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fans4wga · 10 months

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26 July update from WGA's Chris Keyser

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From the WGA: With SAG-AFTRA now on strike and new levels of solidarity across all Hollywood unions, we are witnessing the spectacular failure of the AMPTP’s negotiating strategy. In this video, WGA Negotiating Committee Co-Chair Chris Keyser lays out what this moment means and how we move forward. To learn more about the WGA strike, visit https://www.wgastrike.org.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Fellow members of the WGA East and West. It's been a while since our last video and quite a bit has happened in the meantime. So on behalf of the negotiating committee and leadership, I wanted to give you an update on where we are and what the near future at least is likely to bring.

We've been walking side by side on picket lines in New York and Los Angeles for a little over 12 weeks now. Only now we're joined by thousands upon thousands of members of SAG-AFTRA who, like us, have finally had enough.

This is the endpoint and the fruit of the AMPTP’s game plan. For 11 weeks, they negotiated with everyone but us. They claimed it was just practicality, that they could only do one thing at a time, which is not normally a point of pride. But events have made clear what we knew from the start: that not only was it a strategy, it was their only strategy. Negotiate a deal with a single guild and impose that deal on every other guild and union in Hollywood, whether it addresses the needs of those unions or not, all with the implicit threat: if you want more, strike for it.

Wow. It’s their 2007-8 playbook applied to 2023 as if nothing has changed, as if the accumulation of economic insults and injuries inflicted on us over the past decade would be borne in perpetual silence, as if the giant of labor had not awakened. But it has. And you only need to look as far as the front gates of every studio in LA and New York to see the evidence.

Two unions on strike willing to exercise their power, despite the pain, to ensure their members get the contract they deserve. For us, that means addressing the relentless mistreatment of screenwriters, which has only been exacerbated by the move to streaming; the continued denial of full MBA protection to comedy variety and other appendix A writers when they work in streaming; and the self-destructive unsustainable dismantling of the process by which episodic television is made and episodic television writers are paid.

It means addressing the existential threat of AI and the insufficiency of streaming residual formulas, including the need for transparency and a success-based component. All of these will need to be addressed for there to be a deal because in this strike it is our power and not their pattern that matters, not their strategy. Their strategy has failed them. Now they're in the midst of a streaming war with each other, an admittedly difficult transition. And as they face the future, their interests and business models could not be more different from Disney to Sony to Netflix to Amazon.

We root for their success, all of them. They root for each other's failure. We are the creative ammunition through which they will succeed. They are each other's apex predators. And yet, in a singular shared dedication to denying labor, they have shackled themselves together in what increasingly seems like a mutual suicide pact, as the 2023-24 broadcast season and the 2024-25 movie schedule and its streaming shows disappear, melt away week by week.

So what does this mean? What does it mean going forward? How do you play chess against an opponent who insists on screaming checkmate at every move regardless of how the board looks and the game is going?

You stay firm, you stay resolved, because our cause is no less existential than when we started and our leverage is increasing every day. Alone we withheld our labor with the support of our union siblings and the Teamsters and IATSE and the Crafts, we were able to delay the vast majority of production. Now with SAG-AFTRA on strike, those few studio projects that remained have also shut down. And it's not just the obvious delays. If this strike drags on, it's the actors with conflicting obligations and the directors and the double-booked studio facilities and release date chaos that the companies must now also contend with. Some of their most valuable product could well be delayed for years.

Add to that, no promotion of movies or television shows and famous faces on the picket lines and social media speaking directly to their customers. For the tech companies and the mega corporations, that should be their nightmare scenario: WGA and SAG-AFTRA side by side. Our bargaining agenda may not be identical, but our cause is the same. Our army of labor, defending labor has increased 17-fold in the past two weeks alone.

Even so, even with all this wind at our backs this negotiation won't happen overnight. It's not because the negotiations themselves are so complex. Once the companies fully engage, it could go very quickly, but because their strategy of many decades has just fallen apart and they didn't see it coming, and it's going to take them a minute to regroup, 'cause the companies have things to work out internally, and saying no to labor in unison is a lot easier than saying yes. So either together or separately, as their divergent interests might suggest, they will come back to us, despite their understandable concern about how they've navigated this transition to streaming, which is on their heads and not ours; and their worries about costs and their worries about Wall Street; despite this being a season of doom and gloom, none of them are walking away from the riches of this business, and certainly not over the equitable minimum compensation to writers.

They didn't get the deal they wanted; that's fine, it happens all the time. They're not taking their ball and going home over it. And since we know they come from union families themselves, and since they've denied that “even-in-Hollywood-you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me” ugliness of threatening to starve us out and leave us homeless (which we assume they understand also means making our children homeless,) they will come back to us. Although I will say they took a long time to deny that statement, longer than I would have had it been ascribed to me.

But what does it matter? You can starve a labor force slowly or quickly. The effect is the same. It's not like day rates for comedy variety writers and endless free drafts for screenwriters in exchange for a single paid one in four-week mini-rooms isn't cruelty. It's just cruelty written in contract language instead of a press quote.

So what can we expect from the companies as all of this plays itself out? They will try to convince Wall Street that taking a strike, prolonging it unnecessarily, losing their content stream in the process—that all of that is just smart business and no reason for investor concern. We will be talking to Wall Street too, and reminding them that for all these companies, all of 'em including Netflix, the bill, the price for making nothing, will eventually come due. And Wall Street is listening already. Here's Michael Pachter, managing director of equity research at Wedbush on Yahoo Finance the other day: “I think the studios are completely wrong on this one. Content is their lifeblood. They're feeling really foolish about this."

Wall Street isn't the only one listening. We've been talking to union pension funds too about the risks the companies are taking. We talked to CalPERS, the largest public pension plan in the country, talked about the loss of programming and the cost to the industry, and we heard strong support from its board for our struggle and the promise that the companies will be hearing from them, from CalPERS, and demanding answers on behalf of its 2 million members.

To us, of course, they will continue to plead temporary poverty, but we know the drill. These companies support billions into the streaming wars and taken short-term losses these past three years, because they know that to the winner will go the spoils. We're patient, will they share that with us when the time comes? What are the chances?

Since 2017, the last time the studios negotiated with us outside of COVID, the big six companies alone have made $150 billion in profits off our work, while they slashed our pay and degraded our working conditions. Maybe if they had shared a tiny piece of that then, made $1 billion or so less, this year wouldn't seem so costly. As it is, there is no iron law that these companies are entitled to record profits every year, and it isn't some great travesty if their shareholders or their CEOs get a slightly smaller slice of the massive profits we helped create if some balance is restored.

Look, no one denies that corporations exist to make a profit and no one wants our employers to be profitable more than we do, but the singular pursuit of corporate profits to the exclusion of their social and human cost is a real problem in this country—it’s a real problem. A corporation's bottom line is not the same as the world’s, and there is nothing in our studio's bottom lines today that accounts for the quality of our lives or for our dignity, for the comfort of our retirement or the security of our families. Their numbers have no conscience, but the people who report them as victories ought to.

In their refusal to recognize that, these companies have also extracted an awful price, which is laid at their feet and for which they are responsible. Losses to the economies of New York and Los Angeles and everywhere that film and television are made, terrible losses that mount every day, thousands of people out of work; not just us, all the crews, the crafts, the janitors, the drivers, the businesses that thrive when Hollywood thrives, the restaurants, the stores—for what? For nothing. So they could avoid coming to the table to negotiate the deal they will one day give us. Measured today that is the painfully mixed legacy of our employers, weighed against every beautiful piece of work we have made with them.

And if history is a guide, they have only temporary stewardship over a kind of national trust, which is Hollywood. Our story, our sometimes conscience, our public conversation, our diversion of the worst and best of times, our greatest export, the repository of our imagination. They have some obligation to more than just their shareholders to behave accordingly.

Unfortunately, it seems big tech, mega corporations, and some of the people who run them, as the saying goes know the price of everything and the value of nothing. So they have built a business model that no longer works for human beings who cannot be paid minimum for 10 to 20 weeks a year and make a career out of that, be paid for one draft of a screenplay that demands a year of labor, be paid a few episodic fees for a show about which to take years to decide be paid a daily rate.

And now we have a first glimpse of what they offered our actor colleagues. We are not 170,000 Willy Lomans to be used and then discarded. We know what the companies believe they have the power to do. We know what they think machines can do and do without any of us. Oh yeah, we've seen the writing on the wall and it's plagiarized.

The thing is this: the difference between what you CAN do and what you SHOULD do is the greatest single difference in the world. Knowing that is the only real protection we have against a dystopian future. And if the companies sometimes forget that, writers will do it for them.

I can't know exactly how long it will take this revolutionary moment, and you've heard again and again what is happening today has not happened in 63 years, but I know that's not always how it feels, revolutionary and defining, even though we celebrate that on picket lines together, which is the right thing to do. That's not always how it feels when you go home at night. I know how tough this is: to strike, to hold the line. I know it gets tougher every day even with SAG-AFTRA marching beside us, how hard it is to face the uncertainty of when it will end, when we'll get back to work, how we'll pay the bills. I know it's hardest for those who've just gotten started, for those for whom the world opens doors more reluctantly, battled their whole life just to get here; but hard too for those struggling to maintain their long careers, who find work tougher and tougher to come by, or those with families with children or parents to take care of.

These companies understand the cruelty of what they're doing. It's their plan to starve us just a little, to exact as much pain as they can so that we wish more for the pain to end than for the better life we dreamed up. That we're more afraid of the uncertainty of the present than the certain devastation of the future. It's societally acceptable economic torture inflicted by management on labor every day, then blamed on labor for daring to fight back, for refusing to be complicit in its own mistreatment.

Here's how I know that's not going to work. Not with us, not with the writers, because we haven't come all this way, fought to have these careers in the first place, all the adversity, and marched together for all these months, only to let it slip away on our watch—because there is no point in rushing back to jobs that may not be there in a year or two anyway. Because the business, as the companies have twisted it, is now untenable, unsurvivable for so many of us, because even success is not enough to keep going, because this guild is younger than it's ever been and more diverse. And this young diverse membership knows from hard personal experience the system is broken and that it will not be fixed unless they fix it. And those of us who came before them will not let them down, because we and the writer's guild are the beneficiaries of all those who came before us who gave up everything for us.

Like the writers of 1960, the year I was born, who struck for 22 weeks and who gave away all the TV residuals for all the movies they had ever written so that we could have a health insurance and pension plan and residuals from that date forward. $15 billion flowed to writers and their benefit plans because of that sacrifice. Because writers are brave, because now it's our turn.

So what's our job? Even as we welcome SAG-AFTRA to our side, we are still responsible for our own deal, and so we must remain focused and diligent. We must continue to march, picket signs in hand. But we should also remember this and with pride, that before there was SAG-AFTRA, before even the Teamsters and IATSE and the laborers and the electrical workers and the musicians and the plasterers came to our side, there was the writers. Alone then, we looked at the blank page and began to imagine the future. With no net but each other we typed the words, what if?

And then we took a step into the darkness and found that it was light. And then we were joined by the crews and the drivers and the actors. The actors got a bit more fanfare when they showed up, but that's okay, we wrote the script. The WGA, still small, not alone anymore after all these decades. Hollywood labor has finally linked arms and found its voice, and that voice says enough. There is no road to longterm prosperity that burns a path through your own workforce. We are not your enemies. We are not merely a cost to be borne. We are your partners and your greatest asset. And we are, as you acknowledge yourselves, irreplaceable, but by accident or design and it doesn't really matter anymore, the business you are running no longer works for those who work for you.

What is the point in continuing to deny that? Why deny it when everyone else in the business to a person tells you it's true? Do you think it's a coincidence that two unions are on strike against you for the first time since Eisenhower was president? You can't exactly accuse us of being quick on the trigger. The effect has a cause, it has a cause. And there is no profit in insisting on the answers to the past for the questions of the future.

But if you want instead to invest in something that will reap you fortunes, I have a tip. And if you are visionaries, envision a solution, not a stalemate. Because this isn't a war we're in, it's a negotiation, it's just a negotiation. There is no face-saving here for either side, because there is no winner or loser. It's just a deal. And when you come to remember that again we will be here as we have been here all along.

And at this point with 170,000 writers and actors aligned against your intransigence, that is as generous as I can be, as close to an olive branch as I can offer. But if you insist instead on the same threatening rhetoric, on saying you would rather starve us than pay us, I would remind you of this: You are fighting for a dollar, we are fighting for survival. We are fighting for our home: writing is where we live, and we will defend that home with a bravery and stamina and ferocity that you will come to understand someday, which is why you cannot break us. You cannot outlast us, you cannot.

And not just because we have the will, because we have power. Nothing in this business happens until we start to write. And we will not start to write until we are paid.

Union now. Union forever.

#sag-aftra strike #sag strike #actors strike #union solidarity #i stand with the wga #wga strong #wga solidarity #fans4wga #Youtube #wga strike #writers strike

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gureumz · 1 year

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project aphrodite

rating: explicit

member: jungwon

premise: in a post-apocalyptic world, you and jungwon are excellent scientists and are at the relative top of the list of people who are ideal parents for the next generation of this dying world. it's now your job to repopulate this earth so you ask your co-worker to pretty please knock you up.

notes: sci-fi elements, dystopian au, scientist!reader, scientist!jungwon, fem-bodied reader, reader is referred to as a woman, dom!jungwon, breeding, impreg kink (like heavily), dirty talk, platonic (?) breeding, co-workers with benefits (?), idk this is kinda speculative fiction but also suspend your disbelief a bit lol

a/n: first of my 1k follower special! not quite sure what order i'm following here but i hope you stay for the ride nonetheless! enjoy!

it's a strange feeling.

in your line of work, 'strange' is hardly any cause for concern. as a biologist with a concentration in genetics, you've seen all the ways nature does its job. from the familiar concepts almost all people learn about in science class like the basic 'mom-meets-dad-equals-baby' to the eerie methods organisms in the deep sea evolve to survive.

you've learned about it all, pored over each punnett square, stressed over the formulas. so, this shouldn't be anything to worry about.

and yet, you're still worried.

"i mean...what did we expect?" jay speaks up from beside you, eyeing the phone in his hand.

"we're presently some of the world's most brilliant minds so...," he adds, locking his phone before hunching over his desk. to your ears, it sounds as if he's trying to convince himself rather than you.

you scan over the document flashed on your own laptop screen. the harsh fluorescent lights overhead buzz nonstop, going on and on, a background hum all of you in the bunker have grown used to. at this moment, it lulls you into a daydream, vision swimming as you repeat the words in your head.

all government personnel with a status level 7 and higher are recommended to partake in project aphrodite. those falling under level 10 are strictly required. participation at this level is compulsory.

common citizens with a status of 9 to 10 are also required to participate. ample compensation for those successful will be provided.

"you're a level 8. it's not as if you have to," you mutter, fingers digging into your temples.

jay snickers. "how many level 10 government personnel are there in this ruined world? a few hundred or so doctors, another few hundred scientists, even fewer world leaders. that's not taking into account the difference in sex. my information's not up to date but last time i checked, there is a hell of a lot more men than there are women. it's a shitshow waiting to happen."

you turn to meet jay's eyes, not meaning to convey any certain emotion, but the way jay's expression falls leads you to believe that you look way more upset than you're letting on.

"oh shit, yeah," jay curses. "you're a level 10. i forgot."

you sigh, tilting your head back against the headrest of your seat.

"i'm sure they'll release more regulation soon," you begin. "this is just the initial memo. with our world hanging in the balance as it is, no one's gonna let this devolve into some patriarchal anarchy, i hope."

"yeah, of course," you hear jay agree. "most of the proponents of project aphrodite are women, anyway, so i'm sure they'll take extra measures to keep you safe."

you sit up straight, looking at jay once more. "this is the world, huh?"

you and jay pause before sharing a quick chuckle.

"'go make babies, or else,'" you say in a mock radio announcer voice. jay lets out a laugh, his voice echoing off the empty office walls.

the two of you fall into silence, as if retreating to your respective thoughts. all that's in your mind at this moment is your current project, the very thing the few people more powerful than you had assigned for you to do: leading your team in stopping that godforsaken virus ravaging the outside. you've been making steady progress so far, but with the weight of this new responsibility, you're not sure if you could keep the momentum up.

you realize with a passing thought that most of the scientists on your team are level 9s and 10s.

"well," you begin before you could stop yourself. you're suddenly overcome with a feeling of suffocation, the office space seemingly too small and continuously growing even smaller.

"i hope you find someone you'd like to procreate with," you say lightly, pushing yourself off your chair. you quickly gather your things: folders and binders and other loose papers in your arms.

you catch jay looking at you, a pensive look on his face. you stop as you're grabbing your reusable coffee jug.

"no," you deadpan. "not me."

jay's eyes widen, as if realizing he'd said something without really saying anything.

"i—no, wait—i mean...," jay stutters, ears quickly turning red.

you smile, patting jay's shoulder reassuringly. "in case you were thinking about it."

jay's mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water and you can't help but laugh.

"these are desperate times, but i'm hoping it's not too desperate," you add. without waiting for a response, you turn towards the door, already making your way to it.

"besides, dr. isa lee seems more your type," you say over your shoulder one last time before pushing the door open and stepping out into the hallway.

---

"hey."

you look up from the microscope, tearing your attention away from the specimen you were examining. your eyes readjust to their normal focal length as a tall figure enters the lab, perfectly crisp white coat hanging off his broad shoulders, thin-wired spectacles resting on the bridge of his tall, straight nose. your lips feel strangely parched as he makes direct eye contact with you and you're left with no choice but to moisten them with your tongue.

"oh hi, dr. yang."

the other scientist chuckles, setting down a stack of papers on a desk in the corner. "i've been here for three weeks. please, call me jungwon."

you swallow. "right. jungwon."

dr. jungwon yang was a new import from the seoul bunker, having come to your own area's bunker merely a few weeks prior. he was immediately put under your supervision, an addition to your already elite team of biologists, geneticists, and virologists. off the bat, you could tell he was a man of many talents, coming up with unconventional solutions and arriving at answers quicker than anyone else.

his presence in your lab made your heart swell. in pride, adoration, or desire, you're not quite sure.

"uh, yesterday's results are in that binder over there, in case you want to go over them," you begin. jungwon walks over to your side of the long table, peering over the slide loaded into the microscope.

ignoring the way he brushes ever so slightly against you, you continue. "the director's dropping by later this afternoon, but i wouldn't be too bothered with that. he's just looking for someone to blame for the slow progress at this point. if only they could get us those materials we asked for..."

"have you read the memo?" jungwon asks abruptly, straightening up. he towers over you, his eyes downcast as he stares at your face.

"of course, you've read the memo," jungwon corrects himself, chuckling. "what i meant was...what do you think of it?"

"it's a government-issued memo, it hardly matters what i think," you respond, focusing back on your work in front of you, although all you do is stare blankly at the moving microorganisms, mind unfocused with how much of jungwon's perfume you can smell.

"it's your reproductive health that's on the line. i'm pretty sure your opinion counts for something," jungwon says with a pinch in between his eyebrows.

oh, a feminist. that's even hotter.

"okay, yeah. i appreciate the new guidelines they put out," you admit, looking back up at jungwon. "though it's the bare minimum, i'm glad they're letting us keep the autonomy of choosing who to...boink."

jungwon laughs at that.

"and free fertility drugs for anyone who wants or needs it. oh, also, thank god they didn't have the brilliant idea of putting a time limit on it. having read some crazy speculative fiction myself, the things people are willing to do in fiction are crazy. who's to say they can't do the same in real life?" you continue.

you don't notice the way jungwon's smirk grows as he listens.

"kind of makes the whole thing unsexy, don't you think?" jungwon cuts in, raising an eyebrow. you blink, unsure of what he's talking about.

"i'm surprised they're not monitoring us with cameras and hooking us up to EKGs and shit," he adds.

"oh," you say with a soft giggle, finally catching on. "i'm sure some people are into being watched."

"are you?" jungwon asks.

"am i what?" you answer.

"into being watched."

a pause.

you shake your head. "how about you?"

"oh no," jungwon says. "i prefer to keep what's mine for my eyes only."

"hm. possessive. that's kind of sexy," you mumble under your breath, a sudden surge of confidence coursing through you.

jungwon just stares at you, but you can see his pupils dance in amusement, taking in your whole face and all your features. you might have imagined it but he seemed to have peeked down at your chest for a second.

"do you think it's attractive for someone to be into lego-building? or at least, used to be into it. i'd give an arm and a leg for a complete lego set nowadays," jungwon asks, leaning against the table, and only now do you notice the veins running over the back of his hands.

you think about whether his arms are just as veiny.

"do you think it's a good trait to pass on an offspring? lego-building, i mean," he presses on.

"uh, yeah. good problem-solving skills," you answer, humoring his question.

jungwon nods. "do you think leadership skills are important?"

you smile, leaning against the cabinet opposite jungwon. you nudge his foot lightly. "i lead a team of scientists myself. of course, i think leadership skills are important."

"you and i both," jungwon agrees.

jungwon shifts, placing his hands in the pockets of his lab coat.

"how about dimples? do you think dimples are cute?" jungwon asks once more, one corner of his mouth upturned. a deep crease on his cheek appears.

a dimple.

"very," you admit.

"i see."

there's a silence that stretches over the two of you, and the weight of uncertainty is daunting as you stare at a spot on jungwon's tie. finally, after a few seconds, you heave a sigh, unable to take the tension any longer.

"this is the weirdest way anyone has ever flirted with me," you declare, looking up at jungwon through your lashes. he's grinning and you nearly shiver at how utterly attractive you're finding him at this moment.

"but it's effective," jungwon says. that was a statement, not a question.

you tilt your head to the side. "how do you know?"

"because you would have blown me off two minutes ago if it wasn't," jungwon reasons, crossing his arms. by doing this, he just made himself appear even wider than he is.

"always so calculated," you say, impressed.

you stretch your neck, easing your head from side to side, watching as jungwon fixes his gaze on the taut tendons of your neck. "are you also this precise in bed, dr. yang?"

jungwon approaches, a large hand resting on your hip. "that's for you to find out."

your breath hitches as you feel his thumb rub through the fabric of your skirt.

"later?" he asks.

"my place or yours?" you reply, fingertips grazing the front of his polo. you can just about feel the slope and ridges of his toned muscles.

"i'd like to be a gentleman, so mine," jungwon offers. "i'll walk you back to your room after."

"i was kind of hoping i wouldn't need to walk back after," you say, a hint of teasing in your voice.

"is that a challenge?" jungwon says, his other hand pressing firmly on your lower back. he pulls you to him and your hands involuntarily reach out towards his shoulders to steady yourself.

a few seconds pass before any of you speak again.

"that's for you to find out," you say.

---

"kind of weird, isn't it?" jungwon asks, panting against your neck.

your back is pressed firmly against one wall of his sleeping quarters, a wide, loft-like room, similar to yours. a luxury offered only to level 10 government personnel, the room gives its occupants enough space and enough privacy.

and boy, did you need privacy.

"what's weird?" you say breathily, fingers threading through jungwon's hair as he kisses down the column of your neck. his fingers nimbly undo the buttons of your blouse and you whimper when you feel him lick at the valley between your breasts.

"coming up to coworkers or friends then asking them to reproduce with you," jungwon responds, tugging your blouse off of your shoulders.

(you both held enough respect for the institution that employed you both, so your work lab coats were neatly thrown over the back of jungwon's couch before anything got too frisky.)

"see, it's the way you say it that makes it weird," you giggle. you pull jungwon back up to your face, kissing him fervently, tongue licking into his mouth.

"oh yeah? how would you say it?" jungwon challenges as he pulls away slightly, his nose grazing your cheek. he licks a stripe on the underside of your jaw.

"please, jungwon," you whimper, playing up the whine in your voice just a little bit. "need you to knock me up. make me pregnant, please."

jungwon grunts in your ear, reaching behind you to rip the zipper of your skirt down. you let the fabric fall to the floor, stepping out of it quickly, revealing the matching red lace panties you had in tandem with your bra.

"yeah? want me to cum inside you so many times that there won't even be the tiniest chance that you're not pregnant?" jungwon says lowly, kneading one of your boobs in his hands.

you nod, hooking a leg around jungwon's hip, pushing your core right up against the bulge in his pants.

"yes," you breathe out, dragging your clothed pussy over his straining cock. "let's be good citizens and have a whole bunch of kids, yeah?"

jungwon chuckles, hands hurriedly working on his belt. you take this time to kiss up his neck, still rutting against him, desperate for any contact.

"come here," jungwon says through gritted teeth as his pants and boxers fall to the floor. he kicks them off unceremoniously, yanking you towards the couch. your eyes briefly catch the flash of white that were your lab coats.

the two of you fall onto the cushiony surface, with jungwon sitting up and you falling a little less gracefully on him. the two of you laugh as you adjust yourself, righting your posture so you could look at jungwon.

"take this off," jungwon commands, pulling at your panties. you swing off jungwon for a moment, pulling off the garment in record time. you reposition yourself over jungwon, his cock standing tall, hard, and painfully red.

"come on, show me how bad you want those kids," jungwon teases, tucking your hair behind your ear.

you roll your eyes. "you gotta help with the diapers."

a second later, you sink down on jungwon, moaning wantonly at how much he stretches you out, filling you up effortlessly. jungwon throws his head back, his bottom lip pinched between his teeth.

"i'll quit my fucking job at the lab if this is how good it feels to make babies with you," jungwon groans, his fingers digging into the flesh of your hips.

you whimper at his words, rocking back and forth on his lap. you angle your hips a certain way, the tip of his cock kissing at just the perfect spot inside you. you shudder, repeating your movement.

"god, you feel amazing," jungwon praises. "so warm, so tight."

"yeah," you respond. you're gliding up and down his cock, swiveling your hips as fast as you can. you clench down around him, the thought of jungwon cumming inside you your only motivation.

"filling me up so good," you add, watching as jungwon screws his eyes shut, neck shiny with sweat.

you move forward, attaching your lips just below jungwon's ear. you suckle on the salty skin, running your tongue over the spot, savoring the way jungwon lets a moan rip out of him.

"gotta let the whole bunker know this one's mine," you whisper as you let up on jungwon's neck. a faint red spot is left in the wake of your lips on his skin.

in a blink of an eye, your whole world tumbles upside down, jungwon's hands forcing you down on the couch by your waist. in a daze, you realize that jungwon has you pinned under him, his eyes wild with a hungry look in them. he pushes your legs right up against your chest, lining himself up with your entrance.

"the moment you start showing, no one in this goddamn bunker will have a single doubt who gave you that baby," jungwon counters, thrusting into you. he gives you no time to adjust, picking up where you left off.

you cry out, trying to anchor yourself on anything your hands can find. eventually, you find purchase in jungwon's shoulders. he feels your nails digging in, and he mutters a soft 'fuck', speeding up his movements, the wet sounds of his skin slapping against yours so incredibly obscene in the confined space of his room.

"give it to me, please," you say, meeting jungwon's eyes as he continues to fuck into you. his forehead is creased, a look of concentration washing over his face.

"cum inside, fill me up as many times as you want, fuck it deep in me," you continue, cradling jungwon's face in your hands, the tender gesture a contrast to how rough he's bein.

"god," jungwon groans, voice breaking at the end as he speeds up, but then he halts abruptly, his mouth hanging open in a silent moan. you feel him twitch inside you and you gasp, clenching down as hard as you can.

"fuck, yes, milk it all out," jungwon says. he starts to thrust up into you again, watching as his cock is slowly coated with his cum spreading all over your cushy walls.

you whine, your fingers finding their way down to your cunt, your middle and ring finger pressing onto your clit. you rub at it ferociously, the idea of jungwon's sticky release inside of you turning you on impossibly.

"i'm getting hard again, jesus christ," jungwon complains but his movements don't cease. he's shaking from the overstimulation but he wraps his arms around you, pulling your limp form up against him.

"rub that pretty pussy for me, babe," jungwon requests, thrusting up into you shallowly.

"make yourself cum while i fill you up for a second time."

---

"so?"

you jump a little at the sudden intrusion. you look up at jungwon through both of your reflections in your bathroom mirror. three pregnancy tests lie in a neat line on the edge of the sink.

"i just started the timer, jungwon," you reply with a laugh. jungwon turns you around to face him, kissing you briefly.

"hm," you say, looking up at jungwon questioningly. "you never kiss me unless you want something."

"well," jungwon begins, hands slipping under your sweater. "we can always kill time while we wait for the results."

you shake your head, but you're already pressing yourself up against jungwon. "you're insatiable, dr. yang."

jungwon winks at you, undoing your bra under your shirt. "you know it."

"plus, you just look too good in this damn lab coat."

#enhypen smut #enhypen scenarios #jungwon smut #jungwon scenarios #w: jungwon

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redmyeyes · 5 months

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Fellow Travelers sex scenes

I can't stop thinking about what Matt and Jonny keep repeating over and over again in interviews, regarding the FT sex scenes. That, in the writing and filming it was important that:

No two scenes were the same.

Every sex scene informed the story.

The characters were not the same before the scene as they were after. That they were changed by it.

So, let's talk about them.

"Pretend"

establishment of hawk's usual modus operandi -- brief fucks with strangers. he keeps a tight rein on his desires and won't allow himself to want more.

2. "Fold them."

establishing dynamics, hawk is in control, tim is being (happily) led. par for the course for hawk (or is it?)

3. "I'm your boy, right?"

tim can play, too. this dynamic is not one-way. the 'power' in this relationship definitely does not lie solely with hawk. you might even say this flips the power dynamic on its head. hawk is GONE.

4. "Do you like it this way? Your life, like this?"

not a sex scene, but one of the first slow, tender aftermaths. clear now that, for both of them, this goes much much deeper than just sex.

5. "I belong to Hawkins Fuller."

tim showing that he's willing to meet hawk on his level. the submission and dominance are so intertwined here they can't be separated. it's the willingness of that submission, the willingness of that Belonging, that changes everything.

and tim begging (through provocation) hawk to acknowledge him / what they have, out loud. "who do you belong to" = "i love you, i need you, tell me you need me too."

6. "It's your turn tonight."

a fucked-up goodbye, on hawk's part. he really thinks this might be the last time he's allowed to see tim, and he says 'i love you' the only way he knows how -- with his body, with service.

7. "Your Honor, I stand before you accused of being sweet."

crucially, not a sex scene. even more crucially, there is no sex at all in episode 5, where they separate for the first (and, they think, last) time. instead, we're shown what they're really giving up -- this too sweet (painfully sweet) domesticity.

8. "We don't have to do what we used to do."

the horribly empty aftermath. where they give in to "sex", of a sort, but it's dry and horrifically painful and NOT AT ALL what either of them want. because what they want is intimacy, not sex. and they're not allowed this.

9. "Stay with me."

the botched threesome, where craig is an afterthought, an excuse for hawk and tim to be together, and even then, horrifically painful in the way they LONG for each other and for what they can't have.

10. "I want you to fuck me."

a true surrender. again, hawk showing what he wants the only way he knows how -- through his body -- giving tim his willing submission, body, heart and soul.

11. "We'll be colleagues. We'll see each other every day."

not technically a sex scene, but the truest expression of them 'making love' that we ever get on screen. returning to #1, it's the polar opposite of what hawk had previously allowed himself, and it's what he really wants -- all the intimacy he'll shortly be sacrificing.

12. "That better?" "Oh yeah."

finally, finally, after all those years, a return to the true intimacy they were craving.

#can i just add how much i ADORE that they left 1957 for the end?#it's the clearest view we have of their missed potential -- of everything they COULD have had 😭#fellow travelers #fellowtravelersedit #ft meta #*

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detectivebambam · 6 months

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AFTG Fic Writers ‼️

making this bc I am 5'0"

the Twinyard's feet will touch the ground in school chairs (not the ones that height adjust), and will be nowhere close to the ground on couches unless they scoot all the way forward

if they stand on their tiptoes they can brush the (standard U.S.) doorframe with the tips of their fingers

they would be about clavicle (collarbone) level to Kevin

they would be EYEBROW LEVEL to Neil

any pants that fit around their waist/thighs are going to be way too long, and any pants short enough are not going to fit over their legs

Neil's hoodies are not going to drown Andrew - Kevin's will though

people are always going to rest their arms on them no matter how scary they are - maybe they forget ? idk. but it happens

very likely for Andrew and Neil to keep a Twin/Full bed even as they move in together. Neither of their feet will touch the end, even if they lay in the middle of the bed, and there is plenty of space for them to spread out

people probably tried to pick them up a lot when they were kids (they don't even ask, they just grab you)

their shoe size is likely a Women's 7-8 or Men's 5-6

they do not shop in the kids' section. idk where this came from but they are not that small. even IF they fit length-wise, they will not fit around their shoulders

they can lay lengthwise on a love seat fully stretched out

they likely hit their heads a bunch - we aren't used to having to duck, so we don't ever think about it until we're concussed (open drawers/cupboards are a nightmare)

anyway that's all for now

#aftg #all for the game #andrew minyard #aaron minyard #the foxhole court

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sneezypeasy · 3 months

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The Lightning Scene, How Azula Targeted Katara (of All People), and the Doylist Reason Why That Matters

Mention Zuko's sacrifice for Katara in Sozin's Comet Part 3 as part of a pro-Zutara talking point, and invariably you'll get a Pavlovian response of:

"But Zuko would have taken the lightning for anyone."

(Not to be confused with the similar-sounding Pavlovan response, which is "Zuko's sacrifice ain't shit compared to a mouth-watering, strawberry-topped meringue dessert"*, which is actually the only valid counter-argument to how the lightning scene is a bona fide Zutara treasure, but I digress.)

Now, I've talked in depth about how the lightning scene is framed far more romantically than it had any right to be, regardless of how you might interpret the subject on paper; this is an argument which I still stand by 100%. That Zuko would have gotten barbecued for anyone, and that he was at the stage of his arc where his royal kebab-ness represented his final act of redemption, doesn't change the fact that the animators/soundtrack artists decided to pull out all the stops with making this scene hit romantic film tropes bingo by the time it played out on screen.

(I mean, we stan.)

There's also a deeper level to this conundrum, a layer which creeps up on you when you're standing in your kitchen at night, the fridge door open in front of you, your hungry, sleep-deprived brain trying to decide on what to grab for a midnight snack, and quite inexcusably you're struck with the question: Okay, Zuko may indeed have taken the lightning for just anyone, but would Azula have shot the lightning at just anyone?

But there's yet a deeper layer to this question, that I don't recall ever seeing anyone discuss (though if somebody has, mea culpa). And that is: would you have written Zuko taking the lightning for anyone else?

Or in other words, who Zuko would have taken the lightning for is the wrong question to be asking; the question we ought to be asking is who Zuko should have taken the lightning for, instead.

Get your pens out, your Doylist hats on, and turn to page 394. It's time to think like an author for a hot minute.

(If you don't know what I mean by Watsonian vs. Doylist analyses, and/or if you need a refresher course, go have a skim of the first section of this 'ere post and then scoot your ass back to this one.)

So. You're the author. You've written almost the entirety of an animated series (look at you!!) and now you're at the climax, which you've decided is going to be an epic, hero-villain showdown. Classic. Unlike previous battles between these two characters, your hero is going to have a significant advantage in this fight - partly due to his own development as a hero at the height of his strength and moral conviction, and partly because your villain has gone through a bit of a Britney Spears 2007 fiasco, and isn't quite at the top of her game here. If things keep going at this pace, your hero is going to win the fight fairly easily - actually, maybe even too easily. That's okay though, you're a talented writer and you know just what will raise the stakes and give the audience a well-timed "oh shit" moment: you're going to have the villain suddenly switch targets and aim for somebody else. The hero will be thrown off his groove, the villain will gain the upper hand, the turns will have indubitably tabled. Villains playing dirty is the number 1 rule in every villain handbook after all, and each of the last two times your hero's braved this sort of fight he's faced an opponent who ended up fighting dishonourably, so you've got a lovely Rule of Three perfectly lined up for the taking. Impeccable. The warm glow of triumph shines upon you, cherubs sing, your English teachers clap and shed tears of pride. (Except for that one teacher you had in year 8 who hated everybody, but she's a right bitch and we're not talking about her today.)

Now here's the thing: your hero is a hero. Maybe he wasn't always a hero, but he certainly is one now. If the villain goes after an innocent third party, there's basically no-one your hero wouldn't sacrifice himself for. He's a hero! Heroes do be like that, it's kind of their thing. The villain could shoot a bolt of lightning at Bildad the Shuhite, and the only thing that'd stop our boy Redeemed Paladin Bravesoul McGee from shielding his foxy ass is the fact that Bildad the Shuhite has the audacity to exist in a totally different show (disgusten.)

But. You're holding the writer's pen. Minus crossover shenanigans you don't have the licensing or time-travel technology to achieve, you have full control over how this scene plays out. You get to decide which character to target to deliver the greatest emotional impact, the juiciest angst, the most powerful cinematic suspense. You get to decide whose life you'll put at risk, to make this scene the most intense spine-chilling heart-stopper it can possibly be.

This is the climax we're talking about, after all - now is not the time to go easy on the drama.

So.

Do you make the villain target just anyone?

Or do you make the villain target someone the hero cares about?

Perhaps, someone he cares about... a lot?

Maybe even, someone he cares about... more than anybody else?

You are the author. You are the God of this universe. You get to choose.

What would deliver the strongest punch?

If you happen to make the inadvisable decision of browsing through these tropes on TV tropes, aside from wasting the rest of your afternoon (you're welcome), you'll find that the examples listed are littered with threatened and dead love interests, and, well, there's a reason for that. For better or worse, romantic love is often portrayed by authors, and perceived by audiences, as a "true" form of love (often even, "the" true form of love). Which is responsible for the other is a chicken/egg situation, one I'm not going to go into for this post - and while I'm certainly not here to defend this perspective as objectively good, I do think it's worth acknowledging that it not only exists but is culturally rather ubiquitous. (If you're playing the love interest in a story with a hero v. a villain, you might wanna watch your back, is what I'm saying.)

Regardless of whether the vibe you're aiming for is romantic or platonic however, one thing is for certain: if you want maximum oomph, the way to achieve that is by making the villain go after the player whose death would hit the hero the hardest.

And like I said, this doesn't have to be played romantically (although it so often is). There are platonic examples in those trope pages, though it's also important to note that many of the platonic ones do show up in stories where a love interest isn't depicted/available/there's a strong "bromance" element/the hero is low-key ace - and keep in mind too that going that route sometimes runs a related risk of falling into queer-bait territory *coughJohnLockcough*

That said, if there is a canon love-interest available, one who's confessed her love for the hero, one who has since been imprisoned by the villain, one who can easily be written as being at the villain's disposal, and who could quite conveniently be whipped out for a mid-battle surprise round - you might find you have some explaining to do if you choose to wield your authorly powers to have the villain go after... idk, some other sheila instead.

(The fact that this ends up taking the hero out of the fight, and the person he sacrifices himself for subsequently throws herself into the arena risking life and limb to defeat the villain and rescue her saviour, also means the most satisfying way this plays out, narratively speaking, is if both of these characters happen to be the most important person in each other's lives - at least, as of that moment, anyway - but I think this post has gone on long enough, lol)

This is, by and large, a rebuttal post more than anything else, but the tl;dr here is - regardless of whether you want to read the scene as shippy or not, to downplay Zuko's sacrifice for Katara specifically as "not that deep™" because "Zuko would have taken the lightning for anyone anyway", suggests either that a) nobody should be reading into the implications of Katara being chosen as the person nearest and dearest to Zuko, so that putting her life in jeopardy can deliver the most powerful impact possible for an audience you'd bloody well hope are on the edge of their seats during the climax of your story or b) the writers made the inexplicable decision of having the villain threaten the life of... literally who the fuck ever, and ultimately landed on someone who's actually not all that important to the hero in the grand scheme of things - which is a cardinal writing sin if I ever saw one (even disregarding the Choice to then season it with mood lighting and sad violin music, on top of it all), and altogether something I'd be legitimately pissed about if my Zuko-OTP ship paired him with Mai, Sokka, or just about anybody else 😂

Most importantly c) I'm hungry, and I want snacks.

*The Aussies in the fandom will get this one. Everyone else can suffer in united confusion.

#zutara #anti anti zutara #lightning scene ramblings #meta #long post

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funemployed-fangirl · 3 months

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Bridgerton proposals rated by level of chaos

Anthony - While courting her sister, Anthony panics when Kate is stung by a bee, proceeds to attempt to suck out the poison from her clavicle, and is caught by their mothers and Lady Featherington. Lady F says they'll have to marry and Anthony announces they'll be married next week. No proposal, Kate is never consulted. Anthony then ravishes her in the gazebo. 10/10. Complete Chaos.

Benedict - After repeatedly propositioning Sophie to be his live-in mistress, Benedict finds out she has been arrested for theft, shows up at the jail, punches the warden, and demands to know why his fiancé is being held prisoner. No proposal. Lady B almost punches Sophie's evil stepmother. 12/10. Utter Chaos.

Colin - Like a day after realizing that he finds Penelope incredibly attractive, Colin chases her through London, discovers she's Lady Whistledown, throws her in his carriage, lectures her, ravishes her, then they arrive back at her house and he hops out of the carriage and says, "well are you going to marry me or not?" Technically a proposal. 7/10. Chaos compounded by Lady F somehow thinking he's proposing to Pen's little sister.

Daphne - Daphne disrupts a duel for her honor, punches Simon in the eye, and insists he marry her because their garden makeout session was seen. Simon say he cannot have children, omitting that it's a personal choice and not a medical condition, and Daphne says good to know not a problem we're doing this. No real proposal. No one's happy with the outcome. Pistols and bickering big brothers in attendance for added chaos. 8/10

Eloise - Phillip proposes in a letter before they ever meet, failing to mention he has two children. Eloise packs a bag and leaves for his house without telling anyone. Phillip is shocked to discover her on his doorstep. The brothers are forced to ride after to her to defend her honor. Eloise doesn't understand why everyone's making such a fuss. Colin grumbles he's meant to be on his honeymoon. Beautiful Eloise-brand chaos abounds. 7/10

Francesca - Michael pines for a decade. He proposes. Franny says no. They have sex. He proposes. She says maybe. They have more sex. He nearly dies of malaria. Eventually they get married. By any other family's standards, it would be legendary chaos, but we're talking about the Bridgertons. 5/10

Gregory - HOO BOY. Gregory proposes/propositions Lucy despite her being engaged to someone else. She agrees but then is threatened by her treasonous uncle and goes through with the original marriage. Gregory interrupts the wedding. Lucy turns him down in front of the whole Ton. At the reception Gregory kidnaps her, then gets into a shootout with her uncle. Her now-husband agrees to annul the marriage. Absolute freaking chaos. No notes. 27/10

Hyacinth - Despite midnight rendezvous, breaking and entering, and a treasure hunt, Hyancinth's proposal is shockingly normal. Gareth formally asks Anthony's permission, then gets down on one knee and proposes properly. 2/10. Mildly disappointing, considering H's chaotic personality.

#Bridgerton #bridgerton siblings #bridgerton family #bridgerton books #romance #kanthony #polin #benophie

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thejoyofseax · 11 months

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Why We Can't Have Medieval Food

I noted in a previous post that I'd "expand on my thinking on efforts to reproduce period food and how we’re just never going to know if we have it right or not." Well, now I have 2am sleep?-never-heard-of-it insomnia, so let's go.

At the fundamental level, this is the idea that you can't step in the same river twice. You can put your foot down at the same point in space, and it'll go into water, but that's different water, and the bed of the river has inevitably changed, even a little, from the last time you did so.

Our ingredients have changed. This is not just because we can't get the fat from fat-tailed sheep in Ireland, or silphium at all anywhere, although both of those are true. But the aubergine you buy today is markedly different to the aubergine that was available even 40 years ago. You no longer need to salt aubergine slices and draw out the bitter fluids, which was necessary for pretty much all of the thing's existence before (except in those cultures that liked the bitter taste). The bitterness has been bred out of them. And the old bitter aubergine is gone. Possibly there are a few plants of it preserved in some archive garden, or a seed bank, or something, but I can't get to those.

We don't really have a good idea of the plant called worts in medieval English recipes. I mean, we know (or we're fairly sure) it was brassica oleracea. But that one species has cultivars as distinct as cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, Savoy cabbage, kohlrabi, and gai lan (list swiped from Wikipedia). And even within "cabbage" or "kale", you have literally dozens of varieties. If you plant the seeds from a brassica, unless you've been moderately careful with pollination, you won't get the same plant as the seeds are from. You can crossbreed brassicas just by planting them near each other and letting them flower. And of course there is no way to determine what varietal any medieval village had, a very high likelihood that it was different to the village next door, and an exceedingly high chance that that varietal no longer exists. Further, it only ever existed for a few tens of years - before it went on cross-breeding into something different. So our access to medieval worts (or indeed, cabbage, kale, etc) is just non-existant.

Some other species within the brassica genus are as varied. Brassica rapa includes oilseed rape, field mustard, turnip, Chinese cabbage, and pak choi.

We have an off-chance, as it happens, of getting almost the same kind of apple as some medieval varieties, because apples can only be reproduced for orchard use by grafting, which is essentially cloning. Identification through paintings, DNA analysis, and archaeobotany sometimes let us pin down exactly which apple was there. But the conditions under which we grow those apples are probably not the same as the medieval orchard. Were they thinned? When were they harvested? How were they stored? And apples are pretty much the best case.

Medieval wheat was practically a different plant. It was far pickier about where it would grow, and frequently produced 2-4 grains per stalk. A really good year had 6-8. In modern conditions, any wheat variety with less than 30 grains per stalk would be considered a flop.

Meats are worse. Selective breeding in the last century has absolutely and completely changed every single species of livestock, and if you follow that back another five centuries, some of them would be almost unrecognisable. Even our heritage breeds are mostly only about 200 years old.

Cheese, well. Cheese is dependent on very specific bacteria, and there are plenty of conditions where the resulting cheese is different depending on whether it was stored at the back or front of the cave. Yogurts, quarks, skyrs, etc, are also live cultures, and almost certainly vary massively. (I have a theory about British cheese here, too, which I'll expand on in a future post)

So, even before you go near the different cooking conditions (wood, burnables like camel and cow dung, smoke, the material and condition of cooking pots), we just can't say with any reliability that the food we're making now is anything like medieval people produced from the same recipe. We can't even say that with much reliability over a century.

Under very controlled conditions, you could make an argument for very specific dishes. If you track down a wild mountain sheep in Afghanistan, and use water from a local spring, and salt from some local salt mine, then you can make a case that you can produce something fairly close to the original ma wa milh, the water-and-salt stew that forms the most basic dish in Arabic cookery. But once you start introducing domestic livestock, vegetables, or even water from newer wells, you're now adrift.

It is possible that some dishes taste exactly the same, by coincidence. But we can't determine that. We can't compare the taste of a dish from five years ago, let alone five hundred, because we're only just getting to a state where we can "record" a taste accurately. Otherwise it's memory and chance.

We've got to be at peace with this. We can put in the best efforts we can, and produce things that are, in spirit, like the medieval dishes we're reading about. But that's as good as it gets.

#medieval cookery #medieval cooking #food history #historical cookery #historical cuisine #medieval arabic cookery #horticulture #genetics

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imissylou · 7 months

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Herbs and Spices Legacy Challenge

By Sunny & Missy

Hello! This is the first challenge my friend and I created. I had lots of fun making this challenge and I hope you enjoy it as well. I created this in only a day so there may be things that need to be added or taken away once I go through the challenge myself. Happy Simming!

Overview:

This is an 8 generation Legacy Challenge. The gender and style is completely up to you (except generation 2). Complete all goals before moving onto the next generation. Make sure you look ahead each generation because some may overlap with each other (start as a teen or teen goals). I will create a base game version in the future, but for right now just skip or make up a new rule if you don't have a pack. We will be adding colour's (yes we’re Canadian), no they don't make sense with the herbs and spices, but it's fun so that's what we're going to do!! I'm playing this for the first time so things may change, please let me know if there's any mistakes or if you think of anything to add to this challenge.

Rules

You can either start off with 0 money like the original legacy challenge or start out with starting funds, whichever is more fun for you!

You don't have to level up skills to level 10, unless the job states otherwise.

Complete job career, unless stated otherwise

Complete the aspiration each generation, unless stated otherwise

Cheats are fine if it makes the challenge more fun for you, otherwise try not to make yourself have an advantage over others, cc is fine

Must complete each goal for each gen, then you can go to the next generation, You can choose to do the optional goals

I suggest life span on normal or long, short if you want stress and a challenge!

This doesn't need to be a berry challenge, but if you want to you can make everything their fav colour!!

if you play this challenge please use #herbsandspiceslegacy

Have Fun!!

The link for the full challenge can be found below!! The first Gen will be below the cut, just to see if you like it!

Here's a google doc

Generation 1 - Paprika

You always loved kids, your job as a teacher fulfilled your needs as wanting to be a Parent, you fell in love with a noncommittle person, you thought you could change them, but one day they were gone, you still had something to remind you of them. you were pregnant! Now you're going to be the best parent ever, who needs two parents anyways.

*Aspiration: Super Parent

*Traits: Family Oriented (choose others)

*Skills: Research and debate, logic, and Charisma

*Job: Teacher (Any Branch)

*Fav Colour: Red

Goals

*complete the teacher career

*Complete Aspiration

*Must have a male Child (you can cheat this or have a trans sim)

*Have 1 child, be super involved in their life

*Have your kid have high confidence

*Achieve either the close or supportive family dynamic with your child

*Never date or marry

Optional goals

*Master all your skills

*Get the single and loving it lifestyle

#mysimslegacychallenge #the sims 4 #gaming #ts4 gameplay #sims 4 #sims 4 challenge #ts4 legacy #ts4 legacy challenge #herbs and spices legacy

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shanastoryteller · 6 months

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happy halloween! i would love some more Lady Mo :D

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

Now that both Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng are frozen in place and staring at him like idiots, Wei Wuxian takes a step back levels a stern look at them, hoping that neither of them can tell that he'd been crying. "If you're quite done? I should send both of you to bed without supper. What were you thinking?"

Jiang Cheng says nothing, instead just staring at her in a way that's honestly a little unnerving.

He rounds onto Lan Xichen to get away from it, "And you! Just standing by and watching! What are all of you thinking? We're in the middle of an inter-clan nighthunt and banquet! Not even the middle! It's just begun and you're causing trouble."

He's scolding someone for getting into a fight at an inoportune time. Something has gone terribly wrong.

Oh, right. He's pregnant with Lan Zhan's baby. He's pregnant with a baby that Lan Zhan doesn't want. Everything is terrible and wrong.

No, he can't think like that. It's not fair to Lan Zhan.

"Come back with me to Lotus Pier," Jiang Cheng says abruptly, still with that strange look on his face. "I told you to believe in Lan Wangji and he's made a liar out of me." Both Lan brothers look startled at that. Jin Guangyao even raises an eyebrow. "The Jiang will take care of you. Have the child, don't, it doesn't matter. I said you'd be safe and you will be."

Oh, Jiang Cheng.

His heart seizes. His honorable, idiotic little brother. He wishes he could go over there and ruffle his hair and kiss his cheeks. "It's alright, Jiang Cheng. It's - it's not a problem. If Wangji does not want the child, we will not have the child. It's fine."

He feels like he's going to throw up and he hasn't even eaten anything.

"What?"

He turns, confused, to Lan Zhan who's looking at him in confusion and horror.

Wei Wuxian's eyebrows dip together and he echoes, "What?"

#prompt answers #prompts are closed #asks #anon #untamed

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thydungeongal · 4 months

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Gonna demonstrate just how hilariously broken the Diplomacy skill is in D&D 3.5 by making a game legal level 6 character who is ready to go solve The Red Hand of Doom (a classic module from D&D 3.5 that in my opinion still largely holds up!)

Half-Elf for a +2 racial bonus on Diplomacy checks. The typing of that bonus is important, because you can't stack multiple bonuses of the same type. Untyped bonuses stack. (Dodge bonuses are a special exception.)

We'll start with Bard. Technically we could also use Factotum from Dungeonscape, but there's a Half-Elf Bard substitution level that allows us to switch out countersong for an ability that effectively allows us to cast calm emotions with a DC equal to our Diplomacy check, which is a fun trick to have.

Bard has all the skills that grant synergy bonuses to Diplomacy on their class list. At 1st level we will need at least the following skill ranks:

Bluff 4

Diplomacy 4

Knowledge (nobility and royalty) 4

Sense Motive 4

We will be multiclassing but since we have a level in Bard our maximum ranks will be as if we had all of those as our class skills. Synergy bonuses hit at 5 ranks, so while we want Diplomacy to be at maximum possible ranks, those three other skills don't need more than 5 ranks each.

For our feat we'll grab Negotiator for another untyped +2 bonus.

At level 1 our Diplomacy bonus is +8 (4 from ranks, +2 from half-elf, +2 from Negotiator) without taking into account our Charisma modifier. Pretty good, but we can do better. At this point it's good to mention that our character has to be Chaotic Good.

Our character then multiclasses into Warlock for two levels. Warlock has Bluff and Sense Motive as class skills, but sadly only 2+Int modifier skill ranks per level. Assuming a +0 Int mod we can at the very least get our Bluff and Sense Motive to 5 and our Diplomacy (we'll have to pay double for a single rank of Diplomacy while taking Warlock because it's not a Warlock class skill). That means that two of our Diplomacy synergies come into play for two untyped +2 bonuses. While our first least invocation choice is moot, the second one is important: at level 2 we'll be able to pick up beguiling influence.

You can invoke this ability to beguile and bewitch your foes. You gain a +6 bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate checks for a period of 24 hours.

Just have that on forever from now on.

Also at level 3 we might as well pick up Skill Focus (Diplomacy) for one more untyped +3 bonus.

So, at level 3:

5 ranks, +2 from half-elf, +2 from Negotiator, +2 from Bluff synergy, +2 from Sense Motive synergy, +6 from beguiling influence, +3 from Skill Focus. +22 at level 3.

But we're not done yet: it's time our character found religion. Take a level of Cleric. Specifically the Cloistered Cleric variant from Unearthed Arcana (lower hit points, limited armor proficiencies, automatic access to Knowledge domain, higher skill points) as well as the No Turning variant from Dragon #353. The skill point boost allows us to get the missing rank of Knowledge (nobility and royalty) which is now a class skill for us, as well as maxing out Diplomacy to 7 ranks. The No Turning variant means we don't have the ability to turn undead, but in exchange we can pick up this thing:

EVANGELIST You travel far and wide, making showy public sermons and seeking converts to your religion. Level: 1st. Replaces: Turn or rebuke undead. Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus on diplomacy checks. An innate talent for magic grants you the following spell-like ability as a 1st-level caster: 2/day - comprehend languages. At 7th level, you gain the following spell-like ability as a 7th-level caster: 1/day - tongues.

As for our domains? Technically as a Cleric we can just be a non-denominational Cleric who gets their domains from belief. In addition to the Knowledge domain we gain automatically from being a Cloistered Cleric, let's pick up Joy and Mind.

JOY DOMAIN Granted Power: You gain a +4 sacred bonus on Diplomacy checks.

MIND DOMAIN Granted Powers: Gain a +2 bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, and Sense Motive checks.

We're at level 4 now. Our Diplomacy is at 7 ranks. We have three +2 synergy bonuses, as well as a bunch of other bonuses from other sources. let's tally those up:

7 + 2 (half-elf) + 2 (Negotiator) + 6 (synergies) + 3 (Skill Focus) + 6 (beguiling influence) + 2 (evangelist) + 6 (domains). +34 at level 4.

For our final two dips we're going to pick up a level of Incarnate from the Magic of Incarnum (weird magic system that is all about making temporary magic items out of soul stuff?) and Binder from Tome of Magic. Both classes have Diplomacy as class skill so we get our ranks to 9, and this is the stuff we pick up:

Silvertongue Mask

The soulmeld draws on the souls of quick-witted and slick-tongued heroes, helping to guide the meldshaper in beguilement or negotiation. You shape incarnum into a silver-blue mask that you wear over your face. Your silvertongue mask grants you a +2 insight bonus on Bluff and Diplomacy checks. Essentia: Every point of essentia you invest in your silvertongue mask increases the insight bonus by 2.

At level 1 we're limited to binding only one essential into our mask, oh no. Well, that's still a +4 bonus for a single dip.

And finally we'll be making a deal with Naberius. I'll skip the text and show exactly what we'll pick up:

Silver Tongue: You can take 10 on Diplomacy and Bluff checks even if distracted or threatened. In addition, you can make a rushed Diplomacy check as a standard action and take no penalty. (Normally, a rushed Diplomacy check requires a full-round action and imposes a -10 penalty on the check.)

Tallying up all those final bonuses, at level 6 we have +40 to Diplomacy with no penalty for rushing the check. We can always elect to take 10 on a Diplomacy check. Let's look at the ol' Diplomacy chart.

Taking 10 and with a +40 bonus we simply can't not hit that DC of 50 to turn someone from Hostile to Helpful. (Remember, the DCs are flat.) We're set for Red Hand of Doom, Pacifist run.

#long post

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