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allaboutthemoonlight · 4 months

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How to Master Motivation

Hi friends,

Today I want to talk about motivation and finding ways to maintain it in our daily lives. Motivation is a crucial factor that drives us to achieve our goals, overcome challenges, and stay committed to our development.

Understand the locus of control

Our locus of control, internal or external, is the degree to which we believe we have control over what happens to us in our lives. It influences how we respond to circumstances that impact us and how motivated we feel to take action.

An external locus of control is when we believe that our life and the outcomes we experience are a result of external forces beyond our power. We think everything that happens to us occurs because of chance or luck—two things we can’t control.

The key to staying motivated is to develop an internal locus of control. This is when we believe that we’re responsible for the things happening to us and understand that we have control over the outcome. It’s a level of self-determination where we realize our efforts, decisions, and habits create the life we live.

So, how do we adopt an internal locus of control?

The first point I want to emphasize is that, regardless of your perception of how much control you have over your life, the amount of work you put into something is always within your control. The first step is to abandon the mindset that everything is left up to chance and, because of this, you should stop trying. You need to understand that you always have some level of power over your circumstances, even if you’ve been told otherwise:

Be more aware of the choices you make and realize there is always a choice to be made.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help or guidance from those around you.

Spend time self-reflecting and trying to understand yourself better. Reflect on previous instances where you’ve felt a lack of control and write down what could have been done instead.

Don’t be afraid to fail; it’s an opportunity to learn.

Know the different types of motivation

Next, I want to talk about the different types of motivation and how they impact you.

There are 4 different types of motivation, each with their own distinctions:

Intrinsic motivation: This is where you do something because it aligns with your values or just because it’s fun. Although it’s good to have intrinsic motivation, this type is fragile and can be undermined when we start feeling like we’re losing autonomy over our choices.

Extrinsic motivation: This is what most people think of when they imagine motivation. It’s when our motivation comes from outside of us—we’re doing something for a reward or to avoid a punishment. It’s the opposite type of motivation that you should seek if you want to be self-driven.

Introjected: This type of motivation can create resentment or tension. We do something because if we don’t, we’ll feel shameful or guilty. For example, you might go to the gym not because you enjoy it or care about the health benefits, but because you feel guilty if you don’t work out.

Identified: The reason you’re doing something is because it aligns with your idealized self. It’s something that you’ve internalized to be important and allows you to behave in accordance with your self-concept and identity. This is the most important type because it creates habitual behaviors are no longer choices. We understand our identity and that certain habits and behaviors need to be done so that we’re constantly aligned with our higher selves. For example, you might regularly volunteer at a local shelter or organization because you’re someone who values compassion and community service.

So, how can we implement identified motivation more into our lives?

Really try and understand the reasoning behind a goal you want to achieve. Ask yourself “why do you actually want this thing?”. This is also a good time to review your values and whether or not your goal aligns with them.

Constantly remind yourself about why the outcome matters to you because we often forget the reason that we started in the first place. —ex.

Like James Clear said, make your goal, system, habit, or whatever you’re wanting to accomplish more motivating or fun. Beyond that, start associating the reward with the challenge itself. If you’re training for a marathon, instead of seeing the finish line as the only reward, find or fulfillment in the training process and the discipline you developed along the way.

Adopt a positive mindset. Rather than complaining about having to workout in the morning or studying for an exam, start saying “I get to study for this exam and further my education” or “I’m blessed to have a body that works for me and allows me to exercise”. It’s all about perspective and embracing gratitude. If you put half the energy that you use from complaining into figuring out how to take the next step, you’ll accomplish a lot more.

Don’t neglect your emotional and mental health

Slumps are very real, and mental health can impact every aspect of motivation. Self-improvement and changing your life aren’t easy journeys by any means, and there will be times when stress and feelings of being overwhelmed can paralyze you. In these moments, it’s critical to take a break, a breather, or anything that can help reset your mental health. Remember to engage in activities that support your emotional needs. Not every second of the day needs to be spent doing something productive or working toward your goals. It’s okay to take breaks and have rest days; in fact, I think it’s crucial.

Reward yourself often, even for the smallest achievements. It’s not about what you completed, but the fact that you completed something at all. Spend time acknowledging your accomplishments.

Take it one step at a time and remember no action is too small. Starting small is what helps us build consistency in the long run.

Embrace positive self-talk. Avoid talking yourself into a negative spiral, as it will only make you lose motivation and put you in a slump.

Get an accountability partner. Having someone in your corner who will cheer for you and keep you accountable is a game changer.

Stay motivated, stay grateful, stay resilient.

Love,

Luna<3

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probably-writing-x · 2 years

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Blushing Boy

Drew Starkey x Reader

Summary: There were few things that made Drew Starkey lose his confidence, in fact, perhaps only one could truly ever do it; you. He didn’t know how, or why, but you just seemed to have that goddamn effect on him.

Warnings: Nothing besties, just fluffy as heck

Author’s Note: Thank you so so much for the love on my other post, I just had to post this one too !! Please please send in any requests you have my angels <3

Not my gif

You were just about nearing the end of press for Outer Banks Season 3, and all bases had been covered - you’d done interviews to see how well you knew your cast mates, ones looking at scenes from the show, and, of course, the puppy interview. Today was your last day, though all of you were split up in different places, on different projects, and so the last day of interviews would be done over zoom. This was your first experience working on the show, having come in to play Rafe’s love interest as the start of the season. Thankfully, the fans had fallen in love with you, and especially with your storyline with Drew. So much so, in fact, that they’d started to ship you two as actors as well, adoring every moment that they saw you spend together. The two of you were just friends, but you can’t say you didn’t find it amusing whenever theories were made. And, being honest, some of the edits did make you two look cute.

That was your side of things, anyway. Drew had fallen for you at the same rate that Rafe had fallen for your character. He wanted to see you every morning you started work, waiting to catch sight of you on set. He wanted to film all of his scenes with you, watching in awe whenever you acted. He was mesmerised whenever he saw you at events, amazed by you from the red carpets to the earliest of mornings. Drew felt like a schoolboy around you, stumbling over his words, blushing at prolonged eye contact, ears pricking up at the sound of your name. And it only got worse the more he saw of you.

“Okay, thank you guys all for joining me today,” The interviewer begins, smiling widely into the screen, “We’ve got Madelyn, Chase, Madison, Rudy, Jonathon, Carlacia, Drew and (Y/N), the cast of season three of Outer Banks, now streaming on Netflix. How are you guys doing?”

“I’m good,” Madelyn smiles.

“I’m tired, I flew back from Paris today and I’m so jetlagged,” Madison laughs.

“Okay, we’ll start off with a question for Chase, how has it been with the new additions to the cast this season - with Carlacia and (Y/N). How does that fit in with the dynamic of you guys working together?”

Chase leans closer to his microphone and speaks, “You know I think we got really lucky again to work with another great group of people, we all get on so well and these two just fit in perfectly with that, and it makes it so easy to go to work when you’re with such a good bunch.”

“Amazing, and (Y/N), what was your experience like being on set?”

You shift in your seat, glancing at all of the faces on screen, “Like Chase said, it was just ideal getting to work with everyone, it’s like being on one long holiday all working together, you’re out in the sun everyday, you’re on the water, you’re doing stunts, it was just such a great experience. And I was so lucky to get to share the screen with Drew, he makes it so easy to come into work everyday and, I mean, it’s not exactly hard to pretend to fall in love with him.”

You glance at him on the screen and the way his eyes seem so transfixed as you speak, like he holds onto every syllable one at a time. He’s wearing a purple t-shirt that brings out his eyes and his hair is messy in that sort of perfect way it always was.

“And Drew, what was it like to be working with (Y/N) so closely?”

“Yeah, I mean,” He coughs over his words, “It was great, (Y/N) is just perfect to work with, I couldn’t have asked for anyone better. She’s so talented, and kind and supportive as an actress and she just made me want to get up every day and come into work.”

You’re sure your cheeks heat with the vulnerability of what he has said. His are bright red too, and you’re relieved for a moment to share the same feeling even across the screen.

A few more questions are asked, Rudy explains about how many injuries he managed to pick up on set and Jonathon tells an embarrassing story about you and Madelyn from the wrap party. And then attention falls back to you and Drew.

“So, whilst I’ve got you guys here, I have to ask Drew and (Y/N) about the rumours that have been going around about you two, can you tell me anything the fans will want to hear?”

You laugh, slightly allowing yourself a bit more time before you figure out what to say, “You know, these things are inevitable when you play a couple on a show. But I think we take it as a compliment if anything, at least it was convincing enough for people to believe us, you know? Right Drew?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Drew chuckles dryly, “I’m just glad they know that we don’t hate each other.”

“Are you blushing Starkey?!” Rudy exclaims, coming closer to the screen.

Drew laughs and looks away, biting the tip of his tongue between his teeth, “Shut it Pankow.”

Everyone laughs but it’s as if you can feel all eyes on the two of you, and in that moment, all you want it for him to be there with you to share the attention. For him to be close enough that your hand could brush his, your eyes could focus solely on Drew’s, your laugh in rhythm with his. And, in that moment, perhaps for the first time, you realise that maybe those edits had realised something before you had.

“Okay, well it’s been great speaking to you guys, thank you so much for joining me,” The interviewer finishes up, closing off before telling you that you’re all done and you can log off from the call.

You shut your laptop and pull out your phone to see notifications already bursting through. They’re all from the groupchat you had with the other girls.

Oh my god did you see his face?

Are you kidding me rn??? That boy is in love with you

I’ll never forgive you if you don’t date Starkey fr

You laugh, fingers hovering over the buttons as you try to figure out a response. You wanted to tell them that they were being stupid, that there was no reason for them to think like that. But you can’t bring yourself to lie to them.

You swipe away from that chat, scrolling the short way down to where Drew’s chat with you was. The last thing he’d sent you was a fan made video of the two of you, a video from set where he had you on his shoulders in the pool and both of you fell under.

When you go to text him, he’s already typing.

And this time, you’re the one that’s blushing.

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theshitpostcalligrapher · 8 months

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ASKBOX IS OPEN REQUESTS ARE OPEN HERE ARE THE RULES

ground rules:

1) Funny- the request needs to be humorous, memes usually the most popular but dnd in jokes and other shitpostery is welcome. i abide by the MBMBAM NO BUMMERS rule - there are plenty of sad/deep/beautiful calligraphers out there who’d be happy to work with yall, but this isn’t that sort of channel

2) Length - aim for no more than 75 characters a request, my cue cards are only so big so I can only fit so much on each one and still not look like garbage. There is a little leeway but if you send me smth with like 120 characters it aint getting written

3) Amount of Requests - I am trying to be fair but i am one person running almost the ENTIRE thing, logistics, tech, etc, I have twitch mods and a roommate for retrieving things and that's it. In order to be fair, please restrict yourselves to 3 requests per person to let everyone have a shot, if you send in more i will ctrl-f your username and pick my favourites

4) Content - I will not do anything I consider under the umbrella of general assholery - this includes racial slurs, edgelord bullshit, exclusionist jackassery etc. Please be kind to each other. Please let me know if I’ve taken a request that is some incredibly obscure piece of assholery, someone once tried to slip a really obscure antisemetic piece of slang by me once

5) Repeats - I keyword tag EVERY SINGLE piece i’ve ever done on this blog, if you think I might have written smth already but aren’t sure, the /search/[keyword] is your friend, check if i’ve done your request before

the askbox is theshitpostcalligrapher.tumblr.com/ask , not a dm or submission to the blog. I’ll close submissions too so people don’t get the boxes confused. DM me for any actual clarifications, kind words, etc so they don’t get swallowed up by the behemoth of my askbox for months, and if you want to give me live encouragement the twitch link is right there, and is the ideal way to inquire more about any of the day's rules.

If you want to jump the ENTIRE queue and get your card done immediately, there are ways to donate on the twitch stream to get your request done with an ink of your choice. You can still submit 3 free requests in addition to what you pay for.

I’ll be streaming the entire time the askbox is open on twitch @ theshitpostcalligrapher, trying to get as many of these done today as possible live. Once 10PM EST hits, the askbox will close but if you get your request into the askbox by then, it will be done eventually as I always have 4 cards up per day.

Here’s the link to my twitch, we’ll start a little after 3 o’clock.

twitch_live

Here is a direct donation link to my streamlabs, it works like a ko-fi but I’ve got it set to give me alerts on my twitch so I can see and thank you straightaway for supporting my takeout order

I've planned on a few donation goals this time! They help pay for all the hours I put in and the material costs. Every time we hit a goal, I'll refresh it to 0 and math out whatever overlap to add to the new goal

$20 > Time For Tea! I make a sparkly, food safe glittery tea that looks like ink to enjoy with yall on stream

$30 > Jackbox Break! My Discord VC and potentially chat plays a few games

$40 > Takeout O'clock: It is time to order a food, Mia! Polls will probably be involved for food options

$200 (I am fairly sure we won't get this one) > I bought all the requisite items to bleach my hair to prep for a dye. Let's do this shit LIVE ON AIR BAYBEE

Also of Note: I will be moving house sometime in the next week and a half, which means I will be RECYCLING ALL OF THE CARDS I'VE WRITTEN IN THE PAST TWO AND A HALF YEARS (save for the ones folks pay for on stream, those are earmarked to be mailed out anyways) so if you've gotten something written by me from september 2021 to january 2024 or so, please remember that there is an an etsy shop where you can snag any card from the blog for a few dollars. dm the shop if you'd like to buy a bundle of randoms, I WILL give you a sale about it

#calligraphy #shitpost #faq #openaskbox rules #openaskbox

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arlana-likes-to-write · 1 year

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Warm Hugs

Summary: When Carol opens the door to her shared apartment, she doesn't know where you are. She finds you in bed and if there is one thing Carol loves is to take care of you.

Warning: Period, no usage of pronouns or y/n for reader but Carol uses pet names, cramps, mentions of the American health care system being bad, non-sexual nudity

Word count: 1.6k

Note: Did I write this on my period and wished Carol was there to take care of me? Yes. Yes I did. lol

“Sweetheart,” Carol called out as she opened the door to her shared apartment. It was oddly quiet. She was used to the apartment being filled with music and you dancing around the kitchen to whatever song was playing. Or throwing a toy at your Tabby cat. The quiet made Carol uneasy. She closed the door, toed off her shoes, and placed her keys on the hook. Carol called out your name, but still, there was no answer as she walked towards the bathroom. The door was cracked open and she quietly opened it all the way, smiling at the sight in front of her. You were laying in the bed, the sheet over you, and Oakley asleep on your stomach. The captain saw why you weren’t up to greet her. A heating pad was plugged in and the nightstand was covered with your water bottle, a tea mug, and snacks. You grabbed the trash can from the bathroom and moved it closer. The first day of your cycle was always the worst. No doctor could give you an answer and it took Carol months of watching you suffer to go see Helen.

Carol changed into gray sweatpants and a white tank top. The entire time she felt Oakley’s eyes watching her. When she climbed onto her side of the bed, the tabby moved off of you. The sudden weight shift caused your eyes to flutter open. “Hey baby,” Carol whispered. You turned to face her.

“Your home,” you smiled, voice laced with sleep. You turned to lay on your side but the sudden movement made you wince.

“How are you feeling?” She asked, even though she had a good feeling about what the answer was going to be.

“Bad,” you mumbled. Carol frowned. She hated seeing you in any type of pain.

“What do you need?” She ran her hand underneath the heating pad. “I can run you a bath, make you something to eat, or we can cuddle.” You took a minute to think about it.

“Cuddle then bath,” you turned off the heating pad and tossed it to the ground. Carol became the big spoon, resting her hands on your lower stomach. She concentrated her powers on her hands, warming them up slightly. You let out a sigh of relief and Carol felt the tension in your body melt away.

“Have you eaten today?” Your body went stiff. The Avenger chuckled, resting her head in the crook of your neck. Goosebumps formed on your skin. “It’s okay, baby, we’ll cuddle then I’ll make you something to eat, and after I’ll run you a bath. Sound good?” She felt you nod your head. Soon your breathing evened out and you fell asleep. Carol was quick to follow.

When you woke up, the bed was empty and a little too cold for your liking. You groaned, not wanting to get up but you knew you needed to go to the bathroom. Periods were the worst. Before you started dating Carol, your period left you bedridden for the entire week. No doctors would take you seriously or could find out what was wrong with you. Until you saw Helen. The Avenger’s doctor believed every word you said and found a medication to help. Instead of all 6 days being miserable only the first day was. It still wasn’t ideal but it was a star. You rolled over, placing your feet on the ground. The nightstand was cleaned up, your water bottle was refilled and Carol left you pain medication. You smiled, took the two white pills, and walked into the bathroom.

Once you were done, you followed the sound of your girlfriend in the kitchen. She was chopping up some vegetables to put into a soup. The smell of chicken broth made your stomach growl. “Need some help?” The Avenger let out a surprised yelp and spun around. You smirked, crossing your arms. “And here I thought you were this big tough superhero, why was it so easy to sneak up on you?” You teased. Carol rolled her eyes.

“You were supposed to stay in bed and I was going to bring it to you when it was done,” she said, continuing with her task. A warm feeling grew inside your chest as the sweet gesture.

“Awe, I’m sorry, do you want me to go back to bed?” You asked. She shook her head.

“Well since you are up, you can keep me company. Take a seat, beautiful, it’s almost ready.” The warm feeling grew at the compliment as you sat down on one of the bar stools. Dating Carol was an experience, you’ve never felt more seen in any of your past relationships. You had to believe in fate, it was the only thing you could explain how she came into your life. You used to work part-time at a restaurant, the tips helped pay your way through night school. It was a slow night and you weren’t assigned to her table but the table you were waiting on was a group of frat boys from the local college. You could deal with their behavior, the disgusting comments they threw at you didn’t faze you. As you were leaving to put in their order, one of them smacked your ass. The restaurant went silent beside the sound of a chair scratching against the floor. Before you knew it the man who just physically assaulted you was ripped from his chair and pinned against the wall. And there she was, wearing blue jeans and a fitted white muscle tank top. You learned her name was Carol. Carol stayed with you until the cops showed up and waited for you to be done so she could walk you home. You thought that would be the last you saw of her but your next few shifts she was there. At the same spot and ordered the same thing off the menu. You started as friends, a bond from something traumatic but soon your feelings for the Avenger moved to something that wasn’t platonic. She was the first one to make a move and ask you out.

“You’re starring sweetheart,” you were and she caught you but you didn’t mind. You smiled.

“Your just perfect,” Carol chuckled.

“I’m not perfect, doll,” she smiled. “But you are one of the best things that have happened to me so I’ll be as close to perfect as possible.”

Dinner was ready, and you and Carol sat on the couch to watch the newest episode of Survivor. You definitely could see her on the show but she said it would be unfair with her powers and being an Avenger. You took a sip from your water bottle. “You could do like an Avenger season to raise money for charity,” you gasped. “And you could meet Jeff Probst,” you let out a dreamy sigh, leaning back into the couch. “There is something about that man.”

“Would you leave me for Jeff Probst?” Carol asked, glancing at you. You giggled.

“No! Never well maybe in a different universe I’m with him already.” She rolled her eyes.

“Just eat your damn food,” she mumbled. You pinched her cheeks and a smile began to form on her face. “Stop it.” She smiled. You pulled your hand back and continued to eat.

Once your bowls were empty you fought with Carol on who would clean up but you won when you suggested she could get the bath started while you put dinner away. It was an easy clean-up since Carol was better at the ‘clean while you cook’ method. The biggest challenge was stepping around Oakley. You picked up the tabby, and she protested it with a soft meow, but you ignored her and walked into your room. Carol was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, watching the water fill up. You set Oakley on the bed and walked over to your girlfriend, you hugged her from behind. She leaned back into you. “How are you feeling?” She asked, looking up at you.

“Better because of you,” you kissed her on her cheek and you liked the blush that rose to her cheeks. She turned off the water. “Are you going to join me?” You asked, closing the door. The last thing you needed was for Oakley to venture in and fall into the water.

“Do you want me to?” Her back was towards you as she added Epsom salt and bubbles. You took your clothes off.

“Always,” you said, smiling.

“It’s re-” Her jaw dropped as she saw you. You smiled, walking over to the tub to get in. She always seemed to make you feel beautiful, not only with her words but with how she looked and touched you. You put your hand on her shoulder to steady yourself to get in. The warm water relaxed your muscles and you let out a small sigh.

“You coming?” You questioned. She made quick work of stripping down and joining behind you in the tub. Her hands found their place on your stomach and gently massaged the area. “I don’t think I tell you how thankful I am for you,” You whispered. “Most people wouldn’t go out of their way to do this for your partner.”

“No need to thank me,” she chuckled against your skin. “The number of times you’ve helped me after a mission it evens itself out.” That was true. In the beginning of your relationship, Carol tried to hide her injuries to not worry you but you got her to show you and even help. You smiled.

“I love you,” you whispered.

“I love you too,” you could hear the smile in her voice. “And thank you for letting me take care of you.”

“Well duh,” you closed your eyes. “I love your warm hugs too much to let you go.”

#carol danvers x y/n #carol danvers x reader #carol danvers x you #carol danvers fanfiction #captain marvel x you #captain marvel x reader #captain marvel fanfiction #marvel one shot #marvel fanfiction #marvel au

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ducknewtonscoolhat · 10 months

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On this day I present

Every single time Duck Newton is horrible at lying !

Episode 7

Duck: Yeah, it’s a nickname. Listen, y’all got a van handy, why don’t you hop in and get on trucking. Don’t forget to— don’t worry ‘bout your clothes. We’ll drive them up seperate.

Swimmer: Why can’t we take our clothes?

Duck: [freezing up] You need to— you need— uh. Here, I’ll get them. Y’all start loading in the van and I’ll bring your clothes out to ya’s. Just another one of the many services we offer from the Forestry Service.

Episode 10

Pigeon: Well, I know how to do it, I just wanna know why.

Duck: Perfect. Perfect. Why? It's for firefighter training? Yeah, it's for firefighter training. It's been a little while since I last told someone that, so I had some time to forget it. But it's for firefighting training, cuz we can't get enough water pressure to fight the fires, forest fires.

Pigeon: Out in Monongahela?

Duck: Yeeeeeeep.

Pigeon: Duck, that's on the opposite side of town. I can find other places that I can get you some more water pressure instead of pumping it out of the water park almost a mile away.

Duck: Yeah, but the water park is definitely gonna be closed. If you can tell me somewhere where you can guarantee that they're not gonna need that amount of water that's using that amount, I'd love to hear about it. Cus, off the top of my head, I can't improvise anything.

Pigeon: There's a reservoir right next to Monongahela.

Duck: The reservoir is a source of water but it's not gonna give other— fuck, listen Pigeon, here's the thing. I... love... to… practice fishing. But... the running water... frightens me, it's called hydrophobia. And I would love to practice my cast in a real water environment where I can get in a large body where I can guarantee that running water won't be a factor. And I would just love to practice my cast in a guaranteed still body. But here's the other thing, sometimes if you do it in a lake, that's what you're thinking, a fish will bite it and normally that's ideal, but I'm just trying to practice casting. It's like, when you don't want to catch, that's when they're biting, y’know what I mean? So I need a still body of water that I can guarantee won't move to practice my fishing casting.

Episode 13

Duck: I should’ve put some time into it, honestly, but I uh… I was real busy with family over the holidays, so I didn’t make much—

Mama: You literally just said you didn’t have any family in town over the holidays.

Duck: God dammit. Dammit!

Mama: I mean, it’s fine if you couldn’t dig anything up, but you don’t gotta lie to old Mama, you know?

Duck: Dammit! Dammit, Duck!

Mama: You don’t have to beat yourself up about it, Duck, I mean po—

Duck: Fuck!

Episode 14

EMT: Do you know what happened to him?

Duck: Oh boy…um…do you want the truth or a more convincing lie? Um, nah so, okay, right… so the Pizza Hut sign started to fall, ‘cause of the weather, and he ran up there on… a fire escape… and tried to push it? …With a bat? Damn it. Nah, he just pushed it, and it fell, but then he fell ‘cause he got shocked. I bet… mmm…I didn’t see. I was in-Ah, shit! Alright, hey fol-hey guys, rewind. I-hey guys, rewind a second. Ah fuck! I was inside, I didn’t see. Anything! I don’t know… this man. I do know this man. His name-Fuck! Alright, I Ned, hi, here's-hmmm. Alright, so this man’s name is Ned, and he’s a friend of mine, and I don’t know what the hell happened to him, but you know this guy. He’s always getting into something. I don’t know, I was in the building, I almost got killed by a Pizza Hut sign. I might be in shock!

Episode 18

Duck: Honestly… uh if I gotta tell you the truth, Juno, I’m— I was trying to get into character. I’ve been—

Juno: You’re going undercover with these teens?

Duck: —I’m going undercover. I got a undercover teenage identity. It’s— it’s Frick Richums and when I assume the identity of Frick Richums, I’m trying to get undercover, with the Hornets [hisses] so I can find their illegal grow thing. [grunts]

Juno: You are a truly miserable liar, Duck Newton.

Duck: Goddamnit! I put on such a good— damnit!

Juno: Hey, when you’re finished with the… with those, those nails. Would you mind taking them back to the station? I need to sort of keep going around the perimeter see if I can find something to, you know, maybe help with your investigation to take down those— those drug kingpins, the Hornets.

Duck: Yeah, Juno, about that. I— I was kidding about that, of course. I was just having some fun. But I did… I did hear some of them talking on...... Facebook about you and how they were gonna target you. Like they need to get you out of the way. And it kinda freaked me out a little bit. Can you think of any reason anybody would wanna get you… outta the way? Or— or be targeting you? Like… for this?

Episode 21

(Deputy Dewey is asking for alibis)

Duck: Me— Me— Me too.

Deputy Dewey: You too what? You were

Duck: Yup.

Deputy Dewey: Alright…

Duck: Me too. I was— Yup, I— Yup, me too, for both. Yup, me too. Mmm…

Aubrey: Duck, are you okay? You look like you need to use the bathroom.

Duck: Nope. Yeah, I do. Yup. Uh, Burritos, alright… Bye.

Episode 22 Featuring Ned and Aubrey also being bad at lying

Morgue Technician: Can I help y'all with something?

Duck: Well, we would like to see the bodies of--

Aubrey: My brother!

Duck: My dad.

Ned: My son.

Duck: His brother. Her-- His-- His son, her brother, my dad.

Aubrey: Not related. There's two of 'em.

Ned: But you have to figure out which two.

Duck: We need to see a body for a dare. I'm sorry about all the lies from before but we need to see a body for a dare.

Aubrey: I was dared to look at the body of my brother.

Ned: And my son.

Aubrey: I was dared to look at the body of his son. Who is also my brother. Because he is my father.

Episode 32

Duck: Um… yup. It‘s… Harpo. Uh, all… [imitating crackling noise] Y‘all hearing this? [imitating crackling] The… radio break up. Radio break up. Mrrr.

#taz amnesty #duck newton #the adventure zone #duck newton fan account #taz

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callsign-joyride · 4 months

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Fortnight | J.H.S

Summary: You realize that things with Jake aren't going to work out. Content Warnings: Angst (LOTS of it) Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x reader Lyric: "Thought of calling you, but you won't pick up. 'Nother fortnight lost in America." A note: I've been loving TTPD so I've decided to write fanfics inspired by the album! Each fic will be based on a different track/lyric, and they will all be about different characters! Some will be smutty, others not so much.

You thought that you were happy with Jake. Really, you did. Despite the fact that both of you were out of town, you had managed to stay together for almost a year and you were already moved in. You had met each other’s families a few times, and everything seemed to be going good. That was until you started to have work trip after work trip with your promotion, and he had what felt like back-to-back deployments.You only had two months and some weekends together out of the upcoming year, as far as both of you knew.

It was starting to get to a point where you were considering leaving and moving back home. Maybe this wasn’t a lifestyle that you were cut out for. Penny would come by the apartment a few times a week when you were both gone to dust and make sure that nothing was stolen, but it wasn’t an ideal situation at all. You finally broke down and cried three months into Jake’s deployment.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore… I did the math and we’ll barely see each other over the next year. We both travel a lot for our jobs now, but I didn’t think it would be like this,” you said, over wine with your girl friends from work.

“Aw, hun, I know exactly how you feel. Things on your end should be calming down in the next few months. I wasn’t home much in my first year, either,” Estelle said.

“But that’s the thing, I don’t know if I can make it a few more months. I feel like I’m missing out on what the other couples are doing because my boyfriend is overseas doing God knows what and I’m always on another plane.”

“You should try to give him a call when you sober up. Tell him what you want.”

You finished your glass of wine and went back up to your hotel room. Calling him late at night would be too much work, and you were too tired to even try it. So, you tried to call him in the morning when you were feeling better, like Estelle said.

“Hey, this is Hangman. Leave a message.”

You sighed and heard the tone beep before taking a deep breath and taking a moment to think of what you were going to say.

“Hey, I really need to talk to you about something. It’s important. Call me back when you get the chance.”

He have good enough service to check his voicemails and text messages until it was around dinner time for you. And of course, his phone was barely working, so all he could get from the message was that it was from you and you were upst about something.

“Rooster, man, I need to borrow your phone! My girl called, she was upset about something.”

“Alright, but make it quick. I told my wife I’d call her as soon as I got the chance.”

“Thanks, I owe you.”

Jake sat on his bed before he dialed your number. It was so relieving to hear your voice, and you didn’t sound so upset this time.

“Hello?” You asked.

“Hey, it’s me. My phone’s being a piece of shit right now so I only heard part of your message. Is everything okay?”

You sighed and sat on the hotel bed.

“No, actually. Jake, I’m sorry. I don’t know if I can make this work anymore.”

“What… What do you mean by that?”

“I love you, but I don’t know if all of the distance and us traveling all the time will work out. We’ll hardly be seeing each other at all this year, I did the math. And, you know, I thought being a Navy girlfriend would be easy, but that was before I got promoted. I know that none of this has been planned, but I’m traveling so much that I don’t know if this relationsip will work anymore.”

“Fuck, okay, well, maybe there’s something I can do, right?”

“I don’t want you to lose your job because of me, and I don’t wanna jinx it but, it seems like I’m the only reason you’d come home early, and there isn’t an emergency.”

“So, what’s next?”

“Well, I’m gonna start looking for places soon. There’s a chance I’ll be moved out by the time you get back. I’m really sorry, Jake. Truly.”

“I am, too.”

You weren’t in a rush to move out, but you did start to put non-essential things in boxes while you looked for apartments. There was a brief moment where you thought of moving back home to New Hampshire, but it wouldn’t really work out because of your job. Between traveling for work and awkwardly exchanging texts with Jake and the Dagger Squad, you were finally moved out after a month and a half.

The last time that you saw Jake, it was when you met up to fill out paperwork to be removed from the lease. You still felt awful about everything. He’d try to call you over the next few months, but you never answered. You never read any of his texts, either.

“Hey! If you’re hearing this, I’m busy. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you!”

He quickly got used to hearing your voicemail, and eventually stopped calling.

Taglist:

@littlebadariell @cycbaby @luckyladycreator2 @idontcare-11 @blue-aconite @maverick-wingman @shawty-fenty @littlemisstopgun @rosiahills22 @katieshook02 @justanothermagicalsara @caitsymichelle13 @smoothdogsgirl @adoringsebstan @cherrycola27 @alexxavicry @mrsjaderogers @mak-32 @thefandomimagines @tallrock35 @caatheeriinee07 @bradshawseresinbabe @atarmychick007 @3sriracha @genius2050 @halstead-severide-fan @withakindheartx @Lolliepops2501 @avengersfan25

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#hangman x reader #jake seresin x reader #jake hangman seresin #x reader #top gun maverick #reader insert #top gun #the tortured poets department #ttpd

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ma1dita · 7 months

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solipsism timeline/lore expansion

link to fic -> solipsism - an extreme form of idealism that denies that the human mind has any valid ground for believing in the existence of anything but itself. At the beginning of the first scene, trouble thinks she’s making Luke up in her mind, like a lot of things after she leaves, but concurs that maybe it’s the best thing she’s done.

This fic is heavily inspired by Doctor Who, specifically the Doctor & River Song’s diverging(?) timelines. If you haven’t watched the show, here are the things you need to know for this fic:

The more Luke sees trouble, the more she knows about what he’s done to fulfill the prophecy. The more trouble sees Luke, he’s increasingly unaware of what is ahead and the things he will do.

Trouble first meets him at his oldest before errrr…. TLO. The last time she sees him after her graduation, she’s visited by a version of him that had just signed his soul away to Kronos. Their timelines are going in opposite directions.

This is all made possible by Backbiter, Luke’s sword that is established in the show/novel to be able to create time portals. Luke can literally chill in limbo for as long as he wants.

That makes this fic special, because it exists in timeline established on the masterpost, but also in snippets between fics, in which some are not even published yet.

He does not visit her when they’re 22. Honestly because it was a terrible fucking year, lots of people die, and he can’t face her.

Now hang on to your seats and bear with me as I explain ‘where’ they are in each scene.

Introduction takes place right before the second scene, but I use it as a placeholder since its outside of the ‘timeline’. Luke prayed to Hestia to protect trouble as seen in trouble’s coming for you and it’s assumed he continues to do so even after his betrayal. She has always been his home.

first scene: Takes place close to a year after Luke’s defection from camp, a few weeks after trouble (20 y/o) visits Annabeth in Virginia. Healing has been difficult for her and in no way is it linear—so she thinks she’s wasted when she sees a 23 year old Luke taking her home from the bar. In his timeline, he has given his body post Battle of the Labyrinth to be a host and is barely there. The tiny sliver of humanity left in him wants to see her, even if it hurts so he takes over for a bit. This is his last chance of seeing her through his own eyes.

second scene: Takes place right after Hestia visits trouble, later in the day. This is the only instance in this fic where they are the same age and relatively in the same timeline. For trouble, it is fall, after The Sea of Monsters, in which that was the last time she saw him (and the first time she saw ‘her’ Luke after the betrayal. Luke is 21 here, but he’s experienced the events from The Titan’s Curse in which Thalia kicks his ass off a cliff. After being saved by Kronos, he goes to see trouble (and gets rightfully socked in the face).

third scene: Takes place after The Titan’s Curse, and trouble (21 y/o) is ringing in the new year after Luke disappears from the cliff and is found to be somewhere, but alive. Luke is (hc almost 20) freshly running from having slashed Percy and betraying his friends. The portal you saw him open in the show? Yeah he ran straight to her. I have no more words.

fourth scene: Takes place the morning of trouble’s graduation in the spring, four years later right before The Last Olympian. She’s lost her little brother, lost faith in Luke (we’ll hash this out when we get there folks), and then Luke (19 y/o) visits her from a few days after he complies to working with Kronos. There is nothing she can do to change his mind—its a prophecy after all. But despite everything, trouble (22 y/o) wants to protect him, so she encourages the boy she loves despite everything she knows he has done to hurt her and their friends. In the end, that love never goes away for both of them, on opposite sides of it all.

#trouble!verse

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bueckers-sturniolo · 2 months

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i have literally been begging for someone to write a paige fic based on “Slut!” by TS like the parts that’s like “if i’m all dressed up, they might as well be looking at us” where reader is famous and gets like hated on for being a “slut” 💁‍♀️💁‍♀️

“slut!”

paige bueckers x female!reader

a/n: hi guys!!! sorry it took me so long to edit this and actually post it. i don’t have much to say but THANK YOU FOR THE LOVE ON THE ALCHEMY!!! i promise part 2 is coming soon!!! ps: this may suck a little but i wrote it in an hour and a half so im sorry!!! also, this hasnt been proofread bc its 6 am and i havent slept! hope u somewhat enjoy!!! love uuuu!

warnings: naur, just swearing :)

word count: somewhere around 1k-ish

got love-struck, went straight to my head. got lovesick all over my bed. love to think you’ll never forget. we’ll pray the price, i guess.

you had been dating paige for 5 months, now. she was the best person you had ever met, and an even better lover than you could have ever imagined. but, being in the public eye isn’t necessarily ideal, especially when you’re queer. paige was a basketball player at uconn, and you had been famous for a few years. you had been famous before you knew paige, and even before paige was famous. it’s awesome, and you love it. the lifestyle can be very rewarding and enjoyable.

but, being ‘famous’ comes with its faults. as most things do. over the years, you had developed this sort of…. title. this title being that you are some kind of insane serial-dater. it was pretty ridiculous. of course, paige loved you for you, and didn’t really give a fuck as to what people had to say about you. but, it’s still obviously hurtful, and paige gets that.

present day, the epsy’s were coming up. this is something that meant a lot to your girlfriend. and, quite frankly, you’d do anything to make her happy.

until that thing was going as her date (or +1) to the epsy’s. not that you didn’t want to, not that it was because you were gay. but, because you knew how much this could mess with both of your careers. you didn’t really care about your own, cause people are gonna talk about you regardless, but paige’s social presence made it hard to just come out and do whatever you guys want.

“i mean, i’d just really want you there. we can like…. coincide outfits ‘n shit.” paige says, looking over at you, eating a bite of her cereal.

“yeah, p. i understand.” you say, sighing. you look down at your hands, acting like you were paying attention to anything to distract her (and yourself) from the fact that you really just do not know how it would go, and that fact is stressful in itself.

“baby, if you don’t want to go, it’s fine. im just saying it would be cool.” she says, and you meet her eyes again.

you know she’s right. it would be really fuckin’ cool. but like, at the same time, you really didn’t want to have to receive all of the texts from your publisher of news articles with pictures of you and paige where they essentially just put your name in bold letters then talk about how much of a slut you are for dating 4 people in your approximate 5 years of being famous.

yes, it may seem like a lot. but, also, most of these relationships only lasted a few months. you never necessarily wanted them to go public, but, they almost always did. that’s why you and paige took extra precautions.

obviously, one day, you wanted to tell people about you and paige. but, you wanted it to be when you guys had atleast made it past the new relationship stage.

but, if im all dressed up, they might as well be lookin’ at us. and if they call me a ‘slut,’ you know, it might be worth it for once. and if im gonna be drunk, i might as well be drunk in love.

you couldn’t help but give in. there was exactly a week before the epsy’s, and even though you’d kept telling paige you really didn’t think going was a good idea, you felt so bad for saying it that you randomly changed your mind.

“p, come here.” you say, calling from the couch in your living room. she walked in the room, hands on her hips, sleeves rolled up. she was loading the dishwasher for you, as the ‘gentleman’ she was (in a world of boys, (s)he’s a gentleman.)

“yes, baby? what’s wrong?” she says, walking toward you and sitting down, resting an arm on the back of the couch behind your head. “i wanna go with you, p. ill go with you to the awards.” as you say this, you fiddle with the hem of her basketball shorts.

“you wanna go with me? seriously?” she perks up. her whole face immediately lights up. this was the reason you were doing it. that reaction right there.“yes, love. i want to go with you.” she grabs your chin, pulling your face closer to her and gently pressing a kiss to your temple.

“you know, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to. i know you don’t want to read about all of the stupid shit men online say about you. they don’t even know you and it’s so infuriating that they think they can talk about my baby like that. my sweet, sweet girl...” she rubs your side, kissing your temple gently a few more times while babbling a few more sweet names in your ear.

“i know, p. but, i also know i don’t owe anyone shit, and if i want to go out in public with you, i shouldnt be scared. i mean- it’s just…. like, i just want keep hiding us because of the fact that people always have some stupid shit to say. you know, if they call me a whore or if they call me a slut, it might be worth it. it may just be worth it this once.” she smiles ear to ear as you say this. seconds after this, she tackles you onto the couch, pecking all over your face as she tickles your sides.

half asleep, takin’ your time in the tangerine neon lights. this is luxury. you’re not saying you’re in love with me, but, you’re goin’ to. half away, takin’ your chance, it’s a big mistake. i said, ‘it might blow up in your pretty face.’ im not sayin’ do it anyway, but you’re going to.

the night finally arrives. you guys are both getting your hair done. paige is wearing a lilac suit, and she looks ridiculously attractive. you were wearing a white dress with lilac heels, to coincide with her.

you guys get to the carpet, and it feels so surreal. you guys are finally out together and it’s just fucking insane. she does a few interviews, and they even ask you for your own pictures (even though you’re not an athlete)

the awards themselves are good, paige presents and even changes suits. she looks fuckin’ phenomenal.

but, then the after-party comes. the lights are tangerine and kinda dim, everyone’s drunk, and some people are even outside in a swimming pool. (???)

you had been to award shows yourself, but this was so cool. paige grabs you guys drinks throughout the night, careful not to get too wasted, but enough to get a little tipsy. by the end of the afterparty, so many pictures of you guys had been taken you felt like it was kinda too hard to hide your relationship from the world anymore.

while this wasn’t the main goal of tonight whatsoever, paige decided it was time to make your relationship social media official. she thought you deserved to be loved out loud, and honestly she couldn’t give any less of a fuck who said what. you loved her. she loved you. that’s all that mattered.

@paigebueckers

liked by kamoreaarnold and others

paigebueckers: Cats out of the bag I guess 🐈👜

view all 2,405 comments

kamoreaarnold: Photo creds on slide 3

> paigebueckers: @kamoraarnold Best photographer 🙌

yourusername: wow she’s cute who is that

> paigebueckers: @/yourusername Idiot

>> yourusername: @/paigebueckers 😁

#paige bueckers #paige x reader

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lilac-cat-draws · 1 year

Photo

Been taking my time, adding some stuff in this AU, mostly starting off with writing some dialogue along with some sketches that I think would fit the characters in the Genshin universe

I’m not going to write all of the voice overs, so I'll be mostly focusing on the ones I think would be more interesting to write about, also it was very difficult for me to get this to sound in character so this is my attempt

Dazai’s “Voice-Over”

Hello

Greetings I’m Osamu Dazai, it’s a pleasure to meet you. If you need any help, come to the Armed Detective Agency and we’ll deal with the issue. But looking at you, you seem to be handling things fine on your own, but if you’re considering feel free to contact us.

About Kujou Sara

Ah, you mean the tengu lady in the Tenryou Commission? Why yes I’ve met her, she would work along side us on more difficult cases and we don’t really see eye to eye most of the time which is unfortunate.

About Shikanoin Heizou

Never thought that the Tenryou Commission would have their own skilled detective, he’s sharp like a certain someone I know and his method of investigation is quite unique. A detective who stops a crime before it even starts, hmm interesting.

About Nakajima Atsushi

Atsushi has been my most fateful subordinate ever since I took him in. The boy has a lot of potential under all of his insecurities, also he’s been the most reliable when it comes to doing the paperwork I don’t want to do.

About Ryuunosuke Akutagawa

Oh him? I don’t have anything special to say about him in particular but I had something in mind. What is it? Well I’m not telling.

About Nakahara Chuuya

Ugh, that slug? He can be irritating sometimes, not to mention his fashion sense I mean really? *sigh* Besides that, he has his moments where he’s a lot more bearable and it is fun to mess with him whenever I get the chance.

About the Vision

I didn’t think the gods would acknowledge me of all people to deserve a vision, well I personally don’t mind this, but I doubt I’d really put this thing to much further use, other than what I used to use it for.

Birthday

Hey, since today is your special day, thought I’d take you around they city and grab something to eat, and as for the bill you don’t have to worry about that, my work partner can pay the expenses for us later.

More About Osamu Dazai: I

Have you ever been to our detective agency by any chance? It can be quite the treat if you get the chance to know us and as someone with first hand experience I’ll gladly give you a tour of the office and the various cases we deal with on a regular basis, hey I could even recruit you in, you seem to have the skills to join. No need? well it’s fine but if you change your mind, the offer is still on the table.

More About Osamu Dazai: II

There is this one coworker I know who is really fun to tease, he sticks to his ideals so much he can be a bit gullible. i would sometimes give him what he thinks could be vital information only for me to them tell him it wasn’t true. Believe me, it really livens up the workplace.

More About Osamu Dazai: III

Whenever the agency gets reached out with a certain case, it would be something along the lines of what the usual police couldn’t handle and on some instances we would collaborate with them for the more serious situations and It also means there would be more paperwork for the Agency to deal with *sigh*, and it’s no fun having to do nothing but that so I just don’t bother.

More About Osamu Dazai: IV

Why did I join the Armed Detective Agency? Well you’re pretty nosy aren’t you. It’s nothing special, but let’s just say that I joined because I’ve made a promise to someone long ago. I’d rather not have someone poking into my past like that so this is all the information you’ll get out of me.

More About Osamu Dazai: V

I always wonder what’s the value of living, what purpose do we need to serve in order to continue that. You seem to know what you want and by the time you get it, what now? As for me, well I’m just going through the motions and see what happens next and maybe I’ll find the reason I’m searching for

This is the best I could do, might edit this since I wrote this late at night

#bungou stray dogs #genshin au #genshin impact #bsd #Genshin #Dazai Osamu #atsushi nakajima #chuuya nakahara #Lumine #genshin lumine #kujou sara #genshin kujou sara

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walkingstackofbooks · 4 months

Text

Julian + Loneliness + Love: an essay

BASHIR: Wait. Quark, did you really mean all that? About Dax being my one last chance for true happiness?

In Change of Heart, Season 6, Julian really latches onto these words from Quark, leading us to half-a-season of having to painfully watch him become re-obsessed with Jadzia. Here, I’m going to examine how Julian perceives love – particularly romantic love -- as being that one, impossible-to-get thing that could actually make him happy, and why he might think that way about it.

First: a couple of things I learnt about in therapy that I think are pretty relevant to how Julian does life.

(Please note I am not a professional – my therapist is wonderful and I’ve tried to re-research this too, but I might well have misunderstood or forgotten something, so please don’t just take my word on it! The descriptions of the concepts are also rather simplistic in the interests of time.)

Drive, threat, and self-soothing systems

In ideal conditions: we will be seeking out satisfaction from our lives through our drive system. There will be things we want in life that will give us purpose and make us happy, and we’ll move towards our goals because we *want* to.

At times, we’ll face things that are difficult, and when we are in danger, our threat system kicks in to warn us of it and get us away. The old fight-flight-freeze-fawn thing; our limbic system takes control, so that we don’t waste time *processing* things and thinking through everything logically -- we need to get away from that sabre-toothed tiger automatically, not stand there thinking about it!

Once the threat has gone away, our soothing system kicks in to neutralise the threat system. As we go through life, we learn from our experiences how to better self-soothe, and gradually add to that system.

However, it doesn’t always work out that way and my best guess is that Julian’s system is going to be heavily threat-based with very little soothing.

I imagine that post-enhancements as a kid, he did manage to develop his drive system, finding things he enjoyed doing and chasing after them just because he wanted to. However, his parents’ very high expectations probably meant that even then, his threat system was conditioned to think of *failure* as a threat, and so even from a young age, Julian’s threat system has been highly active in being a driving force behind his ambition - undermining his *actual* drive system.

Then, of course, he learnt about his enhancements, meaning that he becomes preoccupied with not being discovered -- and from this moment on, his threat system is pretty permanently activated. He seems to find some relief in distraction: escapism through books, in his work, in tennis -- but he doesn’t have a way to soothe this threat, only ignore it.

By the time he arrives on DS9, I believe he has a few things in his actual drive system, including wanting to help people and seeking adventure. But he is also so used to his threat system being engaged that he doesn’t even notice how driven by fear he is -- and his soothing system is an absolute wreck, with minimal coping mechanisms.

Attachment style

There are four different attachment styles, as pictured above. These influence how you form and manage the relationships in your life -- in the image it says “partner”, but it’s also involved in your friendships and families.

As warned, this is a little simplistic, but basically your attachment style is formed by having a warm, consistent and loving relationship with your primary caregiver in infancy. Julian very much didn’t have that, and we know that from when he was very young he “knew he was a great disappointment to his parents” -- so I think it’s very likely he would fall into having a fearful attachment style, with both low self-esteem, and low trust in other people.

(Having a secure attachment with your caregiver also helps you develop good soothing strategies for your threat system! Another reason why his is so depleted…)

Attachment styles can change and improve, so I think that during his time at DS9 (maybe even during the Academy) as he begins to gain experiences of friends who do consistently choose him and with whom he is safe, he probably moves more towards the preoccupied category. But I do not think this man has ever made a *really* secure attachment in his life. 💔

I also don’t think he has ever examined this too deeply? Maybe after DBIP, hopefully some of his friends might have gone “that was a super fucked-up childhood you had there”, but I figure he probably attributes the way he approaches social situations to his autism (which due to his parents’ ableism, means he thinks “I’m doing socialising wrong and everyone else is doing it right so I should listen to everyone else and do it their way regardless of how I feel about it”) and so he doesn’t realise that actually his fear of being rejected and his craving for validation through meaningful relationships -- if he even recognises those feelings for what they are -- are unhealthy coping mechanisms that he could learn to shift into something more positive if he had the time and space and help of a professional.

His relationship with Palis was almost definitely a victim of this, imo. Even if he doesn’t realise it, he’s terrified that she will inevitably reject him (having a ridiculously catastrophic secret doesn’t help with this assumption, but being fearful-preoccupied also just lends him to believe that people are inevitably going to reject him) and so he makes his excuses and leaves her first.

Amatonormativity

Even if I hope that the 24th century is less amatonormative than now, I don’t think Julian has necessarily been able to benefit from that. Given how ableist his parents are, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to think that they might be queerphobic too, or at the very least dismissive of any lifestyle that isn’t the same as theirs.

In addition, on DS9, his best friends are Miles O’Brien (who has always been very vocal about how happily married he is) and Jadzia Dax (who had been as happy as he was to be flirty and single and not tied down, until she found her One True Love, and got married), which wouldn’t exactly help discourage the notion of “romantic love = marriage = happiness”. So I think that Julian has definitely internalised all this, and – especially since he’s been taking cues from those around him how to act and what to think about social situations his entire life – he accepts this whole “you need to have a partner” thing as true for him, just because it’s been true for his friends.

I headcanon Julian as being somewhere on the aromantic spectrum, too (hovering around WTFromantic) -- but crucially, he has no idea. He genuinely struggles to tell the difference between platonic and romantic feelings and guesses how he feels a lot of the time, but since he doesn’t know that he's guessing, he really believes he's in love. And because he has never connected the dots that he’s aro, he assumes the disconnect between *his* experience of love and everyone else’s is just down to his autism, and therefore everyone else is right and he needs to follow their lead in finding happiness through romantic love.

We also know that he really likes old books like James Bond. (I headcanon that he finds pre-1990s fiction safer, because there is no chance that the villain is secretly going to be an augment all along, or any other anti-augment prejudice or micro-aggression in them.) So despite being a 24th century guy, he becomes steeped in these 20th century views -- and with him trying to figure out all the time what’s a “normal” way to act, both in a “not-an-augment” sense and a “not-autistic” sense, he’s internalised a fair amount of “what love really is” from these books which, like, isn’t always great to say the least.

Season 6

QUARK: You know what's really sad, what really keeps me awake at night? She's out of reach because we let her go. BASHIR: I suppose so. But some things just weren't meant to be. Evade. O'BRIEN: Julian, are you sure you want to-- QUARK: Chief, please. You know the rules. No coaching during a round. You're probably right. But what if that's a convenient rationalisation? What if deep down in our heart of hearts we both know she's something unique, something we may never see again. A chance at true happiness and we let her slip through our fingers.

And so we come back to this conversation. Quark is manipulating Julian to win the game of tongo, but whether or not he knows how deeply his words will cut, they leave a lasting impression upon Julian.

Quark calls Jadzia “a chance at true happiness”, but when Julian repeats those words later -- despite his perfect recall -- he describes Dax as being his “one last chance for true happiness”. And this, I think, is what really gets to him.

We’re deep into Season 6 -- Julian is not “happy”. He’s become depressed, despondent, weighted down by the war. It’s not been long since Statistical Probabilities -- is he watching the casualty count grow, the war continuing exactly as they had predicted for the time being? At this point in time, “happiness” feels like a pipe dream for him.

How long has it been since he has truly had a long stretch of contentment? Most people put it at pre-Dominion-camp, right? So he had a pretty long stretch of being happy and (incidentally) in a relationship with Leeta from the end of Season 3 until s05e07, and then a few months later, he was kidnapped – which makes me think that if he’s thinking back on the “good old days” of DS9, it’s quite likely he’s thinking of a time when he was in a relationship.

Julian comes from a background of believing that no-one would accept him for who he is. Even in Statistical Probabilities, among his friends, O’Brien and Sisko and Worf all openly discuss how augments should have restricted access to general society. And that’s just the augmentations: he also knows that his personality can be annoying and off-putting to many people. So he thinks that it would take an extraordinary person to actually like him and want him.

> Back in Season 2, when he was talking about Palis, he said “Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I think to myself, will I ever find anyone that wonderful again?” Quark describes Dax as similarly unique -- and I think that strikes a chord with Julian, causing him to think “I lost Palis, I’ve lost Leeta, I’ve lost Dax -- how many more extraordinary people can there be? Dax really was my last chance.”

Julian doesn’t properly understand his feelings. He’s used to relying on other people to help him figure out what they are and how he should react.So Quark asserting that Julian does still feel attracted to Jadzia and does resent Worf and that he should have tried harder with Jadzia is something he accepts. (Just like later on, when Vic tells him he should be moving on, he accepts that very easily, too.)

> His preoccupied attachment style and fear of loneliness also means that he gravitates towards social interaction and people being friendly to him. After this, and particularly after Jadzia’s death, he starts having a bit more time for Quark: Quark’s inclusion of him in this “we both like Jadzia and resent Worf” club does provide him with some of that relationship-ness he needs, and even though he isn’t quite on the same wavelength as him, Quark is making him feel seen and understood, so if he’s lonely and there’s no-one else, he’ll probably seek Quark out that bit more.

>> And come to think of it, we’ve definitely seen Miles leaving Julian behind at the bar (with no-one to talk to but Quark) to go home to his wife and kids, just reinforcing the people-with-relationships-get-to-be-happy thing.

So yeah: Julian’s actually feeling some really big feelings about his loneliness and unhappiness and wanting to feel better, but he ends up projecting all of this onto his lack of a relationship, and more specifically, that Dax is probably the last person he’s going to come across who would accept him so completely.

Which sucks, and is a really toxic attitude. We don’t see it change the way he treats Dax on-screen, but even so, there is a sense of misplaced entitlement: he’s entitled to be happy and therefore he should have been entitled to have Dax. And I hate that for him. But he really is deeply, deeply afraid that without being in a relationship with her, he’s never going to feel genuinely happy again.

(Yes, he has friends, and he enjoyed spending time with them, like in Take Me Out To The Holosuite. But remember -- his threat system is constantly on with his fear of loneliness, and he doesn’t have the skills to actually soothe that fear and put it to rest. What he can do is use his malformed coping mechanism of distraction -- distracting himself with his friends and holosuite games and so forth. And no doubt they do give him some true satisfaction and validation -- but since he doesn’t have an internal source of validation, he’s lost when they can’t provide.

And additionally, when they can’t provide it’s often because they’re in a relationship. In the beginning of Chrysalis this is made super obvious, when Miles can’t hang out, and Kira and Odo are going to Vic’s together, alone, and he just ends up in bed working. Until 3am. I can’t help thinking he was somewhat trying to avoid being alone with his thoughts.)

And then Jadzia dies. And he has to refind his footing in a Daxless world and I can only imagine that he just accepts the depression is here to stay forever now.

Season 7

And now Chrysalis happens and firstly: I’m not here to make excuses for him. Chrysalis was pretty fucked-up, and irl I don’t think I could be friends with him after what he did. (But also irl I’d have given him a real talking to and not just accepted his bs like everyone else did in this episode and I think with that he might have realised earlier what he was doing so idk. I think if you’re gonna judge Bashir for this episode you also have to judge everyone else for standing by…)

Anyway, Sarina appears, appearing to be his dream woman, and Julian’s just lost.

It doesn’t happen immediately. When Sarina shows up on his doorstep and falls asleep on him, he is so awkward and uncertain what to do. And in the morning he’s still unsure and hesitant as to what this all means.

I’m certainly nor blaming Sarina -- she’s figuring everything out even more than Julian is! -- but when she makes breakfast for him and sends him off with it, I figure that is a massive romance-cue for Julian, who’s given up on his dreams of domesticity. If his feelings are just platonic at this point, he figures out they must actually be romantic, because people who are in love live together and make breakfast for each other. And if he has already started falling for her, it’s a confirmation that he’s allowed to fall for her, because they’re already acting romantically, and she started it. (Again, not an excuse -- he should have known that she is in no position to make a move to start a relationship.)

He’s not thinking logically and pursuing a relationship with his drive system, he’s still being driven by his threat system and fear of loneliness, and being in a relationship is the only thing that he can imagine will soothe him. (I mean tbh this has been his problem all along -- possibly even back to Palis -- and ugh, it sucks, because even though in a way he kind of can’t help it and he’s clueless to why he wants a relationship so much, it’s also kind of on him that he’s never done some serious self-reflection, and the fact that his trauma has led to him acting like this doesn’t negate the fact that he’s taking advantage of a very vulnerable woman and hurting her.)

It’s been implied by a) Quark, b) Vic, c) Bond-type books and d) most recently, Ezri, that he wasn’t quick enough to get Jadzia and should have tried harder. So of course, once he starts thinking he’s in love with her and that a romantic relationship is what they need, he’s desperate to start as soon as possible so that he doesn’t lose his chance. Because if he thought Dax had been his last chance, how much more is he going to be thinking that Sarina is his real last chance?

Sarina is pretty similar to him, and he can empathise a lot with her. And he knows how augments are treated by the world. And he knows how difficult it’s been for him, finding someone to love. And so he projects his own loneliness and fears onto her, and figures that being in a relationship is what they both need, because she’s unlikely to be given many chances either (which is kind of a contradiction to “I need to act now in case I lose her”, but hey, limbic system. Rational brain has long been taken out.)

And then as soon as he realises she’s only gone along with him because she feels like she owes him, it clicks and it’s over. It doesn’t make up for what he’s done but it genuinely never occurred to him -- and what’s more, he knows it should have occurred to him, and he still can’t figure out why he wasn’t more rational about this all.

> Which is also why none of the other characters were allowed to have a proper talk with him this episode because I think that would have made him realise what he was doing. (I know Miles kind of tried with “Julian, she’s your patient”, but when Julian came back with his excuses, Miles didn’t exactly argue against them.)

> And also, how much do you think that her telling him “I don't even understand what love is. I don't understand anything… What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to feel? Tell me. I want to make you happy” resonates with him. Does he realise that these are the things he’s been asking himself his whole life, that this is actually how he’s been living his life and doing relationships this whole time. Are these actually a direct reflection of his thoughts about her: meeting with his friends, showing her off at dabo (he was always so proud of Leeta, remember?), that whole cliche of a romantic dinner… Are these all things he felt he was meant to do to make her happy and to show her what a romantic relationship is like?

And the thing is -- he does learn from this experience, and we see that he doesn’t try to rush in with Ezri when he starts getting feelings for her. (Yes, his learning shouldn’t have come at the cost of Sarina’s wellbeing, but it did, and I’m just going to accept that because he’s a fictional character and also I love him.) I don’t know if he got to the bottom of figuring out why he went so off-the-rails with Sarina. But clearly, it’s a mistake he doesn’t want to repeat. And I do want to give him some credit for that.

So let’s go on to Ezri.

BASHIR: Funny, I was just starting to... O'BRIEN: Starting to what? BASHIR: I don't know. But there was something-- something about her, wasn't there? Something that made me happy, anyway. She was this old soul and yet so young at heart, and… and-- I don't know what I'm saying.

I read this as a sort of admission that he doesn’t know what romantic love is. He knows he felt something, but I don’t know if he found something in what Sarina said that makes him doubt and wonder if it is love that he’s been feeling, or something else. But also, he leaves before O’Brien and Quark can comment, not asking for anyone to help figure out what he’s feeling. (Particularly as Quark’s made it obvious he thinks Julian must be in love with Dax, even if he doesn’t want Julian to be in love with Dax.)

And then when she returns, they begin their whole awkward dance around each other: though interestingly, as he’s talking about his inability to talk to her about his feelings in their eventual conversation, he sounds genuinely confused, and even distressed, when he says “I mean, I'm not usually like this. If I find someone attractive, I just-- I just tell them. I don't play these ridiculous games.” It seems he’s been experiencing some subconscious barrier whenever he’s wanted to bring his feelings up -- probably not dissimilar to most people’s hesitation to ask out a crush, but like he said, that’s not usually his style at all.

Presumably, this is because he’s worried that he could lose Ezri altogether if he makes a move and his feelings are unrequited, along with the knowledge that pursuing Sarina had been the complete wrong thing to do. Although again, maybe more subconsciously than not: when Ezri suggests they’ve both been hesitating because of their friendship, it seems to click for Julian as something that he’d not properly registered before.

Additionally, at this point in the show, losing people to the war seems inevitable. There’s been a long period with very little hope that either Ezri or Worf are alive, Kira, Odo and Garak are all off on Cardassia doing goodness-knows-what, until Odo returns with the Founders’ disease and again, there’s very little hope that he’ll survive. So it’s not really surprising that Julian finds himself unable to speak to Ezri about his feelings, given that this is the time least suited to losing friends to stupid mistakes like telling them you love them.

I definitely think there’s more to say about Ezri and Julian, but I feel like I’m losing the plot of what I’m saying a bit, so I’m going to stop there.

In summary:

Julian’s driven by his threat system: his fear-of-failure, fear-of-loneliness and fear-of-discovery/fear-of-rejection-for-being-an-augment. He doesn’t realise how much this affects him.

Julian thinks that other people/pre-90s media know about romance and love more than him and he should try to emulate them rather than figure out what he wants from them.

Julian doesn’t really understand his own feelings – his upbringing never gave him the chance to, and it hasn’t occurred to him to explore them and figure out what makes him tick and what doesn’t.

He’s deeply unhappy by season 6 and relying on easy but short-lasting waves of happiness to get by (e.g.holosuite adventures)

Because of all these things, when it is presented to him that there is a way to get lasting happiness, and that one way is to be in a relationship, he buys into it completely – falling for that idea probably far more than he actually falls for any of the ladies in question.

#Looooooong post #But worth the read I hope!#Julian Bashir #Julian Bashir meta #autistic julian bashir #aromantic julian bashir #genetically enhanced julian bashir #god this man needs therapy 😅#andi writes #my trek musings #wsb

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slocumjoe · 1 year

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A ramble about Preston Garvey and a self-indulgent revision of the entire Minuteman questline

TDLR: The Minutemen faction sacrifices writing and Preston’s character as a means of shoveling errands and busywork at the player.

Preston’s issues as a character are entirely Doylist, meaning the fault of outside forces. His writing, his concept, his themes, those are solid. This is not a racehorse that broke its leg and was still sent down the track, like some characters. This is a horse that was hale and hearty, but they made it run in circles around cars in the parking lot instead of putting it in the race.

This essay is not going to be my most coherent one. Preston’s issues are so apparent, so in your face, it kinda feels like a waste of time explaining it. Just look at him and anyone with two braincells to rub together can see. But a lot of things in Fallout 4 sticks with me, even when I’m not in a Fallout 4 mood. Preston is one of those things. So neglected, so misused in the game, I couldn’t stop thinking about the bastard.

Before we get into what Preston is, in-game...what was he meant to be?

And you know what?

He’s close to Danse, post Blind Betrayal.

Preston Garvey started his military career as a fresh-faced, bright-eyed young man, who wanted to be another gun protecting the Commonwealth against whatever would harm it. He always had his faction’s best interests and ideals in mind. The first to wave the flag, the first to say the motto, the first to pick up a gun for it. He didn’t want heroism, or glory. He wanted to make the world a better place. It sounds cookie cutter, cliche, so sugary-saccharine. But this is the wasteland. This is in a world where everyone else seems content to succumb to futilism, to pretend there is no Better for the world.

Preston Garvey is, inherently, part of a rebel army. The Minutemen were a militia, a guerilla army of farmers and their children, banding together against the oppressive totality of raiders, mercenaries, anyone who would rather gnaw on bones than build to ensure everyone was taken care of. The Minutemen are the fuck you, we want to recover and heal faction, to the raiders’ fuck you, I have a right to wallow in the ruins.

The legend herself, the icon, the Queen, Ursula K. LeGuin once said; “The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.” The MInutemen might look like your average, boring heroes (we’ll get into why), but it is inherently badass to look at the literal End of the World and decide, no, actually, we don’t want to lie down and die.

Preston Garvey is not a boy scout, the Minutemen are not mall cops. They are furious, determined, and most dangerously, optimistic.

A young Preston Garvey joined under a blue banner, served under it for years...and watched as people who saw money, power, glory, took that banner and tied it into a noose.

Joe Becker died, and having not chosen someone to take over as General, all of the colonels squabbled for the position, wanting the fame, the cushy office. These people weren’t Minutemen, not at heart. The faction had grown so large, there was bound to be people looking only at the resources, what was in it for them. Preston, still a young man, but quickly losing his naivety and faith in his fellow Minutemen, watched as these colonels dropped their altruistic acts and demanded they get theirs.

And then Quincy happened.

The Minutemen were in disarray, following the Mirelurk invasion of the Castle, lacking a home base and their radio communications. But Colonel Ezra Hollis, potentially the last Colonel who gave a shit, heard that Quincy was under siege by Gunner forces, and he led his small, out-gunned squad to do whatever the fuck they could, until another Colonel came to provide the needed fire support. Hollis’ Minutemen succeeded in driving the Gunners back, and holding them off, but their help from Colonel Marbury never came. Preston watched as his Colonel refused to give up and let Quincy fall...and he watched as Clint, a ten-year veteran, betrayed everyone, chose money and a winning team over what was right.

Quincy fell. Preston Garvey watched as the refugees fell in a line, running for safety. Watched his comrades, who he had been fighting against impossible odds with for days, dropped with them.

Preston Garvey died, and I can tell you where. At one house, to the right, down the street from the museum, where the last other Minuteman lay dead in a yard. Where he became the Last Minuteman. Even if there were others who would call themselves such...they weren’t Minuteman, not really. The real Minutemen tried to save Quincy. Everyone else, who gave up, never believed at all.

Preston was still fucking furious at the hedonistic cruelty people indulged in and called inevitable. But he was alone, a failure, and had lost any reason to believe that there was a possibility of continuing. A point, a reason, yes. But the optimism...without that, there was no Minuteman army.

Preston is Danse Post BB, because he’s freshly disillusioned from his faction, horrified at the truth and betrayal. He has lost his identity, his values, unsure of where to go, if there’s anywhere to go. And then...salvation walks down the street of Concord, and walks him and his group back up the road to Sanctuary. Sanctuary.

And then comes in the fucking dialogue system (FDS) and the fucking radiant system (FRS), armed with folding chairs, to beat Preston Garvey’s rich character into a bloody, twitching pulp. We cannot talk about Preston without talking about how his faction questline plays. We simply have to, because it’s like a shotgun wedding from hell.

Let’s start with the very first quest in the Minutemen. Preston, while running for his fucking life from gunners, then ferals, then raiders, has somehow heard through the grapevine/radio he doesn’t have that Tenpines has a Corvega raiders issue. He asks you to do it because he’s busy guarding Sanctuary. Okay.

You go to Tenpines, Corvega, and back, and whoop, you are now Minuteman general.

You START THE MINUTEMEN as THE LEADER. Even fucking MAXSON waits for you to at least bump Danse off before making you a Paladin, but nope! Starting at the top, ending at the top. This kills progression in all senses. There is no sense of gaining ground, the Minutemen start with a General. Skyrim gets mocked for making you the leader of all factions, but good god, at least you had to earn it by sticking with them.

So, bad start.

Then you do some settlement stuff...which is handed to you in the worst fucking way. The FRS.

Where is Preston getting this information? How are people sending it out? Ignoring the logistics...it’s just boring. You talk to Preston sometimes, and he always says Go Here, Do This, Come back. Do this enough times, Preston wants to retake the Castle. At this point, you don’t have any men, it’s just you and Preston- wait, who the fuck are these people?! We’ve had soldiers this whole time?! Who hired them?! You take the Castle and it’s admittedly cool, if not a pain to restore for all your- okay, wait, I can only bring settlers? Where are all the men I supposedly have, there’s three soldiers here! Three soldiers, this is just a Clearing the Way radiant quest, but the moving in folks helped me kill the mirelurks!

Ugh, fine. You keep traveling, Preston gives you more- Preston?! I killed a Mirelurk Queen specifically for the radio tower, so I could get quests from the radio! Why is Preston still dispensing quests? It discourages you from talking to him, because you’ll get busywork cluttering your quest log. You can’t talk to Preston Garvey. You can’t fucking talk to him without doing him a favor first.

Y’know what makes this even more abominable? You are said to have soldiers, who could be doing this instead! Why am I going after kidnapped settlers when we have soldiers?! The General still has a kid to find and the Institute to explode! SPEAKING OF...

The Commonwealth Provisional Government was started by the Minutemen, and ended by the Institute. This is never brought up again. And it’s not even Preston who talks about it, it’s Nick. The Minutemen have very real reason to want the Institute gone, and a good excuse to get the player to want to destroy the Institute beyond “grrr synths/they took my baby.”

Anyway, you go get artillery from Ronnie Shaw at some point, build it in your settlements, and...make your farmers man them. Not soldiers. I know you can deck out your settlers with armor and weapons, but the fact that you have maybe 5 constant, non-random encounter soldiers, all at the Castle, is...it makes it feel hollow. Where is my army, Preston? Who am I leading?

So, you do the Main Quest, blow up the Institute. Blah blah. Blow up the Brotherhood, too. Blaaaaah.

Either way, let’s get into fixes. And by fixes, I mean, complete rehaul.

First thing’s first. The entire questline is bad. It’s radiant quests and then boom boom Institute. It starts and ends the exact same way, you being the general. Second thing, we need to go back to the old dialogue system; no more YES, NO, WHAT, SARCASTIC. Actual dialogue. Back to Fallout New Vegas’s system, that relied on all stats and perks. Actual conversations with branching paths.

Saving Preston at Concord is fine. Works. It’s the first radiant quest that sucks ass. Throw that system out entirely, and I do mean entirely. Don’t save it for anything, it needs to go. It cannot remain. No being sent to Tenpines because Preston heard from a little birdie.

Instead, you work with Preston and the survivors to fortify and set up Sanctuary.

First, you work with Preston to shore up Sanctuary’s defenses. As you work with him, he’s polite, but curt. Professional, but not warm, open. He expresses gratitude, but definitely not trust. He doesn’t know you, he doesn’t know what your motives or wants are. You can tell him about Shaun, but he’s still not sure about you. He can’t afford to be and will tell you that outright, but...he needs someone to go see if anyone survived Lexington or Concord. He knows his other Minutemen split up with other survivors, he doesn’t know if they made it out. You can offer to go find them, or stay and protect Sanctuary. If you go, the other survivors will set up Sanctuary on their own without your help.

If you stay and Preston leaves, you plant crops with Marcy, getting to know her and potentially, she cracks and shows some vulnerability. She doesn’t soften right away, she’s still traumatized, but you get to see why she’s the way she is now. She just lost her baby, her home, all of her friends and family. Was just failed by the people who swore they’d protect them all. Betrayed by them.

Then, you work with Sturges to get a water pump/purifier running. Sturges will tell you about Quincy in some detail, explain how it went to shit. He talks about how the Minutemen were needed more than ever, but crapped the bed at the last minute. Sturges says he thinks there’s a place in the world for the group, but with the last living soldier clearly reeling from everything that’s happened, he thinks it’s safe to say the Commonwealth is on it’s own.

Next, it’s the bed situation with Jun. He barely says a word, only quietly thanking you for your help. If you choose the right dialogue options, he’ll say you remind him of Colonel Hollis, very brave and kind, even when it was a bad idea to help. Hollis didn’t survive, but you did. Maybe it’s not all bad, maybe Hollis wasn’t wrong, just of bad luck.

After, no matter who goes to find the bodies of the other Minutemen and Quincy locals, some Corvega raiders attack Sanctuary when they come back. It’s only a small scouting party, looking for Mama Murphy. You kill them, and Preston is freaking out and about to pack up and keep everyone moving farther. It’s up to you to calm him down and offer to go kill them. If you’ve picked certain dialogue choices before and Sanctuary has a high defense score, Preston will join you on the trip to Corvega. It’s on this journey + throughout it you can tell him about the fate of his comrades, or he tells you. If he doesn’t accompany you, you two talk about it when you get back to Sanctuary after killing Jared.

Either way, It’s here that Mama Murphy tells you about Diamond City, not in the museum.

You do the main quest now, and when you get to Diamond City, you overhear people talking about the Quincy massacre, and what a shame that the Minutemen are gone. Someone talks about how McDonough forced all the ghouls out, and they moved up to the Slog, but now the Slog is having mutant troubles. From there, you can go decide for yourself if you want to do the Minuteman questline. The first few quests were just to organically show you the settlement system, dialogue system (the old, good one), and dungeon crawling, the explore-loot-return loop. It’s here that the Minutemen branch off from the main quest.

If you choose to save the Slog, you have the option of saying you’re there on Minuteman business, even if you’re not a Minuteman. Choosing this is what gets you in the faction proper.

You can keep finding settlements and offering help. Doing this, Preston eventually catches word through Diamond City Radio and demands to know what the fuck you’re doing. You have a lot of options to choose from, but only the altruistic, optimistic ones will earn Preston’s trust. Anything else, he might just try to kill you, if you, like, say you’re doing it for money. But if you’re doing this for good reasons, he’s on board. Surprised, unsure this will end well, but...hey, if you want to try, he won’t stop you. If Sanctuary has enough settlers, defense, and you’ve turned enough settlers into guards (which have a different character tag, when assigned to defense posts), Preston will offer to accompany you, and that’s how you get him as a companion.

So, you and Preston wander around, doing quests, and helping out settlements. Help enough settlements, they’ll realize hey, we’re all on good terms with this Minuteman, and this person who’s basically a Minuteman...let’s just get the Minutemen back, yeah? People band together, settlements you’ve provided for will get settlers on their own. Eventually, people at settlements approach you and offer to help, what needs doing? If you have a settlement quest/errand, you can assign them to it, and they’ll complete it for you. This snow-balls until you’re taking over the Castle, for all these guns-for-hope to gather around and manage trade routes and work. You get the radio tower. You get an army. You get artillery, automatically built at every settlement in a designated spawnpoint.

It’s here that, by popular vote, you’re offered the position as General...but you can turn it down. You can hand it to Ronnie, or Preston. Both of of them agree, no, the people and the new Minutemen want you, but they’ll take it if you pass enough dialogue checks. Ronnie will run the Minutemen like a hardass, fierce and cynical to deter a second collapse, but Preston runs it like a community. He believes that cynicism was what killed the first Minutemen, and that constant reminder of who and what they do this for will keep motives pure. No matter the general, the Minutemen are now a solid force in the Commonwealth, stronger than ever, making everyone piss their pants. And it got this way because you wanted to help.

It’s at this point that Preston’s conversation about his depression unlocks, and his romance.

But the fun begins when the Gunners take a modicum of offense to all this.

Sanctuary is put to the sword, the Castle is attacked, and best of all, the old Colonels show their face, either on the side of the Gunners as bosses, or trying to weasel their way into the Minutemen again. Preston loves killing all of them, hates sparing or talking them down. These fuckers left him, Quincy, the Commonwealth to die, they are traitors, they are pure scum.

The Minutemen, they fight back. You take squads into Gunner camps and clear house, take it over. People stop working with or hiring the Gunners because they don’t want to piss off the General, whoever that is. The Gunners aren’t on the ropes yet, but they’re staring down Minutemen barrels and it’s only a matter of time before this explodes into someone getting wiped off the face of the earth.

Somewhere in-between looking for the Institute, you get kidnapped by Gunners and taken to Quincy. They’re using you as either a hostage, intending to kill you to prove a point, or torturing you for fun, taking the piss out of the idea that the puny militia could ever stand up to- hey, why am I hearing gunfire?

Preston and the Minutemen storm Quincy, putting it under a siege not even the Gunners could ever have hoped to accomplish. If the Minutemen were dog food, the Gunners are kitty treats. It’s a swift, brutal execution of every green-wearing bastard. They don’t even have time to prepare before Preston himself kicks the door down and frees you, then runs back out to continue bashing people’s heads in with his rifle. You meet up with Ronnie, and she points you down Preston’s warpath, gently asking if you can go stop before he gets himself killed trying to throttle Clint. As you chase him down, you see Clint up on the highway, looking down, before he walks away, presumably to meet Preston.

You can go find Preston, kill Clint before he gets to him, or go kill Baker first. If Preston gets to Clint, you’ll hear him screaming bloody murder before they start the fight. They’ll fight until you go finish Clint off. Once Clint drops, Preston has something of a nervous breakdown. Ronnie and other Minutemen show up, she takes over and tells you to finish clearing Quincy with the other soldiers while she gets Preston out of the fight. You can listen to her, or insist you stay with Preston. If you stay, you clear the way for Ronnie’s group to get back behind Minutemen lines just outside of Quincy. Baker can be killed by NPC Minutemen, so you don’t have to worry about it too much.

The Minutemen have Quincy again, Preston is recovering from his panic attack, and Ronnie is foaming at the mouth at the idea of going at Gunner HQ. You can agree or disagree. If you’ve been killing the Colonels, Preston will think that the Gunners are in such bad shape, it’s only a matter of time before they kill themselves with infighting, just as the Minutemen did. If you’ve spared the Colonels, he’ll want to finish off the Gunners, as they’re still too organized and armed to leave alive. If Ronnie is General, the Minutemen attack Gunner HQ anyway, no matter what, but if not, the player can influence Preston or make the decision themselves.

Laying siege to Gunner HQ cements the Minutemen’s place as the strongest army in the Commonwealth. With this ending for the Minutemen, non-important/notable raider hideouts will be cleared automatically, either because soldiers killed them, or the Minutemen were so oppressive, they couldn't find anyone to raid. Other factions will speak more carefully to you, be gentler when describing their intentions. Maxson and other BOS soldiers, if you join them, will mention that being so close to the Castle was unintentional, and they’re nervous about the Minutemen turning their artillery on the Airport. You’ll have a harder time getting the Brotherhood to go to war with Minutemen in this ending. Everyone in game will acknowledge what the Minutemen become, through your efforts.

If you let the Gunners dissolve, you’ll see Gunners having left for raider groups, groups of them killing each other, Gunners trying to get in with the Minutemen. Those Gunners, if you’re general, you can take them on, kill them, or turn them away. General Ronnie will kill them, General Preston’s choice depends on if you have been more merciful, or grudge-holding. People will comment on the Gunners wasting away into little more than scavengers, and with enough time, if you go to Gunner HQ, you find it empty and abandoned. People are less scared of the Minutemen this ending, as they didn’t obliterate the most dangerous local army in a show of total force and revenge. The Brotherhood is more likely to go to war with you, less intimidated, but the Railroad will offer their spy network if you agree to help them rehabilitate and save synths, provided you’ve spoken positively of synths.

Either ending, the Institute will try to destroy the Minutemen, as they destroyed the Commonwealth Provisional Government in the past. But now, the Minutemen have the firepower and intel to destroy the Institute, or take it over, if you so choose. Even if you don’t follow Shaun, if you choose to or convince General Ronnie/Preston to spare the Institute and use it for the Commonwealth’s benefit, you are left with it under your control, enforced by the Minutemen.

So. What does this revision do?

I dislike when people portray him as an innocent, gentle little sunshine boy, and not as an army vet who survived where none of his fellow soldiers could. This man has an edge to him. He isn’t a small sad puppy, he has something of a mean streak in canon. In this revision, Preston has opportunities to demonstrate layers of his character, showing how his trauma and guilt has effected him. You get to see it for yourself, rather than hear about it. You can see him break down in Quincy, you can see him resist the idea that strangers can have good intentions, you can see him rebuild his hope for the Minutemen and himself. And you can also see him lose patience for people who have wronged him, want to cut down anyone who would threaten his people, be kind of irrational and lashing out.

I also dislike that the Minutemen have no visible effect on the wasteland, nothing you can actually see. No one else sees it, either. Here, people will acknowledge the Minutemen’s power. And, c’mon, in game, you are the only one doing anything. In this rehaul, you get things started, but people will be active participants in restoring the Minutemen, will build settlements for you. You can go decorate and fiddle around, but you won’t have to worry about water, food, beds, and defense, they’ll get it sorted themselves. The busywork is also passed off to soldiers, who you could potentially catch in the action as they clear out mutants or save kidnapped settlers.

And the finale of facing off against the Gunners, and either destroying them, or brushing them off as a decaying tantrum with guns, gives the Minutemen something to do for themselves, beyond the Institute. You’d have to lock off Quincy and Gunner HQ, so the player can’t clear them without going through the questline, but that’s fine, other quests do that. But the Gunners are never brought up, not really. It also lets Preston confront his greatest trauma and come up victorious, even if it hurt, and when deciding on the fate of Gunner HQ, lets him evolve as a person and take influence from the player, depending on their relationship.

I think, as the de facto companion for his faction, Preston’s arc needs to be directly tied to it. The other companions don’t really have this either, but Preston got the short straw in that he was his faction. Everything came from him and was turned in to him. He became a dispenser for quests instead of one person in this group, with his own ideas about how to run it, his own fears and guilt about how it failed the first time. He doesn’t reflect the Minutemen, their ideals. Who they are as a collective.

Deacon, Danse, and X6 have their own massive writing issues, but it’s clear that they are representations of their factions. Deacon is an all-over-the-place trickster type trying to keep shit together, the Railroad is a clown car trying to smuggle slaves to safety. X6 is a cold, ruthless, logical Terminator, the Institute are cold, sterile, ends-justify-the-means scientists. Danse is a stern, no-nonsense soldier with a good heart under the Power Armor, the Brotherhood is a tight-knit brotherhood, an army with good intentions that often forgets who those good intentions are meant to serve.

Preston...he’s a good guy, a traumatized one. The Minutemen...you have 5 nameless “Minuteman Soldier” NPCs, and Ronnie. So...the Minutemen is Preston, Preston is the Minutemen. He isn’t allowed to be Preston, who is a Minuteman. He’s Preston the Minuteman.

That’s a damn shame.

#preston garvey

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