and Sannomiya [the Third Shrine], and did battle with forces de g by the court. Many monks fell, and in the end they abandoned the seven mikoshi by the riverside and fled…’

The vigorous rocking of the mikoshi… may once have served as a visual expression of the deities’ fury in the context of such mikoshi attacks. When the mikoshi arrived in the city, they were abandoned at strategic locations so that the presence of Hie’s angry deities could induce fear of divine punishment in the court officials. Only the safe return of the mikoshi to Hie could solve the conflict that had caused their descent…. It has been estimated that the court had to deal with some 300 deity attacks between the late eleventh and sixteenth centuries, more than a quarter of which involved Hie (Andolphson 2000: 5). This demonstrates both the effectiveness of these attacks and the difficulty of pacifying the great temple complexes in the capital region. ...It has been estimated that the court had to deal with some 300 deity attacks between the late eleventh and the sixteenth centuries, more than a quarter of which involved Hie (Adolphson 2000: 5). This demonstrates both the effectiveness of these attacks and the difficulty of pacify the great temple complexes in the capital region.

—Pages 82-84

Called ‘equinox halls’ (higansho)… Their official purpose was the performance of Buddhist services for the deities at the spring and autumn equinoxes (higan-e)… At the Hie equinox halls, low ranking Hie monks known as dōshu performed a variety of rites, including Lotus penances, nenbutsu chanting, and kagura dances.

—Page 84

New Images of the Deities

It appears, says Yōtenki [Record of Bright Devas], that some people believe that Japan became a "land of the gods” because the kami of Ise, Kamo, Matsunoo, and Sumiyoshi protect its kings and bestow blessings on its people. However, these people do not understand Śakyamuni’s true intentions. Śakyamuni decided to manifest himself at the foot of Mount Hiei as the “Mountain King” (Sannō) in order to bring benefits to sentient beings both for this life and the next (ST Hie: 73, 81). Since Japan is an extremely small and undeveloped country, inhabited by foolish people unable to understand the teachings of the Buddha, Śakyamuni changed his appearance and manifested himself at Hie as the deity of the Ōmiya Shrine. In this guise he chastises the impure, the impious, and the indolent, while rewarding those of good faith by answering their prayers. All the other ‘13,700 deities’ of Japan also have their 'original ground’ (honji) in buddhas and bodhisattvas; this is the true reason why Japan is a 'land of the gods,’ and this is why shrines are so important there. In other words: Japan is a divine land because (that is, Sannō) made it so. Moreover, this is not because Japan is superior to China and India, but because it is inferior. Only in Japan is the Buddha compelled to teach the people in the guise of shrine deities.

In Yotenki the deities no longer appear as unenlightened beings who need to be saved by Śakyamuni’s Dharma; they are the essence of the Dharma itself, made manitest on the distant islands ot Japan. This new vision was developed further in Sanke yōryakki, a collection of doctrinal information on the essence of Sannō and his relationship to a range of other divine figures. In this text, Yotenki’s negative image of Japan has disappeared. Sannō is the protective deity of Vulture Peak in India and of Mount Tiantai in China (ST Tendai Shintō ge: 6-7); also, he is identical to the imperial kami of Ise (ibid. 26). Sannō, then, is the foremost deity of India, China, and Japan alike. Accordingly, Hie is no longer 'merely’ Śakyamuni’s base in Japan but a site of truly cosmic dimensions. According to Sanke yōryakki, the three main shrines of Hie (Ōmiya, Ninomiya, and Shōshinshi) represent the sun, moon, and stars of heaven, and the seven Hie Shrines are the stars of the Big Dipper, which determines the life spans of both the son of heaven and all other sentient beings (ibid. 10, 107). By numerological means, the Hie Shrines are interpreted as manifestations of central concepts of Buddhist doctrine, such as the 'three virtues’ (santoku) of the Buddha: the merits of compassion, severing affliction, and wisdom (ibid. 18). In this way, a dazzling web of significations and associations is spun around Hie, which, taken together, have the effect of placing Hie’s Sannō at the very center of the Buddhist universe.

—Pages 87-88

It is important to note that this new vision of the kami as a primal force did not mean that they had now become mere symbols of abstract, meditative serenity. Quite to the contrary, the ‘nondual’ nature of the kami elevated them above notions of good and evil and served to mystify their violent actions as pure, enlightened energy. The kami were in many ways similar to Tantric demons. In essence, Keiran shūyōshu tells us, all kami are snakes: physical manifestations of the supreme powers (siddhi) of the three poisons (craving, anger, and ignorance) that form the karmic foundation of all existence (ST Tendai Shintō ge 2: 451). Exactly because of their venomous nature, it is the kami rather than the buddhas who embody the ultimate insight of Buddhism, namely that the afflictions of the karmic world are identical to the wisdom of nirvana. In a more direct manner than the benign teachings of the buddhas, the kami acted out the Dharma in the karmic realm that we inhabit.

—Page 90

[2oosterr]

capt. ryan 'orca' murdoch

-> Playlist

GENERAL

NAME: Ryan Murdoch

ALIASES: Orca, Oscar Actual

AFFILIATION: United States Navy, OSOD

RANK: Captain

DOB: March 6th, 1978

AGE: 45

GENDER: F

BLOOD TYPE: B NEG

SEXUALITY: Queer unlabeled

HOMETOWN: Rockland, Maine

CURRENT RESIDENCE: Redcorn Airfield, Odessa, Texas

NATIONALITY: USAmerican

EDUCATION HISTORY: K-12 [1983 - 1991]

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY: US Naval Aviator (Commander) [1994 - 2011], PMC Operator (Captain) [2011 - Present]

APPEARANCE

HEIGHT: 182cm (5’9”)

WEIGHT: 170 lbs

EC: Brown

HC: Black, White

BUILD: Athletic, prominent muscle definition

SKILLS

[23/30]

Strength:             ▮▮▮▯▯

Speed:                ▮▮▮▯▯

Intelligence:        ▮▮▮▮▯

Experience:        ▮▮▮▮▮

Perception:         ▮▮▮▮▮

Communication: ▮▮▮▯▯

SPOKEN LANGUAGES: English (Native), Spanish (C1), Russian (B2), ASL

SPECIALISATION: Can pilot almost any aircraft, including helicopters and the C-130.

WEAPONS: Proficient in close combat, hand-to-hand, air-to-air, and air-to-land combat. Long range is a weak point.

RELATIONSHIPS

Alison Murdoch [Mother] [AGE: 66]

Louis Murdoch [Father] [DECEASED]

Aaron Murdoch [Half-Brother] [AGE: 34]

PSYCHOLOGY

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Anger management issues

Chronic alcoholism

MEDICAL

GSW on right side of face

3rd degree burns on right arm

Dog bite scar on left arm

ENHANCEMENT

[GRADE 4 - Extremely Low Risk]

Individual had demonstrated the ability to walk on liquid. Note that individual can submerge in the same liquid when contact point is not the feet.

PERSONALITY

MBTI type – ISTJ-A; Introverted, observant, thinking, judging, assertive.

Orca is a natural leader despite her introversion. She commands attention, even from those who aren't willing to follow her, unafraid to put such people in their place with harsh words and biting insults. Her introversion leans more to the ambivert side of things, she prefers the quiet of solitude over a loud social function, but socialising is not out of her comfort zone, and she would never be afraid to speak up and voice her opinions.

The ends always justify the means to Orca. She is willing to do risky, and sometimes deplorable, things to complete her objective, leaving some to question her morality, but those close to her trust that she knows where to draw the line. She's self-assured, confident to the point of cockiness at times, because she's good and she knows it. 

The opinions of others mean very little to her, with the exception of the few people she calls her friends – she cares deeply for those select few. It takes a lot for her to trust, and a lot more to consider someone a friend, but once you've proved yourself, her loyalty is fierce. It’s incredibly difficult, but not impossible, to lose her faith.

Even when she was in the Navy, Orca has never been a fan of authority. It takes effort to earn her respect, which many of her commanding officers never did. In a way, this makes her slightly hypocritical, seeing as she demands respect from those around her but doesn't give it so easily.

Although she appears to be a serious, no-nonsense Captain, under the stony facade Orca actually has a strong sense of humour. She's more than willing to indulge in the jokes her soldiers throw around, but she still reserves the ability to take things seriously when the need arises.

FUN FACTS

Orca learned to play the drums as a way to de-stress. She learned in bootcamp from one of the older kids, and kept it up when she could in the Navy.

Her biggest pet peeve is stupid questions. She’s been known to make people run laps until the sun goes down for not using common sense.

The streaks in her hair are due to a bout of Alopecia Areata that she suffered from for most of her childhood, likely stress induced, and when the patches of hair grew back, they were white. She also has a patch of white where her neck meets her skull, but she keeps that one hidden because she doesn’t think it's as cool as the other two.

Her hair is also the reason for her callsign, since it looks vaguely like the markings on a killer whale, especially when she wears it up.

Her favourite colour is red.

She owns an ungodly amount of orca plushies.

On a similar note, she also owns an ungodly amount of model figures of fighter jets.

She’s obsessed with Top Gun. Like, balls to the wall fucking insane about it.

Like, she references it daily.

Yes, it was the reason she joined the navy. She is not immune to propaganda

Orca actually attended the real TOPGUN in Nevada in 2000, and graduated top of her class.

In 2016, she bought a decommissioned F-22 Raptor thanks to an Admiral friend of hers, and has been slowly refurbishing it in her off time. She keeps it in hangar two, and nobody else is even allowed to go in there.

She does all the repairs to the OSODs aircrafts herself.

BACKGROUND

Ryan's fate was decided before she was even born.

Her mother, Alison, was known to carry the gene for a genetic disorder and as a result, when she was pregnant with Ryan, she opted for a genetic screening to see if it would be passed down to her. It wasn't, but it's thanks to this genetic screening that they found out Ryan carried the NLH gene – the enhanced gene.

From the moment she was born, it seemed that her parents had already given up on her. Neglectful would be an understatement, there was no love in the way they cared for her. It was nothing but a chore to them, having to raise their mutant child when all they wanted was a normal baby.

Her father died when she was five. Shipped out to Iraq in ‘83 and never came back. Her mother shut down after that.

Growing up was difficult. Rockland was a small enough town that most, if not all, of the inhabitants knew about the fact that she was enhanced. She spent the majority of her childhood alone, being avoided by her peers and ignored by her mother, and becoming more and more bitter as the years went by.

She was eight when she finally discovered what her enhancement was; the ability to walk on water. It's a cruel joke, that she never even had a fleeting chance at a normal life because of something so insignificant.

When Ryan was eleven, her half-brother Aaron was born, and she got to witness firsthand what it looks like when someone loves you. Her mother was a completely different person once she brought him home, smiling and cooing adoringly at her infant brother. The resentment for both of them would never leave her.

Enhanced individuals, as the official paperwork refers to them, are required to serve in the military whether they like it or not. Mandatory service, starting at sixteen, and ending when you die. There is no choice, not for those who are deemed sub-human because of a genetic mutation completely out of anyone's control.

Despite the unfairness of it all, Ryan was shipped off to bootcamp a few months after her thirteenth birthday. It was easier there, surprisingly; there were other enhanced kids – people like her, for the first time in her life – and the structure and regiment of it all was something she actually found herself enjoying. The one aspect she struggled with was the demanding authority. She has never been with being told what to to, being a follower, especially by people she has no reason to respect apart from their rank. Her commanding officers were just like every other adult that had failed her thus far, and she earned more than a few disciplinaries for the insubordination of her outbursts of anger.

The three years she spent there helped Ryan for some sense of identity. It was strange, and bittersweet in a way, but she thrived in the military – had she not been conscripted, she may have even joined of her own accord.

The only sense of choice people like Ryan are given is the liberty of choosing which branch of the military they go to, so when she finally reached her sixteenth birthday in the March of ‘94, Ryan picked the Navy. She was on the plane to California the next day.

Once again, her entire life and any sense of structure she had was thrown to the wind. The Navy was harder, she was alone again and this time she had no idea if she was the only one of her kind; outing herself as enhanced didn’t seem like the best idea, especially since being a woman already put a target on her head. They looked down on her, endlessly questioned her abilities with an arrogance that made her blood boil, but Ryan was determined. She would be an aviator, and she’d be leagues better than all the people who thought they were above her – no amount of discouragement from them could change her mind.

It was in the academy that she met her first true friend, Michael ‘Berlin’ Addams. He was Ryan’s wingman, her partner in the skies, and the only person in her life to accept her unconditionally and without question. From the moment they met it was like two puzzle pieces clicking into place, his easygoing and humorous nature was the complete opposite of Orca’s quick temper, but they worked incredibly together like two sides of the same coin.

After Orca and Berlin graduated from the academy, placed first and fourth respectively, the two of them quickly rose through the ranks together, thanks to their raw talent for aviation as well as the synergy they had. They were best friends, practically inseparable, and though there were others they got along with, no one else came close to the bond that they had. For the longest time it was just the two of them, but the incident of March 1999 changed that.

While offshore on a deployment, someone found out Orca was enhanced, and word spread around the aircraft carrier faster than she could’ve imagined. She lashed out, broke another pilot's nose, and had to mop the floors for two months as punishment. While she was cleaning she was approached by one of the sailors, Eric Reyton she would come to learn. He extended an olive branch, and almost got his head bitten off before he revealed that he was enhanced too. It was a relief, learning that she wasn’t the only one, she finally had someone who really understood again. Berlin did his best, but he would never truly know what it was like.

From then on, it was the three of them. Orca, Berlin, and Eric – Static, as they took to calling him – and for the first time she actually started to feel like she belonged. The boys were like brothers to her, the family she never had, and life finally felt like it was looking up after all those long, lonely years.

And then Berlin died.

Shot down over land while they were on assignment. He didn't even have time to eject before he hit the ground.

Orca thought she knew pain. Unloved by her own mother, alone for the first sixteen years of her life, rejected by almost everyone she'd ever met, none of it had been easy; but as she watched Berlin's plane disappear into the treeline, nothing could've prepared her for the agony that ripped through her chest.

The rest felt like an out of body experience. She ejected, sparing not a single though for her own plane as it went down too. The landing fractured her ankle but she ran anyway, through the forest towards the blaze. She clambered up the wing of his aircraft, ripping the cockpit open and paying no mind to the way the searing metal burned through her flight suit and then her skin.

She pulled his body from the wreck, collapsing onto the ground with his lifeless body cradled in her arms. That's how the evac team found her, hours later, still sobbing into his cold skin.

His body went back to his family in New Jersey, but Orca kept his tags. She stayed standing over his coffin for hours after everyone else had left, everyone but Eric. Nobody was closer to Berlin than they were. Nobody understood the gaping hole his death left behind.

They were approached, after night had fallen and they were on their way out of the graveyard. The stranger handed Orca a card and introduced herself – Colonel Ellis – telling her to call when they needed a change of scenery. Eric had to restrain her from clawing the Colonel's eyes out for her audacity.

After the funeral, Orca finally understood how her mother felt when her dad didn't come home. There was nothing that could help the pain, the anguish of losing her best friend, so she drank herself into blackout numbness to escape it. Eric tried to help her, but it only ended in her lashing out. It went on like that for months, the only time she wasn't wasted was on the aircraft carrier where she had no choice. In a desperate attempt to help his friend, Eric ended up calling the Colonel to get them both out of California.

They found out on the flight to Texas that the Colonel was starting a PMC solely for the enhanced. The 'Occult Special Operations Division', she called it, a counter-terrorism taskforce. At first Orca was sceptical, the idea of it seemed almost too good to be true, but Colonel Ellis's achievements spoke for themselves. She was a decorated officer, and there was no doubt she had the power and resources to create something like this.

For a year, Orca and Eric served under Colonel Ellis in the OSOD, along with Lieutenant Klaus Green, Corporal Badger, both marines, and Lieutenant Nina ‘Vulture’ Smith, an Air Force pilot and all soldiers Ellis had worked with for a long time. It was better, being surrounded by people like them, and the freedom they had now was infinitely better than what they had in the Navy, but they were still out of their element. While Ellis, Green, Badger were marines and had decades of experience with active combat and its many intricacies, Orca and Eric were just a pilot and a sailor. Still though, Ellis didn't give up on them. They learned surprisingly fast under her mentorship, picking up what she taught them with ease, and though they were still miles behind the marines, their skills were impressive.

In 2011, Ellis was arrested.

The NLH gene is a random mutation, not something that can be isolated and cut out like a genetic disorder. However, if at least one parent carries the NLH gene, then the offspring are guaranteed to be enhanced as well. Starting in the 70s, sterilisation became mandatory for the enhanced, the same as conscription, as another way to control the enhanced population. Colonel Ellis was born in the late 50s, and conscripted in the 60s; in other words, she evaded sterilisation.

It came out that she had a daughter, around Orca's age, and action was taken almost immediately. Colonel Ezikiel Ellis died two months after her incarceration. The details of her death were never released.

Her death was different. It was obvious foul play was involved, but Ellis's death didn't affect her the same way Berlin's devastated her. This time, she got the feeling Ellis had reached her time, that she'd accomplished what she set out to do in her life, and now it was Orca’s duty to carry on her legacy.

She took over the OSOD as Captain as soon as Ellis's death was publicised. Now down to just the three of them, it seemed like a logical course of action to find some new recruits, and it didn't take long to find some. Ellis's daughter, Sergeant Major Arctic, came to Orca shortly after she took over the OSOD, but despite it being her mother's creation, she showed no interest in taking Orca's place. She agreed to work alongside the OSOD, but remained a free agent.

In the same year, they met Sergeants Eastwood and Vantage, marines like Ellis and Green, and most importantly, both enhanced. They were by far the best of their unit and then some, with expertise between them from insertions to engineering. She hired them on the spot.

Orca got the scar in 2012. A mission gone south, an attempt to save a group of hostages, and a crack shot from the enemy. She took a bullet to the face. If she wasn't enhanced, there was no way she would've made it. As luck would have it, if you could call it that, a doctor was among the hostages, and saved Orca's life that night – Honey Rosenheim, an enhanced combat medic who would work with the OSOD for years to come after their unfortunate first encounter.

██████ ██████ ██ █████████ ████ ██████ ███████ █████. █████████ ███████ ██████ █ █████ ████ ██████ ████████. ████ ███████ ███ ██████ █ ██ ██████ █ █████ Badger ███ ███████ █████ █████████ ████ ███████ ██ █████ ██ ██████ █ █████ ██ █████. Badger ███ ████████ M.I.A. ██ ████ 2014.

[CONTENT REDACTED: SEE MISSION REPORT JUNE 11 2014]

It's 2019 by the time Orca meets Captain Price, through Kate Laswell and, surprisingly, their mutual friend, Nikolai. To say he didn't make a good first impression would be an understatement. Perhaps it's because of Orca's natural hostility and standoffish nature, but the two Captains butted heads constantly. Eventually he realised – with gentle nudging from Eric and the lieutenants – that she wasn't just an asshole for the sake of it, and she was actually a proficient leader. She slowly warmed up to him once she didn't have to fight for his respect.

Since the mission in 2018, the OSOD has collaborated with Captain Price, and subsequently Task Force 141, on multiple occasions.

It took significant work, but Orca was an accomplished Captain, with loyal soldiers and the ability to actually make a difference in the world. Her fate may have been decided before she was born, but Ryan is the one who made something for herself. She still has Berlin's picture hanging up in her office.

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

TTPD thoughts (under a read more because it's long)

There are no bad songs on this album (reread this point every time you want to scream at me while reading this), but I will be starting with my most "negative" (because none are like truly hateful, just "not for me" category of negative if that makes sense) thoughts and working my way to positive.

I think this is an album that is very Taylor and, in a lot of the songs on the standard edition, in a way that is not personally relatable to me. Like despite being a "I can fix him" girl (in general, not the song lmao) it is in a very different way than is on the album and the way that is on the album (the whole "you're all just haters so fuck off" at anyone who criticises you or your partner aspect mostly lmao) grates me at times, I won't lie. And as someone who listens and picks her fave music based on relatability, the standard edition of this album is quite low on my rankings because of that. Like it has high highs for me and I will talk about that, but the lows for me are arguably the lowest lows of any album from her and songs that realistically idk if I'm going to listen to unless I have all my music on shuffle and they come on. Like the standard album is very clearly into songs I love and songs that I find meh and could have done without, even if I understand why others love them.

"I wanna snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me" Girl please make this album one day. I know you love your mainstream success but I promise I will find a way to stream it enough to keep it up. Like I know a lot of people feel that this is that album, and I recognise (and appreciate) that that is because of the bluntness on certain topics, but as I have said about people who call this album weird (affectionate), mainstream disturbed/weird and regular disturbed/weird are two different things and I truly live to see the day that Taylor goes all out ngl.

I won't talk too deeply about who each song is about because again, I mostly listen to music for relatability so don't really care, but I will say that I think that far less of the songs on the album are about Matty as what people are making out. I think a mixture of stereotyping, PR over the years and the deliberate vagueness of the album has some of ya'll automatically assuming that drug mention = Matty. Realistically I genuinely only think that (from the standard version) fresh out the slammer and i can fix him are about fully about Matty with but daddy I love him being a mix of an idea rather than a person (first half) and Travis (second half), the alchemy being about Travis and the rest being about Joe in a way that is deliberately vague/obscured to make it sound like it could be about Matty.

As a related note to that, I think that the two most interesting things about the standard edition is the way that she consistently refers to her longest relationship as a short time and the way that she deliberately muddies the songs so that it's difficult to tell if they're about Joe or Matty as a way to show 1. that you can't really tell one story without telling the other and 2. If everyone is being honest, both the beginning and end of both of those relationships were very similar, and not in good ways at that. And I say that without judgement because people are people and no one is perfect you know? But these two aspects really make me want to like the standard edition more than I do because 1. I think her referring to her time with Joe as a short but impactful time in the grand scheme of things is among the most mature things she's said about a relationship and particularly stands out among the deliberate childishness spoken about and shown in certain songs and 2. without giving tmi, the idea of not being able to tell one love story without another because they are so intertwined, even if they don't seem related on the surface, is something I relate to deeply with two past encounters of mine. But the differences that are there just aren't for me.

I have seen others say that they wish that we got the story of Joe and Taylor's last two years together rather than what happened over last year, and in many ways (and obviously in the most "I know I'm not entitled to it, it's just my preference way") I agree but this is what we got so I'm going to focus on that without the expectation of something else. Like I will not let "what I wanted more" ruin what we've got because what we got is still good and I've fallen down that rabbit hole before and just made myself miserable.

Taylor implying or otherwise rolling with the thought that there were no gel pen songs in the standard album is so goofy (affectionate) because girl, I can do it with a broken heart is right there lmao.

I feel something, but I'm not sure what, about her use of 'manic phase' in the prologue, 'asylum' in who's afraid of little of me and seemingly (we will circle back to this when the music video comes out but given the other stuff I think it's safe to assume) asylum imagery in the music video as a response to people's criticism. It is a very mixed feeling and I am still trying to figure out how much of the bad comes down to this fandom as opposed to it objectively (because like it's clear that mental health is a main theme on this album and I don't want to discredit that) because as I have spoken about before, this fandom cannot be normal about sensitive topics to the point that I'm not scrolling until hype for this album goes down.

Ironically enough given the history of jokes/comments I and others have made, I do think Florence got the better feature and wish Post Malone got a more upbeat song and larger part lmao.

Much like how I liked the 3am edition of Midnights more than the standard version, the bonus 15 songs are the stronger part of this album for me this time too. Where the standard felt like a mixed bag of meh and amazing with no in between, the bonus tracks all felt good to amazing and with the exceptions of maybe I look in people's windows and so high school, are all songs I could see myself listening to consistently. I also don't think it's a coincidence that most of these songs are Dessner songs because out of her consistent producers lately, he has definitely been my preferred one lmao.

It also makes me very excited for debut and reputation's rerecordings because it's clear that they're on her mind.

I'm likely going to make a separate post about the songs individually, but a friend who brought a different edition told me today that the manuscript feels like the actual end of the album and I agree completely and so was glad to see that despite not putting all the previously known about bonus songs back to back (which is a super interesting choice and while I don't think we'll get it, I'd love an explanation for that and why these songs were specifically chosen for physical media!), Taylor still chose that as the closer. It also sets my heart on fire as a RED girlie lmao.

As per always, as a physical media girlie, I do hope that we get a cd/cd set with all the songs at some point lmao.

As of right now my favourites (no psychoanalysing me given I said that I listen to music based off of relatability tho lmao) are the title track, my boy only breaks his favourite toys, so long London, who's afraid of little old me, loml, I can do it with a broken heart, the smallest man who ever lived, the black dog, imgonnagetyouback, the albatross, Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus, I hate it here, Cassandra, Peter and the manuscript. And like I said, at least most of the rest of the bonus tracks are ones that I could see myself listening to frequently as well so that's like 2 albums worth of music for most artists nowadays and I am definitely not complaining at all despite any other feelings I have towards this album lmao.

Anyway I'm sure more will come to me in time, but right now that's where I'm at, especially because it's almost midnight here lmao.