#they're the trinity for a reason

[sniperct]

#I think Wonder Woman also belongs in this#Because she's so heavily rooted in the idea that people can be forgiven as well#And that people who do wrong can become better via @pastel-petticoats

Superman is a symbol of hope for people to do better, Batman is the hope for things to be better. Discuss

[blueteller]

Me: Hm, I heard that "S Classes That I Raised" novel had been completed, how about I catch up on it, I haven't read it in a while...

Me: ...Cale Henituse, is that you??? 😂

[asexual-levia-tan]

yoojin: cant say "i love you" because anyone who hears those words might automatically view him as a parent/guardian, ruining any chance for a romantic relationship

cale: cant say "i love you" because the other person might get instantly squashed like a mosquito by...god? nature? the world?

[touchlikethesun]

.

[thekidthesuperkid]

No Bruce is not "fine with being friends with people who kill all the time"

1) if you're referring to Diana she doesn't kill people all the time, she only kills in very extreme circumstances when she's forced to bc theres no other option, and it's only happened like three times total

2) Bruce very much is not fine with it when Diana kills. When she killed Maxwell Lord, it was written for the sole purpose of breaking up the Trinity for Infinity Crisis drama reasons, and Diana killing was chosen because Bruce (and Clark) would not be fine with it. At all

3) if you're referring to Ghostmaker, Bruce also isn't fine with him killing people and tries to stop him

4) if you're referring to Oliver Queen, they're not friends

5) if you're referring to Talia, Bruce also isn't fine with her killing people, and continuously has conflict with her about it

6) if you're referring to Helena, they're not friends and also Bruce treats her almost worse than Jason

7) if you're referring to Jim Gordon, Bruce still isn't fine with it, but also the copganda around him kinda makes consistent moral characterization a lost cause for Bruce in relation to him

8) I know you're not referring to Clark because nobody making this argument actually reads super comics let alone 80s super comics so none of you know about the Zod storyline, but Bruce didn't even know about that therefore its irrelevant

9) in case you might be referring to Harvey, Bruce also hasn't been friends with him since he became Two Face

10) I can't think of any others right now but whoever you're thinking of I can guarantee that if Bruce knows they killed someone and thinks its possible to influence them, there has been a storyline about him disapproving of them killing

11) if you're referring to Harley Quinn for some reason, they also are not friends

Like I dont get where you're coming from and also Bruce Wayne is very much not fine with his friends killing people

[alilobsessive]

Hi!! Crypted reader has been in my head for days could we please see more of them

But of course! Admittedly, I don’t have much of an idea for a plot. So have some Justice Leaguers meeting Reader!

Superman had actually first met Reader as Clark Kent long before the Justice League was even a blip in the eyes of the trinity. You were a small child back then, hyperactive to the point it was maddening to most people, with an active imagination to boot. The small child had been talking to him nonstop, spouting out whatever came from your tiny mind. There wasn’t anything strange about what you were saying, until suddenly you said “Hey check out what I can do!” And Bruce Wayne, who was standing right behind him with a small smile as he listened to he child’s rambling, face contorted into that of horror. “Please we talked about this” he practically bagged, Clark mentally prepared himself for a child to innocently do something inappropriate. But instead what he got was a little unsettling. Something, shifted in the kids eyes, then stance, the child was clearly human, just mimicked something that wasn’t. They were damn good at it too, the kid didn’t even make a sound as they got on all fours and dashed off. “Not again!” Bruce yelped, running after the child.

Diana on the other hand didn’t even know Reader was Bruce's child when they first met. She was giving a museum tour and Reader was in it, the 11 year old was strange. Not strange in the way typical strange kids are, strange in every bone in her body was screaming this kid wasn’t human. They didn’t seem to be a threat, they never appeared to be at first. She kept a close eye on the child, watching them slink around with the rest of the group, tilting their head at odd angles as they looked at the artifacts on display. Whatever they are, they're bad at pretending they're human. It wasn’t uncommon for supernatural creatures to take the forms of humans for whatever reason, the form of a young child was no exception. Even after the child left, having not revealed their true form Diana stood on high alert. Even when they didn’t come back to steal, she was on edge for weeks.

Zatanna met Reader briefly, it was simple, do a magic sensing test for Batman. Just a simple favor, she was expecting a villain that he couldn’t tell if was using magic or just highly skilled. It happened from time to time. But instead it was a child, his child, and ya she got it. Kid had the exact same crypted tendencies as their Father. Admittedly if she didn’t know Batman better she would think he was a magical entity. Her dad made sure to snip that in the bud that’s for sure! But after a few quick tests it was confirmed that no there just like that. Yes Bruce, she did triple and quadruple checked each test to make sure they weren’t possessed, part magical creature, or any other magic related shenanigans going on with them. Kids just weird like their dear ol’ dad.

Flash had the shortest interaction with Reader, it only lasted a few minutes. It was during an invasion, everyone was fighting, “FLASH! CATCH” Nightwing screamed. He quickly turned to the other man and quickly caught what was thrown at him. Well more like who, a teenager started up at him unblinking. “Shit- okay- evacuation time-“ he said only to be hissed at and the teenager to start scratching his face. He ran anyway, wouldn’t be the first time, or the last that he’s attacked by a reluctant to leave civilian for one reason or another. Once they were a safe distance away Flash stopped and put them with the rest of the rescued civilians. Said civilian leaped out of his arms and hissed at him then ran into the crowd on all fours. Before he could even begin to understand what just happened, he had to run back to the fray. The strange incident completely out of his mind.

Booster Gold was just minding his own damn business in the watchtower one day, when Reader took one look at him and went “I’m gonna mess with that”. It started simple, moving objects from one spot to another when he wasn’t looking, pushing around furniture and knocking glasses off of tables. He felt eyes burning into his back with every step he took. Then Reader started letting him catch glimpses of them, of their shadow or of them turning a corner only to not be there. No one believed him when Booster tried to tell them about the strange spirit following him. Which is bullshit! They literally work with an actual goddamn ghost! The only one who did believe them was Blue Beetle, the second not the third. After almost a week of this Reader started to kind of feel bad for terrorizing this man. It was clearly making him anxious and a little paranoid, so they officially revealed themselves not just to him but to the rest of the justice league. Which was a shock to Batman because he did not know Reader was on the ship! How did they even get there??

[hussyknee]

(alt included in all images)

Another thread by Senator Ben Ray Luján here.

A book on the subject (haven't read it myself):

One of the sources in another one of Alisa's furiously impassioned twitter threads have been debunked, so I didn't include that. But she claims that her own family was caught in the fallout zone when her mother was a baby, which eventually led to her and large numbers of her community developing cancer. It's human for that kind of grief to be caught up in inaccuracies. People are already being ghastly and racist to Hispanos and Indigenous people criticizing the hype for the movie. They're not attacking Oppenheimer for being Jewish, they're criticising the erasure of the human cost of these bombs and the continued valorisation of the U.S military's actions in World War II as some kind of moral saviourism.

While Oppenheimer himself believed that the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were morally justified (they had planned to drop them on Germany except they surrendered before they could), he also felt had blood on his hands and regretted his role as the "Father of the Atomic Bomb". He spent the rest of his career vehemently opposing further development of thermonuclear weapons and the hydrogen bomb accurately predicting the concept of mutually assured destruction. This eventually made him a victim of Senator McCarthy's Red Scare and his clearance was revoked. I haven't seen the movie (Christopher Nolan is the kind of casual white racist I avoid on principle) but people who have seen it say that it doesn't glorify nuclear weapons and depicts the man himself with the complex moral nuance that seems to be accurately reflective of his real life.

The backlash to Indigenous and Hispanos people's criticisms and to people pointing out that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were genocides is also frustrating because...both world wars were a clash of genocidal empires. The reason they were world wars is because the countries colonized by Japan, China, the European powers and the US were all dragged into it, whether they wanted to or not. Jews were one of the many colonized peoples that suffered in that time, who were left to die by everyone until they could be used to frame the Allied powers as moral saviours, establishing a revisionist nostalgia for heroism that powers the US military industrial complex to this day.

As early as May 1942, and again in June, the BBC reported the mass murder of Polish Jews by the Nazis. Although both US President, Franklin Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, warned the Germans that they would be held to account after the war, privately they agreed to prioritise and to turn their attention and efforts to winning the war. Therefore, all pleas to the Allies to destroy the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau were ignored. The Allies argued that not only would such an operation shift the focus away from winning the war, but it could provoke even worse treatment of the Jews. In June 1944 the Americans had aerial photographs of the Auschwitz complex. The Allies bombed a nearby factory in August, but the gas chambers, crematoria and train tracks used to transport Jewish civilians to their deaths were not targeted.

(Source)

Uncritical consumption of World War II media is the reinforcement of imperialist propaganda, more so when one group of colonized people is used to silence other colonized peoples. Pitting white Jewry against BIPOC is to do the work of white supremacy for imperialist colonizers, and victimizes Jews of colour twice over.

Edit: friends, there's been some doubt cast on the veracity of Alisa's claims. The human cost to the Hispanos population caught downwind of the nuclear tests is very real, as was land seizure without adequate compensation. However, there's no record I can yet find about Los Alamos killing livestock and Hispanos being forced to work for Los Alamos without PPE. There is a separate issue about human testing in the development of said PPE that's not covered here. I'm turning off reblogs until I can find out more. Meanwhile, here's another more legitimate article you can boost instead:

[jollmaster]

► HAZBIN HOTEL: ASILEVERSE AU

brief story of the world (AWC — after world creation)

pt. 1: about creation and chronology pt. 2: about powerful creatures pt. 3: first people pt. 4: where (and who) it all began + blood magic as important part of this world + Eve and Lilith, first women (tw: boobs)

also addition about kings David and Solomon and their place and about virgin Mary and Joseph the Carpenter, and Jesus Christ (definitely superstar)

► HELL

Hell trivia + Hell's structure naming traditions hierarchy of demons and how they treated Heaven gender things holidays and duties about buildings style and local education Legions and legionnaires (My name is Legion: for we are many) and some Ars Goetia lore! languages and sufferings of sinners

the main holiday? the Week of world's creation, of course

about Lucifer's wives: spheres of influence, facts and full biography, + thoughts about Lilith (here too) and Agrat's family

main definition of Sins, their redesigns (and sources of inspiration), notes about their gender nature, sence of humor, Mammon's favourite jester and why Asmodeus don't like Raphael

► HEAVEN

Yahweh/Ashera appearance (spoiler: they're one and same) hierarchy of Heaven and archangel Michael Shem Ha'Mephorash

concept of Trinity how angels treated mortal humans how sir P feels in first minutes in Eden

a little about Adam and exorcists

► CHARACTERS

appearance (you can find almost everyone in attached list!) main eigth's mortal life + appearance, you also can find them + their age, both physical and actual, their main sins and question of redemption Charlie: fun facts and sigil Alastor's reason to help her Alastor and some of his Louisiana heritage how Angel came to them and became a janitor lol Vaggie as exorcist (+ exorcists in exile) their relationships overlords as addition and Vees backstories

about characters sexualities, here too (spoiler, in most cases this doesn't matter) and their views towards homosexuality

thank to everyone who's interested in my AU, you inspire me 🖤

[felassan]

Some snippets from DA dev Luke Barrett on the unofficial BioWare forum, cut for length:

DA:I -

User: "I am still convinced that Bioware cut the healing spells and went with barriers instead because of the Multiplayer." Luke Barrett: I can't speak to any other games directly but I can give a bit of historic context for DAI. The game was initially a more dungeon/linear delving - see how far you can get - experience and there was no barrier of any kind. As a side note: healing has always been a hot topic in design because as soon as you include it there are many other conceits you now need take into consideration for the gameplay - one of which I will call 'the Anders problem'. Anyway, as DAI got the date moved and shifted more into the pseudo-openworld the concept of attrition (see how far you can get before having to return to camp) became less relevant and we needed to help the Players have more moment-to-moment agency around their survival. Unfortunately for various reasons (one of which is the sad reality of designing a game with a shifting timeline) the healing couldn't be re-added so we ended up with more of a mitigation strategy in the barrier system. It went through a lot of iterations but eventually landed on what it shipped with which I would call... acceptable (but just barely). Now, I will concede that a part of the reason it didn't return after that shift was an aversion to holy trinity gameplay specifically for MP but it wasn't the core reason. As a side story, trying to balance the game (as that was my job on DAI - and yes, it could be much better haha) we had to all but force Players to take barrier. It is intentionally the first skill in the first tree for the Mage and all the autolevel (I also handled that) is designed to get it right away." [source]

User: "Merry Christmas Luke! Sooo what was the hardest class you had to balance? [DA:I]" Luke Barrett: "I feel like anyone who was around for the post-launch content will already know the answer to this as it was the bane of my existence when I got put exclusively on MP after launch but the Knight-Enchanter barrier absorbing was a pain. Stuff like that is very challenging to feel good without being broken as they are relative to damage so scaling is fairly open-ended. Too little and the casual players won't get use out of it, too much and the character builders will be wildly OP. We actually had a 'no nerfing' guideline for the SP side so it was a hard battle to fix that silly thing 🙃." [source]

"As a fun fact, I did all the logic for autolevel on DAI and the guideline I was given was literally "make functional builds, but don't make something optimal that you'd play"." [source]

DA:TV -

User: "If you can, say thanks to the people making the no die option possible." Luke Barrett: "Done! My team handles this stuff so I let them know 😊" [source]

"Comically, I designed the majority of the items and skills and I am still finding it fun making awesome builds (been almost entirely doing playthroughs lately" [source]

"Was really important to the team that everyone could play the way that felt best to them." [source]

"Each specialization has a focus around a few specific mechanics, some of which are the weapons or damage types but you can go off script and make it work for sure (this was intentional in the designs)." [source]

"I designed all the skills and so they're each enjoyable to me to some extent. I have been playing through the game over and over the last couple months for balance purposes so I've played them all fairly extensively." [source]

User: "Necrotic sounds like it could be either Spirit or Nature." User: "For Rogue, it replace "poison". For Mage, it replace spirit (Spirit bomb). For Warrior, it's more spirit (especially Reaper), but some skills could work as poison too. So basically they merged spirit and nature." Luke Barrett: "Thats pretty close to spot on. They were actually heavily iterated on throughout development - I can't (at least currently) go into specifics as to why though." [source]

"the target for the progression vision is that you can make a viable build out of almost** any aspect of the gameplay." [source]

"As for timelines, We started DA4 in October of 2015 roughly. The entire team was moved to MEA for about 3-4 months to help it ship and I also spent all of 3 weeks helping out on Anthem. But otherwise I've been on some incarnation of DA4 for about 9 years now - pretty ready for it to release 😅." [source]

"yes, years of working on the same thing can cause some burnout but I've played through the full game probably about 8 times in the last few months and it's still fun (though some of the specific levels that haven't changed in a long time I've done 50+ times easily and I could do without ever seeing them again 😂)." [source]

User: "I do kind of feel that at this point the DA team has put so much work into creating and improving their tools and learning the ins and outs of Frostbite [...] But who knows what the devs in the trenches really feel" Luke Barrett: "I will say it does some things very well and some things poorly, relative to other engines. Personally I really enjoy Frostbite but I've been using it since 2012. In an ideal world, many engines would be viable and developers would make games suited to the strengths of a specific engine." [source]

User: "Since this game is much more stat heavy than prior titles, specifically when it comes to skills and gear, there's likely a need for some balance changes to be made post-launch. Does the game being playable completely offline hinder the data capture side for your team (in terms of analytics), or is this a non-factor?" Luke Barrett: "Generally speaking, most people leave data analytics on so we get more than enough data coming in. Additionally, I'll personally be watching several channels for things that are underperforming (relatively speaking) and not have to nerf anything. The rpg side is vast though and I'm sure people will find OP combinations/synergies that might need 'adjustments' but as long as it's fun and not an "I win" button that trivializes combat I'm pretty cool with it." [source]

Luke Barrett: "I can safely say there are many builds for each class that will feel very powerful if you're not on the highest difficulty 😉. What I'm really excited for is when the guides comes out that show people the fastest way to get some of the uniques that unlock 'special' gameplay 😊. Let's just say I love the feeling of rushing to Patches in DS1 and kicking him off the bridge for the Crescent Axe (iykyk)." [source] User: "Speaking of guides. Will there be a guidebook like there was for DAI? " Luke Barrett: "Not that I'm aware of but I'm happy to help feed info to somewhere like fextralife or the dragon age wiki after a week or so to help with those pursuits. Have to leave some time for exploration and discovery before the optimizers streamline the experience 😉" [source]

"Effectively, at least until the game launches (and likely a week or so after), you won't get anything interesting out of any of the devs save Mike Gamble or John Epler. Longer term I hope to be very active, at least for build mechanics and all the combat/rpg nuts and bolts conversations." [source]

"I started "da4" in October 2015 and so after 9 years of effort (minus 3 months on Andromeda) I'm quite excited for tomorrow and the launch week. I don't know if I'd say nervous, I feel pretty confident in the product, but definitely that eager kid before Christmas feeling 😊" [source]

"As the person who did all the balance, I will say that if you are comprehending how to make a cohesive build and understand the combat mechanics, you should play on Underdog. One of the downsides to having a lot of power growth vectors is the difference between people who engage vs those that don't becomes a chasm quite quickly. If you start blowing enemies up rapidly, turn up the difficulty (or play on nightmare where that will not be the case) - basically if it ever feels super easy or like enemies are health sponges you're probably on the wrong setting for your skill level. The custom difficulty settings are there to make the gameplay enjoyable (for whatever that means to you)." [source]

"As a tip from me, the balance is subtly tipped in the players favor until the last fight of the 3rd combat mission. Be warned if it's feeling too easy you may want to wait until after that to decide." [source]

[on DA MP] Luke Barrett: "It was actually pretty fun but very much not what most people wanted us to make (including internally). Also we had, let's say, limited staff who had a passion and background in MP so it was definitely the right call to go SP only. Now, it would have been nice had we just started that way but so it goes sometimes." [source] User: "You still play it yourself from time to time (DA MP), or have you left it be?" Luke Barrett: "After playing variations of DA4 for so many years (9!!!) it's hard to go back to anything with DAI controls/gameplay speed. Even the initial Joplin prototypes I was doing were much more snappy/twitchy - for everything good about DAI the combat was definitely in the middle of two different styles." [source]

[on aiming bows] "we actually used to have separate buttons for ADS and ranged attack but it was wildly overloading the controller. These RPG games need controllers with at least 2 more buttons (fingers crossed for the next gen)" [source]

User: "After the last few games, I'm really surprised by the current skill... tree?" Luke Barrett: "I call it a skill graph - aside from the beginning where you have 3 choices the entirety of it is 2 choice splits and it'll essentially make a build for you. Just go a little at a time and aim for whatever specialization seems most fun to you 😄" [source]

"Loot is not random so theoretically guides with drop locations should appear pretty soon." [source]

"Yep, Spellblade is the only spec that directly impacts fire damage but you can get benefits from most of them and still go fire. As for the specs, yes it would have been nice to support all of them but just wasn't in scope unfortunately. Mage has Mourn-Watch, Shadow Dragons, and Antivan Crows specializations - only the Rogue has a Veiljumper one. Deathcaller left side you can go beam based and use a Fire weapon. Evoker you'd likely need to do a hybrid ice/fire build." [source]

User: "Bit of a side question, but for those who intend to make more characters, is BioWare considering upping the amount of playable character slots you can have (currently at 3)? Or is there a hardware restriction here given the game is offline playable?" Luke Barrett: "Don't quote me as I don't handle the technical side of this but my understanding is we have to allocate a specific amount of HD space on the consoles so we basically have to pick a limit, relative to our save file sizes, and then divide that by number of careers. I'll inquire if this is something we can increase with an optional download or something but I suspect consoles are stuck that way, unfortunately." [source]

[on Patch 1] "It's been awhile since I actually did the content for this patch so I'd have to check but I have a pretty anti-nerf policy for SP games. I know I fixed up a couple enemies that weren't as hard as they were supposed to be and definitely boosted a bunch of synergistic things though. I'll take a look tomorrow but for those that don't know, the turnaround time on these things is about a month of it's not an emergency due to certification process with consoles. Longer term my goal is to keep an eye in telemetry of any underused abilities and items (or enemies with too many kills under their belt) and audit them just to double check if they need a boost or if people just haven't figured them out yet 😉." [source]

"The equippable items are all predetermined with a minor exception*. Some items are class specific (all the weapons, a small amount of armors and accessories, 2 runes) so when you play a different class you'll see your classes 'version' of that item. Things that are random (from a table/pool) are valuables. Exception: Near the very end of the game we do a few checks on what equipment you haven't acquired. A bunch of those final drops, and inventory on the final merchant, simply find stuff you don't have and give it to you. That's basically the only major RNG we have with loot. If you notice even 99% of the skills and item mods employ an effect after a condition is met X times rather than a more traditional 'proc chance'." [source]

[on modding] "Once this starts to pick up, feel free to PM me if anyone needs help 'finding' assets or has questions about how one might mod something. We don't officially support mods buuuuut we don't have any kind of anti-modding stance either" [source]

"To give the high level gist of the resource economy: - each class starts off with minimal ability usage, this is intentional to force people to learn the other combat mechanics as they're a necessary skill and it's easy to lean on a crutch like ability spam and kiting - abilities are designed to feel powerful on use, thus they all have a decent cost and can't be spammed* - weapon attacks generate your resource - in the bottom right of the center skills area is a node to make each class's resource easier to manage - halfway down all starting segments (N, SW, SE) there is always a node that boosts generation - there are +max nodes on all sides of the skill graph for each class, this is particularly important for the Mage as they start each fight at max - each class can build into being ability focused but starts intentionally rounded - loastly, the first ability is always a resource spender and 1 or 2 of the next available ones will be cooldown gated. It is recommended to have at least one cooldown based ability slotted" [source]

"So loosely the rogue momentum works like this: - each ability costs 50 momentum - hitting enemies generates ~2 momentum per hit (base), you get extra for bow weakpoints - when you are directly hit, you lose 15% of your current momentum, this means the more you hold the more you will lose (this loss has a small cooldown so you don't lose a whole bar when you get hit rapidly) - momentum carries forward between combats (compared to warrior rage which decays when out of combat) If youre having issues, make sure you get that skill in the middle section that reduces momentum loss when hit. As a helpful tip, the Quicken buff generates small amounts of momentum each second so it's a good way to get more if you're having issues." [source]

"I highly recommend using the belt that grants Quicken early game until you can generate momentum faster yourself. And yes, the time dilation affects everything in the world except the Player so all your buffs and things still tick at normal speed" [source]

User: "If I knock an enemy off an edge, if they were supposed to drop something will it appear on the edge, or is it lost for good?" Luke Barrett: "It should appear on the ledge. I will say the 'real' loot from enemy drops are all hand placed. The actual random stuff is just valuables and materials." [source]

" The way it actually works is very complicated with a lot of necessary exceptions but loosely - each ability has a base damage and ones that hit multiple times have an offset multiplier. - That value is multiplied by the sum of all your stat bonuses, conditional bonuses, resist and layer modifiers. - We then subtract enemy defense and multiply by 1-resist (with penetration being calculated here). - this new damage then gets multiplied by 1+crit+weakpointpoint (so those bonuses always feel meaty) and then multiplied by a random number between .95 and 1.05 just to give a little range to the floaties (basically just a presentation thing) - we then multiply again for buffs and debuffs so they, again, always feel meaningful - lastly, we take all added damage and add it flat on top" [source]

"Specific enhancements make enemies immune to the matching affliction. For example, Fire Enchanted enemies are immune to burning. Juggernaut enemies are immune to being staggered but otherwise it should work in everything." [source]

[howtofightwrite]

Was reading through your torture tag and noticed a lot of stuff that was being said seemed to contradict things that were said on the scripttorture blog... do you have any suggestions on how to clear things up? Im not sure which things to trust

And you're asking us, because they've posted once in the last two years?

I'll admit, I have a fairly low opinion of them, and that's not directly their fault. For years, one of their fans, would regularly send some pretty incendiary asks our way. In fact, some of the less hostile ones were answered, and may be the posts you were looking at. Understandably, the ones simply accusing us of being torture apologists, demanding we redirect all our asks to their blog, or insisted that we should sit down and shut up, did not make the cut. With that in mind, please understand, I'm not going to go digging through their blog to refresh my memory, so some of this might be slightly skewed by the aforementioned deranged fan.

Look for the blog that does not constantly contradict or misrepresent their authoritative sources. Which is to say, if you actually pay attention to Shane O'Mara's work, it's basically what we've been saying all along.

If you're unfamiliar, O'Mara is a Neurologist who was (last I time I checked) working at Trinity College Dublin. He published a, frankly fascinating piece, called, Why Torture Doesn't Work, in which, he set about trying to answer why torture is an ineffective tool for intelligence gathering. O'Mara also had the misfortune of being the only expert who said anything close to the perspective Scripttorture wanted on torture.

An open secret about torture is that it is completely worthless for getting accurate information. This has been widely understood for centuries, if not millennia. O'Mara's question was, “why?”

It turns out, that the neurochemical trauma associated with torture, seriously interferes with your ability to accurately access information. For example: If you're being tortured, you can't tell your torturer where you planted the ticking bomb, because your brain literally can't access those memories.

Torture is evil. Yeah. No shit.

And, this is where ScriptTorture stops. “Torture is bad,” and Jack Bauer is an incredibly unrealistic fantasy, end of story.

Except, this is not the end of this.

Now, generally speaking, I don't blame anyone who wants to get off the ride here. Torture is an unpleasant subject, and wanting to stop at, “oh, it's evil,” is entirely reasonable... unless you want to write on the subject, or if you do political analysis and need to understand why people break out the torture implements.

More than that, this is where my academic background in political science actually comes into play. I'm not saying this as an Eagle Scout who had a couple overly enthusiastic hand to hand instructors when I was a kid. This is (part of) what I studied in college, and I have kept an eye on it since then.

If torture didn't work, you wouldn't see state-sponsored torture pop up repeatedly throughout history. It would not be one of the favorite tools of dictators and despots. However, because it does, and it is, simply saying, “it doesn't work,” isn't instructive or meaningful because it's clearly untrue. Someone is finding value in this, so it becomes important to understand what they are doing, and why they are doing it.

When you torture someone, the information they provide is basically madlibs of whatever leaked through their brain. They want the pain and stress to stop, and they'll say anything they can to make that happen. That often takes the form of what they think their torturer wants to hear. O'Mara's research does explain why they don't simply cough up the truth.

So, why do it?

Torture is a very labor intensive process. You (as an individual) can't, realistically, torture multiple victims at a time, and it is a very drawn out process. Some elements can be automated, your torturer doesn't need to be present at every moment, but they're going to spend hours, if not days, working on one victim. Worse, this is actually a technical profession. It's not like you can just pull in anyone off the street and get the results you want. (Though, technically, this doesn't seem to be as true, however, amateurs do have a shocking capacity to screw up torture. So, the point remains valid.)

The value of torture has almost nothing to do with the victim. It's about the message it sends to everyone else.

Torture is about mass coercion of the population. When you are the state (meaning, the government), and you torture someone, you are telling your citizens that you are willing to do the same to them, if they oppose you.

State-sponsored torture is specifically a tool to suppress political engagement. It is, quite literally, state-sponsored, domestic terrorism.

This even holds true in cases where the state employs torture to extract confessions from criminal suspects. The message sent into the general population is that dissent of any kind will not be tolerated, and that the state has the willingness and power to turn these tools on you if you draw their ire.

I get that this is outside of ScriptTorture's area of expertise, and in fairness, I probably would not have studied this with any intensity, if I hadn't taken multiple classes on revolutionary theory.

Torture from private organizations (which is to say, organized crime, and religious institutions, though cults and some other groups might fit this description as well), follows roughly similar patterns. These tend to do the same things, discouraging dissent, and establishing the organization as having power over the population (or community.) (The technical term would be to “establish capacity.” Which is to say, the organization's capacity to enforce its will. The same term applies to states, though in those cases, the state's capacity is often overestimated by its population. It's only when it starts to falter, for example through military defeats or serious civil unrest, that they really need the capacity boosting part of this equation.)

Zealotry or stupidity can create situations where you have a torturer (or, more likely, someone in a position of power ordering the torture) who believes that it is effectively compelling the truth from the victim. This (or amateurs) can easily lead into a distinct problem, which is that all of this has diminishing returns. Torture one person, and you send a loud, clear message. Torture ten, and all you've added to it is that you're willing to keep going. However, as you start stacking up the victims, you do start sending a new message to your enemies, that being, you're going to get to them sooner or later so it's in their best interest to respond now, mobilize and retaliate proactively, before you get to them. This means that a state which leans heavily on torture can easily instigate the civil unrest that exposes their limited capacity leading to a political death spiral. Alternately, if the state does have the capacity to put down the resulting unrest, it further reinforces their position (which does happen with depressing frequency in the real world.)

You're also going to create new enemies in the friends, family, and loved ones, of the people you tortured. This means that any organization that relies on extensive use of torture will, eventually, start tying a noose around its own neck. (Granted, there are a lot of social dynamics that I'm skimming over here, so it's not exactly as simple as “if the state tortures lots of people, it will result in increasing unrest.”)

If you want a partial citation for the above, you can (ironically) find it in a podcast interview with Shane O'Mara, when he explained why torture has been employed repeatedly through history. (Specifically I think it was episode 15 of Your Welcome, by Michael Malice. Though, I'm not 100% sure off hand.) Though that doesn't cover some of the more in depth elements I just discussed. Some of this is coming from a textbook on revolutionary theory I can't locate (it disappeared in a move a few years back.) Though that was more interested in the general structure of a state destabilizing into internecine conflict. Ironically, my preferred citation on torture, Fear up Harsh by Tony Lagouranis is mostly uninformative in this case, because his experiences were on the ground, rather than from a structural understanding of what his job was really doing. However, he does illustrate my comment about amateurs making even more of a mess, both through personal experiences with a few, and also through the eventual trajectory of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

But of course, torture is evil... again, no shit. Was that really a question? And, I'm apparently a torture apologist for having a structural understanding of why evil people do evil things. Cool. Evil people don't do evil things because they're evil, they do them because they gain some tangible benefit from those acts, and they do not care about the consequences to anyone else. If you ask someone, “why do people do this?” and their answer is, “it's simple; they're evil,” that person is lying. They may be lying to themselves, but they are lying to you.

Why do people use torture? It's a lot more complicated, and unpleasant, than you'd expect at a simple overview.

-Starke

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[vagatha-12]

Alright, so, I was scrolling trough someone's tumblr and I wanna talk about this (no hate, it's just my opinion)

Theodore Peterson is NOT a pedophile, if he was, Aaron would also be traumatised in the game, and would probably hate his father. I feel like people tend to forget that an adult smiling in a weird way can also mean that they're planning to kidnap or kill the kid. Plus the reason of why he grabbed Trinity in ep 6 s1 was because he wanted to at least make sure Trinity wouldn't tell ANYONE about the kidnapping. Theodore is NOT a good person, but he would NEVER go this far. He has a son, Theo has a bit of decenty in him, he knows to NOT grape (without the G) kids.

It's just my opinion tho

[lxvvie]

y'all, I made the mistake of revealing that I write fanfiction as a hobby, and when asked about the fandoms I write for, I broke it down as I know best: into cliques. I realize I might be shaking the table but it is what it is.

This is what I said for CoD (I've since add some more stuff):

You got the forever war between Gaz Nation and Gaz Deniers. May or may not be rooted in his attractiveness as a person of color, opinions vary (read: it most definitely is). Bonus points if the racism comes out in full force. DOUBLE/TRIPLE those points if it's expressed using butchered ass AAVE. 🥴

You got the Masked Men Lovers Brigade of which König, Ghost, and Keegan are the patron saints and arguably the holy trinity.

You got the Peepaw Price Lovers who absolutely adore his chonky cheeks, peepaw mannerisms, lumberjack body complete with the slutty waist, and relative long-suffering thanks to the shenanigans of the rest of the crew.

You got the Soap Suds who, I think, have found that relative balance between Johnny being a destructive-as-all-hell force to be reckoned with and the quintessential golden retriever boyfriend. His VA doesn't make it any better apparently lmao.

You got the Ghost lovers who've pretty much diversified him so he can run the gamut of Daddy Dom Extraordinaire™, Babygurl™, Sassy Simon™, and the list is endless. What IS consistent is that someone parked a dump truck on that ass and he has some big ole titties. There's also the subset of people who REALLY, REALLY love Ghost but also think his VA is ugly (which he isn't) while simultaneously thinking that he (Ghost) is supposed to be David Gandy levels of immaculate despite being in active combat. Make it make sense.

There's the Gravediggers who, for the most part, acknowledge their love-hate relationship with Graves and I think that is both hilarious and endearing.

You have the Kult of Köthulhu, König's devoted followers who have allowed him to transcend his gremlin nature to become the long-lost progeny of Cthulhu. Move the fuck over, Cthylla. I kid but he, like Ghost, has also been diversified in terms of his portrayal. And no, he's not a part of 141. Some followers of His Gremliness are also embroiled in a forever war with Gaz Nation so please be safe out there, y'all.

You got the Valeria girlies who want her to sit on their faces. I don't blame them. Please do.

You have the Los Vaqueros crew who need more love shown to them and Pony by Ginuwine is their official theme song thanks to Alejandro Thee Stallion. The less said about the butchered Spanish I've read in some fics, the better.

There's also the Farah Fanatics who rightfully adore her and deserve their flowers just like the rest of the cliques.

There's the Keller Kollective who, I think, tends to intersect with the Farah Fanatics. This lot also deserves their flowers because Keller is a sub absolutely underrated as a character. You'd also be forgiven for thinking he and Price are elated.

You also got the Horangi Horde who, just like Gaz Nation, will RISE TF UP. I think. Hopefully. lmao

And then there's the self-righteous crew who, for whatever reason, seem to think they're above it all and love to police writers on what they write and how they write the characters (we're talking in terms of rather innocuous subjects in the grand scheme of things; the sus shit absolutely needs to be and should be called out). Interestingly enough, this group also seems to forget that they're in the same damn boat by being in the fandom, consuming, and writing about the same characters. The ones who have all the energy but none of the courage even if they say or think they do. Bonus points if they also move like fans. Double/Triple those points if they, too, also use butchered-ass AAVE to make their points. 🥴

The girlies who can't separate fiction from reality and insist on harassing the VAs and their significant others and families because how DARE they have a regular degular life outside of *checks notes* their job. Baby, it was never gonna be you. It will never. be. you.

did I get them all? lmao

[sanjoongie]

Arch Nemesis

For @cultofdionysusnet Mocha Madness event

🧠Pairing: Choi San x Reader (f) x ???

🧠Au: hero/villain au

🧠Trope: e2l (enemies to lovers), f2l (friends to lovers), established relationship

🧠Rating: 18+, MDNI, smut, angst

🧠Warnings: mind reading, emotion manipulation (they're superheroes, they have powers), cheating

🧠Kinks: mutual masturbation, sexual fantasies made reality, pussy slapping, deep throating, choking, penetrative sex with no barrier, oral (m), spit kink, deep throating

🧠Word count: 3,730

🧠Dedication: @mejuii & @downtoamagicalland for beta-ing, my unholy trinity partners in crime 🥰 and to @starlitmark for bouncing ideas with me and helping this plot flourish!

🧠Summary: you're a hero, one who has struggled to remain good, but what happens when you're most guilty fantasy with your arch nemesis of all people, comes to light?

“Gotta go, duty calls,” You said as you leaned over in your bed and kissed San’s cheek.

“No,” San murmured, pulling you in tightly against his body, “Stay. They can send someone else.”

You gently extracted yourself from San’s grasp. “Nice try but I can’t be your pillow all night. Get some sleep, Baby.” San mumbled into his pillow as you left your shared bed with a fond smile on your face.

You and San had been friends since college; you'd both been training then to be supe's. The two of you had been brought together because of your powers. San had the ability to read minds and telekinesis, which was the makings of a villain. And you could shoot a heart with your finger and temporarily gain control of whoever you shot. Basically, your target would be in love with you and do anything for you. Which was also seen as the potential to be a villain. The two of you had banded together as outcasts and had been friends ever since.

Considering the reason you had become friends, you had made a pact with San: to never speak on your missions, because you didn't want your professional life to ruin your friendship. You didn't know what San’s alter ego was and he didn't know yours. 

It had been only recently that your friendship had bloomed into a relationship. You were happy for it. San was the perfect soft and caring boyfriend. If only you didn't have a dirty secret that involved your arch nemesis.

Your comms told you your mission was at the old Treasure Hotel. Loudmouth was up to his old shenanigans. Apparently he had used his screaming powers and made everyone vacate the hotel so he could rob the safe. Except once you got there, running through the hotel, attempting to locate Loudmouth, you found no one. It wasn’t until you burst through the door to the rooftop that you discovered him--and his long-time ally, Killjoy.

“And I’m gone,” Loudmouth announced, jumping from the top of the roof, screeching when he presumably reached the ground to halt his ascent. 

You narrowed your eyes down at Killjoy. The villain was your arch nemesis, the antithesis of your life. If there was a problem in your life, he was usually the center of it all. Of course you had to pull yourself out of bed from your boyfriend to confront the one man you didn’t want to see this evening.

“What’s this about, Killjoy?” You demanded. You summoned your power, folding one of your hands into the shape of a gun and using the other to support your wrist.

The masked villain smirked, folding his arms over his well-developed chest. “You can drop the act. I know.”

You continued to hold your stance. “If you know that I’ve plans for the mayor’s inaugural, that’s pretty smart of you. I didn’t think you had it in you,” you quipped.

Killjoy smirked. “I don’t need to be smart to know that you think of me when you stuff your pretty fingers inside of you.”

You dropped your stance immediately. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No?” Killjoy cocked his head. “You don’t think about me tucking my legs around yours to hold them in place as I ease in three fingers and you tell me you couldn't possibly take that much but your pussy takes them easily. You don’t think about me whispering how it’s so dirty that a hero could be taking my fingers so well. You don’t think about me slapping your pussy and pinching your clit and--”

“ENOUGH!” You shouted. Shame was covering you from head to toe right now. That was your exact fantasy, down to how many fingers you wanted him to shove into you. How could he suddenly read your mind when he’s barely skimmed the surface before?

Killjoy hopped onto one of the fans on the top of the building and leaned forward on his legs. His crooked smile pulled to the side, revealing a dimple. “Why just think about it when we could make it a reality?”

“Abso-fucking-luytely not!” You said in horror.

A hero? Getting finger banged by her arch nemesis? Never!

“How about this,” Killjoy suggested in a smug tone, “You show me what you do when you fantasize about me…” He took a moment to spit in his palm, “And I’ll show you what I do when I think of you.”

Your jaw just about hit the floor. “Excuse me?!”

Killjoy raised an eyebrow. “Don’t think it’s possible that I think about holding you down on my dick, shutting up that smart mouth of yours, always calling me a failure of a villain?” You clenched your legs together but Killjoy didn’t miss anything. “Come on, what’s a little mutual masturbation between old time enemies, huh?”

Your body worked on its own accord, your fingertips moving to the teensy-tiny skirt of your uniform. Killjoy’s eyes are glued to the pathway your fingers follow until you’ve raised the skirt and he can see your still clothed core but…

Killjoy’s tongue came out to wet his lips. “Is that a wet spot, Loveshot?”

You pushed your lips together and nodded. “Yeah,” You let out a shaky breath.

“Show me,” Killjoy insisted, leaning forward even further, eyes glued to your crotch.

You leaned back against the rough stone of the old building, fingers hovering over your outer lips. “I--you tease me a lot,” You admitted.

“Mhmm,” Killjoy prompted you. 

“Sometimes you--” You gasped when you palmed your breast and found the nipple tight already. “--you pull and pinch my nipples and call me a superslut.”

You watched with bated breath as Killjoy peeled back the lower half of his suit and you sighed dreamily as his girthy dick was revealed. You knew there was a reason you used three fingers for him in your fantasies. “Now my turn. You usually say something about how my suit makes my dick look tiny, so when you protest, I rub my dick against your face and lips, but once my dick is seated in your hot mouth, you crumble and take it all for me.” Killjoy’s hips twitched upwards as his spit-covered hand moved up and down his dick. 

"Sometimes I get so wet from pretending my fingers are yours that I--" You bit down on your lip to muffle a moan.

"Who's gonna hear you way up here  Loveshot?" Killjoy smirked once again, "Let me hear all your desperate noises for me."

Shame still burns in the pit of your stomach. You shouldn't do this. You had San but everything was still new with him. This dirty little fantasy you've had of Killjoy had been around before you two had evolved from friends to lovers. You needed this.

You unceremoniously slapped your cunt and your head lolled back with how delicious it felt. "You tell me that I can take anything you give me, just like you know you can throw me into any situation as a hero and I can save the day."

Killjoy let out a low moan and scrunched his nose upwards. "I imagine your muffled noises as I push your face into my pelvis, making you take all of my dick. You choke and you cry and you say that you love every moment of it."

You're so worked up at this point that you could actually cum. "I'm--" You choked on the words when you watched Killjoy shamelessly spurt all over his hand.

He opened his eyes, heavy lidded with satisfaction and gave you a slow smile. "Come for me, my nemesis."

“Killjoy!” You come undone for him, pussy convulsing around your fingers and you ride them, closing your eyes for just a moment and picturing Killjoy’s smirk above you.

"Don't do that," Killjoy groaned.

You had forgotten he was still in your head. You ripped your fingers from your cunt and wiped them against your thighs to clean them. You turned to leave but Killjoy couldn't help but get a final verbal shot in.

"Where are you going, Loveshot? You're still thinking about me. You'll think about me later, won't you?" 

You threw up a middle finger as a parting gift and shifted the color of your hair and your nose. By the time you made your way to the bottom of the skyscraper, you were completely indistinguishable from Loveshot. But you were still the same person. You had just gray-area cheated on San with your arch nemesis.

Your comms buzzed and you saw you received a text you simply could not ignore:

Sannie🥺: wanna meet up? I’ll order your regular at Blue Bird.

You: just finished up, see you there

Guilt wracked through your body. If you said no San would know something was up. But could you truly sip on a sugary sweet beverage, which your best-friend-turned-boyfriend had memorized as your order, as if nothing had happened?

You stumbled into the coffee shop that you and San frequented, only a few blocks away from your shared apartment. You weren’t used to fighting crime, then having a mind blowing orgasm afterwards. Your super power wasn’t stamina, that was for sure. Your eyes sought out San immediately, who waved you over to the table he was seated at. 

“Hey Babe,” San greeted you.

“H-hey,” You replied shakily. 

San had his normal gray hoodie but it was barely zipped up and you could see a sheen of sweat covering his upper chest that peeked past the zipper. He smiled softly, “I couldn't sleep, so I went to the gym. Sorry, I must smell like a locker room.”

You laughed under your breath. “You smell like you just walked out of a perfume ad.”

San scratched the back of his head. “Careful, I think my heart just beat a little harder from that.”

You smiled painfully. You attempted to sit at the café table and faltered, barely catching yourself against the edge. Unfortunately for you, your abused clit took most of the weight as you collapsed against it and you made an embarrassingly loud and desperate noise.

San’s eyes widened and then immediately avoided your eyes. What did he just realize?!

“San?” You worried your teeth on your bottom lip. You managed to properly sit down and sip your drink to do something, anything. 

“Where did you just come from?” He asked quietly.

“Uh… you know, superhero stuff,” You shrugged.

The two of you had a strict policy of not speaking about your cases, to not muddy up each other’s professions. It just worked better that way. But San chose today to push it. He pushed up his glasses up the bridge of his nose and shifted closer to you. “Where did you come from?” he repeated firmly.

“The subway. Hostage situation. Wrapped it up pretty quickly,” You lied. 

San sat back but eased an arm around the back of your chair. “Good.”

The tension eased out of your shoulders and you leaned into San’s embrace. “I’m tired. Let’s go home.”

The two of you walked home, San’s arm still around your shoulder, you still leaning against him. You were cold and were trying to absorb some of his warmth. Not even the drink from the coffee shop could warm up the sinking feeling in your chest. Even as you got home, got ready for bed, you couldn't shake your anxiety.

Guilt is gnawing at the end of your mind and you know that there is no going to sleep like this. You turned to tell San that you’re going to wind down in the living room when he approached you from behind. His lips are like sweet caresses along the slope of your shoulder. “Come back to bed with me,” he murmured, as if he could sense you were pulling away.

“Sannie,” You turned around in his embrace, “My mind--”

San’s eyes travel over your face, a hand cupping one side. “You’re vibrating with the need to leave. Let me put you to sleep.” Gently, San tilted your head with the same guiding hand, peppering kisses along your jawline. 

Your heart soared and then crashed into your guilt. You couldn't possibly--not after what you did with Killjoy… “San, I’m really tired,” You protested.

“You’re not,” San disagreed with a rumble deep in his chest. “Even if your body may be, your mind is restless. I can help.”

San swept the straps of your pjs off your shoulders and continued to kiss down your neck to your collarbones. You can’t help but moan at the feel of his lips on your skin. Was your boyfriend seducing you?

"Where are you going, Loveshot? You're still thinking about me. You'll think about me later, won't you?"

Your body became tense with the sudden intrusion. Your powers brewed on the tip of your tongue and the pads of your fingers. You’d never use your powers against San but the need to push him off, to not mingle his touches with that of Killjoy’s was important!

“I have a better idea,” You found yourself suggesting before you could stop your treacherous tongue. “Let’s watch each other masturbate.”

San’s eyes widened considerably at your suggestion. “What?!”

Now it’s your turn to seduce. You ditched your top completely, to sit back on your shared bed and lie back, propping yourself up with your elbows. “Want you to watch me while I touch myself, Sannie,” You purred, “Wanna watch you while you touch yourself.”

San stumbled, as if his feet were moving him unbiddenly, but he made it to the edge of the bed where you were. You move so that the two of you are opposite of each other, a full view of whatever the other one’s planning on doing. You massage your breasts, making them pucker in the cool early morning air. San licked his lips like he wished they were wrapped around them. His eyes move to meet yours, waiting for you to start.

“Before we got together, when we were just friends, I used to get off to the idea of you sneaking in my bed and eating me out,” You said shakily. “I would play with my nipples and put so much lube on my pussy, using one of those flower vibrators, wishing it was your tongue. I had convinced myself that you loved eating pussy and it was something I wanted you to want with me.”

San groaned and began to palm himself through his sleep pants. “We were idiots.”

You couldn't help but giggle. “We were.”

San watched with rapt attention as you pulled aside your underwear and dipped a finger into your wetness. You spread it along your clit, moving in slow, tantalizing circles, careful of how abused your clit had been just a few hours ago by your own self torture. “Sannie?” You prompted him.

San snapped out of his deep thought while watching your finger circle your clit and pulled himself out of his confines. “I used to want you to use your power on me.” His voice cracked and he had to clear it. “Make me do whatever you want me to do. I used to edge myself for hours alone on the thought that you’d never let me cum unless it was inside of you--pussy or mouth.” San’s blunt fingernails dug into his thighs but he didn’t touch himself.

You stop touching yourself and crawled towards San’s body. “Do you need some lubrication?” 

San whimpered as you hovered over him, hands on either side of his hips. You spit on his cock, letting it slowly dribble downwards. You leaned downwards, almost as if you were going to take him in your mouth but instead you simply blew air on him. San’s hips thrust into the air, whining again. “Please,” he asked but you weren’t sure he even knew what he was asking for.

“Go ahead and touch yourself,” You encouraged him.

“ ‘m sensitive,” San mumbled, eyelashes fluttering against his cheekbones as he blinked many times, a cute pout pulling at his lips.

You can’t help but grin at the admission. “Did you masturbate while I was out, Sannie?”

San’s body jerked backwards, a loud gasp in the back of his throat. “N-no.”

You dropped your body so that you could take San’s cock in your mouth with one quick dip of your mouth. San’s body strains at being encompassed suddenly by your warm, wet mouth. Tiny thrusts into your mouth tell you all San wants is to get off in your mouth and by the throb of your lower half, all you want is to give it to him. 

"I imagine your muffled noises as I push your face into my pelvis, making you take all of my dick.

How is it that you're sucking off your sweet boyfriend and you can't get Killjoy's degrading voice out of your head?

At that exact same moment, San's hands grab both sides of your head and he began to fuck your mouth. You have no time to think, only time to make sure your breaths time with the in-and-out motion of his cock down your throat. Your nose practically buries itself into San's bronze skin, mouth coming flush with the base of his cock. San had never--

Just as quickly as he held you down on him, he pulled you off of him. You stare up at him, saliva and precum dripping from your open, panting lips. “San?”

San adjusted immediately, a dopey sweet smile pulling at his lips, making his eyes become crescent moons. “I don't want to cum in your mouth.”

You're fast to climb onto his lap, arms draped over his broad shoulders. “My baby,” You couldn't help but coo, “You really do put me first, don't you?”

San smiled shyly, scratching the back of his head. “I love you, that's why.”

Your heart burst at the admission. “I love you too, sweet boy.”

The two of you moved your hips in sync, exchanging kisses and moans, as you made love in your shared bed. This was where you wanted to be: in San's arms, drinking in his noises of pleasure, being the center of his world. You didn't want to be with--

Your climax hit you like a slow burn and the first thing that tumbled from your mouth was the name you had been thinking of. “Killjoy!” you groaned quietly.

San’s body was ramrod straight even though you could feel his dick twitching inside of you, his cry cut off at what you said. You scrambled to remove yourself from his body but San wrapped his arms around you to keep you firmly in place.

“What did you just say?” San said in a voice that broke your heart into a million pieces.

“No-nothing,” You stuttered, throat full of emotions.

“Where did you go when they called you out,” San demanded again, bringing up his question from earlier.

“I told you, the subway--!” You squealed as your back hit the bed, San pinning you down with his heavy body against yours.

San reached for your hand and squeezed it tightly, intertwining your fingers with his . “You have two seconds to answer me correctly before I read your mind, love.”

“San!” You gasped and visibly reeled back. San never invaded the minds of the ones he loved, he swore he would never. 

San licked his lips, a frown furrowing his eyebrows. “I’m not asking casually.”

Your gut was telling you that suddenly your entire world depended on the answer to this question and you had no idea where it would land you. “I was on the rooftop of The Treasure Hotel.”

San cursed lowly. “Loveshot?”

Your heart was beating a mile a minute. Had San just guessed your alter ego? What did that mean? 

San let go of your hand and shakingly raised it to his face. You thought he was going to rub it tiredly over his face, somehow privy to you cheating on him with your arch nemesis. “Sannie, please, it was nothing!” You cried out.

Instead, he covered his eyes and smirked. “I already know.”

Your blood chilled in your veins. 

The masked villain smirked, folding his arms over his well-developed chest. “You can drop the act. I know.”

“Killjoy?” You yelled in disbelief.

And, you swear to God, San's dick pulsed inside of you upon hearing his alter ego's name upon your lips in your shared bed.

“No,” You shook your head. There was no fucking way your best friend, your boyfriend, was an evil villain?

Flashbacks to the supe's college you both attended, the way you were both outcasts, vaguely bringing up your powers as the reason. Bonding over wanting to overcome your natural abilities and prove to everyone you were good. 

“Someday, the world won’t judge me,” San had proclaimed. Clearly that had not crossed over very well.

It all came crumbling down around you. 

San lowered his hand and there was a glint in his eye. “If I had known…”

In some fucked up way, relief flooded you. You hadn't cheated on San; you simply masturbated with his alter ego. That was okay… right?

“Are we…” How were you going to meld the two worlds together, how could you continue to date and fuck a villain, how-- “Are we okay?”

San’s lips surged towards yours in a kiss that was desperate and messy and yet somehow full of love and adoration. “Do you still love me?” San gasped into your mouth. 

You looked up at the man who was your everything. Even now, knowing he was your arch nemesis and had been for a long time, he was even more so your everything. He was your world when you weren’t working and he was your obsession when you were. Was this going to fuck up your job? Absolutely. Was it going to fuck up your relationship?

“I love you like the sun loves the moon,” You admitted. Surely the two bodies in the sky were enemies, constantly chasing after each other, constantly fighting for time in the sky. 

A subtle shift of San’s hips had you gasping. He was hard inside of you. His eyes were alight with love and mischief and lust. “I love you like a villain loves a hero.”

And that was the end of that conversation.

taglist: @hijirikaww @flurrys-creativity @stardragongalaxy @mingsolo @k-pop-ology

special suffer with me braincell tag: @smallfrye

[artbyblastweave]

One of your posts had a rec list of zombie media, and one of them was Savageland. Watched it. Even knowing there were zombies involved it’s good. Even better, actually, because you the audience know that there’s something wrong but the characters don’t, or at least they don’t know what you know.

11/10. One of those movies that you have to go sit and think about for a while. I really liked the way it’s presented, the pseudo-documentary style. Also. So much going on. And it really hits because yeah, this feels terrifyingly plausible to happen. And even though it is a zombie story, it’s also got a lot more going on. Just. There’s so much to say about it. It’s a horror story. It’s political commentary. I don’t even know where to start.

Thanks for the rec! I feel like you’re the person for Good Zombie Media, and this is definitely one.

You're welcome! I've had this sense, and a longer post on the topic, that there's this loose trinity of themes from which zombie fiction can draw horror. There's the fear of societal inadequacy, the classic romero anxienty that our society simply isn't capable of rising to the challenge of something sufficiently disruptive, be that zombies or anything else. There's fear of sickness- the horror of being a zombie, of the indignity and helplessness of being reduced to something so base, so at odds with your current desires and morality, or alternatively something so inept- a creature that's basically less capable and competent than a human in every way despite going through the motions. And lastly there's the very straightforward fear of violence- what if there were a bunch of mindlessly-violent human-but-not-quite monsters running around killing the shit out of everything they see? What if all your neighbors all decided at once to try and kill you for no discernible reason? People don't normally do that! That'd be fucked up!

I think that these things can push and pull on each other, fighting for space. For a long time I thought that "fear of societal inadequacy" was fighting for space with "fear of violence," because the more effective a threat you make your zombies, the less meaningful it is when society can't react effectively to them. In the original Dawn of the Dead the fact that zombies are such an underwhelming threat if you've got your shit together is why the authority's dysfunctional response can provide meaningful criticism of our society. In the remake- they're hyperdurable beserkers with a short incubation period and they run at full speed! It doesn't say anything in particular if the army has trouble with that! So more of the horror ends up concentrated in the thing itself, the incongruous violence the zombies enact. Anyway, the long story short is that Savageland convinced me that actually, with proper framing, there's no contradiction whatsoever between a narrative about societal dysfunction in the face of crisis, and a narrative about scary-as-fuck implacable uncanny-valley killing machines.

Go watch this movie

[spider-jaysart]

Any hot takes or unpopular opinions about super sons?

Here's some for the animated movie first:

Jon's voice doesn't suit him at all for the age he's supposed to be, it just kept throwing me off a little everytime he spoke with it. It's definitely not terrible though, it's just not for him at all

Idk about others opinions on Damian's voice though, but I really loved it. I felt like it fitted him pretty well and let his daring and mischievous side stand out really nicely. It's my favorite for him personally

I don't like that they white washed Damian in it once again when they could've definitely given him his darker skin and green eyes (I know this one's very popular already, but I just wanted to say it still). And when they showed the pitcher boy in the baseball game, he literally had EXACTLY those features on himself, which made it really feel like it was an actual annoying tease of some sort, since his model strangely looked way more like Damian than Damian himself did

And also besides all of that stuff, when Damian is in his Robin model, I feel like he looks perfectly fine and cool, but his civilian version looks a little weird to me for some reason. And I know that his hair in his Robin form is also a little funny too because of how long it is, but I don't really have a problem with it lol

Now for the ones outside of the movie:

I'm not so crazy about them being a Nightwing and Flamebird duo as adults. I want them to become their own identities, but not by using those mantles, cause it's still not completely theirs and isn't really fitting for them to me either, not even the Batman and Superman mantles either. Other characters like Dick, Chris, and Bette have already used them and made their names with it. Damian and Jon both actually deserve their own that let them shine in their real unique ways and stay independently remembered without their titles getting into the mix of confusion with other hero's. Everyone is allowed to have fun with it obviously though, no matter what I think

For a day job as an adult, Jon should become a scientist instead of a writer or reporter for the Daily Planet like his parents, because that's just totally boring and he's also his own person, not their twin. Just cause he's their child, it doesn't mean he's gonna be exactly like them and daydream about their hobbies. And it makes a lot more sense for science being his dream job too, because he's shown plenty of interest in it before

And for Damian, he should become a vetinarian as an adult, and credit to my good friend @camo-wolf for this next part here that I love, which is that he also owns his own company as a ceo to do it too, so he also has many more helpful clinics opened everywhere instead of just one

I'm not too crazy about their trinity with Lizzie and just can't see the boys having one either. It feels like it's just another thing to make them even more like their Dad's once again imo, but I think they're better off being kept as just a duo still. And unlike many other Damijon and Supersons fans, I'm also not crazy about Lizzie herself either :| (Not saying that I hate or dislike her though). I will say that the stories with the three of them together are pretty fun and cute though, despite what I feel about her. Oh, and for another little thing, even though it's Damian and Jon's thing in their relationship to fight and argue over things, it feels a little overdone in those books and feels like they're being more like just nasty to eachother with their certain comments and want to actually just get the other mad constantly

Speaking of groups, besides the boys having their little Supersons duo to themselves, as kids Damian and Jon definitely should've had their own awesome superhero team together a LONG time ago with characters their own age that could've grown with them like how it was originally planned for canon, instead of them both being shoved into ones like Teen Titans and other already established ones like that, because those groups have so much of their own stuff going on that just doesn't fit the boys and all of the members in them are usually much older than them too. For my idea about what they would have, I like to think that it's a fun group separate from the Supersons duo that both Damian and Jon lead and their main members could've been young close friends of theirs, like Maya Ducard, Kathy Brandon, and Colin Wilkes, and then for additional ones, it could be Tai Pham, Maps Mizoguchi, Flatline, Respawn, Suren Darga, Chris Kent, Irey and Jai West, Lian Harper, and even though I play around with their ages a lot in my own universes like randomly switching them both from toddlers to tweens whenever I feel like it, I'll say Mar'i and Jake too (idk if I'm forgetting any others). Then for the team name, I choose "Legacy's Youth" or "Youthful Legacy" or "Legacy's challangers"

And for another thing to do with groups, Dceased should've just let Maya and Kathy be the girls that teamed up with the boys, instead of forcing a deaged Cassie Sandsmark into it just to date Damian, create a trinity, and be the girl in a boys group, because unlike her, Maya and Kathy are the ones who actually have real relationships and history with Damian and Jon that were already made outside of that universe, so they both would've been much better picks. And without all of that dating stuff too, because them being boys and girls doesn't mean they should have to (plus, Damian and Jon seemed like they were the ones that were actually dating and also married to eachother instead in the story anyways lmao, so that's more proof that there was literally no need for it)

Jon's electric powers that came out during his Injustice crossover are so lame, cause that's not anything new. His solar flare is so much more dope and unique than that, what happened to it?!?! I prefer it way more

The team up reunion Supersons book that came out with Older!Jon and Damian in his new suit felt like their personalities were kind of swapped in some parts of the story, which was kind of weird to see and bothered me a little

During Damian's first time visit in the future, Jon should've been way more protective and stood up for him better when Saturn Girl and the other legion of heroes members began saying their hateful and nasty comments out loud about him right in front of his dang face. And even more defensive he should've been too when Saturn girl started messing with Damian's mind out of nowhere like it was okay and then put him to sleep, instead of just letting her like he did. He should've had complete second thoughts about the whole team right there and decide to leave after how uncomfortable they've made things, instead of still joining them anyways like they're still cool and forgetting about what had just happened. Jon's actual entire reaction during it all was just so naive and felt so ridiculous to me, it was disappointing

Jon and Chris Kent can both exist together at the same time, there is no problem with it at all. And just because Chris was taken away, that doesn't mean Jon's existence should be hated for it, it's the fault of DC writers for what happened, not him

Damian should also be able to finally have a sweet relationship with his Mother already instead of it still being dragged away from him all the time and also still being considered as an abusive one for him, because 1. being horrible to her child is ooc for Talia and 2. Damian deserves to have her in his life, not just Bruce as a Father. He should also be able to have a good relationship with the rest of Al Ghul's too and even a sibling relationship with Respawn as well, not just the ones he has with the Batkids. I know that some (or most?? Idk lol) fans don't like him because they say his origin made Ra's look bad for having him be abusive to him, but that's all very unnecessary blame on Respawn's character that he doesn't deserve at all, it was just a role he was put in as a victim, it's obviously the fault of the writers who wrote the story to be that way. I also feel like it would've made more sense that Slade raised him and was the one who had actually abused him, because he's done it to his other kids in the past anyways and him being a toxic parent is actually very in character for him

The Fortress of attitude is literally catching dust now that Damian and Jon have both completely forgotten about it for some reason, it deserves to make a comback!!

Jon used to have a dog named Ranger, I'm not sure what exactly happened to him (I guess he was forgotten about or whatever), but he shouldn't have been erased. He was adorable

I prefer Damian's pushed back spikey hair so much more over his current flat and long one, it fits him better. The current one does look nice on him and I get the reason behind why he has it, which is pretty sad, but it makes him look too similar to Tim and I don't like that. The same artist who made Damian's new hair that way in the first place also doesn't draw Flatline's spikey hair either, which makes me think they might actually have something against those kinds of hairstyles lol

Damian would so get along with Lois because of their sass and Talia would actually love Jon for how great he is to her Son

Annnnd I think that's probably all of my unpopular opinions about the boys for now lol

Thank you for the ask, anon!! I enjoyed answering this!

[xxskyethetiredemoxx]

Change of plan, I'm not gonna kill myself, MCR is active, FOB is active, Ryan Ross posted on Instagram. This is my meaning in life. They're called the emo holy trinity for a fucking reason

Also, WHY DID YOH MFS NOT TELL ME RYAN ROSS POSTED ON INSTAGRAM??????????? COME ON 😭