#its changed a lot since the first time it launched

[bigfootsboytoy]

Part two of this story, where Robin discovers Steve’s type. A lot of people seemed interested in more, so here you go! 

The conversation doesn’t go quite the way Robin is expecting it. She’s fully prepared for Steve to launch into saying how confused he is because he’s feeling weird pants feelings for Eddie, but how does that work because he likes girls? She’s been mentally preparing herself for that exact discussion since she watched Eddie Munson call her best friend ‘Big Boy’ in the middle of committing grand theft auto. So when Steve starts talking, curled up on the gross linoleum tile of Family Video, she’s taken by surprise. She doesn’t even get the chance to answer his question before he’s throwing her prepared speech out the metaphorical window. 

“That’s stupid, you already told me that. Sharon Parker in the 5th grade, holding hands for Red Rover, blah blah blah, I know that. But like…Have you ever acted different around a girl, and then one day, you realize it’s because you like her? Like, you had a crush on a girl without even realizing it? Does that make any sense?” 

It takes Robin a second to reboot, but the second she manages, Steve throws her even further off track. 

“It’s just, Tommy H came by the other day, and he said some stuff that really has me thinking and-” 

Robin can’t stop herself. As soon as she hears a name other than Eddie Munson, she has a hand out covering Steve’s mouth. He gives her a look, surprised and confused. Maybe a little annoyed. She valiantly ignores him because what he just said has her head spinning, and she needs to put a stop to it right now. 

“Steve. My best friend in the whole universe. I’m here for whatever you need and whatever you might be figuring out about yourself. You know I’m going to support you 100% no matter what happens but…Please. PLEASE tell me that you didn’t just discover you have a crush on TOMMY H! He isn’t even your type, Steve! He isn’t even in the ballpark of your type! He’s so far off it’s honestly kind of laughable and-” 

Now it’s Steve who puts a hand over her mouth. 

“Jesus, Robin! First of all, gross. I’m not into Tommy, okay? Never gonna happen, not in a million years. And second, what the hell do you mean ‘my type?’ What the hell would you know about my type?” 

Robin carefully removes his hand from her face and shakes her head. She has absolutely no clue where this conversation is going, but there’s still a chance it can work its way somewhere good. Somewhere Munson-related. And she owes it to Steve to listen to his crisis properly. 

“Nevermind, forget that. What happened with Tommy?” 

“Okay well, he came over, like I said. He was super wasted, and I guess he and Carol broke up? And he started talking about when we were friends, and how he always used to try and get closer to me. He said he almost asked me if I wanted to practice kissing once? And he talked about like, trying to touch me all the time, trying to make me laugh? Basically saying he had a crush on me, which was super weird.” 

Robin nodded, because really, she had no idea what to say to that. 

“And then he kissed me. Which was kind of gross because he tasted like whisky and he was being all sloppy, like he wanted to eat my face. But…” 

“But?” 

“It wasn’t as gross as I would have expected I guess.” 

“I thought you said you didn’t like him!” 

“I don’t! It just, wasn’t a totally horrible kiss okay? Only a little horrible.” 

Robin sighed and let her head tip back against the wall. 

“Okay, I’m not seeing your dilemma yet. Tommy liking you and kissing you is kind of weird sure, but it doesn’t change anything about you.” 

Steve’s eyebrows furrowed, and he let out a puff of air. He looked small in this bathroom, scared in a way that Robin hated. They had faced down monsters, torture, long shifts with Keith. A conversation with his best friend should never have Steve looking that afraid, ever. 

She reached out and took his hand in her, giving it a gentle squeeze. 

“Hey, it’s okay Steve. Tell me what’s going on in that head.” 

“It’s just…Some of what Tommy said. About how he tried to get closer to me, to touch me and make me laugh and shit? I guess I realized that I’m doing that stuff. With somebody else. And if Tommy did it because he liked me then…” 

“You think it might mean you like this person. This…guy?” 

“Yeah. This guy.” 

There it was, the Eddie Munson of it all. Because Robin only knew of one guy that Steve spent his time with and would be trying to be touchy and close with. She had watched it happen with her own eyes, the way Steve would look for reasons to lean past Eddie, to put a hand on his shoulder, his back, once getting brave and putting a hand on his waist. She’d watched Eddie do the exact same things around Steve, too.

Part of her almost just comes out and tells Steve, that she knows who he’s talking about. Except he still looks unsure. He looks like he wants to throw up a little, and Robin has to fix that. 

“You know it’s okay right? For you to like this guy?” 

“I know. It’s just weird, to realize I might like him that way. Normally I can figure out when I’m into someone.” 

“Well, normally you aren’t friends with the people you’re into first. That makes it confusing.” 

“And I’m normally into people with boobies.” 

“That too.” 

Steve lets out a tiny laugh, and it makes Robin beam. Something about Steve is lighter now, like somethings been lifted off his chest, something that’s been there for a really long time without him knowing. She wants to tell him how much she’s loves him. How much she cares about him and supports him. She wants to tell him about all her research, and fully explain to him her findings when it comes to ‘his type.’ 

She wants to tell him that she knows the guy he likes is Eddie. That she thinks Eddie might like him too. 

The ‘ring for service’ bell ruins her chance at saying any of it. 

She and Steve both clamber off the floor, adjusting their vests before exiting the bathroom to greet whoever keeps ringing the stupid bell over and over again. Robin can’t decide if it’s the best luck in the world, or the worst, when it’s Eddie Munson himself standing at the counter. 

She leans towards best luck when she sees the way Steve’s cheeks go red.

A few people asked to be tagged if I did a part 2, so hopefully I do that right! I’ve got a few more parts planned, so if anybody else wants to be tagged let me know and I’ll do my best!

@kaiscove​ @wolfstarlights​  @awkwardgravity1​ @anonymousbandgirl​  @f1ct1onwh0re

[gemstone-roses]

Hello lovely! If you’re taking requests, would you be able to please write something smutty about Hannibal x reader sort of like enemies to lovers maybe where they don’t get a long and she’s a bit weary of him but one day they end up having really rough sex??? Lots of dirty talk and choking pls xx

Woo okay, let's go!

This took me forever so I hope you like it, likes and reblogs are very much appreciated🥺🥺

a:n- minors be gone 18+ only!. Dirty talk, female reader, choking,smut, rough sex. So. Much. Smut. I got a bit carried away oops, pussy eating, praise kink, filthy language, unprotected sex, mentions of choking on a dick, choking, 18+

Ooh there's a bit of a build up too this time! It's a bit long oops.

This work is intended for adults only, meaning those who are 18 and over. remember you are responsible for your own media consumption.

Hannibal finds it amusing, the way you roll your eyes whenever he opens his mouth. He might well have a good point but it doesent stop you from making your annoyance known. You thought hannibal was just far too cocky and far too sure of himself.

And every time hannibal sees it, a sly smirk appears on his face.

You loathed working with him, and your boss seemed to be oblivious to this since he always made you go with hannibal on a case.

"Im driving" you huff, not even looking at him as you reach for the drivers side handle

"It's my car" hannibal says simply, leaning on the door,causing it to shut.

You gape at him, hannibal stands there leaning against the car door, lazily, a smile dancing across his face.

Hannibal raises his eyebrows at you, waiting.

"You are insufferable do you know that!" You state

Hannibal just smiles wider, sticking his tongue between his teeth watching you become angrier at him.

"Fine" you huff, launching the keys at him. Your pouting, breath heaving slightly, and hannibal can't help the way it sends blood rushing to his cock.

Hannibal starts the car and the radio blares on. You lean over from the passenger seat to try and change it to something more your taste when hannibal places his hand firmly on your thigh.

"Leave it" he says lowly.

Your brain short circuits for a moment

"I am not, listening to this!" You manage to breathe out, hopefully hiding shakiness in your voice.

Hannibal ignores you, hoping it'll be the end of your utterly annoying complaining.

It's not.

"Go that way its quicker" you say

He doesn't.

"You should of gone the other way" you state, as you join a small line of traffic due to some road works.

The drive only takes 15 minutes but by the time you both get out of the car hannibal is rubbing his temples dramatically.

"Oh I'm sorry I didn't realise I was so terrible to be around" you say.

Hannibal furrows his brows.

"I need you to come to my office when we get back" he says firmly

"Jesus christ how about some manners?" You roll your eyes

Hannibal turns around and walks towards you, you can't help your heart speed up at the sight, he's so very... attractive.

You blink away the thoughts right as he reaches you

"Y/N" he whispers, he's out of breath, putting both arms on either side of you he's trapped you against the car.

You open your mouth to speak but no sound comes out.

Hannibal swipes his thumb across your bottom lip, taking note of the way your breathing increases.

He leaves you without saying another word.

The drive back is silent.

He gets out first when you arrive, not even waiting for you to get out the car.

By the time you reach his office, he's already sitting behind his desk.

You enter and shut the door behind you, hannibal looks up at you and his gaze is so intense it makes you want the floor to swallow you up.

"You- you wanted me to come up here" you say, hannibal gets up and clears the space between you in seconds.

And once again he places both arms either side of you, leaning against the door.

You notice he's rolled his sleeves up and it makes your brain short circuit for a moment.

" I did" he agrees, he steps forward, meaning you have to widen your legs slightly

"What are you-

"You have been testing my patience y/n" he whispers, hands rubbing up your waist gently.

"Yeah well your pretty insufferable yourself" you whisper.

Hannibal traces his hand up to your jaw, his big hand gripping your chin, a finger reaching out to caress your cheek

"Should I stop?" He whispers stilling his hand, a warmness in his gaze you haven't seen before.

You shake your head, lips parted slightly.

"Use your words" he whispers lowly.

"I don't want you to stop" you say

"Good girl" he praises and hannibal dosent miss the way your pupils widen at that.

Hannibal bites his lip slightly, oh he is going to enjoy this.

"You liked that didn't you?" He teases, dropping his hand from your chin to rest around your neck.

"Mm hmm" you mutter, slightly breathless.

Hannibal tightens his hand slightly, studying your reaction, he feels your pulse quicken under his hand, you shift slightly trying to ease the growing ache in your cunt.

He squeezes a little harder, causing you to let a moan you'd been holding in escape your lips.

Hannibals cock strains against his pants.

"Open your mouth for me darling" he says, swiping his thumb across your lip before pushing in two of his fingers.

You wrap your lips around his fingers and suck, hannibal closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, commiting to memory the sight in front of him.

"That's it darling" he smiles, his cock twitching every time you made a noise.

He pushes into you, his erection brushing up against your leg.

"Do you feel that y/n?"

You whimper

Hannibal removes his fingers from your mouth, reaching down, he guides your hand to his bulge.

You stroke your hand up and down a couple of times, taking notice of how thick he feels, hannibal let's out a low moan before quickly pushing your hand away and opening his hand to take yours, he guides your arm up above your head before crashing his lips to yours.

You can tell he's skillful by the way he kisses. One hand pinning yours above your head, the other grips your waist, you feel the books on the shelf behind you pressing into your back.

Hannibal pushes his tongue into your mouth, gripping your waist tighter you moan into the kiss.

"You sound delightful when you moan my love" he breaks the kiss, pressing his forehead to yours.

"Please" you whisper, needing more.

"What my love?, what do you want?" He knows exactly what you want, he just wants to hear you beg.

"Touch me" you say, closing your eyes as you sigh

"No no" he tuts, stroking your face

"Look at me"

You open your eyes and stare into his, his eyes blown wide with lust.

"Good girl" he says again and this time you don't bother trying to stifle the groan escaping from your throat.

" I bet you've soaked right through your panties haven't you, and I've hardly, even, touched, you" and with each word his hands inch lower into the waistband of your pants.

He runs a finger through your soaking folds, presses it to your clit.

It makes you squeal.

"Fuck hanni-

He smirkes at you, removing his fingers and instead gripping your wrist and leading you to his couch.

"Lie down" he states simply, and you do, bringing your lip between your teeth as hannibal loosens his tie.

He keeps his eyes on yours as he undresses, he can see its driving you mad as your chest heaves watching him.

"I've dreamt about how you'll taste on my tongue" his accent thick as he kneels between your legs.

Slowly, he removes your trousers, every touch of his fingers on your skin making your pussy throb.

When he's done he admires the view, a prominent wet patch visible in your panties.

You thrust your hips up slightly, indicating for him to hurry up and just touch you.

Hannibal leans down placing his hands on either side of your thighs, he brings his mouth to your clothed pussy, placing a far too soft kiss to your dripping, covered cunt.

You let out a frustrated moan, hannibal chuckles, finally hooking his fingers through your panties.

"May I?" He asks softly.

You nod

"Words, darling" he whispers

"Yes" you almost scream, and hannibal finally touches you where you needed him most.

His tongue teases the outside of your pussy before circling your clit slowly.

"Oh fuck" you moan, thrusting your hips into his mouth, hannibal removes one of his hands from your thigh, teasing your entrance with his finger.

His tongue presses flat against your clit as he pushes a finger inside you, he curls his finger, reaching that spot inside you that makes your toes curl.

"Oh my god hanni" you breathe, hannibal removes his mouth from your folds as he inserts another finger.

"I can feel you tightening around my fingers darling, are you going to Cum?" He asks, but he knows the answer. You close your eyes as you feel your orgasm approach

"Open your eyes and look at me sweetheart" he speaks so softly it makes your cunt clench harder.

"That's it, cum for me y/n, i got you, let go for me" he urges as your pussy clenches round his fingers and you see stars.

Your chest heaves as you try and catch your breath, but before you've had time to fully recover, hannibal places his cock at your dripping hole.

"Fuck me, please" you breathe, and that's all hannibal needs to hear before pushing his thick cock into your pussy.

"You feel incredible around my cock" he moans as he thrusts into you slowly.

Hannibal snakes his hand up your body, around your neck once more.

He applies a tiny bit of pressure as he fucks into you, your eyes roll back in pleasure and hannibal quickens his pace.

"Mm fuck" you moan

"Your squeezing my cock so good y/n" he praises as his hand continues squeezing your throat.

"Im gonna cum again hanni" you warn him, feeling a second orgasm approach.

"Cum with me" he groans, and it's the hottest thing you've ever heard, he's breathless, his skin glowing slightly from the activity.

"Hanni-" you choke out, his cock hitting your g spot with every thrust, he can feel your walls tightening around him.

"Cum for me y/n" he moans as his own orgasm washes over him, and with one last squeeze of his hand around your neck, you feel his cock tighten inside you, causing your brain to short circuit for a moment, you see stars once more as you cum on hannibals cock.

Hannibal pulls out slowly when you've caught your breath and recovered.

"That was-

"Incredible" he finishes for you.

"I should piss you off more often" you tease, he's lay next to you on the couch, his hands trailing softly over your stomach.

"Next time, maybe I'll choke on your cock" you add.

[moonstruckme]

helloooo, i have a request if its possible♡

since we got figure skater! Sirius..... Do you think we could get hockey player! James x figure skater! reader? Maybe they go to the same place but the place where they practice its kinda shitty so its literally kinda like an across the hallway situation where the hockey practice happens on one ice rink and when you leave you can walk thru the ice rink of the figure skaters that its on another section of the place IDK I'M NOT AN ARCHITECT SORRY

BUT THE POINT ITS, that one day James leaves practice later than usual and he's walking to get out but he heards his favorite song playing and he goes to see whats up because its his favorite song ever! and goes to the other ice rink and sees the reader practicing and inmediatly he has the biggest crush ever and its almost dreaming about a house and three kids with that cute girl

idk i think i explained myself like sht but hope you like the idea! cause i think it would be soo cute

Hi lovely, you explained yourself perfectly! Thanks for being so patient with me, I hope this is alright <3

hockey player!James x figure skater!reader ♡ 718 words

James’ entire body is pleasantly sore, and he’s very much looking forward to going home to a nice, hot shower. 

“Do you and Moony want to go get breakfast tomorrow morning?” he asks Sirius as they leave the locker room. The two of them had taken longer than usual changing out of their gear, Sirius filling him in on the absolute hell week Remus had at his new job. To hear Sirius talk about it, all the other professors are simply jealous of Remus. James is sure that’s partly true, but he’d bet they need less reason than that. Somehow, James had thought leaving school would mean emerging into a more mature world, but adults seem just as petty as teenagers. Maybe pancakes and a good, uplifting chat would do something to take the sting out of Remus’ first week and help prepare him for the next. 

Sirius cuts James a sideways look, gray eyes narrowed. “Breakfast at what time?” 

“I was thinking six, six thirty.” Sirius scoffs, and James grins. “Only joking. How’s eleven?” 

“Still too early,” Sirius grumbles, “but we’ll go.” 

James bobs his head, pleased to have a course of action for helping his friend. “Ask Moons where he feels like going, and just…” He hears a faint, familiar melody. “...just let me know.” 

“Sounds good.” Sirius pushes open the door, but James has stopped. He’s looking back towards the rink, intrigued. “Coming?” 

James waves him off. “In a bit. See you tomorrow.” 

Sirius makes an amused sound, not unused to James’ diversions, and goes. 

James follows the sound of his favorite song, unabashed about bopping his head to the beat as he approaches the rink. He knows figure skaters sometimes use the rink after his hockey practice has wrapped up, and he absolutely has to see who’s choreographed a routine to this. He comes to a stop near the edge of the bleachers, and watches through the tempered glass as one lone skater launches into a turn. 

This wouldn’t be the track James would have thought of for a figure skating routine, but frankly, you’re doing it justice. Your movements are springy and nimble as you glance across the ice, one complicated-looking move to the next to the next. It seems like both skates are never touching the ground for more than half a second. There’s a lot to be said, probably, about your skill, your technique, but James is a philistine. All he can think about is how pretty you look. 

You’re gorgeous. Stunning. Graceful in your movements and seraphim in your countenance. A wisp of hair has freed itself from the confines of the rest and whips about your face, but you don’t seem to notice it, your gaze steady and lips just slightly pursed in concentration. 

James would never tell his friends because they’d mock him to hell and back, but he does believe in love at first sight. Only under particular circumstances, though. The sight has to be good enough—meaning, he has to see some aspect of who that person is behind a pretty face. You certainly do have a pretty face, and you’re dancing to his favorite song, and James doesn’t understand how he could ever be expected to not be totally enamored with you after this one spectacular look. He worries that if you glance over, you’ll see him with giant cartoon hearts boinging out of his eyes on springs. 

The song ends, and you spin to a stop. James’ breathing stops, too, as your gaze lands on a point not ten feet to his right. He wonders if he’s being creepy. It’s not like this is a private rink, and James wouldn’t be weirded out if he spotted someone watching him running drills or something (actually, if it were you he’d be over the moon about it), but he’s been told not everyone feels like he does about that stuff. And though he hardly thinks of himself as intimidating, James is also a big guy. He wants to woo you, not spook you.

You skate to the edge of the rink to restart your music, and James slips out. He hears it blaring softly behind him, and he probably looks like a total idiot when he grins and dances out the front door. An idiot in love.

[luvhughes43]

boyfriend | quinn hughes x actress!reader

request: Quinn fic or insta edit where everyone thinks y/n is dating jack because she’s always around him or in the back of his pictures but it’s just bc reader and quinn are both pretty private about it 🤭

note: i changed it up a bit but i hope u like it!

njdevils

liked by ynoffical, _quinnhughes, and others

njdevils VAN vs NJD, actress yn ln joined us today to drop the first puck of the game! stay tuned🏒😈

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fan01 OMG???

ynoffical i had so much fun! thank u for having me❤️

fan02 yn in her hockey era?

fan03 now hear me out... her and jack hughes..

jackhughes

liked by _quinnhughes, nicohischier, and others

jackhughes this weekend📸✌🏻

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fan04 what is yn doing with jack hughes

lhughes_06 now hold on...🤨

fan05 JACK HUGHES AND YN CONFIRMED???

trevorzegras yaba daba doooo☕️

fan06 IS THAT YN LN ON THE LAST SLIDE???

_quinnhughes 💙💙

ynoffical

liked by _quinnhughes, hallebailey, and others

ynoffical thank you so much theacademy for having me at this years 95th oscars ceremony! i had so much fun and i am so proud of my wonderful costars and peers for the amazing work everyones been doing🫶

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hallebailey stunning

ynoffical miss u🥲

fan07 where's jack hughes?

florencepugh you look gorgeous❤️❤️

ynoffical thank youu! you were beautiful!💙💙

fan06 the blue emojis... do u know who else uses blue heart emojis...🧐

fan08 MOTHER!!!! YOU LOOK SO GOOD😭🙏💗

ynoffical

liked by zendaya, _quinnhughes, and others

ynoffical some behind the scenes from the past week..🤭

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madelyncline soft launching [blank] i see...🤭🤭

ynoffical 🤭🤭

fan08 WHOO??? WTF?? ISTG IS IT JACK??

_quinnhughes glad u had a good time at the oscars

ynoffical i had a lot of fun after too ! 🤭

fan09 are we all just going to ignore this comment or...?

fan10 she's dating jack hughes = confirmed

jackhughes who's that guy in the last picture?🤔

fan11 OH ITS DEFINITELY HIM LETS GOOOO

_quinnhughes

liked by ynoffical, jackhughes, and others

_quinnhughes giggling? i think thats what the girls are doing nowadays

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ynoffical WHY ARE U EXPOSING ME😭😭

_quinnhughes u look cute wdym!

ynoffical you're lucky i like you.

_quinnhughes only like?🤔🤭

fan12 WAIT WHAT???

fan13 HAS SHE BEEN DATING YOU THIS WHOLE TIME???

jackhughes finally !

_quinnhughes 🧍‍♂️

jackhughes dont lie i know you've seen my insta comments lately

trevorzegras LETS GO QUINNY🔥🔥

lhughes_06 i can't believe quinn is actually dating someone famous

bboeser its unnatural

ynoffical

liked by _quinnhughes, madelyncline, and others

ynoffical since were exposing each other here's a hard launch ! (and no i am not dating jack hughes)

tagged: _quinnhughes

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jackhughes super cute _quinnhughes

ynoffical NO BECAUSE WHY DOES IT LOOK LIKE IM HOLDING HIM HOSTAGE??? HE LOVES ME I SWEAR😭😭

madelyncline my favourite couple ever🫶

ynoffical i love u sm😭💙

fan14 YN AND QUINN OH WOW😭🙏

lhughes_06 there's no way

_quinnhughes luke you've literally met her?😭

_quinnhughes I love you💙💙

ynoffical i love you !💙

fan15 can't believe youve been in love with quinn this whole time and everyone was saying u were with jack😭

[zackstriker]

Their recent inability to shut up about sex is making me craaazy because it’s giving “we’re not having sex right now so we’re incredibly sexually frustrated and will not shut up about it!”. It’s a more recent thing too, not their typical sporadic comment but literally every video and occasional tweet and reply has had sex and positions and top and bottom since June. Idk maybe it was Dan’s birthday maybe it’s the summer weather but they cannot shut up about Phil being a bottom and their love of sex.

ohhhh that’s an interesting take… with phil’s medical stuff that definitely could be the case. I firmly believe there’s truth in every joke (universally, not just w dnp) so i could see that.

i assumed its more of the boiling frogs theory. i think they’re purposely including lots of romantic/sexual moments within videos a) because they know we will eat it up (and we do), but also b) because they have the freedom to do so and there’s a sense of reclamation (kinda like when baby gays only talk about being gay because they actually can for the first time) and c) to either let us know they’re together without explicitly saying it or to prepare us for a hard launch post tour (dan did similar stuff to soft launch the gay before hard launching it after II).

They’ve been doing so much subliminal couple-y stuff lately like the bride+groom look in dnp dress each other and the matching shirts in todays video. i used to not think there would ever be a hard launch (i think they’re together but i thought they would want to keep something to themselves bc of how much the internet took from them) but they keep pulling more and more shenanigans that makes me think they might just be boiling us for the hard launch after all.

It’s interesting though because you can see moments when they still limit what they say bc of how it could be perceived, like in the video today when Phil changed the lyrics of paparazzi into a joke bc he didn’t wanna say the “i’ll follow you until you love me” part out loud. Similarly there’s been a few jump cuts in recent videos where they have been laughing at a joke that was seemingly cut.

I also must admit i did not participate in top/bottom discourse or anything back before the hiatus, so my lore knowledge in that particular regard is somewhat lacking in historical context.

All that being said, I do love a good bottom phil joke tho.

[covid-safer-hotties]

The US Government Has Abandoned Us to Endless COVID. We Can Do Better. - Published Aug 10, 2024

The pandemic isn’t over. Why is it so hard to find accurate information about it?

This week, Nassau County, New York, passed a mask ban. Those wearing face masks will now face the possibility of up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine. Angry at the power of anti-genocide protests, lawmakers banned one of the most basic forms of disease protection just as the world is experiencing a record surge in COVID cases. While officials insist that the law will not be used against those masking for medical reasons, disabled activists protesting the move say they were intentionally coughed on during the city council meeting where the bill was passed.

In a world of airborne contagious diseases, everyone has a medical reason for masking. So why doesn’t our public health policy recognize that?

In 2020, at the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, then-President Donald Trump was excoriated for saying that “when you test, you create more cases.” This statement was met with outcry by journalists and public health professionals and pundits from all major outlets.

Trump’s statements and policies on COVID were regularly and widely critiqued. In October 2020, CNN launched a tracker of “every time Trump said that the coronavirus pandemic was over, but it wasn’t,” which juxtaposed Trump’s words with the number of new cases in the United States.

Since President Joe Biden took office, many of the same things that Trump was excoriated for have been implemented as policy. In September 2022, Biden suddenly declared the pandemic over at the Detroit Auto Show, and in May 2023, Congress ended the federal emergency. Both moves were unrelated to any data about case numbers, yet no similar media outcry about premature or imaginary declarations has dogged the Biden administration.

Trump’s outrageous argument that if the U.S. collected less data, the picture would be rosier has been made into official policy under the Biden administration: As of May 1, 2024, hospitals are no longer required to report admissions, and most of the other data collection infrastructure on COVID test rates, like local dashboards and easily readable trackers on cases and deaths, has already disappeared.

By mid-July 2024, it was possible for Biden to have an active case of COVID and to claim that he is going home to isolate while simultaneously appearing on video in a group of people unmasked, without major media outlets blinking an eye about this contradiction. At this point in the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website is no longer a go-to place for clear COVID information, but instead muddies the difference between COVID and the common cold in its prevention recommendations. As Caroline Hugh, an epidemiologist who volunteers for the Public Health Collective, told Truthout, it is hard to know what’s going on because the “picture has gotten a lot fuzzier and a lot more complicated.”

As Supports for COVID Sunset, Access Is Obstructed It is worth stating explicitly that the COVID pandemic is decidedly not over, despite the end of the U.S. federal emergency. The policy and response have changed, without any real relationship to changes in the illness and how it affects people.

The basic facts about COVID have not evolved that much: It is a highly contagious airborne disease, tight-fitting masks are effective, regular vaccinations are helpful in avoiding more serious illness, and isolation (some experts insist longer than five days) is warranted to avoid getting other people sick. It can cause death and long-term or permanent disability.

What has changed in the last four years is that it has become harder and harder for people to remain clear on this information and to put these basic guidelines into practice. The information about the risks of COVID and how to avoid them has gone from being mainstream advice to countercultural information that people have to search out. In this information-poor environment, the risks to disabled people, to those who work directly with the public (disproportionately BIPOC people) and anyone else with an increased COVID risk level are dramatically increased.

It is also now much harder to put this information into practice as government and institutional support for COVID safety practices has all but evaporated. Tools that were used earlier in the pandemic like free testing, masks and vaccines, have almost all been phased out, often shifting the financial burden for these to individual patients. The expectation to work while sick has been reimposed. The public has repeatedly been told “we have the tools,” but with tens of millions of people kicked off Medicaid in 2024, Paxlovid — a rapid treatment that reduces the risks of the infection — is difficult to obtain for most people, and expensive for almost everyone. Even the Bridge Access program, which funded COVID vaccinations for those without private insurance to cover them, is sunsetting this fall. “It is absolutely unaffordable to get COVID for the vast majority of working Americans, for people who are not working, who are retired and disabled on SSDI, on a limited income, on SSI. This is a catastrophic cost to be exposed to right now,” Beatrice Adler-Bolton, coauthor of Health Communism and co-host of the podcast “Death Panel,” told Truthout.

One of the ways that misleading information becomes normalized is by making it challenging for people to act on any other information.

“Immunity Debt” and Other Commonly Circulated Myths With the disappearance of supports and these changes to the mainstream media narrative, it has become harder to feel sure about COVID. The dramatic wind down of data available has been coupled with a major shift in framing from the CDC, which has communicated in ways that fail to counter the U.S. public’s widespread turn toward a mentality that is resonant with Trump’s misleading push for “herd immunity” in 2020.

While the CDC does acknowledge that “reinfection can occur as early as several weeks after a previous infection,” much of its recent messaging on COVID has tended to bolster the widespread public sense that hospitalization and COVID deaths have largely decreased because of immunity from prior infection or vaccinations. (Only 28 percent of adults in the U.S. are up to date on COVID vaccinations.) For example, PEW Research Center cited the CDC in its statement that “The vast majority of Americans have some level of protection from the coronavirus because of vaccination, prior infection or a combination of the two. This has led to a decline in severe illness from the disease.”

Adam Moore, a virologist working towards a Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis, says that while this claim is accurate, the overall framing is “dishonest” because it underemphasizes how quickly natural immunity can wane after a COVID infection. He also argues that this frame underemphasizes how COVID can have serious impacts on a person’s immune system and their ability to fend off any kind of illness.

Fundamentally, it is complicated to assess why fewer people are being hospitalized or dying of COVID despite continued high rates of circulation. The reason is not necessarily solely related to immunity (through exposure or vaccination), especially given the disease’s quick evolution that has resulted from the failure to contain it.

The data collection on who has been hospitalized or even died with an active case of COVID has also become less reliable, as many hospitals no longer report all COVID cases, but instead make a distinction between people hospitalized “with COVID” and people hospitalized “for COVID.” And, undercounting of deaths has been a pattern throughout the pandemic.

Most importantly, experts who spoke to Truthout emphasized that death and acute illness like hospitalization are not the only serious outcomes from an illness. Most of us would like to avoid serious injury, traumatic events and long-term disability that fall outside the purview of the basic and extreme indicator of death. Pandemic indicators and figures that do not tell us how many people are developing or living with long COVID, for example, fall far short of offering a complete picture of the risk of COVID infection.

The push for “herd immunity” to COVID is only one of several common misleading ideas about immunity. Another is immunity debt, the claim that if a person missed getting a cold or respiratory virus in 2021 they were more susceptible to getting sick in 2022. Immunity debt, although popularized in some media outlets, is not a scientifically accepted idea. The immune system is a not a “muscle that needs exercise to get stronger,” explained Moore.

COVID goes against a lot of what people in the United States have been told about viruses and what has come to be common sense. The most common viruses in the U.S. are seasonal, but COVID circulates year-round, more like tropical viruses. Moore highlights that this makes COVID fundamentally different from the flu and, crucially, the vaccination cycle for the flu, where annual vaccination works because it can account for the variants that have evolved in the opposite hemisphere. Since COVID circulates everywhere year-round, annual vaccinations are not enough to keep up on the latest variants. Beatrice Adler-Bolton adds that COVID surges in the United States are not related to seasons but rather to moments of intense travel, like Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day weekend, the holidays in November and December, and Spring Break.

Good Information Is Available — If You Know Where to Look The people who spoke to Truthout for this story recommended many sources of robust, trustworthy information about COVID. These sources are not invested in making sure the economy continues going as it is, which has been one of the biggest reasons government and mainstream sources misrepresent COVID data. Many also have a commitment to disability and racial justice and are actively organizing for improved public health information and infrastructure.

Recommended resources include Noha Aboelata and Roots Community Health’s “people’s health updates” on YouTube; Ground Truths, the newsletter of Eric Topol; The Sick Times, a weekly newsletter focusing on Long COVID; and Adler-Bolton’s podcast, “Death Panel,” which provides regular deep dives and analysis of COVID policy.

Local mask blocs are another good source of information. These local mutual aid groups provide low-cost or free masks to community members (via bulk purchasing), and they share a lot of locally relevant information about COVID (often on Instagram).

Nationally, groups like the People’s CDC, the Public Health Collective and the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative are synthesizing technical information and sharing it to a wider community with a disability justice lens. Hugh highlighted the importance of reading and combining a variety of information, rather than relying on a single source.

Repetition Is a Democratic Power The most powerful part of COVID disinformation is its simple repetition through multiple channels constantly, says Adler-Bolton. But repetition can work both ways. Those pushing for more accurate COVID information that allows everyday people to be in solidarity with one another can also use this power of repetition, but “we have to be relentless.”

Undoing the damage of bad information is difficult, because “breaking the mystification of disinformation” can’t be done by simply changing the information that goes through those same media channels, said Adler-Bolton. Instead, people must work with each other through personal connection. “There is a kind of trust that we can build between each other that goes further than the trust any one person can have with any media project, no matter how good the project is.”

Information that rejects ableism and white supremacy raises the stakes by asking people to reject the comforts they have been promised by racial capitalism. Sharing that information with each other is part of a collective struggle for disability and racial justice.

[reasonsforhope]

"On Monday this week [first week of December, 2023], workers in London’s financial centre were met with an unfamiliar sight – and sound. Around 100 chorists, some sporting bowler hats, had gathered at the headquarters of the City’s biggest fossil fuel-backing corporations to sing in protest.

The singers, encompassing a range of generations and vocal pitches, were part of the Climate Choir Movement, a network of choirs that officially launched in January 2023. While world leaders convened at the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai, they raised their voices in support of the Stop Ecocide campaign, which is working to criminalise the destruction of the environment.

The Climate Choir Movement’s co-founder Jo Flanagan first formed a choir in April 2022 with Extinction Rebellion to protest against HSBC’s fossil fuel investments at the bank’s AGM. Dressed smartly to blend in with shareholders, the singers rose up from their seats to disrupt the meeting with a rendition of the Abba classic "Money, Money, Money," the lyrics adapted to urge HSBC to finance renewable energy. [Note: A+ Song choice for this, tbh]

Flanagan had been inspired by a video of US activists singing as a flashmob in the middle of a conference speech to protest against greenwashing. “It made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck,” she recalls. “They walked out of the room in a very dignified way, still singing. I just thought, that’s the way I want to do it.”

Since then, the movement has grown from its first choir in Bristol to 10 choirs across the UK, with around 550 members at the time of writing. The local choirs organise their own rehearsals and protests, while all movement members can attend monthly sessions on Zoom where they learn new songs, to be performed at protests like the one in London.

For Ruth Routledge, who works as a singing for health practitioner and leads the Portsmouth choir in her spare time, taking part in this action was a “wonderful, uplifting” experience. “Singing and harmonising together is a very beautiful way to protest,” she says. “There’s something very gentle, very moving, and very powerful about it. It’s so vulnerable. There’s just a real naked, stripped back humanity that I think cuts through a lot of noise.”

The movement welcomes all new members, regardless of singing ability. Routledge was touched when some passersby – including “a couple of lads” – joined in with the songs. 

She is eager for others to experience the sense of hope that singing together brings. “I feel very passionately about the state of the environment. I’m very concerned about my children’s futures, and I’m concerned about the whole world. It keeps me awake at night.

“Joining together means we’re not isolated, worrying that the world is on fire and no one’s going to do anything.” 

For Flanagan, what sets the movement apart from other choirs that sing songs about nature is its targeted approach. “We organise very carefully choreographed, peaceful performance protests. We want to change hearts and minds.”

Seeing onlookers in tears illustrates to her what singing can achieve. “It reaches deep inside people in a way that other forms of protest can’t.”"

-via Positive.News, December 6, 2023

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

The reason why the toh fandom can have such wildly diverging interpretations of the Wittebane story is because the show did not do its job. How old was Philip when Caleb left? Did Caleb truly believe in witch hunting or was he just playing along to what the town expected? Did Caleb ever tell Philip anything? Did he ever talk to his brother and try to change his mind? How long was Philip searching for Caleb? How did he get cursed? How exactly did the knife fight start? Did Philip kill Caleb accidentally or on purpose? Did he kill him only because he married a witch or because he left him? Or both?

The fact is, we don't have definitive answers to any of these. We only have educated guesses based on portraits barely glimpsed in the show that lack any context, Masha's barebones version of events, and Belos' self-justifications. Casual fans shouldn't have to be knee-deep in fandom just to get the main villain's backstory, especially when said story is the literal basis of the whole plot.

Plus, if you're going to spend the final half of your last season barely exploring the villain's origins, only to completely ignore it in the series finale, then you've written a bad ending.

Update: This is getting some notes so I'm including additional thoughts to the original post. The rest will be under the read more:

Just to add onto this because some folks argue that we don’t need his backstory because we already have the essentials or it’s not really important to the plot. The thing is though is that Belos’ story launches the entire plot of the show, his character and motivation are the direct result of actions that happened centuries before the main characters were born. It needs to be depicted and not largely inferred. 

His story is important to creating a more fleshed out character and can strengthen the themes of the show (the rivalry between Eda and Lilith and Luz struggling to fit in at home are parallels to Belos). Instead the show gives little kernels of his story and character that make him more interesting than just Evil Emperor (the fact that the brothers became witch hunters to fit in, the fact that Belos worst memories are of killing Caleb and making grimwalkers are never touched on again). The first (and last) time we see Caleb in a full scene is in For the Future and it has huge implications for the dynamic between the two brothers. But again, nothing is done with it. It seemed like the show was building up that Belos’ lies and self-justifications would lead to his undoing but it doesn’t. So him dying with his ideology and self-delusions intact feels empty.

The worst part of how the Wittebane story is handled is that since it’s largely inferred and you have to be pretty involved in fandom to have a more nuanced take of it, a casual fan can easily just accept other characters’ views on the matter. Masha says “looks like little bro was jealous of big bro” and it undercuts the story of the Wittebanes (to say nothing of the tonal whiplash). The Titan dismisses Belos as only caring for himself and to be the hero, which while technically true, misses a lot of context and makes it easy to dismiss Belos as a whole as simply being evil and crazy instead of a more layered villain. And it can’t be argued that these are just the characters’ perspectives and we shouldn’t take it at face value because there’s nothing really in the show to pushback against that. 

Now, yes, it is fun to imagine how the Wittebane story played out and in hindsight, it’s probably better that the show didn’t depict the entire story because they probably would have botched it. But the point remains that the handling of this storyline was a mess (and don’t give me the cancellation excuse, the show learned early on about this and wrote all of 2B with it in mind). The Wittebane story and Belos as a whole showcase why setup and payoff matter. You show the villain feels guilt about their worst deeds? What’s the payoff to that? The villain was originally an outsider who tried to fit in and conformed to a town’s toxic ideologies? What’s the payoff? The villain continually lies to himself and commits atrocities to justify his actions? What’s the payoff? 

If you’re going to raise interesting and thought-provoking questions then don’t give the audience a simplistic answer.

[mariacallous]

An air raid alert has just started when Victoria Itskovych joins a Zoom call from Kyiv. “It’s, like, a usual situation,” she says. “But really, it’s not usual.” February 24 will mark the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For nearly two years now, Kyiv has been under bombardment. Some weeks, people have to trudge to their shelters night after night, checking text alerts and Telegram channels to figure out where the missiles are falling and when it’s safe to come out—although, it’s never really safe.

That relentless stress, and the trauma of losing family, friends, and colleagues on the front, has taken its toll. A poll by the city government last year found that 80 percent of residents reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has exposed the whole of Ukrainian society to battle shock. “We’ve all suffered from this,” says Itskovych, who is director of the Kyiv City Council’s IT department. “Almost every person has somebody who was injured or died during the war, or lost their home or lost their health.”

In the face of such widespread injury, the Kyiv government has turned to Ukraine’s now-famous civic tech infrastructure for help. As the war enters its third year, the municipal government is starting to build a citywide system for providing mental health support to citizens. It’s a vast challenge, but also a unique opportunity—the first time that such a mass-trauma event has happened to a society that has already built the tools of digital government. Dealing with the mental health impacts of the invasion will be absolutely vital to keep society resilient, functioning, and committed enough to repel the invaders. It’s also the key to Ukraine’s postwar recovery, laying the groundwork now for a society that can rebuild itself physically and psychologically from the horrors of war. “This is the future of our society,” Itskovych says. “We are building the basis for the resilience of the community itself.”

At the heart of the plan is the Kyiv government’s digital platform, Kyiv Digital, which it launched in 2017. Before the invasion, it was largely used to manage parking and public transport, and to notify residents of disruptions to services such as road closures or power outages. When the war began, those notifications became more urgent: incoming attacks, the locations of bomb shelters, and the safest routes to reach them. Like other parts of Ukraine’s civilian technology, the city pivoted its tools to keep people safe and support the war effort, bootstrapping and rewiring the systems at pace.

“The first changes to the notifications we did in hours,” says Oleg Polovynko, adviser on digitalization to Kyiv’s mayor. Since then, the digital teams have been engaged in a constant cycle of innovation, trying to figure out what services they can bring online. The war has pushed them to act more quickly, to adapt tools they have and invent things that don’t exist.

They’ve expanded tools for civic participation, letting citizens vote on petitions, send feedback to the city government, and ask for help, such as financial support to repair bomb-damaged homes. And they’ve collected a lot of data, which is how the Kyiv government has been able to measure the scale of the city’s distress—and people’s reluctance to seek help. Of the 80 percent of residents who show signs of trauma, “40 to 45 percent are afraid to have contact with doctors who can help,” Polovynko says.

But this is only half of the problem that needs solving. For those who do want to seek treatment, there simply aren’t enough resources to help them. Clinical psychologists are supposed to limit the number of patient consultations they do in a day, so they don’t burn out. Before the full-scale invasion, Inna Davydenko saw a maximum of four patients daily. Today, Davydenko, a mental health specialist at the City Center of Neurorehabilitation in Kyiv, sees twice that number. When we speak, she’s just finished a video call with a soldier stationed near the front, whom she’s helping cope with stress and anxiety.

Even before the war massively increased the number of people dealing with trauma, depression, and anxiety, Ukraine’s medical system suffered from an underinvestment in mental health provision. “In most hospitals, you have maybe one psychologist. In good hospitals, it’s maybe two,” Davydenko says. “A lot of people need psychological help, but we can’t cover everything.” There is simply no way that the current system can grow to match the enormous jump in demand. But, Davydenko says, “almost every Ukrainian person has a smartphone.”

This is exactly what Polovynko and Itskovych want to exploit, using Kyiv Digital’s platforms and data to digitize mental health support for the city, and so close the gap between need and resources. Their project will focus first on those they’ve identified as being most vulnerable—war veterans and children—and those most able to help others: teachers and parents. The next six months of the project will be a “discovery stage,” Polovynko says. “We need to understand the real life of our veterans now, of the children, of the parents, what’s their context, how they survive, what services they use.”

The project will track people through the process of recovering from trauma, monitoring the treatments they ask for and the ones they receive, their concerns as they move through the mental health system, and their outcomes. Once the team has a detailed map of services and bottlenecks, and data on what’s working and what’s not, they can match individual needs with treatments. A full roll-out is scheduled for early 2025.

“It doesn't mean that the whole chain of the service will be absolutely digital,” Itskovych says. Some patients may be directed to group therapy or one-on-one meetings with psychologists, others will be given access to online tools. The aim, she says, is to create efficiency, to close the service gap, but also to provide comfort, meeting people where they are. “For a big part of our clients, there is more comfort with getting the service online, in different ways. Some people are not comfortable meeting a specialist one-on-one; they prefer a digital way to get the service.”

The project is being supported financially and operationally by Bloomberg Philanthropies, a charitable organization created by former New York mayor and Bloomberg founder Michael Bloomberg. James Anderson, head of government innovation at the organization, says that the project comes at a critical time for Kyiv, where people continue to suffer even though global attention has shifted away to other crises.

“There's always a tremendous amount of attention when the immediate crisis hits,” Anderson says. “But mayors continue to have to deal with the human costs of crises, long after the newspapers have turned to new subjects. That’s certainly what we sense and see in Kyiv.”

The size of the challenge in Kyiv is clearly daunting. But, Anderson says, there are reasons for optimism. Cities have got better over the past two decades at responding to common crises, such as Covid-19, which also required rapid, mass digitization of services. “Every crisis is distinct and different, and awful, in its own way,” Anderson says, “but there are lessons learned.” The Kyiv government, and Ukrainian society more widely, have demonstrated a capacity for rapid innovation to meet urgent needs, and Anderson hopes that success in this project could see it replicated internationally. “This is not the last war. This is not the last crisis,” he says. “I think Kyiv has lessons that they can share with cities around the globe.”

For Kyiv, and Ukraine, the crisis won’t end when the war does. “Psychological health is the number one problem for Ukraine,” Davydenko says, before correcting herself. “Number one is Russia, number two is our psychological health,” she says. “PTSD is our future.”

[akookminsupporter]

Namjoon gave a good interview to Vogue Spain and in it he said a few things that I thought I'd share with those of you who may not understand Spanish.

This was at the end of the article but I want to write it first:

One thing that needs to be made clear about this album is that, no matter how much the rumour mill is trying to spin it, it is by no means the end of the successful band. "Oh, I'm not leaving BTS. Absolutely not. This is the first time I'm launching a solo project like this, so I'm trying to stand up and take my first steps. But I'm ambitious and I have willpower. So I don't want to miss the opportunity to do both. So I will try my best not to lose control and steer these two ships at the same time. A lot of bands split up and fall apart, but I hope that doesn't happen to BTS. I just love the music, I love my job, I love the band members and I love myself. If I can keep both projects going, I think it can be something legendary in the long run".

Other important parts of the article:

"The k-pop industry hasn't stopped growing since we debuted with BTS [in 2013]. It's become a lot more complex and has brought a lot more people into its structures. I think there are a lot of lights, but also some slippery shadows. Many of us started our careers very early as a group: we slept and lived together as teenagers. We became a real family, which is great, but this culture has also affected me a lot, because sometimes I find it difficult to be treated as an adult who has autonomy in his decisions. I'm perceived as just another cog in the crew, in the context of a mass phenomenon",

Did you ever feel like you were getting completely lost in this delirium of success? "I used to think so, but the funny thing is that I am fully aware that it was my own choice to devote myself to the k-pop industry. Nobody pushed me into it. But yes, I have lost myself at times. Although perhaps saying this is an excess of 'self-empathy'. There is no answer. Except that, if k-pop is about recharging the batteries of a mass audience and I'm responsible for doing that recharging, then I have to keep my feet firmly on the ground. As an adult, as a musician and as a human being. And these ten years of my career have helped me define who I am and learn to love myself. But I'm still in that process, you know? All these internal struggles will be recorded on records and videos," he explains.

"Music is really necessary for the world, but, when it comes to my music, sometimes I feel like I'm producing something unnecessary. If I were to die tonight, I don't think anything would change. It might matter to some people for a while, but a farmer or a street sweeper is more relevant to the functioning of society. When I ask myself about the role of our generation in historical terms, when I look at all the digital platforms and communities out there, I am overcome with confusion. There are a lot of people who don't want to think. They have frenetic lives and turn to music or television to escape, so the last thing they want is someone trying to lecture them from a pedestal. In that context, I wonder how I can make my music matter. I haven't found an answer yet, but I keep trying to bring my own perspective to it.

As to whether he is afraid that the army he has on Instagram (42.4 million followers) might one day turn against him for a silly mistake or a blunder, RM answers bluntly. "Yes, it scares me. It scares me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When I was younger I tried to come across as a cool guy who doesn't give a shit what other people think, but I don't think that's right anymore. I care about the publicity dimension of my career and the influence I can have on others. It stresses me out, yes, but I think I can handle it. That's why I don't retire or do things like go out and drink the night away and then drive drunk. I'm human, I can make mistakes, but I will do everything in my power to be the best version of myself. One of the keys is to treat this job for what it is: a job. I don't think artists have any special rights or status.

Note: if you would like me to translate another part of the interview, let me know.

[ohtobemare]

Wild Ones, Miles Quaritch x fem!OC

summary: The avatar program has seen its changes in the decade since the Great War. And, waking up in a new evolution of an old avatar has its perks, sure. For her, or her other better half?

pairings: Miles Quaritch x fem!OC

warnings: established marriage, age gap, complete canon deviation, entry level fandom knowledge, a whole lot of made up futuristic tech, pro-human, Miles lives, accompanying fic to my upcoming AU rewrite, Kansas. my first official stab at Miles, Lord help us.

“.....you can hear me? Ruthaynne—Miss Carthier, you able to hear alright?” 

Waking from neural connection, usually, happens in a whirlwind—one of two ways, really. Many drivers reported a slow haze, akin to swimming. Time spinning backward as the crush of water rushes to fight you under, pulling at what feels to be your bones as you grapple for air, choking on hope and the claw for the surface. Smothering and slow. Others reported the  whiplash of being launched into a world of spinning color, cloud nine sounds, exaggerated tastes—acidic, sacchrine, umami in ways to make the head spin. The crash of a heartbeat, the lightning quick crash of senses coming online like from a coma. 

Lungs rise and fall rapidly, sucking in stale and thin air. Twice the size of what the human cavity would remember, not a stone’s throw from her alternate shell, locked away in some coffin box costing more than anything NASA would ever touch in three decades. Blood, rich with properties Earth could never fathom, rips through her veins—carrying foreign oxygens, CO2s cocktails to organs pushing hard, pistoning for life. Pores open and close like one never would think to acknowledge, hair stands up on end as the cool rush of conditioned air sets in. Her  hearing is the last to balance, deep and slow tones of the living settling into the brain like ripping off a wet, suffocating blanket. 

The weight of the sun may as well be resting on her chest—everything burns. Hot, like someone’s struck a flickering match beneath the epidermis that’s lit her up. Snapping and crackling in her blood, licking up whatever air is pummeling down her windpipe. Hunger claws somewhere in the depth of her core, starving and rapid with cold attention and steel tenacity that demands. She’d kill for a steak, or carbs—something savory, something salty. 

Synopses in her brain curl and flex her toes towards the floor. Muscles in her calves pull, twitch. Contract. They’re defined in ways Ruthie Carthier, her human body, would never feel; strong. Adept. Otherworldly, godlike. Adonis, reaching for the sun —flying too close to a feeling of power, of capability.  It was never how man was supposed to feel. Forever the creation, the taste of creator was never meant to flow through veins incapable of justice, purity. 

And this must be what Goliath felt like, high on adrenaline, drunk on power and iron strength able to bend hearts backwards. I Am help us, it was incredible. Magnificent in a twisting, serpentine way. Like a chilled, feverish sweat—cooling for the moment, but not everyday. Not stationary, not normal. Not organic. 

A snap of cold chases down the muscles in her back, the discs of her spine—chasing the heat crashing through her blood. And as her palms skip over whatever surface is beneath her, she knows why. It’s smooth, otherworldly smooth. Skipping through her fingers, she realizes it’s the medical berth. The labs.

“....heart level’s looking fantastic, o-sat is nearly perfect. Good respirations,” two heads suddenly appear above, looking down through rebreathers. They’re smiling, the wrinkles at their eyes and the sparkle of light are tells that not even a trained liar could hide. “Hey there. Doing okay?” 

Color fights for daylight from beneath the milkwhite collar of the woman’s labcoat—purple. It’s a purple something trying to hide, but it may as well be flashing neon on the Vegas strip—and it’s beautiful. The only scrap of living color, in the otherwise industrial steels and sterile whites of the ceiling and walls. Unable to look away from the rich promise of plumb for a few more heartbeats, movement flicks her eyes up to consider the light now passing in front of her eyes. 

“Excellent tracking response,” she chuckles. “Got some mighty blue eyes there, Mrs. Carthier—you’re clear to sit up, nice ‘n easy.” Stepping back from the table, the woman disappears from flat-back view and the beep of a monitor, the electrical whir of a correcting machine is the only noise. “You might be a bit disoriented, it’ll pass.” 

What once was the tech’s floating head becomes a pair of shoulders and a body as she works into a sitting position. The room spins, and it takes a squeeze of strong hands on the edge of the table to anchor the world, back as it was. Scribbling violently with a pen over a data screen, the tech’s eyes track the change; data hits the mainframe almost at the speed of light. Flicking between her patient and the screen, her smile is wire thin. She folds the plex over her chest, spinning the pen through her fingers. 

“Better?” Tapping the pen against her teeth, her head tips to the side. A nod satisfies her. “Figured. Takes a few seconds for all the neural pathways to wake up, the sleepy bastards.” The curse is short off a snort and foul, and Ruthie’s nose wrinkles in agitated disgust. Shooting her a sidelong frown, the tech has the nerve to roll her eyes. “My bad, Jesu—jeez. If we’re good here, you can stand up when you’re ready, hon.” 

For a second, Ruthie thinks she can feel the reinforcement in her bones as she slips off the berth. Bare fit hit the cold floor and she winces, recoiling as the heightened senses rush through her frame. Lifting her hands, she moves her finger, transfixed at the shallow bones flexing beneath her pale skin. Corner of her mouth ticking up in a small smile, she watches the back of her hands as she makes a fist, releases. Ball up, release, don’t tuck your thumb. 

Flexing a hand, she dips fast into low, and two sharp jabs feel like nothing, upsetting the air. She’s quick. Faster, maybe, than data suggested. 

Na’vi inspired carbon fiber marrows, mingling with red blood cells and whatever else I Am intended for the skeletal system. Giving her the strength, suddenly, of five men—and it’s remarkable. Beautiful, even. Reaching to card fingers through her hair, she glances over her shoulder to the tech. Even across the room, heightened eyesight makes out the small stitching of her name on her coat. 

Berg, J. The stitches are midnight black, a stain on the otherwise precise snow. Turning, a sweeping glance confirms it—she’s new. Ruthie’s never met her before, even before her other runs in the Eve program. Swallowing a breath of what’s beginning to taste like rancid air, she blinks and looks to the leads snaking along the berth, pumping fluids into the IV in her hand. 

“Miss Carthier—” 

“Quaritch, actually. Ruthaynne Quaritch, at your service,” unable to identify if the woman is a titled doctor or even military, she resorts to not identifying her at all. Basic manners, if you could say you needed them in Bridgehead. “But you can call me Ruthie, most people do.” Extended hand hanging there in thin air for a moment, unwelcomed, she finally just moves to brush the front of the medical gown.

Berg’s raised brow of confusion matches the yeah, right practically tattooed in her expression. And Ruthie would be more surprised at her lack of recognition, maybe, until she realizes after several seconds of trying to place her—she’s never made this woman’s acquaintance. Which isn’t unusual, new people float in and out of programs all the time as teams ship out, rotate. Eve was no different. Avatar Project attracted newbies like bears to honey. 

On cue, Berg’s attention trips to the monitor. Carthier, R. It blinks in solid, picked-by-some-underpaid-executive RDA standard font. Pen poised, she looks back to her patient, then to her plex—she swipes through screens, eyes scanning records. The transparent glass flashes Emergency Contacts, and Ruthie’s top teeth set to gnawing her bottom lip, waiting. 

A second, maybe, before the woman’s brows shoot almost right off her face. They would’ve hit the ceiling at almost the same pace as the color bleeding out of her face, if she didn’t drop her writing device from stupefied fingers. It hits the floor with a crack, Berg practically diving to retrieve it like she’s at Mach 10. And the way she fumbles through “Oh shit, oh fuck, how the hell—” Ruthie can’t help her snort of amusement. 

There it is, “I—oh shit—ma’am. My apologies. I didn’t—” This wasn’t the first time she’d been misidentified. Improperly ID’d. And it wouldn’t, certainly, be the last. 

A peacock of embarrassed heat fans up Ruthie’s neck and across her nose, a light shrug slipping from her shoulders in an attempt to shake some of the tension out of the air, “And you wouldn’t, Miss Berg—never bothered to update the mainframe,” a chuckle drops her gaze to the berth laid out before her like a tomb, “Paperwork, you know how it goes. Only thing that moves slower around here than molasses at Christmas.” Fingers pressing into the cool berth, she leans over the table a little to scrunch her nose, teasingly. “I won’t tell if you won’t,” waving between the two of them, she winks lightly, “Our secret. Scouts honor.” 

Berg’s mouth, hanging open on what could well become a swinging hinge of her jaw, snaps closed at the dismissal. “Oh. Well, uh—thank you, ma’am?” The look on her face matches the phrasing of a question, and the technician sits like that, staring. For moments longer than one or two. Until the monitor blips sharply, Ruthie turning her hand over to work at the IV stinging in the back of her hand. “Shit, shit shit—you shouldn’t—” 

“I feel fine,” Ruthie inserts softly with a crooked grin, “But you should probably let them know that.” Thumbing towards the one-way glass, her head gestures in that direction as she drops the IV to the berth, reaching for the monitor now screaming out an orchestra of alarms, chirps, and klaxons. “I’ll sit tight, you go do…whatever it is you techs do, hon.” A wave of her hand sends Berg hustling out of the room like a linebacker, Ruthie busying herself with quieting the monitor. 

Alone in the space, silence bleeds from the walls like sterile blood. Clinically white and oppressively bright, her eyes make out the room and its contents briefly, with disinterest. Another empty berth not but a few feet from her own, rolling trays of surgical utensils. Locked boxes and cupboards of what could only be medical goodies. The label beside the door reads Surgical Suite AVTR.EV, 12B along with escape routes. Fire protocols. Emergency contacts and dial outs. 

Pristine, overwhelmingly clean, it doesn’t even look like anyone’s been in here—aside from her discarded IV, dripping saline and minerals to the permastone floor. Picking it up, she drapes it over one of the arms of the monitor stand, fingertip lightly skipping over the surgical grade steel blade. Blowing aside a fallen curl from her face, she catches the movement of her arm in the reflection of the one-way, pausing. 

Smiling crookedly at the reflection, she chuckles and tucks a short set of curls behind her ear. It’s not the first time she’s actually seen her own avatar, but it’s the first time it’s been officially sanctioned. Since Eve’s kickoff, anyway. Avatar’s had been a regular faction of RDA for decades, even before the war and Sully’s insurrections. Augustine’s studies, and the data she herself had collected from the planet had given them more than enough edge to make perfections—and perfections, they were. 

Any avatar that could function at the same capacity as Na’vi without looking native and tapping into the demonic energy of the people was a step in the right direction. Direction that RDA, that humanity needed to successfully colonize. Establish roots that would outlast them all, give them hope. Second chances were rarely afforded, but this place—Pandora—was divine granted. Inspired, even. A second chance to course correct in a way the people of Earth never would. Hope in the high places, amongst the stars. 

And Eve afforded them all the luxuries navigation of a foreign, hostile world required. Na’vi avatars—the Adams—had been revolutionary at the time of the Great War; but nearly two decades later, nearly archaic. Prototypes for the big RDA push of the century, humanoid avatars. Avatars that looked like drivers, but functioned as natives. Extraordinary devices no longer reliant on the energy connection to the planet and its sentient  tyranny; precious luxuries afforded not everyone that passed through the RDA machine. Save a chosen few, soldiers and frontiersmen and pioneers of the sciences and human settlement efforts. Riches from amongst the ashes of the lost, the reaping of the war. 

Sweet fruit, indeed—at a million and a half a pop. Hers had been the first of Eve, the first humanoid avatar analyzed and genetically coded to her own DNA. One per driver, ever, and irreversible. Adam avatars, too, were permanent fixtures to the DNA of their drivers—Weinfleet, Mansk, all the drivers of the original Na’vi avatars were tethered to their Deja Blues, irreversible and for the long haul. A necessary evil, for without those Adams, those original prototypes, avatars like hers wouldn’t exist—fully human, fully native. The first step towards integration. 

Humanity would thrive on Pandora. It was in the numbers, the cards—a promise. Not so much a hope, these days. A decade ago they’d dreamed of merely settling outposts here. Breathing stale, purified air and never touching sunlight the way I Am intended. Crowded by steel and fortressed walls. But now, with the Eves—it was a step closer. A link to making humans fully hospitable on Pandora. 

Tipping her head to the side, Ruthie studied the perfections of the avatar not afforded her I Am-given body. Glassy skin, perfectly hydrated and patterned corkscrew curls; alive and quick eyes that sparkled even brighter than her organic glacier-blues could. Breathing deeply, her hands brushed over the definition in her arms—the veins and perfect fat-to-muscle ratio for her body type. BMI didn’t exist in avatars, something she was sorely thankful for. She wasn’t thin in her organic body, her skin wasn’t glass and glistening. She could’ve been ripped off the cover of a Vogue magazine, if Vogue was into hiring eight foot tall super soldiers.  

The iteration felt stronger, more alive than those before—more proteins, cleaner neural pathways. Faster reaction time. Clean cut emotions, quick synapses. No wonder the price of these steadily clawed higher and higher, they improved with nearly every quarter—-her bright smile, revealing sparkling albeit still-pesky pointed canines made her shoulders dipped forward. Couldn’t have it all, not even at a million and a half. 

Raking her close-cropped curls from her forehead, she turned to seat on the berth she’d risen from. Easily able to pull into a cross legged position, she rolled her shoulders forward. Back. Neck side to side, pushing her shoulder blades back to feel the tug of muscle, the shift and burn of activation. Wriggling her toes beneath her, she chuckled at how miraculously easy it was to lean forward. Abs she’d only ever dreamed of engaged, stabilizing her as reached her arms forward, palms skipping along the cool steel. 

Closing her eyes with a smile, her fingers easily slipped through her curls, pulling pleasurably at her scalp. Mind clear for the first time in minutes,  head dropping back with a sigh that curled her toes, she relished in the avatar’s strength. Its body, perfect and attuned to genetics she’d only wished I Am had granted in her own self. It felt so good. Vibrant, storybook. Like this was a dream. 

And it was, in one sense or another.  GI Jane can kiss my backsid—

“Well well, look at that—buttercup’s up and at’em,” the familiar drawl snapped her attention to the door, bolting her upright. Heart racehorsing against her ribs for a second, it takes only lightspeed to realize it’s Lyle kicked back in the suite’s doorway. Lounging like he owns the place, and in a way, he does—at nearly ten feet tall, Adam avatars pretty much have say of clearances and classifieds. “Get some rack, Sleeping Beauty?” 

“Lyle,” she acknowledges with a nod, lithely moving from the berth to cross over to him, cool smile taking him in. Crossed arms, RDA fatigues, Oakleys and all. “I’m not sure you can consider genetic connection as rack time, but to answer the question, sure. I’m okay.” Rolling a shoulder, “Feels good, feels right.” 

“No shit,” his nod matches the genuine smile he offers, before pushing out of the doorway to glance at her over the Oakleys, “Doc Berg says you’re good to go, figured you’d want some of these.” Stepping beyond the door, he twists to pluck a backpack up from the floor, tossing it forward with a flick of his wrist. “Colonel wanted to be here, but the General’s got his ass in a scouting debrief, like usual.” 

And that tracked—the only thing Ardmore did better than push papers was run debriefings, which on any given day, were excruciating. A gauntlet of sterile numbers and eye-crossing data, they were less informational as they were formal, for the books. Padded her numbers and her calendar for the eyes back home. But, she was meticulous, organized—on a horse higher than than hell, too. The only thing tighter than her regulations was her backside, head shoved so far up the execs of RDA’s asses that she may as well be bought and paid for.

Less a soldier and more a RDA performing monkey, she did run a tight outfit. Play by the rules or die was the motto, non negotiable. And if there was one thing about Miles that she knew and knew well was that he played by rules nobody had even heard of. He was wild like that, but disciplined. A lifetime of jarhead responsibilities and blood on the hands did that, sometimes. 

Blowing out a breath, “Sounds fun,” the only thing more sarcastic than her tone was Ruthie’s eyeroll, which broke Weinfleet into a toothy smile. Automatically her gaze drops to her wrist, which is bare—no watch. Reaching for Lyle’s wrist, she glances at the time. “Two hours? I’ve been out for two hours?” The jump of alarm in her gut is abrupt, and she drops Weinfleet’s arm a little roughly. “Good lord. What did they do, open brain surgery or something?”

Lyle snorts, nudges her forward with a gentle push to her shoulder. “Don’t look at me, buttercup—I just work here,” his tongue flicks over a sharp canine smoothly, before he thumbs over his shoulder. “‘S’posed to get you those,” gesturing to the bag with both index fingers, he slides the Oakleys up his blue dome, “but gotta haul ass back to the DB. You good?” Anything less would have Lyle’s backside in a sling with Miles, and that was unacceptable—even present company accounted for, she knew. 

Nodding, she waves him off with a flappable hand, “Squared away, thank you very much. Get lost, smurfy.” With a teasing face, Lyle turned sharply on his heel and jogged off, down the corridor until his sapphire frame was swallowed from view, into the twisting darks of industrial grays and steels. Huffing a breath, Ruthie reached for the badge clipped to a strap of the PHNX pack, unsnapping it with smooth hands. Carding it through her fingers, one glance down to the surgical gown sets her jaw sharply. 

“Frickin’ doctors,” her huff is exasperated, pulling at the gown’s flimsy material. “Gross.” 

. . .

It’s not hard to tag a Quaritch anywhere in Bridgehead City, if one knew where to look. At any given time Miles was, mostly, in one of three places—or two, if he was driving, but that was just icing on the proverbial cake. Gym, war room, weapons R&D when he was on duty. Home, mess, gym when he was off the clock. Which, like it or not, was close to never. Marriage taught you a few things about your other half, but it hadn’t quite managed to zero in on whereabouts. Yet, anyway. 

Rolling up to the officer sector at eight feet tall was comedic, at best. Frustrating, at worst. Ducking through the door after scanning her badge into the domicile, it never ceased to remind as to why no driver ever squatted home. Vaulted ceilings, sure, but the space was hardly designed with eight feet tall natives in mind—and neither was the furniture. The couch, Ruthie figured every time she dropped home, would splinter if either of them even dared look that direction. And the rack? Forget it. Showers were out of the question. 

There were alternative lodgings available in the barracks, but the idea of putting up with general population bit like a mother. Dropping her pack beside the door, she emptied its contents and dressed quickly—her favorite specially manufactured Levi cutoffs, a sports bra, boots and socks, a favorite of her, again, special ordered shirts—a linen safari button down in off-white. Clothing options for avatars were few and far between, and Miles knew she’d never be caught dead in RDA fatigues outside of in-unit ops. 

Wetting her hair with a quick rake of her fingers and a splash of water to her face was enough to freshen up what, technically, didn’t even need freshening. Checking her appearance with a quick glance, she breezed out of the domicile, snatching her IDs and plex while dipping out the door. Flipping through the plex; no email, no texts, nowhere to be, technically, pointed her feet in the direction of the war room. 

It was a quick and effortless march to the sector, avatar legs carrying her faster and farther with less effort that was a breeze. Every time connecting back felt like the first time, at least for a while, until the creeping looks of raised brows and uncertainty spearheaded from the general public. Not everyone interacted with avatars often—the Eves, less so. They were new, they were unusual, they were expensive and highly classified—seeing a Na’vi avatar was more common and less unsettling than seeing an Eve. 

Especially one so highly cleared and….rumored. 

Crossing her arms over the plex against her chest, it wasn’t long until she found herself at the war room, Ardmore’s favorite place to host eternity-defying debriefings. Corridor quiet, the room indicator was solid scarlet—high level occupied, clearance required. As always. Brushing curls behind her ear, Ruthie shifted her hip for the badge to scan across the indicator, and immediately if flashed—first with her clearance levels, then with green. Granted, thank you very much, Carthier, R. 

Satisfied, she slipped through the door on light feet—only to find the entire space had, apparently, flatlined. Standing a head and shoulders taller than most in the room was a piece of cake compared to whatever the heck this BS was. 

Pulselessly still, she could’ve cut the wire of the room with a paperclip. Her gut jumped to play chicken with her ribs, eyes tracking around the space for familiar bodies. Nearly every corporate RDA goon eyeballed her like she’d been dropped from the heavens wearing blinking neon. She clocked Lyle first, at the back of the room doing his best impression of coughing a grin into his fist; Mansk second, who looked amused while oh-so-masculine manspreading in his comically undersized chair. 

White-noise from the holomap smack in the center of the room the only audible sound to the heightened ear, its images did little to hide Ardmore’s face from beyond. Just her luck. Expression pulled into an unreadable look of stone so blank that, for the first time in a hot minute, Ruthaynne actually felt embarrassed heat light up her face like a jetwash. Heart jackhammering behind her ribs, certainly loud enough to hear for anyone who cared to listen, it took a few seconds to remember exactly where she was—and who, exactly, she was. 

Ardmore beat her to it, the bitc—“Miss Quaritch,” the formality of her tone almost stung. Muscle in Ruthie’s jaw pulled a little tighter than she appreciated, “Avatar’s up and about, seems like. Outstanding you could join us,” 

She doesn’t mean it. But her nod, professional more than acknowledging, accompanies her hand fanning Ruthie forward, to the inner circle.

Putting up a hand, her return nod is polite. Over my dead body, Ardie, “Thanks, General. Please, continue.” 

And just like that, the room snaps back into business. Data and coordinates, strategy and all the war talk that usually applies to these debriefs. Ardmore brings up footage from a vest cam, walking the group through the sit rep, and the occupants in the space breathe—bodies shift in seats, sway back and forth on their feet. The rustle of shifting posture, the soft hum of plex’s as assistants and the more-interested access data. Across the room, Mansk bounces his leg, whether in agitation or concentration, one can never tell. Lyle, plucking his knife and flicking the tip with his nail. Boys. 

The plex under her arm chimes, and a quick glance shows it’s an airdrop from one of the assistants. A faceless name, but one that’s been in her inbox before. Accessing the data, Ruthie begins the download. Flips through some of the radar images, head tilted to the side in concentration. Sully’s forces, bolder than before—four dead on an expedition to a science outpost. Images captured young Na’vi, no more than 12 or 13, armed and painted in various war paints and tribal colors—-

QUARITCH, MILES

9 o’clock, cupcake ;)

The message takes precedence, dismissing the briefing intel and snapping her attention up, around the room. It’s odd, looking down and about the space from eight feet tall with perfect eyesight her organic body doesn’t know— it’s beautiful, really. Bottom lip rolling beneath her top teeth, she flinches a little as the pointed canines bite a little sharply into her flesh. Hissing, her tongue lathes over the spot, quickly skipping over her back teeth. Darkening the plex’s screen, her eyes cut sharply to her 9 o’clock—and sure enough. 

Gotcha. Almost ten foot frame hovering at the back of the space, the good Colonel sees her make him with a lift of his chin. A slow smile puts sparkling white teeth on display, so at odds against sapphire skin and glowing green eyes unlike anything she’s ever seen. Smiling back at him, he dips his head ever so slightly, crooking a lithe finger for her to come. Attention ever on the General, should prying eyes dare to drift. 

And good I Am, he’s as delicious as he ever has been, damned Na’vi genetics aside. Heart thudding a little harder against her ribs, moisture at the back of her throat vanishes, and suddenly it’s warmer in here than she remembers as his smile softens into a little smirk, probably clocking her shift of posture. Shoulders falling back subconsciously, her chin levels with the floor and nods to him once, him settling back into his akimbo stance. 

It’s not unusual for Quartich to drive his avatar, especially on days field ops are likely. And with Sully on the move, bolder and badder than ever, those days are less few and far between. It’s mandatory to have 24 out hours after every 36 driving, and Miles had just gone in before she had. They’d said their “see you laters” over coffee at mess this AM, him kissing her temple chastely before hustling out to head a safety meeting.

And while driving avatars was business as usual for both of them, there never ceased to be a little leap of excitement, seeing him bold and all big boy blue. Knowing it was him, actually Miles, only added to the little swirl of thrill chasing her gut down the length of her spine. 

Melding across the room behind backs of the tuned-in, Miles’ low hand guides her to his side at elbow, her feet one-over-the-other without much conscious effort. Brushing against his side, he plucks the plex from her fingers and sets it aside, on the chair behind him, on top of his own. Out of sight, out of mind. Nobody moves to notice her relocation, his large hand resting firmly at the low of her back while his other grabs her wrist, guiding her to stand in front of him. 

Shoulders pressing against the warmth of his chest, one of his arms slipped around her middle, locking in close. His other hand moves to rub one of her curls between his long fingers, knuckles brushing against the back of her neck. He’s warm, almost too warm—-his hand wrapping around the back of her neck, kneading muscles slowly and with care, triggers a glance over her shoulder to him. 

“You’re up,” The slow drawl in his voice is unnecessarily low, deliberate. “Wanted to be there, darlin’, really did—we got hit, lost a few of the lab coats,” the empathy in his voice is hardly there, Miles was never one to dwell on losses. Easier that way, from a certain standpoint. “You feelin’ all there?” 

Nodding, she shuffled back against his chest a little more, boots catching on the floor. Head dropping to rest against his pec, Ruthie focuses her attention on Ardmore’s holo readouts—or, rather, attempts. HIs fingers rubbing the hem of her shirt are distracting, rough knuckles warm against her abdomen in ways that distract more than just her attention. Hand moving from the back of her neck to rest atop his other at her middle, he angles his head to brush his nose along the shell of her ear, softly. In a rare public display of affection, attachment. 

Stomach jumping up what feels like the length of her spine, his chortle is nearly undetectable. She only feels it against her back, deep in his chest—his breath over her ear is laced with the clear, brisk mint he always seems to manage from that gum he likes so much. His head turns to rest against hers, and he takes a long breath of her hair, the slow crest of his chest almost dizzying. 

“Avatar looks good’nuff to eat, darlin’,” she can hear the smile before she feels it, one of his hands easily slipping beneath the hem of her shirt to brush a nail over the button of her shorts, “Weinfleet told me you looked good. Little shit—lookin’ at another man’s things,” the thought of being a possession should be offputting, should make nip at the veins of her pride, but it does the opposite—it sparks satisfaction, low and deep, at the base of her spine, the cradle of her hips.

The smirk in his tone deepens, if that’s possible. And it is, she knows that. Experience, logged time. 

“Gotta give him credit, though—man knows a good thing when he sees it.” 

Lower lip rolling inward, Ruthie shifts a little on her feet, rocking back on her heels in an attempt to move away from his hands, teasing and probing the waist of her shorts, which are suddenly too stifling, but somehow not enough all at the same time. Even after a decade of being together, of racking together and exchanging vows—he’s still all the cocksure ego she remembers of him when he’d first pursued. He still can reduce her to a gelatinous mass, little more cohesive than a brainless bimbo. Then, at the beginning, she’d been brash and all bravado and untamed. A wild thing, chasing stars and hope. Indestructible. 

Now—older, wilder, wholly ruinable. Drunk on him. On avatars, on promise of what Pandora could be. On the future and Project Eve and the inevitable tumble of Jake Sully’s abominable destruction of a dream. And Miles knows it, always has, just like he knows exactly how to piston her mind away from a scouting debrief with little more than touch and the right smile. And I Am, what she wouldn’t give for a quiet space, time alone—time alone that seems nonexistent, almost unreal. 

Eyes skate across the room, looking for any wandering attention. Nobody seems to have noticed them in the back of the room, which isn’t the usual. Most of the time Miles is front and center, the flagship of Ardmore’s efforts. The pillar everyone can count on. But today, he’s a man of the shadows, a man of the native world hidden away from the everyday. And she couldn’t be more thankful, because the way his hand grazes her shiny new abs just the right way has, she’s sure, unraveled her face into a Ardmore-show stopping expression. Hand pressing against the sculpted muscle of her middle, he sucks in a chortling breath a little too suggestively. 

“Oh? What’s this?” His fingers curl lightly into her abdomen, and she sucks in a breath that feels louder than it actually is, “Well, look at that—these are new,” he chuckles, amused, before his hand lifts to brush curls away from her ear. “Life’s a bitch, ain’t it? Takes half a life and rights to your firstborn to get ‘em real time, but just a nap and a few test tubes and, just like that,” softly imitating a snap of his fingers, Miles pulls her closer, if possible.  Brushes aside the collar of her shirt to press chapped lips against her collarbone. “Makes you wonder what else these things are capable of, hm?” 

Oh god, “You’re not paying attention, Colonel,” angling her head back against his chest, her fingers curl around the collar of his RDA issued shirt, pulling sharply. “The good General is trying to get you up to speed for your next hop, sir.” And with that, she firmly stabs her elbow into his abdomen, satisfied with the little huff he manages. 

“...and what makes you think I don’t already gotta handle on this intel, ma’am?” 

And that could be a point of contention, if she’d been an underprepared participant in his little game of cat and mouse. “Well, Quaritch,” it simmers low at the base of her chest, teasing and dark, “you know what they about assuming.” Biting the corner of her lip, Ruthie grabbed his wrist and pulled it back, sharply enough to earn another huff of surprise. “Be a good boy at work, Colonel, and I might just have a surprise for you when you get home.” 

Reaching around behind him for his braid, Ruthie feels it snake around her arm loosely, before taking a handful and giving a ruff tug. Off his game, the good Colonel stepped back sharply, allowing her just enough leverage to skirt from his reach. Slipping behind him, she nabbed the plex from his chair, tucked it under her arm, and pulled lightly on his braid again. 

Quaritch’s head snapped back just enough for her to gently nudge the shell of his ear. “Stand at attention, Marine. That’s an order.” And she’s sure he can clock the smile in her voice, releasing the Na’vi braid with a smirk. Obedient, the curve of his back straightened just so, making her grin. Sidling up to his right, she raised on toes to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Very good, Colonel. I’m impressed.” Clapping a hand against his abs, she went to step back, brows wagging juvenilely.

“Not so fast,” and it’s louder than it should be. Loud enough that a few uniforms look over their shoulders, intrigued. Miles, ever the pillar of strength and unashamed bravado he so exudes, frowns at them before his sharp green eyes lid, tail flicking a little aggressively. “Eyes forward, gentlemen. When there’s something to see back here, I’ll tell you to grow eyes.” 

Horrified, her mouth drops open before she swats at his shoulder, hissing darkly. “Miles!” Eyes darting between the backs of the uniforms he’s just startled and his lidded look of superiority, her stomach pitches with embarrassed somersaults as heat chases up the length of her neck. And before she can lose her composure and giggle at the wag of his suggestive brow, she frowns at him. “You’re such a prick,” it’s not entirely unserious, but the smile behind his eyes tells her it’s only fueled the innuendo of the moment. 

“Yeah? That may be,” his brows lift before his lower lip rolls beneath his top teeth, canines practically glinting in whatever low light the back of the room would offer, “but I think you like it, ain’t that so? Darlin’ little wife.” And with that, he steps up into her personal space, towering even her full eight feet—sharp eyes alive, wandering. Lustful, possessive. Hungry. 

No—starving. Frickin’ Na’vi DNA, packed with hormones not fully explored by the human psyche.  

Slipping beyond the snatching reach of his hand with a teasing smile and a roll of her eyes, Ruthie hushedly excuses herself from amidst the uniforms dotted around the back of the room. Without drawing Ardmore’s attention, she scans from the room, dipping low under the door and out into the corridor. Where the air is cool, there isn’t a thousand and one attentions keyed into the cat and mouse games of her husband, where she can breathe. 

She doesn’t make it five strides from the sealed door before it slips open with a mechanical whine, Ardmore’s droning audible for only a second before it bangs back into place, flashing a secure scarlet for high clearance access. But the door is barely noticeable, not from beyond the full nearly nine feet of Miles Quaritch’s Na’vi, staring hard and long, thumbs hooked through the loops of his cargoes. 

“And what are you doing?” Brow furrowed, she looks beyond him, to the door. “Miles. Get your ass back in that meeting,” all teasing gone, his exit from Ardmore’s briefing is the biggest of offenses—a slap in the face, defiance to not only Ardmore, RDA, but his men. He knows better. And for a second, Ruthie wonders if maybe she’s crossed a line—but if a decade together has told her anything, it’s not that. 

No, Quaritch is not the man that abandons his men to have it out with his wife in the corridor. Not in the long game. It’s something else, a thing she can’t quite put a finger on. She doesn’t know this face, his Na’vi well enough to read anything that resembles his usual, and she isn’t sure if it’s terrifying or thrilled butterflies that threaten her spine like a tarmac. 

 Mouth opening to further her protest, he’s to her in one stride, dangerous hands on either side of her face enough to cut any word she could think of forming off at the throat. And before she can even breathe, his mouth is on hers—hungry, ravenous, compelling. The force of it sends her backwards enough that she loses her feet, but he’s faster, arm catching her around the middle and pulling her forward, close. Close enough to feel the steady drum of his heart behind carbon-enforced ribs, The pull of muscle engage, as he tips her forward, against his chest. 

The world beyond—Pandora, Ardmore, RDA, Bridgehead—fades into black and whites not wholly unlike an ancient film, the only thing living color and wild him, right here, beneath her touch and coaxing her lips apart with his. Mint, sweat, the taste of whatever he’s eaten is rich, so there and alive with every gentle pull and push of his jaw, every bite and nip of his teeth against her lips. It’s determined, possessive, demanding, pulling a pathetic little mewl from the back of her throat she doesn’t remember since the beginning of him, the beginning of this. 

And if her hands were large, his were larger, his thumb running up and down her jaw, applying pressure to adjust the angle, the tilt of where he wants her, how deeply he needs this. Noses bump, brush, and one inhale of the way he smells—strong, powerful, of a musk unexplainable to humanity—sends her mind spinning, her heart cascading like a falling star between her ribs. His kiss is powerful, it demands. Touch me, feel me–ever only me in a way that sends bolts of electricity to every heightened nerve in her body. It sets leads, it guides—it sets the pace, it rescues everything and anything that could be set wrong. 

His thick fingers through her hair, tugging at her scalp triggers her teeth at his bottom lip, canines pulling sharply enough to elicit a groan from somewhere in his chest she can’t even fathom. All the years of this, of him, and it’s never once failed to feel new, like the first time—Miles kisses her and the world unfolds, like fiction. Like something anyone ever said couldn’t be real. Fingers tugging at her hair drags a punched out little whine from the back of her throat, which he swallows with a groan. 

Head spinning and chest burning, the need for air claws like a demon. Breaking apart, her head falls back to suck in air, chest rising and falling shallowly as she attempts to blink away the rabid color the world has suddenly become. Eyes closed, Miles lazily nips at her bottom lip, pulling just a little as his hand gently cradles the side of her face, the heat that’s blushed her cheeks to a hot, thrilling pink. 

Her head rights, and he lowers his to rest his forehead against hers, breath fanning across her face in low, hardly controlled breaths. It’s so unlike him, to be so unraveled. Uncomposed. Hair clings to the tacky sweat that’s pearled across her forehead, and his nose brushes the tip of hers, lovingly. Tenderly. Taking his hand, she gently guides it beneath her left breast, to cover the racing pulse in her chest. 

“I miss you,” is all he breathes, and it’s strange—strange because he hasn’t been gone, she’s always been here. And it hangs there for a few heartbeats, until it makes sense. He misses her. Miles. Not the Na’vi shell of the man she’s known for a decade, what feels like half her lifetime—Miles, somewhere in an avatar lab, somewhere that’s not here. 

Swallowing each of her breaths, which have started leveling, he kisses her again, softly. Aftercare, the intimacy he so rarely offers outside the confining fortress of marriage. “I’ll see ya later, yeah?” It’s rough, low. Growling, tainted with his drawl that has become like home.

A soft nod breaks them apart, kiss swollen lips stinging as he steps back towards the door, creating distance. And the corner of his mouth ticks up in a pleased little smirk as she rubs her jaw, fresh red marks from his possessive hands warm to the touch. More than visible. 

“I’d imagine so,” her smile is purposefully resigned. Floored, he grins. Tongue skating over too-sharp teeth. His nod is concrete, firm as he passes his badge in front of the security system, flashing his credentials before a bright, clearance green. 

And he does come home. Again, and again. 

tags: for the interested: @itsgoghtime @horserad-ish @mongoosesthings @sarahsmi13s @gothidecorem @kmc1989 @permanentlyexhaustedpigeon88

[reimenaashelyee]

Creator's Guide to Comics Devices: November 2023 Update

The first newsletter since launch came out a few days ago! It summarises all the updates I've made in November, which includes 2 (!) new devices, a sub-device, and other site changes.

Subscribe to the newsletter to get these updates direct to your email.

New Devices:

Aside

A short comment that sits outside of a balloon or character that is not perceived by anyone except the comment maker and the reader. An aside may come from the author, usually placed outside of the panel or near the edges. (Page with examples)

Topper

A secondary row of panels or single panel that goes 'on top' of the main comic. They are typically removable and non-essential, and usually contain the comic's title. (Page with examples)

Sub-device

Markers in Code Switch

Languages are assigned flags, pictographs or other iconographic symbols. (Page with examples)

News from the Curator and Site Changelog

I'm delighted over how well-received the library has been -- thank you to everyone who has shared, commented and provided feedback! I really appreciate the enthusiasm and generosity. <3 As a comics creator taking my first formal steps into the arena of comics studies, there is still a lot to do and to read for the library. Even with 63 devices catalogued, it's only still the beginning! 

From the Interwebs

‘The Creator’s Guide to Comics Devices’ Is the First of Its Kind, an Incredible Resource for Comics Creators & Readers Alike (The Mary Sue, Joan Zahra Dark) Lovely roundup from my fellow Cartoonist Cooperative co-founder Joan setting the historical context for Comics Devices and why an accessible resource is like this is due.  

Kibbles n Bits (Comics Beat, Heidi MacDonald) An enthusiastic feature of the library in Heidi's roundup.

Shout Outs

Thank you to Ritesh, Tan Juan Gee, Samantha Philipps, Blue Dellinquanti, Ted Anderson and Hannah Pallister for their contributions. (I really need to get that credits/curator's notes page set up. That's this month's to-do) Once again, thank you to the Sequential Artists Workshop Teaching Fellowship for supporting the development of the library this month.

Updates to the Site (Nov 2023)

Added the Store page and dedicated a subsection for it on the homepage, if only to direct people to the already-existing zine that’s currently distributed by Sequential Artists Workshop and myself. I might use that page to hold things like signing up for workshops and panels if they ever happen. Added the Newsletter page so it’s easier to link to across the site and elsewhere. Opened up the page that displays all the devices on one page. Added ‘Contribution’ ‘Newsletter’ ‘All Devices’ to the sidebar. Fixed the 404 page. It suggests the Site Map for advice. Finally opened the Links page! Check out all the resources in there! Thank you to folks who have submitted feedback/contribution! I have added new example pages for Harmonious Juxtaposition/Time & Space/Pictorial Lettering/Colour Coding and a longer definition for Map Panel. Added two new devices – Aside and Topper. Added ‘Markers’ and ‘Balloon Styles’ as a subdevice to Code Switch. Finally set up the Gallery page: this is where comics pages featuring the relevant device will be catalogued. Now for the slow work of filling up the galleries…..

New in Store: The Comics Devices Quick Reference Zine Before the website launched, I produced this zine as a promotional thing + quick reference. This is a 12-page zine showcasing the devices in this library as of 2023 (not including the Topper and Aside). Perfect for students, teachers and anyone who needs a quick, in-person reference if there's no wi-fi available. Sequential Artists Workshop is selling copies for North Americans in their online store. Folks in Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia can directly contact me to get a copy. An ebook version is on the way. I will announce it via newsletter.

[zoe-oneesama]

Hi Zoe, I saw a few asks before about a physical edition of Scarlet Lady, I'm curious how you are planning to go about it? For now I saw you talk about volume one, are you planning to make one season = one volume? Will there be any changes to the current comics? (Like color, bonuses etc.) thank you in advance!

Yes, the plan is 1 Volume = 1 Season, with Volume 5 having the finale episodes, so, extra thiccccc.

I have edited the pages to fix spelling errors and made a few changes so subtle that I can't even remember them, as well as trying to make old pages more legible. And there are bonus images and commentary to fill in the blank spots left by page bonuses.

^Here's an example bonus pictures I made for "The Pharaoh". It's the picture Alix joked about sharing with the class of Marinette dressed as Scarlet Lady, and Plagg dressed as the Black Cat statues that the group walks past at the end of the episode.

Because mixam (the ones who'll be making these books) needs pages divisible by 4, I do have some full color pages for the Volumes that happened to not fit that number nicely (so far it's just Volume 2), so look forward to that. I think I'll share those pages later this week.

Additionally, the chapters got new "headers" since they're in a new format:

^Ivan finally got his moment!

So, it's not as easy as just throwing it into a PDF and giving it out like that. I want this to be a special gift for anyone who's willing to put down money for my content - they deserve something extra for their interest, which is also why I'm not trying to spoil everything.

As for the status of everything: - Volume 1: Final Walk-through. I've gone through one draft and added a few things to match changes I made to other volumes, so after I complete a few commissions I'll be ordering in another (hopefully final!) draft. One book costs me about $60 to order, but that's because I'm not ordering in bulk. But it does mean I take plenty of time between ordering draft. - Volume 2: 2nd Draft. Volume 1 had very few errors in its first draft but Volume 2 had quite a lot, starting with the cover being so dark it was basically a black blob with green eyes (the covers are the different heroes). So I've been editing saturation on the cover and need to print just the cover locally to find the right balance. Additionally, there were a handful that accidentally got cut off, so I needed to fix those. The cover is really the biggest thing holding things up. - Volume 3: Ready for it's 1st Draft. Again, these are expensive, and after the debacle with Volume 2 I want to test print Volume 3's cover to make sure it doesn't have the same problem since it also has a lot of black. - Volume 4: Only the pages have been edited. That means I need to do chapter covers, extras, chibis, and page fillers, as well as the cover. - Volume 5: Same as Volume 4, as well as not being done with the season.

Additionally, I'm not out here trying to get sued, so I need an original product to sell with the book being a "freebie". I don't do a lot of original content, so any suggestions would be appreciated. A print? Charm? Bookmark? Stickers?...pencil?

Then there's obviously the store to use, launching a page, creating marketing materials~ All super fun -_-

[zalia]

Experiencing Destiny 1 as a D2 player

I picked up Destiny 1 in a sale recently despite being told a lot about its problems, and honestly I'm really enjoying playing it! I feel a bit like a time traveller visiting important places and events from the past.

I also have friends who played Destiny nearly from the beginning and it's fun to go back and go 'ooooh that's what they were talking about!'. I am also very aware that if I had started playing it without already being invested, I would be having considerably less fun. (Also, being fair, much of the fun is doubtless novelty after playing *mumbletymumble* hours of D2 over the past couple of years).

But it's genuinely been really interesting from a design and narrative perspective going back to it and seeing where the story began and how things have changed and I wanted to ramble about it. Full disclosure, I have played up through the first couple of missions of The Taken King. There are also things I can't comment on such as Crucible (because getting enough players for a match has not happened yet), events (no longer happening) etc. Also haven't managed to run a raid yet but hopefully will eventually!

I will start with the bad, to get it over with. A lot of stuff here will be well known and honestly it's probably less interesting than the good/thinky stuff.

The Bad

Oh boy I have maligned D2's New Light introduction so badly since it is miles ahead of D1 just by merit of actually having one! D1 gives you the opening run through the Cosmodrome where they tell you what buttons to use and then refuses to explain anything ever again. (This very definitely ties into it being a game I enjoy now but would probably not have enjoyed if I wasn't already invested)

You don't realise how many QoL improvements D2 has until you have to go to orbit and select a new destination every single time. Also no fast travel points. And no you cannot just look at a map of the place you're traversing. Fashion is difficult too.

Up until Taken King, I am not sure why they bothered hiring voice actors for anyone except Ghost, Elsie Bray, and maybe the Speaker. And I have no idea why they hired Bill Nighy for that part (I mean I do, it's because they wanted to use Big Names for marketing but still...). The Vanguard could easily be replaced with cardboard cutouts because they are basically uninvolved in anything until Taken King begins. I know they aren't involved in every seasonal plot now, but they do appear and develop.

The story and writing is... well, it makes an attempt to exist. It does not succeed until The Taken King. I went in knowing what happens in the story and I'm still not actually sure what happens in the story because it is basically someone's pre-first draft bullet points of a narrative. The only reason I knew I was starting different storylines is because the mission popup tells you which storyline it is. 'I don't have time to explain why I don't have time to explain' is a meme for a reason, but another bit which I think illustrates the point well is from House of Wolves. Petra tells you that Skolas has entered the Vault of Glass and this is bad so you need to stop him. It is never explained before then what the Vault of Glass is, what it does, why it would be bad for Skolas to be in there, or... anything. While D2 can be obtuse, and sometimes leaves important info in easily overlooked lore tabs (or in vaulted content), it at least tries to tell you what the story is. I feel like D1 actively resents that players do not read the bullet points and fill in everything the writers had in their heads. Another example is the Devil's Lair strike. it's the first one you take on in D1, and after doing it in D2, I was expecting backstory and build up. Nope, you just get sent in with nothing to really explain what is going on, who the House of Devils are, what a Servitor is... I know it had troubled development and the story got torn apart and remade very close to launch, and it really shows in the early stuff. It's a series of missions that were made and then had to be strung together with the thinnest of threads. It gets better in Taken King, but at times is still not great. You first encounter the Taken on Phobos, I think Ghost asks about what they are. I was expecting more discussion about them and what they are and how horrifying it is. But nope, they just exist now and we're all fine with that.

So. Much. Grinding. The pinnacle grind was annoying in D2, the grind to just get your light up in D1 is so much worse. You will be doing bounties desperately to try to get your rep up with the various groups just so you can actually get fragments of story and quests. You will be grinding just to level up your subclass and it takes ages.

The places you visit are very expansive - even the Cosmodrome is significantly larger - which is great when they're used well, but a lot of the time they feel very empty, there to make you play for longer to get between areas than because there is anything to do.

The Good

The game is gorgeous! I'm loving getting to see Venus and Mars and the Dreadnaught. They're beautiful environments. Everything feels very expansive which can be very cool (as above, it can also be less good). When used well, it feels like there are so many mysteries and secrets hidden in this abandoned world. There are hidden bunkers and spaces, huge Vex structures and ruined cities, tunnels burrowed beneath the Cosmodrome and the Taken King's dreadnaught. It's genuinely fun to explore (up to a point).

It does an excellent job of making you genuinely feel like it's post-apocalyptic and the existence of humanity is precarious. And you, the Guardian, are brand new and everything is trying to kill you. You don't have multiple gods stored in your vault in the form of guns! Everything feels more dangerous. For example, I think if D2 is your intro, you look back at the Great Disaster and the first Crota fireteam and go 'but how did that happen when I go onto the moon and take out ogres with a single punch? The biggest threat in the Abyss in Crota's End is falling into a pit or getting hit by a pendulum! Yeah no I get it now. In D1 you are much less powerful and it makes swarming thralls and normal enemies much more of a threat. Things feel dangerous in a way that D2 rarely manages. I'll talk about this a bit more in depth later.

By making your supers and abilities less powerful, they have weirdly made them more useful. In D2 I usually save mine for bosses since it feels like a waste to use them on normal enemies. In D1, it makes absolute sense to use your abilities basically as soon as you have them. You should absolutely use your Golden Gun on a normal Hive Knight or Fallen Vandal!

There's some great atmospheric touches. I love hearing the snippets of distorted music when I'm near a Rasputin bunker. Going into some of the ruined buildings on Mars or Venus where it's dark and suddenly seeing so many red Vex eyes staring back at you is chilling.

The opening mission of Taken King is fantastic. Genuinely creepy and the Taken in general in D1 feel much scarier and threatening than in D2.

All the different enemy factions are different colours and designs! I love that!

Weapons still go brrrrr in a very pleasing way. And getting new gear feels genuinely satisfying in a way that it rarely does in D2. I junk 99% of the armour and guns I get in D2, in D1 I end up being much more considering of whether something is useful. Legendary weapons and armour feel precious!

I keep picking up random Warmind weapons to turn into Banshee that I know lead to an exotic quest and I am enjoying the feeling of that being another Secret Thing I am discovering.

Honestly, I really like Banshee's weapon bounties - you get given a prototype weapon to test out and gather data by doing certain things (killing X number of a certain enemy etc.) and that gains you rep. And you can then order a legendary version of the weapon from him to be delivered the next Wednesday.

Thoughts/Observations

Knowing that the 'original' story was seemingly going to focus more on Rasputin, and an exo version of him getting stolen by the Hive makes the appearance of some of the Hive areas on the Moon make more sense. There's some bits that are high tech in a way that feels very at-odds with what we see of the Dreadnaught and, other Hive locations which lean much more towards the organic and magical.

Similarly, Rise of Iron feels a lot more hard sci-fi than much of what Destiny has become, and has such a huge Rasputin focus. I believe it was partially developed by an outside studio, so I do wonder if it was based, at least in part, on the 'original' story of Destiny, and was either too far into development, or the other studio just never got the memo about the change in tone.

Vaguely related to the above, but way more speculative, I wonder if Banshee was originally meant to be a Rasputin exo, then that story got shifted to Felwinter, but the seeds were used for the story of Banshee having been Clovis Bray.

Honestly while it's fun to think about, in general I find the obsession parts of the Destiny community have with 'the original story' (of the 'maybe they're finally going back to the original story!' type where the unspoken idea is that this was the perfect undiluted pure story that was 100% planned and set in stone) to be fundamentally misunderstanding how creating stories work. I can guarantee that even if that first story had been used, after 10 years of multiple writers etc. it would still be in a very different place than where the people who came up with it initially thought it would go. It would have evolved and changed and shifted, even if it was following the same vague plan. That's just what stories do.

Oh wow, suddenly all the Nightmare Hunts in Shadowkeep make way more sense! I get it now!

Actually I get a lot of references now XD

Oh wow Shaxx sounds so depressed. I guess this was before he started therapy.

So many identical caves...

Thoughts on Power Creep

D1 leans much more into the post-apocalyptic setting and it does an excellent job of making the existence of the Last City, humanity, and Guardians feel precarious. Everything seems more dangerous, more of a threat. You really are part of the last bastion of humanity. And there's a few ways this is done.

First, you are much less powerful. Yes, you have supers and grenades, but they do much less damage (and are much less flashy) than in D1. There has been a huge amount of power creep! You won't be one-shotting bosses, even normal Vanguard Strike bosses with golden gun easily.

Legendary weapons feel rare and special, and I am still using Blue weapons at times because sometimes I have to just to get the higher light level. I have reached level 40 and have only just got my first exotic armour pieces which I bought from Xur! They are FR0ST-EE5, an exotic I have never bothered with in D2, but in D1 the recharge for abilities when sprinting is genuinely handy. I don't have any exotic weapons at all yet!

It leads to a very different playstyle - I play much more carefully because I cannot just charge in with something like Osteo Striga and wipe out a room with a few shots. In D2 we have killed multiple gods, taken down an Empire, and forged alliances. In D1, we're just some random Guardian and the gameplay reflects this.

And I hate to say this, but I also kind of get the YouTube/Stream BNFs who complain about things not being hard enough. It's just... they're completely wrong about the reasons and the solutions.

They seem to think that what is needed is more enemies with higher health, and nerf Divinity because it makes it too easy, and everything should be designed to stop normal players being able to do it. And it... it doesn't work? Ghosts of the Deep was fun, but holy fuck the health bars on the enemies make it feel grindy and dragged out. Legend Avalon was a slog because there's Too Much - too many elements at the same time so it's just overwhelming instead of fun. (Starcrossed on legend is tough, but feels more enjoyable and managable. I'm looking forward to doing it again instead of dreading it).

More difficulty isn't what makes D1 feel harder, being weaker is what does this. I have no doubt that if I could put my D2 stuff against D1 enemies I would decimate them. But in D1 I am a lone Guardian with scavenged gear and yes, I have the Light and can be resurrected, and it gives me an edge vs normal humans, but not a crazy amount.

In D2 I have so many exotics and weapons that I can just throw them away. I can have intricately crafted builds to take on any enemies! I am basically one of the most powerful entities in the solar system.

And that's not something you can really scale back. They did it with Red War at the start of D2. Maybe they could do it as a result of Final Shape and do smaller stories focused on Earth and recovery and what you even do after your purpose for fighting for so long is gone (and I think there is value in those stories! I would love it personally). But uh... I don't think most people would actually be happy having everything nerfed on such a scale. Give up your 999,999 Celestial Nighthawk boss damage, for a Golden Gun that with a bit of luck might one-shot a yellowbar?

Give up a lot of creativity in terms of what you use and how you play, in exchange for a tougher game with way less choice for builds, but one that is potentially more atmospheric and in-keeping with the post-apocalypse and the dangers of the solar system?

I don't have an answer for that! And it's not even the most important thing. Gamer BNFs gonna always want to prove that they're better than everyone at pressing buttons, and forget that the majority of players are casuals. But it's been interesting playing a different type of difficulty, rather than the forced difficulty of insanely high HP and Too Many Things.

Power creep is a real issue in a lot of long-running media (just look at superhero movies, or many many monster of the week TV shows). You're in a position of feeling like you need to one-up yourself every time. Every new villain has to be the biggest and baddest, and so you have to become more and more powerful to combat that, which means the next villain has to be even bigger and badder.

With Destiny we've gone from a scrappy underdog, to a god-killer.

I'm reminded of Osiris talking about Saint in The Sundial lore.

'I watched him grow from neophyte to demi-god'.

King of fitting for us to have done the same as Saint's inspiration.

[nothingenoughao3]

hai i'm curious about what twin peaks is, can you explain it to me (preferably without spoilers) /nf

Oh, is it my birthday?! Yes I can do that!

I will say that I generally do not consider things that happen in the pilot or first episode of a TV series to be "spoilers" so much as "premise". So anything I say here that's direct plot-stuff will only come from the pilot. All right? Let's dig in!

CAPSULE SUMMARY

Twin Peaks is a surreal/magical realism/police procedural/drama/horror/soap opera produced by David Lynch and Mark Frost. It had two seasons of 30 episodes total, a film (Fire Walk With Me), and a third season that came out 25 years later in 2017.

In the pilot episode, a teenaged young woman who everyone in town knows, Laura Palmer, is found murdered. The town reels to cope with her demise and the investigation. A second young woman is found alive and wandering--and she crossed state lines as she wandered. The police call in the FBI, since it's now a multi-state case, and in walks Special Agent Dale Cooper.

As Cooper begins his investigation, he discovers that there's far, far more going on in Twin Peaks than he'd first anticipated.

[NOTE HERE that Twin Peaks covers a LOT of extremely tough and triggering topics over the course of its run. DoesTheDogDie should have a list of all triggers, although those will come with spoilers. The main one to be aware of is that sexual assault, domestic abuse, and rape are discussed. The aftermath of these crimes is depicted. It's 1990, so it's not graphic as in Law & Order: SVU, but it is very much present. Please take care of yourself first!]

NOT-SPOILER REASONS TO WATCH IT

It is a vital historical work of art. Twin Peaks revived the police procedural, popularized soap operas as an art form, launched and relaunched multiple acting careers, introduced surrealism to multiple generations of TV watchers, taught basics of Buddhism, helped spread awareness of the Free Tibet movement, and inspired countless references and imitators. When you watch Twin Peaks, you'll feel like you've seen it before... because you've almost certainly seen something which only exists because of Twin Peaks.

David Lynch is Autism Patient Zero who does not compromise his writing or his vision for NT audiences. He writes dialogue and directs actors in a way that can only be described as "everybody's got the autism accent", and it is a DELIGHT to experience.

The visuals are, often, so strong that you will forget how to breathe. Many of the sets and locations are treated like characters in and of themselves.

The title, Twin Peaks, ties into the show's central themes about identity, which is one of my favorite themes in fiction. What makes you who you are? If there was someone who looked a lot like you, would that compromise who you are? What if they have the same name as you? Are you no longer who you are if you can't remember your past? Is it sometimes a good thing to change your identity? What if everybody thinks you did something unforgivable, but you don't remember it? Does society require all of us to have public faces and private faces? Does anyone really know another person's private face?

When I first watched it, nobody shipped Trucoop (Cooper with the local police sheriff, Harry S. Truman). Now it seems like everybody does and I am not alone, yaaay.

Features one of the very few trans characters in media at the time who was unambiguously positive!

Watch an episode, then pull up the IMDB and see who everyone is. I guarantee that you'll almost always find SOMEone who was famous for other stuff. If you like Star Trek, you'll find that half the damn cast was either on TNG or DS9. It is honestly astounding to me that Jeff Combs wasn't on the series (because, I assume, he was shooting Bride of Re-Animator and other stuff).

THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR

The subtitling in some versions of the show (on DVD specifically) is really bad and unreliable. I found that the Netflix subtitles were OK. If you don't know about OpenSubtitle, I recommend using them to find better subtitles in case you need them.

As stated above, the show gets into really dark themes, and it does not shy away from them when necessary. I feel that these things are addressed in a sensitive way and frequently related to plot, but it hits everyone different.

The music... eh. I like the electro/late 80s theme and the instrumentals that back most of the scenes. But every time someone sings, I get the cringe. I've never been able to get on board with what Lynch thinks good music sounds like. But a lot of people do, so that could just be me.

It takes a lot of work to watch this show. Since so much of it is visual, it is absolutely a show you have to watch with no distractions. I found it to be worth it--past a certain point, I didn't want any distractions. But I get where it's a sacrifice of time and concentration.

If you watch it and enjoy it, you will probably end up with Lynchian Syndrome, where you are compelled to watch every other thing David Lynch has ever made and develop elaborate hypotheses on how they're all in the same universe and suchlike.

So yeah! I hope this gives you an spoiler-free idea of why this show is so special, and if you had any other questions about it, let me know!

[sapphicseasapphire]

Sorry for the many questions I'm about to ask but its been driving me insane.

How exactly does the story of Hyrule Warriors work with your cryptid au? Does Wars have a personality during those events or do the events of Hyrule Warriors not happen at all?

Your au is great and l really want to know how Wind, Time, and maybe Ravio interact with Wars. I am considering writing a short story with them, and I want to stay as loyal to the au as possible.

Also I love your art.

Hello!! First of all I’m SO SORRY it’s taken me this long to get back to you!! Sincerely I apologize!! But this question made me do a lot of deep thinking and I wasn’t exactly sure how to answer. I’m gonna break this up into sections under the cut because it’s gonna get pretty long.

How does Hyrule Warriors fit into the au? Gonna be completely 100% honest here, I’m kind of sort of rewriting the whole story I think. There’s a lot that I’m still figuring out, but (in the briefest of terms as this is all subject to change) here’s what I’ve got so far: Cia is still enamored by the Spirit of the Hero, and Ganon still takes advantage of that desire and purges her of her light, corrupting her. She still opens the Gate of Souls(s) and launches an attack on Hyrule, opening portals across time. However, in this era, there is no hero. (There was no Ganon either, before she showed up, so Link was never born. There was still a Zelda, since Hyrule’s princesses are always named Zelda. But yeah, Link just doesn’t exist). Not until Cia’s attack, that is. When Hyrule is threatened, Zelda and Impa decided that they need a hero. And so, they make one. They physically pull the Hero’s Spirit from its resting place in the Sacred Realm and manually place it in a sword, thus creating Wars.

They don’t call him Link, as he’s not a person. In this era, he’s always been called the Hero of Warriors, as that is his purpose. He was created solely to fight. To win the war and save Hyrule.

After the war is won, he is placed deep within a temple and abandoned. After all, he’s a literal weapon. A weapon without a wielder is dangerous- anyone could take up his sword and be accepted as his new Master. The temple that he’s placed in is a typical Zelda Temple TM, like a dungeon, and it’s where he will wait until he is discovered by the Chain.

Does Wars have a personality in Hyrule Warriors? Short answer: no. He is a freshly created sword spirit and bound entirely to his Master. (Which, at this point, is his Zelda). With the War of Eras still ongoing, his purpose hasn’t yet been fulfilled. At this point, he is very very similar to how Fi was in Skyward Sword: mostly residing in his sword and giving power ups to his Master, only manifesting outside of the blade when called upon. He doesn’t speak unless spoken to. He shows absolutely no emotion. Ever.

… which leads me to the bad news. How do the others (Time, Wind, Ravio) interact with Wars? Generally speaking, they don’t. Like. Not even a little bit. With Wars constantly in his sword, he’s pretty inaccessible. Plus, they don’t really have any reason to. Any of Wars’ advice is heard only by Zelda, who relays the information to the group, they don’t think to ask where these strategies are coming from. And they really don’t think much of the sword at Zelda’s back.

That’s not to say that nothing is happening between the Links, though!! I’ve been having a field day thinking of little Time, a godling, fresh out of Termina and trying to comprehend the weight of his fate while also being a kid and now fighting in yet another war he never asked to be a part of. He’d appear to the others as Child Link (and go by Mask), using his god powers to change his appearance. He doesn’t have to be Child Link, but with how new his powers are?? He’s scared to be anything else.

And WIND!!! Wind and Ravio interactions!!! I have been thinking about this for WEEKS, ever since you sent this ask. Wind, the chaos gremlin of an Aquili. And Ravio, the violence hating Mer whose whole family and everyone he knew was killed by the corrupted Aquili in his own world. Ravio witnessed his whole pod being murdered, he narrowly escaped. He was a child, alone and afraid. If Legend carries bias against Aquili, imagine the scope of Ravio’s trauma. I wouldn’t be surprised if he avoided Wind at any cost.

(I will be making a lot of Ravio content in the future. He’s just. He’s my little guy).

I’m having a very fun time thinking about these interactions, even if it’s a bummer that Wars isn’t a part of it. (Remember! The only one who knows what Wars is is Sky. Wind and Time never had the chance to meet him. Although, after they discover that he’s a Sword Spirit, I bet a lot of things suddenly make a lot of sense haha!)

ANYWAY. This is one of the less organized lore posts I’ve made but I wanted to get this answered. Like I said, I’m still workshopping this, but I hope this helps? You’re welcome to make a story (as long as you tag me)! I’m sorry if this was a bit of a let down, but even if Wars’ role isn’t very big, I already have so many ideas about the others! I hope this gives you ideas as well