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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months ago

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MLMs are the mirror-world version of community organizing

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/05/power-of-positive-thinking/#the-socialism-of-fools

In her unmissable 2023 book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein paints a picture of a "mirror world" of right wing and conspiratorial beliefs that are warped, false reflections of real crises:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

For example, Qanon's obsession with "child trafficking" is a mirror-world version of the real crises of child poverty, child labor, border family separations and kids in cages. Anti-vax is the mirror-world version of the true story of the Sacklers and their fellow opioid barons making billions on Oxy and fent, with the collusion of corrupt FDA officials and a pliant bankruptcy court system. Xenophobic panic about "immigrants stealing jobs" is the mirror world version of the well-documented fact that big business shipped jobs to low-waged territories abroad, weakening US labor and smashing US unions. Cryptocurrency talk about "decentralization" is the mirror-world version of the decay of every industry (including tech) into a monopoly or a cartel.

Klein is at pains to point out that other political thinkers have described this phenomenon. Back in the 19th century, leftists called antisemitism "the socialism of fools." Socialism – the idea that working people are preyed upon by capital – is reflected in the warped mirror as "working people are preyed upon by international Jewish bankers."

The mirror world is a critical concept, because it shows that far right and conspiratorial beliefs are often uneasy neighbors with real, serious political movements. The swivel-eyed loons have a point, in other words:

https://locusmag.com/2023/05/commentary-cory-doctorow-the-swivel-eyed-loons-have-a-point/

Once you understand the mirror world, you start to realize that many right wing conspiracists could have been directed into productive movements, if only they'd understood that their problems were with systems, not sinister individuals (this is why Trump has ordered a purge of any federally funded research that contains the word "systemic"):

https://mamot.fr/@[email protected]/113943287435897828

This also explains why the "tropes" of right wing conspiratorialism sometimes echo left wing, radical thought. I once had a (genuinely unhinged) dialog with a self-described German "progressive" who told me that criticizing the finance industry as parasitic on the real economy was "structurally antisemitic." Nonsense like this is why Klein's "mirror world" is so important: unless you understand the mirror world, you can end up believing that "progressive" just means "defending anything the right hates."

Historian Erik Baker is the author of a new book, Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, which has some very interesting things to say about the mirror world:

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674293601

In a recent edition of the always-excellent Know Your Enemy podcast, the hosts interviewed Baker about the book, and the conversation turned to the subject of pyramid schemes, the "multilevel marketing systems" that are woven into so many religious, right-wing movements:

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your-enemy-the-entrepreneurial-ethic/

MLMs have it all: prosperity gospel ("God rewards virtue with wealth"), atomization ("you are an entrepreneur and everyone in your life is your potential customer"), and rabid anti-Communism ("solidarity is a trick to make you poorer").

The rise of the far right can't be separated from the history of MLMs. The modern MLM starts with Amway, a cultlike national scam that was founded by Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos (father-in-law of Betsy DeVos).

Rank-and-file members of the Amway cult lived in dire poverty, convinced that their financial predicament was their own fault for not faithfully following the "sure-fire" Amway method for building a business. Andrea Pitzer's gripping memoir of growing up in an Amway household offers a glimpse of the human cost of the cult:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/01/amway-america/681479/?gift=j9r7avb6p-KY8zdjhsiSZxYkntna5M_rYEv4707Zqqs

Amway – and MLMs like it – don't just bleed out their members by convincing them to buy mountains of useless crap they're supposed to sell to their families, while enriching the people at the top of the pyramid who sell it to them. The "toxic positivity" of multi-level marketing cults forces members deep into debt to pay for seminars and retreats where they are supposed to learn how to repair the personal defects that keep them from being "successful entrepreneurs." The topline of the cult isn't just getting rich selling stuff – they're making bank by selling false hope, literally, in Hilton ballrooms and convention centers across the country, where hearing an MLM scammer berate you for being a "bad entrepreneur" costs thousands of dollars.

Amway destroyed so many lives that Richard Nixon's FTC decided to investigate it. The investigation wasn't going well for Amway, which was facing an existential crisis that they were rescued from by Nixon's resignation. You see, Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, was the former Congressman of Amway co-founder Jay Van Andel, who was also the head of the US Chamber of Commerce, the most powerful business lobbyist in America.

At Ford's direction, the FTC exonerated Amway of all wrongdoing. But it's even worse than that: Ford's FTC actually crafted a rule that differentiated legal pyramid schemes from illegal ones, based on Amway's destructive business practices. Under this new rule, any pyramid scheme that had the same structure as Amway was presumptively legal. Every MLM operating in America today is built on the Amway model, taking advantage of the FTC's Amway rule to operate in the open, without fear of legal repercussions.

MLMs prey on the poor and desperate: women, people of color, people in dying small towns and decaying rustbelt cities. It's not just that these people are desperate – it's that they only survive through networks of mutual aid. Poor women rely on other poor women to help with child care, marginalized people rely on one another for help with home maintenance, small loans, a place to crash after an eviction, or a place to park the RV you're living out of.

In other words, people who lack monetary capital must rely on social capital for survival. That's why MLMs target these people: an MLM is a system for destructively transforming social capital into monetary capital. MLMs exhort their members to mine their social relationships for "leads" and "customers" and to use the language of social solidarity ("women helping women") to wheedle, guilt, and arm-twist people from your mutual aid network into buying things they don't need and can't afford.

But it's worse, because what MLMs really sell is MLMs. The real purpose of an MLM sales call is to convince the "customer" to become an MLM salesperson, who owes you a share of every sale they make and is incentivized to buy stock they don't need (from you) in order to make quotas. And of course, their real job is to sign up other salespeople to work under them, and so on.

An MLM isn't just a pathogen, in other words – it's a contagion. When someone in your social support network gets the MLM disease, they don't just burn all their social ties with you and the people you rely on – they convince more people in your social group to do the same.

Which brings me back to the mirror world, and Erik Baker's conversation with the Know Your Enemy podcast. Baker starts to talk about who gets big into Amway: "people who already effectively lead by the force of their charisma and personality many other people in their lives. Right? Because you're able to sell to those people, and you're able to recruit those people. What are we talking about? Well, they're effectively recruiting organizers, people who have a natural capacity for organizing and then sending them out in the world to organize on behalf of Christian capitalism."

Listening to this, I was thunderstruck: MLM recruiters are the mirror world version of union organizers. In her memoir of growing up in Amway, Andrea Pitzer talks about how her mom would approach strangers and try to lead them through a kind of structured discussion:

Everywhere we went—the mall, state parks, grocery stores—she’d ask people whether they could use a little more money each month. “I’d love to set up a time to talk to you about an exciting business opportunity.” The words should have seemed suspect. Yet people almost always gave her their number. Her confidence and professionalism were reassuring, and her enthusiasm was electric, even, at first, to me. “What would you do with $1 million?” she’d ask, spinning me around the kitchen.

This kind of person, having this kind of dialog, is exactly how union organizers work. In A Collective Bargain, Jane McAlevey's classic book on labor organizing, she describes how she would seek out the charismatic, outgoing workers in a job-site, the natural leaders, and recruit them to help bring the other workers onboard:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Organizer training focuses on how to have a "structured organizing conversation," which McAlevey described in a 2019 Jacobin article:

“If you had a magic wand and could change three things about life in America [or her town or city or school], what would you change?” The rest of your conversation needs to be anchored to her answers to that question.

https://jacobin.com/2019/11/thanksgiving-organizing-activism-friends-family-conversation-presidential-election

The MLM conversation and the union conversation have eerily similar structures, but the former is designed to commodify and destroy solidarity, and the latter is designed to reinforce and mobilize solidarity. Seen in this light, an MLM is a mirror world union, one that converts solidarity into misery and powerlessness instead of joy and strength.

The MLM movement doesn't just make men like Rich De Vos and Jay Van Andel into billionaires. MLM bosses are heavy funders of the right, a blank check for the Heritage Foundation. Trump is the MLM president, a grifter who grew up on the gospel of Norman Vincent Peale – a key figure in MLM cult dynamics – who tells his followers that wealth is a sign of virtue. Trump boasts about all the people he's ripped off, boasting about how getting away with cheating "makes me smart":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/04/its-not-a-lie/#its-a-premature-truth

The corollary is that being cheated means you're stupid. Caveat emptor, the motto of the cryptocurrency industry ("not your wallet, not your coins") that spent hundreds of millions to get Trump elected.

Tech has its own mirror world. The people who used tech to find fellow weirdos and make delightful and wonderful things are mirrored by the people who used tech to find fellow weirdos and call for fascism, ethnic cleansing, and concentration camps.

In Picks and Shovels, my next novel (Feb 17), I introduce readers to a fictitious 1980s religious computer sales cult called Fidelity Computing, run by an orthodox rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Mormon rabbi:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels

Fidelity is a faith scam, a pyramid scheme that is parasitic upon the bonds of faith and fellowship. Martin Hench, the hero of the story – a hard-fighting high tech forensic accountant – goes to work for a competing business, Computing Freedom, run by three Fidelity ex-employees who have left their faiths and their employers to pursue a vision of computers that is about liberation, rather than control.

The women of Computing Freedom – a queer orthodox woman who's been kicked out of her family, a Mormon woman who's renounced the LDS over its opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, and a nun who's left her order to throw in with the Liberation Theology movement – are all charismatic, energetic, inspirational organizers.

Because of course they are – that's why they were so good at selling computers for the Reverend Sirs who sit at the top of Fidelity Computing's pyramid scheme.

Hearing Baker's interview and reading Pitzer's memoir last week made it all click together for me. Not just that MLMs destroy social bonds, but that within every person who gets sucked into an MLM, there's a community organizer who could be building the bonds that MLMs destroy.

#pluralistic #amway #mlm #picks and shovels #martin hench #devos #that makes me smart #rich devos #mirror world #doppelganger #naomi klein #crime fiction #technothrillers #books #cults

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ailelie · 2 months ago

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Essays and Meta on Interactive Fiction Design

2025.5.20: Updated original list with more resources. I've also fixed the links.

Structure

Standard Patterns in Choice-Based Games

Design Patterns in Choose Your Own Adventures

Small-Scale Structures in CYOA

By the Numbers: How to Write a Long Interactive Novel That Doesn't Suck

Adventures in Text: Innovating in Interactive Fiction

Structuring IF Side Plots

Narrative Graph Models

Beyond Branching: Quality-Based, Salience-Based, and Waypoint Narrative Structures

Puzzle Dependency Charts

What does your narrative system need to do?

Narrative Logics

Design Decisions: Stats

Loose, Tight, Flat, and Bumpy Stats in ChoiceScript Games

7 Rules for Designing Great Stats

Think Before You Stat

Set, Check, or Gate? A problem in personality stats

Design Decisions: Choice

Mailbag: Moments of Non-Choice

Should Games Have Meaningful Choices?

Creating Choices in Interactive Writing

A Bestiary of Player Agency

Making Interactive Fiction: Branching Choices

Successful Reflective Choices in Interactive Narrative

Design Decisions: Other

Writing in Collaboration with the System

Story vs. Game: The Battle of Interactive Fiction

Narrative States

How to write a branching narrative and won't lose your mind

Storygame Genre

Narrative Mechanics, Narrative Dynamics

That Darn Conundrum

Writing Advice and Opinions

The Seven Deadly Sins of Writing Interactive Fiction

Three Solutions to Three Problems in Interactive Fiction

Writing Interactive Fiction in Six Steps

Writing IF

Game Analysis

CYOA Structures: Tween Romance

These Maps Reveal the Hidden Structures of 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Books

Playing With Words: The remarkable Firewatch is part of a new generation of games taking cues from the text adventures of the 1980s

7 works of interactive fiction that every developer should study

The Illusion of Free Will: On "Bandersnatch" and Interactive Fiction

Scarlet Sails (and a discussion about game size

Musings on IF

Interactive Fiction as Literature

Riddle Machines: The History and Nature of Interactive Fiction

Toward a Theory of Interactive Fiction

Interactive Fiction for the Modern Game Designer

The Joy of Text: the fall and rise of interactive Fiction

Going Interactive or: How I Learned to Relax and Let the Reader Take Control

In the Beginning Was The Word

An Alternative Taxonomy for Interactive Stories

Misc

Ethically Designing Unethical Worlds

Break the Loop

Game Taxonomies: A High Level Framework for Game Analysis and Design

An in-depth look at what otome players wants

Mailbag: Self-Training in Narrative Design

#interactive fiction #cyoa #choice of games #multiple choice fiction #essays #game design #story design

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polarity-disturbed · 2 months ago

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One thing that’s become really clear while watching Classic Doctor Who alongside the current era—especially starting with the Fifteenth Doctor—is how well the Ninth through Twelfth Doctor eras nailed the balance of episode length and story structure.

Classic Who usually split its stories into four or five 20–25 minute episodes per arc, which roughly equals the runtime of a modern two-parter. But while that format allowed for sprawling narratives, it came with a tradeoff: pacing. Entire episodes sometimes feel like narrative treading water—not because the writing was bad, but because of the constraints of mid-20th century television. (That’s its own fascinating rabbit hole, but we’ll save that for another time.)

To be fair, Classic Who did experiment with its format. Some stories, like The Edge of Destruction—a tight, two-part psychological thriller set entirely inside the TARDIS—used a smaller runtime to great effect. It’s still one of the strongest entries of Season 1, partly because it had no room to meander.

Later, the show dabbled in stories of two 45-minute episodes during Season 22. But those episodes often had the same problem: some stories still didn’t need the extra time. Take The Mark of the Rani, for example. It was padded out to fit that two-part, 45-minute-per-episode format (roughly 90 minutes total), but honestly? It could’ve been a sharper, more effective 40-minute story. There’s a lot of unnecessary fluff that drags the pacing down.

But then you get something like The Keys of Marinus—a six-parter (20 min each part) that essentially functions as a sci-fi anthology. Each episode throws the Doctor and co. into a completely new setting with its own self-contained mini-plot. It uses its extended format to experiment and surprise without feeling stale. That’s when the long form works.

Then came the 2005–2017 revival era, and honestly? The show hit its structural gold standard: twelve episodes per season, blending 40-minute standalones with 80-minute two-parters. And it just worked.

Episodes like Blink and Midnight were tight, high-impact stories that landed precisely because they didn’t overstay their welcome. Try stretching either one to feature-length, and the tension would unravel. Meanwhile, two-parters like The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances had room to build atmosphere, layer in character development, and deliver those signature emotional wallops. They remain fan favorites for a reason: the format gave them the breathing room they needed—and then stopped.

Which brings us to the Fifteenth Doctor’s era.

Right now, we’re back to a one-size-fits-all approach but the opposite direction: single 40-minute episodes across the season, with only the finale allowed to be a two-parter. And the result? Some stories just aren’t getting the space they need to land.

Doctor Who thrives on structural flexibility. Some stories need 80 minutes to unfold. Others are perfect little 40-minute excursions. Locking every episode into the same runtime is like asking every alien to fit inside a human suit: it works until it doesn’t, and when it doesn’t, it’s obvious.

The point is: variety in format has always been one of Doctor Who’s strengths. When the show leans into that, it sings. When it forgets that… well, you end up with stories that could’ve soared if they were just given a little more space to breathe.

(Also I don’t mean to exclude 13—it’s just that her era experimented with structure so much across her run that it’s kind of its own thing, there’s a whole separate post to be written about what worked and didn’t there.)

(Fun fact for reading this far: The Edge of Destruction was only two 25-minute parts because the production team didn’t know if the show was getting picked up for more episodes. They wrote a short, self-contained story set entirely inside the TARDIS to avoid building new sets. It was meant to be cheap filler—and it ended up being one of the highlights of the First Doctor’s era.)

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queenendless · 4 months ago

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*°◇■¤ SHAPE OF YOU ¤■◇°*

A/n: Yeah the same English VA voiced all these dudes, and his B-Day is TODAY!

Tbh though, I wanna take a break from this one sided infatuated hellhole I dug myself into and write for other series again, that aren't dubbed with him in it. The irony of me saying that when I wrote this of all things. I ❤️ that madman though. Ah, the mess of a crush!

Pairing: Adult! Makoto, Anos, Jiji, Mash, Nagumo, Mikey, Lighter, Jinwoo, Ryoji X Fem!Adult!Reader.

CW: SPOILERS FOR ALL THE FANDOMS INVOLVED SO BE PREPARED.

Characters aged up 21+. Isekaied reader. All shows coexist in this anime world AU.

SFW and NSFW CONTENT INVOLVED. Kinda headcanons/daily life with the various tagged dudes, mushy fluffy romance with eventual brief short smut. Voice kink, lovesick/lovestruck reader, reverse harem vibes.

Getting reborn in a world choked full of anime characters would be any weeb’s greatest dream. Your inner wish finally gets granted, at last!

So many cameos, easter eggs, references serving the overstimulation you craved.

Urban dystopia, cyberpunk, fantasy, and even classic and modern day Japan structures this conglomeration that is the capital of this anime city in this anime world.

In one way or another, you yourself seek out such dashing men that all had their unique quirks and styles straight out of the gate. Even in this new life they still hold a place in your heart.

Unlike most leads in reverse harem stories, you wanted to embrace this fantasy. Your lovesick self literally gave off such an intense lovestruck aura as is. You crave that kind of affection and attention, in this life as the last.

Someway, somehow, it worked.

Your bois … them dudes … ah what a lineup.

Mash, the magicless exercise buff, secretly likes you watching him doing weight lifts with one hand and eating cream puffs with the other. While workouts with him are more casual, he still appreciates you wanting to bond over it, inspiring him to do his push ups and sit ups with you kissing him when his face gets close enough as his motivation and reward. That and sharing slash feeding each other cream puffs together whenever you get the chance.

“You don't have to dote on me so much. Even without magic, I will use all of my strength to keep you safe. And bake cream puffs for you every day. I'll dote on you all to show you just how much you mean to me.”

Jiji, the goofy quirky red-head that he is, despite the Evil Eye yokai of hatred using him as its vessel, slowly but surely wormed his way into your heart. The stupid jokes paired with those face expressions laced with the boundless energy he has despite the hell he's been through grew on you over time until his beaming smile got you turning to mush. Being able to wind down and relax when he started gaining control over his alternate self, taking naps with you got you being the big spoon for this cutie. Cuddles are inevitable.

“Your laugh is infectious. Getting you to smile is my daily goal. It really does make my day. Gets me smiling every single time. I never want this feeling to end. So let's have more bright filled days ahead together, Y/n~”

Lighter, the red scarfed honor bound Champion, rightfully won your heart with his protective romantic dorky self. Meeting each other through your shared friends that are legendary Proxies, you become entangled in each other's lives. Giving you rides on his motorbike went from convenient transport to enjoying the scenic drive together. Sharing some Nitro Fuel together as he quipped out some dorky puns all to make you smile. You keep him grounded in return. Kissing every single scar his past left him with, being able to let down his walls and be open with you, it all means so much.

“You can count on me to get the job done. Whatever it is, whenever you need me, I'm there. I'll fight for you until my dying breath. Hey now, don't cry. I'm not going anywhere. Not for a long time.”

Anos, the misfit that is the Demon King of Tyranny, exudes natural charm and strength that is indeed OP. Building bridges, ending divides, bringing everyone united in a new age for his descendants. So of course the strapping reincarnated man bewitched you as well. Sure he has his own group of comrades on the side – a harem in a sense from others perspective – but from his self awareness, you have an actual harem. He was amused, intrigued even, that you would see him as another potential mate, so he humored you. His parents were more than welcoming to meet a bride he wouldn't mind marrying one day. You're just that interesting to him.

“Did you really think that just because I was part of your little court, that I would be outdone by my competition? I'll be as savage as well as benevolent to my rivals. Why am I going along with it? Well … I'm enthralled by you, my lovely human.”

Nagumo, one of the strongest assassins there is, would deem crossing paths with you during a mission not as a coincidence but as fate. He felt light as a feather, walking on air, as he made small talk with you after finishing his tasks for the day, that elated smile that came with blood stains. The fact that you reciprocate his assassin lifestyle had the arrow of love striking him true, mirroring Sakamoto's reason for leaving the Order all to be with his own special someone. Introducing you to said former comrade at his convenience store came soon after.

“Getting close to me will put you at risk, no doubt. And I barely have time to see you as it is due to my job. But I'll gladly kill anyone that dares harm a hair on your pretty little head. I really like you, after all.”

Mikey, the leader of his own biker group, can be quite the handful. Being overprotective about keeping his family safe, blood bound and found, you were no exception. He'd do anything for you, day or night. He is as loyal as he is a kid at heart. He wears his heart on his sleeve in your honest opinion. Giving him PDA really lifts his spirits; loved fill squeezing hugs, smooching him senseless, and being a shoulder to cry on for those tough days.

“Oi. I'm grateful to you. Ya know that, right? When this city sees delinquents in a better light through the Tokyo Manji Gang, my brother's dream will finally become a reality. And I hope you'll be by my side when that happens. I can't imagine anything else worthwhile.”

Jinwoo, an E-rank hunter reawakened to become the next Shadow Monarch took the world and beyond by storm, sweeping all off their feet. Slaying magic beasts all around you to show off his growing strength and speed. Saving those that are genuinely worth it helped balance the OP aura he gave, winning your heart in his favor. Seeing his former self in you brought out his overprotectiveness, aiding in winning him over in turn. This Ruler rather carry you princess style himself than his shadow generals.

“We've both been at the bottom. But while I've been fortunate to have agency and power to lead a better life, you haven't been so lucky. If you wouldn't mind, I want to look after you. I … I care about you. Very much. I want to be there for you like you have been for me.”

Ryoji, the Appraiser of Nyx herself, could not believe it himself. He was back together with his friends, making new memories with this second chance. And he had you to thank for that. The anomaly that is many worlds meshing together to create this one has you literally radiating at its core, having him hone in on you. You're an angel in his eyes. Hence, serenading on the piano for you, affectionately swaying you over with his wise words about embracing life to the fullest, and wrapping his scarf around you for you both to share. You got Death wrapped around your finger.

“I didn't expect to be in the presence of an angel, yet here you are. Knowing you had a hand in making all this possible, allow me to thank you personally. Beneath this moon, beside this sea, will you share one dance with me?”

Makoto, the savior literally tied to Death itself, willingly gave up his life to save his world from the literal end. In this alternate life, he too had been given another chance to live a long life. And like his close friend, he gets drawn to your presence. But unlike the former, you're the affectionate one. Petting him, sharing headphones in exchange for letting him rest against you, even looking unto his big blue eyes had him blushing and ducking his head in embarrassment. This silent loner boi is not immune to your smitteness.

“You're strange. Putting yourself out there … because you like me? Sorry. I've had admirers before, but I've never wanted to ruin those friendships. So why …? Maybe Ryoji was right. You're like a kindred soul to us … to me. We've all died yet came back. All to meet one another. I've dealt with stranger things … but I don't mind. You, that is. I mean it.”

While they were all different, the similarities when it comes to their bond with you are all there.

Shaking their warm calloused hands, no other kind of handshake could ever hope to top it.

Those marvelous eyes fascinate you.

Their modest encouragement sends your heart ablaze.

The many things they do to make each day easier, comfy, worthwhile.

Their fingers rubbing sensually along your cranium down to your tense neck. Massaging the rest of your stressed sore body followed suit. Of course they'd flex for you as you return the kind act, giving their lean builds love bites and smooches in the process.

Your drained hum of thanks reaches their ears as you use their lap as your pillow. They would do the same if they're too drained to go to bed or they need your presence to cheer them up for whatever reason.

Their hand brushes through your hair strands, pushing them aside to trail along your flushed cheek, causing it to darken further because it's their touch.

Many times you fall asleep against them, whether leaning into their side or using their lap as a pillow, it always ends with them rearranging yourselves to sleep on the couch together with you on top on them or they carry you to bed and keeps you in their arms still as you cuddle amid la la land.

Their laughter, whether deep or light, is a musical score you cherish to hear much more.

Lounging together with you sitting up against his front, your legs in between his own, his arms wrapped around you, he held the console controller in your lap with his hands overlapping yours as you played whatever video games piqued both your interests.

Spotting you squeezing the life out of chibi plush doll versions of themselves always brought out their envy. But it was your comfort whenever you couldn't hug their real life counterparts due to work or any other occupying situations. But you do get the chance to see them again, cuddles and kisses come in tenfold.

Even being able to spend time with them along with their comrades and friends always ends up with you staying glued by their side.

Days turned to weeks and then months, for each passing moment you were interweaving a web of bonds that got you attached to these fine nine beings.

For they share the same voice.

God that voice …

Such versatility and tenor. So sultry, sensual, and sexy all at once. It should be a crime to sound that fine. Of course it will slide. That kind of voice times nine. Like a soul split into nine sublime forms.

Comforting words. Encouragement. Goofy impressions. The puns. Saying your name. Pet Names. Any and every word. You could never get enough.

Then there are the salacious moments.

Them whispering in your ears to utter any and all such things. Dirty, romantic, primal. Whatever suited the mood. Whichever made you both comfortable.

“Does my voice really make you come that much? Interesting~”

That exact sentence would become like a motto – a slogan perhaps – to these guys. Teasing you in that tempo and timbre all to make you melt. Never letting you live it down.

“The ways in which you talk to me~”

Your own tease earned you being pushed up against the wall, your free hand supporting you since your other hand was pinned behind your back. His free hand grasped your chin, tilting your face around all to devour you. Just one of many scenarios that play out between you and your many partners.

Your first time with each of them is equally special, ingrained into your mind and your core.

Whether decent or long, wide or thick, so much variety with every cock that stuffs up your needy pussy.

Smooth and sly or sculpted and rough are such fingers that get to touch you, trace patterns along your sensitive flesh.

To pinch and rub your pearls, leaving love bites on every inch of you to remind one another who you belong to.

Fondling and massaging your frame, suckling on your stretch marks along your fine as fuck dumpy, stuffing their fingers in both your mouths to lather up your essence, licking from your ass crack to your clit.

They all share the intoxicating crave for your addictive taste, devouring your cunt for hours on end, their faces squished between your quivering sweaty thighs, their noses buried in your pubic hair while they're sloppily making out as their dexterous fingers and skillful tongues went to work on having you come so many times.

Missionary, backshots, the mating press, against the wall, on the floor, across tables and couches, even on the roof — when there's a will there's a way.

They love replacing the pearls around your neck …

Titty fucking. Throat fucking. Ejaculating all over your sweaty sheen self. Jacking off through your thighs, your peachy hills, all to tease you so close to edge yet striving to be within you.

Of course, they let you have your way with them in kind. Their egos and hearts soar as you claim them, the bite marks and bruising sucks litter their lean firm vessels to match yours. The tattoos, the scars, those get you showering smooches like mad.

Whether hugging their waist or throwing them over their shoulders, they love to rub and grip your legs enough for fingertips to be left behind as your latch onto them is ironclad.

Weaving hands through each other's haphazard hair while tugging on them hair strands roughly amiss lust, interlocking their hands with yours that need that tether to keep hold onto through the hectic ride of orgasmic paradise.

Massaging your ever tight gummy caverns all to see your expressions of vulnerable passion, falling apart easily while stuffing their cream in you, hitting that sizzling bundle of nerves all to tip you over the edge.

Those feral groans, them unhinged moans, such breathless cries of euphoria with your name reading such a crescendo off their swollen wet mouths as they could never get enough of your vice grip firm enough to leave their fingerprints behind.

Your curling, squirming self crying and breathless as creamy goodness dripped down your valleys, their comforting warm bodies draping over your beautiful self, holding you while the highs of sex would soon calm down.

“Let me fight for you.”

“Laugh with you.”

“Cry with you.”

“Reshape the world for you.”

“Kill for you.”

“Protect you.”

“Rule with you.”

“Live life with you.”

“Love you.”

In this alternate universe, in a world full of vibrant people, with limitless possibilities and potential …

The shape of them — their very existences — ingrained in your type of mate. Partner. Perhaps the shape of their souls are all one in the same. All intense, driven and outrageous.

Maybe because of your preference in your former life. Through their voices all stemming from one. Perhaps your rooted desire for a significant other with that boundless voice created so many options and you finally hit the jackpot.

When the day comes you wake up amongst all nine men strewn about, bare to the bone the same as you, in sheen gleaming ecstasy, soiled sheets and pillows thrown about all over the spacious bedroom, as you smiled all dopey like at those peaceful sleeping dreamboats.

The shape of you might as well be a heart because you too wore it when you're with your favorites.

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gazemaizeisdead · 4 months ago

Text

there’s a scene in fat albert 2004 where live action kenan thompson fat albert, who has accidentally escaped the fictional television world of his cartoon series and become real à la barbie, meets his creator, bill cosby.

it’s a unique film. i’ve seen it about thirty times. the opening credits are in comic sans.

it’s the worst film in the tiny but horrible microgenre of films in which an established, questionably marketable character with diminished cultural relevance is mysteriously transported to our reality. rocky and bullwinkle, harold and the purple crayon, garfield, enchanted (it’s disney, which at the time was only beginning to toy with the cloyingly affectionate self-awareness that has since swallowed it whole, so an expy blend of all stock princesses is used in the place of any particular ip). if you loosen up the parameters of that definition a smidge you can easily come up with another fifty or so awful, bizarre live-action adaptations of various properties with similar narrative structures and plot beats, but i’m curious about this very specific type of hyper-meta fish out of water isekai movie, stories that are less interested in the characters they are ostensibly about and more about the modern world’s current reactions to those characters, and choose to discuss that in the most convoluted, literal way possible.

this type of story is simultaneously extremely high-concept postmodernist analysis and the laziest paint by the numbers shit it’s possible to create. live-action adaptations even at their best betray an inherent disrespect for animation, implying it to be a secondary medium that exists as a temporary placeholder or poor man’s substitute for reality, that characters are only worth caring about if they look as real as we do or exist in a world like ours. there’s no genuine artistic reason to make a woody woodpecker movie, an avatar movie, a death note movie, a live-action pinocchio, they’re all cynical soulless cashgrabs but they at least do attempt to adapt and actually BE what they purport to be. dan aykroyd yogi bear and light turner and matthew lillard william afton for the five minutes they wanted to pay him to be in the fnaf movie are simply poor facsimiles of themselves and they suck because of that bad mimicry, we see and hear the contrast and know immediately it’s not the same. the project of live-actionization is misguided because even before awful executive-driven creative decisions (which all these movies have in spades) very often whatever is being adapted simply can’t be translated properly to its new medium. you could give a film a 500m budget and airbending will still not look as good as it does in 2d, where one can easily and stylistically show the movement of invisible wind and have a character float and defy gravity in a way that is instantly believable in a way that a real human being moved by CGI is not. neil patrick harris and hank azaria as hard as they try, as talented as they are cannot legitimately sell me on the idea that they’re actually being hardcore smurfed in the way that an animated gargamel can. these movies reach for a perceived authenticity and fail to reach it, not understanding that the mediums they are stealing from almost always allow for a greater seeming realness than live-action can, especially when portraying the fantastical.

the isekai movies go one step beyond this disrespect because they refuse to even play the part. yes we’ll make a rocky and bullwinkle movie but we cannot simply DO rocky and bullwinkle, we can’t do a scooby doo and just make a bigger irl version of the formula, we must have this elaborate meta routine so we can continually point to the audience and share a laugh together about how dogshit and unimportant rocky and bullwinkle are. the people who make these movies are so embarrassed by the concept of taking these ideas seriously that they must even in-universe create further removal from the realness of this to insulate us from the possibility of caring. rocky and bullwinkle must be a fake tv show even in the movie, even in pretend land they must be from a deeper pretend land. it’s fine if you want to do commentary on the property (preferable, in fact, that makes it more interesting!) but this commentary is almost never allowed to extend beyond the singular joke of every gamer webcomic ever made: wouldn’t it be fucked up if fictional thing were REAL?

wouldn’t it be fucked up if rocky and bullwinkle were in a REAL car? you bet it fucking would be. (robert de niro produced this movie and plays the main villain)

obviously we’re in a post-barbenheimer world and the only movie of this kind worth comparing fat albert to is barbie, which is notable for being the only good execution of this premise (i would call enchanted competent; it’s funny but a mess). the barbie comparison is especially interesting because fat albert is a cracked mirror to barbie.

like barbie, fat albert and the cosby kids exist in a cartoon world where characters are simultaneously performers and platonic forms of themselves, and where they operate with an unspecified degree of awareness of their own fakeness; a background character in fat albert’s philadelphia mentions having done guest spots on the jetsons. like barbie, al is snapped out of his usual routine by the personal crisis of one of his fans, when her single live-action tear falls on the remote as she watches his show and magically falls into his fictionalized philadelphia. the magic tear allows him to hear her crying and a portal is rended between the two worlds; he enters reality, naively tries to solve her social and emotional problems with platitudes, and is forced to grapple with the tenuous nature of his existence and mortality and the complexity of the real world.

i’m just ken is replaced with fat albert performing an extended rap cover of his own theme song. fat albert spends as much of this movie trying to help the main character make friends as he does trying to fuck her adoptive older sister (“my big al”, she calls him).

without getting into “barbie politics” barbie works because it wants to be a movie about barbie, the thing it’s named after. it takes “barbie lore” seriously. at least half of barbie actually takes place in barbieland, a world that the movie cares about making authentically fake and different and weird. the mechanics and nature of barbie’s existence and barbieland are the most important part of the movie. all of these bad adaptations have the obligatory familial infighting/accidentally thwarting a jewel heist/stopping the evil CEO from demolishing the neighborhood to build a megamall/helping larry bird get his basketball talent back from the aliens plot and so does barbie but it’s an excuse to talk about more interesting abstractions. there is a subplot dedicated to barbie helping to reignite a mother and daughter’s bond but this isn’t the core of the movie, it really is about barbie, literally and metaphysically. fat albert too isn't "about" helping a girl make friends and find herself, it's about fat albert, but it resents that about itself.

fat albert 2004 has about six minutes of actual animation, it rushes to get kenan thompson on screen as quickly as possible and stays there as long as it can (presumably a factor of cost more than anything else, as with all of these films). in barbie the ideas and philosophies of barbieland and real life both naturally affect each other, are reflections of each other, which is an obvious worldbuilding choice that makes intuitive sense; the media we consume is a reflection of the real world and vice versa. there is nothing inherently wrong or bad about the link between the two worlds, says barbie, though it is often the conduit for harmful ideas.

fat albert’s philadelphia and our philadelphia do not share this connection, albert’s intrusion in the real world is a perversion of the natural order and, we later learn, a physical impossibility in the long term. halfway through the movie, the cosby kids begin to be influenced by the real world: mushmouth gains the ability to speak coherently (“don’t call me mushmouth anymore! just call me… mouth!”) and dumb donald removes his ski cap, learns to read, and goes to the library and speeds through 22 volumes of african-american history. this is portrayed as profane; as dumb donald says before jumping back into the TV halfway through the movie: “"i've become smart enough to understand that... we've entered into a world where we do not belong. if you try to become something that you're not, you lose the essence of who you really are."

albert, still on his love quest, at first refuses to rejoin them; he goes off on a date with protagonist’s older sister, which goes well until a child recognizes him and shames him for not being in the tv where he belongs. “we need you! what would mr. cosby think if you don’t go back?” al’s stunned by this; he has no response, but it inspires him to seek answers. in the next scene he decides to find out. he walks up to bill cosby’s house and knocks on the door.

in barbie the discussion barbie has with her creator, ruth handler, is the emotional climax of the film. when barbie tells her she wants to stay in southern california, ruth warns her of the dangers of being human, but does not ultimately stop barbie from doing so; she points out that she is incapable of doing so even if she wanted to.

fat albert mirrors this discussion; albert is told of his conceptual origins. as barbie is based on ruth’s daughter, he is based on a deceased childhood friend of cosby’s, the grandfather of the girl he is trying to help (which is why the movie is careful to repeatedly stress the point that the older sister he’s fallen in love with is only his granddaughter by adoption). there isn’t a parallel moment to the one in barbie where handler winks to the audience about her criminal conviction but that’s probably in the film’s best interest.

albert pleads with cosby in the same way as barbie. more than anything, he wants to stay in the real world. cosby, like handler, encourages him to recognize his own power as an icon, but informs him that his fate is inescapable. if he stays in the real world, his colors will begin to fade and he will soon “turn into celluloid dust” and die. how cosby knows this is not explained; presumably little bill also visited him in the past and suffered a similar fate.

even when done cynically (as it always is) to adapt or remake anything to reject the source material in some way. it’s a paradoxical relationship, because to do it you have to both like (or at least be interested) in what you are recreating but find some aspect of it unnecessary or outdated or lacking or worthy of change. the animation to live-action adaptation often must navigate the additional paradox of wanting to make the unreal real, and the end result, formed by people who don’t care and are only in it for a paycheck, is usually bad art.

in the end fat albert acknowledges his own unreality and crawls back in the tv. the final scene is a saving private ryan style ending where all of the real life elderly inspirations for the cosby kids leave flowers on the real fat albert’s grave. here it hits you: the only moral of the live action fat albert movie is that a live action fat albert movie is a really shitty idea that would kill fat albert.

i agree.

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secretsnowclub · 2 months ago

Text

Building a Time Machine to Review Lancer

This article begins with Snow completing a time machine and traveling back to the year 2006. Snow appears in her childhood bedroom with her Fourteen-Year-Old Self [from now referenced as 14].

Snow: I’ve come from the future to ask you some questions. I’m struggling to review this book.

14: I become a girl?

Snow: We don’t have time for that. I’m only here for the book.

Snow holds up Lancer, the 2020 Mecha TTRPG from Massif Press. Funded on kickstarter in 2019 to the tune of $432,029 on the back of a long beta-phase, facilitated by the Lancer subreddit, and the vibrant illustrations of Tom Parkinson Morgan, creator of Kill Six Billion Demons, the wildly successful web comic.

Snow doesn’t tell this to 14 because it would take too long to explain that, in the future, people could have a job like that and make that kind of money. And if 14 knew, then the entire trajectory of her life would change.

14: Makes sense. It’s really big. What’s a Lancer?

Snow: Like 500 pages, but It’s not important. It’s like a Gundam.

14: Like Gundam SD? Zaku Zaku hour?

Snow: No.

14: Like G Gundam? With the horse guy?

Snow: No. I thought you were cooler than this.

14: Shrugs. So it’s just a mecha thing? Mechs are cool. That art’s really sick. Can I be that guy on the front?

Snow: Ideally. It’s like 4th Edition. Has that come out yet? Never mind, you’ll like it. Here. Hands 14 the book. I want you to read through it and tell me what you think.

14 opens the book, flipping a few pages, then cuts the book in half, flipping quickly through the front and middle.

Snow: What’s that? What’re you doing?

14: I never read the front stuff. I tried with D20 Modern, but it’s all just kinda boring. I wanna make a mech. In the Naruto game we played, making your ninja was the best part.

Snow and 14 sit on the floor with some paper and make their mechs.

Snow: It says here that all new players start with the same basic frame, the Everest.

14 flips to the Everest.

14: There’s no picture for it.

Snow: Well, my guess is that they let you make it look however you want since everyone starts with it.

14: The others have pictures though, and look how cool they are. The Blackbeard, the Drake, the Nelson. I wanna be the Nelson. Look at the cape!

Snow: Can you make sense of the stats and stuff?

14: I mean, it mostly makes sense. I don’t know what Repair Cap is. Or Heat or anything like that. But the traits are cool. Boost is probably an action. Immobilized or Slowed make sense as conditions. And the Skirmisher ability is so cool. I’m like, gliding through the battlefield with a spear, cutting down mechs and backflipping away.

Snow: Okay so…

Snow bookmarks page 140 with a finger and flips back to page 30. She does this several times before reading through to page 36.

14, bored, tries to draw a mech.

Snow: Um, ah, I see. So these things are your stats, like in Star Wars or Pathfinder.

14: What’s Hull?

Snow: That’s like your strength. It says “Roll Hull when smashing through or pulverizing obstacles.” But you won’t know what your Hull bonus is until you make your pilot. They get mech skill points to put into your mech stats. We need more bookmarks if we’re gonna do this..

14: Mom’s got the printer. A lot of books are big and confusing, so I just print off the important pages. You really only need like 20 of them to figure out the game I bet.

Snow: Speed is movement, Evasion is kind of like Armor Class, Sensor is your range to detect enemies and use hacking things on them, and E-Defense is Armor Class for hacking, but Heat is like HP for hacking, and then Stress is like Structure but for hacking, so, like, Structure and Stress are, like, if you drop to 0HP, you lose a Structure and regain all HP and kinda do it all over again, so it’s like extra lives, except you might get a scar or something, same for Stress–

14: Mom’s got the printer.

14 sits at a buzzing Dell computer on the enclosed front porch while the bulky printer spits out some pages in jagged black and white ink.

Snow reads about combat.

Snow: Do you still have the old gundam figurines? I think we put them in the basement. I don’t remember when.

14: I’m not sure, why?

Snow: First of all, don’t let mom throw them away. She’s gonna throw away a lot of your stuff and you’ll wish you still had when you get to where I am. Secondly, we can use them for combat. It’s grid-based, so we’ll have to figure that out. Get a map or something.

14: I hate grids.

Snow ignores 14 and continues to read.

14: Figure all that out yet?

Snow: Yeah, I think so. I think it’s actually really simple, just that everything’s spread out. You’re just rolling a D20-plus-stuff against the static numbers to see if you hit. Then your attachments can raise the static numbers. Accuracy and Difficulty are like additional modifiers that can happen with cover or if you’re affected by a status. It’s just like D&D. But with mechs.

14: It does just kinda give you a buncha numbers.

Snow: We also just flipped to the mechs though, so–

14: But that’s why we’re here though, right? I don’t want to read about all this random stuff. I want to take the mechs and play the game in as little time as possible. If I have to sit and explain all this to the guys, they’re gonna be so bored. They’d rather play Star Wars or something.

Snow: You think it would be better if you opened the book and it was just mechs right up front?

14: It sounds kinda silly when you say it like that. It’s more that, it being a big book you already know it’s going to be boring, right? They always are. I feel like the good version of such a big, mecha book is that it would be filled with mechs. It should be filled with pre-built pilots and just, like, the rules for making your own if you want to. The art is so cool, why would you want to start by building your own mech when you could pick this cool gunslinger one? If I opened this book and it was just like “pick a pilot and pick your mech, here’s a grid so you can fight and here’s the one page with all the basic rules on it,” then I could play it right now and we wouldn’t be sitting here waiting for these pages to print.

The printer stutters.

Snow: Would it make you feel any different if I told you this was made by just two people?

14: What? Really? Why?

Snow: Well, not only two people. Miguel Lopez and Tom Parkinson Morgan wrote and designed the whole thing. Tom and a bunch of others did the art. It was edited by Melody Watson and the layout was done by Minerva McJanda.

14: I don’t know who any of those people are.

Snow: It was a small team, is what I’m trying to say.

The printer whirs to a stop.

14: But look, I just put together the important parts so that we can actually play. And I’m fourteen.

14 and Snow continue talking, sitting at the dining room table.

Snow: What about the GM section? Won’t you need it to run the game?

14: No. I’ve seen Gundam Seed and Patlabor and Appleseed. I’ll just do that but with, like, a Death Star or something.

Snow: Just take a look. I want your opinion on it.

14 skims the section.

14: GM Principles. Facilitate fun, no duh. Renounce control? That’s a no brainer. Just last week the group killed the big bad in the Star Wars campaign in the first session. Funniest shit that’s ever happened.

Snow: Haha, I remember that.

14: Consider your players… I’m sorry, but what is this? Is this book trying to teach me how to be a good friend to my friends?

Snow: Well, maybe you’re not playing with friends?

14: Why would I do that? And why would playing with strangers make me act like a jerk all of a sudden?

Snow: Shrugs. Remember that game at the card shop when that new worker ran a game and was killing everyone’s characters for fun?

14: Yeah…that sucked. But that guy was just a jerk. He got fired for stealing Magic cards or something, I think.

Snow: Well, maybe the idea is that if this is in the book, stuff like that won’t happen or can be stopped. Y’know, like a kid reading this might feel comfortable enough to speak up.

14: The only reason we didn’t speak up was because he was an adult. We knew he was a jerk the whole time, we just wanted it to be over so we could go do something else. Maybe if adults weren’t assholes things would be better.

Snow: I understand.

Beat.

Snow: I kinda like the questions here under Eliciting Responses. Those are actionable and could be nice for awkward pauses.

14: Yeah, those are alright.

14 and Snow sit at the table having just finished making pilots.

Snow: How’d you like that?

14: That was kinda fun. The pilot portraits are really cool. There’s a lot of cool art in here that makes me really want to be those people. The backgrounds remind me of D20 Modern, but they’re actually useful here. I like the Triggers and I want to make a bunch of them. I can’t wait to see what the group ends up making.

Snow: My favorite part is that all skill checks are just trying to beat a 10. I’ve stolen that for some of my own games.

14: Wait, you make games?

Snow: Yeah. It’s sort of why I’m doing this interview with you.

14: Oh, so this is your job?

Snow: Thinks for a moment. No, this is just sort of a compulsion. But my job is making games. I’ve made a few.

14: That’s really cool. I didn’t even know that could be a job.

Snow: You’re gonna like it. It’ll be a while before it happens though. You’ve gotta go through some things first.

14: Ignores her. But yeah, I really like the pilot stuff. I could honestly see us using that for its own game. I don’t know, my mind has like six different ideas for a campaign right now. You could use this as like pilots for fighter planes, or race cars, or like even some kind of Code Lyoko situation.

Snow: Is that important to you? Being able to reuse ideas or think of new ways to use what’s in the book?

14: Well…I think it’s more that the book showed me an easy way to make ideas I already had into a reality. Like, we always wanted to run a zombie game, but with D&D it didn’t feel right. After we read D20 Apocalypse though, it felt more natural.

Snow: That’s a good thought. What about Section 2: Missions and Downtime?

14: I probably won’t use any of it.

Snow: Why not?

14: I don’t know. Like I said before, I’ve seen Gundam. I already know the stories I want to have. I think that’s the easiest part.

Snow: What’s the hard part then?

14: Um, maps, enemies. Cool rival pilots. Things that give me more ideas. I don’t really need it to tell me how to do a mission or whatever. I’ve watched Saving Private Ryan and I’ve played Medal of Honor, so… the only thing missing is the inspiration. Stuff I couldn’t think about by just sitting and watching T.V.

Snow: And what about the downtime actions?

14: I don’t know.

Snow: No opinions?

14: Shrugs. Same answer, I guess.

Snow: Do you think the rest of the book is used well?

14: I don’t really know what you mean by “used well.” But it’s a lot of information to parse. They can’t expect I’ll read this all at once, or even read it all before I play the game. There’s so many templates and different types of NPCs. Tons of symbols for weapons and attacks. It’s just a lot of information that my brain can’t really make sense of right now.

Snow: Do you wish it were simplified?

14: I think we both agree that the game is rather simple, the actual rules are easy to learn, but the way it’s presented makes it hard to grasp.

Snow: Yeah, I agree. But when I actually stop to read any of it, the ideas are pretty good and usable. Like, reading the Sniper NPC gives me an idea for an encounter. But you’re right, it is A LOT. But I don’t think it’s any more or less than, say, what the Monster Manual has, for instance.

14: Yeah, but there’s so many optional things. The Monster Manual really just gives you one instance of a thing, so you can take out, like, a dragon, and just use it right then. You don’t have to build it or be selective about it. I don’t really know if one way of doing it is better, I just know that I feel overwhelmed by the book right now and will probably just make a lot of stuff up on the fly as we play.

Snow: I understand.

Beat.

Snow: I wish mom would take you to the doctor.

14: Huh? Why?

Snow: It’s nothing. There’s so many things I wish I could tell you–so many things you’ll learn between now and when you become me–

14: A girl?

Snow: Unphased. And you’ll wish that maybe someone paid more attention. So many things that would help you make sense of who you are and how your brain works.

14: Wait, are you crying?

Snow: No, no.

14 and Snow run a few rounds of combat, just the two of them. 14 pilots the Nelson, decked out with a Custom Paint Job, Expanded Compartment, and Manipulators. The last of 14’s SP is spent to get the Type-1 Flight System. So now the Nelson counts as flying while it boosts towards enemies, War Pike at the ready. Sides strapped with two pistols and a shotgun in case things get hairy.

Snow builds out Horus’s Pegasus model but doesn’t use it for the combat. Instead, they control a few squads of infantry and an Archer NPC with the Flier Ship Template.

Snow sets the scene: 14 is sent behind enemy lines to take out a ship that holds a nuclear armament. It’s set to leave the atmosphere this evening and must be grounded.

The fight is slow and methodical. They listen to the Halo 2 Movement Suite the entire time.

Snow: That was fun.

14: Yeah, that was epic. I don’t normally like grids, but it kinda makes sense with mechs. It’d be really fun to, like, be the pilot and do Gundam Wing stuff before getting into this big conflict that’s, like, really intense.

Snow: I bet it might get a little monotonous with all the guys here.

14: Naw. They love it when combat takes forever. I think it’ll be even better with more people. You can use strategy and talk to each other about where you’re gonna go and who you’re gonna attack. Coordinate stuff. I’m sure there’s a limit to how many people you can add before it’s too much, but that’s true of everything.

Snow: Good point.

14: I can’t wait to play some more tonight.

14 and Snow sit quietly for a moment.

Snow: Well I should really get back. Do you think I should leave the book with you or take it back with me?

14: If you need it, you can keep it.

Snow: It’s your choice, kid. I came here for you.

14: I’ll definitely keep it then.

Snow hands over the book to 14. They don’t hug or anything. They just stand there as awkward reflections of each other.

Snow: So…you like it after all?

14: Yeah. It’s really cool. I’ll probably read it all some day. Or not. I’ll probably just make up the stuff that makes my brain all fuzzy.

Snow: Good plan.

Snow says goodbye to 14 and steps back through into the present.

When they return, on their desk is a beat-up copy of Lancer. The pages are torn, some removed completely. Spine bent. Water damaged. Notes written in the margins. Black marker crosses out enough to make it look like poetry.

And atop it, a solitary Gundam figurine sits waiting.

You can find lancer on itch.io.

If you enjoy writing like this, consider supporting my patreon and following my substack, where this and many more articles have been available already~

#ttrpg #ttrpg community #ttrpg education #review #book review

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unsolicited-opinions · 2 months ago

Text

I wrote yesterday:

The Jew is a sort of Rorschach test. People see in the Jew whatever suits their agenda. Banker, radical, victim, conspirator, communist, capitalist... Just never quite human.

I know Jumblr prefers the pithy, but I want to extend the metaphor.

---

The Rorschach test, as you might know, was meant to be a way to identify or classify difficulties of the human mind.

The patient was shown a series of inkblots, ambiguous shapes without any fixed meanings. The therapist would then invite the patient to describe what they saw in the inkblot shapes. Since the shapes were ambiguous, what the patient saw in these shapes, wasn't ever about the shapes themselves, but a means to supposedly reveal the structures of the patient's own psyche. Pareidolia as a diagnostic tool.

The Jew as a Rorschach Test: Antisemitism as Projection

How a society sees Jews has almost never actually described the Jews of that society as much as it has revealed something about the society itself.

The Jew, because he is not actually understood by the society, is, like the inkblot, ambiguous. Since he is other and unknown, he is subject to wildly divergent interpretations, none of which reflect the Jew's life/beliefs/practices/values. Instead, what a society sees in the Jew reflects that society's needs, fears, and crises.

In medieval, Christian Europe, the Jew was the other - falsely accused of killing Jesus Christ, desecrating the host, and poisoning the wells. These accusations were baseless and absurd, but they must have felt true and valid to those whose world was defined by the overwhelming, omnipresent Christian binary dualities of the place and time: good vs. evil, salvation vs. damnation.

The Jew, as the outsider, wasn't just not-a-Christian, but a Christ-killer. He was an inkblot in which the medieval Christian's guilt, anxiety about sin, and need for a scapegoat was projected. The very ambiguity of the way the Jew existed within Christendom without being part of it, made Jew the perfect surface for unconscious projection.

Just as one person sees a butterfly in an inkblot while another sees a bat, Christians saw in Jews either satanic enemies or (more rarely) proof of divine mercy. Either way, what the observer saw in the inkblot wasn't based on any reality about the inkblot itself, but based on the fears of the observer.

The modern period generated a new set of anxieties: urbanization, financial abstraction, and political revolution. The Rorschach Jew here reflected contradictions at the core of modernity itself. In 19th century Europe, Jews were simultaneously seen as both the faceless financiers of capitalism and the radical firebrands of socialism.

This is the classic Rorschach dynamic, isn't it? Contradictory accusations projected onto the same ambiguous stimulus. How could Jews be categorically both hoarding wealth and fomenting class war?

Such a thing was only believable because the image of "the Jew" was not based in reality, but in the social psyche.

Like an inkblot, the Jew became a surface onto which irreconcilable social and economic tensions could be emotionally "resolved."

The 19th century also brought us Modern Nationalism. The Rorschach test was also supposed to measure boundary confusion, how people respond to ambiguous figures that blur inside and outside, self and other. That's what the Jew was in the European 19th century nation state.

Jews in Europe and elsewhere were frequently depicted as simultaneously hyper-assimilated (too much like us) and radically other (an alien threat among us).

This duality in which the othered Jew was simultaneously the ultimate insider and the ultimate outsider provoked a special kind of nationalist panic.

Antisemitism here operates like a defense mechanism against that ambivalence and national identity anxiety. The Jew becomes the inkblot where cultural boundaries are tested and violated. The fear isn't of Jews themselves, but of what they symbolize: the failure of clear categories.

Haviv Rettig Gur talked about the advent of the new mass societies of modern nation states as social constructs in the 19th century.

And in this world of new Mass Societies, in this shift from small, agrarian, maybe religious identities to Mass National Identities...they develop these ideologies of nationalism that try and police the boundaries of these identities to firm them up, make sure that they stay strong.

The Nazi problem with the Jews, says Haviv, is seen in Mein Kampf, and was driven by insecurity about German identity.

If Germanness is tribal and blood and ancient and biological and we can measure it by testing your skull...and a Jew in the morning can be a German in the evening...?

[Hitler believed] the boundaries of germanness are hard, the membrane is impermeable. It is biology, it is real- and what is the Jew doing? He's popping in and out all the time! He's perforating the membrane of germanness! If a Jew could be a German and something else, if you can have layers...you can't have absolute identity. And if you can't have absolute identity what is the German? The Jews endanger Germanness!

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, the Rorschach dynamic persisted. The image of the Jew in the West becomes morally saturated: a figure of sacrosanct victimhood for some, a lightning rod for resentment in others. In each case, the actual Jewish person disappears, and what remains is a symbol - an inkblot onto which guilt, denial, and moral discomfort are projected.

Read Dara Horn's People Love Dead Jews. Horn argues that the world's love for "dead Jews" is a form of perverse moral posturing, a way for societies to affirm their own virtue by honoring Jewish suffering...but this only works if Jews are no longer alive to complicate the ego-saving narrative.

Horn notes how the Holocaust is sanitized, depoliticized, and turned into a universal morality tale that erases real Jewish lives, culture, and ongoing challenges. She contends that many memorials and educational efforts, while well-intentioned, often serve to comfort non-Jewish audiences rather than confront uncomfortable truths about antisemitism or support living Jewish communities.

Some in the post-Holocaust world, especially after 10/7/23, accuse Jews of "playing the victim" or "controlling the narrative." Again, these reactions say less about Jews and more about the viewer’s need to process trauma, responsibility, and historical shame.

Today, in both far-right and far-left discourse, the Jew remains a shifting inkblot: billionaire globalist or Zionist oppressor, cultural subversive or imperial power broker. In conspiracy theories, Jews are often imagined as orchestrating both migration and ethnonationalism, feminism and patriarchy, capitalism and Marxism.

This incoherence is diagnostic. It reveals the deep psychological fragmentation within those projecting the image. As in a Rorschach test, the lack of internal logic is not a bug, but a feature. The more the image can absorb contradiction, the more effective it is as a projection surface.

To treat the Jew as Rorschach test is to shift the analytical gaze from the image to the viewer.

It is the society looking at the inkblot - the anxieties, disavowals, and desires which are revealed in what it sees when it gazes on the inkblot and sees itself.

Antisemitism, in this metaphor, is not about Jews or anything Jews believe or do.

Understanding antisemitism through this lens allows us to see that no amount of Jewish integration, explanation, or visibility can resolve the problem, because the Jew is not being seen as a person. They are being looked through, like an inkblot, revealing the shapes of other people’s fears.

I suspect that Israelis generally understand this better than those of us in the diaspora.

What do you think? What lesson should we take from this?

#jumblr #antisemitism #Rambling #Rorschach test #Rorshach

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alessiamalfoyzabini · 2 months ago

Text

Moondir - 02

Pairing | moondir!OT7 x human!Reader

Word Count | 4,6k

Warnings | +18, blood draw, talk about forced pregnancy, mention of multiple partners, noncon kiss, angst, fear and psychological pressure, a strange bond MC feels with Hoseok (predator/prey relationship), this is not for minors.

This fanfiction is dark and yandere, if you don't like the genre, don't read and if you are not of age, don't read.

I don't want to hear any complaints in the comments, thank you.

This does not reflect my way of thinking or living at all, it is just a work of fiction, it is like watching a horror movie, many of us love horror movies, but we would never dream of what we see in those movies happening in reality as well.

Simply put, this story was written for entertainment purposes, it should not be seen as a reflection of my values, opinions or morals. I absolutely do not condone such acts.

⤷ Summary | The Moondir, born of the Moon Goddess' love for a wolf, were persecuted and enslaved by humans for merely existing. Moondirian women have been captured and killed in the most heinous ways, men have instead been forced to do dangerous work in place of the humans themselves, and after more than a century, this has virtually brought their race to the brink of extinction. A group of Moondirian rebels have succeeded in their quest to regain their freedom, and not without the use of the crudest violence. Their females are now gone, and it will be human women who will help them repopulate the world.

➢ Author's Note | Hi, guys! ❤️ Here is the second chapter of Moondir, I hope you enjoy it! 🥰 I put my whole self into writing this chapter, imagining and structuring the future relationships between MC and the seven, here you have a little taste of it with Hoseok! Let me know what you think, I love your comments! 🥰🥰🥰🥰 I love you 💜

Taglist is open: @katherine-kookie - @btsuga-d - @pantara - @angelicsmilesworld - @lennieharper - @takemeaway5402 - @jiminismine4ever - @m00njinnie - @ke1k029 - @velvet-stardust2002 - @darkuni63 - @douknowbts - @aiiselle90210 - @fewercascade - @mageprincess7 - @get-that-brain-working - @whipwhoops - @dragons-flare - @seokjins-luigi - @pjmsneverland - @jimincrystal - @ajkwww - @ungodlyjoon - @hecateslittlewitchling - @namjoonsbuspass - @xicanacorpse - @btssimplove - @antisocial-mochi267 - @reallygenerouskoala - @dabishou - @themwordsblog - @deluluisme - @justanarchiveforfics - @blackberrywonie - @the-holy-hobi - @justlikecrazy - @herareila - @furioustrashlover - @mar-lo-pap - @dachshunddame - @pantaral81 - @withmuchluv-tannie - @calmyourtitts7 - @plushjeno - @rafesbunniebby - @rms-expensive-girl - @polnaraffsrack - @rg2108 - @paramedicnerd004 - @jungshaking - @ane102 - @moonstarw

Main List - 01 - 02 - 03

You gaze in clear amazement at the procreation center, the city's most modern hospital has been used as a base, you have never had the privilege of stepping foot in it in the past, and to think that you will enter it now because you are forced to does upset you in no small measure.

Hoseok, at your side, holds you in a firm, icy grip, looks ahead, and the grin of a few hours earlier has disappeared from his face. The green gem of his eyes has been swallowed by a dark shadow, and no one dares to approach you or him. Everyone in there seems to keep away, all armed men and all very guarded, just peering at you as if you were a juicy steak. You and Hoseok walk past the marbled lobby to enter the medical area without first asking a secretary. Simply because - just like in Seokjin's hospital - there are no secretaries. And frankly, Hoseok also seems all too sure; this is certainly not the first time he has walked the corridors of this huge hospital.

“Is this something you do often? Bring women here, I mean?” you ask in a low voice, narrowly catching his attention.

“Mh. Let's just say that thanks to my rank I can afford to do that, if I had been an ordinary soldier, those guys out there probably would have jumped on you without much fuss,” he snorts, annoyed.

You don't dare ask any more; it's clear as day that if he could, this man would join the party along with the others.

The further you go into the hospital, the more the cold architectural lines make your hair stand on end, as do the men in suits you see darting from room to room with medical masks over their faces and long white lab coats fluttering here and there. Not a shadow of a woman so far, could it be that humans have really exterminated all Moondirians women? Is there not a single one left?

A door opens in front of you automatically and a pungent smell of disinfectant makes your nose wrinkle. You are tired of disinfectant and hospitals. Will you be forced to stay there? And for how long?

“Just come in quietly, little flower,” Hoseok points you to a smaller, powder-pink door, ‘I've had enough of women screaming and crying at the sight of a tiny needle; so, don't piss me off,’ he intimates dangerously, opening the door and pushing you in unceremoniously, as he is used to doing such things by now.

Inside, it is just like Kim Seokjin's studio, the only difference being the lack of a table with stirrups, replaced instead by a long, shiny, clean, white table with a sealed container of empty, shiny test tubes ready on top. The walls blind you with their whiteness; everything is tremendously aseptic and impersonal.

You are about to feel sick, and perhaps, just noticing your new, bad complexion, Hoseok pushes you abruptly toward the chair.

“You haven't even seen the needle yet,” he teases you, regaining some of the amusement he dared not show in front of other soldiers. In a way, Hoseok seems to have two completely different personalities, and you don't know which one scares you more.

The sadist who loves to have fun or the soldier who fears no one?

Either way, Hoseok seems to be in control of the whole situation.

“Oh, good. You brought a new one,” a well-placed man enters the room; he's as big as a closet, but his expression is softened by small round black glasses, his forest green eyes following you like a scanner.

“Seokjin gave me these,” Hoseok says, tossing papers on the doctor's desk about you and your exam, the big man nods before smiling at you a little.

“All right, dear, I'm Oliver Smith,” he introduces himself cordially, ”I'm the ugly wolf who's going to take samples of your blood.”

You look at him a little upset, why would a Moondirian approach you in such a kind way? Hoseok looks annoyed, too.

“Give it a rest, Olly,” he grumbles, but Oliver shakes his head.

“Don't mind Hoseok, he's the big bad wolf, but as long as I'm around he can only grumble.”

“I don't think I understand, what do you need my blood for?”

“Good question, girl,” nods Oliver, “Your blood will help us figure out which male you will be compatible with. We have a huge list of males suitable for mating, but you are human and clearly in order to sire a pup you will need the right male. A match, in short.”

You look at him wordlessly, you thought you were going to be thrown to all the soldiers in the breeding center, the image Yoongi gave you is this. Instead it all seems quite controlled.

“I guess I can't refuse,” you state grimly, Hoseok snorts through his nose in yet another irritating scowl. Oliver gives him a glare.

“No, you can't refuse, it's for the good of our species” Oliver checks the opening page of that pile of papers before turning back to look at you, “Y/N. But you must know that we have everything under control, no harm will come to you, unlike others-” and here you see him glowering at Hoseok again, “We understand that you girls didn't have much say about the events that happened a hundred years ago.”

You don't trust Oliver, even though he has been more helpful and kind than Hoseok, but you do nothing when he gently holds your arm to tighten a tourniquet around it, you shudder at the feel of alcohol-soaked gauze disinfecting your skin.

An invisible grip forces you to look for Hoseok; he is staring at you. His green eyes are lighter and mottled, like pure jade, but his expression betrays no emotion. He looks like a statue. You hardly notice the vials filling with your dark, vermilion blood as Dr. Oliver continues with the blood drawing.

You feel weaker and maybe even pale, your head is heavy and empty at the same time, shit, how you hate doctors and hospitals....

Oliver barely has time to remove your tourniquet to apply a band-aid before you slump into the chair, unconscious.

Oliver looks at you with pity, “She endured a lot in one day, she didn't even scream,” he notes with a certain amount of surprise, making Hoseok sneer.

“Don't be so impressed, she just did her duty, she knows her place,” he murmurs colorlessly, before approaching you. He lifts you from the chair without even an effort, and Oliver sighs.

“Set her up in one of the private rooms, we'll keep her monitored until the test results come back with the compatible male.”

You recover slightly, but you don't dare open your eyes again, fearing to anger Hoseok, who is holding you in his arms rather stiffly. The material of his uniform smells of cedar and sea, but it is rough enough that you are not tempted to rub against his chest to get some rest.

“I hope they get a move on in the lab, I can't wait to send her as far away from here as possible,” he blurts, you trying hard not to let them know you're awake, but you can't stop the trembling of your lips. So you won't stay at the procreation center, you'll be sent who knows where!

“What's the matter, Sergeant...is the girl making you nervous?” taunts Oliver with a smirk, Hoseok shushing him with a sour look.

“You said it right, I'm a Sergeant. Nothing and no one can make me nervous, got it?”

Your heart is beating so fast that even your chest is moving back and forth, trying to hold it in your rib cage, with that you are now certain that Hoseok has noticed you are awake, however, he does not say a word about it. He prefers to ignore you as he walks out through the blinding hallway. And you find it hard to admit that his grip on your body is so firm that you sense he will never let you fall. You can't even remember the last time someone carried you around like this, maybe your father when you were a child?

You bite your lip, chasing away that thought, your father is now dead, and for his and many others' actions you will pay with your womb for what they did to the wolves of Moondir.

Two days pass before anyone deigns to bring you news about your near future. Until then you have been monitored nonstop by two doctors with unfamiliar faces, in a room so sterile and empty it seems at times macabre, you feel like you are in a horror movie with the only difference being that you are really living in a nightmare.

You lower your gaze to the IV attached to your arm, you are not sick, but they said they want to make sure you are well hydrated and strong for what you will face out there, they are feeding your body with something necessary for your future sexual relations. You don't know what it is, and you admit that you cried like a little girl after Hoseok left you in this room, walking away without so much as a word, as if he was tired of looking after you. You never saw him or Seokjin again.

The only positive note is that you did not see Yoongi again either.

But you don't regret the times when you treated him like a human being when he still lived in your house. You never acted superior toward him, although that certainly didn't help you. You can't really believe that in the past you were like this-.

A soft knock on the door brings you back to reality, distracting you from your alarming thoughts - were you really thinking about that after all he did to you?

Oliver's blank expression makes you frown, usually he brings your daily results with a smile, now he looks strange.

“Hello, Y/N” he greets you, "How are you feeling today?" he asks every day.

“I'm fine, doctor,” you reply as usual, watching him nod with papers in his hands.

“We have the results of the first exam I submitted you to,” he clearly refers to the exam regarding the compatible male.

You knew this moment would come, but you can't help but clutch the white sheets between your fingers; you're not ready to leave that new as well as fragile daily routine. You still hate hospitals, but no one there has threatened you. What will happen when you leave? Will the male treat you well?

“Y/N” Oliver calls you back frowning, "I need you to listen to me very carefully, I hold your future in my hands," he makes it clear without preamble.

“I know, I'm listening” you find yourself saying with a dry mouth.

“When you leave, you'll get one visit from me a month, I'll make sure you're okay and that you don't miss anything,” he begins in a confident tone, "But I'm not going to lie to you, something out of the ordinary has happened and I need you to be prepared psychologically.”

You open your eyes wide, “I don't understand, I'm healthy, you said so” possible that in a few days something has happened to your body? Being used at the will of a man - a wolf to be precise - doesn't make you crazy, but you also don't want to die of who knows what illness.

“You're not sick, Y/N,” the doctor tries to calm you down, ”Okay? It's not that. You've received many matches,” he spits in the end, a little worried about your reaction.

“W-what?” you stammer, ”You mean... two males?”

“No, not two.” and then the bomb, “Seven.”

No. This can't be true, there's no way you can stand that. One Moondirian is dangerous, two are unmanageable, but seven... with a startled groan you imagine what kind of death you will get. A very, very slow and painful one.

Oliver takes off his glasses, rubbing the lenses with the fabric of his lab coat, “It's shocking. Even the guys in the lab were surprised. Only once have we had more than one match with a single female, but even then it was only two compatible males. Your body, on the other hand, tested compatible with as many as seven Moondirians. We repeated the test, but the result remained the same.”

You observe him without blinking. Oliver looks surprised, but not frightened; you can see his emotions clearly now. The doctor is thrilled, though he tries not to show it to you specifically.

You will be fed to seven wolves.

“Does this mean that I will have sexual relations with all of them? What will really happen to me? It's all just too much! I am not a rag doll to be divided into seven parts!” you blurt out in panic, trying to pull the IV out, which Oliver won't allow by holding you by the wrist.

“Calm down.” he murmurs sternly, making you nauseous. Of course, everyone here thinks you're the weird one.

“You can't escape this obligation, the only alternative would be to die, and I assure you the soldiers don't go lightly.”

You know, you read in their eyes the lust and anger in them, they would not pity you.

“One of them is a doctor, I will only be able to visit you once a month, but he will make sure every day that you are fine, okay? He will also explain to you in detail what they expect from you and what you absolutely must not do,” you nod slowly, unable to say anything else. Your vision blurs and you look away from Oliver, who has meanwhile gently slipped the needle out of your arm. He stopped you from removing the IV because you would have hurt yourself, and despite this kindness you are not grateful, now you know that this man is just making sure you get to them intact. You are disgusted, you would have preferred Hoseok's direct cruelty to Oliver's false kindness.

“Get some sleep, they will come for you tonight.”

“You won't tell me anything about them? Not even how I might recognize them?” you ask angrily, but Oliver denies with his head.

“I am not allowed to talk about them, you will meet them yourself when they come for you.”

With those last words of his, he leaves the room never to return.

“Are you ready?” asks one of the doctors who assisted you in those last days spent at the center.

You cross your arms, finding it comfortable and safe in the warmth of the new sweater you were provided a few hours earlier, along with some simple jeans and sneakers. The doctor nods in satisfaction, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. From what you understand, almost all the doctors at the procreation center have vision problems, this due to a dangerous exposure in one of the many chemical factories where they were being exploited by humans.

“The car has arrived, just missing you, girl.”

It's like walking toward the gallows; the terror, the anxiety, the rising heartbeat, it's all there.

Then, in the middle of the dark and desolate street surrounding the procreation center you see it; it's Hoseok's car. Two green, disinterested eyes watch you as you drive through the front doors, accompanied by one of the doctors. Your heart skips a beat.

“She's ready, she's responded well to the treatment, just as we expected,” you hear the doctor say, Hoseok merely nodding before focusing on you again, squaring you from head to toe with an air of condescension.

“So, little flower... I'll be your Charon, aren't you excited about that?”

A strange and unsettling feeling snakes down your spine.

Could it be that-

“Are you one of the seven?” you ask point-blank, praying for a negative answer.

You see him smile in response, “Who knows...”

“You will receive a visit from Dr. Smith at least once a month, I trust you will treat this genetic prodigy well,” the doctor goes back to say.

Genetic prodigy? Obviously.

A human woman compatible with seven Moondirians is really something prodigious and valuable.

You are just a broodmare; you will be thrown away when you can no longer bring children into the world.

You enter the car with a sense of déjà-vu, the only difference being that when Hoseok reaches you, he no longer seems so cheerful.

“I prayed to the Moon Goddess, asking her to keep you away from my person, but as far as I can see, our fates have once again become entwined,” he mumbles as he puts on his seatbelt.

“I'm not so happy to see you again either,” you spit between your teeth, no longer able to hold back your irritation. The wolf snorts slightly, but then suddenly you have your chin clenched in a terribly painful grip and two green eyes glaring at you.

“A word of advice, little flower,” he blows into your face - notes of cedar and sea leave you stunned for a moment - and then resumes, ”Try to keep that attitude of yours at bay, some of them are more touchy than others, and I wouldn't advise you to upset them by being a brat.”

Maybe you've gone completely crazy, but you can't refrain from answering them again with a taunt, “Are you like them, Hoseok?”

It is like watching flames suddenly burst into flames, unable to do anything to avoid them. One moment the wolf is still holding you tight, the next he grabs you by the hair and presumptuously presses your lips against his, with a growl that silences your pitiful moan.

He is violent, invasive, his tongue penetrates your mouth hard to your throat, forcing you to gasp for air, and his sharp teeth scratch the delicate skin of your lips. The taste of blood intrudes on your entanglement of tongues and fear blinds you.

You place your hand on his chest and push him away forcefully, succeeding after no small amount of effort only because he is the one allowing you to do so, putting an end to that barbaric attack.

“What the fuck-!” you sob, shocked, barely noticing that Hoseok is quietly wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his uniform.

“Now be quiet. You are in no position to provoke or dictate, try not to piss me off, I've already told you.”

You bring your hands to your lap, lowering your eyes. With a hollow in the center of your chest and tears stuck in your throat, you realize that your first kiss was used for a cowardly display of power.

But in such a world, what is the point of preserving the first kiss? For you and many other women, sweetness or love will no longer exist, nor will the possibility of finding a faithful and loving partner.

The roar of the car became a pleasant background noise, something you listened to carefully to distract yourself from the dangerous presence at your side.

All along the way your lips tingled and pulsed, still swollen from the bites of Hoseok, who had certainly not held back. He had to punish you, and he did it in the vilest of ways; therefore, you dared not even look at him by accident since you left.

Several times, looking first at the city and then at the countryside from the window, you had the eerie desire to open the door and jump out of the running car. But you reconsidered. Whether you were dead or alive, Hoseok is a Moondirian and would have caught up with you in a very few seconds, perhaps even taking sadistic pleasure in finding you smashed on the asphalt.

It is certainly disgusting, but... you don't want to die, not yet. Even though you've wished it many times, it's not really what you want.

“We have arrived,” your Charon informs you, pointing you to a country house that is very old, but also solid enough to still stand effortlessly.

The pale stone villa stands on an expanse of undulating fields, surrounded by cypress trees and quiet wilderness. The arched windows of the house watch you sleepily as Hoseok waves you out of the car.

You take a closer look at the exterior walls of the villa, slightly cracked from the many years that have passed and who knows how many stories to tell; beyond that there is also a wooden veranda running the entire south side of the house, with empty and abandoned terracotta pots. You take steps forward, intrigued by all you are allowed to see, and you also notice the presence of an orchard, also abandoned, that extends to the edge of the woods.

“Don't get any ideas, this is an isolated house that we use as a base,” mutters Hoseok, before muttering to himself, ' 'Cause of you we'll have to live there a lot longer.'

You stiffen.

Thanks to the natural beauty of that forgotten place, you are momentarily lost in your exploration, forgetting the presence of other Moondirians.

“Don't just stand there, you might get sick,” he blurts, grabbing you by the arm, realizing that a slightly too cold breeze is making you shiver, ”You're annoying as it is, don't make it worse with your physical weakness.”

He drags you to the large dark oak front door, pulling out a set of keys probably as old as the house. With a loud click, the door creaks open, showing the antiquated, but neat and tidy interior, as if someone had recently cleaned it up.

The smell of scented candles permeates the air, leaving you surprised given its appearance - you thought you smelled dust or mold, not baked apple and cinnamon. One glance at Hoseok's more relaxed expression and you realize that a Moondirian's sense of smell would not have liked that stench of an old and neglected house.

It's ridiculous to walk alongside him, carefully observing every dark corner of the house and lightly lit only by candles; it's like watching a lamb willingly flank a wolf. Creepy.

“Have a seat, the others will be here soon,” he points to the black velvet sofa, taking off his uniform jacket himself to place it on a coat rack. The cream-colored wallpaper with small stylized flowers whispers to you that the mansion probably belonged to an elderly but well-off human couple. Perhaps they lived humbly to remain in God's grace, but perhaps they died because of Moondir's wolves.

You sit cautiously on the sofa as Hoseok pours himself a glass of brandy without deigning to offer you any, not that you would accept that unlikely show of kindness.

“Why are you assigned to me?” you ask.

Hoseok strikes you as someone who prefers to give orders, not receive them.

“You mean because I carried you around here and there? I was the only one free, the others are busy with hunting, you know... finding males of your kind and torturing them a bit,” he explains easily, making your eyes widen.

“Uh... Dr. Smith also mentioned a doctor among you,” you have to make sure, Moondirian doctors seem much quieter and more sociable than soldiers, you have to be able to make friends with him if you want to live with some dignity.

Hoseok smiles slowly, a smile that does not reach his cold eyes, “Yes... he is in charge of treating the prisoners' wounds. They can't die while we're torturing them, they have to talk, and if they die before they do, they won't be of any use at all.”

He talks about such things with a monstrous calm, as if it were absolute and perfect normalcy.

“How can you sleep at night, thinking of all the people you've hurt?” you murmur without thinking of the consequences, trapped in a reality devoid of humanity.

Hoseok leans against the wall and crosses his legs, in a more comfortable and relaxed position. He dances the brandy in the glass slowly and cautiously, losing himself in its amber hues with an absorbed air.

“It's not hard, little flower... I think back on what I've been through and their lives automatically fade into the background,” he smiles foolishly, with a maddening shadow in his gaze, “You, on the other hand, should be grateful. You are still alive and not stuck in a tangle of bodies catching fire. Many would like to be in your place.”

Hoseok's eyes twinkle slightly, then he lifts them toward you, but not to look at you. He's looking at something behind you, and a shiver of creepiness coats your skin when something intangible brushes against your ear. It is not the wind. It is too warm and intimate, a sigh.

You get up from the sofa with a scream, Hoseok immediately grabs you preventing you from escaping, holding you tightly to his side with a real laugh this time.

The crash of the glass on the floor is just a miserable detail.

A man watches you, nonchalant. His amber eyes, deep and impenetrable, are framed by thick lashes that accentuate his dark gaze, as if traced by charcoal. They remind you with a shudder of Yoongi, but he is not. There is nothing that unites the two men, apart from the strange, bulky presence. The face, angelic in appearance, is distorted by a smug expression that clutches your stomach.

How many faces does the devil possess? Because he is probably the one in front of you.

“You weren't lying when you said she was as beautiful and fragile as a flower,” he smiles with the tip of a tooth sticking out, ”Who knows how many bastards she'll help us churn out before her petals fall off completely.”

“Hold back, Taehyung... I'm sure you know the rules, our guest has to learn a few things before she can satisfy us,” Hoseok snorts, feeling you trembling against him.

“I won't do anything too invasive, I promise,” insists the new diabolical being, Taehyung.

Your instincts lead you to do something very awkward. You hide behind Hoseok, as if by now your body has gotten used to using that wolf as a shield, deluding you with some kind of protection that doesn't really exist. You clutch the rough fabric of his uniform as if your very life depended on it, and Hoseok lets you do it, perhaps taking sadistic pleasure in seeing a prey taking refuge in her predator's embrace. You make him feel somehow chosen, something he will never admit to anyone.

“What's up with our little flower?” Taehyung asks, raising an eyebrow with amusement as he scans you from head to toe. His eyes linger on your form with an interest he doesn't try to hide. Although you are human, spending pleasant time with you will not be a disgusting experience, as he had assumed when he learned of your match. He just didn't expect that he would have to share you with his teammates as well.

“Please don't call me that,” you murmur hesitantly, finding that nickname ridiculous and embarrassing. It makes you feel like you are something useless in their eyes, nice to get but unimportant.

A flower, in fact.

“Oh, look at that, you made her angry!” Hoseok snickers, shaking his head at the other wolf. “Now apologize,” he adds with a mocking tone, grabbing your wrist with disconcerting familiarity.

Before you can even process what’s happening, he hurls you toward Taehyung.

The latter catches you mid-air, effortlessly.

“Don’t worry, I’ll apologize properly,” Taehyung murmurs, a flicker of excitement in his velvety voice. A boulder of terror plunges into your chest and a scream of anguish explodes in your throat.

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vortexonsaturn · 3 months ago

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House is an atheist. We know this. He tells us often, with bitterness and certainty. He rejects the idea of God, of souls, of cosmic meaning. He dissects faith like he dissects symptoms: a fragile delusion, beautiful maybe, but ultimately dangerous. For House, belief is the enemy of truth. Religion is a sedative for the desperate. He doesn’t believe in miracles—he performs them under fluorescent lights, scalpels, and sarcastic monologues.

And yet, the entire show is draped in religious imagery.

The irony is deliberate. The tension is constant. House, M.D. is not a show about religion, but it is deeply religious in structure and tone. It’s a modern-day gospel about suffering, sacrifice, and the endless question of whether redemption is possible for people who are fundamentally broken.

And at the heart of that contradiction—at the center of House’s reluctant, silent religion—is Wilson.

Wilson, the oncologist. The caregiver. The forgiver. The one person who doesn’t try to fix House, just stays. In House’s world of godless suffering and brutal honesty, Wilson becomes the impossible constant. A living parable. A symbol of grace. He is not just House’s friend—he is House’s church. The only place he returns to. The only place he trusts.

Despite everything he says, House believes in Wilson the way people believe in God—not in certainty, but in need. In faith. When everything else fails (medicine, logic, self-destruction) it’s Wilson’s presence that remains. Not because he proves anything, but because he chooses to stay.

Wilson is where House goes when nothing else makes sense.

And this is where Amber enters—because Amber is crucial to understanding the show’s theology.

Amber isn’t just Wilson’s girlfriend or a romantic foil. She’s a vessel. A sacrifice. A holy symbol burned into the center of House and Wilson’s dynamic. She represents the cost of belief. And her death is House’s Fall.

Amber is cast in religious imagery from the start—sharp and shining, dressed in clean lines, commanding presence. She’s the only woman who matches House in intellect, in stubbornness, in biting wit. But while House uses those qualities to alienate, Amber uses them to love. To claim. She chooses Wilson with a kind of divine certainty, and House both resents and envies it.

And then she dies—because House called her.

Because House, in a drug-fueled haze, reached out for Wilson and accidentally destroyed the one person Wilson loved most.

Amber becomes a martyr. She dies for House’s sin. The sin of needing Wilson, of being selfish, of reaching out without understanding the cost. Her death is sacrificial. She absorbs the consequences of House’s weakness. And it shatters Wilson’s faith. In House. In meaning. In everything.

But here’s the terrifying, beautiful part: even then, Wilson comes back.

Not immediately. Not easily. But he returns. He forgives. He chooses House again, knowing the damage he can cause.

And isn’t that what religion is, at its most painful?

The choice to return.

The choice to love something that hurts you.

The choice to find meaning, even in suffering.

From that point on, House is haunted—literally and metaphorically. Amber appears to him as a ghost. A judge. A reminder. Her presence during his Vicodin-fueled breakdowns is a vision, not unlike biblical visitations: accusatory, radiant, always asking questions he doesn’t want to answer. She becomes a conscience, a prophet of pain. Not just Wilson’s loss, but House’s guilt made flesh.

And House listens.

Because he believes her.

Because he believes in what she represents: that his actions matter. That pain has consequences. That love, once given, leaves an eternal mark.

That’s the thing. For all his denial, House’s life is shaped by faith—just not in any god he’ll name.

His god is Wilson.

His gospel is logic.

His demons are guilt, pain, and the memory of Amber in that white, frozen bus.

His sacraments are Vicodin.

His confessionals are sarcasm and silence.

His moments of worship are quiet, rare, and often happen when Wilson isn’t looking.

But it’s faith all the same.

When Wilson gets cancer, everything crashes again. This time, House can’t save him. There’s no diagnosis to solve, no miracle to pull from his bag of tricks. He is powerless. Human. And finally he understands the most terrifying truth of all: he can’t live in a world where Wilson doesn’t exist.

So he dies. Or pretends to.

He sets fire to his life. He lets everyone believe he’s gone. He chooses exile, isolation, and total obliteration of self—all so he can spend a few final months beside the man who has always been his moral center, his constant, his quiet divinity.

That’s not just friendship. That’s religion.

A god falls from the sky. A believer lays down his crown. A sinner chooses love over truth. A cynic learns how to pray—not with words, but with presence.

And isn’t that the most blasphemous, beautiful faith of all?

#gregory house #house md #james wilson #amber volakis #religious symbolism #theology in media #amber as martyr #toxic lowkey…#suffering as devotion #found faith #wilson as saint #amber haunting the god damn narrative #house md finale #i am feral and insane and found all my yaps in my notes

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makairodonx · 6 months ago

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Coming right around the Chinese New Year, top to bottom, are two highly scientifically-important dinosaurs hailing from the Aptian-aged (125-118 mya) Jiufotang Formation of China’s Liaoning Province:

Microraptor zhaoianus ranks alongside the late Jurassic Archaeopteryx and the closely-related Sinornithosaurus as one of the first theropod dinosaurs ever to have discovered with full feather and wing impressions. It measured about 80 cm (2.6ft) in length, had a wingspan of 99 cm (3.25 ft) and weighed about 1.25-1.88 kg, sported a uniquely black but iridescent plumage, and is the namesake of the Microraptoridae, a family of raven-sized dromaeosaurs that dominated the Jehol Biota of the Jiufotang and Yixian Formations and are particularly famous for sporting long flight feathers on both their legs and limbs. This “four-winged” configuration, which surprisingly resembles the hypothetical “Tetrapteryx” stage of bird evolution proposed by naturalist William Beebe in 1915, enabled Microraptor and its kin to glide from tree to tree in pursuit of small birds, lizards and mammals as well as achieving some sort of powered flight over short distances.

Psittacosaurus is a basal ceratopsian that is closer in phylogeny to creatures like Styracosaurus and Triceratops than to the more primitive Yinlong from the late Jurassic, and is one of the most well-preserved and best-studied genera of all non-avian dinosaurs. It reached the size of a pig or a retriever dog and lived throughout much of continental Eastern Asia 125-105 million years ago, and is known for having the most species described of any non-avian dinosaur, with 12 different species ranging from as far north as Siberia to as far south as Thailand. Two of these species were both found in the Jiufotang Formation - P.melieyingensis and P.mongoliensis, the type species which measured up to 2 meters (6.2 ft) long and weighed about 80 kg (44 lb). Psittacosaurus had highly-developed senses of smell and vision, a pair of protruding jugal (cheek) bones that were possibly used for display, and was active for short periods at day or night. Psittacosaurus also possessed self-sharpening teeth that were used for cropping and slicing tough plants, and unlike future ceratopsians, it lacked teeth for chewing and grinding food and thus used gastroliths (which would have been stored in a gizzard similar to those of modern birds) to wear down the leaves and bark that it ate as it passed through the digestive system. Psittacosaurus is also unique among ceratopsians for having a large, well-proportioned brain. This indicates that the dinosaur was capable of doing a wide range of complex social behaviors such as bird-like sleeping, nest-building and parental care. This is perhaps true with possible instances of overburdened Psittacosaurus parents brining in a nanny or another guardian to take care of large nests of more than a dozen hatchlings, as evidenced of fossils of adolescent females preserved with several hatchlings together. The Psittacosaurus of the Jiufotang Formation shared their temperate forest habitat with the basal ankylosaur Chuanqilong, several genera and species of paravians and pterosaurs, a large titanosaur, and the 10-meter-long Yutyrannus relative Sinotyrannus, and Psittacosaur hatchlings and occasionally adults were also preyed upon by the large, badger-like mammal Repenomamus. One fossil Psittacosaurus specimen that is on display at a German museum (SMF R 4970) preserves the scales, colors and integument that the living animal would have had, and they indicate that the particular Psittacosaurus had a counter-shaded reddish brown and beige pattern that was blurrier and less-defined compared to the striking orange-and-white colors of Sinosauropteryx (which was suited for a lifestyle of foraging in open areas) and was therefore useful for camouflaging the Psittacosaurus in the woods. The specimen also possessed a strange crest of yellow, keratinized, bristle-like structures protruding from the base of its tail that were quite similar to the thin, filamentous structures found on the heterodontosaurid Tianyulong, which also possibly indicates that feather-like structures or proto-feathers may have appeared early in the evolutionary history of the dinosaurs and were soon lost in the evolution of some dinosaur groups or retained in some form in the evolution of others.

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leilasletters · 10 days ago

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Kiss Me, Kill Me

🏈Jason Todd X Fem!reader📖

bad boy x smarter girl | detention glances & rooftop secrets | don’t fall for him, don’t fall for him, don’t—"he kissed her like a dare. she kissed him like it was the last mistake she'd ever make. and neither of them stopped."

Masterlist

chapter 2

Your rule is simple:

If a boy has nice arms, a cocky grin, and a reputation for self-destruction, you walk away.

Or, more accurately:

You run.

And Jason Todd checks every single box.

So it makes absolutely no sense why, when you hear his voice behind you in the hallway—low, teasing, just this side of arrogant—you don’t immediately flee like you’re allergic to hot people.

“Hey, brainiac,” he drawls. “Wanna grab lunch? I’ll let you school me on feminist theory.”

You turn slowly, unimpressed. “I don’t eat with people who use ‘feminist’ like it’s a dare.”

Jason grins, all teeth and danger. “C’mon. I’m a fast learner.”

“Of what?” you ask, “Manipulation? Ego? How to weaponize cologne?”

He laughs. “You keep talking to me like this, I’m gonna start thinking you like me.”

You cross your arms. “I talk to everyone like this. You’re just too self-absorbed to notice.”

Later, you sit with your legs up on a courtyard bench, sipping iced coffee and pretending not to replay the conversation. The sun’s out, the air smells like chalk dust and cheap perfume, and you’re trying so hard not to wonder what it’d feel like to kiss someone like Jason Todd.

Big hands. Bigger mouth. Idiot charm.

It’d be like setting yourself on fire for fun.

He doesn’t deserve your attention. Not when there’s a bet hanging over your head. Not when the whole school whispers about how he only got interested after someone dared him.

You don’t do bets.

You don’t do boys who think they can win you.

And you definitely don’t do the smirky kind who lean against lockers like they’re posing for a Calvin Klein ad.

But Jason keeps doing it anyway. And worse? It’s working.

You try ignoring him.

Doesn’t work.

You try intimidating him with knowledge. (“Did you know the entire structure of modern romance was designed to keep women emotionally dependent on men?”)

He just nods and goes, “Yeah, but I still wanna take you to the rooftop and listen to Talking Heads with you.”

You try calling him out in front of everyone. (“What, Jason, run out of cheerleaders willing to fake-laugh at your jokes?”)

He just winks and says, “They don’t bite like you do.”

It’s infuriating.

He’s relentless. You’re sarcastic. He shows up at your debate club meeting for fun.

You leave a copy of The Second Sex in his locker with a sticky note:

Try reading something written by a woman for once.

He reads it.

Tells you it “fucked him up a little.”

You wish you weren’t impressed.

What you don’t know: Jason didn’t mean for the bet to matter.

It started stupid. Someone rich and bored (probably that jackass Luke from the swim team) said something like, “Bet you can’t even get her number.”

Jason had shrugged. “Bet I can make her fall in love.”

Everyone laughed.

Except him.

Because Jason doesn’t do feelings, not really. Not since Gotham chewed him up and spat him out. But you? You made him feel something the second you rolled your eyes and told him to read a real book.

And yeah, maybe it was a joke at first.

But then he saw the way you sit in class, eyebrows drawn, tearing apart every assigned text like the world depends on your clarity. He saw how you walk with your head high, how you eviscerate guys twice your size in debates and never apologize.

You’re fire. And he’s never wanted to get burned more in his life.

One night, he corners you after a student council meeting. You’re annoyed. He’s cocky. The janitor’s locking up, the hallway lights flicker low, and your backpack is heavy with AP government textbooks.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he says.

You snort. “Maybe I’ve been existing peacefully without testosterone poisoning.”

Jason steps closer. Not too close. Just enough that you have to tilt your head to look at him.

“You really hate me, huh?” he says softly.

You blink.

Because for the first time, his voice doesn’t sound like a joke. There’s something behind it—almost like insecurity. Like he wants you to say no.

But you’re you.

So instead, you say, “I don’t hate you. I just don’t trust you.”

Jason nods, tongue in cheek. “Fair.”

He starts to walk off—but pauses.

“I’m not doing this for the bet anymore,” he says over his shoulder.

You freeze.

He doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t wait for a reaction. Just disappears down the hallway, leaving you alone with a heart that suddenly feels too big in your chest.

You don’t sleep that night.

You Google him. Read too much between the lines of his troubled past. You find a photo of him smiling before the world broke him. And damn it, he looked soft.

You hate soft.

You hate vulnerable.

And you hate that the thought of Jason Todd falling for you doesn’t sound nearly as funny as it did two weeks ago.

to be continued....

[ ➤ taglist: @reagan707 @lassoinyourlap @ravenna-rvnclw ]

#jason todd x y/n #jason todd x fem!reader #jason todd x you #jason todd x reader #jason todd #romcom #enemies to lovers #comedy #dc imagine #dc fanfic #dcu #lovers #bad boy x good girl #batboys #red hood #red hood x reader #red hood x you #red hood x y/n

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anim-ttrpgs · 7 months ago

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Thoughts on "Monster Hunters" in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

I’m planning to flesh out some of the info and themes in the Eureka rulebook about monster hunters, so I’m turning these thoughts into a proper post.

Where there’s monsters in modern fantasy, there’s monster hunters. It’s not actually quite that old of a trope, and often gets applied retroactively, (See: van Helsing just brings some guy who has read a lot about vampires in the original Dracula novel, but getting portrayed as a badass vampire hunting specialist in so many subsequent iterations) but whatever the case, the concept of a monster-hunting specialist will find its way into just about any setting with monsters.

These may many forms across different media.

Sometimes they’re for-hire almost like exterminators, sometimes they’re on the payroll of a secret government agency or a secret branch of The Church, sometimes they just do it because no one else will.

Sometimes they’re the good guys, vigilantes striking out against monsters that represent oppressive power structures, invading forces, dangerous problems that those in power turn a blind eye to, etc.

Sometimes they’re the bad guys, religious fanatics or government secret police who relentlessly pursue monsters representing some misunderstood, marginalized, and innocent group.

Sometimes they’re “one of the good ones,” hunting their own kind as a form of atonement.

Well, in Eureka, there is no global secret society run by monsters, nor a global secret society, government branch, or branch of the Church suppressing monsters.

Monsters are both a largely unknown - and legitimately dangerous - phenomenon to the general public, and yet still otherwise “normal” people with their own lives and problems. Read these posts for more on that subject.

If these are the monsters in Eureka, then who are the monster hunters? What kind of person becomes a self-described “monster hunter” in this context? Probably not a very good one. Now don’t get me wrong, monsters are very dangerous, but they also are so exceptionally rare that most monsters will have never met anyone else like them in their entire lives. Most people will never even unknowingly walk past one on the street.

So, first of all, to even believe that these monsters are out there and striking with such frequency that you could reasonably “hunt” them, you already have to be a little bit of a crackpot.

Now, there are dangerous people out there in Eureka and in real life. This is a work of art that strongly believes in the right to self-defense and ownership of the means of self-defense. What else are you going to do, rely on the police?

But for a self-described “monster hunter” in Eureka, this danger is not something they’re simply wary of and prepared for, it is something that, conscious or not, excites them. This isn’t “carries a gun just in case of the unlikely event of an attack” kind of “self-defense,” this is “drive three states over to a protest to make sure something happens” kind of “self-defense.” This is “hoping for any excuse and opportunity to rid society of undesirables from ‘the streets’ through violence” kind of “self-defense.”

And, in a world where monsters are so rare and also so hard to distinguish from normal people as in Eureka, what does “monster hunting” even look like? Well, it ain’t a good look. It means hypervigilantly scouring everyone you meet for any abnormality or sign of deviant or “dangerous” behavior. Then, when you’ve got what might be a hit, invade their privacy, stalk them, watch their every move for more evidence of the danger you know is there. Then, once they raise enough red flags, and you’ve got an opportunity, you attempt to destroy them.

Obviously most of these “monsters” are false positives, there just aren’t that many actual monsters out there, and their “tells” can often be identical to the behaviors of people who just don’t fit in with normal society for whatever other reason, and might even be huge assholes, but are ultimately not capable of causing much harm, if any.

Most “monster hunters” will have never encountered a single real monster, and if they ever did, they would probably be out of their depth, but they pat themselves on the back for their hard work keeping the community safe all the same. After all, a normal mortal who already has a stake through their heart can’t explain that they always ask to be invited in because they have OCD or anxiety. (And why should they even have to? Because you imagined they might be a vampire? Seriously?)

I don’t think most of you reading this carry guns IRL so I’m going to bring it a bit closer to home. In more online spaces, these are the same kind of people who start compiling “evidence” for callout posts as soon as they get a “bad vibe” from someone, or somebody is rude to or disagrees with them. It’s the same MO. Scan everyone for the slightest evidence “problematic” behavior, start stalking them and invading their privacy once you’ve got a hit, then move in to destroy.

Who cares if you stretch the truth a little bit? You know in your mind they’re problematic, so it’s up to you to protect the community from them by any means necessary, even lying, otherwise people might not take it seriously enough!

This is called "relational aggression" or "relational violence," by the way.

“But what about the real monsters who really eat people? Doesn’t somebody need to do something about them?”

Well, yes and no. It’s complicated, just like in real life. The posts I linked above explain the comparison between Eureka monsters and disabled people, with the fact that monsters eat people representing how disabled people can often eat up time, energy, and resources of those around them whether they like it or not. Some of them would be less of an issue if societal structures changed, others would not, and even within different categories of monster it’s pretty case-by-case. As much as these man-eating monsters have a right to life, the people they eat have a right to defend themselves from monster attacks. I don’t pretend to have the perfect solution to disability or to Eureka monsters, exploring the nuance therein is one of the things the game is about, but I do know that “we need to weed out and exterminate all people with harmful or burdensome needs for the good of society”, well, that ain’t it chief.

Be safe, be wary, but don’t be a monster hunter. Don’t go picking fights, don’t assume it’s your duty to cyberstalk and ostracize people whose backgrounds or behaviors are “suspicious” or less than squeaky clean, and do be skeptical of callout posts and related tools of ostracization. For every one legitimately, maliciously harmful person out there, there are a hundred more who are on the receiving end of this kind of treatment because they were an asshole to the wrong person, or because they caused a scene on a train car.

A self-righteous monster hunter is every bit as dangerous as the monsters they claim to hunt.

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