#in scenarios that would otherwise require a real-life interaction

[1yyyyyy1]

Tips & tricks on how to stop giving a fuck about other people, specifically their feelings and chimpout reactions, if you're sensitive to that stuff?

This is a complex topic. You can become sensitive to people's reactions for quite a few reasons, ranging from mild workplace disagreements to severe trauma. The most effective approach will depend on the cause. As such, I will always advise to consult a qualified professional if it is possible. The following is what found helpful in my own introspection and what I personally find important to understand about mental health.

Do you have these moments in your life where, long after a conflict subsided, you replay an event in your head wishing you had retorted with something clever? Do you find yourself thinking how stupid you are for being bothered by something this petty? Is your immediate decision to shut your eyes tight and wish for it to go away? Don't. Stop in your tracks and finish your line of thought. A disturbance like that is not petty. In situations where retaliation is not an option for a variety of reasons, be it the danger of calling out your superior, or simply because the opportunity is long gone, people tend to not only opt out of confrontation, they opt out of experiencing the related emotional feedback as well. How often do you feel that your anger is useless? That the situation is simply too dire to be resolved with a simple display of emotion, and that expressing your displeasure would be a waste of time? Anger is an indication that something is wrong, and it is useless for as long as you devalue yourself and your own biological processes. The reaction you wish you had had has not gone anywhere, you are simply suppressing it over and over again, just like you did during the incident. Recalling it in an untimely manner is what the brain does in an attempt to process the event in earnest.

The solution comes down to the following psychological phenomenon: it does not matter to your brain whether the person you are referring to is real or imaginary, it treats them all the same. If it is not safe for you to confront the person, do it retrospectively and it will have a similar effect relieving emotional tension. The same principle applies to situations where it is dangerous for you to express your disdain outright: dealing with an abusive ex-boyfriend, your parents threatening to evict you should you make a fuss. You can see me refer to an imaginary person in this post as to avoid a spat and let off steam all the same. I have had women confide me in the fact that they talk to themselves in private, and it is crucial to recognize what this process functionally is. Do not deny yourself this on the premise that it is stupid or bizarre. Whenever you catch yourself slipping into an unpleasant memory, take a step back and play out the event as if it were real. Defend yourself to the best of your ability and don't mince words. I assure you, you will not only feel better, you will no longer be haunted by the incident soon after the exercise is over.

If I were you, I would ask myself this: Why do I care? Why do I care about people's feelings? Why do I feel like I have to take them into consideration?

Many a thing with insecurities are an inverse trauma response. It is easier to assume that you breaking down means you are unfit for the job, and not that your supervisor is a bully. It would require reflecting on the circumstances that led up to the moment: financial instability, fear of losing the job, a potentially triggered flashback; that in itself is traumatic. The best thing you can do is not make an enemy of yourself. Few a person has your best interest in mind. Now is not the time to be insecure.

I do not care about people’s opinions and feelings because their input is of limited value to me. Living by this world’s principles has never worked for me, it is stupid to assume that it will now. A common concern I have seen women express over consistently making a harsher judgement is that they will end up not having enough self-awareness not to go overboard, and that they will needlessly hurt the people around them and themselves in the process. The truth is that people who are malignant behaviorally do not ask themselves these questions, and they certainly do not consider themselves being at fault a possibility. With a smidge of awareness, you are good to go.

[bigskydreaming]

Okay, so you know “Justice League meets Batman’s kids, who they’d previously been unaware existed” AUs?

So picture that.....but this time, instead of them just having no knowledge of any of these other Gotham vigilantes at all....the Batkids all migrate to various cities as they get older and become known as their protectors - Dick in Bludhaven, Tim in San Francisco, Cass in Hong Kong, etc....

Meaning they’re all established figures, the Justice League are aware of them as solo local heroes who stick to their cities and so they just don’t interact with them much if at all, or else some are members of team lineups but are particularly vague about their histories or life outside of the team’s adventures....

So the big reveal isn’t that they become aware of all these other Gotham vigilantes all at once....its that some big conflict or whatever requires a huge team up of all available heroes, and in the aftermath, they figure out that like.....despite being known as solo heroes who work alone or loners outside of their team settings, 80% of these heroes all not only seem to already know each other, they seem to be related.

And so naturally they all turn to Batman, who has profiles on every known hero and they thus figure had researched these individuals too and just never mentioned this little detail, and they’re like, “Did you know about this?”

And then Nightwing turns to him too, arms crossed and is like, “Yeah Dad, did you know about this?”

And the infamous Red Hood is all: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have never met any of these people before in my life. Lives? Whatever.”

And then Red Robin moodily grates out “I have no siblings.” Since he’s nursing a grudge since Dick and Jason broke into his apartment the night before and replaced all his custom Red Robin gear with Darkwing Duck merchandise and his vengeance will be swift and also totally disproportionate because things escalate quickly in this family, that’s true in every universe.

Cass meanwhile has deftly skewered Jason’s lie by walking over to him and brazenly patting down the man with many many guns with no fear whatsoever. He squawks and futilely attempts to bat her hands away as she riffles through his many pockets, but he doesn’t seem shocked, just annoyed. Eventually, she pulls away and triumphantly reveals a box of Hello Kitty themed band-aids.

“So these are yours then? Just for you?” Black Bat asks smugly. Red Hood squints at the box.

“What the fuck? How long have those been in my jacket? Why are those in my jacket? Did you freaking plant them in my jacket just on the offchance you could at some point in the distant future use them at my expense?”

Black Bat frowns, puzzled. “Yes?”

“Oh come on, Dead Hood,” Spoiler says with an exaggerated toss of her head meant to convey she’s rolling her eyes beneath her own mask. She skips her way across the room to Black Bat and then drapes herself languidly all over the smaller woman. Who in turn doesn’t so much as twitch beneath the sudden added mass as Spoiler holds out her hand towards the box of band-aids. 

“One please. I have a boo-boo,” she says with easy familiarity straight into the intimidating cowl of Black Bat. Only then does she deign to finish her train of thought with Red Hood.

“I mean seriously, are you saying you don’t have potential blackmail set-ups, pre-rigged releases of incriminating material, and a random assortment of traps, pratfalls and mortifying scenarios in place for the express purpose of being able to humiliate any and all of your siblings at any given moment, without any need for additional prep time?”

“Is this true, Little Wing?” Nightwing whirls on the larger Red Hood with a faux-scandalized gasp. The founder and leader of the Titans, formerly the Teen Titans, renowned for his stratagems and calm competence when directing squads of supers in the heat of battle while he keeps pace with nothing more than naturally acquired acrobatics and a utility belt that apparently uses the same technology as Wonder Woman’s invisible jet....now appears to be....staggering with the back of his hand pressed to his forehead, moaning about how he felt....faint? 

What is happening right now, several dozen superheroes want to know. Is this a drill? Are they supposed to be checking for signs of a mental ambush from undetected psychic saboteurs? Did they all hit their heads at the exact same time and are now experiencing some kind of shared mass concussion?

Look, that wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to ever happen on the Watchtower. 

“Have I failed you so utterly?” The veteran child hero bemoans with a dramatic twirl - that when contrasted with his stern demeanor of a mere ten minutes ago - makes the fears of telepathic infiltration seem less paranoia and more....concerningly probable. “Did you learn nothing from me? Did you learn nothing from B?”

He stops and jabs a finger up at the sky. “Quick, everyone! What is the very first rule of Living While Batty?”

As if by rote, over a half a dozen voices chime in from all over the room, causing various heroes to jump. Spooked by yet more and more vigilantes joining in some kind of mass recitation like they and they alone have some kind of clue what the hell is going on and everyone else just hadn’t been invited to the party. Which is just rude, honestly. Nobody likes feeling like they weren’t invited to the party. Not even superheroes. 

“If you’re not going to bother preparing for every possible contingency and at least six impossible ones, you might as well just stay in bed.”

Even the Red Hood joins in the Illuminati chant or Cub Scout pledge or demonic ritual or whatever the fuck that just was, though his slumped and exasperated posture gives away every hint of sulkiness his headgear otherwise would have kept safely hidden. He’s surprisingly more...expressive, than most who’d only known of him by reputation had expected him to be. The day continues to yield surprises.

“Of fucking course I do,” he growls out, snatching the box from Black Bat. She doesn’t even fight to hold onto it, just lets it go with a knowing smirk. “I wasn’t surprised by the idea of it, I was just surprised she bothered with such a weak effort. Like yeah whatever, actually those could be mine. I use those all the time at home. So what?”

He aggressively yanks one of the band-aids out of the box, fumbles with the peel-off strips with one hand and he roughly rolls up the sleeve of his jacket with the other. Then just slaps it on his forearm and raises said appendage high, showing it off this way and that. “See?”

“Oh yeah, for sure,” Signal drawls from the other side of the room, nodding his head approvingly. “Totally convincing. Nice job walking that one back, you really showed them.”

Red Hood’s head snaps in his direction with ominous intent. “Watch it, Day-Glo.”

Signal just snorts.

“Yeah, like I’m gonna take constructive criticism on my name and costume from a dude who’s spent the last several years calling himself Red HOOD while running around in a freaking HELMET.”

“Its not meant to be literal, you fucking pedant.”

“So wait, its not literally a helmet? Huh, does it at least protect your head literally, or just like...symbolically? Like if Bane were to clock you across the head, would your concussion just be a metaphor? What’s the treatment protocol for a metaphorical concussion? Fluids, bedrest and a philosophical prescription of two chapters of Chicken Soup for the Soul as needed?”

“Laugh it up, KC and the Sunshine Band,” Red Hood bats back. “You just got yourself disinvited from Thursday night’s poker game.”

Signal just grins and folds his arms over his chest cockily. “Please. You’ve been looking for an excuse to ban me for weeks, cuz you know until you can prove I’m using my ghost vision to cheat, you can’t actually bring suit against me for it in Family Court.”

“That, and also Family Court isn’t a real thing, you toddler. Stop validating Wing-a-ding-ding’s obsession with Shitty TV Nostalgia and just call it that thing where Oracle traps us all in a room until we settle our latest fight without anyone getting stabbed.”

“Yeah, but like, say that five times fast,” Spoiler pipes up. “Its just not practical. Family Court’s way easier.”

“Says the one who’s not even in our fucking family.”

“And yet I grace you all with my sublime presence anyway,” she blows a kiss at him, beatifically unbothered. “You’re welcome.”

The Red Hood scoffs and rounds on his heel, zeroing in on Batwoman in the far corner.

“Hey Auntie B, my siblings are all dead to me and I just helped stop an alien invasion so I deserve nice things like a fun Saturday night. Can you get me into Dad’s fundraiser so I can crash it? He won’t put me back on the list until I promise not to bring any C-4 with me and I won’t promise not to bring any C-4 because he should just trust me that I won’t when I say I’m not gonna and he won’t trust me that I won’t until I admit I shouldn’t have brought any to that sting last month where three tiny little yachts blew up through barely any fault of my own, and I’m just not gonna do that ever because I have convictions and I feel I shouldn’t have to be punished for that. Y’know?”

Batwoman blinks at him. “Kid, I’m not gonna lie to you. You’re my nephew and I love you, but I stopped listening three seconds into all that.”

“Ugh, fine. Can you help me crash Dad’s event tonight so I can teach him a lesson about why he should just trust me not to make a scene so I don’t have to always make a scene to make a point.”

“Tempting as you make that sound,” she says wryly, “I have a strict policy for dealing with you lot and your......everything. I only worry about tolerating one of you at a time, and there’s seven of you, and seven days in the week. You each get your own. You know perfectly well its Robin’s day today. You get me on Tuesday, just like always.”

“Auntie B, we’re not like other families, are we?” Red Robin’s delivery is sarcastically childish and his question clearly rhetorical. Most of his attention is fixated on whatever it is he’s doing with his wrist-mounted computer. 

“No sweetie, we’re all severely fucked in the head and a little bit too comfortable with that.”

“Just checking. Oh hey, Hood, I just emailed you a patch for the hole in your firewall I exploited when replacing all my shit using your accounts just now.”

“You did what?”

“Used your accounts to pay to replace all my stuff that you fucked with last night?” Red Robin says slowly. “Did you not realize that I’ve been sticking within ten feet of you for the past five minutes just so I could clone your devices and do all that while BB and Spoiler kept you distracted? I gotta say, bro, I feel like that’s on you then.”

Red Hood swivels his helmeted head in the direction of the aforementioned two. Black Bat waves. Spoiler shoots him an utterly unrepentant thumbs up.

“You’d side with your ex over me? That’s what its come to?”

“My only allegiance is to chaos,” Spoiler says brightly. Black Bat shrugs.

“Plus he bribes better.”

“Hateful,” Red Hood points at Black Bat, moving on to level the same finger at Spoiler, who curtsies in acknowledgment: “Hateful-er.”

Then the finger rounds the bases to aim judgmentally at Red Robin. “Hateful-est. And that was all Nightwing’s idea anyway, not mine.”

“Oh, I assumed as much,” he says casually. “Your idea of a prank tends to have more of a Carrie vibe. Or be a literal literary reenactment.”

“Its called an homage, 4chan.”

“Whatever, plagiarist. And anyway, I couldn’t go after ‘Wing for payback on this one. He used an Immunity card. If you didn’t want me getting back at you, you should have used one too."

Red Hood looms aggressively. Red Robin ignores willfully. Round and round they go. Superheroes who can survive excessive G-Forces are getting dizzy just watching them have a largely motionless stand-off. That shouldn’t be how that works, but whatever. All the most infamously reclusive and isolated heroes in all hero-dom are apparently part of the same one big reclusive and isolated family of fucked up weirdos and they’re all officially bonkers. Nothing makes sense anymore. Reality broke. Try another stall.

“Okay, but see, in order to have an Immunity card, I would have to participate in one of you losers’ stupid Immunity challenges,” the Red Hood drags out with exaggerated patience. “And I’m just not going to do that, on account of those all being fucking stupid. You see the problem there?”

Red Robin just shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you, bro. You can have principles or you can have an Immunity card. You can’t have both.”

Meanwhile, on another side of....the same room.....look, its like, an octagonal room, probably. It has a lot of sides. Robin fends off questions from an aggrieved looking Superboy.

“You never told me you had a bajillion brothers and sisters!”

“Yes but I never said I didn’t either.”

Superboy rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, so I should just assume everyone I meet has a bajillion secret brothers and sisters?”

“Well clearly it would have worked out in your favor in this instance if you had, now wouldn’t it?”

“Assuming of course that you can trust what has been said or implied here today and I am actually related to any of those numbskulls. Which I am not actually admitting to,” Robin tacks on hastily.

Superboy eyes him dubiously. “You joined in the same creepy chant all the others did and then got super self-conscious and looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Which uh. I did.”

“First off, your interpretation of body language is abyssmal. I do not get self-conscious,” Robin says with a delivery that probably could have benefited from being a little less self-conscious. “And second....that proves nothing. I guessed what they were going to say.”

“Word for word,” Superboy says super-skeptically.

“I’m very good at guessing things. You know this.”

“Okay. Guess how much I believe you right now then.”

Robin glares and folds his arms grumpily across his chest. 

“And what was that anyway? Was that like....you guys’ family motto or something like that?”

“Oh no,” Spoiler pipes up. “That’s much shorter.”

Superboy balks at that. “Wait, you guys actually have one of those for real?”

“Yup,” Steph says, counting out the words with her fingers. “He who laughs last....probably works for the Joker. So tranq him just to be safe. See? Only sixteen words. The first rule of Living While Batty is way longer, and what we said was just the abridged version. You should hear the original, before Black Bat put her foot down and refused to memorize it unless sizable edits were made.”

Superboy hovers between her and Robin now, both in mid-air and on the verge of taking Spoiler’s words as an invitation to hear just that. A low growl arises from Robin’s direction.

“Must you?” He asks the older vigilante, with a most put upon expression.

She looks at him pityingly. “Do you actually need me to answer that? Like, we’ve met, right? Hi, I’m Spoiler.”

“Wait, so Robin said that I just never specifically asked him if he had a bajillion brothers and sisters, and that’s why he didn’t tell me, so that means he wouldn’t have just lied and there’s not some code of secrecy that flat out forbids telling other people stuff, right?” Superboy realizes excitedly.

“Yes, excellent direction. Go on,” Spoiler says, steepling her fingers. Robin buries his face in the palm of one hand.

“Soooo, what other stuff could you tell me about Robin’s super top secret family that I wouldn’t think to ask about but that he would tell me about if I knew what questions to ask?”

She claps once, lightly but with emphasis. “Well done. You’ve passed the first barrier. Untold secrets await you behind just a few more.”

“I’ll get you for this,” Robin vows calmly. She waves a hand at him.

“Yeah, yeah. Just make sure you do it before January 1st, remember? You’ve promised retribution like ten times already this year and those don’t roll over, y’know. Rules are rules.”

“Enough!” Thunders a voice then, from the front of the room. Well one of the fronts anyway. Like sides, it has a lot of them, but this is the one where Batman’s standing. All eyes snap to him. Which is kinda just what eyes do when Batman says stuff like that. Its like his superpower, except he doesn’t actually have superpowers, which is what makes it scary. But where the snapping of the eyes (directional) is usually followed by Batman saying something else besides just “hey look at me,” here he pauses in the wake of his own call to attention’s waning reverberations. Uncharacteristically silent.

Not that, y’know, he’s normally Mr. Talkity Talk, but usually his silences feel like he has the words to fill them, he’s just withholding them. This though, this feels more like he doesn’t have any words at all. And he’s as confused by it as any of them, and most everyone else is confused by Batman being confused, and its this whole trickle down economy of confusion and its wrecking havoc on the value of the golden silence standard.

Of course, not everyone present is rendered spellbound with confusion.

“C’mon B,” Nightwing cajoles, leaning forward and practically radiating delight. “I think you know what you have to do now. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Its not likely to come around again.”

Red Hood snickers beneath his helmet and chimes in. “Yeah Pops, go ahead. You do this and you’ll actually have my respect for a whole twenty four hours. No, wait. Sixteen. No! Eight. Yeah, eight. Still a good deal.”

“Carpe diem, B,” Red Robin grins, leaning back as if to enjoy the show.

“Hey! Infringe on my trademark one more time, dude,” Signal throws a faux-glare at the former. Red Robin just quirks an eyebrow.

“And what, you’ll start saying Yum every time you eat a burger? Oh no. I’m hoist by my own petard.”

Signal flips him off with a grin and then redirects his attention back to Batman. “Yeah seriously though B, you kinda gotta do it now. Because if you don’t do it, then you’ll forever be the guy who didn’t do it, and you don’t want to be that guy, do you?”

“Yeah you really don’t want to be that guy,” Spoiler shouts out. “Nobody likes that guy. He’s the worst.”

“Do it, do it,” Black Bat starts chanting beside her, steadily picking up speed and volume. Several others start joining in. Even Robin appears to be slightly anticipatory, albeit trying very hard to hide it.

Batman sighs, and somehow everyone manages to hear it. Stills. Waits for....something? Nobody but them seems to have any clue what, but the air is thick and heavy with portentiousness. Something is about to happen, and all most of the heroes present could say for sure is it was something they never would have in a million years seen coming.

Finally, Batman straightens with the resigned air of a man about to have oh so many regrets. He crosses his arms, shakes his head, and in an absolute deadpan monotone, says:

“You are awful children. You know you’re killing me. You’re killing your father.”

[tlbodine]

Plot Armor, the Anthropic Principle, and a Narrative Shift

First, a definition: “Plot Armor” is a term for the apparent inability of some characters to die or sustain serious consequences simply because they are a major character.

On the one hand, sure, I can absolutely see where the frustration with this lies. It can sap the tension from a story to know that, whatever mortal peril the character faces, it will all work out in the end.  But on the other hand, I think this criticism is extremely modern and reflects a substantial change in the way we view characterization and storytelling. 

There are, ultimately, two ways to view the framing of a story: 

We are being told this story after the fact, and everything in the way it’s framed and told to us reflects that the storyteller already knows what will happen. This is, largely, the way we’ve interacted with history and journalism for centuries. In this framework, the main character of a story is the main character because they survived to the end (or do the cool, heroic thing), and the story has chosen to focus on them accordingly.

We are experiencing the story in the moment, and the main character has been chosen essentially at random. We follow this person in their adventures and encounter obstacles with them in real time, observing how they respond, and the outcomes are based on logic or realism. This is the way we interface with the people around us in real life. It’s also how plot develops in roleplaying scenarios.

The first method is the more traditional manner of storytelling -- a method that, after all, requires there to be a storyteller who can report back on what happened. The second method strikes me as much more modern, born out of a society where we receive live feedback and updates all the time. Thanks to live video feeds in everybody’s cell phone, social media posts, and the overall connectivity of the web, we can now watch events unfold as they happen, with no indication of where they’re headed. Seeing things play out in real time is (for better or worse) our primary method of interfacing with our world. 

I think this change is reflected in our fiction. I think it drives the popularity of “found footage” type filmmaking, the appeal of “mystery box” plots and the “anybody can die” trend of gritty serializations. And in a lot of ways, it’s good. Character-driven stories centering on random people allow for a lot of stories to be told about traditionally under-represented or disenfranchised groups, and stories where outcomes are totally up in the air can be thrilling and engrossing. 

But I would argue that one thing is missing from this trend of in-the-moment gonzo storytelling, and that is meaning. This type of storytelling offers immediacy and strong emotional pathos in trade for moral messaging or tightly woven logic of causality. 

We ascribe meaning to the events that happen to us in retrospect. That is our secondary method of interfacing with our world. We undergo trials and tribulations, triumphs and traumas, and tell ourselves stories after the fact about what all of it meant and who we are as a result. The analysis, the story, gives meaning to the otherwise random noise of our lives. The parts we choose to focus on, the parts we choose to forget, the line of causation we draw between events -- that’s all storytelling, and we do it every single day in our own lives. But you can’t do it in the moment. The story you tell yourself when you’re in the thick of an event is not the same as the story you tell yourself months or years later, and that’s probably a good thing. It means you’ve grown. 

So what happens when you move away from that? What happens when documenting reality becomes a matter of noting exactly what’s going on and how it feels without taking a step back to contextualize it? 

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with gonzo storytelling, and it does seem to be the increasingly prevalent trend. But I do think it’s worth thinking on it more carefully and deciding what type of story you’re trying to tell and which approach best suits your intent. And I also think it’s worth taking a moment to assess an author’s intentions in regards to this before you criticize one type of story for its failure to adhere to the other type’s characteristics. 

Just a thought rattling around my brain this morning...

[gaolseeker]

MUN INFORMATION: aries | 20+ | he/him | gmt8+ | discord available for mutuals

This is a low activity independent roleplay blog for multiple Original Characters from Final Fantasy XIV and related expansions. And while I am indeed roleplaying as a NPCs, I can write them as the Warrior of Light upon request. #endwalker spoilers will be tagged! If you’d like for me to tag spoilers for older expansions, please let me know.

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These are just mun preferences that I’d like people to check out in case they have questions for me or with the character I write as. They aren’t rules, but more of a reference to make roleplaying with me easier.

GENERAL

This is a roleplay blog for multiple Original Characters from SQUARE ENIX’s critically acclaimed MMORPG FINAL FANTASY XIV: ONLINE. Warrior of Light verse available upon request.

Open to criticisms and such. The game has a wide lore and I’m not above missing information. I would like to be corrected if there are errors in my portrayal that I do not know of.

I’m all caught up with MAIN SCENARIO quests and SIDE QUESTS, so this profile will not be spoiler free. I’ll do my best to tag nevertheless.

This blog is NSFW.

Have no shipping preference, but of course will not ship with minor writers/characters. I am 20+ and fine with NSFW but only with my fellow adults.

I am multi-ship and multi-verse!

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When writing with muses that shares pronouns with my characters, I usually refer to my partner character as THEY/THEM. This is to avoid confusion and not at all an attempt to misgender your muse. If this bothers you, please do inform me!

Icons or pretty graphics are not required to interact with me.

CHARACTER

I only write my muses within the Final Fantasy verse. Doesn’t matter if it’s from other titles within the series. I’d love to interact!

I could give writing them with other fandoms a shot provided I’m familiar with the source material or you’d be willing to inform me about it.

Some of my characters have established relationships with CANON NPCS, but please don't feel like you have to acknowledge this if you write for these characters. They are available to be explored if so desired, but I will not force it on anyone and will always assume to start fresh unless discussed otherwise.

Will write my muses at any given point of MSQ. If undetermined, I will default to ENDWALKER.

Pre-established relationships as WOL will not be altered or reset.

The muses as a WOL is canonically a powerhouse. This isn’t me god-modding in any way, but know that you initiate any combat interactions of the short, they won’t fall down easily.

All kinds of relationships are welcome in this blog.

[crossdressingdeath]

I don't want to seem disrespectful. I'm just curious how is JYL forcing JZX to marry her? I was under the assumption the marriage agreement was between their mothers? Also I don't think Yanli has the power to break it on her own, I think.

Hm, maybe I didn't phrase that super well. I didn't mean that JYL was personally forcing JZX to marry her. My point was more that JZX is being forced and JYL is totally okay with that because it benefits her. Same thing with her not being able to break it; yes, there wasn't a huge amount she could do about it, but a) there's no evidence of her trying to talk to her father (who, remember, could break the engagement at any time if he so chose and in fact did so the moment he was given a reason to do so, specifically citing the fact that JZX didn't want it as part of his reasoning) or otherwise making any attempt to break it off so that someone wouldn't be forced to marry her against his will and b) she's sure as hell not all that broken up about the fact that someone is being forced to marry her against his will. The whole mess that is their engagement isn't JYL's doing, but she's definitely benefiting from it and quite content to continue benefiting from it no matter how miserable it makes the man she supposedly loves. As far as canon shows us she doesn't even make any attempt to get close to JZX until the marriage is no longer a sure thing!

...Actually, I feel like this is something that needs to be focused on for a second. It is no secret that JZX doesn't like JYL, and we know that he likes her fine when she starts putting in some actual effort. But the very fact that JZX likes JYL once she starts actually interacting with him means that... well, she didn't do that while the engagement was in place. Because if she had he would've liked her then; neither of them change enough that I think he wouldn't have liked her if he got to know her before the Sunshot Campaign. And there's nothing to suggest she wasn't allowed to spend time with him; she probably would've needed a chaperone, but no one had any reason to stop her from talking to her fiance and you know Madam Jin would've forced JZX to spend time with her whether he wanted to or not if JYL showed any real interest in doing so. JYL didn't bother to try to get JZX to like her until she was no longer guaranteed to marry him no matter how he felt about her. Now, if we're being charitable we could say she didn't want to push him and assumed that they'd get to know each other after they were married (which is still like... way to ensure that you foster years of resentment in your husband before even trying to get to know him despite having the opportunity to do so earlier, great planning there), but that's the best case scenario. If we're being less charitable... yeah, she couldn't be bothered to put in the work required to get him to a point where he so much as didn't actively dislike her because he was going to marry her whether he wanted to or not, and she started doing things for him during the Sunshot Campaign because she couldn't have chaperoned meetings with him (because oh my god there are more important things going on than your love life people are DYING) and if she wanted to marry him now she had to earn it.

...Also, I now find myself wondering if JZX's reason for marrying JYL had less to do with abruptly falling head-over-heels for the bland woman who is sort of vaguely nice but never actually helpful and who he doesn't doubt for a second would take credit for lower class people's work to benefit herself (which I mean given the rest of her family's track record isn't exactly a leap) despite us not seeing any real reason for him to change his mind so suddenly and more to do with having just survived a brutal war that killed most of the generation above his including pretty much all his peers' parents and wanting something safe; a blandly nice marriage to a blandly nice woman would probably seem pretty welcoming after all the shit that happened! And comes with the side benefit of getting his mother off his back.

[13eyond13]

Do you really think Takada could have gone against Light's wishes or used him in return in a way that made sense with the way she was written morally, politically and personality-wise? How do you imagine that could have gone? What could she have wanted to do, achieve, or how could she have gone against his wishes? And do you think it would have been more morally related, like Mikami killing people that didn't fit Kira's criteria, or more at a personal level? Both?

I would also like to know if you think Light liked Takada to some extent or even harboured some feelings for her, despite his ultimate coldness, and if you think their relationship gets a different treatment in the manga and the anime.

Hello again! Thanks for both of your asks. I am only publishing this one with the questions, but I liked and agreed with all the insights you included about Kiyomi, Misa, and Light in the previous ask too. And I'm very impressed that you re-read the entire manga in such a short period of time! Please be warned that I'm too tired and lazy at the moment to reread anything myself lol, so I am basing this off super distant memories of last reading and watching the successor arc approximately 3 years ago now...

(under a cut bc it's a bit long)

Do you really think Takada could have gone against Light's wishes in some way? Or used him in return in a way that made sense with the way she was written morally, politically, and personality-wise? How do you imagine that could have gone? Would it be more morally-related, or on a personal level, or both?

I think yes, it could've been possible for Ohba to write Kiyomi that way instead while still keeping her in-character. But he normally isn't too concerned with emotionally developing most of the characters apart from Light. And any drastic changes in behaviour like this for Kiyomi in the second half would probably be more effective if Ohba had been consciously setting her character up from the very start to return again later on, or to play a role in the narrative of that sort. And apparently this was not the case. Ohba said in the behind the scenes book that he never originally planned for Kiyomi to return at a later date when he first introduced her; I think she was initially just meant to be one of the many expendable female classmates whom Light was camouflaging his social life with while being tailed at school. Indeed, barely anything of significance happens in Kiyomi's introductory scenes to even really warrant introducing her character by name. So when she was brought back as Kira's spokesperson later on I don't think it was because Ohba had some strong desire to further develop her emotionally. Maybe he was mostly just wanting to flesh out Kira's posse and the overall worldbuilding a bit more. This is typical of the series in general though, as most of the characters stay pretty static in their stances and their motives and emotional journeys apart from Light.

I don't have a ton of energy to come up with a lot of specific scenarios for Kiyomi to do something differently right now, and to be honest it's kind of even slipping my mind how the whole thing even was working between Light and Kiyomi plot-wise in canon as it was. Like I'm totally forgetting now what kind of faking they had to do initially with each other and the task force listening in on their meetings and Light secretly being Kira and such, lol.

But anyway, here are some things that maybe could have been done differently with her character:

SHE DIDNT ACTUALLY LIKE HIM BACK THEN -It could've been revealed that Kiyomi hadn't actually had sincere feelings for Light when they were dating back in the day at all, and that Light's vanity about his usual popularity with girls somewhat blinded him to this fact. I think this would be just as realistic as Kiyomi secretly holding a flame for him all these years and then agreeing to be his mistress, for sure. And it would make sense to me that she is equally as opportunistic and shallow and image-conscious as he is when it comes to who she dates, both in the past and in the present. Especially because apparently she was the one who made the first move and asked him out. Even if this didn't affect the plot all that much, I still think it would be funny and a bit of a refreshing break from everyone always drooling all over Light

SHE DID LIKE HIM BACK THEN, BUT SHE DOESN'T LIKE HIM NOW -She could have maybe genuinely liked Light when they briefly dated at school, but him being kind of a dick to her back then means that she no longer feels anything for him when he looks her up again. She could still act like she is interested in rekindling their romance, but really only be doing it for utilitarian and selfish motives of her own. Maybe career-building motives or ideological ones or personal ones, or a mix of them all, who knows. But she would be secretly playing him the entire time he's playing her; inwardly looking down on him for his vanity and his arrogant assumptions all the while he is secretly looking down on her for apparently being so gullible. It could possibly be pretty funny to watch

SHE LIKES HIM AGAIN, BUT THEN SHE CHANGES HER MIND - She could still be genuinely into it him when they reunite, but then experience something traumatic or shocking like the kidnapping a bit earlier in the plot that she survives and that radically changes her views. It could make her completely lose her faith in her Kira ideals, or her attraction to Light, or both. Or maybe just something like the grim reality of Light asking her to personally murder people with the notebook could cause her to rethink things that she previously stood for, because it all becomes a lot more scary and gruesome and real. She definitely had a horrified reaction when faced with the task of committing any murders herself, but she still went along with it anyway. That easily could have been a personal crisis that set her off down an entirely different path

I would also like to know, considering Takada's relationship and parallelism with Light, and how Light seems to treat her marginally better than he treats Misa while with her, if you think Light liked her a bit or harboured some kind of feelings for her, despite ultimate coldness, and if you think their relationship gets a different treatment in the manga and the anime.

I think Light treated Kiyomi with a bit more attention than Misa mostly because she is higher maintenance in the respect she requires from a romantic partner in order to feel trusting of them and devoted to them. But he still mostly looked down on her inwardly, and seemed to barely even pay enough attention to her to develop any feelings for her otherwise. All of Light's thoughts about Kiyomi are dismissive and mocking and unkind, no matter what kind of flattering and admiring things he's saying to her to win her trust. I don't think he particularly hated her or anything like that; but he clearly didn't ever respect her or find her very interesting, either. I think this is because he could successfully fool her with his manipulation, and because all he ever really cared about whenever he was interacting with her was using her to achieve his own goals.

Their relationship was depicted pretty similarly between the manga and the anime, I think? But it's been so long now since I've read or watched it that I can't really confidently say what the major differences between the anime and the manga for this relationship are now, sorry. I haven't been keeping fresh on canon these days, because I'm spending all my time this year trying to read and watch new things instead

[mbti-notes]

Hi, I’m from post 649288793015386112. I didn’t do a good job of elucidating the nuances surrounding my question. That’s my aim here. The deal is that I don’t “lack in judgement” in other areas of life. In other cognitive contexts I operate off of the framework that there is an optimal answer that can be derived by critical analysis whether it comes to which distinctions can be made, whether something is rooted coherently, or what have you. 1/8

I'm not going to copy the rest of your message because of the length. Your detailed explanation was helpful for giving me a better idea of what’s going through your mind.

If you are INTP, you should know that Ti-Si loop is a major development problem. You can conceptualize it as a closed system. It doesn't have any meaningful interaction with the external world and it isn't subject to any external forces. When a system is closed, what information moves through it? The only thing available is old information. Old info is input, reused, repurposed, recycled, regurgitated, and then output in worse condition than when it started. You try to jimmy and reconfigure what little you know, every which way, in hopes of finally discovering the solution to the problem that plagues you. The result? A recurring problem. Or worse case scenario, a recurring problem that becomes more severe over time.

When you make a mistake or meet a failure, a closed system can't learn from it. Why? Because a closed system can't get to the root of the problem. If you don't address the root cause, you can't come up with a good solution. To truly get to the root of a problem often requires a complete change in perspective, i.e., a massive structural change to the system itself. You subtly externalize the problem by believing that feelings/people are inexplicably difficult to understand when you should be asking yourself why the system that you use to understand the problem never outputs a successful solution. As you put it, you keep using T to solve F problems. It's nonsensical. Why would you use T to solve F problems when F problems are best solved by using F? I suppose the problem has now recurred enough times that you're finally reaching out to get a new perspective. That's a glimmer of progress.

If you are INTP, using F is risky because it's the inferior function. Thus, the remedy to Si loop is auxiliary Ne development (it is explained in the study guides, so read them). Ne development requires you to entertain NEW possibilities, gather NEW information, and learn NEW ways of looking at the situation. In your analytical process, you somehow always manage to convince yourself that you're trying a “new” method to tackle the problem, but it isn't really new. It's always the same T system in a bad wig. When Ne is poorly developed, you believe that you have the ability to entertain various possibilities, but you don't realize that your imagination is severely limited. In other words, the more immature Ne is, the more blind you are to new possibilities.

Most of the INTPs I've gotten close to have always been kind, helpful, and morally principled people. Sure, inferior Fe makes them quite slow to process information about feelings and social issues, but it doesn't ultimately stop them. They never use inferior Fe as an excuse to relinquish their social and moral responsibilities. You said: "I don’t know why people feel the way they do, and it really isn't an area of interest". It sounds like the real problem isn't inferior Fe but actually something more akin to willful ignorance.

"A person is commonly called willfully ignorant about a matter when he persistently ignores the topic despite its likely salience and even resists learning about it or assimilating facts that bear on it... Willful ignorance connects being ignorant of something with ignoring that thing. Ignoring involves a refusal of attention." (source: Understanding Ignorance: The Surprising Impact of What We Don't Know)

You basically say that emotional life and social life are unimportant or uninteresting to you. It is no wonder, then, that you know nothing about them. People don’t bother to learn when they don’t care. And yet you still (arrogantly) claim to know the general idea of how people's brains work when you really don't. It seems that you want to go through life only caring about the things that you choose to care about and ignoring all the things that you don't want to care about. This is called small-mindedness and it is what makes Ti-Si loop a huge obstacle to personal growth. And if you reach the point of being irrationally resentful about being “forced” to care about things you don’t want to care about, then Fe grip is not far off. If everyone was so small-minded, the world would be worse off. There would be no one like me willing to help out someone like you simply out of kindness.

I intend for my blog to be used by people who are fully ready, willing, and committed to change. Be honest. Are you really willing to change your mind? I don't offer people quick fixes. When it comes to self-help for psychological issues, if you want to learn and improve something, you must learn it for the right reasons. Otherwise, you just end up using bandaids that either don't really last or don't really solve anything. You've already cycled through "surface-level fixes" so many times. You give the impression that you fundamentally don't care about the thing that you're asking me about. You're only asking because it has come to bother you. That's not a real commitment to change.

To understand interpersonal relationships and navigate them successfully, you must: 1) understand emotional life and be committed to improving your own emotional intelligence, 2) be emotionally invested in the lives of others, and 3) have the moral capacity to see people as individuals, each deserving of special consideration (as opposed to just interchangeable objects). When you meet those criteria, you’ll have the right intention for learning. There are plenty of resources out there about improving social skills, including how to build relationships, and how to avoid relationship pitfalls. I’ve already written a lot about it and provided book suggestions for in depth learning. However, if you try to apply those ideas now, when your intention is merely for your own benefit, all the while keeping your closed T system intact, then you will have completely missed the point about what it means to be in a relationship.

To put it more bluntly: 1) If you don't want to pay attention to social interactions, then why would you expect them to go well for you? Do you think that socializing should just magically go well without any attention or effort from you? 2) If you don't care about emotional well-being, then why should anyone care about yours? Is it not hypocritical to expect people to be moral toward you when you treat them with little more than indifference?

When you don’t recognize that you exist in the social world, have an effect on the social world, and care about the social effects you produce, then you signal to people that you are nothing of note in the social world. And people treat you accordingly. You could change that at any time by choosing to care. Then the real learning can finally begin.

[unweavinglies]

Gonta Gokuhara Character Analysis: When a Genius is Treated like a Child

So a quick disclaimer: Yes, I am very aware that this is most likely not canon, or at least not what the writers intended on being canon, nor am I saying that this is 100% canon and should be considered as such. This is just a fan theory/analysis I came up with for my own enjoyment and wanted to share with others, as I like coming up with theories/analysis posts and reworking canons to make enhanced stories and character development in my perspective. I firmly believe that the idea of making theories isn’t supposed to be a shouting contest to see which opinion is the most loud and correct, but should be something to share with others and find acceptance and understanding in different interpretations, even if you don’t agree with them.

Well, this has been a long time coming, hasn’t it?

I’ve been talking about wanting to do this analysis for months now to various friends and acquaintances, but I’ve only had the motivation to do as such recently, after writing a short story that dived deeper into Gonta’s mindset over the Mercy Killing Plot he and Kokichi attempted to carry out. Regardless of that, however, Gonta has been one of my favorite characters for quite some time, and I really feel like his character arc and the unfortunate tragedy behind the unintentional mistreatment of Gonta via his classmates.

So without further adieu, let’s talk about that--about what happens when a genius is treated like a child.

Warning, this does discuss some rather unfortunate topics, such as ableism, depression/self loathing, and the concept of mercy killing. Viewer discretion is advised.

The first thing we need to elaborate on, is why I am calling Gonta a “genius.” Gonta has shown difficulty in understanding simple concepts, and struggles to follow along complicated plots, such as we see in his Salmon Mode Event where he mentions that he cannot follow the plot of high fantasy stories because they tend to be so complicated. He even refers to himself as not very smart, tragically enough.

However, not is all what it seems for Gonta, as his intellect is a matter of fact, and not just an analysis, and the game’s introduction of him opens up this fact to the player in a round about way that may or may not be so subtle.

Gonta admits here that he was a wild child, lost in the forest for ten years. While the logistics are... questionable, this is a work of fiction, thus I will suspend some disbelief. Gonta being lost in the forest for ten years means that he was probably about 5-8 years old when he was lost, depending on how old he is in the game.

Touching upon this briefly, studies of wild children, specifically referencing this case here, have an extremely hard time readjusting and learning to human language, customs, and interaction. The younger a child is upon becoming a wild child and the longer they are in the wild, the less likely they will be able to learn language and certain social behaviors and skills. While it is not impossible, the likelihood of Gonta being 15 or 16 in the game is very low, and even impossible once I elaborate, and we can safely assume that with the context of him being a wild child, he is probably at least 17 years old. So a safe assumption is that Gonta was lost in the forest when he was about 7.

(Note: I am very well aware of Gonta’s potential forest family not being wolves, and instead the reptites, but these creatures Gonta speaks of very well be his own imagination spiking from the isolation from humanity, or be something else entirely. Gonta makes several references to video game characters as well, claiming he met them in real life, so I consider it highly unlikely that “reptites” are an exception to this. Either way, it won’t matter if you believe otherwise, just that it may change certain aspects of what I’m about to say in regarding education and the sort.)

What’s the point of this elaboration? Well, quite a lot, once you remember that Gonta is the Ultimate Entomologist.

Firstly, there is the fact that Gonta is a high school student at all. Gonta was lost at a very young age--it would be impossible for him to be, since not only had he spent 10 years int he wild, but he also had to rejoin human society, relearn human language and customs, and then be put back into formal education. If Gonta is still a teenager and not over 21, then Gonta would have to cram in a decade’s worth of formal education into a few months, or a few years, at most.

This makes Gonta a literal prodigy.

Had Gonta not been isolated from humanity for a decade, Gonta would have been a child prodigy, a literal genius with an intellect that couldn’t be so easily matched. Having the capacity to learn advance mathematics, language (although in the English version, he is struggling with speak (speaking with the infamous “caveman” speech pattern) scientific methods, all of it within such a short amount of time proves that Gonta is, without a shred of doubt, a genius.

Even if you take the aforementioned reptites into account, it only makes Gonta’s accomplishments slightly less impressive, depending on your interpretation of what the reptites actually are. This is because Gonta still had to engage with formal education, and even in the best case scenario where the reptites were fully advanced beings with a civilization and education (which I quite doubt, if they were, then why not give Gonta back to the human race when he was still a child? Why not guide him back to his kind? Why keep him? Even if they were afraid of humanity, it would be far, far worse for the humans to find them while looking for their lost son... I digress.) Gonta still had to learn Japan’s education. Their history, their language, their social customs--and then, Gonta had to learn how to be an entomologist.

You need to go to college to be an entomologist.

According to this website here, the basic, bare bones higher education one needs in order to apply for certain positions related to entomology is a bachelor’s degree, with most positions and places requiring a doctoral decree. There are, of course, youth clubs for students under eighteen, but from my understanding, in order to be considered an entomologist, you need a college degree.

Gonta is a high school student.

For him to be considered an Ultimate Entomologist, Gonta would have to have taken college courses and gotten some kind of degree in order to be recognized as such. Thus, Gonta is still learning a higher education within a short period of time that is incredible for any human being his age, whether it be as drastic as him having no sort of education while living in the wild, or living with the reptites.

Either way, it is safe to say that Gonta is very intelligent, whether or not he is potentially a prodigy for it.

However, this has very unfortunate implications of the way Gonta is treated by his peers in the game.

Not only does Tsumugi here reenforce that idea in everyone else’s mind...

She blatantly tells Gonta that he was being manipulated and or “tricked” into abducting everyone...

When, in actuality, not only did Gonta know exactly what he was doing:

Kokichi even elaborated on his plans quite explicitly to Gonta:

And earlier on, the rest of the class had been treating him differently than they treat one another, sort of like he was a young child they needed to guide.

For example;

Kirumi assumes Gonta is not very aware that hitting someone with such an object is dangerous... despite him being a peer to his classmates and a young man.

And when Gonta has a pretty valid concern;

He is instructed against it and/or ignored on the subject:

Even Kaede slips up a little;

And during the investigation...

Himiko is 100% convinced here that Gonta is the culprit, to the point where she is trying to trick him with this kind of phrasing.

“Are you not, not the culprit?” equates to “Are you the culprit?”

“Are you not, not, not the culprit?” equates to... I believe it would be “Are you not the culprit?”

And that’s the thing:

Like how even I was confused and unsure about the triple ‘nots’ of Himiko’s statement, Gonta is too. Very reasonably so, actually--it’s extremely awkward phrasing purposefully meant to manipulate Gonta into saying he’s the culprit of Rantaro’s murder, and it takes Kaito and Himiko to realize that it was them causing the problem when Kaede called them out on such.

And again, after Gonta explains his actions during the murder, he gets very frustrated;

Already, we are seeing the effects piling up, leading to a frustrated, angry outburst.

And by far, one of the worst examples of this sort of unintentional ableism is this:

And Himiko even just... flat out does this:

By “dumbing down” the explanation of right and left, and not noticing that Gonta is left handed, she caused him to accidentally switch the wires on the headset, causing the memory error and making this entire trial all the more worse for him. By treating him like a child, like the theme of this trial, she only made things worse for him.

And that’s the problem.

Despite Gonta trying to tell everyone that he has no idea what they’re even talking about, everyone just assumes he “can’t understand the Virtual World” and brushes him off. Again and again, Gonta was treated like a child and brushed off, and this time, it came with a heavy consequence.

These instances of “guiding” Gonta are subtle, and on their own, aren’t much to address as anything more than suggestions or words of caution. However, there is a very clear theme of “we have to tell Gonta what he should do” that starts in Chapter 1 and continues on until the end of Chapter 4. They’re unintentionally telling him that Gonta needs to be guided and needs to be reminded of pretty obvious and basic knowledge, and worst of all, that he can’t be trusted to think for himself and thus needs someone to tell him how to think and feel.

If it was one or two times, that would be a whole other story. However, these instances pile up, higher and higher throughout the entire span of Gonta’s time in the Killing Game, and the majority of the class ends up dismissing or ignoring Gonta’s concerns.

This sparks a growing desire to prove himself, to prove that he can be useful during the trials. To prove to his peers that he can do something on his own, think for himself, decide for himself, except even until his final moments;

Even after Gonta’s Alter Ego telling himself and everyone explicitly that he was not tricked into killing Miu...

... No one listens.

Instead of listening to Gonta, over and over, they continue to brush him off and treat him like a child they had to care for, and yet no one stopped to consider that Gonta is a young man. An intelligent, young man who’s socially awkward, but never the less, a peer to them. Yet they didn’t treat him like a peer, and in the end...

Gonta died thinking he was an idiot. A child. A burden who made everything worse for everyone else. They all considered him as a child, and that’s how they saw him even in his final moments.

Gonta throughout the game constantly tries to prove himself, but no one is paying attention. When he learned of the Secret of the Outside World, Gonta didn’t even have anyone else to turn to for help or comfort. His feelings of uselessness compounded by the desperation to prove himself as an equal to everyone else drove him to agreeing to mercy kill the rest of the group... because how else was a stupid, burden of a child supposed to help anyone as he was? Even though he knew killing was wrong, with Kokichi’s plan, he was able to do something “for everyone,” and even that compounded into the ultimate failure.

It’s an unfortunate reality, because had the class treated him as a fellow classmate and peer, this might have been preventable.

Either way, what do you think? Was discussing the unintentional class ableism in depth towards Gonta a bit... too much? I do believe this is the first time I’ve ever done such a post, so you’ll have to forgive me. It’s also been quite a while since I made a proper analysis, hasn’t it? I must be a little rusty...

I will say--please, do not use this post for any discourse regarding the ableism and what have you if you choose to agree with this interpretation. I will not stand for it.

Either way, I hope you at least found this post to be food for thought. See you all next time.

[victorromeofox-blog]

VRF Website and Community

VRF Website and Community - Soft Opening Coming Soon!

I've been a little less active here in the last little bit, but have been working behind the scenes to build up the VRF website and planning around community-building.  I'm just about ready to start opening the site to semi-public access and start inviting trusted people to the Discord within the next week!  There is some information below introducing some of the content and features of the site and Discord server.  Please contact me (Ask or email preferred) if you would like access - I recommend reading the rest of this post before you do, but it is not required.

If you’re looking to better understand BDSM and kink, participate in a community of rational, respectful, and conscientious kink practitioners, and contribute to protecting, uplifting, and helping others - while still enjoying some fantasies - you are exactly the type of person who would be a great fit for this space.

If you’re “just here for the porn”, this website and community are not going to be what you’re looking for.  They are specifically a pushback against that very mentality, and the rampant toxicity and problematic discourse in the online BDSM/kink space, especially CNC kink, and your needs will be better met elsewhere.  Same goes for those who are just out to get nudes, roleplay online, organize hookups, or find a submissive - there are other spaces geared toward that.

In the meantime, I'd like to explain what this all means to me, where VRF is headed next, and what factors I'm taking into consideration as I continue.  This is going to be a fairly reflective post - almost like a letter of intent - but I'm putting it out there primarily for transparency and also for those of you who want some insight into my thoughts and process.

VRF - A Quick Recap

When I started VRF in 2015, I didn't really have a goal.  I was just looking to curate the kinds of porn I enjoyed the most on Tumblr and occasionally added some captions that came to mind as I did - and accidentally cultivated a sizeable following.  As the blog grew and began to have more interactions with others on the network, I realized that I couldn't stay in-persona all the time - not without sending a potentially dangerous message - so I started answering asks and giving advice out of character, as myself.  These "real" interactions, as well as the reality checks that kept rolling in, set the tone for what VRF would become - and made me feel much more comfortable with running a blog featuring questionable content.

I stepped away from the blog and went on hiatus in 2016; I saw a sharp rise in hateful, bigoted, and violent voices online and no longer felt comfortable that my posts would remain firmly in the realm of fantasy for the majority of readers.  Although the original @violent-rape-fantasies was terminated in 2019, I made a fairly complete backup of the entire blog before it went down.  I returned in late 2020 to start again from scratch, try to rebuild my following, and reconnect with the community - that effort was terminated by Tumblr in 2021, leading me to the two blogs I currently have (@VictorRomeoFox-blog / @violent-rape-fantasies-2​) and to create a self-hosted website containing the original VRF archives with major quality-of-life improvements to the Tumblr experience.

This process made me consider what my goals are for VRF, how I want to achieve them, and what promises I make to the community as part of that journey.  

VRF - Mission and Values

VRF's mission is to be a safe, inclusive, and collaborative space that promotes affirmative consent, healthy relationships, and conscientious kink, where consenting adults can explore their kinks, enjoy fictional fantasies, and uplift one another without overbearing guilt or shame.

Let me quickly break some of this down:

safe: I want people to feel comfortable consuming and interacting with me and my content - not only the kinks and acts depicted in the fantasies, but in the entirety of the space that VRF projects, including knowing that their personhood, privacy, anonymity, and emotional safety are important to me.

inclusive: although I focus primarily on male-on-female scenarios, people from all walks of life are welcome so long as they are good citizens of the community and conscientious kink practitioners.  This also means rejecting hate, bigotry, and willful ignorance.

collaborative: VRF is discursive, both in-persona and out-of-character; the content and direction I take is often influenced by the conversations I have with followers, the asks and submissions I receive, and the state of the community as I see it.  I want to always be in conversation with the community to understand its needs and goals so that I can better meet them.

affirmative consent: as discussed in a previous post, I highlight affirmative consent because it centers around positive action as opposed to consent, which can be a passive state.  I believe this is critical for conscientious kink.

healthy relationships: the relationships we hold shape who we are, who we become, and how we interact with the world around us.  I believe that healthy relationships build healthier, happier lives - this concerns all relationships, from friendships to families to romantic or sexual partnerships.  I have seen less emphasis in this community on relationships, and interpersonal interactions in general, and think that this is a major oversight.

conscientious kink: kink can be dangerous or harmful when not practiced with care and consideration - not just for physical health, but for mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.  It requires reflection, introspection, and communication in order to form intentionality - the understanding behind what you do, how you do it, and why you do it.

reducing guilt: this is one of the concerns I get most often from followers - how to reconcile their guilt for enjoying consensual non-consent, and whether it is morally wrong or an indication that something is wrong with them.  I believe that CNC, like most kinks, can be practiced in a conscientious way to reduce and mitigate the potential dangers, but that it requires consistent effort, education, and research.

Aside from these, I identified values which are important for me to maintain in order to meet the mission.  Some of them are:

transparency: I try to be as transparent as I can, while maintaining my privacy and anonymity, so that people know that I have nothing to hide.  I cannot build a safe space without building trust, and I can’t build trust without being honest and transparent.

leadership by example: if I am positioning myself as a resource and giving advice to others, I must embody the values I put forward and lead by example, not by words; otherwise, what I say is worthless and lacks substance.

data- and research-driven: I want to provide people with a deeper understanding of themselves and their kinks; while anecdotal information can at times be helpful, I want the things I posit to have weight and justification behind them.  This means an intersection of data, research, and analysis around all of the factors involved, including moral philosophy, psychology, sociology, and biology.

care and patience: these kinks are difficult and hurtful to some people, and confusing or conflicting to others.  I need to be caring, considerate, and patient in order for people to feel comfortable engaging with my content and interacting with me.

contextualized: these kinks and fantasies don’t exist in a vacuum and must be contextualized in order to remain conscientious of the relationship it maintains to the real world.  This means that I don’t want fantasies misrepresented as reality or reality misconstrued as fantasy, and the onus is on me to ensure that followers are seeing both sides of the equation.

quality over quantity: I have a limited amount of time that I can dedicate to VRF work, and want to make the best possible use of that time.  I want to focus on high-quality content, both in-persona fantasies and out-of-character advice, research, and resources, without worrying about how much or how frequently I’m posting.  It also means that I care far less about the number of followers and viewers I have, and much more about whether I am cultivating the kind of followers that match my vision for VRF and its community.

There are other factors and values as well, but these are the biggest ones for me.  They drive how I present myself, how I interact with the community, and what kinds of content I put forth.

VRF Website - Content and Features

What does the website allow me to do that I couldn’t on Tumblr?

No censorship, frustrating filters, or threat of termination - I can focus on my content without running into blockers at every turn, or worrying that I’m going to lose all my work without warning.

Better content controls, organization, and layout - I can group posts logically and have different ways for users to access and view them instead of being one monolithic stream of posts.

Tagging and search - I’ve tagged my archive with kinks, features, toys, actions, positions, locations, and more to make it easier to both find content that you want to see and avoid content that you don’t.  The VRF site features granular search controls, including tag combinations, so you can engage with the site how you choose.

Random Post/Random Caption - sometimes, you’re in the mood to mix things up.  Instead of seeing a temporally-sorted feed of posts, you can go to a random post or caption from the menu bar.

Clear disclaimers and view control - instead of my content being blended into a sea of posts, which creates difficulty in carving out that safe cognitive space for engaging with these kinks or necessitates rapid context-switching, all of my posts will be in one central repository with clear disclaimers where I have control over how things are viewed.

The VRF Archive - the content from the original @violent-rape-fantasies blog have been restored to the VRF website.

There are some downsides, of course - like the lack of network discovery, limited server space and resources, cost, maintenance, and effort.  But the benefits greatly outweigh the additional overhead.

VRF Community

What’s the VRF Discord community all about?

This is a new idea I’m playing with - I’m not new to Discord or community management, but combining that with VRF is a new endeavor for me.  Since I’m going to be shifting my focus from Tumblr to the VRF website, some of those network and community interactions from Tumblr will move to Discord instead, such as interacting with followers, taking requests, feedback, and suggestions, and delving deeper into kink philosophy, fantasy, and practice.

I’ve set up the Discord in a way that different sections can be partitioned - like general discussion, BDSM/kink discussion, CNC fantasies, member content (submissions), and so on.  The different sections are accessible to different levels of membership and verification to maintain that safe, inclusive, and collaborative space.  For example, agreeing to the rules and guidelines gives you access to the general discussion section; verifying your age gives you access to BDSM- and kink-related sections; and being an active and trusted member who contributes to the server over time gets you access to the private sections.

This will also be a much easier way to get in contact with me, and keep the majority of my interactions with the community in one place, instead of hunting across Tumblr messenger for both my accounts, Asks, Twitter, Discord DMs, Telegram, Kik, and email.

VRF - Next Steps and Future Work

In the next few weeks, the VRF website and Discord community will soft-open and move toward general opening.  This is a new direction for me, but after assessing my priorities and goals, it is the solution best suited for what I want to achieve.  I will continue to use Tumblr, but will likely be focusing the majority of my time on the website and Discord.

The mission and values I’ve identified leave quite a bit of room to explore various ways to express these kinks and share knowledge.  I’m not hard-set on VRF being a blog with porn and captions, and could see changes or pivots in the future.  I would love for this work to be able to generate some modest revenue in the future in order to cover basic operating costs, support survivors of abuse as well as kink education and safety, and commission custom content.  As an aside, if you read all of this, please start your request for access with the word “potato” in all caps to let me know you got this far.

I also want to move toward a more ethical and sustainable model of captions and fantasies.  My first step toward this is in creating gifs myself and fully crediting the source, which I started doing when I returned from hiatus.  Concurrently, I am working with my partner, who is an artist, to develop illustrations and animations to accompany captions instead of commercial pornography - we’re still in the R&D phase for this, but hope to share some early content soon (including a fantasy and sketch that we’re working on to accompany a follower submission).  Ideally, we would be able to collaborate with submitters and sex workers to create fully original, credited, and compensated content - but that’s a huge stretch goal for the future.

We are also considering other formats for fantasy and knowledge delivery, including a visual novel format or interactive media (i.e., games) if the art development turns out well and proves sustainable.  We’re both fairly busy people in our personal and professional lives, and in situations where we have to maintain a fairly strict separation between kink involvement and our everyday lives, so carving out time for VRF work is challenging at times!

I look forward to seeing folks on the VRF website and Discord community soon!

[salmonthestoryteller]

Committed Relationships in Fiction Does Not Equal "Happy Couples"

Hear me out.

Whenever I talk about wanting Committed Relationships in fiction or a couple in a show to get together before the series finale, someone always chimes up with something like "Happy Couples are Boring" or "But what would you do with the characters?" or some such similar phrase.  And while, in one way, it's kind of adorable that people think committed relationships are all cupcakes and rainbows, that isn't what I mean when I talk about Committed Relationships in Fiction.

Look, I'm not saying people in committed relationships aren't happy, because they are.  But people in them still have disagreements.  They still fight.  They still interact with other people.  They don't exist in a Coffeeshop AU in Fluffville.

I wouldn't mind an occasional visit to Fluffville, and I definitely want the said committed couples to have romantic scenes the same as I would expect from any other ship in a story.  But they do not have to be restricted to being nothing but a "Happy Couple" just because they are in a committed relationship. Considering most of the time we all know what characters will get together in the series finale, I’m not exactly sure what people assume would be different if the characters were together at an earlier point.

Seriously, let's consider the scenarios.

Scenario 1: Character A & B have an argument

The "We're Not Together" Ship: Character A & B have an argument and Character A storms off. The Committed Ship: Character A & B have an argument and… Character A storms off.

Scenario 2: Character A follows Character B into a dangerous situation:

The "Pining for each other but not together" Ship: Character B tells Character A to leave, Character A refuses to leave and says they don't want to live a life without Character B The Committed Ship: Character B tells Character A to leave… Character A refuses to leave and says they don't want to live a life without Character B.

Scenario 3: Character J flirts with Character A

The "We're Not Together" Ship: Character B is snippy with Characters J & A, and Character A accuses Character B of being jealous. The Committed Ship: Character B is snippy with Characters J & A, and Character A… accuses Character B of being jealous.

Scenario 4: Interrupted Night Out

The "Pining for each other but not together" Ship:  Character A and B finally go on a date, but it is interrupted by the Antagonist The Committed Ship:  Character A & B go on a date, but it is interrupted by the Antagonist

Notice how nothing really changes?  But, sure, there would be instances where things would be different, so let’s explore that too.

Scenario 5: Character B is kidnapped.

The "We're Not Together" Ship: Character A argues with other characters, looks sad while standing someplace dramatic, and eventually goes off to try and find Character B The Committed Ship: Character A argues with other characters, returns to the currently empty home they share with Character B and looks sadly at an item we know the importance of because it occurred just last season, and eventually goes off to find Character B.

Scenario 6: Characters A & B have a severe argument and avoid each other for an unspecified length of time

The "Pining for each other but not together" Ship:  Run into each other at a public location, refuse to make eye contact.  Character A almost says something to Character B, but changes their mind.  They exit without speaking. Later something fittingly dramatic happens that requires them to work together, at the end of which they fail to have a real conversation about the fight, and instead end up dramatically kissing. The Committed Ship: Character A and B run into each other in the home they share. Character B has a bag of things on their shoulder.  They stare at each other for a long moment. Character A almost says something to Character B, but changes their mind. Character A exits. Over the course of the episode(s) we see Character B wandering their shared house alone and Character A spending time at Character C's house, and finds an item of Character B’s in the bag they packed. Later something fittingly dramatic happens that requires them to work together. Afterward, Character A and B talk about what caused the argument.  Character B asks Character A to come home, and the two share a kiss.

Hm, somehow I kinda find having a committed ship actually improves those two scenarios, but maybe that’s just me.

I’m not asking to never have non-committed ships, but I do feel like so much effort is taken to avoid them, when there’s no real reason to.  Starting a story with a main ship being a committed relationship doesn’t make for less romantic scenes.  On top of that, most main ships in fiction are so obvious that it doesn’t improve anything by finding new ways to keep said ship apart as long as possible, especially in a series.  And as I referenced above, most of the romantic scenarios change very little if you allow the ship to progress from Getting Together/Pining to Committed Relationship.  If anything, it opens up possible scenarios that aren’t available otherwise.

The only thing that would really be different is that the two characters would not have a bunch brief relationships with temporary characters in the course of a series.  And, frankly, you probably have a half dozen side characters who could all step in and have said brief relationships if it's important to the plot.

Which is the other thing  - Plot.  Look, especially in Fantasy and Science Fiction - my personal staples - there's always a big plot that has nothing to do with the relationships.  Personally, I will stick around to see if the evil overlord is defeated or who committed the murder in the murder mystery regardless of where in the story your couples get together in.

Please unlearn the idea that having Committed Relationships in fiction is somehow limiting. It isn't limiting at all.

[hilltopsunset]

4 Ways to Breathe New Life into the Pokémon Franchise

I love the Pokémon franchise. It’s because I love it that I truly want new installments of the game to feel meaningful, to make an impact, and to provide players with something new, different, and worth coming back for without relying on complexities that could turn away new players.

As I will talk about in a later blog post, Game Freak seems afraid to stretch Pokémon’s creative muscles any further; meaningful innovation has been petering out since the end of Generation IV in lieu of minigames like Pokémon Contests and Super Training alongside inconsequential time sinks like Secret Bases and Poké Pelago. While I do enjoy the inclusion of things to do outside the main storyline, these additional events and sidequests should not be the only significant additions to new generations of main-series Pokémon games.

The main attractions of recent generations have provided slight twists to gameplay with the addition of mega evolution and Z-moves, but these changes don’t fundamentally change or challenge the way players experience the game on a moment-to-moment basis. And despite the graphical and processing power of recent gaming devices, and even the long-awaited shift of the franchise to a main console, we are still getting the same low-effort and outdated battle animations we’ve been seeing since X and Y. We are continually denied a more genuine battle experience with Pokémon physically interacting with each other through animations that more appropriately suit each Pokémon’s unique identity.

So what can be done? Here’s a short but detailed list of 4 things I would like to see in a new Pokémon game, in no particular order of importance.

1.       Let the Player Character Be an Active Part of the Story

When has the player character ever been a consequential part of a Pokémon game? They never speak; they never have any personality whatsoever. They never experience any growth, regardless of NPC’s trying desperately to iterate how much the trainer has grown over the course of their journey. Certainly the Pokémon carried by the player character have some impact on the story, but the trainer?

Let them speak! Let the player character actually interact with NPCs in meaningful ways rather than just listening at all times. Give the trainer a personality of some sort. Don’t just slap a never-changing pleasant face onto the model regardless of tense, frightening, or sinister scenarios (I’m looking at you, Sun and Moon). 

Giving the player character a more active role in the story provides intrigue—as a player, it doesn’t feel compelling being pulled from one place to another; it’s not interesting when the only thing pushing me forward is NPCs telling me I need to get the gym badges, or stop Team Rocket. It would be much more interesting if the Player Character had some imperative reason to pursue these endeavors, rather than get involved simply because “it’s the right thing to do” or, worse, “it’s the ONLY thing to do.” I want to watch the character I’m controlling grow as a person and make choices that have positive or negative consequences on people they care about and the places they visit, rather than be a perpetual observer of events with no real stake in the game.

2.       Trainer Levels

Speaking of the player character, create a leveling system for them. There are so many possibilities for a system where the trainer more actively impacts gameplay. For instance, there could be a class system and each class can have unique skill trees that provide access to passive and/or active abilities that improve how the trainer interacts with the world throughout the game. It could be required to choose your path at the beginning of the game, or perhaps you can access them all throughout the game, but can only have one active at a time.

Here’s a list of example possibilities:

Explorer: The explorer class specializes in travel, as well as tracking and catching new Pokémon—this tree can be subdivided into those paths: Travel, Tracking, and Catching. This tree provides skills that assist them in accessing otherwise inaccessible locations, increasing encounter rates with rare Pokémon, and specializing in different types of Poké balls to improve catch chances. Experience for this class is gained through catching Pokémon, encountering rare Pokémon, and exploring (walking in new places, finding treasure, accessing hidden areas, etc.).

Combatant: The combatant class excels at offensive battle prowess through its three branches: Type Affinity, Commands, and Reputation. This tree allows a trainer to specialize in certain Pokémon types (up to 2) to improve their STAB damage. Eventually, you can get a skill that provides STAB for your specialized types even for Pokémon not of those types! You gain access to in-battle shout commands that provide momentary buffs to your party, like improving damage, resisting a big attack, or improving critical hit ratio. A strong reputation will allow you to avoid battle even with trainers who have caught your eye; and in battle, an enemy Pokémon may flinch due to your intimidating presence. Experience is gained by knocking out Pokémon, winning battles, using moves of your type specialization, and issuing commands.

Breeder: The breeder focuses on developing deep relationships with their Pokémon. Skills of this class can be divided into the Breeding, Bonding, and Healing branches. Through this tree, trainers can hatch eggs more quickly, improve high IV chance from newborn Pokémon, develop friendship levels more quickly, etc. Bonding provides Pokémon with beneficial defensive capabilities during battle, like providing a chance to survive an attack that would otherwise bring HP to 0, and having a strong will to resist abnormal status effects like paralysis and confusion. A Breeder’s knowledge of caretaking allows for healing outside of battle, and can even teach Pokémon how to slowly recover in-battle. Experience is gained through hatching eggs, developing friendships with your Pokémon (through feeding/petting, etc.), participating in Contests/minigames, and having Pokémon in your party with whom you have developed a close relationship.

The establishment of a class system like this, where experience is gained through different means relevant to each class, incentivizes players to participate in those aspects of the game, and provides extra rewards for players who already want to get involved. It makes the trainer feel like a relevant and impactful part of the team, rather than a hollow vehicle strictly used to lug the real heroes—your team of Pokémon—from battle to battle.

And for those who think the inclusion of such a mechanic would trivialize the content, I have several suggestions: first, they could easily make the game content more difficult to compensate. Second, they could mitigate the strength of these class skills during key battles like Gym Leaders, the Elite Four, the Enemy Team (Rocket, Galaxy, etc.). Third, NPCs (especially the aforementioned key NPCs) could have access to these skills as well. Remember, I’m asking for significant changes, and this would provide something new, interesting, and impactful.

 3.       Battle Animations

Update them. It’s that simple. Let Blastoise shoot water out of his water cannons rather than out of his face. Let Scorbunny run up to its opponent and give it a nice kick! Get rid of the old, outdated animations of a drawn foot—we now have well-rendered 3D monsters on gaming systems capable of handling the graphical processing necessary for this to happen. Give each Pokémon a more unique identity with their animations; make them feel like they’re actually in a battle with one another. It’s time.

I acknowledge that providing significant animation updates for the 800+ models is an enormous undertaking that would require a massive amount of time and manpower to make possible. To this I say: spend the time doing that rather than developing Dynamax or whatever. Spend the time on more significant animation development instead of wasting that time on another gimmick that isn’t going to significantly impact gameplay anyway.

To be honest, this point alone would be enough to convince me to buy a new Pokémon game.

 4.       Populate the World with Pokémon

I know that the Let’s Go series and Sword/Shield did this a little bit, and while it certainly wasn’t executed perfectly, it was fun running around and actually seeing all the Pokémon that inhabit it. Spawn rates in both games were often a bit too high, resulting in cluttered areas. Adding aggressive Pokémon would further enhance the immersive experience—being required to sneak around certain stronger Pokémon could be a really fun mechanic and provide tension; it was a bit too easy to avoid Pokémon in Let’s Go and in the Wild Area. While it was nice to get through Mt. Moon without encountering a single Zubat, imagine instead running through a section of the cave with a trail of 15 Zubats on your tail? Make me work for it a little!

Ultimately, I want to see Pokémon behaving more naturally in their habitats, and not just in sections of the world that I can’t get to. I want to run into a Caterpie hanging from a tree, or a Fearow fishing for Goldeen, or a Pikachu grooming itself. I want to interrupt Pokémon from their lives, not run into a giant gaggle of automatons circling tiny areas for no reason.

So there it is: a look at just a few things Pokémon games could include to make things more interesting and breathe new life into an aging franchise. These changes would require work, but any new game should—I would hate to see Pokémon continue the troubling trend of easy and/or insignificant content when there is so much potential to do so much with what they have.

With all that said, I do want to offer a bit of praise—Sirfetch’d and Galarian Ponyta are pretty awesome, and Galarian Weezing is perfectly ridiculous. But I ask that you keep in mind what your money is telling Game Freak when you purchase their games: it tells them that you don’t mind the severe lack of innovation and improvement. It tells them you don’t mind Scorbunny hopping in place as a giant, orange, human foot strikes its opponent. It tells them that you’re willing to fund their copy/paste animations from 6 years ago, their uninspired gameplay updates, and their ever-increasing focus on gimmicks and minigames.

As for me, I will continue holding Pokémon to a higher standard and hoping that, eventually, Blastoise will fire water from his cannons.  

[leemotionalwreck]

Of Black Chats and Fallen Angels (chapter 2)

Read it here on AO3!

Chapter 1 | You are here | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

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

Tikki rolled her eyes for what had to be the millionth time that afternoon as Marinette flopped back on her bed. She had spent every moment-- from the moment Adrien drove away to the second she shut her trap door-- ranting about ‘how could he possibly think offering me an umbrella could win me over’ and ‘why was he looking at me with that stupid smile on his face’ and on and on and on. As much as Tikki adored her holder, she could be exhausting with her overthinking and lack of, for lack of a better term, ‘chill’.

“Marinette,” Tikki chided.

Marinette hadn’t heard a thing as she walked over to a project she had started earlier that week. It was white nylon off-the-shoulder number with numerous belts and buttons that shouldn’t have worked as well as they did together, with a hem that stopped mid-thigh. She fussed over the neckline and Tikki worried that she would pick up a needle. Or worse-- decide to change something. 

“Marinette… ” Tikki warned.

Nothing good ever came from a ranting, angry, Marinette; especially when said Marinette decided to start sewing. Tikki had witnessed far too many meltdowns just hours after an angry sewing session and decided it was best (and safest for the sanity of all involved) if working on any project, school, or otherwise was best reserved for a time when her holder was more stable. 

Much to Tikki’s relief, Marinette walked away from the dress, fiddling with the ends of her hair instead. 

“-And don’t even get me started on the way he showed off his stupid limo.” The girl huffed as she ran her fingers through her hair. “I mean who even does that!? Ugh, and the way he-”

“MARINETTE!” Tikki interjected. 

“Huh?” She said as if Tikki calling her name had brought her out of some sort of trance.

“You’ve gotta stop overthinking this,” Tikki sighed. “I know you don’t like him, but isn’t there a possibility that he was just trying to be helpful? People do that type of stuff, you know.”

She shot Tikki an exasperated look. “Then explain the whole gum incident.”

How? Tikki thought as she brought her tiny hands up to her face. How can she possibly be the most intelligent while also being the densest holder I’ve had in a millennium? 

Tikki took a deep breath as she prepared to explain the situation for the millionth time. Marinette was going owe her so many cookies later

*********

Marinette was confused as hell, but that was nothing new. What was new was the source of her confusion. Oftentimes, when Marinette had a hunch or a gut feeling, she listened and that was it-- but this was different.

There was something unusual about Adrien Agreste. That was what Marinette knew. She also knew that she should not, and didn’t, trust Adrien Agreste. She knew that she had no real reason not to trust Adrien Agreste, as he had done nothing to her. 

Marinette knew that she was, at the very least, physically attracted to Adrien Agreste. 

Well, she didn’t know it-- not yet at least. And maybe that was why she had been ranting to Tikki for the past three hours-- getting an extensive lecture/explanation in return. Being a teenage superhero who fought evil purple butterflies with a punning leather catboy for a partner, there had to be some shred of normalcy in her life. If obsessing over the minute details of a five-minute interaction with a guy she didn’t like was her normal, then so be it. Besides, it wasn’t like she had anything better to do. 

“Marinette” Tikki sounded like she wanted to drown herself in cookie batter. “I’m going to find something to eat. I’ll get back to you when you’ve calmed down a little”

Or that’s what she thought until something outside her window caught her eye--

An akuma. 

Damnit. Marinette knew she wasn’t exactly in the best headspace for fighting, but it wasn’t like she could coordinate certain dates with Hawkmoth. She chuckled aloud as a mental image of her, Chat, and Hawkmoth meeting at a round table popped into her head. 

“Ahem” came a noise from across the room. 

Marinette looked over at Tikki and nodded, transforming. She couldn’t help but wish for the absurd scenario as she soared above the buildings of Paris.

*********

“What’s the damage so far?” Ladybug asked as she landed right in sync on top of a building next to a running Chat Noir.

The past few months Chat Noir had been around, everything felt lighter. While Hawkmoth had most definitely been getting more intense, it seemed as if it didn’t matter as long as her partner was around. He was able to sense what needed to be done without asking or meticulously planning ahead, along with the fact that he was good with the press. While not as important, Ladybug treasured the fact that she didn’t have to worry about answering questions that required vague answers. 

They had become best friends as well. Despite not knowing the other’s identity, they knew each other inside and out. Ladybug couldn’t help but smile as she thought about the countless nights they had spent perched atop the Eiffel Tower, discussing everything from school to Hawkmoths identity to how different their lives would have been having never met. Or if one of them had been someone else. 

But there was something strange about him that she couldn’t figure out. Sure, there was the standard strangeness you would expect from a punning leather catboy, but there was something else as well. She saw it in the way he seemed to float a second longer than he should have whenever he was using his staff, or in the way his gaze lingered on shimmering patches of stars in the sky. How she had sometimes seen him whispering to the sun or moon… almost like a prayer. 

Ladybug eventually noticed that she and Chat had stopped running; he was calling her name, concerned. 

“You there M’lady?” 

She shook her head and smiled. “Yeah, sorry. So what are we looking at today?”

“Chemist from PSL Research University,” Chat began. “A coworker refused to take proper precautions before testing, which ended up hurting a couple of other chemists and about 4 interns.”

Ladybug sighed. “These are the worst kind.”

Chat nodded. “Right reason, wrong reaction.”

“Let’s get this over with?”

“Ready when you are bugaboo.”

*********

“Goddamnit,” Chat seethed as he and Ladybug ran into the sewers for a third transformation. 

Ladybug grumbled from around the corner. “I’m starting to lose sympathy for this guy.” She fed Tikki, and a pink light flashed just a second after Chat’s. “Ready to go?” 

“Just a minute.” He said before she got the chance to come around.

She fiddled with her yo-yo while she tried her best to think of a plan. So far, they had tried the lab coat, safety goggles, and ID. What more was there? 

The akuma’s design was simple enough. A pitch-black lab coat and neon yellow safety goggles-- really, Hawkmoth?-- along with their ID and a belt that held several different colored vials. Their hair stood up in an Einstein-like fashion, wild locks jutting out from all sections of their head, along with some sort of chemical that fizzed everywhere they stepped. How was that even possible?

Ladybug grimaced as she heard The Alchemist shouting from outside. “Grow a pair and show your damn faces! Why can’t Paris’ so-called heroes protect their city?” They were silent for a moment and Ladybug knew Hawkmoth must have been speaking to the victim. “Forget you both. I’ll get your miraculous and take care of this place myself. They don’t need you.”

The akuma-- or The Alchemist, as they named themselves-- had spent the better part of two hours spraying people with a liquid that kept them safe… while also making them invincible. Why the hell anyone, even an akuma, thought that would be a good idea was beyond her. 

With their newfound invincibility, people lost all inhibitions. 

In her three years of being Ladybug, the heroine had never seen havoc wreaked upon Paris like this. The streets were pure chaos as it seemed that the city’s lowest and most evil had come out of hiding. Looting, rioting, and arson could be seen anywhere you looked. She knew the screams from that night would haunt her forever, and she was sure she had seen a dead body or two somewhere. There had to be some other factor here. How could the city she had worked so hard to protect possibly be this self-destructive?

Marinette was afraid and stressed beyond belief. They had never faced anything as intense as this, what if they couldn’t fix it, what if Hawkmoth finally--

Wait… 

Momentarily pulling herself out of her thoughts, Ladybug heard a murmuring from around the corner. It was Chat Noir, but what was he doing?

“All I’m asking is that you help us out,” Chat muttered. “Just this once, then I’ll leave you alone, I swear.”

Was he-- 

Was he praying?

“Thank’s in advance I guess. If not, screw you.”

Before Ladybug got the chance to say anything, Chat came around the corner with a grim look on his face. 

“Let’s get this over with,” He said. 

And they did. 

After three transformations, plans A through S, and several words Master Fu definitely wouldn’t have approved of, The Alchemist had finally been de-evilized. Once they left the sewers, Ladybug called upon her lucky charm once again and received a canister of liquid nitrogen and a test tube. Scooping a small amount of the fizzing chemical and freezing it, the substance froze in the form of a butterfly, then smashing it and fixing the damaged caused. Ladybug took a shaky breath before making her way towards Chat and the victim.

Horrified at the destruction his abilities had caused, the victim, Dr. Marcel Roux, apologized-- close to tears. Calming him down took a while, but after reassurance, they managed to find him a safe ride home. 

Despite the ladybugs fixing everything, Ladybug and Chat Noir both had a sinking feeling that some people weren’t returning home that night.

*********

Wishing both him and the driver a good night, she and Chat sat atop the Eifel Tower, exhausted. Being home was most likely the smartest and safest option, but after what they had seen that night neither of them wanted to be alone with their thoughts that night. 

“Chat,” she began. 

“Hmm,” came a noise. Ladybug turned to him to see that he was against one of the support beams. The moonlight hit his face, and Ladybug wondered how someone could look that angelic any time of day.

“You never told me you were religious.”

His eyes snapped open and his gaze was locked with hers. “What do you mean?” 

“Earlier,” she began. “While we were in the sewers, I heard you praying. Kind of a rude one but a prayer still.”

He snorted. “I wouldn’t exactly call myself religious. I don’t go to church or practice any religion, and I definitely don’t have any sort of relationship with the man upstairs,” Ladybug noticed that he seemed to give the sky some sort of look. Almost imperceptible, but he looked as if he was angry. “But I figure when you’re that low, a little wish can’t hurt.”

She hummed in response, then yawned as she looked over the city.

“I had no idea they were capable of something like that,” she said.

Her partner gave a grim chuckle in response. “Give someone enough power, they’ll do plenty of shit you weren’t expecting.”

Marinette knew he had a point, but there was a nagging feeling in her gut that something really wasn’t right. Of course she didn’t know the people of Paris that well. She had only been a hero for a short time, but to go from hopeful and faithful to complete anarchists was drastic and unlikely. 

Chat glanced over at her, seeing the gears in her mind turning and the worry on her face. He reached over and placed a hand on her knee.

“Tonight was weird, yeah. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified too. It's horrifying seeing the city we fight so hard to protect turn on itself like that--"

"You're really not helping, you know."

"That's ‘cause you didn't let me finish," She snorted and gestured for him to continue. "Sure, all that's true, but we have each other, and that's honestly all that matters."

She rolled her eyes at him as she stood, leaning on his staff for support. "You suck at pep talks."

He grinned and squatted back down to her level. "My point is, bugaboo, that no matter what happens, I’ll be here to get through it with you. The world could be ending, and it would be ok as long as you're next to me."

She knew she was blushing and turned away as he chuckled. 

"I should get home, Chat." She smiled at his wounded dog expression. "Some of us have curfews you know."

Chat Noir grabbed his hand and pressed a kiss to it. "Until we meet again My Lady." He turned away from her and vaulted off the Eifel. She watched him freefall and he spun in mid-air to face her, winking and giving her a two-finger salute.

He eventually disappeared behind buildings in the distance. Ladybug swung away, grinning stupidly at her partners' antics. While Chat had done his best to reassure her, doubt seeped into her mind. It didn't seem normal for the people of Paris to have that sort of reaction. 

What also wasn’t normal was the pair of glowing red eyes watching her from down below as she made her way home. 

[allthingsroleplay]

SHADOW AND BONE CAST WANTED FOR JESSIE MEI LI

Ben Barnes as a romantic interest (here) Zoë Wanamaker as head chef (here) Amita Suman as best friend (above + here) + rest of cast in the same main request

The Site

a real life site set on the fictional town of Tamarack Island on the Outer Banks. Active for 3 months + Jcink Premium.

The Ben

So this here is the owner of Mama Tierra. I’d love for Ben Barnes to be the face used because a) Jessie Mei Li & Ben Barnes have amazing chemistry, and b) the picspam is great and I adore picspam – but if you prefer to use someone else, please feel free to as well! It’s really not a requirement/condition of taking this role. But it’d be a bonus ^^ he opened the bistro in the summer of 2012, which is also when Evan (Jessie) started working there. He doesn’t need to be a native of the island, but he would have then obviously moved to Tamarack at least then.

So I’d love for this character to be Evan’s current romantic interest. She would have had a major crush on him back in the day when she first started working at Mama Tierra’s, but would have thought it all completely inappropriate and unprofessional, and would have just buried her feelings deep down. Instead, over time they became close friends and probably could also spend a lot of time together outside of work depending in what their mutual hobbies are? We can plot it all out though!

Otherwise his personal and romantic history is up to you. Past engagement? Divorced? Has a kid? We can talk it out, but just feel free to have your imagination run wild!

Then in site-canon history, when Evan was 20 she met through the owner his business investor - Clark Hayward. At 21 she begun to date him and it ended on February 14th 2021 where Clark proposed to her and Evan said no.

Since then 6 months have passed and slowly in that time Evan’s old feelings for the owner have begun to resurface and while she’s trying to keep them buried ‘cause she’s still terrified of how it will look to the outside world & the potential to destroy things at Mama Tierra. But it’s not really working. Again, specifics, details and changes we can also figure out and plot out together <3

The Zoe

the head chef is a no-bullshit person who runs their kitchen with a strong fist. Probably yells a lot and says that they’re gonna have someone fired every day (but it doesn’t happen). Cross them and they’ll stick you with grunt work. Still, secretly loves their staff and probably wouldn’t want anyone else working with them. Plus loves to see them expand their skill sets. Was the person that Evan asked for a reference letter for a part-time college course that she’s starting in October.

The Amita

I am requesting Amita because she is sunshine, I adore picspam and I’d also just love a best friend from work (that of course crosses over into private life) for my Evan. :)

So the whole staff of the bistro are like family anyway, but I’d love for Amita to be the one that Evan is closest to (and vice-versa) (along with orion). Just a person that she can be 100% herself, speak without fear or worry or censorship.

The Amita is very open and while I imagine her to be a ray of sunshine, she’s your open canvas :)

If you’d like any kind of ideas, here I’ve got some plot scenarios, and we can of course chat about them / it more on discord!

1. Amita and Evan met when they were kids - both of their families were locals that have lived on the island for generations and were “forced” to sit at the kids table at town events – but even though the interactions were initially forced, the friendship was genuine. Their families also became friends as they both experienced the same branch of prejudice - racism.

alternative: they were forced to interact and in the past weren’t friends for whatever reason and then only became friends-friends once they started working together at mama tierra’s?

2. Amita just moved to the island (anywhere from 4 years ago to 1 year ago?). They bonded very quickly, perhaps just because they share many things in common,  or just got on well, or one of them screwed up badly at work and the other person took the blame for it? Though no fear, neither the head chef nor the Ben (the owner of Mama Tierra) would have fired either of them anyway. And perhaps Amita was the first person to also realise that Evan and the Ben are perfect for each other / are idiots that clearly have feelings for each other?

3. Amita is a single mum (can be combined with either options above, or other ideas you might have) and despite the fact that evan is terrible with kids, she wants to help amita out in any way she can? And possibly Amita's  kid is one of the few kids that make Evan realise, “hey, kids aren’t so bad” and maybe even babysits for her if she’s working and Evan isn’t or if she wants to go on a date // enjoy some alone-time. (Or just hang out the two of them and her kid).

4.  I Need Help: Amita meets Evan in a bar at 11pm at night. Amita looks ragged and disheveled and completely out of place. They almost get kicked out for not having any money to buy a drink when Evan takes pity on them and buys one for them. They chat and get to know each other and realise they have more in common than they might have originally thought. (Plot scenario found online)

5. the two women were neighbours when evan still lived in Ardsley Park with her ex (Clark Hayward). Evan heard that Amita just lost her job, or was looking for a job, etc. She arranged for an interview at Mama Tierra’s (and promised to help train her, in case Amita didn’t have previous experience in the food/restaurant industry).

6. any ideas that you have! <3

[iinfortunii]

rules: code of conduct.

BEGIN.

Before we start, I would like you to have certain things in mind when approaching me ooc. I am very shy and quite awkward, which results in me not being much of a talker; however, I will always try my best to be friendly to whoever wants to approach. I dislike pet names so please do not use them with me unless we are very close. There will be times when I'm just exhausted, so my wording could sound rude/aggressive, to which I apologize in advance -I never mean to hurt people’s feelings. I also reserve the right to interact with WHOEVER I want, and pestering me about it will only get you blocked.

Updates will be made as required.

I. BASIC.

A. This blog is: Selective / Independent / Canon Divergent / NSFW / Mutuals only / Singleship / Mostly iconless / Multiverse / AU, Crossover, OC, and Multimuse friendly / Vaguely affiliated with the OP RP fandom.

B. I am a very slow rper for many reasons —school, family, my ever-fluctuating mood —and I would appreciate it if you refrained from pestering me for replies. In return I offer as much patience as necessary. Think of this blog as low activity please.

C. English is not my mother language so I apologize in advance for any mistakes made.

D. I track the tag #iinfortunii, although mentioning me works just as fine.

E. Constructive criticism is always welcome but anon hate will be immediately deleted. I have no problems if you disagree with my portrayal, but it doesn't give you the right to harass me.

F. Mun and muse are both over 18, so there are chances that heavy content will be present; however I won't be writing smut. I can roleplay anything before or after the act if requested, but the moment things get far too explicit, I'll do a fade-to-black. I ask of you to not lie about your age or else you’ll be blocked indefinitely.

G. This is a heavily headcanon-based blog, and changes are likely to be made as more information is revealed about him, though I reserve the right to adjust the new information according to my interpretation of Deuce or simply ignore it, which is why I’m canon divergent.

H. If you'd like to turn an ask into a thread, you can turn it into a new post, or reblog from me, as I won't be using the Tumblr asks anymore due to the problems that come with formatting and such.

I. Ask box is open for everyone ic or ooc, but you aren't allowed to turn it into a thread and nor I will reply to it if we’re not mutuals. Please don't push me, because I won't hesitate to block.

J. No godmoding —only a minor is allowed if it moves a thread forward —or metagaming, please. Don't kill Deuce either, unless plotted beforehand, and most importantly, don't hold your muse back.

K. Discord is available for mutuals upon request.

L. Just because I write something it does not mean I condone it. Please have this in mind and again, do not pester me about it. Any and all nsfw matters will be tagged accordingly. There will be triggering topics present, and you can know more about this on the section below.

M. DO NOT involve me in drama or call-out posts. I’m heavily against both things. On this note, you’ll never see me rebloging a call-out post. This culture is so damaging and toxic, and I firmly believe no one should play the role of the judge for the good of the community just because you had issues with someone or don’t agree with the things they roleplay. Talk things privately, be mature about it, hard-block the person and move on. I am also very aware that a lot of people have done things that can’t be excused, but I like to believe that people can change for the better. If you try to drag me into it, I'll hard block any and all people involved indefinitely.

II. TRIGGERS.

A. They will be tagged as trigger tw, trigger / and trigger cw.

B. I do my best to stay up to date with my mutuals triggers. Your comfort is way more important to me than you might think, so never be hesitant to approach me via IM, (anonymous) ask or stop following me.

C. Triggers that are likely to appear, although some more than others: violence || blood || death || drugs || abuse || knives || body image || medical equipment || suggestive content || etc

D. I have no triggers, so you are free to go wild with your content. I only ask you remember to tag your nsfw (both written and visual), please.

III. INTERACTIONS.

A. Deuce won't like everyone. He might/will make wrong assumptions about your character. He will insult and bite back. He won't always be nice to those he likes. He does many things that serve his interests. You, as the mun, have no reason to take it personal, because I'm won't follow someone I don't like; if you DO take it personal however, and decide to rouse drama, then I'll be hard-blocking you. Goes for me as well —I have no reason to get angry for any of the things noted above.

B. My bonds page displays the relationships that have been built over time, not necessarily through interaction alone but over plotting as well. Refer to it for more information.

C. Interactions with OCs related to canon characters will only take place as long as said OCs have a detailed about page. Personally, I'm not interested in the idea of an OC being blood-related to my portrayal, so I apologize in advance.

D. Formatting isn’t a big thing across my blogs, save for the small text. Please don’t mix either sup/sub with small text when writing with me, as I have eyesight problems. Don’t use colored text either.

E. Non-romantic pre-established relationships are allowed! Just make sure to talk it out with me first, yeah?

01. Spade / Whitebeard pirates (canon and original characters alike that i am MUTUALS with) will have a pre-established relationship as long as the other mun is comfortable with such idea, though that relationship will be limited to merely crewmates, unless discussed otherwise.

F. You don’t need to match my writing length as long as I’m given enough to work with. If something about my reply bothers or doesn’t work with you, let me know and I’ll re-work it.

G. I really enjoy plotting scenarios or talking out about the relationships my muse could have with other muses, so hit me up if you’ve got any ideas! I’ll try to do the same!

H. Mun does not equal muse, so don’t go assuming I’m a jerk simply because Deuce is an asshole from time to time. I’m set on the idea that I’ll give people the same treatment they give me —which is always nice and kind. Kudos to everyone for this ♡

I. I don’t use a threadtracker because I rely on my memory (terrible mistake, I know), but I try to draft people’s replies as soon as I see them. If by any reason it seems like I lost it, then please let me know / send me a link with it and I’ll be deeply grateful.

J. I don’t do nor reply to greetings starters for matters of my own comfort, so I ask of you to never expect a starter or a reply from them.

IV. SHIPPING.

A. Singleship, with the spot taken by daadzi, which means Deuce is no longer open for romantic relationships.

01. Under no circumstances, I will accept more romantic relationships once the spot is taken. That being said, I won’t discourage your muse from falling for / hitting on him, although I ask you to understand he will never respond with the same interest or will never react gently if he’s pushed too far.

02. If my shipping partner is comfortable enough, I'll interact with duplicates with the condition that the relationship is strictly platonic.

B. Constant interaction, mutual interest, and chemistry are a must for the sake of better communication (both ic and ooc, preferably).

C. Please do not approach me if you wish our characters to have either a: one night stand or friends with benefits type of relationships. It won’t work out due to the nature of Deuce’s personality, and for that I apologize.

E. My ship has its own tag so you're free to block it if you don't want to see it on your dashboard. In addition, I'll also tag those posts with only the ship name for this very purpose.

F. Please do not force ships on me.

V. CELEBRATIONS.

A. First off, I am absolutely terrible at keeping up with dates, and to be frank, I am not the biggest fan of celebrating, which is why I think it’s necessary to say I won’t be partaking in any holidays, not even Deuce’s birthday (not that he has one, to begin with). Obviously I will still reply to any gifts received, and will send out things in return —you know, common courtesy.

B. I won't be sending out birthday gifts every year, and I might write drabbles for people once in a blue moon; it doesn’t mean they will be done for the specific date though, so please be patient.

VI. REASONS TO NOT FOLLOW BACK / UNFOLLOW.

A. Too much drama / call-outs / vague posts / sexual content.

B. Content makes me uncomfortable.

C. You are a personal blog without a visible rp sideblog. Please make sure it's easy to find.

D. You do not have a proper tag system.

E. Your blog doesn’t have a rules and about pages.

F. You lack the manners to deal with people respectfully.

G. I have no interest / lost interest.

H. I'm constantly / only used as a meme archive.

I. Other reasons may apply. I will soft block so we can both cease following each other and avoid any potential awkward situations. I won’t make a fuss if you decide to unfollow so I expect the same courtesy.

VII. ABOUT BEATRICE.

She is not a real person. Her concept as Deuce’s (toxic) pseudolover is my creation and was somewhat inspired from the real life Beatrice Portinari. Do have in mind that Deuce doesn’t talk about her so your muse can’t simply approach him and ask about her unless they can go through his memories / read his mind / any capability alike or he speaks about her, though it won't take a genius to figure out that she's a product of his imagination.

You can read about her by clicking here -link to be added.

She serves as a lie to shield himself from the internalized homophobia he deals with up until meeting Ace.

NOTE: As stated previously, Mun =/= muse, but I too have been dealing with compulsory heterosexuality for far too long, so I'd like to apologize in advance for projecting a bit of that into my portrayal. I'll work so that this part makes sense with what we've been given from Ace's novel.

VIII. MISCELLANEOUS.

A. I will never force people to follow me, so if by any reason you have to unfollow/block me, please go ahead. Your comfort matters and have every right to do what you must to ensure your wellbeing. With that said, I will not tolerate and will immediately hard block if you try to police my content.

B. I do not follow back immediately, and it can take me from a few hours to several days to follow back. Do not take it personally if I choose not to.

C. If I follow it’s because I am interested in interacting. I only ask you to be patient because it might take me a while to gather the courage to send something to your inbox or talk to you.

D. I have. ZERO knowledge about medicine. Don’t expect me to go full force and try to be 100% accurate, because I won’t.

E. I practice reblog karma (send a meme to someone if I’m rebloging it from them). If you see something you’d like to reblog but have no intention in sending something yourself, then please reblog from the source.

IX. FINISH.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! As you might have noticed, there’s no password to send. Make sure to check the psa tag for any updates, or don’t hesitate to send an ask if there’s anything unclear! I do my best so as not to post too much OOC posts, but sometimes it just happens. If it's nothing important, then I'll erase it whenever I have the chance/remember.

Keanu Reeves vc: You’re all breathtaking!

[sailash44]

Do not deal with chronic discomfort, find a solution for it (guide consisted of!).

Chronic discomfort can significantly lower your lifestyle. Several people suffering from chronic discomfort can no more appreciate their preferred activities, sports are out of the inquiry, and even sitting at a workdesk for lengthy hrs can trigger agonizing discomfort As well as there is often no reprieve; even an excellent night's sleep is often impossible. This is why it is so crucial for patients to find a comprehensive pain management program. It will certainly aid restore the specific and also allow them return to the things they enjoy to do, whether it's swimming in the pool, having fun with their grandkids, or taking a basic snooze! In this guide, we'll discuss the basic difference in between severe as well as chronic pain, when you should look for a pain management specialist, what you can do to minimize the signs, and also whether pain management strategies can help you. The various between chronic and intense pain. Many people are usually confused regarding the difference in between severe and persistent pain. The distinction can be made fairly conveniently: severe pain is the instant result of being injured. As an example, breaking a leg, bumping your head versus a reduced ceiling, or placing your hand on a warmer and burning on your own. This sudden and high level of discomfort is excellent; it informs your body that you've been harmed which action requires to be taken. Consider discomfort as component of your body's health and wellness management system. Sharp pain normally does not last long and also the time frame is affixed to the sort of injury. However what is widely real is that when the injury heals, the pain signals additionally quit. Allow's return to the leg break example; once it's fully healed and also you've undergone a physical recovery trajectory, the pain ultimately stops. Persistent discomfort, on the other hand, can be taken into consideration a problem in its own. Persistent pain can occur in an apparently random fashion, however it can additionally come as an outcome of an injury. If you still have discomfort past what is taken into consideration the average recovery procedure, the pain can be considered persistent. Chronic pain tends to last for an extended period of time. Some individuals will endure for just a couple of weeks or months, while others will certainly experience chronic discomfort for several years. It can be a low-grade discomfort, it can go as well as come, however it's constantly there in some form. When should I consult pain management doctors? Several people will consult their regional pain management physician much as well late. They will certainly try to merely make it through the pain or learn and also try to deal with it. For many individuals, it frequently takes an extreme round of persistent pain for them to seek the assistance they require. Don't do this. If your pain lasts longer than one would reasonably anticipate, the very best choice you can make is to manage the signs and symptoms early and also visit a pain management clinic near you. Otherwise, you take the chance of worsening the scenario and also triggering higher issues in the long-term. At an outright optimum, go see your medical professional after two or three months of constant pain. If you are not seeing any type of renovation, it's finest to look for therapy alternatives. Do not try and take a higher dosage of medicines (unless it's within healthy and balanced limitations), specifically if you find that your signs are not enhancing. What you can get out of a pain management medical professional Pain management doctors are physicians that have progressed training, which allows them to focus on the examination, medical diagnosis, as well as production of a comprehensive pain management plan. If you are struggling with persistent pain, it is a good idea that you get in touch with the very best pain management medical professional near you. Pain management physicians are 'regular medical professionals' in the feeling that they additionally go via clinical training as well as a basic residency. Following this common program, nevertheless, they after that join to an additional year in pain management training. This fellowship will cause a board-certified speciality; it can be as certain as dealing with pain as a result of cancer, or managing sport injury rehabilitation job. Pain management facilities encounter all sorts of discomfort, whether it's in the reduced back, the head, hip, neck, or knee. The causes can be several, as well as consist of sciatic nerve pain, migraine headaches, fibromyalgia, and also arthritis. The point is this: pain management doctors are totally trained, have a variety of experience, as well as go with comprehensive training. Pain management facilities that provide sophisticated and alternative treatment methods are completely grounded in medical scientific research, and also you can be certain the therapy will likely alleviate your signs with time. Pain management doctors will certainly begin by identifying the cause of the discomfort you are experiencing. This is an extremely important step, as the treatment alternatives differ based upon the result of the diagnosis. This is why it is not advisable to simply self-medicate with over the counter medication, as you will certainly not be managing the origin of the issue. Back pain is an extremely usual condition yet in fact has several reasons. Poor position over an extended period, which frequently occurs with office employees, can result in persistent pain. Reduced back concerns can also locate their cause in degenerative problems (e.g. joint inflammation) or a herniated disk. In the suitable situation, you will not call for pain medication or surgical treatment. Rather, medical professionals will certainly provide complementary treatments to lower your discomfort. Depending upon the reason and extent of your problem, your pain management specialist may additionally recommend pain killers. NSAIDs are the most typical, however you might likewise be provided antidepressants or muscle mass depressant. You might also be used joint injections, epidural steroid shots, or various other such therapy options. Treatment needs to be an interactive procedure, with your pain management clinic functioning with you to discover the ideal set of therapy alternatives for you. Keep in mind, pain management is a complicated problem, and also it calls for a professional having a participating as well as truthful partnership with clients. There is no solitary option This does not deal with the real reason, as well as it usually indicates your pain will certainly get worse over time. Not only that, you might establish a harmful relationship with discomfort medications. The very best bet is to seek a pain management doctor near you. They will certainly have the ability to detect your condition as well as discover the very best route forward. You will after that get on the road to healing and also a life with dramatically reduced discomfort. The opportunity to lift your children or grandchildren once again, be able to go out for runs or lengthy walks, and also having the ability to finish day-to-day tasks without irritating discomfort is feasible. If you still have discomfort past what is taken into consideration the average recovery procedure, the discomfort can be thought about persistent. Numerous people will certainly consult their neighborhood pain management doctor much also late. If your pain lasts longer than one would fairly expect, the finest choice you can make is to deal with the signs and symptoms early and also see a pain management clinic near you. Pain management doctors will certainly begin by detecting the cause of the pain you are experiencing. Depending on the reason as well as degree of your condition, your pain management specialist may likewise prescribe discomfort awesomes. On Purpose Chiropractic 427 N Santa Cruz Ave Los Gatos, CA 95030 United States (408) 354-8044 For more information on Alternative Pain Management Los Gatos Pain Management Doctors Near Me Los Gatos CA

[script-a-world]

Google Form Ask: I'm working on a fantasy set in kind of an alternate earth that has various nation-states representing various cultures, so I have an idea for one to be a Chinese representation, North African/Middle Eastern pre-Islamic rep, Mediterranean (likely Greek) rep, and various European areas. The nation-states are all under the overarching rule of a monarch in the head nation state. Most of the language for the nation-states in my early draft was based on color names in AngloSaxon (which relates to the colors of their standards, etc), but if they're based on these other nations/cultures, would it be appropriate to come up with names for them in the language in which they're based? (ie a Chinese name, an Arabic name, etc) but having all political language be in that AngloSaxon name they were originally given? (i am white so that's really why i want to be sure i'm giving accurate rep here)

Constablewrites: When languages intersect, the powerful set the standards and the powerless adopt and adapt. It’s such an inherently political process that it can provide some valuable insight into the history of your setting.

The origins of English as a bastard language come from the Norman Conquest, when the French ruled England, and their language was the language of court. But the peasants had no reason to learn that language and continued speaking English. It was the noble class (who had to operate in both worlds) and the merchant class (who wanted to live like nobles) who drove the hybridization and the development of Middle English, and the choices of which language to use for what reflected their class concerns.

For instance, the dirty, farty animal tended by the peasants remained a Saxon cow. But slaughtering it and serving it at table was reserved for the gentry, and accordingly at that point it became boeuf (beef).

One language can be imposed on another people from above, like how the ruling class uses their own words for the mechanisms of government. It can also come from below as people aspire to the ruling class. (Think of the dude who uses overly long Latinate words for everything, even when they’re not really accurate, just to show how educated he is.)

The setup you’ve described is inherently colonial: your Anglo-Saxons conquered everyone else, and hung onto that land for long enough that their language took root. (Note that it doesn’t have to be like that in the present. See Spanish in Latin/South America, or English and French in Africa.) Place names would largely still be in the native language, since those don’t naturally evolve in the way that names for people, things, and actions do. How much else survives of the native language depends on your history and politics: if the lower classes had no need to learn the language of the elite and the upper classes didn’t really care how the peasants spoke, that implies the sort of conquest whose attitude was “your taxes go to us now, otherwise just keep doing what you’re doing and try not to riot k thx” and you’d see that in their other policies. If the ruling classes were actively trying to spread their own culture, that would require stamping out the existing way of life and having a much lower tolerance for the native language. Historically, the latter has been much more common. In those sorts of scenarios, perpetuating the native language, even just in personal names, becomes an act of resistance. If you want to see how this plays out, look at the history of indigenous languages--well, basically anywhere, but especially in North America, and also the evolving debate in immigrant communities about given names and what language is spoken in the home.

There’s nothing wrong with creating this kind of setting, but be aware that presenting it in a neutral or positive light makes just as much of a statement as digging into its flaws. If you don’t want to take that on, or if this doesn’t sound like at all what you were going for, you might need to adjust the approach to language accordingly. A creole or pidgin language ([this Quora article] elaborates on the difference) implies two cultures coming together on a more equal footing. You can also rely on the [translation convention], which says that everything is in English except the names not because the world’s English-equivalent is that dominant, but because you’re writing for readers who speak English and you want them to understand. In that case, you’d use other cues to establish how the cultures manifest and interact with each other.

Feral: If I may, I would like to interpret this question as, “I think my story has elements that are problematic, can you help me identify them?” Because the potential issues I see in the small amount of information given in this ask are much more far reaching than “can I use a real life language as the basis for a fantasy language/naming-system?”

Constable has already pointed out various scenarios throughout real history, so I won’t repeat all of that. But I do need to emphasize one thing:

What you’re describing is colonialism. And it is bad. It is, in fact, evil (if evil exists). We shouldn’t have to say this in 2019. It is completely okay to have colonialism in your worldbuilding; it’s a thing that exists in the real world so it can exist in fiction. But here’s the thing: once more, it’s evil. The Anglo-Saxon imperial power you are describing is evil. They have done an evil thing that the real world analogous cultures actually did do and the effects of which are still very very real and felt by the real world cultures you're having your fictional versions subjugate. Which means they can’t be the good guy. If they are, in the context that you are writing in, your worldbuilding is fundamentally racist. And I know from the very fact that you are asking for help that this is the farthest thing from what you want for your world and your story. But if this is the case, then the only thing you can do is raze the world and start again.

Another thing in your ask that jumped out at me is the phrase “pre-Islamic Middle Eastern/North African rep.” I assume you’re going with pre-Islam for one or both of two reasons. 1) This is a “sandals and sorcery” setting that would take place in an analogous time period to pre-Christian and pre-Islam; your reference to Greece being the inspiration for the “Mediterranean” culture makes me think that pretty much all cultures are being referenced in the BCE (which would be between 500 and a thousand years before the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England, so keep that in mind). 2) You’re concerned about representing an Islamic culture sensitively.

Here’s the thing: there’s no such culture as the Middle East, and definitely not Middle East/North Africa, pre-Islam (one can argue that there’s no such thing as the Middle East pre-WW2, but I do not have time for that argument). The spread of Islam is responsible for whatever homogeny there is between the cultures, and even today, there is not one single culture in the Middle East (a political designation, hence the post-WW2) or in North Africa. There are many cultures between the different countries and between the different ethnic groups within the same countries. Arabic would only be an appropriate reference language if your reference is pre-Islam Arabia, not the whole Middle East, because again Arabic spread through Islam – different places have different native languages which are still the common use languages.

It may just be in the limited space you had for the ask, but the way you’ve represented your worldbuilding makes it seem like your inclusion of these other cultures is more of a check-list style, no-can-call-me-racist-because-I-mention-other-cultures-that-are-different-from-mine attempt than an actual desire to have representation.

Moving onto what is not really problematic in your ask but is confusing… I just don’t understand what the whole color thing is about. That’s not how countries are named. Where do these standards come from? Did all the cultures just happen to have single colored standards that they used to identify themselves pre-invasion/colonization? Or did the Anglo-Saxon culture literally conquer the world through the cunning use of flags [video]?

I would check out this Wiki article on the etymology of country names in English. A good example of how English names for countries do come about is in the name for Japan. Japan is the Anglicization of Marco Polo’s Italianicization of the Shanghai accented pronunciation of 日本, “jitpun,” which has been Japan’s name for itself since the end of the 7th century, is pronounced “nippon” or “nihon” there, and means “land of the rising sun.”

Hello Future Me has a fantastic video on how to go about replicating both native placenames and colonial placenames in your worldbuilding.

Finally, as far as your actual question goes, can you use a real language from a culture not your own to name places in your world? I think you need to do a lot of researching and a lot of revisiting your worldbuilding before you can make that call.

Tex: You have an... interesting collage of places listed. Some of them go into more detail than others - I'm curious why you've picked what you did, and to the depth that you've chosen. Given the Ango-Saxon bias I'm picking up on, can I assume that you're basing the head of this government in England/the UK? If so, I'm also curious to know whether this alternate world is the consequence of a diversion point in our own history (e.g. someone lost a war that let the UK steamroller everyone into the Commonwealth), or if previous other world powers are for some reason less effective at consolidating their powers and conquering their neighbors than the UK (I'm going to keep assuming UK for simplicity's sake in my answer, but feel free to plug in whatever works for you).

There is a bit of an issue with your current set-up, assuming real-world, real-history parallels. The most immediate of which is that humans are quite simply very good at organizing themselves into societies as soon as they've got that sedentary lifestyle (i.e. agriculture) down pat, and this can and has happened in every found and currently living human settlement, with rare exceptions. Statistically speaking, empires are an eventuality, especially given the right combination of genetics (De Neve et al, 2013; Li et al., 2012) and circumstances (The Creativity Post; Zhang et al, 2009; Halverston et al., 2004; Hunt et al., 1999) to launch a would-be leader into capably instituting a strict hierarchy with a penchant toward warfare. Please let it be known that expanding borders is typically a bloody process, because other people get upset if you take their things without permission - namely, their land, food, and women.

(I name "land, food, and women" because 1.) land is a place to grow food, bury your dead, and obtain water, 2.) food is necessary to not die, and 3.) women ensure the existence of the next generation and thus perpetuity of your society/ethnicity. These are integral, and missing even one of them can immediately - or very, very quickly - lead to the downfall of your civilization. The rest are frills that build upon these three components.)

The reason why I'm curious as to the places you've picked is because every single one of them has at least established a kingdom, if not an empire of their own. For the practical reasons of warfare, these are difficult governments to topple and replace with your own (particularly if you're culturally distinct from them, but that's a slightly different topic). Wikipedia has multiple lists about empires across the world: List of largest empires, Colonial empire § List of colonial empires, and List of empires. I’m going to toss in List of people known as “the Great”, to round things out.

The issue, from a would-be conqueror's perspective, in attaining governance of these places is their armies and ability to call upon allies due to their accompanying diplomatic prowess. In order to be formidable, you need an army of your own that's capable of overcoming such an obstacle. If you're canny, you can trade some brute strength for things like economic manipulation and various degrees of diplomacy that probably delve into things like assassination (China and Rome were big fans of these methods to one degree or another).

Pick a region and an era, and you'll find someone that's done exactly that in varying ratios at least once. Sun Tzu's The Art of War comments about warfare to degrees of honorability and the effectiveness of the different grades depending on the situation; familiarizing yourself on that book will help you greatly in laying the foundation of how your world came to be, if you haven't already done so. The history of your world will most definitely set the stage for any era coming after it, particularly if you're writing for a post-"unification" era.

Now, nation-states are a relatively new concept, particularly because they're a combination of two distinct ideas - the nation and the state (this might appear a bit obvious, but please bear with me). Nations have existed for ages because they're defined by a homogenous ethnic group congregated in the same general area - they are typically grouped by a shared bloodline and culture.

States are different in that their primary association is in an organized government that may or may not be constrained to a single ethnicity - borders exist here, whereas in nations borders hold a more ephemeral placement (the people are the border, rather than geographical markers or lines on a paper).

As such, states are a newer concept than nations, and tying the two together generally leads to a majority ethnicity that is frequently enforced by genocide in order to maintain status quo (Wikipedia); this is, incidentally, where laws protecting minorities originate from, a subject of which can and often is used as political leverage for a variety of motivations.

I will also note that nations, being ethnically-oriented, have their people as their borders. As you can imagine, history in a few continents has proven that "rights" to land have been attempted by spreading out an ethnic group via practices such as immigration, inter-marriage with other nations, and purchase of land. You can see inhibitory reactions in legislation via things like restrictions on religions (forbidding the practice of certain religions), clothing (forbidding or dictating types of clothing - frequently on both class and gender lines), marriage (enforcement of social classes), and language (forbidding of languages and dictation of a national standard).

What you’re describing is colonialism, and with a check-listing tilt that comes across as disrespectful to the cultures you’ve picked out, but I hesitate to call it “evil” because that ascribes a morality that’s inherently tied to particular cultures. Homogenization has certainly displayed benefits in the form of accessibility:

Ancient Egypt, while not strictly speaking an empire, has a mostly continuous lineage with flourishing arts, social development, and many cities were considered cosmopolitan because of contemporary tourism

The Persian empire had a fantastic postal system because of their extensive network of paved roads

Imperial China saw not only the development of a new language, but also the advancement of literature, philosophy, and physical arts such as architecture, pottery, and painting

The Huns developed trade routes across multiple continents which benefited not only goods but intellectual progress

Alexander the Great brought along an entourage of intellectuals and artisans to assemble a compendium of knowledge across his empire that was disseminated as far as possible

The Romans achieved many things - not least their advances in architecture and literature

The Mughal Empire in India was a world leader in manufacturing during its time, and many artworks during its time are considered cultural classics

The Byzantine and Holy Roman Empires both unified large swathes of Europe and other regions of the world

So while colonialism in its many forms does function as an eradication of culture, it also has a tendency to promote stability, relative peace due to a common background, and a marked increase in literacy and the arts - culture, in other words, becomes more intricate because there’s now an opportunity to do so.

Unfortunately for many would-be colonizers, this works best with respect toward the original inhabitants of a land, because otherwise it just devolves into more war. These wars, because they’re culturally- and ethnically-based, are often bloodier than ones fought specifically over resources, because trade negotiations cannot be offered as a common ground where lasting peace can be found.

In order to not have a dissolution of empire like was found when Alexander the Great died, common ground must be found as a unifying factor - genocide doesn’t endear you to anyone, and fosters resentment that’s taken advantage of whenever bureaucracy at the top of the chain fractures. For your instance, the colour names likely won’t work, because it’s imposing a cultural norm that might not match up with the sub-administrations, and it comes across as a patronizing pacification to suggest merely translating it.

“i am white so that's really why i want to be sure i'm giving accurate rep here” - This, combined with your broad strokes of stereotyping, is the checklisting that Feral mentioned. Checklisting is inherently disrespectful to the source cultures, and you would be better off removing them entirely if you find yourself struggling too much with including them as equal in terms of cultural richness and longevity of existence (and for the most part, the ones you’ve skimmed over in your list are older than the UK, so it currently says unkind things of your perception).

Citations

De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel et al. “Born to Lead? A Twin Design and Genetic Association Study of Leadership Role Occupancy.” The leadership quarterly vol. 24,1 (2013): 45-60. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2012.08.001

PDF - Halverson, S. K., Murphy, S. E., & Riggio, R. E. (2004). Charismatic Leadership in Crisis Situations: A Laboratory Investigation of Stress and Crisis. Small Group Research, 35(5), 495–514. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046496404264178

PDF - Hunt, James G., Kimberly B. Boal, and George E. Dodge. "The effects of visionary and crisis-responsive charisma on followers: An experimental examination of two kinds of charismatic leadership." The Leadership Quarterly 10.3 (1999): 423-448.

Li, Wen-Dong, et al. "Do leadership role occupancy and transformational leadership share the same genetic and environmental influences?." The Leadership Quarterly 23.2 (2012): 233-243.

Zhang, Z., Ilies, R., & Arvey, R. D. Beyond genetic explanations for leadership: The moderating role of the social environment. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 110(2), (2009): 118-128.