#stop assuming that everyone has the same level of access and someone else responsible to entrust their animals to

[pomeraniandancer]

The only thing I'd add to this is that I don't think cats are the largest invasive species in the world...that dubious prize goes to the humans.

I've been seeing a lot of Discourse around outdoor cats that talks past one of the biggest problems addressing community cats/outdoor working cats so I thought I'd chime in with my two cents.

Many arguments I see just... don't think about the cats at all? Or don't consider the logistics of actually addressing the feral cat problem in a humane way. It's always about how outdoor cats shouldn't be outdoors, which is neither realistic nor helpful.

I used to volunteer at an municipal animal shelter in the USA that had a TNR program (Trap, Neuter, Return) and also adopted out community cats to local farms and businesses. Here's my side of the story.

"Your cat doesn't need to be outside" -- Yes, correct. Your domesticated (non-feral) house cat does not need to go outside at all. They can have a fully actualized life safely indoors. When I see this argument, proponents of indoor only cats are correct in most or all their arguments regarding this.

"Outdoor cats are the largest invasive species in the world, and decimate bird populations." -- This is also correct, and part of the reason why you can help by bringing your house cat indoors. Cats are the largest invasive species. Spay and Neuter your cats, bring them inside, and socialize them so they don't become feral.

"TNR doesn't work." -- False. Whether we like it or not, feral cats exist. We have two methods by which we can address the feral cat population -- decimating them (humanely euthanizing the whole colony) or TNR. For a long time, euthanasia was the preferred way to address the feral cat problem. Afterall, if the cats aren't there, doesn't that save the local wildlife population?

Except that we found, studying these colonies, that when a colony is wiped out, the cats of another colony will spread into their territory and continue to have kittens and the population of feral cats is neither controlled nor diminished.

Hence, TNR. What we found performing TNR on cat colonies was that this controlled the population of the colonies, allowing them to stay in their territory, which kept other colonies from spreading (especially colonies we hadn't performed TNR on yet). We at the shelter felt this was the most humane way to control the feral cat population and safely deflate their existence without dealing with the population blooms that euthanasia caused.

"What about kittens?" -- Kittens from these colonies were brought into the shelter, socialized, and fostered out until they could be adopted. Some of these semi-feral kittens needed special homes to be adopted into, but this was the best quality of life for these cats.

"What about cats that get missed during TNR?" -- We would return to the colony several times over a period of several years to perform TNR on the same colony. We mark cats that have been neutered by clipping their ear (this is done humanely, but is the most reliable way to tell if a cat has been neutered so the poor thing doesn't have to have surgery 3-4 times in their life). Also, during the TNR process the cats would be vaccinated to ensure disease did not spread from the colony (i.e. rabies). Still, even getting 60% of the colony TNR'd would dramatically reduce the number of kittens being added to the colony each year. This controlled the population by allowing the territory to naturally deflate in size over time, buying us time to address the larger feral cat problem.

"What if the colony was in an unsafe location?" -- There were two ways we addressed unsafe colony locations -- remember, we know that when the colony is removed, a new colony will move into its place, so we tried not to move the colony unless we really felt the cats or the public was unsafe -- one was to move the whole colony to a new location. Preferably someplace like a warehouse where we have an agreement with the owners of the warehouse. Some of the cats were even relocated to shelter grounds as our community cats. If the colony was small enough we would bring them into our Feral Cats room and adopt them out as community cats.

"What is a community cat?" -- The way the program worked, was that anyone who needed a working cat could apply to the program. These were often rural farmers or businesses with warehouses that needed rodent protection. We trained the farmers and businesses on how to acclimatize the cats to their new home, and as part of the agreement, they had to care for the cats (veterinary care, vaccinations, food and water). This gave businesses and farms an alternative to expensive and environmentally unfriendly rodent control, and also gave these feral cats good places to live out their natural lives.

"Can't you just adopt out feral cats?" -- No. Cats that have not been socialized around humans as kittens, or who have several generations of feral cat in them could not interact with humans in a way that did not cause them undue stress. This was not a humane way to handle feral cats. However, when a cat was brought into the feral cat room, they would be monitored for up to a week. If the cat displayed signs of being semi-social or fully social (hanging out outside of their den, allowing staff to pet them, showing interest in staff in the room), then we would either move the cat into the adoption room or place them in foster to be socialized before adoption. Feral cats who displayed signs of being able to live full and healthy lives with human companions were NOT adopted out as community cats. We also observed this behavior during TNRs and would do the same for those cats too.

"But aren't cats bad hunters?" -- Compared to other species, cats are not the most effective form of rodent control. This is true. However, you have to understand that feral cats exist. There is no "undo" button we can push to stop them from existing. We have to deal with the problem we have right now, which is to safely and humanely decrease the number of feral cats in our communities. And yes, we do that by using cats as rodent control in the community.

"What can I do?" -- Stop saying community cats shouldn't exist. That's not helpful and doesn't solve the problem we have. Bring your cat indoors. Spay and neuter your cats. Adopt from shelters. Volunteer with a TNR team. Support TNR efforts in your community. Recognize that those of us actively dealing with the community/feral problem are trying to do what is in the best interest of our communities and the animals we love. We aren't sitting over here saying these cats should exist -- a feral cat will not have the same quality of life as one that is indoors with a family -- but we have to address the problem in practical terms. We don't have the moral high ground to just do nothing while pontificating solutions that have no basis in actuality.

And yes, it's okay to celebrate community cats. If your local farm has a couple of working cats, that means that farm is helping participate in the safe deflation of the feral cat population. Don't shame a farm or business for using community cats. We're all doing the best we can to solve the problem that we have.

[wenamedthedogkylo]

Apparently my big gripe today is how many people on the internet, and especially on this site, just kind of... refuse to actually read news articles and just assume that headlines are supposed to tell you the whole story.

It's the same assumption, I think, that leads to so many people getting angry when someone's name isn't listed in a headline. Headlines are fundamentally not supposed to tell you the whole story. They are there to give you the most bite-sized summary that inevitably will leave out key information, because the headline is supposed to intrigue you enough to make you want to read the article in full.

Case in point, I'm still seeing a ton of posts where people are assuming that Netflix has completely backtracked on its plans to stop password sharing. And that is fundamentally not what happened at all. The only reason anyone would think that is if they only read headlines like this

If you only read the headline, yeah that sounds like a win on the level of how WotC backtracked its new OGL plans pretty quickly. Here's another one:

You wanna know how I know for a fact that so many of you didn't bother reading more than just the headline of this? Because look at the tagline that is literally right underneath it:

Yeah! That "mistake" was not even close to the same thing as WotC's "draft" that happened to roll out with a legally binding contract. The password sharing policies were literally posted by mistake to regions they were not yet intended to affect.

In fact, Netflix is STILL fully planning to implement anti-password sharing policies! And is doing so slowly, to other countries outside the US.

And they still plan to eventually roll all these policy changes out to the US, as well! They always have!

And this is why it's fundamentally important that people actually take the time to sit down and read the damn articles, so you can get all the facts.

"But I don't always have the time or energy to read something right when I see it." Neither do I! That's what bookmarks are for. Or even just sending yourself the link in a message or something, so that you can save it and come back to it when you do have time and energy.

But to be perfectly honest, sometimes you really should just read the damn thing as soon as possible, even if you're not in the most perfect, relaxed, open-minded place at the time. Because when it's a topic that the search engine rating industry calls a "Your Money or Your Life" topic—any topic that could impact your health, finances, or well-being—you need to be aware of what's going on so you can make decisions accordingly. So that you don't get caught off guard in two months when Netflix finally starts charging you $4 extra or whatever for your sibling in Ohio using your account.

"Why can't someone just summarize the article for me?" Multiple reasons, friend. Just like you don't always feel like you have the time and energy for reading a whole article, not everyone has the time and energy to read it and post a coherent but brief summary for you. Also, no one owes you that! No one else is responsible for you informing yourself about the world you live in! It is not the duty of random strangers online to make sure you personally are informed of things that might affect your life. You and only you are responsible for learning and staying informed.

"But it's so boring and I don't wanna!" Hey buddy, it's your life, you do whatever you want. I can't force you to sit and read, or even just skim through, an article on what Netflix's plans for wringing your bank account dry are. But if that's how you're gonna approach it, then you don't get to be righteously indignant when you get blindsided by stuff that you could have very easily known about beforehand.

"But I'm disabled and accessing this news is difficult for me!" I'm disabled, too! And I fully get it, there's still A LOT of stuff online that is straight up not accessible for people with different disabilities. My disabilities don't require a screen reader or anything like that, so I'm lucky in that sense. But at the same time, it's still not the responsibility of strangers online to process your information for you. Direct your frustration at the news sites and corporations who are making this information inaccessible to anyone but neurotypical, able-bodied people. If random strangers online have the time and energy to help make something more accessible for you, that's amazing and they should be thanked profusely! But it is not their job to do so—it is the job of news outlets, and that's who needs to be taken to task for this shit.

Idk if this will even go far on this site but the point is, please stop expecting your news to come pre-summarized in a perfect little bite of info that you can consume in less than 6 seconds. It's genuinely concerning how much misinformation is being spread not by malicious people looking to hoodwink you, but by sheer laziness. This is actually one of those instances where "adults sometimes have to do stuff they don't want to do" is perfectly applicable and true. It's YMYL, Your Money or Your Life, and if you don't want either to get completely screwed over, you have to—horror of horrors!—actually read the news sometimes.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

Lila Rossi: I’d Say She’s a Good Villain, but Then I’d Be Lying (300 Follower Special)

Deception and cunning are easily two of the most important traits an antagonist could have. It shows that even if they don't have the strength to overcome obstacles, their wit is more than enough. This kind of trait is why characters like Lex Luthor, David Xanatos, and Princess Azula are so beloved, simply because of how intelligent they can be as villains and pose a real threat to the heroes.

It's clear that the Miraculous Ladybug writers want Lila to be seen as this, but the writing seriously fails to back that claim up.

Easily one of the most controversial characters in Miraculous Ladybug is Lila, mainly for the writing surrounding her. But there was a time where she was actually more of an ambiguous character, mainly for the lack of screentime she had until Season 3. But unfortunately, the more appearances she's had have painted a very poor portrait of an antagonist.

Lila's Tragic and Sympathetic Motivation for Hating Ladybug

Lila's first appearance was at the tail end of Season 1, “Volpina”. She was a new transfer student from Italy, and quickly made friends with a lot of her classmates for the lies she told, including being friends with Ladybug (which Alya blindly believed without doing any research like any excellent journalist). But because of how close she was getting to Adrien, Marinette, in a rare act of selfishness, transforms into Ladybug just to chew out Lila for lying about knowing her, humiliating her in front of Adrien. And this is the only motivation we get for what Lila does afterwards.

I'm not saying that it's wrong for Lila to get upset at Ladybug for doing this, and I like the moment of weakness Marinette has, but this is literally the only explanation we get for Lila deciding to side with Hawkmoth, a literal terrorist. As much as I hated the way the arc turned out, I could still understand Chloe siding with Hawkmoth, as it was clear that Hawkmoth was manipulating her and taking advantage of her ego. Lila? Ladybug's mean to her one time, and that inspires her to conspire with a complete stranger who brainwashes people to attack the city, which endangers innocent people and causes God knows how much in collateral damage if not for Miraculous Ladybug fixing everything.

I just don't get how a single negative interaction with someone is enough to conspire with a literal supervillain. Even in Season 3, when Marinette and Lila truly became enemies, it was because she risked exposing all the lies she told, which could damage her reputation. Sure, it's petty, but it makes sense for Lila to want to keep up the illusion. If she was simply an antagonist to Marinette in her civilian life like Chloe was before “Miracle Queen” , I'd be fine with that, but the writers clearly want her to be seen as on the same level of evil as Hawkmoth. I'll get into why that doesn't work later on.

Why Lila is an Excellent Liar

In my Master Fu analysis, I had pointed out that despite all the flaws he had, the narrative insisted on portraying him as an incredibly wise mentor. The same problem applies for Lila as well. We're supposed to see Lila as an expert manipulator and liar, but her lies are insultingly obvious. She always claims to be friends with celebrities and does all these awesome things, and in an age where we can have almost any question answered thanks to the internet, nobody ever stops to question her.

It's even more frustrating when you hear Lila talk about saving Jagged Stone's cat, when Jagged Stone is established to be very fond of Marinette (evidentially more than his own daughter), and nobody ever points that out. I think if Lila's lies were more stories about her travels around the world than outright lies about real people, it could have worked. It'd still be hard to believe, but it's something.

But this is a problem with writing shows aimed at children. As much as we hate writers who need to spell out things to kids, sometimes, they just don't understand some of the media they consume. Seriously, I never got this joke in SpongeBob as a kid, and I can't believe Nickelodeon actually approved this.

So the dilemma when writing a show with children in mind is finding that sweet spot between assuming your audience can figure it out, but not being too vague in your details. It's even harder when you need to find a way to convey the fact that someone is lying without being too obvious. Unfortunately, the show clearly fails to do that

Okay, this is going to sound like an incredibly weird thing to cite, and I only know about it because I used to know someone who was a huge fan of the franchise, but the movie Monster High: Friday Night Frights does a better job of subtly explaining to the audience that a character is lying. Please, just hear me out.

The movie follows the main characters competing in their high school's roller derby for the season after everyone on the usual team gets injured, and the championship match is against another school whose team tends to cheat to win matches. How they manage to do this without getting caught is anyone's guess. While the main characters are practicing, their coach, Clawd, notices a spy for the enemy team taking video of them to study their moves. In response, he calls over one of the athletes, Operetta, to chew her out for her showboating attitude. In reality, he's alerting her to the spy. Only using facial expressions, he clues her, and by extension, the audience, in on the fact that they know what the opposing team is trying to do.

This soon leads to Operetta pretending to tell the enemy team about their secret plan for the championship match, which was really an attempt to outsmart them to gain the advantage in the final stretch. The brilliance of this is how the audience is informed of this with no dialogue, and there's no scene afterwards spelling it out for those who don't get it. It manages to convey deception without being too obvious that Clawd and Operetta are being deceitful.

I think if there were more subtle hints to show the audience Lila was lying, she would be seen in a better light. As it is, Lila's lies are just pathetic, and it's ridiculous that everyone believes her. Which leads me to...

Lila, the Master Manipulator

I once read a Star Trek: Voyager fanfic that poked fun at the series by claiming that the reason a lot of the dumber episodes like “Threshold” and “Twisted” happened was because one of the crew members was an alien who unintentionally produced mood altering pheromones, with Captain Janeway actually realizing they were all high because of said pheromones, while two of the unaffected crew members were wondering what the hell they were doing before they found out the cause. Why do I bring this up? Sometimes, it feels like Lila is an unintentional parallel to the alien in that story.

Like so many characters, it's clear the show desperately wants the audience to view Lila in a certain way, but her actions do very little to actually back up that claim. When she's not using lies to tell stories about so many famous people she knows like her uncle who works for Nintendo, Lila is using strategies to manipulate everyone that are so obviously deceptive, the Thermians could pick up on them. Everyone and their mother knows how ridiculous a lot of what Lila does in episodes like “Chameleon” and “Ladybug” are, and I've talked about them before, so I'll try to be quick.

First off, as someone who had access to accommodations through high school and has had assistance in college so far, there is no way in hell that Ms. Bustier should take Lila's tinnitus at face value in “Chameleon”. If a student has a disability that could interfere with the education process, physical or developmental, not only does the school have to evaluate their performance, and determine if they're eligible for an Individualized Education Program, or IEP, but her teachers would have to be notified in the first place. As her primary educator, Ms. Bustier would be part of the team to oversee Lila's IEP and determine what accommodations she needs to help her learn better with her tinnitus and arthritis. But because the writers don't know what Google is, they just ignore it,  assume that Lila can just say she has a disability, and have everyone believe it. Even when Eric Cartman pretended to be disabled to compete in the Special Olympics, he put in more effort to look the part, even if he looked like a caricature.

Then there's the fact that that in “Chameleon”, everyone just believes Lila when she says Marinette stole her grandmother's necklace when not only is said necklace from the Agreste line of jewelry, but Alya, who is Rena Rouge, can't pick up on the fact that it's a fake. All she does to justify these lies is come up with a sob story about how nobody believes her, yet nobody ever tries to defend Marinette except Alya one time, and it was after she got expelled.

Or what about in “Oni-Chan”, where Lila thinks having Kagami kill Ladybug while claiming she'll back away from Adrien is a good idea? Let's say Oni-Chan does kill Ladybug or at least take away her Miraculous, what then? We know Lila wouldn't go through with this promise, and as soon as Kagami sees her harassing Adrien, she'll be ripe for akumatization again. Overall, not a great plan.

And yet somehow, this last example is what made her worthy enough to become one of Hawkmoth's most trusted agents. I'm just going to say it: Lila is not a good fit for the power of illusion. Whenever she's Volpina or Chameleon, she always goes out of her way to make a big show instead of being subtle with her deceptions. “Chameleon” is the worst offender, as even though Lila gets the power to shapeshift into someone else, instead of being discreet and cornering people into kissing them and gaining their appearance, she just runs around to get Ladybug's attention instead of being subtle. Even Felix had the bright idea to pretend to be Adrien to catch Ladybug off guard. How do you lose to something that happened in “Felix”?

Despite all of these screw-ups, we're still supposed to see her as this master of deception worthy of allying with Hawkmoth in both his supervillain and civilian form, when really, she's a terrible liar on the schoolyard and on the battlefield.

Why Lila is an Important Character

In the grand scheme of things, Lila just isn't as important of a character that the show loves to parade her around as. She's nothing more than a plot device used to raise the stakes in an episode, given how much reality seems to bend over just to accommodate for her lies. Even when the show alludes to her being part of bigger things, like her deal with Adrien, or her rivalry with Marinette, they don't even go anywhere.

She just feels pointless when you remember Astruc's brilliant idea to force Chloe into being the final Akuma for the season while Lila isn't even mentioned once. She only really makes appearances whenever the writers feel like it, which is why it’s hard to take her seriously. Why should I take this character seriously as a threat if the writers refuse to take her seriously as a threat? Why build Lila up as a big threat and not give her a major role in the finale? Why even include her in the show in the first place when you could show Chloe being more manipulative to fill in the plots Lila plays a big part in?

As of the time I am writing this analysis, four episodes of Season 4 have aired, three of them have been about lies or deception, and Lila hasn't been mentioned at all. It honestly seems like she won't appear unless the writers need a easy way to drive up the conflict, so they can justify it by saying that Lila's “superpower” of lying is more powerful than the common sense of everyone else.

I'm sorry this post was shorter than the last one, but compared to Master Fu, there's not that much to say about Lila that I haven't already said. Even the show barely gives her any attention, so it's hard for me to really find a lot to talk about.

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Dream SMP Recap (March 3/2021) -     The Burger is a Lie

Tubbo moves past the denial stage of grief into anger. After creating a grave for Tommy, he decides that someone needs to be held accountable.

It’s time for some good old-fashioned detective work.

---

VOD LINKS:

[Ponk’s VOD was deleted so unfortunately I can’t recap it since I didn’t see it :( ]

Tubbo

Foolish

Awesamdude

Captain Puffy

Ranboo

---

- Tubbo walks down the Prime Path with plans to build Tommy a grave in Snowchester. 

- He doesn’t even know why or how it happened. Why was Tommy in prison?

“I want to blame someone -- I’m angry! Who’s to blame?”

- He wonders who set off the TNT to trap Tommy in there.

- Tubbo reaches Snowchester and finds a small ice island just outside the border to set up a gravesite. He makes a patch of grass, a wooden bench, puts down some flowers. He makes the gravestone out of wood.

“Tommy’s favorite block was literally oak wood. (laughs) He was a simple person, chat. He was a simple person.”

- He places a sign.

“In the Memory of Tommy. He was taken from us too soon.”

- He puts cobblestone around, and puts down a jukebox.

“This was meant to give closure, chat. This was meant to just give closure, but instead I’m just feeling more and more mad."

- Tubbo places down some lanterns and a Prime Log. He has a moment on the bench.

“Alright...so...what now? I’m pissed, dude. I don’t know how this was allowed to happen. I don’t know how this was allowed to happen. Receive his stuff from the prison -- no, I’m not going in that thing for a very long time.”

- He decides he needs someone to be held accountable. He wants to launch an investigation.

- He goes under the McPuffy’s and plans to make a little room to gather all the information in one place, and also a place to go in an emergency. Like a panic room or a bunker. No one should know about it until they have enough information to convict someone.

Tubbo starts building.

- He doesn’t even want to go into Tommy’s house, not even for supplies.

- He grabs a lectern for the room and starts writing. A storyline is needed.

The Crime:

- Murder

The Timeline:

- Tommy Visits Dream.

- Bomb gets set off.

- Tommy was Trapped with Dream.

- Tommy is The Crime is committed.

- Start with number two...where? Where were the bombs set off? Because if it was all a ploy, then Sam is the one to be held accountable. 

- Tubbo goes to the prison to check around the perimeter. The sound of the bombs came from above, but Tubbo remains skeptical. That could have been a ploy to cover up the tracks.

- Tubbo finds a patch of the shoreline where a water level is missing. He assumes that someone was just gathering sand there, not that it’s explosion damage.

- Tubbo flies onto the top of the prison and notices that there’s snow missing where the snow biome should encompass. A small area of a few blocks -- they must have been tampered with. Tubbo documents the evidence.

Evidence:

Tommy was trapped inside because of an explosion “outside” ..

Around the outside of “Pandora’s Vault” there was no evidence of explosion damage.

However on the roof of the Vault there is evidence of an explosion. We can tell this because of the snow pattern on the roof of the prison.

However snow can be broken by TNT from inside the Vault. But I suspect that the TNT was detonated outside.

- Now, Tubbo needs to go and find out who has access to stocks of TNT. Who has the majority of the world’s TNT? Well, there was a country that used to exist on this server. And who was responsible for its destruction? 

Tubbo visits L’manhole.

“Technoblade, Dream, and Philza. Suspects number two. We’ve moved on from Sam. Suspects number two and three, sorry -- Technoblade and Phil.”

“Everyone’s a suspect, chat. Guilty until proven innocent, I’ve always said.”

- And doesn’t Technoblade owe Dream a favor? Tubbo declares him suspect two.

- Tubbo runs to Technoblade’s house. There’s not much of anything out of the ordinary.

- He goes inside and looks through the chest, finding one with plenty of gunpowder, about half full. What looks off about it, though? What is missing here?

“Chat, where is the rest of the gunpowder, chat? Where is the rest of the gunpowder? It’s a fair question...Techno uses it for potions? No, no, hear me out. If chest was at least filled up to here, okay, that is four stacks and a half of gunpowder, okay? Each gunpowder is three splash potions. Three splash potions. So that’s over twelve stacks of potions! Potions that are not stackable! And in this establishment, there are not enough chests to hold twelve lots of sixty-four un-stackable potions. Rockets? Yeah, that’s another good call. What else is a good call? TNT. Let’s keep looking.”

- He continues to look through the chests, then exits. Suspect two has all of the materials to commit the crime.

- Suspect three? No sand, not enough gunpowder.

- He starts to leave.

“‘Check Ranboo?’ I mean it’s not gonna be Ranboo, is it? It’s not gonna be Ranboo. Yeah, he has access to all the stuff, but I doubt he even remembers it’s there..."

- He does a quick search anyway. The person who committed the crime must have not been prepared. They gathered the sand outside of the prison -- that’s what the missing shoreline must have meant.

- He notices Ranboo’s plan signs and reads them. He goes down into the basement but the vault door is shut, so he doesn’t find it. He assumes chat is talking about Pandora’s Vault.

“There is sand that has been mined outside the prison. The TNT was crafted rash. Technoblade doesn’t do rash, he does planned and calculated. Suspect two, three and four. I’m gonna presume they’re innocent right now, except for suspect two.”

- Technoblade could’ve supplied someone else with gunpowder. He wasn’t online during the explosion, but who was? Foolish and Ranboo.

“‘Big Law?’ Yeah, I’m back. I’m back in it again. I suppose you could say that...I’m on my A game right now.”

- Was Jack Manifold online at the time? No. Just Ranboo, Foolish, Dream, Tommy and Sam. Foolish lives in a desert. There’s a vast supply of sand in a desert...but was he streaming at the time?

- This does not look good for suspect number four...

- He returns to the bunker to get his evidence straight and places down signs.

Who Caused the Explosion?

Techno Owes Dream A Favor

Techno Has Gunpowder Missing

Sand Disturbed Outside The Vault

Techno Was Not Online @ The Time Of Explosion

Ranboo & Foolish Were Online @ TOM [time of explosion]

Foolish has access to sand

Ranboo has access to gunpowder

Sam lock Tommy In The Vault

Dream is in the Vault

TO DO:

Find out who visited Dream

Interview more players to get big picture

- Who visited Dream? So far, Tubbo only knows Tommy. Who else would ever want to visit Dream except for Tommy? 

- A dono leads Tubbo to realize that TNT can be planted beforehand with a timer. Sam could have planted the TNT with a timer. It could have all been Sam. It could have even been Dream with a contingency plan...but how could he have known Tommy would visit? Because of the favor? Did Techno convince Tommy to visit?

Why did Tommy visit Dream? Closure? Did anyone give him that idea?

- Tubbo decides he just needs more information.

- He sees the McPuffy’s...is it a coincidence that, as soon as Tommy got put in prison...burger shops started popping up on the Dream SMP?

- Maybe this happened because of the BURGERS.

- Could it have been Jack Manifold, wanting the hotel for himself? 

“Nah, Jack’s way too dumb for that.”

“The burger is a lie!”

- Maybe the Egg has something to do with it? Tubbo goes down into the Egg Room and shouts at the Egg to ask for answers. He leaves the Egg Room with no more answers, wondering if he’s about to leave the anger phase and head into bargaining instead.

- Ranboo works on his Conflict Resolution Pit after months, planning to finally finish it at long last.

- Ranboo looks at the chest by the pit and finds...a Manberg war shield? Whose is that? He isn’t sure what the shield means.

[Fun Fact: According to Karl about the banner’s design, the black represents all the colors combined, meaning “Unity.” The red is “the blood of our enemies.”

“It’s unity unless you go against us.”]

- Ranboo continues resource-gathering and building.

- Sam works on his creeper farm! He also answers several questions. Here are a few!:

* Are Sam Nook, warden Sam and Awesamdude all different people? 

Sam Nook and warden Sam are different people, but the warden is not a separate character from normal Awesamdude. They are the same person. Sam Nook is the only separate character. This will be explained more in the future!

* Why is Sam’s pickaxe named “Warden’s Will Breaker?” Does it have anything to do with breaking the prisoner’s will? 

“Mayhaps, mayhaps...”

* Isn’t it a little strange that he’s building a creeper farm? 

“Well, I’m the king of creepers so they should be excited to die for me.”

- Ranboo asks if he can shoot Sam. Sam says yes (in game)

- Ranboo shoots Sam in the face. Sam turns majestically and stops moving. Ranboo is confused and is worried that Sam might not be alive. Sam’s computer is suffering.

- Ranboo tries to get Sam to move.

“Oh my god he’s been completely paralyzationizitated.”

- By Sam’s request, Ranboo tries to push him to safety.

- Sam has been bound to the y-axis! He starts seeing through Ranboo’s stream.

- Ranboo tries to drive Sam in a boat but he starts seeing colors. 

- Sam dies on the Prime Path. Ranboo makes a marker sign in remembrance of where he died by paralyzationizitation. 

---

Upcoming events remain the same.

[rosesmith18]

(PnF) This Needs to be Said

I know this seems a bit random as I haven't post anything in awhile, but I wanted to speak on three specific topics, because they've been bothering me. I want to first say that no one has made any of the following comments directly towards me or my writing, but I still feel these things need to be said.*Disclaimer: I request anyone reading this post to hear me out before leaving a comment or turning away as these topics are serious. The Canonical Ferbnessa is NOT pedophilia: I'm not talking about all Ferbnessa stories hear just the canonical one presented in Act Your Age. I see people saying this is wrong cause it's pedophilia, and as a victim of pedophilia I can confidently say it is NOT. Is it grooming on some level? Depends on how you view their relationship before this episode, but assuming it might be is completely reasonable. But, on a completely factual level their is nothing pedophilic about this relationship. They get together when Ferb is 18 and graduated high school. Whether their age gap personally bothers you or not doesn't change the fact that Ferb, at this point, is a consenting adult and can date whoever he wants. Even if he was 16, in some states he'd still be legally allowed to date Vanessa, just not do anything sexual with her. If you have a loved one who is 16 or 18 who is in a relationship with an adult who knew them as a child, it is completely reasonable to feel uncomfortable and be concerned. You can take your kid to/suggest therapy, relationship counseling, or waiting till after high school/college, but you can NOT make the choice for them.

Thomarie is NOT incest: If you know what 'Thomarie' is then you get where this claim comes from, and it is a completely unreasonable claim. Baseline; Thomas and Marie are NOT blood related, because Phineas and Ferb are NOT blood related. Incest is illegal, because any children coming from those relationships would have basically no chance at life due to close genes. Thomas and Marie don't actually share any genes, so they could have completely viable offspring. And, for those saying; "But, Phineas and Ferb feel like brothers." So what? People feel like siblings to their friends all the time, it doesn't suddenly make them related, or make their children feel related. Secondly, to the statement; "Saying Phineas and Ferb aren't really related ruins the whole message of the show." No it doesn't. The whole message of Phineas and Ferb is right in the final song of 'Candace Against the Universe'; Us Against the Universe, 'I'm not just talkin' blood relation.' It is literally a summary of the shows entire message, which is NOT; 'If you feel related to someone you are related.' The message of the show IS; 'No matter WHAT relationship you have with some one(be it sibling, friend, romantic partner), it is a choice you make. You CHOOSE the people you care about, your blood ties or lack there of, don't/shouldn't do it for you.' And, by that logic. Thomas and Marie's relationship doesn't go against the shows message, it is instead, a PERFECT example of the shows message. It shows that no matter what your ties to someone are whether by blood or by paper, you can feel differently about anyone and everyone, attachment is not a one size fits all.

These characters are FICTIONAL: Whether Ferbnessa is pedophilia in some peoples stories, or if Thomarie is incest, at the end of the day they are fictional characters. Pedophilia and Incest is illegal, because they have a victim. All laws exist to protect a possible victim; Not to cater to your personal opinions. And, fictional characters are not real people(obviously), and because of this, there is no REAL victim in these relationships. For those saying; "It could effect the children who read these stories; They are about characters from/inspired by a kids show." Stories/Pictures have rating for a reason, they have tags for a reason, fanfiction/fanart sites have rules for a reason. If a child finds a way to stumble upon these fanfictions/pictures despite the sights rules/rating then that's not the site/writer/drawers fault, they didn't intend for it to happen. Porn sites are just as easily accessible and you can't take THEM to court when a child discovers them. And, secondly, so what if these characters are from/inspired by a kids show? A lot of people who write/draw these characters in pedophilic/incestuous/sexual ways are those kids themselves expressing themselves and exploring their sexualities with characters they are familiar/comfortable with. I started to write/read sexual things about these characters when I was nine, and have been to this day(I'm not even in my twenties yet). Don't bash kids for expressing/exploring themselves in safe ways, they have to do it eventually. And, don't bash adults who find comfort in expressing/exploring themselves with these characters, they likely grew up doing so. The Main Reason for this Post: The people saying this stuff are hurting REAL people way more than this stuff would be if it were true. First off, judging people who are 18 for dating someone quite a bit older than them is treating them like a child. Whether you feel they are ready for a relationship like that or not is no longer your choice to make. At 18 a person becomes an adult, and they can't get used to adulthood when people are still telling them that they have all the rights and mental capacity of a child. Secondly, there are people who are in romantic relationships with their step-sibling/step-cousins/kids they grew up with, and people calling these relationships gross is impinging on their rights. No one has a right to tell a person who to date when that relationship isn't hurting anyone, and I don't see how two teenagers with no blood relation, who are in the same age rang, who both can and do consent to the relationship could be hurting each other. In summary, for those who make these comments; STOP THINKING YOUR FEELINGS AND OPINIONS ARE ABOVE THE FEELINGS AND OPINIONS OF OTHERS WHEN THE LAW IS FOR PROTECTING THE PHYSICAL AND MENTAL WELL-BEING OF ALL PEOPLE, AND NOT THE FEELINGS AND OPINIONS OF THE INDIVIDUAL. The law can not pick a side in every debate, so it only picks sides when physical and mental pain is expressed, we as people have to deal with our on feeling and opinions. It isn't against the law to feel different then someone else, but it is against the law to physically/verbally harm others for feeling different than you. I want to make it clear that I am not forcing anyone to be comfortable with pedophilia/incest(in writing) or even relationships where someone is way older, or where the people in question are in a way, other than blood, related. I am simply telling those people to recognize that those are their opinions and their opinions are hurting even people they may be trying to 'help'. So, thank you for those who listened to my entire rant, and especially to those who learned something from it! If you wish to have a constructive conversation on any of the topics mentioned than I would be more than willing to listen and have a friendly debate with you, but I will not dignify simple hate with a response. Have a lovely day, evening, or night! *Ferb and Vanessa belong to Dan Povenmire & Jeff 'Swampy' Marsh *Thomas belongs to Melty64 *Marie belongs to angelus19 & sam-ely-ember

[meichenxi]

Dear ‘White guy speaks perfect X and shocks Y!’ language YouTubers: STOP

A rant about every single fucking video by Xiaomanyc and similar YouTubers all titled things like CLUELESS WHITE GUY/GIRL LEARNS [INSERT NON-WHITE LANGUAGE HERE] AND SHOCKS [INSERT PLACE].

Disclaimer: I am white British, and I am also very often a moron. I'm trying to inform myself more, and would like to learn. So let me know if there is anything I should change, anything I’ve got wrong or any terminology I can change. 

So this evening I opened YouTube to get some quality Hikaru no Go content, and saw yet another video recommended to me about Xiaomanyc called Clueless white guy orders in perfect Chinese, shocks patrons and staff!!!!

Really? Really. Ok, his Chinese certainly is good - but it isn't great. And it isn’t necessarily any better than people I've seen in the higher levels of a class at university who have spent some time in China. It's solidly intermediate. That's not an insult - that level of Chinese is hard to attain, and definitely worth celebrating!! Hell, I celebrate every new word I learn. But while it may be unusual, it doesn't forgive the clickbait type videos like 'White guy speaks perfect Chinese and wows [insert place]'. 

These kind of clickbait titles rest on a number of assumptions. Before I say any more, I just want to make a note about terminology. Note that ’majority’ and ‘minority’ are not necessarily helpful labels, because they imply both a) a higher number of speakers in a certain place, and b) socially prestigious in some way. Of course a language like standard Mandarin is not a minority in China, but it might be in Germany. Talking about ‘minority’ languages that have a large speaker base outside of the country, like Chinese, is also not the same as talking about languages that have been systematically surpressed by a colonising, dominant language in their original communities, like indigenous languages. In many communities, especially in colonial and post-colonial situations, the language spoken by the majority is not one of prestige at all. Or some languages may be prestigious and expected in oral contexts, but not written - and so on. I use these terms here as best I can, but don't expect them to work 100% of the time.

So let’s unpack these assumptions a little. 

1) That there is something inherently more ‘worthy’ in somebody who learns languages because they want to, rather than because they have to: and that, correspondingly, the people who want to are white (spoilers: much of Europe is multilingual, and white immigrants in majority white countries also exist, as well as discrimination against them e.g. Polish people in the UK), and that those who have to learn are not (spoilers: really? There are plenty of non-white monolinguals who are either happy being monolingual, don’t have access to learning, or don’t have to learn another language but are interested in it).

2) That everybody from a certain background automatically speaks all ‘those’ languages already, or that childhood multilingualism is a free pass - spoilers, it isn’t. Achieving high levels of fluency in multiple languages is hard, especially for languages with different writing systems, because no matter how perfect your upbringing, you’re still ultimately exposed to it maximum 50% of the time of monolingual speakers. Realistically, most people get far less exposure than 50% in any of their languages. Also, situations of multilingualism in many parts of the world are far more complex than home language / social language. You might speak one language with your father and his father, another with your mother and her family, another in the community, and another at school. Which one is your native language then? Monolinguals tell horror stories of ‘both cups half empty’ scenarios, but come on - how on earth do you expect a person to have the same size vocabulary in a language they hear only 25% of the time? Also, languages are spoken in different domains, to different people, in different social situations: just because someone hears Farsi at home doesn’t mean they can give a talk on the filing system at their local library. If something is outside of a multilingual person’s langauge domain, they might have to learn the vocabulary for it just like monolinguals. There’s no such thing as the ‘perfect bilingual’. 

3) That learning another language imperfectly for leisure is laudable, but learning one imperfectly for work or survival is not. If you’re a speaker of a minority language, learning another language is necessary, ‘just what you have to do’, and if you don’t do it ‘properly’, that’s because of your lack of intelligence / laziness etc. It’s cool for the seconday school student to speak a bit of bad Japanese, but not so cool for the Indian guy who runs her favourite restaurant in Tokyo. 

4) That majority speakers learning a minority language is somehow an act of surprising benevolence that should not go unrewarded. Languages are intrinsically tied up with identity - and access to them may not be a right, but a gift. Don’t assume that because you get a good reception with some speakers of one language that speakers of another will be grateful you’re learning their language, or that everyone will react the same. One of the reasons these videos are possible at all is that many Chinese speakers, in my experience, are incredibly welcoming and enthusiastic to non-natives learning Chinese. Some languages and linguistic groups have been so heavily persecuted that imagining such thing as an ‘apolitical’ language learner is a fundamental misunderstanding of the context in which the language is spoken, and essentially an impossibility when the act of speaking claims ownership to a group. Many people will not want you to learn their language, because it has been suppressed for hundreds of years - it’s theirs, not yours. We respect that. Whilst it’s great to learn a minority language, don’t do it for the YouTube likes - do it because you’re genuinely interested in the language, people, culture and history. We don’t deserve anything special for having done so. 

5) That speaking a ‘foreign’ (i.e. culturally impressive / prestigious) language is much more impressive and socially acceptable than speaking a heritage language, home language or indigenous language. There are harmful language policies all around the world that simultaneously encourage the learning of ‘educational’ languages like Spanish, and at the same time forbid the use of the child’s mother tongue in class. And many non-majority languages are not foreign at all - they were spoken here, wherever you are, before English or Spanish or Russian or, yes, standard Mandarin Chinese. Policies that encourage standardised testing in English from a very young age like the ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy in the US disproportionately affect indigenous communities that are trying to revitalise their language against overwhelming callousness and cruelty - they expect bilingual children to attain the same level of English as a monolingual in first grade, which in an immersion school, they obviously won’t (and shouldn’t - they’ll get enough exposure to English as they grow up to make it not matter later down the line). But if the schools want funding, their kids have to pass those tests. 

There’s more to cover - that’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

Some people’s response to these videos and why the titles are ‘wrong’ would be: does it matter that he's white? Shouldn't it just be 'second language learner speaks perfect Chinese'? This is the same sort of attitude as ‘I don’t see race’. I think it does matter that he is white - because communities of many languages around the world are so used to them having to learn a second language and colonial powers not bothering to learn theirs. You wouldn't get the same reactions in these videos if he were Asian American but grew up speaking / hearing no Chinese - because then it would be expected. You also wouldn't get the same reaction if he were an immigrant in a Chinese-speaking community from somewhere else in Asia.

It also implies that all white people = monolingual Americans with no interest in other cultures. While we all are complacent and complicit in failing to educate ourselves about the effects of historical and modern colonialism, titles like this perpetuate a very harmful stereotype - and I don't mean harmful as in 'poor Xiaomanyc', but harmful in that it suggests that this attitude is ok, it's part of 'being white', and therefore doesn't need to change. The reaction when someone doesn't engage with other cultures and isn't willing to learn about them shouldn't be 'lmao classic white guy'. That not only puts the subject in a group with other 'classic white guys', but puts a nice acceptable label on what really is privilege, a lack of curiosity, ignorance, and the opportunity (which most non-white people don't have) to have everything you learn in school and university be about you. If you're ignorant - ok. We are all about many things. But you don't have any excuse not to educate yourself. The 'foreigner experience' that white people get in places like China is not the same as immigrants in a predominantly monolingual, predominantly white English speaking area. As we can see in those kind of videos, white foreigners may be stared at, but ultimately enjoy huge privilege in many places around the world. It's not the same. 

It also ignores, well, essentially the whole of Europe outside the UK and Ireland and many other places around the globe, where multilingualism is incredibly common - and where the racial dichotomy commonly heard in America isn't quite appropriate, or an oversimplification of many complex ethnic/national/racial/religious/linguistic etc factors that all influence discrimination and privilege. Actually many 'white guys' in Europe and places all around the world speak four or five languages to get by - some in highly privileged upbringings and school systems, yes, but others because they have grown up in a border town, or because they are immigrants and want to give their children a better start than they did, or because they want to work abroad and send home money. Many, like people all around the world, don't get a chance to learn to read and write their first language or dialect, which is considered 'lesser' than the majority language (French, Russian, English etc); many people, like Gaelic speakers in Scotland or speakers of Basque in France, have faced historical persecution and have been denied opportunities for speaking their mother tongue. My mother was beaten and my grandparents denied jobs for being Gaelic speakers. They are white, and they have benefited from being white in lots of other ways - but their linguistic experience is light-years from Xiaomanyc's. 

It isn't 'white' to be surprised at a white person speaking another language - it's just ignorant. But the two ARE correlated, because who in modern America can afford to go through twenty one years and still be ignorant? People who have never had to learn a second language; people who have always had everybody adapt to THEIR linguistic needs, and not the other way around. People who have had all media, all books, centred around people who look like them and speak like them. And even in America, that's not just 'white' - that's specifically white (often middle class) English monolinguals.

I'm not saying everybody who doesn't speak a language should feel guilty for not learning one ( it's understandably not the priority for everyone - economic reasons, family, only so many hours in the day - there are plenty of reasons why language learning when you don’t have to is also not accessible to everyone).  But be aware of the double standards we have as a society towards other socially/racially/religiously disadvantaged groups versus white college grads. You can't demonise one whilst lauding the other. 

To all language YouTubers - do yourself a favour, and stop doing this. Your skills are impressive - that's enough. 

 tldr; clickbait titles like this rely on double standards and perpetuate harmful ideas - don't write them, and let your own language skills do the talking please.

[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

You See: Jellylorum’s Arc and Why It’s the Best Grizabella Arc

Yeah, so, I got writer’s block trying to organize and write this properly, so I’m just writing off the top of my head. I can only hope that any of it makes sense.

I said that I might elaborate on Jellylorum’s hatred of pubs and Grizabella, and I decided to go ahead and do it, even though literally no one asked.

So, the general arc with Grizabella for most characters, especially Munkustrap and Bombalurina, is that Griz did something to offend everyone and they still hold a grudge, so they won’t let her back into the tribe, even though she might be literally dying. Then Grizabella sings Memory and everyone’s moved and they learn to forgive and Grizabella goes to the Heaviside Layer, which was probably Old Deuteronomy’s plan all along.

However, many people, even if they like Memory as a song, don’t really follow the Grizabella story. I’ve gotten the feeling that she’s not a popular character on this site, which is not helped by Munk and Bomba, much more popular characters, being against her for most of the show. The main problem with the forgiveness story is that the audience lacks any context. We don’t know what happened, so we don’t know if this is a story about forgiving someone for something petty, or forgiving someone who seriously wronged you. Most attempts to solve this problem fall flat. The 2019 film said that Grizabella went off with Macavity, but the movie had to alter the roles of several characters to get that to work. Mungojerrie worked for Macavity, and the tribe took him back. Demeter and Bombalurina had some sort of relationship with Macavity, and the tribe took them back. So, the movie makes Jerrie and Bomba more villainous and removes Demeter’s connection to Macavity, so Grizabella stands out. If you have to throw out large portions of what’s interesting about three characters to make your backstory make sense, it’s not a good backstory.

But, the show already sort of has a built in solution to this problem. While most of the characters hate Griz because of some past incident, there’s still at least one character arc about accepting Grizabella that’s based entirely on what the audience can see and hear.

This is where Jellylorum comes in.

If you pay close attention to how Jellylorum reacts to Grizabella, as well as to several other characters, you’ll notice that, though I’m sure she’s upset over whatever Griz did too, Jelly is not motivated by a grudge. It’s not about Grizabella’s past. It’s about her present.

Grizabella the Glamor Cat

Jellylorum, for the first few numbers, doesn’t really stand out. She’s always part of a larger group. In Gumbie Cat, she’s in a trio with two other queens. At this point, the audience really wouldn’t know what makes these characters stand out from one another. In Tugger’s number, Jelly is one of four older cats who are shocked and offended by Tugger’s antics, but the reactions of all four characters serve the same purpose. Jelly, Jenny, Skimble, and Asparagus are part of an older generation and they don’t get the things kids are into these days, finding them downright offensive.

If isn’t until Glamor Cat that this starts to change. At first, Jelly’s still the same as Jenny and Skimble, an older cat who stops the kittens from touching Grizabella. What’s different is how Griz reacts. Skimble leads Jemima away and Griz doesn’t comment. Jenny slaps Electra’s hand away and Griz doesn’t comment. But, when Victoria and Etcetera crawl towards her and Jelly runs in to stop them, Griz turns on her. Up until this point, the song has been fairly quiet. This is the first time Griz raises her voice, taking the orchestra with her.

You see the border of her coat is torn and stained with sand

Grizabella is dirty and beaten up by life and she accuses Jellylorum of responding to that, assuming that someone in Griz’s condition must be a threat to the children. This isn’t about a grudge. It’s about judging by appearances, specifically, the appearance of poverty, which will become more clear as we go.

When Demeter starts singing about Grizabella, she doesn’t sing about her glamorous past:

She haunted many a low resort

Near the grimy road of Tottenham Court

Tottenham Court Road, at the time this poem was written, was associated with crime. It’s a street in a lower class neighborhood which was infamous for theft and prostitution. So, Griz has been seen in a place where bad things happen. To think of her as a criminal is guilt by association.

The play decides not to tell us what Grizabella did to become an outcast, but it does tell us about her life as an outcast. From her character design, we can also see that Griz is in poor shape. This is the information the audience is actually given.

Bustopher Jones

Bustopher is easy to compare to Tugger, since the cats that don’t like Tugger all adore Bustopher. But, because we met Grizabella right before this, he can be compared to her too. Bustopher is everything the older cats see as ideal, while Griz is the opposite. Bustopher spends time among the rich in gentlemen’s clubs. Griz spends time in a working class neighborhood with a high crime rate. Even though they’re both probably strays, Bustopher presents as rich and Grizabellla presents as poor.

Just as different cats have different reasons for hating Grizabella, different cats have different reasons for liking Bustopher. For some, it’s his skill and gaining access to good food. Jenny has a crush on him. Misto likes that they look similar and that he’s the mature and sophisticated adult Misto wants to be. But, though Jellylorum’s part in the number is small compared to Jenny’s, the first thing she has to say about Bustopher is:

He doesn’t haunt pubs

Unlike gentlemen’s clubs, which are exclusive, pubs are everywhere and are for everyone. They’re frequented by the working class. Bustopher is only seen in the upper class parts of town.

Meanwhile, some of the locations Demeter mentions in Glamor Cat, The Rising Sun and The Friend at Hand are pubs. Bustopher doesn’t haunt pubs. Grizabella does.

The Glamor Cat Reprise:

So, a lot’s been implied about Jellylorum and how she admires things associated with the upper class and has disdain for things associated with the working class. But, this is where it all comes together. Grizabella accuses Jelly of treating her as someone to be feared and shamed because she’s from the bad side of town and looks it. Here, by repeating Grizabella’s words, Jelly confirms the accusation:

You see the border of her coat is torn and stained with sand

Jellylorum turns to Victoria, the pure white Symbol of Innocence who wears a sparkly pink collar, implying a wealthy owner, and points out that Griz is dirty and is both someone Victoria should avoid and strive not to be like. Victoria ignores her. Victoria is the feline equivalent of the sheltered princess, a proper young lady from a good family who hasn’t seen much of the world. But, Victoria is unaware of the implications of her status and sees someone like Grizabella as an equal. She doesn’t acknowledge class and doesn’t listen when adults try to explain it to her.

When Jellylorum pulls a kitten away from Grizabella, it’s always Victoria. The first time, it was Victoria and Etcetera, but Victoria is always involved. Victoria is never stopped by any other adult either. She seems to be Jelly’s responsibility, which creates and interesting contrast.

Gus: The Theatre Cat

After the Grizabella Reprise confirms that Jelly’s prejudice against Grizabella is based in classism, it would be easy to see her as a villain. The unspoken grudge of Munkustrap and Bombalurina is more sympathetic. 

But, very early on in act two, Jellylorum is given the spotlight, and we can see her good side. Gus is a lot like Grizabella. They’re both old and past their prime, but they once were stars of some sort. But, Gus is loved and cared for by everyone. Grizabella is one her own. 

Gus meets with his friends at the pub to tell theatre stories. You can tell from Jelly’s delivery when she brings it up that she’s not happy about this. But, she loves Gus anyway. Gus is old, his coat is a mess, and he hangs out in working class pubs, but Jellylorum loves him anyway. She’s perfectly capable of seeing beyond classist prejudice when it’s someone she already likes. She just hasn’t realized that Griz and Gus are the same. She can learn the lesson she needs to learn. She’s not a villain. She’s antagonistic, but she’s redeemable.

Memory

Griz appears one last time, Victoria tries to touch her, Jelly stops her. Same old, same old. Things don’t get interesting until everyone sits down. Jellylorum, along with Victoria, sits with Old Deuteronomy and Munkustrap. She’s right up there with the leaders of the tribe. This puts her on the same level as Munkustrap, who has his own lesson to learn from this.

Memory makes Jellylorum realize how much Grizabella is suffering. She’s not on Tottenham Court because she does bad things. She’s there because she’s in a bad situation and has nowhere else to go. Griz is also caught up in memories of her past like Gus is. Jelly, like everyone else in the tribe, figures it out.

When Victoria gets up to touch Grizabella, she looks back to the adults to get permission. Old Deuteronomy nods, letting her go ahead. But, it looks like all of the adults in that corner consulted each other. Munkustrap, at this moment, makes the decision to forgive Grizabella. Jellylorum, at this moment, makes the decision to accept Grizabella as an equal. She’s no longer beneath someone like Victoria.

Then, when all the cats greet and welcome Grizabella, Jelly looks very guilty, more so than the other older cats do. She’s realized just how petty she was being, that she was even worse to Griz than most of the tribe, because they either had a more emotionally-charged reason, or they just didn’t know any better.

Jelly’s story arc is a classic “don’t judge a book by its cover” story, with the symbols of class being the cover she judged.

In Conclusion:

Everything about this arc is based on information the audience is given. We can see that Grizabella is in bad shape. We know where she’s been spending her time because Demeter tells us. We can confirm Jelly’s motivation with the Grizabella reprise. We can compare how the characters of Gus and Griz are described:

You see the border of her coat is torn and stained with sand

vs.

His coat’s very shabby, he’s thin as a rake

Jellylorum sings the former line with disdain, but she sings the latter line with sympathy.

Jelly’s arc is where Grizabella stands out the most. Griz calls her out on her bullshit, is shown to be completely right in her judgement of her, and then is able to change her mind.

And, the emotional impact is all there, because no important information is hidden from the audience. The arc begins with the words “you see”, because you can.

[backofthebookshelf]

One of the nice things about the way the TMA fandom has reached full large-fandom levels of toxicity is that I no longer care if people get mad at me for my opinions on characters! So, some Georgie meta.

(Because fandom is and always has been Like That, I do feel the need to clarify here that I love Georgie, she's one of my favorite characters, characters are more interesting because of their flaws, and I have no investment in the idea that women or female characters are inherently better or more emotionally competent than men or male characters. If I talk a lot about her relationship with Jon, it's because Jon is our point of view character and also the person she interacts with the most. Also, this rambles, sorry.)

I've been thinking about the Season 4 Jon Trauma post and how much I liked the way it talked about Georgie, and it's convinced me that if Georgie could feel fear, she's the one who'd be most afraid of Jon out of all of them. She's the one protagonist we have whose only interaction with the powers has been as a direct victim of them. She doesn't know what they feel like from the inside, like Jon and Melanie; she doesn't know what they're like when they're someone you love, like Basira; she doesn't even know what they're like as petty middle management, like Martin and Tim. What she knows is that one time a monster ate her (only) friend and traumatized her so badly she spent a year in a suicidal depression.

And now her ex - and yes, Jon and Georgie have a remarkably comfortable relationship in the beginning of season three, but they're still exes and they broke up for reasons, even if we don't know exactly what they are - has turned up on her doorstep, shaking and possibly bloody, with nowhere else to go and no access to his home. He's clearly lying about what's going on. He repeatedly violates her house rules. And then he tells her that he's turning into one of those same kinds of monsters that traumatized her and ate her friend. It's clearly enough to override any remaining affection she had for him, and by any definition he has now positioned himself as a trigger.

(Through no fault of his own: the only real response he has to Georgie's statement is "I can't believe you didn't tell me." She's the one who assumes that he Knew, somehow, that she also had a statement; she's the one who suggests he had alternatives. Both suggestions are plausible but we don't actually know for certain that either are true.)

But Georgie isn't afraid of Jon because Georgie can't be afraid -at least, according to her. I'm not sure how much I believe this in the grand scheme of things; it seems like an extremely unlikely mechanism for one of the fears to have. It seems much more likely to me that she's just never met anything as terrifying as that encounter was, and her subjective sense of fear has been massively recalibrated. In which case not only meeting but having hosted in your home another monster who self-describes as similar to the one that was so terrifying that literal threats to your life are no longer distressing would...probably ping. But she's conceptualized herself as a person who doesn't feel fear; it's even possible that was part of her recovery, identifying this as a possible benefit of what would otherwise have been a universally terrible, soul-breaking experience. She looked existential terror in the face and survived, and came out of it a person who cannot be afraid of anything left on this earth. That's kind of a superhero origin story, and I can't blame her for it. I think anyone with a mental illness has at least tried to find ways in which their suffering has made them a better, stronger person.

But whether she's suppressing and rationalizing away any fear she feels or she genuinely doesn't feel any of it, she does frequently behave as though her lack of fear gives her a more objective view of the situation than anyone else. I don't believe she actually uses the word "just," but it drips from her every interaction with Jon after Dead Woman Walking. Why doesn't he just stop reading the statements? Why doesn't he just quit? And, in Zombie, I honestly can't interpret her reaction to Jon when he wakes up from his coma as anything other than, Why doesn't he just die? If he hates being this so much, if he really doesn't want to be a monster, why doesn't he just die?

I really would like to think that it goes without saying that this is, at the very least, a massive failure of empathy, but she's so explicit about it and fandom spent so much time basically agreeing with her that apparently it doesn't. Not only is Georgie not afraid of the situation, but (and this is the part that makes me wonder if she's not rationalizing, rather than being supernaturally unable to feel fear) she can't possibly fathom how afraid everyone else is, and she never tries. She persists in treating the whole awful situation, as @findingfeather's post says, like this is a mundane problem with people who are refusing to help themselves, rather than a supernatural trap that has been specifically built to be inescapable.

Now, let me be clear, even if she were talking to, say, a drug addict who nearly killed themselves because they were in denial about how much of a problem they had, her attitude would be unforgivable. But in this case Jon had no choice in whether or not to become addicted to statements; it was done to him in such a way that he didn't notice it was happening until withdrawal was already incapacitating. He also didn't have the option to leave, as Tim's extended vacation made clear. And, on top of all of that, the whole reason he was in a coma in the first place was that he was trying to save the world. (Neither he nor she knows at this point that he was doing nothing of the kind, so that's really not relevant.) And - look, when Jon came to her after the end of season two, he was asking for help. When he rejected the kind of help that she offered it was because he knew it didn't apply to the problems he actually had, but she treats that like it's his problem, which is something like offering a leg splint to a person bleeding out from a gunshot wound and getting offended when they tell you that won't work. He was very clear that what was happening scared him and he didn't know what to do about it, and her only suggestion was "walk away," which he literally could not do, for multiple reasons.

She's lucky Jon has pretty much precisely zero self-worth at this point, because anyone else would have cut her off completely for behaving like a fucking asshole.

I say "she's lucky" because frankly, even though she says that she wants nothing more to do with him, she turns up at least twice in the Institute after that, with the excuse that she's picking up Melanie to take her to therapy. I don't know about you, but I have never once gone to someone's workplace to pick them up and gone snooping around inside, and no matter how fascinatingly weird that workplace is, I definitely can't imagine doing so when I know that workplace also contains a person I have definitely decided I never want to speak to again. She goes into the Archives, for Christ's sake, and she listens outside Jon's office door for long enough to catch a bit of the recording before letting herself in (so it's very clear she knows who's in there).

Now I'm not trying to paint her as a monster here; Georgie would hardly be the first person to have second thoughts about cutting off someone they still care about, or to break that boundary that they set themselves when they realize they do still want to know how that person is doing. But the fact is that she positions herself as having the moral high ground in every single discussion they have and that's just not true. She is not literally a supernatural monster, true, but if season four did anything with the concept of monsters it was breaking down the difference between "supernaturally driven no-longer-human" and "person capable of caring and empathy." (That's a whole different meta, though, one that I will get around to someday.) Not that Jon is any better, in that encounter specifically, at dealing with a complicated and contentious relationship - he deliberately goads her, even if he doesn't use compulsion. But that's the thing, they're both exes who have had a falling out and aren't handling it very well. Neither of them is in the right.

All of which makes me really wonder what her relationship with Melanie is actually like. We don't actually see hardly any of it directly, and of what we do, well, Melanie sounds like she's still high on painkillers, so it's hard to take that as an indication of anything. But given that people (who are not intentionally trying to manipulate those around them) tend to, y'know, be fundamentally the same person in their various relationships, though it may manifest in different ways, we can probably make some guesses.

I have always been bothered by, and I really can't ignore, the fact that they were getting together at the same time that Melanie was doing what Georgie has been demanding of Jon since season three: she did whatever it took to get out. I have to wonder if Georgie knows about the nonconsensual surgery part of Melanie's process of getting out, and if she does, if she understands how vital it was. I certainly wouldn't be surprised, if she does know, that she's managed to compartmentalize it: Jon inflicted this terrible trauma on Melanie, Melanie escaped the entity that took her over. (Subconscious implication: Jon is a monster; Melanie is better than him.) I would be very surprised if Georgie is interested at all in the fine distinctions between entities; she's shown no interest in learning what is actually happening to anyone in this situation beyond "it's bad and they should get out of it." But it's relevant, because by the time Melanie makes the decision to blind herself, she's in a much different position than Jon, enslaved by an entity but not consumed by one. She herself admitted to Jon that she would never have voluntarily escaped from the Slaughter.

And given how difficult Melanie finds it to talk about any of this - you can hear her dragging the words out from behind her teeth in her conversation with Jon in Flesh, truly incredible acting by Lydia Nicholas, my god - if Georgie doesn't want to hear it? I can't imagine Melanie insisting. Yes, Melanie is going to therapy, but let me tell you, I've been going to therapy for twelve years now and I have yet to have several of the important conversations my therapists have insisted I have. That shit is hard. But I can imagine a scenario where, having been told by her therapist (who, remember, doesn't have the first idea what Melanie is actually going through, because Melanie isn't telling her about the supernatural so she has to leave out a lot of really relevant details) that she ought to tell her friend/potential girlfriend/new girlfriend about these things, Melanie attempts to bring it up, Georgie says kind and reassuring things and refuses to let her clarify any of the details, and Melanie gives up in relief, thinking, well, I tried. Super valid all around, but it doesn't mean that Georgie has any clearer picture of what Melanie's traumas actually look like, never mind Jon's. There's no world in which I can imagine Georgie actually internalizing the idea that Melanie loved the Slaughter when it had her, and she would gladly have stayed with it if Jon and Basira hadn't intervened.

In Georgie's eyes, Melanie is being a Good Victim. She was hurt but she was strong; she fought it until she won; now she's going to therapy and setting boundaries and trying to heal. She got away.

(Except, of course, she didn't, because as of The Eye Opens no one has gotten away, because this is the entire world now. We have no idea how this has affected Melanie. Presumably she's out of reach of the Eye, given that Jon can't see her or Georgie (and there's some evidence on the side of Georgie's encounter genuinely having stripped her of fear, if she's also invisible to the Eye), but she spent a long time under the influence of the Slaughter. It had her firmly enough that her attacking Jon was enough to give him his Slaughter scar. If nothing else, Melanie certainly hasn't had her fear removed, and talk about a situation bound to retraumatize someone who had such a visceral revulsion to being trapped that Elias chose it as his mechanism of control over her. Melanie probably doesn't look like a Good Victim any more, and I'd bet her relationship with Georgie is suffering some serious strain because of it.)

We don't know when exactly Melanie and Georgie got together; the last time one of them mentions the other is, I'm pretty sure, when Georgie tells Jon that Melanie is back from India. So we know that Georgie and Melanie were friends; that's good, that's a good foundation for a romantic relationship. At the very least they know each other, they have some idea of what to expect. I'd be surprised if they were dating during that season 3/4 hiatus period, though, or frankly any time before Melanie's surgery, just because Melanie seems much too consumed with rage to have room for any other emotions, and I can't imagine Georgie putting up with that.

What seems way more likely to me is this: Melanie comes back from India, arranges to meet Georgie for drinks. Probably they don't talk about anything serious; possibly they talk about Jon, honestly, since we know Melanie was looking for him and Georgie talked to him about Melanie, but very likely in the same "stuck-up pompous ass" way that Melanie talks about Jon in early seasons. (I bet Melanie's roasts are amazing.) Shortly after that Melanie joins the Magnus Institute and then, very likely, either she never tells Georgie about it and therefore they don't talk much or she does tell Georgie about it and Georgie tells her that place is bad news and she won't have anything to do with it and they don't talk at all, until, whichever way that went, the Unknowing happens and Tim dies and Jon winds up in a coma and everything goes to shit. We know Georgie visits Jon in the hospital; we don't know if Melanie does, but frankly it seems unlikely. If they did cross paths during this time, it was probably very brief and superficial. Then: the surgery, and Melanie's recovery.

I'll be honest, I have a hard time imagining Melanie deciding on her own that she should go to therapy. It's possible Basira suggested it, but it really does sound like a Georgie thing to do. So I picture something like this: from the way Basira talks it sounds like they've all been pretty much living in the Archives for a while, and on top of that everyone in the Archives has just badly violated Melanie's trust, so Melanie pulls up her Facebook DMs and talks to the only other person she has. You were right, she says, this place is terrible, I can't handle it, there's no one here I can trust and I'm so alone. And Georgie, who is generous with help and advice (so long as it's accepted) and (like anyone) weak to being told she was right about something, starts talking to her. We know Georgie's got good boundaries, and we know she doesn't want to hear details about what's going on in the Institute, so I can see her saying, I can talk to you, I would love to talk to you, but not about this. For that you need a therapist.

So Melanie gets a therapist, and the prospect of going out amongst the monsters they know are stalking the Institute without that protective shield of rage (never mind the emotional vulnerability of going to therapy in the first place) makes public transit an unthinkable option, so she asks Georgie to take her, and she does, and she keeps taking her to therapy, which is, as far as we know, the only time Melanie leaves the Archives in season four, until she blinds herself and escapes it completely.

And so they have this relationship that's built up almost entirely around Melanie's trauma - with a foundation of friendship, certainly, so I do think that if they are willing to work through it they could make it a working, healthy relationship, but (and again this isn't stated in canon but is my speculation based on what we know about these characters) it is a romantic relationship that's built around the process of Melanie recovering from multiple traumas. Ones that we know that Georgie a) doesn't know many details about, and b) more importantly, refuses to know any details about. Now, I have no experience with romantic relationships and serious trauma; I might be wildly off base here. But. I know that boundaries are important and I know that trust is also important. And if Georgie is holding similar boundaries with Melanie that she has with Jon (and, as I went into excruciating detail about earlier, she has very solid emotional reasons to protect herself with those boundaries), that's drawing a hard line around what's basically the past two to three years of Melanie's life, and undeniably both the worst and most important things that have ever happened to her. That seems...difficult to manage in the long term.

(This is a bit more of a stretch, more of the germ of a fic idea than an argument I'm prepared to defend, but I also would not be surprised if Georgie told Melanie that she wouldn't date her while she was still working at the Institute. That's a very reasonable boundary, and it's good motivation - and probably healthy motivation, I do like the idea that Melanie had something to reach toward in escaping the Institute, not just the desperate flight from - but it's also something of an ultimatum. Which is not inherently bad, but it is the kind of thing that can fester, given other problems.)

Now it's entirely possible that Georgie isn't that internally consistent. People aren't! (See: Basira's attitude toward Daisy vs her attitude toward Jon in season four.) Maybe she's more flexible about being willing to listen to Melanie, maybe she's starting to understand some of what was happening and how genuinely impossible a situation it really was. But that has to be a struggle for her, too; it's not a perfect, sweet, unconditionally good situation that teaches you that you've been unfair to the point of cruelty to someone you used to care about. And by the time the apocalypse rolls around, Melanie is, if she's lucky, just barely able to say she's healed from the plain physical trauma of blinding, never mind all the other baggage. They've got to be having a rough fucking time of it, at the very least, even if you assume that they're suddenly both the kind of people who will sit still and listen supportively and talk honestly about their own messy and complicated emotions, when neither of them have been that kind of person before.

(Another disclaimer because Fandom Is Like That: This is in no way a condemnation of or argument against fluffy What the Girlfriends fic; fic is for making fluffy things that you want to happen to your faves, or building fluffy content that you desperately need for whatever reason. Gods know there are plenty of unhealthy parts of Jon and Martin's relationship that I ignore in most of my fluffy fic. This is me attempting to work through my thoughts and feelings about the relationship I see in canon in the hopes of actually being able to write some fic about these girls myself someday, because I personally can't write fic until I understand canon, and so much of them happens offscreen because they're not main characters, and they're written with such depth and complexity that you can't just slap a stereotype on them and call it good. Which is awesome! But it means I gotta do the work, and I post it because a) it's work, and this is fandom, and I want validation; and b) I'm hoping other people have insights that might also help me clarify my thinking.)

[pandoraborn]

Cruelty of the Beast - Part 9

( previous. )

Characters: c!Ranboo, c!Dream, c!Wilbur, c!Tommy Word count: 2081 Content: jokes about brain damage, hypnosis, ranboo remembers everything

----

“Do you understand more?” Dream’s voice sounds almost too far away. Ranboo is still trying to grasp onto reality, still mentally lost in the end. Part of him doesn’t want to shake off the peaceful haze, but another part of him is struggling to surface, if not for himself then for Tommy.

Tommy’s hand is in his own, caressing the back of his hand tenderly. Ranboo can feel the comfort from the other teen, but the comfort only seems to keep him in this suspension. Still, he lifts his head and acknowledges Dream with a dreamy hum.

“He’s still lost,” Wilbur exclaims. “We shouldn’t have brought him there without preparing him.”

“Is he going to be okay though?” Not even Tommy’s brash voice can snap him out of it. There’s a distant thought that maybe this isn’t entirely his fault. Is it really such a bad thing though? Ranboo feels utterly at peace.

“He’ll be fine.” Dream presses his hands to Ranboo’s shoulders. “We could use this, actually. It’d be useful if we wanted to access his memories.”

“How do you suggest we use this? He’s barely responsive.” Wilbur sounds curious; Ranboo turns to gaze at the man. In this state of mind, Ranboo feels as though he can actually trust everyone around him. Though, shouldn’t that be a cause for concern? It’s not like the men are exactly plotting anything good.

Tommy seems to understand what’s being discussed, because he’s yanking his hand away from Ranboo and lurching to his feet. “Oy, no. He’ll snap out of it soon enough, neither of us need your help. You’re going to give him brain dama-”

“What are you talking about?” Wilbur sounds amused. “Do you really think he’ll get brain damage from being in trance?” Ranboo dimly notes a smirk on Wilbur’s face. “Tommy, I don’t know where you get your information, but you’re clearly looking at the wrong sources.”

“I know enough,” Tommy grumbles, seating himself back by Ranboo’s side. “He’ll get stuck like this, he’ll get brain damage and turn into some sort of puppet, then end up in a coma. You can’t use him.”

Wilbur snorts, but surprisingly, so does Dream. It’s almost enough for Ranboo to fully come back to reality as he glances back and forth. When he glances at Dream though, he notes the way Dream is presented. Dream’s hair is hanging loose around his face, no mask in sight. He’s not wearing his usual green for once, and instead a simple blue t-shirt hangs loose around his frame, paired with tan cargo pants. Dream looks like an ordinary man that’d be hard to pick out of a crowd normally, but right now, Ranboo feels completely and utterly drawn to him.

“If you’re going to do something, do it right now,” Dream urges Wilbur. “Before he completely snaps out of it.”

“Shut up dickhead,” Tommy mutters, snapping his fingers in Dream’s direction. “What if you two hurt him or some shit? You shouldn’t mess around with things you don’t understand!”

Wilbur drops his voice to speak quieter than normal. “What makes you think we don’t understand, Tommy? Remember all those nights I read to you until you fell asleep, all the times I was able to talk you out of a rash decision? Even when I was able to convince you the day we stood by the ocean, gathering sand. People find it so easy to listen to me, even more so when they’re already suggestible.”

“Wilbur,” Tommy warns.

Cocky grin in place, Wilbur moves around to stand behind Ranboo. Hands press down on the hybrid’s shoulders, heavy enough to keep him seated, light enough that he could wriggle out of the grip if he chose to. Ranboo leans back into Wilbur, head resting back against Wilbur’s chest.

“That’s it Ranboo,” Wilbur murmurs. “You enjoy feeling so relaxed, don’t you? Already so lost in the memory of your homeland, you’ll find it so easy to open the rest of your mind and let us in.”

“Us?” Ranboo finally finds his voice, and it’s shaky. He remembers what Tommy said five minutes ago. “I’ll be okay?”

“You’ll be more than okay.” It’s Dream now, and Ranboo is unconsciously leaning toward him. Dream means safety, he always has. But why?

Wilbur laughs. “I think he wants you, Dream.” He nudges at Ranboo before stepping back. “Should I keep going, though?”

Ranboo feels another arm wrap around him, holding him close. With a light sigh, Ranboo leans into the new body, recognizing the figure as Dream. He nods mutely toward Wilbur, encouraging him to keep going. He might not know what it is Wilbur is doing, but his voice is nice to listen to.

“Ranboo I want you to listen to me carefully.” Wilbur’s voice drops again, weaving gently through the room, before settling in his mind. “Just listen to me and let yourself go, back to the end. It holds all the answers you could possibly need. More specifically, the ones you’ve locked away from yourself.”

“Wilbur are you sure this will help?” Tommy whispers. The response Wilbur gives him is finger pressed to his forehead. Tommy goes cross-eyes trying to focus on the finger, but Wilbur jerks his hand downward, with Tommy’s eyes falling shut and his body falling forward. The man gathers Tommy in his arms and holds him before continuing to speak to Ranboo.

“You can see them just beyond your reach, Ranboo,” Wilbur whispers. “They’re not locked tight in a box, they’re open and available for you, you just have to be willing to reach for them.

In his mind, Ranboo’s in the end again. The purple haze surrounds him, leaving him feeling as though he’s completely alone. Wilbur’s voice is barely even heard, but Ranboo’s listening anyway. He can see what he only assumes are his memories (in the form of obsidian chunks), strewn about by the dragon’s small tower. His gaze locks onto those chunks as he moves closer, reaching an arm out. Though, Ranboo stops short of touching one. What if he finds something that scares him? He’s contributed to hurting Tommy as well as other people.

He doesn’t want to hate himself.

“It’s okay Ranboo,” Wilbur continues. “You’re safe with us. Your memories will not destroy you. Just breathe.”

He sucks in a breath, trying to steady his emotions. Everything seems to stretch out endlessly between himself and the obsidian chunks. It almost seems hopeless, but he finally closes his fist around the first one.

Everything rushes back.

He sees himself in Dream’s vault. This is his memory, he’s not watching it from an omniscient point of view, he recalls it perfectly now. Ranboo is with the rest of the SMP as they rush in to rescue Tommy and Tubbo, though he stands back to watch Tommy enact his revenge. Ranboo recalls staring at Dream, too, as the latter is led away to prison.

When he comes to, he’s still not back in the cabin, but back in the end. Obsidian chunks are still surrounding him, no longer stretched out, but pressed too close against him. The sensation is almost suffocating, and the only way out is to grab and push at them.

He remembers everything now.

Not all at once, it’s not a painful barrage against his brain, but more of a trickle, each memory dripping back in one by one. Everything he’d done, everything he’d help plan, everything he wanted to do. All the memories leave him feeling spent, even with Wilbur’s gentle cadence echoing in the back of his mind.

The last memory Ranboo picks up is the day Dream escaped from prison.

He pulls a sword on Tubbo, not to hurt him, but to warn him to stay back. He never wanted Tubbo to get hurt in the crossfire, he never wanted Michael to see this. Tubbo had always been better off away from any of this, where he can remain safe and raise Michael in peace.

Ranboo had pulled the sword and left him alone. He recalls the grief he’d pushed down in favor of guarding Tommy.

It was always about Tommy.

Ranboo had sworn to protect him from day one, hoping to guide him in the right direction, to steer him back toward Wilbur. Kind of a hard task to accomplish when he’s splitting his mind in half.

Everything makes sense now. Nothing’s changed, his mindset about Dream being evil has never changed. That much has always been true, the only difference now is Ranboo no longer feels remorse over being here.

He’d seen how everyone had twisted their morals and viewpoints into something barely recognizable. He’d seen how quickly everyone cast aside someone else for opposing beliefs, himself included. Everyone on the SMP is some level of selfish, and Ranboo had immediately gone to Dream, who had presented an idea.

He’d learned that Wilbur had the same mindset before he died. Ranboo had learned that in the deep pits of Pogtopia, where not even Tommy could reach, Wilbur had vented about his need to destroy more than just L’Manburg, that the two men had discussed starting over and creating a society where everyone would be on the same page. No more betrayal, no more destruction, no more pain.

Ranboo had loved the idea.

He still loves the idea.

When he sits up straight, he’s in the cabin again. It’s the same cabin, with the same beds and counters and furnaces. Wilbur is there holding a dazed Tommy, who’s glaring around the room. Dream is watching him with an expectant grin on his face.

The person Ranboo wants to speak to most isn’t there.

“Are you with us again?” Dream asks. “You look way more alert than you did before we started.”

Nodding, Ranboo stares down at his legs, wiping imaginary dirt off his trousers. “Thanks, I think. I don’t know what that was but-”

“Classic hypnosis,” Wilbur says smugly. “Tommy here thought it’d give you brain damage. Tommy, do you have brain damage?”

“I’ll smack you over the head with an obsidian brick,” Tommy grumbles. “That’ll give you brain damage.”

“I remember now,” Ranboo continues as though the brothers hadn’t just bickered. “I think I remember everything. Or at least, I know enough.”

“Do you still think I’m the bad guy?” Dream presses.

Ranboo snorts, but nods. “We’re all the bad guys, but I don’t mind as much. At least now I know what I’m doing.”

“Traitor.” There’s no bite in Tommy’s voice. “You lot are all traitors. Let me off this crazy ride.”

Reaching over, Ranboo gives Tommy’s hair a teasing ruffle. “You know you love us.”

“Two of you.” The younger teen shoots a pointed glare in Dream’s direction. “I only care about two of you.”

Dream shrugs. “That’s fair. I’m coming to terms with the fact that you hate me. I’ll live.”

“We’ve had a busy day,” Wilbur interrupts, pushing Tommy off his lap. The teen falls to the floor with a pained groan. “We should all sleep. We still have a lot of prep to do and things won’t be ready for awhile, but we’re making progress.”

“Wilbur you’re such a dick.” Tommy stretches out. “I’m sleeping on the floor.”

With a chuckle, Ranboo pulls Tommy up and drags him over to their makeshift double bed. “Just share with me again, alright?” He’s suprised when Tommy latches onto him, causing Ranboo to topple backwards into the bed. He makes a grab for Tommy in hopes of moving him, but it’s clear Tommy’s not moving.

“Don’t turn against me now that you have your memories back,” Tommy whispers. “I’m tired of losing people.”

Softening, Ranboo moves to grab at Tommy’s hand instead of his wrist. “No, never,” he promises. “It was always about you and your safety. I won’t let you down again, alright?”

“I’m tired of not trusting people either,” Tommy mumbles. He already sounds half asleep. “Just promise me that you and Wilbur won’t turn into Dream.”

“I promise.” Ranboo gives Tommy’s hand a squeeze. “We’re both here to protect you with everything we have. You can trust us unconditionally.”

“Thanks.” Mostly asleep, the teen’s voice is slurred. Ranboo settles for playing with Tommy’s hair to lull him down the rest of the way. He’d forgotten that in all this mess, Tommy probably doesn’t get very much comfort anymore.

That’s okay, Ranboo’s happy to provide. Just because they’re the bad guys doesn’t mean they have to be evil.

[good-rwbyaus]

Au where Whitley has actually been running the bank accounts since he was young and keeping the group financially viable

#Rising Snow AU - mod lilac - [ next ]

1. Beginning

It started when his father, smelling like expensive liquors and overbearing perfume, shoved a packet of folders at him and stated “You deal with it. Your father has a hang- headache” before staggering off back to his bedroom to sleep off yesterday’s social gathering.  

He was ecstatic. His father began to trust him to handle things in the company. Before he was a mere fixture in the company, only present to speak pleasantries and let others know that Jacques Schnee had a well-bred son. But now he had responsibilities and power.  

Whitley Schnee, soon-to-be-heir of the Schnee Dust Company since Weiss didn’t seem to care about it and Willow just left to join Atlas, will show everyone his worth, starting with.... a whole lot of complaints about their customer service.

_______________________________________

2. Complaints

“This motor is covered under warranty. I still have the original receipt. You have to take it back.”

“Sorry, but the warranty only covers usage in automobiles. You said you tried installing it in a motorcycle, so your warranty is void.”

“...A motorcycle is an automobile, sir.”

“Look smartass, you’re getting on my nerves. You’re not going to get a refund from the Schnee Dust Company, got it?”

“Excuse me!? I want to talk to your manager. Now.”

“I am the manager. Now stop wasting my time.”

“Wh-” 

Click.

Whitley’s eyebrows creased sharply as he closed the Scroll. He took slow deep breaths trying to get rid of the anger trembling through his body. A Schnee is like ice. They do not show their rage unless they can leverage it for their purposes. His teeth gritted once more and relaxed.

Those two-faced bastards. He knew the customer service staff were no good when they started fawning over him, telling him that “of course they got complaints when they couldn’t fulfill their requests” or “we got everything under control.” 

In reality, they were all just disgusting liars who couldn’t do their job. If he hadn’t been suspicious of them, they might’ve gotten away with it. Those people had to be removed before they truly caused an incident; he cannot let such unsightly things remain. 

He picked up the phone.

________________________________________

3. Fired.

“You can’t do this to us! This is going against our contract.”

“Just because you’re your father’s son doesn’t mean you have any power here.”

“You’re going to speak to my lawyer about unfair dismissal, kid!”

It’s funny. The half-dozen or so people who were fawning over him just hours earlier were now cursing and shaming him. Of course they were angry. He just told them they were all fired a couple minutes ago and stopped saying anything when they started yelling like a mob. His lips trembled, trying to stop himself from smiling. 

Gods. He was so angry that he’s finding humor in it. Do they really think they have power here?

Bang. 

A bald-headed tall man - the manager he spoke to last - slammed his hands onto his desk, looming over him as if to intimidate him with the threat of physical violence. The noise made him flinch slightly, breaking his facade of calm and causing the other guy to smirk mockingly at him. 

Bastard.

This farce has gone on long enough.

“Okay. You can keep your jobs...”

Immediately, the six people leered triumphantly with the one at the head of the pack messing his desk up proudly stood up. 

“Good kid, see you know when you’re in the wrong.”

“Yeah, smart like your father,” said the man at his desk about to pat him on the head. Immediately, he swatted the man’s hand away.

“...as I gather the audio logs for our lawyers to peruse and determine how much damage you’ve done to the company’s image.”

That silenced the room better than a dead body being found in it. 

“If you didn’t do anything wrong, you’ll have my apologies and a bonus for your troubles. But if you’ve damaged our image... well, a company’s face is priceless - but I can definitely try to get back some recompense.” 

He lifted a finger which everyone else in the room followed.

“That’s your first option. The other option is to resign quietly, and I will not pursue this in the future. You can take the time to think about it. 

“You can-”

“You’re all dismissed. If you linger around a second longer,” he glared at the group, “I’m going to assume you’re taking the first option and want to be escorted out.” 

Immediately, upon realizing who had the actual power in the room, the group of six began to scramble out of the room, but just as the bald-headed manager exited out the door, Whitley spoke up. The words caused the man to stiffen up.

“Except you. You don’t get an option, manager. You're fired. Wait to hear from my lawyers.” 

He steepled his fingers together, a vicious satisfied smile on his lips. 

________________________________________

4. Security Card

...Okay. That was scary. He honestly thought that baldy was going to hit him at the very end. In the future, he was going to have a bodyguard in the room or Klein just in case. He loosened his vest slightly, the cloth sticking to his back from the cold sweat.

It was weird though. Why did something like customer service go all the way up to the level of the President?

Wasn’t that something for managers or department heads to solve?

“Maybe it’s just a test from father,” Whitley spoke out loud. He shook his head.

Yeah, that was probably it. 

----

Little did he know that his carelessly stated statement was caught by a hidden camera in his room.

---- 

The next day he found a folder on his desk and a white card with the label of 00 on it. 

________________________________________

5. Assignment

“Hey, Klein,” Whitley asked cautiously as the loyal man handed him a glass of water, “Did father come into my room yesterday?” 

He didn’t know what to make of the butler at times or how to treat him. Father said never to treat the help too kindly or they’ll take advantage of it, but Klein was someone he knew since he was born. He’s never seen him be anything but loyal and attentive. He wasn’t like the people he just dealt with.

Maybe he would’ve just dismissed him as just the help, but after having seen a very recent example of two-faced people, he couldn’t quite agree with his father’s assessment of Klein.

“Your father has gone on va-,” the man paused upon seeing the contents on the desk, particularly the white card on his desk. “That card?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a card like this before,” Whitley replied, “What does it actually do?”

Klein stared at the card quietly before saying, “Only the Master of the House could’ve given you that card. It will open every lock and file in the Schnee Dust Company. It means the Master has given you authority second to them.”

“Father must really trust me after I got results, right?” he proudly stated as he started shuffling through the documents. In doing so, he missed Klein’s smile, both proud and pained at the same time. 

The cursory review made his self-praising words die in his throat.

“Wait...He wants me to solve all these?!” Whitley yelled. It wasn’t that the entire packet consisted of a single problem. The entire seventy-two page packet was a large list of overdue problems and documents that required his attention. 

“Where’s father?”

“He’s currently on vacation. He won’t be here for a month.”

“Didn’t he just go on vacation two weeks ago? There should be someone to substitute while he’s gone?” 

“...No, sir. This is how it always has been.”

“Haha. You’re joking. Or is this part of the test, Klein?” He laughed but it soon died on his throat, seeing the man’s grim face. 

 “I will not lie to you, young master.” Klein remarked before adding with a nudge of his head, “There’s a note.”

He’s right. There was. The script was in cursive; it would’ve been elegant and soft if it weren’t for the shakiness in it. 

‘You have the right idea. Sometimes problems need to find the right people.’

________________________________________

6. Delegation

This was stupid. The purchasing of toilet paper or whether it had to be 2-ply or 3-ply or setting the price of bubble-gum at the employee store did not need to pass through the president’s desk.

Hell. It’s like anything that involved the tiniest amount of money or required the slightest authority needed to make its way to his desk. 

This was not a functional solution. He’ll die of exhaustion by the end of the week if that continued.

And the answers from the department heads were incredibly unhelpful.

‘It has always been this way.’

But it hasn’t. Looking through the records only he could access, everything changed when his father inherited the company from his grandfather. His father first fired anyone that disagreed with him and then diverted anything that looked like it involved money up to the very top. Maybe it was important back then, but those measures certainly didn’t need to be used now. 

His father ruled with an iron fist when it came to the company. No one dared to challenge his authority now. 

His father was smart. Intelligent. These actions didn’t match that. Was this just another one of his tests? He wanted to believe that, but...

‘The only person you can trust is yourself. Everyone else can betray you. Even family. Only trust others if you have power over them, that is trust.’

...It did match what his father would do. And if there was nothing else he learned from all those official dinners and parties, he knew how to read people, especially his father and his mercurial temper. 

With how many of these documents have been untouched and unread, what exactly is his father doing? 

Come to think of it. When was the last time his father sat in front of a computer instead of going on vacation or to one of his many dinners with his business associates?

He shook his head. Impossible. His father definitely worked hard. How else would this company be standing if he was that neglectful? Maybe these files were just like the 5% of untouched work since he had so much wor-

His screen flickered as he clicked on another file. The pillar of red pointing downwards made him pale. 

[ next ]

[mypinkparables]

The Disproportionately High Mortality Rate of Black Mothers and Babies :Facts, Factors, and Fatalities - Cheyenne Adderley

Throughout the history of the world, the loss of a child has always been a traumatic experience. In the past, losing children in their first year of life was a disturbingly common occurrence in the lives of many parents. Contributions that are majorly responsible for this phenomenon of post-neonatal death are diseases/infections, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), malnutrition, low birth weight, home environment issues, and troubled pregnancy. To combat this, pioneers in obstetrics/gynecology and medicine researched and developed ways in which to solve these issues. Immunizations and vaccines were developed to fight infectious diseases, education and emphasis was placed around the need for proper prenatal care, and awareness was brought to a good amount of the known dangers surrounding pregnancy. Many issues that had once plagued parenthood and pregnancies were solved. One problem that was never solved, though, would be the disproportionately high mortality rate of black mothers and babies compared to their white counterparts. Unlike the aforementioned contributions listed above, this high mortality rate is caused by a pervasive structure of systematic and societal racism that is to be explored further in the remainder of this essay. The disproportionately high mortality rate of black mothers and babies is caused by a combination of disadvantages created by societal and systematic racism, the empathy gap, and lack of access to proper prenatal medical treatment.

  The United States of America is a country that was built on the agony, anguish, and affliction of African Americans. Since it’s beginning, black lives and bodies have always been seen as being worth less than everyone else’s in economic, humanitarian, and even educational ways. There is evidence of this in slavery, Jim Crow laws, police brutality, the school-to-prison pipeline, and much, much more. There is no doubt about it, racism in the United States is an unfortunately prevalent part of our society. In terms of racial discrimination in the medical industry, the proof remains plentiful and certified. The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male was a secret experiment conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service to study the progression of syphilis without treatment. This experiment was advertised as a treatment for bad blood for colored people. Participants were promised free food, medical examinations, and burial insurance. Hundreds of poor black men signed up. The problem and unethicality within this research is that the men were not fully informed about the truth of the research. There were 600 men in total, 399 diagnosed with Syphilis and 201 did not have this deadly venereal disease. The participants who had been diagnosed with Syphilis were not given any treatment, but were instead essentially left to die so that their bodies could be examined for medical research post-mortem (Brown). This atrocity of a medical experiment is important to one’s understanding of the disproportionately high mortality rate of black mothers and babies because it proves that there exists and has existed, a racial bias in the pain assessment and medical treatment of black people. This bias is the foundation for creating serious health problems in black mothers and babies, specifically, because it is an error in the systematic structure of the lives of one particular group. Problems in systematic structures are especially dangerous because they can impact a group of already previously disadvantaged people on different levels from different angles. In the context of the topics being analyzed, it would be something in close relation to the dismissal of legitimate concerns and symptoms turning into a failure of empathy which perpetuates racial disparities, leading furthermore into wide scale issues similar to,”The United States’ African-American population [being] disproportionately poor. African Americans do not tend to hold employment positions that provide medical benefits” (Fauci 77). Seemingly “small” issues or biases in things that are of major importance to people’s health and livelihood creates room for large discrepancies that become dangerous as things advance and become more serious. These large discrepancies are part of the reason why black mothers are at a higher risk for pregnancies resulting in conditions (i.e. hypertension and pre-eclampsia) that cause higher rates of infant and maternal death. 

  In order to understand how these large discrepancies create and relate to lack of access, the topics of lack of access due to racial bias and their subsequent effects on the pregnancies specifically of black mothers, must be discussed. In the duration of a pregnancy, a woman’s body goes through countless transformations, whether they be physical, emotional, or in the form of something else that is a discomfort. Important necessities in order to help refrain from or stop these changes from disturbing one’s pregnancy include,” exercise and activity, maintaining a healthy weight, caring for your mental health, nutrition, and caring for your oral health” (Omama). This means that one has to have access to the time and resources required in order to maintain the necessities needed for a healthy pregnancy. Racial bias on all levels is partly responsible for perpetuating the higher mortality rate of black mothers and babies because it is what creates the lack of access gap that impacts minority mothers. It, being racial bias, is created when an obstacle is purposefully placed between a person and a thing that they need. In the past, these obstacles existed in the form of slavery or Jim Crow Laws. They were rules that were created in order to preserve the generational  downfall of black people. After the criminalization of segregation, oppressors had to become more creative with the ways in which they oppressed minority groups. This is where lack of access becomes more relevant. Despite the tremendous and widespread need for medical treatment,” many African Americans cannot effectively access medical care. This inaccessibility is due to a variety of factors, including a lack of health insurance, an inadequate number of healthcare facilities, “patient dumping,” difficulty in obtaining prescription drugs and an insufficient number of African-American doctors.” ( Fauci 71). Instead of being upfront with racism and racial bias, oppressors began to create lack of access to the resources minority groups needed to survive and exist comfortably. Once those resources were taken away, it had the same negative impact as slavery and Jim Crow laws, without actually having to be as boldly open and directly wrong. Oppressors succeeded in using lack of access as an updated form of segregation because it was subtle yet effective and able to be made to feel “normal”.  Racial bias being so deeply ingrained into the systematic design of this country to the point where it is seen as normal, is what creates widespread phenomenons such as black mothers and babies being negatively impacted in an unfortunate plethora of ways. The seemingly harmless and minute parts of racial bias all have the ability to exalt oppression. 

The creation and perpetuation of discrimination against the black race on systematic levels causes the trickle down effect that is responsible for certain phenomenons in the medical industry. Racial bias is what gives birth to negative discrepancies between races. When a person begins to look at one group of people as “the other”, they will begin to act differently towards “the other”, consciously or not. The widespread belief that somehow black people are stronger and able to withstand more struggle than others comes from “...an underlying belief that there is a single black experience of the world. Because this belief assumes blacks are already hardened by racism, people believe black people are less sensitive to pain. Because they are believed to be less sensitive to pain, black people are forced to endure more pain” (Silverstein). This may include showing favoritism to other races because of their racial background, using slurs to describe certain races, or even just seemingly harmless jokes. Racial bias is an attitude that can take place and be reflected in many different forms. Bias is not something that can be turned off or hidden. Bias will always find a way to make itself known, but unconscious bias is especially dangerous because it gives people the illusion of not having done anything wrong. It is similar to how a big portion of the general population believes that vaping is somehow a healthier and safer option compared to real cigarette smoking. In both situations, damage is still being done no matter what the appearance of the danger is because the root of the problem still exists in both situations. Unconscious bias is able to explain why things may appear to be equal even though there are still several unfair aspects to society. Implicit biases are so powerful because they have the power to impact almost every facet of life. This means unconscious bias can range from affecting the decision of a police officer choosing whether or not to pull someone over, a hiring manager deciding on who to hire for a new position, or a doctor choosing which method of care to give to a patient. All of these situations can end up being dire and life-altering situations depending on the circumstances, as is. Adding in a bias toward a certain kind of civilian, employee, or patient only ensures that an issue will arise more in that group. Racial bias is what creates the circumstances that allow for black mothers and babies to suffer medically on such a broad and undeniable scale. Implicit bias is what makes the conditions that much worse between black and white mothers. Relating back to the topic of black mothers and babies, implicit bias is a subdivision of the empathy gap. The empathy gap is a phenomenon in which people are not able to emphasize with or fully understand one’s situation because they are cognitively unaware of how to account for the decision making process and mental state of others. There are certain careers in this world that require more empathy than others. For example, doctors and nurses should be able to empathize with patients because of the considerable difference between each one and their case. Situations vary greatly and not everyone comes from the same background with the same knowledge of healthcare and how to get help. This is something that needs to be empathized with and understood because a misunderstanding of this fact is what can lead to a widening of the empathy gap. When a doctor looks at a patient and sees someone from a certain background dealing with a persistent medical condition, that is not the time to begin creating assumptions or premature judgment because when enough doctors begin to view enough of the same negative things in patients of similar backgrounds through a pessimistic lens, people begin to slip through the cracks. Doctors may unknowingly begin to dismiss what a patient feels or doubt how much pain they are truly in because they are desensitized to their humane existence due to the creation of racist or all around negative idealizations. The empathy gap creates a culture of dismissive attitudes and unfair treatment from doctors because they will not take certain cases as seriously if they do not empathize with the patient. This is why it is beyond important for doctors to equally assess, understand, listen to, and treat every patient the same way. Allowing for stereotypes and pessimistic views about a certain group of people only creates a space for those people to suffer. These stereotypes hold no real truth in society and cannot offer any real medical answer to assist a doctor in treating a patient. Empathy is a required skill when people’s lives are at risk. 

     Black mothers and babies have a disproportionately high mortality rate because of the way that society dehumanizes and downplays their existence. There are several reasons as to why and how the mortality rate became what it is, but the main reason is centered around the fact that there is a specific disadvantage placed so harshly onto black women, that it stunts their growth and progression away from phenomenons that should have already been understood and solved due to the updated society that exists in today’s world. These problems still exist because there are people that exist in today’s world, but live and acknowledge the world with the views of someone living seventy years ago. The age old stereotypes, jokes, idealizations, theories, and customs must come to an end in order for black women, mothers, and children to be able progress past the impact racial bias has already made on them. Discrimination on every level plays a part in as to why this mortality rate has been so popularly perpetuated.

  Works Cited

“America Is Failing Its Black Mothers.” Harvard Public Health Magazine, 21 Dec. 2018,                        SSSCCwww.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/america-is-failing-its-black-motRRRRRhers/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf.

Brown, DeNeen L. “'You've Got Bad Blood': The Horror of the Tuskegee Syphilis  RRRRRExperiment.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 16 May 2017, RRRRRwww.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/05/16/youve-got-bad-blood-thRRRRRe-horror-of-the-tuskegee-syphilis-experiment/.

Fauci, Cara A.” RACISM AND HEALTH CARE IN AMERICA: LEGAL RESPONSES RRRRRTO RACIAL DISPARITIES IN THE ALLOCATION OF KIDNEYS, RRRRRwww.bc.edu/content/dam/files/schools/law/lawreviews/journals/bctwj/21_1/02_TRRRRRXT.htm.

“Healthy Living.” OMama, www.omama.com/en/pre-pregnancy/healthy-living.asp.

Howard, Jacqueline. “Childbirth Is Killing Black Women, and Here's Why.” CNN, Cable RRRRRNews Network, 15 Nov. 2017, RRRRRwww.cnn.com/2017/11/15/health/black-women-maternal-mortality/index.html?utRRRRRRm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf.

Silverstein, Jason. “Why White People Don't Feel Black People's Pain.” Slate Magazine, RRRRRSlate, 27 June 2013, RRRRRslate.com/technology/2013/06/racial-empathy-gap-people-dont-perceive-pain-in-otRRRRRher-races.html.

Villarosa, Linda. “Why America's Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death RRRRRCrisis.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 Apr. 2018, RRRRRwww.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/magazine/black-mothers-babies-death-maternal-moRRRRRrtality.html?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf.

[lairofsentinel]

Talking about the smidgens we saw of Gale, the wizard of Waterdeep.

[Baldur’s Gate 3 Early Access Spoilers]

Updated, AGAIN, because the hell of new aspects we saw when some bugs were sorted out. Warning:  all this analysis was done for game versions 4.1.83 and 4.1.84

Well, I had to rewrite all this because the explorations of dialogue options and the bugs being, somehow, solved, allowed me to see small details from Gale that stand out or end up being more than curious to me. I'll list his main features to make things short (hopefully), and useful for... eventual fics:

Gale is a char who approves any good treatment to animals (and creatures in general). He has a cat, a Library, and writes poetry sometimes.

He doesn't like gratuitous murdering which is implied in the anecdote he told us about how he stopped a massacre in a Waterdeep city inn just by buying a round to everyone. It is also implied in his approval in most situations; even in the one with the ogres having sex.

He gives you disapproval most of the time if you use violence and intimidation as your first approach in solving a situation. He prefers eloquence, diplomacy, and negotiation. However, he is flexible enough to approve a performance-intimidation in front of goblins to avoid bloodshed. Point (2) is primary. So... he truly is a pragmatic char. It's not white and black: “never use intimidation/lie” or that kind of over-simplistic view.

He likes logical and reasonable conversations. An action that earned his disapproval can be undone if the main char (MC) talks to him and explains their reasons. You can disagree with him without having approval penalties most of the time. You can question many situations and, as long as it remains a mental exercise, there are no penalties. That surprised me a lot. Most characters disapprove you if you wonder about a potential situation, but Gale no. He is the scholar, he will allow a safe space to think around things without being too judgemental. We will see if this attitude lasts in the full game. No wonder some players see in him “the Teacher” archetype. Quite so.

He was an Arch wizard while being Mystra's Chosen One, and fell from grace when she put him aside. What is hard for me to grasp is if he remained Chosen One and therefore able to cast silver-fire during that intermediate period when he stopped having Mystra's whispers and his folly with the netherese taint. We know that in that moment Mystra removed herself from his life completely. But before, she has only stopped whispering and sleeping with him. So far I understand, being her Chosen One doesn't imply sleeping with her, most of the time.

He was a teacher (not surprising, since his over-explanation vices and details such as the pronunciation of “Trashj” make us suspect it), and had some students that he could not keep longer since their ineptitudes irked him. 

Unlike the stereotypical “scholar” type, he knows how to cook, since he has been doing stews for the party in the camp. He also loves baths. A bit siding with the stereotypical “scholar” type, but a nice change for a “standard adventurer” type, in which most of the time it is implied that they are stinky with “animalistic” scents and uglier descriptors. No, Gale likes his lavender-scented baths. Good. 

He is an over-thinker strategist. And also a char who takes responsibility for his own mistakes to the point that, when he dies for the first time, a programmed image is activated to help anyone to revive him. Despite the fact that he is dead and can give a shit about that, he is still responsible of the catastrophe that may happen if that weird magic orb stuck in his chest erupts.

He is also forcing me to check the dictionary like no other game has done in a while... the fucker uses uncommon words a lot of the time. Smidges? really? Gale is a hard char for a non native English speaker.

We can assume that during his teenage time, he was a pretty prideful peacock to the point to be blind at the reality (well, yeah, he romanced a goddess; if that doesn't give you a hell of a ego boost...) He remembers his young self's pride with a thick level of regret. He is now a mature scholar that, for a change, does not patronise you or thinks of himself better than anyone. Sure, he over-explains a lot, but that's something that most scholars/teachers do when they are worried that, maybe, they won't be understood.

He is confident in his years of study (for that reason he is a capable wizard despite having lost Mystra's favours), but he acknowledges his limits. Which is a nice change to see in the “scholar” archetype, the typical know-it-all. He knows a lot, he knows that he knows (it would be ridiculous to hide his knowledge), but he is human, and like he says: “humans are fallible”. However, it’s more than obvious that he has a big ego for everything he does, which makes sense since he follows a motto in his life: “try to excel at everything”. High accomplished scholar lifestyle, indeed.

If you don't share the Weave with him, he will state that nights are lonesome. It seems he truly is looking for some connection with a keen fellow mind. Probably it's this loneliness which triggers his urge to see Mystra's face during the night. We also know he, in general, lives in constant fear due to the Netherese taint in his chest. So, very lonely, and very scared. 

I don't know if this is his poet side unable to be switched-off or it's another implication of how he sees sexual encounters: he never says sex (at least in my many runs, he never did it). He always gets around the word: love-making, art of the body, intimacy. For a scholar who is so prone to use the technical word for everything, and has already stated he is not coy at all, the use of these metaphors make me wonder if it's because he always conceives sex as something more than mere physical pleasure. For him, it seems to come with a more emotional connection (which makes sense if we think he will only sleep with those who connected to him through the Weave). Another small detail that may confirm this is when he asks the MC if the “other night” was wonderful. If MC claims it was “fun”, Gale shows a certain degree of uneasiness by that word choice, making us infer that he certainly doesn’t see sex as “fun” but as something else, deeper. 

His tadpole dreams are about Mystra (rather obvious). His most desperate desire is forgiveness. Mystra's forgiveness.

Mystra was his first love. The affair did not last long. And since soon after her abandonment he looked for the Primal Weave book and was infested by it; one could assume he has been focused on solving his problem for the rest of his life than putting some energy in romance, especially if we think about (13). It's hard to say with certainty (especially with banters like these), but since he is a char that you can only sleep with if you share a mind-connection through the Weave, it seems less plausible that he could encourage into casual relationships during all this period of his life looking for a solution to the Netherese orb. If he got previous relationships, they may have been meaningful, but clearly not enough to win over the goddess’ and his urges to see her, lol.

He did not mind Mystra having many other lovers besides him. It seems to be the same with the MC, since he will insist in sleeping with them even after the party and even after the MC slept with someone else (however, that only occurs if the romantic connection through the Weave happened.) This fact combined with (13) and (15) make me wonder if he certainly wants to be with the MC too badly, even in an open relationship. We need to see the rest of his romance to be sure.

Since he looks for forgiveness so desperately, he is a char who will forgive most mistakes made by the MC if they acknowledge them.

He is a char who knows how grey and complex situations can be. This is inferred by the way he speaks of the tiefling girl who tried to steal the idol in the Grove: “She is not innocent, but that doesn't mean she is guilty.” (of course there is a lot of self projection there). This is also implied in his (surprising) approval of raising Mayrina's husband and giving her the control wand to search for a solution in Neverwinter. That shows that he can accept the fuckest weirdest situations, recognising that “sometimes we can’t choose situations but we can try to do our best, not always having the best results”. Also self-projection.

He appreciates his privacy to the point to leave the MC if the abuse of the tadpole power continues. However, and honouring (4), you can abuse of these powers and convince him with reasons: if you don't lie to him and explain that you have a responsibility with the group to know what happens with his secret, he will understand, and despite disapproving the MC actions, will remain without major troubles.

Certainly, as long as you give him reasons and logical concepts, he can almost understand everything with no disapproval or at least little one.

Consent and negotiation are vital to him, apparently. However, this aspect reaches a flaw. He was too angry with Nettie when she almost killed the MC, and he made a short speech about how nobody has the right to decide your options for you. Yet, in his romance scene, we see that he deliberately hid his true relationship with Mystra and his bomb-condition in order to sleep with the MC. In fact, during the party, if the MC tells him that doubts if he is the one they want, Gale will drop a curious argument: “That’s because you’ve yet to find out what your’re missing” (implying that he himself is what you need), followed by his most curious “Doubt is a spoilsport. Cast it aside”. That coming from a scholar is rotten, lol. He tries every convincing argument to sleep with the MC (if they shared the moment of the Weave, of course)

This happens in every variation of the path: whether the MC sleeps with him in the party, or afterwards, Gale will always wait for sharing a night with the MC before speaking the truth. It's hard to read this aspect since, he is a char who, apparently, needs a mind-connection with his partner for intimacy (see (12) and (13)); so this terrible strategy is like his way of trying to guarantee that the MC will not abandon him. I guess there is something along those line, specially if we keep in mind the book he explained: a book which is not only about the art of the body and the night and sex, but of other things such as conversation, exploration, and acceptance of oneself and the other. He is expecting with this night to reach the MC to a certain degree of intimacy in which, despite the raw truth, the acceptance will prevail. Remembering (16), he truly wants to sleep with the MC, baaaadly. And somehow everything feels like he wants to push things in a subtle way to a certain degree of commitment. Following the concept in (12), I think he has been alone for too long, and desperately needs someone in his lonesome nights and in helping him to deal with his burden. Finding someone who connected to him through the Weave (such a personal experience for him as it is) made him a bit desperate or eager. We know his emotion for the MC may have grown over those days since the connection with the Weave. In two occasions he or the MC can ask if both of them think about that moment. Gale says yes with such enthusiasm, that it may imply...that maybe, he has been thinking about that more times than he truly wants to tell the MC. The Weave moment had such a strong effect on Gale that, if the MC spent the night with another companion and rejects Gale’s proposition later, he will trail off a sentence that implies he was convinced that the MC and he were heading into something serious and deep.

Of course, once he sleeps with the MC, he confesses the truth right afterwards, accepting--without approval penalties--the harshest responses that the MC can give. He clearly knows that such manoeuvre was truly disloyal, especially contrasting it with all his speech of consent and rights to know about the true situation one is in. In the next morning, he acknowledges it was a rotten thing to do and apologies. But this shows that his principles can be bend and even be broken when it comes to emotions. I'm still a bit wary of his emotional stability, what can I say.

Mystra is more than an ex-lover for him, it’s magic. And Magic is everything for him, even more than life. I wonder if, given the opportunity, Mystra forgives him and asks him to return to her side, would he accept it without second thoughts leaving the romanced MC? It's true he also acknowledges that all that fascination he had with the goddess was a product of his youth; he knows he was a plaything in her hands. But I don't see he got over with it. He still idealises her, as such a good poet does. Idealisation, especially when a Goddess is involved, is a terrible thing to fight against for the next partner. No matter what speech of loyalties and consent he states during the whole game, the MC knows that magic and Mystra are Gale's Achilles’ heel, and factors in which they  can’t predict his behaviour.

We also know that, because his bomb-condition, he tries to take all the opportunities to enjoy the little things of life that make him human.

Gale is a straightforward and honest (mostly, let's say) char. But we can see that he prefers to be honest in most situations, except in his Achille’s heel. Even when he wanted to hide all the stuff about the bomb in his chest, he did it by explicitly warning us that he was hiding something he did not want to talk about. Which is an honest approach considering the hardcore burden he carries and the immediate rejection it can mean if the truth unfolds too quickly among strangers.

When it comes to concepts, Gale has the symbol of the storm attached to him. So far, we see he talks comparing things with storms or storm elements: his lack of knowledge to explain why they are not Mind Flayers yet: the silence before the storm; the fear that rushes into his body when the Weave orb asks him for magic to consume: the thunder of a storm reverberating in his soul, the day it will erupt: the lightning striking, the consumption of magic: water running through a sore throat, Life itself: a tempest. When he asked the player if they were a wizard, he explains that he needs an Arch wizard and compares them with a Tempest. If we see the main image of Baldur's gate 3, it's clear that his main element is electricity/storm... so... full witch-bolt-guy here.

[updated later] The Weave moment is important to romance Gale. Leaving the moment in ambiguity will give the MC another opportunity to make their intentions clear during the scene of the Loss. However, remaining vague will lock Gale into a friendship path. What happens during this scene may suggest that the ambiguity in the Weave was enough to keep Gale thinking about the romantic possibility, but he will not engage into it by his own, which confirms (15). Unless the opportunity presents itself clearly before him, he will not pursue the MC. Further details [here].

Last moment detail: Gale says “I cherish you” when he explains he will await death alone if the Netherese orb goes out of control. I was not sure if that meant something more or less than love or like (I can’t not overlook the subtle meaning of the words coming from Gale’s mouth, he is a poet and his word choices matter). Checking the dictionary I found that “cherish” (in a relationship) is defined as to hold or to treat as dear, to feel love for and to care for someone deeply and tenderly. This man went straight into a commitment relationship without thinking it twice, and without (I believe) the MC knowing it either xD. 

Let's see how these characteristics shift or develop deeper once the full game is out there. Now we have to wait a lot :(

To see videos where all this stuff is inferred or explicitly said, you can check [here]

More videos added later [here] and [here]

More content of bg3 in general [here]

[funkymbtifiction]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/millennials-burnout-generation-debt-work

Although it isn’t, I could swear this was written by me. I deeply relate to these issues and the descripted anxiety and paralysis when it comes to these “adult” tasks. Do you think it’s merely a generational problem or are these traits related to MBTI?

(I’m not a psychologist, so take everything I say at the end with a grain of salt. I love to read and think and ‘fix’ things, so I have lots of thoughts about this.)

This phenomenon is something I have thought about and discussed, whenever I heard accusations against millennials. The short answer is there’s no particular MBTI type that causes this feeling of inadequacy by comparison, but I would say social dominants and Enneagram 3s suffer from it the worst (I suspect the person who wrote the article is a social 3, since the emphasis is all on success, achievement, paying attention to their social media feeds, and trying to compete on that level).

There’s a lot to unpack in that article, so I’ll just hit a couple of things – the tendency to avoid unnecessary, small, unpleasant tasks is a simple lack of motivation, follow through, and even a level of personal irresponsibility. It’s also a facet of not possessing self-love, because a person should do unpleasant or boring things out of self-love (because doing this now will reduce the guilt and anxiety of leaving that package on the table for the next six months, because I am a person who keeps their commitments, because this thing simply needs doing, and it doesn’t matter if it’s boring or tedious or not). If you do something immediately, you no longer have to think about it, or feel anxiety about doing it. Rip the band-aid off and do the boring “adult” stuff, so it’s no longer looming over you.It doesn’t matter what you feel like doing. Just do it.

Okay, as to the entire mindset of the millennial generation… it comes from a lot of things. Parents that made a great deal of money gave the next generation expectations above and beyond what is feasible. The brutal truth is, most of our parents did not live in a five room house when they were 20, they had a crappy little apartment and barely made the rent. Yet for some reason we expect to get out of college, find a job that pays a hundred thousand a year, and buy that house—whether we can afford it or not. Things cost way more for us than they did for our parents, also—instead of 6 grand for a house, it’s 300,000 grand.

There is enormous social pressure to attend college, even though most jobs do not require it; this means the value of a degree is less, because everyone and their cousin now have the same degree. It used to be that trade schools were more the norm, or that you simply grew up working in your father’s business and assumed you were going to take it over from him at some point. Only a few people with specific ambitions went to college for a short amount of time, with an end result in mind, and it, again, cost less because fewer people were attending and driving up the prices. College is an extremely expensive place to “find out what you want to do,” instead of already knowing what you are going to do, and getting an education IF it is necessary for your career. (For the record, you can often get higher paying job obtaining trade skills such as working as an electrician or a plumber, with less cost and way less debt.) So most millennials come out of college with a hundred grand in student loan debts. They assume, because they grew up in a society that told them how special they were, that they can get an amazing job and make all this money and pay back their loans and buy that enormous house—but they are all competing for the same job everyone else wants.

Or they were raised thinking they were special, so the rules do not apply to them, and that their feelings matter. In a nutshell: they do not matter. Your boss will not care if you felt like coming to work or not. You will come in and do what you are paid to do, or you will get fired. It doesn’t matter if you feel like cleaning the cat box or not. You need to clean it, because your cat deserves a better life. It doesn’t matter if you feel like exercising or not. If you do not do it, you will gain weight and face a health problem later in life. Adulting is learning to do the things that need done, whether or not you feel like doing them.

Now, let’s think about the social networking component, because it is an enormous contributor to “the problem” this generation faces. Back before college became the norm, and before the internet was accessible to everyone, society on the whole lived a much smaller life. You grew up, you dated someone from high school, you worked weekends in a local store or business, you got a more permanent job, you got married. It was a no-brainer, because everyone did it, most people knew each other, and socializing was done in person, rather than online, through community gatherings, church groups, BBQ’s, and town events. You weren’t aware of all the things you “should” be doing, or could “own” or even the fun other people were having, and as a result, people did not over-think as much. The internet has opened up a thousand options and the millennial thinks they should carefully consider all of them, because they do not want to make the same ugly mistakes their parents made.

Most of their parents have had multiple marriages and maybe even several sets of kids with different partners. They experienced what all young people do—periods of debt and poverty. But they “lived” life, and the millennial is “not” living life—they are more cautious, more fearful of making a life-shattering mistake, and more fearful of experiencing pain, suffering, and loss of the lifestyle that many of them were privileged to have, which was comfort. Their parents provided everything they needed, and got them used to a certain standard of living, which raised their expectations about what they must earn to match it. Going without is not possible in their mind; they have to achieve more than their parents, at a younger age. But… instead of the 5 options their parents have, the millennial has 10,000. Who should I date and marry? Well, it could be the person next door… but what if I’m missing someone BETTER? Should I try online dating? Swipe through 8,000 people? How do I decide? Where should I get a job? Who should I work for? Should it be in this state or somewhere else? Can I find a job that pays me a lot but doesn’t eat up all my free time so I can have fun? Or will I feel trapped??

Less is more, and all our society has, is more – too many choices lead to what psychologists call “choice paralysis.” The point where someone doesn’t know what to choose, so they choose nothing. It can be as simple as deciding you want to watch something, logging on to Netflix, and seeing 250 possibilities, being unable to decide, and turning it off… or not knowing which of the 60 people to respond to on the dating site… or which of the 20 degrees you want… which causes people to shut down completely and avoid decisions altogether.

Faced with too high of and unreasonable expectations of their own self-importance and worth (brought on by the “everyone is a winner” culture), unfeasible standards that are much too lofty for partners (we don’t know how to just choose a person and tolerate their flaws, we want the RIGHT person, so we keep on looking endlessly at times, and don’t want to settle, leading millennials to being the generation who isn’t getting married young), incredible debt tied to college degrees and expenses, and choice paralysis on everything from our pizza toppings to Big Life Decisions… is it any wonder that we (I am one of you, just barely; I’m a bit older than most of you) don’t do anything?

There is a solution to this problem, though. Minimize your life. Make it real instead of abstract. Stop living it in your head, and do it in your body. How? Minimize your choices. Practice making them. Do the thing you don’t want to do, first, to teach yourself responsibility. Make your world smaller. Consider a smaller life with more freedom and free time in it. Cut social media down considerably. If Facebook tracking you, hording your information, and making a “file” on you troubles you, pull the plug. You are not missing anything. Consider what works better—an impersonal tweet or a conversation with a person in the flesh. Start by making small decisions, and lead into bigger ones. Learn to lower your expectation and set realistic ones. The odds are, the person you pick to be with isn’t any better or worse than if you tried out 50 other people. Living in a tiny apartment for 6 years is nothing to feel ashamed about, it’s how MOST PEOPLE start their life. Cut the things out of your schedule that you do not need, and focus on what matters. Family time should not be on your “to do” list. Watch Dave Ramsey videos on YouTube to learn how to budget your money. Get rid of the social media account that make you feel envious, or like your life should be “more” than it is. Most of the time, life is just life. It has tooth aches, bad tuna sandwiches, flat tires, and Christmases that aren’t as magical as you wanted them to be, and that’s… life. If you can’t tell the difference between Instagram “I took this photo 70 times to impress you and then airbrushed it” and “real life,” get rid of it altogether.

A lot of this anxiety and paralysis, we bring on ourselves. But we can also choose to do something good for ourselves, and … make decisions. Small ones that can lead to big changes.

[huihuiheart]

Goretober D25: Horror Hotel - BTS

BTS + Journalist! Female Reader for the sake of certain plot elements

This is a historical au, like America late 1800s and inspired by the Murder Castle, so........

Warnings: Kidnapping themes, murder themes, serial killer themes, death, dead bodies, suggestive themes, nudity, poker, alcohol, crematorium themes.

Word Count: 3,291

Everyone had sent you here when you were looking for a story, heaving a soft huff as your eyes ran the expanse of the building. Sure you’d needed a place to stay, but you also needed a story if you were ever going to break out of the little review columns of the newspaper you worked at. You were tired of everyone dismissing your abilities simply because you were a woman! If all they wanted to do was direct you to the famous Bangtan Hotel then fine, you’d find a story here. After all no place just becomes this popular over night, there had to be something going on. Some secrets that this hotel kept hidden deep inside of it and you intended to find out what those were. 

Collecting up the skirt of your dress in one hand and your luggage in the other you, starting to trudge your way towards the entrance. Your ears tuned into the hushed squeals of gossiping women trying to pick up on whatever details they were sharing about the hotel. Scoffing at their incessant compliments regarding the many bachelors at the establishment, surely they couldn’t call be that impressive nor attractive while in the same place. Let alone all bachelors if they were like that. Your heart nearly stopping though as a chipper doorman scurries down the steps to grab your bag in one hand and offer his arm to help you up them, practically glowing as he beamed a sunshine filled smile your way.

“Good afternoon Miss! Allow me. Will you be staying with us long?” The bubbly man easily strikes up conversation and you feel heat rise to your cheeks, flustering a little at how attentive this godly man suddenly was towards you. 

“Not extremely no, I’m simply here on business for a few days.” You easily return a smile his bright nature rubbing off easily. The doorman very intrigued at your words, but not looking judgmental in the least.

“Ah a business woman! We don’t get many of those around here. It’s quite the privilege to be in the presence of someone so esteemed. If you don’t mind my asking what industry?” He inquires releasing your arm to open the door, following you in with your bag.

“I write for a paper, I’m actually going to be reviewing your hotel. I must say that at the very least you’ll be getting quite the compliment from me, um...” Your voice slowly trails off as you realize you hadn’t gotten his name yet.

“My name is Hoseok miss and I’m glad I could welcome you. You’ll know where to find me if you need any further assistance.” Hoseok tips his hat at you and gives a parting smile before diligently returning to his place. 

You aren’t alone long as the concierge soon greets you a soft smile gracing his lips, dimples filling in his cheeks.

“Hello miss did you have a reservation with us today?” He inquires as you turn your attention to him over the counter. You bag on the ground besides you as you shake your head lightly.

“I do not, I was waiting to arrive in the area to determine which hotel I would be staying at.” You explain returning his smile as he nods in response.

“What is your name and how long do you intend to stay miss?” The man politely asks looking over their guest and reservation lists no doubt, but his eyes never stray from your face for too long.

“Ah Y/LN, Y/N. I intend to be here three days. Reviewing various things during the event in the city. And you are?” You had been trying to slyly catch a glimpse of the gold name tag glittering on his chest, yet every move he made had concealed it just enough to prevent you from getting it.

“Namjoon. I should be down here pretty much whenever you’re in need of anything. I assume you’re intending to review our hotel as well?” Namjoon questions with a soft raise of his brow, to which you simply nod, “Very well, let me check out bookings one last time. This week has been chaotic as you can guess, so I’d like to ensure your stay is as smooth as possible.”

You’re only waiting alone for about five minutes before he returns with a set of keys which he places before you. A little numbered tag attached to them, before he places a little sign in book besides them.

“Here you are, sign there please. Your room will be number 234. It’s on the second floor and quite the prime location between most of our offered services. Is there someplace I should forward the bill to or will you personally attend to it at the end of your visit?” Namjoon’s words are polite and to the point and yet patient in manner, kind as his smile never waivers, it appearing genuine instead of simply another customer service smile.

“Oh it can be forwarded. One moment and I can get you the information.” You pull out your book and slip out the information for your newspaper company, the one that attended to all the bills from your little review excursions. Of course they often weren’t horrible expenses seeing as how places hoped to earn a positive review more often than not.  Namjoon nodding and accepting the paper.

“I’ll go copy this information and bring it back to you. Is there anything else I can do for you this afternoon? Perhaps get someone to take your bags up so you can return to your events for the day?” Namjoon offers and you simply shake your head.

“I’ll be going up to freshen up as well, so it’s alright. Though I might join you again in a few moments with some questions about the services you provide here.” You explain and he nods slipping away with the paper. When he returns he’s not alone though, another man slipping out from the back as Namjoon returns the information to your care.

“Seokjin will help you with your things. Please take your time, I’ll be here whenever you return.” Namjoon nods towards the older man who is already moving to take your bag, seeing you open your mouth to argue he chuckles softly.

“It’s alright Miss Y/L/N. I insist.” Seokjin lifts your bag with ease, shamelessly looking over your form before leading the way to the elevator, which he opens for you before slipping inside and work it. All the while sending a more sultry smile you way than either Hoseok or Namjoon had. Of course that being said so far the rumors stood true in three out of three cases thus far. Upon reaching the door you unlock it and allow Seokjin to set your bag down for you.

“Thank you Seokjin.” You smile meekly, cheeks flaring with heat as he winks at you in return.

“It was truly my pleasure miss. I’ll take my leave now, but if you need anything I’ll be glad to assist you with it. Just give a call.” Seokjin eyes you one last time before slipping out of the room, closing the door behind himself. Freshening up doesn’t take you long, collecting a simple few belongings, your pocketbook, journal, and pencil as you make your way down once more. On the elevator ride down your scramble down a few notes about things you’ve already observed in the hotel. You were patiently waiting to question Namjoon about what else the hotel offers, after he finished with those at the counter, when Seokjin notices your presence and comes over.

“In need of something miss?” Seokjin inquires, licking his lips for a quick moment, before that smirk you’re growing familiar with appears once again.

“I was simply going to request more information about hotel services.” Seokjin nods and takes your arm, guiding you over to a small directory, “Well on the ground level we have a restaurant, along with poker tables, and a bar. While on the third floor we have a sauna, massage parlor, and pool.” 

“Who has access to these services? All the guests, or?” You question looking over the directory to memorize the lay out. Realizing now how convenient your room’s location actually was.

“Yes, all guest do. Staff as well, after working hours and out of uniform. So if you see familiar faces around that would be why. Though for the sauna and massages you’ll have to see Namjoon about booking a time. Sometimes the restaurant will be busy as well, but I’m sure we can always find you a spot in there.” Seokjin explains with a soft smile before noticing the line at the counter is gone, “I’ll be returning to my work now miss, if you have any more questions though, Namjoon is now available.” 

You thank him as he tips his hat and heads on his way, giving you time to head up to the counter, “Hello again, would it be possible to book a massage. I hear those are being very popular nowadays.”

Namjoon chuckles and nods, pulling out one of many appointment books. You had no doubt that the reason things to be running so smoothly was due to the fact that Namjoon seemed to be on top of everything, intelligent enough to keep it all in order.

“That they are. Our masseur is rather famous too, I’ve heard many customers claim his hands are magical. Luckily for you he’s open right now, would you like me to call up and let him know you’ll be coming?” Namjoon’s brow lifts, dimples appearing as he smiles. His hand already resting on the phone even before you nodded, something that was still somewhat of a novelty. You give a small nod and he lifts the device as you thank him, turning to head up to the third floor. Hoping the map you’d constructed in your head based on the directory was accurate. Sure enough, you find yourself knocking on a door with a neat golden label to match the name tags of the employees. Greeted only a moment later with a soft smile from the most angelic looking man out of the four you’d yet met.

“Miss Y/L/N?” The angel himself smiles at you, making your skin prickle with a soft heat as if faint rays of morning sunlight are dancing across it now. The sugary sweet man opening the door further for you to enter when you give a flustered nod. 

“What can I do for you this afternoon miss?” He questions allowing you a moment to catch the name off his tag.....Jimin.

“I’m not entirely sure, these are new but becoming popular fast and I’ve heard you have a good reputation. So I guess I’ll just go with whatever the most popular thing is.” As soon as Jimin hears what you say, you think you see his lips twitch as if he were about to smirk or chuckle at you, but he holds himself back.

“Very well miss, for that I’ll need you to strip. You can place your clothes over there and lay on your front here.” Jimin gestures to a table with a small towel on it, not enough to cover much of anything though, “I’ll give you a moment to get ready.” 

As he leaves you actually hear him chuckle softly at your somewhat shocked and flustered face.  Yet, this is his job and so you trust him as you move quickly in an attempt to be finished before he returns. Laying your bare front down onto the plush table, most of your skin bare for when Jimin returns.

“If anything is painful or uncomfortable let me know.” Jimin practically coos in a sweet voice, getting some oil before his hands find your back to work the muscles there first. Your reactions making him smirk and stroking his ego, sometimes his clients came here for.......other purposes, but you were here to report on the hotel so on the clock he couldn’t let you know of that or of his escapades, in particular the fact he wanted you to be one of them. Not even when his hands elicited soft moans of his name to fall from your lips.

______

“Thank you Jimin, I think I understand what everyone was talking about now.” Your voice is breathless, body still flustered. Jimin chuckling in response again and it appears a somewhat mischievous glint dances through his eyes as if he’s holding a secret. Perhaps what you were looking for to get a story. 

“Oh it was my pleasure Miss Y/L/N. Please don’t hesitate to come again, if you’re in need of any of my services.” Jimin licks his lips before getting the door, despite knowing better he couldn’t help but slip a small innuendo into his statement.

You’re fanning your face slightly as you enter the elevator, trying to compose yourself and make your way down to the first floor once again. You knew that if you wanted details you’d have to socialize. You also managed to strike some luck as you slipped into the area with a bar and poker tables. Spotting the young, wealthy founder of the hotel sitting at one of the tables, nearly alone. It seemed like the ideal situation for you to slip over and start a conversation with with him and perhaps look for something juicy to write on, hoping your charms might be able to help you out. 

“Mr. Jeon?” Your voice is soft as it draws the attention of the man at the table, “Pleasure to meet you. I hope I’m not intruding on anything?”

Jungkook takes your hand, bringing the back up for a gently kiss, “Miss Y/L/N, right? Because truly the pleasure is all mine. Please take a seat, do you play?”

Before you can even say anything the only other man at the table scoffs, “Don’t be ridiculous Jeon, a woman cannot play poker, just as she cannot play chess. Their time is better spent on other things.”

“It really is a shame you say that. I doubt you’ve ever had the privilege to play chess with a woman, she might teach you some thing. I tell you truthfully that the best strategists and poker players I’ve ever known have been women, and one day I would not be surprised if we see them taking over those aspects of life and leaving us in the dust.” Jungkook insists and the man doesn’t even bother to say anything else to him as he shakes his head with a huff and depart.

“My apologies Mr. Jeon, I didn’t mean to ruin your company.” You apologize and Jungkook shakes his head stopping you from doing so.

“Please call me Jungkook, and you have nothing to apologize for. If that man is truly so narrowminded he’s not good company by any means. Now I do believe I asked you a question.” He grins a little as sips his drink.

“Ah, well I’ve never played before, but I’m somewhat familiar from watching.” You admit and Jungkook chuckles motioning for the dealer to go ahead.

“Well Taehyung here is my lucky dealer, so try not to snatch him up from me pretty miss. I’ll gladly teach you how to play. Before long some others might join us too, some of the employees play when off the clock. A few of them are damn good too.” Jungkook laughs, shaking his head before motioning someone else over, “This is Min Yoongi, he runs the bar. Order whatever you’d like on me miss.”

You order something light a fruity, not wanting to drink a lot, even though you’d like the presence of the man running the bar with his beautiful face. Not that you minded being stuck with Jungkook and Taehyung at the table. Jungkook insisted that the first few rounds hold no betting, not even mock betting, to allow you the chance to learn the hands and all. Taehyung occasionally speaking up to explain something to you.  Your drink arriving soon, as you wait for the next round. Yoongi hovering near you as you accept it and turn back towards the table.

“Let me know if you like it or would like something else miss.” Yoongi gives a small nod, but doesn’t leave even as you hum in approval.

“Taehyung give her chips for a thousand on me. I think she’s learned enough for that, she’s rather good too.” Jungkook and Taehyung both chuckle as Taehyung hands you the chips. Yoongi taking a seat near you in the empty area.

“Mind if I see?” Yoongi inquires and you allow him to see your cards, the man leaning over to give you small bits of advice occasionally and helping you pick up the betting part.

“Oh is that really fair? Yoongi’s the best bluffer.” A familiar voice jokes and you turn to meet the face of Hoseok, smiling brightly as he joins the table.

“It’s Y/N’s first time playing, I’m just helping her out.” Yoongi easily dismisses the younger with a soft smirk, knowing he certainly was the best bluffer of them all. The table merry for another couple of hours as you all joked and held a game, before you decided it was time to call it a night, at least for that.

“Thank you gentlemen, I’ll retire now though. See you all tomorrow.” You smile and nod at them as Seokjin steps into the room, meeting your gaze.

“Let me walk you to your room.” He insists and you know there won’t be any arguing with him, from your earlier interactions, so you nod and slip your arm through his offered one and head up to your room. Waiting about fifteen minutes to slip out again, in search of something held secret in the hotel to make a good story from. Sneaking past the pool, you notice that Jimin is swimming there, in the nude. Surely that’d be interesting.....for a review. It’s not enough for a whole story though. You need something good, something BIG! Which is how you found yourself sneaking back behind the front desk, when Namjoon slipped away. Going into the back to look for something, you misstepped though and trigged a trap door sending you plummeting through a dark hole before hitting the ground in a room without natural lights of any kind. Simply lit by a large furnace and a flickering bulb. The smell down here simply rotten, something you didn’t know the explanation for until you turned around to try and determine where you were only to find three dead bodies stacked atop each other. Slapping a hand over your mouth to keep from screaming. You needed to find a way out, you could get your evidence later, but right now you just needed to get out before you were next. You couldn’t find anything though, until you hear something...or rather someone. That person tsking softly.

“Really Y/N? You had to snoop around hm?” You turn to meet Namjoon, who it leaning against the doorframe, the other boys you’d met behind him, “ And to think we all really liked you, were gonna let you off the hook.”

“W-What? W-What do you mean?” You stutter, slowly backing up as they moved closer.

“We pick who to have some entertainment with based off room number, sweets.  Yours was up, but you’re too precious so we were gonna be nice to you.” Seokjin explains, eyes taking in your form.

“B-But now you’re going to kill me aren’t you?” Your words come out as a soft whimper and it causes Jungkook to coo looking at you with a smirk.

“No we aren’t sweetheart, but you won’t be going anywhere.....anytime soon Y/N. You’re stuck with us now.”

[ficsnroses]

Friends With Benefits - Keanu Reeves x Reader

Chapter 1 ~ The Beginning 

Word Count : 1939

Warnings : Swearing, NSFW, Smut (this is my first time writing a little smut, I kinda just tested the waters honestly, but the upcoming chapters will have more) 18+ readers.

Summary : What happens when two, lonely friends start seeing each other for sex? A tricky FWB love story, when feelings get in the way.

notes : hi everyone, here it *finally* is. A Friends with benefits to lovers fic with Keanu.

I’m sorry it took so long for me to write this, I had been putting it off because the response to this idea was so good that I didn’t want to disappoint. I’ve tweaked this so many times, but I’ve decided I just need to release it and better myself as the story continues.

•

It’s a quite night on the West Coast. The month of November has always been a period of serenity in the city, as the holiday season peers around the corner. The holidays are nice, the city lights up each and every corner, decorated, gleaming and radiating a heavenly glow, much like a new bride. You’d always been an admirer of the Christmas season. Back home, Christmas brought the entire family together during the jolly time of the year. It was an absolute ball, however, you hadn’t been able to be home for the holidays in a while. Your move out to the city for work had came with some rather undesirable factors, such as constantly being away from home. To make things grimmer, you hadn’t pledged yourself to the social circle of the city yet. Sure, you had an acquaintance or two, maybe a few ladies you might go out with for a round of sangrias and bellinis once in a blue moon, but you didn’t really have a concrete set of people you admired and could call friends.

It felt real lonely in the city. Your day normally consisted of work, followed by an evening alone at home, perhaps binging the newest additions to the Netflix catalogue, or re watching an old, favourite sitcom. They reminded you of home, and simpler, better times.

Tonight had been no different. Dressing yourself in a cozy, white plush bathrobe and your favourite kitten slippers, you prepared for a relaxing evening. The week had been extremely draining, allowing you to crave indulgence in a pampering night in. Perhaps a face mask or two, maybe a glass of red accompanied with a cheese spread for one, with a nice holiday movie. Yeah, that sounded real tempting.

Propping your legs up on the jet black coffee table, you draped your beloved fleece blanket over your figure, phone in hand, ready to browse a movie to cast to the tv.

However, seems like someone else had other plans in mind tonight.

           “Hey Y/N, you home?”

The blue light channelled into your eyes from the device.  It was Keanu, supposedly asking about your whereabouts. You knew what he wanted right away, and you weren’t sure if you were up for it tonight.

Keanu and you had met around a year and a half ago, at a work event. You worked as a prop designer on movie sets, and he was staring in your project at the time. You became friends, slowly, but eventually. He was a nice, caring, wonderful gentlemen to be around, an absolute treat to indulge in, as an escape from the rest of the crowd you normally had to endure. You hung out a few time here and there, just as friends. Sometimes at a coffee date, to catch up on work and all things in daily endurance, or maybe you’d catch the newest flick that graced your local neighbourhood cinema. You both loved the world of film so passionately, it was nice to splurge in each others thoughts.

All that changed however, one pivotal evening. Sometimes you wish you could take that evening back, change the way things turned out. But they had already made themselves history, and as true as night turns to day. Those things defined you now, and set course for the remainder of your relationship.

On a somber evening, you had invited Keanu over for a movie night in, paired with a drink or two. Keanu wasn’t one to socialize with the mass of the crowds, he preferred to keep to himself, making company with a few selected individuals. You felt honoured to be brought into this pact of his. You reciprocated the feeling just as much.

However, as soon as Keanu entered your apartment that evening, you knew something was off. He shared a few broken laughs here and there, but he wasn’t fully engaged in convo as he normally was. He wasn’t his normal, sprightly self. You knew of Keanu’s sorrow filled, subdued past, and you knew he had his days where his demons got the best of him. You couldn’t help but relate to him sometimes, even if not on the completely same level. Truth be told, you were both lonely. You knew that, perhaps that’s why things happen the way they did.

           That evening was the first time it happened, and that first time ended up converging into multiple. You were both isolated, unaccompanied, maybe that’s why things took the turn they did.

           You both needed someone that night, needed to feel something that night. You don’t remember who made the first move, seemed as if both of you wanted that mutuality, that connection just as much. But the film never played that evening, and you found yourself legs wrapped around Keanu’s waist, him carrying you to your bed, hungry kisses placed on the corners of your mouth, asking entrance to dance your tongues together. His colossal hands gripping onto the delicate skin of your waist, lightly lifting the seams of your shirt in the process. They threatened to tattoo their way in, leaving behind red hand marks.

           “Is this okay?” he breathily whispered into your ear, cautionary flare evident in his words.

He was positioned on top of you, both laid connected on your bed. His stocky fingers grazed the skin of your hip, lifting just enough of the fabric of your shirt to ask permission. His breath on your skin and the weight of his body on yours only made you crave him more, the yearn for his body to become with yours greater by the instance.

You nodded frantically, pulling him down by a wrap of arms around his neck, gently ruffling his long, raven hair on the back of his head.

You slightly raised your hips to allow him access to remove both your jeans and underwear. You tugged at his belt, feeling the long scar line he had on his stomach under his shirt in the process.

Once both your bottoms had been peeled off each other, Keanu pulled the covers over your bodies and turned the bedside light off. Placing a few more kisses to your lips, he snaked his hand down to touch your heat, preparing you to take him.

You almost couldn’t believe it in that moment, you felt it was wrong, like you were breaking a rule. Here he was, a man you completely admired and called one of your few friends, touching you in the most intimate place.

But you couldn’t stop it; your hazy mind fogged with lust, needing his touch more and more by the second. You need more though, and it seemed your desire for him to take you overtaking every other sense.

           “I need you, now Keanu.” Your raspy voice echoed in his ears, undoubtedly providing him the assurance he needed to move ahead. He needed you as well, so much, but likewise, he couldn’t shake the feeling of doing something wrong. Using his friend.

You reach down and pump him a few times, your touch emitting a course groan escaping his mouth. With a searing kiss, you guide him into you, feeling yourself stretch around him, pulsating.

With each thrust, he buries himself deeper and deeper in you, you find yourself letting out silent wails into the crook of his neck as his hands are placed on either side of you on the bed, gripping the sheets with the sheerest of force.

You felt his cock twitch within you, letting you know he was close. In the heat of the moment, you hadn’t used protection. Needless to say, neither of you had any regardless. Perhaps, neither of you would have ever dreamed this turn of events.

The sound of skin slapping skin, and both your quiet moans and grunts filled the four walls of the shadowy, dainty room.

           “Fuck, I’m close Y/N” he thrusts deeper, more meaningful, pouring himself into you.

Rolling your hips along with his thrusts, you feel your nerves pulling at your insides, your end nearing. With a particularly hard thrust, you reach your climax, tightening around him with a whimper, clawing at his back unknowingly.

You’d had sex before with other men, but nothing like this. Keanu was damn good, and his girth fit and filled you so fucking well, you swore butterflies.

He lets out a gaspy moan, muffled with praises for you. Pulling out of you near his end, Keanu jerks himself a few times before he releases himself into his hand. It was a shitty way to come, but you couldn’t risk a pregnancy, and you weren’t on the pill at the time.

You spent the remainder of the evening making love to each other, although, you didn’t think you had the right to call it that. It was just sex, unfortunately. Greif filled, draining, guilt ensuing sex. The type of sex you have when you need human connection. The next morning when the sun channeled over the horizon, you found yourself feeling sin filled, like you had completely ruined your relationship, used him for your needs. Keanu felt the same, as if he had took your vulnerability and used it to fill his own void. His own affection craving, heartsore, miserable void.

With awkward goodbyes, you went your separate ways that morning. It killed you both a little to have soiled your relationship, over something as stupid as faulty sex.

But that evening spent together sparked a new chapter in your friendship, if you even had the right to call it that anymore.

You didn’t know how, and you couldn’t justify why you found yourself at Keanu’s doorstep later that week. You almost felt ashamed, and feared what he would think. Although neither of you had said it, you assumed that evening together at your place would be the first and last time you had sex.

           But it definitely wasn’t.

You were both falling too far down the rabbit hole, too obsessed with the feeling someone so fucking close. It was intimacy you both craved so much, and you were happy to find it in each other, or at least you thought.

That “first” time turned into a pathological necessity almost. You found yourselves inviting each other over to each other’s houses on evenings you need a release. Keanu would call you on set to his trailer during take breaks sometimes, for a quick rumble. You would call him to your studio for the same, just a quickie to get out the stress of the day.

You weren’t sure if Keanu took other lovers as well besides you, you really had no right to ask or be jealous. After all, your relationship wasn’t the same anymore. You were friends with benefits, after all.

You hadn’t been with anyone else other than him for the entire year you’d been meeting each other for sex. You weren’t sure you could have someone other than him. He knew so well what you wanted so well, and he genuinely cared for you as a person. He didn’t treat you like an object, and always made sure you were comfortable. An added bonus, he was dreamy, so handsome you felt yourself melt each time you saw him.

You were honored to get to connect with him on such a personal, intimate level. Maybe you wanted more. But hope was too far gone. There’s no way he wants more, why would anyone want more with their friends with benefits?

            With a sigh, and slight contemplation, you typed the response.

           “Yeah. What’s up?” – Y/N

           “Come over?” – Keanu

           “Sure. Gimmie 20.” – Y/N

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>>Chapter 2 >>

[ciaran2020]

is it okay to ask for you to elaborate / talk more about your last post?

assuming you mean this one? yeah, sure.

under the cut: discussions of child sexuality, csa/abuse, and sexual shame.

one thing i want to clearly lay out at the start is that i firmly believe that having access to your own sexuality and being able to explore it is a human need, and it’s one that is systemically denied to children under the guise of ‘protecting’ them but - protecting them from what? predators? we’re not doing a good job of that anyway. insisting that children aren’t capable of sexuality is wrong. that doesn’t mean they should have sexual interactions with adults, or even with other children. we all develop at different rates, and as such have different needs. some of us don’t feel the need to explore sex and kink, but those of us that do should have the resources to do so safely.

i’m drawing on my own experiences here. i discovered other people’s sexuality at the age of about 8, and began exploring my own soon after. without going into much detail - the fact is that my sexuality did not develop along ‘normal’ lines or in ‘normal’ directions, and that was a source of shame for me for a long time. but i was also shielded from the worst of the shame by a confluence of factors like parents that were apathetic about my internet usage, a certain natural tendency to resent being shamed, and an inclination to furiously hide these parts of myself.

there’s no doubt in my mind that seeing other people’s reactions to the things i was into would have ruined me emotionally and probably led to me being abused. the fact is that it didn’t happen like that, and i developed my own sense of my sexual preferences and boundaries all by myself by the time i was 15 or 16 - which is when i entered fandom spaces as more than an observer, and was immediately hit with other people’s baggage about minors being sexual (even on our own terms). that baggage caused me more harm than anything else.

i’m using this to illustrate a point; we deny children this natural growth / evolution / self-discovery, and in doing so handicap us for life. sexuality doesn’t magically appear at the age of 18 (or 21). it’s always there in some form or another. denying its existence and forcing children with sexual thoughts into deep closets of shame and self-loathing ensures that

1. they will latch onto the first person/place that gives them an outlet 2. the only people willing to engage sexually with children are people already willing to commit unethical acts, and therefore more likely to be predators 3. they will have nowhere to go after this happens except further into shame and victim-blaming.

and we can keep saying ‘okay but it’s not the job of adults in nsfw spaces who tag their shit to take care of children on the internet - parents/schools should do it instead’ but homes and schools are the primary institutions of child abuse. this in itself is an enormously compelling reason to stop retreating to the lazy argument of ‘parents need to watch what their children are doing online’ like yeah sure you can want that if you want kids dead. like it’s not Your Responsibility but the eagerness with which people wash their hands of it is fucking depressing. no one has to have the conversation but people get mad when anyone does, and it’s honestly a mess. 

and yeah, the internet’s a bad place to get your learning from, but that’s not a permanent state of affairs. the internet is a much more level playing field. everyone has access to the same moderation tools, even if most of those tools suck (newsflash! they don’t have to suck!) and though power imbalances exist online as they do in real life, they’re not quite so unavoidable as, for example, someone who can control whether you go to the bathroom.

the discussion of how to create better moderation tools online benefits all of us, not just children. it’s a good one to have, and it would be nice if we [as people who care about not censoring fiction] didn’t go to such lengths to censor actual children speaking about problems which affect them. you don’t have to listen to antis. there are plenty of pro-ship minors, who are regularly fucked over by the adultism running rampant in pro-shipping spaces.

but this discussion will go nowhere if we don’t respect the right of children to have some say in what they can and can’t handle seeing. there are some boundaries you can set, but ultimately you can’t control everything, and it feels like high time to loop minors into the conversation of how to deal with censorship because this is an issue that affects them perhaps more than anyone.

i am leaving a lot of things out because it’s late and i should sleep and it was hard enough to gather my thoughts to this degree, but i hope this clarified my point somewhat!