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i-spilled-my-soup · 2 years ago

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could you explain your asklepios au ? genuinely curious and invested in the solangelo -> asklepios pipeline

alright this will be long. tl;dr it's a greek mythology au about mortality and righteousness and hubris and has like. no romance at all. if this is written i plan for no making out; hugs and kisses probably but romance lies only in interpretation. tw/cw for death, corpses

will centered and will pov where he takes the place of asklepios/asclepius/ophiucus(constellation was asklepios to the romans) in a sort of greek myth universe, like a camp half blood in 300 bce ish? in the relative time of the popular tales like homer's iliad and odyssey, virgil's aeneid. setting where songs and hymns are well known (let me imagine a place where everyone gets the obscure balls jokes i so adore). and important detail about worldbuilding, there are no powers. only gods can control the elements, and its only in threats/blessings that in modern times could be written off as delusions but in characters' minds is concrete evidence. nico is just some guy.

will keeps his canon mom and siblings and medical prowess, his frustration with death is amplified to an unhealthy amount. nico is still just some guy at this point

assuming this is a finite to be written work, the story starts after will and nico have gotten acquainted. nico does his thing, begins as a weird unfriendly guy but after being acquainted becomes a good friend. they bond over losing their siblings and feeling responsible for their deaths, less of a "you did nothing wrong" and more of a "yeah that sucks balls" kind of empathy. then will learns that nico is a child of hades(the guy) and (after an orphic hymn infertility joke) has to fight the urge to use nico to bring people from hades(the place)/keep them from ever going there

in typical nico fashion he disappears like fully. will is reasonably concerned and tries to look for him whenever he isn't practicing and teaching medicine in case of impending war with a neighboring state? this part is funny and i want to say war is the conflict because battle is the usual conflict in the myth and history i've read and also in riordan's series itself. turns out the guy is dead. yippee! (probably some scene where will sees nico but its actually just the ghost or nico visits in a dream or will actually just finds the body preserved in snow. the last one's a little too intense)

so will takes it upon himself to help give nico proper burial rites as a last favor. he gives nico a drug/ritual to aid in the burial process and accidentally brings him back to life. they both recognize that they have, unintentionally or otherwise, defied the will of the gods reigning and primordial. will is reluctant to let nico just straight up die again (for selfish reasons) and argues that nico could regain the favor of the gods if he did good stuff in his new life (supposedly selfless reasons). nico is skeptical but dude's love language is acts of service at the cost of his own health and comfort so he agrees

no one else had known he was actually dead and they pretend that he was always alive. nico gets himself mentally ready to die at any moment (cause psychopomp hermes could pull up at any moment) but will can't let go of how he actually resurrected someone. and the power before him is tempting him to fall into hubris

augh something something something. probably a battle and will saves more people and he is slowly going mad with power against his own conscience, defying the gods for his own goals of helping people

uh. eventually nico dies again. the feds(god) got him. will goes out into a storm to look for him, and to forage more of the drug that brought him back to life, and gets killed in the storm, supposedly by zeus(asklepios moment)

since will succumbed to hubris and consciously defied the gods he gets a punishment, and that's immortality. with his mortal person taken away he can no longer practice medicine. he cannot save anyone anymore, he has become the lost sibling and friend he had sought to rescue. he loses the solace(haha) of joining his family and friends in the underworld, instead he is separated from them for eternity. he will outlive everyone he knows, and will not be able to see them after they die

so here i imagine a dual bad ending. nico gets a bad lot cause he will lose his life at the peak of potential, at the exact point where he could find peace and help so many more people than before. will gets the same, where he can no longer achieve his aspirations in life, discontent with a self-serving existence, but now separated from everyone he holds dear, trapped in the realm of those he defied

potential happy closure ending? will escapes to the underworld and works under hades and sees nico once and even though he's torn away from the shades as per his punishment he is happy that in the forever he exists there he could see his friends again, that they could both be assured of another's existence and history and regain the selves they became in each other's company

fear of death prevails. but they won over it because so long as they could know each others' names it proves they had once lived? mutual immortality sculpted in the eternity of death?

#soup ask #soup talk #asklepios au

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medowlarken · 2 years ago

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🔞 part 2 of aot nsfw headcanons (18+ ONLY!)🔞

y’all asked for them so here they are: hc’s for Armin, Eren, Mikasa, and Jean

starting off strong with Armin

i see him as pan with a preference for mascs

his frail physicality gets him pegged as an uwu babyboy sub a lot and he uses it to his advantage

the man is devious lemme tell you

he always has to be in control of the situation. half bc of anxiety and half bc mindgames are his fuckin jam

he lets his partner think theyre the ones in charge until the last minute and the payoff is delicious

following directions without question, giggling and blushing until suddenly his partner’s in a position that makes them think oh shit, did he plan this????

the surprised look on their face gets him every time

he somehow always knows what to do next-- where his partner wants to be touched or what position to switch into

power bottom. hes got those megan knees

jokes aside, at the end of the day armin is a sweetheart

all his observing and analyzing is so that he and his partner can have the best experience possible, but he also knows how to relax and just go with the flow

his only flaw is that he exclusively refers to sex as making love

next up we’ve got Eren

gay gay homosexual gay

he doesnt even realize hes supposed to be attracted to girls until hes like 14 lol

hearing friends talk about crushes and realizing there are other women in the world besides Mikasa and his mom

hes conflicted about it for maybe 2 hours before jacking off to the thought of reiner’s tits and deciding he doesnt care

tries so hard to come across as suave but actually gets really nervous

the first time he has sex he nearly passes out from the pressure

but ofc thats young naïve eren. older jaded eren is kind of a whore :/

is sexy and unfortunately knows it

sends u up? texts to like 6 dudes at a time. armin drives to his house just to throw his phone at him. floch turns up 20 minutes later with an overnight bag.

top/dom but in a bratty way if that makes sense. fucks like hes got something to prove

his fav position is doggy + hand fisted in the hair

can be kind of an ass but its not usually intentional-- hits and calls them an uber right after

very much frat boy with a hidden heart of gold

Mikasa is a bit different

I hc her as a sex-positive asexual-- she doesnt get aroused on her own but enjoys the closeness that intercourse can bring

it was pretty alarming for her growing up. she thought she was broken :/

BUT adult mikasa is very comfortable in her ace identity

shes tough but a girl at heart-- cheesy romance novels are her guilty pleasure

take her to a movie and ‘accidently’ have yalls hands touch in the popcorn bucket. give her a bouquet of red roses at a fancy french restaurant

shell eat that shit up

likes kissing but is grossed out by spit

prefers going along with her partner’s suggestions in the bedroom. mostly because she doesn’t really have preferences of her own

her partner losing their mind to pleasure like oh f-fuck Mika, shit baby and shes just watching them like 0_0

seeing them in such an intimate, vulnerable position makes her insides all warm and fuzzy

she isn’t afraid to say no though-- or knock someone out if her boundaries arent respected

LOVES aftercare. has an entire routine memorized

tl;dr strong woman mikasa can benchpress a truck but melts if you hold her hand

and last but certainly not least, we’ve got my man Jean

bi with a preference for women. is partial to dark hair

its,,, big lol

he’s like 6′3 and that shit is proportional

but he rarely brags bc mama raised a gentleman

long lashes, full bottom lip, broad chest with the smattering of chest hair? bro is kind of beautiful

bc of his blunt personality ppl expect him to be a jerk. which he def can be, but at his core he’s a sweet guy-- he just gets embarrassed easily

jean kirstein is a woman respecter and i will die on this hill

his love language is acts of service. hes always cooking his partner food and making sure they drink water. sends good morning and night texts and gets upset if they dont reply

he isn’t really into bottoming but i wouldn’t consider him a hard top? he’ll try most things at least once

a talker-- sex with jean is pretty much a narrated experience

--fuck you feel so good i want you so bad take me just like that love--

it eventually turns into incoherent babbling

praise really gets him going. his partner whispers in his ear how good he’s making them feel and he’s busting .002 seconds later

fav position is anything that’s face to face. loves holding them down so he can watch their expression change

breeding kink lmao

(that’s all ive got for now. lemme know who else yall want to see~)

#attack on titan #aot #aot headcanons #shingeki no kyojin #snk #snk headcanons #eren jaeger #armin arlert #mikasa ackerman #jean kirschstein #jean kirstein

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reapyboy · 4 years ago

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just some thoughts about the recent stuff and the vs community that i need to put somewhere before I explode haha (TLDR at the end)

(If you decide to read this, I would assume that ur caught up to everything that’s happened with this whole thing that happened in the first few days of April with VS_Experiences on Twitter (which no longer exists i think). If not, do your own research pls. I do apologize for not providing any screenshots, videos, or twitter threads, but the proof definitely out there, and you’ll have to take my word)

Speaking abt the vinesauce community in light of current events, the whole fiasco has definitely damaged my view of the community and some people’s responses reek of parasocial relationship. We truly have no idea if the accusations were true or false, but please stop acting like everything has been debunked. Whenever self projection and parasocial relationships were brought up on stream, the chat would always laugh at them and think they’re dumb (like with Dream), but it seems that thay suffer from one too.

He’s said several times to not put him on a pedestal and what were people doing? Still putting him on a pedestal when the accusations first came out. So many people saying stuff like “ive watched Vinny for years and he always puts a smile on my face! he would never do this he’s just a funny italian speen man!!!” or “he doesn’t seem like the kind of dude who would do that he’s kinda awkward and hates relationships!!” Look. Saying this kind of stuff is what prevents people from speaking out against someone with a big fanbase.

I have made several arts on the booru for Vinny and he is literally my favorite streamer. I tuned in for as many streams as I could in the past several years. As much as he has made me laugh throughout the years, I don’t know him. 99.9% of viewers do not know this man off stream, and never will, no matter how long you’ve been watching his streams. Most of us will never be one of his closest friends who knows the inner mechanisms of his mind. As much as he may talk about his interests and life experiences on stream, and as much as you can observe his mannerisms and personality, there is no way you could know absolutely everything about Vinny off stream. He wants to live privately, after all. But here’s the thing, even if one of us were friends with the guy, friends are allowed to keep secrets. Some friends do not share every single detail of their lives and interactions. My best friend that I’ve had since Kindergarten doesn’t know that I crashed my first car within a month of getting my license!

When it comes to the evidence, so many people were saying “that’s not the same icon! he would never type like this!!1!1” in the emails when it was proven that Yahoo emails just switch email icons to letters by default when receiving email from other online mail services. Plus, we also don’t know how he speaks if he flirts with women? He could totally be awkward like that.

As for psyops and targeted attacks by GPM or 4Chan, I don’t buy that they pre planned this “””attack”””. These theories of a 4Chan psyop were based off of like three? out of context screenshots that were most likely jokes. I also don’t believe it was an attack by GeePM based on the sole fact that he liked and retweeted the allegations when they were first posted, and on the fact that he got kicked outta the Vinesauce team. My thoughts are that the accusers came to him privately and asked him to boost the post because he was an ex-member, letting those in both his and the VS community know. But what do I know?

I, like a few others, thought that there could been some merit to some other info floating around, including several clips of someone’s screen that seemed to have legit email exchanges. It was immediately dismissed and invalidated by fans, accusing them of faking anything they posted. There was only so much proof that they could’ve shown, and I choose to believe the people that spoke out.

I personally think that this wasn’t a SUPER serious set of allegations, like if it’s true, he hasn’t done anything illegal to our knowledge, at most he was just a horny motherfucker. But I think more people should’ve stayed neutral on them until a statement was given, because the amount of denying and coping that i’ve seen is gross. Vinny is an adult and he can fuck if he wants. I do think that bothering your fans for sex is weird as fuck (but that’s just me), but they did consent to meet up with him and stuff. This post isn’t my qualms about Vinny’s supposed actions, it’s about the community’s response to said accusations. Some of you guys didn’t take them seriously at all, and I think it says a lot.

TL;DR: Based on my research and the extra evidence that I’ve seen, I believe the allegations, and I don’t think it was a planned “cancellation”. If they are true, it’s not horrid, but still weird (in my opinion) to pm fans for sexual reasons. Whether the allegations are true or completely false, the community’s reactions were disgusting and some Vinesauce fans don’t realize that they suffer a bad parasocial relationship w/ Vinny.

#should i tag this as vinesauce im scared :)#def not going on twitter where i have one follower but even saying this may be controversial even though it’s something everyone shold think #eh fuck it i almost never go on here #vinesauce #parasocial weirdos suck!!!#idk how well I worded this i am bad at explaining myself #pls don't respond if you only read the TLDR!!!

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earnestly-endlessly · 5 years ago

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Do you mind doing a list of your favourite modern AUs? A mix is powered and non-powered fics is okay :) TY!

I'm so sorry how late I am with this, but here’s my looooong list of my favourite modern AUs. I hope that you like this list and can find some fics in there that you haven’t read before. Enjoy!

*******

Cherik Modern AU Fic Recs

Sprich Mit Mir | Talk To Me – dreamweavers

Summary: When Charles meets Erik on a midnight train to London, it’s like all of his Christmases and birthdays have come at once – until Erik opens his mouth, and reveals he cannot speak a word of English.

It isn’t easy to pursue a relationship with someone you need to play Pictionary with just to chat to, but with a little help from Charles’ telepathy, the two language-barrier lovers are determined to make it work.

Come as you are – scarlettblush

Summary: Hospital AU. The one where Charles unknowingly woos a coma patient with Pride and Prejudice. Years later, they meet again.

The Man on the Train – Sophia_Bee

Summary: Charles is heading home from a shift at the busy emergency department of the urban hospital where he works as a nurse. He meets Dr. Erik Lehnsherr on the train, who is clearly interested in Charles, but Charles has a rule. He does not date doctors. Not at all. Never, ever ever. But he does shake his ass at Erik, which might be his downfall.

Eyes on Fire – Black_Betty

Summary: Every once in a while, fashion tycoon Emma Frost invites her favourite male models over to entertain her. And by "entertain", I mean she makes them have kinky consensual sex in front of her....Emma never touches herself when she watches, but she always has a glass of wine with her. Emma likes it best when they eventually forget that she's watching.

Charles and Erik meet each other through Emma...

(I've taken some liberties with the prompt, but all the sex is still there, and it's wholly consensual...and gradually, becomes more than just sex...)

Paper Monsters – Clocks

Summary: Fill for this prompt: Charles meets Erik Lehnsherr, his favorite novelist of all time at a coffee shop, but doesn't know it's him, and Erik just criticizes his own writing in front of his biggest fan.

Order Up - ikeracity

Summary: Charles has a terrible habit of multitasking, and that is probably why he absentmindedly tells the pizza man that he loves him when hanging up. Then the pizza man says it back. And Charles is pretty much smitten from there.

Some Things Are Meant To Be – Ikeracity

Summary: Erik is a famous singer. Charles is a closeted fan. When Raven drags him to Erik's concert, the last thing Charles expects is for Erik to single him out of the crowd, for Erik to look right at him as he sings. And the last, last thing he expects is for Erik to personally serenade him and pull him on stage and kiss him senseless, because some things are meant to be and Erik knows it.

Rumor Mill – Ikeracity

Summary: Erik is the grumpiest, most foul tempered worker at Stark industries. His grumpiness is the stuff of legends. So it's obviously the talk of the office when Erik is being made to go to the company party and he's bringing his husband. There's rumors flying round about how much of a masochist or equally antisocial bastard Erik's husband must be to put up with him. Others think he must be a meek mouse perhaps bullied by Erik.

What they weren't expecting was the confident, charming, adorable and unbelievably nice Charles that turns up on Erik's arm. What they certainly weren't expecting was how much Erik obviously adores his husband and how happy he is to let others see this.

Serendipity – humanveil

Summary: Charles sends a text to the wrong number.

[10:22 AM]

Can we meet for coffee? I just got dumped.

[10:30 AM]

I think you've got the wrong number.

[10:31 AM]

Unless you make a habit of texting people you don't know about this sort of thing?

A Nice Boy (The Family Matters Edition) – pocky_slash

Summary: Erik's not sure whether the problem is that he doesn't want his parents to meet Charles or that he doesn't want Charles to meet his parents. Either way, he never invites Charles to brunch. Why should he? It's not like they're dating.

Frosted Hearts – aesc, palalife

Summary: Emma Frost has 99 problems, but a date ain't one. Specifically, she has no time to play the dating game--which is fine with her, because she'd much rather run it instead. From a set of sleek, silver and white offices on Fifth Avenue and with her trusty, stylish, and silent partner Janos Quested, Emma has built Frosted Hearts into New York City's premiere dating service, built on the principle that money, and a sufficiently rigorous psionic scan, can, in fact, buy you love.

Somewhere in Frosted Hearts's server is one Charles Xavier, genius and geneticist, with the kind of nicely-starched good looks that sell well on brochures for New England prep schools. He's also a telepath who's decided to give up pursuing serious relationships and instead spend his thirties doing what he should have done as a teenager: have a lot of sex with random people. Fortunately for him, Erik Lehnsherr, metallokinetic and engineering executive, has absolutely no time in his heart or his schedule for anything more serious than... well, absolutely nothing romantic at all.

Work/Life Balance – pocky_slash

Summary: As teens, Charles was the star of a super popular tween/teen television show and Erik was his best friend. As adults, they're a frighteningly domestic married couple and Alex, Darwin, and Sean are Erik's nosy co-workers.

Impulse Decisions – listerinezero

Summary: Erik wakes up in Las Vegas with a hell of a hangover, a telepath in his bed, and a ring on his finger. Now what?

Fools Rush In – LoveSupreme

Summary: Erik owns a cafe on the edge of campus and accidentally starts maybe-stalking a Biology Professor there.

The Proper Care of Actors – afrocurl, Clear_Liqueur, Clocks, Etherei

Summary: Erik is an A-list action star who is notoriously difficult to work with, until the day he gets cast alongside Charles Xavier, rom-com darling who can charm the pants off movie audiences the world over and apparently even one Erik Lehnsherr. The paparazzi catch them out and about soon enough, and their real-life Hollywood movie romance becomes instant tabloid fodder.

In the Bleak Midwinter – keire_ke

Summary: It is not easy to find out, well into the second decade of the twenty-first century, that your mother arranged a marriage for you. It is even less easy to convince her that you have no interest in the very fertile Magda, she of the wide hips and lustrous auburn hair. Fortunately, with a good friend at his side over the holiday weekend, Erik is sure he will prevail.

Curve Fitting – kianspo

Summary: The weird thing is, Charles always introduces Raven as his sister, but he never calls Erik his brother. Erik would be bothered, except he prefers not to think of Charles as his brother, either. He can’t figure it out for four years, and then suddenly he can.

Or. A non-powered AU in which Sharon Xavier never remarries, and Charles 'adopts' not only Raven, but Erik too.

Right Person, Wrong Time – PoppyX

Summary: "TL;DR Charles is an insecure high school student who loses his virginity to the right person at the wrong time, and Erik makes it up to him in a romantic manner."

Favorite Mistake by endingthemes

Summary: Charles Xavier doesn’t think anything of it when he sneaks out without even saying goodbye to his latest one-night stand. What he doesn’t expect is to walk into his new position in the Xavier Industries marketing department and find that his latest hook-up is now his new boss.

I ♥ NY (It’s My Friends I’m Not Sure Of) by oddegg

Summary: For a 1stclass-kink meme promp: Erik is a single, successful man who likes quick sex with no strings attached. Then, he meets college professor Charles and it's love at first sight, at least for him. Charles, who heard of Erik's notorious ways, wants nothing to do with him besides being friends. Cue Erik bending over backwards to steal Charles' heart.

From Westminster With Love - thehoyden

Summary: NATO intelligence says there’s an omega-class telepath who sleeps under Westminster. Major Erik Lehnsherr is about to find out the truth for himself.

Accidentally Welcome to the Rest of Your Lives by kianspo

Summary: Non-powered college AU. Erik and Charles have nothing in common until they end up having sex at someone's party. They don't have much in common after that, either, but find each other a hard habit to quit.

irreconcilable differences (make for surprisingly good bedfellows) – pocky_slash

Summary: Tonight on The Evening Report with Malcolm Stevens, noted geneticist and mutant equality proponent Dr. Charles Xavier faces off with the infamous mutant rights activist Magneto in a live televised debate over the Genetic Nondiscrimination Act.

(At least, if they can stop flirting long enough to stay on topic.)

Mutually Beneficial Transaction – Pookaseraph

Summary: In his sophomore year at Columbia University, Erik, feeling slowly strangled by his mounting college debt, places an add on a sugar daddies website. He doesn't know exactly what to expect from it, but when he's contacted by a man named Charles who seems less creepy than the other people who have responded to his profile, he decides to give it a shot. Charles is nothing like what he expected, and Erik finds himself slowly falling in love with his sugar daddy while trying to find out exactly what caused this amazing guy to buy his emotional and sexual intimacy when he clearly deserves so much more than that.

Made To Be Broken - Yahtzee

Summary: Charles makes a New Year's Resolution: “No more straight men,” Charles repeated as he began scrolling through the apartment directory for Emma’s name. “No more futility. No more pointless hoping and heartbreak. In 2013, I never want to hear the words ‘exception,’ ‘experimenting’ or ‘phase.’ If, God forbid, I hear ‘bicurious’ even once, I may take a hostage.”

Then he goes into the party, and Erik is there.

Anarchy In The U.K. – Yahtzee

Summary: "Good God, Erik thought. The Prince of Wales is gay."

Charles lives in the unceasing glare of the public spotlight, yet keeps his sexual orientation a closely held secret, afraid he could lose his throne and force his deeply troubled younger sister into a role that would crush her. Erik, journalist and world traveler, has been a loner most of his life; he has little patience for closet cases. But a chance meeting in Kenya brings these two opposites together and sets in motion a love affair that will challenge the British monarchy -- and their most deeply held beliefs about who they are, and who they should be.

An Ideal Grace – afrocurl

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is a visiting professor at Columbia University, as well as an acclaimed and award winning poet. Charles Xavier is a lead researcher with the Genetics Department who is well on his way to tenure. But what happens when Charles has to cancel a class because half his students abandon him in favour of a mysterious new English Lit professor? Naturally he ends up sitting in in the class, where Professor Lehnsherr mistakes him for a student. It's really too bad Erik has such a strict policy against dating students. It's also too bad Erik doesn't seem to know how to use Google.

An absence which could not be more there – aesc

Summary: He prepared to shift another half-step over to the Current Events section (which would, of course, enrage him) when the teaser positioned by the model's left elbow caught his eye: DATING WHILE TELEPATHIC: WHY I DON'T DO IT.

rooms/shares – pocky_slash

Summary: Erik is single, working a cube job he hates, letting his master's degree in mutant studies collect dust, and living on his best friend's couch. When she kicks him out, he's forced to trawl Craigslist for the least-offensive rooming option within his meagre budget. He never expects a response from the persnickety, high maintenance ad he replies to as a joke, but it's possible this too-nice apartment and mysteriously absent roommate might be the answer to all four of his problems.

Heli Cases –Black_Betty

Summary: "Heli Cases" is a program on PBS whose aim is to educate on the rapidly increasing occurrence of genetic mutation in the general populous by breaking the complex science down into palatable, easy to digest pieces.

It is also the only thing that helps Erik get his fussy daughter to fall asleep.

(Featuring Dadneto, baby Lorna and the struggles of single fatherhood, and Charles as the host of a late night show about genetics.)

Simple and Uncomplicated – Pookaseraph

Summary: Erik and Charles had been fuck buddies for some, but when Charles is in an accident he figured their relationship would be over. Erik's visit to his bedside in the hospital changes his assumptions even as he has trouble believing Erik is sincere.

Guilty by Association – Regann

Summary: While investigating the homicide of a John Doe who he suspects might've been murdered while working the streets as a prostitute, Detective Erik Lehnsherr finds an unexpected ally in a hooker named Charles who seems as determined as he to solve the case. As they become more deeply involved both with the case and each other, there's just one thing that Charles neglects to mention -- that he's really an investigative journalist, one quickly convinced that what they're dealing with is more than simple murder. cop!Erik, fake-hooker-slash-reporter!Charles, Modern AU.

This Is Not Comedy – baehj2915

Summary: Written for amarriageoftrueminds' prompt for a Cherik version of Louis CK's tangent about the fuckability of Ewan McGregor.

Naturally the similarities end there. I made this about Erik's full on public lust-filled gay revelation, and the chaos that spirals from there.

Politico – cygnaut

Summary: Modern Genosha Politics AU. In which Erik is l'enfant terrible of the mutant National Assembly, and his staff just wants to get him laid.

Conspiracy of Kisses – Alaceron

Summary: Seven-year-old Erik needs to keep his telepathic best friend Charles from finding out that he wants to kiss him. But that's okay, because he has a plan - he'll put on a tinfoil hat.

The Pretender – Clocks

Summary: Charles is sick of having his best friend Erik drop to one knee and fake-propose to him in restaurants, just to score a free dessert. He doesn’t know which is worse: the complete embarrassment, or the likelihood that Erik doesn’t mean a word of it.

Bound – FuryRed

Summary: Is there anything worse than someone else’s wedding? Well, perhaps your sister’s wedding- where the groom just has to invite his boss and that man just happens to be your ex-boyfriend; a person you had an extremely passionate and tumultuous relationship with that ended badly.

Charles hadn’t seen Erik for a year by the time Raven had told him about the wedding. He wasn’t looking forward to the occasion, particularly when Raven explained that they would be celebrating the event with a two-week extravaganza at a luxury hotel, meaning that Charles would be forced to spend a whole fortnight with the man who he’d given everything to; the man who had ultimately broken his heart…

Lonesome On the Shelf – ikeracity

Summary: After three years of marriage, Charles has to admit that his relationship with Erik has significantly cooled off. These days, they're barely ever home at the same time and it seems like every conversation they have turns into an argument. Charles misses the way they used to be, misses the spontaneous dinner parties and the surprise morning sex and the wake up calls in the early mornings to catch the sunrise. But it's going to take two of them to fix this marriage, and some days, it seems as if all Erik wants is to be rid of him.

A fic about rekindling marriage.

Math Reasons – pearl_o, pocky_slash

Summary: "Mom says Erik always knows what he wants, it just sometimes takes him a little while to actually realize it," Ruth said.

Charles fell in love with Erik the first night they met, the first week of freshman year. Two years of friendship, adventures, arguments, hijinks, secrets, and summer visits later, Erik is starting to catch up.

Melted Ice Cream and Macaroni Art – pocky_slash

Summary: Everybody likes Charles. Nobody likes Erik. And that's really the source of Erik's doubts. Also, there's ice cream and a baby.

Watch Your Back – swoopswoop

Summary: Bodyguard AU where Erik is overly protective and things aren't as simple as they seem.

Dress Your Family in Plaid and Skinny Jeans – cygnaut

Summary: Erik and Charles meet at the mutant playgroup/parenting support circle and they instantly hit it off. And so do their kids, Lorna and David.

Continue firm and constant – aesc

Summary: Moira hasn't seen her old partner in saving the world from threats human and intergalactic, Erik Lehnsherr, for a few years. When she finally does see him again, she finds a man different from the one who's been with her down in the dark and the dirt and the blood... or maybe he isn't so different after all.

cradles you and connects you to everything – pocky_slash

Summary: Charles and Erik spend a chilly November afternoon in Manhattan doing not much at all. Also, there are cupcakes, chess, and Feelings.

#cherik #cherik fic recs #fic recs #modern au #long post

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ladyfl4me · 4 years ago

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Hi please yell about boyd and stern in TCOS and TMWCIFTC :D!

Anon, THANK YOU for enabling me, you have my fucking life in your hands

I’ll preface all of this by saying that everything in this post is related to my long-form Amnesty works, The Moth who Came In from the Cold and The Children of Sylvain. If you haven’t read those, then you’ll be pretty damn confused, so I guess now is as good of a time to plug them - and the series - as any. A heads up: I started it back in 2018, and everything in TCOS is just… very VERY loosely associated with Amnesty canon at this point. Same root premise, same characters, but back in 2018 even I couldn’t predict where arcs 4 and 5 ended up going. TMWCIFTC was written as the logical progression, in my head, of an alternate arc 4, and everything that happened in TCOS is based off of that progression. It’s got almost no connection to the actual canon at this point. I’ll be recapping some of the more important plot points for context, though.

Here’s hoping the read-more works. This was 7 pages long in the google doc I prepared this in, so I apologize in advance to everyone on my dash if this got fucked up. Spoilers for TMWCIFTC ahead, as well as general vague spoilers for Amnesty.

So everything’s coming up roses. Fantastic. Let’s start with the biggest thing: how the characters of Agent Stern and Boyd Mosche have changed from canon to this AU.

Boyd’s Changes:

We’ll start with Boyd, because this motherfucker is UNRECOGNIZABLE from canon. On god, that is all Griffin’s fault. Pretty much all of Boyd’s character was concentrated in arc 4 of Amnesty, and honestly? He was a fantastic character there. Loved him as a counterpart to Ned. He gave off an air of “the ends justify the means” in almost everything he did - especially how he was willing to do anything, including blackmail Ned to hell and back, to get back to England - which I’ve grafted into my version of him. The angst-loving part of my brain seized on the tragic possibilities of his relationship with Ned and was bumping “No Children” by the Mountain Goats every time they interacted. Great stuff, interesting complexity, was genuinely surprised when he kicked it.

All that happened after I introduced him as a character in TMWCIFTC. My version of him retains the smooth-talking Britishness of him, with the aforementioned “ends justify the means” logic for everything; I’d probably sort him as a chaotic neutral, with basically all of his points in wisdom, charisma and strength with very few in intelligence. I tried to work with that for the start. We knew nothing about Boyd at the time I was writing TMWCIFTC, so my brain wanted to fill in that blank for jokes and giggles and haha funny’s and was like, “Yo what if Boyd was a Sylph this entire time? Wouldn’t that be fucking hilarious?”

And that’s what I did. What happened to make this version of Boyd was a bit of a random “perfect storm” of influences and choices, which really only got sharpened because of my one-shot The Devil Went Down To Georgia. That one’s the main source of all Boyd lore, even though I barely reference it these days because he’s gone so far off the rails it’s a miracle I can keep him straight.

I’ve talked about The Devil Went Down To Georgia a lot in relation to Boyd on here. TL;DR, I decided to make him two things: a violinist and a Sylph/cryptid, specifically the Jersey Devil. Yes, he is still British. I chalk it up lore-wise to a few things: the original Jersey Devil is more of a distant relative, Boyd crossed over from Sylvain and ended up in Britain sometime after that, and just willingly chose to keep up the British persona Bastard. I don’t think about it too much. He’s been a criminal from the very beginning; he’d been in prison on Sylvain, went through some shit there that made him steal a crystal and book it, and he continued to do crime on Earth to survive.

The violin thing is mostly me desperately wanting a character to have that background, because I played for seven goddamn years and want to put that knowledge and catharsis somewhere. Boyd probably either picked up a Sylvan instrument that was similar, or learned it in the early 20th century when he came to Earth, and just held onto it. He held onto the skills and got good - good enough that he could have gone professional, and tried in 2007, but that didn’t go super well, as anyone who’s read TMWCIFTC can attest.

In terms of the type of cryptid he is, I’ve made the Jersey Devils a subspecies on Sylvain that takes cervids (deer, moose, etc.) or bovines (goats, antelopes, cows, etc.), as well as canines/felines of any shape and size, puts them into a gashapon machine with pterodactyl-style wings, awful teeth, and a snake’s tail, and calls it a day. You can get a tiny Jersey Devil that’s a combo of a tiny cat and a dik-dik; you can get a jacked nine-foot-tall terrifying amalgam of a lion and a moose, with a fucked-up mouth of multiple rows of teeth and huge claws.

That last one is Boyd. Don’t call me a monsterfucker for this, I have no defense.

So where does that leave him in relation to the Lodge? Back in 2018, before I started developing the lore that factors into TCOS about Sylph communities outside the Lodge (namely the Manhattan Sylphs that Leo worked with when he was a Chosen One), I figured that it’d be funny if every single cryptid kinda just… knew each other, or hung out near the Lodge. As you know if you’ve read TMWCIFTC, he got into some trouble in 1967, which Barclay, Indrid and Mama “bailed him out of.”

Once they found out he was a fellow Sylvan, though, it became less about “report this guy to the authorities” and more about “we have to make sure we keep an eye on this guy so he doesn’t get himself, or other Sylphs, in trouble” thing. He basically became Mama’s mostly-socialized half-feral cat, slinking through the halls of Amnesty Lodge, eating random food, falling asleep wherever, sitting in rooms where people are doing interesting things and just watching them. And everyone... kind of likes him. Sure, he doesn’t have a sleep schedule, and they have to get soundproof panels installed in his room at the Lodge because he’ll stress-practice violin at 3 in the morning, and he keeps shoplifting stuff from local stores to give to people like a cat bringing back dead mice. But he’s a good man. And he’s getting better every day.

Then he got got by the Ashminder in ‘98. He bolted, completely forgot everything about the Lodge but had the address of a former Lodge resident on his body after his memory was wiped, found a still-alive but memory-wiped fellow Lodge dweller, and fled to that address. Boyd lived there for years, trying to clean up his act and try to anchor himself a bit. Then in 2007, something on his path went wrong, and the stress break he went through after that made him run from that place. That’s when he met Ned, and they had a few years together before Boyd ended up in jail.

Then, once they killed the Ashminder and the memories it had eaten came back, Voidfish-style, Boyd remembered everything: the people who’d taken care of him, the friends he’d made, the love he’d found, the time and effort he’d put into getting better, the rewards he’d reaped because of it. He remembered fighting monsters and defending them. He got hit with it all at once, and missed them. His parole date was coming up; he could bide his time until he was released, and run down there.

But then, at the start of TCOS, Something Happens that makes all Sylvan disguises and spells shit the fucking bed; his disguise spell, which has been hiding a nine foot-tall jacked demon out of hell, flickers, and the invisibility spell that had been put on his disguise item to hide it failed. Boyd knew he was fucked if the jail folks found out he was a Sylph, so he decided to fucking Kool-aid Man out of there, becoming a wanted man in the entire state of West Virginia and getting a bit roughed up in the process.

But hey. Whatever it takes to get home, right?

Stern’s Changes:

Stern’s changed too, though, and here’s how. It was relatively simple to tweak him, because so much of him was a blank slate to begin with. First: that name. Garfield Kent Stern is his full name: Garfield for the cat/Deals Warlock, Kent after Kent Mansley, the irritating dipshit FBI agent antagonist from the classic animated movie The Iron Giant. Poor bastard. He started as a walking meme who I was going to kill off; I came up with that name long before we got his real name in canon, and didn’t want to retcon it out.

I’m a sucker for secret connections and familial ties, too, and back in 2018 the headcanon gashapon gave me “what if Stern was a cousin of Duck’s, but there was family drama that made their parts of the family split when they were kids, so now 30 years later they don’t remember each other?”

And that’s exactly what I did. Gary is Duck’s first cousin on Duck’s mom’s side; their mothers are sisters. Gary’s uncle Arnie was a Secret Service agent who tangled with an Indrid trying to stop the Kennedy Assassination once, and he keeps telling that story at Christmas, much to everyone’s chagrin. Gary remembered those stories, and even received Indrid’s old disguise glasses - knocked off his face during his uncle Arnie’s chase - and carried them with him for a long time.

He didn’t start off as a baby cop, though; he was more interested in hitting the books, finding out the logic and doing the research to figure things out. I have him become a history major, getting a PhD with a few bits and bobs here and there that I haven’t worked out yet. Whatever the case, he spent a LONG time in academia, from undergrad starting in 1996 to graduation in about 2005.

Things weren’t as peachy as he thought they’d be, though. Gary wrote and published his thesis, like a good little PhD candidate, but someone was watching him. In his thesis, he’d been trying to cobble together various cryptid-related legends across the word and making connections between them, among other things. He’d managed to link up and explain something that Unexplained Phenomena had been trying to figure out themselves. They immediately intercepted his thesis, kept it from being disseminated anywhere else, erased all copies of it after graduation, and reached out to Gary independently to bring him on.

Make no mistake: he went willingly. Despite the whole thesis coverup, Agent Gary Stern wasn’t coerced into being a government stooge, and he wasn’t blackmailed - he was given an offer to work with the cryptid cops, and he enthusiastically took it. Government benefits were decent, he’d heard; post-grad options were looking slim, especially going into the recession. In his mind, there was a bit of allure to it all, too. A secret government organization looking into suspicious and possibly supernatural things all over the nation? Fantastic. More opportunities to do research. He was in. Gary accepted their offer and started basic FBI training in 2007 - the same year Boyd had that mental break and went AWOL, returning to his life of crime and meeting Ned.

Biggest mistake he’d ever made. But then again, if he didn’t take them up on that, he wouldn’t be here, would he?

So he joins UP, goes up the ranks. They had him researching and charting the Bigfoot case for a while, and he was the only one who was willing to work on it at all because… well, Bigfoot sightings weren’t as sophisticated as some of the other projects that were out there for UP. (See: Area 51. We don’t talk about Area 51. Nobody talks about Area 51. Definitely nothing shady and unethical going on in there, no experiments on anyone or anything, no sir.)

Gary’s diligent, though, and doesn’t like to back down from a challenge. That’s all hunting Bigfoot was: a challenge. No personal stake, no empathy. It was a job to get done, even though an entire person’s life was at stake.

And he got so caught up in this challenge that, when he went to Kepler, he EASILY got attacked by the Ashminder and destroyed within an inch of his life. He got the very memory of his job and intent in Kepler torn out of his head; once the Ashminder died, and those memories came back, they didn’t feel like his anymore, or like they’d been part of his life plan to begin with. Overcome with confusion and guilt, he decided to clean up his act and try to work against the FBI, with Mama’s blessing.

His goal? Quit the FBI, get them off the Lodge’s back, and then see what happens next. Maybe he’d go back to academia, or teach, or something - just get as far away from the FBI as possible, as far away as he can be from hurting people. But he’s got to bide his time, because if he bolts now, they’re going to get suspicious and put the Lodge in even more danger. And that’s where he is now.

So why have they changed?

Simple answer? I don’t want to rewrite them to fit with canon. I just don’t. I don’t want to make Boyd human; I don’t want to change Gary’s name to Joseph and make him a Bigfoot groupie. I don’t want to rewrite hundreds of thousands of words of work to fit last-minute decisions made in the end times of Amnesty’s canon. My fic has diverged so much from canon that the canon versions of the characters don’t belong here anymore. Besides, Stern was such a background character in arcs 3 and 4 that he barely mattered, making his reappearance in arc 5 a bit of a clumsy follow-through, and Boyd was a one-act wonder. A little expansion couldn’t hurt. Making Gary something other than a direct antagonist made the narrative load a little easier, too, at least on my end. I hate giving a cop screen time, but it’s easier to justify his existence by rewriting his backstory and making him slog through the hell of a redemption arc. He’s had that coming.

This leads us to TCOS, though, where the arcs of our player characters turn a bit more towards the plot, as opposed to the emotional fulfillment they got in TMWCIFTC. Characters like Gary, Mama, Boyd, and Alexandra take center stage for emotional and backstory development, while the original player characters take a temporary backseat. Alexandra’s a key linchpin of the story as a whole, both emotionally and narratively; Mama gets lore expansions and has personal things to settle; and Gary and Boyd are… here. So:

How do these two work with each other in TCOS?

It’s great. It’s fantastic. These two are my favorite to write in TCOS because their conflict is just so fucking FUN. On the one hand, you have an almost-ex-FBI agent who’s been taken in by the Lodge, is related to a Pine Guard member, is trying to keep his coworkers off the Lodge’s back as sneakily as possible without drawing suspicion, and is desperate not to screw up this second chance he doesn’t think he deserves. On the other hand, you have an ex-con who got a second chance from the Lodge, sees them as his last best option to be safe as long as nobody reports them, and wants to keep them safe out of a sense of familial obligation he’s reluctant to admit to, even to himself.

That’s two people with questionable morals, with a semi-familial attachment to a place that gave them second chances, each seeing the actions of the other as a threat to their - and everyone else’s - safety. Claws come out almost immediately.

At the start, Boyd and Gary go together like apple juice and toothpaste. Boyd sees a narc who’s threatening the one safe place he has left; Gary sees an impulsive, selfish threat, a domino that - if it falls - threatens, you guessed it, the one safe place he (and other people, sure) has left. Boyd breaking out of jail means the entire state of West Virginia, and probably the whole East Coast, is on high alert looking for him, and if that attention comes anywhere near the Lodge? They’re fucked.

Neither of them believe that the other is capable of change or anything but selfish, malicious harm. Boyd has more of an argument than Gary because Gary is still actively reporting things to the FBI, but in Gary’s defense, the moment that he stops reporting anything to them, they’re going to suspect things and might end up sending more people to the Lodge. The Pine Guard can’t afford that, so Gary has to play by the rules until he’s in a position where he can quit. I’ll pull a specific argument they have from TCOS that I feel really exemplifies this:

"I don't want you to get caught."

Boyd scoffed. "Something tells me you're not worried about me."

"I'm not."

"Well, thanks."

"I'm worried," Gary went on, "about someone seeing you, and connecting you to the Lodge. You just used the hot springs as your personal landing strip, in broad daylight. We're on the upper half of the mountain. And I don't know how big your Sylvan form is, but -"

Boyd grinned. It looked more like a snarl. "Oh, plenty big enough," he said.

Gary ignored that. "Big enough for someone to see you from down the mountain?" he challenged. Boyd's lip curled, and he looked away. "Yeah, that's what I thought. I'm just thinking ahead. What if someone came beating down our door looking for you? What if it was a cryptid hunter? What if it was the cops?”

"Yes, yes, fine, alright," Boyd snapped. He threw his hands up. His eyes were hard and cold. "It'd put us in danger. I get it. But you're still here. I think the damage is already done."

A knot of cold rage formed in Gary's stomach. "I'm trying to keep this place safe, Mr. Mosche," he spat. "I've got a responsibility to keep."

Boyd scoffed. "Oh, you have a responsibility? To Amnesty Lodge? That's fucking rich."

"You've got one, too! It’s about time you started keeping it!"

They’re both very, very set in their ways and their ideologies, and they take a long time to get to middle ground.

One of my friends described it as middle child syndrome in overdrive. Gary thinks Boyd’s the Lodge golden child, come to replace him in the Lodge inner circle. Boyd thinks Gary’s the Lodge’s new redemption-arc fixer-upper, come to replace him. And both of them feel thrown off by that, because they both thought that the Lodge was accepting them completely into the inner circle. It’s unfamiliar, it’s confusing, and when the Lodge as a whole regards them both with suspicion/unease (Gary) and polite detachment due to the passage of time (Boyd), it makes them both feel on the outside.

And when you’re in the same shitty canoe, you’ve gotta row it or sink. So that’s exactly what they do.

Ultimately, they get faced down with bigger and worse foes that snap them out of their spat, because their common interest is “keeping the Lodge safe” and uniting will help them get there. When they do start to have each other’s backs, though, that’s when they reluctantly start to get to know each other. Gary feels like something’s off about Boyd and eventually suspects - thanks to some comments from Haynes and some digging of his own - that Boyd had something to do with the fire that burned down Aubrey’s house, but it remains to be seen what he’ll do with that information. (The Gary of November 2018 would have turned Boyd in to the FBI. The Gary of almost six months later, though… a different story. It’ll be interesting.)

The kicker is, they’re both really similar, at the heart of it. Both of them were the Lodge’s fix-em-up pet projects, brought into the fold in an emergency and protected/cared for as long as they swore to clean up their act. They see each other and feel a bit out-of-place, though - something contributed to by the way the Lodge treats them.

Gary’s still held at a distance by many, despite being Duck’s cousin and a mostly-valuable member of the team, because the stench of the FBI is still on him - how he dresses, how he walks and talks, how he acts. And Boyd has just swanned back to the Lodge after 20 years gone, with all his memories of the Lodge from back in ‘98 driven back into his mind - and part of him is expecting the Lodge to be the exact same way it was when he left. But it’s not. You can’t go home again. The Lodge has moved on without him, which he never expected, and coming back to them is… awkward.

It’s simple. They don’t know what to do with a version of Boyd who’s missed the past 20 years of their lives; Boyd doesn’t know what to do with people who have changed from the folks he knew 20 years ago. He’s lost, floating, and alienated, like going to a high school reunion after not having spoken to a living soul since graduation. It sucks for him. And the only wholly unfamiliar face there, other than the main Pine Guard - who he’s mostly fine with, except for Ned - is Gary, and he can’t help but be irritated with him. That changes, though.

What I essentially want to do is set these versions of the characters up as foils. Similar characters, similar pasts, similar situations that got them to this point. All that’s different is how far in their respective arcs they are. So I’m going to have them be friends. Give each other a chance in the face of a bigger threat, open up a little more, have conversations, talk about things with each other because they’re the only ones around to listen. The Lodge gave them second chances when they needed them most. Maybe they can do that for each other.

This is also to say, I would be a massive fucking liar if I say I haven’t considered having that unfold into a rivals-to-lovers arc. Yeah, I said it. I’ve considered it, at length and in serious detail, since I started drafting the arcs for TCOS. In fact, that’s what I’m probably going to do. I’ve gotten too hooked by the possibility to give it up. I outlined hypothetical futures for the whole cast after the final battle in Sylvain and, given the things I want to happen in that battle and the messy post-war fallout, it makes sense that these two would gravitate towards each other.

It makes a lot more sense in context, believe me. They’ve got a long row to hoe before they trust each other enough to become friends, or even push the envelope towards a romantic relationship - they’d have months and even YEARS to wait to pull that off. Whatever I end up doing with them, they are easily my favorite part of TCOS to unravel, mostly because I - and, honestly, everyone else - probably never saw it coming.

Thanks for the ask, anon. This made my week. So sorry for the long response, but I have so many thoughts on what I’m doing with these idiots, and putting them down on paper was really fun. Any other questions or comments about this? Fire away, I’d be more than willing to answer!

#asks #anon #tcos #if tumblr fucks the formatting and bombards you all with a long-ass post i am SO SORRY #tagging anyway #long post #taz amnesty

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prorevenge · 6 years ago

Text

My wannabe fashionista coworker always threw shade at me for being frumpy. She looked frumpier, unemployed!

TL;DR at the bottom

*******

I worked at a popular, high end clothing store while I was in graduate school (I'm an engineer). I won't name the brand, but it's the sort that charged $50 for a pair of male boxer briefs, $200 for a lady's fancy bra, or $400 or more for a pair of jeans, $1,000 or more for those skinny suits that hip guys wear to their job, where the hems of their pants reveal that they're wearing loafers without socks.

The clothes there weren't really my style but the starting pay was two dollars higher than minimum wage, and higher than most of the other, surrounding stores. This was at a rich people shopping center, where lots of people who shop there are wannabe celebrities and constant selfie-takers.

I was surprised to get hired there, but was relieved that I wouldn't have to really do customer service, as I worked only in the stock room. I'd put out clothes on the shelves and racks before and after closing, and also arrange everything in the back to make it organized. I was also trained so that in emergency situations I could cover register if we were short handed, so that the regular associates could go on break.

I was hardly seen by customers, but I still had to wear the clothes the store sold, to promote the image of the company. I didn't, thankfully, have to wear the dainty little suits, but I did sport the jeans and other casual things we sold.

It was a job. I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. I just worked, took my pay, went to school, and went home.

At least that's the way it was for two months.

After those two months, "Jessica" began to work during the same hours as me. She was about my age (I was 22), maybe twenty five, tops. She didn't work in the stock room (it was just me back there, with one or two other college guys), but worked the front. She wasn't the manager, or even a supervisor, but she SWORE she was in charge of me.

She made it known to everyone, even customers, that she graduated with an associates degree in fashion marketing from FIDM. I suppose it's a big deal but I was thinking girl if you're a college graduate why are you bragging about it as if it has something to do with you folding jeans and ringing people up at the register? She talked like she was fashion expert and in the "fashion industry," and would talk about the New York or Paris fashion weeks in a familiar way that implied that she just got of the plane after attending these events personally. You know the type, the kind that talks about famous fashion designers by their first name, as if they knew them.

Well she always criticized the way I wore the jeans because I didn't tuck in my T-shirt like the mannequin, or that I work Chuck Taylors on my feet instead of the little leather Sperry Topsiders knockoffs we sold for $300.

We were given a clothing allowance as employees. As a stockperson, I was allowed three complete outfits for free, everything from tops, to underear, to socks, and pants (but not shoes). If I wanted more and it was specifically for wearing at the store, I could mark it as a "uniform purchase" and have the price deducted from my check a little at a time. This was advantageous because they wouldn't charge you tax for them, and charge you only a third of the retail price.

Uniform Purchase was distinctly separate from "Store Discount," for which we also received a percentage off, but it wasn't the incredible 66% discount we got for uniform purchases.

Jessica would snicker at me when I took over register for someone, shake her head or roll her eyes at me as if I looked really ugly. I'm always thinking, whatever girl, you wannabe model you aren't even hot and you're not the boss, who are you? But I held my tongue.

She'd also complain if I was supposedly not fast enough in grabbing a size medium from the back because a customer is requesting the dress and all we have on the floor are smalls and larges. She'd trash me to the customer and when I showed up would sarcastically say "finally!" and turn to the customer with a "see what I have to put up with?" expression.

She was especially mean if any customers got chatty with me and treated me with respect. And if those customers were female and were getting flirty with me, Jessica would be a total cockblock.

The real manager, Paula, had their own issues to deal with beyond petty bickering between a stockboy and an entry level sales associate with delusions of "Project Runway" grandeur. The assistant manager, another fashion industry wannabe named "Heather," was just like Jessica, but thankfully I hardly interacted with her. According to my coworkers, Heather was just as bad as Jessica.

Even though I didn't plan on making this store my career, and even though Jessica didn't bother me THAT much, I thought it won't hurt to get this bitch fired.

To her face, I'd just smile and act like I was following her orders happily, or didn't mind when she would point at me rudely, or snap her fingers at me like she was calling a dog.

Jessica would always hear a directive from one of the managers, and then go around telling the other employees what to do, as if they didn't have ears. She'd try to act as if it was HER directive. LOL.

Her coworkers who were the same "rank" as her would sometimes vent to me about how Jessica acted like she was in charge, when in some cases she had even less time in the company than other employees on the floor.

I noticed that when I arranged clothes in back, especially big ticket, desirable clothes that were seen in magazines in our company's advertisement campaigns, she'd "order" me to set aside things in her size.

I'd do it, because it's my job to set aside things if employees want to buy them outright at a discount or put it as a uniform purchase.

Whenever an employee was on register (really, a big Ipad with a cash drawer beneath), you could tap in a code and the register would show a rundown of every non-customer transaction that employees performed that day, and with a few more keystrokes, their transactions over MANY days. The managers knew this code, of course, and I'll assume Jessica knew the code too because Heather shared the code with her.

I WASN'T supposed to know the code, but I did, because there's a mirror in the wall behind the register, and I was re-stocking paper handbags behind Heather when I saw her tap in her four digit code. She assumed I was stupid and didn't understand the incredibly complex wizardry that is a two year old, low-end spec Ipad.

I knew Jessica was getting rung up for "uniform purchases" when she should have been getting rung up for regular employee discount.

She assumed that when I set aside all those expensive items for her, that I was too dumb to know what she was doing, just because I might have something of a mouth breather countenance.

Even if I look on the surface like a fugitive from the trailer park, something told me Jessica wasn't going to be using $800 heels, a $500 dress, and $1200 motorcycle jacket while working at the store.

And anyway, I asked around. No one saw Jessica wearing any of the truly fancy clothes she bought at our store at what the other employees assumed was simply a regular employee discount.

I thought maybe she was being honest, too. It WAS possible, after all, because I didn't always work with her. Maybe she wore evening dresses to work on her other shifts? Whatever, I decided to make sure.

One time when everyone was busy doing other stuff and the store had to resort to putting me on the register, I typed in Heather's code and pulled up Jessica's purchases. As I suspected, she had bought thousands of dollars worth of our store's best items, but put them all as "uniform purchases" and not at her regular discount.

So I swiped "print" and the register switches from the regular tape to the 8.5"x11" printer beneath the counter, and a complete rundown of all of Jessica's purchases come out.

I highlight all the most expensive items that she was charged for "uniform purchase" (such as, her $1200 jacket would only be $300, and even that was tax free and she got to pay it little by little).

I knew that my manager, Paula, wasn't exactly a nuclear physicist and she was more interested in moving up the chain of command to be working at a job higher than store manager in the company, so as long as her store's sales numbers looked good she didn't care what her assistant Heather did.

Except, if it was a violation of company policy that might reflect badly on her.

I knew Heather was in on Jessica's scam because you're not allowed to ring yourself up at the store, you have to have someone else do it, and none of the other associates would want to conspire with her for fear of getting fired or worse.

To make sure, I printed HEATHER's purchase history too. I didn't see Heather as often as I saw Jessica, but I could also see really glaring red flags on her purchase report. Like, she bought a $900 nightclub dress as a uniform purchase, which I'm quite sure she never wore to work. I did the same highlighting on suspicious items as I did with Jessica's.

Then, because none of this was REALLY my business, I was just a part time asshole who worked in the stockroom, I waited for the most fun opportunity to lower the boom.

Jessica got on her little bluetooth earpiece that she wears on he sales floor that she thinks makes her look like a VIP, and says, "OP, I'm going to need XXX in a size small, customer waiting, get the lead out." So I bring the item, and Jessica says I'm "not passing muster." I thought wow Jessica you sounded really 1940s there, you wannabe pinup girl LOL.

After the customer leaves, Jessica says, "I'm going to need you to go on a trash run and sweep out the receiving bay. And I need you to cover Annie's lunch."

I laugh and tell her, "who died and made you supervisor, you fucking headass burnout?"

She looks like she was the fucking Crypt Keeper for a second and that she wanted to punch me, before she remembered that I'm 6'2" and outweigh her by a hundred pounds.

She hisses, "You are SO fired, you fucking geek. Heather's going to hear about this."

I tell her, "Fuck you, I'm going to lunch."

And I clock out and leave.

When I come back, I see Jessica immediately get on her little earpiece.

Before I even reach the stock room, Heather is there, and the manager Paula intercept me.

"Annie, can you cover register? We have an urgent matter to deal with."

I know I'm supposed to be fired.

Which is why, during my lunch, I went to the copy place and made PDF scans of the printouts I made for Jessica and Heather. I had all the corporate bigshots' emails. They were in the new hire handbook all of us get when we start working. I saved a draft to each but didn't hit SEND yet. I had the printouts as attachements. In the BODY of my email, I described exactly what had been going on. I did send ONE email. And that was to Paula the manager, herself.

But I didn't press SEND until we were on our way to the employee break room.

Paula tells me, "OP, Heather sent me a text that says you were verbally abusive to Jessica. Heather herself says that Jessica has complained to her on numerous occasions that you are a substandard employee, and only her own, personal kindness has presented her from firing you. I came in myself to see if you have anything to say in order to save your job."

It's been a couple of years so of course that can't be exactly what she said, but it was something typical and rehearsed and faux-professional that any low-level boss would say when trying to sound important.

I said I didn't have anything to say in my defense, and that in fact I quit.

Jessica and Heather looked surprised, but then Jessica started smiling.

Paula looked disappointed, and said, "I'm very sorry to hear you say that. You may collect your last..."

"Oh, but before I go, I think you should look at these printouts. I know you don't spend a lot of time studying this stuff, but I thought you might find it interesting. It's the last three months of Jessica's and Heather's employee purchases. Notice how they always ring each other up, and notice all that stuff they're claiming to use as uniforms. If you're having trouble understanding it, I explained it in an email I sent to your cellphone. You should have it already, if you check.

I have the same email ready to go to Dan and Pam and Kimberly and Victor and Kevin but I haven't sent it in yet. I was hoping you could look it over and email me back when you're ready, I mean if you want me to edit anything."

Then I got up and left.

Later that afternoon, my phone was ringing.

It was Paula.

She was practically crying, telling me, please don't send those emails, "I've fired Heather and Jessica. They're GONE. And please don't quit. Please don't tell anyone about--"

I tell her to relax.

I already quit. And I'm keeping my mouth shut.

A few days later, I showed up for my final check. I learned from one of the sales associates that corporate Loss Prevention was called in (our corporate office is only a few miles from the retail location) to interview both Heather and Jessica about their fraud.

In lieu of arrest and heavy fines for what amounted to outright theft and fraud, they were simply fired and unable to use the company as a reference, and due to being fired for cause, could not file for unemployment.

Paula was actually in the store that day, and practically ran to me to thank me for "keeping this scandal at a store level. It's been handled."

I told her no problem. What I didn't tell her was that I never did delete those drafts.

She offered me a reward of free merchandise.

No thanks.

I'm going to look awfully silly in those dainty little suits at my super cool new job of working at Sizzler.

It all ended okay.

A year later I finished my degree, and now I'm doing what I really want to do. Except now at my job, guess what we have to wear. Yeah. Dainty little suits.

I wear socks, though.

I would have never torpedoed Heather and Jessica if they just left me alone to do my job in peace, and didn't try to feel big and important at my expense.

I would have left them to live in their self-medicating lies, live and let live.

Other than some difficult customers, people like Heather and Jessica are what make working retail such a nightmare for so many.

And that's why I feel no guilt about destroying them.

I'm sure Jessica had lots to talk about at that year's Milan Fashion Week.

Hold this L, bitch.

****************

TL;DR: I was stockboy at a fancy clothes store. A low level associate would always boss me around and call me stupid even though she wasn't in charge. I found out she was stealing from the store. I was mean to her on purpose so that I'd be called in to a manager meeting to be fired. I quit, and presented proof to the manager that the associate and the assistant manager were both thieves. They both got fired. I began work at Sizzler.

(source) story by (/u/SaggingSkinnyJeans)

#prorevenge #by /u/SaggingSkinnyJeans #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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genderpunktheo · 6 years ago

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Hey! I'm really not trying to, like, start drama or anyhting but i really want an actual trans persons oppinion on somehting: I think you do need dysphoria to be trans, but i also think that peoples definition of dysphoria is wrong, which is why people say you dont. because medically dysphoria basically means that how (you feel that) someone views your body is different to what you actually are. and for trans people, thats basically that people see you as a gender that youre not (1/2)

And I think that thats a necessity to be trans? Like, you arent the gender you were assigned. But I think the disconnect comes because people claim dysphoria means hating your body which, it can, but it doesnt always? idk. i just wanted to get a trans persons opinion on this because obviously, i could be missing something.

Hi nonnie! Sorry in advance, this is gonna get really long cause I have a lot of Thoughts™ but hopefully, this helps!

So I don’t think that you need gender dysphoria to be trans and I have several reasons and sources for that but I’m glad you asked about it and did it in such a polite way! Props to you for reaching out honestly.

First up, I do agree with you that some of this disagreement on whether you do or don’t need it, comes down to people using different definitions. Some folks who think you do need to have dysphoria are defining it only as a disconnect from your assigned gender (this can be called “gender incongruence” and even more confusingly, sometimes the two are used interchangeably).

Whereas dysphoria is better described as the distress caused by that disconnect - but not everyone has that. Some trans people only feel the disconnect, some feel dysphoria, some feel euphoria or some combination of those (think of those respectively as “kind of meh” “this sucks” and “yay” if that helps you visualise it).

The majority of trans people have dysphoria about their assigned gender and then may or may not have euphoria about their true gender.

Most people who don’t have dysphoria have meh feelings about their assigned gender and very positive feelings about their real gender, which is still more than enough to make people want to transition either socially or medically if that will bring them more euphoria.

So why then do I follow the definition of gender dysphoria as the distress rather than the disconnect, and why do I believe only some trans people have it?

Well, part of that is that I am a firmly inclusive person in my personal politics anyway so if someone says they’re trans but have a different experience than me, I’m still going to believe them, even if I don’t understand their experiences. You could consider that a bias of mine I guess?? But I’ve found that in general human beings are so complicated and diverse, it’s best to just listen to someone if they tell you they’re feeling a thing. They know themselves best.

But I can also back that up with a whole bunch of gender dysphoria definitions. The NHS, DSM-5, American Psychiatric Association and more all agree that not every trans person experiences this distress but that the distress is required for a gender dysphoria diagnosis.

I’ll use the NHS as the example here since I’m most familiar with that (National Health Service, here in the UK for anyone who doesn’t know).

Notably, they don’t have a set of criteria for assessing whether you are trans, only for assessing whether you have dysphoria - because being trans does not require a diagnosis for anything, including a gender dysphoria diagnosis.

Here they explain that dysphoria is specifically the distress, not just the disconnect and that it can be caused by the disconnect (gender incongruence) but is not the same as that.

They then go on to explain the difference between sex and gender and that for most people they match but for some they don’t, and then they say

“This mismatch… can lead to… gender dysphoria.”

Not “does lead to” or “always leads to.” Can. As in sometimes.

Next, there are the diagnostic criteria:

As you can see, the “mismatch” (disconnect) or gender incongruence can be a sign of gender dysphoria but is not in itself dysphoria. The strong desire then refers to bodily dysphoria.

So… does everyone experience dysphoria the same and is it even policeable, to begin with?

What you’re talking about (how people view you rather than distress with the physical body) is a type of dysphoria called social dysphoria. And that’s super important to mention too - there are different types of dysphoria and people can experience them in different ways. The mainstream narrative is, as you say, that they hate their body and want every surgery possible.

And that is the case for some people. It’s probably the easiest to understand for a cis person, so it’s the most common version to hear. But a lot of trans people don’t experience bodily dysphoria that intensely or if they do they only experience it about some things (e.g. they may have chest dysphoria but no bottom dysphoria).

It’s super harmful for us to act like there’s only way to experience this and if you don’t hate everything about your body then you’re not trans. It leaves people feeling alone and broken for so long because they have these feelings but don’t believe they can be trans.

I myself took longer than I needed to work it out, because while I have dysphoria about my chest, hips, and periods, I don’t have any bottom dysphoria. Totally cool with that area. But dysphoria doesn’t have to work like that.

It’s also important to mention that this can often harm nonbinary trans folks especially. We can’t fit the typical narrative no matter how hard we try.

You can then have social dysphoria. So personally, a lot of my dysphoria about my chest is caused by the fact that I know people see that and immediately think “girl” thus misgendering me. It’s why I got my hair cut (side note: of course anyone of any gender can have long hair, it’s just associated more with girls and my social dysphoria does not like that).

And of course, we have euphoria which is the very positive feelings from things that are affirming to your true gender like having your name and pronouns used correctly. I think it’s super important to have more conversations about euphoria and how it can help us to realise what our gender is (I would never have settled on being nonbinary if I hadn’t tried out they/them pronouns with friends first). It’s often left out of conversations and I think that’s harmful.

It is also, of course, possible that some of the people who seem to be just feeling meh about it actually have a low amount of dysphoria, or dysphoria that doesn’t present typically and they don’t realise that. But I think that’s unlikely to be the case for everyone because again. humans are pretty varied and never fit well into neat little boxes.

Dysphoria is such a varied and personal experience, it’s not really something you can police anyway.

I’m also strongly against making any rules about having to have dysphoria to be trans, because inevitably when we do that, someone somewhere decides to appoint themselves the Trans Police™ and start hunting for “fakes” and “trenders.” Even if I did believe the idea that some people are trenders (I don’t! but hypothetically), this always ALWAYS comes back to bite those who do have dysphoria.

Someone will have dysphoria but it presents a little differently. Yeah, well now you’re a fake. Someone will be trans but gender non-conforming (a trans guy who wears make-up for example). Fake. Someone will have loads of social dysphoria but little bodily dysphoria. FAKE. And on it goes.

You even get people trying to make arguments like “if you’ve been through transition and your dysphoria stopped… you probably never had it to start with and are fake.” As if… that’s not the point of transition for a lot of folks??

The only way to stop that from happening is to just… stop gatekeeping*?

So yeah in conclusion /

TL;DR

Medical definitions of dysphoria see it as the distress not just the disconnect

Not everyone has that distress

Even those that do, experience it in lots of different ways, not all of them physical

Euphoria is totally a thing and we should talk about it way more

Policing never helps anyone anyway

We should listen to folks when they explain how they feel

*before some transmed uses their favourite line “I can’t gatekeep, I’m not a medical professional” I’m not talking about gatekeeping medical resources genius! I’m talking about gatekeeping socially, in community spaces because you can absolutely bully and exclude people from much needed social space.

#long post #sap gives advice #trans #dysphoria #dysphoria debate

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blurredrededges-blog · 6 years ago

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Im Breaking™......

No, this is not ic. Life has just kind of.....come in and dry-fucked me sideways, and im literally breaking.

And.....i love my roommates, but i have snapped at both of them for how theyve worded things and their tone. And i cant explain to them the Magnitude™ of fuckery depression is putting me through.

My own family (despite being toxic) doesnt care about me, so why should i even try to look for a relationship?

I worl in fast food, and last part of my pay period i legit only have 5 hours logged. This part, right now, im at 10. My check next week is going to be so short, and on top of that, im -$58 in my bank account. The negative amount was my own doing and i admit to that. And im fine with that, itll get fixed next tues. But im desperately trying to find a new job, however, im being led on and i cant leave my shitty fast food job until ive got something secure. I almost have to pull two jobs, but i know my body cant do that. Not if i want sleep and to make sure i dont run myself ragged.

Back to my family for a moment, because thats something else entirely. But to start off, im right now 20 years old. Thats better context for a situation ill mention in a bit. Ok, so, my mom was pregnant at 17 with me, and i was mainly raised my my gran and great gran. Growing up, mom never MADE time for me. Unless she joined voluntarily, it was always "maybe later. Im tired", or, "you keep asking, im gonna tell you no" or my personal favorite (from my gran), "dont bombbard yout mom, she just got home from work". My gran was aloof herself. But not as bad as mom. When my depression really began to manifest, i was told (and this is the honest to god truth), to "stop acting like [my] father. he had self pity parties for himself all the time, and you dont wanna end up like him do you?" I had no dad. He was absent from 99.9% of my life. And thats ok. But for years i hated the way he was. The way he just was able to up and leave me when he did, i loathed it. Hell, i still dislike it, but ive forgiven. I had my mom, and well, she may as well have not been my mom at all.

Whenever i would try to vent about my struggles, she'd turn it to her and a BIG thing shed say was; "Well, i dropped out of high school at 17 while i was pregnant with you." And looking back, i think she lowkey resents me for the result of her life, even though it was her choice. Though, i digress.

My now ex boyfriend had said that whenever i spent the night with him, every time he'd move, i (while dead asleep), would follow him not too long after. And while i love snuggling, it took me years before now to realize i was affection deprived.

For 20 years, i was only given affection if they needed something. Whenever they said "I love you" i followed up with "what do you need?" because 9 times outta 10, they needed something. If my name was called, i always followed with "what did i do?" Because 9 times outta 10, i either did something wrong, or "its what you didnt do"

Even when i was suicidal and cutting myself, i wasnt taken to proper help. I apperently "just needed to get out of the house".

At one point this year my mom and aunt wanted to call the cops on my ex, just because i came home a day later than i was supposed to, and i couldnt tell them because of no phone service. Im 20, and i was not lost. I just wasnt where they wanted me to be.

Early this august, mom and i had a big fight. Basically i was sick of her shit (shed been laying around for 1.5 months not working or job hunting), and after my plan to move in with a friend (to get my life started) was weasled from me by my even shittier aunt, mom and i began to fight. I called her out on her bullshit, and she lunged to hit me. All i did was grab her upper arms in defense, and she walked away with fingertip shaped bruises. Thats it. I never wanted to hurt her physically. She stole my computer when i didnt give up my phone (which was a bday gift mind you), and also tried to assault me. But now everyone in my family thinks im the bad guy, but mom is so good at manipulation, no one will even consider my side of the story, much less listen to it.

TL;DR: Needless to say, im a broken woman whos breaking further, and my depression, despite so much progress, has come back with a vengance, and now im back to hating myself again, wanting to embrace the void via death, and no mus e

#behind the glass || ooc #tw toxic parents #tw depression #tw self harm #tw self loathing #tw suicidal thoughts

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biologybrat · 7 years ago

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nine

9. why were you drawn to each one of your characters?

well! for dave, i really was enthused about the idea of playing a character who was interested in what i was, somewhere where i could happily babble about the things i love and really indulge in that longwinded, metaphor laden, souped up sort of style that i naturally fall into but have to curb for yknow, claritys sake quite a lot of the time or ease of communication: and that isn’t as appreciated on other muses because (elliot voice) he’s a strider. he’s allowed to talk. let him babble!! cause you kind of expect daves to be chatty, yknow what i mean?

i don’t have other muses who are into the same things as dave is, like, i have an oc who’s very into environmental sciences, but even then, she’s very woodland oriented and not super applicable: whereas i have more free range with dave because my god, dave striders morbidity and jade harleys general scientific and gadgetry combined is like, the IDEAL, the only thing he’s missing is a little side of ai personhood questioning and delving into the human psyche, but he’s really nailed my special interests that range between “the interactions between humanity and their environment, primarily lensed in with a medical and morbid flair, and ransacking the hell out of history for fun facts about development”

and it’s just… fun writing dave? he’s CHATTY, like my oc is, but he’s also just way more upbeat and loving, and explores themes of vulnerability but at his core is just… a good guy. a good guy who just wants to be loved, and who has some very sweet ideas about what constitutes love and man, he’s as in love with the universe as i am: he’s head over heels for science, the labor of love it is, the discipline, the rigour you have to exercise with it: and he’s very playful and whimsical about that (re: rekitting out a purple fitbit from a cereal box, or tracking his island just to have a pop up map of where frogs n bug friends are LOL) and of COURSE i’m just homestuck trash at heart who LOVES writing muses with my best fucking friend ahahah even if pubby drags me on main all of the time

to put it shortly: special interest man 9000.

for my oc, although she’s shelved and on my backburner at the moment as academia grinds me into the fucking dirt and i just need to take a couple steps back from her because she is an intense muse to play, claudia explores several themes that resonate with me deeply? the after effects of childhood abuse and how that permeates your identity even as you grow older, and learning how to come to terms with who you’re growing into. the concept of the “idealistic” and the “messy” survivor and what its like to be considered a worse survivor for how you coped. the idea of family being found, that family is intensely, deeply important due to a lack of having it as a child. how people in your life can change you, for better, or for worse: but how they’re a part of your story too. a love and appreciation for nature: for it’s brutality, the nature’s maw that dave speaks of is very much so present in her as well. being smaller than your anger, and learning self control because without it its so easy for you to hurt other people, intentionally or not. learning how to shed unhealthy ideals even if they’re what got you this far because you can change, you don’t have to be static: and learning how to take personal responsibility and exercise empathy? she also dabbles around with my own cultural background because i felt like that sort of accurate representation was important, and i saw like, 0 of it in any media reflected around me?so, succinctly: (elliot voice) fine bih im taking unexplored themes into my own grubby paws.

my dirk and my AR are primarily reserved just for pubby over discord these days and theyre on and off muses, but dirk was always meant to be an exploration into reconciling what you are taught with what you experience, in particularly towards morality: (being lawful does not make something good) as well as struggling with emotional articulation and gradually learning how to… fucking show you care about people, dirk! (he cares deeply for his friends, but he’s terrified and awkward about emotions, which uh, big mood.) he also was the OG look into “usefulness = value” that capitalism beats people over the head with that dave struggles with, because they have a hard time finding inherent value in themselves for yknow, being living, breathing human beings who enrich the lives of others who love them deeply, and so default to acts of service to try to… validate themselves and the things they have in their life? also, personal responsibility again: i tend to have a few central themes you’ll find a lot in my writing, and growing into that arc is a BIG one, because it… can be scary, acknowledging your mistakes, faults, and flaws: but you gotta fucking do it sometime, yknow? dirk absolves his through religion, rather than family like claudia does, and dave doesn’t have it as bad, but would pin it onto his loneliness growing up, and AR is anger at the mechanisms behind his existence and dirk “stealing” his life from him.

tl;dr: emotionally constipated man 9000my AR was a convoluted character, i never really wrote villains before but? he was a deep trawl into identity issues, and the idea of humanity = personhood and all the ways that that sentiment is outdated and to be honest, kinda fucked up hahaha, i have a lot of strong feelings about AI characters and philosophy surrounding death / life, and AR was poking into “so what does happen to a thirteen year old dirk who just wakes up in shades and has to watch the “real dirk” take over his life?” and the deep set hurt of rejection from everyone around you as well? really about “so you give this guy an idealistic life and then tear everything about it away from him AND taunt him with the shadows of it on the wall and no means of making his own new start, whats left” as well as a general conscience foil to dirk: AR is angry, AR is inhuman, but AR is more genuinely emotional and lovable than dirk is, the stony monolith of a man he is, and… AR’s anger is rooted in some pretty fucking valid stuff? the way he goes around dealing with it isn’t, healthy in the slightest, but i always thought anger was an interesting narrative to explore and he and dirk really resonate with each other because theyre in this stupid fucked up cat and mouse game of revenge cycles that really does neither of them good, that hinders both of them: they both use each other to hurt themselves, even as they lash out at the other, and AR really manifests that inability to both take responsibility for your own life but also to let go of resentments that hurt you more so than help you, and how in blind pursuit of vengeance you really lose a lot of yourself and out on a LOT of really GOOD things that would be so much better to nourish with that same effort (in the style of macbeth and hamlet and their own arcs)tl;dr: angry robot baby

#long post /#ooc #mun talks #Anonymous #album: ask games

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glassoftplosh · 4 years ago

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posting it anyways under a readmore because it’s super long, tl;dr: these two stories confirm that watson’s a romantic partner of holmes.

disclaimer, you’re free to disagree! this is just my take.

So. Let’s talk the three garridebs.

The story itself is mediocre, but what i’m REALLY after here is that scene.

You know the one, folks. The. uh. Really gay one.

“It was worth a wound–it was worth many wounds–to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.”

Hmm. Yeah, we’ve all heard this quote before, but let’s talk about that.

This is perhaps the clearest example that holmes loves watson. It’s stated. Right. There.

Also! Holmes, who’s usually stoic in times like this is visibly shaken at the idea of watson getting badly wounded.

Straight UP. Holmes loves watson.

“oh muh muh but it could just be platonic!!1!!1!”

Can’t say your opinion is invalid. But i CAN say that i disagree, and i’m gonna back it up with text evidence.

In The Devil’s Foot, holmes says, "I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has done. Who knows?”

So we establish here: it’s romantic love he’s talking about in the quote. He talks about specifically women-- means that this has got to be romantic love he’s talking about. In this time period, he can’t love men romantically. If it were platonic he could’ve included ANY gender.

(context! The “lion-hunter” is this one guy in the story who killed as revenge because his lover had been murdered. So the quote’s basically holmes saying “if i was in love with someone romantically and they were murdered, i might get revenge and kill the murderer.”)

also a side note: this takes place before the three garridebs.

now, yall, you might be asking: “Well, jay, what’s this got to do with the three garridebs? seems to me that you’ve gone on a huuuuuge tangent.”

Am i glad you asked!

We’ve established that IF holmes were to romantically love someone, and they were killed, then he’d kill their murderer.

In the three garridebs, right before the aforementioned scene, some guy shoots watson with the intent to kill. (thankfully he’s okay! but…)

Holmes tells the guy that “By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.”

So… holmes would’ve killed the guy if he had killed watson. Sound familiar?

“but!!!! it doesn’t have to be the ONLY reason holmes would kill people! of COURSE holmes would kill people! he’s a vigilante kind of guy!”

ah, that’s where you’re wrong!

Holmes never kills except out of self-defense, and even then, it’s rare:

Well, in the sign of four, he shoots Tonga. But that’s self-defense, and also, not just him (watson, iirc is also shooting.)

In the final problem, he throws moriarty off the waterfall, killing him. Again, that’s self-defense. He would’ve died if he didn’t.

why not kill people? simply because holmes isn’t the law. for example, in the hound of the baskervilles, he can’t just go and arrest stapleton even though he KNOWS he’s the suspect. because he needs lestrade to come down with a warrant, and he doesn’t have the proof OR the authority to arrest him. this means that he can’t just go around killing people just because they’re a suspect.

So for Holmes to kill someone unprovoked like that? Takes something HUGE to make him do that. and while we know holmes does kill out of self-defense, that’s not what’s happening here. holmes himself is in no danger of getting killed when he says that quote.

So what very important thing makes him want to kill, other than self defense? That something huge is defined as a romantic partner in the devil’s foot.

That something huge is Watson in the three garridebs.

One last note: in the devils foot, holmes uses the word “might”. That implies that maybe it wouldn’t be worth avenging his lover.

But in the three garridebs, he uses, “you would,” i.e. there’s no doubt about it. he’s certain that he would’ve killed the guy.

my point: holmes canonically romantically loves watson. like, a lot. case closed.

who wants to hear my thoughts on the connection between the devils foot and the three garridebs

#sherlock holmes #john watson #acd #acd holmes #acd canon #meta #analysis #the devils foot #the three garridebs #holmes/watson #tjlc #johnlock

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starsinursa · 8 years ago

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Dean’s Love Languages

I’m sorry, guys, I usually don’t write meta, but I couldn’t stop thinking about this and had to get it out of my head?

So I’m sure many of you have heard about The Five Love Languages book by Gary Chapman, especially since it’s been around for years and years.

To quickly summarize, the author theorizes that there are five types of ‘love languages’, which are methods that people use to express their love and affection. The five love languages are:

Words of affirmation (compliments, saying ‘I love you’, telling someone how much they mean to you, etc.)

Physical touch (touches of affection, anything from kissing to hugging to cuddling to just hand-holding, etc.)

Gift giving (giving tangible gifts, giving physical reminders of how much someone means to you, giving gifts that show you were thinking of them, etc.)

Acts of service (doing things/ services/ acts/ chores for someone, taking care of them, lending a hand or helping out, etc.)

Quality time (spending time with someone, giving them your undivided attention, having special ‘date nights’ or time with just the two of you, etc).

The author believes that most people tend to show love in the same way they prefer to receive love (ex: a person who likes to give gifts would be happiest to receive a gift in return), but I don’t necessarily agree with that. Based on everything I’ve seen and also personal experiences, I tend to think that most people have TWO love languages: the way they show their affection, and the way they want to receive affection.

Now again, all of this is theorized and not empirically studied in any way, so you can decide whether or not to buy into this. :) It may have some truth to it, it may not! But, regardless, it did get me thinking about my Supernatural boys and wondering: which of these love languages fit Dean Winchester?

So let’s take a look.

What are Dean’s love languages?

1. Words of Affirmation?

Okay, right off the bat, I’m gonna go on record and say no, nope, noooooope. Dean is definitely NOT a ‘whisper sweet nothings’ kind of guy. It took us 12 seasons to finally get a canon ‘I love you’ out of him, and that was to his mom. In a dream. And she couldn’t even explicitly hear him at the time.

Now, that’s not to say Dean never says words of affirmation, because sometimes he does. But it’s usually in a tense life-or-death moment, or a someone-just-came-back moment, or a someone-is-brainwashed moment, or some other type of emotionally tense scene, you get the picture. Even then, I don’t think Dean says these things to show his affection. It’s more like he just... says them honestly, because they’re true? Almost like, to him, these are ‘duh’ type statements. Why make a big deal when he’s only stating the truth?

So yeah, Dean isn’t the type of person to show he cares through words. And not only that, he’s also very uncomfortable when anyone else does the same thing for him. Anytime Dean receives a compliment or someone says something affectionate, he tends to scoff, laugh it off, or ignore it.

And God forbid someone actually says they love him.

*crickets* *crickets* Awkward...

2. Physical touch?

A good case could probably be argued for this one, because Dean is actually a pretty touchy-feely guy. He hugs, he gives cutesy forehead kisses to women, he puts his arms around shoulders, he touches faces.

However, I recently read a great post by @thejabberwock about tactile!Dean, and I think this explains it much better, so I’m not gonna go in-depth on this one. :) Basically, I would just agree that Dean is just a tactile guy in general, in all areas of his life, and it’s not necessarily how he prefers to show or receive affection.

Plus, when he’s the receiver of physical affection and doesn’t actually initiate it himself, it’s almost like he doesn’t know what to do.

3. Gift giving?

There’s only a few occasions where we’ve seen Dean give or receive gifts, and they’re pretty few and far between. In general, I think this is probably part of the hunting lifestyle - there’s just no need and/ or room for material possessions that don’t serve a purpose.

One of the few scenes where we do see gifts exchanged is when Dean stole some Christmas presents for Sam and then received the amulet in return.

However, I’d argue this scene shows that Dean DOESN’T use gift-giving as one of his love languages. For people who truly use gift-giving as a love language, there’s a lot of time and thought spent in picking the perfect gifts for someone. Instead, Dean just randomly takes whatever is under the tree, regardless of what it is. Even the amulet, which becomes so important to him, isn’t necessarily important because it’s a gift, but because it came specifically from Sam.

In this situation, it’s really not about the gifts at all - it’s about Dean trying to give Sam that ‘classic Christmas’ experience. I would argue that Dean is actually performing an ‘act of service’ for Sam here, while at the same time spending ‘quality time’ together, which leads me into the next two love languages...

P.S. I am purposefully NOT including the recent mixtape from 12.19 as an example of Dean being a gift giver, because in my opinion, it’s also an example of ‘quality time’ instead. Here’s my post explaining why I think so.

4. Acts of service?

This one, in my opinion, is DEFINITELY Dean’s love language for showing affection.

Taking care of the people he cares about, doing things for them, and putting them first is just a huge part of who he is. He’s been taking care of others since he was four years old carrying Sammy out of their burning home. Actually, scratch that - he was taking care of others even BEFORE that, when he was comforting his mom after his dad moved out.

There are literally so many examples of him taking care of others. He cooked for Sammy when they were kids/ still cooks for him now. He raked leaves at Lisa’s. He offers Castiel coffee in the mornings. He fixes things.

So, I would say that performing acts of service is definitely the way that Dean shows his love. Dean loves others by doing things for them. To Dean, actions speak the loudest. And after all, this love language is perfect for him: no awkward words or confessions necessary, no ‘chick-flick moments’, most of the time he still gets to be tactile and active and use his hands, and it’s subtle enough that he can always defensively play it off as just being helpful if he gets called out.

Alternatively, while Dean shows his love through acts of service, he certainly does not want to receive love through acts of service.

Taking care of others is role that Dean knows well and he’s good at it. It rubs him the wrong way when other people try to take that role from him, or try to take care of him for a change. He enjoys doing things for others, but isn’t so hot on letting other people do things for him.

5. Quality time?

Finally, quality time.

In my opinion, this is definitely Dean’s other love language, his love language for how he wants to be shown love.

Dean has a long history of abandonment issues, so it’s not surprising that quality time ends up being one of the most important things to him. We see this immediately in the very first episode, when Dean shows up to get Sam from college after ‘Dad hasn’t been home for a few days’. But why now? Sam’s been at college for four years. There’s been plenty of hunts in the meantime, John’s probably been on plenty of solo hunts. But as soon as he’s gone longer than usual and Dean isn’t able to reach him, he tracks down Sam. And through the rest of the season, even though Dean is worried about John being missing, it’s also evident that he’s hurt by it.

Dean does not do well alone. He needs the people he loves to be there with him. Hell, he even admits it himself:

So yeah, literally nothing else is as important to Dean as having his loved ones with him. Even if they’re not doing anything, even if they’re just watching crappy TV or drinking beer or driving in the Impala, he just needs them to be there.

And when they leave or don’t want to spend time with him, it hurts him. We saw a lot of it recently, especially in season 12. Even though things were awkward with Mary at the beginning, he was hurt when she decided to leave the bunker. When Cas went MIA and didn’t answer his phone, he was upset not about why Cas was gone, just that Cas was gone.

That’s also why it’s such a huge deal to him to be accused of leaving - because, in his eyes, being left behind by someone he loves is the worst thing imaginable.

So yeah, I would argue that the best way to show love and affection to Dean Winchester is to just hang out with him, be with him, spend time with him - even if you’re not doing anything important, quality time means the world to Dean.

Also as I mentioned above, I also believe that the mixtape from 12.19 is a perfect example of Dean needing quality time, instead of gift giving, and here’s why (this explanation got kinda long and needed its own post, lol).

TL;DR summary:

Acts of Service and Quality Time are Dean’s two love languages.

Performing acts of service is how Dean shows love to those he cares about. Basically, if Dean cares about you, he’ll show it by doing things for you, taking care of you, etc.

Spending quality time together is how Dean wants love from those he cares about. Basically, if you care about Dean, you should show it by spending time with him.

#sweet jeebus i wrote meta #i never write meta #i'm terrible at writing meta #sorry guys #i couldn't stop thinking about this concept though so i finally just had to write it down and get it all out #meta #analysis #dean winchester #five love languages

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smoothshift · 6 years ago

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How my $800 Ford Explorer almost became part of the 2020 Ford Explorer Media event today. via /r/cars

How my $800 Ford Explorer almost became part of the 2020 Ford Explorer Media event today.

Every once in a while opportunity knocks at your door, and you simply know that regardless of comfort zone, and whatever your capabilities may be, that you just need to leap and to hell with what could go wrong. This happened to me recently, and it all started with a story that I wrote about my $800 2002 Ford Explorer XLT that I purchased from a friend, the story can me found HERE.

Originally written just to share my experience with fellow car enthusiasts, it turned out that one of Ford’s contracted PR firms had their eye on this story. So, back in early December, someone from Epic Digital reached out to ask me more questions about this story and to invite me into something that was special, or rather… it was supposed to be special, more on that later.

The woman from Epic, we will call her Sam, wanted to have a short phone conversation with me about the aforementioned article, and ask me some questions about the experience and learn a little bit more about myself. So one evening in Mid-December I had a sit down in my office and took a phone call from Sam for about 15 minutes. She asks me about where I am from, what I do, and what inspired the road trip, then goes on to explain that Ford is planning a brand new version of the Explorer for 2020, and wanted to get real stories from real owners to inspire today’s family generation to take more time away from work, and soak in the things that really matter about life; Traveling, exploration, and time with your family. Obviously this campaign was designed to be focused around how the 2020 Explorer could be the choice vehicle for the outdoors family.

She asked if she could share my story with some Ford executives and the event organizer company, and if I was interested in participating in the event. I instinctively told her that I was all in and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

A few days go by, and I receive an email from another company that was organizing the event, we will call her Jane. Once again, Jane wants to have a phone conversation with me about the event and ask some questions about my story. We schedule a phone call for that evening and chat briefly about the media event and what it is they wanted from myself and a few other people that had been selected to do similar things.

I was told Ford loved my story about exploration, about trusting an old used vehicle to safely transport my family from the safety of our home to be our portal to the great things that Michigan had to offer. She explained that she wanted me to be at the event, on stage, and to tell my story to the press and be a part of the Explorer’s history.

Needless to say, I was over the moon. Finally, my love and passion of cars and being a part of Detroit’s resurgence could come together, and my name and face would be a small part of history. I told her I was in, and asked her to send me details about the event and what I needed to do to be prepared. Jane sent me a detailed email with some questions she wanted me to answer, an attachment of photos from my trip, and a few play lists that were listened to during our trip. That evening I spent 4 hours writing out the details of the trip, selecting photos, and picking the best music from the trip and composed all of it to send to her in an email. Pressing the send button felt like such an event, like it was etching everything in stone. My Explorer and I would be a part of Ford history, and that felt special to me.

Weeks passed, and I hadn’t heard anything, I did already have a basic itinerary of events already sent to me, so I knew where I needed to be for rehearsal, and the dates I needed to have open, so I had already taken vacation time from work to make sure my schedule was open enough for me to be able to do anything that was needed of me. I found it a bit odd that I didn’t get any follow up from Jane; no matter though I figured everything I needed to know would be discussed during the few rehearsals we had. In preparation I wrote myself a script that was tested to be about 5 minutes of talking time, and I rehearsed it accordingly so I didn’t make a fool of myself in front of thousands of people invited to be at the private press event on the 9th of January.

Rehearsal day came, I spent my day staying relaxed, ate a good lunch, took a nice nap leading up to leaving to go to the venue. The rehearsal was scheduled to be at 5pm at Ford Field in Detroit, I left to give myself some time to navigate and figure out parking once I got downtown. I arrived about 20 minutes early and entered Ford Field at the South Eastern entrance, I was met by a security guard that I asked where I should go, when he pulled up the manifest my name wasn’t on it. Red flags started to happen, if I was supposed to be 1 of 4 guests for the show, my name should be easily found on that manifest.

15 minutes of phone calls, and they are able to locate a lady who knows Jane, but doesn’t know of me. This lady meets me at the entrance and takes me through the corridors until Jane just shows up seemingly out of nowhere. The other lady leaves, Jane welcomes me, and explains that my part has been removed from the show. I could tell she felt a bit of remorse, considering she clearly forgot to inform me that they had changed plans and my services weren’t needed. She then offered to give me a VIP pass so I could be part of the show and watch it happen along with the other attendees.

I felt blindsided, and didn’t really know how to respond, but I knew being angry or upset wasn’t going to get me anywhere. So naturally I asked questions about what had changed and acted interested in what was going to actually happen. She explained a story about a Ford employee moving back from Mexico to Chicago with his Family, and went on about that for a bit. She then offered VIP passes for the event. I accepted the passes, thanked her for her time, and she helped me find my way out.

As I drove home in my Explorer, I immediately got caught in the 5 o’clock rush hour traffic, I started to feel frustrated, I had taken vacation time from work, spent hours writing and rehearsing my part, just to be told I wasn’t needed, but in the final outcome the experience was a positive and I am glad I was able to attend. However, on Christmas Eve my Explorer started to get sick, I lost 3rd gear when driving to a friend’s house to drop off a gift I had picked up for my friend and his wife. I was devastated, and had to limp my Explorer home by manually shifting it.

Thankfully, I was able to coax the tired 5R55W back to life with 5 fresh quarts of Castrol Transmax, but its not 100% right. Im hoping another fluid service will help, but now im deciding if im going to find another used transmission for the truck, or just throw in the towel.

Originally, the plan was that myself, and 3 other individuals were going to be story tellers during the event, we were going to talk about where our Ford Explorers took our families, and what kind of experience we had in our time away from Work. After seeing the presentation first hand, I can say the revised plan seemed to fit the flow of the show a lot better than having live performers.

To those involved with Imagination Detroit, I greatly appreciate the opportunity and the invite to the show, it filled me with great pride to be a citizen of Detroit and owner (and prospective future owner) of the brand. And to all of the redditers that upvoted my aforementioned story of exploration which allowed it to get Ford's attention, thanks to you guys as well! I will be at the NAIAS Press day shooting photos and will likely get a few interior/close up shots of the new Explorer (and many other vehicles) while I am there.

TL;DR - I was invited by Ford as a special guest for the new 2020 Explorer event to tell a story, instead they opted to use stories from Ford Employees and pre-recorded it, which in hindsight makes quite a bit of sense. I still got invited to watch and thats okay to.

#reddit #autonews #auto #cars

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prorevenge · 8 years ago

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Pro revenge from a revenge pro.

warning: long story. TL;DR at the end.

If you think about it cynically, one of the functions of the police is to provide a sort of society-wide revenge service. Unfortunately for this sub, it's usually kind of boring. When cops do take exceptional revenge, it's usually unfortunate and icky, like a dirty beating in the no-camera areas of the copshop, or giving someone the silent-patrolman treatment during transport. Fortunately, most cop revenge isn't dramatic - it's procedural. You misbehave, we do the paperwork, and eventually some consequences happen, or not.

Sometimes, however, you get a chance to take a bit of vengeance that is (i hope) the very definition of professional.

For a time, I was a small-town Canadian cop, working in $hicksville, $province. Several years before I came to work in the town, there was an event which entered town legend (and made national news - the funny little throwaway story they go to just before the end of the broadcast). Some kids committed an act of spectacular and iconic vandalism, and cost the town quite a bit of money. They were all caught, tried and sentenced to probation terms with restitution. I would love to provide details, but anything more would be immediately identifying.

All but one of the kids paid off quickly, served their probation without major incident and moved on with their lives. These were juvenile sentences and would in the ordinary course of things be purged from their records about two years after completion of probation. Unfortunately for one of them, whom we will refer to as LackWit hereafter, this was only the beginning of a pattern of failure and incompetence that would mark the his life from then on.

LackWit came from the kind of low-down redneck family that can't meet the standards of a transient's trailer park. They lived in decrepit trailers on a semi-serviced rural property that someone lent them out of pity. I wish I could tell you the moronic and laughable names these cretinous parents inflicted on their kids - think 'Jesse James' for the boys and 'Jezebel' for the girls and you're aiming too classy. I suppose his unfortunate nature wasn't his fault, but LackWit seemed so dedicated to his banal evil and low-grade crime that any sympathy I might have had just kind of melted away.

When I first arrived at the post, I was given my share of the list of the area's repeat offenders, who it would be my job to keep tabs on. Basically, the boss divided up all of the guys/gals on probation or other court supervision and every constable was responsible for any new charges involving one of 'their' guys. LackWit was to be my problem for the next 3-5 years. I spoke with his probation officer, and was told that LackWit hadn't paid one dime of his restitution, and in fact had been charged with breaching his probation by not doing so. He had also not been doing required community service, had missed probation appointments, and was generally not a great subject. She reccomended additional breach charges, which we duly laid.

The matter wended it's leisurely way through the justice system, and eventually LackWit appeared before a judge. Out in these rural circuits, the judges come by once day a month, and it's frequently the same judge seeing these redneck recidivists again and again. This judge turned out to be the same one who had sentenced LackWit to probation for his initial vandalism, and the subsequent breaches. Of course, on each of these occasions, LackWit had begged the mercy of the court, promised to get his life together and so on. (Understand, we're now more than 4 years out from the initial vandalism event). This might have worked on this occasion too, but the restitution became a sticking point. This town was small, and they needed the money from the restitution to repair some of the damage. We had a victim statement from the town about the things they couldn't afford to do without raising rates on their taxpayers. We had evidence of the reasons LackWit wasn't holding down jobs (attendance, unreliability, pot use at work), and we had evidence of the money he had made but not bothered to pay to the town. Judge decides to throw the book at LackWit this time: he puts him on a CSO. Although LackWit's original charges were Youth charges, and would have been purged, his breach of probation occured after his 18th birthday, so is an adult charge and semi-permanent on his record - nice work, chump.

{A Digression on the Canadian Justice System} We don't like to put people in prison. This is for a number of reasons: we're cheap and prison is expensive, our jails are hideously overcrowded and ill-maintained, and it flat-out doesn't work anyways. Trust me on this - if you aren't committing crimes against persons or involving sex or firearms, you aren't likely to go to jail on a first offence unless you're doing damage/stealing into the millions. {End digression}

A CSO is like a super-probation order. It's technically a jail sentence, but one you serve outside of a jail. The judge can order you to stay at a particular location, can give you a curfew or house arrest, can impose practically any conditions he/she feels will 'assist' you in successfully completing your term. The CSO also has some procedural differences from a probation order which will be important later. In this case, it had a pretty strict curfew among other things.

LackWit is terrible at complying with his order. We give him a few warnings about curfew breaches, and notify his PO. LackWit is formally cautioned. It comes to pass that LackWit asks Probation for permission to do a thing, and is denied. LackWit does the thing anyways, and becomes aware that we know about it. We stop by LackWit's house to 'have a discussion', and LackWit decides to go on the lam. He rabbits, and we don't see him again for a while. A breach of the CSO is filed and approved by Prosecution. At this point, LackWit knows he's going to be jailed for at least a week or two, and being a virgin jail-wise, has no intention of being caught.

Over the next few weeks, we are told by Sources (you would call them snitches) what LackWit is up to: he has couch surfed until he wore out his welcome with his few friends, and is now living in an abandoned car behind a friend's house. Friend's dad hates him, so LackWit has to sneak in and out and spends his days wandering disconsolately around town trying to find people to hang out with, or who might lend him money. I begin to see LackWit around town but pretend not to.

I go by his house from time to time, but he is never home. Sources say his parents want him to turn self in, get us off their backs, but he is convinced he's going to go to jail and get murder-raped (not likely, but hey - he hasn't let us explain that), and they will not let him stay there. I visit his friends, and make a point of being VERY obvious when I visit Friend's house with the derelict car. I never find LackWit, but am told that he spends several cold nights in the bush after our visits.

At this time, I have a rookie with me. One day we come across lackwit and he bolts. Rookie is gung-ho and she starts to chase. I catch up and after a token effort tell her to stop. She asks why - we could have caught him. Hell, LackWit is lanky but has the grace and coordination of a professional e-sports player, even with 20kg of crap strapped on - catching him isn't going to be a problem.

"Look," I tell Rookie, "I don't want to actually catch LackWit, " Rookie is baffled; we've been out to look for LackWit maybe a half dozen times this month. I explain, "The thing is, LackWit is punishing himself far more than the court will, and he's providing a great lesson to his friends about the consequences of this kind of life." Now, the thing about a probation order is that it has a fixed duration, from the date you begin to serve it, it runs for X months. If you're out of the country, in jail, or on the run, the order still runs out. CSO doesn't work this way. If a CSO breach is filed, the CSO stops counting down. I tell this to my wide-eyed Rookie, then add "If I'd picked him up 3 months ago, he'd have done a week or so in cells with a warm bed and three meals/day, then been out again with a firm slap on the wrist. This way, he can live like a hunted animal until he gets tired of it, then serve the same amount of time as he would have if he'd just turned himself in."

He ended up turning himself in a couple months later, when the fall nights got a bit too nippy for him. For the next few years, I would use the story (now well known locally) of LackWit's carpartment to frighten young juvenile offenders and to convince them to comply with probation.

TL;DR - Local schmuck breaches CSO/Probation conditions, decides to go 'on the run', ends up living like a hunted animal for months because police only make enough effort to find him to keep him hiding. CSO/Probation is frozen at breach and just waiting for schmuck to turn self in. Schmuck is used as an object lesson with local youths for years afterwards.

(source) (story by CopRevenge)

#pro revenge #by CopRevenge #prorevenge #pro revenge stories #revenge stories #pro #revenge

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