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tellmeallaboutit · 11 months ago

Text

knock knock (Raphael x F!Player)

Chapter 2, In Which You Meet A Tall Dark Stranger

Chapter 1

SUMMARY: Careful which mods you install for BG3. Did you read the terms and conditions carefully?

TAGS: meta romance, psychological horror, smut, the character is the player, Raphael is after you, you wanted him, you invited him to our world, he accepted your invitation

RATING: explicit

AO3

Chapter 2

The next day, during your lunch break, you made another attempt to persuade Raphael to take his clothes off. The clock struck noon; your private laptop was on the right side of your desk, while your work laptop was on the left, Teams open and your mouse ready to show signs of activity from time to time.

The sun was shining through the wide open window, children playing outside. Idyllic. Nothing sinister could be happening in broad daylight with those happy sounds in the background. The horror movies told you so. Except for Midsommar.

Well, screw Midsommar, then. This isn’t Sweden.

"All right, I'm going to set some ground rules here," you said to the loading screen. "I can be as creepy as I want to be to you, because you're just a bunch of pixels, but you can't do anything creepy to me, because I'm a human being. Got that? Good."

The sound of your voice made you feel braver.

As you heard the familiar sinister 'you-let-the-villain-win-bad-player' music in the background, you covered your eyes with your hands and peered through splayed fingers.

Then he appeared. Just as you had wished. Perfectly naked, with a stereotypical video game six-pack and just the right amount of body hair. The orange lighting made his skin glow, and his flaccid penis, like that of the game's generic male model, vanished from sight as he strode closer.

Your ears pricked up to listen to the scripted monologue you knew by heart, watching (waiting?) for any hiccups or new animations, the YouTube app on your phone playing the identical scene for comparison.

Everything happened exactly as it should, word for word, save for the speaker’s nudity.

All good. You breathed a sigh of relief and spread your fingers wider to admire Raphael a little better.

Same as always. Handsome and charming and completely imaginary, which, now that you thought about it, was the biggest part of his charm.

"Ta-ta... for now," Raphael's signature line echoed through the room.

"Bravo, Raphael," you praised the screen. "You've done nothing creepy. You have earned your title of Archdevil Supreme."

After waiting for a response that never came, you laughed off your silliness and shook your head. Your laptop was overheating, giving off a slight synthetic smell. Should have upgraded a long time ago. Just need to put enough money aside.

"OK, screenshots," you said. "I wanted to take some screenshots. Do you mind, Raphael? Can I have your consent? They’ll help recruit more followers for you, my liege."

Your phone vibrated. The FaceID gave you a preview of the Discord messages from Queen-of-the-Bored, one of the few Raphaelites you'd actually spoken to directly and felt like you kinda sorta knew.

queen-of-the-bored: ngl that was some really funny joke, we spent the whole night trying to recreate it :-D queen-of-the-bored: you sounded legit worried over that voice message tho haha you: it was legit. check the reddit thread queen-of-the-bored: which thread

Ok, let me google that for you. You typed in the same search words as yesterday, "Raphael naked mod April prank," clicked on the thread from yesterday, and skimmed through the comments.

“nah not joking there is this naked mod for teenage mutant ninja""

“all dongs appeared MASSIVE on April’s first”

Scrolling further, you realized that was not the correct Raphael - it's Raphael the Turtle, not Raphael the Devil. Why was there so much NSFW content about him? What did people see in turtles?

You quickly corrected your search to "Raphael BG3 naked mod April prank," but it didn’t bring back any relevant results. So, you changed it to "last twenty four hours" just to be thorough.

Didn’t help. Nothing. You were the only to be called a naughty little mouse. The special one.

queen-of-the-bored: which thread dude??? you: my bad it was the turtle queen-of-the-bored: ??? queen-of-the-bored: I am slowly getting worried about you haha

Next step? Contact the mod developer directly? What if they have no idea what you're talking about?

Then what? What were the alternative theories? You've been hacked and doxxed to madness for that one Twitter post that got people waving pitchforks at you?

There you go, you were scared again. Daytime, sun shining and children playing outside, but there you were, alone in your flat, scared again.

You took a deep breath and looked at the screen. "All right, I understand, Mr Archdevil Supreme. No screenshots. I'll uninstall the mod and I apologise for my disrespectful behaviour."

You couldn't bear to see Raphael's face on the screen again so you hit ctrl alt delete instead of Escape and stared blankly at the Task Manager.

Next, you uninstalled the mod that had caused all this trouble. Then you went to Tumblr and removed the reblog of Raphael in a cat playsuit with the tag "my poor miau miau". Then you deleted your bookmarks on AO3. Your Twitter account was beyond repair, so you deleted it altogether.

None of these actions made you feel any better. You grabbed a quick cup of shrimp noodles, but eating it only made you feel worse. As you tasted the sodium on your tongue, you came to a realisation: what you needed was to go the fuck outside.

You had been stuck in your flat and home office since the start of the pandemic, chronically online. Online work, online colleagues, online friends, who was the last real person you saw, talked to and hugged?

Your mum, probably.

Oh yes, no wonder you were going mad. You need to get out there and meet some real people. You opened Discord, quickly scrolled past the sketch of Tav giving Raphael head, and typed a message: you needed to touch grass.

queen-of-the-bored: well there is Comic-Con this weekend you: this is NOT touching grass, this is burning it queen-of-the-bored: true you: besides not going alone queen-of-the-bored: maybe Raph will keep you company 😈

What? Such a strange thing to say. Or was it? Who the hell was that behind the screen anyway? Apparently someone called Sammy from Ohio. Supposedly. Wasn’t she the one who recommended this mod?

She was.

Come on, you're just letting your paranoia get the best of you.

queen-of-the-bored: oh BTW I found THE hottest Raph smut queen-of-the-bored: mind the tags it's so hot but soooooo fucked up queen-of-the-bored: just read it trust me thank me later

Who the hell were you, Sammy from Ohio, Korilla? You put the phone down and started pacing around your small flat. It was not much to pace around, only forty-two square meters.

At least you rent a flat in a building with other people and not some house at the edge of the forest. Strangers live below you, above you and on either side of you. They don't know you and you don't know them... but they were there, just in case...

Just in case.

"You know what?" you said to your computer. "I need a break. I need to focus on my mental health. Self-care, Raphael. I'm not playing with you. For now".

The moment you finished speaking, your phone lit up again with another notification. This time it was an email. You made a mental note to start managing your notifications better.

Did you enjoy your Devil Dick © - Natural Red experience? We know you will be back for more 😈 Check out the new...

What the fuck? Oh no, no, click away and make a mental note to never order from Bad Dragon again with customer satisfaction emails like this. It's borderline harassment. You ordered from them ONCE, as a joke, just to see what ridges might feel like.

Not as good as the smut had promised you,

Private. Private stuff. Between you and your bed drawer. Between you and your browser. God, how much stuff you have in your browser history. You should have used incognito mode more often.

Would that have helped?

"That was low, Raphael," you muttered. "Or is it Haarlep today?"

You glanced around your room before angling your computer screen towards the wall, then retrieved the Devil Dick © from its hideaway in your bedside drawer. Your fingers grazed over the silicon ridges as you swiftly stashed it away in a box beneath the bed.

"If you must know, it was too big for me. Flattered?"

Crawling out from under the dusty bed, you looked up and realized for the first time that anyone in the building could easily peep into the flat if they tried hard enough or cared enough to do so.

Enough is enough.

You need to hydrate, you need to eat some vegetables, you need to start jogging again and you definitely... you definitely need to go out and talk to some real people. Maybe it's time to get back on Bumble and try your luck again. Who knows, it might actually work this time.

He wouldn't like that.

Where did that thought just come from? He wouldn't like it, who the hell cares what some imaginary devil thinks.

Standing up straight, you pointed a finger at the screen in front of you.

"Raphael, just so we are clear, you and I: I really like you. I do PR for you every day for free. You don't have to scare me to get my attention. You should appreciate me and be nice to me. I'm the best agent you'll ever have.”

Having made your point, you put on your running shoes and AirPods. It brought back memories of all the times you had jogged through the nearby park. Afterwards you'd sit on the bench and eat an ice-cream, watching couples, happy and glowing, watching families with children, happy and stressed, watching people living their lives in a reality parallel to yours, and then you'd come home and go into a reality parallel to theirs.

The AirPods picked up right where they left off last time.

I want to hold you close, soft breasts, beating heart, as I whisper in your ear

I wanna fucking tear you apart

You removed the AirPods from your earlobes and exhaled. This wasn’t Raphael's fault. This is She Wants Revenge, you have listened to it a thousand times. You knew the lyrics, they hadn't changed.

You can't even listen to music anymore. Pull yourself together.

Get some vitamins from the pharmacy.

Touch some goddamn grass.

***

You stuck to your digital and physical diet until the weekend, and as a reward, nothing happened. No oddly timed emails, no strange messages, no random phone calls. Maybe it was your pitch talk or the vitamins you started taking, but either way, Raphael was on his best behavior, and so were you.

No Tumblr, no AO3. Didn't even touch Steam. Got into a highbrow podcast about the Roman Empire.

You set a new personal record for days without 'self-indulgence', as Raphael would put it, although that wasn't really the intention. Something always seemed to interrupt - whether it was the loud hum of the fridge (which was always obnoxious) or the flickering light in the hallway (which had been broken for over a week).

By Friday, you had finally finished the work projects you had been putting off for months. The job wasn't too bad, but it hadn't been any fun for years, if it ever had been. You did the bare minimum to get the paycheck and keep the job, and your employer kept the paycheck at the bare minimum to keep you. If there was anything else you could do, you would do something else.

Still, this was probably the most productive week you had in years. You scrubbed your flat from top to bottom twice and cleared your wardrobe of clothes that no longer fit.

You were proud of yourself.

Gradually your sense of security began to return. You tried not to dwell too much on the incident with the naughty little mouse; if you didn't think about it, it almost felt like it hadn't happened.

On Friday, you plucked up the courage to play BG3 again, wandered through Baldur's Gate, avoiding the House of Hope for the time being, had a few fights, played the graveyard scene with Astarion (daring, but a small part of you hoped it would make Raphael jealous enough to come out again), and shut it down.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

You hadn't planned to go to Comic-Con. For one thing, it was on the other side of the city, in the business district of the convention centre, so it would take at least an hour to get there. Secondly, going alone just felt... weird.

It was not until Friday night that a little voice in your head started to whisper, "Why not? Maybe you'll meet some like-minded people”. Make some friends you can actually touch (not in a creepy way).

It's a better chance than endlessly swiping on Bumble.

Maybe you'll meet...

Neil Newbon. If you can get past the hordes of fangirls. Andrew Wincott. No, Andrew Wincott wouldn't be there; you'd checked beforehand. To be honest, hearing his voice might have been too much for your psyche at that moment.

So you decided to go. You went, and it was as fun as you had imagined it would be - that is, hardly any. The convention hall was huge and crowded, rows and rows of stalls, crowds and crowds of people. Live panel discussions, cosplayers, flashing lights, bright colors, chatter, laughter, very loud, very lively.

Raphael wouldn't last a minute in that chaos.

"Hell is other people," you thought to yourself, quoting Sartre. If you ever met Raphael, you'd quote Sartre to him too. He must know that you read intelligent books and not just fanfiction.

Some people might be comfortable going to events and eating alone in restaurants, but not you. It's even worse being the odd one out in a group of odd ones. How come all the others had someone to take along? Where did they find all those people in this godforsaken city?

You talked to a few people and a few people talked to you. Nothing really took off. Your mind was elsewhere, to be fair. You were looking for something in the crowd.

Someone.

It was absurd, yes, but so was what happened this week with the mod. You had met a few Raphael cosplayers, three at least, but they were...

Well, of course they weren't him. But they did a great job with the clothes and the hair and the make-up, and one had really great prosthetic horns, and you touched them and admired them and praised that particular Raphael for all his hard work in creating them.

They were real people, not video game characters that had come to life, and neither were you. You looked down at your jeans, at your thighs, and thought you should start jogging again, and felt even less comfortable in your own skin.

Then Neil Newbon came along and things quickly became too chaotic for you.

You decided to take a break and walked down the street until you came across a cosy café - none of that generic chain stuff, but something that tried hard to be authentic with pretty flowers in the windows.

Sitting alone at a table for two, you looked down at your phone and opened the Discord chat because you came here to talk to some real people.

In the main chat, there was a heated debate about whether devils are allowed to torture mortals into signing contracts. Both sides presented arguments based on lore, edition contradictions, past precedents and personal conviction.

A man's voice interrupted you as you typed your own very elaborated opinion of hellish law. "Excuse me, may I?" he asked, his words slightly muffled by the AirPods.

"Sure," you replied with practiced friendliness, not even looking up. That was always your default answer. It's not like you can say no to this kind of request anyway.

People ask and do a lot of things out of politeness. That was precisely why you took the AirPods out of your ears.

The moment you lifted your eyes to meet the man's, you learned the true meaning of the word 'jumpscare'. Your body jerked upwards, the table shook and the coffee cup tumbled - narrowly missing Raphael.

Raphael.

Not a man who looked like Raphael, not a man who was dressed like him - Raphael.

You weren't sure if you made any sound or uttered any words. You probably yelped.

What you did do for sure was gawk.

His skin tone identical; hair slicked back just right; eyes uncannily accurate in hue and shape - down to every wrinkle. A perfectly realistic rendering. Not the uncanny valley type, no, perfectly believable. This is exactly what he would look like if he were real and swapped his fantasy clothes for a business suit.

So this is what it feels like to go completely insane.

Very banal, actually. You are having a psychotic breakdown and no one is even looking at you, except for an imaginary devil.

"Oh my, my apologies," Raphael said as he quickly grabbed napkins to mop up the spreading lake of coffee on the table. "I did not mean to scare you."

Oh, but he did, very much. You could not breathe, your chest encased in an iron brace of fear. It's you who needs to apologise, and apologise fast, and apologise a lot, and beg for mercy. Especially for liking the Twitter art of him being spit-roasted between Yurgir and Haarlep.

If you only knew... you would never have clicked on it... absolutely never... all those posts you wrote...

"Raphael?" you managed to squeak out. “I didn’t mean it, I swear.”

This must be how a deer feels in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

He looked at you, very sincere confusion etched across his handsome face. "Excuse me?"

You drew in a shaky breath, your nostrils flaring as you tried to catch a whiff of cherries under the aroma of fresh coffee, not caring how absurd you appeared. Yes? No? Or was that strawberry jam on his croissant? Have your senses gone haywire? Your mind certainly has.

"You're... you're here to cosplay Raphael?"

The thought tumbled out of your mouth before it had time to fully form in your head. It was the only explanation that made sense... It didn't, but it made more sense than all the others put together.

Raphael moved closer, pulled up a chair and asked, amused: "I beg your pardon, I'm here to do what to whom?"

The voice. The voice was the same. Andrew Wincott's voice. The man had simply stolen his voice. Or had the man stolen it from him? The movements, the mannerisms, the facial expressions. This man could not be Raphael because...

Well, because this man was real. As real as you were.

"Raphael," you explained. "From the video game. Are you here to cosplay... to play... Raphael?"

The man gave you a look as if questioning your sanity, and rightfully so. You were also sweating bullets - could he see the damp patches under your hoodie? You pressed your arms against your sides; wouldn't want him noticing.

"I'm hardly an actor," Raphael replied with a polite smile, "although there was a time in my youth when I entertained such ambitions."

He chuckled lightly and took a leisurely sip of his coffee.

"I'm here to enjoy my espresso, nothing more. I... have never been particularly fond of..." he added with the disdain of a typical middle-aged man, "... video games.”

You had no response for that because Raphael wouldn't be into video games either; that much was believable.

"My office is across the street," he said, pointing towards the office complex opposite you. "Precisely there."

The golden sign on the building across from you, d'Avergni & Partners, told you nothing, except that Raphael had an office job and an office space and a desk and all the things that the devil shouldn’t have because the devil invented them to torture the others.

Raphael was dressed like he had just stepped out of a board meeting. A three-piece slate gray tailored suit, white shirt peeking out from underneath, silk tie and matching pocket square. Of all the modern Raphael AUs, you preferred the Professor one, you voted for it, you had Sucharide’s fic bookmarked. The Professor was more, ugh...

Safe.

As for you, you were wearing a hoodie with your university on it. A clean hoodie, but a hoodie nonetheless. What the hell else would you be wearing to Comic Con? You didn't do your hair. Well, putting it in a ponytail is not doing your hair. Why did you not do your hair?

"I know, I know, you must be wondering why anyone would toil on a weekend," Raphael continued. That was the last thing you were wondering. "Alas, no rest for the wicked."

"Wicked?" you echoed. You looked at the people in the cafe, sure they were staring at the both of you, but they weren't.

"Oh," he chuckled lightly, "it's just an expression – 'No rest for the wicked.' You've never heard it before?"

"Of course I have," you said, momentarily embarrassed. "Never mind...sorry."

"You have nothing to apologise for," Raphael raised his eyebrows. "In fact, I should be the one to apologise for startling you. May I offer you another cup of... ah, what was that... cappuccino? After twelve? Tsk-tsk, young lady".

Not a single modern man could ever manage to say the words "tsk-tsk, young lady" as charmingly. That was Raphael.

"No bother, I can get one myself," you said quickly, about to stand up.

He raised his hand slightly and put it down to halt your movement, and for a second you thought he was going to touch you, and if he had, if you had felt the skin of his skin, he would have felt more real and you would have died on the spot from a bursting heart.

"I have no doubt about that. But may I treat you? It would be my absolute pleasure”.

Pleasure. The way he said the word was straight obscene. You couldn't handle the word 'pleasure' coming from a man who had been responsible for more than half your orgasms in the last few months.

So in your daze, you mumbled: "Yeah. Yeah, sure."

Raphael stood up and walked over to the barista. She acknowledged him, so that's one point for him being real and you not hallucinating. Not only did she acknowledge him but she flashed him a goofy grin - clearly smitten.

Of course she is.

You have to take a picture of him. How do you take a picture of someone without their consent without being a total creep?

You don't. It's in the fucking definition; you can't. But you should. Maybe you'll open your camera roll and see someone completely different, and then you'll know it's time to call for mental health services.

Your phone was buzzing with messages, which you quickly swiped away and went straight to the camera. You took a picture of him from behind while he ordered you a coffee. The barista gave you a “fucking weirdo” look.

Fuck you, you thought, you have no idea what I am going through right now. Then you switched to the camera roll and checked to see if the photo reflected what you saw.

A broad, fit back of a very attractive middle-aged man with lush brown hair, paying for coffee with cash.

You couldn't decide whether this made you feel better or worse.

When Raphael returned with your cup, you had something for him too. "This is the character I was talking about," you said, a screenshot of virtual Raphael ready on your screen.

Anyone who saw the screenshot would say, "Who motion-captured me?"

Not Raphael. He barely glanced before shrugging and handing your phone back. "Hmm, I see some resemblance, I guess."

Resemblance? What fucking resemblance? There was no resemblance; he WAS Raphael! You were about to argue but he beat you to it: "Why? Were you hoping to meet this...Raphael?"

His voice dropped an octave and he looked at you intently. He was flirting - openly, unashamedly.

"I...I was," you stammered out. "He's my favourite character."

Brilliant, brilliant line. Dear diary, today I wanted to meet Raphael, my favourite character from my favourite game. So much for quoting Sartre.

"Well now, I'm flattered," Raphael purred, causing you to wriggle uncomfortably in your seat. "I do bear some physical likeness."

That was a massive understatement.

The man had a disarmingly charming smile. You tried to remember if Raphael had ever smiled like that in the game. It was mostly scowls and grins and smirks, but this kind of smile? You didn't think so. You caught a glimpse of yourself in his hazel eyes, and that was not Tav; that was you. Just you.

Not that you were unattractive or anything. Average. Maybe even a little pretty on a good day. You didn't like yourself very much. Then again, most people don't. That's how the beauty industry makes its money.

You got your share of attention, some, nothing to brag about. Had two boyfriends, it didn't work out, you used to care, now you don't. Certainly never got any attention from men who looked like him.

Why should this man be interested in you, why? Ah, yes. Your soul. He probably wants your soul. Is it worth much at all? Is it worth coming all the way to Earth? You wanted to apologize to him for going through all this trouble just for you.

"So this event in the convention hall down the street..." he snapped his fingers as if trying to recall a forgotten name.

"Comic-Con 2024," you supplied. "It's huge in fandom culture. TV shows, video games, that sort of stuff.”

"Ah. Not my kind of entertainment - or my kind of audience, for that matter," Raphael said with a slightly raised eyebrow, eyeing the “Astarion approves” badge on your backpack. "It does remind me of a deal I signed recently."

"Deal?" you asked in a weak voice. He nodded. "What deal? With who?"

"With who? No, I meant the Microsoft-Blizzard acquisition".

Ah, that kind of deal. The words felt so reassuring, so real, the acquisition. Raphael would have no idea about these words. Raphael wouldn't say "Microsoft". You mean the real Raphael. What the hell is a 'real' Raphael again?

For the first time, you let go of a little tension. You took a first sip of your coffee and leaned back slightly in your chair.

"Actually, I think these acquisitions are really harmful for the industry," you said.

Why did you have to be so confrontational? You didn't have anything clever to say about such things, so you spoke the truth instead. Bad idea.

"How candid of you to say that. Well, I’ll be just as candid with you: I am indeed a villain." Raphael grinned. "I hope you can forgive me."

There went your short-lived relaxation, which lasted less than a minute. Raphael had just looked at you and said "I am a villain". Challenge him. Tell him it's him because, well, it's him. It can only be him. Tell him you know it's him, and then...

And then what?

"Everybody's got a job to do, I guess", you managed to utter the most generic phrase in existence.

"Isn't that so..." Raphael replied, pausing for a moment before finishing the sentence with your name.

You did not introduce yourself to him. You were sure of it. Absolutely sure.

"How do you know my name?" you asked, half rising from your chair, raising your voice and quickly lowering it again. "I didn't tell you my name. How do you know it?"

Raphael gestured to your phone, which lay on the table screen between the two of you. Your work ID card was tucked away in its transparent case - something you hadn't needed for a while.

It had your first and last name on it.

"I saw it right before my eyes," he explained. "I thought it was a hint."

"It wasn't," you said.

"Oh, another faux pas on my part then," he said. "At this rate, I owe you something to make up for all my many transgressions. Perhaps dinner?"

You let out a nervous chuckle. One of your popular Tumblr posts had been an impassioned rant about how Raphael had promised a similar in-game offer but failed to deliver despite the many times you gave him the Crown.

"I seem to have absolutely terrified you, and that was not my intention. I insist on making it up to you. If you allow me, of course. I don't want to impose. Would you allow me to?"

He looked at you with the intensity of a man admiring a beautiful woman, his shoulders back and chin slightly up, trying to present himself from his best angle - something you've seen men do before, but rarely (if ever) to you. It was as if he could hang on every word that came out of your mouth, simply because he enjoyed watching your lips move. Raphael looked like he was in love, for Christ's sake.

Your cheeks grew warm.

"Yes," you replied.

He kept silent for a bit, savouring your answer.

"Splendid. Where might I collect you?"

It took you a moment to realise that he was asking for your address. Your personal address. Shouldn't he know it already, if he was Raphael? You replied as nonchalantly as possible:

"Why don't I give you my number and we can arrange to meet at the center?"

His expression darkened slightly; you've seen this look in the game before.

No, you shouldn't have said that. You wanted him to like you.

Desperately.

"You don't trust me?" Raphael's voice dropped an octave or two, playful and just a little threatening.

You felt his breath on your face (cherries?) and the next second you stopped feeling your legs. The attraction that had been simmering inside you for months started boiling over.

Breathe. Pretend it's not Raphael. A man came up to you in a coffee shop and asked you if you trusted him in that kind of tone, leaning in like that. You know what the sensible thing to do would be - get up and walk away. And if it really was Raphael, get up and run away.

You remained seated and stayed.

"Just, ugh..." was all you managed to get out of the jumbled thoughts in your head; two coherent sentences so far into the conversation, and both of them made you sound like an absolute madwoman.

Raphael laughed.

"Of course you don't trust me, that's only prudent, and you seem to be quite an intelligent young lady. But just so we are clear, you and I: you have nothing to fear from me. What is that number of yours?"

Quite an intelligent young lady, the words echoed in your mind and you remembered your naughty anonymous Tumblr confession: I would suck every last drop of cum out of him as long as he kept praising me.

God, everything you've read with him in the main role. Double penetration, double vaginal penetration, pet play... you weren't even into half of it. You hoped Raphael didn’t think you actually wanted him to do all of the things you read with you.

You just liked clicking on random links.

"Do you need something to write it down or...?" you asked hesitantly.

"I will remember," he said curtly. “I do not forget things easily”.

You realised that there was something far more frightening than anything that had happened before: that he wouldn't remember, that he would never call you, and that this conversation and this meeting would end there.

So you carefully enunciated each number, then took a pen from your pocket and wrote it down on a napkin: it seemed romantic in the movies, but your handwriting and the coffee stain made it look like a secret message from the madhouse.

He grinned and tucked the napkin into the pocket of his suit.

He took the last sip of coffee and then took your hand in his. He touched you. His skin was warm and real and soft and everything you had ever imagined, his touch surprisingly tender.

Your whole body responded to that tiny crumb of affection, viscerally. You hadn't realized how famished you were for a touch until that moment.

He lifted your hand to his lips and pressed them against yours. His lips were soft too, slightly damp from the coffee.

"I am looking forward to our rendezvous," Raphael murmured against your palm. "Ver much so."

Rendezvous.

In any other situation, a middle-aged man kissing your hand would be downright creepy. But this... this was a fever dream, an illusion, anything but reality. Because there was no way this madness could actually be happening to you.

Was it a bad thing? Was reality ever... this? So unpredictable? So exciting?

You only snapped out of it when the door closed behind him, but you snapped out hard. You practically threw yourself at the next table, where a group of guys were sitting, their appearance screaming video games - backpacks and scruffy beards, Warhammer-emblazoned T-shirts.

You grabbed one by the shoulder and hissed urgently: "Guys-guys-guys-guys." Your words came like rapid fire. "Tell me that guy doesn't look exactly like Raphael from Baldur's Gate? That one? On the street behind the window?"

Damn, you sounded desperate.

"Ah, sorry, never played it," came the nonchalant reply before he turned back to his friends' conversation.

"Baldur's Gate," chimed in another, his face lighting up. "Amazing game. Looks like who?"

"Raphael," you said. "The devil."

The guy laughed, but didn't even look where you were pointing.

"Ah, the two-pump chump?"

You shot a quick glance at Raphael. His eyes met yours through the glass window, and they were cold now; his smile was gone.

I didn't say that, you pleaded with him in your thoughts. That guy said that. That guy over there. I would never say that.

Your defence of his bed skills stretched from Reddit to Tumblr threads, you argued that Haarlep was slandering him, that Raphael was the best fuck there ever was and you personally vouched for that because you fucked him a thousand times in your head.

"Don't call him that, please," you whispered to the guy. He gave you a confused look when you pointed at Raphael again: "Look at him. The one staring at us. Does he look like him?

Is he real? Do you see him too?

"Ah yes," he admitted with a grin on his face, raising the cup of coffee to his lips, "he sort of does. Yes, he does! Well, I hope he doesn't...oh shit! FUCK!".

The guy's face contorted in pain as he clutched his mouth, jumping, cursing, tears streaming down his face. You could see the skin on his lips reddening and blistering.

"What the fuck?! It's fucking boiling! FUCK! "

The barista rushed over to him, spewing apologies as she tried to handle the situation. You took a step back and glanced at Raphael whose lips were moving subtly - two syllables that matched rhythmically: 'bye-bye' or maybe 'ciao-ciao'.

It didn't have to be 'ta-ta'. He waved nonchalantly at you.

You waved back.

NEXT: Chapter 3, In Which Larian Introduces The Raphael Romance

#bg3 raphael #raphael the cambion #raphael x player #raphael x tav #raphael x oc #raphael x you #meta fanfic #knock knock

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tobiasdrake · 10 months ago

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Digimon Adventure 01x02 - Explosive Evolution! Greymon! / The Birth of Greymon

Well, I want to be sleeping right now but Insomnia Night says no. So I guess it's time for the next episode.

Last time on Digimon Adventure, everybody was sent hurtling to their deaths by local wildlife. Hooray!

The newly Child-stage Digimon make an attempt to save their partners from falling to their doom, but they can't support an 11-year-old's body weight so this goes south immediately.

Notably, in the earlier fight with Kuwagamon, every Digimon got to show off their new Child-stage signature attack except Gomamon. This is because his move isn't usable when he's that far from a water source. He's kind of the Superfriends Aquaman of Digimon.

As the children plunge into the river, Gomamon gets to strut his signature attack: Marching Fishes.

Fun fact, Digimon call all of their attacks in English rather than Japanese because it's a cool, exotic language to scream attack names in, but one that everyone in Japan is familiar with.

Just as the kids think they're safe, Kuwagamon... uh... attacks?

For real, it honestly looks like they fell asleep standing up and then flopped over into the river. This looks much more like Kuwagamon falling than attacking, but it's played up like they're attacking. Both they and the rocks hit the water, sending up a massive tidal wave that gently carries the children to shore.

Haha. Hahaha. Hahahahaha. Sure, Yamato. Whatever helps you cope.

Gomamon takes a moment to explain that he controls fish at will. Dub Gomamon goes for a bit less mind-controlly explanation, saying he and those fish are pals and he asked them for a ride.

From there it's reintroductions to the new Child-stage Digimon, as well as explaining how evolution works. The dub splices in stock footage from the evolutions in the previous episode, just to make sure you got it.

This is where a really interesting shift in translation occurs. Where Koushiro focuses in on evolution as a concept and Tentomon confirms they're talking about similar things, Izzy instead describes it like this: "So Digivolving is what happens when they advance to the next level and become more powerful than before." The dub's emphasis is on increasing their battle strength.

We see something similar in how the stages are even referred to. In Japanese, we know these as Baby, Child, and Adult stages; in English, they're In-Training, Rookie, and Champion. The Japanese names reference life cycles, while the American ones are more evocative of developing warriors.

Agumon further explains that he hadn't been able to evolve by himself before. He speculates that evolving earlier had something to do with meeting Taichi, and the other Digimon corroborate that speculation with their own feelings towards their Partners. They don't really understand how it works; However, they all agree that the kids have something to do with it.

The dub tonally shifts this to Agumon explaining in totally certain terms that they were able to Digivolve by "sharing [the kids'] energy". It's not explained super clearly what that means and Izzy's left with questions for how the energy's harvested, which go unanswered.

Dub Joe is also inexplicably hostile about the whole thing. Jou expresses that this whole thing doesn't make sense to him, with Gomamon agreeing that he's confused too. Dub Joe instead snipes, "My folks warned me about strangers!" out of absolutely nowhere.

Once all that's settled, it's time to move on to next steps. There's a lot of changes happening in this scene.

Jou wants to go back up to where Kuwagamon was hunting them because they're supposed to stay put and wait for adults to come and get them. However, the group quickly agrees that climbing back up that cliff is an unreasonable plan.

The dub seems to really not like Jou's deference to general adult supervision because once again they scrub it out. Joe instead wants to find a pay phone to call the police, fire department, and his mom. Still adults and authority figures, to be fair, but not exactly the same vibe as "Let's stay where we are and wait for the adults to come get us." Rather, this is foreshadowing for later in the episode.

Jou is the group's senpai; He's responsible for their wellbeing but he has no idea how to be responsible for them. This is part of his character journey.

Yamato points out that this place doesn't look anything like the camp site they were at; Koushiro agrees, speculating based on local vegetation that they're somewhere in the subtropics. Matt wants to find a road leading to safety, but Izzy points out that navigation without a compass is hard.

Jou suggests they can find a road that might take them back up to where they arrived, still on that "Wait for adults to come get us" thing. Joe whines that his pants aren't good for hiking.

Sora then suggests that if they do go back up the cliff, they might find clues to how they got here; However, Mimi fears further attacks from creatures like Kuwagamon. The dub translates this part faithfully.

Taichi asks if there are any other humans around, but Agumon confirms that they're alone here. It's only DIgimon. This also gets translated faithfully.

From there, the group discusses File Island for a moment. Nobody has any idea where this place is, with Jou suggesting they might not even be in Japan anymore. The dub already blew the big reveal by saying "Digi-World" instead of "File Island" so their kids instead briefly question whether or not nighttime exists in this place. Izzy finds the topic ridiculous since it would be "unnatural" for nighttime not to exist, prompting Joe to ask what part of this is natural. Valid counterpoint.

Once all that's settled, Taichi takes charge and gets us moving. He saw the ocean when he was scouting before Kuwagamon's attack so we're heading that way. Though Jou takes one last chance to insist on his preferred course of action: We need to stay put and wait for adults to find us.

So the rest of the group just starts walking and tries to leave his ass here, with Gomamon calling out to get him moving too. XD

This joke does get somewhat faithfully translated. Joe wants to find a cave and hide, but "We keep our eyes open and when a camp counselor comes--" which is when Gomamon calls out to him.

It still works, but doesn't hit quite the same tone as when this is like his fifth time interjecting with this.

Once the group gets walking, they take another assessment of their surroundings. Koushiro revises his assessment of the flora being subtropical. Jou repeats that they're probably not in Japan. Then Yamato points out that the Digimon seem like a pretty big tipoff that something's weird about this place.

The dub gets as far as Izzy saying he thought the plants were subtropical, but they don't want to talk about being in Japan for localization reasons. So Joe instead derails the conversation to complain about his hay fever being aggravated, before Matt groans, "Is there anything you don't complain about!?"

As they make their way to the ocean, the kids take some time to get to know their partners. Patamon and Piyomon demonstrate that they can both fly, but not well. Then this hilarious bit happens.

Mimi: Palmon, you look kind of like a plant. Palmon: I am! I can even conduct photosynthesis. Mimi: That's so cool! Do it! Do it! Palmon: ...Mimi, do you know what photosynthesis is? Mimi: No, not really. What is it? Palmon: ...well, I don't really know either....

The dub wipes out this entire exchange and instead has Mimi inexplicably gush about Palmon's "hair". She wants to try and do Palmon's hair herself, to which Palmon accuses her of caring too much about appearances before rejecting her offer. For a second time, the dub is weirdly mean to Mimi for no apparent reason. She has done nothing but be nearby dressed in pink!

Once they arrive at the beach, they come upon a most unexpected sight.

Hey look, it's those pay phones that Dub Joe wanted! Joe is naturally ecstatic about this discovery.

The Japanese group takes a moment to agree among themselves that these are definitely pay phones, just like the ones you see around town. Jou takes this as confirmation that they're still in Japan, only to have his hopes utterly destroyed when Gomamon asks what this Japan thing he keeps talking about is.

In English, Izzy wildly speculates that aliens put these phones here as a trap. Matt wants to order a pizza; Mimi demands no anchovies. Again trying to avoid Japan as a topic, Joe instead suggests these phones are for calling your parents for a ride, at which point Gomamon asks what parents are.

Taichi gets impatient with standing around contemplating the mystery phones and decides to use them instead. As soon as he bites that bullet, the rest of the group flood into the phone booths to do the same.

As Koushiro hands his phone card over to Taichi, dub Izzy says, "Use my phone card; The aliens can bill me." Goddammit, XD.

It does not go well. On the other end of the phone, all they can get are seemingly prerecorded messages replying with absolute gibberish.

"The time is now 38:82:90 AM." "Tomorrow's weather will be sunny with occasional ice cream." "This phone is currently outside all service areas."

The dub fully understood the assignment on this one and even spices up a couple of them. Instead of 39 o'clock, the time is now 45 MPH... and 90 seconds. My favorite bad phone message is the dub's "To leave a message, press 1 now. To leave a fingerprint, press 2 now!"

As it becomes apparent that these phones aren't their salvation, Taichi and Yamato break into an argument over next steps. Taichi wants to give up on the phones and leave, but Yamato steamrolls him with logic.

1 - The phones were ringing earlier. Even if we can't call out, if we hang out here, someone might call us. 2 - Not to mention, the whole group is too tired to start marching again.

With Koushiro backing him up and pointing out that everyone's getting hungry, Taichi relents. We'll stay here and take a break.

Discussing food options, the group inspect their belongings and rediscover their Digivices. They'd completely forgotten about those things. Cool, but not edible so. Y'know. Questions for later.

Setting those aside for now, the group goes over what they have on them to see who's got something to eat.

Sora: First aid kit. Koushiro: Laptop, digital camera, and cell phone. All non-functional since arriving on File Island. Taichi: Mini telescope.

Takeru: JACKPOT

I mean, it's all sweets so it's not very nutritional. But you know what it's not? It's not starving to death on the beach of a deserted island.

Mimi, meanwhile, is decked out for wilderness survival. She was nervous about the camping trip so she plundered her dad's stuff without his knowledge - A decision that, the group agrees, may be what keeps them alive in this place.

The dub once again takes this opportunity to be mean to Mimi. She describes the Swiss Army Knife as "one of those knives with all the things", which I actually like. She's like 10, that's a fair description for a 10-year-old who doesn't go camping.

But then they cut out her explanation of why she has all this stuff. Instead, Matt brings up earlier in the dub when Izzy mentioned they don't have a compass and snaps at MImi for not telling them she had one; Mimi defends herself by saying she thought it'd be fun to see how far they can get without it.

Y'all, they seriously changed a line earlier so they'd have something to yell at Mimi for later. The dub is so mean to Mimi.

Fortunately Jou, who's been busy trying to get the phones to work and hasn't followed the conversation, has the solution to our food problem: A bag of emergency rations he's been trying to pass off to Mimi.

As the group begins divvying upon the food, Jou crunches the numbers. It's supposed to be enough food for three days, but Takeru wasn't supposed to be on this camping trip; He snuck in to spend time with Yamato. So that's an extra mouth. Furthermore, the Digimon are going to double their food consumption.

The Digimon chime in to say they can forage just fine. They've been fending for themselves in the wilderness all their lives; They don't need to eat the emergency rations. That will help extend their time.

The dub simplifies the math a bit by counting T.K. as having officially been part of the trip, so there's an even share of food for him already accounted for.

However, while this conversation is happening, Taichi and Agumon are already digging into the rations. Whoops.

Before anyone else has a chance to eat, the kids are under attack once more. A subterranean assailant destroys the phone booths and their reason for lingering on this beach.

This is the Adult-stage Shellmon. His name is in English so it's pretty easy to tell what it's supposed to reference. The Digimon try their best to defend the kids from Shellmon, but only one of them has any energy to fight.

Agumon's signature move is called Baby Flame 'cause he's just a little guy. The dub changes it to Pepper Breath, which admittedly sounds cool as heck.

It quickly becomes apparent that he's the only one with stamina to fight. That's. Uh. That's a problem because Shellmon is Adult-stage like Kuwagamon. It took the entire group to fight Kuwagamon. And they lost.

So. Y'know. Agumon doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of holding this line. But he's gonna have to.

Demonstrating the courage that will become such a defining aspect of his character, Taichi throws himself into the fray. He leaps into action to distract Shellmon and open him up to flanking shots from Agumon. He also tries to fight more directly.

It does not go well. Taichi has zero chance of winning a fistfight with a kaiju shellfish. However, his courage and boldness sparks the next stage of Agumon's evolution.

With the theme song roaring up again, Agumon SHINKAAAAAA!

Agumon's Adult stage is Greymon. A bit of an odd name for such a colorful creature. I'm of the understanding that it's based on a form of grey that means "ancient", because he's clearly a dinosaur. That, however, is not a usage of the word that I'm familiar with.

Greymon's evolution is slightly different between versions. Just before Agumon evolves, in Japanese, he screams Taichi's name out of desperation. "TAICHI!!!" he cries out, before suddenly evolving into Greymon and gaining the power to fight back.

In English, he instead shouts "Digivolve!" like a battle cry, making it seem a little more like he's in control and doing this on purpose.

Taking control of this situation, Greymon hurls Shellmon into the air and unveils his new attack: Mega Flame, the vastly more powerful counterpart to Baby Flame. The dub calls it Digi-Nova Blast.

Mega Flame launches Shellmon into the distance and sends him crashing into the ocean offshore from File Island. A much more decisive victory than their previous encounter with Kuwagamon, though Shellmon likely is still alive out there.

Given what just happened, the group decides to keep their Digimon well-fed rather than trying to preserve the rations. Also, to get the hell out of here as quickly as possible. There's no reason to stay since the phones have been destroyed, and Shellmon could return at any moment.

Jou takes this opportunity to once more pitch returning to the woods they originally landed in, but he gets thoroughly outvoted. It's up a cliff, it's far away, no more Kuwagamon. Legit, in the dub, Mimi just frets about running into Kuwagamon again, but Japanese Mimi shrieks at Jou, "NO MORE KUWAGAMON!!!" XD I love that delivery.

Koushiro has a better plan: Phones imply the existence of people who installed them, so let's be proactive and go look for those people. Jou is once more outvoted.

With that settled, we have a little bit of food, we have a plan, and the group sets off to pursue this thin thread of hope that they've found.

#digimon #digimon adventure #revisiting digimon #revisiting digimon adventure

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rivetgoth · 10 months ago

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Hello I saw your post on HRT and how you said that the difference between 1 year and 5 years is pretty big, and I wanted to ask you what is the difference between 1 year and 5 years? I have some friends who are unable to continue HRT because we live in an area where it's banned and they're in the early stages so I was only able to ask them about their experiences but I want to know more to understand it and support them better. Thank you for answering if indeed you do!

Hey! I’m gonna copy-paste another comment I left for someone else who asked if that’s okay, just because it was pretty detailed and I think I said everything I could possibly say, but it was just a random response to someone so it understandably got drowned by all the other notes my post got haha.

Here (+original link):

When it comes to the long term changes I would most aptly describe it as simply MORE.

All of those “early changes” people talk about, literally every one of them, just continue to happen, in ways that are subtle but absolutely crucial for long term and consistent passing.

More facial hair. More body hair. More bottom growth. More voice drop. More body fat redistribution. More changes to face shape and body shape. More muscle development. More change to the hairline, the skin texture, even just the way your brain works. By year 2 I was still excited when someone gendered me correctly, and still felt almost a sense of imposter syndrome when it did happen. I felt like I was teetering on the edge of masculinity. I think I passed as “trans” more than “male.” 5 years in it’s literally not something I think about. I just live as a man. I get gendered correctly from behind, with long hair, in women’s clothing and makeup… and on the rare occasion I get misgendered it’s the easiest correction to make and it’s immediately apparent to the other person that they were wrong, not me. My maleness is not a question. Nothing massive changed, it was just time.

Think about how cis men age: They don’t become adults and become static beings. Their voice continues to drop. Their hair patterns continue to change and develop. Many cis men can’t grow full beards until their 30s. Their weight patterns and body shapes change. Their muscles change, their skin changes. Aging isn’t a separate process from the masculinization or feminization of testosterone or estrogen. What we often take for granted as parts of becoming older men are still dependent on having a testosterone-dominant endocrine system. It’s not a process that starts and ends. I saw one person in the tags say “At a certain point it becomes a matter of aging as a certain gender,” and I think that’s such a fantastic way of putting it.

I think a lot of the early changes get propagated more in part because they’re easier to describe and more objective. Your voice will get deeper, your period will stop, you’ll begin to grow facial and body hair, your clitoris will change shape, etc are so much easier to articulate in a simple and accessible format than the much more subjective way it looks to age as a man. I think a lot of other issues intersect to make this stuff less acknowledged though, ranging from the simple fact that it’s still something of a rarity to see trans men who have been on T for a substantial amount of time—this stuff being widely accessible is still quite recent—plus the likelihood of long term transitioners to go stealth or at least focus less on their transition and thus their voice being heard less in the community than the younger guys who are still excited to report on every change because it’s all fresh and new (and the confirmation bias of the fact that guys with abnormally fast or significant changes are more likely to talk about it online, creating a false sense that this is the average experience), but also more nefarious and/or systemic issues, like there being no funding for comprehensive, good faith studies on long term transition, fearmongering about HRT positing it as this instant all-or-nothing life ruiner that will have you permanently fucking up your body within your first microdose, and the benefit of pushing propaganda that we CAN’T actually successfully transition, that success and long term happiness in transition is a myth. It isn’t.

#Hope it doesn’t sound dismissive to do this I’m HAPPY to answer I just think I said it best there hahaha #hrt #ftm

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razzek · 9 months ago

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inspired by your tags on that gifset about blue eyed samurai: please tell me about the best and worst blind representation in media according to you

Had to wait until I was at a keyboard and had the energy for this one haha.

Honestly, most blind rep is bad, to the extent that I avoid anything touting a blind character on instinct. Unless another blind person is recommending it, I prep myself to endure, at best, a lot of tedious stereotyping, and at worst something that will genuinely make me angry. I'm always surprised when I can unclench a bit over a blind character and be able to say just "eh he's alright".

But! There are a few blind characters I do like! While they are not perfect and somewhat fall into the realm of "blind in name only" (where magic or something else makes them function more like a sighted person), Toph from Avatar the Last Airbender and Terezi Pyrope of Homestuck get my nod of approval. While they both have some abilities that make them seem more sighted (Toph's earthbending, Terezi's super smelling/tasting), I find they get at some of the heart of what it's like to be blind. Toph has a viciously sharp sense of humor and leans into peoples' low expectations to tear them apart and the show isn't afraid to crack a few genuinely funny jokes about blindness. Similarly, Terezi is a delightful smartass who actually uses a white cane correctly (woohoo!) while taking advantage of peoples' ignorances. And both of them have friends who treat them as people first, which is incredibly rare in any media we're in. Terezi also has a very powerful moment in which she undoes a magical cure for blindness, something I have never seen anywhere else, which makes her stronger but also strikes at something the able bodied community always takes for granted: maybe we don't want to live in your world. That moment by itself was enough to have me make an homage to Terezi in my legal name when I changed it.

I have only seen the one movie so far but I like what I've encountered of Zatoichi, the blind swordsman. The stereotypes he falls into are not western ones so that kind of helps, and he has a fantastic confidence which he masks by playing up being a helpless blind man. It's very satisfying to watch him kick ass endlessly. :D

Also Gareth or whatever his name is from Quest for Camelot; it's a dumb movie but I will always give extra points for a character using a cane like we actually use them! The movie gets points for not curing his blindness and for a joke I quote to this day ("What are you doing?!" "I'm driving!"). XD Points lost for face touching though, GOD. Stop doing that, sighted people! It's weird and gross and the only time I ever want to touch anyone's face is with my fist!

In terms of the worst, if I ever meet the author of this one book I read which featured a totally helpless, whining blinded knight who becomes a total asshole when he's magically healed (also fuck magically curing disabilities), I will beat them over the head with their own shitty book and then make them eat it one page at a time. I didn't even finish that pile of trash, it made me so angry. Oh, and the entire book/movie titled Blindness. I'm glad that motherfucker is dead because fuck that guy. Not only is it a massive insult to the blind, it shits on what people are really like in a crisis. Honorable mention to that one very dumb movie where the blind war veteran is the movie monster, but it is at least good for a ton of laughs right up until it just veers off a cliff into "what the fuck?!" canyon, after which it is just a singularity of stupid.

#just blind things #actually blind #actually disabled #blind characters #zatoichi #terezi pyrope #toph beifong

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summerwritesfics · 5 months ago

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🌾Earthrealm Valley, Chapter 2 - First Impressions

Pairing: Hanzo Hasashi/Kuai Liang Length: 1590 Words Rating: Mature Warnings: Stardew Valley AU, Fluff, Angst, Slice of life, Slow Burn, This fic runs on Stardew Valley logic so please don’t expect realism in any form

Earthrealm Valley Masterlist

Notes: I have something to admit to you… I actually wrote this and chapter 3 right after I wrote chapter 1… I just… Never posted them for some reason 🫣 So, uh… here take this, about 2 years late but… better than never, right? Haha. Right? 😭 So, uh, finally enjoy Hanzo & Kuai’s first meeting, and the beginning of Kuai Liang’s decent into being a feral little goblin man.

It was rare that the citizens of Dragon Town came to any sort of mutual agreement.

The only thing anyone really agreed on was that Raiden was a good mayor. That was, until the new farmer moved into town. It was at this point, everyone in town had banded together to come to one shared opinion.

The new farmer was weird.

Hanzo didn’t know what that meant. He hadn’t met the guy yet, and didn’t really intend to. All he really knew was the farmer’s name was Kuai Liang, and when he tried to enquire just why he was apparently so weird, no one seemed to be able to pinpoint what it was about him that made him so weird. He just was.

And according to Takeda, Cassie had a very in depth description of him.

“She says he has this massive scar on his face! And she says he only has one eye, and the other is just a socket!”

“I think Cassandra may be telling you a few tall tales there,” he tried to reply diplomatically. As cute as it was that Takeda was so taken by this embellished description of the man, he didn’t want the boy to be disappointed when he finally met him.

They stepped off the pathway and into the forest. It was a bit of a daily ritual for Hanzo, coming here and searching for the inspiration he needed. It wasn’t coming easily however. He had all but hit a complete block in terms of his writing. It had been 7 years since his last published work, 6 since the death of his family, 5 since he moved to the valley, and 2 since he began working on his latest book. In those 2 years, he’d barely written a quarter of the book.

He knew he had to get back into writing. While Harumi and Satoshi’s deaths would always haunt him, things had gotten easier to cope with, and he hoped with that lighter burden, writing would come back to him. But it had been slow. Despite the breathtaking beauty of the valley, that spark he once had was hard to find. So he went out every day, hoping to find something to ignite the fire inside him once more.

“Who’s that?” Takeda quietly questioned, snapping Hanzo back to reality. Hanzo followed the boy's gaze, to find a man crouched down staring at what looked like a spring onion growing in the ground.

He didn’t recognise the man, but the large scar over his one eye did rather line up with Cassandra’s description of Kuai Liang. He did still appear to have both eyes however, so it seemed the young girl was definitely exaggerating her story of him.

Kuai didn’t look like he’d noticed either of them. He began to dig around the spring onion, taking the stork and slowly pulling it up. He observed it for a few seconds, wiping off the remaining dirt. He stood up, smiling to himself and looking a little triumphant.

And then he took a huge bite of it.

Oh… That’s what everyone means…

Despite his shock, Hanzo coughed to get Kuai’s attention. Kuai jumped a mile as his head snapped toward Hanzo and Takeda. He looked like a deer in headlights, entire body frozen in spot and surprised that someone caught him out. He glanced between Hanzo and the spring onion. He swallowed, wiping his mouth with his hand and approaching them.

“I- Uh… I swear this isn’t as strange as it looks.” He hesitated, face starting to go red with embarrassment. Hanzo couldn’t blame him, he hadn’t exactly made the best first impression. “Sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Kuai Liang.”

“You’re Kuai Liang?” Takeda loudly questioned, squinting at the man in front of him. “But you have two eyes!”

“Yes?” Kuai blinked in confusion, before frowning. “How many am I meant to have?”

“Cassie said you only had one!” Takeda crossed his arms over his chest. “Is one of them fake?”

“No. No, they’re both real and I definitely had both of them when I met Cassandra,” Kuai clarified, rubbing the back of his head. He brought the spring onion to his mouth again and took another bite. Oh my god, what is wrong with this man?

“I… Did warn you that Cassandra was likely lying to you,” Hanzo chose to tell Takeda instead of questioning the fact the man in front of them was quite happily just chowing down on a raw spring onion he found in the forest. “My apologies, my name is Hanzo Hasashi, and this is Takeda.”

“Oh, you live with Kenshi right?” Kuai asked, before looking at Takeda, “and you’re Kenshi’s son?” Hanzo nodded in response. “It’s nice to meet you both.”

“It’s nice to meet you too.” Hanzo gave an uneasy smile, watching as Kuai finished off the onion. That’s weird, that’s so weird. “So, you picked up that old abandoned farm?”

“Yeah, it’s a lot more run down than I initially thought, but I think I’ll get somewhere with it.” He smiled widely, and Hanzo had to admit, he looked adorable when he was smiling. It almost took away from the fact he just ate something he found on the floor. “I have a few vegetables and fruits growing so far.”

“Do you have cows?” Takeda asked, wide eyed, forgetting his previous disappointment.

“Ah, not yet. I would like some though,” Kuai claimed.

“When you get some, can I pet one?” Takeda was bouncing in place.

“Sure,” Kuai said with a crooked smile. “It might be a while, but you have my word, as soon as I get a cow, you may be the first to pet them.”

Takeda made an excited sounding squeal and Hanzo couldn’t help but smile. He had been here, when Takeda’s mother had died, and seen how it had affected the kid. Some days he didn’t even talk to his father, let alone anyone else. Seeing him excited about anything was a sign of healing.

And Kuai Liang may be the strangest man he’s ever met, but at least he seemed to be kind.

“Kenshi told me you’re an author,” Kuai enquired, turning his attention back to Hanzo while Takeda continued to bounce with joy and babble about cows.

“I am.” Hanzo didn’t really want to talk about that with anyone. Not that he wasn’t proud of his work, more that he was upset about his current progress. “I’ve hit a bit of a block lately, however.”

“I know how that feels,” Kuai muttered, barely loud enough to be heard. Hanzo didn’t have a chance to question what he meant because Kuai continued with, “well, the valley is absolutely beautiful, I imagine there must be some inspiration hiding around here somewhere.”

“I imagine so too, just a case of looking for it.” He’d been looking for it for two years. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep looking for something so elusive. “Still, we should probably leave you to uh… whatever it was you were actually doing.”

“I was just foraging for things,” Kuai admitted, looking over to where he’d dug up the spring onion. “I don’t know why I ate it… It tasted nice though, so at least the wild vegetables are good quality.”

“Sure,” Hanzo reluctantly agreed. Whatever helps you sleep at night. “I wish you luck with your foraging. Try not to eat anything else you find on the floor.”

Kuai gave a sheepish smile, “I will do my best not to.” He paused for a moment, before adding “please feel free to stop by the farm, if you like. It’s not much at the moment, but I wouldn’t mind visitors.”

“I’ll consider it,” Hanzo replied. He knew Takeda would definitely love to go see the farm even without the cows. Hanzo should probably accompany him, just so he didn’t risk outstaying his welcome.

Kuai gave them both a small wave, before turning back to the forest, and disappearing between the trees. Hanzo wondered if the spring onion incident really was just a spur of the moment thing, or if he was trying to save face at being caught.

Still he supposed that didn’t really matter. He turned to Takeda who was still looking extremely excited.

“So? Was he what you imagined?” Hanzo questioned as he started back on the trail, Takeda practically skipping by his side.

“Nope!” The bluntness of the statement caught Hanzo off guard and he couldn’t help but snort. “But he’s still cool, in a different way. I can’t wait until he gets a cow!”

Hanzo laughed, “I’m sure he’s excited for it too.”

He glanced over in the direction Kuai had gone off in. He could just about make the man out, bending down to pick something up. This time however, he slipped his backpack onto his shoulder and put it inside. Least he’s not just eating everything he finds, I guess.

He could see what the others meant. He was strange, but it wasn’t threatening in any way. Almost endearing, if he was honest. Hanzo still had no real intent to be anything more than passing acquaintances, but he could imagine sitting down and having a few pints with him. Anything more could distract him further from his goal of writing, and he couldn’t risk that. He needed to stay focused, and he wasn’t going to let himself be pulled away by the admittedly intriguing new farmer.

He took a breath, and turned away to continue his quest for inspiration.

#mortal kombat #subscorp #sub zero #kuai liang #scorpion #hanzo hasashi #��earthrealm valley

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paradoxcase · 2 years ago

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I saw Barbie a few days ago. Thoughts:

The actresses who play the barbies seem to be more diverse (especially in terms of body diversity) than actual IRL barbies. Ordinarily more diversity in movie casts are good, but in this case I feel like it's sort of falsely advertising diversity in barbie dolls that doesn't exist, which is, I think, bad. As far as I'm aware, there are currently only four different barbie body shapes, which are all pretty thin and the only difference seems to be that they can't all wear each other's clothes anymore, and what is even the point of owning barbies if they can't all wear each other's clothes?

There also are barbies with flat feet. I know that they exist because I owned one when I was a kid, and I specifically remember because it was very annoying because she couldn't wear any of my massive hoard of existing barbie clothes. It's so funny to me that they bring out all those discontinued and canceled barbies, but never mention that there were barbies with flat feet, especially considering that they used the whole flat feet thing as a plot point

It seemed like in the first half of the movie they were setting Mattel up to be the bad guys, which was actually an idea I really liked, but then at some point they transitioned into being harmless comic relief, which also feels a bit like propaganda. Like, haha, they haven't had a female CEO for 30 years, tee hee, how funny! Let's just forget about all that, it's not important, the real problem here is obviously Ken

Somehow the message of this movie winds up being "we need more barbies representing normal people instead of people with big kickass careers" when that's not remotely the biggest issue with barbie, I don't think

I did like Weird Barbie, and how she was used in the movie, and it was kind of fun overall, a nice bit of nostalgia, and pretty funny generally

I did not know that the creator of Barbie shared my first name. I never see characters with this name in movies, so I figured she had to be a real person and not a character invented for the film, but it was actually cool to find out she was actually the creator

#barbie #barbie movie

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theomnicode · 3 years ago

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Saitama’s power deconstruction part 1: Psyche and Divine powers The Ego, The ID and the Super-ego

I know right? How is this even related to massive strenght? The planet busting powers and being impervious?

Buckle up and I will try my best to explain this wild theory I stumbled upon while doing research into how buddhism relates to OPM and then doing some leaps of logic and other stuff. I've no degree in psychology so bear with me on this, I just like doing analysis.

Again, lots of wikipedia abuse and you may want to read some of my previous posts as they relate to the research I've been doing on discord.

Does god reside in Saitama?

Saitama's hero suit

How saitama's power manifests

Warning, this is an extremely long post of both theory, OPM meta, speculation and lots of wikipedia abuse.

Preface, explaining the leaps of logic:

At first, I simply researched ways how would a willpower use manifest when he uses his emotions to seemingly fuel a Serious punch and how said fuel is then expended in stress relief, which I have explained on how Saitama's powers potentially manifest as emotional release.

In current chapter 167, we're seeing a lot of showcase about things that break laws of physics and break common sense. But he's completely dissocating as well and he's not actually punching with energy release. His punches are completely different from how he threw his planet busting punch. And seemingly weaker too.

I was also researching how to break one's limiter and realised that OPM God has no identity at all, because he is faceless and at the same time, multifaceted and takes on other identities.

When Blast said that beings who manipulate the reality of the cosmos and that we got confirmation that Saitama's powers are of divine origin, I immediately thought about reality manipulation. But that would not explain the bursts of emotional discharges.

If we believe Gyoro, one has to overload the body and spirit, multiple times.

According to Ventegodt and Merrick, the Jungian term "psychic death" is a synonym for "ego death":In order to radically improve global quality of life, it seems necessary to have a fundamental transformation of the psyche. Such a shift in personality has been labeled an "ego death" in Buddhism or a psychic death by Jung, because it implies a shift back to the existential position of the natural self, i.e., living the true purpose of life. The problem of healing and improving the global quality of life seems strongly connected to the unpleasantness of the ego-death experience.

In Jungian psychology, a unification of archetypal opposites has to be reached, during a process of conscious suffering, in which consciousness "dies" and resurrects. Jung called this process "the transcendent function", which leads to a "more inclusive and synthetic consciousness".

Ego death is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity". The term is used in various intertwined contexts, with related meanings. Jungian psychology uses the synonymous term psychic death, referring to a fundamental transformation of the psyche. In death and rebirth mythology, ego death is a phase of self-surrender and transition, as described by Joseph Campbell in his research on the mythology of the Hero's Journey.It is a recurrent theme in world mythology and is also used as a metaphor in some strands of contemporary western thinking.

A fundamental transformation of the psyche. Hm.

So what is psyche?

In psychology, the psyche /ˈsaɪki/ is the totality of the human mind, conscious and unconscious.[1] Many thinkers, including Carl Jung, also include in this definition the overlap and tension between the personal and the collective elements in man. The English word soul is sometimes used synonymously, especially in older texts.

(Haha funny, that OPM writer also writes Mob Psycho haha)

So human mind, conscious and unconscious.

Human mind is probably Saitama's insane willpower. The non-defeatist attitude of his. Never accept defeat, never quit. But I legit haven't thought about the human mind relation with his powers. It may be normal and intact.

But we already know this don't we? What about the rest? (also this scene is so frikken funny to me lmao)

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, believed that the psyche—he used the word Seele ('soul', but also 'psyche') throughout his writings—was composed of three components:

The id, which represents the instinctual drives of an individual and remains largely unconscious. It does not respect the rules of society.

The super-ego, which represents a person's conscience and their internalization of societal norms and morality.

The ego, which is conscious and serves to integrate the drives of the id with the prohibitions of the super-ego. Freud believed this conflict to be at the heart of neurosis.

Now we've hit the meaty part of it. Saitama's divine powers and how he can control the conscious and unconscious mind. Supposedly.

The Ego, The ID and the Super-ego:

The id, ego, and super-ego are a set of three concepts in psychoanalytic theory describing distinct, interacting agents in the psychic apparatus (defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche). The three agents are theoretical constructs that describe the activities and interactions of the mental life of a person. In the ego psychology model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual desires; the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic agent that mediates between the instinctual desires of the id and the critical super-ego.

ID:

The id is the instinctual component of personality that is present at birth, and is the source of bodily needs and wants, emotional impulses and desires, especially aggression and the libido (sex drive). The id acts according to the pleasure principle — the psychic force oriented to immediate gratification of impulse and desire — defined by the avoidance of pain. Freud said that the Id is unconscious, by definition.

The mind of a newborn child is regarded as completely "id-ridden", in the sense that it is a mass of instinctive drives and impulses, and needs immediate satisfaction. The "id" moves on to what organism needs. Example is reduction of tension which is experienced.

The id "knows no judgements of value: no good and evil, no morality. …Instinctual cathexes seeking discharge—that, in our view, is all there is in the id." It is regarded as "the great reservoir of libido", the instinctive drive to create—the life instincts that are crucial to pleasurable survival. Alongside the life instincts came the death instincts—the death drive which Freud articulated relatively late in his career in "the hypothesis of a death instinct, the task of which is to lead organic life back into the inanimate state." For Freud, "the death instinct would thus seem to express itself—though probably only in part—as an instinct of destruction directed against the external world and other organisms" through aggression. Freud considered that "the id, the whole person…originally includes all the instinctual impulses…the destructive instinct as well", as eros or the life instincts.

If those bolded parts sound familiar, they should. Avoidance of pain because Saitama doesn't seem to feel any real pain even if he gets hit.

Source of bodily needs and wants, because Saitama is so detatched from his emotions right now, he has no physiological needs. Despite acknowledging gravity when he jumped around the moon, now he gives two shits about gravity, air, temperature or anything.

Bodily wants because he can do whatever he wants to apparently with his body, like Table flip and jump at high speeds and everything he wills himself to do. Just general body enhancement ability so he can do Serious side hops. And lastly...

Serious series, Serious Punch.

The "Death" punch.

"Instinct of destruction directed against the external world through aggression."

A very emotionally loaded aggressive Punch. That more than likely causes emotional catharsis via expulsion of emotional energy. Either via transference or cathexis.

Note that the ID is according to Freud, unconscious by definition. So in some levels, Saitama is not aware of the extremes of his Death punch when it's this emotionally loaded. Such as him feeling suddenly relaxed after unloading stress at Elder Centipede. Or when he's using his divine powers to load it with emotional energy, specifically. Because he is not thinking rationally anymore at this extreme level, it's all emotions, instincts where his higher cognitive thought processes get thrown out of the window. Head empty, just feeling the hot cognitive release of emotion.

Serious Punch is one thing. He's pounding Garou with Serious punches.

But they are without any emotion to discharge. The higher the emotion, the bigger the discharge. That makes them different. Makes sense. This is from the writer of Mob Psycho after all.

Normal punch is normal levels of aggressive emotion(nal damage). Serious Punch is serious levels of aggressive emotion, he feels like he needs to punch to kill. Death Punch is... more extreme levels of aggressive emotional discharge.

(I can't I'm just laughing at the Emotional Damage joke now xd)

Genos did ask for him to take him seriously and show him no mercy and not hold back... Well, he didn't hold back, Genos got a taste of Saitama's divine powers kekw.

Be careful what you wish for lmao. He didn't die, so that's something.

But if Saitama has been doing hero work for 3 years and punching people, if he constantly discharges his emotional energy like this, does that mean it is the reason why he's been feeling his emotions waning?

Possibly. Likely. Might be related to the other parts of his powers. But if he experiences emotions and does not discharge them in anger or in other ways (hmmm? other ways?), he might be able to gain a sense of his waning emotions back. At least I hypothesise.

King is playing a very dangerous Game when he made Saitama pissed lmao. He's lucky Saitama moderates himself extremely well too and went out to punch a Centipede to literally vent. But then again, King is a true gamer.

Onto the other part of his power. The one which we saw him use in latest chapter 167.

Ego:

The ego (Latin for "I",[20] German: Ich)[21] acts according to the reality principle; i.e., it seeks to please the id's drive in realistic ways that, in the long term, bring benefit, rather than grief.[22] At the same time, Freud concedes that as the ego "attempts to mediate between id and reality, it is often obliged to cloak the (unconscious) commands of the id with its own preconscious rationalizations, to conceal the id's conflicts with reality, to profess…to be taking notice of reality even when the id has remained rigid and unyielding."[23] The reality principle that operates the ego is a regulating mechanism that enables the individual to delay gratifying immediate needs and function effectively in the real world. An example would be to resist the urge to grab other people's belongings, but instead to purchase those items. The ego is the organized part of the personality structure that includes defensive, perceptual, intellectual-cognitive, and executive functions. Conscious awareness resides in the ego, although not all of the operations of the ego are conscious. Originally, Freud used the word ego to mean a sense of self, but later revised it to mean a set of psychic functions such as judgment, tolerance, reality testing, control, planning, defense, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory.[25] The ego separates out what is real. It helps us to organize our thoughts and make sense of them and the world around us.[25] "The ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world. …The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions…in its relation to the id it is like a tug of war, which the ego has to hold in check the id to not let it loose; with the difference, that the teams fought against one other in equality, while the ego was against the much stronger 'id'.

In Freudian psychology and psychoanalysis, the reality principle (German: Realitätsprinzip)[1] is the ability of the mind to assess the reality of the external world, and to act upon it accordingly,[2] as opposed to acting on the pleasure principle.

Allowing the individual to defer (put off) instant gratification, the reality principle is the governing principle of the actions taken by the ego, after its slow development from a "pleasure-ego" into a "reality-ego":[3] it may be compared to the triumph of reason over passion, head over heart, rational over emotional mind, human values over animal instinct.

What we can glean from this is a set of psychic functions and that Ego represents reason and common sense. Common sense that Saitama is also currently breaking.

Judgment Tolerance Reality testing Control Planning Defense Synthesis of information Intellectual functioning Memory From another source of Ego psychology, we have: Reality testing Impulse control Affect regulation Judgment Object relations Thought processes Defensive functioning Synthesis

Yea, honestly sounds about right when you think about it.

Note here, that ID aka those governing emotions, instincts and bodily functions are on the unconscious level.

While Ego functions are done mostly on the conscious level.

But anything that Saitama does when in an emotional state can be unconscious action, by definition. And everything done while apathetic and not beholden by ID and only driven by the Ego, is a intellectual-cognitive and executive function. But some actions of the ego or id can still be done consciously or subconsciously.

Currently in chapter 167, Saitama is dissociating from his emotions really hard. So he is not overwhelmed by his own feelings about Genos' death. May or may not be unconscious ability that he regulates his emotions. But lack of emotions makes it more difficult for him to connect with his ID. Reality principle is the governing principle of the actions taken by the ego.

So by either forcing himself to not feel (subconscious defence mechanism) or through the massive discharge of emotions just before fighting Garou on I.O or both, the Ego has taken over the fight. The rational, intellectual-cognitive though processes.

Quite literally, as he performs a picture perfect right hook when his form is normally sloppy. He fights methodically, surgically, intelligently with little wasted movement. Even his dialogue choices seem to reflect his utter lack of passion for this battle.

In an Ego versus Ego battle. Where he is going to pound Garou's ego to the ground, figuratively and literally.

If that makes sense.

Now, the powers.

Judgement:

Saitama has a tendency to cast "judgement" on other people, which works as judging their Egoes that can cause a shift in their Ego. It sounds remarkably similar to the concept of "Gaze".

Possibly he can induce the process for the search of the Ideal Ego in self. If he uses his divine power that is, possibly unconsciously via emotions. But it seems to be a battle of Egos, so to speak. Fubuki as Do-S states, has a strong ego herself, so she does not immediately yield. Neither does Garou.

Eye-contact is probably a requirement. Thus the gaze and pressure one can feel when he looks at people and exerts his divine power. Orochi who is another being who has broken their limits at least once, perceives this as The Third Eye. You could say that Saitama has clairvoyance of sorts.

Eyes are the window to your soul, a quote from William Shakespeare. Saitama stares into your soul, the spirit, the ego, the self-concept.

My personal headcanon from now on is that he can never Judge Genos because he cannot truly get eye contact, since he's a cyborg. But Genos on his own, is sincere and honest. He does not need to. Genos will find his ideal ego through normal means.

Tolerance:

Tolerance is a no brainer. He can tolerate just about anything that could kill a normal human being. Lava, space vacuum, freezing, laser beams, lack of air, radiation, you name it.

The interesting note here is that he first needed an adjustment period and then sudden sense of relief. Unconscious mind at work again where his body functions adjust themselves. Or something like that.

It is said, however, that the ego seems to be more loyal to the id, preferring to gloss over the finer details of reality to minimize conflicts while pretending to have a regard for reality.

Reality testing:

The Ego governs reason and common sense. Therefore, Saitama can break logic and break laws of physics and grab hyperspace portals. And probably also relation to how he can break the moon with 4 fingers. It's all kind of related. Currently in chapter 167, he's holding Genos core in his hand and imbuing it with his Divine power that test reality itself and break logic. Because it's tanking nukes and survived traveling to Jupiter.

The lack of common sense and rationality, the Ego, on the other hand, allowed him to interact with the spiritual plane, because he was pissed that he thought they were talking about his bald head lmfao.

Control:

Yeap, just control. Not much to say about this one, but he controls his impulses and the applications of his power precisely as he wants. Despite his capabilities, he can just as easily smash the planet apart as he can snap chopsticks. Though maybe the tiniest bit of force application proves to be sometimes difficult, as well as humorous.

Control does seemingly slip at times when he gets emotional though. Like when he accidentally breaks King's gaming consoles.

Affect regulation:

The ability to modulate feelings without being overwhelmed. Saitama is normally pretty easygoing and stoic person, then he gets passionate quite often despite saying his emotions are waning. But he may be able to modulate his feelings unconsciously to protect his psyche from damage.

Planning:

Idk is planning hitting grocery store sales a superpower? Lol. But he is apparently planning his actions regularly, like when he surfed on the ship and then thought about jumping towards Garou. And the moon jump back.

Defensive functioning:

A defense is an unconscious attempt to protect the individual from some powerful, identity-threatening feeling. Initial defenses develop in infancy and involve the boundary between the self and the outer world; they are considered primitive defenses and include projection, denial, and splitting.

Not much more to say that Saitama is just impervious. He can take a hit.

Object relations:

The capacity for mutually satisfying relationship. The individual can perceive himself and others as whole objects with three dimensional qualities.

Possibly his ability to perceive others, like how he perceived Awakened Garou and could immediately tell something was off and he could hear the echo of God in the background.

Thought processes:

The ability to have logical, coherent, and abstract thoughts. In stressful situations, thought processes can become disorganized. The presence of chronic or severe problems in conceptual thinking is frequently associated with schizophrenia and manic episodes.

Keep calm, punch monster, move on.

Synthesis of information:

The synthetic function is the ego's capacity to organize and unify other functions within the personality. It enables the individual to think, feel, and act in a coherent manner. It includes the capacity to integrate potentially contradictory experiences, ideas, and feelings.

If one had all these powers, not being able to organize and unify it would get messy. I get it.

Intellectual functioning:

Idk he's still sane? Sounds like a power to me. That he's able to intellectually function despite being god level and doing irrational, logic defying feats. Or when he's chilling on the surface of the moon without seemingly any air.

Memory:

I get a feeling that he has repressed an important memory, like why he became a Hero in the first place that he mentions having forgotten, in an effort to protect his psyche from damage.

Let's face it, nearly dying and having ego-death to break the limit will prolly create some kind of trauma that one represses.

(To be continued on Part 2, the Super-ego and further)

#opm #one punch man #opm spoilers #opm meta discussion #saitama #saitama's powers #psyche #ego #id #super-ego #opm manga panels #long post #text #Sigmund Freud #Psychoanalysis #psychology

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sassy-ahsoka-tano · 3 years ago

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MILA BESTIE BELOVED do you have any Thots™️ about pirate!Austin? It’s for science 👀✨

so...so so many thots. pirate austin hits all of my interests

i'm imagining will turner from pirates of the carribbean and austin just fits that character so well 😭

i imagine him in pretty nice clothing, maybe like an old blue 1760s officer jacket, brown trousers, and of course the white puffy pirate shirt that's mostly unbuttoned

he's got a couple of necklaces decorated with shells, leather, and gems that he's gathered on his different trips. i'm imagining maybe a bandana wrapped around his forehead, too

PROBABLY AN EARRING 👁 👁 and definitely a BIG BIG belt that you can easily grasp onto

he would definitely have longer hair that he pulls back into a ponytail, but the sexy will turner ponytail

and he would probably tie it back with a ribbon or a strip of fabric that you gifted to him

even though a lot of his crewmates are also dirty and not well kept, he makes sure to stay pretty clean and put together

he doesn't have facial hair, but he sure does have stubble + he's probably blonde af because of all the sun bleaching his hair haha

he wear rings....so many rings, and he gifts you one of his rings + his red bandana so that you'll remember him when he goes out to sea. and you give him a piece of jewelry or a strip of ribbon to hang on his belt loops

he's grown up as a pirate his whole life, indebted to repay the money his father couldn't before he died

pirate!austin is really successful in terms of the ranks, however, and i would imagine him as first mate or quartermaster tbh. someone who has a lot of responsibility

where a lot of his crewmates spend time at the pub, he prefers to sit outside in the cooling air and read or just watch the sun set

he's extremely skilled with a sword + daggers, and you meet when he saves you from some baddie pirates

unfortunately, he has debts to repay on his ship so he has to go out to sea for months at a time, but that means that when he returns to shore to see you, he's REALLY happy to see you

sex with pirate!austin is unreal. he's extremely loving and tender while also being thorough + idk if this makes sense but he fucks you DEEP. like he's all the way in, gripping your body to pull you as far down on his dick as possible

he's massively endowed and so so hungry for you

he also loves, loves, loves when you pull on his hair. especially when he's performing oral on you and you can feel his stubble tickling and scratching your legs

he always brings back trinkets for you when he returns, whether its jewelry, gold coins from an ancient land, jade statues, or whatever he happens to have from his pillaging trip

you spend every waking minute together, making love all night and then sleeping in, lazily laying with each other in the morning

but when he leaves you, it's incredibly painful. because you know it will be months before you see him again. or hear from him actually because how would he send letters from the middle of the ocean?

sometimes you're terrified that he won't come back at all, but he always does with a little something something for you

#answered #sage 💛#pirate aus #dirty deeds #milas thirsty thursday

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jalebi-weds-bluetooth · 2 years ago

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Hiya JWB! Your thoughts on the scene when Arnav takes khushi to his mums. i HATE that they used such obvious body doubles & only watched it i think two seperate times, whenever it comes on i skip or stop it. I dont even remember what was said in it as all i can see is the body doubles, and that hand rubbing khushis cheek to clean the drawing just before they go? Cant remember when but it properly annoys me haha. Love ur replies and analysis keep it up for us still loving Arshi. Biggest thankyou!

Hey Anon!

Oh I so wish they had the script supervisor just note which car they used to create some semblance of continuity! I totally understand why they’d use body doubles but then considering how prominent Sanaya and Barun’s hands are, why they’d go for hand close ups and just why they chose completely different cars… sigh

To be honest when you’re shooting rapidly and daily these important things can be really missed out on! I’m sure on the editing table they realized that damn the nail work just doesn’t match (they tried to crop it!) and the cars don’t match either but probably what’s most important is to get the episodes out in line at the proper time!

You can see below they super cropped in but couldn’t do a anything much cause it was evident how different the hands were!

However all said and done it is a BEAUTIFUL scene, one of the best ones post elopement and is absolutely worth the watch! It adds the emotional gravity we were so waiting for!

It’s a shame there wasn’t a common schedules for the actors that day and that very obvious discrepancies were visible (I can bet that even the directors and editors went “ah shit”) but perhaps it’s one of the few times I can watch over an obvious error.

Also at that point ipk was seriously breaking down in terms of budget - I think a lot of the production stuff was probably being funnelled to other shows? - because you could start to see the set wear down, makeup go off, cinematography slightly cheapen and all.

The scenes also are suddenly too brightly lit. You see the way they managed outdoor Nainital versus the garden and you’d understand there was just a higher quality of equipments employed previously.

(You can see the difference in colouring lighting costume and makeup - massive yet subtle differences)

It’s a good scene though - just hear it out - it ties up the conversation Arnav had with Khushi about parents becoming stars and the whole Anjali Arnav bangle conversation.

Sigh, if they’d only top that scene with Arnav actually giving her his mum’s bangles it would’ve totally closed the loop! But hey very few shows give things in retrospect at this point (where the writers were changed or new writers stepped in).

Small things though could’ve made the scene easier:

- give Sanaya a glitter mehendi or a real mehendi with sketch pen to the body double

- give the body double short red nails instead

- have Arnav wipe Khushi’s face with a handkerchief so in a closeup we have the thumb wrapped in a hanky

- choose the same car for the actors to blend the scene

- have the master shot instead of close ups where they touch each other’s face so we can see the full moment between the actors (the pic below is a master - which is usually a wider shot with both the leads in)

- shoot the hands from the other side so we don’t see the nails but just the hands together

But also there were moments where they got the lighting and body double position really right where you can easily believe it’s arshi! And that is tough considering you need to command eye line, where they’re looking, outdoor lighting and all to look cohesive!

So, I hope you give this scene a chance regardless! Cause tv is tough to perfect, especially under pressure, and sometimes when the writing is brilliant you can forgive other things 😊 I’d always take good writing above two actors in the same frame doing shitty scenes (for example the swami track eww)

On a funny note, the hut scene did give us the worst of both worlds 😂

Best,

- JWB

#ask #ipkknd #anon #ipkknd remarriage track #Jalebi gets technical

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rivetgoth · 3 years ago

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I don’t know if you can answer this because idk if you’re gay or not but would you say it’s nearly impossible for someone who is ftm and gay like me to find a cis gender boyfriend? I know there’s chasers and to some I’m like a kink but I feel like most cis gay men are not open to dating, let alone ever settling down one day with a trans guy

I don’t mean this to sound rude but I’d probably recommend checking out my bio in the future because unfortunately (for the context of this ask, not for me, haha) I’m bisexual and in a long term and happy relationship with a woman, so I’m not gay, no, and I’d probably suggest finding a gay trans guy who is in a happy relationship with a man to get better information on this, but I mean… I’ve known PLENTY of trans guys of all orientations who have found love. I’ve known trans guys with success in dating apps for both relationships and hookups, trans guys who’ve been in happy relationships with men, etc. I would not at all say that it’s nearly impossible; I think if you interact with large LGBT community spaces (which I’m very aware is a privilege that I have due to living in a big city in a blue state, I’m not saying that’s an easy thing to have access to) you’ll hear a MASSIVE amount of varied experiences among trans people in relationships, including a huge number who have happy relationships with long term partners.

Like, truly, speaking from experience as someone who knows a LOT of trans people, I would earnestly say, not trying to just sound nice or sugarcoating it or anything, the ratio of trans men (and trans people I know in general, including transfems and nonbinary people) in happy relationships is just about perfectly 50:50 to the cis people I know. I do know trans men who are chronically single and struggle hugely to find relationships. I also know cis men in the exact same boat. I know trans men who are in open relationships and have both long term partners and are able to hookup with hot guys they meet. I know both straight and lesbian trans women with long term partners. I know kinky polyamorous nonbinary people who have had like 3-4 partners at once. Trans women in huge polycules. I know chronically single socially awkward cis women. It’s like. Genuinely not even something I really think about, I know so many “taken” trans people by being active in local kink and alt and LGBT spaces, and I’m not exactly like a social butterfly that knows insane numbers of people, I just am never surprised to hear about a trans person in a relationship because it’s not even a rarity or anything to me, you know?

I do get that dating as a trans person can feel like a minefield though, especially if you’re in an area that doesn’t have a big LGBT community presence. Options feel limited and at worst it can genuinely feel unsafe. I still get nervous when I’m hit on sometimes because I’m aware as a passing transsexual guy that I’m not being interpreted as trans and thus if I pursue the relationship there will be a moment that I’ll have to “come out,” where my genitals will have to be a whole convo on the table and it’ll be for some the moment of judgment and they may very well change their mind altogether, if not react with violence or aggression. That sucks. Like, a lot. I also don’t really think that it’s possible for anyone, trans or cis, to have a healthy and happy relationship unless we feel at least somewhat secure in ourselves. You know the whole “you can’t be loved until you love yourself” phrase? Obviously that’s not 100% true point blank, but I do think it’s hard to express outwards affection in a healthy way when you can’t get out of your own insecurities; it’s bound to be projected onto others or keep you from fully expressing yourself and your wants. But that’s hard for lots of trans folk, due to both dysphoria as well as external pressures like how so much of society views our bodies as anomalies or fetishes. So there is a balancing act that kind of has to happen where you learn self preservation and being smart about how you put yourself out there, but also learn to confidently put yourself out there at all and not be limited by fear. Tricky, and sometimes luck based IME, but like, the more social interaction you have and the more people you meet and the more you’re rejected and the more you’re able to form positive social connections and just the more experience you get in general the easier it becomes.

And uh last thought, I’m not going to touch this too much because I get it’s a touchy subject, but you asked me so I’m answering, I would like to push back on something here— I’d suggest asking yourself why you explicitly seem to be looking to date cis? I know “genital preferences” is like, a massively controversial subject and I don’t need anyone justifying themselves in my inbox by explaining the nuances of their unique traumas or preferences that have made them decide that they only want to date cis (I’m an anarchist so I think you can do whatever you want lol) but like, all being open to dating other trans guys does is open up the door to more options and possibilities? I’m not exclusively T4T myself seeing as I’m literally not dating a trans person, but I have spoken before about how I’m not really crazy about trans people who explicitly only date cis. I think there are often implications there that should be worked through about how you view your own identity TBH, but that’s not really my business. My advice stands regardless of your relationship preferences or goals IMHO.

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little-diable · 5 years ago

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Sharing a mate - Emmett x Reader x Jasper (smut)

Okay so like an Emmett x reader x jasper threesome? I cannot get enough of those boys and I feel like it’d be an interesting combo. Some plot points in case you can’t work with vagueness: trio are all mates, your choice if reader is human or not, Emmett being more dom than jasper, reader getting absolutely WRECKED, and some cuddling at the end.

So, this is my first ever try at a threesome, please, be gentle with me haha. Enjoy my loves. xxx

(Credit to the gif owner)

It was a rare occurrence for a vampire to share his mate with somebody else, but there had been cases here and there where a vampire had not one, but two mates at the same time.

Even though it took both Jasper and Emmett some time to get used to it, they came to terms with the fact that (y/n) was their mate and that they had to share her with each other.

(Y/n) was a beautiful girl, full of life, the boys were obsessed with her, felt very protective of her, they wouldn’t leave her out of their sight just once. And as much as (y/n) had been confused in the beginning, she liked the attention she was receiving from both men, she liked loving not just one but two vampires at the same time.

Her head was placed against Emmett’s chest, legs were draped over Jasper’s lap, a book was placed in her hands, the boys had their eyes focused on the massive tv. Slowly Jasper’s hands began to wander, both boys had absolutely no impulse control over their instincts when it came to (y/n). Emmett couldn’t stop the smirk from spreading as his eyes found Jasper’s darkening ones, the arousal that began to pool between her thighs was hard to miss. Emmett had her draped over his shoulder in a second, carrying his human mate towards her bedroom.

She slightly bounced against the mattress as Emmett helped her out of her shirt, and straddled her middle, while Jasper began to unbutton her jeans, “You’re soaked darlin’.” His voice vibrated against her clothed core, shivers ran up her spine, she was beginning to lose all her control. Emmett toyed with her nipples, only stopping as she popped open the button of his trousers, palming him through his boxers.

Just as Emmett grasped his length, pumping it a few times and pushed it past her awaiting lips, Jasper’s tongue licked a long stripe through (y/n)s wet folds. The moan that escaped her mouth was slightly muffled by Emmett’s movement, her cheeks were hallowed around his size, the salty flavor heavy on her tongue as he kept on thrusting his hips forward.

Just as Jasper began to pump two fingers inside of her, she gagged around Emmett’s length. Tears left her eyes, Jasper was building up the pressure, he attached his lips to her pulsing clit, drawing her closer to her release.

Emmett rose from her chest and flipped (y/n) onto all fours. She kept on sucking him off as Jasper teased her entrance with his tip. He always liked to take his sweet time with her, he wanted her to feel relaxed, didn’t want to pressure or stress his mate. Emmett on the other hand played the dominant part of the two brothers, he liked to wreck her, liked to litter her body with bruises - bruises that would make her grin later on, only to mark her as his.

(Y/n) gagged around Emmett’s cock once again as Jasper thrusted forward, his tip gazed her sweet spot, every inch of his cock stretched her core so deliciously, he knew exactly what he was doing, knew her body like the back of his hand.

“Fuck, babe, your mouth feels so good, wrapped around me.” Emmett’s voice was restrained, fingers tugged on her roots, he felt his orgasm approaching, he grunted at the feeling of the vibrations as (y/n) kept on moaning around him.

Jasper could feel that she was near, she kept on clenching around him, kept on gripping the bedsheets tighter, so he stopped his thrusting and slowly backed away from his mate.

“Your turn,” was all he said as he swapped places with his brother, giving her a second to breathe. Emmett pounded straight into her, not giving her any time to adjust to him, his hips snapped against hers, (y/n) eyes were closed as she sucked on Jaspers length, “You’re doing so well darlin’.” Jasper kept on praising her.

Emmett had a tight grip on her hips, marks were already beginning to form, she was clenching around him, a deep moan left her lips as Emmett kept on building up his speed, he was wrecking her, not showing any mercy at all. (Y/n) felt her orgasm nearing, the sensation was slowly getting too much, she kept on bopping her head around Jasper as Emmett kept on pounding into her heat. Emmett started to draw circles on her clit, his thrusts slowly began to falter, just like Jasper, he felt his release approaching.

All three of them came at the same time, loud moans left the boys mouths, (y/n) kept on groaning around Jaspers member, his cum was dripping down the back of her throat, a taste she’s grown to love. Emmett slowly pulled out of her, he walked into the bathroom and came back with a warm washcloth, cleaning her. Jasper pulled her into his chest, a tired smile on her lips as she felt Emmetts hand moving along her spine.

“I love you.” (y/n) couldn’t stop the yawn from escaping her, still drunk on the feeling of the orgasm that had just washed through her a few minutes ago.

#Jasper Hale #jasper hale imagine #jasper hale x reader #jasper hale smut #Emmett Cullen #Emmett Cullen imagine #Emmett cullen smut #Emmett Cullen x reader #twilight #twilight imagine #twilight smut #Jasper whitlock #jackson rathbone #kellan lutz

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dawntheduckrb · 1 year ago

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Bonjour! I've missed another couple weeks, but not because I didn't go to those services. I haven't had the energy to type these out, amongst other various reasons, but I've been notified that they have been missed and now have renewed motivation to keep writing :D Surprisingly no huge content warnings for this other than the general religion and religious shenanigans, so without further ado…

cw: religion, religious themes

Week 7: Are We Really Killing Our Planet?

Heads up, this was two Sundays ago so I don't think I'll be able to give as much detail as I usually do

Global warming and the environment and other related issues are a very common point of discussion today; out pastor pointed out that it is particularly a matter of concern for younger people. He didn't want to leave everyone wondering what their "biblical answer" to this question was for the whole service, so he went ahead and gave a quick answer: no, we aren't.

He says this because saying that "humans are killing the planet" is giving too much power to people and undermines the strength of God. However, that doesn't mean we are free to do whatever we want to it. Throughout the sermon, we discussed why exactly we should add taking care of the planet to the list of important things to do as a Christian.

1.) Why is Creation Care Important?

Before I go into the meat of this point, I'd like to point out the use of "creation care" vs. "environmental concerns." He said that using the former term is much better, because it emphasizes and reminds us of God's hand in creating the world. Even though that's what he said, I can't help but think this was also, in part, to make people feel better about being told that driving around their no-muffler lifted-tire diesel trucks to Sunday mass was maybe not a great idea. Despite this change in language, he apparently still received a lot of emails where people complained about him being a tree-hugging liberal sissy snowflake. If anything, I hope that says something about the kind of people that attend these sermons.

There had to be a lot of prefacing at the beginning of this point. The pastor spent a good minute why people should not look at this as a political issue. The thing is, most everyone here is extremely and proudly conservative, to an almost alarming degree. For some people, politics are a part of their personalities. They will not listen to you if you try to defend progressive points, so he had to be very clear that he didn't think this was a political point. You'd think he'd say this is more something that everyone living on the planet should be concerned about, right?

Haha, no. He believes that this is very much a Christian-specific issue. It's not quite on the mark, but at least he's saying to care about it, so there's nothing really to complain about there. I just found it funny how everything becomes a Christian issue if it stays on the news long enough.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)

God created the world; it's the literal first sentence in the bible. The bottom line of this entire sermon is that we are, and are living in, God's creation. Protecting the Earth is important primarily because we need to respect what God has given us. Just as our body is a temple to be respected, so is the earth that we inhabit.

"'The most important one,' answered Jesus, 'is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.'" (Mark 12:29-30)

Not only is respect of the Earth needed due to who created it, it is an important part of "loving thy neighbor." When things go bad in nature, the first ones that are usually affected by it are those who are impoverished. For example, things like disasters, accidents, and scarcity massively drive up prices of food/fuel/etc. which makes it harder for people in those circumstance to live. Caring for the environment is just one way we can be not actively making their lives worse.

2.) We are Commanded to Care for Creation

"Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” (Genesis 1:26)

"The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it." (Gensis 2:15)

These are both verses that pretty explicitly state that it was man's intended purpose to watch over the land. The only thing that was added to this was how we are supposed to care for it; responsibly. Our pastor said not to exploit it, but care for it with gentleness.

"You must not muzzle an ox to keep it from eating as it treads out the grain." (Deuteronomy 25:4)

Here, utilizing the help of animals is not forbidden, but using them while not treating them well is. We are allowed to use the resources on the Earth, as long as we do so with a kindness in our hearts.

He also made a point to emphasize that while we are to respect creation, we are not supposed to worship it. He said "we're all familiar with the term 'Mother Nature,'" implying that referring to the Earth in those terms was a bad thing. He said it was best phrased in the following:

"We neither denigrate nor deify nature."

-Herman Bavinck

"Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles." (Romans 1:22-23)

Worshipping nature and worshipping God can't both happen at the same time; is it important to remember who made everything around you and thank him for those things.

3.) Creation is Meant to Reflect the Character and the Beauty of our Creator

"The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship." (Psalms 19:1)

All I wrote down was "pretty nature=god's work," which is just kind of a restatement of the previous point. The pastor showed a ton of pretty nature pictures to emphasize the point that everything was all in God's design, because it was beautiful and had to have had a creator.

"For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God." (Romans 1:20)

This verse directly compares the beauty of creation to God's power, and the pastor argues here that to deface creation is to deface our creator. I wrote a complete sentence here in my notes, and I never do that, so I can only assume this is a quote from out pastor (or at least, very similar words): "The issue is not 'are we hurting the planet' but 'are we defacing the glory of God.'" So, with all of this crammed together, we don't need to be taking care of nature out of concern for Mother Earth's sake, but out of the need to properly respect God.

4.) Creation Care is Anchored in Prudence, not Panic or Passivity

The first thing he said here was an apology for using the word "prudence" knowing it wasn't a commonly used word. He was just really proud of the alliteration in the title lol.

He moved on to mention how young people these days always seem to have so much anxiety about the state of the environment. He says that there is no need to panic at all though (he specified; just because we shouldn't panic doesn't mean it's good to just not care. "Panic is not good, Ford-450 Diesel is not good")

"Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose. And the Lord was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, 'I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things. As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.'" (Genesis 8:20-22)

If you're not familiar with the story of Noah and the Ark, then the really short version is as follows: The world was filled with rampant sin, and God was angry with it and wanted to wipe it clean. He didn't want to destroy humanity though, so he chose someone named Noah to build a massive boat. It was then made to carry two of each animal that existed (male and female), and Noah's family. He then flooded the Earth for forty days and forty nights, and after 150 days, the water had finally receded enough for Noah to land. The quoted verse takes place right after Noah got off the ark.

The reason this was shared was because it explains that God does not intend to let the Earth suffer as punishment for humanity's sin. Meaning, there's no need to worry or panic over the state of nature (again, not meaning to just do whatever you want). The pastor talked about the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill; as horrible as it was, apparently jellyfish have a kind of mucus that they excrete when stressed that can break down the oil. God's creation was able to protect itself from disaster caused by humans in this case, and it can do it again. (I think this is the source he used, he didn't mention at all that the oil still killed lots of jellyfish even with their ability to break it down).

5.) What is our part in this issue?

The pastor talked about how we can grow in our spirituality through "creation care." Things like including creation care in our discipleship plans, helping the environment with our small groups, or even just going outside (insert "we're on our phones too much" here). He didn't mean to sell our trucks or drop our A/C. He just said that it's important to be sensitive to the spirit. He is likely to speak to you about these things; you just won't hear it until you ask him about it.

I started spacing out after that last sentence (explanation below), but somewhere afterwards, he started to reiterate the beginning of the sermon. We are killing the planet, but not in the way we think. We don't have a carbon emissions problem, we have a spiritual problem. We need to make sure we stay connected with God and praising him in all that we do.

He closed by sharing these verses:

"For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies." (Romans 8:19-23 NIV)

He emphasized that childbirth pains were used here, not the pains of death. Things may be awful now, but they signify that something good is coming; the return of the father. Birthing pains get worse when they're closer to the actual birth, meaning that things getting worse now can only mean good things are coming soon.

For my thoughts…

1.) Honestly this wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. He said to not make things worse, to be conscientious of your footprint, to go out and do things to help the Earth, and to not let it be an all-consuming stress. The motivation and reasoning for doing those things is a bit odd to me, but they're not bad things that he talked about here.

2.) That being said, I think telling the congregation that we don't have the power to destroy the earth is a bit dangerous. This is considering the fact that a notable number of them presumably listened to the entire sermon, and the only thing that they got out of it was that they needed to find a new church that wasn't run by the libs.

3.) I hate that we can only have the capacity to do things if we're motivated by some grand deity, and not out of genuine concern for the place we live in. Things can only be good things on their terms. I hate that some of these people are so explosive to words like "Environmental Issues" that they have to make up a whole new term that includes their religion in order to get them to care about these things. If a good thing isn't 100% about God, then it isn't something to be involved in.

4.) The whole thing really wasn't so bad, up until the end. It's one of the most disgusting things the church does; using your own thoughts to bring you closer to the church. They say that "God will talk to you about these things as long as you ask him about it first," but…

I was so scared of going to hell as a kid because I never heard anything from God. I thought I was doing something wrong, and that I was unsavable and that eternal fire and torture was inevitable if I didn't get my act together. I was 6. This kind of thought does permanent damage; in a few days, I'll be 21. To this day, so many years later, I am still as scared of hell as I was when I was little.

The difference is, now I know why I never heard anything. I thought God would be some otherworldly outside voice that I would recognize as soon as I heard it. The truth is, "God" is you. Your passing thoughts, your pride, your insecurities, your guilt. If you have a good idea that lines up with the bible, that's not your idea, that's God speaking to you. If you did something and feel bad about it, that's God convicting you and you need to be on your knees and beg for his forgiveness. Are you proud about something? That's God reminding you of what he's done for you. It's all you, and it's always been you. Of course God isn't going to speak to you about the environment specifically if you don't ask about it; you need to be thinking about it on your own in order to "hear a command."

I'm still very bitter about these things, so maybe my view on this will change over time. I'd like to be clear though, if this religion brings you comfort and is healing for you, then more power to you. There is nothing wrong with prayer and talking to God, but I don’t want to ignore the irreparable damage caused to people through thought policing. Especially to children who can't mentally handle the scope of eternal damnation (or at least, as it was described how I previously mentioned)

5.) I hope I am not the only one creeped out by the readiness for the end of the world. I'm biased (see previous), but looking forward for things here to get worse because that's the main indicator of the return of Christ was just a bit off-putting for me

That's all I can think of for now. It's almost two in the morning so I'm a bit too tired to read over this fully. I'll check it again in the morning, but as always, if I said something goofy, let me know 🙏 otherwise, thanks for reading :D

Also, since this was about nature and the pastor got to share some of his pictures, I wanted to share some of mine;

Nature really is pretty :)

二週間前の日曜日のアヒル

(sermon notes will be added later today! I just like these little guys and wanted to share them)

#long post #only in the damn south are you gonna have to warn your audience that you're not coming for their trucks #multiple times #and still get called a tree-hugger #I think this sermon was mainly controversial because of where we live lmao #sermon notes #not rb

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a-stitch-in-time-and-space · 4 years ago

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some (not new) ideas I’m throwing at the wall vis-a-vis gender and star trek (esp in ds9)

Note: We’re eeeeever so slowly moving into times in which “transgender” - as useful a phrase as it is - isn’t the catch-all it’s been for the past 15 or so years, mainly with an understanding that gender is an infinite, fascinating playground that is affected by culture and time. I’m partially using transgender/trans here, and partially terms like nb, genderqueer, femme, and masc as well as “gender transgressive” which is useful to describe, well... transgressive gender.

However I wish I could jump into the future to see what terminology exists then...

I do think there’s something interesting in certain transphobic media, esp the kind that deals with crossdressing-for-laughs (vs drag, which is ofc community-based), because even though it’s usually done mockingly by cisgender heterosexual guys, it reveals how undeniably queer certain ideas are, even if that queering is done in a punch-down sort of way

surprise, this is about Profit and Lace, specifically in how it introduces the idea of transgressive gender in Quark and in Rom, accidentally building off Pel’s story in Rules of Acquisition.

surface story is yeah: Quark makes an ugly woman, with a dose of misogynistic haha women and their hormones amirite (and that opening *shudders*), but what is fascinating is how easily Quark is able to access what we’d today call gender affirming surgery in a future where you can be altered to look like all kinds of different species.

all this handwringing about regret and “staying in your gender” (which isn’t how it woooorks for a lot of us) and not allowing consent over our own bodies and the patronizing, ahistorical, unscientific, slew of unwanted commentary from everyone and their mums, it’s just... not there. they know Quark is going to reverse the surgery the second the jig is up and Julian still just does it, because sure, got a moment to spare.

you wanna have boobs? yeah, go on. you wanna have boobs and still be considered a man? uh-huh, that’s cool - wow, Rom makes a wonderful “woman,” don’t you think? (and Leeta’s.. kind of in support of that!)

I’ve argued a fair few times that Rom is trans/nb/femme/genderqueer by Ferengi standards (that is, gender is measured by business-sense/lobes and is its own kind of binary -- also on that note... their mother is trans/nb/genderqueer by that measurement too). It’s a really fascinating overlap between financial class and gender as a caste system (which affects both Ishka and Rom in different ways), which also exists on earth irl today, even though that intersectionality doesn’t get discussed enough outside of queer circles.

I think Quark fits that standard as well, but he’s fighting it a lot harder than Rom is. The central tension of Quark’s series long arc is his attempts to be A Good Ferengi Male and failing over and over and when he occasionally succeeds, how he doesn’t often feel good about that. He blames a lot of this on the Federation, but by all accounts it was in him to begin with, although he used to be able to cover it up more easily.

Quark desperately wants to get it right, but a lot of the time he’s clearly masking. Sometimes he really enjoys it though, it’s not like with Rom where he has no sense for business, so much as it takes effort.

meanwhile Pel (whom I HC as masc) doesn’t have access to the kinds of surgeries that are so easy to get in the Federation, which puts her in danger - much like not having access puts us in danger today. I'm sort of torn on the headcanon that she either gets her lobes enlarged via the same surgical procedure (which, again, is so no big deal in the future) or because she’s in the gamma quadrant, she’s able to reimagine gender without having to change herself physically - which many trans/nb/genderqueer or otherwise gendered/non-gendered people also don’t want to do.

I also think it’s interesting that Quark-as-a-woman who is dressed in clothes (gasp) is fetishized, because she’s oh so transgressive -- exactly what happens to us today and one reason why so many trans people end up in sex work (of any kind - here’s me adding: get that money however you can and want to, siblings, much love and support).

I bet there are underground sexual “deviancy” shops that sell fake lobes to imagine your female is actually the man of the house, or even lobe-enhancement that some females take to “pass” although they were actually designed for helping out your small-lobed son “perform business better”

(all of my talk of lobes: here’s the reminder that lobes in Ferengi culture are sexual characteristics)

bottom line, the tension between cisgender (heterosexual) people trying desperately to maintain a binary system of understanding gender and how they play in genderqueer sandpits is always interesting for me to watch.

on the one hand they’ll argue there are innate social behaviours that exist in women (and they exist across species) - the way Quark has to learn to walk for example, or even - interestingly - that when Ishka starts dressing, her style is very different from men’s dress (maybe inspired by an older version of Ferengi culture where females weren’t so oppressed? - Ishka as transfemme? She could notice that she and Rom have the same likes and she buys him - gasp buys with her own money!! - a lovely dress and one of those massive lobe-earring/necklace things (lobe-lace?), so they match) - and innate social behaviours that exist in men

on the other hand they will unknowingly present a future in which the distinctions between woman and man are so immaterial that you can access any kind of physical surgery you want - in the Federation that is, and differently defined throughout different species on different planets. I always liked the idea that the further away from the “paradise” of earth you get, the more diverse the gender distinctions become but in a lot of these places they also practise rigid systems, like on Ferenginar. I can imagine some majority-human planet worshipping the old ways of the 20th century and enforcing that colonialist gender binary, urgh, can you imagine....

You wonder what things like “assigned gender and sex at birth” might mean in a future where there’s no social capital involved in assigning those kinds of things, if anything.

And so, Profit and Lace is -- still not a good episode. I remember one of the DS9 writers talking about how unexpectedly well it’s aged and it absolutely has not. It’s misogynistic and transphobic, but I think also very important in the canon of Star Trek’s accidental gender-exploration (Star Trek’s accidental gender-exploration sounds like the title of an article....)

sometimes you find the best gold nuggets in the trash.

and on that note: time to spin the wheel and headcanon that O’Brien was (using today’s terminology) assigned female at birth and decided he liked the sound of being a boy when he was thirteen (his parents like: “for your birthday we got you gender reassignment! and you can always change your mind.”)

also I wrote it above, but Rom and Ishka wearing matching outfits and it being equally shocking is *chefs kiss* (esp with Rom as Nagus)

#quark #rom #ishka #pel #ferengi #profit and lace #rules of acquisition #ds9 #st: ds9 #star trek #ds9 meta #my writing #be prepared for Rambles

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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You know, bringing Penny back already had the risk of cheapening her death, but NO ONE having an emotional reaction whatsoever and Pietro being like “Yeah, I guess she did die lol :D” just DESTROYED the weight of her death. Just another reason I felt nothing when she died again.

The lack of reaction to Penny's resurrection will, forever and always, be a black mark on the series for me. I'm not at all surprised that she was brought back given her android status and popularity among the fandom, I can't even fault RT for restoring our original Penny perfectly given the latter (as opposed to getting a "Penny" without her personality and/or memories), but the sheer indifference to her cheating death? Not just that, but treating her return like a joke? Oh haha, silly Penny with her overenthusiastic hugs. I sure missed that bubbly girl back when our enemies manipulated our now murdered friend into killing her and that trauma kick-started the destruction of our school :)

And this trend in the fandom of going, "Just wait"? Penny suffered from it too. Massively. Like we were told to just wait to return to Oscar's mystery shopping trip, or for the reconciliation with Ozpin to start, or, now, for Emerald to undergo an actual redemption arc, the lack of reaction to Penny's return was explained away as shock (and haven't we heard that one before). Ruby will need to grapple with these emotions, it's just that she was so stunned by this turn of events! But, quite obviously, that never happened. Ruby and Penny's relationship fundamentally returned to where it had started, with Penny making comments about how she isn't allowed certain freedoms and Ruby reminding her that she's a real girl despite it all. A death and the trauma of losing a friend? Not a part of their Volume 7-8 dynamic, to the extent that the story throws them a party in the arena where Penny died — and where Yang was framed, and where the Battle of Beacon began — and not a single character has anything to say about that. The meaning that Penny's death carried in Volumes 3-5 was, in short, erased... and then Penny's entire journey of learning that she's always been real is erased too in an effort to kill her off for good. Her human body wasn't included because it was something she strove for (it wasn't), or something the group needed (it wasn't), or because it was a thematic culmination of her journey (quite the opposite), or even because it follows her inspiration (Ironwood's Tin Man would have something to say about that). It exists solely so that Penny could be murdered again, this time for good. The mad scramble to theorize that she's not really dead (again) is telling. Even the most complimentary fans, those who were quite happy with Penny becoming a human and took no issue with her story throughout 7 and 8, recognized that her death was a horrific, meaningless scene that served only to drum up shock value and give Jaune something to angst over.

I'd even go so far as to say her time as the Maiden was meaningless too. Not just in terms of her not actually doing anything with the powers and Winter ending up with them as originally planned — those two points have both been covered extensively — but in regards to the fact that the group didn't react to that either. Our formerly dead friend came back and a short time later is one of the Maidens? Neat! And that's the extent of their emotional investment in Penny's change. Neat, we've got a stronger fighter now. I just answered that ask that referenced Yang and Ren's fight and that's literally Yang's entire thought on the matter: "We have the Maiden." The Maiden is positioned as a useful tool in this war; a checkmark in the "Victories" column when your friend thinks you haven't achieved enough. But doesn't anyone care that the Maiden is Penny? It's particularly strange to me given the six years of fandom discussion surrounding Pyrrha's almost-time as a Maiden too. As someone (quite obviously lol) interested in Ozpin's character, his desire to make Pyrrha the next Fall Maiden is often viewed as one of his worst acts, supposedly taking this poor, defenseless student and manipulating her into accepting a power that will ruin her life. So much of this is conjecture and even more is an erasure of Pyrrha's agency, and the hypocrisy here is on full display when we look to the reaction to Penny's acceptance of the powers instead. No one is worried about how this power is supposedly going to ruin her life. Or drive all her friends away. Or make her a target to be murdered (again) which is precisely what happens. Or turn her into a tool for the evil men around her to abuse — even though Penny is the one who actually has storylines revolving around her agency, from Pietro building her to be Atlas' obedient weapon to Ironwood ordering her back to his side. Yet the characters don't react to this change with any of the horror we might have expected, because these views don't derive solely from fan headcanoning — we've got moments in the text too. Like Jaune convincing himself that Qrow and the others forced Pyrrha into this. Or the knee-jerk reaction to "real" magic and the horrible things it must do to you. Yet Penny walks out of that lab brimming with a foreign magic, something that Ironwood had always planned to pass onto one of this allies, a power that they know has gotten numerous people killed, and our group is just like, "Cool. Penny upgrade." Everything about Penny's Volume 7-8 journey demonstrates a lack of forethought; the authors' inability to connect what they're currently writing to what came before and what will come later. The lack of reaction to her death, the framing plotline going nowhere, a total acceptance of her as the Maiden despite complicated feelings in the past (and we can toss Yang's assumed secret about Raven in here too), the ableist and contradictory message of giving her a human body, dying again just an episode later, doing so in a way that throws Jaune back into the same situation we've seen before... none of it is emotionally fulfilling when set against the rest of RWBY.

And Emerald, as you say, is a crucial part of all that. Emerald is the one who originally orchestrated Penny's murder. We see her love for Cinder pushing her to attack Penny again just hours before she joins the group. Emerald pretends to be Penny in order to get close to Ironwood... and the only thing we get from all this is a quip about how "weird" it feels to do good. Their stories are woven together and the fact that RT doesn't seem to realize that does a huge disservice to them both. The question of, "How does Penny grow after being resurrected post-murder?" and the question of, "What will it take to redeem Emerald?" are irrevocably linked to one another... and yet neither character was given the chance to answer those questions in a fulfilling manner.

#rwby #mymetas

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