#some second language user problems

[murmishhy]

After years of wallowing in self pity, I finally decided to get back into writing again. As for one of my first drafts after 5 years, I've decided to start with a Durgetash fic alongside with a few one-shots. I planned to write 10 chapters at most and I imagined it would be 20.000 words in total after it finishes...and somehow the first chapter turned out to be a behemoth with 8500 words...

Chapter is good enough, but it's kind of empty and repeating. And it's so gosh darn long that I can't bring myself to edit it. Since it's one of my getting-back-to-my-writing-era stories, it desperately needs editing.

I'm not strong enough though, everything seems like needing a fix and I think rewriting would be easier than editing at this point. Maybe instead of just writing until I'm out of ideas, I should try to write tidier and maybe even stick to some structural guide this time to avoid such mess again? I'm not sure. I don't want to delete the whole 8500 words, but I don't want to edit it, either.

Life's hard when you're a writer whom uses English as a second language and has a fear of failure combined with 'I don't deserve to write, I suck' syndrome.

[gossippool]

YOU'RE. YOU'RE. YOU ARE = YOU'RE. NOTICE THE E IN ARE. YOU'RE = YOU ARE. THE APOSTROPHE COMBINES THE YOU AND THE ARE TO MAKE IT YOU'RE. FUCK

[rin-may-1103]

The Master Post.

Please actually read this, I can't keep up with all the comments. 🥲

Tag List? Yes, there is a tag list. If you'd like to be ADDED, please leave a comment on the Stories Linked Post or the Tag List Post. If the tags aren't working for some reason, you can either Follow this post by clicking the bell (or the three dots) or follow the Story's Linked Post the same way. I'll update both Relevant Posts when there is a New Part.

Yes, I have an Ao3. It's under the same user name, just with (_) instead of (-). Most of my works are locked due to personal preference, so you'll need an account if you want to read most of them.

I hope y'all keep enjoying the stories as much as I enjoy writing them.

(currently dealing with life, so posts are going to be very, very slow, sorry.)

Stories and Summaries:

The Wrong Robin Au (DP x DC):

Tim Drake saw Danny do a quadruple somersault, which resulted in him believing Danny was the first Robin for years. He still figured out Bruce but thinks Dick is in the dark. Now with the second Robin dead, and Batman quickly reaching the end of his sanity, Tim takes it upon himself to get Robin to come back. Danny is very confused when this random kid tries to blackmail him into becoming Robin.

Badger Day Au (DP x DC):

Danny is stuck in a Groundhog Day kinda situation and he would like to be let out now, please. The league is very worried.

Delilah's language (DP x DC):

Bruce Wayne approaches the Fentons because Damian is a big fan of Danny for his work in the conservation of the purpleback gorilla. So now Danny is going to the birthday of this random kid so he can teach him gorilla sign language so he can talk to the purple-back gorilla as well.

Just a Bite (DP x DC):

Danny's homeless on the streets of Gotham, when he gets a terrible idea from some passerby. Three weeks after living with the Waynes, they still haven't noticed he's not supposed to be there.

72 hours (DP x DC):

During a battle with the rest of the league, John Constantine is accidentally sent into the palace of Pariah Dark, Tyrant of the Dead, and Bane of the Living. Danny just wanted to have a simple spa day.

Biggest Regret (DP x DC):

Danny Had been optimistic when he created The Email. Three days, that's what he gave himself. Three days to fix or get out of whatever problem he was dealing with and open his laptop to restart the timer. Three days. Past him had thought that If he ever got caught they'd just kill him; it's what they said they would do this whole time, so why wouldn't he think otherwise? It's been more than three days, and at this point, he's just glad someone could fulfill his last wish.

The Disappointment (DP x DC):

Ra's has stated his disapproval of one of the twins, now Talia is rushing to get them out of there and to Bruce to be safe. Danny has other ideas.

Black Retrievers and Golden Cats (DP x DC):

He remembered how it took two hours for his mind to catch up to what he had done, two hours for him to realize he had just killed his brother. It took another two days to realize his brother was never coming back, that the pits had not worked. Damian stared at the camera footage infront of him, his family's voices buzzing with theories and analyzing everything they could. He remembered his brother's bright carefree smile just minutes before Damian had killed him. So, why? Why was he seeing it again?

College Rivalry with the Genius Toddler in the First Row. (DP X DC):

Tim doesn't understand how he's losing at university to a toddler. Danny's not having a great time, but it's fine because now he can terrorize Red Robin.

The Willpower of Space (DP X DC):

A faulty green lantern ring wakes from it's accidental eon long sleep due to how powerful Danny's willpower is. It decides that Danny is a worthy wielder and grants Danny the ability to use it. There's just one problem; Danny keeps dying. and the ring doesn't understand what's going on. Oa is very concerned.

The Weeping Boy Au (DP X DC):

Opening a portal to a dimension between dimensions always leads to some sort of accident; for instance, Danny's death. It just so happens that at the exact moment the portal opened, his earth and another had overlapped, leaving his death to loop repeatedly in the other for as long as the portal stayed. This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that Danny just accidentally turned the portal off and is now in the other dimension instead of the zone. (The Batfamily, who have been watching this kid die over and over again, are very concerned.)

The Eyes of Death Au (DP X DC):

In an attempt to prevent a cult from causing problems, Danny accidentally convinces the Justice League and Co. that he's possessing himself. Damian is not happy that his boyfriend is apparently the new June Moone.

Aspiring escape artist (DP X DC):

The new foster kid might be a little more traumatized than the other kids they usually take in for a while, but it's not like they can't handle it. That is, until Danny started sneaking out, past the bat-grade security system, without getting caught and without using his powers.

Through Your Eyes (DP X DC):

Sometimes, soulmates randomly switch bodies. It doesn't always happen; in fact, it's actually more common to not switch. Danny hadn't really thought he'd ever switch, doubly so after his accident. So you can imagine his surprise when not only does he switch, but he switches with Damian Wayne, aka Robin.

Cabin 18 and the Missing Kids (DP X DC):

Vlad is planning something, unfortunately, Danny's stuck at camp and can't sneak away. But maybe that's ok, because what's this about missing kids? And who does his roommates think they are fooling with their 'normal' kid acts? They're obviously vigilantes. And hey, maybe Danny might actually get a break for once, it's not like his parents can't defend themselves.

Turn back the Frozen Sands of Time (DP X DC):

Danny wakes up in his nine-year-old body; no memories of how he got here or why. All he knows is he needs to stick to the timeline, figure out what happened, and fix it. So, why did his mother just merc his grandfather, and why are there a group of vigilantes (who, for all intents and purposes, shouldn't exist as a team yet) yelling at her and his brother?

Perks of Being Half Dead (DP X SPN):

It was too dangerous for Danny to go back; he doubted it would ever be safe again, not after what they did to him. But it wasn't as if he had a choice at the moment anyway; the likelihood of his getting home from this new dimension was looking slim to none. And now he's being mistaken for some hunter's kid, what the hell, Clockwork?

[dedalvs]

hey friend, i know you’ve been a pretty serious supporter and user of duolingo for a long time (so have i!), so i’m curious what your feeling is about the announcement that they’re going to be doubling down on using more and more AI for content creation, including using it to avoid having to hire actual humans?

personally, i’m really disappointed - i’ve disliked how much they’ve been using it so far, but the app is otherwise a great tool, and all of the other apps seem to use it, too, so it’s not easy to just jump ship to an app that isn’t using AI. i’ve seen a lot of responses that are like “hurr hurr just use a textbook idiot” which i find really unhelpful; learning from an app is easier and a lot more convenient in a lot of ways than having to use analog materials, especially if you study a high number of languages. still, i don’t ethically feel that i can keep giving them money if this is the direction they’re going.

what are your thoughts?

This is going to be a longer answer than you might have expected.

In 2001, fellow undergrad. Reiko Kataoka (now a professor at San Jose State) resurrected a club that had been dead for a few years at UC Berkeley linguistics: The Society of Linguistics Undergraduates (SLUG). One of its former undergraduate members, Alan Yu (now a professor at the University of Chicago), happened to be a graduate student at Berkeley at the time, so he helped her get it off the ground. The club was exactly what I was looking for at that time: a group for ling. undergrads. to get together and talk about language and linguistics, my new favorite thing. It was great! I even put together a couple phonology problems using my conlangs to distribute at a meeting. The following year I became the second president of the new SLUG and helped to create the SLUG Undergraduate Linguistics Symposium, where I gave my first talk on language creation. Being a part of this club was a major factor in shaping my undergraduate experience at Berkeley.

When I graduated I went to UC San Diego to pursue a graduate degree in linguistics. Part of the reason I chose UCSD was because it was an incredibly inviting atmosphere. Before we accepted they paid for prospective undergraduates down to San Diego and housed them with current grad. students who told them about the program and took them out for dinner, etc. It allowed prospective students to ask questions they wouldn't ask of professors (e.g. who's got beef with who). It was really cool, and so in our second year, we continued the tradition of housing prospective grad. students. Since we both went to Berkeley, my ex-wife (also a Berkeley ling. grad.) and I hosted Klinton Bicknell.

Klinton, it turns out, was the current president of SLUG. I didn't know him while I was at Cal, but we did overlap. It turns out he had renamed the club SLUGS, which I thought was weird. He said "It happened organically" and laughed in an off-putting way. He very much gave off the impression of someone who will smile at you and say whatever is necessary for you to go away. Klinton ended up going to UCSD the following year and I ended up leaving the following year.

Fast forward to 2016. HBO had put the kibosh on Living Language Valyrian, and so I turned to Duolingo. They had previously reached out about putting together a Dothraki course, but I declined, due to having a book out, Living Language Dothraki. With no hope for Valyrian, I asked if they'd be interested in me putting together a course on High Valyrian, which I did. I had some help at the beginning, but, truth be told, most of that course was built by me alone. I became very familiar with the Incubator, where Duolingo contributors built most of their courses. It was a bit clunky, but with enough elbow grease, you could put together something that was pretty darn good. It wasn't as shiny as their in house courses, because they couldn't do things like custom images, speaking challenges, etc., but it was still pretty good.

At the time I joined, everyone who was working in the Incubator was doing it for free. We were doing it because we wanted to put together a high quality course on our language of choice on Duolingo. When Duolingo went public, they realized this situation was untenable, so they began paying contributors. There were contracts, hourly wages, caps on billable hours, etc. It essentially became an as-you-will part time job, which wasn't too bad.

The Incubator faced a couple potentially insurmountable problems. When the courses were created by volunteers, Duolingo could say "This was made by volunteers; use at your own risk", essentially. Once they were paid, though, all courses became Duolingo products, which means they bear more responsibility for their quality. With so many courses (I mean, sooooooooo many courses) it's hard to ensure quality. Furthermore, "quality" doesn't just mean "are the exercises correct" and "are the sentences interesting". Quality means not being asked to translate sentences like "Women can't cook" or "The boy stabbed the puppy". With literally hundreds of courses each with thousands of sentences written by contractors, there was no way for Duolingo to ensure not just that they were staying on brand with these sentences, but that they weren't writing ugly things. There were reporting systems, there were admins that could resolve things behind the scenes, but with so much content, it became a situation where they would have had to hire a ton more people or scale back.

We saw what Duolingo did before with one aspect of their platform that had a similar issue. If you remember way back, Duolingo used to have a "forum", that was a real forum, but for most users, what it meant was on every single sentence in Duolingo users could make comments. These comments would explain grammar points, explain references, make jokes, etc. It was honestly really helpful. But, of course, with any system like that comes trolls, and so volunteers who had come to create language learning resources also found themselves being content reviewers, having to decide which comments to allow, which to delete, who to ban, etc. As Duolingo became more popular, the troll problem grew, and so eventually Duolingo's response was to kill the forum. This mean you were no longer able to see legitimate, helpful comments on sentences. They threw the baby out with the bathwater.

This is why it was no surprise to me when they shuttered the Incubator. The technology was out of date (from their standpoint, you understand. Their in house courses were way more sophisticated, but they couldn't update the Incubator without potentially breaking hundreds of courses they hadn't created themselves), quality assurance was nearly impossible, and they were also paying people to create and maintain these out-of-date courses they had no direct control over. Of course they closed it down. It would've taken a massive investment of time and resources (and capital) to take the Incubator as it was and turn it into something robust and future proof (think old Wordpress vs. Wordpress now), and Duolingo wanted to do other things, instead—like math and music. And so the Incubator died.

But that wasn't the only reason. This was something we heard internally and then heard later on publicly. There was rumbling that Duolingo was using AI to help flesh out their in house courses, which was troubling. This was before the big Gen AI boom, but after a particularly pernicious conlang-creation website I won't name had come to exist, so it caught my attention. I decided to do a little digging and see what this was all about, and I ended up with a familiar name.

Klinton Bicknell.

Indeed, the very same Klinton Bicknell was the head of all AI ventures at Duolingo. Whether enthusiastically or reluctantly or somewhere in between, he was absolutely a part of the decision to close the Incubator and remove all the contractors who had created all the courses that gave Duolingo its reputation. (Because, seriously, why did most of us go to Duolingo? Not for English, Spanish, French, and German.)

I know you sent this ask because of the recent news about Duolingo, but, to be honest, when I saw one of these articles float across my dash I had to check the date, because to me, the news was old. Duolingo isn't just now replacing contractors with AI: They already did. That was the Incubator; those were contractors. That is why there won't be more new language courses on Duolingo, and why the current courses are frozen. This isn't news. This is the continuation of a policy that had already firmly in place, and a direction that rests solidly on the shoulders of Klinton Bicknell.

But you don't have to take my word for it. He's talked about this plenty himself:

Podcast (Generative Now)

Article in Fast Company

Article in CNET

Google can help you find others.

At this point there's a sharp and baffling division in society with respect to generative AI. On the one hand, you have those of us who disapprove of generative AI on a truly fundamental level. Not only is the product something we don't want, the cost—both environmental and ethical—is utterly insupportable. Imagine someone asking you, "Hey, would you like a sandwich made out of shoelaces and shit?" And you say, "God, no, why would anyone ever want that?!" And their response is, "But wait! To make this sandwich out of shoelaces and shit we had to strangle 1,000 kittens and drain the power grid. Now do you want it?"

On the other side, there are people who are still—I mean today—saying things like, "Wow! Have you heard of this AI thing?! It's incredible! I want AI in everything! Can AI make my table better? Can I add AI to my arthritis? We should make everything AI as quickly as possible!"

And conversations between the two sides go roughly like this:

A: Good lord, now they're using AI art on phone ads? Something has to stop this… B: Yeah, it's so cool! Look, I can make a new emoji on my phone with AI! A: Uhhh…what? I was saying it's bad. B: Totally! I wonder if there's an AI shower yet? Like, it could control the temperature so you always have the perfect shower! A: Do you know how much power it takes to run these genAI apps? At a time when we're already struggling with income inequality, housing, inflation, and climate change? B: I know! We should get AI to fix that! A: But AI is the problem! B: Hey ChatGPT: Teach me how to surf!

It's frustrating, because the B group is very much the 💁 group. It's like, "Someone was using ChatGPT and it told them to kill themselves!" and they respond, "Ha, ha! Wow. That shouldn't have happened. What a learning opportunity! ☺️ Hey ChatGPT: How do you make gazpacho?" There's a complete disconnect.

In terms of what you do with your money, it's a difficult thing. For example, I've used Apple computers consistently since 1988. I'm fully immersed in the Apple ecosystem and I love what they do. They, like every other major company, are employing AI. If you go over to r/apple any time one of these articles comes out, it's all comments from people criticizing Apple for not putting together a better AI product and putting it out faster; none saying that they shouldn't be doing it. They're all ravenous for genAI for reasons that defy my understanding. And so what do I do? I've turned off the AI features on all my Apple devices, but beyond that, I'm locked in. From one direction, I look like a hypocrite for using devices created by a company that's investing in AI. From the other direction, though, I am using their devices to say what they're doing is fucking despicable, and they should stop—and I'll keep doing so so long as there's breath in my body.

Duolingo isn't necessary the way that, say, a computer or phone is nowadays. Duolingo is still usable for free, though, of course, they make it a frustrating experience to use its free service. (This is certainly nothing exclusive to Duolingo. That's the way of everything nowadays: streaming services, games, social media... Not "Well give you cool things if you pay!" but "We'll make your life miserable if you don't!") If you do use their Incubator courses, though, I can assure you that those are AI-free. lol They're too outdated to have anything like that. Some of those courses are bigger than others; some are better than others. But all of them were put together by human volunteers, so there's that, at least. At this point, I don't think Duolingo needs your money—nor will they miss it. They're on a kind of macro plane at the moment where the next ten years will either see the company get even bigger or completely disintegrate; there's no in between. They're likely going to take a big swing into education (perhaps something like Duolingo University [Duoversity?]) and it's either going to make a ton of money or bankrupt them. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I've taken the Finnish course in its entirety and we're doing Hungarian now, and I've learned a lot—not enough, but a lot. I'm grateful for it. I like the platform, and I agree with the basic tenets of the language courses (daily shallow intake is better than occasional deep intake; implicit learning ahead of explicit instruction is better than the reverse). I'm grateful they exist, I'm grateful we can still use them (because they can always retire all of them, remember), and I think it's brought a lot of positivity to the world. I think Luis Van Ahn is a good guy and I hope he can steer this thing back on course, but I'm not putting my money on it.

[kkobweek]

Prompt Descriptions Part 3 (Day 6-7)

Day 6: Fashion choices / Flowers

Fashion choices

Clothes, accessories, and hairstyles are an integral part of character design, and they contribute a lot to how we perceive a character. Artists can play dress-up with these two gorgeous men and make them wear absolutely anything 😜 Here are some official art references for ya (the range of these two 😅)

Bonus:

But "Fashion choices" is not only about visuals!

🌸Kakashi's ninken all wear fancy vests with Kakashi's signature henohenomoheji; how were those vests designed in the first place? Was it Kakashi or his father/mother who made them?

🌸How did Obito come up with his masks' designs? Is there a story behind it? If he was so gloomy and indifferent to the 'fake world' why was his first mask bright orange?

🌸You could also present your version of why Kakashi is so adamant about wearing his mask!

🌸It would be fun to imagine what items of clothes are their favorite. Mb Kakashi has a favorite pair of bunny-shaped slippers, or Obito might be too attached to his favorite T-shirt that doesn't fit him anymore (bc of y'know, obiboobs).

🌸What if they go shopping for clothes together? and actively get embarrassed or awkward with every second 😄Or mb Obito is trying to pick a cool outfit to attract girls, and Kakashi is (deliberately or not) sabotaging his shopping?

🌸They could be helping each other put on a uniform or a multi-layered ceremonial kimono. Or they could help each other out of their clothes as well... 😶‍🌫️

Flowers

🌸Flowers are wonderful because you can turn them into a symbol, a hidden message, a reminder, or a gift.

🌸Hanakotoba, the language of flowers, could be used by a character to say something they are too afraid to say with words.

🌸Obito is a mokuton user, what if one day he decides to master the art of arranging flowers as well? Or mb Obito and Kakashi go to an ikebana class on a date? :D

🌸Mb it's hanami season and a group of friends is having a party under a sakura tree?

🌸A fresh bouquet of flowers appears by the hospital bed every morning or at home on a window sill and nobody knows who it is from?

🌸Kids making flower crowns for each other just for fun!

Day 7: Letters / Diary | Ceremony / Rituals

Letters / Diary

Letters… ✉️

Letters may be a bridge between those sides of the characters that they can't easily express in real life, but on paper they can finally be honest.

🌸When Obito is on a long journey, mission, or redemption trip, they can start writing letters to each other — about their lives, problems, achievements, fears and happy moments… what they dreamed about at night, or what they had for breakfast.

They get reacquainted via those letters.

It's a good way to ask questions about Obito's life — Kakashi has time to think, to decide what he wants to share and to put into words. Their "catching up" becomes more mindful, less emotional, probably even more sincere. They can't see each other's worried faces when they admit their mistakes, and they can write "risky" things too.

🌸 Imagine Kakashi rereading a fresh letter again and again, thinking all day about how to reply (instead of his Hokage duties). He has to force himself to refocus on work ten times a day.

🌸Imagine the high voltage of the first meeting after hundreds of letters — Kakashi's hair standing on end even more than usual!

🌸Imagine the powerful flow of acceptance, recognition and love filling the dry riverbed of longing they've dug out through all those letters — when they finally meet.

🌸It could be a mix of letters and diary as a coping mechanism: Kakashi writing letters to Obito, knowing he's dead, but unable to stop talking to him. He writes "therapy letters" or a kind of diary, but every entry starts with "Dear Obito". He's attached to that ephemeral image as ever. (What if Tobi found this diary in Kakashi's room and got a glimpse into Kakashi's real thoughts and feelings?)

🌸What if Kakashi got a letter from Tobi?

🌸Or it could be a letter from Rin, like in this headcanon, in which she tries to explain Obito to Kakashi.

🌸What if Kakashi was captured, but somehow managed to write a pack of letters to (jounin?) Obito and send or hide them somewhere, hoping they'd be found? He knew he’d die this time — and the letters were raw and honest.

When Obito receives or finds them, he gets to know the parts of Kakashi he never hoped to reach. Kakashi offers him all the stories he never told — the sad ones, the funny ones, the tender ones.

He writes about why he wore a mask.

He writes about his darkest ANBU days… About the time he decided to kill himself but couldn’t.

Things he wished he could share one day — with a friend, with someone he loved, with Obito. But he never did. And these letters…

These were his last chance.

Ceremony / Rituals

🌸What if we think about clan traditions? The Uchiha must have some rites of passage for their young. For example, when sb awakens their sharingan, they are invited to visit the Naka Shrine and perform a small ritual asking the deities for guidance.

🌸The Hatake clan is way more mysterious. So what if little/teen Kakashi feels sad about not knowing the traditions and rituals of his own clan? Mb Obito helps him create his own traditions? And when they grow up Kakashi still sticks to them?

🌸It could be an academy graduation ceremony or a party to celebrate a rank promotion! Mb it's baby Obito's or baby Kakashi's first recital at daycare? Or who knows, it's their children's first school play.

🌸(okay-okay, we're getting there) The wedding! 😄It's completely within your power to get them married! Is it a marriage for politics or tax benefit? Are they getting fake-married for whatever reason? Have they finally come to realize they are each other's family? Was the proposal as perfect as it was in Kakashi's favorite part of Icha Icha? Did Team 7 mess up the ceremony in some way? So many ways to go!

🌸A ritual could be healing or therapeutical. It even could be the "true love's kiss" trope, but with a kkob flavor.

[chrissdreamgirl]

headcannons || C.S

troubled!chris x fwb!reader

↳ au masterlist here

contains - slightly suggestive content, lore drop, brief mentions of drugs/dealing.

fwb!reader who…

★ has a collage wall in her bedroom, consisting of band posters, vintage postcards, little sketches, movie tickets (including polaroid pictures she takes)

★ has ghosted other guys last minute because chris called and asked if she was busy

★ is practically spotifys #1 user, and will probably be deaf by 30

★ can read chris like a book, his body language being one of his biggest tells

★ is an avid letterboxd user, obnoxiously whips her phone out within seconds of a movie ending to log it

★ has called chris too many times to pick her up from a house party she regretted going to

“i’ll be there in 5”

“chris, it’s 15 minutes away?? hello??”

★ has called in sick before because chris was asleep half on-top of her and she didn’t want to move him

★ doesn’t like to be alone

★ has friends that aren’t particularly fond of chris but she isn’t particularly fond of her friends so…

★ once cleaned chris’s af1’s because she was sick of him walking dirt through her apartment

★ can’t go to a party without chris finding her and keeping her busy his side all night

★ dream car is a red ford pickup and chris can’t understand why its not a lamborghini

★ soft launches troubled!chris on her instagram even though everyone knows it’s him

★ is really independent from a young age, learned to rely solely on herself

★ loves her apartment, and has called chris over to help her drag furniture around to rearrange it. (she stood there and pointed where she wanted it, whilst chris dragged her three-seater across the room)

★ has found chris in her shower on multiple occasions, he said it’s because his brothers used all the hot water

★ tells guys at parties she ‘has a boyfriend’ which is technically not true, but it makes them go away

troubled!chris who…

★ considers himself an ‘opportunistic dealer’, mostly selling weed at parties. he won’t go further than that for moral reasons

★ stole a polaroid picture of fwb!reader from her collage wall and keeps it tucked in his wallet behind some receipts (she noticed it was gone almost immediately, but never said anything)

★ prefers his brothers over most people, and if you see matt or nick somewhere, chris usually isn’t far behind

★ calls his mom every thursday night, because that’s when his dad works late shifts

★ doesn’t let himself get attached, because he feels guilty and suffocated when girls start getting attached to him

★ is a big secret yearner

★ has a tendency to fall asleep if he’s sitting on a couch for more than 20 minutes

★ has a rock collection from when he was a kid in his closet. he pulls it out occasionally and re-organises it

★ doesn’t like to be alone either

★ has only been in one serious relationship and she broke his heart, so he promised himself he’d never let anyone close enough to hurt him

★ hangs out with fwb!reader just to chill almost as often as they hook up

★ stopped adding girls to his roster around a year ago and has stuck with the same 3-4, but definitely sees fwb!reader the most

★ is a god at mario kart

★ would rather fuck and forget his problems than actually deal with them

★ has accidentally put reader’s clothes on multiple times while getting dressed in the dark and not noticed until one of his brothers pointed it out

“is that a brandy melville shirt?” matt smirks, closing the fridge.

“matt. shut your mouth.”

dividers by @bernardsbendystraws !!

a/n - FINALLY another update, i wrote these in the car today after struggling FOREVER so thank goodness. i’m gonna be really busy in the next week-ish and don’t have anything else written yet so my apologies in advance <33 but feel free to send me asks abt troubled!chris and i’ll answer them :P

🏷️ @fadedstvrn @sturns-mermaid @sturnsblogs @matts-girlfriend @evansturn @sturnslotto @auttysturnz @lily-strnlo @franficc

[flwrstqr]

this isn't the enhablr i knew for the past 1-2 years. it’s genuinely heartbreaking to see what enhablr has turned into. i remember when i joined early 2023-mid 2023, and it was perfect. now? it’s like walking into an empty house, and the worst part is, it didn’t have to be this way. 

the way people tear each other down on that platform is insane. there’s no respect for boundaries or basic decency anymore. and let’s not even start on the name-calling. it’s not even subtle; it’s direct, relentless, and purposefully cruel. 

what’s even worse is how some users justify their behavior by saying that if you’re on the platform, you should expect it. no. that’s not normal, and it’s not okay. it’s gaslighting at its finest. people came here to write and make new friends—not to be harassed.

the leaking of private content is one of the most disgusting things to come out of enhablr. it’s not just invasive; it’s outright abusive. 

watching accounts stoop so low as to call writers names—when those writers haven’t even done anything wrong? it’s beyond disgusting. like, what kind of person wakes up and thinks, “let me tear someone down for no reason today”? honestly, get a life.

calling someone unoriginal? that’s a lame critique at best. but to degrade someone with slurs or other disgusting language? that crosses every line imaginable. it’s not just immature—it’s malicious. they’re not critiquing writing or ideas anymore; they’re attacking the person behind it, and for what? to feel better about themselves for five seconds?

we’re all human. we all have our insecurities, our struggles and problems. but to call someone names or slurs at them as if they’re not a real person? it’s dehumanizing. 

[calder]

Firstly its awful what you've been through at the hands of the people in nukapedia, and I agree that things need to change. Fallout is so important to many of us here.

In regards to your recent posts any suggestions to new people wanting to edit and participate as a voice against the damage like you suggested?

(context: 4/28 Nukapedia PSA) after making an account, it would be constructive and lovely for you to attempt to add any piece of information you find interesting that is missing from the wiki, or simply improve the way something is written. if it gets removed, try asking how you can do better.

be social. use talk pages. hopefully your established peers will help you workshop your contribution into something fitting the content and style guidelines.

go grass roots. ask your passionate Fallout friends to come participate.

being in the room at all by attending announced conversations is a big deal. no specific plan, just go there, be normal, and don't enable weirdos. when an authority figure says something vague, insist they explain it and provide some kind of evidence if applicable.

you are never "too small" to speak in any conversation. speak up like you belong there. many of them are non-editors and do not even talk about fallout. you are a fallout fan. speak up when you see something wrong or concerning. your voice makes a difference and your silence does not. if you're doing your best to promote safety and transparency then you are helping even if you get swarmed by weird angry men.

the problem we're addressing is bad actors with special protections, who maintain narrative control through intimidation, abusive distortion of information, and mob mentality.

the inner-circle consists of people who are comfortable with coordinated lying and coded hate speech. they surround themselves with favored libs eager to demonstrate their apolitical loyalty to the concept of authority. The first group are overall cynical bigoted manipulators, and the second group is trained to completely fucking freak out when anyone tries to address the behavior of the first group. ("They're calling ALL OF US racist, you guys! ALL OF US!")

learn how to spot and resist emotional blackmail: Emotional blackmailers use fear, obligation and guilt in their relationships, ensuring that others feel afraid to cross them, obligated to give them their way and swamped by guilt if they resist. People WILL do this to you AGGRESSIVELY. Do not let them convince you you're actually the problem. Know that you can absolutely be punished at Nukapedia in front of everyone for failing to kneel to a cruel falsehood. Demand explanations. Demand evidence. Stand up for each other. They will try to break up and attack new groups forming in their echo chamber, so their "in-group" will remain the only source of legitimacy.

if authority figures imply you are somehow being bad by questioning their vague declarations and rhetorical justifications, do not concede to avoid conflict, do not validate them for bullying you, do not convey hesitation to speak. Curtly disagree and refuse to allow them to frame the conversation outside your terms. Be extremely wary of the admins who use passive language as if their decisions come from space.

if a user who's been there for years suddenly becomes CONSPICUOUSLY interested in you, positively or negatively, the inner circle is deciding what to make of you. Be wary of ppl who lovebomb you or launch in to overly positive shallow conversations. Play along with their vibes until you cannot. Don't become indignant when they cross a line, just treat them like they're embarrassing themselves. They prey on sincerity and they respect casual assertiveness.

If you think someone is fucking with you do not give them the benefit of the doubt especially if they are pushy about deserving it

if a person with a fancyboy typing style is pretending to be stupid so they can neg you, you are talking to a shadow person.

if u meet some1 who type like a 2000s trol you are talking to a shadow person.

If you meet someone on the discord 😂 who cant stop 😂 using emojis 😂 to show how happy and unphased 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️ they are 🤷‍♂️ that person is trying to spit on you through the internet because you are not a secret racist.

Maintain composure as a matter of safety. If you become upset or act phased by disrespect for any reason you will added to the legends of woke demons who they valiantly slew. Navigate weird confrontations with weird jokes or dismissal, anything else makes you a mark.

people will say "you violated policy," this will just happen. SIMPLY DO NOT ENGAGE unless you're sure you're prepared to get Lawyer about it. never agree to the premise that "you violated policy," that is all they need to permanently mark you for limitless abuse. additionally, never imply that your approach to ANYTHING is "subjective" rather than "objective" or they will permanently mark you for limitless abuse.

i know this is very specific. there are at most 20 of these problem users who actually participate on the site at all--and half of them only show up to occasional forums. theyve been doing the same shit for a long time

many blessings

[thedinosapien]

I was thinking about the theory of Brooklynn being Ben's girlfriend. I know it isn't that strong anymore, but I once made a very long comment refuting this theory bc someone thought it makes sense and was kind worried. So why not post it here? Have fun:

> User afraid of the theory bc Ben and Brooklynn were very close in CT

>

I'm sorry, but you talked about Ben's girlfriend, so I CAN'T shut up.

Your points are valid, as is your concern. But I'm 98% sure his girlfriend exists, and if it's not too much trouble, I'll present the reasons why I think she's an original character and not Brooklynn:

Although it's not stated in the animation, Ben is more specific about his girlfriend's location in the novelization. He specifies where in Europe: his girl is Italian. As much as Brooklynn travels a lot, I highly doubt she would have imagined that her investigation would take her outside of the US, let alone Italy!

Still following the idea of ​​his girlfriend being Italian, I would like to bring up the point that it has never been shown that any of the campers know this language. But we have confirmation that one of them is learning it: yes, Ben Pincus! In episode 7 of the first season, when he loses his precious Van, he says in Italian "Ciao, cara mia". This suggests that Ben is learning to impress the woman he fell for, as well as reinforcing that what he said in the novel is canon!

Ben most likely talked to Brooklynn about his girlfriend in the flashback in S1. Remember the girl who got her homework eaten by a Pterodon? Yes, besides being a funny parallel to his character in S1 of JWCC (which could indicate that the girl and Pincus have something in common), it's also something that Ben takes very personally. Ben told the story to B and she laughed. But he didn't like her reaction, it almost felt personal because he started justifying it "that wasn't funny for her!" or something like that. His reaction suggests that the student wasn't a random person, but someone he considers, a friend or maybe something more.

Even if Brooklynn was his girlfriend, Ben wouldn't be able to hide it for long. We know how bad he is at lying or keeping a secret. Furthermore, considering Brooklynn's reaction to Darius' confession, we are shown how extremely unlikely it is for her to get into a relationship any time soon. And despite her being a gray character these days, she values ​​her friends very much and would never play with their feelings - this is even more obvious when we consider the letter Brooklynn was going to write to Kenji and the campers (but decided against it because she realized she was in a very dangerous situation), wanting both Kenji and her friends to know about her status.

This would be too adult for the show. Not in the sense that it would be immoral, but in the sense that it would be confusing for kids. Brooklynn used to date Kenji, but broke up with him. Darius likes Brooklynn, but she ambiguously rejects his feelings. Now she's dating Ben? That would be a very dangerous move on the part of the writers and would please absolutely no one.

about the lack of mention of his girlfriend in S2... I can't suggest anything other than "script convenience" or "it's too much information for a single season, let's cut some things". Let's face it, everything happens too fast in this second arc. There's no way to put >another< relationship problem (like, why aren't you answering my messages? Where are you, Ben? or things like that), the poor guy was already suffering and having panic attacks in the jungle. His character arc would be too constricted and perhaps unnatural. But again, this last part is just my guess and not a valid argument like the top 5 things I said.

It is a cool ship and all, but I don't see how it could ever be true 😅. I really love the ideia of she being a new character and not someone we already know. I kind of know a lot about her bc she's truly interesting

1 min to 2025 yipeee

[alkeneater]

virtual insanity (E!2080 drabble) 😵

ughhhh wellll just saying ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE and i'm not a good writer so i wrote this because this idea was scratchin my head from inside and i wanted to get rid of it 💙

also this fic is not that angsty as i thought it's going to be, it's KINDA FUNNY TO ME I was laughing my ass off when i translated this shit

okay enjoy if you wanna <3 and yeah Jamiroquai reference 😁

“Are you a loser? A loser that doesn’t have any friends? Your life seems boring and full of disappointments? Not anymore if you purchase a VR-headset by Parallel! The organic design and convenient shape will allow you to spend hours in virtual worlds, and the augmented reality mode will embellish your miserable life!“

“That commercial again…” Joan heard familiar sounds as she walked past the room where Confucius was slowly scrolling through FlipFlop™ on his Holoband™. “Can’t you just block it? Adblock was invented a long time ago. You're into this stuff, aren't you?”

“Joan, you don’t get it!” Confucius jumped up from the sofa and approached the girl. “Thanks to commercials I can easily decide where to spend my money!”

“I wish I had your problems. But your purchases often turn out to be useless.”

“What makes you think that?”

“That laser can opener has been in the closet for a month and no one uses it. We don't even eat canned food!”

“Hey, I saw Gandhi using it!”

“He used this thing to shoot at the drones.”

Confucius thought about it and stared at the floor. Joan was about to go on with her business, but suddenly the guy exclaimed:

“But my next purchase will definitely appeal to everyone! You'll see!”

He did finger guns, expecting support from the girl, but she sighed heavily and went away. 

A couple of days later, a drone with a small box arrives at the door of the house. Confucius quickly runs to take the package.

“Everyone over here! This day has come!!!”

“You bought chips?” Gandhi, smiling broadly, ran to his friend's call. 

“Hollywood's calling me?!” Harriet exclaimed from the kitchen. 

“The shadow government's been destroyed?!” Abe looked out from the second floor.

“You stopped ordering shit from AnyExpress?” Joan crossed her arms and went to the front door.

“Better, better, better! I bought us a VR-headset!” Confucius clutched the box to his chest as if it was his own son, “This thing is going to change our lives!” 

The clones looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. Only Gandhi remained in a good mood, who always liked Confucius's purchases. 

When Confucius quickly adjusted the headset (which did not require much skill and knowledge, the design turned out to be quite simple even for an ordinary user), he started testing it. The others watched the process with interest, except for Joan, who was skeptical about technology, and Topher, who preferred to be away from the whole team. Confucius looked very funny: wearing a glowing blue headset, gloves and anklets, he moved awkwardly around the room and talked to himself. But from his perspective, it looked like an exciting game. After removing this thing from his head, he turned to the clones and exclaimed:

“This is fire! You should all try it!!”

“Can I be next?? Please?!” Gandhi ran up to the device, wanting to try it out as soon as possible. 

Abe and JFK were sitting next to each other on the couch.

“It looks fun, but I'm not sure I'll use it often,” Abe mumbled as he watched Gandhi running around the room with his new toy. 

“You're just a bore, this thing, err-ehh, it looks great. I would love to play some VR games right now!“ Kennedy was already interested and was waiting for his turn.

“That’s right, you can play any game on this baby!” Confucius squeezed in between them, “I'm sure you'll all find a use for it.”

“What use can I find for this thing? I don't really like videogames.”

“That's because, ehhh, he sucks at videogames,” JFK jokingly whispered to Confucius. 

“Well, let's just say this headset is capable of simulating anything, just write a couple of commands. Even the gen Epsilon can do this,” Confucius rolled his eyes and grinned. 

“Actually, we are the gen Epsilon,” Harriet was standing next to him, leaning on the coffee table, “Are you saying it can simulate anything?”

“Anything!”

“Even... hmm... the interior of the palace from the fifth episode of the eighth seas-”

“YEAH!” Confucius did not even listen to the end, being sure that his purchase was capable of anything and even more. 

“I don't know…” Abe looked at the window, “I like our reality too. I have real friends here, a real life. They are much better than this artificial one. Yeah, Gandhi?” he turned towards his friend.

“GUYS, I'M IN OUTER SPACE RIGHT NOW! HOLY SHIT, I'M A DRAGON, RAHH! DON'T DISCONNECT ME, IT'S THE BEST THING EVER!!!”

Abe frowned. Apparently, he is really a bore, since he does not understand the delights of this device. 

***

For the next few days, everything in the shelter-house was the same as always: the clones went outside to look for their friends, sometimes fought with the shadow police and quite often spent time at home in each other's company, enjoying free will. After 16 years of prison-like regime, every hour of free time felt like a two-month vacation in Hawaii. 

One day, after another grueling battle, the “Old School” returned home very battered and tired, and barely dragging their feet, most of them immediately went to bed. However, Abe was the only one who felt uneasy. Even anxious. He really needed someone to talk to and vent his emotions after a brutal fight. But Joan and Cleo were not in the mood for heart-to-heart conversations, Gandhi was sleeping like a log, and JFK was lying next to him. 

“John, are you asleep?” Abe looked into the bedroom on the second floor, which for some reason had a lot of beds. Perhaps the previous owners of the house had many children. 

“Ehh... yes.”

“I just wanted to…”

“Bro, I’ll, err-uhh, die if I don’t sleep!”

“...talk.”

“Later, okay?!” Kennedy growled, and Abe closed the door softly with a guilty expression on his face.

It’s not the first time he’s been left alone with his thoughts.

He trudged into the room, where Confucius was currently playing with his headset. Lincoln plopped down on his favorite blue couch and looked sadly at the window, not noticing his friend. He could still hear his conversations with one ear.

“...You have the wisdom of generations, bro. You're absolutely right, I will do that! See you later!” a smile appeared on Confucius' face and he took off the headset. 

“Who were you talking to?”

“Me? My clonefather, of course!”

Lincoln raised an eyebrow and turned to his friend in disbelief:

“How's that?”

“Dude, did you forget? This thing can do absolutely anything! I was just chatting with my clonefather in virtual reality. However, these technologies are not really new, teenagers were doing something like that 60 years ago.”

“Can I, well... do it too?” Abe’s eyes lit up. 

“Of course! Jump in, I'll introduce you quickly,” he beckoned him closer. 

Abe couldn't help but smile. Can he finally see the one who inspired him all his life? Talk to him, feel his presence? It all sounded like something unreal. 

However, it was unreal.

Abe felt the soft ear pads, the gloves clinging to his palms, and heard the anklets snap on his legs. Everything turned blue in his eyes, only the silhouette of Confucius was visible, he was waving his hands and explaining something. At first, Lincoln felt anxious, but after a short briefing, he got used to the device and finally entered commands so that the image he had wanted to see for so long appeared in front of him. Confucius nodded and left the clone alone with his virtual ancestor.

“Is-Is that you? Mr. President?” 

Abe could see a large empty space in front of his eyes, with a tall figure wearing a top hat. A familiar silhouette came closer: 

“Just call me Lincoln. It's good to see you, son.”

The guy was confused, not knowing what to do next. It wasn't every day that he got to talk to someone whose DNA he inherited. And the man with the thick beard continued to squint his eyes and smile good-naturedly. 

“I, I, I just wanted to talk to you. Can I? I promise I'll be brief.” 

Abraham nodded. The clone looked around and realized that he had forgotten to generate the location, decided not to bother and chose something from the “recommended” section built into the device. The space blinked and after a moment both found themselves in a wooden cabin in the middle of the forest, with some furniture inside and a fireplace burning. 

“Reminds me of the days of my youth... I used to live in a cabin like this,” the man sighed and sat down on a bench near the window.

Abe sat down next to him, still not believing what was happening to him. He has long been used to the weight of the headset on his head, he has stopped feeling the gloves, he has completely immersed himself in this charming virtual world.

“I, I, I forgot to introduce myself, didn't I?” the clone came to his senses.

“I know your name, Abe. You are…”

“I'm your clone. A copy. Genetic or something.” 

“Interesting.”

The guy sighed and still decided to interrupt this awkward conversation to finally get to the point.

“There's so much I'd like to discuss with you, but I don't know where to start.… I'm always so anxious and scared, and I don't even know who to talk to about it. I would like to become a great leader like you. You probably weren't afraid of anything and knew how to do everything. And I'm just... a nobody.”

“Don't be so hard on yourself. I'm sure you'll have a great future.”

Abe looked down at the wooden floor: 

“If that future ever comes at all” 

***

It's been a long time since Lincoln put on the headset. “Old school” had already had time to rest, Harriet and the other girls had watched all sorts of TV shows, and the guys had discussed every topic in the world. Gandhi was eagerly waiting for his turn to play with the headset. Kennedy, who was already beginning to worry about his buddy immersed in virtual reality, was waiting as well. He decided to visit Abe again and went into his room without knocking.

“Are you done? We're already tired of, err-ehh, waiting for you! How long has it been? One hour? Two?”

Abe continued to sit on the floor and mumble something under his breath, clearly talking to someone who was not in this room. JFK was so irritated, his hands involuntarily clenched into fists. 

“I'm, ehh, talking to you!” he raised his voice, causing his friend to flinch. 

“Uh, John? I'm sorry, I just-just a couple more minutes, I need to talk to Abraham Lincoln…” 

“You said the same thing about 30 minutes ago!” 

“The conversation got a little long, that's okay!” 

“You're out of your mind…”

Kennedy sighed so heavily he could be heard on the first floor. He sat down next to Abe on the floor and waited, unwittingly eavesdropping on what the clone was saying.

“Huh, yeah, that sounds so much like me. I worry a lot too...”

“Sometimes I feel lonely…”

“I'll never be like you, I'm just a loser. That's what I've always been told...”

After a couple minutes, John began to realize what Abe was talking to his virtual interlocutor about. He's just sharing his feelings, pouring his heart out. He just needed a little attention. 

“Yeah? Sometimes I feel like no one can really hear me...” 

John placed his palm on Abe's palm, squeezing it a little. He tried to feign indifference, but he barely succeeded in hiding the emotion with which he listened to his friend's voice. The tall guy, on the other hand, barely reacted and continued to talk loudly to the void. What Kennedy wanted more than anything right now was what Abe and his virtual clonefather had. Mutual support. 

“I am so lucky to be able to talk to you right now, I am so honored!”

After sitting like that for a few more minutes, he gently releases his hand and gets back on his feet. 

“Okay, I'm, ehh, gonna go.” 

There was no response. 

Kennedy returned to his friends on the first floor.

“Is he done yet?” Gandhi crossed his arms and frowned. 

“I don't like it,” Joan added, “it's too bad for him.” 

Confucius waved his hand:

“It's perfectly safe! I know you don't like all this innovation, but that's no reason to-”

“You know, let's just leave him alone. Why don't we go to the, ehh, pizzeria? Confucius, it's on you!” JFK feigned indifference, wanting to change the subject as soon as possible.

“Oh yes, let's go!” the others replied almost in unison.

The door slammed, and the house was empty. Only a voice from a room on the second floor broke the silence.

***

It took a few more hours before everyone returned home after a delicious dinner at the pizzeria. John was so engrossed in conversations with his friends and the delicious food that he almost forgot about what was waiting for him at home. 

He was the first one inside, turned on the light and hurried into Abe's room. What he saw made him fearful for a split second: Lincoln was lying on the floor, pale, but still barely audibly talking.

“Yeah... I don't know…”

“Abe?! What the hell?!” Kennedy instantly dropped down beside his friend and lifted his head, “Do you even take breaks from this shit?!” 

“Maybe… Huh…” 

JFK really didn't want to do that, but he slapped Abe’s face. One earpiece shifted and now Abe could clearly hear what was happening in his reality. 

“Ouch. That hurts,” Lincoln rubbed his cheek with the palm and tried to fix his earpiece, “Technical problems, I'll be right back…”

“No, you won’t! Take it off already! Ehhh, come on!” he started pulling the headset off.

“No, WAIT!” Abe began grasping at the device as if his life depended on it, “Please, don’t, I'm not finished! I’m fine, I swear!”

“FINE?!” he pulled it harder in his direction, “I found you on the floor, pale, mumbling something to yourself. You look like a zombie!” 

Abe was already losing his grip, so he put his hands down and let it happen. 

“Goodbye, clonefather. Sorry that…”

The headset finally slips off the clone's soaked head and falls to the floor. John saw Abe’s red eyes, his forehead wet with sweat, his hair messy, his skin paler than usual, dark circles under his eyes. It's a terrible sight.

“…I didn't finish,” Abe said softly.

“Holy shit, you're really, ehh, nuts.”

Lincoln tried to avoid eye contact while JFK stared shocked at his friend. 

“You're crazy, Abe, you're really crazy.” 

“What? Me?” 

“Do you know how long you've been sitting here?!” 

“A c-couple hours?... We just got back from a m-mission?” 

“That was LAST NIGHT!” 

“Last… what?”

Tears welled up in Abe's eyes. Either from the fact that his eyes hurt or from the realization. Or maybe he missed his toy. 

“You know you can always talk to me, right?” Kennedy started shaking him by the shoulders to keep him from passing out right in his arms. 

“But you all were so tired, I didn't want to disturb you…”

“Look, if talking to me saves you from that, uhhh, wire shit, then sleep can wait.” 

“John, it wasn't just wire shit, my clonefather was there... The real one…” 

“He's not real, you stupid! YOU are real and WE are real.” 

Abe lay down on the carpet, JFK sat down next to him and began gently removing his gloves and other stuff. 

“You're such a bore…” Abe smirked tiredly.

Kennedy furrowed his eyebrows, but really couldn't even be mad at him. 

“And you're an idiot.”

Both of them were so nervous they laughed, which made John fall to the floor next to Abe. 

“And you said you wouldn't even use that thing! You're Not So Honest Abe! Haha!”

“Haha, indeed!” 

“Guys,” a familiar voice sounded nearby, “Are you both crazy?” 

Joan, Confucius and Gandhi had been standing in the doorway for the last five minutes and had seen the culmination of everything that had happened. The guys looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. 

“Looks like it! Pure virtual insanity,” Abe chuckled.

“Oh, it's just like that old song!” Confucius said.

John got on his feet and reached out to Abe:

“Come on, ehh, let's talk.”

Abe caught his arm and stood up.

“Maybe next time? I'm really sleepy…” he looked at him guiltily. 

JFK nodded.

“Okay, just don't give me that look. You know I wouldn't trade you for, err-ehh, virtual reality, bro.” 

“I believe you.”

[fushitoru]

rules + about me!

about me . . .

i'm a nineteen year old, and right now, i started this blog as a hobby to spend during my gap year.

next year, i'll be double majoring in math and computer science.

english is my second language. i can speak english, hindi, and spanish (but i don't speak the last two that well).

i live in america, but i was born and raised in india. i'm in the IST time zone right now.

as of right now, i only write for jjk.

my favorite anime is definitely jjk, but i mainly watch shoujo and sometimes shounen that i deem worthy of watching. for example, i've watched/watching aot and haikyuu.

i'm currently watching a lot of things, but i'm trying to get my way through haikyuu and heaven's official blessing.

some ground rules . . .

i block all unnecessary hate and performative type asks in my inbox on sight. don't try to get a rise out of me because you're not going to get a reaction. i'm also a stan twitter veteran (on armytwt LMAOAO) so you're not going to faze me. however, if you genuinely have an issue with something i've said, feel free to send me an ask. just be respectful.

i don't speak on discourse. my blog is a place to talk about writing and jjk, so i don't want to clog it with unnecessary things like that. please don't ask for my opinion on anything. if i ever do post something, i usually delete it in like an hour, lol.

i yap a lot about ideas i want to write someday. do not steal any one of my ideas. those are mine that i will be turning into a fic.

please ask for my permission whenever using my work for ai chat bots/anything ai.

i don’t age up characters in my writing. I don’t write dark content like pedophilia, yandere, noncon, incest, stepcest etc. i also don't write for mahito. i also don't write tragic endings or cheating fics. however, if you're someone who harasses authors for writing dark content, it tells me you're here to not to consume media and to move on by blocking, but to stir drama. it would be better for you to just block me, i don't really want to interact with you or have you on my page.

please put your age in your bio and don't be a blank blog.

please don't spam like (5-6 likes at a time) WITHOUT also spam reblogging. if you rb and like, i have no problem bc rb-ing will help me avoid getting shadow banned.

plagarism is not allowed. reposts are not allowed. ask for permission if you’re looking to translate any of my works. i'm only on ao3 (user fushit0ru) and tumblr.

please don't ask me to be mutuals. if you're a writer or someone who interacts with me fairly often, i'll probably follow you back. i prefer to do it naturally.

please don’t vent abt srs topics. im a teenager (19) i do not have the emotional maturity to give good advice my frontal lobe hasn’t even fully developed yet 😭 you are more than welcome to vent about non serious topics (i.e. friend drama, dating drama, school, work, procrastination, bed rotting, etc) where you’re looking for empathy and not for advice tho!

[resquices-of-godhood]

Slut squid I mean, He of Blight

Kallamar: He of Blight, First Brother, Tried to escape through lies. Kallamar is a lean looking squid with just enough padding to entice people to take this slut of a man to bed. He is between Narinder and Leshy in height. He has a triangular mouth that, much like Heket, he tries to not open completely to better fit into the cult, as well as four arms. His ears are torn, result from the fight to imprison Narinder, and he has a scar over his left eye, an even older wound from the time of the god wars. He has no legs, instead using his tentacle, which sprout from his hips, in leau of.

Kallamar is a pathetic squid of a man. Cowardly and dramatic, he avoids confrontations like it was a fire. At the same time, though, he quickly becomes the gossip central of the cult after indoctrination and recovering from his sickness, and his sense of fabulousness is impeccable. Leoda begrudgingly allows such behaviors so long as they remain harmless. Gayne finds it hilarious. He uses a horn to help hearing and learn sign language to be able to communicate when that isn't enough.

Kallamar used to be quite sickly and without a way to be cured during the god wars, though this changed when he found his crown. While it stopped the disease's progression and symptoms at the time, he was never cured, so, as soon as he was no longer connected to the blue crown, it came back in full force. Luckily, Saleos is a capable healer and familiar with the many diseases his former god and husband wielded, so a week of bed rest and some medicine was all that was needed.

Pretty much right after, Kallamar starts (re)forming his polycule harem in the cult, gaining a reputation for being the cult's slut. He doesn't mind. In fact, he thrives in the attention.

Where he doesn't thrive, however, is at manual labor. His squid body is not well suited for things that his sister has no problems dealing with. His many tentacles and nimble hands are amazing for precision work, however, and he proves himself a skilled jeweler. More surprising, though, is the fact that the former god of Pestilence is an accomplished healer in his own right. He dismisses the shock on others with the fact that he dealt with sickness and disease on a daily basis, he should at least know how to treat them for the sake of his followers.

After joining Leoda in a crusade to Anchor Deep, Kallamar is called by Narinder to talk in private. They are afraid of going, because why wouldn't he? He is going to meet the one that ripped his ears to shreds all on his lonesome. Still, he goes, where one mean comment born from fear devolves into throwing grievances towards each other, until Narinder mentions how Kallamar was too coward to call out Shamura on the imprisonment plan when the panther was working to help his entire family, not just his cult. That gave the squid pause, before realizing how big the damage was and apologized. The two brothers made up afterwards, though Narinder never did apologize for the jump scares.

He can absolutely go from serious and respectful to completely yassfied in 0.2 seconds flat at the mention of gossip.

Kallamar has retained his ability to cast curses without a crown, but he can't hold as much fervor as when they were a Bishop. Kallamar suffers from backlash whenever he tries to cast a curse, but hr can still use two or three of them before needing to find a source of fervor.

As soon as he was brought back, his former disciples and witness practically threw themselves onto him, having missed their god husband. Despite everything, Kallamar is a good spouse and treated them well while he was a Bishop, and things aren't about to change now that he is mortal again. Well, ok, perhaps he did start expanding his harem, but can you blame him?

Kallamar's crown was the Blue Crown, which lords over the domains of Pestilence (plague) and Fortune (gems). It is the definition of a sickly Victorian noble child, bratty and fragile, which reflects in user. Its abilities and Kallamar's Resquices of Godhood are Plague Bearer and Crystal Growth. The former makes so the bearer is capable of spreading disease by their mere presence. As a resquice, the potency of those plagues are very diminished. The later makes the bearer capable of making gems and crystals grow, ruining any cut that might have been used on them, but producing more of the same stone. Without a crown, however, the process is slower and requires a liquid medium to absorb the minerals (water is usually enough).

[sixsix680]

EDIT: I think they changed their ID. I'm not gonna update anything but you might need to click the tag if you want to block them.

This is not going well, but I guess that's what it feels like when you wake up from the 7th nightmare within 48 hours and witness rubbish like this. Yes, this is my condition, probably the reason why I'm so irritated. Also, English is my second language. So uh- sorry gang if I talk like trash-I originally planned my first post in this community to be something cute and wholesome. Appreciating other ships since I don't like to yap about mine that much. I have already set up a new blog and drawn a few pictures, which are ready to send. But I figured out I needed people to see this, so here we are. Oh I better stop rambling shit.

Hello, dear user @fallenangel-still-falling. It would be a shame to not tag you in this. I don't think you know about me, but I know about you. Being all ridiculous and pathetic? You should be grateful when you finally have the attention that beings like you wouldn't have. Feel free to leave a thought, or my DM is open too if you're a coward.

Hello, everyone reading this.

This post is about the selfship community and some... proshippers. I don't witness that myself, so long story short. The user I have mentioned, a twenty-something years old, selfship with Morty from... everyone knows where I suppose, who is a minor. Which is totally not okay? Yeah, you are disgusting. But I'm not here for further discussions since, you know, I don't care about your problems. I'm aware someone has talked about that somewhere.

I guess weirdos exist, and I usually dont hunt down people. Not until they caught my attention. I'm not the type to sit back and watch when my preferred people are being talked shit at. Even though you did like absolutely no damage, your misleading information spreading is... what is the word you brought up again? Ah. Bullying. I know well about it.

Quite funny how your little call-out post got zero attention. Suppose people can discern if they should trust a creep or someone literally writing hundreds of letters free for the community. More straight to the point:

fallenangel-still-falling, or Koda. Is a damn pedophile. This mess harasses my friend and some other people. Lying and talking shit like hell, spreading untrue information which might damage my dearest's reputation. Yeah also reporting random people. Better watch out guys!

"Please if you can report their account and let's get one less disgusting human being off the internet. 💚"

I usually tell people to grow the hell up, but since you're grown up, get a life, then. Stop being such a clown and perhaps you can be normal.

Also! Repeat after me: Blocking the problem isn't problem-solving.

Harassment? This is an act of justice. You can't harass the harassment itself. What we are doing is removing trash from our community and putting it where it belongs. Why be scared to do so? When they can't do anything besides reporting or crying cause they are not on the right side. Wah wah.

If you block me or report me because of this, you're more than welcome, isn't like I care or anything. I will just acknowledge you support this kind of gross shit. What a waste of air and ridiculous existence.

Creeps exist. A little report and reblog would be a big help. I suggest blocking them after doing so, too. Who knows what the creeps would do? And thanks for reading all of this.

[sere-ness-ima]

Arguments against giving personifications a universal language (or another method of communicating with each other immediately and without any problem)

(Ok, this was a little clickbaity. First of all, I absolutely don’t intend to say that whoever does it is wrong. Like everything in Hetalia worldbuilding, it’s a matter of personal preference and goals we set for our story. Additionally I absolutely think that heavy focus on this matter would be detrimental for the story and unapproachable by audience other than a couple of crazy linguists.

Unfortunately I happen to be a crazy linguist, so here’s what I actually mean by this post:)

Fun linguistic things to consider in the context of Hetalia :D

Now, personally, I feel like the universal language takes away from the naturality of their relationships, *especially* so-called “first contact”, but not only that. Language is an enormous part of international relationships through the ages and removing this part from the equation results in the personifications not experiencing this side of their people’s history.

Sometimes in a story you don’t want two nations to understand each other. It happens. I’d much rather have choice than create a rule that takes this possibility from me.

The question of “which languages these two characters share” is interesting; it silently reminds of their history and points to cultural circles they belong to, as a subtle storytelling tool. (Other than that, deciding that is insanely fun, but this might be a linguist thing?)

Languages can be symbolic for other details of relationships. Think Lithuania speaking outdated Polish, from 19th century at best, because he didn’t have many opportunities to catch-up with the living language after that, now they’re not together with Poland anymore. [/personal hc, but even if they were, I think he’d still lag behind].

Another case, think a weaker country speaking the language of the stronger country, never the other way around, indicating a power imbalance between them.

Think a weaker country [personally I’m thinking a friend’s Serbia] absolutely refusing to speak the language of the stronger country, forcing them to seek compromises or use an interpreter or more drastic measures.

The lingua franca, whatever it would be, automatically carries a huge cultural and social influence with it. I believe the personifications should be prone to it too.

Another linguist thing, but I find communication struggles fascinating and endearing. There’s so much cultural exchange to be drawn from a second language user: which parts of learning are difficult for them, which are easy; what mistakes they make and how are these influenced by their native speech; what words do they choose to use, what do they think a chair’s gender is, do they sound soft or harsh or have an accent? If two Slavs talk to each other in English, is it correct English or do they use Slavic pronunciation and grammar to make it easier for themselves, causing a distress for each anglophone that hears them?

Another linguist thing, but a lot of pairs of countries that technically don’t have a common language can probably communicate with ease anyway. I want to see them go wild. I want to see them make a mixtape out of their French and Latin to talk to an Italian, I want distant Asian countries to talk to each other in English that no actual English person would understand, I want to see Latin America NOT understanding each other despite theoretically all speaking Spanish. And I want to see two distant countries find out that their only common language is something completely unexpected they’ve studied out of boredom.

I want to see the poor couple of nations without decent linguistic skills SUFFER.

Some of you speak like not having a common language was an unconquerable obstacle that would destroy all the fun and be a giant problem in the storyline. But I don’t really see how? Our ancestors did it. They travelled, they met other nations and they had to learn how to communicate with them. Some of them saw the opposite thing happen: they used to understand their neighbours without problem, but as the nations found themselves under different influences, the languages drifted away from each other until the similarities became unrecognizable. People across the ages have been learning languages, travelling and communicating. There are teachers, translators (my friend Laurynas says he’d like to see translators acknowledged), interpreters, etymology, lingua franca and body language all for them to use. I am not 25 yet and I speak 4, with a certain pain I can communicate in 6, and I could probably visit 100 countries of the world without worrying about the language issue at all. My nations are 100 years old. I just don’t think they need additional help. They'll slay :D

There were a couple ideas I’ve seen pro-universal language that I liked, so thought I’d share:

One, as beetroot said, being able to communicate with one personification doesn’t mean the countries wouldn’t have to learn languages, as the rest of the society wouldn’t be able to understand it. Therefore, most of these “fun linguist things” would appear anyway, just not between personifications. For me it’s a bummer, although acceptable. For someone else it can be more than enough.

Two, a quote from my friend Huku:

“Universal language is also a thing that helps them identify each other, which is a cool trick. It explains why, upon finding a personification in a swamp, the nation knows that this child is a personification and not some random mortal. Besides, nations from distant cultures also find it hard to communicate initially, because maybe the language is universal, but the context is foreign, the metaphors unreadable, the wording strange.”

Three, at first I didn't like morgenlich’s version that the language “can’t be written down because of magic”, but after seeing a suggestion that it wouldn’t be an actual language, just a mysterious way of understanding each other, the idea sounds more approachable to me. Cheers!

[beowl]

Born from the void (Tohru Adachi x Reader)

Chapter 1 - The Entity

"Have you ever been to Inaba?" That was what you heard before being assigned to a serial murder case. Or: How a promotion turned your world upside down.

Words: 4.2k

Masterlist | AO3

Tags (entire fic): Adachi Tohru / Female Reader, Dojima Ryotaro, Dojima Nanako,Investigation Team (Persona Series), POV Second Person, POV Alternating, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Persona 3 Spoilers, Persona 4 Spoilers, Mutual Pining, FluffAngstHurt/Comfort, Getting to Know Each Other, Reader is a Persona User (Persona Series), Strangers to Lovers to Enemies, Eventual Smut, Slow Burn, Explicit Sexual Content, long fic, Canon-Typical Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added.

Before you start reading, I wanted to let you know that English isn't my first language. If you think something isn't correct, feel free to let me know. I dont mind!

Something murmured in the distance. It didn’t sound annoying, so you tried to go back to sleep.

Today had been a long day at work. When you arrived at the police station this morning, you had to deal with some endless piles of paperwork that you found on your desk; you were used already to it, as it was one of the most common tasks in your job.

A few hours later, you gathered your things and said goodbye to some of your colleagues, the only thing on his mind was getting some well-deserved sleep. Now you were here, lying in your bed.

You sighed as you rolled over. You loved your job, as it was what you wanted to work for since you were a child, but there were times when you just wanted to quit. You totally despised being given more tasks than others in your same position. While you knew you were an efficient worker, that didn’t give them the right to treat you as their errand girl. 

This also happened when you were in the middle of reviewing some documents. You wanted to call it a day every time you found yourself in this situation. Did they really think that they would get away with this every time they didn’t want to do their job?

You desperately wanted to fix this problem, but what were the chances of them listening to you? Once, you tried to talk to them about them, but they clearly ignored you as they quickly dashed out of the office.

You even complained to some of your higher-ups, but they were like talking to a brick wall, trying to get you out of their office and not giving it another thought.

You really were helpless, so you probably should let sleeping dogs lie. Sometimes you truly wished some God would look upon you and give you some kind of rest from this nightmare.

Even though those moments were quite annoying, you were thankful for meeting some kind and warm people who appreciated your presence there and made you feel valued since day one.

Besides, you were glad that other tasks of your job didn't involve working with those jerks. The times when you had to patrol the area on the island were so refreshing.

Recalling your first days on Tatsumi Port Island, you remembered moving here for some work-related issues.

Living in this place had its ups and downs. You really felt luck was on your side - just a few days before your arrival, you found a free apartment a short distance from the Pauwlonia Mall’s police station. It was convenient because you could get there quickly in case of an emergency.

As you walked around your neighbourhood, you tried to get used to your new surroundings. You obviously noticed that it was usually crowded, as it was a popular place for teenagers and young adults, even more so at weekends.

However, you hated crowds since they were draining and overwhelming. Apart from that, masses of people were also much harder to control, not only because they could easily get out of control, but because the amount of officers assigned to patrol the area was insufficient.

Maybe you should move to a more relaxing place, though it would entail a long process regarding your job.

Around half an hour later, you gave up on sleep. You felt frustrated since you had to wake up early tomorrow. Earlier in the day, you heard a sound coming from your phone. When you looked at the screen, you saw a message from Kurosawa.

He was instructed to tell you that the higher-ups required your presence first thing tomorrow. Some important matters were being discussed, and they needed you to be there.

Calls and messages from Officer Kurosawa weren’t as common as one might think, though they had become more frequent over the past year. They were mostly work-related, but that didn’t mean that the two of you didn’t have enough time to catch up after work. He was one of those people who made you feel appreciated.

One of those times, you were idly talking at the Tatsumi East Police Station. After some chit-chatting, you finally planned on going to the Chagall Café in Pauwlonia mall after work, when a group of three guys came through the door.

You didn’t know who they were, but Kurosawa was apparently acquainted with them, especially with the white-haired guy in the middle.

As you watched as they talked with Kurosawa, you felt someone looking straight at you. You quickly realised that the stare belonged to the guy on your left, though you didn’t say anything.

Talking to Makoto Yuki a few weeks later, as he told you that was his name, you got to know him a little. You could say it was a little difficult, as he didn’t seem to like small talk, but you didn’t doubt that he was a good kid.

Even though you didn’t get a chance to meet with the other two guys, Kurosawa mentioned that they were Junpei Iori and Akihiko Sanada, some students from Gekkoukan High School, as well as Makoto.

Thinking about the message you received from Kurosawa just a few hours ago, you couldn’t remember doing anything that would compromise your job. Whenever you had the chance, you always tried to get some work done that wasn't due that same week with the intention of relaxing over the weekend.

You pushed away more intrusive thoughts. Still, it felt strange, as if something wasn't right. You knew that you had fallen asleep on your bed, but you couldn’t feel your pillow under your head or your warm sheets wrapped around you.

Another noise interrupted your thoughts, though it sounded a bit louder than last time. Being more awake than before, you tried to open your eyes to see where it was coming from. However, it didn’t seem possible, as your body wasn’t responding to you. As a result, you started to get overwhelmed. You wouldn’t make a good impression if you didn’t arrive on time.

You ran your hands over the surface beneath you, trying to determine if you were still on your bed. Instead of being on a comfortable and familiar surface, you were lying on a cold and hard floor. You didn’t remember falling asleep on the floor of your living room, though you do remember being sleepy and retiring to your bedroom after having something for dinner.

Did you really fall from your bed when you were dreaming? It didn’t seem unusual coming from you; you recognised that this happened more often than you cared to admit when you had nightmares. Those embarrassing moments had decreased their frequency, though.

Once again, the same sound reached your ears. Trying to pull yourself together, you focused on identifying the noise as it seemed to last longer.

As a consequence of your attempts to wake up, you heard some monotonous and low-level noises. In fact, it might not come from a human.

Suddenly, your head hurt, and you gripped it in a desperate move trying to smother the pain, though it was barely effective. At first sight you didn’t register it, but your hands started to sweat, a clear sign that you were getting worried.

"Hmm. You must be hearing me now."

Huh?

A few seconds later, you detected that the quiet voice wasn’t really coming from a presence in front of you, but rather was sounding inside your head. You felt vulnerable. Your heart started to beat faster, feeling as if someone was intruding your mind.

Trying to analyse the situation, you realised that you were able to move your arms now. After loosening the grip on your head, you tried to move your legs again. This time you didn't struggle to move them as they weren't as stiff as before, but you could still feel a slight discomfort.

Curious about your surroundings, you opened your eyes, though you immediately lowered your head and used your hands to block out the irritating light that just blinded you. After a few moments of waiting for your eyes to stop hurting, you were finally able to open them after a few seconds, feeling a little light-headed.

You felt discouraged by your failed attempt to get to your feet, resulting in your body falling back with a thud. Using your hands to support your body, you managed to sit up carefully.

As soon as your eyes adjusted to your new environment, you spotted a figure squatting down a short distance from you.

Your movement caught its attention, apparently distracted. It tilted its head towards you, crossing its arms and resting them on its knees, as one of them had supported its head just a moment before.

"You seem conscious now. I have been trying to talk to you for a few minutes, but you did not seem aware of it." The creature pointed out while you observed it.

You tried to figure out what it was, but you were only able to describe its head. Definitely not human, or rather, not a living human, clearly because a human wouldn't have a black empty skull for a head.

"You have just suddenly appeared here, though it doesn't seem to have been a conscious action on your part.” It theorised, drumming its fingers against its knee. You also felt it looking at you. Inside each eye socket you could see blue shining points staring right at you, so you assumed they were its eyes.

You felt disoriented. Not really knowing why you were here, you looked for a way to escape this place.

As you observed the surrounding space, you found yourself sitting on a semi-transparent surface. It was levitating above an empty void, in which you could see some black particles. In an impulsive move, you tried to catch some of them, but they quickly slipped through your fingers.

Looking up at the sky, it was very different from what you would see if you were outside. You were surrounded by a galaxy-like sky where every few seconds you could see some shooting stars passing by temporally.

Besides, you thought it was unforgettable, as the blue and pink colours from the sky and the shining stars that hypnotised you were impossible to ignore.

Aside from all the scenery, you saw a black hole far away emitting a sound that resembled groaning voices. Whereas the space around you was unspoiled, you didn’t think it would last much longer, as that black hole was slowly and unavoidably erasing everything around it.

Strangely beautiful. You mused. It could be a lost painting from a renowned painter. However, you felt that it was distracting you from your current situation.

While concentrating on your ‘new reality’, you were now trapped somewhere out there with a strange entity. During the time it took you to identify the area, you really weren’t able to tune out that presence, feeling that it had been focusing its eyes on you all this time. You were sure that you couldn’t willingly leave this place, so your only option was to wait and see what you could do.

Acknowledging your impatience, it opened its mouth again, but closed it, reconsidering its words.

“I have some questions for you.” It waited for your answer. You weren’t really keen on having a conversation, but you might need some information about what was happening right now.

But before you had time to answer, it got up from the floor. Now you could see it completely. The figure had a black, slender human body, decorated with vertical darker and smaller stripes. In the centre of its chest you could see a spherical part resembling what looked like a core. It should be its heart, you thought, raising an eyebrow as you continued to inspect it.

While one arm and one leg were covered in blue torn muscle, the remaining limbs were protected by a scratched bone armour. It also had clawed hands. Something you found curious were the tube-shaped fleshes attached to its head and back. Overall, it looked as if it could collapse at any moment, though it somehow remained intact.

It approached you slowly, as if trying not to frighten you. Reacting to its movement, you hurriedly managed to stand up and step back, putting some distance between the two of you. You didn’t adopt a defensive stance, as it didn’t seem to want to hurt you, but you were still alert. Just in case.

It stopped before taking another step. Apart from limping, you noticed that it made a clicking sound with every step it took, while its muscles made a stretching sound. It was repulsive. You tried not to gag as you ignored those noises.

“So. I assume you don’t know where we are, do you?” It crossed its arms over its chest, in a waiting position. You wondered if this thing had anything to do with this place. Did it create this? Or was it also brought here?

Trying to calm down, you answered. “No, I don’t.” It hummed again as you felt anxious. You scratched your head while trying to distract yourself from being constantly observed by it.

As if it had heard you, it moved its head to the side, examining instead some black sparkles fluttering around it.  Although you couldn’t be really sure, it gave the impression that it was spacing out. That thought quickly disappeared the moment it stared at you again.

“What do you remember from last year?” You don’t really know what it was getting at with that question.

You remembered your work routine and hanging out with your coworkers, visiting your parents who lived far away from you and reading some novels in your free time, but nothing out of the ordinary. Some might call you simple, but you did not care at all.

Feeling that you were not getting any additional information from this, you decided to interrupt it before it started talking again.

“What are you?” You stepped back. You were sure that it had clearly heard you, but for some reason it didn’t answer your question right away, instead changing the subject of your conversation.

“I can see it worked perfectly. Maybe if…” It added vaguely, lowering its tone and murmuring more things under its breath, but you could catch some words coming out of its “mouth”.

Although you didn’t know what its intentions were, you could see it raising a hand to its temple.

Instantly, you felt the headache return, though it was more intense than before. It only lasted some seconds before letting you breathe calmly again.

"I thought you would feel accomplished since last time." Its hand reached down and grabbed a book that was strapped to its hip. Opening the book and reading through it, it turned over the pages quickly, desperately looking for something. “Though it seems we will have to intervene again.”

Were you hallucinating or something? You felt drained, besides your questions weren’t being answered, and your head still hurt from the headache from moments before. Were you being ignored?

Your thoughts were interrupted by a sigh, followed by the figure talking to you. “No, I can assure you that I’m not ignoring you. I’m just trying to find out if you remember anything.” Although it was difficult to sense its emotions, you could detect a slight change in its tone, as if it was… melancholic?

Anything? We? You were perplexed. You had never seen this thing before. It had a special look to it, so obviously you would recognise it. Yet, you felt some kind of familiarity.

Could it be interfering with your thoughts? Maybe it had the power to change your memories. Maybe it was trying to manipulate you.

Another thing that didn’t sit right with you was the way it answered your question. How did it know what you were thinking?

“After what happened, it is obvious you wouldn’t remember anything. And yes, let’s say that I can easily read your thoughts, though that’s not what is important right now.” It said, raising its eyes from the book for a moment.

“What are you talking about? Who are you?” You were getting impatient, so you really wanted to quickly end this conversation.

“I wish I could tell you everything I know at the moment, but I promise I can't. Not because I don’t want to help you, but because you have to remember it by yourself.” 

You tried to intervene, but you didn't really know what to say. This current and strange situation made you feel uneasy about all that happened. Was it trying to get something by manipulating you?

Why should you trust it? This was the first time you had ever seen it, and this entity was sure when it said that it knew you. What should you do?

“There are some parts of your memories that are inaccessible, even to you.” Though you weren’t truly trusting it, it felt strange. You didn’t know the reason, but it felt as if your mind was trying to block this being from accessing your memories.

At the moment, you preferred to trust your mind over this creature. Though, if what it was saying was true, what could you possibly have done to erase your own memories? Or had something happened?

Trying to think something, you were interrupted by the floor rumbling beneath your feet. While you tried to stand upright, the figure didn’t really seem fussed over it, only looking straight down for a few seconds.

“We are running out of time. I’m sorry, but you have to make a decision right now.” Meanwhile, the rumbling began increasing in intensity. You heard its gravelly voice directed at you again, though it started speaking louder now, as you didn’t seem to answer.

“Supposing that what you are telling me is true, how can I get them back?” It seemed that you had no choice if you wanted to escape and recover what you may have forgotten, though you still were wary.

“You must come across something that triggers your memories.” 

“Like what?” Exasperated, you tried to get an answer as fast as you can, as the rumbling made its words hardly impossible to hear.

“It could be anything. If you let me, I might be able to help you. But as I said, you must be the one discovering it.” You were about to agree, but your legs began to shake, and you inevitably fell down. It approached you at a fast pace, trying not to waste any more time.

“I know that you don't trust me, but I only can guarantee to you that I'm not trying to get a benefit from this”. It declared as it approached, kneeling down near your body.

“I'm not sure. What are the consequences of your supposed help?” You hesitated, but did you have any other choice?

“Not really. Though, you will need your memories if you want to correctly approach some future problems.” It said, shrugging its shoulders.

You didn't say anything as you struggled to breathe, but you were sure now that it wanted to get something from you.

“When I have read your mind before, I found out you remember most of the events of the Dark Hour. I think you remember what you had to fight against, don't you? You are going to face some big problems again.”

Why would it need your help after reading your memories of that time? And why would it remind you of those shadows? You were sure that they wouldn't return now that the Dark Hour had been erased.

Besides, it would have surely noticed that you only used weapons now, as you couldn't summon your Persona any more.

During the battle against the Nyx Avatar, your Persona disappeared as it defended you against one of its attacks. After a lot of back and forth attacks between the two sides, the fight was especially exhausting for the S.E.E.S.

Some members of the group were momentarily distracted, as they tried to regain their strength, a moment which Nyx tried to take advantage from. Raising its arm and charging its sword with energy, its goal was to slash through those people.

To prevent this outcome, you rushed to their position and tried to divert the damage somehow. You quickly thought that if your Persona used its power to create a shield, you could make your plan work.

In the end, your plan was successful: you shielded your team from the slash of Nyx's sword and avoided getting them any further damage. Your Persona received all the damage as the shield was torn to pieces.

However, its physical assault didn’t end there. Before you, or your persona, could be aware of what was happening, Nyx swiftly sliced its sword through your Persona, leaving a long scar in its chest.

Though you assumed that the mask of Nyx prevented it from showing any emotion, you sensed as Nyx attacked your Persona in a resentful way.

On top of that, since your Other Self was connected to you, you took some pain as well, which resulted in you falling to the floor and rolling until you collided with one of the pillars of the Tartarus. You could barely move while your team continued to fight. 

Returning to your current situation, the entity could see that you were clearly distracted, as it was certain that you were thinking about what had happened in the past.

As the being turned some pages on its book, it picked up some bracelet from inside, and put it in your open palm. The feeling of the accessory on your hand brought you back to reality. The being quickly continued to read a few more pages. It hummed once more and stared at you as it closed its book.

“Do I have to do anything?” You managed to say as you lay face up on the ground. Your only option was to comply. If this being had read your memories of the Dark Hour and seen what you had to face, you supposed that you couldn’t ignore the future events. 

Its intention to have a final conversation failed, so it resorted to speaking inside your mind, raising its claw and touching slightly its temple.

“Not at all, just wear it. It should allow me to speak to you again in a few days. Maybe next time we will have more time.” You struggled to stay awake. As you tried to hear what it had to say, you felt an invisible force trying to close your eyes.

“Be careful out there.” You heard some kind of hope coming from it. That was the last thing your ears picked up before blacking out.

You reluctantly opened your eyes the moment your alarm went off. Sitting up in your bed and rubbing your eyes, you felt so confused. What did I dream about last night? You thought as you yawned.

You stretched, trying to clear your mind. The moment you lifted your arms, you groaned. Your body felt sore, but you don’t remember doing any exhausting exercise this week.

“Maybe I've got the flu or something.” You scoffed. Wonderful, you thought, massaging your left arm while moving your eyes to the side.

The clock on your bedside table marked 6.00 am. It’s still early. In a few hours, you were going to attend that meeting Kurosawa talked to you about. You didn’t really want to be late to work, so you got out of bed like a flash.

The moment you put your feet on the wooden floor, you heard something hit the floor and make a metallic sound. Confused, you looked down and saw a bracelet. As you had just woken up, you slowly crouched down. You carefully avoided falling down. While you examined it, you quickly concluded that it was just an ordinary, blue bracelet. Nothing more.

You felt something gnawing at the back of your mind, though. The last thing you remembered from last night’s dream was that creature giving you this accessory as a last resort to maintain some sort of communication with you. What did it genuinely mean with lost memories? And what were you supposed to be looking for? It sounded so vague.

Even though you didn’t know what to do, it also made you ponder about it. Placing your left hand on your remaining wrist, you felt something strange on your skin. As you looked down at your right arm, you saw the bracelet there. You had just unconsciously worn it while you had been spacing out.

Ignoring it for now, as you wanted to make the most of the morning, you got up from the floor and walked up to your window. You held the curtains and kept them open, letting the sun rays softly touch your face. You were satisfied, as they seemed to refresh your mood.

After a few seconds of observing the people walking down the street, you focused on trying to get prepared for today’s meeting. While you were going straight to the bathroom to wash your face, you sighed, not knowing what to feel.

You only hoped for the best, but you were sure that today was certainly going to be a long day.

[a-very-tired-jew]

Dropout has an Antisemitism Problem (Cont)

I did not think I would be doing a write up so soon after my first one regarding Dropout’s Antisemitism problem, but here we…

(Note: all screen caps are from this week Feb 18th - Feb 24th, 2024)

For the past week, and some change, the members of a specific channel on the Dropout TV official Discord have been calling for Sam Reich’s “pound of flesh”. I talked about it previously, but to rehash it: they want Sam to openly denounce Israel and Zionism. Considering who Sam is and who his family is…that’s not likely going to happen. It’s also antisemitic to demand a Jewish person renounce a part of their identity to fit your own ideals. Regardless, this has been going on for some time. Someone got tired of the hypocrisy and antisemitism in the channel and posted the following.

Fig. 1. User comes in and asks people to stop making assumptions of the company, corrects their own mistakes, and then addresses the inherent antisemitism in the anti-Zionist positions in the channel (albeit with harsh language). The second user immediately calls for a moderator (this second user is the person who exclusively posts pro-Hamas propaganda from AJ and MEE). This person was immediately banned and the active members immediately told people not to engage with them. However, it did open the door to a discussion regarding what Zionism actually is, which in turn led other members to ask what definition was being used. You can see in the questions that are being asked regarding the definition the inherent bias of the channel and its members. They do not allow for other definitions of the term beyond their own.

Fig. 2. Top user asks if they’re correct in thinking that a 2SS is at odds with Zionism. Middle user provides the simple definition of Zionism. Bottom user is the moderator calling user and emphasizes not to engage.

Fig. 3. Moderator comes in and tell people that this space is anti-Zionist. While they state there is no defending the ideology, their actions reveal that they don’t want any one coming in and challenging their ideals. After this more questions revolved around the definition of Zionism. The Top User from Fig. 2. asks for more clarification as there are Zionists that don’t fit the extremist definition that the channel is using. In particular they are referring to Sam’s father Robert Reich who is a Zionists but is often lauded as a champion of Leftist causes and has a history that is hard to besmirch. Again, another definition is then provided in the channel that is basic (Fig. 4.) and an article summarizing the I/P history from Vox (which is relatively good).

Fig. 4. Top User has asked for more information regarding Zionism as it seems contradictory. Bottom user provides a definition and link. However, as is standard in this channel…the accepted common definition does not fit the biased narrative. After the above definitions were given, multiple members started posting their own definitions that were/are entirely antisemitic in nature. One of the most egregious definitions is below in Fig. 5. This user clearly states that Zionism is a genocidal ideology. This means that belief and support for a Jewish state in the Jewish homeland is therefore genocidal and anyone with that ideology is therefore a genocidal colonial settler. In turn, this means that any Jew who holds Zionist beliefs, regardless of anything else, is therefore bad. Guess what? That’s antisemitic as it equates wanting a Jewish homeland with genocide. No other minority group that is a diaspora outside of their home country, who want to return to that land or believe they should have their own nation is treated the same way.

Fig. 5. User defines Zionism as settler colonialism against Palestinians, that a 2SS is actually intended to genocide Palestinians, and Israel is a country bent on committing this genocide. They then try to justify this position with saying Zionism does not equal Jews. The User who asked for definitions does appear to see the writing on the wall regarding how vehemently biased the channel is and quickly backtracks to stay present on the server (remember, they will ban you from the entire thing for questioning them). The act of banning people and making users so afraid to ask questions that they backtrack to stay present in a space is not good behavior. It maintains an echo chamber that leads to more and more radicalization until you’re holding positions like “terrorism is justified”… oh wait, they already hold that position (see my previous Dropout post).

Fig. 6. Top User is the one asking for definitions. They clearly backtrack a bit after user in Fig. 5. responds. The bottom user then provides an ahistorical account of Zionism and the I/P conflict (the article in Fig. 4. actually talks about leftist Zionism in the 70s).

Several users then present ahistorical accounts regarding Zionism and the creation of Israel. One of the common refrains from the right wing in Israel is that Palestine cannot be recognized because it would be rewarding Hamas for the 10/7 attacks. This is a problematic position that I don’t agree with as official recognition would entail more diplomatic relations, sanctions, etc… However, one user posits that Israel was rewarded its statehood for the Nakba, this disregards the Israeli War for Independence (aka the Palestine War, aka the Arab – Israeli War). This is not a surprising act though as throughout the channel there has only every been one narrative and this is “Israel (the Jews) is bad and has always been the aggressor.” In fact, they have explicitly stated within the channel that the space is only for marginalized people and that they don’t consider Zionist (Jews) to be marginalized, thereby justifying their banning of people who question them.

Fig. 7. User providing an ahistorical account of the Arab-Israeli War.

All of this culminates in a post by another frequent member of the channel about Zionism being an inherently bad ideology. They state that ethnostates have always been problematic. This disregards almost every country in the world except for the immigrant made ones like the USA and Australia, which is ironic because this channel has talked about indigenous rights and the right of indigenous people to have their own country (which would be an ethnostate). Many of the countries people in the server talk about supporting the channel’s cause are themselves ethnostates. Citizens of those countries do express nationalism as well. There’s only one difference…they’re not a Jewish country. The user then goes on to tell people not to engage with anyone who is a Zionist, and implies that anyone attempting to challenge the ideals of the channel are even worse and should not be engaged with at all.

Fig. 8. Frequent User posts an antisemitic definition of Zionism and tells people not to engage with Zionists.

The channel repeatedly misrepresents Zionism and has its own definition that stands at odds to the common accepted definition. The accepted definition is the one used by the Jewish community for a Jewish ideology regarding the Jewish homeland. Zionism is Jewish nationalism. That’s it. There are some flavors to this regarding whether or not the individual believes this for secular or religious reasons, but it all boils down to Jews believing in, wanting, and supporting a Jewish country in their ancestral home. People all around the world engage in nationalist behavior, some more than others (looking at you USA), but it appears that only Jews get told what their ideals, terms, and beliefs “actually” mean. Jews are told that their country is inherently evil and have their history inverted and used against them. It’s almost like we’re not welcome in any space, which is ironic because we’re being marginalized by marginalized people. And that, my friends, is antisemitic.