#like. other shit can come later can we at the very least not fund a fucking genocide

[whilomm]

some people are talking about "oh im not educated enough to talk about this" and yeah im not educated enough to fully outline a solution to longterm peace or whatever but i dont think you need much education to say "genocide is wrong and blowing up hospitals is wrong and there should probably be a ceasefire" like. i just dont think you need a fucking degree in political science to get there you know? why are people acting like ohhhh sorry i cant say a word on it im not educated..... motherfucker all you need to look at is the palestinian death toll to know that what israel is doing is probably bad, and it should probably stop. not killing people is better than killing people. mega easy starting point!!

[evilminji]

I think I figured it out?

My favorite thing to do with Danny? And the Zone in General?

Is to just... zoom out a bit, maybe move stage left, leave the trouble and (most of the) dramatics of his teen years behind and just? Discover that not all of Death is War. Not every Obsession is violence.

Sometimes it's owning a fancy little soaps shop. Or that PERFECT garden of their dreams, where they can share with EVERYBODY, that they could never manage in life. Maybe it's the universe biggest Comics library.

Yeah, when you can't die and pain is kinda subjective, a good ol fashioned brawl IS the best way to communicate. Fist to Fist, ecto to ecto, come out the otherside understanding each other a bit better. But like?

.....you could ALSO just use your damn words, you know? Maybe some of us don't WANT to fight.

The freedom to Do Anything? Means a good chunk of us will say "Nah, we good". And move on to do other, non-violent things! Not every Area of the Zone is the SAME you know. It's like countries. Or, well, Galaxies? Since it IS far more spread out then any country will ever be.

It's why Danny probably didn't notice. Thought his area was all there is. It's the standard "my neighborhood is the default. Normal for everywhere" mindset that people unknowingly tend to have before they travel much. It's not like he had any chance to learn otherwise.

He had school in the morning. Had to stick close in case a fight broke out. How FAR could he truely travel? The end of the metaphorical street? The next block over? The Far Frozen alone was pushing it!

But then! He defeats the Tyrant of his Area of the Zone. And it's like a map filling in, in the back of his head. Perfect outline of what's "his" and "not his". And??? Wait, wut?

Why is he not surprised the Observants fuckin Lied? Pariah wasn't King Of Everything! He was king of... *head starts to violently hurt as he tries to grasp the scale of things* ow, Ow, OW! Bad idea! BAD IDEA!!! A chunk? Yeah, big chunk! Let's go with that!

It was APPARENTLY like saying "ruler of the known world". Other countries very much still existed, just APPARENTLY didn't count. Good to know! AFTER THE FACT.

At least HIS territory likes the "Wooooo! Anarchyyyyyy!" Goverment model. Frees him up to do other shit. He can come back to it LATER. But FIRST? :) Get? :) The FUCK :) Off his lawn! :) *kicks everyone back through the portal* *closes it* AND STAY INSIDE THE ZONE!

Abuse of power? Sorry, he can't hear you over his magically recovering sleep schedule and GPA. The fact he might ACTUALLY graduate. His new favorite past time of watch the GIW slowly losing both their funding AND minds. Mmmmmm~ relaxing!

He graduates.

He is the son of crazy people with a shit GPA. His parents may have finally come around on ghosts, started over on their research... with a frankly ALARMING enthusiasm, but? You can't undo decades of damage. The Fenton name is untouchable.

He applies anyway.

Goes ghost for the first time in over a year.

Is... bigger. Starlight and ice. Royal. It feels right, settled in a way. More HIM then his skin could ever hope to be. He notes it, but doesn't linger. Decides to find out what's OUTSIDE "his" territory.

And...

Huh.

The answer depends?

In one direction? An endless battle. From horizen to horizon, like shooting stars. Crashing and smashing, weapons clanging and ringing. Mad blood stained grins. Worthy opponents. A challenge that goes on forevermore.

He...backs away slowly.

Going sorta, up-ish? Leads to a weirdly muted stillness. Muffled. He can't find anybody. But the doors here are pretty... worn. He doesn't want to keep pushing.

Finally, he tries at an angle to the right. And? Spots a patrol? They look nervous to see him, but hold their ground. He asks what's in this direction. Is polite. They look incredibly relieved.

Which is how Danny? Learns about the SINGLE BEST thing ever. The thing I actively fantasize about. Long for. And gift to him because I can.

Floating island cities FULL of highly specific little shops and passion pursuits. All for damn near free, because they are mostly doing it for THEM and you just happen to be there. The islands go one for days in every direction. Overflow with color and sound and the flash of ghosts flying too and frow.

Stunned, Danny, jaw on the floor. Wanders the streets.

Finds a space themed shop and feels his eyes dilate like a cat. Mine ™. He gets a book on "First Astronaut's of their Species" and some BESPOKE space meme socks. Looks around. Decides that this? This is where his doing ALL his shopping from now on.

He's pretty sure he sees a shop dedicated solely to canned food from across the Multiverse.

There is a sale on corn(non radioactive), apparently.

He tells EVERYBODY. Well, Fenton and friends "everybody". But you get the idea! The shopping trip they organize? Is legendary. His Father finds a Fudge shop and probably scares the local ghost population with his mad Fudge Glee cackling. Mom found a weapon smith. And an old fashion lace maker. Jazz? Lost to the world of intergalactic boy bands and psychology textbooks.

Tucker made a running slide straight for the nearest tech shop. Then the butcher. And Sam?

........m....maybe if he doesn't ask? He can claim plausible deniability?

@hdgnj @legitimatesatanspawn @hypewinter @lolottes @nerdpoe

[hockeyandhrsepwr]

On the Seas

Charles Leclerc x Yachtie Reader

**I've been watching a lot of Below Deck which is how this came about - Enjoy:)**

Part 2

F1gossip

Is there a new WAG on the horizon? Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc was spotted chatting to a pretty woman on a boat ride, then later on a larger yacht, Monaco Grand Prix weekend. After a little bit of digging, we found that the woman was yntakestheseas. She appears to be based on the south of France/Monaco and the same age as Charles but we can’t quite figure out what she does. Her instagram is full of scenic, party & boat pics. Do we think trust fund baby? Gold Digger?

View All Comments

Ferrrari4657 y’all are ridiculous. He was spotted with a woman, he must be dating someone. sure jan

F1fan19 You saw one blurry picture & found all of that? Thats such an invasion of privacy but I’m kind of impressed. 

Fan58 do you not see the uniform? She clearly works on the boat, it’s not like they were making out of something. 

Fan856 god forbid, a single man talking to a pretty woman 🙄

F1083 saying she may be a gold digger is so out of pocket. Maybe she’s just rich and honestly if she is, good for her. 

yntakestheseas

yntakestheseas It's the Grand Prix, I never miss the Grand Prix

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Bestfriend1 did Red Bull win?

yntakestheseas you can fuck right off

Bestfriend1 rude

Fans57 thats the same club the driver were in 👀

yntakestheseas along with half of Monaco babes, its not that deep

yntakestheseas

yntakestheseas Yes, I Cannes, finally walk the carpet at the film fest! 

📍Cannes film fest

View All Comments

Bestie finally seeing what its like on the other side

yntakestheseas I don’t like it mom come pick me up

F175 Charles is there, coincidence?

yntakestheseas Pierre, Max and Lando are somewhere here too. That mean I’m fucking them? Hell, Tom Holland is here, maybe I’m

Bestfriend1 You mean to stop there?

yntakestheseas no, I just realized that that might not be the best example because I would fuck him so…

Fan0237 Oh shit 😂

Fan477 She definitely gives off socialite energy, but how have we never seen her before

F1946 she must be new money, seems a bit tacky

yntakestheseas babes the 24 euros in my bank accounts say I’m no money

yntakestheseas

yntakestheseas people jumping to conclusions in my comments 

View All Comments

Fan466 What does this mean!!! bestie3 ooh girl 

MaxVerstappen Why you gotta do me like that?

yntakestheseas

yntakestheseas when the captains away, the crew will play 

View All comments

BoatCapJoe you know I can see this right?

yntakestheseas Sir yes sir, its a joke. We are actually working very very hard right now folding your underwear into roses. 

BoatCapJoe youre lucky I like you

Bestie babe…..

yntakestheseas I’m coming to live with you if I get fired

Bestie no youre fucking not, I've seen what C's apartment looks like when youre there

CharlesLeclerc do you ever actually work?

yntakestheseas No, my daddy pays for everything thanks for asking

CarlosSainz55 ew 

yntakestheseas what? All I said was my dad pays 

CarlosSainz55 You & I both know what you meant 

yntakestheseas

yntakestheseas You can call me captain #8 years 

View All Comments

PierreGasly your mental age? Yeah we know

yntakestheseas I think you have me confused with lando

LandoNorris or himself

Bestie only took 8 years

yntakestheseas you know what, at least I did it

Charlesleclerc did what?

yntakestheseas bag someone rich enough to own the boat

CharlesLeclerc that all I’m good for?

Bestie you have a nice car!

yntakestheseas no, you have a decent dick too

PierreGasly 😲

yntakestheseas oh shut it mr 🐶

Charlesleclerc Decent isn't what you were saying yesterday

LandoNorris My EYES MY EYES Jesus guys 🤢

PierreGasly yeah I dont want to know that 🥴

Ferrrarifan3 Things I didnt expect to see today. This comment section 

yntakestheseas you should see the group chat

Fan4646 THERES A GROUPCHAT?????

xx

[all-seems-no-well]

"Testing...Hello? Can you hear me?..."

------------

-Hello. AHEM... Regarding the past events of "Kalloway Kindergarten" , We have decided to hear from the victims 20 years later to get a better insight on what really happened. The following paragraphs will be from our latest interviews with each, separate person. - These will be repeated from what our subjects had said to the interviewers. - Sadly, some people hadn't come to the interview. So please bear with us on this unfortunate mishap. Thank you for listening, Thank you for your patience, and thank you for coming.

------------

-Subject no. 1 (???)

"Subject number one was unable to make it today.

-Subject no. 2 (Lilith (Lily) Prescott.)

"Slow and painful it was. At least, that's how it felt for me. But I can't imagine the more brutal things my brother had to go through. He was missing for a while, and...Nobody knew where he went. Until that very day, I and...someone else, had found him...... Under the school. The principal was doing experiments on him. It was all so... horrific. Too horrific for a child to see... If I could go back in time and give my younger self a hug, I wouldn't think twice. As for my brother, I would've done the same, even at the time. I wish In that moment I could've told him how much I loved him, how much he meant to me... But now I can't..."

-Subject no. 3 (???)

"Subject number three was unable to make it today."

-Subject no. 4 (Jerome Kennedy.)

"Hearing about the awful stuff my dad did after he died, broke me as a kid. If I had known what he was doing before, I would've told someone before it got so bad... Sometimes I still blame myself for everything that happened. I know I shouldn't, but he was MY dad. I can't get over it."

-Subject no. 5 (Buggs V. Mallory.)

"Shit sucked. Those other kids were awful to me. And yeahhh, I may or may not have been awful to them back. But YOU would be a dick too if YOU were constantly bullied! Oh, right...that... Well, I wasn't really a part of the whole thing. All I know is one day our principal died, and then another day our other principal died. A lot of principals died that week, man. So uh. I don't know.

-Subject no. 6 (Cynthia (Cindy) Louelle.)

"Okay, well. Kindergarten was kinda blehh... y'know? I met some decent people there, I guess. But I also met the most rudest girl in the world! Ugh... But yeah, like, I didn't really care about the whole "principal experimenting on us" jig. It was kinda just stupid... and annoying.... And I honestly don't even recall half of the teachers there, sooo...."

-Subject no. 7 (Monty Hyde.)

"I lost a lot at that damn school. I mean seriously, they didn't think to fire the janitor after day two?! I lost my legs because of him! And now I've just been stuck with these unflattering girl legs. But y'know what? Kindergarten was pretty fun at times. Cause' I was a little shit, and all the teachers knew it. I was even smarter than the science teacher, which says a lot about how smart I am now as an adult! ....are you recording this? Yeah? Good. YOU HEAR THAT DR. DANNER?! I'M BETTER NOW. IM A SUCCESSFUL MILLIONAIRE, AND WHERE ARE YOU? PROBABLY IN A RETIREMENT HOME...... Uh- Thank you for having me here..."

-Subject no. 8 (Felix K. Huxley.)

"I say... Kindergarten was certainly quite the experience. Younger me would've said it was horrible, but now that I've matured I see just how dramatic I was being. Though, there were some things I did that....I'm not quite proud of.... But! That aside, the experience looking back at it was quite swell. If not for that place, I wouldn't have met my lovely Cynthia...or what's his face- uh- Monty!... He's helped me a lot with my business, and I tip my metaphorical and imaginary hat to him."

-Subject no 9. (Theodore (Ted) K. Huxley)

"I believe they should've had much better funding, and staff. Because that place was just...awful. The teachers obviously despised their jobs, and the bathrooms... Oh the bathrooms were foul...! And even thinking about Kindergarten brings back horrible memories of what my brothe- actually nevermind... But anyway, thinking about the pain and suffering those poor students before me must've gone through...it makes me sick to my stomach. They could've done so much better for the students and the school itself."

-Subject no. 10 (???)

"Subject number ten was unable to make it today."

-Subject no. 11 (???)

"Subject number eleven was also unable to make it today."

-Subject no. 12 (Ozzy Harrison.)

"I don't have any good memories of that place. Not one. I'm sorry, but I don't even wanna talk about it anymore..."

-Subject no. 13 (Madison Bonneau.)

"It was like one second I was at recess, and then another I was in some sci-fi looking lab! But me and my friends got saved by some randos, so all was well after that I think! But in all seriousness, that mean lady got what she deserved. I'm glad nobody has to put up with her ever again... oh, oh! And also there was a girl there when it happened...and her head freakin' exploded!! I couldn't sleep for days because of the sight!"

-Subject no. 14 (Alison (Alice) M. Claire.)

"I heard Madi from the other room... I am incredibly sorry about her... excitement? She's never been interviewed before, and quite frankly, neither have i- o-oh, yes...my apologies... The whole situation had really put a negative toll on my well-being. I was scared to go back to school, I had a hard time trusting people, and I was overall terrified of everyone and everything around me. It felt like a bunch of eyes had been laid upon my person, and hands were out to hurt me at any moment. I and my friends were kidnapped by the other school's principal, and to say it was traumatizing would be an understatement..."

-Subject no. 15 (Ronaldo (Ron) Duncan.)

"hey do you have any cheese? No? Okay.. Well anyway. What I remember is like.. kinda crazy. So bear with me. I was just on the playground, swinging on the swings, okay? And then suddenly IM KNOCKED OUT, LIKE BLAM! And then, I woke up in some bunker with a bunch of sciencey stuff in it. And I'm like floating around in this giant tube thingy, right? And then these kids come into the bunker and they're like "well save you!!" And then the evil principle lady turns me into a monster and I'm all like "blehghh" and my friends are also like "blehghh." BUT THEN the principal lady also turns into a giant, ugly monster!! And then the kids kill her like superheroes. True story."

-Subject no 16 and 18 (???)

"These two subjects were unable to come in today due to their own plans together."

-Subject no. 17 (Austin Scarrow)

"I don't actually CARE about the stuff that happened in kindergarten! That stuff was a long time ago, and it doesn't matter to me anymore..."

------------

"By listening to our subject's stories, We hope you know how much this means to them, finally being able to speak up about their own experiences from the tragedy. These people are powerful, and strong, and we wish nothing but the best for them."

------

------

"...Jesus...these kids are gonna make me a killing. I've got to get in contact with those other subjects... If I don't, this whole jig is gonna go out of business..."

[wellthebardsdead]

Riiju-Lei: *all 3 eyes very irritated from crying as they leave the hall of the dead* gods if I keep weeping like this I think id like to go back to having no emotions at all…

Nerevar: and deprive the world of your smile? Absolutely not~ *pats his shoulder gently*

Taliesin: or your adorable laugh~

Riiju-Lei: I-it is not adorable.

Kaidan: I dunno, it does sound pretty cute when you start honking like a baby horker~

Lucien: or start snorting like a bristleback.

Riiju-Lei: *visibly blushing* I- I don’t sound like either of those things!

Sero: *cackles* pay up Xelzaz I told you he’d start blushing again!

Xelzaz: You lot cheated!

Riiju-Lei: Y-you’re taking bets on my emotional responses now?!

Inigo: yes shame on you all! … *sneakily takes his winnings from Xelzaz*

Nerevar: *chuckles and shakes his head at them* leave him be… *waits till Riiju isn’t looking before taking his share too and snickering* So, corner club before we leave?

Riiju-Lei: I guess, I don’t think you’d enjoy it though but… it’s really the only place any of us except for maybe Lucien and Kaidan would be welcome… the dunmer who owns it doesn’t particularly like me given I was raised by a nord and most people in this city like or at least tolerate me.

Nerevar: hm… maybe we can wait until we reach Kynesgrove then…

Riiju-Lei: Mhm… I don’t particularly want to go passed what’s left of my old house either. I don’t know what type of emotion that’d kick up out of me…

Nerevar: old house?

Kaidan: aye. When we first came here with him to gather his belongings and bring them to whiterun we found it burned to the ground and the brickwork covered in racial slurs against dunmer… even the district it was in is a slur against dunmer people.

Nerevar: *clenching his fist a little under his cloak* …I see…

Riiju-Lei: *sighs* let’s just g-

???: THERE! THATS THE BASTARD! THATS THE WANKER WHO DID THIS TO ME!!

Everyone: *turns to see Rolff stone-fist next to a guard, pointing at Kaidan*

Kaidan: oop, shit, hope you all have enough to bail me out for this.

Nerevar: I- what did you do to him? He’s missing half his face!

Kaidan: He was harassing a dunmer woman then tried to hit LeiLei while his back was turned. So I punched him and my gauntlets did the rest.

Guard: *walks over* Alright you’re under arre-

Nerevar: *steps out in front of him* It is my understanding that my companion here was attacked first by that- gentleman. My other companion here leapt to his defence.

Riiju-Lei: *sighs* nerevar don’t bother. He’s the brother to ulfrics right hand man, they won’t listen. *opens his wallet* okay how much is the fin-

Nerevar: *gently makes him put it away before looking at the guard* Is that so… in that case. Unless Ulfric would like the great houses of morrowind to side with the empire once again and join in on this civil dispute. He, And his right hand man. Will have an audience with me.

Guard: and, who are you exactly?…

Nerevar: Indoril Nerevar.

*a few hours later*

Riiju-Lei: *sitting quietly at the large table in the main hall of the palace of kings, knee bouncing as he and the others wait for nerevar and kaidan to return from their meeting with Ulfric* …I feel, sick, my chest feels tight and my hands and feet are cold. What emotion is this?

Lucien: anxiety, nervousness… it’s okay to be scared, I am too… being an imperial and the son of a notable captain I don’t particularly feel safe in here.

Sero: it’ll be okay… *folds his arms a little tighter feeling nervous himself*

Riiju-Lei: I hope you’re r-

Rolff: *suddenly screaming as he’s dragged out of the room in shackles to be taken to the jails* BROTHER YOU CANT DO THIS! YOU CANT SIDE WITH THEM! BROTHEEEEE- *silenced as the doors shut*

Nerevar: *walks out with Kaidan* I’m glad we could come to an understanding. The high council will provide funds for the betterment of our people housed within your city, the argonians and khajiit will be permitted within the walls. And we’ll remain neutral in your affairs.

Galmar: *huffs and storms out past them to the jails, most likely to give his brother a talking to for embarrassing him*

Ulfric: *walks out after him* yes. Now if there’s nothing else I have a war to get back t- *pauses spotting Riiju-Lei amongst the group* I know you. You were at Helgen.

Riiju-Lei: Yes. I was. Now I’m the Dragonborn. And I’ve been a citizen of this city longer than you or your fathers fathers have been alive… *stands up, feeling anger bubbling within himself the longer he looks at him* So if I hear anymore talk of my kind or anyone who isn’t a nord, being mistreated in these walls. I’ll do what that bastard and his mates did to my house. And I’ll burn this whole city to the ground.

Nerevar: LeiLei. *looks at him sternly but with a soft understanding in his eyes, knowing now at time of diplomacy is not a moment to lose his temper*

Riiju-Lei: *huffs and turns to leave*

Ulfric: *realising now he’s standing in a room with two extremely powerful threats he’d be smart not to piss off any further* I understand.

Riiju-Lei: *glares back at him* …good… *storms out*

*a few minutes later*

Team Dragonborn: *catch up with Riiju-Lei as he crosses the bridge leaving the city*

Nerevar: Hey- *pats his shoulder gently*

Riiju-Lei: *gritting his teeth in frustration* Arghh! I hate this feeling! I hate him for making me feel this way! I promise if we come back in a month NOTHING will have changed and that cockhead will be walking around harassing the grey quarter all over again!!

Nerevar: And if he does I will make good on my threat and side with the empire again. *strokes his cheek* he’s not worth your fury, dreamer…

Riiju-Lei: *sighs and relaxes into touch, the feeling of familiarity it brings giving him comfort* is it really worth that much effort?…

Nerevar: if it makes you happy, then yes…

Riiju-Lei: *smiles and holds his hand looking down shyly as the anger gives way to love and content happiness*

Taliesin: *suddenly smiling as he watches them*

Kaidan: what’s got you so happy? I nearly got arrested and you’re grinning.

Taliesin: I just realised something. The first day we saw LeiLei smile. It was right here. I’m betting it was the day Nerevar first came to skyrim~

Kaidan: really?… huh… to think they were always so close without even realising it.

Taliesin: *leans against him* I’m glad he’s found his happiness now… and I’m glad you’re not arrested. It’d be hard to make love to you with all those guards watching~

Kaidan: *coughs* I- calm down you wait until we get a room before you start talking like tha-

Sero: *suddenly books it past them with the guards chasing after him* HAHAHAAAAA!!!

Riiju-Lei: WHAT DID YOU DO?!

Inigo: *runs out after him and the guards* I tried to stop him! He set Rolff stone-fist on fire in his jail cell!!!

[pwecie]

Hello everybody, before I start this, I need to preface everything that I’m about to say with some facts

My maternal grandfather is Palestinian, he has also lived in Israel.

My uncle fought in Afghanistan against terrorists.

Because of these, I feel like it’s important to clear up some misconceptions about the events going on.

Number 1: Israel’s primary target is Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Hamas has taken Israeli hostages who are just innocent citizens and have no connection to the fighting.

Number 2: It is very realistic that Israel is not all that innocent themselves, as my grandfather has told me stories of anti-Palestinian behavior within Israel that resulted in the death of a family member.

Number 3: Any organization that aids to help the people of Palestine is good, unless that funding or the actions of that organization aid Hamas as Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Number 4: The definition of Zionism is “the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel.” The definition does not mention Palestine specifically or any hate to other nation as the term was coined in 1897, long before the formation of Israel.

Number 5: Zionism became popularized around the end of World War 2 in 1945, and the nation of Israel was founded 3 years later in 1948, probably because Jewish people wanted to feel safe and a sense of community after the mass genocide of Jews during the Holocaust.

Number 6: People are incorrectly using the term Zionism as the “dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries.” Which is actually the definition of Xenophobia.

If you really cared about the war in Gaza, then you wouldn’t be picking either Israel or Palestine specifically. You would be on the side of the people unrelated to this conflict that are suffering from the actions of corrupt Israeli soldiers and the terrorist organization Hamas. Do not support Hamas. do not support Xenophobia. Do not support Islamophobia. Do not support Antisemitism. Practice media literacy. Do your research on organizations that donate and make sure they don’t support terrorism or corruption. Posting an Israeli or Palestinian flag on your social media doesn’t do jack shit, especially when all the information you have on the situation comes from social media blogs that are tailored to give incomplete or false information to specific demographics. This situation is not black and white. We have a responsibility to protect innocent humans. Not nations, not ideals, innocent human beings.

I will be doing research and providing organizations that you can donate to that solely support affected people and not terrorism. I don’t care if you block me, but at last dig deeper and educate yourself, but if you attack me or send people to attack me, saying that I’m a zionist, terrorist, or anything under the sun without reading the entire post, then you are part of the problem.

Edit: I want to reiterate, while Israel has every right to want to fuck up Hamas six ways to Sunday, it is SO EXTREMELY and HIGHLY REALISTIC that war crimes have been committed by select individuals within the Israeli military. I cannot ignore these instances. While the war on terrorism is just, systematic Xenophobia does exist within Israel, which resulted in the death of my grandfather’s sister, or at the very least she received less priority with her medical care within an Israeli hospital. This whole post is neither a defense of Israel or Palestine and I cannot pick sides because of my family background being related to both a Palestinian AND a Nazi from WW2 (I didn’t include that in the beginning because I felt people would just read “Nazi” and shut my whole argument down on just that one factor). I have a moral obligation to make sure the genocide of Jewish people never happens again, but also to support my grandfather and his people overseas. My only purpose is to reiterate that this situation is not good-side bad-side, black or white. My goal here is to inform people of the history surrounding the situation and correct any misinformation. Which there is a lot of holy crap. My heart goes out to all the families within or related to those of the Gaza Strip, as well as Israeli families and individuals who have been affected by terrorism.

[triaelf9]

FYI re the toxic chemical event and train derailment post. OP's initial post has been fact-checked and found to be inaccurate, hyperbolic and alarmist. While the spill, the fire and the chemical fallout IS absolutely catastrophic and awful, it's unclear how likely the scenario laid out in OP's post is. Most experts following updates from the EPA website have tended more towards "bad, but not life-extinguishing and not likely to be as far-reaching as initially feared".

It's infuriating that the derailment and extent of the damage was preventable and indeed that this is exactly what the rail unions were trying to stand against and highlight as recently as last November. This is an horrific environmental disaster caused almost solely by capitalism and corporate greed, cutting corners and sacrificing maintenance and regulatory adherence for the sake of maximising profits.

But it is probably not quite as bad as OP made out, and their catastrophising and spreading of alarmist misinformation isn't going to help the people of East Palestine, nor the unions and environmentalists fighting for better regulation and working conditions to prevent further environmental disasters.

For anyone who can afford to and wants to help, there's a reputable GoFundMe that seeks to provide relief funds to the residents of East Palestine to help ensure access to safe drinking water and financial relief following the recent evacuation and associated loss of income and additional expenses:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/relief-for-east-palestine-after-train-derailment

I've gotten a number of messages on this, but this is the one I'm sharing b/c it acknowledges that it's an issue outside of just the chemical aspect of it (which is why I shared the post) but also gives a way for us to help. Thank you for this message!

My main issue with this all is that the news coming out of this IS so slow and so varied in info (everything I've seen says something different) b/c I'm used to hearing about this sort of thing the day it happens, or at least within the week, but given twitter shit and the state of online news sharing, I feel like we're being let down in terms of media coverage, for those of us not in the area. To be clear, not all of us live in America, or have access to American TV and news coverage (especially b/c so much is region or paywall locked nowadays), but have family there and care about folks in the area.

I really do hope it's not as bad as initially feared, but I get why people could be panicking, given how recently those in charge have been...pretty shitty about handling recent bad situations *cough pandemic cough*

I do appreciate the heads up, as it's important to get all the information we can, but it's very difficult when we CAN'T get all the information, when it's getting harder to verify even media sources, and when this sort of thing isn't really clear about fallout until years later.

But I understand folks getting frustrated at the spread of misinformation. It was same for the Fukushima situation when no one here bothered to check up on any of the info of that, and Western media wasn't really reporting anything other than worst case senario.

We're all susceptible to misinformation!

Also, if I don't answer right away, you don't need to send more messages, time zones are a thing, and I live in Japan so I'm likely not awake ^_^;;

[semper-legens]

40. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

Owned: No, library Page count: 518 My summary: Henry met Clare when he was twenty eight, and she was twenty. Clare met Henry when she was six, and he was thirty six. Henry travels through time, a strange genetic quirk which sees him rocketing around his personal timeline at apparent random. But how can they live a normal life out of sync? When Henry disappears for days at a time into the past or future? When Clare is left waiting, hoping for his return? They cannot control time, after all. And they cannot fight fate... My rating: 2/5 My commentary:

A little while ago, my friend Megan and I were in London, looking for last-minute tickets to a show to fill our time between the shows that we'd booked. With few affordable options, we found ourselves settling down into the cheap seats of The Time Traveler's Wife to see what was what. Now, we'd never read the book before, nor had we seen the film or the more recent TV series, so this was our first engagement with the story. And it was...odd! Naturally, I became intensely curious about whether the strangeness of the plot was an adaptational problem or if it was inherent to the story in general. One reservation at the library later, I had a copy of this doorstop in my hand. Now, a lot of people love this story...but I couldn't really see much in there, I'm afraid. Let's get into it!

One of my biggest problems with this story is that, despite being titled after Clare, it isn't Clare's story, it's Henry's. It's really just The Time Traveler Who Has A Wife. Clare is such a static character. She doesn't really do anything proactive other than introduce herself to Henry at the allotted time, and as a teenager attempt to pressure Henry into having sex with her. Once she's in a relationship with Henry, she becomes less and less relevant. At first, she's in university, then presumably she graduates, though it's never mentioned, then she becomes a paper artist. We don't really get to see why she wanted to be an artist, who she is, what she likes and dislikes outside of Henry...her whole life revolves around Henry. She's compared to Penelope from the Odyssey early on, and that's pretty much her whole character. She waits for Henry. She waits for her life to catch up with Henry's, then she marries Henry, then she loses Henry and waits until she can see him one more time. Henry is everything to her and that's all she has. I wound up internally comparing her to the main character of Outlander as I was reading, because these are very similar stories in terms of genre and audience (and protagonist's name, come to think of it), but at least I have a sense of who Claire from Outlander is. She's compassionate, she's caring, she's spunky, she's seen some shit in the war but is determined to make the best of her life. This Clare? Just...doesn't have much of a character.

And this is where I divert to the thorny topic of class, because hoo boy. I don't know anything about Niffenegger as a person, but if you told me she grew up rich I would not be surprised. Henry's mother was a famous opera singer, his father a gifted violinist, and he's a librarian at the Newberry Library in Chicago - like, an actual studied-library-science librarian, not a library assistant like me. Clare's family is lives-in-a-mansion rich, her family has servants, and she lives on her trust fund. Now, writing about rich people is not a bad thing. But this book does not see itself along the lines of class and wealth at all. It takes a long time for us to see how Clare and Henry are living (his salary, her trust fund), and they are mentioned to struggle for money until Henry does some time travel lottery winning. But like...we never see them struggle. Henry keeps his job, despite randomly time travelling away every so often and being caught naked at work and being pulled up for that once. It takes ages for Clare to offhandedly mention she's living on trust fund interest, and she drops that so casually, like that's just a normal thing that everyone does. They have season tickets to the opera! Their lifestyle doesn't change when they become millionaires outside of buying a house! They live in this world of wealth and privilege that is so, so alien to me (and I'm pretty middle class!) and it was so hard to connect to them because of that. These people don't have problems. They just have money.

While we're on the subject of thorny topics, however, let's talk about race! Remember Clare's family servants? One of them is the cook, a stereotypical black woman cook who acts like a mammy stereotype from a 1930s film. Clare has this 'friend' (they interact like twice) who is a black lesbian and she's weird and vaguely antagonistic. And while Henry's family doesn't have servants, they have this family friend, Kimy, a Korean woman who is basically a second mother to Henry, spends her entire time on-page caring for Henry and his father, and speaks in a stereotypical broken English. These are also the only characters of colour I noticed in the book. There's this...joke?...about Clare's friend Gomez being nicknamed Gomez, but he's actually of Polish descent. So two of the three non-white characters here are subservient to the white characters, and that is their entire purpose and characterisation. It's that much more glaring for never being commented on! For Henry and Clare, this is normal.

Anyway. I struggle to understand what the point of this book was. Like, it's not the romance between Henry and Clare, because there's nothing there. We never see Henry and Clare getting to know each other or interacting as adults outside of the status quo of them being hopelessly in love. They already are soulmates when we meet them, and there's not a lot of development there. Is it their ongoing love story? Not really, there's no tension there. They struggle for money for like five minutes. There's the whole baby subplot, but we learn from a future Henry in the middle of it that they end up having a kid, so that gets deflated. The tragedy that Henry's inevitably going to die in his mid forties and leave Clare alone? But I haven't connected at all with either of these characters because they're both paper-thin. Henry gets more development, but it's still not enough. The whole middle of the book is just an exercise in nothing happening until the narrative decides 'we need an ending, time to kill Henry'. And I just do not care about it.

Aaaaaaaaaand I suppose I should end here with talking about the very squicky fact of the age gap in Clare and Henry's relationship, and how Fate plays a part in it. Clare first meets Henry age six; Henry is in his thirties. Clare spends a lot of time coming onto Henry as a teenager, and they wind up first having sex when she is just-turned eighteen, and he is in his forties. Henry kisses Clare when she's thirteen and he's an adult! Not to mention that we see Henry and Clare really getting to know each other when she's a kid - and a little kid, at that - but never as adults. Hell, one of the first things Clare says to Henry is that the last time she saw him he was sucking her toes in their meadow and that she was pressuring him for sex for years. And it's all meant to be okay, because they're fated to be together, I guess. Like, that's the reason we're not meant to find that weird. The time travel works on stable time loops, Henry cannot change the future no matter what he does (we're meant to take that as read, pretty much) and he and Clare are married in the future, so they're always meant to be. Clare has had no other partners, outside of sleeping with Gomez once, which she feels awful about. Henry is implied to have slept around a lot before meeting Clare, and his ex is obsessed with him to the point where it's implied that learning they aren't gonna be together forever is a reason for her suicide, but that's fine and he doesn't feel like apologising for that. Their whole relationship dynamic is fucked! But the book wants it to be romantic, so it's romantic. Just don't think about it, okay? Just don't think about it.

Next up, some fact, and a look at how Indigenous people discovered Europe.

[astxrwar]

i care about quentin beck so much please keep telling us about your thoughts and ideas. i am so totally not normal about him, he just has so much potential!! i adored your third chapter of ties that bind, i love the way you write him and you have such a way with words. its just very well done and im so glad there’s at least one other person on this planet who thinks about him <3

AHHHH THANK U ILY we can be deranged about him together <3

rn i'm working on chapter 4 (which is already at fucking 7k! that's not even counting the like 4k+ miscellaneous stuff I already have written that will go in later chapters!!! im on such a writing bender rn it's insane)

manic brain puke (SO MUCH OF IT. SORRY!!! i have the normal amount of thoughts.jpeg) about the details below the cut if you're interested

buttt basically premise is there are a few scenes covering from like december to about march, next semester stuff, etc, some Plot Details (for once! lmao) about trying to figure out PhD stuff that will be Relevant later on and then when you have to stay late again in like. march. right before spring break when banner's off at a conference in toronto for two days you end up forgetting your apartment keys in his office so they're like. locked in there until he gets back. anyway basically all alternative plans end up not working out and you end up just going with quentin to his apartment which you both are sure (well HE is sure, you're less sure than you are Determined lmao. you are both fucking Wrong) will change things exactly Zero Percent.

(spoilers. it does actually change things a non-zero-percent. are you,,, perhaps,,, friends now??? unthinkable)

anyway my thoughts are basically 1. atp you guys finally exchange phone numbers 2. you both realize actually hooking up in somebody's apartment (either of yours) is way better than hooking up on the sly in the bio building and then 3. your hot water boiler goes out in may and you end up there AGAIN for like a WEEK and stuff changes MORE and then 4. there starts to be some light angst and like. non-platonic feelings on both ends. shit starts to get messy because you start thinking about doing your dissertation in stark's lab and quentin is like. "absolutely fucking not and no I won't explain why <3" because of course they have beef.

quentin did his postdoc under tony in this au lol. he hates him because tony fucked up a patent for something quentin invented during the postdoc and it lost him a lot of money; obviously tony is stupid fucking rich (he owns and funds an entire university! insanely rich) but quentin is Not so it like. kind of irreparably broke their relationship. tony feels Bad and that's why 1. quentin is tenured despite being technically too young and gets paid a stupid amount for academia; like at least 100k. 2. he's not required to take on undergraduate researchers in his lab (a hassle, requires lots of teaching, usually a requirement for academic research) and 3. doesn't technically have to take on PhD students either. but he does not really tell you any of this explicitly, the details kind of just come together over time, and he definitely does not say why the thought of you joining stark's lab has him being like "absolutely fucking not lmao". a big part of it is that quentin is like... aware that tony just kind of Collects smart people (like him, bruce banner, basically the entire staff + his PhD students and postdocs) and in quentin's stupid little emotionally stunted baby brain he's like "he can't have this one!!!! this one is mine,,, >:((" and does he communicate this at all? no! mans is pathologically allergic to normal emotional availability sldkfsd

so despite historically avoiding taking on PhD researchers he's like. I will let you do your work in my lab if you don't go join stark's lab. But then the issue becomes like... dude you can't be my PhD advisor, we're fucking. that's not allowed. even just fucking your PI (lab manager basically) is a massive no-no and if it got out it would bring into question the reliability of literally all of your research (the fact aside that Quentin would never lie about science for anything. even for love. fuck that shit the way that he cares about people is by absolutely tearing their work to pieces not by pretending bad science is good. literally why he bothers you all the fucking time That's How He Cares It's Incredibly Dysfunctional but i digress) but i'm imagining that it's not really explicitly outlawed in the official code of ethics because it's tony stark's university lmao. He Is A Whore i'm sure he's fucked a lot of his PhD students/postdocs/etc. (Im thinking of having quentin and tony maybe have a past history when he did his postdoc. bisexual quentin supremacy. but also because it adds another layer to the whole "i do not want you to be around him At All" because he knows that tony is functionally incapable of having normal relationships with students. it's the ways that they are very similar but also very different etc etc) basically it becomes a whole deeply emotionally fraught Mess. bruce banner agrees to still be your PhD advisor despite you not doing work in his lab which is uncommon but not unheard of, but it's still like. either you and Quentin need to Stop Fucking or you need to agree that you're never going to have a bad breakup (I say this as if it's even a mutually agreed upon relationship and not just two morons incapable of admitting they care about each other) because it would absolutely ruin both your careers. angst(TM)

I probably will not make it an unhappy ending because I hate those. I have no idea how I'm going to end it though tbh

[anony-mouse-writer]

“How are you doing?”

- cost of livings increasing

- everyone i know is miserable at their jobs, spanning at least 4 broad range fields (ie, retail/food service of any kind, engineering, and ‘works at computers in a capacity beyond microsoft word/excel’) largely due to managerial or company based incompetence or greed

- planets on fire and it looks like the ppl who have the power to change that dont want to cuz theyre greedy bitches

- theres like three social media platforms that arent teeny tiny and theyre all shit and actively getting worse in ways that are profoundly effecting and blindingly stupid

- multiple fights in the past half decade trying to convince people that my job is not something a computer should have

- the same people who tell me that my work is very good and i should monetize it (i am thanks) think that computer work is either just a fad that will pass soon or the just something i should accept and do not see how these conflicting messages might be frustrating

- theres a globally televised genocide happening and like half the ppl who are supposed to stop that are funding it

- KOSA and other internet censorship laws continue to get closer to passing

- “woke” is increasingly synonymous with “anyone who has basic human decency” according to several major governmentally active political parties

- casual and “just common sense” transphobia is now at an all time high as terfs are told that outright killing trans kids is frowned upon and they should try bullying instead

- food prices are so high but i have to eat

- increased social pressure to shun anyone who isn’t spending all their energy being loudly upset at the above issues and/or dying due to the above issues

- companies have more rights than we do and the government would save them first in a crisis. this is “normal” and “fine” and giving a fuck about it is also “woke liberal shit”

- our best hope for a new shitty fire hazard apartment building going up is that the rich bitches everyone hates for building their houses in ‘thats gonna fall down dumbass’’ zones decide to fight for their ‘view’

- pandemics still happening. they dont even stock masks at stores consistently anymore

- my landlord still hasnt responded to our request to fix the flickering kitchen light we have been told we are Not Allowed to try fixing ourselves

- kids are increasingly fucked over by a system that was already failing and is now failing worse due to covid-related fuck ups

- school districts are pushing to graduate kids on time despite the Actual Fucking Plague these kids had to live thru

- speaking of, kids are apparently largely not taught basic computer literacy because they can just teach apps instead

- or any kind of internet safety oh my god. i have had to personally teach every child ive met for the past two years under the age of 15 to not to tell strangers online their full government legal names. i was on roblox for 30 seconds and watched two separate children half dox themselves

- its february and i kinda miss the sun

“I’m doin’, thanks! Hope spring comes sooner than later tho haha.”

[sweethurtss]

last night, in my half-awake state, I wrote a long rambling post about an RDR2 thought that had been bothering me for a hot second now. the TDLR of it is:

Abigail slept with three of the men in camp AT MOST, not “everyone” like Dutch said

Which, by the by, Dutch is manipulative and a fucking liar. ESPECIALLY when he said that to John, he was just trying to get under John’s skin.

Dutch’s ego has always been way too large. He wouldn’t have allowed John and Abi to be together without pulling some sort of power play just to remind people that she was “his” first. Because lets be real: Dutch definitely feels like he owns the women he’s been with.

And I KNOW the whole camp didn’t sleep with her because I honestly believe they would’ve been throwing that in John’s face at every little provocation - or even just to get a rise out of him since everyone gets on John like that. So the fact that they don’t? yeah. especially the likes of Bill and, again, Dutch.

Like, the canon gang isn’t as sunshine and flowers as fandoms writes them sometimes. They can be rude to each other, and sometimes it’s just teasing, but they also know each other well enough to know how to get under each other’s skin.

Also... Abigail knows men and she’s a lot smarter than people give her credit for. If she knew she was going to run with the gang for even half as long as she does, I don’t think she’d endanger herself by messing around with everyone. That’d be shitting where she ate, and it doesn’t take a genius to know that.

She likely watched everyone and took in the social dynamics before deciding. This feels fairly accurate since we also see that she she stays with Hosea when her and John are fighting/on the outs. And it's more safe for her to do business outside of the camp, at least that way, she can bring in new money to their funds and prove her worth outside of her connection to the men.

Of the three men that Abi did potentially sleep with, it’s likely Arthur, Javier, and the canonical John because the first two are probably the most emotionally mature about their sexual relationships and I think Abigail would trust their temperaments to keep things civil around camp if she ever said no to them.

Everyone’s devotion to Dutch is probably a red flag to her too. She’s always seen through his B.S. to some degree (not all the way through, but enough to sniff out how phony he can be). But that’s EXACTLY why she likely never wanted a relationship with Arthur. His deep ties with the gang and Dutch specifically would frighten her, it would be condemning herself (and later Jack) to the exact lifestyle that she was begging John to get them out of.

(Also, how often did she hear Hosea speak fondly of Bessie? Of the time they left the gang (before his eventual return). I think the epilogue is truly all about them both falling back in love with each other and working towards a better future for their family.)

Because unlike Arthur, John was at least rebellious. He was very opinionated and Abigail felt safe knowing John wasn’t totally indoctrinated and blindly following Dutch's orders, often doing things his own way. And that he even had that freedom to do it to the degree he did.

(Like, I love Arthur so damn much, but the game is literally all about him falling out with Dutch and the gang falling to pieces, and the inevitable doom that comes with being in too deep to save yourself - but still being able to save those around you.)

Abigail just couldn’t ever account for how traumatic fatherhood was for John. And I think she kind of fell out of love with him in RDR2, even when she still saw him as an important factor to getting out of the gang — it’s a dangerous world for a single mother and baby boy after all

Also side note: am kind of loving this idea that John got away with so much in the gang because not only was he a kid when they first picked him up, but because for as unruly and argumentative as he could be, Dutch always thought John was as devoted to the gang as Arthur and Hosea. So when John ran away after Jack was born? That was likely a huge ass betrayal and fed into Dutch’s deepest fears that any of them could turn on him, which we see him accusing Arthur of as early as Horseshoe Overlook (some people even say it happens earlier).

I also firmly believe Jack is John’s, especially since we see John is constantly trying to figure out a way he couldn’t be. But I think she must have fallen pregnant in their ‘honeymoon’ phase, when they were doing everything together and always attached at the hip — because I do think John courted her properly enough, instead of just paying for her services. And we do know that she used to go out on missions all the time before she had Jack, so it doesn’t feel entirely unplausible.

there was likely more but this was the most pressing stuff on my head lol

[kropotkins-revenge]

Lemme see if I can explain this a little more clearly than I have been.

I'm neither trans nor Jewish, nor anything else Rowling uses the Potter franchise and her wealth and influence to advocate against.

But I am autistic, and probably the easiest comparison to make would be saying Autism Speaks is to autism what JK Rowling is to trans people and Jewish people. AS (to varying degrees over the years) advocates for a "cure" for autism, on the basis that autism is a burden and a curse to the parents, and may or may not currently, but definitely originally, wanted to fund research into "early detection" of autism - "in the womb" early - with the unspoken purpose of helping parents abort children if they would be autistic (for the record, I'm 180% pri-choice, except for eugenics - that's not choice, that's pure evil). So you could say with reasonable accuracy that AS is the JKR of autism and most autistic people, myself included, feel about AS the way most trans people and Jewish people, I imagine, feel about JKR.

So with that comparison in mind, as an autistic person:

A. If Autism Speaks came out with a video game where the primary conflict is between a united group of sloppily-coded, hatefully stereotyped autistic people - say a nation of Sheldon Coopers - with a stated goal of shutting down a eugenics operation or codifying protections and accomodations for people like them, villified for that goal because it would inconvenience neurotypicals a tiny bit and/or the whole point was just that the Coopers were stupid and annoying and by the way have a secret plot to kidnap and mutilate children? I would be pretty pissed off about that, rightfully, and the very least I would expect of anyone who claimed to support me as an autistic person would be to not play or support or defend that game, and if someone decided that it wasn't worth it to avoid the game just for me, I would - again, rightfully - take that as a message that they only actually supporr me as long as it doesn't inconvenience them in any possible way, and as soon as it does, I can get fucked. And I would stop considering that person a friend.

B. Even if it turned out that AS wasn't really involved with making the game, their name was just on it because they owned the rights because it was set in a universe they created for some books they wrote, but still the game was written by someone less well-known but equally hateful to autistic people, I would still be just as pissed and still expect my friends/allies not to support it, and have the same reaction if they did.

C. Even if it turned out (which it wouldn't, and hasn't with HP, and won't) that the game was written with completely innocent intentions by someone who felt like they did support autistic people, the story itself would still be desperately fucked up and prejudicial and supportive of movements that actively seek to eradicate people like me from the universe for the crime of being people like me, so I would still have the same expectation and reaction to betrayal.

D. If someone who called themselves my friend started defending the game to me based on how much they loved the books AS wrote in the first place, so see, it's okay to play the game because they're just being nostalgic, and they don't support the bad parts, they just like reliving their youth in a new way - I'd tell them that I'm sympathetic, and it sucks that they fell in love with a universe and found out later that the author was a eugenical piece of shit, but that is what the author is, and looking back on the original works with that knowledge it's pretty obvious that that eugenical shit was in there the whole time, we just missed it because we weren't looking for it.

And I'd say that I don't expect them to pretend those stories never meant anything to them, but that continuing to defend the new material that comes out under the pretense of "separating the art from the artist" is a huge slap in the face to me and every other autistic person. I'd also point out that, as mentioned in point C above, it doesn't matter whether you can separate the art from the artist because the bigotry is central to the story itself no matter who wrote it - you could insert any potential author as the artist of this story, even someone perfect, and it would still be fucked up eugenics fantasy. If it turned out Mister Rogers co-wrote the story with Bob Ross and Steve Irwin, the story as it stands would still be some fucked up shit. It's not just about the author, it's about the story itself and what it means. And if they still insisted that it was okay to play it, I would interpret that as "this fictional story is more important to me than your life," and I would, rightfully, stop being friends with them. Probably tell them to go fuck themselves first though.

E. If any person, especially a huge group of people, insisted that I was overreacting and making a big stink over nothing and "blinded by emotion," I'd tell them to go fuck themselves too. I wouldn't be overreacting - the story is literally a fantasy about ending my existence and the existence of everyone like me, based on prejudice.

F. If anyone told me that they feel okay playing the game because "my friend is autistic and they said it's okay by them," I'd ask them, if one of their Black friends said they were okay with them using the N-word even though they were white, would they be out in public yelling the N-word at the top of their lungs and insisting that it's okay because they were given permission? Or would they recognize that one individual Black person being okay with it doesn't mean no other Black person has any grounds to be pissed off about it ever again? I'd explain that no marginalized group is a monolith, that some people, for varying reasons, are going to be fine with things that others aren't, and that doesn't constitute a universal moral judgement or invalidate the views of any other person in that group.

I would further explain that what they've done by using that argument is put me and their other autistic friend into a competition we didn't sign up for - I'm saying it's hurtful, and they're saying it's not, and you've decided that one of us must be universally right and the other must be universally wrong, and you've chosen them as the victor. Why? Are they a better, closer friend than me? Are they smarter than me? Are they somehow "more" autistic than me? Are they somehow more in tune with the universal experience of being autistic than I am?

None of that is real. First, if they're a closer friend than me, that doesn't excuse hurting me. Second, nobody's smarter than anyone. Third, anyone autistic is autistic, we're all different but none are less valid. And fourth, there is no "universal" experience of being autistic - we all have different spectrums of symptoms, we all have different families, different environments, different life experiences. One person having an experience in life that makes them not care very much when people want to exterminate them does not invalidate my experience that leads me to be super pissed off about it. So why are you inclined to choose their opinion over mine? If you're honest with yourself you'll find it's because theirs excuses you doing something you want to do even if it hurts people, and that's not cool.

F. If I found out that AS had already recieved all the money they're going to recieve for the game, that whether it sold 10 or 10,000,000 copies made no difference to their income, I'd still say it's fucked up to play the game, because yet again, the entire point of the game would be that autistic people suck, autistic people are harmful to "regular" society, autistic people are "our" enemies, autistic people should be eliminated.

That's not an exhaustive list of all the defenses I've seen for playing the wizard game, but you get the point: ultimately, every defense of playing this hypothetical anti-autistic game boils down to "it's more important to me to play this game than to support you and have your back," and I would in no way be out of line for taking serious offense to that position in addition to the offense I take at the game itself and the offense I take at everything AS says and does and supports.

Same for real life with the Potter game: even if it wasn't made directly by JKR, even if it was made by someone good, even if she doesn't make extra money from you playing it, even if your trans/Jewish friend said it doesn't bother them, even anything - the story is still literally anti-trans and anti-Jewish, no matter what. That's the story. The story, no matter who wrote it or who gets paid, is that Jewish people are bad and should be eliminated and that trans people are, at best, a bad joke. So no matter how you slice it, defending it and consuming it are supporting those statements, because that's what the story is.

But that doesn't even matter as much as the fact that even if one trans person OR one Jewish person who has an issue with it, is hurt by it, that should be enough. It's one thing to weigh things like this when the choices are "the feelings of one hurt person" vs "the well-being of ten thousand others," that would be one thing; but when the choices are "hurt one or more people by playing the game" vs "literally zero consequences or inconvenience of any kind," one person should easily be more than enough, and if it isn't, you need to stop pretending it's "logic" or "reason" guiding your decisions and accept that it's just selfishness.

[daggersandarrows]

thinking about percy and vex’s love languages makes me go fucking insane holy shit

like listen listen they’re the very definition of “trauma didn’t make me stronger. trauma hurt me and i made me stronger.”

i hate the insistence of “greed” as one of vex’s character traits because it’s really not? i mean either it isn’t or we need to redefine greed. vex’s “greed” is a trauma response. this is something deeply fucking fascinating to me about the twins because they clearly went in two opposite direction in developing coping mechanisms--vax is impulsive to a fault, lives in the moment, does not plan well. if something is there that he wants, he takes it--the thing is that this most often happens with actions or experiences or even affection, so vax doesn’t get painted as “greedy”.

he’s about to die? fuck it, let’s kiss keyleth. that gap is closing but he can prooobaly squeeze through? time to sprint, never mind the broken rib. found the briarwoods? don’t let them get away, you need to try and get information out of them right now, fuck calling for backup. grog simply isn’t understanding his argument? it’s not worth continuing, he’s already walking away. he’s this perfect little intersection of adhd symptoms + resource insecurity.

meanwhile vex goes in the opposite direction--she gets legitimately freaked out if someone is using the party funds without permission and spends a lot of time budgeting, managing their inventory, and making sure they have everything they need. she’s less likely to take something she wants or even needs, for herself or her party, out of fear that it means there won’t be enough later. on the surface it seems greedy or uptight or whatever but the entire thing is motivated out of a driving need for her chosen family to never do without. it’s not like vex controls the party funds so tightly so she can buy herself whatever she wants when no one is looking--no, it’s so they always have enough to buy more fucking healing potions. every time vex snaps at someone for, say, losing the flying carpet, there’s this deep and underlying fear, in my mind at least, that it’ll mean she won’t be able to take care of them as well. every single money related move vex makes is to take care of the party

and then percy, who grew up knowing what it was to have everything and not feeling, one way or the other, much burdened by the accompanying responsibilities or particularly pleased with being royalty...percy, introduced to trauma and tragedy just as early in life as vex was and unable to imagine that the blame was anything but his, percy, who came to understand poverty later in life but never found it as painful as the burden of his perceived guilt...

“Since the day I've met her, I've given her every bloody dime I've made. So, yes. I no longer even think about it anymore.”

“And I love you for it.”

“She's practically the royal treasurer. She's just happier that way.”

this is DIFFICULT!!! not because percy cares so much about having money, it’s never really made much of a difference to him one way or another--but because he KNOWS vex!! he knows what this means for her! he knows this makes her happy, and he also understands that this is how vex loves him. and he lets her.

for so much of their early relationship, their interactions consist of vex’s “goddammit, let me love you, percy” being blocked by percy’s crippling self hatred not allowing himself any form of comfort or hell even humanity that could come with viewing vex as anything more than an ally. 

but he gives her his money. he knows. he understands, at this point. percy gives vex money in an act that is oddly full of self love, and vex accepts percy’s title, percy’s arrows--the only things for her, the only things not closely guarded and measured out to take care of everyone but her. it’s a self perpetuating cycle of love and healing.

[starlightshore]

Question about your DP AU but what are the main trio's families like? I think you've talked about Jack and Maddie a few times, but not in depth. Anything different between Sam and Tucker's parents? How much do the parents know about each other or what their kids are up to?

oof this topic is hard cause its been a long time since i watched the actual show (minus the two eps i watched to answer asks) and well, there really isn't a ton to work with regarding Tucker's Family. they seem nice. that's all we got. there's not even a "personality" section on their wiki page.

in the fandom, oddly enough, there's only one fic that comes to mind rn that had tucker's parents be semi-important (or at least, relevant) i can't remember the name rn but its like, "nobody knows au, tucker is a reluctant psychic who has to find a serial killer AU" which was a banger. i don't have a lot to go off of, so in all honesty I'm likely just going to make shit up to make things more interesting.

(img description in the photo)

putting all of this in a read-more cause its loooong.

What we DO know is that Danny and Tucker were "best friends since forever" so, here they are as besties from like, kindergarten. We can easily assume Maurice and Angela (Tucker's parents) don't mind the Fenton's antics, or at the very least tolerate it enough to allow Tucker to be exposed to their strangeness.

Meanwhile Sam would be going to some Rich Kid school. To up the ante, my take has Sam do something so scandalous and horrifying that this rich family moves from New York to a small town in Minnesota.

Sam isn't actually proud of it, but plays it off as if they are. cause like, yeah, their parents are never going to let them live it down. which is a success. We never learn what the hell happened, it's Sam's Noodle Incident.

Anyway to lay low from the shame of the event, they move to Ida's hometown (Sam's grandma) and it's Sam's punishment. They're "grounded for life."

To Jeremy and Pam's ignorance (Sam's parents) Sam is HAPPY to be away from the big schools and high end life. Not that they'll let them know that, like, ever.

I have no idea if this is canon or fanon but there's the idea that Jeremy and Pam are too busy and negligent to be aware of what's going on in Sam's life. And as long as Sam isn't repeating the New York Incident, Sam is probably fine to do as they please. They know now to keep a low profile.

Jeremy and Pam hate the local Fentons, first for being Weirdos and then later for bringing in the ghosts. (Which honestly, like, fair...) Poor Danny and Jazz get lumped in, seen as bad kids despite just Existing within the family.

The Only Normal Ones (tm)

For contrast, Tucker's family is middle class and very loving and attentive parents. Not helicopter level, but more than the average parent. Maurice and Angela keep track of Tucker's social media and worry about him -especially once the ghosts come out.

i won't go too into too much detail since i might make that fic, but I do want to give Tucker's family more importance and screen time. I won't be saying how but it'll be a nice development.

Danny's family is the same as they are in canon on a surface level. Some details are changed, but we get a similar result.

So for context: pre-portal ghost sightings are rare and people are quick to either see it as: superstition, a hoax, or misunderstanding of natural phenomena. The Fentons believe there's a natural explanation -until some shared childhood experience throws them into believing the paranormal. But they hate how ghosts are seen as gimmicky. They believe in the REAL science.

They want to use Math and Physics to explain the supernatural. They believe in a different dimension with different laws of nature, and they're going to uncover it! And obviously, they do with the Portal.

They study it with the help of Vlad's funding (who's relationship is different in this AU -he's still an evil bitch as always tho) they create the portal and study it alongside Vlad's team. (This is my work around from keeping the Fentons away from the GUI) Their personal bias against ghosts is something more "neutral" rather than "evil."

Personally I think misguided science is more interesting than outright witch-hunting styled ghost hating. the core conflict is the same, but it makes the parents more rational and grounded to science. This is a personal preference, each have their strengths. Regardless they've got big egos and jumping into a literal Unknown field of science that has it's own new physics, of course they're going to fail and misunderstand things. (science is failure just written down or however that saying goes)

[killerskillercaptain]

Embarrassing moments w/ Levi Ackerman BOOK II

I only put one incident in this one because inspiration was running wild and things got out of hand, so enjoy !

You can read BOOK ONE here

word count : 1,9K

warnings : implicit seggsual themes, slight angst.

The client incident

Erwin had put you and Levi on a special mission; both of you received one letter from the commander urging you to go meet Balkus Adomas, a businessman whom Erwin was used to work with to get funds for the SC, and god knows the Survey Corps needed that financial support lately. With all the casualties, injured horses and used up equipment you lost in your encounter with the female titan, you could definitely use some help, any help actually.

The letter instructed Levi to tie up the negotiations, as Erwin had already sent a letter to Balkus, stating the nature of the visit; the letter also instructed Levi to take you with him to officialize everything on legal documents.

Levi sent one letter back to Erwin asking the commander about the nature of the business this man held. Three days later, the response consisted of a short sentence that wasn’t very helpful, and its vagueness didn’t make Levi happy; he hated being kept in the dark about the people he needed to work with.

The letter only said « « You’ll know when you get there »

The next morning, right after dawn, you and Levi were already on your horses, heading to the small town situated in the west, where the businessman was to be found. It was a good four hours ride, but you were accustomed by now to even longer distances.

Reaching your destination, Levi followed Erwin’s instructions, it didn’t take long for you two to find the location. Heading towards the main entrance, you couldn’t help but notice the frowning faces locals threw at you while passing you by. The place was an old, seemingly neglected property, it didn’t look like a business run by a rich businessman who could land money to the military, and you could sense that levi was thinking the same. You stood there studying the poorly maintained building for a moment until the main door suddenly flew open and a little round man, probably in his forties appeared with a dangling woman at his arm, the woman was laughing uncontrollably while planting kisses alongside the man’s neck, both of them completely ignoring the accusing stares being directed towards them.

Is this a tavern ?

Wait no.

You felt your legs tremble a little, and you suddenly felt embarrassed at the realization : it was a brothel. And the cheap kind by the looks of it.This Balkus Adomas runs a freaking brothel. Slightly alarmed, as this was completely out of your comfort zone, you glanced nervously at Levi who didn’t show any sign of tension. But little did you know, the short man was infuriated and boiling under the surface.

You on the other hand, were visibly stressed out. In a moment of hesitation you wanted to grab Levi’s hand like a child lost in an adult place but you managed to hold your composure, and decided to follow him by staying as close as possible to him. Levi headed rapidly to a broad bearded man, he looked like he was the receptionist or something of the sort, Levi asked if he could see Adomas.

" You should have been notified we were coming, we’re sent by Erwin Smith "

" Yes, yes this good old’ Erwin Smith, he said he’ll send someone ! "

The way the man said « good old’ Erwin Smith » made it look somewhat suspicious, and you wondered if the commander was fond of such places as it hardly seemed so to you.

" Well Lord Adomas is not here now, but you can wait for him, he comes early in the morning to do some accounting, as you see, the business is running wild lately "

" You can spend the night here if you want " he added.

You felt Levi tense up.

" Erwin will hear me about it, making us stay the night, not even being able to get an appointment correctly " you heard Levi mumble to himself between greeted teeth. You could clearly see now that this place is stressing him just as much.

" Don’t worry, Erwin Smith has always been good to us, intervening for us every time something threatened to close this place, and get Lord Adomas out of business, so we owe him big time "

You somehow got reassured that this was the nature of their connection to Erwin.

" I’m gonna give you a room to stay in for the night for free, it’s on the house "

He dangled a golden key in front of us, but when levi reached out to take it, the man retracted his hand behind the counter, a mischievous smile contorting his lips.

" Unless you want to spend the night as a customer Captain Levi ? "

Levi snatched the key from the man who now turned to you, completely ignoring the short captain.

" Hey miss, you’re not bad either, have you ever thought about leaving the army ? We could get you a job here, you’ll see, Lord Adomas treats his employees with extra care " he ended his speech with a nasty tone that had you both in such discomfort that you could almost feel Levi’s anger and you shivered at the way he said extra care. Dragging you by the collar of your military jacket, Levi headed with you towards the stairs, in search for the right bedroom while you followed him closely. As you were afraid of; the walls were incredibly thin in this place, and discernible sounds could be heard from each door. A series of thuds, creaks and lewd voices which you did your best to ignore, while you and the captain hurried to find the right door. Being here with Levi made this whole situation so much more uncomfortable, and right now, you cursed yourself for being the only person capable (and available) to do the paperwork, you hated that you were in charge, you hated that your signature was required, you-

" Here’s the shitty door "

You looked at the door, it was situated at a fair distance from the others, but didn’t look as damaged, maybe it didn’t get used a lot, or at least you hoped.

A demanding and urgent female voice erupted suddenly, close enough that both of you could hear it clearly. You tried to ignore how shaky your legs were now, you tried to focus on Levi opening the door but your eyes met a trembling Levi having difficulties opening the door, his hand too shaky to insert the key right, obviously he was just as startled as you were. When both of you finally heard a reassuring click, he slammed open the door with a "Tch"!

" Can’t believe this mess Erwin put us in, he’ll hear me about it ! "

You followed him inside. The room seemed fairly in order, didn’t seem to be too dusty, you sighed in relief, but your relief was short-lived, it sure wasn’t dusty but it did look completely unsanitary, no wonder this place gets threatened to be closed so often.

" Tch ! I’m taking fifty showers after this, and i’m gonna scrub my feet with Erwin’s- "

" Um Captain ? "

" WHAT ? " he asked harshly, getting you a bit startled by his tone.

Hey don’t lash out at me, it’s not my fault we��re in this mess.

" There’s only one bed "

" You can have it, i’m not sleeping in this filth "

" Neither do i , Captain " you said picking up a long strand of hair from the pillow and studying it before tossing it aside. The place was filthy.

But to both your consolation, there were two chairs made out of wicker that seemed not too risky to use.

You took the one on the left, Levi took the one on the right before looking at you.

" We’ll wait here until this Adomas piss of shit shows up so we can get it done with the paperwork and get out of this filthy hell " and those were the only words he spoke to you for the rest of night.

You were already feeling a bit sleepy, all the exhaustion caused by the trip creeping back to you. You had dozed off for what seemed like half an hour before you were awaken by new sounds rising abruptly from the next room. You jolted in your seat, the unsettling sounds of moans and boastful voices filling the room quickly, followed by a string of giggles, then another string of incomprehensible moany gibberish. You couldn’t make up a single word but you understood all too well the activities taking place in the other room. Still trying to compose yourself and get rid of the embarrassment sucking you in you right now, you suddenly remembered that you weren’t alone in the room, and turned quickly to look for the captain.

Levi was still sitting in his chair, you realized he had moved it away from you, almost placing himself at the other corner of the room, his fists tightening on his knees, he had the most irritated expression you’ve ever seen on his face, he looked like he was ready to snap a neck in half. Was it possible that he has been awake the entire time while you were sleeping ? Having to listen to the most indecent events going on next door ?

He was staring right in front of him, he looked as if he was trying to avert your gaze, afraid that a single stare shared between you two at this moment would aggravate the discomfort, and he was spot on.

Now the lewd voices were joined by the most obscene of sounds. You could feel your face, your hands and everything in between grow hot, you tried your best to keep a steady composure and not look at Levi who was incredibly silent at the other end of the room. Damn it, the smutty opera next door got you so alert you couldn’t even hope to sleep it off so you don’t have to endure this unbearable atmosphere.

You stayed like this until dawn. You and the captain, sitting stiff with both your hands glued to your thighs like two Egyptian statues while the auditory nuisance went on, all fucking night.

For a brief moment you heard Levi mutter something that you deciphered as « Erwin you piss of shit, you’re gonna pay for this»

--

You did get to Balkus Adomas the next day at the crack of dawn, he did accept to continue supporting the Scouts, you did go through the administration stuff you were dragged in here for. You even had Adomas make the same suggestion to you as the bearded receptionist; offering you to leave your uncomfortable scouting uniform for something else, vaunting about how much you can get paid in one night here, nothing like you meager salary at the Scouts for sure ! At one point you literally had to forcefully take off his hand that he sneakily placed on the small of your back. At the sight of it, Levi snatched the documents, handed a copy to Adomas and hurried you and himself out of the place.

Back to HQ, you were happy to reunite with your bed, ready to recover from last night. You shared your quarters with Petra, laying on your mattress, you filled her in about what happened to you with the captain as she bursted with laughter at every detail you gave her.

The next day, Levi was nowhere to be found as you went to his office as usual. You asked one of the soldiers where if he'd seen the captain and he just shrugged his shoulders, saying that Levi left a message for you as the soldier gave you a folded piece of paper.

« Going to see Erwin for a special meeting ».

[trannydean-moved]

RvB Merfolk!AU

In the news that I'll be unable to get on the internet soon, I'm making sure I posted at least one more AU of mine before I have to leave. And the one I've chosen is my merfolk AU!

Basically, the RnB's, most of the major Freelancers, and the PFL AIs are different species of merfolk. Almost everyone is a different type, so that means there are a lot on unique designs for everybody! I haven't gotten to it yet, but I'm hoping to be able to draw at least some of them and maybe post them on here (preferably whe I have a phone and a better camera).

In this AU, the Freelancers have their own pod that is unusually large for the present day's standards. (Pods are what I'm calling a group of merfolk. If there's an official name for groups of merfolk then please let me know!) Due to their dwindling numbers, a pod of 3-5 is the common number, although pods will come together briefly to migrate to better feeding grounds. The Freelancer pod, however, consists of nine members, including multiple healthy adolescents. They are led by a strong leader, Carolina, with equally great co-leaders (I can't come up with a better name rn), Tex and Carolina. The pod is constantly moving, making them very hard to locate, which is their intention. It's better to stay always on the move so no one can find them.

Then we have Charon Industries, run by old multimillionaire Malcolm Hargrove. To the public, Charon Industries is a scientific research organization who research rare marine species to learn more about them to "allow humankind to understand these endangered species". Of course, that's not what they're really doing: they actually capture merpeople and other marine species to experiment on them and shit. They have public displays of species other than merpeople for the public to see, and give the excuse of "merpeople are at a higher intelligence and conscious levels than these other species and shouldn't be on public display as if they were animals themselves" so none of the public eye gets to see them. This is a good reason to not have public displays, so everyone goes along with it. But really, they don't care about the merfolk's "higher intelligence and conscious levels" and see them as animals, like every other creature they're experimenting on.

Felix, Locus, and an OC of mine known as Archer are all poachers for Charon (Sharkface would be too but he's got to be a mershark. I mean come on). There are multiple scientists who work behind the scenes, including Doyle and Kimball (who is working like CT in PFL), and several interns only working in public-friendly areas (these interns, ofc, are Chorus cadets, as well as Delaware). These interns WILL cause trouble and you WILL enjoy it.

Then there's the PFL AIs. They are all merbabies who were made in one of Charon's labs. Lots of them died days, hours, or even minutes after being created, so the only survivors are Delta, Theta, Eta, Iota, Epsilon, and Tau. They're all a recent project Charon started on, so during the present-time for the fic, they are all very little.

And then we have a merfolk sanctuary known as Longshore. It's run by Florida (who else right haha), and Freelancers like Wyoming, Utah, Georgia, the Triplets, etc. work at or with the sanctuary, along with some other Chorus kids who are mostly college/graduate school students who are volunteering for extra credit and such. And Dr. Grey is the sanctuary's doctor. She used to work for Charon years ago, but she spoke out about their unethical ways and was immediately fired and made to look like a crackpot so no one believed her. Of course, this comes back to bite Charon later, so joke's on them really haha. This sanctuary is where the RnB's are at. They'll come up later.

The Director is a scientist interested in Charon's studies, unknowing of how unethical the company is. He wants to fund them in their research, but he's heard faint rumors of how Charon is secretly awful, so he's trying to find out if these rumors have anything behind them first. So yes, he's not a complete douchebag... it was a hard decision to make but here it is.

Now, onto more of the plot. Hargrove catches wind of the Freelancer pod, and ofc he is interested. No one has seen a standalone pod as big as theirs in years. Decades. Possibly even centuries. Hargrove thinks that there's something going on with them to have as many members in it and he wants to know what it is. Like that's any of his business, but whatever. So he results to “let’s capture a few of these guys to see how different they are from other merpeople I have stored in my collection”. (Literally nothing is different, other than they're actually healthier than most of the other merfolk he's captured. He doesn’t care and just decides to keep them.)

So he sends his poachers out to search for them. It's extremely hard to do so when they're always moving and no one knows where the hell they are. It takes literal years of constant work in the field for them to find even a trace of the pod.

But unfortunately, they eventually catch up with them. They're able to capture Wash and Mich, two of the pod's adolescents. Archer realizes that these two aren't even adults, and while his partners don't care, he does care, and is not liking the fact the company has resulted to capturing young ones now. And so begins Archer's redemption arc.

Meanwhile, back in the ocean, the Freelancer pod is furious that two of their members have now been captured. Carolina immediately leads them all in the direction the poachers went. Some of the more pessimistic members (*cough* South *cough*) say that Wash and Mich are long gone, but no one is giving up. Pod members are extremely loyal to each other, and none of them are going to abandon their captured friends. They eventually meet up with Niner, a lone merperson who happens to be a great navigator, and she joins up with the pod to help look for Mich and Wash.

Then there's stuff that ends up leading to one of Charon's interns, Del, Kimball, and Archer rescuing Mich and Wash, as well as the surviving AI merbabies, and taking them to Longshore. Mich and Wash are traumatized from being separated from their pod and for everything they went through at Charon, and are immediately assigned to the Reds and Blues pod. They gradually warm up to their new pod, but obviously they are still wishing they were with the Freelancers.

The AI merbabies are each assigned to an older merperson to take care of them. Mich originally only has Tau, but all of the others (besides Epsilon) are unhappy with the merperson they were assigned to, and they all decide Mich should be the one who takes care of them. Mich is at first delighted they all like her... but then she realizes how exhausting it is to take care of a bunch of merbabies and it's stressful. At least it's a distraction from worrying about her pod...?

Eventually, Niner is able to locate the sanctuary, and in turn Mich and Wash! The whole pod is so happy to see them again :) so they try to break Mich and Wash out so that they can all leave. Mich and Wash are overjoyed to see them again! But they've got all these merbabies now and they don't know if it's safe to move them around... Carolina reassures it is (she did help raise Mich after all), but Mich and Wash aren't so sure. Eventually, the pod gets caught trying to break Mich and Wash out, and Florida does his best to explain that it's best for Mich and Wash to recover from their traumatic experiences while not having to worry about getting caught all over again. After a lot of problems and arguing, the pod decides to stay at the sanctuary.

Meanwhile, Hargrove is furious that Mich and Wash seemingly escaped. He believes someone let them out but doesn't know who, so he's now suspicious of everyone. Del, Kimball, and Archer are all trying to gather up enough evidence to convict Hargrove of all the shit he's done. It's quite difficult, however, to get cameras in or out (every employee has to go through one of those metal detector doorways that airports and stuff have every time they enter or exit the building). So there's going to be a plan involving on of the other interns and their relatives who will visit the public-friendly displays, smuggling the camera to the area the merfolk are kept, and not getting caught on surveillance cameras while capturing the evidence. They'll get the evidence to the Director, who brings the issues to the public. Hargrove will get charged for experimentation on creatures and all the other shit he's done, and uh all the scientists involved will have to go through court stuff. Idk how this sort of thing would work so I've still got to do research to get more details out of this.

Now I'm going to give descriptions on everyone in the Freelancer and Reds and Blues pods, because it's necessary and awesome, and honestly what I'm most proud of so far with this AU.

First, I'll start out with the Reds and Blues pod. Sarge is one of the longest residing residents at the sanctuary. No one other than Florida knows his story and he doesn't want to talk about it. I haven’t figured out the whole thing yet but I’m thinking that his whole pod died somehow, maybe a pack of orcas, and Sarge got injured and Florida rescued him. He's a bull shark merman, and as you would expect, has a huge temper and a liking for violence. He is not afraid to resort to violence for his first reaction to anything, especially if it's to protect his pod. Because he doesn’t want to lose this new one like he did with his previous one :) He is the leader of the Red Team portion of the Reds and Blues pod. (Sarge has insisted on a separation between the Reds and Blues since the beginning)

Grif is a laid-back koi merman who would rather be sleeping than dealing with everybody else's shit. His and Kai's parents got killed by hunters when they were kids, and they were rescued by the sanctuary soon after. He often steals other merfolk's fish snacks if they don't eat it fast enough, and is known as the ultimate food snatcher of Red Team. He isn’t the most friendly and doesn’t like to socialize like his sister does, but he is pretty close to Simmons.

Simmons is a dolphin merman and is the most skittish little booger that you've ever met. I know there's a ton of different types of dolphins, so I'll try narrowing it down to something more specific, but I wanted to go with something more than the trademark bottlenose. Anyways, he got abandoned by his parents after his tail got mostly bitten off by a shark. He washed up on a beach and was found by one of the previous volunteers. Dr. Grey was able to save him, and made a prosthetic for him, kinda like in that movie Dolphin's Tale. He's been scared of most of everything since losing most of his tail, and all of the Reds and Blues try to help him overcome his fears. Grif is the one who he becomes comfortable with first, and they have been pretty inseparable ever since.

Donut is a cuttlefish merfolk because they are so shiny!!! I think they can change color so that seems like something Donut would like. He's still pretty young, barely out of his adolescence stage, and is a peppy ray of sunshine who does his best to make everyone smile. He is the one who does his best to make sure all newcomers are happy in their new environment. He had been found as a young merkid wandering around with just Doc as his companion.

Doc is one of those bioluminescent fish you find deep in the ocean. Not necessarily an anglerfish, maybe something slightly less scary. Maybe a dragonfish? Anyway, everyone is scared of him at first, especially as he begins growing into his normally terrifying features, but he's the nicest guy you've ever met. He and Donut have been friends since they were very young, and they plan on sticking it together till the end.

I know I really should have Lopez here, but I really don't know what to put him as. Maybe a blow-fish because "passive-aggressive prickly butt hmph" but how would a blow-fish merman work??? If he got startled or angry, he would get too round to really fit along with the human portion of the body. Maybe he could just be a regular blow-fish that hangs around the sanctuary.

Church is the leader of the Blue Team portion of the Reds and Blues pod. He's definitely a shark--maybe like one of those smaller fast sharks—makos maybe? He really doesn't want to deal with anyone's shit, not now, not ever. He didn't really want to be leader of the Blues' side, but Tucker is incompetent, Kai is too young as well as incompetent, and Caboose is... no (they tried that out once and it ended in a disaster). So, the job was left up to Church. He actually found the sanctuary rather than being brought there—he had been bringing Caboose here because he wanted this guy to leave him alone and he thought the sanctuary would be the best place for him. Church just ended up staying.

Tucker is a shark merman as well—probably something calmer though, like maybe a nurse or lemon shark. He has a pup named Junior who is a shark merkid too. He had gotten separated from his pod when Junior had nearly gotten eaten by a squid in the midst of the pod migrating. By the time Junior was out of harm's way, their pod was long gone. They wandered for a long time before the sanctuary brought the two in. The two were able to fully recuperate and now Tucker is back to being his obnoxious stupid self. No one missed that.

Caboose is a squid merfolk, because eight arms and two tentacles means ten extra limbs to hug with! He is literally ginormous and often intimidates those who do not know him. He’s tries very hard to not hurt anyone with his suckers as he hugs them, but sometimes he forgets if he gets really excited. He was found by Church, who had been looking for someone that definitely wasn't him, and just latched onto him. Literally. Church had been the first merfolk Caboose had seen in who knows how long and Caboose would not let go of him for the first few days.

Caboose has a pet... starfish? Who looks all cute and harmless but haha watch out. Those who are mean to Caboose will get a nasty surprise. AKA slow and steady, Freckles the starfish climb up them and bite them. It has happened multiple times to Church, which pisses him off very much, and Caboose has to remind Freckles to not go after Church.

Kai is Grif's younger sister and also a koi merfolk. She's more yellow than her brother and definitely more friendly. She is a social butterfly (sea butterfly?) and likes to mingle with the other pods at the sanctuary, as well as her own. Grif says she's too young to remember their parents being killed by the hunters, but she actually does remember and is quite traumatized from it. Any mention of hunters makes her swim for cover :(

And now for the Freelancer pod! Carolina is a very strong shark merfolk. Maybe like a tiger shark? That’d be rad. She became the leader of her pod (which had been consisting of just herself, York, Mich, Tex) after her adopted mother stepped down to allow Carolina to take her place. After Carolina became leader, the pod began migrating around a lot to find lone merfolk to join them. She's a good leader and always puts her pod first. She loves her pod very much and would do anything for them. Including go through the entire ocean to find their two youngest members after they got abducted by stinky poachers.

Are otter merfolk a thing? They better be because that's what York is. If not, I'm making them a thing now. Because otters are playful as shit and like if he proposed to Carolina by giving her his favorite rock I would die (yeah I know that's a penguin thing but could it be this guy's thing too?). Also aren’t they really good with their hands? They use them to beat clams and shit with rocks so like yeah that’s cool. Otters are just awesome and it’d be cool to see York as one. Anyways he and Carolina have known each other for a looong time. Like, since they were really young and all of their parents were still alive. I'm thinking both his and Carolina's parents might've gotten abducted by poachers because why else would they feel so strongly about poachers and staying away from them?

Tex is a great white shark merperson, period. I can't think of anything better and really, I don’t need to. She was a part of Carolina's pod before parents started getting fishnapped, and was some sort of nanny except super badass. After most of the other pod members were abducted, Tex was the only one left who was old enough to lead, so she did. She also raised three moron merkids, so to keep them all safe and raise them into smart(?), healthy individuals earns her mother of the year award. Once Carolina was old enough, Tex let her take the seat as leader because it was Carolina's birthright anyways. No slaying heirs to the leadership title here! Tex is a good team player now, and she and Carolina are NOT enemies <3

Mich is the younger sibling of York, so she's a merotter as well. She was just a baby when her parents were abducted, and she was raised by the joint contributions of her older brother York, Carolina, and Tex. Who knew raising a little baby was so hard! She was an asshat baby who was very difficult to wrangle and she loved making her caretakers' lives a living hell. But she settled down a bit after Carolina became the leader and they started migrating around, because now she had more places to roam and more things to occupy her with. She tuned down even more so when they picked up Wash. Now she had a friend to mess with and she was able to redirect her mischievous spirit into something other than torturing Tex and the others—torturing Wash! Don't worry, he was okay. He helped her calm her stupid ass down, and she helped him not be such a worry wort.

Wash is a dolphin merman, I think. Maybe a smaller dolphin like a spinner? Or whatever those pretty black and white ones are called. His parents were snagged in some poacher's nets and he had to flee for his life. Carolina's pod found him soon after. He was quite traumatized and stuck in a deep shell but Mich was able to help him out. They became immediate best friends. I mean at first he was genuinely scared of her crazy… everything, but he soon realizes her intentions are well-meant and she’s not so bad.

C.T. is a young octopus mermaid who joined very soon after Wash did. She and Wash had actually been a part of the same pod before his parents had split from the pod. C.T. was very happy to reunite with Wash, and vice versa. C.T., Wash, and Mich became quite the trio because I said so. They are all just best friends. There is much chaos. When Wash and Mich get abducted, C.T. is very scared for them. She is among the most earnest to travel far and wide to find them again. She needs to get the other two members of her trio back :(

North and South are eel merfolk because I say so. They are complete opposites in all ways except one: they are extremely loyal to each other. And they both have purple eel bodies. Though North has a darker purple body and South's is more lavender. They were making it pretty okay on their own, after South had run (swam) away from their pod and North had followed. But they were happy to join Carolina's band of misfits when they came along. South wasn't too thrilled to join when she found out little nuisance creatures were there (*cough* Mich *cough*) but North loved them, so she went along with it.

Maine is an orca merman because yes big dolphin big man. He is selectively(?) mute and only talks when it's really necessary for him to do so. He had been alone for many years before Carolina's pod found him. It took him a while to once again get used to being around others, but everybody helped out with that. He eventually showed his weakness for dumb children because he often took Mich and Wash and C.T. off of York's and Carolina's and Tex's hands/fins to take them playing/exploring for hours. Everyone was very relieved for the peace and quiet.

Niner is a barracuda merperson. She joins after Mich and Wash are captured and the Freelancer pod are on high-travel mode. She had been alone for a long time and decided joining a good, strong pod like the Freelancers was a pretty good idea. Besides, she is an expert at navigating the water currents and oceans in general, so she proves to be a valuable asset to finding Mich and Wash.

Then the AI children! Delta is a sea turtle merbaby. He is definitely green and a very practical child. He is constantly questioning everyone else’s logic on everything and it can get annoying but they still love him. He was the most agreeable merbaby out of everyone, so Mich favored him over most of the other merbabies when she had to take care of all of them. All the same, she was glad to give him up to York once he came along. York was a bit perplexed about a merbaby as serious as Delta but he just went with it lmao.

Theta is an octopus merbaby. He usually stays a mixture of purple and orange and is very skittish. He is very clingy and likes to wrap his arms around the few people he is comfortable around (Mich and North mainly) when he’s scared, or just any time really. He wasn’t like the most difficult merbaby to deal with, but he was always literally hanging off of Mich’s arms so she was very happy to hand him off to North. Theta immediately bonded to North which was very good, and North loved him as well. South isn’t so keen to have this kid around but she ends up loving him too. Theta comes to love his new aunt after he realizes she isn’t as scary as she likes to act <3

Eta and Iota are twin seahorse merbabies. Eta is very scared of everything, and Iota is a very happy merbaby. Eta is yellow and Iota is blue ofc. When Eta is feeling scared, he curls his tail around Iota’s and it’s honestly really cute. Mich found it hard dealing with them because Eta was a fussy merbaby who was scared of everything, so he cried a lot. Iota did his best to comfort his twin but there’s only so much a newborn can do. Carolina wasn’t thrilled to hear if she took one, she took both, because the twins are a buy one, get one free situation. She ends up warming up to them though.

Epsilon is a type of crab merbaby because I say so (also he’s crabby haha). He is different than the other merbabies because he’s more land-abiding than the others. He’s got claws and is always willing to snap at somebody, whether he’s unhappy or not. He is assigned to Wash, and is the only merbaby besides Tau to be all right with the merperson he was originally assigned to. Wash is sort of frightened by Epsilon because he’s always snapping at everybody and has this perpetually grumpy look on his face, and honestly wished Epsilon didn’t imprint on him. But alas, Epsilon did, and Wash is the only person, mer or not, that Epsilon fully likes and snaps at the least. He looks an awful like a baby Church, which everyone wonders why the fuck he looks that way…

Tau is a squid merbaby because red!! He is a very curious child who is all into swimming off to find new things to discover. He uses all eight arms and two tentacles to touch things he probably shouldn’t. Tau was Mich’s favorite because he reminded her a bit of herself. She decided to keep him as her own after the Freelancers came and took up all of the others. Tau likes to lay on Mich’s stomach while she’s floating on top of the water like baby otters do with their moms <3 She held all of the merbabies like that and Tau seemed to take a liking to it the most.

And that's what I have so far! I love this one ngl (really I love all of my AUs) and I'm excited to draw their designs and write stuff out for it.

If anyone has suggestions about this or any of the other AUs I will be posting about, don't be afraid to send an ask or discuss it in the posts!

Tagged: @queerchorus (if anyone else wants to be tagged in my AU posts, lmk!)