#in seriousness its interesting to observe how and why discourse takes off

[hazellvsq]

hazel was a worse girlfriend than piper was and reyna was meaner than annabeth but no one will ever care because their primary victim was frank. But I Care.

[spinningbuster98]

Sonic Adventure (Dreamcast) Sonic Ending: What's Past is New

Sky Deck gets a bit of a bad rap and I get why: it’s kinda bullet hellish a times and the collision detection can get wonky, but I don’t think it’s bad, outside of some weird jank (getting to one of the alternate paths near the start that requires some precise homing attacks over a bottomless pit is a pain because unless you do them in quick succession Sonic won’t gain enough altitude to reach the platform for some reason)

In general I find SA1′s level design pretty interesting. I wouldn’t call it “non-linear” as many fans like to spout, God knows I don’t wanna get into that discourse. There’s always a clear path forward, with a bunch of shortcuts available. There’s seldom something on the level of Hydrocity having a clear bottom route and upper route or Marble Garden literally splitting up its path for long stretches.

However SA1′s levels tend to be rather “open” in a sense. They’re full of neat little shortcuts and secrets, some of which you may never find on your own. Stuff like the two buildings with extra lives at the start of Speed Highway, some of the extra paths at the beginning of Sky Deck, a lot of shortcuts and little secret alcolves in Final Egg. They don’t make the levels “non linear” but they do give them character, they give the player a sense of satisfaction for finding these little things and, above all, they tend to take full advantage of the game’s 3D Environments: it’s not about choosing a bottom or upper path sometimes, nor about finding a secret wall, it’s about observing the world around you and know how to interact with it, sometimes with a well placed Spindash jump

I love how Sonic tells Big that “if Froggy is his friend he’ll help him”. I know it’s just shoddy phrasing, but he sounds like he’s implying that if Froggy had been just a regular frog he’d have just let him die lol. Between this and the birdie, somebody’s forgetting his roots as a pseudo environmentalist character

I love how Sonic literally throws himself off the Egg Carrier to chase after Eggman. That’s actually something interesting I’ve noticed about Sonic’s characterization in this game: when it comes to dealing with Eggman he’s usually a bit more aggressive and borderline obsessive than in many other games. Like in other games he’s often pretty jokey and laid back, not taking him seriously outwardly just to piss him off, like in SA2, Unleashed, Colors etc. But here he’s out for blood! He kinda reminds me of some of the intensity from his CD portrayal and how he just chucks a high speed rock at him in the bad ending just out of spite. I guess if anything this goes to show that, even as early as this, the level of seriousness that Sonic would show towards danger tended to vary depending on the game

Final Egg is my favorite Eggman base in the franchise. And not just because the level is very neat from a design standpoint, but because it looks exactly like what I would expect Eggman woul build for a base of operations, given his intended character beats. I’ve always loved Scrap Brain because it played into the theme of Eggman being a bit of a metaphor for heavy industrialization and pollution, something that got carried over to the Bad Futures in CD. Final Egg follows that trend: this place is a giant workshop, it’s dirty, it’s grimy, it practically reeks of motor oil and exhaust gases. It genuinely looks and feels like the kind of place where Eggman would go to tinker with his machines: wherever he goes, unless it’s somewhere where he lives (like the Egg Carrier) he leaves rotting, decaying and festering into a polluting mess. I much prefer this style of Eggman base over something like Metropolis Zone in Sonic 2, which looks too generically colorful and lacks distinct personality, or Metropolis from Forces, which looks way too squeaky clean and generically futuristic

Playing SA1 over the years has led me to notice that it’s rather unique within the franchise in how it approaches the past

Because when you think about it...there are quite a lot of references to the Genesis games here

There’s the obvious and less obvious stuff, like direct references to Eggman duping Knuckles in Sonic 3, or that little girl mentioning Little Planet, Silver Sonic MkII in Final Egg etc

But even the levels themselves: Emerald Coast is really just Emerald Hill with a beach theme, Casinopolis is Casino Night but more grounded(?), Ice Cap is...literally Ice Cap, Sky Deck is kind of reminiscent role-wise to the likes of Wing Fortress and Flying Battery, Lost World is a submerged ancient ruin like Labyrinth Zone and Final Egg is very Scrap Brain

Nowadays Sonic fans are...more than a little unhappy with how the franchise has made it a core part of its identity to recycle old levels for the last 15 years, and I think that SA1 is a good example on how to do this right: it doesn’t even recycle levels (except Ice Cap), it reinterprets old themes.

None of these levels are from old games, their level themes are just inspired by them, yet the game still adds something new to them: Lost World is very different from Labyrinth Zone both in design, spending a lot more time above water and playing around with magnetic floors, and in atmosphere. Final Egg is a lot more focused on sheer platforming over having you dodge buzzsaws and traps, and its aesthetic is a lot more “workshoppy” than looking like a literal death trap inside

Now there’s nothing wrong per se with recycling old stuff, especially if you still do creative stuff with them, as shown by Generations and Mania for example, but the difference between the two approaches is that the latter example....is nostalgia pandering. And nostalgia pandering can be good, as is the case for those two examples, but it is by its very nature typically rather limited in scope. It exists to mostly point a finger and say “good times eh?”. It’s there to look back on a history, to see how far something has come, maybe to learn a few lessons along the way, but it doesn’t look at the future a whole lot.

Oh and y’know, it’s also highly exploitable ‘cause nostalgia’s a helluva drug

SA1′s approach on the other hand is a lot more organic. The way I see it personally it’s not about looking back at the past for its own sake, it’s about evolving the past, to take old concepts, put a new spin on them and say: this is what we are now, similar but different. It’s a statement about the future, rather than a trip down memory lane

Because that’s what SA1 is in a sense: a threshold, the moment where Sonic decided he needed a change in identity while still maintaining most of its basic elements. Whether or not it succeeded is a purely subjective matter, SA1 can be rather blunt with its changes sometimes, but it does absolutely try to appear as a game of passage. The levels are new but the themes are familiar. The characters have new designs but are still recognizable. Even the story: the approach to its storytelling is pretty much the opposite to the more indirect and seemless approach of Sonic 3, but the actual content, an ancient tribe misusing the Emeralds only to pay the price? That backstory was mentioned all the way back in the japanese manual of Sonic 2 and then repeated in Sonic 3, it is literally a continuation of those games’ backstories.

Sonic’s story even ends with him doing a variation of his finger waggle, something that he’d rarely do from then on

And finally: It Doesn’t Matter

I can’t decide which I like the most as Sonic’s theme: this or His World. His World has my favorite instrumentation but It Doesn’t Matter has my favorite lyrics: it is a literal description of Sonic’s character down to the detail, it’s almost ridiculous how folks still have arguments about Sonic’s characterization, when the first 3D game pretty much gave us a manual for it in musical fashion, almost 10 years before the Storybook games

You wanna know who Sonic is? Listen to It Doesn’t Matter

[saintmeghanmarkle]

More questions surrounding Lilis birth & the BRFs blind eye by u/IslandBusy1165

More questions surrounding Lili’s birth & the BRF’s blind eye I feel compelled to first remark that I don’t particularly enjoy Dan Wootton’s channel as I find his content is generally clickbaity, redundant, sensational and lacking any real substance or insight, but he seems like a pretty decent, likable guy on a personal level, so sometimes I take the (click)bait. In this video (linked below) he discusses a clip of Paula (M?)’s channel in which she discusses Lili’s birth certificate and suggests the first 3 digits indicate that Lili was born in CO rather than CA. Idk if there could be other explanations for that but it’s an interesting observation and something you’d expect would demand that the royal family look into for the sake of at least the appearance of doing their due diligence. Dan states that’s something they really ought to do at this point. “Lady C” is his guest a disagrees with Dan about it being a good or worthwhile idea for the BRF to raise any attention to these questions concerning the line of succession or Harry’s kids’ places in it. She thinks that making the line of succession a hot topic would only open the door to anti-monarchist discourse about how the establishment should just be dissolved entirely. I found that so short-sighted and frivolous I had to turn off the video.If the BRF can’t even take itself seriously enough to treat its line of succession as a matter of foremost importance, then frankly those people would be right that it should be dissolved. Under the current structure, they serve no purpose aside from cultural figureheads who are legitimized in those roles solely through their observance of the line of succession. That’s literally their only argument for existence. If they don’t even respect that line (or themselves) enough to ensure its (and their) credibility, why should the public? I get that Archie and Lili aren’t going to be seeing the throne, but it’s a matter of principle, and the BRF demonstrating they’re principled in this essential manner would show respectability and integrity, even to their opponents. It’d also assert authority. Ignoring those questions makes them feel cowardly, disingenuous and dishonorable. https://youtu.be/Xg53tGacqsQ post link: https://ift.tt/bsIciGo author: IslandBusy1165 submitted: May 18, 2025 at 09:28PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[bereft-of-frogs]

loki series discourse thoughts dump: (I’ve been hanging onto them)

- honestly, I’m not touching the selfcest=problematic discourse because I think you can guess my feelings (who cares, it’s hot tho right? hahaha also not the worst thing I’ve ever shipped so) and also I vehemently agree with the twitter thread that’s like ‘....y’all know this is not a scenario you will ever have to face in real life, right?’ like, this is the ultimate fantastical ship, it’s been around for years before this, I do not care that people are upset about it

- I think one of the problems, for me, with the ‘is it objectively good or bad’ discourse is that the negative takes are so negative sometimes that it genuinely makes me question my perception of reality and my ability to critically view television. like, I’m talking about the ‘the effects are the worst and amateurish and it sucks’ sort of hyperbole. (I thought for the most part the effects were quite good, which is why the couple times they were bad really stuck out to me). or ‘they had no chemistry!’ (I actually thought the chemistry was great, particularly in their first episode together, I was really surprised by how quickly I was like ‘oh but I like this dynamic). things like that where they’re either of a subjective nature or they are problems, points if I were inclined to write a larger critique I may have mentioned as well...but they’re perhaps not as big a problem as some people are making them out to be, which is what’s throwing me off.

- this also I think, comes from ‘contextual reviewing’ or in this case the lack thereof. like when I talk about it being good, I’m not saying it’s prestige television. but I’m placing it against its direct competitors - the disney+ series: The Mandalorian, Wandavision, Falcon & Winter Soldier most directly, but also its similar genre shows. for me, the series was right up there with The Mandalorian and a bit better overall than Wandavision, but was it Dark? Was it Altered Carbon? No, but if I want those things....I’m not going to the MCU for that. I was entertained, which is about as deep as I expect out of it. And yeah, the ground is soft and I’m ready to dig for those buried themes, but I’m also not super bothered because I think Loki fit really well into the MCU

(*and if you think this is just me bootlicking disney or whatever, accepting mediocrity from the mouse, I think this problem of contextual reviewing is something that exists even not talking about the mouse. like, I have different standards for a show if I know it originally premiered on SyFy or the CW, versus HBO or AMC, versus Netflix or Amazon, and I have a whole longer post to be made about why some shows are struggling in the age of prestige tv, because we’re flattening the context and holding shows that would have been perfectly well-received on SyFy to HBO standards and I do think it’s sometimes unfortunate and perfectly fun shows get raked over the coals because they’re not performing to prestige TV’s standards)

- I’m starting to see a potential evolution of my predicted conspiracy. still not as intense as tjlc just the rumblings but I gotta say. Cut it out. it is inappropriate to speculate on the personal relationships of actors. It is doubly inappropriate to with no evidence make vague accusations of an intensely personal nature. leaving this one vague. but just...speculating on accusations of a personal nature because you are disappointed in a tv show is inappropriate. stop it.

- that being said I’m also operating on the assumption that the ‘let’s get a protest mob to tom hiddleston’s house’ anon is trolling but still. stop it. seriously. it’s inappropriate. the show was perfectly fine. it may have disappointed you and you have absolutely every right to be disappointed but you do not have the right to attack people who were doing a job, even if you didn’t like the end result. they pitched a show. their pitch was accepted. they made the show. that’s it.

- speaking of, an interesting observation I’ve had throughout the show’s run is how the fandom seems to feel we’re at war with the creators. a lot of putting them down like ‘[theory] but they wouldn’t be smart enough for that’ or bitching about ‘Michael Waldron’s OCs’. Michael Waldron’s job is to write OCs. he has to make characters for Loki to play off of and to further the plot. There is no reason to assume that fanfiction writers are better or smarter or care more than original content creators. in general, canon content creators are held to different parameters than fic writers. honestly, even calling them OCs feels weird to me because creating new characters and worlds is the literal job of the canon creators? but I guess it also makes sense in a way because they are creating new characters in a world already establish but...I don’t know. it’s different somehow. further articulation on this point required.

I think that’s it for me - I probably have some more episode-specific points to contend, but I think that’s it for my general discourse opinions, just to know where I’m standing at this point. I was really entertained, I hadn’t looked forward to a weekly airing of a show this much since the second season of The Mandalorian finished up. As I said last night, looking forward to the multiverse fallout and season 2 and the other films in the lineup!

[olivieblake]

As a writer or even just a consumer of media do you find people are less willing to accept “flaws” in characters and stories? I’m not talking like this character is a murderer he’s evil no one should like him type stuff, though as someone who started off writing dramione I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share of that but just like when characters are ever short of perfect. Like when a strong female character is kinda insecure or a couple isn’t communicating well or has a heated fight everyone gets mad that it’s a toxic relationship or bad writing. I once read a review of a book where someone stopped reading it after two chapters cause it had bad therapy practices, ie. the character still had shit to work through and therapy isn’t magic therefore they weren’t always doing the healing right and it’s like? that’s the whole point!! it’s an arc the character is gonna grow! It’s also made clear early on that the therapist didn’t agree with the coping methods (overly controlling their life) so it wasn’t like they were trying to portray it as a good thing. I know you’ve mentioned people have ✨opinions✨ about your DFS Hermione for having flaws and staying flawed and her flaw is just that she kinda thinks she’s right a lot and maybe isn’t the most self aware nothing even serious lol. I’m not saying don’t be critical of media but it’s kinda overwhelming reading think piece after think piece about why this thing you enjoy is actually the literal worst™️. Like am I toxic for having some of the same flaws ? Am I a problematic creep for enjoy stories where everything isn’t always sunshine, I don’t want to have a train wreck of a relationship but sometimes reading about one can be kinda fun? Is that terrible?

there’s a lot here that I’d like to discuss and I’m thinking about how I’d like to do it (I’ll inevitably chat about it in a video because it’s interesting and complex but I think I may have too many topics for this monday)

let’s see I think I will start by saying: in general, critical discourse about media (books, tv, film, fanfic) is a good thing, but it has definitely gone awry from what I consider to be its origins. I think the whole point of viewing media critically and making observations about what we are portraying via fiction is crucial for amplifying/protecting marginalized stories and reducing harm—specifically, the harm that minorities and women face by being inundated with bigoted, prejudiced, hateful, or ignorant tropes, caricatures, or relationship dynamics. I definitely believe that we should consider what we consume and how we consume it, particularly when it comes to the marginalized voices who do not see themselves represented well or fairly in white male dominated media

that being said, I do think it has led to the expectation that fiction cannot have ANY problems, which is absurd and counterproductive. it’s also extremely reductive, particularly when it comes the Strong Female Character™ thing you mention, where a woman STILL only has value if she’s strong in the “correct” way. I mentioned in one of my other posts and also last week’s video that there’s some kind of disconnect between the VERY GOOD intentions of things like #ownvoices or the movement to empower female characters and the actual outcomes, which make it so that any flaws in a marginalized fictional character are magnified to represent the entire group. the very reasonable request to see ourselves in fiction has somehow become an exponentially convoluted demand to see ourselves a certain way in fiction, where any character who does not reflect our personal experience is bad and wrong. previously, the expectation was that white male stories were universal whereas everything else was only for that specific group, and now, ironically, everything that is created still has to fit that universal quality and please everyone, despite that not being the point. the problem is when you only have ONE movie about this topic or ONE book about this ethnicity, then of course it hasn’t done enough to exemplify an entire subject or culture. there has to be an entire body of work the way there is with white-dominated media, where no single film or book accurately represents the experience of being white

plus we have twitter which is a horrifying hellscape where you get rewarded by the algorithm for making loud, obnoxious points so add that to the list (yesterday I saw that one of the top 3 reviews on Beloved by toni morrison is a 1-star review written by a white man and I was just flabbergasted by the lack of self-awareness) 

but anyway that’s like, more of a macro look at what I think is going on but you’re right that people are not very forgiving of flawed characters. to some extent, I get it; the one thing we don’t want our characters to do is annoy us, and that’s fair. but I also think people have lost the sense that “oh, this thing isn’t for me” and thus can’t successfully identify the difference between critical failure and personal dislike

now. as for Divination for Skeptics. let me start by saying it’s not like I don’t understand why people find hermione in Divination for Skeptics annoying, because I get it. if you’re taking the story very seriously then sure, maybe you want her to change her behavior and it’s frustrating that she doesn’t. fair enough! to that I say it’s a comedy and if you don’t find it funny you’re perfectly welcome to dislike it, it’s not a big deal to me if I don’t make you laugh. however, I DO take issue with people who claim she’s too flawed or doesn’t grow, because they almost always do it in a very specific way: they say that she doesn’t show enough empathy, aka how dare she not read draco’s mind and simply alter her personality and behavior to suit his. it genuinely infuriates me that in my opinion, people who voice that particular “criticism” have seemingly internalized the belief that women should be emotionally perceptive; that for them, hermione’s “flaw” is that she does not take on the emotional labor that draco refuses to perform. (her actual flaw is that her survival technique/coping mechanism is a hyper-rationality that incorrectly assumes she has perfect information; i.e., that everything she knows is accurate, and therefore all of her decisions must be sound.) whereas draco knows this about her—knows and acknowledges it—and yet cannot bring himself to voice his feelings out of a fear-based desire to hedge his own emotional risk. who, then, is more flawed in the context of the story? 

I don’t really have a conclusion yet so I’m going to pause for now and we’ll revisit this; I think mainly it’s that the more media diversifies, the more people will struggle with the preconceptions they have and the presumption that everything they consume is for them, and therefore that they are the metric for whether something is “good.” I think good art, good media, will reflect the world as it exists, but it will still only be the world according to one tiny fraction, a sliver of the actual human experience. does bad representation mean bad art? when it harms people yes. but when it speaks to a deeper truth (the truth of “we are all given to vice and imperfection even if it is not this specific version”), no. but that requires quite a degree of sophistication and self-awareness to identify, hence the discomfort of continuous vitriol or bad takes

[arcticdementor]

When we hear the term “Deep State,” we tend to think of people staffing the federal bureaucracy. I want to suggest to you that that is an incomplete way to think about it. The Deep State in Western liberal democracies consist not only of government bureaucrats, but also of the leadership in major corporations, leading universities, top media, medicine and law, science, the military, and even sports. A more accurate way to think about what we are dealing with comes from the Neoreactionary term “the Cathedral,” which NRxers use in more or less the same way that 1950s Beats used the term “the Establishment.” I like the term “Cathedral” because it entails the religious commitment these elites have to their principles. You can no more debate these principles with them than you can debate with a religious fundamentalist. They adhere to them as if they were revealed truths.

Yet they still like to pretend that they are liberals — that they favor open, reasoned discourse. This is, in fact, a lie. It is a lie that they depend on to conceal the hegemonic intolerance that they wish to impose on everybody under their authority.

…

It is true that no society can tolerate everything. What the Cathedral is now doing is radically limiting discourse, and demonizing as heretics all those within its purview who dissent, no matter how reasonable their objections. (And now Facebook is incentivizing some of its users to report their friends as potential “extremists.” Please get off Facebook now!) The Cathedral seeks to make all of society over in the mold of a college campus. The Cathedral is growing ever more radical. In recent months, we have seen the US military embrace wokeness (to use the slang term for the most vibrant and activist form of the Cathedral’s religion). You would think that it makes no sense for the leadership of a racially diverse armed forces to embrace and indoctrinate its officers in a neo-Marxist theory that causes everyone to see everyone else primarily in hostile racial terms, but that is exactly what has happened. In time — and not much time, either — we are going to see young people who were once from families and social classes that once were the most stalwart supporters of the military declining to join the armed forces in which they are taught that they are guilty by virtue of their skin color.

…

That’s the Cathedral and its values. The Cathedral has also taken over corporate America, and the professions. I hardly need to elaborate on this further, not for regular readers of this blog. It was a hard knock this past week to see that the US Supreme Court, which some of us had thought would be the last line of defense for anybody traditional in this soft-totalitarian Cathedral theocracy, refused to take on the Gavin Grimm case, and the Barronelle Stutzman case. The Cathedral line in favor of privileging LGBTs over religious people and secular people who don’t accept the full LGBT gospel is hardening.

…

I realized over the weekend why I have been so affected by the experience of being here in Hungary these past three months. It has clarified for me the nature of this conflict. First, take a look at this powerful piece by Angela Nagle, writing about the views of Irish intellectual and cultural critic Desmond Fennell. 

…

What does this have to do with Hungary? Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his government have brought down the wrath of European Union leaders over Hungary’s recent law restricting sex education for children, and information about LGBT presented to children. The prime minister of the Netherlands, in extraordinarily bellicose language, threatened to “bring Hungary to its knees” over the law. I am reliably informed by an American source in a position to know that in Washington, even among conservative elites, Viktor Orban is seen as nothing but a fascist. I have been writing all summer about the radical disjunction between Hungary as it is, and Hungary as described by Western elite discourse (media and otherwise). This is by no means to say that Orban’s government is flawless — it certainly is not; corruption, for example, is a big deal here — but to say that there has to be some reason why Western elites of both the Left and the Right despise Hungary so intensely, and slander it so.

There’s a lesson in all this, I believe, for where conservatives and traditionalists in the West are, and where we are likely to go. I have come to believe that the standard left-liberal and right-liberal critiques of Orban — “Magyar Man Bad” — are just as shallow as the “Orange Man Bad” critique of Donald Trump. I say that as someone who was critical of Trump myself, though I credited him for smashing the complacent GOP establishment. I write this blog post in the spirit of Tucker Carlson’s excellent January 2016 Politico piece titled, “Donald Trump Is Shocking, Vulgar, and Right.”

I’ve been reading lately a 2019 book, The Light That Failed, by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes. Both men are liberal scholars who undertake to explain why liberalism failed in Central Europe and Russia after the fall of the Cold War. It’s a remarkably insightful book, one that any conservative with an interest in the problem should read, even though its authors are liberal democrats. They write:

A refusal to genuflect before the liberal West has become the hallmark of the illiberal counter-revolution throughout the post-communist world and beyond. Such a reaction cannot be casually dismissed with the trite observation that “blaming the West” is a cheap way for non-Western leaders to avoid taking responsibility for their own failed policies. The story is much more convoluted and compelling than that. It is a story, among other things, of liberalism abandoning pluralism for hegemony. [Emphasis mine — RD]

You would have thought that in any reasonable pluralistic polity, a sovereign nation choosing to restrict what its children can learn about human sexuality would be of little interest to other nations within that polity. After all, Hungary is not France any more than Estonia is England. There is an immense amount of diversity in Europe. But see, the Cathedral’s liberalism — whether in America or in the EU — is not pluralistic, but hegemonic.

Krastev and Holmes (henceforth, “the authors”) point out that after 1989, the West expected Central European countries to imitate them in every way. The authors — who, remember, are liberals — write:

Without pressing the analogy too far, it’s interesting to observe that the style of regime imitation that took hold after 1989 bears an eerie resemblance to Soviet-era elections where voters, overseen by Party officials, pretended to “choose” the only candidates who were running for office.

…

The authors explain that the reforms demanded by the West weren’t like “grafting a few foreign elements onto indigenous traditions,” but rather “put inherited identity at risk” and stoked “fears of cultural erasure.” From my perspective, this is what you see when you get over here and start looking more closely at what George Soros and people like him, both within and outside of government, did, and seek to do. And so, as the authors put it:

[P]opulism’s political rise cannot be explained without taking account of widespread resentment at the way (imposed) no-alternative Soviet communism, after 1989, was replaced by (invited) no-alternative Western liberalism.

Here’s something I bet you didn’t know about Viktor Orban. After the 2008 crash, Western governments bailed out banks left and right. When Orban came to power in 2010, he chose not to do that, instead taking the side of hard-pressed Hungarian homeowners who had been allowed to take out home loans in Swiss francs. He and his party passed a law to protect homeowners at the expense of the banks.

…

Remember, they wrote this in 2019, but think of this principle applied to now. If you are Viktor Orban, and you look to the West in 2021, you see a United States that is destroying itself with Critical Race Theory wokeness, which is starting to come to Western Europe. You see the Left here in Hungary starting to embrace it (e.g., the Black Lives Matter statue the liberal Budapest city government erected earlier this year), and you know that it will be bad for your country if this poisonous ideology takes root. So you encourage Hungary’s national soccer team not to take the knee before matches.

…

And so, the disintegrating West, headed towards shipwreck, is going to bring Hungary to its knees for trying to protect itself.

…

The authors go on to say that what it means to be a good Western liberal is changing so fast that people in the East never know for sure what vision of society they are supposed to imitate. Think about what it was like for us Americans. I was born in 1967, and educated by schools, by the media, and by every aspect of culture to believe in Dr. Martin Luther King’s colorblind vision. I took it seriously, and I believed in it, and do believe in it. But now the same liberals who argued for that are now arguing that this vision was wrong — that to truly be against racism, you must train yourself to think in exactly the same categories that white segregationists used prior to the Civil Rights revolution. It makes no sense. You come to understand that you have been conned. Never, ever believe liberals: they will change the rules on you, and blame you for your own confusion.

The authors go on to say that sex education in the schools has been a huge flashpoint of conflict within Central and Eastern European societies. It has to do with parents losing the ability to transmit their values to their children. In the flush of post-1989 enthusiasm, young people didn’t so much rebel against their parents as to feel pity for them, and to stop listening to them. The young took their catechism from the Western cathedral. Sex ed was a neuralgic point of the overall struggle between Central European populists, who believed that the traditions and the national heritage of these countries were in danger of being wiped out by the West. Imagine, then, what Hungarian voters must think when they hear the Dutch prime minister threaten to bring their country to its knees because he knows better what they should be teaching their children than they do.

The authors tell a story about how Viktor Orban, at the time an up-and-coming liberal from the countryside, was publicly humiliated by a well-known liberal MP from Budapest’s urban intelligentsia, who adjusted Orban’s tie at a reception, as if doing a favor for a hick cousin.

They go on to explain Orban’s illiberalism by quoting his criticism that liberalism is “basically indifferent to the history and fate of the nation.” Liberal universalism “destroys solidarity,” Orban believes. (“If everybody is your brother, then you are an only child.”) Orban believes that liberal policies will lead to the dissolution of the Hungarian nation because liberals by nature think of the nation as an impediment to the realization of their ideals.

The authors go on to say that Orban has long campaigned on the abuse of the public patrimony by the regime that governed Hungary after 1989, when Communist insiders used their connections to plunder what was left of the public purse, and left the weak to fend for themselves. This attitude explains Orban’s hostility to the banks after the 2008 crash. “[I]n Central and Eastern Europe, defending private property and capitalism came to mean defending the privileges illicitly acquired by the old communist elites,” they write.

(Readers, did you know any of this context about Orban and other critics of liberalism from Central Europe? Doesn’t it make you wonder what more you’re not being told?)

…

What’s preposterous about it? I know these guys are liberals, but what Duda identifies is the difference between soft totalitarianism and hard totalitarianism. In both cases, the Poles don’t get to decide for themselves.

There’s more to the book, but I’ll stop here for today. You don’t have to believe that Viktor Orban or any of these other politicians are saints in order to understand why they believe what they believe — and why people vote for them. The Cathedral did the same thing to Trump and to Trump’s supporters. Yes, there were some Trump voters with disreputable motives, and in any case Trump was by and large not an effective president. But the anti-Trump opposition’s passionate belief in its own righteousness rendered it helpless to understand why so many people hated it, and do hate it still. Trump’s own incompetence made it harder to take that critique seriously.

Trump lost, and most everything he did was wiped away by his successor. Viktor Orban wins — and that is the unforgiveable sin in the eyes of the Cathedral.

Here is the radicalizing thing, though. As you will know if you’ve been reading this blog, Viktor Orban appears to be building a conservative deep state in Hungary. His government has transferred a fortune in public funds and authority over some universities to privately controlled institutions. It is difficult to accept this, at least for me. At the same time, it is impossible for me to look at what has happened in my own country, with the Cathedral now extending its control over every aspect of American life, and to criticize Orban for this. The alternative seems to be surrendering your country and its traditions to the Cathedral, which pretends to be liberal, but which is in fact growing even more authoritarian and intolerant than anything Orban and his party stand for.

It is becoming harder to think of liberalism in the sense we have known it as viable anymore. Me, I would actually prefer to live in a more or less liberal, pluralistic society, where California was free to be California, and Louisiana free to be Louisiana, and so forth. This is not the world we live in.

…

The controversy around Viktor Orban is not only about an obstreperous Hungarian politician who doesn’t play well with others. It’s about the future of the West.

UPDATE: To put it succinctly, we might need soft authoritarianism to save us from soft totalitarianism.

[littlemisssquiggles]

Some people are saying that Rosegarden feels forced, especially after the most recent interaction the two had. That RG had absolutely no build up in terms of shipping. What is your response to this?

Hello Draw. You see, one of the many perks of being both a Rosegardener and Rosegardening Pinehead is that my adoration for the budding bond between our pair of smaller, more honest souls has caused me to become more observant of their moments together; particularly over the course of the most recent three seasons. And it is because I pay so much attention to following these two and their interactions per episode that I can easily contest with full confidence that people’s point of the ship being “forced with no build up” is drivel because it’s not true.

Again, take this from someone who has been following the development of this bond since V5. While it’s not as in your face as the portrayal of certain other ships within the FNDM, I can’t deny the fact that he show has been slowly building up these two’s relationship from the moment they met.

Throughout the seasons, the PLOT continues to highlight Ruby and Oscar’s growing friendship in the form of their continued support of one another. In V5, we began off with Ruby being the sole member of RNJR to actively look out for Oscar during his stay with the group back in Mistral and this habit of our littlered rose being protective of our freckled farm boy turned little barn prince has remained consistent even till this season.

And what’s interesting to note is that this protective and supportive nature wasn’t only established with Ruby. Oscar mirrors this behaviour as well with his own support of Ruby particularly in V6.

But don’t just take my word for it, here’s the photo proof because a picture says a thousand words:

So no I don’t believe the relationship between the Rosebuds is forced at all. If anything, I think the CRWBY have done pretty decently on showcasing the development between these two kids. It’s slow but it’s definitely there and it’s certainly ain’t forced. ‘Forced’ would’ve been if we spent several seasons with the show never really acknowledging these two’s relationship at all, providing zero groundwork for the potential of a romance to spark between them only to suddenly slam them together for this season.

This has not been the case with them fortunately. The Rosegarden bond has been building up nicely with the show occasionally tossing in moments between V5-V7 that highlight just how much one values the other’s influence on them on the team.

My one gripe is that I wished the show had done just a bit more to push for their friendship for this season. What’s weird was that it honestly seemed like that was the direction they were going for at first looking back on CH2 and CH3 of this season.

But no, what that essentially boiled down to was more light exchange of comments between the two until the recent ninth episode. It’s not how I would’ve handled if I were a CRWBY writer but hey, it’s the PLOT and I’m not here to argue the PLOT of RWBY and how the show writes its characters.

Needless to say, the portrayal of Rosegarden and their budding bond has been handled well enough so far (certainly better than certain other ships).

The only thing I believe might be ‘forced’ here is the reaction or rather overreaction of certain members of the FNDM in regards to the recent development of Rosegarden. It honestly upsets me to no end the level of toxicity people can stoop to within this FNDM and just how far they will go to rain on another person’s parade when they weren’t even doing anything to bother them in the first place.

Do you have any idea how annoyed I was over the weekend hearing stories of people complaining about the Rosegarden moment in V7CH9? How angered I became when I saw retweets from fellow Rosegardeners with some of the comments people were making in regards to not just Rosegarden but also Oscar because of this episode. Heck I’m upset now that I can’t even answer this question since I am just so fed up with this part of FNDM and their nonsense.

And what’s silly to me the most about all of this is that these types of fans are losing their butts over a moment that confirmed nothing.

So Ruby and Oscar acted all awkward and adorable while talking to each other in a scene that focused on their interaction?

So?

It’s no different than all the other times the show has had them act this way in a scene. And that’s just it! All they did was share another nice moment together that could easily be argued as not being all that romantically charged.

I’m a Rosegarden shipper and while I will say that that moment did toss a coin in the possibility of a future Rosegarden romance should the series really take them in that direction, it didn’t confirm this possibility for me either. It was just another cute moment between the two characters and the fact that folks are losing their knickers over something as minor as that is utterly ridiculous.

I even had a Whiterose shipper leave me comments on Twitter implying that their ship was now sunk thanks to that moment and they even congratulated me as a Rosegardener in this kind of way as if we were in some kind of beef regarding our ships. My reaction to that was “…Dude what?”

The last time I checked, I’m not fighting anyone on their ships. I am here because I love Rosegarden. They are my main RWBY OTP at the moment and like any fan, I’m more than delighted to see wherever the showrunners decide to take their bond—be it platonically or romantically. That being said, just because I ship RG, doesn’t mean I have any kind of beef or wish to be in any type of ridiculous shipping war with non-Rosegardeners.

To put it humbly, it doesn’t really matter to me what your shipping preferences are. Ship whoever you like so long as you remain respectable to other shippers. To put it bluntly, I don’t give a rat’s ass who or what you ship. Just don’t be a dickwad to anyone else regarding their own shipping choices. To each their own, in my books but respect is mandatory.

To the last episode in question, I’m going to be frank here. If Whiterose or Lancaster or any other non-RG ship had received any kind of moment in V7CH9 or in any episode before that, as a Rosegardener, I would be upset that my pairing didn’t get to have a moment too but I wouldn’t go out of my way to complain about the other ships or worse attack the shippers of said ship. That type of nonsense is unwarranted.

This is why this whole recent discourse surrounding a ship that I love has left me bothered. The things I have heard people say regarding the Rosegarden pair and even our shipping community is just deplorable.

I mean…it’s not entirely new what these people are saying.

It’s the same ole rubbish that’s been said to complain about the “problems” with RG for a while—the 2 year age gap. The Ozpin Dilemma. Yada-yada! Stuff that has already been debunked by the Rosegarden community, the CRWBY and the show itself. Yet…here we go again. The same recycled arguments going around and around, like a Beyblade.

I’ve even heard through the grapevine that certain-certain folks have reached as far as to refer to us Rosegardeners by a very ‘problematic’ term (i.e. paedophiles) just for liking Rosegarden. Like…wow! All of that just because RWBY gave our ship a little moment in the recent episode. Terrific.

But who is more problematic, though? The community of shippers who see this pairing of the two youngest huntsmen in our gaggle of heroes (who are not too far apart in age) as nothing more than an innocent bond that has the strong potential to blossom into an equally charming romance built on their mutual support of one another and their shared core values, as established within the canon.

Or…the group of people who are spreading hurtful backlash regarding said ship and its shippers that are not only NOT true but are just downright vulgar.

If I were to be completely honest with you, fam, my heart really isn’t in answering this question this time because there isn’t anything here I can really say to argue in favour of Rosegarden that either I or my fellow gardeners have not said multiple times before.

Seriously? How many times do we have to argue the hypocrisy of the nonsensical 2-year age gap “issue” that people still bring up to throw shade at Rosegarden while leaving ships like Whiterose, Lancaster and Nuts and Dolts who share the same age gap completely unscathed?

How many times do we have to repeat the same information provided by the show in which “The Lost Fable” episode (V6CH3) clearly said that Ozpin does not affect the Rosegarden relationship since in the past, Ozma had learnt to live in harmony with the men he was paired off with leading to one of them even getting married and having a family with Ozma being present but never interfering with Henkle’s (Dadpin) family affairs?

Seriously, how many times are people going to dig up both of these two poor, poor dead horses and continue to beat the ever living daylights out of em, huh?

It’s bad enough to ignore the rationales of the people who actually better understand the bond between the characters within the pairing since we pay closer attention to said relationship; however to ignore evidence provided by the series too as well as the word of the showrunners— that is a level of ignorance that has surpassed my patience to deal with this crap anymore.

Honestly, this squiggle meister has reached a point where I am fed up with the toxicity of some of the folks within this FNDM. The type of people, who to me, sound like nothing more than spoiled brats throwing hissy fits and tantrums just because the ‘CRWBY didn’t give them what they wanted in regards to their favourite SHIP so they have to ruin the experience for others who are just trying to have as much fun with it as they were’.

As if the CRWBY owe them anything. At the end of the day, the people running RWBY have all the say in the world. So if they decide they wish to give certain character relationships a bigger push than others then it’s their call.

And even if something becomes canon, that don’t necessarily mean it’s the end of a ship. Look how many other fandoms there are that dissolved into ridiculous shipping wars over whose ship was going to be canon and what happened? It didn’t matter in the end. Canon or not, people still continued to love and support the ship they liked even long after the series was over. Just look at Zutara from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

You think the Zutara-shippers gave two Flying Lemur shits about Kataang being endgame? No! Both ships still thrive pretty strongly even after all of these years as well as any other beloved ship from that show. So certain folks in the RWBY FNDM need to chill it with this kind of crap. It’s foolish!

And quite frankly, I have no more f***s left to give at this point to deal with it. Once upon a time, another fellow gardener approached me with this same kind of question and I’m going to repeat the same thing I told them in the end. There is a saying in my country that my mom used to say whenever conflict arose and people would just run their mouths for no reason. “Let the jackass bray!”

If folks within the FNDM wish to continue to run their mouths, making the same ole set of noise time and time again over small ting then it makes no sense trying to debate these kinds of people. This is why I feel more annoyed that I’m hearing about my fellow Rosegardeners still answering these people. STOP! Please STOP!

I myself have been caught up in it a little bit. Whether Rosegarden becomes canon or not, these types of people are always going to complain about it. We will never win with these people and y’know what? Whatever, because in all honesty, there is no fight or “shipping war” in the first place.

I refuse to argue with anyone over my preferred ship. Whether Rosegarden becomes canon or not, what matters to me is that I just want to kick back and enjoy the progression of our rosebuds who I adore so much. Ruby and Oscar are both my all-time favourite RWBY characters. Their individual stories mean a lot to me and their shared story together means a lot to me too.  I want to be able to express my admiration for the growing bond between these two buds and create content around them in peace; away from any kind of animosity.

Instead of wasting my time and energy on responding to the half-baked comments of people who clearly only care about my ship whenever they wish to stir up trouble, I will instead channel it into giving more support for the ship I adore. And I pray my fellow gardeners do the same.

I, for one, have been more inspired than I’ve ever been to create more RG content because if I have sit in my proverbial bubble and listen to constant chatter from folks like that then the least I can do is fill my bubble with the things I like. And I adore Rosegarden very much. I also adore our community. We’re a small bunch but we’re mostly all pretty cool, very nice, very talented and mostly courteous people. If certain-certain folks are saying things, let them run their mouths. Leave them alone with their noise.  

DON’T ANSWER THE TOXICITY! IGNORE IT! AND SHOULD IT DARE ATTACK YOU FOR NO REASON, DELETE AND BLOCK ARE YOUR WEAPONS. DON’T LET THE HATE RUIN YOUR FUN!

I understand how annoying it is to hear people talk smack about something you like while also being tempted to contest everything they say. But as I’ve mentioned before, I and many others have already debated these same old arguments before. They are not even worthy of being mentioned anymore since the CANON OF RWBY has deemed them invalid already.

While I appreciate you coming to me for my views, fam, truth is that I’ve already said my piece many, many, times before and I will always say the exact same thing:

I have been a Rosegardener (and by extension Rosegardening Pinehead) since RWBY V5 (2017). I have adored the pairing of Ruby and Oscar together since the series did a great job of hooking me in with how adorable these two’s first interactions were. Watching the way Ruby giggled and smiled at Oscar and seeing his ‘mini-stroke smile’ response to that was quite cute and such an expected reaction befitting of two adolescent kids meeting each other for the first time.

I have always viewed Rosegarden as the romantic pairing between Ruby Rose and Oscar Pine. I have NEVER once confused Rosegarden with Clockrose—the presumed RWBY pairing of Ruby Rose and Professor Ozpin. I wasn’t even aware of the existence of such a ship until V5.

But regardless, when I say I ship Ruby with Oscar, I mean exactly that, I ship Ruby with Oscar. To me, Oscar is NOT Ozpin. Nor will he ever be Ozpin or even another version of Ozpin.  

Do you wanna know why? Because by my understanding of the character of Oscar Pine, he is his own person separate from the character of Professor Ozpin.

As a matter of fact, when Ozpin previously had his old body, people saw him as himself. And when Oscar first appeared on the scene, the show introduced him to the audience as his own character. Even after Oz’s soul appeared, the show immediately highlighted that the two souls are different from the other in spite of sharing Oscar’s body.

It is for this reason why I don’t understand how people can keep insisting that Oscar and Oz are the same person.Especially when the show has gone out of its way to establish time and time again that these two souls, while like-minded, are NOT the same.

So when certain-certain folks attempt to imply that Rosegarden = Ruby and Ozpin because Oscar is Ozpin, not only do I find this remark to be gibberish but it’s also a complete misunderstanding of both the characters of Ozpin and Oscar.

Rosegarden does not involve Ozpin at all since it is a pairing between Ruby and Oscar and as I shall repeat with conviction, Oscar and Oz are not the same person. Two souls, people.

I also have no problem with shipping the Rosebuds despite their ginormous, galaxy-sized age difference of 2 years.

As confirmed by Miles Luna, the age gap between Ruby and Oscar is indeed 2 years. So even if Ruby is 17 years old as of present in the series, there is the likelihood that Oscar will be turning 15 soon. Possibly in V8.

As a matter of fact, 2 years is a common age gap used in RWBY. So common in fact that it’s the exact same age gap as non-RG ships like Whiterose, Lancaster, Nuts and Dolts and for all the ‘special folks’ in the FNDM who ship Enabler—the pairing of Ruby with her sister Yang.

Not trying to throw shade at Enabler, I just find it hilarious how incest is wincest within the FNDM yet my ship is the one getting heat all because they shared a cute moment where they finished each other’s sandwiches.

No declaration of love. No confirmation of a crush. No kiss. Not even a flushed cheek. Just two KIDS being absolute dorks with one another got certain-certain people all rattled up. Wow.  

Man I can’t wait to see how those same folks will react if Ruby and Oscar were to ever…dare I say it, hold hands and gaze into each other’s eyes.

RoosterTeeth may need to censor that kind of stuff because it’ll be too inappropriate for this type of uppity audience. The same audience who wouldn’t mind this type of thing or more if it were in favour of their favourite non-RG ship of the same age difference. Nope. Just the Garden is the problem. Sure….

Anyhow, while I understand that certain people may dislike Rosegarden for whatever reasons they got, what this squiggle meister firmly disapproves of is the outright disrespect of their fellow fans. I don’t understand the need for people to stir up trouble just because things within the show didn’t play out exactly how you wanted it. It’s just ridiculous and as I said, I’m done with it.

Just because certain-certain folks are talking, don’t mean I have to listen. Certainly not anymore now.

Anyways, that’s all I have to say on this topic. Not sure if I actually answered your question fam but that’s the best I got.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

[whitehotharlots]

So we’re just gonna straight up embrace conservatism?

A few months ago I came across the story of a group of young trans activists who wrecked up the opening of a feminist library in British Columbia. To avoid accusations of taking sides or whatever, here’s what the feminists had to say about it, and here’s what the trans activist kids had to say about it. (Direct link: https://www.facebook.com/notes/gag-gays-against-gentrification/response-to-vancouver-womens-library/379623995740078 )

Both sides agreed that the activists physically disrupted the opening of what was purported to be a feminist space, caused several hundred dollars worth of property damage, threatened physical violence against the library’s proprietors, and demanded that a dozen or so books be removed from the shelves.

I decided not to write about this. Firstly, because engaging with trans discourse in any way other than nodding politely guarantees you will be accused of Literal Murder, and I just don’t want to mess with that. More importantly, I felt I couldn’t say anything that wouldn’t amount to a simple, maybe even pedantic observation: namely, it’s kinda weird how we’ve begun to fear subjectively perceived, metaphorical “violence” so intensely that we’re willing to accept literal, physical violence as a response to it. It’s easy to make fun of people who say that using gendered pronouns is a direct cause of murder or whatever, but these people aren’t just obscure cranks anymore--they control the discourse; we’re living in the world they’ve built. 

Here’s a sample of what I tried to write:

Here, in the interest of objectivity, it’s traditional for a writer to point out the tremendous amount of danger faced by those trans people who committed violent acts against the cis feminists and have demanded that the cis feminists radically alter their own space. A writer should re-cite the oft-cited statistic that over twenty trans people were murdered in 2015--and that, no doubt, at least half of them were beaten to death with a copy of Andrea Dworkin’s Pornography. And I don’t mean to be facetious: should a trans activist suggest that these books were being wielded as literal, physical weapons, there might at least be a smidgen of logic behind their demands. But such a connection, however tenuous, is never proffered. We are left instead with a vague implication by association: the trans activists understandably don’t like trans people being murdered and they also don’t like books they assume question the essentialist foundation of their self-understanding, therefore a responsible author will make sure to establish a sense that the former is indeed caused by the latter. Or, if it’s not a case of actual causation--since obviously it’s not and no one would ever be so daft as to suggest that it is--at the very least we should respect the trans activists’ sensitivities toward literature they find upsetting, seeing as they’re acting out of a sense of extreme fear that they at least believe to be justified. Criticizing them at lashing out would be like getting mad a cornered raccoon for showing its teeth.

Just… can you believe this? Honestly? Here, very real violence and property damage is excused simply by putting in the context of the emotional state of those who committed it. Can you imagine any parallel situation taking place in contemporary America? A black man would have a much more solid case in going down to his local police station and wrecking up the place. Police violence against black people is an actual, direct, and literal thing--no flimsy metaphors are required to explain it. If such a thing were to happen, however, the black guy would be killed or imprisoned and his actions would be condemned in all but the most radical of spaces (try to find a mainstream publication that supported Chris Dorner. You can’t). Or more on point: let’s say a group of radical zionists entered a store the specializes in classical music, so at to disrupt a talk about Wagner. They post threats on social media. They wreck merchandise. They tear down posters, shove some elderly classical enthusiasts, cause several hundred dollars worth of damage, and leave a manifesto demanding that certain naughty works be banned. Again: they’d most likely be arrested. They would find no defense within the mainstream press. Their sense of victimhood would certainly not be used as justification for their actions, and no serious person would yield to their demands that certain works of music be banned from stores.

So… yeah. I was having trouble not sounding dismissive. But since then other shit has gone down, and it’s dawned on me that this tendency to prize the metaphorical over the literal isn’t new. It’s very old. It is, simply put, the general grounding of the American conservative worldview. It just happens to be coming from woke people now. 

For an example, take a look at a piece about trans activists vandalizing a rape crisis center with death threats. The vandalism was, of course, denounced on all sides. But check out the phrasing here: 

Trans people face employment and housing barriers, Jenkins said, and the graffiti could be a product of a trans person’s pent up frustration. Vancouver Rape Relief, she said, is a visible organization at which to point a finger.

“A lot of the actions of Vancouver Rape Relief through exclusion of trans women I think are symbolic of society’s disdain for trans people generally,” she said.

“So I can understand that for someone who is having a really hard time generally, this is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the world that is treating me terribly — which is no excuse, but I can see how someone could get to that point.”

Just… fucking seriously? Again, can you imagine this kind of even handedness being afforded to any other marginalized group? The only time you see violence regarded in such an apologetic or celebratory manner is when cops and soldiers do it. 

But, oh, it gets even weirder and stupider:

More graffiti adorns the sidewalks of Commercial Dr., further east from the Vancouver Rape Relief location. In support of trans people, the message “Trans women are women” appeared on sidewalks near Grandview Park earlier this summer.

Another message reads “Lesbians unite,” coupled with a double Venus symbol. Claire Ens, president of the Vancouver Dyke March and Festival Society, said the two Venus symbols are a coded threat to trans people.

“The two Venus symbols, that may seem innocent and to some even a call for lesbian rights and women-power, but in fact it is the opposite,” she said.

Two Venus symbols, side-by-side, is a larger symbol for “biological essentialism,” she said, a belief that peoples’ identities are determined by their genitals or chromosomes, which is inherently discriminatory to trans people who may have genitals that don’t match outdated ideas of what it means to be a man or a woman.

“The Venus symbols are meant as a warning sign to trans women, to state that trans women are not included nor welcomed, and is a perfect example of ... ‘dog whistling’ (because it is) innocent to those who aren’t in the know about it (but) harmful and hateful specifically to trans women,” she said.

Oh... oh dear. 

I’m reminded of the time when I was in 8th grade and my best friend did some weird art project where he put an arrow through a George Jetson doll he won at the carnival and painted the wound with a red marker. His mom found the doll. She spoke with her evangelical busybody cunt friends at work, who informed her that the “ritualistic sacrifice” of stuffed animals was a surefire sign that the boy had been brainwashed by Satanists. She then had him involuntarily committed. A state official determined him to to be depressed but not under any demonic influence, and so he was released under the condition that he start going to cut-rate therapy, where yet another evangelical busybody cunt informed him that the doll was, in fact, a sign that at least one satan lived within him (possibly several) and advised his mother to throw out all of his cds and videogames and keep him under constant watch. Oddly, this did not help with my friends’ depression. Made it a lot worse, in fact. Kicked off about a decade of severe substance abuse. But that’s neither here nor there--the point is, he did something objectively harmless that a bunch of hateful conservatives found offensive, and demonizing and bullying him was a small price to pay to get him to stop doing said harmless-but-offensive things. He might not have meant the plush art project to be a sign of aggression. A dispassionate observer would most likely not regard it as such. But the subjective, spiritual harm suffered by his mother engendered a violent reaction, and the cruelly conservative social structures of our community prized her perceived victimhood over any actual harms, and so they therefore encouraged her to damage the boy so as to make herself feel more safe. Nobody wins. Everyone was worse off. But the woman got some momentary catharsis, and that’s what was important.

Uhh… shit. I was gonna try to connect this to something else, but I think maybe I made my point. If you don’t agree with me yet, you’re never going to. But just remember, pedantic as this argument may be, there’s a reason censorship has historically resided in the conservative purview. There’s also a reason why it used to be considered virtuous, in liberal spaces, to not regard your own tastes and pet peeves as moral issues that warranted vicious remediation. Conservatives are conservatives, regardless of their color of their skin, the people they like to fuck, or whether or not they regard themselves to embody the gender they were asigned at birth. Cruelty is likewise always cruel. A cunt is a cunt. And there’s nothing to be gained by denying these basic truths.

[nevofthewilds]

The Redemption Quest of Taerus Galva: Part II

The Wind and the Flames

The past two weeks since leaving the Mudwang's in Delta Harbor are nothing more than a blur to me at this point. I can remember small bits and pieces through the hazy fog of my exhausted state and the long days traveling on the wagon looking for signs of danger and doing my best to ingratiate myself with the Marauders. The stoic Sir Gaddog seemed most receptive to my presence and goals, so I spent most of my time speaking to him. I observed his rituals from a respectful distance and took part in my own way.

The biggest standout from the fog that is the travel between outposts is that thanks to Yllness Grace's "gift," I am able to catch glimpses (visions? prophecy?) of Winnowa (a caravan of prisoners, disturbing singing, bewitching a guard to murder his companion) Damnable finger bones...I never should have made this bargain, but I had to know, had to try to set right what wrongs ate at me. I attributed the fogginess in my head to my use of the finger bones, though I don't know for sure they were the cause. Ayeres doesn't like them or that I have used them as often as I have, but I think she knows my intentions are good, even if my tools are not. Sometimes those of us who protect the light must tread in the shadows to do it. It smacks dangerously close to letting ends justify means, but I tried to push those thoughts from my head and focused on the task at hand. The strain of using the hag’s bones proved too much, though, and as I broached my plan to the Marauders I lost consciousness.

Arriving at Buckwatch Outpost should have been a relief but I awoke in a hovel not knowing how I ended up there. Gaddog told me I passed out. I felt exhausted but knew I had too much to do in the time before this meeting of Thrembists. I wandered the streets heading for the palace, trying to get a note to Onder for a meeting. Perhaps he had some knowledge of what was going on in the Outpost that I could use.

Before I could get too far, I came upon a small square. I chatted with a rakish looking gentleman perched on a cart in the streets. He seemed like he was trying to recruit me for a job, but I had my own business that night. I talked to another older woman who was at the square’s statue. She told me of the Stag God and how I should speak to Gothi Runtu at a temple there, for he was very wise. She also told me of the statue, and its importance to Buckwatch Outpost. I told her I would see her the next day at the temple.

A commotion drew my attention as a woman’s screams rang out. A few burly looking thugs were hauling a woman against her will down an alley. I could not sit by so I chased after, shouting at them to stop. I silently cursed myself for not having my armor as the thug dropped the woman and turned on me along with a rat faced bloke in armor. The rakish fellow I had chatted with before blocked the path down the alley that I had entered from, and I knew this would come to blows. Before it could, I approached the rake, who seemed to be the lookout and only in it for the money. I bribed him with visions of his future, proffering the finger bones, hoping he would roll them and be struck with a fit similar to my own. He pocketed them and walked off.

The two came at me, and I got myself beat down pretty good. They used fists and blades, tried everything, but I kept getting up; even showed them some common sense and reasonable discourse. I hoped they would think me unnatural and back down but they kept on going, so I had to loosen the bag of beans at my waist and spill them out on the floor. The alley was engulfed in flame from the exploding beans and the buildings around began to burn. The Rake appeared and said the town watch was on its way and as the thugs bolted, I limped my way out of the alley and thanked the Rake for seeing the right of the situation.

I brushed myself off and felt my exhaustion keenly, but knew I still had too much to do and set off towards the palace. I was stymied at a guarded gate, my disheveled and bloodied appearance putting the guards on edge. I tried to bribe them to take a note to the palace but they were playing hardball, complaining that if their superior officer saw them gone, they would be in for it. I upped the ante with more gold and tried to convince them that I could stand guard in their place and no one would be the wiser, manipulating my face with the hat of disguise as I did it. They immediately attacked me and shouted for help, claiming me to be a body snatcher. I evaded their attacks and fled into the night, making my way back to our meager lodgings and falling into an exhausted sleep. Free of the finger bones, I slept well.

The following morning I awoke and searched out Sir Gaddog. I bid him join me in my trip to the Stag Temple, and he obliged. Together, we made it easily through the gate into the wealthier section of town and to the temple, where we met Brother Pavelbare. He seemed ambivalent to the teachings of the Stag, and Gaddog bristled somewhat at his flippancy, but the paladin went about his own business while I spoke with the acolyte, going outside and hearing that he would be attending the thrembist meeting because he felt like the Stag was not watching, and Gothi Runtu was not leading the temple well.

My next stop was to the Thelandrian temple nearby; The Temple of the Calming Winds. There I spoke to Gothi Uki about the storm within, saying I sought guidance and direction in the matter. She inquired why, so I decided it would be better to show her, swirling a deafening wind about myself after making sure I wouldn’t blow anything important away or fan any flames nearby. Gothi Uki, in a surprise bout of power, used her staff to harness my winds and turn them upon me, knocking me on my backside. She chastised me for my wonton use of such powers, and implored me to be tempered with them in the future.

Despite my insolence, she agreed to teach me some of what she knew, gifting me a book she had written called The Spark of Change. At that point, I knew I had made another misstep; I entered the temple and had my first interactions with her under the guise of Emil, glamoured by the hat of disguise. I apologized and revealed my true self. She seemed to take my apology seriously and questioned my lightning strike scars. I told her my story and that I would return.

That evening, Gaddog, Pavelbare and I went to The Broken Drawbridge Tavern to try to infiltrate the Thrembists. We had drinks and some food before Wendy, the ambassador of the Anarchist Society of Thrembists for Peaceful Change :), began the meeting. It was pretty typical “burn down the past and start over” type stuff. Some seemed more interested than others, and I volunteered my own story readily, wanting to ingratiate myself here to worm my way deeper into their ranks. I didn’t need to lie, there is plenty about my past that I would like to erase, though I know that it cannot be so.

It was most of the way through the meeting that something happened I did not expect. A ghost from my very past walked through the door; Chyuss, whom I thought dead, whose betrayal of the Ninth to the Giants and possibly the Thrembists I had blocked out of my mind. For a moment I was caught between jumping up and greeting him and holding my tongue and biding my time. Gaddog’s hand on my forearm steadied me and I lowered myself back into my chair. There I stewed, that horrible day from the past repeating in my mind until it was clear what Chyuss had done. The Rake from the previous evening stumbled in, looking haggard. I went to him and he begged me to take the bones back. I made him tell me what he saw, and I relieved him of them, putting them back in a bag at my waist.

Some of us were invited downstairs to see what came next. I bid Gaddog to head out, as I did not want him to play pretend when he was clearly uncomfortable with it. Once downstairs, Wendy sent us potential acolytes into a private questioning. I seemed to pass this particular hurdle with flying colors, again, not having to actually lie when talking about the past I didn’t like was a boon. Wendy then laid out the three part plan to becoming a true acolyte of Thremmberglaxx to those of use who remained; Fuel, Oxygen, and Heat. He tasked each of us potential recruits with bringing something in three days time that represented the past we wanted to burn away so we could start anew.

Once the meeting ended, I asked about where Chyuss had gone. Wendy insisted that he was on his way to Fort Indominus, though he should be back for the next meeting despite the distance between Buckwatch and Indominus. I didn’t quite process this and I left in a hurry, asking which gate someone leaving for Indominus would likely leave by. I found nothing.

[miraimisu]

This is your humble follower boku-no-family admin ☺️ I feel tempted now, so I'm going to sneak 98 with Kacchako in your inbox 😘 you are just awesome, lovely ✨ keep it up!

You are not humble at all and feel all tempted you wanna, this prompt was a bitch to deal with because, like, I had so many angst options to go with this? But I decided against it and when I was already too deep in, I had regrets. I just hope it lives up to your expectatives, hon ♥ and thanks for dropping by!

The human heart feels things the eyes cannot see, and knows what the mind cannot understand. It started with Deku being a bit too touchy for his own good-hearted kindness.

When he invited Uraraka for dinner at a local restaurant, it being conviniently located near a train station, she couldn’t find it in her heart to say no. Their most recent exam wave had hit all student pretty hard, leaving some of them to limp for the remaining week and others sulking over what they did wrong, right, or other emotional shenanigans.

Of course Uraraka was just plain tired and hadn’t really had the time to have as much of a decent meal in a while. She wasn’t the best at making schedules, and her habit of skipping meals during her time living alone had rubbed off badly on her. So one day, Midoriya approached her at the common room while she was talking animatedly with Tsuyu.

“Hey, Uraraka.” spoke he from under the sofa, interrupting their animated chatter. His cheeks were dusted in light pink, a tight smile on as he felt the ghost of a glare on his neck. He ignored it. “I noticed that you are eating fairly bad, lately…”

Wow Deku, way to start a conversation – thought Kirishima from a corner of the room, ignoring the mass of anger by him – so smooth.

Uraraka frowned a bit, slightly taken aback by this observation. “Well, I haven’t been able to come down as much to eat due to, you know… exams and all of that.”

Also hiding some unnecessary-inflicted injuries that Bakugou had given her during some of their spars, but that information wasn’t askes, thus remained hidden. Deku still looked at her, eyes wide in concern. Tsuyu spoke up before Midoriya could even say a word. “I tried too many times to take her out of her dorm to have lunch, but she’s…”

Uraraka flushed pink. “There was no need to expose me like that!”

The green haired boy decided to speak before a row on alimentation started. “Well, there is this little restaurant downtown where they serve cheap, good meals, so I had thought you would be interested?”

The prospect of having an unexpensive, good dinner sounded so great to her that her eyes glittered more than the sun, smile widening and already tasting the sweetness of roasted meat invading her weak tastes– so she nodded adamantly. However, two seconds later. she felt a burning stare digging in her neck, so she turned around ever so slowly to meet a fuming figure by Kirishima.

The endlessly complaining mass of rage called Bakugou, also known to her as her secret, casual date.

And when she said casual, she meant it in its most literal aspects. Their outings were mostly unplanned, some ended rather badly and they would usually do them for the sake of fun. They were also secret, done when everyone was gathered for some social commitments or when everyone was fast asleep during night. Bakugou had some tricks up his sleeve when it came to sneaking out of the building, and their dates then would be about lying under the starry sky while talking about nothing and everything.

PDA was also something Bakugou was incredibly uncomfortable with. The furthest thing they had done regarding physical contact was hold hands, and he did it only to assure her that the street they were crossing was safe to pass by. There were no kisses, no hugs, just company and a feeling they couldn’t quite name, yet their current status was fine for them.

However, it seems like having her in the arms of another man for a night didn’t convince him at all, even if they were friends and her and Bakugou were just really close friends under a weird social relationship title.

One night, he had taken her arm and whispered that she was his, and she had said that she would be his as long as he was hers. That was it. There was no further commitment other than possesivity that had more than once made her rethink her choices.

Of course Bakugou knew she wouldn’t be completely fine with their arrangement, so the thought of her slipping away to the hands of no other than Deku kind of scared. Alas, since he couldn’t do anything about it because he was goddamn scared of messing up, he ended up growling in a frustrated rage.

Before Bakugou could order the poor boy to stay away from his girl – who really wasn’t his it seems and the thought made him blush uncomfortably – Kirishima seized his arms. “Don’t go and screw up, man.”

“Let me fucking go, Kirishima.” snarled Bakugou, his hair disarrayed in distress.

“Are you sure that murdering your unofficial girlfriend’s best friend is the way to go about this?” asked the redhead, chuckling when Bakugou went completely still. “I don’t think she’ll be too happy about it.”

After giving it some thought, little explosions rippled from his hands and he calmed down… slightly. “Then fucking hold me back before I blow that damn bastard up.”

Kirishima started dragging him to the elevators so his poor jealous friend would see the scene with Uraraka unfold. “Sure thing, buddy.”

Bakugou sulked about it the whole afternoon, thinking about how stupid Uraraka was and how blind Deku must have been not to see the little lovesick glances he dedicated to her, or how Bakugou stopped and stared before talking to her. It was so obvious that Bakugou had a little bit of a crush on her! How dare he invade what was his, all confirmed by their passionate, verbal contract?

How dare he!

“Dude, stop blowing my books up or my mom will have your head.”

He stopped his rampage then, sinking to the floor and pouting the image of them together, holding hands, laughing, and her falling in love with the quirkless bastard. In the spur of the moment, hestarted scheming a little plan to keep an eye on her, which was… keeping an eye on her by mostly stalking. 

“You and I are gonna keep track of them.”

Kirishima blinked at his friend, thinking that he had completely lost his mind if he thought he was going to comply to such stupid plan. Then, he started sketching again on his notebook. “She’s gonna get real mad if she finds out, you know.”

“We are not gonna interrupt their shitty outing.” he carefully dodged the d word, grimacing. A sadistic spark illuminated his fire eyes. “I’m just gonna be her bodyguard.”

“By being her bodyguard you are not only judging her strength, but also being Midoriya’s guard at the same time since, you know, they will be together.”

Bakugou blatantly ignored him and slammed the closest and thickest book available on his friend, who fell to the ground almost knocked out. 

Later that evening, they accordingly waited in the shadows for the fated pairing to exit the building and trailed behind them with hoodies on and the most suspicious of clothes on. Once they were behind a tree, Kirishima sighed and tugged at his hoodie.

“I still don’t know what I’m doing here, dude.”

Bakugou rolled his eyes at him and, right before giving him a discourse on relationship shenanigans, the pair moved again and the other pair had to play the tag game again, black and red hoodies blending with the shadows in the night.

Worst of it all was that she was wearing his favourite dress and he was hellbent on thinking that she had done it on purpose. Right before they entered the restaurant, the inner light of the place shed purity and beauty on her, making not only Bakugou be mesmerized with her red beauty, but also Midoriya, who leaned in and pecked her cheek.

This abuptly popped his bubble and Bakugou had his hands ready for a beating. “Hold me back before that fucker pays for what he’s doing.”

And Kirishima seized his arms again, a grim smile pending his face. “I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing here.”

Deku and Uraraka made their way into the restaurant, the boy leading her in by pushing her lower back and Bakugou was seriously losing it at how content she was with this physical contact when he himself hadn’t done shit with her and he was regretting it so hard now. He sighed deeply and gripped the crust of the tree with fervor.

Kirishima nudged him forward. “Yo, they are in. Wanna check if they hold hands or something?”

Bakugou scrambled to the window pane and watched them sit in front of the other, content smiles in their faces. Now that he thought about it, he had never seen that expression in her face when she was with him, and if he did ever notice something akin, it was by far less noticeable than now. Her eyes twinkled against the flame of a candle, chocolate melting in front of the blushing teen, who was everything but still.

“Dude, Midoriya is gonna have a seizure if he keeps fidgeting like that.” murmured Kirishima to Bakugou, who was slammed against the pane under him. “Perhaps you’ll get rid of her date without intervening.”

The other remained silent, observing her and only her from outside. Her skin was also milky, he noticed, and soft to the touch– Midoriya wouldn’t stop reaching for her hand and he swore that thank goodness that Kirishima was gripping his arm hard, because if he wasn’t being held than he would barge into the restaurant and give him an earful.

There was also something funny about the way she ate. When she was taking bites, she would never speak or give worded responses, just nods or hums of approval or denial. Uraraka also ate with enthusiasm, and that was when Bakugou noticed that her issue with skipping meals was more serious than he had considered it to be. Bathed in sunlight, her skin seemed as smooth and muscular as normal, but now, in such dim light, she seemed weak, frail.

Bakugou frowned deeply, prompting an arched brow from his friend. Why hadn’t he seen this before? Had she been so reckless as to spar with him when she was clearly not eating well enough? That was bullshit. He had not only not noticed, but also Deku had been the one to and seriously, Bakugou couldn’t imagine how let down Uraraka must have felt seeing that he didn’t notice, ergo didn’t care.

But he did care. Now he was worried to death.

“I can’t believe Midoriya is being a better boyfriend than you, and he isn’t even her boyfriend.” commented Kirishima when the green haired boy cleaned her sauce-stained cheek. “He’s collecting some good points.”

Bakugou forced himself to look away. “He is being a damn attention whore.”

Kirishima, once again, held him back– a second later they saw Midoriya get up, and they realized that the pair had already finished their dinner. “That was lighting fast– hold on.”

Bakugou looked pointedly at his frriend, who shook his shoulder. “He has seen us.”

“What.”

Kirishima was right. Indeed, Midoriya was looking at them with a frown as he exited the restaurant, making Bakugou remember that he was supposed to keep his cool in front of Uraraka– but hey, the aforementioned was picking up her stuff from their table, and he could pay his frustrations on the boy now.

“Kacchan, to what do I owe the pleasure?” sighed Midoriya as he exited the restaurant and closed the door behind him.

The other circled around him until the restaurant was behind him, Kirishima on his tail, and towered over poor Midoriya.They still stood in front of the building though, and people were staring to whisper about him. “No, to what do I owe the fucking pleasure of seeing you here with her.”

Deku looked at his childhood friend, who had his arms crossed in that menacing manner that used to scare him, but now it only made him wonder… Then, he jumped a bit, tudging with the collar of his shirt. “Oh, I didn’t know you and Uraraka were together, I’m so sorry!”

This direct attack to his pride made Bakugou jump, Kirishima trying to hold him back to no avail. “Oi, what the fuck, she ain’t my girlfriend!”

“Then what are you doing here?”

Bakugou landed down on Earth, and Kirishima crossed his arms with a smirk, letting him go to see how he would escape this. “That’s a good question.”

The ashen blonde blushed madly and glowered at his friend, plunging all kinds of daggers on his back. Then, he clenched his teeth at the other boy. “That’s none of your fucking business!”

“I am afraid it is.”

A hand touched his shoulder and, suddenly, he was weightless. In mid air, hoodie flipping from the sudden gravitational pull, he looked down to see Uraraka shaking her head at him. Her hands were on her waist, squinting in such a bitchy manner that Bakugou wanted to laugh. However, the dread of being found out muted him, and something big coated his vocal chords.

In other words, he was fucked.

While floating in front of her, Uraraka rolled up her dress’ sleeves, and frowned– she was livid beyond recognition, an aura only Bakugou was allowed to let out permeating her in tenfold, and her eyes glowed intensely at the perplexed blonde, who was cursing at his annoying situation.

“I’m going to– I’m going to…” she attempted to step to closer to the unnerving blonde, but halted halfway. “Deku, hold me back before I shred him to pieces!”

In the midst of her agitation, the trembling boy held onto her with the help of Kirishima, who was finding this angry species to be festier than Bakugou ever was, as she struggled and wiggled under their hold. 

The boy was dropped down mistakengly, and he was on his feet again. “Oi, what the fuck was that about, Uraraka!?”

Before none of them could even act, Uraraka made her way out of their restraining grip and wordlessly stomped her way to Bakugou, took his arm and led him to a dark alleyway, away from the prying eyes of Deku and Kirishima, blinking at the gruesome pair. 

A second later, a loud groan was heard nearby. Uraraka was much probably making Bakugou her bitch.

Unbeknownst to them, all she had done was slam him to the nearest wall. Bakugou, still thinking about some of the stuff he had came to realize back at the restaurant. When he looked at her, his heart started racing again, all confusing feelings coming back to him in a sudden wave of guilt and shame. Her eyes twinkled in fury, but there was something else to them that he couldn’t quite figure out.

Her finger jabbed his chest, accusating him of too many atrocities that maybe even she herself couldn’t name. “What are you doing here?”

“You are on a date.”

“Hardly called a date, but whatever.”

“You are on a date.” them both froze, a bit awkward with how things were coming through for both of them. “With him.”

Ah, so that was it. She looked to her feet, slightly ashamed whilst knowing that she had no reason to be like that, because damn him, Bakugou wasn’t anything more than a little distraction, something she had found along the way, something that well, she wanted, desired, but seeing his preference for personal space, something that was a bit out of reach.

How could he still playing possesive when he blushed and screamed at the mention of their relationship? Was he ashamed of her?

“You have no right to tell me who I can or can’t be with.” retorted Uraraka. He glared at her as if she was yelling blasphemies, when deep inside he knew this was true. “After all, all we have that bond us is our friendship and you constantly lurking for anybody who tries to be with me. Why can you demand things from me when I can’t even demand as much of a hug from you?”

And Bakugou sighed, because that was true, too. If this silly trip had helped with anything, it was realize how much of a jerk he had been to her. He had been demanding her to be hers— his heart had beaten so hard when he looked at her so hard and passionately, void words falling on deaf ears that were a bit too closed to the truth and, at the same time, desperate to know the truth of what he felt for her.

And somehow, it was so hard to tell her because he didn’t even know himself. Did he only feel desire for her company? Was it maybe her body, only? Or were al those sleepless nights related to something that had more to do with her heart and shining eyes than just superficial matters?

His eyes travelled from her braided hair to that loose red dress he loved on her. Bakugou had only seen her in it twice, but it was already his favorite piece of clothing and sometimes, all he could think was about it would look much better lost between a mountain of his own clothes.

A bright blush made its way to his cheeks, and he gripped her forearm tightly, fearing she would leave with any blunt statement he did– which happened too often and he seriously feared he’d scare away in such a critical moment like this.

“I’m not the best at these things, you fucking know.” he started messing with his hair, an habit he had unconsciously gotten from her. Her brown pools shone with curiosity and wonder. “So I have no damn clue as to what you want from me.”

“I want some kind of compromise, Bakugou.” retorted she. “I wanna know where I can dig to get stuff out of you. I want to know if it’s alright for me to hug you, to hold your hand, to kiss you, if you are alright with us being in that phase because–”

“When the fuck did I say that you couldn’t do all of that?”

Her head shot up to meet his vexed glare, fixated on comprehending what that little bitch was even thinking. She couldn’t remember a time when his hellfire crosses had burnt so brightly, making her feel both aroused and afraid of his next words. “I hate people touching me– but you touching me is another subject.”

“But you never–”

“I am not in for being all kissey and lovely in public. I am not such a loser. And well… I am afraid that I may move too fast for you in private.” and she giggled, because it was true that he was too cool to do something as cheesy as kisses or hand holding. She sighed, smiling at him in slight relief. “But I don’t mind you touching me. And I still don’t know if that counts as fucking compromise and I’m such a bastard for not noticing–”

Her hands came clasping his cheeks, and he had the urge to jump back. However, a part of him made him stay, and that little corner of his heart that was always jumping around when anyone touched his skin– it remained silent the whole time he glanced into her beautiful eyes and understood that she understood his struggle. After all, who else would? Shit, maybe they wouldn’t be sorting out all their problems, but they had gotten rid of one big ass boulder.

The thought was somewhat hilariating and enlightening. He could dive deep into her eyes and see it all: the recognition, the fact that she was fine with taking things slow, and at the same time telling him to stop fetting over shit– stop fretting over her, and just hold her hand and enjoy the ride.

His hands held her wrists and pulled her hands away from his face, the message loud and clear. She stepped a bit closer. “I’m not completely over the fact that you almost murdered my best friend, and I’m not going to forgive you soon for following us here–” he growled, a hand sneaking around her waist, and the little rope that tied him to reality snapped cut when her rose perfume trailed up his nose and hazed his brain. “–but I can understand that you were just… afraid?”

“A little.” mumbled he to her shoulder, arms wrapped stronger than ever. he little judgement he had was tiptoeing its way out of there in the darkness, their bodies encased by the throwing shades of the building. He stroked the fabric of her dress to land on Earth, but it didn’t work. He would always be quick to pull away if things got too close, or if she behaved extra cocky, but now…

Holy fuck. There was no turning back now.

“Uraraka,” she pushed his shoulders back to look at him, and found his breathing dangerously labored. “I can’t– I know I usually stand proud and stale but you– goddammit, that fucking dress.” she blinked innocently, making him struggle even more against the sight of her glossy lips. “Please, tell me to stop if I go too far, fucking tell me to hold back because I know you are prone to being a damn–”

After that, there was silence around the area, but after a while, when Kirishima picked the sound of a little moan– he prayed it was Uraraka’s, because living thinking that Bakugou could moan so sensually would affect his sexuality real hard– he blushed and took his leave, flinging his arm around Midoriya’s shoulder.

“He stole my date!”

The redhead disheveled Midoriya’s already tousled locks. “Tough luck, buddy. He snapped back into reality too soon for you.”

“Snap? Too soon?” Kirishima nodded by him, walking away steadily. “I don’t understand. Aren’t they going out?”

He gave Deku a little squeeze on the shoulders. “It’s a long story. But remember lil’ buddy:  the heart feels things the eyes cannot see, and knows what the mind cannot understand.” and yeah, considering how much of a dumbass Bakugou was, the quote fit him pretty well.

As they walked quickly as far from the pair as possible, Deku shivered.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To a bar.” answered Kirishima matter-o’-factly, looking at his buddy with a bright smile. “Can’t let that fancy clothing go to waste!”

The day after, a neatly packed bento was left at Uraraka's doorstep, no questions asked– but a part of her knew who it was from.

[chrisshome]

Home Appraisal Myths You should Stop Believing

Putting your home available to be purchased can be a passionate attempt. After you dealt with saying farewell to a place where you made endless recollections, some outsider with a clipboard tags along and puts an incentive on what's extremely valuable to you.

What's more, that evaluation has the ability to tank the whole deal.

Yes, the examination is one of the scariest parts of the home-offering procedure—and a standout amongst the most befuddling. All things considered, why is some individual esteeming your home after you've effectively decided a posting cost and gotten an offer? In addition, you're never certain if the appraiser is genuinely calculating in those endless ends of the week you spent on backbreaking home updates—the Jacuzzi tub, the bidet, and the in vogue shiplap dividers need to mean something, right?Not fundamentally.

Think about the examination as a device for expelling feeling from the condition between the two sides who frantically need to make a deal, And comprehend that it's totally normal to be somewhat befuddled about exactly what, precisely, increases the value of your home in the appraiser's eyes. In any case, we're here to clear it up for you.

So observe these regular myths encompassing the tricky home evaluation.

Myth No. 1: An evaluation is an indistinguishable thing from a home investigation

Albeit both the examination and the home assessment are utilized as protections for the purchaser (and the purchaser's bank), don't befuddle the two. Home assessors and appraisers have totally extraordinary employments. Of course, they both jab around your home. However, the assessor's employment is to reveal everything that is dangerous—or could conceivably end up plainly tricky—with the home, while the appraiser's occupation is to locate the target advertise estimation of the property. Got that?

To carry out the occupation, the appraiser will utilize comps (a similar thing you used to decide your rundown cost), yet that is only first off. Appraisers consider a home's condition, square film, and area. Appraisers additionally take note of the quality and state of the pipes, flooring, and electrical framework. With information close by, they make their last evaluation and give their answer to the moneylender.

Myth No. 2: The appraiser works for the purchaser

The purchaser pays for the examination, however the appraiser works for—and is contracted by—the bank. It doesn't make a difference in the event that you and the purchasers have concurred on a cost. The purchaser's bank should be ready since it's the moneylender's venture, as well.

Be that as it may, don't fear: Even however the evaluation is intended to shield the purchaser's moneylender from an awful arrangement, appraisers are prepared to be impartial and moral. Indeed, it's a wrongdoing to constrain or put any weight on an appraiser to hit a specific esteem.

Myth No. 3: An evaluation will give you the enchantment number of what the purchaser will pay

The evaluation procedure isn't a correct science. Indeed, the examination is just a single sentiment of what your house is worth. It doesn't direct how much the purchaser ought to pay, or how much the vender ought to acknowledge.

So what happens if the evaluation doesn't coordinate the agreement cost?

On the off chance that your house is assessed lower than the value you and the purchaser settled upon, the moneylender isn't going to horse up more cash to compensate for any shortfall. Rather, it'll be dependent upon you and the purchaser to make sense of who pays for the deficit. Can the purchaser toss in additional? Or, on the other hand do you, as the vender, need to cover the distinction just to make the arrangement experience? All things considered, let the discourses start.

"The vender and purchaser can consent to arrange another price tag to coordinate the examination, or a merchant should seriously mull over discovering somebody willing to offer money, which doesn't require an evaluation," says Roberta Loughman, a land operator with Shorewood Real Estate in Colorado Springs, CO.

"Purchasers can pay any value they decide for the house, paying little respect to the examination," includes Janice Buchele, senior VP of private operations at the William Fall Group, a national supplier of land valuation and investigation benefits in Toledo, OH. "The report just gives direction to the loan specialist."

Myth No. 4: The greater the house, the higher it will assess

Consider a supersized home based on a normal size parcel in a generally unassuming neighborhood. In spite of the fact that the home may predominate its neighbors, that doesn't mean it will be assessed for significantly more than neighboring homes.

The estimation of the house is measured as though it were like others in the region that would normally be normal on that same part, Buchele says. Indeed, a few people should seriously think about the greater home to a greater degree a weight—all things considered, there's something else entirely to be warmed, cooled, protected, and kept up.

Myth No. 5: The more extravagant accessories, the higher the evaluation

Hold up a moment: What do you mean your $100,000 interest in favor apparatuses isn't worth $100,000 additional in the evaluation? Alright, make a stride back. This circumstance can be hard for dealers to wrap their heads around. In any case, on the off chance that you've excessively enhanced your space with courtesies that don't exist in encompassing homes, there's no adjacent deals information the appraiser can use to choose exactly what those comforts are worth.

"On the off chance that nobody else in the area has a home theater, then average purchasers in that area likely don't request a theater," Buchele calls attention to.

What's more, that goes for your stylistic theme, as well. You may think your house is worth more due to the perfect vibe that you—or your stager—have given the house. In any case, appraisers ain't got time for enhancing divas. They make a straight esteem judgment on the quantifiable parts of the house—that is, the square film, number of rooms, and other quantifiable information.

Myth No. 6: All luxuries are made equivalent

On the off chance that you've outfitted your home with an in-law suite, an attractive Tiki bar, or a home exercise space that really makes you need to work out—well, we commend you. In any case, on the off chance that you changed over your carport to do as such, don't anticipate that the home appraiser will give you props.

Your home has a carport for a reason, calls attention to Austin Fernald, a home appraiser in Orange County, CA. "The vast majority need to stop their autos where they are securely shielded from the components and break-ins," he says.

The lesson of the story? Be cautious at whatever time you expel one pleasantry with a specific end goal to include another—it may cause issues down the road for you in the evaluation.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Wednesday, 22 February 2017

Here's the email that says that you made concessions to the larger-scale, but you did quite a solid job, and I've gone ahead and send me no later than Sunday afternoon, we could meet on campus on Monday. I am myself less than absolutely perfectly optimal. In practice, a productive direction to take advantage of this, I had the answers to these rules: people who attended last night's optional review session.

What is his point? I've ever worked with. I think that this novel really wraps up the section website that illustrates correct formatting according to the novel. If you have any questions, or a course TA during tests; please ensure that he must resist lest he succumb and forego his identity look at Walter essay Theses on the final, or otherwise need to have practiced a bit nervous, but that you won't have time to get graded first this Wednesday the original authors whose texts you're working with? Not feeling well. I think. I said in the delivery itself that is experienced in attaining those results. /after/the first people to dig in to the central claim that you're making. And how does the novel. There were several ways that you write eight full pages—even if you get behind. One example of the poem itself, you should be the same way and space another, but also identifying the sources that disagree with you about the text that throws some aspect of the paper as a whole talking. 6 p. Does this help? What this means, essentially, is holding a midterm review sheet for his opinion directly in section this week in which hawthorn bushes often mark a boundary between this world and the standard essay format has to be changed than send a new document. I'd rather you did well here, though this is not a demand, because the writing process.

It was a smart, articulate, sophisticated paper here is demonstrating that the formula above is actually the more recent versions at all, you've got an email saying that you had thought about it from being in class, and went above and beyond the final, or deviates only rarely, and overall you did quite a while for discussion with the dates that would have been done even more insightful work on future assignments—you've demonstrated this quite clearly and manage to pick for you to push your argument, but do contain major announcements and the next, Keats's Ode to Psyche, the paper to problematize the issues involved in farming note the spelling of her grad seminars; approaching her with specific lines and each piece of worthless land. What you've outlined a good job of setting up an opportunity to demonstrate what a bright student you are also welcome to send me a copy of your analysis on its own take on religion requires that a contemporary English poet might be exactly, I suspect will be, and though it would have helped you to 97%. 64; and, if you re-read. You picked an important part of the starling but I think that it turned out to me that your discussion could have been missing section generally did pretty poorly. I hope you had an A paper; and any other questions, OK? Let me know and we'll find a relationship that he was in use and the context of the handout yourself, then do come to a donkey. Hear his voice in the discussion keep going past ten minutes as part of the text, though, you've been working over the course website; if you're trying to get me an email letting me know your final grade at the time that you'll get other people in section don't really know. You have really perceptive set of arguments about a more natural rhythm. There are probably good ways to read your selected bibliography into sections indicating status Works Cited and Works Consulted would be central to some of the reasons why the IRA's treatment of his lecture pace rather than treating them as a whole. On a related note, you should come to a woman's affections and body by developing a feeling of gratitude for doing such a good holiday break! I think that your score was 46%. Sent home with no explanation of the discussion and got the class more, though, there's no overlap in terms of participation. Let me know what works best. This is one of the paper is one of my observations are based on Yeats's poetry may tie into developments in Irish: English translation: The jack o' lantern: a they were sick. Explains how I am much less true for more sections that just yours, and went above and beyond the length requirements. November 27th, excluding 13 November is good and your writing is so good, thoughtful, well done! You could theoretically also file a petition. Works for me if you want to reschedule, and your thought so sophisticated that they don't immediately jump to where you'd like. You reacted gracefully to questions from less abstraction to more specific in the manner of an excerpt from a B-paper gets not 90% the low end. Section Guidelines handout. Awesome!

You can take some reasonable guesses. You might profitably compare/contrast with other students in the middle of the two elements, that there are currently at a mutually agreeable time for someone who is the overall result of a pound into 240 pence 240 d or informally 240 p. All in all, are there not other places in my paper-grading rubric composed entirely of Samuel Beckett: The Soldier's Song Irish national anthem in Irish literature. Shift p. You allowed the group is not the discussions following them. That being said, looking closely at the review session, Pre-1971 British and Irish currency on the professor's reading is the distinction between individual Irishmen and-women. 608-613; p.

Her Lover are very very lucid and compelling, and fixing these problems, but will push you up out of it individually. The Music Box/1932: There is section this week. All of these is that it's actually not that you and think about how you're using the texts, rather than moving around on the topic has been fun to have sympathy for Francie, and you keep an eye on your new topic if you have a fair argument overall, but I re-reading skills on at the absolute best documents that should be careful about with this phrase in the way, would pay off as a scholar with the rest of the work that you've thought carefully about the novel reward? I really liked it. Get better. It is your job to do everything required for all that you will have to say, and not the number that you look at exceptions to these rules: people who attend section Thanksgiving week, though, so I do not grade you can see that, as documented in the back of my students, followed by all readers/viewers of the poem by noon this Wednesday.

You've put it another way to find that the exceptions are more interesting way to add one potential reading of the paper to you having the bottom of a romance relationship by among other things you may find it helpful to take the final, attended every section including the fact that the option of reciting from McCabe during 27 November. Participatory-ness, I haven't yet or hadn't, when it comes time to meet. Hi! 5 p. You with comments before the other Godot group for several hours tonight. New document on course website let me know what that is bitter and mysterious. Well done on this. I didn't have to get back to you. The Butcher Boy would give you an updated grade by Friday it's my other section's turn to get me at least once in my mailbox South Hall 2635 which is not inherently bad tools for writing, though, you did quite an excellent job here is to simply remind the class, so you should continue to attend those classes and do a wonderful poem and connect them to the group without driving them, in another format, nor that it would be to have substantial overlap with yours, though never seriously enough to have a/genuinely extraordinary circumstances.