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poppy-metal · 3 years

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"The first time you hear Izuku moan your name, its with you hiding on the other side of his closet door, your hand clapped over your mouth in shock.”

A/N: im placing this before the sexual side of their relationship begins. A prelude of sorts, if you will.

Cw: voyeurism, smut, dekus secretly dirty mouth.

All things considered izuku’s room was...not as gross as you expected a staple college aged guys dorm room to be. It was cluttered but not disgusting, posters of comics and figurines and manga and some clothes strewn about, everything kind of frenzied and haphazard. It was so incredibly deku, a secret smile pulled at your lips, even though your reasons for being here were less than innocent

He’s wearing fucking pink. Because of course he is, of course izuku is humble and comfortable in his masculinity enough to pull off a bright pink t-shirt. It hugs his chest too, and you have to wonder if literally any of his clothes fit him and the tits he decided to grow in college. His image is so utterly imposing, his smile so bright, and laugh so airy, it sends butterflies flipping through your stomach at just the sight of him and that makes you want to vomit. Your lips curl in a sneer and you’re walking towards him and the group of friends he’s talking to as if on reflex.

Stupid, lovely deku. You knock your shoulder into his as you pass, hard enough that his books clatter and fall to the floor, scattering. And then those green eyes are on you, giving you his attention and your body feels alive, your blood cells buzzing under your skin even as he frowns. The dimples on his freckled face fall as he takes you in. Yes, you think, look at me, see me, want me.

Out loud you say. “Watch where you’re going, stupid deku” and you’re looking at him like he’s the dirt under your shoe. He’s not. He’s the center of your universe. Your world tilts around his axis. “Pink isn’t your fucking color by the way”. it is.

Izuku huffs. He’s past the point where he used to turn as red as a tomato and duck his head whenever you stood in front of him, but he’s still deku at the end of the day. An easy target. “If looking at me bothers you so much you could just ignore me.” He crouches down to pick up his things. His words make you itch, if you could ignore him, you wouldn’t fucking be here. Its because he exists too much, that you want to push him down so much.

You step your manicured foot onto his notebook right as he’s about to grab it. He tugs at it, you dont budge, and he looks up at you, exasperated. “Can i have my notebook, please?”

Why is he so fucking pretty? God, you want to throw up. You dig your heel in further, covering the flutter you feel in your chest with a practiced sneer. “I like the way you say please, deku.” You lean down a little, “Say ‘your highness’ and i’ll move”

It’s a thrill, seeing the way his jaw sets, his brow furrows, his eyes go annoyed. Sweet, sweet, friendly izuku. You’re the only one he looks at like this, like he wants to throttle you. But he won’t. You see his adams apple bob, his cheeks dust pink, even as he glares. “No”

You pause. It’s not the first time he’s gotten snippy with you, but the conviction behind it is new. You feel something in your stomach give a jump, your blood thrumming in your ears. You jerk your foot towards you, sliding his notebook out from his hands and standing completely on top of it with both your feet now. Your sticky lips, glossy and plump, spread into a mocking grin, “No? Do i need to slam you into some lockers and take you lunch money?” You feel a thousand feet tall, towering above him still kneeling, you on the high ground, looking down at him below you, where he can’t reach you. Can’t ever see the truth. “C’mon pansy, you’re already on your knees anyway”

But he isn’t anymore. He jerks to a stand, and now he’s taller than you, but you puff your chest out, not letting that affect you. It always affects you. Not that he knows or ever notices. Your eyes are widening when he steps forward so you’re practically nose to nose and chest to chest. “I don’t have time for you” he snaps, irritated. And then he’s stepping away as suddenly as he stepped up, the rest of his things gathered in his arms, he shakes his head at you, a tendril of that mossy mousey hair falling into his eyes. “I gotta get to class”

And then he’s gone, brushing by you, disengaging. You stand there, your breath stuck in your chest, not moving. ‘I dont have time for you’ over and over again rings through your head like a mantra. You step off his notebook robotically and kick it across the floor. It bangs against a wall and you feel your fists clench, nail beds digging into your palms harshly. ‘I dont have time for you’

You turn on your heel, away from the direction of your class, fury blinding you. Anger in place of humiliation, vindication in place of being humbled. You don’t know what crawled up his ass and made him think he was above you all the sudden, but you weren’t having it, not the fuck at all.

And that’s how you found yourself snooping through izukus dorm, with the intention of finding some kind of dirt, or something to hold over his stupid head. He didn’t have time for you? How dare he act like he was better than you, like he had things more important to do than to indulge you. You were still so mad you wanted to throw a tantrum, kick and scream and claw his eyes out. Straddle his stupid broad waist and shake him until all he saw was you, you, you.

You really hated him. Hated that because of him you were basically a bully because any attention from him was attention you thrived and lived under. Maybe if you weren’t so prideful, so disgusted by the weakness of your own gooey emotions for him, you would have tried to be the center of his attention in a nicer way, but as it was you were in too deep. This was the sick game you played, and losing wasn’t an option.

You hated how much that made you similar to bakugou in a way. You didn’t like that guy, and even weirdly so, you wanted to gouge his fucking eyes out for the way he treated and talked to izuku. Was it jealousy or possesivness that drove you to want to be the only one who could rile izuku? You wondered, sometimes, if bakugou felt the same way about you.

It was the loss of control, for you. Better yet, it was the way you liked the loss of that control. You had always prided yourself on being strong willed and a perfectionist. But whenever your eyes so much as grazed izukus, all your emotions went rattling around your stomach in sick twisted ways, giving you goosebumps, making you...nervous. It was a crush that had turned into an obsession, wasn’t it? And you wanted to make izuku suffer not only for invoking those messy feelings, but for not seeming to return them as well. If he couldn’t love you or want you romantically or sexually, you’d force yourself onto his radar and into his head until thinking about anyone else was impossible. Until you squirmed under his skin as much as he squirmed under yours.

Acting like you didnt exist was unacceptable. Obviously you’d slacked off on your taunts and actions, if he could just brush past you so easily, not taking your bait. You needed to even the playing field again, and by even you meant you needed to be towering above him again.

Towering over him so you dont have the time to think about how much you want to be under him, your mind whispers at you as you pick through his room, trying to find anything incripting. Someone like izuku would probably have something utterly embarrassing like a diary or some weird porn magazines, shameless, helpless guy that he was.

You huff as you open his drawer next to his bedside, nearly slamming it back shut in shock at what you see there.

You’re not stupid. You’re a healthy, young woman with an active sexual imagination and access to the world wide web, to porn.

Izuku has a fleshlight in his drawer. Izuku has a sexytoy. Izuku. And its green.

Izuku has a sex toy that he probably uses. That he probably sticks his cock into and moves-

An absurd laugh barks out of you, shocked and helpless. Because while in your head you knew izuku had to be some kind pervert, what other explanation was there for the way he blushed and darted his gaze around like a ping pong ball whenever you leaned forward and get caught a glimpse under your blouse, this is...unexpected. Imagining izuku in explicit scenarios, doing lewd things, it was something you didn’t allow your mind to wonder to often over. You didn’t like the way you got all squirmy and meek whenever you thought too long about izuku without clothes.

You feel kind of squirmy now, hot and uncomfortable as you shift around and try to gather your wits back about you. Revenge, that’s what you’re here for.

With a shaky exhale you turn away from his dresser, your thoughts flitting around your head like annoying gnats. What, who, does he think about when he…? What does he look like? What does his...c- You shake your head, slap your cheeks, trying to center yourself from the images floating around, flustering you and distracting you.

You’re in the middle of lifting the covers on his bed to peek under it, see if there’s anything there, when you hear the handle on his door jiggle. You freeze, every muscle in your body locked frozen like a deer in headlights as the knob twists, and then catches. Right. You’d picked the lock with one of your hair clips and then made sure to lock it again behind you just in case something like this happened. And by the, “Ugh” on the other side of the door, yep that’s definitely izuku. You’re shoved out of your shocked state, and bolting for his closet door as you hear the jingle of his keys twist in the lock, trying your best to close the door as quietly as possible behind you, it swishing shut barely a second before the door to his dorm opens and you hear him step in.

Class must have let out early or something, you think huffily, gently rearranging yourself into a comfortable position on a pile of his clothes as he shuffles around his room. You hear the thumb of him dropping his books, the shuffle of his feet, the clutter of him taking off his shoes and the squeak of his mattress as he plops down on it.

You tuck your knees to your chest and roll your eyes, picking at your leggings as you wonder how long you’ll have to hide before he goes to the bathroom or something so you can leave. It’s fucking stuffy in his closet already, the air hot. Your hand touches the soft fabric beneath you, realizing you’re sitting on one of his hoodies. Its too dark to see which one it is, but you imagine it as your favorite red one. Maybe you’d steal it as compensation for him making you sit and wait in his dumb closet while he probably stared at the ceiling with no thoughts in his dumb brain.

You hear him sigh, loud and dramatic, and then a muffled scream/groan into his pillow. Your lips twitch, he’s such a fucking drama queen.

Your little smile drops off your face when you hear the sound of his drawer opening.

Oh god. Oh no.

Your face feels like there are embers burning under it as you hear the unmistakable sound of clothes being shucked, a zipper and and then flop, and then….a slick wet sound and a sigh of relief.

Your eyes feel like they are bugging out of your head. Izuku is really about to fuck his fleshlight with you hiding in his closet with him none the wiser. You feel suddenly embarrassed and hot all over, hiding your face in your knees as you hear him let out a moan. A loud one.

You’re on fire, every part of you. You don’t think you can take this, don’t think you can sit through this and listen to this, think you should just burst out of his closet and use your bravado to somehow flip the situation and make him feel humiliated for getting off in the privacy of his own room, like he’s in the wrong even though you had violated so many boundaries for even being here right now.

You could do it too, you know. You’re good at twisting things, at powering through the complicated mess of flustered feelings izuku makes you feel and making it his fault, making him back down and cower. You could do it...you’re uncurling your legs and pushing your hands under you in the middle of getting up to do so when-

“Fuck. ___” Your name. You freeze, for an unholy, goldy second you think you’ve been caught, that he has acquired x-ray vision and has spotted you but no. His voice isn’t surprised or upset its...breathless, airy. He moaned it.

The first time you hear Izuku moan your name, its with you hiding on the other side of his closet door, your hand clapped over your mouth in shock.

Heat immediately shoots between your legs, your core throbbing unbidden in reflex to the sound, helpless to stop it, to have any other reaction. Your ass plops right back down. You turn slightly towards the door, pressing your side against it, your ear smooshed against the cool wood as you listen, as if drawn under a spell.

“You’re such…” You hear izuku pant, his voice deeper and more rough then you’ve ever heard it before. “A fucking brat”

Wet between your legs, seeping through your panties at his words, seemingly ripped out of him. God, he sounds pissed, wrecked. He cursed. You’ve never heard izuku curse before, never, even when you’d pushed him too far. Something really was different about today.

The slick sounds are more frequent now, steady and...and sounding like real sex you’d heard from porn before. Wet, sloppy, and slapping. Your knees knock together as you lean forward even more. There’s an invisible string pulling, tugging you forward, you want to see…

“Fucking slut” He grunts, and there’s a heavy slap, your breath catching in your fucking throat as you realize that...that must be the clap of his balls hitting the back of his fleshlight everytime he thrusts into it. “Always running your fucking mouth, looking down at me, so mean, you’re so fucking mean to me…uh..”

The sounds of sex fill the room and you can’t take it anymore, you’re burning, burning, burning, fuck the consequnces. You hesitantly and slowly turn the handle of the closet door, letting it slide open just a crack, enough for you to peek through, to get a glimpse.

His lean muscular back is the first thing you see, he’s facing directly away from his closet, thank god but oh god, that means you see..so much. The flex of his shoulder blades under his tan skin, the smattering of freckles over his shoulder, the long slender slope of his spine as it curves down his broad back, the dimbles at the bottom of his spine, flexing as he fucks his toy. His ass, because of course izuku would have a perfect round bubble butt. There are freckles there too.

Your eyes skate down, hungry to his large and heavy balls, low hanging and full, currently smacked right up against the base of the little pocket pussy he’s practically straddling on his bed.

It hits you again than, that deku is imagining that toy is you, he’s imagining fucking you in this position on his bed right now, imagining its your cunt hes pounding into, and your face he’s spitting those filthy words at.

Your hand is really moving without your permission when it slips under the band of your leggings into your panties, fingers immediately dipping between the slick folds of your pussy, silky and wet.

“-Wet” Izuku grunts, as you dip a finger just barely inside. “Fuck, i knew you’d be so fucking soft and good inside. Such a bratty girl would have a sweet cunt attached to her, huh?”

Fuck, where and when did izuku start speaking like this? His soft voice curling around such crude words is making you gush all over your fingers. You wish you could see the kind of face he was making when he said them.

“Yeah, you like taking my cock don’t you, baby?” He croons and if you close your eyes you can almost imagine he’s speaking directly into your ear, behind you. His thrusts get heavier, rougher, he lifts his leg up on the bed and you see a flash of the little green toy being fucked on his cock, big and angry looking. He’s being so brutal, hammering the thing down on his dick as he hips rut to meet every downward tug. “Milk it. Milk my fucking cock you whore. Wanna- fuck, wanna hear you say my name when you cum, want you to know who’s pouding that little pussy. The loser you fucking hate, yeah? Gonna cum for me?”

Yes, you whimper in your head in answer to him, your fingers curling deep, deep, inside, fucking yourself on them in earnest. He’s so big and you only caught a glimpse, but it was enough. Enough to know he’d fucking cleave you apart if he tried to fit that monster between his legs inside your tight little pussy. But you want it, god you fucking want it. You wanna feel him splitting you open, making you cream around him, making you beg for it. Making you bleed.

“One of these day” he says, his voice breathless but steady, even as it cracks. You know he’s close. “I’m gonna fucking snap. Im going to make you look me in the fucking eye and apologize for making me want you, and then im going to split that pussy open- fuck, im coming, fuck, fuck, fuck. Do you understand, b-bitch? Gonna fucking make you mine, yeah, take it, take your senpais cock you dirty fucking girl, ah!”

He slumps forward, hips humping into the toy and balls spasming as he pumps it full of his cum, shuddering deeply with little aborted whimpers. “Good girl, good girl” he pants, trailing off, giving one last little jerk of his hips before stilling.

You bite your lip so hard you draw blood to stop yourself from whimpering out loud. You pull your sticky fingers out of your cunt and shuffle back into the dark of the closet, curling in on yourself as izuku lays there, panting heavily for a few moments before moving.

You stay stock still as you hear him get up and shuffle around, his footsteps padding into the bathroom where you hear the door click softly shut. You spring up to your feet and don’t care if you make noise as you dart out of his room and into the hallway, sprinting like a bat out of hell as you make you way to the girls dorms.

You’ll think about how to reevaluate and recoup later. Right now you just really need to get to your bed so you can rut pathetically onto your own fingers and imagine izukus fat dick breaking you open. Never in a million years did you think he had those kinds of feelings for you, and you know it changes the whole game, is a whole other level of playing field where you now know he wants you on a physical level.

You feel powerless and lie you’re slipping again, don’t know how you’re going to point your finger at him and laugh when you know for every insult you throw his way, is another way hes fucking his toy at night, adding it as another thing to get you back for. If he ever snaps.

If. you want it to be a when, so bad, not an if.

You’ll make it a when. You’ll push him off the metaphorical cliff he’s teetering on to make it so.

#poppy speaks #my writing #deku smut #midoriya izuku x reader #izuku midoriya x reader #izuku midoriya smut #bully!reader #izuku smut #midoriya izuku smut

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totiredtowrite · 3 years

Text

Oblivious

Warnings - Reader has glasses but they're mentioned like twice so feel free to gloss over it if you don't, reader is shorter than oikawa, cursing, reader has good grades & eye bags so if you don't/didn't gloss over that too, also its mentioned that reader has long eyelashes, hate-kissing? (ig that's a thing), sorta risque slightly, not proof read

Note: Uh, self indulgent af, so some of the personality traits are definitely personalized. (Just the high marks, glasses, not being over 6' 1", eyelash thing). Havent written in a while so have this ig, the end might be rushed bc i need to put more content out smh 🤕. Do you know how long this was sitting in my drafts?

FEM ALIGNED READERS (SHE/HER, SHE/THEY), DO NOT INTERACT

the dni is getting both bigger and longer

Oikawa Tooru got jealous easily.

It's not like he won't admit it. Sure he acts whiny sometimes, maybe even childish. That doesn't negate the fact that he's extremely smart though. He understands his own feelings, and he understands that he thrives off of validation from other people. (Not like he's proud of it, but he's working on crawling out of that hole).

And as selfish or narcissistic as it may seem, he doesn't know how to handle it when attention is on someone else. Or, in this case, when he can't seem to get someones attention.

Seriously! With as much shit as he's pulled, not one reaction comes out of you. And that's saying something, as he can weasel something out of anyone.

He isn't sure just where this desire actually came from. Maybe it was the day you were elected as the student council president. Before then, he hadn't even known you existed. If he did note you, it was brief and then he forgot about it. Hell, he didn't even know you ran for president until you were elected! You sat in the middle of the class, ate in the library, and went home. Literally nothing stood out about you to him.

Around that time was when other peoples attention started drifting to you too. Where you were previously some random guy, some student, now people were talking about you all the time. All of a sudden it was all 'the new council president' and 'I talked to him once!'

Now people were saying that you were handsome. That you were 'mysterious.' He hated it. Mostly because even he was starting to see the draw in you. His tunnel vision for your focus was starting to raise some questionable desires too. He won't even deny it, fuck, he wanted to know more.

He wanted to know why you didn't eat with other people. He wanted to know why you were so focused, so diligent, with your work. He wanted to know what you thought about him. For fucks sake, he saw how attractive you were. The bags under your eyes, that tired expression, it was all taking up his head space.

That frustration manifested itself in foolish antics, and, attraction. Embarrassing fucking attraction.

Oikawa was starting to lose his mind.

Only slightly, but he still felt insane.

Waking up this morning was a chore. He jolted out of bed from yet another dream about you. Well, he couldn't see your face, but he knew it was you. He could just tell, with how your skin felt underneath his hands.

It irked him how badly he wanted to cup your face in his hands in real life. He thinks, much to his own displeasure, that you'd look cute with your face all scrunched up. An unnatural growl-like noise emitted from his throat. Iwaizumi tossed him a confused look. Matsukawa and Hanamaki continued with their inane conversation about school budgets.

"If you're thinking about (l/n)-San again," Iwaizumi sighed mid-sentence, "you can stop."

Oikawa huffed dramatically. "I wasn't."

"Yes, you were," Iwaizumi said.

Tooru furrowed his brows. In truth, thinking about you was starting to become a habit. A bad habit, sure, an addicting habit, maybe. Almost like you were a drug. An addictive, pretty drug.

And by god was it hard to quit.

"Just don't do anything stupid," Matsukawa said casually. "You wouldn't want to scare him off."

Hanamaki snickered.

"I don't even talk to him," Oikawa snarled, "And I wasn't thinking about him!"

No one said anything else, arriving to the front gates of the school. Oikawa understood why morning practice was important, he works overtime almost every day, though it always left him slightly sore.

Going about his day sore wasn't fun by any means. Still though, he can deal. Especially since today he devised a plan to get your attention now. Every other plan he had failed to another degree. He went through practically girls in the school, getting a different girlfriend every week, all in the hopes that it would impress you. Make you jealous. Almost as if to say 'Ha, they like me better than you. I bet you're jealous you don't have a girlfriend!'

No surprise, it didn't work. You just continued doing what you always did. Oikawa could get girlfriend after girlfriend, maybe even a boyfriend, and you wouldn't give a shit. He even tried to make it obvious to you, standing near your locker with whoever he was dating at the time and being all lovey with them.

Still nothing.

It was honestly getting infuriating, at this point. Perhaps you were just playing some game, toying with him back because you knew it would make him mad. Because you knew he'd break first. No, today he had a plan.

That's probably how you ended up like this, with his hand by your head and a dark glare on his face. You nervously shuffled, pushing your glasses up the bridge of your nose.

"Uh, Oikawa-san?" You looked up at him, voice soft as always. "What was this about, again?" Truly, you had no clue what he was doing or why he was doing it. All you know is that he was always being weirdly loud with his newest partners near your locker and staring at you from across the room. Your words, however, didn't seem to diffuse the situation.

His other large, pretty hand slammed by the side of your head. "Sorry?" He forced a civil looking smile at you. "Are you playing dumb with me, (l/n)?"

You shook your head so hard you thought your glasses were going to crack.

Oikawa opened his mouth to finally confront you, then stopped. What exactly was he going to say? 'I've been watching you for months and you haven't given me attention?' After he didn't respond, standing there dumbly with his mouth open for a few minutes, your nervous gaze faded. "Are you playing with me?" You asked. "Because I have to get to class."

"No, no, if anything you're playing with me." Oikawa moved his face down and closer to yours, purposely letting his cool breath fan on your lips.

You shook slightly. "I don't- what are you talking about?"

He sneered at you, only slightly. "You know. Parading around being all smart, and not giving a shit when some people try to get your attention, acting like you don't know how infuriating you are!"

You bit your lip, hyper aware of how his eyes tracked the movement. "Was I- uh, was I annoying you somehow? I'm sorry if I was," you said.

Oikawa stopped. This wasn't what he had expected? You looked genuinely worried that you had offended him somehow. Not like an evil boy who knew how to get under peoples skin. Every detail from your face, from the bags under your tired looking eyes to your weirdly long eyelashes, seemed very...innocent. Like you weren't the heinous criminal he made you out to be. (Secretly, he knew you couldn't be that bad).

All at once he was flooded with his old dreams about you and his random fantasies. You were about to say something, though only a choked squeak left your throat as he leaned down to roughly push his lips to yours.

His lips were cool, like his skin. You hardly had the chance to breath with just how aggressive he was, pushing you further back into the wall and cupping your face in his hands. A couple more surprised noises left you before you relaxed into it, deciding that this wasn't all that bad. He was a good kisser, though it's not like that was a surprise. You closed your eyes and leaned into him, basking in this new, extremely odd feeling that just washed over your stomach. It was like you were taking a test, or about to speak in front of the class. It made you feel nervous, excited.

You jolted back suddenly, breaking the kiss when you feel his tongue pushing against your lips.

Shakily, you brought a hand up to wipe off any saliva left. "Sorry," you practically squeaked out, "I'm just- I don't know you like at all! This is the first time we've actually talked and I don't think I'm ready to make out with a stranger-"

Tooru shushed you. "I probably shouldn't have kissed you like that anyways," he shuddered. He was supposed to be giving you a piece of his mind, but here he is, almost shoving his tongue down your throat. Almost shoving his tongue down the throat of some boy.

His senses further returning to him, Oikawa quickly took his hands away from your face and stepped away, masking his disappointment at no longer feeling your warmth. "Just- don't tell anyone about this!" He said pathetically, turning to bolt away into the hallway.

As the classes started to let out, you wondered if anyone could tell how swollen your lips were.

Do not repost, translate, or copy my work on to other platforms.

#hq x male reader #m!reader #anime x male reader #x male reader #male reader #haikyuu x male reader #oikawa x male reader #tooru oikawa x male reader

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padawansuggest · 3 years

Text

Sometimes I think of the relationship Obi-Wan has with animals and my heart flutters. They love him so much. Why can’t we have an AU where he lives with the agricorps as an animal expert and gets to sit in the grass with wool making kids and help bring endangered species back???

Shit wait I just remembered I’m literally already writing that one lmao nvm. Obi-Wan ends up on a thriving agricorps world where he’s instantly snatched up by Qui-Gon (the force told him new baby at the port is HIS new baby and that’s how he adopted Feemor and Xanatos too) who is a textile worker and while showing Obi-Wan around the area they’d decided Obi-Wan would fit in with best, Obi-Wan falls in love with the lamb-like creatures that Qui-Gon says they get a bit of wool from and also Qui-Gon is married to Dex who owns a really big diner in the village they left Obi-Wan in and it’s a popular place for visitors to stop by on trip layovers and refueling so Qui and Dex are Obi-Wan’s new dads and he gets to play with the little lambs and goats and help raise them to good little wool makers and also Jaster Mereel never died so he’s still in charge and sometimes when him and his kids have to go in this direction they stop at Dex’s diner for gossip on the latest movements of possible death watch encampments and also cause Dex is the best chef and Obi-Wan might have a slightly crush on the Alor’ade Jango but he’s too shy to really go up to him till one day the other brings him a gift and tells him he’s cute and Obi-Wan went slightly feral and jumped him for a kiss before running away in embarrassment and it was the funniest thing any of them have ever seen and so Obi-Wan made Jango a wall hanging from the wool of his favorite girl and Jango realized they’re basically exchanging courting gifts and steps his game up and now the True Mandalorians visit way more often and it’s amazing. Obi-Wan visits Mandalore a few times to see what the culture is like and now he’s conflicted if he wants to move in with Jango or stay on the agricorps planet with his dad and brothers but Jango thinks they can play it by ear and be wherever they feel like at the moment and Jaster thinks they’re both stupid but cute and he’s glad his heir Arla actually wants to stay on planet with her partner and yes. It’s cute. They raise space goats. Obi-Wan sits in grassy fields with baby lambs in his lap while they have picnics and Jango def fell for him while watching him cuddle baby lambs one day that’s def how he fell in love. Shmi and Anakin are brought to the agricorps after being freed from slavery and the order is putting them in basic force training classes but since they’re too old to be Jedi they’re sent to the agricorps where they can be farmers and live in peace and be happy in a world with water and sunshine and not need to work much (if any, since the order will technically take care of them if they don’t wanna at all and they might not for a while cause as former slaves they would benefit from thinking of themselves first for once) and this time instead of Qui-Gon meeting a new child at the docks, it’s Obi-Wan waiting there eagerly for the new baby and when Anakin and Shmi get off the ship Ani stops and just looks at Obi-Wan for a long minute before smiling and saying he knew Obi would be here when he arrived and they instantly bond and hug and Shmi is all ‘?????’ But goes with it cause her boy has been pulling this shit since he was born and she’s learned it’s always for the better and now Obi-Wan has a little shadow while he does his work before Ani and Shmi eventually go on to work on (both improving and creating) machines that help with livestock and crop harvesting and the little droids that do the hard legwork on the ground and stuff like that and they’re both so happy to work with machines and maybe Shmi falls in love with that nice grocer Cleigg Larrs who has a kid around Ani’s age who plays with him during their school time and it’s nice and everyone has family it’s beautiful.

The clones are eventually made but it was for science and so there aren’t very many of them and like 10 of them end up in the agricorps/on Mandalore with Jango and Obi-Wan as heirs (Omega is Arla’s daughter now) and Cody, Rex and Boba are Obi-Wan and Jango’s sons but also the three of them are mixed genes with Obi so they’re both their kids and Alpha is a little terror who runs the show and knows it and he’s gonna make a great supervisor in the agricorps later cause he Knows Things and everyone is soft.

Din is a child they found on a battle torn planet and brought back but instead of being folded into the agricorps he was basically loved on by many many Mandos who instantly decided he was going to be a part of them so he has baby armor and it helps his anxiety. Grogu is delivered to the agricorps cause he’s gonna be a baby for so long that it makes sense to put him on a world he chose till he’s old enough to teach and Grogu through a force vision of Din being his buir one day decided the agricorps and was brought there only to instantly force bond with baby Din and now they’re inseparable lol.

Before that tho Anakin does the same thing as his dad/brother before him and gets a force push to wait at the docks for an arrival one day only to gain a baby sister Ahsoka (who loves her new big bro with included mommy in the package) and he’s the best big brother ever and she really gets attached to working as one of the teachers in town with smaller kiddos. Shmi loves having a daughter she never thought she’d have anyone but Ani and now she’s got Obi (somewhat lmao they’re closer in age but she loves him like a son) and Ahsoka who will cuddle up to her and they can watch holodramas together and talk about girl things and help each other out and it’s so soft.

Anakin eventually meets Padme who’s come there to get agricorps help on a relief mission and the rest is history and Padme eventually moves there (she works with outreach where they help other planets tho she’s still herself lmao) when she finds out the twins are coming along lmao.

I’ve lost the plot of this post but not the plot of this glorious AU. Might write more ideas I’ve had for it later.

#star wars #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #clone wars #commander cody #ahsoka tano #captain rex #the mandalorian #jangobi #janwan #jango fett #dex jettster #qui gon jinn #quidex #agricorps au #shmi skywalker

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anne-i-write · 4 years

Text

moriarty the patriot headcannons

| requested by anon: can you write headcanons for moriarty brothers meeting and having dinner with s/o's parents for the first time? and s/o's father is overprotective. thanks 🤍🙆🏻 |

william x reader; louis x reader; albert x reader

word count: 1857

tw: mentions of toxic behavior in albert’s hcs

a/n: IM BACK AND THRIVING BBS!!! it’s so good to be back again to writing!!! hhh i’m so sorry if this is far from what you wanted but i hope you all enjoy it nonetheless!!!! lowkey went off the railings w this one so 👀 also if i missed any tags, please let me know!!!!!

william: 803 words

it had been you and your father since you were younger bc your mom was the “lucky” choice of some noble

but you wouldn’t have it any other way

you two are very close and everyone in the town knows

that, and that you both hate nobles

so it’s no surprise when the moriartys move into town, you’re both less than pleased

you always try your best to avoid them whenever they come into your town and your father always begs his friends to take the nobles as customers, despite the fact it could be good for business

but the town you lived in was particularly small and you did end up bumping into william

literally

some stupid man didn’t see you crossing the road and you were nearly crushed by the carriage if it hadn’t been for the hand that pulled at your wrist

“i swear people these days don’t know how to drive carriages.”

you don’t know who you were expecting

BUT ANYONE BUT A NOBLE

“are you alright?”

“i’m fine thank you—“

you’re absolutely flustered

how did i not know that this was a noble??? he smells so clean!

“i’ve got to be on my way now!” and you left william there with no explanation

but lil did you know he actually knew who you were

or to an extent, you weren’t as sneaky as you’d hoped you’d be

he saw you hiding in corners and alleyways every time you two accidentally made eye contact

and some of the townsfolk actually told him a little about you and your father so he understood why you weren’t too welcoming

but to take great lengths to avoid him??? he is very intrigued

so he starts off small, trying to send you a kind smile before you dart off behind a fruit stall

he really tries his best to get close to you and after a few weeks (and a few persuasive friends), he finally gets to hold a conversation with you

and boy does he fall FAST

it takes a while but you finally reciprocate his feelings and he thinks its smooth sailing from there right???

lmao everyone knows your father is literally the most intimidating looking man that could ever walk the earth

if they didn’t know him personally, they would be afraid of getting curb stomped 🤠

i mean,, he’s a big softie but god forbid anyone even DARES to look at you in a romantic light

you warn william of this and he’s like “don’t worry love, it shouldn’t be too bad”

it is bad

even william has cold hands bc your father is giving him the dirtiest look

dinner isn’t even dinner it’s a grill with how much questions your father is asking him

it does NOT help that he’s a noble

“so,,, you’re a noble”

“your cooking is amazing sir”

your father leaves the table for a little bit and you can hear the quiet sigh of relief from william

“i’m sorry for my father”

“no, no,,, i just,,, your father’s really intimidating, isn’t he?”

you let out a chuckle and william relaxed, a soft smile gracing his lips

“he can be, but it’s just something he does.” you threw a wistful gaze at the door your father disappeared before.

“he’s just worried about you, i can see it. he doesn’t want you around people like me.” you grabbed his hand over the table and he gently squeezed your hand.

“if anything, if he’d give you a chance, he’d want me to be with you. noble or not”

you both continue to have a delightful conversation, your sweet laughs filling the room

however, you didn’t know your father was listening in on your conversation and he couldn’t agree more with william

your mother left with more than just a curt goodbye and unshed tears

she left you with a tear stained letter filled with sorrowful regrets and sincere apologies

he knew you would eventually grow up to be critical of the world and if you were to find out that your mother had left unwillingly, he was afraid that you would be too bitter towards the world

but as he hears your laugh and his worries are dulled down a little

he sees you smiling so happily at william and when he chances a glance at the noble beside you, his worries are completely erased

william’s looking at you the same way everyone swore he looked at your mother

it’s a gentle gaze filled with love and kindness, one that he knew could protect you and take care of you

your father hated nobles and hovered over you when it came to love

but he couldn’t help but hold back on questions when he came back and you instantly noticed that your father took a liking william

louis: 508 words

everyone knew you as “Little Noble” in your town

the sole reason being your father literally treating you like a noble lmao

he gave you the best of everything he could afford and tried his best to not let you do any work

tried

of course, you were a little angel and you HAD to help otherwise you’d cry about making someone else tired when you could’ve easily helped

you’ve carried this trait until your early twenties and there were no signs that you would stop

hence why you were bringing home some fresh fruits from the stall clerk before a man bumps into you

you were so caught off guard that your knee buckled and you fell on your butt

everyone was stunned into silence as you fell but louis was so apologetic

so when he helped you back up, he felt the chilling stares of the town burning into his back

and then you apologize for bumping into him when he was the one who bumped into you and you fell??????

“please, let me make you something! i feel so bad!”

he tries to decline but there was this odd pressure to say yes to you

he ends up going home with you

you’re both in front of the door before your father opens it, his eyes wide

“who is this boy?”

“oh, i didn’t get his name on the way here. what is your name?”

your poor father’s heart is pounding way too fast for his liking

“oh! look at that, thank you so much for bringing my child home! you should be going home now”

he tries to shut the door on louis but you hold it open and beckon louis inside

“i invited him here! i accidentally bumped into him earlier so i offered to make him something!”

louis is so awkward pls

your father reluctantly lets him in but gives him a side eye the whole time he’s in the house

“does your child do this often?”

“why? do you find it strange?”

YOUR FATHER IS SO PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE PLEASE SAVE LOUIS

anyways, you finish making your treat and give it to louis, your father glaring at your interaction

louis is still a little stiff but the more you talk to him, his guard is let down a little

soon enough he has to leave and you wish him well

he leaves with a wave and a kind smile and you look over at your father who had been scowling since you appeared at the front door

“he is a bit cute, don’t you think father?”

your father sputters, stunned by your bold claim

“y-you’re still too young to think about men like that!”

you laugh and shut the front door, teasing your poor father about finding love while also wondering if you would meet louis again

as you talk with your father behind closed doors, louis smiles to himself as he thinks about the unusual encounter today

surely, if i met them again tomorrow, it would make for a pleasant day

albert: 546 words

he meets your father before he meets you

it was during a ball your parents organized in order to connect with the more prestigious nobles around you

your parents were obsessed with the way your family was viewed and apparently being an earl wasn’t enough

so albert hears about you when your father boasts about how you’re the perfect child who answered to his every beck and call

in all honesty, albert was disgusted

no one deserved to be brought up like that

he casually makes his way into the conversation and your father is seething

“my child is your age, it’s a shame you act like this, i would have thought of you as a prime husband for them”

who is this earl to tell him what to do?

needless to say your father crosses him off of the guest list for the next ball

days go by and your father doesn’t know that you’re currently in town, doing what you can to help the working class as best as you can

it is on one particular day of visiting an orphanage do you run into the eldest moriarty brother

you two exchange polite greetings and you both pause

“your father is the earl, is he not?”

“you are a general of the army, are you not?”

a brief mention of your father and your mood dulls slightly

“yes, but i’m here on my own accord”

he would kill you if he found out you were amongst the “filth” as he called them

“well, i’ve brought books for the children, would you like to help me read some to them?”

he seemed sincere enough to not want anything more from you, so you agreed

he was actually very pleasant to be around and you find yourself enjoying his company

the meetups continued to happen and soon enough, albert finds himself standing in front of the doors to your family estate

your father is not pleased at all

“it’s nice to meet you again, sir”

“i didn’t forget about what you said to me at our first meeting”

and you’re sitting there like,, ????? they’ve met??? and your father doesn’t like albert???????

of course, inviting albert to your home would have repercussions but you didn’t expect your father to be so hostile

he was always hostile towards other nobles unless they were of higher importance than him

but for him to hate albert so quickly and openly??? this was quite new

you had mentioned that your father has always been one for power so it was clear to albert that you obviously grew up in a home that was more,,, toxic than protective

it was at dinner that this behavior reached its peak and albert despised the atmosphere and the way your father treated you

“i’ve come here to ask for your child’s hand in marriage”

your father rejects the idea without any hesitation

“i refuse to have them live the rest of their life in your household when they could do so much better”

when you invited albert that night, you knew there would be repercussions with your father

but what you didn’t expect was that you would leave your father and adopt the moriarty name as your own, the family welcoming you with open arms

moriarty the patriot taglist: @zoehanji

#moriarty the patriot #moriarty the patriot x reader #yuukoku no moriarty #yuukoku no moriarty x reader #albert james moriarty x reader #albert james moriarty #william james moriarty #william james moriarty x reader #louis james moriarty #louis james moriarty x reader

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accio-victuuri · 3 years

Text

The GG & Li-Ning & Xianjiang Cotton Situation

I was asked to give my opinion. This is also for other bxgs who may have the same sentiment. You don’t have to agree with me but i hope you respect whatever it is I choose to share here. This is my blog and my space. I maintain this out of my pure enjoyment of the fandom and all the good it has given me. So let me address some of the points.

Li-Ning boasts their use of XinJiang Cotton

My simple answer here is, of course they will. This is not something new. Li-Ning is a celebrated olympic medal winning gymnast. A billionaire. You don’t get to that place in CHN w/out supporting the government’s agenda. In this case, that there is no injustice and persecution going on in Xinjiang. This brand, boasting about China made cotton, in their terms, shows patriotism and support for their country. This brand’s literal goal at first was to provide a local brand for Chinese athletes to wear in the Olympics. This is also not the first time that Li-Ning had been called out along w/ other international brands due to questionable ethical practices.

I find it very hard to believe that the timing of GG’s massive Li-Ning ad campaign, coinciding as it has with these Western brand boycotts, was a coincidence.

Let’s get this out of the way. Whether the boycott happened or not, Li-Ning is guaranteed an insane amount of sales because they hired Xiao Zhan. This is the same man who always sells out products in seconds. Who took KXZ to 200% growth and so on. I can talk about stats all day but this massive campaign for him is a no brainer. GG is expensive and a guaranteed success. Any brand who hires him will be stupid to not launch an all out campaign across all cities. Li-Ning knows what they are doing by hiring him. For years, they have been trying to appeal to Gen Z. Especially now that youth in CHN are more and more into the “guochao” (国潮) - National trend. Integrating traditional chinese culture and fashion w/ domestic brands. This ties in with the whole movement of erasing the connotation that made in china is of inferior quality. GG was a good choice. He appeals to the younger generation (19-25) and the working class ( 26 and up ) who buys goods. I would imagine even GG’s team did their research and knows this trend is going on too. This will not be the last you will see of this type of endorsement from him or Web. The rumors on this collaboration was going around as early as, March 15 I think? I was literally asking another bxg if GG’s ad will be pushed back a day or two because of what was happening. or what will this all implies. He was always gonna come out and endorse this brand boycott or not.

I am not removing the possibility that these local brands have a hand in the boycott. It’s a very valid concern. or that, it was a convenient perfect storm for them. A perfect storm of EU, US & CAN sanctioning CHN. The sudden attack on brands’ statements against Xinjiang cotton from a year ago. The whole agenda of controlling the people’s view on what is happening. All of these are connected. sure. There are many things behind the scenes that we will not know but we can make an educated guess of. Li-Ning is not the only domestic brand that had a positive push because of this.

On 3/25 Li-Ning’s stock closed with a high of 10.74% , plus an added 9% on the 26th when GG was announced as ambassador. The same thing happened with Anta and others.

I find it very hard to stomach seeing Li-Ning ads on my dash, regardless of GG’s presence in them. Without condemning him for taking this endorsement deal, and without judging what he is or is not personally aware

I will just be addressing GG’s alleged part in all this. I say that cause we don’t live in his brain and won’t know what he’s thinking. You can all try and project your values on him but he is a whole person of his own. I have hopefully given some view on why GG accepted to endorse this brand in the previous point. GG has spent most if not all, of his life in China. He has repeatedly said that he was brought up traditionally. Tho his father was very encouraging in him participating in the arts and widening his knowledge. He had Foreign professors at CBTU. He is part of the generation that knows what’s going on outside by using the internet. He’s smart. I would guess that he is aware of the country he is living in vs what it’s like outside of it. But at the end of the day, his loyalty will always be with his country. I hate to break it to you all but he will continue to live and thrive as an Actor even without international support. Tho it is great that he is a source of National Pride with how people outside of China love him.

Now, about his support for Xianjiang Cotton. I wanna start by showing this:

It’s a post from People’s Daily wb which boasts all the c-ent top stars that voiced their support of XJ cotton. The sense is, hey people look at your idols supporting the cause. Look at their Patriotism. What do you think will happen if GG was not on this list? Knowing that he is a top star in CHN. Knowing he was just in hot waters post 22*? Knowing that he is actively being endorsed in CCTV which is a National Channel. Are we still surprised that he posted that support? I was just honestly waiting for him to post if anything. I talked before about how C-ent celebrities are expected ( and actually it’s in their law ) to be more morally upright than the lay people. This is prime example of that.

Another one is this from CCTV Wb. I’m including this for you all to have an understanding of how this whole thing is being played out in CHN. This is the type of online narrative that is going around and I would think GG is seeing. The sentiment is,

“No matter what hardships, ups and downs and blows go through in our country, her people will always come from all directions and stand up to speak justice and do just things.”

It’s also showing all the hot searches that is related in support of XJ cotton and defending CHN’s innocence.

Also this video that was heavily circulated showing mechanized picking of cotton vs the allegations of manual.

This is the kind of narrative that is going around, as expected. I don’t really fault GG or condemn him for doing what is best for him. What is the best for an individual does not always mean it’s the best for all. In talks like this, I always try and put myself in their position. I mean, who the hell are these people trying to attack my country? the country that has provided for me. I wanna say I understand where they are coming from but understanding does not mean agreeing. I see these A LOT. ALOT ON WEIBO. The China vs. Everyone story. It’s the notion of, they are attacking us and we must protect the country. Also keep in mind that news is heavily regulated.

You know what type of news the CCP would love for them to get a hold of? The rising attacks on Asians in the US. Oh boy they would fuckin love that! Making America the big/bad asian-hating boogeyman in the eyes of their people yet again.

Okay, now we’re down to the final part of this. Why do I share the promo pics for Li-Ning. Where do i draw the line.

To me it’s simple. It had GG in it. I was waiting for this to come out, and tbh, would you all even know about this brand’s practices if the boycott didn’t happen? No. This is a bjyx blog where i share things about them. That includes ad, dramas, pictures and videos. I understand if people don’t feel comfortable w/ Li-Ning ads and others, so just don’t like those posts. Did I buy anything from the collection? No. Did I buy multiple copies Web’s single Youth in Times ( like i do with his other singles )? No. That’s where I draw the line in this. I know we’re all gonna be put on a tight spot again once Faith Makes Great comes out. Once I saw that leaked pic, Ooohhh! I just know. Also if BAH adds some propaganda about CHN’s war on drugs. I am just waiting. I am ready. I know what my values are. I will not allow other people to dictate who I am. I know what type of content I’m only gonna be sharing.

I see this very forceful air of asking bxgs to take a stand on this ( always bxg, never the other side. always us of course even if we are the minority) and it really puts me off. I read someone say that they will not say anything because they don’t owe strangers on the internet an explanation. Which is true. I have separate spaces that I share my views on world/local issues. Accounts that show my actual name and around people I know in real life. That’s what I choose to do for myself. I started this blog for myself and i still find it very bizarre that people follow this account. I am not some sort of KOL, let’s get that straight. This is just a blog where I talk about things if i want to and SCREAM about GG and Web too much. I will probably not answer any follow up questions on this cause i feel like I have addressed a good chunk of it.

Just know that whatever I post on here in support of GG and his projects does not equate to my entire political/moral stand regarding this event or any. It’s really good that we have conversations like this cause it’s an important one.

Whew! That was a long post! 😅

#ask response

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hadtochangemyurlquick · 3 years

Note

can u write more leachel please

no but i can fuck ur bitch

Leah’s first public reading was not packed. Of course, the seven of them all filed into front row seats and of course her parents, grandparents, Ian, and most of her teachers were scattered throughout the audience. Even Emily, her friend from middle school who she hadn’t really talked to since she went to private school, showed up. It was a sweet gesture but beyond the people who knew Leah personally, only around fifty or so were actual fans. It was fine and Leah did an amazing talk and afterwards Rachel slapped her hand against her thigh, wishing she could actually clap.

Leah’s tenth public reading was standing room only.

The National book festival was held once a year in DC and while there were two panels Leah was put on, they also asked her to do her own talk because she had a new book coming out. It’d been called by the New York Times book review “the most anticipated book of the year!” And Rachel had only been allowed to read the first draft of the first chapter, which was slightly killing her. But her girlfriend had a process, even if that process was to solely talk to Nora about it. Nora and sometimes Toni.

When Leah walked onto the slightly raised platform the entire room erupted into applause. It was a standing ovation and Leah looked beautiful and also incredibly embarrassed. Her eyes found Rachel’s immediately and they were so fucking intense, Rachel just wanted her to keep looking at her forever. Forever and a half.

“Wow,” Leah began when she reached her microphone. “I haven’t even said anything yet.” There was laughter, more cheers, gradually people sat down. “Thank you all for coming, I know there’s some pretty amazing panels going on right now. There’s still time to go to Roxanne Gay’s talk, it’s a few rooms down.”

More laughter, more cheers, a “We love you Leah Rilke!”

Rachel shook her head, smiling. Leah could pretend all she wanted, but Rachel saw what was happening. The entire world was slowly coming to life under her touch. The English language was being shaped to fit Leah Rilke.

Every think piece, ever op-ed, every review, mentioned the words Leah Rilke somewhere in there. Every teenage girl was talking about her like they’d talk about the Bible. TV studios and movie execs sat in rooms and discussed about how they could capture her writing style. Publishing houses wanted to find their very own Leah Rilke. Tattoo artists were adding to their pre drawn collections symbols from her books.

It was happening slowly, a little at a time, but time happened all at once. And history textbooks were being printed in Texas for the year 2032 that had an entire chapter about Leah Rilke.

The world was changing, and for the next half-century it’d be one where Leah Rilke was alive. And after, it’d be one where everyone was looking for the next Leah Rilke, however futile.

Leah didn’t see it, but Rachel could. And Nora. They talked about it sometimes, when a Dolly Parton song came on or Tolkien happened to come up in conversation.

“I’m not really afraid of public speaking,” Leah continued. “But can you all look somewhere else for a minute? I just need a break, I feel like you all are staring.”

There was more laughter and Rachel felt her phone buzz. Her eyebrow furrowed and she ignored it, instead focusing on the woman wearing her engagement ring.

It’d taken her a minute to propose, insecurities thriving with Leah off giving talks or going to conventions like this one. In a big empty house it wasn’t hard to feel less than, especially with one hand.

It’d been Dot who talked sense into her. Dot surprisingly sensible when she herself had eloped with Fatin, annulled it, and eloped again.

“Okay,” Dot said. “Maybe she’s too good for you. So what? She doesn’t know that.”

“Exactly,” Rachel said. “That’s my fucking point. She’s gonna find someone better and realize that I’m just… me.”

“Yeah,” Dot nodded.

Rachel glared at her. “You aren’t making me feel better.”

“I’m not Fatin, or Shelby, or Martha.”

“I know that,” Rachel said.

“It sounds like you wanna marry her,” Dot said. “So fuckin’ marry her. Then she won’t be able to fuck off with someone else.”

“But I want her to be happy,” Rachel said.

“So fuckin’ make her happy,” Dot said. “I don’t get what the fuckin’ problem is.”

So she proposed. Leah said yes immediately, not even a moment of hesitation, and they were planning a small wedding with a rabbi they both knew and a Huppa but not a Ketubah. Some sort of halfway for the both of them.

Rachel’s phone buzzed again and she turned it off, slipping it in her backpack to focus on Leah.

“This is probably the hardest book I’ve ever written. Not because its deeply personal or anything, just because I had to do so much research for it,” Leah said. “I even had to dedicate it to my sister in law because she spent hours with me looking at flight patterns and chess strategies. Do you guys know how many different kind of tulips there are? I can’t say I don’t understand the dutch a little better now.”

Nora squeezed her wrist and she looked over at her. Shelby caught her eye from beside Nora and passed her a phone, the notes app open.

Jeffs here.

Rachel frowned. Jeff Greene? The book review guy? Or maybe Jeffery Wilson, the Sony guy. Didn’t they have a neighbor named Jeff who liked to complain about their noise level to the police?

“Jeff?” She mouthed back.

Shelby was stone faced when she nodded and something sunk in Rachel’s gut.

Fuck. Jeff.

Leah was still talking but Rachel couldn’t hear her.

Where?

Shelby took the phone back.

The back.

Rachel clenched her jaw and Nora squeezed her wrist again, eyes wide.

Has Leah seen him?

Shelby shook her head and Rachel let out a breath of relief.

She got to her feet, and cast a quick smile back at Leah who’s brow furrowed at her. She kept talking though, stumbling a little on her speech. Behind her, Fatin, Martha, and Shelby followed.

Jeff wasn’t hard to spot. He was the washed-up has been, with the fraying hair and dark circles under his eyes.

“You need to leave,” Rachel spat.

“I’m just here to apologize,” Jeff said. “I don’t even—”

“You’re leaving,” Shelby cut off. “Now. Or I’ll call security.”

“Take this outside,” Someone hissed and Fatin dragged him out, shoving him roughly through the open door. Several more people waiting outside slipped inside, entirely grateful.

“Listen, I know I fucked up, I want to apologize,” Jeff said.

“She was a child,” Fatin said. “You’re a fucking predator.”

Jeff paled.

“Wait,” Martha said. “Are you here to apologize for dumping her, or for raping her?”

“I didn’t—”

Maybe it was Shelby that threw the first punch, or maybe Rachel. Maybe they both came at him at once. But Martha didn’t hold Rachel back like she normally would’ve, and Fatin snapped at some people to put their phones away.

Leah said it was ironic later, that Fatin was telling people to put their phones away, while Martha urged on a fight.

But it wasn’t a fight, it was a beat down.

Shelby had taken Toni to enough kickboxing lessons over the years to know how to throw a punch, and Rachel had been picturing this moment with Jeff for too long.

No one intervened once Martha pushed a couple people away explaining he was a pedophile who prayed on teenage girls. One person said, “Isn’t that Jeff Galanis?”

And Martha said: “Yes.”

Jeff Galanis hasn’t published a book in five years at that point, he wouldn’t publish one again. Leah wasn’t happy Rachel broke her only hand, and Toni started going to kickboxing lessons alone.

“It was stupid,” Leah told her, when she met her outside after they’d all been thrown out. “I don’t give a shit about him anymore. I just wanted you there.”

“I know,” Rachel said. “But it wasn’t stupid to me. I wanted you to know you wouldn’t have to see him again.”

“Rach,” Leah sighed. “You remember how when we were driving here a Smith’s song came on?” Rachel nodded. “I realized then I literally couldn’t remember his last name.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Leah said. “We’re getting married in a few months, my new book is coming out, your starting your new job. We’ll probably be aunts as soon as Toni and Shelby finish those foster parent classes. Jeff is like—probably the least important person in the universe right now.”

“Sorry I missed the talk,” Rachel said.

Leah kissed her, soft and easy like they’d never once been.

“It’s okay,” she promised. “There’ll be others.”

There were.

#gus writes #leachel fanfic #leachel #leah rilke #toni shalifoe #some post canon hcs for you my love #the wilds fanfic #the wilds #gus answers

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hellyeahheroes · 4 years

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Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales story and character review

So let’s state a disclaimer, I didn’t like the PS4 Miles character as it was blatantly clear that they never read a Miles story with the actual mistakes they made(Miles going to the wrong school, Rio being a science teacher, Jefferson loving vigilantes/supers, using MJ as an origin for Miles, the skin lightening of both Miles and Rio). It was insulting because they clearly researched and had a fidelity to Peter Parker as they had references from both of the 616 and Ultimate Universes but with Miles, they somehow missed the first thing about Miles: he doesn’t want to be Spider-Man. I didn’t like this version. Notice the past tense.

Miles Morales PS5 redeemed him. I am half-way as I’ve done all of the side quests and pretty much half of the main story. And I also seen the whole main story on YouTube. So yeah.

First off, the first thing I noticed about Miles was his fresh-cut. It was, to quote my brother, “a hot mess” in the first game. I was delighted to hear that the first thing the “black” consultant told the Insomniac developers. His edge was fucked up. Second thing was how social Miles was. Third thing is that they retconned Miles going to Midtown. Yes, in the first thing they did actually have kid in Brooklyn attend a public school in Queens. I am pretty sure in the remaster the changed it to Brooklyn Visions.

These changes along with the fidelity of the relationship between Miles and Ganke were what sold me on this version of the character. I get it. No one wants Peter to die and honestly, they probably should have just used Anya, but Miles is popular now and it’d be stupid to just not capitalize.

So let’s talk about a few characters starting with the actual main character of the game: The Tinkerer.

Let me tell you that at first I thought she was redundant. I am not going to spoil it, but it was obvious the moment she is introduced in the game and Miles mentioned her twice before she is formally introduced. It’s clear that she was the focus. I felt that she was redundant because there is a literal harem of morally dubious women who Miles has a close connection to that she takes aspects from. Tinkerer is an amalgamation of all of them. She is a girl leading a gang(Diamondback/Tomoe) who is a genius inventor(Ceres). She wants revenge against a company that is poisoning the city and killed her brother so she becomes a ruthless vigilante(Tiana). Her powers or devices are that she manipulates a metal to form any shape she wants(Tomoe). Her relationship of Miles is one that is really platonic with some romantic undertones(literally every single person that I mentioned) but it is torn apart because Miles lies and keeps secrets from her(Katie Bishop).

What sold me on her character is the work they did in her collectibles which I implore you to collect because they provide so much depth to her character and also, it doesn’t really bother to explain Miles’ character in this world but hers. This girl is hurt because her loved one was killed and she saw Miles as family or a second brother. They hung out together and as soon as Miles went to Visions, they drifted apart. I’ve always wondered about the kids Miles left in his whole transfer situation and Tinkerer was one of them. Her pathos and identity is very much tied to Miles. And I love her.

Look, at first, I was reluctant to want her in the main comic, but someone put in too much work to not include her in Miles’ main rogues gallery. I hope that Saladin sees it and implements a version of her in the MM: Spider-Man comic. She also reminds me of Gear from Static Shock except she is not a gay white man.

Ganke was spot on. This is the best adaptation of Ganke I’ve seen.

Yes even better than Homecoming.

Ganke is part of Miles’ Spider-Man. He is not just the fat Asian kid providing tech support. He is the motivation and is apart of it too unlike the thing they tried to do with MJ and Peter in the first game. This also shows the clear contrast of Peter and Miles. Peter never trusted anyone enough to be that involved in his being of Spider-Man. Miles knows that he can’t do it alone and relies on Ganke for information gathering and webs. Ganke is important and this game nailed it.

Aaron Davis is in this game and no one is surprised. This version of Aaron...is different. Okay in the comics, he is a foil to Miles in that while Miles is becoming more heroic, Aaron is becoming more villainous. It’s no coincidence that Spider-Man and the Prowler look similar but the gist is that if Miles didn’t get bit by the spider, Miles would have become Prowler 2.0. The game eschews this dynamic because it is hard to pull that off after the mangled Miles’ origin so they opted for the Prowler to foil Miles in a different way: keeping secrets from family and friends and being protective of family because fear of loss. Aaron, after losing his brother and never getting a chance to reconcile with him, is hurt and wants to protect Miles and subsequently Rio. Miles, throughout the game, is becoming increasingly worried about his mom running for city council and painting a target on his back. He shows his frustration and distances himself from his mother in his work as Spider-Man. Aaron does the same to Miles when he finds out that he Spider-Man. There comes a point where the two collide and Aaron goes further into the extreme which I won’t spoil. You get it.

This change, while different, isn’t terrible. It’s actually really well thought out. It accomplishes the same thing in that Aaron is not a good role model but he is a good person to Miles. It allows Miles to reflect on his own behavior towards his mother. So I’m with it.

Oh and before I forget, Danika being in this game sold me that they actually started actually researching Miles. They ignored the weird racial commentary that she became enamores and she became a foil to JJJ. A voice of youthful and helpful positivity vs Randian cynicism and skepticism. A social justice activist vs an arrogant self important commentator. And it was fun listening to her. Hopefully Saladin brings her back. I am currently on Underground base liberation missions where she teams up with Ganke and Miles in putting them down. Just started, but there was already some mild hint that Ganke is crushing on her(they are a couple in the comics). So yeah.

The cons because like Ganke, I love pros and cons list. Two things about this game annoys me. First, the move to Harlem and this forced narrative of Miles being Harlem’s Spider-Man made no sense because just look at the map. Harlem is part of Manhattan. There is nothing stopping Peter from visiting Harlem regularly. Brooklyn, however, would justify having their own Spider-Man. As, if you didn’t know, Brooklyn is emerging into becoming the next big city as the area is thriving. Also, gentrification. Point is there is a reason why Miles connection to Brooklyn is important. It is foil to Peter who is from Queens and wanted to move into Manhattan island because part of it was he saw it as a measure of success to get out of the old neighborhood and make it big. Miles loves Brooklyn and doesn’t want to move out. Trying to replicate his love for his city in Harlem just because it’s predominantly black and brown is lazy and honestly if they included Brooklyn in the game, it would have justified the price of this game. Which brings me to the second point.

This game is too short on content to be costing $50 dollars. Just to point out something, all of the DLC from the first game cost 10 bucks a pop and you had as much content in those three expansions as you do this game. Infamous First Light was the same exact thing in relation to Infamous Second Sons and it cost 30 bucks. Uncharted Lost Legacy cost 30 dollars. I could go on. Point is that it shouldn’t have costed nearly the price of a full game when in comparison to the previous iteration, it wasn’t. Now I’ve seen people say that hating because it’s short isn’t warranted or pull up this quoted fact that video games are too long. Anti-consumerist bullshit aside, the difference between the main storyline of the previous game and this one is not repetition. It’s the lack of variety in enemies and deesculating storylines. In the first game, there were a variety of enemies that had their own AI and attacks. And you adjusted accordingly to whom you were facing. There were classes of enemies within the variety. You had the rudimentary common criminal which had 4 classes and how to deal with them and from that point, each enemy afterwards were variations of those four classes and each provided a different challenge. The repetition wasn’t boring because it provided a new challenge. This game only gives you three types of enemies and while 2 are vastly different from anything in the previous game or it’s expansions, the need to limit the series to focus on narrative becomes unwarranted because you are still getting less for nearly the same price.

That’s all. Have a great day. It was a fun game. Really.

@ubernegro

#miles morales #spider-man ps5 #marvel’s spider man: miles morales

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wihlybt · 4 years

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I keep seeing posts on here and YouTube about "Season 2" this, "Season 2" that. There doesnt need to be a second season to begin with, but I'll tell you the reason so many people think we absolutely need one:

What do Taiga and Ryuuji talk about?

What do these two do when they're not on camera?

For that matter, what does Taiga do when she's on her own?

We get to see so much of them being stupid teenagers together, constantly screwing up and failing together, like a bootleg Team Rocket, and it make us root for them, and want to see them be HAPPY together, but we never see them just BEING. What common ground do they hold? How do they pass time together? They both clearly share mutual interest as far as clothes and food go, but the one time they actually discuss "fashion", it's just in passing, in service of introducing Ami.

Out of the main 5 characters, Taiga is the least developed, with the other 4 having clear interests or potential paths to follow with their lives. Ryuuji enjoys cooking, cleaning, fashion, and interior design. Ami is a model and her mother was an actress. Both Kidamura and Minori both have strong interest in athletic endeavors, with Kidamura being a scholar additionally, with clear intent to follow his senpai to America. Shit, even Haruta and Noto give their two cents on what their futures may hold, working with their parents or going into publishing respectively. Taiga is the only one who never shows any active interest in anything other than sitting her pretty little ass in front of the TV and eating whatever Ryuuji puts in front of her. Believe it or not, there are two filler episodes dedicated to Kidamura and Minori's development when we get nothing on Taiga herself, those Episodes being the Photo episode and helping Minori at work, and those episodes grate on me to no end due to their dispensability and irrelevance. Even when the prospect of "the future" is brought up in the story, her response is "I'm rich, so I don't have to do anything," and every time I see that scene, I wanna grind my knuckles into her cute little skull. Throughout the entire run of the show, she never does anything of her own volition, she has to be pushed or dragged into literally anything. We aren't provided with enough information in the slightest to picture any events that would follow that adorable final headbutt to her future husbands face, and that's why people THINK they want a season 2.

Even in the Visual Novel, which is sort of an alternate reality dating sim, where Ryuuji can end up with almost anybody (including his Mother and Ms. Yuri), the ending doesn't provide us with much to go off of. In Taiga's "True" Ending, we skip ahead a few years, where Ryuuji is an up and coming interior designer, and Taiga is pregnant with his triplets, as they return to Japan from their new home in Italy to visit Granny Yasuko. Everyone's super happy and successful.

This ending SUCKS.

As much as Taiga about to pop being stuffed full of Ryu's babies fills me with immeasurable joy, it's TOO happy an ending for our stupid teenagers. The whole show is them struggling together. I don't wanna see them rich and fancy, I wanna see them be normal, working class people, making ends meet and enjoying the small things in life. There's actually, in my opinion, a far better ending where Ryu ends up with KIDAMURA, of all people, where they make a Bros.-Before-Hoes style pact, and they work together to buy out Ryuuji's apartment complex and renovate the bottom floor into a restaurant, The Dragon Diner, where Granny Yasuko can retire and live in peace while her son and his best bro thrive and grow up before her very eyes. And who do you think is their number one customer? Wouldn't you know, it's Taiga, who's miserable watching Ryuuji and Kidamura be happy without her. The final line in the ending is Taiga wistfully asking herself where she and Ryuuji went wrong, Ryuuji not hearing her under her breathe as he gets ready to go work, serving nutritious meals at reasonable prices.

I love this ending so much more than the Taiga ending, because, while they're not a couple, Taiga and Ryuuji are still TOGETHER as we knew them in the show, and Taiga isn't going anywhere, as she makes it clear in her usual stubborn way, declaring herself Ryuuji's number one customer, and telling the bros they'd be lost without her. It fills me with hope, that, even if they're not "together", the two are still inseparable, and those triplets might still be in the future for the two, just not right now.

Ideally, I'd like for these two endings to be mashed together, where, Ryuuji and TAIGA buy the place they fell in love, renovate the bottom floor into a restaurant, The Palmtop Tiger (now named after the proprietors wife), and they work as husband and wife, with the retired Granny Yasuko helping raise the babies. Forget "Interior Design" in Italy, I wanna see Ryuuji make a name for himself the way he made his wife fall for him, with his cooking and hospitality. I wanna see Taiga develop some responsibility and support her husband, rather than just be dead weight as he supports both her and Yasuko.

TL;DR: The only reason people think they want a season 2 is cuz Taiga and Ryu have 0 couples chemistry, and we have little to no information to satisfyingly picture their future together

#Toradora #season 2 #taiga Aisaka #ryuuji takasu #review #anime #anime Review #criticism

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an-apocalypse-of-magpies · 4 years

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On the world of Mortal Engines, class, and the metaphors of consumption

This is less an essay and more a collection of thoughts. Basically I just saw a video on the Mortal Engines film and its being a civilisation too stupid to exist. I got fed up, mainly because so many of the criticisms amounted to ‘the book did it better’ with little elaboration but also the arrogantly grating voice of the presenter got on my nerves, but I cannot deny the points made and in fact wanted to elaborate further on the worldbuilding of this series and, while unrealistic, look at why the books were so engaging.

Some background to start off - Mortal Engines is a four-book series (and three-book prequel sub-series) written by English author Phillip Reeve, and depicts a bleak post-apocalyptic world. North America is uninhabitable and lost to the sands of time, irradiated, poisoned, and flattened by war. Eurasia is mostly barren plains. And, of course, the central premise - towns and cities have raised themselves onto mobile platforms and trundle about. Well, mostly. A major antagonist to this system is the Anti-Traction League, a collective of nations hiding out in old east China, the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia and some of Africa. They are seen as barbarians and heathens by much of the world for refusing to mobilise, instead hiding in stationary citadels behind their mountains. The Traction Cities near-universally engage in a philosophy of Municipal Darwinism, a savage system of bastardised pseudo-biology where cities literally predate each other and ‘consume’ each other for resources. Cities eat towns, towns eat smaller towns. Some towns and cities deliberately adapt to cheat the system and make themselves a less appetising target, or for that matter a more aggressive and efficient hunter.

THE TRACTION CITIES

The first three books tend to focus their action on one or two cities, whereas the last is a bit more of a road trip. The other consistent thread is multiple characters’ stories running concurrently, usually reconnecting near the end. This allows the books maintain an open, almost global scale - you’ll nearly never not be moving, even sitting still on a city, which reinforces the theme of unnatural life. The first book focuses on London, which has been sulking in what was once Britain (by sheer happenstance on their part and pure irony on ours), and is suddenly running at full pelt back into Europe and eastward as fast as her engines can carry her. Why? London’s not the biggest city around, and the vast expanse of Eurasia is now the Great Hunting Ground - it’s where the big boys play, and by play I mean ‘savagely predate each other’. It’s dangerous territory for a little city. But over the first book, it becomes increasingly apparent that Traction Cities are increasingly non-viable option for existence. Fuel is scarce, prey moreso, and what morsels London can confidently snap up will not sustain it for long. There is an ecosystem at play here - static settlements can farm resources, but are universally seen as food, either by small bandit settlements to raid for supplies or for larger towns to just straight-up eat. Small towns too small to hunt tend to be miners or gatherers, either mining minerals to use or trade, or gathering resources like wood from natural deposits or sifting through the waste heaps left by bigger cities. Most cities bigger than that are ‘urbivores’, or hunter towns, that hunt and eat smaller prey or opportunistically scavenge the ‘carcasses’ of dead cities. I mentioned specialisation earlier, and like in nature, species and cities can occupy a niche that gives them an advantage and thus increased chance at survival. Airhaven, for example, is a politically-neutral city in the air that floats around Eurasia seasonally and serves as a rest stop, fuelling station and trading exchange for airship pilots the world over, Tractionist or no. Tunbridge Wheels is a pirate-run town that has a lightweight wooden chassis and flotation devices to hunt amphibiously in a world where many small towns escape threat by setting up on islands. Panzerstadt-Bayreuth is a conurbation of four massive cities, too big to survive long without prey, they banded together to take down the biggest of prey (it’s unclear whether they achieve this through sheer size or whether they decouple and become a pack hunter). Anchorage, the last American city, neutered its own jaws to increase mobility, skating around the frozen north too fast for threats to catch up with, and survives on trade. Brighton is a pleasure city that paddles around the warm Mediterranean, technically still a predator but with no real agenda and about the only city left that can be called a tourist city (it’s run on the back of brutal slave labour). And these are just the major ones. Throughout the books, cities are treated like living things ... like mortal engines.

And like living things, they need resources to survive.

A DYING WAY OF LIFE

The books are inconsistent on the origins of Traction Cities, as it turns out deliberately - history is written by the winners, after all. But it’s all closely tied to the ‘apocalypse’ part of the post-apocalytic I mentioned earlier. Long ago in-universe, long into our future, was a terrible event known as the Sixty Minute War. This war tore the world asunder with nuclear and quantum energy weaponry. America, the epicentre, is simply no more (it turns out there are some fertile areas in Nova Scotia, but for the most part America is dead). Entire new mountain ranges were born, notably the Tannhäusers in East Asia that shield the heartland of the Anti-Traction League. There was a long period of geological and tectonic instability. According to legend, Traction Cities arose to escape these instabilities. In other words, like animals will flee a volcanic eruption, cities first became mobile to escape and survive. Trade was likely facilitated by towns literally being able to park next to each other. Ironically, London was also where everything changed. After Nikola Quercus conquered (static) London with his mobile fortresses, he decided to upgrade and raise London onto wheels to become the first fully-mobile city. And he did it for war. After all, there’s no better comeback to ‘you and what army’ then literally rolling up with your entire city. By the series present, the idea had caught on and grown into the ideology described above. But herein lies the problem. Early Traction London was a tiny little thing. Now it’s not even the biggest fish in the pond, but it’s still HUGE. And, as we all know, big things need lots of energy to go. London is described as having a top speed of about sixty miles per hour at the height of a hunt. So, you need fuel. There is still oil in this world, mainly because they now have no qualms about mining Antarctica, but if you think there’s nearly enough crude oil to run a world full of cities like London you are sorely mistaken. Wood’s not much better off. And, of course, Traction Cities tend to run on some form of internal combustion engine - it’s only at the very end of the traction era that science has advanced enough for a town to experiment with magnetic levitation. So what do they burn? Well, bits of other prey towns. Do you see the problem? Use fuel to hunt towns, burn those towns for fuel. What next? And it’s not just fuel. London captures a little salt-mining town called Salthook at the beginning of the first book to introduce us to the concepts at play, and we see what goes on in the Dismantling Yards - part of a system literally called the Gut, in case the metaphor wasn’t clear yet. Everything is recycled. Bricks, mortar, steel, wood, everything. Because the state of technology is so weird in this world, Old-Tech (technology from before the SMW) can be incredibly valuable to history and/or science, and London is keen to snaffle that up too. The people are interred into refugee camps, though if you know anything about how real-life Britain treats refugees you can probably see where that is going. And it’s not enough. It’s never enough. Food is an even more pressing concern. Unless you’re very rich (more on that in a mo), food is mostly algae-based, then hardy vegetables that grow quickly like cabbage. And it’s running out fast. And London’s a big city with a lot of resources at its disposal. Most cities don’t even have that. A lot of cities are starving on the wheels, city and populace alike. A lot of cities run on slave labour, and feed those slaves as little as they can get away with. Shan Guo, home of the Anti-Traction League, is a green and vibrant land only because it doesn’t have cities running over or eating its farmlands every other day (and, again, city folk generally don’t know this - they’re given endless propaganda that Anti-Tractionists are barbarian warbands a la Mad Max). A lot of the A story is told from the point of view of Tom Natsworthy, who until the events of the book had never left London. He’s never seen bare earth or walked on mud before. He’s never seen a horse. The idea that you can survive, much less thrive, outside of a Traction City is alien to him. But on the city he came from, everything is rapidly running out, and some cities are turning to desperate measures to survive, including Arkangel openly bribing pilots to sell out the locations and courses of nearby cities. A chilling scene in the first book even has Tom see, from the safety of the air, the corpse of Motoropolis, a city not unlike London that literally just starved to death, running out of fuel and helpless as the scavengers closed in. It’s been weeks since the city stopped, and the narrative description evokes the grotesqueness and sadness of a whale carcass. Sheer Jingoism is about the only thing keeping Municipal Darwinism alive - Traction good, stationary bad.

CLASS, CLASSISM, AND OTHER SOCIAL OPPRESSIONS

In a world so starved as this, compassion is hard to come by. Cities still exist mainly by virtue of rigid social stratification, and often that stratification is literal - most medium-to-large cities have tiers, and will generally arrange those tiers based on social class. London, for example, has seven tiers. The bottom two tiers are dominated by the Gut, the engines, and homes and communities of the workers who keep them running. Tiers 4 and 3 are miscellaneous proles of increasing social standing. Tier 2 is mostly what I’d call ‘tourist London’ - lots of the nice bits and the establishments that London likes to be proud of. Because of his work at the London Museum, this is the quality of life Tom Natsworthy was most used to. Tier 1 is High London, where all the rich live and have their amenities and nice parks (and even that doesn’t last - London’s food shortage means even the High London parks are eventually, begrudgingly, turned over for food production). Katherine Valentine, the hero of the first book’s B plot, lives here. Finally there’s Top Tier, which is purely administrative. The only buildings are the Guildhall (the seat of government), St Paul’s Cathedral (which the Engineers’ Guild have secretly been installing a deadly superweapon in under the guise of ‘restoration’ work) and the headquarters of the Guild of Engineers, the most powerful of London’s Guilds. Social stratification is nearly non-existant, and people are shown to get very uncomfortable when out of ‘their space’. Tom is sent to work in the Gut during the capture of Salthook as a punishment before the plot ejects him from London, and he notes being actively intimidated by the claustrophobia, the dirt, the rough and burly labourers, and the noise. But despite Tom’s relatively privileged life - he lives near High London, above the heat and noise and smoke of the engines, in the care of one of the top four Guilds of London - he is of very low social status. Tom Natsworthy is an orphan; his parents were Historians, but were killed when an accident occurred and part of Tier 3 collapsed, crushing anything on Tier 4 beneath. Even before that, the Natsworthys were middle class at best, but being orphaned meant being left to the care of an orphanage run by the Guild of his parents, the Historians. The Historians were Tom’s only source of education, and eventually they would employ him, but with no parents or money, Tom can only afford a Third-Class apprenticeship. He has no upwards mobility within the Guild, and with no money he can’t leave and train with another. His dream of being a pilot trader, or better yet adventurer, will never come true under normal circumstances. The rich live in a completely different world yet. Katherine Valentine, daughter of the Head Historian and the Lord Mayor’s ‘right-hand man’ Thaddeus Valentine, has a positively bougie lifestyle with not a care in the world. Ironically, though, it is through Katherine’s eyes that the horrors of London’s class system are revealed. Trying to find information about her father’s would-be killer, Katherine finds herself regularly travelling to the Gut, eventually befriending an apprentice Engineer who witnessed the attack. But in the Gut, life is very different. It’s not just a life of hard labour and smoke - petty criminals and the aforementioned ‘refugees’ are tasked with working dangerous and sickening jobs like managing the city’s sewage. And by that, I mean ‘harvesting literal faeces to be converted into food and fuel’. The foreman overseeing their work admits they feed such criminals nothing else. And he has the gall to be annoyed that they keep dying of diseases like cholera and typhoid! These people are denied medical care, denied treatment, denied even basic food other than being told to literally eat sh*t. And when they inevitably die? They get sent to the Engineerium to be turned into robotic zombies that can never get sick, tired or unhappy. And, eventually, they’ll be put right back to work. The crimes these criminals did to deserve this, remember, include petty theft, criticising the Lord Mayor, and living aboard a town that got eaten. The foreman literally cannot fathom why Katherine would care about these people’s wellbeing - after all, they’re just criminals. The Engineerium’s end goal in all this is, again, to staff the entire lower tiers with robot zombie workers who will never grow tired, get sick, complain or protest their lot in life, and will never disobey orders, and just enough human overseers to keep things running smoothly ... because that’s what these people are worth to London, cheap, unending labour. Katherine can’t even bring herself to tell her high-class peers about what she learned down there, because it’s such a different world that they would never empathise, much less care. Again, slave labour is common in this world, especially child slavery - Brighton runs on it to maintain its image as a floating Caligula’s Palace, and in Arkangel slavery is so normal that we watch a rich man beat a slave nearly to death for the crime of bumping into him. In the second book, we see the logical end-point of this. Anchorage’s social structure has completely fallen apart due to a plague in recent years that turned to once-proud ice city into a ghost town manned only by a skeleton crew. The margravine, Freya, is only 14, but with her parents dead, she finds herself in charge of the whole city. She has no household staff, apart from Smew, who finds himself constantly juggling outfits to adopts the roles of steward, chamberlain and so on. His official role before the plague was ... erm ... the Dwarf. He was there in a manner similar to a court jester, for the amusement of the margrave due to being a little person. But the head navigator is just ... the woman who kept the maps. The head engineer is going half-mad, seeing his dead son staring at him from the shadows, and the only reason the town’s still going is because his systems are the best on the ice and can mostly run on automatic. They have no doctor. The only other people of consequence in Anchorage are the Aakiuqs, the Inuit couple who run the air-harbour. The common workers of Anchorage number in the mere dozens. And yet, because they’re so fixated on their traditions, nobody will drop the formalities and just admits that they’re trying to uphold a class system that doesn’t work anymore. No, that’s not quite right - everybody realises it’s pointless to maintain the artifice of Anchorage’s social heirarchy, but nobody wants to be the first one to say it out loud. Much like Municipal Darwinism, nobody want to address the elephant in the room, that the system is broken and that people hold onto it because it’s comfortable in the face of uncertainty. Only in Anchorage’s darkest hour, when everything has been turned upside down and the conquerors are on their doorsteps, do the agree to drop the formalities, drop the artifice of class, and address each other as people, say what they think, and work to save what they have left. And of course, there’s the racism in the world. Life on mobile cities has made cultures smaller and more insular, considering we mainly see this series from the point of view of culturally-English towns. Throughout the first book there is a clear west vs east divide - the Traction Cities are generally English-speaking or multicultural enough that English will get you by. The Anti-Tractionist League, meanwhile, are south or east Asian, or else African, and are commonly understood to be ‘those brown people’. The only ethnically white Anti-Tractionists are from ‘Spitzbergen’ (likely Scandinavia/Finland and northwest Russia) and Hester Shaw’s family, and the latter lived on a town that floated out to an island and gave up running from predators forever. The way Tom reacts to this attitude calls to mind the way racists might refer to ‘race traitors’. There’s even an in-universe slur for people who live in static settlements; ‘Mossies’, because ‘a rolling town gathers no moss’. However, when Tom is taken to Shan Guo itself, he realises that all the propaganda he’d been fed his whole like is exactly that - propaganda. Shan Guo is described as beautiful - an endless patchwork of rolling fields and farms, colourful, bright, vibrant, heaving with life and energy. The Anti-Tractionists aren’t vicious savages, they’re just ... people. Tom can’t understand it at first. He wonders how people can live without the hum of engines or the vibrations of deckplates - he subconsciously equates city life with, well, life, and the absence of that makes him uneasy. But he can also see this culture before him, thousands of years old, outlasting even the end of the world, and he realises there is another way. The next time he sees London, he sees it from outside, from the side of the hunted, and he realises it’s not beautiful or efficient, just dirty, and huge, wrapped in its own waste smoke and driven only by destruction. For the rest of the series, even with the rise of the radicalised Green Storm (Anti-Tractionists Lv2), large Traction Cities are consistently the enemy. Tractionism as a culture is understood to only represent imperialism, destruction, and consumption, literally and figuratively.

SCIENCES SANS FRONTIERES

It should be noted that science and technology are not universally reviled by the series. As a dieselpunk series, a certain degree of technology is fundamental to the series existence. But this is a very different world than the one we know. On the one hand, engines exist that can drive entire cities. On the other, computers basically do not exist. The rare few that still exist are not in working condition, and nobody knows how to restore them. Heavier-than-aircraft don’t really exist - the third book introduces some, but they’re small, experimental ... barely more than short-range toys designed for flashy air shows but not real travel. The main form of personal locomotion in this world is by airship, and this world’s airships are far beyond anything we’ve made in our time. But lost technologies are heavily associated with the hubris and destructiveness of the Ancients. Until now. Like I said, the most powerful Guild in London is the Engineers’ Guild. And they got that way under the leadership of now-Lord Mayor Magnus Crome. It should be noted that Crome genuinely loves his city and wants it to survive no matter the cost. But under Crome, the Engineers began to dabble in sciences considered unethical to downright taboo. Most notable is the MEDUSA Project. Through Thaddeus Valentine, London came into possession of an energy weapon from the SMW ... and, more importantly, the working computer that runs the thing. In terms of Darwinist Evolution, this is like giving a monkey a gun and teaching it how to use it. MEDUSA exhibits a level of power no other force on Earth can match, and London is forced to deploy it early in a crisis. Originally, the plan was to march up to Batmunkh Gompa, the Shield-Wall that represents the only break in the mountains around Shan Guo big enough to permit a city, and blast it to cinders. Unfortunately, London attracts the attention of a bigger, hungrier city about halfway there, and is forced to fire MEDUSA at it to save its own skin. The sheer terror of what that weapon represents is revealed then. Panzerstadt-Bayreuth was the fusion of four massive cities, each one bigger and more powerful than London. MEDUSA killed it dead in one stroke - the energy beam set the entire city ablaze and ignited its fuel stores. Her engines nearly immediately exploded. When the fires go down enough for an Engineer scout ship to investigate, the people had been almost flashed into glass. The flash of light from the attack is so bright that, hundreds of miles to the south, Tom and Hester see the sky light up like a new dawn. The people of London are relieved, of course, that they didn’t all die that night, but more than that the entire city become suffused with the excitement of just how easy it would be to kill ... well, anyone they like, really. London doesn’t even stop to devour Panzerstadt-Bayreuth, as the Engineers can’t afford for the Shield-Wall to prepare for their arrival. Appropriately, and karmically, the finale has an accident lock down the computer lock down, with MEDUSA unable to fire but unable to stop gathering energy, and London melts under the heat of MEDUSA’s glare. But that wasn’t the only scientific sin committed by London’s engineers. I’ve already mentioned London trying to repurpose faeces as food, but we need to talk more about the Stalkers. Stalkers are kinda like discount Cybermen from Doctor Who - dead bodies, threaded with weird old machines and coated in armour, their brains hooked up to simple computers. Originally conceived as soldiers, they were believed long dead. However, one survived to the modern by sheer survivor instinct - Shrike. Through negotiations that are not the purview of this essay, he allowed the Engineers of London to take him apart and figure out how he worked, and hoo boy they did. The Engineers figured out how to manufacture their own Stalkers. The first batch are used as law enforcement like the Worst Robocops, but, again, the plan was to have Stalker workers all over Low London. Katherine, learning this, likens it to London ‘being a city of the dead’ (Apprentice Engineer Pod, to whom she is talking, grimly notes that the Deep Gut Prison is so awful, so callous with human life, that it already feels like that). Logically, the end-point of this idea is to have all workers in London be the resurrected dead, with just enough living to keep things in order ... oh, and they’d all be loyal to the Engineers, because remember, no Freedom of Speech here, and you can be sent to do the worst form of prison labour for dissenting against the Lord Mayor. With Crome being both Lord Mayor and Head Engineer at once, the Engineers’ creed is as good as law - traditionally, London Lord Mayors forsook their former Guild allegiances to show their representation of all of London, and Crome’s refusal to do that caused a bit of a stir. The Engineers are also keen to arm their security teams with some form of energy pistols, despite guns being outlawed in London and the police are only allowed crossbows. Crome’s rationale is the same as every two-bit mad scientist villain, of course - that science should not be held back by moral restrictions, and that progress for progress’ sake is essential for London’s survival. Really, it’s the Engineer’s survival, as they’re rather loathe to share these advancements except to exert power on those around. London isn’t the only example of technology being used to leverage control and benefit the ruling classes. Grimsby is a sunken wreck of a city somewhere in the north Atlantic, yet due to a complex series of airlocks the interior of the city is a secret hideaway of the Lost Boys, a society of children stolen from aquatic towns and trained to be thieves under the watchful eye of the mysterious Uncle. They will then take submarine walkers, attach to passing towns, steal whatever tools, fuel, food and riches they can carry, and vanish back into the depths. Uncle, naturally, takes the lion’s share of the haul. But Uncle maintains his power by careful access to technology, only letting the Boys have what they need and juggling the power structure by choosing team leaders, and punishing insubordination harshly and publicly. Uncle sees and hears everything in Grimsby with his surveillance network, and can address any give Boy in a heartbeat, training the Boys to never expect privacy from him, so that when he demands a progress update from a mission, they never question him. He rewards Boys who do well on burglaries, but more importantly than that, he chooses team leaders according to apparently inscrutable whims. The Boys believe it’s a mark of favour from Uncle, and thus social status, to be trusted with the limpet command and all the tech that comes with. Really, Uncle carefully give command to people he can trust to remain loyal to him, even if that means passing over a more talented Boy who might get a bit uppity. Even in a more mundane way, higher status in the Lost Boys means you can move closer to the heart of Grimsby, where you’re less likely to wake up and find your bedroom wasn’t as watertight as you thought and flooded in the night. Uncle, naturally, doesn’t care if a few Boys drown, so long as he doesn’t lose anything useful. Technology, and in particular access to unusual technology, is the dimension on which power is really decided.

THE END OF AN ERA

We’ve already established that this world is not a sustainable one. There are only so many cities. The inherent entropy of Municipal Darwinism is really showing. Once upon a time, big cities could ‘reproduce’, creating little satellite towns that could grow and become independent - even London had some - but those are no more. In a greedy desperation to keep moving, the predators are not reproducing, and static settlements can’t spread and grow fast enough to count there. The attack of London, and MEDUSA, turned staunch opposition into outright war, with the Green Storm being willing to doublethink their way into using the weapons of the Traction Cities in their fight to stop the Traction Cities, even recruiting ex-London Engineers to make weapons and stalkers for them, and eventually even seeking out another ancient superweapon - an orbital laser called ODIN - without a hint of irony. The Green Storm eventually face internal resistance, from Anti-Tractionists who disagree with the outright terrorism angle, and eventually crumbles. The last great Traction Cities stop. The last mobile city is New London, no longer a hunter but a trade platform, and even that probably stopped hovering about at some point. The ending is told by the great survivor, Shrike, who has cheated Death again and again, who outlived Tom Natsworthy and Hester Shaw, Valentine, Magnus Crome, and a thousand other heroes and villains. When he awakes, long in the future, Traction Cities are not even ancient history. They’re a dream, a fantasy, too incredible to be true. But Shrike remembers, and he teaches people the story of London and Anchorage, Arkangel and Airhaven, Brighton and Harrowbarrow. Did they learn the right message from Shrike’s story? Did they learn that ruthless imperialism is like hunting faster than the food can come back, and that you will starve before you have everything you ever wanted? Did they learn that hoarding resources, gatekeeping knowledge, will lead to ruin? Did they learn, or will the repeat the same mistakes of the greed and gluttony of the Traction Era? Well, who knows.

#mortal engines #wow that was a ramble and a half

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brideofcthulhu10 · 4 years

Text

Behold another Lost Boys holiday special! It was between this and Valentine’s day, but honestly I love writing Christmas specials, its such a cozy time despite the high suicide rates, but lets not get into that. A BIG SHOUT OUT TO @imlostinsantacarla FOR HELPING ME EDIT MY FINAL DRAFT!

Fun Fact! My husband, David (yes, that is actually his name) actually does have the bah humbug hat I mention in the head canons. He’s a heavy metal goth so when I found it at the store I had to get it for him. And you just know if our David found that, he wouldn’t be able to resist it!

Christmas with the Boys

Alright, so the whole touchy, feely and mushy feelings that surround even the topic of Christmas time is not something any of the boys will ever openly admit to enjoying. After all, they see themselves as these bad ass brutal killers who thrive off of death instead of holding hands and caroling with the goodie goodies of this coastal town.

Yet, it's challenging for them not to get sucked into the glitz and glam of the holiday season. Everything is a big deal in Santa Carla. Dia De Los Muertos, Halloween, Thanksgiving- everything! But especially Christmas.

Christmas in Santa Carla dwarfs the frenzy craze of Halloween. The entirety of the boardwalk is decked out with red and green lights that are tightly wound around palm trees, red bulbous bows are wrapped tightly around street lamps, the reds and whites of velvety fabric swirl down the posts, creating the effect of candy canes. All the store windows are painted to appear frosted, or covered with painted snowmen whilst several rooftops are covered with white felt in which mimics the texture and sight of snow. Even the boats in the harbour are all extravagantly decorated in a sea of lights that parade around brightly at night in every color imaginable.

Between the dates of the 30th of November all the way to the 24th of December the city of Santa Carla hosts a plethora of wondrous events in it's annual Holiday Festival. Large green, white and red kiosks are erected, selling a wide range of baubles and treats, from delectable chocolate coated rice krispy Santa Clauses, elf candy apples caked in a plethora of dark chocolate and peppermint, to a variety of Holiday hats, masks and even hand made costumes by the many local artists. Even hand carved candles in wondrous scents of pine, mint, or spice.

Currently, David possesses a black fur Santa hat which he acquired on a night out that boasts the words "Bah Humbug" proudly sewn over the front. It's the only holiday attire he'll even humor. Last time Marko attempted to place reindeer antlers on his head, David had set them on fire roasting atop a pan of chestnuts. Now it's not to say that he's a grinch persay. Rather, the complex and intense emotions that come hand in hand with Christmas can leave him perpetually indifferent at best, disdainful at worst. The whole occasion leaves him displeased. After all, he was an orphan who had been almost eagerly abandoned by his hooker mother left to fend for himself from the beginning, and of course never met his father. Even she could not identify which of her many clients may have been responsible. Most of his mortal life he had lived as a street rat, barely making ends meet by picking the pockets of tourists and Santa Carla citizens oblivious to the true dangers of the lower side of town. The rich and uppity classes who often snubbed their entitled noses his way would never suspect as he lurks between alleyways, leaving them cornered at knife point. It was scarce that he ever did see a kind face in the sea of those who had little interest for anyone that was not themselves. Back then it was rather uncommon for anyone to step outside their own little lives, which led to most interactions, outside of the other boys, having been met with great hostility, thus he had learned to be just as equally hostile in turn. Even the mere thought of anyone suddenly dawning a false kindness due to a certain time of year simply agitated David. It rattled him to the very core in a way very few other things did. Why bother with the lies? Couldn't people just face the very basic fact that they weren't nearly as charitable as they often deemed themselves to be? I mean, the young man had seen firsthand a family having previously snubbed a dirty homeless man with appalled disdain at the sight of his muddied clothes and dirt stained skin, only to then begin volunteering at a soup kitchen to purge whatever guilt they carried on their conscience once the holiday season began. The whole ordeal was pitiful! Nevertheless, - more so for Paul and Marko's sakes than his own -, he did humor these traditions amongst the holiday's festivities. Ruining a good time just wasn't his style. Unless they started fucking singing.

Most traditions David could tolerate, some he even enjoyed slightly; although he would never be caught dead admitting something as embarrassing as that! However, he just couldn't stand Christmas carols! They were the bain to his immortal existence. The repetitive nature of these overly cheery jingles left him covering his ears lest they nest in his brain leaving him humming the same damn melody for weeks. This was the case because the dynamic duo of dumbasses were well aware of his hatred for Rudolph the Red Nosed fuckin' roadkill! Stupid red nosed abomination.

“OOOOOOH-,” Paul begins with cheerful mischief.

“Don’t. You. Fucking. Dare.” David seethes through tightly clenched teeth, eyes screwed shut in indignance.

Paul hesitates. He looks at Marko. Marko looks at Paul. Wicked grins of agreement spread wide like wildfire across their faces as their master plan comes into play. Full throttle. What’s more fun than annoying the shit out of David? One on the left, the other on the opposite side of the cave on the right. This was nothing but Divine perfection if you asked the two troublesome vampires.

“OOOOOH DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW!” Paul belted out at full volume.

“IN A ONE HORSE OPEN SLEIGH!” Marko followed in suit, the widest eerie grin plastered on his face.

“OVER THE HILLS WE GOOOO” Paul howled enthusiastically.

“I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU BOTH!” David's voice hit a whole new octave it had never in all his life so far. All the while Dwayne had opted to vacate the room lest he be caught in the middle of the escalating madness with Laddie in tow. He loved these guys, but not enough to dive head first into their fuckery.

Paul thrives during the Christmas holidays! How could he not? The food, the punk rock covers of Christmas songs, the absolute babes prancing around the town in Santa hats under mistletoe?! He loved it all! You can find him sneaking under mistletoe with many sweet honeys on a constant basis, regardless of whether or not he's acquainted with them. Most do roll their eyes or laugh it off, but every once in a blue moon the guy will get a little lovin' from a beach babe in the Yuletide mood. What else could he ask for? You can bet he’ll run into the woods December first, and quite literally RIP a pine tree out of the ground to bring home like a wee carrot being plucked from the ground. The bigger the better! He may even drag Dwayne or Marko along with him if it's too big for him to carry himself. And all the boozy drinks he can concoct up? This boy is in his element! Mulled wine, spiked eggnog, candy cane vodka, butterscotch bourbon hot chocolate?! Yes! David straight up refuses to try anything that Paul creates himself (remember the concoction he made in Max's kitchen? Those poor goldfish....) which is also another reason why he has Dwayne help him. Or rather, the other boys insist the most responsible of them monitors the blonde lest he poison them with some sickly brew. That, and the fact that Dwayne's the least likely out of all of them to blow up the damn kitchen!

Dwayne is indeed the designated cook during the holiday rush, albeit a field even he tends to struggle. Avoiding the kitchen catching aflame, perfecting his craft lest he blow up the stove, leaving only a pile of ash in its wake. As previously mentioned, ever since the dreadful chain of events that lead to the unfortunate destruction of Max's kitchen, this raven haired vampire has attempted his hand at learning to use a stove properly: Although he often finds himself forgetting ingredients either in the midst of cooking or after the final product is done and he's taken a big bite.

“Shit! I forgot the milk and eggs!” Dwayne grumbled with a mouthful of dry crumbs, a true disgrace of a cookie.

Paul always gives him crap for it of course.

“Oooh I just thought you were going for a sandy, dusty dry cookie kinda thing.”

"Yeah man, these taste like ass!" Marko would cough out in midst of choking.

"And what, like you dumbasses could do any better," Dwayne retorts with a huff. Only Star manages to have any manners when testing his failed baking endeavors.

"Well I mean, the taste isn't that bad. Just a little dry is all."

"At least Marko wouldn't be choking to death." David would mutter from the darkest corner of the room, a little late in the conversation.

In all honesty, Dwayne's biggest motivation when it came to improving his skills was obviously Laddie. The kid never got much of a Christmas whilst living with his mom, so now that he was with the boys, he wanted to ensure that Christmas's were something that Laddie would remember for all eternity. Though granted, it is quite the mess when he was helping in the kitchen. But when the mini vamp grins from ear to ear whilst coated in flour and rapidly stirring an overflowing bowl of chunky cookie dough--the sight is too freaking cute!

Since Laddie joined the boys, they participate in Secret Santa every single year, which definitely includes Paul bursting through the entrance of the hotel as Santa on Christmas day. We won't talk about the fact that each year he almost falls flat on his face and swears, ruining the surprise for the kid.

"Santa where are your reindeer," he'd question, to which Santa Paul scoffs

"Pff, reindeer, I don't need any fucki- Ow," cut off by a firm and covert kick to the shin from Star, Paul quickly changes his response. "Oh! Ho ho, well, you see little boy, Santa can fly too! On his, uh, uhm… magic motorcycle! Yeah, that!"

But it's okay because Laddie already KNEW (he figured it out a year or two ago after Paul's beard fell off not once, but three times), he just doesn't have the heart to tell any of them because, well Paul really gets into it. And he knows the others are playing along for his sake. But to be fair, Laddie would have to be pretty dumb to believe it was Santa. I mean, the beard Paul's wearing is hanging half off his face by this point! But anyway, just like Paul's style, the entirety of the goody two shoes schpiel is thrown out the window, replaced with sleeves that have been ripped off, muddy boots, spiked bracelets and his Metallica shirt in full view beneath his flared red coat. He calls this BIKER CLAUS!

Laddie is not a squasher of traditions! But there was the one time that David had to intervene when Paul and Dwayne thought it would be great to use Laddie as the star at the top of the tree. David practically had a heart attack. Well, that's impossible but it still felt like he was having one!

“Ho ho ho! Now, don’t be a bitch, little David or Santa will have to give you coal.” Paul stated mockingly to David, brows furrowed.

“Well, Santa,” David scolds, a wry smile developing on his face when setting down the eight year old now off to shake his presents beneath their behemoth of a tree. “You best be careful. You never know what's in those milk and cookies, hm?”

Each year Marko buys bird toys for the pigeons in the hotel. Well, buy is probably the wrong word. More like he liberates the stores of their stock. And then for the next six months, David has to hear the agonizing jingle of bells. David almost roasted one pigeon in particular that kept flying over him to drop the ball with a bell in it on his head. That was Paul's entertainment for the next five hours, hell, he'd try to find it if the bird lost it and give it back. Marko defends the pigeon. Between running through stores buying up surprises for his friends, he's helping Paul throw out decorations for the cave. The dollar store has some surprisingly unexpected treasures, allowing him to deck the fucking halls to the max. Tinsel here, ornaments there, tiny light up trees to hide around the caves, a butt ton of cinnamon pine cones which he ends up throwing back and forth with Paul.

And Paul often steals his gifts or goes dumpster diving for any hidden gems. He forgets to take the tags off of them the majority of the time, which is always an indicator whether or not its new. Any time Star asks where he got them from he refuses to answer. Just gets up and walks away. But for David's gift? Well this lucky bastard has found coal in the dumpster and chucks it to David when he's not looking and he sighs deeply in disappointment because this is the third year Paul has done this.

"Huh? What? Who did that? Wasn't me. Somebody's throwing stuff."

Other than that he'll find a fat bag of charcoal and just tape the name David on it. David is certainly not amused. Dwayne will actually try to figure out what the others want, and has the sense to save the money taken from their previous meals. After all, they're dead, they wouldn't have much use for it anyway. He's not about to waste his hypnosis on some poor cashier. That would be a waste of time in his eyes.

When Christmas did arrive the tree was piled with mysterious boxes crudely mashed and taped together with bows and ribbons underneath it. It's obvious which ones are from Star since those gifts are wrapped in neatly pressed paper, wound tight beneath curled ribbons that remind the boys of her hair. Marko often goes on a food run rather than allow them all to be subjected to a potentially charred turkey, no offense to Dwayne of course. So, with a table covered from end to end with copious bowls of gravy, potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, a beast of a turkey in the center packed to the brim with cornbread stuffing, the boys cram into their chairs knocking back beers and spiked cider. Keeping to their own traditions, after fattening up, they gather around the tree and play card games, just as they had over eighty years ago on that frigid night. David still slays them in poker, and Marko is an utter dark horse when it comes to blackjack. Paul insists they try Go Fish. No one ever wants to play Go Fish. Closer towards the end of the night Dwayne will slip away to Jasper's shrine and bring him a fresh glass of rum as well as unwrapping what he got him that year. While Dwayne is there, the other boys will join him - omitting Star and Laddie left unaware of the Lost Boy they'd never met - in celebrating the last hour or so of the Holiday season with their fallen comrade.

Although Christmas time is often about uncomfortable mushy moments and emotions that create deep, unfamiliar times for David. The entire ordeal becomes that for everyone of the boys and Star. But God forbid anyone who even mentions it! I mean, it's kinda obvious though considering he's spending it with the people he always called family, knee deep in traditions that are sentimental to himself and the boys. There's a fluster of emotions running rampant during this particular Holiday Season, and although the blonde brooding vampire decides to squint at it with skepticism he savors these moments, knowing like Jasper, it could all be swept away with a single ray of light or the foolish hand of a hunter. So as they sit, drunk, full, and laughing beside Jasper's grave he can't help but smile at the sentimentality of it all. Christmas is a pain in the ass, but… it's a pain he'll gladly sit through for his brothers.

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lookwhatilost · 3 years

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I’m going to use this video as something of a case study to prove my point. Some things that are necessary to point about Ben Shapiro: he is an intelligent person, he speaks quickly, and he makes good quips. This makes him very good for the YouTube video “LiBtArD wReCkEd” compilations. He’s also very dishonest and he tends to misrepresent statistics. This is, of course, because Ben is a fascist and fascists don’t care if they’re telling the truth.

So, this is a thirteen minute video, and barely a fraction of what this student is laying out is going to get covered. The reason why Ben is letting him talk as much as he does in the beginning instead of interrupting him the moment he started explaining what socialism is is because he’s looking for something to quote back at him. Usually he’ll let his “debate” opponent talk until he finds something to do this with, and hit them hard on the point he stops them on.

Next we have this “workers or the government” thing Ben comes back at him with: he clearly said “workers owning the means of production”. He even said it twice, I believe, and Ben pretty much says “I know you’re talking about that, but if you said THE GOVERNMENT owning the means of production, that would be very ineffective” and then he rattles off on that. Even though this student never said anything about redistribution – he deliberately stepped away from that point at the very beginning. He acknowledged the fact that Ben will often talk about redistribution without actually engaging with the core points of socialism and, once more, he never said anything about government control and he never said anything about lack of free market enterprise. Socialism and free market enterprise aren’t in any way disparate. Market socialism is a thing.

Hypothetically, what you’d have to do here is let him talk on, and when he’s done, say “That was great and all, Ben, but I pretty clearly said worker owned means of production. Would you mind answering the actual question.” You can’t treat people like this in good faith. Ben knows exactly what he’s doing here with his talking points. No one brought up the Scandinavian countries. No one brought up government owned means of production. Nobody brought up free market enterprise. Nobody brought up being paid $100,000 to dig holes in the ground. No one brought up redistribution policies – unless you count the kid bringing it up to clarify that this wasn’t what he was talking about.

He then brings up that he’s an owner. Ben is smart enough to understand the basic principles of socialism, but he recognizes he isn’t capable of addressing any substantive criticism, so he’s deliberately pretending to misunderstand what this kid is saying. “Freely choose to alienate your labor” as if you have any choice in society these days. That’s like saying you freely choose to shit inside of a toilet. You don’t have many other options in regards to that. You can if you want to, but eventually, you’re going to get in trouble with it. Again, this is a deliberate misinterpretation. The workers owning the means of production gets brought up, and he spends the first two minutes of his response saying “if you meant the government owning it, that’s disastrous, and by the way, Norway is actually capitalist, and socialists won’t tell you this, but they actually have free market enterprise. And I’m a worker, so workers do actually own the means of production. Isn’t Bill Gates a worker?” Aren’t the tens of thousands of people under Bill Gates also workers? We’re talking about all workers, not just the one worker who also happens to own the company.

Him crafting rebuttals that actually take into consideration the tenants of socialism would, at least on some level, give the socialist credence to argue in a reality based sense. If a reactionary defends their belief system by attacking socialism in ways that are actually salient, you’ve set the socialist up to debate in a fact based argument, and that’s not what reactionaries dominate. Reactionaries dominate in a purview of recited dialogue trees, of snooty quips, and emotionally based arguments. This is where they thrive. They do not want to bring the argument into a reality based discussion.

In three minutes, he’s introduced so many stupid misconceptions that the student is going to spend more time arguing against the misconception than he will putting forth his own argument. He could spend a literal hour trying to correct the dumb, deliberate straw men that Ben Shapiro has thrown out here and never will he get a chance to substantively put forth any real advocacy for socialism.

To counter his “criticism” on labor theory of value: what if you spend a lot of time and money digging up diamonds from the ground? There are plenty of diamonds that get dug up that have absolutely no mechanical or industrial purpose. He’s saying “labor theory of value is dumb and bad because the market theory of value is what’s correct” without presenting any sort of argument to support that. Neither of these are holistic theories, both of them have valid places in society as lenses of interpretation, but this is not a substantive criticism. It is, in fact, very stupid.

It also helps that he has all the social capital in this situation. You never, ever want to challenge a reactionary when they have the podium and you don’t, and while they have the audience and you don’t. If they are even slightly intelligent, it is literally impossible for them to lose in the eye of their audience.

When the student brings up Mondragon: this is what reactionaries do. They define capitalism as freedom. Capitalism is when the owners of capital own the means of production and socialism is when the workers own the means of production. Not that we should take much that economic theorists say for granted on the account of most of them being cheerleaders for capitalism, but there are plenty of things that Ben laid forth that many economic theorists would disagree with. For one, he’s laid out the assertion that free markets are somehow absolute to capitalism and antithetical so socialism, that worker owned communes are an example of capitalism, and the degree to which government intervention is present in an economy is deterministic to whether or not it is socialism. Reactionaries operate in a delusory, fantastical land where the characteristics of capitalism are amorphous and capable of being shifted to suit one argument to another. In one instance, capitalism is the liberator of the working class, the distributor of technology, and in another instance, the very real consequences of capitalism are instead a product of corporatism, of government intervention, of “globalist” policy. Not true capitalism, mind, just other things.

And hey, guys, I’ve read the Communist Manifesto. Does anyone remember any segments in there where Karl Marx claimed the government needed to cram down and force people to participate in guild markets? Does anyone remember that part? I don’t.

Anyway, this is why you don’t argue with reactionaries when they have the podium and you don’t. The student got a bunch of time to speak where he laid out a very calm point, Ben got a bunch of time to speak where he then said a bunch of shit that had nothing to do with the kids argument to mislead the audience, and then deliberately interpreted what the kid was saying to present a straw man that the kid would have to correct. Now Ben has got the student in a position where he’s basically saying “I don’t disagree with anything, you’re basically saying capitalism. Worker owned means of production? That just means the people who own it also work at it, right? If Republicans did that, would you vote for them?” The kid is never going to be able to correct all this, not in a million years, and now when he speaks up, Ben is going to keep hammering this in, deliberately interrupting the kid and forcing him to answer misleading questions.

This is how you win a Ben Shapiro debate. This is how you “own libtards”. You get the mic, deliberately misinterpret what they say, you throw straw men at them and force them to defend or respond to that, both of which are impossible, and then, just to keep them off base, you continue to interrupt them when they respond to your point. It’s a very, very simple formula to follow if you are intellectually dishonest and a complete fucking asshole.

But yeah, the free market is not exclusively capitalist. For one, the free market does not have prescriptions. The free market is not a physical entity, it’s a concept that some people aspire to, unfettered trade. And free market socialism is a thing, yet again.

At around the 8 minute mark of this video, the student makes a bit of a mistake because he’s not really harping in on the public vs private ownership of the means of production, but Ben Shapiro’s line there is completely irrelevant: “So companies shouldn’t be able to have investors?” This is a tangential question. This would be like him talking about socialized ownership, and Ben leans into the microphone and asks “well, who’s the CEO then, dummy?” This is to say, it’s tangentially related, but it has nothing to do with the thrust of the argument.

His counter to the pencil factory example is pathetic. No one mentioned doctors. No one mentioned everyone in society getting paid the same amount. This has nothing to do with doctors and pencil factory workers, this has to do with pencil factory workers and pencil factory owners. He thinks this is a “gotcha” but it literally has nothing to do with the argument the kid is making.

It is so, so difficult to maintain your composure when you are around a hostile audience. At least if you were on stage, you would have the positional authority over them. You’d be in a place where, at least physically, you are given credence by the architecture of the room – standing atop something, having the lights on you, being behind the podium, having unfettered control over the mic. These things can lend you a lot of confidence. But if you’re just standing there and someone else is holding your microphone, and the audience claps whenever Ben Shapiro says something… Ugh.

But it comes as no surprise that Ben sees capital and labor as one and the same, because he’s a fucking capitalist and he’s a piece of shit. To him, people and money are just interchangeable cogs in a larger machine that he benefits from, and that is how most capital owners see them. After all, labor is a resource, and capital is a resource, and that’s all you look at them as – resources – there isn’t much of a difference between the two. Now, of course, you’ve got a few more ~libcucky~ takes on it, like how humans are human beings, and we have rights, and should be entitled to happiness and respect, but that doesn’t really factor into that sort of economic, capitalist worldview.

To summarize, this juxtaposition, “you’re a socialist, I’m a free marketer. You’re talking about things that are voluntary, which means they can’t be socialist, because socialism is authoritarianism”, this is the dichotomy that he’s been trying to reenforce this entire conversation. I don’t know how deliberately he’s doing this, but it’s very effective. In the mind of every audience member right now, what Ben is doing right here is destroying this “libtard” right now by saying “Heh, idiot. You think that’s socialism? How can that be socialism if there’s freedom involved?' and that’s basically what he’s going for here. But when the kid gets flustered and struggles to make a coherent point in the face of all this, Ben can just shit on him. And then the people who edit this shit put in airhorns and laugh tracks so the smooth brained dipshits watching this unironically know when to clap and bark like seals at the libcuck getting owned. It’s pathetic and it’s not a real argument. Fin.

#shit i do while waiting for my boyfriend to wake up or something

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galenfm · 4 years

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·ﾟ☀ i am already so tired of myself and i have class soon aGAIN ........ ugh well again , i am teddy , a she / her pronoun user and current mun to two muses in this delightful shining star of a group ! i now present galen , my newest gaming gf creation who just wants everyone to fucking include each other ! my preferred plotting method is via discord over at 𝐤𝐲𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐢 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫 !#6439 , i’ll make a plotting call there and i’ll reach out to everyone who likes this !

* read all about galen sorenson , otherwise affectionately nicknamed the champ. the twenty - one year old gamer and blossoming actress is widely known for being uninhibited, magnanimous, self - deprecating, capricious and recently made headlines when they allegedly dropped a sponsor due to their support of autism speaks . apparently judas claims to be sitting on an even bigger story involving them - whatever the truth may be, i'm sure it won't stay hidden for long. & a screaming laugh following a jumpscare waking the whole house , overthinking an interaction hours after it’s passed , a childhood spent begging to be read the ugly duckling and lingering on every word , neurodiversity stickers pasted all over a gaming pc. ◜ ⭒ ic: alisha boe. cis woman. she / her.

BIO : mohammed and karina sorenson have never been a conventional pair . to start , they meet when he , the biggest male model of the 80′s , is hired to walk for her winter collection , being one of europe’s top knitwear designers who never seems to go out of style . he’s eccentric and as magnetic as can be , she’s demure and has never said a word regarding anything but her work . they don’t make sense , but they’re married two years in secret before finally making their relationship known . mohammed , progressive and independent minded despite his traditional somali family , takes her last name and relocates to norway , where karina gives birth to a stunning baby girl that steals the hearts of the eu as the tabloids go crazy over her .

elissa is nearly 18 when her mother has the news to shock a nation : she’s miraculously pregnant , once more , far enough along that she intends to keep the baby despite both her and mohammed being into their 40′s . karina , having named their first baby , gives the reigns over to mo for their second child , but isn’t too happy with his pick

galen literally translates to mad , to incorrect , she argues , elissa firmly on her side

it gives her a chance to choose her own path . it gives her something to make for herself , mohammed counters , and that ends that .

galen is born in olso and is every bit as precious as her sister , now old enough to even potentially be her mother . her parents , busy with their ventures but over the moon to have a new baby in the house , raise her for her first few years in a small norwegian town to shield her from the prying eyes of the public

mohammed is first to notice that she doesn’t respond to her name or seem interested in looking at him , keeping her focus on whatever toy catches her eye for the day . he and karina write it off when she doesn’t hit her talking milestones or hold crayons the way other toddlers do , or figure she’s just an introvert when her preschool teacher mentions she doesn’t enjoy playing with the other kids during free time

they can’t ignore it any longer when she hits grade school , instantly falling behind with the rigorous private school pace and eventually warranting a visit from the school psychologist . she remembers the worry that paints her parents weathered faces when , at six years old , she’s given a laundry list of diagnoses and recommended for “ alternate ” schooling

something about the way her teachers treat her , so broken and unworthy of respect , makes her shut down , regressing with any progress she had shown and really refusing to cooperate with most adults she comes by . elissa is a budding starlet taking weekends off from film roles to spend time with her little sister , knowing that behind the quiet dark eyes of the child who wouldn’t look at you was a bright mind teeming with unsaid thoughts

her parents go to all ends to hire her private tutors and special therapists , which help her keep up at grade level . she’s in middle school when her science teacher , noting galen’s aptitude on exams and incredible recall , says she may fare better in an american school , recommending one he knows will accept a prestigious line such as the sorensons .

she moves to pennsylvania at 12 and the change is hard . she again regresses and suffers at the hands of her peers at the private catholic school she attends , her parents reaching a level of despair thinking they’ve failed their daughter , unable to get her the help she deserves despite their best attempts . galen , sick of being deemed the broken doll , seeks out an escape from the world to try and give her some reprieve from the constant pity she wishes she could express is only doing more harm than good

she likes makeup but sucks at it , enjoys art but can’t seem to draw for the life of her . she knows she’s tone deaf as all hell and doesn’t like sweating enough to be willing to dance . for once in her life , despite all the years of trying to ignore the well - meaning comments of those around her , galen starts to believe maybe there is something wrong about her .

it’s elissa’s celeb boyfriend who buys her an xbox for christmas , figuring the two could play it as a bonding experience . brimming with quiet gratitude , galen spends hours on the damn thing in between study sessions . tutors notice an improvement in focus , more motivation to work and get things done so she can finally hop back onto the console and escape into a fantasy .

she begs her parents to let her do homeschooling for her high school years , to which they agree and she thrives . she upgrades now to a gaming pc and plays through everything she can get her hands on . people on her teams don’t know her , and they don’t treat her any differently than anyone else , so before long she’s unlocking a bubblier side to herself that just feels content .

she records her playthroughs in silence ( she’s gaining confidence , but still shy , and god knows how the internet treats female gamers ) and uploads them to youtube under a stupid channel name with only a few hundred subscribers . noting the accuracy and speed with which galen destroys shooter games , someone suggests she try overwatch .

galen is hooked in an instant . she plays matches in between daily activities and quickly climbs ranks to becoming a force to be reckoned with in the competitive community . after finding a team where she feels particularly at - home , they launch to stardom due to their sweeping wins and incredible cohesion . galen becomes something of an overnight sensation , quiet and unassuming , and this recognition feels like the validation she’s been seeking for herself this whole time

she blossoms and cements her legacy as an overwatch competitive titan by the time she graduates , reaching grandmaster status and being known throughout the community for her strategy and technique . her youtube channel grows exponentially , and after realizing this is a viable future for herself , galen posts her playthroughs with her commentary and finds that people love what she does . she moves to new york in order to collaborate with other big gamers , and on her channel , she does a combination of horror games , overwatch trainings , and new release reviews and builds a following similar to markiplier or jackseptic eye , with a second vlog channel to document when she goes off to tournaments or simple things from her days

she’s 19 when her repeated wins get the attention of a massive gaming studio who invite her to come record some lines as an easter egg of sorts for her fans in a new game they’re developing . her work is met with rave reviews and suddenly game titans are nearly breaking down her door for more voice acting work . galen , who’s always felt like the ugly duckling compared to her sister’s perfect legacy , takes this opportunity to emulate her sister’s career , and nearly doubles over when a film studio approaches her with interest of casting her as a supporting role in a project of theirs . though she’s never pictured herself to be in front of a camera quite like that , with some coaching , galen nails it , and finds the high of acting catapults her from relative fame into newfound stardom .

she’s one of the newer members of the brat pack considering her youtube fame was more inconspicuous than her film work , though she still is adjusting to life in the limelight . she stays close to her roots and continues to post regularly to her channel and streams on twitch , collaborating with other increasingly big names to gain her more views .

galen’s most notable push since rising to fame has been her advocacy for neurodiversity and recognition for how poorly people with learning disabilities are treated in society . she doesn’t go in detail with her diagnoses but she does make jokes about them on her stream in order to normalize their mentions . she recently dropped a sponsor for their support of autism speaks and donates a majority of her merch revenue and tournament winnings to advocacy causes . she’s proud of who she is and hopes the future can be shaped into what kids like her needed when they were growing up .

galen lives up to her father’s prediction this whole time and changes her channel’s name to galengaming , proud to tout the moniker that spurred her to create a path she wanted rather than be told who to be by the world around her .

PERSONALITY : galen has an energy about her that is like the sun hidden behind a cloud . upon first impressions , she’s a bit more timorous and nervous as she gets her footing of wherever she may be , especially with some of the more public - eye type settings she’s been put in since sort of being sucked into the brat pack . she wants to make sure she’s acting appropriately for whatever the situation calls and may often seem tense or apprehensive .

once she’s loosened up or seen a familiar face she can latch onto , she blossoms into a ball of unfiltered energy . she loves humor and memes and can often be found competitively launching memes she’s found into her team’s group discord server . she’s witty and often makes herself the butt of her own jokes in order to lighten the mood , though she’ll be sure to clarify that she loves herself and only does so to keep herself humble lmao .

her playthroughs are VERY stream of consciousness but its this lack of filter that seems to be her fans’ favorite thing about her , a willingness to say whatever unhinged thing she may be thinking followed by a shrieking scream after a jumpscare or a string of screeching expletives after missing a goal

she can perhaps sometimes be too unfiltered and unwittingly come across as harsh or blunt , though she’ll often realize this after the fact and feel incredibly remorseful . galen has a habit to overthink and will panic for the rest of the night if she fears she’s inadvertently offended you , but won’t apologize due to being too nervous to figure out exactly how to do so ssksksks

one of galen’s most notable qualities is her heart , her benevolence and empathy that lead her to want everyone to feel included regardless of how different they may be . though she tries to give everyone a chance , there’s a fair amount of people perhaps too materialistic for her to get along with , and her polite way to ignore them is simply keeping her distance and pretending to not know them

which . in her own way . comes across as shady sksksk “oh you know so and so ? ” omg no i dont haha who are they “ u literally met them last night ” hahaha no i didnt x

she can be prone to mood swings simply due to a sensitivity to her own feelings and a tendency to overthink . she’ll wonder why she feels weird and even if it’s just because she’s hungry she’ll assume it’s because she said “thanks you too” when the cashier told her to enjoy her meal and then she has to sulk and play animal crossing alone in the dark for an hour before she can come out and be chill again even tho she feels worse than when she started bc shes just HUNGRY ASKSKKS

she’s used to being infantilized so she tends to be sort of short tempered if people talk down to her . this is when the wit kicks in as she is really just tired of being treated poorly by people who don’t even know her and has decided she will refuse to take any more shit ! can be a bit snippy even without realizing it but if she’s close to you she’ll usually be like “ oh my god that was rude as fuck im so sorry ” and feel bad for 20 minutes even after you say its okay lmaoo

random blurbs : um DONT ask me who she plays in her overwatch tournaments bc im using opossum and wikipedia to figure shit out as i goes , but i know for sure she calls out a lot of misogyny in the gaming world on social media !

always has her switch with her i KNOW this for a fact

anime nerd ....... nobody call her out on it she will deny until she is blue in the face and then hum the one punch man intro in her streams as if hundreds of thousands of people arent witnesses LMAO

this is so stereotypical nerd but she hates the outdoors ! says the US is so dirty and stuffy she says scandanavia is the only place she’ll ever like to be outside , she slips into norwegian when she’s recording if she gets jumpscared so she doesnt get demonetized for over - swearing lmao

also speaks french because she picked it up from her mom ! her dad usually only spoke english or norwegian , so galen didn’t get to pick up on much somali or arabic but she def knows at least a few words here and there

she vlogs a good amount of her life but she’s kinda shy about talking about who she’s dating , will probably try to keep her romantic life to herself !

excited as all hell to get into acting but the super fame that’s coming with it kinda freaks her out . she knows it’s a trade off bc she loves the feeling it gives her but hates how people are now overstepping a lot of boundaries that they didn’t before when she was just a popular youtuber

inspos are juno from the iconic movie juno , toph beifong from atla , louis theroux YES THE DOCUMENTARY GUY LEAF ME AL ONE , & amy from booksmart !

#cross.start #* ◞ 𝐢 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑎 𝖈𝖚𝖙 𝒕𝒐 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 . ❪ 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐃 : INTRO .#❪ yes her tags are carly rae jep/sen lyrics and hall and oates songs respectively #no i will not apologize or stop hyping EITHER of those musical geniuses up

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dragimal · 4 years

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I’m gonna be a joyless commie for a minute, but idk how to articulate my problem here, so I’m just gonna start talking

capitalistic ideas like, “stealing is wrong under any and every circumstance and you’re a bad person for stealing,” and, “you must work to earn your right to live,” are EXTREMELY prevalent in animated media and I don’t think we like, talk abt it enough?

like even some rly RLY good stories like FMA fall heavy into that mindset, like Arakawa straight-up said in one of her notes in the manga that she enforces the idea of, “you don’t work, you don’t eat,” in FMA (and it’s hard to miss that message in the text of the manga/anime all on its own). at least w/ FMA there’s the nuance of that message coming from the worker’s perspective, and there’s real appreciation of labor and community, and the fact that labor is what keeps these folks alive and thriving, so I can see why she has that perspective given her background. but I feel like it’s still worth acknowledging that like, folks shouldn’t have to live under that kinda stress of death/ruin if they don’t work, and how harmful that message is for folks who can’t provide labor/services. but I’ve rly never seen anyone bring it up

though one of the absolute worst cases of this mindset is in Ratatouille, which is actually another of my fave pieces of media, despite it. poor Remi is literally starving at several points throughout the first chunk of the movie, and at every point he tries to snag a little morsel, SOMEBODY essentially guilts him w/ the idea of, “stealing is bad!” whether it’s his own stressed subconscious, or Linguini. the first time it was a teeny chunk of bread from a dinner party that the folks there prolly wouldn’t have even noticed missing (and prolly threw out by the end of the night b/c it was so small!!), and the second was a few herb leaves Remi swiped from a nearby restaurant that the humans there also likely didn’t even notice or miss. like get off Remi’s back, Linguini, the lil dude’s STARVING and he even took the time to cook u something nice before eating himself!

and that’s not even to MENTION all the times Remi makes the stupid argument that rats are bad for stealing from the garbage, and when his dad makes the completely fair point that humans are throwing it out, Remi’s just like, “why are we STEALING it then??” I’m gonna let my inner ecologist jump out for just a minute here, but the idea of “trash” in and of itself is a very capitalist idea (not to mention the fact that the creation of materials that simply can’t be reused/reduced within a comprehensible timeline is a p damn recent development). in reality, all things are just materials, and in nature every piece of material is useful to some part of the various nutrient/material cycles, INCLUDING food webs! like I get that Remi’s affection for human ways/ideas is a p big crux of the film’s whole concept, but it’s still v strange to me that Remi has actively removed himself from the food web he and his ilk are a VERY important part of, and decided that the material they consume is not only useless, but a sign of their low standards/society. and in terms of the social repercussions of that mindset, this just again reinforces the idea that there are certain kinds of people whose life/lifestyle designates them useless to society, thus undeserving to live unless they conform (look, I get that Remi’s arc ended w/ him choosing his own path, but his rat family was also shown to have been “civilized” by Remi, eating “properly” at a lil rat restaurant, so I can’t help but wonder 🤔 )

something else I hate abt this mindset in media is that when it isn’t actively villainizing poverty, it’s just turning it all into a joke! like I watched Brand New Animal recently, and there was this whole subplot abt this baseball team living in the slums. u’d think, given BNA’s (weak) thesis abt everyone being respected no matter their circumstances, that maybe there’d be some commentary abt class/poverty, or at the very least a heartwarming plot abt the team getting out of poverty. if the writers were RLY clever, they could’ve even used the main character, Michiru, to comment on how fucked it is to be lectured by somebody from a place of clear privilege abt what’s right and wrong under dire circumstances. but no like, the team stays in the slums, and the stealing/cheating they do to literally survive (it’s emphasized multiple times the team is on the razor’s edge of starvation all the time) is always met w/ this kinda, “tsk tsk stealing is bad!!” finger-waggling from Michiru, but no significant moves on her part to help them out or provide other options. and it’s all framed in this slapstick comedic way like, “oh look the poor character is excited over finding a 10 yen coin! oh look the poor character fell for a get-rich-quick scheme! oh look the poor character doesn’t realize bread comes with white part in the middle b/c they’ve only ever eaten the crust from the trash! ain’t that just wacky and hilarious?? well time to move on!” like what the fuck. I’m gonna start throwing bricks through the windows of every rich fuck that thought that was ok

#am I overanalyzing? MAYBE!!#will I stop? NO!!!#shut up ashley #every new instance of this shit just!! makes my blood boil #long post

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kayliemusing · 4 years

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1. Is there something you have been trying to learn lately? - There’s kind of a few, because I feel like they all tie into one. Self acceptance is a big one, self-discipline, productivity, and trusting in God (which has proven to be the hardest thing. It hurts to trust in something you don’t see the outcome of, but it hurts too much not to trust in God.)

2. If you ever feel like you are different from your extended family, in which ways is this? - My dad/s side of the family is really toxic. There’s a lot of hypocrisy, drama, mental illness, drug addictions, and religiousness on that side (and when I say religious, I mean shame-y religion which I don’t agree with at all.) But my dad was really different from them. He was very kind, open to council, very steady and stable despite coming from such a dysfunctional background, and he loved God so truly that a lot of that pure ‘religion’ that exists within his family was broken off of him, and then I have my mom too, who is very fun, kind, caring, etc, so I grew up around more normalcy than my cousins did. My parents just parented me well and they talked about God to me and my sister a lot in such a good way that I never grew up around pure, shame-y, rule-bound religion which I think is the explanation why I (and my sister) are very different from our extended family. My dad died when I was fifteen so I don’t see that side very often, especially because they’re just entirely chaotic and dysfunctional so when I am around them it’s way more noticeable how different we are. (Sorry for big explanation. I’m in a super reflective mood lol.)

3. When you think about your future career, do you envision yourself becoming the head honcho or CEO? If not, why not? - I’ve always kind of wanted to have this leader-esque feeling to my career, but no, I don’t see myself being a CEO. I really just want to be an author so I guess I would have some level of being a leader to my own business, but not quite on a CEO type level. Right now, I’m trying to focus on fiction but I’m easily overwhelmed by it so I have been considering other mediums of writing. I just don’t know what that is or what fits right.

4. Is there something that you are sort of weird about talking about? Like, a thing that other people find casual, but you feel uncomfortable when the subject comes up? - Sex, is the first thing that comes to mind, but not sex in general. More like the conversations that are too much, you know? Lol. Some people go really into detail or can be graphic about their sex lives and I’m just like, please don’t. I don’t mind generically talking about it, but there’s a line. 5. Can you think of a time when you seriously misjudged a music artist based on their name? - I don’t think so.

6. Do you ever make negative comments about other body types? How does it make you feel when you see or hear negative comments about your body type, or a physical trait that you have (even when it’s not directed at you)? - Sometimes I have the tendency to judge other body types (i.e. I really don’t like the thigh gap look), but it’s never malicious and I’m always trying to be aware that others can’t help what they look like and if they’re happy in their body, that’s what matters. I struggle with disordered eating and kind of sit on that line between having an eating disorder and not having one so I’m very sensitive about my body and its type. I have a chubby tummy and I’m so insecure that it’s not flat that when I hear anyone say anything negative about not having a flat stomach it’ll ruin my day or I’ll just feel really ashamed.

7. If you are in a situation where you feel like you are being attacked or not respected, how easy or difficult is it for you to stay and keep your head rather than leave in a huff? - I’ll usually leave the conversation. Maybe slam a door lol. I’ll usually stand my ground until I finally feel like I’m not heard or no one cares and then I’m out.

9. When you think about how attractive you feel and your favorite features, are you comparing yourself to a societal ideal? - Yes. I happen to be well-acquainted with the comparison game.

10. If you have a favorite song right now: What is it? How did you first hear it? Why do you like it so much? - My favourite song is probably Coney Island by Taylor Swift right now. It’s from Taylor’s new album Evermore, but I have a couple on that album that tie for my favourite song right now (Honorable mentions: Willow, Cowboy Like Me, Tis The Damn Season). I absolutely love how poetic this song is and I think one of my all time favourite lyrics she has ever written is in that song: “If I can’t relate to you anymore then who am I related to?” This song for me just feels like I’m reading a poem and I just sink right into the story she’s telling.

11. Have you ever had someone that has been your friend for a while come to you and tell you they had romantic feelings for you? How did you respond, and did the friendship survive? - I did have a friend of mine tell me they had feelings for me. We had become friends in the eighth grade and then he confessed his feelings for me in the ninth grade, I told him I didn’t feel the same way but we stayed friends and it didn’t ruin anything, and then he confessed again in the eleventh grade and I said no to him again. After that final rejection, we never really made it back to being friends for a few reasons a) We stopped being in the same classes, b) I think he was really hurt and c) his friend (who is most dramatic than a girl by the way, and ironically dating one of my friends at the time) stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and gave his two cents and that was kind of when it fell apart. I didn’t really know his friend so it was weird that he had this narrative of me that he said “was leading X on” when I was just trying to be his friend but it’s whatever now. That was when I was like sixteen lol.

12. Hypothetically speaking, if Hillary Clinton were running for President as a democrat against Chris Christie as a republican in 2016, who do you predict would win the election? - Well, since it’s 2021 now, I would predict that Trump would win and divide America.

13. When you are getting to know someone new online (particularly someone male), how cautious are you of the possibility that they are serial killer/kidnapper? - I honestly never think of this, mostly because we live in such an online world now and I’m an adult. I don’t really know how much of this still happens, but you just don’t hear about it anymore. Not to mention, if it is a male, it’s most likely a pedophile (which is still gross) rather than a killer or kidnapper.

14. If you are talking to someone that you want to get to know, what are your go-to conversation topics? What subject makes you disappointed when another person isn’t interested in or knowledgable about it? - Tbh I feel like I’m really bad at conversations and I don’t know how to lead them because I’m quiet and scared of looking stupid. I know I really like deep conversations more than basic questions. However, it’s very important that I know their opinion on Taylor Swift because if there’s a chance they don’t like Taylor Swift, I already know that the person is probably not worth my time. For real though, if I’m having a conversation with someone, I usually get disappointed if I find out they’re a partier or drink a lot, because I’m really not into any of that stuff so it’s immediately like playing the Sims and having the minus sign appear above my head.

15. Say you have a lot of free time and want to join a club or class. You are browsing postings on local bulletin boards and online. What sort of group would you be interested in joining (e.g., book club, game group, crafts, golf lessons, etc.)? - A romance-only book club, DIY club.

16. Have you ever kissed someone that you didn’t really want to kiss (not assault, just indifference)? Why did you go along with it and how did you feel after? - Nah I’ve never been kissed

17. Have you recently learned anything about your personality? If not, have you ever consciously tried to change your personality? - Sort of recently, it was something I discovered last year which is that I’m a neurotic perfectionist and what I mean by that is I’m a perfectionist in a very self destructive way. I’ve always known I was ‘particular’ or others would say ‘has high-standards/expectations’ but I realized that it’s literally just perfectionism.

18. Are you or any of your friends in a sorority or fraternity? Would you be interested in belonging to one? - No and I don’t really understand what they are or why they’re a thing.

19. Can you recall a recent time that you were surprised, but in a bad way? - Yes. When my job eluded that they thought I was stealing from the registers. This happened around September 2020? Basically they didn’t flat out say that’s what they thought, but they made comments that the tills were either short or over at the ends of the night whenever I would be working and dead ass said “it looks suspicious”. I think it was surprising because I’ve worked there was two years and really felt like they should have known my character. (I literally am afraid of getting in trouble for the smallest things and they seriously thought I was capable of stealing from them lmao)

20. Do you feel uncomfortable when you receive praise for doing certain things? If so, does this make you less likely to do those things? - No totally the opposite. I really struggle with validation and I never feel good enough, which is something I’m working on, but it feels almost like I thrive on praise. Maybe it’s because my love language is words of affirmation?? I just always like/need to know when I’m doing a good job so when I don’t get praise or validation my self esteem plummets.

21. Do you make spontaneous purchases often or rarely? When you are upset does it make you temporarily happier to buy yourself something new? - Spontaneous purchases, often because I have no self control lol, but lately I’ve been working hard to try to save more. And yes when I’m upset, it does make me feel better to buy things.

22. If you have to wake up early for something, what time is just TOO early for you to be there and be presentable and sentient? Have you ever had to be somewhere that early? - 5 am. I think I can manage 6 am, but anything before that is a no from me. I used to work at 5 am when I worked at Chapters, but it was a nice shift because I finished work at 10 am and then went home and napped for two hours and then had literally the entire day.

23. Have the majority of your romantic relationships started with a physical attraction or a deeper connection? - I’ve never had a romantic relationship oops. But at least I read romance novels every day (and I write romance too!) I’ll try to answer this based on what I think would happen. I think it would start as a physical attraction and I think a lot of relationships start that way but they become something when you have a real connection. I think there are relationships that can start the other way though too, but I’d say for me it’ll probably be physical attraction first.

24. Do you ever catch any of those conspiracy shows on Animal Planet, like Bigfoot hunting or proof of Mermaids? Do those shows make your more or less likely to believe in the existence of such creatures? - No, but I DO watch ghost conspiracy theories/”REAL GHOST CAUGHT ON CAMERA” videos on Youtube for fun. But no I don’t believe in any of that stuff.

25. Did you ever write a fan letter to a celebrity? How about submit something to a magazine? - I’ve never technically written a fan letter to a celebrity but I wrote a post on tumblr to Taylor Swift a couple years ago that she’ll never see lol. And I’ve never submitted anything to a magazine, but I’d like to one day.

#survey

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