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priestessofspiders · 1 year

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The Doll

I want to preface this by saying that I am not some sort of creep. I'm not an incel spending all my spare time lamenting that women won't have sex with me because of my jaw structure, and I'm not some sick pervert with such elaborate and bizarre fantasies that real women can't satisfy me. I bought a sex doll because I am, quite frankly, anxious to the point of near-disability.

It gives me no pleasure to reveal that during my 25 years of life on this planet, I have never been so much as kissed. The very idea of being intimate with another human being, allowing myself to open up and express my feelings to another person, deeply terrifies me. I am so utterly horrified of doing something wrong, of making someone angry, of being an inconvenience, that I simply avoid as much contact as possible with other people.

I was extremely lucky to inherit my house from my parents after they passed away when I had freshly entered adulthood. I don't think I could have ever gone through the process of trying to find an apartment, much less find a roommate to split rent with. A cousin of mine at a local insurance company managed to land me an interview for a night shift janitorial position, and even though I vomited twice from stress before the interview itself, I did manage to get the job.

With a modest inheritance, a low cost of living, and no hobbies, I slowly began to acquire a decent bit of savings. Not a lot, mind you, I was still only a janitor, but enough to put some money away for the future. As the years passed, I started to become more and more lonely, with no way to alleviate the feeling.

Did you know that isolation can actually cause brain damage in humans? Long term effects of solitary confinement in prisoners can cause intense psychological and physiological issues, including chronic pain and psychosis. With my parents dead, the closest thing to social interaction I had anymore was passing by the night security guard on my way into the office building where I worked, and he had long since given up on trying to make small talk with me.

I was trapped between a rock and a hard place. I either let myself be driven to madness from loneliness, or attempt to somehow make friends when the very thought of trying to talk to another person made me feel physically nauseous. I won't lie, I did consider suicide as an alternative to both these options at times.

Some will say that the purchasing of the doll was a bit of a drastic measure, and that it would have been better to me to seek therapy or some other, more conventional, way to work through my anxiety. They're probably right, but what you have to understand is that the idea of "just" getting therapy to me felt about as easy as "just" scaling Mount Everest. Besides, the doll itself was never meant to be a complete solution in the first place.

My goal was to practice having some sort of relationship, to inoculate myself to the idea of interacting with a fellow human being until I could eventually discard the object and socialize properly with real people. I didn't even initially want to get a sex doll, at first I was considering just getting a clothing store dummy, but something about their facelessness and obvious artificial nature made me uncomfortable. Besides, I figured I would eventually need some sort of practice with the more intimate side of human interaction.

After a few weeks of scouring the internet, I found the model I was interested in. It cost me about 3,000 dollars, and was equipped with simulated body heat and the ability to realistically breathe and moan. I was most excited at the notion of the simulated body heat and breathing. Just the idea of the illusion of sleeping next to another person made me feel almost giddy, though it was a giddiness mixed with nausea. I vomited once before I managed to click the "add to cart" button.

It sounds embarrassing, I know, but I actually cleaned my house in expectation of my "guest". It was the closest thing I've ever had to inviting someone over, so I felt self-conscious about having the place I live in being a mess. I wanted to make a good impression.

When it finally arrived I hid in my living room for nearly 20 minutes until I was sure that the delivery driver had gone away. I double checked they were gone by peeking through the peephole, before finally dragging the box inside. Using a kitchen knife I clumsily cut open the cardboard to reveal its contents, and after removing the bubble wrap I immediately had to run to the kitchen sink to retch.

The reason for my nausea-inducing anxiety was the following; the doll was not shipped with any clothes. In retrospect it seems like it should have been obvious that this would be the case, but in the moment I felt betrayed and scared. Cutting open the box to reveal a naked human form was far too much for me in that moment, and I had to spend a few hours recovering. I had taken a week off from my work using my generous supply of built up vacation days (thank God for online time-off requests), so I wasn't too concerned about the delay this recovery caused. I had plenty of time.

I grabbed some pajamas from my dresser and set about the task of clothing the doll. It took a while, I had to take breaks to avoid stressing myself out too much, but I did eventually manage to cover it up. With that issue settled, I felt significantly more comfortable.

The doll was a little unnerving to look at, I'll admit that. People often talk about the "uncanny valley", the conceptual zone in which an object looks human enough to be disturbing, but not human enough to quite seem real. Sex dolls generally fall within this valley. They are designed, of course, for the sort of people who would buy a sex doll, and thus cater to this demographic's standards of beauty. Gone are any traces of imperfection, any of those so-called flaws that make one truly beautiful. Instead they are perfectly symmetrical, expressionless, and beautiful only by the standards of one so porn-addicted as to have no standard for proper comparison.

In some ways this unsettling appearance was helpful for my peace of mind. It helped to remind me that, as human as it looked like from a distance, in the end it was only a hunk of rubber and plastic, and that I didn't need to fear it. I decided to name the doll Elsie.

- - -

My first week spent with Elsie was less interesting than you might guess. It was about a day or two before I became fully comfortable talking "with" it. Before purchasing Elsie, my major outlet for my inner thoughts was a digital journal I kept on a cheap laptop, and so I wasn't especially used to saying much aloud. Before this, there would often go by weeks without me saying anything at all, there just wasn't any reason to do so.

However, when I finally did get into the habit of talking to Elsie, it rapidly became addictive. When you haven't had a chance to talk to anyone in literal years, even a life-sized silicone facsimile becomes appealing.

I talked about my job, about every detail of my workweek, from cleaning the toilets to vacuuming the carpets. I talked about my favorite movie (The Last Man on Earth), my favorite book (The Night Land), and what I liked to do in my free time (not much). I talked about my hopes and fears, my dreams and my ambitions. I must have spent hours at a time monologuing at Elsie. By this point I had started to see the doll as a "she" rather than an "it". As the days went on, I began to wish that Elsie could talk back, that her motionless rubber lips would part to laugh, or say something about herself.

It was on the last day of the first week when I finally slept with the doll. I don't mean that as a euphemism for anything sexual, I just mean literally sleeping next to her in the same bed. I'd never shared a bed with anyone before, and I suppose I still haven't, but it was nevertheless a novel experience for me. I pressed the carefully hidden buttons that activated her simulated breathing and body heat, tucked her into bed next to me, and lay there listening, feeling the faint warmth next to me. I slept more soundly than I had in years.

- - -

At first, my plan did seem to actually work. Getting a chance for even simulated social interaction did help to inoculate me against my anxiety, just a little bit. I managed to squeak out a "hello" to the night security guard on my way into work, and though he seemed a bit surprised, he didn't seem uncomfortable or creeped out, he just smiled and nodded at me.

I began to feel, genuinely, a little happier, a little more confident. It wasn't anything extreme though. When I went shopping I still had to go to the 24 hour supermarket right after my shift, when hardly anybody was around, and I still had to use the self checkout exclusively. I was far too scared to interact with a cashier. Once, a few years back, the self checkout lanes were closed for maintenance one night, and I didn't go grocery shopping for a week because I was too scared to call and check if they were up and running again. But now, I felt like maybe I would be able to make that phone call if it ever happened again.

The first sign that something might be wrong happened a month after I bought Elsie. I had left for work that evening with Elsie's hands placed in her lap, sitting on a chair in my bedroom. When I returned, her hands dangled at her sides. At the time, I fully assumed that I had either misremembered how I placed her, or perhaps the position in which I had placed her hands wasn't very stable, and they had slowly fallen down to her sides over time. I was a little scared, a bit nervous, but I was able to rationalize it.

This was just the first of Elsie's slight changes of position. When I came back from work, there would sometimes be slight differences from how I had left her, but at first there was never anything that seemed too unreasonable. If I had left her with legs crossed, they would be uncrossed when I got back. Hands folded on the table would be unfolded. An upright sitting position would become slightly slumped. Nothing that couldn't be explained by the force of gravity and slightly unstable positioning.

The more disturbing development happened when I was in bed one morning with Elsie (my shift was from 7 PM to 3 AM, so I usually went to bed around 4 AM, unless I had been going grocery shopping). I had, as usual, activated her simulated breathing and body heat, as I found it drastically aided in my falling asleep. I was just about to drift off into unconsciousness, listening to the slightly mechanical whirring sound of her breathing, when the comfortable white noise was interrupted with tinny, recorded moans. They were sexual, crass, and wholly unwanted. You must understand that I never actually used Elsie for her intended purpose, I thought about it a couple times, but could never work up the guts to actually do the deed, so this sound was completely alien to me. For a moment I didn't even process that Elsie was the source of the noise, as I had never actually pressed the button which activated the moans before. I leapt out of bed, horrified, and crouched in the corner for a few minutes while I calmed myself down, trying to ignore the lewd sounds emanating from the humanoid figure lying in my bed.

Eventually I pulled myself together and pressed the hidden button that toggled her moaning, causing the noises to cease. I looked to see what could have accidentally pressed it to result in my scare, but I was at a loss. The button was located near the small of her back, and took a fair amount of effort to press. It didn't seem possible that I could have somehow pressed it by accident. I didn't manage to get any more sleep that night.

This was to be only the beginning of the unwanted sounds. More and more frequently when I came home from work I would find that Elsie had somehow managed to turn herself on, and in addition to this the changes in position had become increasingly less easy to ignore. On one occasion her face was turned towards the door as if she had been waiting for me, her chest heaving up and down mechanically as her artificial exclamations of simulated pleasure echoed from her unmoving lips. She had been left facing the wall.

It became difficult to fall asleep. As soon as I would begin to drift off, the pleasant white noise of her breathing would be interrupted with those incessant, unwanted moans. I eventually gave up on sleeping with the doll entirely, wearing ear plugs and moving Elsie into the living room when I wanted to get some rest, despite the lonely sensation of the empty bed making it harder to drift off. In some ways, it almost felt as if I were undergoing an argument with a romantic partner, though I had no basis for comparison.

Even after I ceased sleeping in the same bed as Elsie, the moans didn't stop tormenting me. In my dreams I would be confronted by the doll, the pajamas I covered her with removed, exposing the silicone skin beneath. I dreamed that she chased me through an endless labyrinth of writhing, moaning rubber bodies, melted together to form walls and corridors. I sometimes woke up screaming, the bed soaked through with sweat.

It seems obvious now that I should have gotten rid of the doll as soon as the dreams began, but you must understand that during that period of time before the changes of position and the moaning, it was the happiest I had ever been. I was chasing that high, desperate to believe that I could return to that state of relative contentment again. I knew deep down it wasn't healthy, I knew that whatever improvement to my mental health that I had gained was rapidly being overwritten by this new obsession, but I didn't care.

Once I considered cutting the noise box out of her, or at least permanently disconnecting the button, I was convinced that an error with the button itself was causing the sounds to activate. I flipped Elsie over and pulled up the pajama shirt, exposing the rubber flesh of her back. I held a paring knife in my right hand, as it was the most delicate sharp instrument that I owned. A scalpel would have been better, but I didn't own one and couldn't bear to wait for an online delivery.

I moved the knife slowly towards the small of her back, where the button that controlled the moans was located, but as I did so, the doll's body began to move up and down, the mechanical breathing filling the air with a soft white noise. I dropped the knife and began to sob. I couldn't do it. I knew deep down that she- it, was not human. It wasn't real. But I still couldn't do it. I pulled back down the pajama shirt and placed her back in her chair.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it", I told her, looking down at my feet, ashamed.

The doll just stared at me, face blank, unmoving. As it always was. As it always would be.

- - -

The final horror occurred only a week ago. I had slept fitfully and woke up late, extremely late. My alarm didn't go off. I scrambled to get ready for work, unable to find my security badge anywhere. I usually left it right on my nightstand when I went to bed, but it wasn't there. Grumbling, I grabbed the backup badge I kept in a drawer and drove off to work.

I arrived to the office building in the pouring rain and scanned my badge at the door, managing to squeak out a few pleasantries to the security guard before getting down to business. I was scheduled to deep clean the carpets that day, so I grabbed the steam cleaner and began work on my assigned task.

I spent the first half of my shift in relative peace, listening to classical music through my wireless earbuds. After the first four hours, I enjoyed a brief lunch consisting of a sandwich and some tea, before heading back to work. As always, the building was calm, still, and silent, aside from the faint music that only I could hear. After the clock struck 11, however, I heard a faint sound. I paused my music and took out an earbud to listen. It was indistinct, but there was some noise that I couldn't quite make out. I turned off the steam cleaner and listened closer. All the blood left my face and my heart began beating hard in my chest when I recognized the sound.

Somewhere in the building, I could hear grotesque, exaggerated moaning.

I abandoned my steam cleaner and began running towards where I thought the source of the noise was located. I was reminded of my dreams, of fleeing through that writhing maze of silicone flesh. I rounded a corner, and caught a glimpse of a vague humanoid shape going down a corridor, its gait awkward and clumsy, like that of a marionette operated by an inexperienced puppeteer. The moaning began to grow fainter, as if whatever was making the sound was moving very quickly away.

I sprinted as fast as I could, desperate to see the source of those awful sounds, desperate to be proved wrong. By the time I reached the corridor, there was nobody there. I listened for the moans, seeking out some clue as to which direction to go next, but all was silent once again. Questioning my sanity, I returned to the steam cleaner and finished my shift, passing by the snoring form of the night security guard as I made my way back to my car.

When I arrived back at the house, I was greeted with further horror. Elsie was nowhere to be found. I searched every room, the closets, even in the attic which I was usually far too afraid to climb up into, even in broad daylight. I found nothing.

I eventually checked to make sure every door in the house was firmly locked, and settled down in bed, locking my bedroom door as well. All the excitement had made me quite tired, and despite my terror I quickly fell into a deep sleep.

I dreamed again of the moaning labyrinth of writhing false flesh, of being chased by the doll. It kept gaining on me, its puppet-like herky jerky motions becoming faster and faster until I felt its unnaturally smooth hand grip my shoulder. The half-living walls moaned in terrible pleasure. I jolted awake, terrified, my heart pounding.

I nearly passed out again when I realized the moaning hadn't stopped when I woke up.

It was coming from under the bed. I grabbed the flashlight I kept on my nightstand in case of emergencies and jumped out of bed, flicking the flashlight on and pointing it under the bed as though the light would ward off what lay there. I unlocked the bedroom door while keeping myself facing the bed, one hand on the doorknob in case I had to run. I started to crouch down, so I could look underneath the bed, the trembling of my hand causing the flashlight's beam to wobble slightly.

It was staring at me. Expressionless, unseeing eyes gazing out from the shadows. The doll's pajamas were drenched with rain, and in one stiff, rubber-coated hand it held my security badge. The chest heaved up and down with a mechanical rhythm as the moaning continued, before finally all sound ceased and the doll's chest lay still once more.

I must have crouched there for hours, waiting to see if it would move, but it just lay there, staring like a decapitated fish head. Eventually I dragged it out from under the bed and on to a blue plastic tarp. I rolled it up around the doll and tied it up with nylon rope, duct tape, and zip ties. When all was said and done, the end result looked disturbingly like the sort of thing a serial killer would use to dispose of a corpse.

I drove out to the edge of town and tossed the package into a dumpster behind a grocery store. I was worried that someone would see me and I'd have to explain myself, but nobody noticed me. I half expected the bag to emit some muffled moans, but it remained silent. I drove home and triple checked that my doors were locked and my windows were closed before calling out sick to work and laying in bed, crying.

I sometimes feel guilty about what I did, especially when I lie in bed those lonely mornings after I've just finished with work. I still see it in dreams, chasing me like some damnable puppet which cut its own strings as I run down endless corridors of undulating plastic flesh, my ears assaulted by the disgusting, horrible moans of simulated false pleasure. Sometimes when I wake up, I swear I can still hear those moans, emanating faintly from just outside my window.

#horror story #horror fiction #horror

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forthegothicheroine · 3 years

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Book recommendations for Dracula characters

Inspired by this video, here are some books I would recommend for the Drac Attack Pack, the heroes of Dracula. Some are books that I hope would help them, some are just books that I think they would enjoy. Let’s go!

Jonathan: The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. I’ve never agreed with people who thought Jonathan was dumb for not immediately guessing he was in a vampire story, and I think this book would help him get over any residual guilt over that. de Becker lays out how we all have instincts that help us recognize uncomfortable situations, but how we are socialized to overlook these because we don’t want to be rude. I hope this would make him feel a little better, and also a little more confident going forward.

Mina: Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon. Mina is a complicated character in her relationship to proto-feminism, where she jokes about the idea of the New Woman while arguably being one herself. I’m not trying to give her this book to radicalize her, just to give her things to think about- what does she think about other women, what does she want for herself, what level of partnership from the men in her life does she want? Also, Mina is a huge nerd and I think she would love literary biographies.

Van Helsing: My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix. I’m always recommending this book, but in his case I think it would not only entertain Van Helsing but maybe even expand his mind. There’s demon fighting! There’s unbreakable friendship! There’s a girl who has to proceed with demon fighting when the supposed male expert fails her! It might not get rid of his benevolent sexism, but I think he would find it both a compelling narrative and maybe even make him think about people differently. And I bet he knows a lot about Andras!

Lucy: Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link. Lucy is a sweet and charismatic girl who nevertheless finds herself feeling awkward in the social situations her mother drags her to, so I think she would be able to get caught up in this collection about weird girls going through extremely weird things. Magical realism that is sometimes a metaphor and sometimes not would be a good match for the things she goes through, and alternating wonders and scares make for a real page-turner.

Jack: My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf. Jack obviously would want a book about psychology, and this is one of the best true psychological narratives I know. It would make him think about having compassion for people who are very sick, when it is that someone goes from being a danger to themselves to a danger to those around them, how many very different factors go into destroying someone’s life, and why people don’t recognize things happening right in front of him. The only downside is that once he reads the book I bet he won’t shut up about it.

Quincey: The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown. I wanted to give Quincey a weird west book, but no fantasy or horror fiction is as scary as this nonfiction account of the Donner Party. There are heroes and villains and people who are a little of both, and a ticking clock with each small mistake that ultimately leads to disaster. If this is too heavy for him, he can read the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I would be interested to know how far he makes it through the series before getting too frustrated, or if he powers through to the end!

Arthur: Uncle Boris in the Yukon by Daniel Pinkwater. The only interesting thing Arthur does is when he sets a bunch of dogs on vampire-controlled rats, so I’ll give him this dramatic-comic memoir about Pinkwater’s family as told through each of the dogs he owned over the course of his life. These stories end up going into crime, tall tales, romance, heartbreak and even critique of bizarre pseudo-scientific dog theories! This one should just be a lot of fun for him.

Renfield: The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber. What finally turns Renfield against Dracula is meeting one of his victims and realizing that she’s really nice, so I wanted to give him a book with a lot of sympathy for all its characters, the kind of people Renfield might have seen in his own pre-asylum life all the time. Not all of them are what we would call nice people, but they all have strong interiority, and we see what makes them do good or bad things, sometimes at the same time. The next time a vampire tries to get him to help out, maybe- just maybe- he’ll remember that any potential victim is a person just as much as himself or Mina.

#dracula #books

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Facebook thrives on criticism of "disinformation"

The mainstream critique of Facebook is surprisingly compatible with Facebook’s own narrative about its products. FB critics say that the company’s machine learning and data-gathering slides disinformation past users’ critical faculties, poisoning their minds.

Meanwhile, Facebook itself tells advertisers that it can use data and machine learning to slide past users’ critical faculties, convincing them to buy stuff.

In other words, the mainline of Facebook critics start from the presumption that FB is a really good product and that advertisers are definitely getting their money’s worth when they shower billions on the company.

Which is weird, because these same critics (rightfully) point out that Facebook lies all the time, about everything. It would be bizarre if the only time FB was telling the truth was when it was boasting about how valuable its ad-tech is.

Facebook has a conflicted relationship with this critique. I’m sure they’d rather not be characterized as a brainwashing system that turns good people into monsters, but not when the choice is between “brainwashers” and “con-artists selling garbage to credulous ad execs.”

As FB investor and board member Peter Thiel puts it: “I’d rather be seen as evil than incompetent.” In other words, the important word in “evil genius” is “genius,” not “evil.”

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1440312271511568393

The accord of tech critics and techbros gives rise to a curious hybrid, aptly named by Maria Farrell: the Prodigal Techbro.

A prodigal techbro is a self-styled wizard of machine-learning/surveillance mind control who has see the error of his ways.

https://crookedtimber.org/2020/09/23/story-ate-the-world-im-biting-back/

This high-tech sorcerer doesn’t disclaim his magical powers — rather, he pledges to use them for good, to fight the evil sorcerers who invented a mind-control ray to sell your nephew a fidget-spinner, then let Robert Mercer hijack it to turn your uncle into a Qanon racist.

There’s a great name for this critique, criticism that takes its subjects’ claims to genius at face value: criti-hype, coined by Lee Vinsel, describing a discourse that turns critics into “the professional concern trolls of technoculture.”

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

The thing is, Facebook really is terrible — but not because it uses machine learning to brainwash boomers into iodine-guzzling Qnuts. And likewise, there really is a problem with conspiratorial, racist, science-denying, epistemologically chaotic conspiratorialism.

Addressing that problem requires that we understand the direction of the causal arrow — that we understand whether Facebook is the cause or the effect of the crisis, and what role it plays.

“Facebook wizards turned boomers into orcs” is a comforting tale, in that it implies that we need merely to fix Facebook and the orcs will turn back into our cuddly grandparents and get their shots. The reality is a lot gnarlier and, sadly, less comforting.

There’s been a lot written about Facebook’s sell-job to advertisers, but less about the concern over “disinformation.” In a new, excellent longread for Harpers, Joe Bernstein makes the connection between the two:

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/09/bad-news-selling-the-story-of-disinformation/

Fundamentally: if we question whether Facebook ads work, we should also question whether the disinformation campaigns that run amok on the platform are any more effective.

Bernstein starts by reminding us of the ad industry’s one indisputable claim to persuasive powers: ad salespeople are really good at convincing ad buyers that ads work.

Think of department store magnate John Wanamaker’s lament that “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Whoever convinced him that he was only wasting half his ad spend was a true virtuoso of the con.

As Tim Hwang documents brilliantly in his 2020 pamphlet “Subprime Attention Crisis,” ad-tech is even griftier than the traditional ad industry. Ad-tech companies charge advertisers for ads that are never served, or never rendered, or never seen.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/05/florida-man/#wannamakers-ghost

They rig ad auctions, fake their reach numbers, fake their conversions (they also lie to publishers about how much they’ve taken in for serving ads on their pages and short change them by millions).

Bernstein cites Hwang’s work, and says, essentially, shouldn’t this apply to “disinformation?”

If ads don’t work well, then maybe political ads don’t work well. And if regular ads are a swamp of fraudulently inflated reach numbers, wouldn’t that be true of political ads?

Bernstein talks about the history of ads as a political tool, starting with Eisenhower’s 1952 “Answers America” campaign, designed and executed at great expense by Madison Ave giants Ted Bates.

Hannah Arendt, whom no one can accuse of being soft on the consequences of propaganda, was skeptical of this kind of enterprise: “The psychological premise of human manipulability has become one of the chief wares that are sold on the market of common and learned opinion.”

The ad industry ran an ambitious campaign to give scientific credibility to its products. As Jacques Ellul wrote in 1962, propagandists were engaged in “the increasing attempt to control its use, measure its results, define its effects.”

Appropriating the jargon of behavioral scientists let ad execs “assert audiences, like workers in a Taylorized workplace, need not be persuaded through reason, but could be trained through repetition to adopt the new consumption habits desired by the sellers.” -Zoe Sherman

These “scientific ads” had their own criti-hype attackers, like Vance “Hidden Persuaders” Packard, who admitted that “researchers were sometimes prone to oversell themselves — or in a sense to exploit the exploiters.”

Packard cites Yale’s John Dollard, a scientific ad consultant, who accused his colleagues of promising advertisers “a mild form of omnipotence,” which was “well received.”

Today’s scientific persuaders aren’t in a much better place than Dollard or Packard. Despite all the talk of political disinformation’s reach, a 2017 study found “sharing articles from fake news domains was a rare activity” affecting <10% of users.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aau4586

So, how harmful is this? One study estimates “if one fake news article were about as persuasive as one TV campaign ad, the fake news in our database would have changed vote shares by an amount on the order of hundredths of a percentage point.”

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.31.2.211

Now, all that said, American politics certainly feel and act differently today than in years previous. The key question: “is social media creating new types of people, or simply revealing long-obscured types of people to a segment of the public unaccustomed to seeing them?”

After all, American politics has always had its “paranoid style,” and the American right has always had a sizable tendency towards unhinged conspiratorialism, from the John Birch Society to Goldwater Republicans.

Social media may not be making more of these yahoos, but rather, making them visible to the wider world, and to each other, allowing them to make common cause and mobilize their adherents (say, to carry tiki torches through Charlottesville in Nazi cosplay).

If that’s true, then elite calls to “fight disinformation” are unlikely to do much, except possibly inflaming things. If “disinformation” is really people finding each other (not infecting each other) labelling their posts as “disinformation” won’t change their minds.

Worse, plans like the Biden admin’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism lump 1/6 insurrectionists in with anti-pipeline activists, racial justice campaigners, and animal rights groups.

Whatever new powers we hand over to fight disinformation will be felt most by people without deep-pocketed backers who’ll foot the bill for crack lawyers.

Here’s the key to Bernstein’s argument: “One reason to grant Silicon Valley’s assumptions about our mechanistic persuadability is that it prevents us from thinking too hard about the role we play in taking up and believing the things we want to believe. It turns a huge question about the nature of democracy in the digital age — what if the people believe crazy things, and now everyone knows it? — into a technocratic negotiation between tech companies, media companies, think tanks, and universities.”

I want to “Yes, and” that.

My 2020 book How To Destroy Surveillance Capitalism doesn’t dismiss the idea that conspiratorialism is on the rise, nor that tech companies are playing a key role in that rise — but without engaging in criti-hype.

https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

In my book, I propose that conspiratorialism isn’t a crisis of what people believe so much as how they arrive at their beliefs — it’s an “epistemological crisis.”

We live in a complex society plagued by high-stakes questions none of us can answer on our own.

Do vaccines work? Is oxycontin addictive? Should I wear a mask? Can we fight covid by sanitizing surfaces? Will distance ed make my kind an ignoramus? Should I fly in a 737 Max?

Even if you have the background to answer one of these questions, no one can answer all of them.

Instead, we have a process: neutral expert agencies use truth-seeking procedures to sort of competing claims, showing their work and recusing themselves when they have conflicts, and revising their conclusions in light of new evidence.

It’s pretty clear that this process is breaking down. As companies (led by the tech industry) merge with one another to form monopolies, they hijack their regulators and turn truth-seeking into an auction, where shareholder preferences trump evidence.

This perversion of truth has consequences — take the FDA’s willingness to accept the expensively manufactured evidence of Oxycontin’s safety, a corrupt act that kickstarted the opioid epidemic, which has killed 800,000 Americans to date.

If the best argument for vaccine safety and efficacy is “We used the same process and experts as pronounced judgement on Oxy” then it’s not unreasonable to be skeptical — especially if you’re still coping with the trauma of lost loved ones.

As Anna Merlan writes in her excellent Republic of Lies, conspiratorialism feeds on distrust and trauma, and we’ve got plenty of legitimate reasons to experience both.

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/09/21/republic-of-lies-the-rise-of-conspiratorial-thinking-and-the-actual-conspiracies-that-fuel-it/

Tech was an early adopter of monopolistic tactics — the Apple ][+ went on sale the same year Ronald Reagan hit the campaign trail, and the industry’s growth tracked perfectly with the dismantling of antitrust enforcement over the past 40 years.

What’s more, while tech may not persuade people, it is indisputably good at finding them. If you’re an advertiser looking for people who recently looked at fridge reviews, tech finds them for you. If you’re a boomer looking for your old high school chums, it’ll do that too.

Seen in that light, “online radicalization” stops looking like the result of mind control, instead showing itself to be a kind of homecoming — finding the people who share your interests, a common online experience we can all relate to.

I found out about Bernstein’s article from the Techdirt podcast, where he had a fascinating discussion with host Mike Masnick.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210928/12593747652/techdirt-podcast-episode-299-misinformation-about-disinformation.shtml

Towards the end of that discussion, they talked about FB’s Project Amplify, in which the company tweaked its news algorithm to uprank positive stories about Facebook, including stories its own PR department wrote.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/22/kropotkin-graeber/#zuckerveganism

Project Amplify is part of a larger, aggressive image-control effort by the company, which has included shuttering internal transparency portals, providing bad data to researchers, and suing independent auditors who tracked its promises.

I’d always assumed that this truth-suppression and wanton fraud was about hiding how bad the platform’s disinformation problem was.

But listening to Masnick and Bernstein, I suddenly realized there was another explanation.

Maybe Facebook’s aggressive suppression of accurate assessments of disinformation on its platform are driven by a desire to hide how expensive (and profitable) political advertising it depends on is pretty useless.

Image: Anthony Quintano (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_Zuckerberg_F8_2018_Keynote_(41793470192).jpg

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic

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balioc · 4 years

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A Taxonomy of Magic

This is a purely and relentlessly thematic/Doylist set of categories.

The question is: What is the magic for, in this universe that was created to have magic?

Or, even better: What is nature of the fantasy that’s on display here?

Because it is, literally, fantasy. It’s pretty much always someone’s secret desire.

(NOTE: “Magic” here is being used to mean “usually actual magic that is coded as such, but also, like, psionics and superhero powers and other kinds of Weird Unnatural Stuff that has been embedded in a fictional world.”)

(NOTE: These categories often commingle and intersect. I am definitely not claiming that the boundaries between them are rigid.)

I. Magic as The Gun That Can Be Wielded Only By Nerds

Notable example: Dungeons & Dragons

Of all the magic-fantasies on offer, I think of this one as being the clearest and most distinctive. It’s a power fantasy, in a very direct sense. Specifically, it’s the fantasy that certain mental abilities or personality traits -- especially “raw intelligence” -- can translate directly into concrete power. Being magical gives you the wherewithal to hold your own in base-level interpersonal dominance struggles.

(D&D wizardry is “as a science nerd, I can use my brainpower to blast you in the face with lightning.” Similarly, sorcery is “as a colorful weirdo, I can use my force of personality to blast you in the face with lightning,” and warlockry is “as a goth/emo kid, I can use my raw power of alienation to blast you in the face with lightning.”)

You see this a lot in media centered on fighting, unsurprisingly, and it tends to focus on the combative applications and the pure destructive/coercive force of magic (even if magic is notionally capable of doing lots of different things). It often presents magic specifically as a parallel alternative to brawn-based fighting power. There’s often an unconscious/reflexive trope that the heights of magic look like “blowing things up real good” / “wizarding war.”

II. Magic as The Numinous Hidden Glory of the World

Notable examples: Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, H.P. Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle

The point of magic, in this formulation, is that it is special. It is intrinsically wondrous and marvelous. Interacting with it puts you in a heightened-state-of-existence. It is -- ultimately -- a metaphor for The Secret Unnameable Yearnings of Your Soul, the glorious jouissance that always seems just out of reach.

It doesn’t so much matter how the magic actually functions, or even what outcomes it produces. The important thing is what magic is, which is...magical.

This is how you get works that are all about magic but seem entirely disinterested in questions like “what can you achieve with magic?,” “how does the presence of magic change the world?,” etc. One of the major ways, anyway.

The Numinous Hidden Glory fantasy often revolves around an idea of the magic world, the other-place where everything is drenched in jouissance. [Sometimes the magic world is another plane of existence, sometimes it’s a hidden society within the “real world,” doesn’t matter.] The real point of magic, as it’s often presented, is being in that magic world; once you’re there, everything is awesome, even if the actual things you’re seeing and doing are ordinary-seeming or silly. A magic school is worlds better than a regular school, because it’s magic, even if it’s got exactly the same tedium of classes and social drama that you know from the real world.

Fantasies of this kind often feature a lot of lush memorable detail that doesn’t particularly cohere in any way. It all just adds to the magic-ness.

III. Magic as the Atavistic Anti-Civilizational Power

Notable examples: A Song of Ice and Fire, Godzilla

According to the terms of this fantasy, the point of magic is that it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense within the logic of civilized human thought, anyway. It is nature and chaos given concrete form; it is the thing that tears away at the systems that we, in our [Promethean nobility / overweening hubris], try to build.

There’s not a baked-in value judgment here. This kind of magic can be presented as good, bad, or some of both. Same with civilization, for that matter.

It’s often presented as Old Myths and Folkways that have More Truth and Power Than Seems Reasonable. Narratively, it often serves as a dramatized version of the failure of episteme, and of the kind of entropic decay that in real life can take centuries to devour empires and ideologies.

This kind of magic is almost always the province of savages, actual inhuman monsters, or (occasionally) the very downtrodden.

(I think it is enormously telling that in A Song of Ice and Fire -- a series that is jammed full of exotic cults and ancient half-forgotten peoples, all of whom have magic that seems to work and beliefs that at least touch on mysterious truths -- only the Westerosi version of High Medieval Catholicism, the religion to which most of the people we see notionally adhere, is actually just a pack of empty lies.)

IV. Magic as an Overstuffed Toybox

Notable examples: Naruto, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

Or, sometimes, we care about what magic actually does. More than that -- sometimes we want to see magic doing really interesting things, and then other magic intersecting with it in ways that are even more interesting.

The fantasy here, in simplest terms, is “magic can achieve any arbitrary cool effect.” There doesn’t tend to be an overarching system that explains how it’s all supposed to come together, or if there is, it tends to be kind of lame and hand-wavey -- a rigorous system of Magic Physics, delineating the limits of the possible, would get in the way of all the cool effects we want to show!

Once again, this shows up a lot in combat-heavy narratives. Less with the genericized D&D-style “magic is a fist that can punch harder than your regular meat fist,” and more with people throwing weird and wacky powers at each other in order to show how those powers can be used creatively to overcome opposition. Sometimes, instead of combat, you get magicians using their cool-effects magic to MacGuyver their way out of problems or even trying to resolve large-scale social problems. Issues of magic usage within the narrative being “fair” or “unfair” or “cheesy” are important here in ways that they generally aren’t elsewhere, since the fantasy on offer comes close to being a game.

(Ratfic often falls into this category.)

V. Magic as Alternate-Universe Science

Notable examples: the Cosmere books

This covers most of what gets called “hard fantasy.” The fantasy on offer is a pretty straightforward one -- “magic has actual rules, you can learn them, and once you’ve learned them you can make predictions and achieve outcomes.” It’s puzzle-y in the way that the previous fantasy was game-y. It’s often a superstimulus for the feeling of learning a system in the way that video game grinding is a superstimulus for the feeling of rewarding labor.

The magic effects on offer tend to be less ridiculous and “broken” than toybox magic, because any logic you can use to achieve a ridiculous effect is going to influence the rest of the magic system, and special cases that aren’t grounded in sufficiently-compelling logic will ruin the fantasy.

Not super common.

VI. Magic as Psychology-Made-Real

Notable examples: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Persona

This kind of magic makes explicit, and diagetic, what is implicit and metatextual in most fantasy settings. The magic is an outgrowth of thought, emotion, and belief. Things have power in the world because they have power in your head. The things that seem real in the deepest darkest parts of your mind are actually real.

This is where you get inner demons manifested as actual demons (servile or hostile or anything in between), swords forged from literal hope, dungeons and labyrinths custom-tailored to reflect someone’s trauma, etc.

The fantasy, of course, is that your inner drama matters.

My personal favorite.

VII. Magic as Pure Window Dressing

Notable examples: later Final Fantasy games, Warhammer 40K

This one is weird; it doesn’t really make sense on its own, only metatextually. I think of its prevalence as an indicator of the extent to which fantasy has become a cultural staple.

The fantasy on offer in these works is that you are in a fantasy world that is filled with fantasy tropes. And that’s it.

Because the important thing here is that the magic doesn’t really do anything at all, or at least, it doesn’t do anything that non-magic can’t do equally well. It doesn’t even serve as an indication that Things are Special, because as presented in-setting, magic isn’t Special. Being a wizard is just a job, like being a baker or a tailor or something -- or, usually, like being a soldier, because the magic on offer is usually a very-simple kind of combat magic. And unlike in D&D, it’s not like magic is used only or chiefly by a particularly noteworthy kind of person. It’s just...there.

The great stories of the world, in these works, don’t tend to feature magic as anything more than a minor element. The point is to reassure the audience that this is the kind of world, the kind of story, that has magic.

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

Thoughts? Critiques? Other categories to suggest?

#media analysis

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htmlerror · 3 years

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☕ + wfa

i do not like wfa with ham, i do not like it, sam i am.

I have a lot of problems with Wayne Family Adventures. The idea for it is solid enough, but the execution is. bad. I've put my thoughts below the cut because this got long, so I hope you don't mind me going in depth on my feelings.

Duke Thomas as a POV character - I'm plagerizing heavily from my convo with @phamtai about this. Def check them out for more info and better insights than mine into the character. Duke is extremely well established in canon despite only having been around for a decade or so. Remarkably, it's taken until WFA to butcher his character. Duke in this series is too polite. He's too clueless. He's been presented as the Relatable Kid archetype that he doesn't fit. In canon, Duke has never not been self-assured. He's a relatable character, yes, but not because he doesn't know what's going on. He has experience as a hero long before the batfam became involved. And since then, he's bonded with them. WFA doesn't show his connection with Cass, his dynamic with Bruce or Jason, and completely ignores his conflicts with the family. In a supposedly family-focused product, those are damn near cardinal sins. He may as well be a totally new character. Duke has been watered down so much for the sake of this series. WFA could be a vessel to explore so many things about him that we don't see a lot of on the regular page. We could see a dive into the parallels between him and Bruce, the full psychological impact of losing his parents, epecially in contrast to Jason, how his world view and morals differ from Batman's, the daily consequences of his powers, or the fallout of his mourning independently for the friends he's lost. But those would be interesting angles WFA doesn't seem eager to explore. If you can't imagine a version Duke punching a cop just because they're a fucking cop, you're doing it wrong. Another issue is, unfortunately, Duke's role as the only Black batman member. I shouldn't need to explain why it's problematic to be showing his as constantly less knowledgeable and presumably skilled as the other bats. (No, it doesn't matter that Dick and Damian are drawn with dark skin. Dick has been written as a white man for nearly his entire existence. The person who retconned that is notoriously racist and has spent years defending her inclusion of sexual assault in her writing. I have no issue with Dick being Romani, but just changing the color of his skin is not the way to do it.) DC has recently had a push towards inclusion, on the page an behind the scenes. This is good, of course. Though if they really are committed to representation and inclusion, it needs to be an effort seen across the board. Faux pas like this paint a pretty obvious picture.

The Webtoon format is shit - Webtoon is a great platform for indie writers and artists. It's not my style of content, but I get the appeal. IMO, it's ridiculous to accept a professional comic publisher shitting out 12 page fluff pieces. Yes, the weekly comic format has been phased out for a reason. Yes, halving the workload is a possible way around that restriction. But there just isn't a good enough reason to do it. It's a pretty obvious ploy to seem "hip" and "get in with kids these days." It's lazy and frankly kind of embarrassing. For anyone who doesn't know, a standard comic book is usually 24-28 pages. This isn't an arbitrary number, it's part of the format for the art form. That length allows for necessary plot developments in a serial story line while also giving the characters, themes, and artwork time to breathe. Furthermore, it's what most comic readers have come to expect over the decades. Halving that wouldn't necessarily be a problem, there are plenty of examples of well made shorts out there, but coupling that WFA's love affair with single panels and splash pages is a major issue. Say you make a 12 page comic with 4-6 panels per page. You have 48-72 panels to work with. You can sit a compelling story into that, with or without heavy dialogue. But bring that down to 12-24 panels, and you have one of two options: either 1) ultra-compress your narrative or 2) reduce the plot to compensate. Ignoring the formatting choices, WFA is a convenient reason for DC to keep the worst of the status quo in the bat titles. There's no need to acknowledge criticism of Bruce's treatment of his family when they can simply point and say "Jason's throat hasn't been sliced open here! And look, Damian hasn't been left with the crushing guilt of his grandfather's death! We even let Tim exist as his own character!" WFA doesn't change anything, it shows that DC is aware of its problems but would rather outsource them than put in the work to fix it. There's a special kind of rejected feeling that comes with being told "I hear you, I just don't care.

Fandom isn't bad, but - Everyone is familiar with the incorrect quotes format by now. Sometimes they're funny, most of the time they tend to over-saturate. WFA is like if a incorrect batfam quotes blog was a comic. It's a steady supply of one-liners and references, sure, but it lacks any real substance. If that's what you like, I can't fault you for it, but it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. The way the batfandom has piled onto the "this is the best thing ever" bandwagon is concerning to me. There has been good batfam content in canon, you just need to know where to look for it. The lack of critical analysis of the project and dismissal of critiques is always an alarming pattern, but the way WFA has come to be the odd face of the fandom is just bizarre. It's everywhere, as you know if you've ever tried avoiding it. Thinking about WFA being the default interpretation of these characters makes me nervous. They lack the depth their canon counterparts. I don't care if you enjoy WFA, I do understand the appeal of it, but for the love of the gods, take it down from it's pedestal.

WFA is... fine. It's yet to commit any sins too egregious, but, like all DC properties, it's a ticking timebomb. I won't be surprised when it goes off, and I can't say I'll be sad to see it go. Ao3 has better content, anyway

#asks #anon #wfa #wayne family adventures #batman #batfam #duke thomas #long post

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life-rewritten · 4 years

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Giants of Thai BL AKA The MOST ANTICIPATED THAI BL SHOWS FOR 2021

It's weird to think that the year 2020 has ended. This has been a journey in the past year, on the surface everywhere you looked it looked like there was no place to be happy and excited because of all the things that happened. It was suffocating at times, tiring at best, and it was just astonishing how many things could go wrong in only one year. That being said, one genre/demographic that grew even stronger this year, took some time to impress and improve on its tropes, its ideas and concepts and that's BL. Which also took some of us by surprise, for the ones who've been watching BL since the first oldies, to the new people who joined and also became in love with the genre and have stayed since then. BL has been an incredible, interesting journey, and I am so happy to say that it looks like 2021 isn't letting go of that energy. So to celebrate entering 2021, a year hopefully for a release from all the worries in 2020, a year to restart, refresh and keep getting better, here are the Giants of Thai Bl making their way in 2021. We have so many insane ones, from more mafia dramas to new unique non-university storylines, to og actors, and new powerful ones, to interesting pairings and new channels producing shows for 2021 to many many more countries joining the fight to be the top of our affections and energy. Thai BL is not going anywhere, and you know what that's perfectly fine with me.

GMMTV

I already did a whole squeal about the shows upcoming from GMMTV here: But after careful consideration here is my top 3 most anticipated: Enchante, Not Me, Bad Buddy. I know Enchante beat out ATOTS, but for me, I'm obsessed with the way the writer plans secrets and meta to unveil, and I keep repeating it's by Theory of Love director and production team. I'm so excited. I just hope they put in the same energy and effort they used in theory of love for this you have so many potential incredible actors that can take over this genre if you give them a good script and hard work. Hopefully, GMMTV intends to do so for not just their royal couple shows but also for rookie actors because Book and Force in this trailer? Looks fantastic.

Studio Wabi-sabi

When I hear about Studio Wabi-Sabi, you see two juxtaposed reactions from me, one you see anticipation and excitement from seeing my most loved actors off-screen; however, you also hear a groan from me. I'm sorry I didn't use to be this way, I used to be so ready to embrace every show directed and created by New Siwaj; in 2020, New was one of the directors I kept having headaches about because of all his shows in 2020? What exactly happened? Why did they flop so hard? Why was he so slow? I'm hoping that it's because he had too many projects to handle at the same time since fair enough LBC was filmed same time as GMMTV My gear and your gown and maybe that was too much to handle? But the reason why I like News choices usually are because they're emotional, impressive with their plot lines and have good character arcs and couples we end up falling in love with. He could be an iconic director because he has so much talent in his company, so I'm hoping he uses his lessons and grows and becomes better in 2021. But Let's get to the shows announced so far for 2021 because they both have the potential to take over 2021. I said what I said.

Between Us

Genre: Friends with benefits, Romance, Comedy, PTSD, Angst,

Ahh, this is incredible. I'm so happy. Win and Team are from a great tv show already with Until We Meet Again and not going to lie, but seeing Buon as Win and Prem as Team? Perfection. Like guys I actually fell so hard for this couple despite their low screen time. Buon stole the scene each time he appeared, with his little smirks, and mischief, with flirty bad-boy energy and their relationship, was precisely what I live for passionate and full of chemistry. They're great, which is why it's so exciting to see that Between Us is getting its own show, the show based on these two love story in a parallel timeline to Until we meet again. I screamed. The book sounds interesting; we're getting some conversations about PTSD, some healing relationships, and angst and more passion. I'm so excited about this since I first saw BuonPrem. I knew they were going to get known enough to bring their own show. And they deserve it, let's hope we get an interesting script that keeps us invested, enough opportunities for these two to have softer and profound moments whilst still holding on to their passion, and let the drama not be stale but addicting. Please New, don't let this show also be slow-paced, I'll lose it if another show is ruined by directing from you.

Ratings: 4/5: BuonPrem, they leap off the screen, their chemistry is that great. From hearing about the plot I'm also excited to a more in-depth look into Team's insomnia and his past and psychological scars, and I'm hoping to see a deeper reason for why these two should be together.

Love Mechanics 2

Genre: Romance, Comedy, Angst, Drama, Friends with benefits, Unrequited love,

That's the thing about Wabi-Sabi; they have amazing actors that steal our hearts away. This shows cast is no different, it's YinWar and it's a collab with Channel 3. Like What? It's everything. YinWar from Love Mechanics trended with millions of people obsessed and wanting the show to be extended and actually appropriately done. In came Channel 3 and we have this gem coming on April. No words. YinWar on screen is thrilling; War is just outstanding as Mark, his nuances, his glares, his looks of pain and longing, man I was absorbed into it. Although LM's writing is toxic and really left me feeling confused and uncomfortable with the details pushed aside, it was hard to ship VeeMark when Yin's character made terrible decisions and was awful even in the book. I'm the queen of analysing damaged flawed characters, and I don't run away from toxicity as long as there is a growth and change later on, as long as there's a good reason we needed to see that. For Vee's character, his actions were unnecessary for us to know about his character; they were just messy and upsetting. That's why I think seeing more depth for his actions and seeing Mark regress and also make mistakes like him will even out their relationship and make me feel more understanding about how these two flawed characters came to be and why they should be together. Let's hope with funds from Channel 3, more effort and energy put into the show, it'll be great because with actors like War this show can be just as big as it was when it had errors. Maybe even better.

Ratings 3.5/5 Love mechanics messy storyline makes me worried about this, but I think I might have a great time watching and analysing Mark's revenge after being heartbroken. The angst and drama of it all just sound interesting.

Channel 3

2020 brought a new surprise with Channel 3 deciding to invest in BLS. BLs have always been not on mainstream channels, so seeing Channel 3 in Thailand decide to make their own shows, a collab with other companies, and bring some directors and writers and actors known in the BL world already, shows they are serious. This may be because of the success of 2gether and other breakthroughs in 2019 taking over the scene. But I can see that Channel 3 did not come here to play, they are researching, looking for ways to make a great BL with the information provided on the past BLs and they want to make it big. And you know what with shows like GEN Y showing up last year, I want to believe that Channel 3 is a competition for GMMTV and others. They invest in funds and have longer minutes for their episodes, and they also pay attention to international fans by streaming on new places like Iquiyi and others. It's exciting. Channel 3 has already dipped their toes with Love Mechanics, and in 2021 they have even more shows to give us:

Teddy Bear Miracle

Genre: Romance, Comedy, Supernatural, Drama, Friends to Lovers, Fantasy, Mystery, Lakorn

What a weird title for a show. What an odd premise. What a bizarre book. But you know what I'm so excited about this; this is meant to be a lakorn series that is BL. Like wow, it has a good cast, known faces in the Thai acting scene and a director/screenwriter who has won awards for his own script. That's even more exciting. But the best thing about this is that it's a fantasy and has supernatural themes, yep it's weird we're dealing with a magic system where teddy bears come to life, and other inanimate objects talk? But I'm so excited to see what this brings; we have a man transformed from a teddy bear with amnesia who's searching for his past and how he ended up as one and his owner who's not yet ready to let his comfort go. It's so interesting, with family history and drama and of course, a romance that will probably touch my heart. I'm excited for this zany, wacky and dramatic show. Normally, I shy away from the crazy because I don't like crack humour, and it just means a bunch of many irritating sound effects and editing choices. But I want to trust the whole team from Channel 3, from the behind the scenes the show looks great, the couple has chemistry, and I'm excited to delve into the mystery at play and see what this story is meant to become. So excited honestly.

Ratings: 4.1/5 The wacky magic system scares me not going to lie, but I have faith for some reason in Channel 3, so I think this might shock us all. I think we'll get good acting, and perhaps good directing too. The mystery might also make me want to analyse. We shall see.

Lovely Writer

Genre: Romance, Comedy, Angst, Drama, Acting/Writing Industry, Haters to Lovers,

Did you say Kao and Up and P'Tee the director of TharnType the series? Sign me up I'm there; I've been screaming a bit since I heard about this series. From the first time, it was announced that Channel 3 was turning the book into a show, I was like this sounds unique again? And it has an interesting plot, I guess, and it's also going to have drama. I'm hopeful then. When I heard about the whole team and watched the trailer, I got into it even more. Lovely Writer sounds right up my alley, to be honest, we have this introverted writer who is determined to write a masterpiece and stop his company from making him produce BLs for the hype only for his next project to be a BL show which leads him to his new sneaky, sly, wolf in sheep's clothing roommate. Kao played his roommate from Until we meet again who won my heart as Korn and made me cry buckets. So, of course, I'm excited, Nubsib (Kao) may have some tricks up his sleeve to get next to Gene, but I think things will be more complicated than he thought, I'm ready to explore the world of the film industry and dating scandals that Gene and Sib will fall into the more they fall for each other. The angst and drama. Can't wait. Also, TharnType is one of my favourite series, and one of the reasons is because of Tee so... That's even more reason to see Gene and Sip's love story develop. Will it be as angsty, passionate and filled with plot twists? From what I hear maybe.

Ratings: 4/5 I just think this is an excellent team for a BL backed by Channel 3 and also has an exciting plot filled with ups and downs. I'm excited to see what happens and from the behind the scenes they released in the new year I think it'll be right up my alley.

NADAO

It had to be mentioned that I'm still in shock that Nadao is investing more into BL's. I don't know why, it just feels too good to be true, after giving me show after show that's perfection and quality I'm starting to have high expectations and hope for more, despite my weary heart not wanting to trust that this is real. I'm dramatic, I know. Anyways Nadao has gifted me twice with two shows that have shocked me and made my jaw fall in awe. I'm just like wow, they really did that. Every single piece of work that comes from them is art. Every single script is exceptionally written. Every single show is acted beautifully, and every single director and producer makes me inspired by the way they create. This is when focusing on their BLs because Great Man Academy and I told sunset about you are masterpieces in their own way, they deserve to be praised and never forgotten. It's just incredible that with a company like Nadao, everything falls into place, even when we think it won't because of past experiences. Nadao has shown up and decided to create unique pieces each thoughtful. Deep and breathtaking. Why won't I be over the moon when 2021 announces that we're getting another part from them with I told sunset about you getting a sequel. You bet I haven't stopped screaming and looking at the time to hurry up, so we get to March 11. I'm serious.

ITSAY PART 2

Genre: Romance, Angst, Drama, University, Coming of age

And that's because of what ITSAY was to us in 2020. It was something that can't be explained concisely. It was everything. To hear that we're getting the second part of the story of Oh and Teh, I feel like I am already preparing my heart and mind for another invasion, last time I was a mess because of this show, I was all over the place because of this show, and I was incredibly happy for a moment because of this show. To relive that again would be everything. It's slightly worrying that Teh and Oh finally getting together and fighting through the odds to stay together will run into more obstacles. Are you kidding me? After all, we went through to see them together?? It makes me worried, I have this real distrust for sequels of BLs, and it hasn't changed despite 2020 producing some okay follow-ups. Sequels never meet the expectation set; sequels are always reduced in quality because the focus is now on popularity and fame, sequels lose their integrity of the characters we've come to know and love and sequels hurt. They make me sometimes give up on a show that is my love, and it hurts. It's a painful realisation that I can't take away or forget the sequel events, so these characters are now ruined infinitely for me—looking at Together with me next chapter. It's scary. But Nadao hasn't failed yet, I mean it when I say their scripts are like works of art, I mean it when I say you can tell they put blood, sweat and tears to create their shows, why would ITSAY part 2 be any different? These two shows I mentioned before are coming together because the director of GMA is joining the team of ITSAY to produce whilst Boss becomes the producer. As long as he's there, I'm fine, as long as we still get hard work, energy, effort and thought put into it. I'm fine. Because it translates on screen, I'll try to lower my expectations, but I can't wait to see BilkinPP as TehOh again. I can't wait to fall in love with the show all over again. Let's hope we all end up satisfied.

Ratings: 4.5/5 The being a sequel is what's deducting the 0.5. I can't come here and be a fool; I must guard my heart against disappointment somewhat, despite failing already to do so.

Other Affiliates

We have our other shows. These were a pleasant surprise. With all the growth of new BLs, it's starting to get crowded and saturated, but as much as it's hard to see which shows stand out above all the noise, some make you see it. These shows are the ones that stand out for me out of the rest in 2021. I don't know what companies they're from, all I know is the information given to me and past experiences.

KinnPorsche

Genre: Romance, Mafia, Angst, Drama, Friends to Lovers, Haters to Lovers, Bodyguard trope

AHHH. Can you hear me AHH. Okay, I'll calm down. But no really, KinnPorsche is finally preparing for filming and the cast has been set and I'm screaming. KinnPorsche was the book in 2020 that was announced as the most coveted; I remember so many fandoms wanted their actors to be chosen as the main cast. The reason? Because this is meant to be the first Mafia/Crime BL. Yes, you heard us, no more universities and engineers we're doing bodyguards and spoilt gangsters. I'm... But just knowing this, you just know that the show will also have angst, angst angstttt for days, drama, and a romance that probably involves haters to lovers, passion, and character development. We're coming in with guns blazing, with many side couples that look just as good and interesting, and many actors that look perfect for their roles. I cannot wait for KinnPorsche, especially when one of my favourite actors is going to be in it as a second lead Jeff Satur! Have you seen the posters, the character introduction, who they're casting for the rest of the show? This looks amazing, it seems well put together, and the whole team looks determined and ready to give us a great show. I'm honestly so excited, but I've also heard things about the book that I will have to wait for the show to be a judge of before saying. All I can say is quality of a show also includes the themes in the script, we're trying to evolve past the toxic plots and ideas in BL, so I'm hoping if there is any we cut it real quick and change that part. It's the producers and directors' choice to keep parts in that could be edited or removed. I haven't read the book, so I'm going to be wary about it for now, but from the whole cast, teasers, and posters I really think this show could be a favourite if appropriately handled.

Ratings: 4?/5 The question mark is for the rumours I've heard about the book. I can't lie that I want this show to be great and become one of my all-time favourites but with angst and violent personalities and passion comes leeways to toxicity and more and that's just not cute or needed.

My Engineer Season 2

Genre: Romance, Comedy, Angst, Drama, Friends to Lovers, Haters to Lovers, Unrequited love, University,

Okay, this is it, folks. My Engineer came in 2020 and knocked our socks off; it's the most underrated great show in 2020 (apart from why r u) in my opinion. It was brilliantly constructed with enough screen time and plot for every couple of the show. My Engineer is a great show; it didn't make it to my favourites because I had issues with the main couple, but it was my most enjoyed when it came to the side couples. Because we had KingRam, TharaFong, and MekBoss. (Sorry to BohnDuen Fans). These were some of the most exciting, heartfelt, loving couples in 2020, KingRam was just chef kiss. And to hear that we're getting a sequel based on them? Well you know what I did, I screamed. I loved both KingRam and TharaFrong they were done so well, acted so well, and they made me laugh and laugh and then squeal and blush. They were too cute. The ending of my engineer left both these couples on a cliff hanger; we had a depressing bro zone with TharaFong as Fong came to realise his feelings, we had a wait what moment with Ram telling King he wasn't drunk when the kiss happened which is essentially a 'we need to deal with this new situation' text. And it's got me so excited to see what happens next. The first part of this was excitement. The second part is sigh, sequels. I told you didn't sequels are just urgh. I couldn't stop my excitement about KingRam, and I went to read the novel, and I usually don't mind it, but I don't think if the sequel is based on their story that I'd like them in season 2. And that's ridiculous because they're finally the main couple of season 2, and TalayPerth is impressive to see on screen. Sigh. I wasn't happy when reading the book; there are specific actions and choices made that just shifts the dynamic of the first season into the opposite. And I'm not particularly excited to relive those moments. Let's just say I still have high hopes for My engineer mostly cause I don't know what's happening to the other couples; I really hope there's a change in the script, maybe more information, more reasons for the characters to act the way they do, more depth? Because I want to like this show, I want it successful, but I'm not a clown I can't pretend it will be if it's based on the books. We'll see if I'm proved wrong. I hope I am.

Ratings: 3.5- Why did I read the book why?? I should have come into it blind I would have given it a 5/5 just for KingRam. Sigh

Love Stage

Genre: Romance, Comedy, Gender Bender, Friends to Lovers, Childhood friends,

This was a shock. Thailand has started to remake mangas from Japan, and it's all the most loved ones. In 2021 we already have Antique Bakery being remade by GMMTV (Read my GMMTV Giants of 2021) and now we have Love Stage which is also getting a Japanese Movie remake out in 2021. It's a great manga, anime and it's going to be a fun show. I enjoyed the characters, and I liked the storyline. But what I'm the most excited about when it comes to this is Kaownah and Turbo finally, after years of waiting have a new series. YES. Kaownah plays Long in TharnType our villain, and he was incredible in that. I heard he and Turbo were meant to be in the show My Umbrella, but it was cancelled and forgotten which was disappointing. These two are so cute, they're known for their fanservice and their chemistry and friendship. And I like them a lot. I can't wait to see Love Stage. I think they'll kill it. Can't wait to hear more about it let's hope this time it sticks and comes through on our screens.

Ratings: 4/5 It's a fun storyline, and it has an excellent acting couple. I'm excited.

If 2021 already sounded brilliant because of GMMTV 2021, 2021 sounds even more exciting with these new shows; there's so many coming out, so many breaking stereotypes, so many unique plotlines, and so many great actors showing up. It's going to be a great year. I'm just glad BLs are growing, things are changing slowly, things are starting to have meaning and improve, international fans are being listened to, LGBT voices is also being listened to, we are getting there, not yet there but closer, every single time someone makes a choice to create a great plot and story that is more than just two guys making out, a show filled with heart, messages and essential representation with the good actors that also want the shows to mean something or are willing to put their all in it, every time someone chooses to make a good BL, you're paving the way for change and for the meaning of BL to change as well, for it just to be seen as something more in media. And that's needed for so many people who want shows like this to be respected and created for voices that need to be heard and displayed. Let’s see more with excellent quality in 2021.

#thai bl #bl series #bl drama #gmmtv 2021 #between us #love mechanics #itsay #i told sunset about you #my engineer #lovely writer #wrpup #2021

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whetstonefires · 3 years

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tim drake for the character ask thing?

How I feel about this character

I'm attached as fuck to him. He's so annoying. All his fans are annoying especially me.

He's really great and has been Wronged by DC, not so much in being dropped from prominence as in having everything he brought to redefining Robin carved up and redistributed by retcon so now you get people saying he 'has nothing distinctive about him.'

YEAH BECAUSE HE WAS SO GOOD DC MADE ALL HIS DISTINCTIVE TRAITS GENERIC. SHUT UP.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Huh. No one, kinda, he has such a habit of getting into romances and then just--having no idea what the next step is, emotionally speaking.

I don't know if we should call this an orientation thing or a mental health thing or a work/life balance thing or even just a maturity thing, but all available evidence suggests that Tim either lacks basic capability or subconsciously self-sabotages, when it comes to his love life.

Like even by comic book lead standards he stands out here because he hasn't lost many of his relationships to supervillainy or drama, he just kind of...drifts apart. He and Steph weren't a thing at the point of her 'death,' and that's the closest he's come to the usual fridge shenanigans re: girlfriend.

I've slowly gone off him and Steph, actually, since it started appearing in canon again. They were designed to character-foil one another; she has every Robin trait that was dialed down in Tim to pacify the Jason-haters, turned up to eleven. If you (writer) aren't willing to harness that collision energy and its spark to drive the relationship, you're going to get something that's either tepid and impersonal or their contrasts actively driving them apart and creating conflict.

Which they always did, of course, because you gotta sell comics and Steph in Tim's title was technically a weapon in the writers' hands, but I thought they had more potential to get their shit sorted and be something meaningful to each other back then than I do now.

Tim/Kon is fine? It's fine. I like them together in general so they're a fine romance, abstractly. 80%+ of shipfic in general is grossly mischaracterized in ways that cause me varying anxiety depending on the character so I've developed aversions to certain narrative frameworks for that ship, but I think it's the cutest and most natural canon-grounded one he has.

Honestly though I feel that Tim would have to change enough as a person before he would actually benefit from trying to hold up one end of a romance, that when I try to picture him in a stable romantic situation I always kinda feel he'd need it to be with a new person he doesn't have history with, to hold him answerable to who he's been all this time. So Tim/OC????

That said, the recent issue giving us Overtones Of Timber has me on the ground. Like hell yeah, sure, why not Bernard.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Kon I guess? Honestly I like him best with his Young Justice squad, in its various forms. Tim Kon and Bart are reliably great, I still think their Young Justice reboot lost a lot by fucking all of them up right out the gate.

My unpopular opinion about this character

In a fun reversal from the previous two asks for this meme, I do know which opinions are unpopular about Tim, but in fact it's basically all of them. There are no positions on the subject of Tim Drake that won't piss someone off.

I am not gonna go seeking out the most inflammatory and/or bizarre thing I could say about this character egad.

I guess the one that's gotten me into the most conflict is that it is not and was not Tim's responsibility to make the relationship with Damian 'work.' And that the startlingly common attitude in both the comics and the fandom that Damian's behavior toward him those first years somehow couldn't be considered abusive and that Tim should have been able to either take it like a man or single-handedly deescalate it, simply because of their age difference, is fucked up.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

ONE.

...some unpacking of how he's internalized a really twisted definition of 'responsibility' and of how his parents and in particular his dad genuinely wronged him over an extended period, and he's allowed to have been harmed by it.

Like Tim has a whole thing about how he's not allowed to be traumatized by shit because worse things have always happened to other people (even though 'how objectively bad a thing was' isn't the primary factor controlling how bad the psychological damage is) and in Red Robin part of how his character was going so weird was he was finally giving himself permission to be damaged, and that could have developed in either a bad way (continuing that pattern of trauma validation through passive self-harm) or a good one (getting better at giving himself space to hurt and thus to heal).

But we never got to see the eventual outcome because Barry Allen destroyed the universe. Which, hey, DC sucks, it probably would have been a bad outcome anyway. But. Let the man grow up, huh?

#i actually almost went off in the shipping question about like #'maybe he could handle himself better in a triad relationship?'#'not exactly because the other two could do all the heavy emotional lifting because tim is perfectly willing to do that kind of work'#'just not on his own behalf so if there was a way for his own romance to consist of meddling with other people's--'#and then i realized i had intersected homestuck and did not write that paragraph #tim drake #ask meme #ask #character breakdown #hoc est meum #a nonny mouse

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nightswithkookmin · 3 years

Text

Dear new friend,

I just finished reading your messages. First of all, thank you. I think I would have been less traumatized out here if a lot of people took to sharing their thoughts on matters such as these in the manner in which you do.

I think I set myself up too because I be wanting to participate in certain topics and discussions and so often I find myself trying to sieve through the vitriol and pejoratives.

The gender of the word is feminine not masculine. I don’t see how that is misinformation.

"Sorry, the misinformation bit was because I was thinking about that tweet that went viral about this word being used only for woman. The person said it was an adjective, and you said it was an adjective, so I thought you were basing this information on that tweet. That day was crazy, some people spread this, wanted to change his pronouns, trend a hashtag and were saying he had came out... This was too much. And the "debunked" thing was about this tweet, as well. Not about the words being feminine and masculine. That's a fact, you're right."

I had no idea a tweet went viral like that claiming he wanted to change his pronouns. That's wild and I disagree. Lol. I think I've always maintained he uses He/him pronouns and said time and again I do not think he wants to be emasculated at all. As I said, that would have made him transgender not bigender and thus defeat the purpose. To be bigender he has to be two genders at the same time not one.

But I have been following the discussions on this topic on the bird app and I try my best to bring nuance to certain discussions. I try. Lol.

I take note of the differences between your language and Latin as you rightly pointed out. But I also do see the similarities and I think the explanation you gave and the examples you provided gives me a better understanding of the language structure.

"Yeah, totally fine hahah We tend to interpret things according to our own experiences; for me, a gendered word is part of my daily life, normal, and I don't bat an eye about it. Is just a word, the importance is in its meaning ─ and it suits filter SOOO well. For you, it's something more. At the end of the day, art is here to be interpreted, and if Jimin doesn't explicitly explain the filter performance, tattoos, set, outfits... It's open for interpretation. (And I'm not a person that tries to find hidden meanings. I simply enjoy what I enjoy. I have this thing about being as accurate as possible, so I try to stick to facts (like: I don't feel comfortable saying he chose these words, because I don't know if HE was the person that chose it (in the sense that he was the one that bring it up to the staff/company). Maybe someone else showed it to him and he was like: "Nice! I want it!". But I feel okay saying he's had a tattoo with these words (A fact). Also I don't make a big deal of most things ─ for me Jimin is Jimin and I'm supporting him regardless, he's precious)

(But Memories 2020 is coming and I'm almost sure they are going to show filter behind the scenes!!!! So we're going to understand better this masterpiece (I HOPE SO))

I understand what you mean. Some people are inclined towards taking the literal meaning of texts or in this case art and not read much into situations beyond what is presented at face value- not me🤣🤣🤣🤣

I do the magnifying glass and errthang👁

I think humans are complex and there's always a possibility of a psychological and or pathological stimulus underscoring their behaviors, choices and actions in most cases.

But that aside, I think it's easier to take a heteronormative view on things sometimes because cis straight has always been the norm even in appreciating art- but truth is, coding and co opting codified expressions is almost always part of queer culture and behavior too. If any other queer celebrity had used that expression, I would be reading much into it too beyond its semantics.

For me it's simple, would I be reading too too much into the language and art choice of someone I thought was cis straight? Hell No. Straight is boring and blunt as fuck.

Unless of course they were being intentionally witty or secretive about something, I'd assume and expect their expressions to be pretty much straight forward- generally. I went home to be would mean just that.

If I sensed the author were queer coding Home would mean something else entirely to be. Home becomes a symbol not a word. And if he chose to write that in Latin and not the language they spoke naturally, I'd assume there's something about that language that he likes and perhaps uses to code a queer message.

For closeted queer people who live in a world where they are constantly coerced to take on a duality and have an expressional alter egos- two identical identities with one being the facade and pretense through which they openly and largely perform normalcy of self, the other being their real self which they tuck away because it is inconsistent with the acceptable norms- I'd a take a very different approach to their art. But that's me.

If a straight person said they needed escape, it would mean something totally different to me than say if a queer person said they needed escape. Because those two are escaping two very different things.

For example, the words Moon and moonlight used by a straight person means nothing to me- perhaps because I just don't care much to look for its deeper meaning beyond the literal meaning of the words as presented. If it appears in a queer person's parlance, even if in passing, I assume immediately they are referencing something much more deeper, meaningful and coded.

Queer coding is a thing you know? And it's born out of necessity not choice sometimes.

Take for instance BTS's proclivity to 'queer codify' their music. Moon and moonlight has become symbolic of the inner struggles of a queer person amongst black 'educated' queer men and women. It's come to symbolize cultural norms and expectations and how those affect queer people- perhaps of all race.

In the Movie Moonlight, which has become the epitome of queer black struggles and desires for liberation, this motif was used to represent the struggles of a black boy dealing with the pressures of a hyper masculine society.

When RM references this in 4 Oclock, 'the whole world is blue under the moonlight' is he queer coding or just appropraiting queer parlance as buzz word? That expression takes on a whole new meaning were he queer. Blue symbolizes queerness- a theory popularized of course by the Film. When V who once wrote an allegedly 'queer coded song' Stigma says he is blue- what does he mean now? On the surface blue means blue. Would you take a straightforward view on this or assume its symbolic? And what is it symbolic of?? Sadness?? Gayness?

If RM had an accompanying tattoo as compliment to the song in his performance that evoked similar sentiments or hinted at a possible second meaning I wouldn't assume that that tattoo meant nothing or that it didn't have a deeper meaning behind it.

It's just as how Lil Nas X posted a city of rainbows and people said 'rainbows are rainbows. Y'all shouldn't read much into it.' But for queer people that was pretty much a declaration of his sexuality.

Later he had to post again and reiterate that that rainbow post was his coming out moment. 'I thought I made it obvious.'

Somethings are pretty much obvious.

For JM who don't speak Latin- unless he is secretly fluent in which case my bad- I don't think he cares so much about the grammar of the language beyond it's meaning. And perhaps gender? Grammatical gender I mean. That's just because the first thing you learn about Latin is that all the nouns are gendered?

I won't lie. When I first learned that I was supper fascinated about grammatical gender and why speakers of the language felt a need to gender every word of the language.

In the end, we all don't know. I'm out here convinced two Asian men are so gay they can't straight to save their asses. I have a tendency to view everything they do through queer lens. If they are not gay I'm pretty much gaslighting them you know?

I'm always fascinated by different point of views on a myriad of subjects. Just as you said, our diverse experiences inform our experiences and perspectives. I just hope people acknowledge how their straightness informs their understanding of queerness too and how that has a tendency to be invalidating and dismissive of queer issues and experiences.

But to me it's like, if Jikook are gay why do you have to interpret what they do through straight lens?

Personally, I wouldn't interpret straight through queer lens and force that view on to straight people. That would be homonormative? Assuming rainbow means straight people are gay when they are not, moon means feminine to straight men, that the use of the word God makes one a Christian- that's just silly and bizarre.

I use Namaste often and suddenly some people here think I'm Indian. I wish. They have one hell of a culture.

When I was reading through your messages, all that kept playing in my head was- that's a very 'straight' view on the matter. Lol. Please tell me you got the pun. Lol.

I think my opinion will remain the same on the matter if you placed any queer person in Jimin's stead. Any queer person that I believed was queer and had hinted a few times at exploring a dual identity or going through that phase at least.

I think I'd enjoy your blog if you had one.

I love love the lesson on Italian or is it Spanish?

Also, I would love your take on V and Stigma. A lot of queer stans have a queer reading of the lyrics- I see the appeal however I don't have a queer reading of it at all. Thoughts??

Namaste.

Signed,

GOLDY

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flamingfandomtrashcentral · 4 years

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You're so cute when your struggling? With Overlord or Tarn please? 💕

This probably isn’t exactly what you wanted, but I hope you can still enjoy it

Overlord and Tarn

Coming back online after being knocked unconscious was never a pleasant experience. There was no telling what kind of situation you would find yourself in, nor what state your body would be in. Best case scenario: you wake up in the care of your allies. Unlikely, given that you were alone. After that, being where you were when you passed out was the most realistic good option. That wasn’t the case though. Instead of the desolate, battle worn building you had been scouting, you now appeared to be in a clean room. Possibly on a ship.

You could feel someone tinkering with your head. Perhaps, this was the best option after all. Maybe one of your friends had rescued you, and had just taken you somewhere you didn’t recognize! Or maybe your processor was damaged. Could be, you think you can remember the structure crumbling down onto you.

Not wanting to wait for the answers to come naturally, you try to move your head to see who’s helping you. A bad decision, it turns out. Moving when someone is tampering with the inner workings of your mind is not a pleasant experience. The pain is instant. As is the yelling of whoever was back there.

“Nah-ah-ah, no moving! What is wrong with you? You feel someone trying to fix you and you just thrash about???” You barely moved your neck, but you decided to keep that to yourself. The mystery bot finally revealed themselves, sharply leaning over your head to look you in the optics. A green minicon was now giving you a dirty look.

“Uh... sorry?” You’re not sure what she wants, but you feel an apology is your safest option.

She sighs, going back to whatever it was she had been working on, “I suppose this is what I get for not strapping your head down too, but it kept getting in the way. Just hold still, would you?” Too? You experimentally tried to move an arm, only to find it locked in place. It makes sense, she can’t have you rolling off the table while she’s got your head opened up, now can she? Who knows what would come flying out if that happened.

It’s not long before two sets of footsteps approach the room you’re in, but that’s not what really catches your attention. It’s the arguing that does.

“Why are you still here? I did not invite you onboard, nor do you have any reason to stay.” He huffed in annoyance, “Just leave, this is most unnecessary.”

“My, my, someone’s in a sour mood today. Did you burn through your last t-cog already?” Another voice chimed in, this one not nearly as deep as the first.

You heard the minicon mumble something about them being a bunch of sparkling just before they entered. The door was to your side, so you could kinda see what was going on through your peripherals. The purple mech held out his arm to block the bigger blue one, trying to close the door on him before he could come in. Didn’t work, he just forced his way in. The purple mech being no match for him in terms of strength, apparently.

“You do not need to be in here!” The purple one hissed. “It’s because of your brutish ways that they’re even in this state. You had no reason to topple over that building other than simply wanting to.”

“I’ll admit it was unnecessary, and I wanted to apologize to them.” His voice was dripping in mock concern, even you could tell he was full of scrap and you didn’t even know who it was.

The other guy didn’t believe him either, if the bark of laughter was anything to go off of, “Oh, that is priceless! Overlord apologizing. I didn’t realize you were abandoning the cause to become a comedian.”

Your spark faltered. No. There’s no way you heard that right. Nuh-uh, no way, he did not just say that name. You still couldn’t see their faces due to how you were positioned.

“Speaking of odd behavior,” hopefully-not-really-Overlord’s voice was tight, but still retained an air of condescension to it, “you’re awfully concerned about them, Tarn.” Oh Primus dammit. “Taking the time to patch them up when you should be hunting down your next target, that never happens.”

Your increasing panic successfully tuned out whatever else they were saying. This is it, this is how you die. No doubt you’re being kept here so he can kill you later. You hadn’t exactly been a model Decepticon in recent millenia you’ll admit, but it’s not your fault the movement took a turn for the murderous unexpectedly! Plus all your friends were in it, and you didn’t want them to judge you, so you just kinda stuck around... passively... hiding from any and all conflict. Primus you were going to die here.

The sound and feeling of your head being snapped back together pulled you out of your dread. It caught their attention as well.

“Are they well, Nickel? This brute didn’t cause any permanent damage did he?” Tarn asked, sounding bizarrely invested in your well being. A psychological torture tactic, probably. Make you feel like you’re in the clear, only to rip you apart later.

“Yes, yes, they’re fine,” Nickel waved him off dismissively as she lowered herself to the ground. “They’ve also been conscious for all of your bickering.” With that, she took her leave, not even bothering to undo the restraints. No need to untie someone that’s about to die, you grimly accept.

Now that you’re able to move you head freely again, you slowly look up to see the towering figures of two of the most feared Decepticons. Their red eyes cut right through you. A small, naive part of you that thought you still had a chance urged you to do something, anything. You wiggle helplessly in your restraints, hoping that maybe they’ll be somewhat weakened from the previous victims. You have no idea what you would do if they did snap, but you’ll cross that bridge if you ever get to it.

Overlord smiled at you, an experience you never wanted to have, “You're so cute when your struggling.”

W h a t ?

This made everyone freeze, Tarn looking at Overlord with pure disdain, while you looked to Primus for answers you’re not even sure you wanted.

Tarn seemed beside himself at the statement, “What is wrong with you? You crush them under a toppled building, and now you’re flirting with them?” He placed a servo on your shoulder, an action probably intended to sooth, but all it did was make you shudder.

“Please, don’t act like you weren’t thinking the same thing, I saw the way you were eyeing them when we got here. At least I’m actually taking the initiative.” Overlord snickered at the strangled noise that came out of Tarn at this accusation.

“Do not put words in my mouth! I would never say something so- so crude! If I was trying to charm them, I would say something much more eloquent,” Tarn was desperately trying to regain some sense of dignity after Overlord’s comment.

They continued going back and forth, critiquing each other’s “courting methods”. Not that you were paying attention anymore. You were just hoping they’d hurry up and kill you, anything was better than whatever the frag this was.

#tarn #overlord #imagines #transformers imagines #transformers #mtmte #idw #yandere #not really though i went way off the tracks with this one sorry anon #hope it's still good at least!

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spiders-hth-is-an-outlier · 4 years

Text

If I’m giving advice (that you didn’t ask for), here’s my advice:

Read more history. Or listen to a couple of good podcasts, if reading is a challenge for you. But they have to be solid, so do a little research -- there’s a lot of infotainment in the world, but I’m talking by like historians. I do not care about the time period -- that’s a lie, I do really wish people understood the 20th century better, but older is also very good! The Age of Empires. Tudor England. The Han Dynasty, the early church or the founding of Islam, Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, the Crusades. Anything. Know a little more about a lot of events, or a lot more about one or two.

There is nothing new under the sun, and the world ends approximately every 80 to 100 years. There will be so much that you recognize when you read history -- all the failings and flaws and aspirations that you see around you every day. Even a dilettante’s study of history, which is what I have, will pay you back a thousand times over with insight into how humans human, and will remove so much of the psychological burden of observing the world as it is right now. This is not as bad as things have ever been. This is honestly not even close. The fact that some people (mainly, I think, Americans) have received such a cursory and childish and insufficient education in history means that a lot of us have no idea what the baseline human condition even looks like, and we measure our real lives against bizarre fictions of a past that never existed and judge ourselves for not living up to the illusion.

And I’m not even just saying “oh, see how much worse you could have it?” -- although things easily could be worse and often are! -- or encouraging you to consume dystopic grimdark visions of the barbarous past to feel better. I’m genuinely telling you that a better understanding of human resilience and creativity and courage will help you sleep easier at night. We can do this. We can do the unbelievable, we are always in the middle of doing the unbelievable, and I very much mean that as a double-edged sword.

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notfeelingthyaster · 4 years

Text

Imagine (based on the incomplete fanfic Son of the Underworld) (Son of Hades! Percy AU) (5/5) or (5/10)

Hey so, this is the last part of PJO - I follow into HOO, so before you read this, check on the masterpost - and read the warnings before proceeding :)) Good reading!

Annabeth comes to him, at the end of his fifteenth birthday party, and shows her Daedalus laptop. There's a document open in it, and it's labeled Achilles' Curse.

Percy doesn't read it - he hates reading, in any way or form or language - but she does, out loud.

"I'll think about it"

They have a year. Most of them, even those who aren't year-rounders, are going back to camp, to draw battle plans and stock on the armory.

He feels kinda selfish - for a whole five seconds before he remembers he'll probably die next summer, so he just shrugs it off - Percy deserves this year.

They all leave to go back to camp. Nico seems conflicted over something - but Perseus doesn't question it, there's enough bad blood between them.

Paola is really cool - and Sally really loves her. It's kind of bizarre at first, to see his Mom dating his teacher - and of a subject he hates - but Paola is calm and well-tempered and she laughs at his stupid ass jokes.

He visits Persephone afterward - and it really feels like he has three moms to fulfill his lack of a father - well, he is absolutely grateful for the women in his life.

Percy isn't truly in good terms with his father. The man doesn't really seem to care much for him as a person - he is much more of a trophy son.

Perseus loathes being a trophy son, but at least he has someone to help with his powers - not something a lot of half-bloods can claim.

So he goes back to school with Rachel, and they pretend everything is normal. He tells her about his quests - all three of them. He thinks she understands him better now.

He opens up to her. Tells her about Annabeth - the adrenaline-fueled kiss - and Rachel stops talking with him for a week.

She apologizes when she comes back. She needed to figure some things up - firstly, the redhead tells him she is probably asexual - and maybe aromantic too, but she is not certain because the internet wasn't really clear about that.

Then Rachel confesses that she is not jealous of him in a romantic way - she is envious of his friendship with Annabeth. Percy is her first genuine friend that really appreciates her.

This is the first grudge Perseus lets go for real before it even takes place - Rachel didn't leave him because of teenage drama, she ignored him out of confusion. Everyone is allowed space - he knows this better than anyone.

They don't kiss anymore. Not because Rachel doesn't like it - no, she is all for it - but because Percy is starting to think kisses should mean something - he is saving them.

They kiss once - when Rachel father calls for the first time this year - not to ask about her, but to tell Rachel he found this amazing all-girls school. To Percy, kisses mean comfort.

They cuddle a lot, though. These past few years of fear have made Percy very touch-starved.

It's sophomore year - and Percy is in five AP classes: Macroeconomics&Microeconomics, Statistics, Calculus AB, Physics 1, and Comparative Government and Politics.

He is planning on taking both AP Computer Science classes, Psychology, Physics 2, and Calculus BC next year; leaving only Electricity&Magnetism, Mechanics, Chemistry, and World History for his senior year.

If he lives, he is working on a tight schedule here. He doesn't know what he wants yet - and if he is in constant danger, it's already pretty lucky he can do high school - but probably something with Math.

Rachel says fourteen AP courses are ambitious - that he'll burn out. But math comes to him easily enough - it's in his blood.

She is also overworking: She is taking AP Environmental Studies, Art History, Drawing, 2-D Art and Design, and English Literature and Composition.

They complete each other. Rachel is planning on taking as many Art, History, and English courses as she can - he is taking as many Physics, Math, and Science as he can handle.

(She is also going to take on Japanese studies for some reason - probably for her GPA, but Perseus just teases her that she is getting too invested in anime)

Perseus doesn't care about languages anymore - the only languages that matter to him are C++ and JavaScript now.

They study together, they take naps together, they climb to the roof together, they flee school to visit Sally together - he is the Pinky to her Brain, the Scooby to her Shaggy, the Lois Lane to her Superman, the Robin to her Batman.

They look like troublemakers - They are honor roll students, but she is always with ripped pants dirty with paint, and he is always full of flowers everywhere, even in his muddy converses - a cliche to kill all cliches.

They're both nerds - he is the classic one, all polo shirts now, the first chair for every number-related class - and she is the artsy one - there's a brush behind her ear and her hair is so messy that half the time it covers her face.

Paola gifts him a pair of cheap frames without lenses once - saying it adds to the aesthetic - he totally uses them.

Persephone just makes him flower-crowns, and giggles when he matches them with his polo shirts.

When winter comes, he goes back to his hoodies and sweaters and gloves - to find out he doesn't miss them a lot.

Rachel introduces him to polaroids - and they look eerily pretty in the winter, her hair looking like blood spilling over the snow - and he loves it.

If he survives - he can feel Rachel slapping him - when he survives, his college credits will be remarkable. The idea of doing SATs makes him want to cry - reading always does - but he'll get somewhere good - he knows it. Perhaps Stanford. Or NYU. Or the dream of his life, MIT.

He is living his life to the fullest - he starts reading comic books, he gets really (really) into Tony Stark once Iron Man 1 comes out (even if he has to kill at least three monsters just to go to the movies), he plants trees and Rachel starts teaching him how to play her ukulele - but half his mind is still on the upcoming war.

Christmas vacation comes - and he goes to visit Camp Half-Blood, before heading back to his mom. It's quite memorable, if only by the fact that Nico Di Angelo freaking betrays him.

He tells Percy to come to the Winter Solstice with him. Most of the campers are not going - the war effort is in an all-time high - but Percy has never gone before. Hades will be there - it'll be great!

Perseus should absolutely be less surprised with the outcome - seeing that Nico is inviting him in Cabin 1, post-dinner, and they don't even stop to talk to Chiron about it.

But Percy goes. Because Percy wants to make amends.

There's no time to really talk to anyone. They travel in Blackjack for the Empire State Building - and it's fine.

They go up to Olympus, Nico shows him everything in the god's land, the temples are a work of art, if not kind of old, and the meeting is kind of okay, even if the gods are squabbling children.

Then the gods leave, and Perseus thinks they're leaving too.

"My father needs a word with you"

Perseus feels the betrayal claw on him. There are no shadows in the white hall, there's no way for him to escape. Nico looks apologetic - Percy wants to clock him in the face.

"He promised to tell me more about my mother" Nico pleads "He will tell me more about where I've come from. Please, Percy."

Nico is cute. He is, for a soon-to-be fourteen-year-old. But his pretty face and exquisite white eyes don't make him any less of a freaking liar. All his handsome male straight friends betray him - it's a worrying pattern now.

He muses for a second that they also all have a crush on Annabeth - gods, the blonde attract the worst types.

It's double-crossing - Percy ends up in an all-white cell that burns his retinas without any weapons because Zeus wants praise in the middle of this freaking war - doesn't matter if a hundred demigods die, if he only has the glory.

Nico ends up with barely any information - Zeus didn't promise anything. The god of the skies is a lying-ass motherfucker - literally.

And Zeus justifies it - He says Perseus is a criminal because he awakened Typhon. So Hephaestus issues a quest so he can save a hundred demigods, he destroys a powerful titan weapon of doom, and he is the villain? Sure, Jan.

Perseus writes this grudge in his heart - that's where trust will take you. To a cell. Betrayed by a "friend". Again.

He flinches when Nico comes into his cell, pins him to the wall and promptly begins to try and strangle him. He wants to melt in the boy's shadow - to go and never give him a chance to explain - but he looks so guilty Percy waits for his repentance.

The son of Zeus saves him, but Perseus is still pissed off. The god of thunder has threatened to kill him off at least two times now, what is to say he wouldn't have killed off Percy for the sake of glory?

He half hopes Zeus had killed him off. The war is close, too close - Nico wouldn't be the Prophecy's child. There would be no child. Olympus would fall - and Percy would have seen it all from his very comfortable couch in Elysium.

He wants Kronos gone - but he kind of wants Olympus to fall with the Titan.

Nico flies him down to the Earth - the elevator is monitored. Zeus has left, like many others - not to bother with the war effort against his main enemy, but to go to the human world mess with people.

Some gods are doing something - He has heard from Annabeth that Artemis is leading the widest hunt ever, with her brother by her side; Hermes (with Hephaestus help) is delivering Celestial Bronze, other metals, old schematics and a whole lot of fuel to Camp Half-Blood every few weeks; Poseidon is fighting his own war, in the ocean; Dionysus is at Camp - and this time, he is really helpful with the battle formations; Demeter is on the Underworld - Chiron seems to think his father is preparing for war, but Percy sorely doubts it.

Percy is taking some people with him to Sally's Christmas dinner. Just Annabeth, Clarisse, Rachel, Connor, Travis, and Charles - people who don't have a present family to celebrate it with.

Grover is coordinating the dryads up in San Francisco with his second cousin, Gleeson Hedge - they are the first to fall if anything goes wrong in Mt. Othrys.

"I think you should stay." He tells Nico.

"You don't trust me anymore." It's not actually a question.

Percy doesn't trust the boy. Not at all - it's the third time he does something shady to achieve his ends based on emotional turmoil. But he is a good person - it's just his father's cursed temper and his grief.

"It's not that. You're needed for the war effort."

Both of them know it's a lie. Percy doesn't care - he deserves to be bitter a little longer.

Percy goes back home. Christmas is amazing - even if Rachel asks him where Nico is because he is talking about making amends with the boy for a while now.

He goes visit Persephone - but she is occupied, so he wanders through the Underworld after Bianca di Angelo - someone he, for some reason, never been able to reach. It's a pointless endeavor by now.

He finds her. Or else, he finds a shadow of her - she is blocked from his view. Bianca doesn't talk to him - they weren't close - but she guides him to a girl.

Her name is Hazel Levesque.

She seems lost - like most ghosts - but something in Percy calls for her. It's the color of her skin and the sparkle in her golden eyes - Hazel remembers him of himself.

He promises to visit more - even though he doesn't think she'll remember it - and leaves to go back to the surface - he will finish the sophomore year.

And Percy does. After a very distressing break, he is doing his best. His grades drop a little in English because he can barely focus - half his mind is on the war and Nico's betrayal and Hazel Levesque's golden eyes.

Miraculously, his GPA doesn't fall - he still is taking a ridiculous amount of AP classes, and barely has time to breathe - dark circles grow under his eyes, and he looks like a mess - but now he is a Junior.

That's why, as soon as the year ends, Rachel takes him on a road trip with Connor. They go all the way to Boston, then Portland, Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, Syracuse, Baltimore, and Filadelfia, before going back to NY.

They are stopped five times by the police - because Percy is black, and it's Rachel driving the Camaro, because she has a learner's permit and Connor is, somehow, an approved license holder.

They are on a pier, enjoying the view of the beach. They did the last week alone because Connor wanted to go check on one of his cousins - at least, that's what he said, with an over-exaggerated wink that both Percy and Rachel ignored for the sake of their sanity.

She tells him about Clarion Ladies Academy - but that her father is at least mildly happy with her GPA this year, even if he disapproves of her Art focused AP classes. Percy thinks Mr. Dare would love him, with his APs on Economics and Politics, if only he was rich. And white.

This time, when Charles Beckendorf arrives in a Pegasus to tell him it's time, Rachel doesn't kiss him - she justs hugs him and makes him promise to call her.

Perseus doesn't go to the Andromeda Ship - he is needed in Camp. He is useless on the water - but they do need him to improve battle strategy.

Charles Beckendorf is dead. Thalia is the one to tell them - she was in her father's palace helping with a monster under her Lady's orders - he went on the mission alone.

Percy talks briefly with Beckendorf's ghost - is his worst developed power, and he can barely hold the "seance" for more than a few minutes. He does it with only Nico di Angelo for witness - the others are the way to close to the situation.

There's a spy passing information to Luke.

They look at him. Doesn't matter how much he does, he is always the first suspect - he is a son of Hades. He was friends with a lot of people on the other side. He was gone for a year and a half, who knows where.

Perseus wants to say that he has helped to save their asses four times now - that without him in the Labyrinth, they would all be dead right now - and that Charles was basically his older brother.

Then he points out he wasn't even here - he had no idea of any plans of anything - and he told him about the spy, so he is not the freaking spy, go point fingers at each other instead of him.

When they start yelling, he stops them - this is not the time, he was just angry at their accusations. They have to burn Charles shroud. Silena is inconsolable - Percy is not very far from it, but he is not a public crier. The last time he cried in public, Luke was dead on a cliff.

Percy speeds up the line for Elysium to Beckendorf - his brother deserves it.

They read the prophecy together - Perseus already read it last summer, he doesn't even care anymore. They look at him anxiously - no one has forgotten that he abhors most of the gods.

Clarisse and Michael Yew fight, but Lee Fletcher - with a mechanical arm built by Beckendorf himself, still re-learning how to shoot arrows and forever incapable of playing the guitar again (but the keyboard is not ruled out yet) - stops them: They can share the chariot. The war is more important - is not the time for petty fights.

Chiron shows them Typhon - and Perseus has a sliver of hope that they can destroy Kronos and be free of the gods at the same time - It's a horrible hope, because he loves Persephone and some of them are even okay sometimes, but he really wants Zeus to go to Tartarus for at least a century, so Perseus doesn't meet him again in this life.

But he also wants the gods to win, because there's a lot of dead people - innocents, people who have nothing to do with this war.

He dreams of Rachel. Rachel is painting Luke - and Percy wakes up crying, for the boy the gods took away.

Annabeth takes him aside and reminds him of Achilles' Curse. He is off to May Castellan's house - the last place Luke has been - for it's his best and only chance, its what Annie thinks. And she is scarcely wrong.

Perseus hates the gods. They wrecked a family - and for what? May Castellan - forever waiting for a son that will never come back, haunted by visions of his future, plates of burned cookies everywhere.

Perseus doesn't pity her - he rages against the gods, who brought madness upon this woman and then left her to it. Where was Apollo, the god of health? Dionysus, who is supposed to control mental health? Artemis, whose job is to protect women?

Hestia is kind - but she is still a goddess. She could've prevented this - but she hides in her hearth and abstains - and that's enabling. Hestia enables the other gods to do as they please, even when she is the oldest. She says they ignore her - oh well, she ignores them right back! He has no time for the laments of another all-powerful being.

So he goes to his mother and asks for her blessing. Then, just to be sure, he asks Persephone's too.

He thinks about his anchor - where does he want it to be in his body. He doesn't want somewhere in his back - where he can't see it - or in his gut - where anyone can stick a sword. He settles for the bottom of his back - where he can at least touch it and it's well protected by armor - and dives.

Perseus hates water - and he has an uncanny fear of drowning. He feels pain - everywhere, horrible pain.

His vision now doesn't have Annabeth's face - the blonde is his link to the demigod world, Persephone is his link to the Underworld and his mom is his link to childhood - but the person who grounds him is Rachel.

He is stronger. He feel his powers at his fingertips - Perseus feels the Underworld as a whole, and it's overwhelming.

Green flames explode from his hands. Flowers made of shadows curve around his ankles - he has been training since he was 12, but now his body can sustain all of his power. This is all his.

He goes meet with his father - Perseus manipulates him. He tells Hades he'll be the hero, but the god himself can be praised for more than being his father. That he should join the battle against Typhon - That's his chance of proving himself. Also, there's less paperwork for him if there are fewer dead people.

His father is amused with his blatant bribing, but he thinks about it, Percy can tell. In a way or another, he excuses himself and goes back to the surface where he is needed.

Persephone stalls him. She asks him to stay, just for this night. He can go back in the morning - he sleeps, and dreams of Rachel again, drawing in the sand. In greek.

He is scared for her - she is having demigod dreams, but she is mortal. Something is wrong.

Typhon is getting worse - and Kronos draws closer to NYC. It's time - he calls for Blackjack and leaves - Mrs. O'Leary, who has become more or less of a mother to his own hellhound, follows. Persephone promises to convince Hades.

They have about sixty campers able to fight heading for the Empire State Building, and five healers. The ones too young to lift a sword or string a bow stayed back at Camp with Argus - fifteen children between 5 and 9 years old.

Percy knows he looks different - he looks just like his father. He has gained a godly aura - he has no scars anymore, no imperfections. Perseus looms over all of them - he went from 5'7'' to 6'2'' - it's a weird view, from up there. It's still strange when they look at him with a mix of fear and admiration.

Perseus Jackson is officially their leader. He hates Olympus - but he will give his life to defend every single one of his demigods.

The vision Hestia shows him just makes him want to tear this throne room with his bare hands - Luke was a kid. He was a kid - and the gods corrupted him. Thalia was a kid - and the gods took her life, twice. Annabeth is still a kid - they all are - and she is here planning battle strategies.

Annabeth missed an extra year of formal education - while Percy is a Junior, Annabeth barely qualifies for a Freshman - because the gods took this from her too.

Percy rages. The ground of Olympus trembles beneath him - he wants to kill something.

Then Hermes appears - like this whole war is not his fault in the first place, the literal bastard - just to relay a message from Athena that gives them a plan that Annabeth was already putting into works and tells Percy to stay away from Annabeth.

Like she cares. Like Athena has ever, ever, done anything for Annabeth.

Perseus can't punch Athena, so he punches the messager (also, because he freaking guilt trips both of them about Luke). He has nothing to lose - he is going to die by the end of the day anyway, and they need him too much.

He has punched a god before - Ares, in a desert in the middle of Los Angeles - but this time, it's satisfactory. He feels good after it.

Hermes seems strangely resigned - He feels guilty about Luke too, but Perseus doesn't think it's enough. It'll never be enough, not while the gods leave their children to rot in a cabin of rejects and May Castellan bakes cookies for a son that will never come back.

Hermes leaves, ashamed. It's only fair, Perseus thinks. They all should be ashamed.

They see the city asleep - the prophecy is in the works.

Perseus executes their strategy - every cabin is covering a tunnel, with the exception of Dionysus, because Pollux is with the Demeter kids, and the Hecate kids stay behind to use spells to overlook the city. Lincoln Tunnel is getting covered by Ares - who, this time around, is actively participating.

The undetermined who didn't desert are with Hermes - and the minor god's children are divided by specialty - most Hypnos and Morpheus children follow him directly, but the two sons of Iris go with the Apollo Cabin.

Annabeth executes Plan 23, automatons, mounting on Mrs. O'Leary (who has strict orders to take Annabeth anywhere she wants without stopping to play around) - she doesn't need his help with this, and Percy has a tunnel to defend.

That left the rivers uncovered - until Thalia appears, with magical sand money, and made the rivers cooperate.

The hunters join the Aphrodite kids - who are half a dozen children between 11 and 19 - the oldest being Silena Beauregard, who uses a crossbow that looks exactly like her immortal half-brother's one.

His bridge is completely covered on skeletons - but no monster comes, even if he hears explosions. He leaves an English Lieutenant from the Battle of Yorktown in command of the bridge - with Tyene, the oldest daughter of Morpheus, to be in alert and don't let Clovis sleep through the battle. Because he did it before - and while it is funny, it can't happen right now.

Perseus mounts Blackjack - and go see where the noise is coming from. It's the Williamsburg Bridge - where are most of Apollo's Cabin.

They fight - and Percy almost cries when he sees Luke, who is not Luke anymore. Luke, who is a puppet controlled by Kronos.

Perseus kills the Minotaur and the weight of his stone spikes collapse the bridge - and Michael Yew dies. This time around, the bridge falls silently into shadows, and he doesn't bother about searching for the corpse - he saw the boy falling, and his screams will haunt all of them, forever.

This time around, Annabeth is not there to protect him - Ethan also doesn't try to kill him. The Son of Nemesis doesn't leave Kronos side for a second - but there's regret in his eyes.

After the bloodlust is gone, Perseus collapses - Will has to bride carry him back. Overuse of his powers - he summoned skeletons and produced shadows, melted enemy swords (with the bonus of incapacitating them without killing), and sprouted stone spikes everywhere - there's even a vine or ten that he used to hold his friends from falling.

Perseus doesn't sleep quickly enough to not hear the yell of anguish that comes from Lee Fletcher - the pain of losing a brother and not being able to fight beside him.

But he does sleep - and he dreams. He dreams of Hades killing Maria Di Angelo, not Hera, like Zeus told Nico. He dreams of Zeus cursing the Oracle - and he seethes, because he also sees what happened to May Castellan.

He keeps getting angrier and angrier at the gods - it's building inside of him. But his friends are still here, still fragile. He can't let them suffer more.

Perseus wakes up, checks on everyone - most everyone is either injured and/or exhausted, but he checks on every camper. He knows all of their names, their ages, their cabins. - and promises to sit up to talk with Thalia and Nico - war makes him prone to peace - and promptly goes back to sleep.

He dreams of Rachel. He wants to scream for her not to come: but she'll anyway.

Perseus dreams of a boy. He is his age - maybe a little younger. His hair is blonde and his skin is whiter - but Percy glances at his eyes, and there are waves in them.

There's a girl by his side - she is familiar to Percy, somehow. They're climbing a mountain.

The dream ends and Percy can't make heads or tails of it. He asks Thalia if she has a brother, but she says that she doesn't, looking wistful.

Prometheus is tempting - but he knows there's no Luke anymore, there's only Kronos. And the gods are horrible, vile and immature - but they never killed any of Percy's friends. Some of them died for the gods - but never by their hands, so for now, Perseus would toe the line.

He does want to punch Hermes again. He takes the Pythos - if everything goes wrong, he will not hesitate in going down for the sake of his friends - but there have been six deaths, and it's enough.

"Was it worth it?" He asks Ethan.

"Alabaster is alive" And it's all the answer Percy needs.

He dreams of Ethan and Alabaster. Alabaster is alive, yes, but he is missing half a leg - courtesy of Clarisse herself. Luke - Kronos - is indifferent, and Ethan curses the daughter of Ares - "The sword that took from us will take from you"

He contains Hyperion with his shadows. Then he helps Grover (who was half asleep, because of Morpheus) to make the Titan into a tree. It's a pomegranate tree - then he sets hellish fire to it and sacrifices it to Hades and Persephone.

A pig is in the sky - this time around, Annabeth and her frightening army of automatons kill it with Nico's help.

Perseus laughs - because Annabeth has about two hundred automatons under her command, Martin Luther King and Alexander Hamilton leading the charge with a giant bull being ridden by the Mad Hatter behind them.

It's weird to see historic figures Percy admires - like Jane Bolin, Sylvia Mendez, or Abraham Lincoln - fighting alongside people he downright despises - Thomas Jefferson and the goatfucker, herpes-ridden, Colombus. His Comparative Government teacher would have a field day.

Annabeth and Nico's pair up is amazing - They fight alongside like they have been doing it all life.

Nico is a force of nature, flying and commanding the winds to do his bidding - His eyes shine in the midst of the stormy clouds. His specialty is weather manipulation - he hasn't had much success with direct energy or electric discharges.

Annabeth has her mother's tenacity for war - and her clever mind for strategies. It's clear in her eyes - she is racking the weaker points of the Clazmonian Sow in her mind and destroying it. The automatons hold the pig in place - and she makes bacon of it.

Hercules couldn't do it. Nico and Annabeth can, because they have the power and the mind.

Perseus is still fighting off monsters - but they're too widespread, so they retreat to the doors of the Empire State Building.

Percy does a mental tally: of sixty-two campers, six are confirmed dead, twenty are injured and nine are out of commission on exhaustion. There should be 27 orange shirts here - but there's only twenty.

Percy wonders if the seven missing are injured, or dead, or under a pile of rubble somewhere with no one to help them. Is there someone being slowly eaten by monsters? Is there someone alone and injured and abandoned? He doesn't know.

He prays that those seven deserted them - at least that means they probably are alive and well.

Perseus looks at Phoebe's grief-stricken face, and he knows it's not probable - she had almost three dozen hunters with her, and now there's barely fifteen still fighting, Thalia nowhere to be seen.

They prepare for their last standing - Percy keeps conjuring skeletons, but they're no match for the sheer strength of the hyperborean giants. Nico is shoulder to shoulder with the Stoll brothers against a group of telkhines - Clarisse is bringing down a whole giant by herself.

After the Party Ponies save them - Chiron leads the charge against his own father, and Perseus is so proud of his mentor he can't even put in words how much - he goes to sleep. Fighting gets him tired quickly, and they'll come back.

He dreams of Dionysus. Perseus is not fond of any god who is not Persephone, but Dionysus is mostly okay sometimes. He seems to care about his children.

Perseus couldn't care less about the Western Civilization - but he'll care for Pollux. It's one of his demigods, after all, and Underworld people are possessive of theirs (i.e. Hades and Persephone).

He dreams of Thalia, in her father's palace, begging Poseidon to leave the underwater war and help with the invasion - His wife is none too happy with the presence of his immortal bastard daughter.

He wakes up to Rachel's helicopter falling - how is Rachel even awake, is a mistery.

The improbable pair Nico and Annabeth strike again: The girl knows how to fly helicopters, and the boy can fly himself. They save the redhead and the pilot - everything is fine.

"You're not the hero"

"Why did you risk yourself to tell me something I already know?"

Rachel doesn't explain - she can't. But she has a vision that says that he is not the hero. The hero of what? Perseus has no idea. But there's no way any of his cousins is dying for this stupid prophecy.

Suddenly, there's a drakon there. Rachel has another prophecy - Perseus fears she will walk the path that led May Castellan to destruction - that only a child of Ares will be able to kill it.

Bad news: All children of Ares are otherwise out of battle.

Clarisse is resting after a nasty concussion - and her brothers and Apollo's children are fighting yet again because Lee Fletcher is in no condition to stop them and Michael Yew is dead. Ares' side refuses to fight without the chariot - which Cabin 7 has hidden somewhere.

The best they can do is fend the drakon off until a miracle occurs. And it does: Clarisse, in full armor, manages to lead her brothers into battle.

Clarisse is dead. Something shatters inside of Perseus - and he leaves the drakon for the Ares' children to solve - he can't kill it anyway - and starts to vaporize the army behind it.

He is so caught up in bloodlust, that he almost misses Clarisse slaying a dragon. Clarisse, who has no armor. Clarisse, who is alive.

Ethan's curse rang true - Clarisse's weapon took something from her.

Silena is a traitor. She is also dead - which makes her a martyr, and probably going to reunite with her boyfriend in Elysium.

He remembers how easy is to fall for Luke's charm - he was - is - still in love with the guy. Percy thought the son of Hermes could do no wrong - and he wonders how much of his rage against the gods sprout from his influence.

Something evil inside of Perseus's mind tells him she deserved it. It tells Perseus that better her than Clarisse - but he shuts it down, and concentrates on his shining red friends.

He hates Ares. But he might just have an okay side if he can produce such a magnificent daughter.

Silena is the Patroclus to Clarisse's Achilles, and the Drakon is Hector - and the daughter of Ares is sure to parade its dead body.

It's the first time they feel like they are winning. It doesn't last - but as he hugs Clarisse tightly, he thinks he might cry of relief.

Clarisse looks tough - but she is a wonderful human being. She loves Silena with her whole heart - even more than she loves Chris, her best friend. Silena might've been in love with Charles - but she and Clarisse? They are soulmates.

The damned Pythos is following Perseus - and he is done with it. He knows where hope will survive best. Rachel wants him to give it to Hestia - but he owns the fire goddess nothing.

She has never interfered, not once, to help the dozens of demigods with no family that is abandoned in Cabin 11, and he won't forgive her for it.

He sacrifices hope to Persephone because that's what spring is. Spring is the hope of a new life. Maybe, Perseus thinks, it'll convince his father to come.

They go down to make their final stand against the forces of Kronos. There's not a lot of them - but they're not getting through those doors.

Well, his father doesn't come. But Poseidon does, with his whole army, Tyson and Thalia behind him, and the scales seem to turn.

And then Kronos cuts the barrier. Perseus can see his Mom (why is his Mom here with a handgun?!) and Poseidon fighting against the monsters under the eyes of extremely confused mortals.

Some are trying to break the barrier - but it's futile. Kronos has corraled them like sheep for the slaughter.

It's just him, Grover, Annabeth and Nico, fighting against Kronos vanguard - which is big, but not as strong as they are.

Kronos passes him without resistance - Ethan follows, but there's anger in his eyes - not for Percy, but for the monster he is leashed to. Alabaster is not there.

As soon as Kronos powers stop working on them, the four follow the titan - and some things never change, no matter the universe.

This time, it's Nico who falls because of Hera - it's her curse over all of her husband's bastards.

Ethan takes one look at Perseus, and they don't even need to fight. They have been friends for longer than they have been enemies - and they both loathe the gods, but Kronos is as much of an all-powerful controller being as any of the Olympians.

They battle against Kronos - Perseus has only his ax against his scyther - a true Underworld fight.

Ethan dies. And Perseus bloodlust consumes him - it clouds his eyes and he can only keep fighting.

"If... if we've had cabins... and they had thrones"

It's true, and more than ever, Perseus wishes Kronos wasn't such a bastard. He wouldn't bother killing the gods - but the titan is a way worse option.

"LUKE, PLEASE" It's Annabeth. He doesn't have her faith - she didn't saw his transformation. But he tries anyway because he loves Luke just as much as he hates Kronos.

"Luke, remember our summer" But his words are caught up in his throat when the titan throws him against the wall.

But the amalgamation of his friend and an all-powerful being looks confused, so props for his genius best friend.

Kronos shows them a rainbow message of Typhon - and that's where Perseus it's pretty sure he starts liking his father.

Because the Lord of the Dead opens up the earth and gets out in a black chariot guided by skeletal horses like a king. By his right side, is Persephone, in armor battle as a queen should be. By his left, is Demeter, who looks every single bit like the matron she is supposed to be.

Behind him, a hundred thousand dead roars. Charon is mounting Cerberus - and literal hell is unleashed upon the Father of Monsters.

The gods strike down Typhon, sending him back to be locked away - this time, in the depths of Tartarus instead of Mount Etna.

Kronos gets mad. Utterly, undoubtedly mad. He talks about burning Luke's body. Then he hurts Annabeth and breaks two promises in one fell swoop.

"Luke.... remember family" It's what Annabeth utters, but Perseus, already certain of their own demise, is crying now.

"That summer Luke, you promised to never hurt her again. You remember it? YOU PROMISED LUKE!!"

Annabeth's promise was already broken - he had hurt her, all those years ago, in Mt. Othrys. But the promise he made to Percy - that he would never hurt her again - is new and broken, in the river Styx no less.

Luke regains his own body, for a minute, and Perseus runs to him like a man in a desert with no water.

"Please, please tell me there's a way to undo this, Luke, please, please"

"There isn't one, Percy" And it's the first time he hears Luke call him Percy, Percy and not Perseus, in his own voice, in two years. Percy cries.

"We... we don't have much time, hellebore. Give me Annabeth's dagger. Before he... before he takes back"

Luke calls him hellebore and it makes him start crying all over again. He gives him the dagger - and Luke kills himself, taking Kronos out with him.

Luke doesn't need to ask if Percy has ever loved him - Percy kept loving Luke, one-sided as it was, even when Kronos was there.

He still crying over Luke's body when the gods arrive. Luke is dead. Ethan is dead. Silena is dead. Michael Yew is dead. Charles is dead.

He lost three of his best friends in two days. Ethan is dead. Luke is dead. Luke is dead.

Perseus can't stop crying. They take Luke's body away - but he can't stop. Annabeth explains what happened to the gods - most of it, anyway. Apollo says he is in shock - his father says he is a hero.

Perseus doesn't feel like a hero. Was this all worth it? Was it worth it the pain and the death and the suffering?

Persephone touches him - and he has no tears to cry anymore. She can't hug him here, but she'll do so later.

He stares at the walls, listening to his friends being awarded - compensated by their siblings and friends' deaths - with a blank stare. Perseus wants his mom.

They call for him. He raised his head but doesn't bother getting up. He just saved their asses - for the fifth time in a roll. He deserves to grieve.

They offer him immortality. A place between the gods.

He laughs. Zeus looks murderous, but he can't stop laughing.

"My apologies, but I have to refuse," he says. But in his mind, he is thinking about how could they even think he might want to sit between them and be an all-powerful being, be another god ignoring his children and messing with mortal lives while thousands die for him.

"Promise me, on the river Styx, that you'll give me the wish that I want."

They promise him, that if it's within their capabilities, they shall grant him his wish.

"I wish for every child at the age of twelve to be claimed. I wish for cabins in Camp Half-Blood, for every single minor god, and my own father. I wish for Calypso to be free, and to the demigods from the opposite side of this war to be given amnesty. It's not their fault. It's not any of our faults."

"You dare to-" Zeus begins, but Percy is really tired of Zeus.

"We fought your war, we won your battles. We, the unclaimed and rejected stowaways of Cabin 11. We, the children of minor and Underworld gods. We deserve respect. Just like my father deserves a throne, just like the minor gods deserve justice."

"Don't you fear us?" Athena asks, something weird shining in her eyes.

"I thought I would be dead today. At least if I die now, I'm dying for something I believe in."

It stays unsaid that he doesn't believe in them. The other demigods look at him worried - but he is not afraid of the gods.

They grant his wish. Some of them aren't happy with it, but they have to do it. He meets Calypso at the front gates of Olympus - and her smile can brighten the pits of Tartarus. He sees Alabaster talking with Lou Ellen - they are both crying.

He thinks it's the end - it's not. Thalia tells him Rachel left for Camp in her Pegasus - and his father has lift the curse, the Prophecy is gone, but he fears for his best friend.

Perseus is too tired for shadow travel - he does it anyway. He flickers, but anyway, he is too late.

It works. Rachel - his best friend - is the new Oracle. Someone jokes they can't be together anymore and Rachel lifts an eyebrow.

"We never were. Didn't you see the last few hours?" Well, he did out himself. Mostly - they might say it's just friendship, and he will hate the way they twist it. Luke wasn't a villain, and Perseus isn't a pure hero with a heart of gold.

Perseus is healing from lost love - and Annabeth is too. His crush on her was only a crush, he thinks - She is his best friend first and foremost. They cry together at the bonfire that burns away the shrouds of 43 demigods - from both sides - and 16 hunters of Artemis. Their souls all rest in Elysium now.

Alabaster comes back to Camp and helps his siblings to build the new Cabin for Hecate, full of spelled blocks and magic chimneys. Clovis and Tyene have their hands full with their own cabins - it doesn't help they keep getting sidetracked with naps.

Somehow, Nico, Thalia, and his bond over helping construct Cabin 13 - They are both way too invested in the goth vibe, mostly because Cabin 1 looks like a temple, and Cabin 3 looks like a beach cabin. And both of them are so over it.

Perseus doesn't want a goth cabin - he is fighting against the aesthetic for years - but sometimes, there are no arguments. His Cabin is made of black marble, and there are skulls everywhere, with torches shining with green fire. Outside, at least. Inside, it looks like Persephone's garden, with input from the queen herself. It's ready just shy of the end of summer vacation.

Rachel tells the next Great Prophecy. Perseus isn't such a positive person to think it won't affect him - he hopes at least it'll wait until he is done with High School.

That night, he dreams of the blonde boy again - it's his first night without nightmares since the battle. He has a scar in his lip, and his green eyes pierce Percy's soul. Perseus wonders if they'll ever meet, wonders if this boy is one of the Seven of the Prophecy.

But alas, Perseus lets it go. The summer is over - he is sixteen, somehow. He is alive and going to go back to his mortal life and his junior year, and grief. Not everything is fine - but eventually, it will be.

It's not the end. Not yet.

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