#when people extend it to disability as a whole too... like. dude....

[glitchinginthegarden]

Woke up with thoughts so here we go:

Johnny’s behavior early in the game makes 100% sense and I support it because it fits his character writing and situation.

I've been seeing a lot of newer cyberpunk players getting onto the "Johnny is an absolute piece of shit" / "why would anyone do anything for this douchebag" soapbox and they're entitled to that opinion BUT...

Coming from the perspective of having completed the game multiple times and done plenty of digging into the ttrpg stuff, it fits. We also have to keep in mind the unreliable narrator factor but that's another thing all together.

In the beginning (after the nightmare night), Johnny is playing the face of cool dude who's suddenly on V's side while actively attempting to manipulate them. This tracks for his character, yes, but also for Night City.

If their positions were swapped, I know for a fact my V would be doing the same exact thing to her unwilling host. Which, when you break it down, is simply an attempt to regain control over a situation where she has none.

I don't blame Johnny in the slightest for that at that point in the plot. It's in human nature to fight tooth and nail for survival. Why would that not extend to someone who's been trapped in soul prison for fifty years too?

He's just "escaped" Mikoshi only to wake up imprisoned (again) in the mind of a complete stranger. Can you blame him for trying to find an angle he can work there?

Because I don't.

Everything tells us yes, Johnny is an asshole who historically has generally only looked out for himself. But not that he's been actively or maliciously intent on causing harm to the people around him. He doesn't behave the way he does for the hell of it, he does it (in my opinion) because in the past, his flavor of manipulation has worked and usually gotten him what he wants.

Which brings me to another thing: I've also seen some comments about how he doesn't tell V certain things depending on how you talk to him. That he withholds more if V is nice than when they're more mean to him. And that also tracks for his character.

Now, I will say that I haven't played a lot of "be mean to Johnny" runs, but if he does drop more info for that, I'm not surprised. Case and point: the oil fields.

Johnny is a person who won't take shit seriously unless he gets a kick in the ass for his behavior. V has to call him on his bullshit to get that sweet approval boost for Don't Fear The Reaper. So, it ultimately it makes sense for him to cough up more information along the line if V isn't being nice about getting it or calls him on being a dodgy fuck. Johnny doesn't fuck with weak people unless he can use them, that's not a secret.

He's playing his cards close to his chest for the most part and it makes sense. He has sparingly few hands to play after 50 years in soul prison. Why would he show his spread to someone who, depending on where you are in the plot, ultimately wants to end him again and scrape him off their brain? He's trying to survive.

He's a disabled man with a grand total of eighty something years of untreated ptsd and people wonder why he's not forthcoming with what he knows? Of course he's not. It's unreasonable to expect that, and especially from a character like his.

The point I'm trying to get to here, I suppose, is that I support Johnny’s wrongs because they're in line with his character and that's part of what makes him so well written. Yes, he's an asshole. Yes, he manipulates and lies and cheats to serve his needs. But, c'mon, look at the whole picture. Look at the setting and the other players on the board, and tell me it doesn't make perfect sense.

[prismatoxic]

i finally remembered to finish filling this out

idk if i'm gonna render it... i have a bunch of other things i also wanna work on, so. here you go. (template here)

chilchuck & laios - self explanatory, i'm The Chilaios Guy. laios is my muse when it comes to rp and i relate to him a lot but i really can't say i love him more than chilchuck, so. they're tied.

kabru - fuck man i love this dude. like he is easily one of my fave characters in the series alongside laios, chilchuck, and mithrun. his character is so fucking compelling and when people in the fandom dismiss him for being two-faced or whatever i'm like do you hate good stories? do you hate good characters? can you really not appreciate anyone but the main cast? begone. he's laios's foil and no amount of not understanding his character will change that. and he's a damn GOOD foil, the ways they interact and contrast each other are amazing.

shuro - SPEAKING OF THE FANDOM BEING SHITTY. like, the scene with him and laios that is coming up very soon in the anime is one that hit me HARD. i relate to laios in that whole debacle so hard that i cried describing the scene to my friend. but it doesn't make shuro a bad person. he and laios are so fundamentally different that they clashed because they didn't understand each other's needs or boundaries. and like, fuck, man. he still shows up for laios and the gang. also if you think he's a creep towards falin or whatever i think you need to get your eyes checked, he's so fucking respectful. and she clearly cares about him even if she doesn't return his feelings. shuro haters stay away from me

namari - godddd i love her. like idk that i have any extended analysis to give, she's just fucking awesome. i really loved all her interactions with senshi and the fact that she's chilchuck's drinking buddy delights me. she's really strong and obviously deeply caring... the moment when she bowled laios out of the way to help with the undine. god. she was so fucked over by her father's actions and she's been trying to build herself up ever since and she's just REALLY NEAT and i was always glad to see her in the manga. (can't wait to see her more in the anime too!!!)

mithrun - SON BOY. i'm obsessed with him. that post about him having a traumatic brain injury lives rent free in my head. i really, genuinely fucking love how well he and his disability are portrayed. it does exhaust me a little when the fandom is happy to make him "better" post-canon... or when they claim kabumisu is problematic bc kabru takes care of him, lmao. he's so fucking cool and the fact that he's a real threat and a driving part of the plot while also needing a caretaker and being notably handicapped by his trauma is just... awesome. neither side diminishes the other. he's disabled, but he's a badass. i love him so much.

dandan - he's a neat little guy and i love how many times he actually shows up in canon, even though he's usually a bg character when he does. i like to think he's important to the guild, like he's someone chilchuck trusts with a lot of things. obviously that wasn't the case when he first joined up, but i like the idea of him proving himself to be really good with managing things, and chilchuck leaves things in his hands when he's down in the dungeon. all headcanons but it's fun for me.

[moongothic]

You know I realize I forgot to mention this before in the Crocodile Power Level Speculation Post/Ask (btw I did go back to edit it so it's actually legible and has a point now lmao)

I really wanna know if Croc has any new tricks with his hook

Like in Alabasta the dude had a poison hook under his regular hook, which was also hiding a tiny blade beneath it as well. This is all fine and dandy, absolutely iconic etc etc

And then we never see him reuse either feature again.

Now to be fair, the only other time we could've seen Crocodile use them would've been in Marineford, but the dude just escaped from prison. Although people are quick to meme about the Marines being 'kind enough' to let Crocodile keep his gigantic fucking hook in prison-- If we're being realistic here, they probably let him keep the base of the hook simply because without a hand any shackle would just slide off his wrist and fall off. Of course he wouldn't still be able to escape or anything since he'd still have the Seastone cuff on his right, but if they wanted to keep him properly shackled then letting him keep even just the hook base would just be the easiest option for the Marines.

It's the fact that the Marines went out of their way to retrieve his missing hook attachment and gave it back to him that's a bit wild

But let's keep in mind that Luffy did break the poison hook back in Alabasta. Even if the Marines let Croc keep the hook attachment, I find it extremely unlikely they would've gone out of their way to fix/replaced the poison hook when the guy's going to jail anyways. If anything it'd make far more sense if they got rid of whatever poison might've still been left in the base and confiscated the blade. Like there's an argument to be made for the Marines letting Crocodile keep his hook due to disability reasons, but the poison and the purely stabby weapon? Not so much

So really, it's very likely the reason Crocodile never used his other weapons in Marineford might've just been that he literally didn't have them on him at the time, just the basic hook

But hey, it's been two whole whooping years. That would be plenty of time for him to replace the broken hook and blade and get some new poison into the hook base too while he's at it

Or

Are there any new weapons Crocodile could've gotten inserted into his hook base that he could whip out

Like just because he could get a new poison hook it doesn't mean he has to get a poison hook, same for the blade as well, right

To be fair, dude feels very old fashioned so I'm not expecting any Inspector Gadget kinda tech from him. Like I don't think Crocodile's knowledgeable about stuff like that himself, at least not enough to install any technically advanced weaponry into the hook on his own, and IDK if he'd trust his hook with anyone to "upgrade it" either for an extended period of time either

But could you imagine if Croc had gotten access to a busted ass Pacifista and stole a laser and had it built into his hook base. He just pulls of the hook and starts blasting people with the laser. How fucking funny would that be. Franky eat your heart out

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #231

Do you like to cuddle with your S.O. or do you prefer your space? I like to cuddle with him, so long as I'm not hot. If I'm hot, don't touch me.

What TV shows do you watch on a regular basis? None.

What is the last thing you scribbled down on a Post-It note? I have no idea.

Do you care if your produce is organic or not? No, not really.

Do you have any children? If so, how old were you when you had them? If not, do you think you ever will? No, I most likely never will.

Do you get enough calcium? To my knowledge, yeah. I've always liked milk.

Are you nosy? Dude I am so nosy and I know I am. It ain't gotta have nothing to do with me, I just like knowing shit lmao

Are you happy with the size of your bedroom? Yeah.

Where was the last place you went that was totally new to you, as in, it was the first time you’d been there? A primarily sushi place for Mom's birthday. I tried something else (there was no way I was eating sushi), some Thai dish, and it was horrible, I had to eat something when I got home.

When was the last time you used someone else’s computer? Girt's actually, last time we hung out. Long story short and to make it understandable to people who don't play, I was storing certain things in WoW in case I ever do come back to the game.

What’s the relationship status of the last person you talked to? Divorced/single.

Do you say sorry first? If I believe I'm wrong, yes. I am not one to easily say sorry first if I believe I did nothing wrong.

Who will you be spending Christmas with this year? Without fail my mom, and unless something is seriously stopping us we go to my older sister's place, and usually Nicole (my other, younger sister) is there too. I'd like to see Girt, but we usually don't on Christmas day, we spend time with our immediate families.

Did you go to high school with your current best friend? Yes.

Have you ever been a passenger in a semi-trailer truck? No.

Whose was the last funeral you attended? I don't think I've ever been to a funeral, just a wake.

Do you avoid using public restrooms? I try to, yes. But if I seriously gotta go, I gotta go.

Have you seen any extended relatives in the last month? No, I barely ever see extended family. None live in North Carolina.

Do you like eggnog? Nooooooooooooo.

Who is the person you dislike the most? Of people who are actually in my life still, Nick.

Do you take part in paying the bills for your household? I absolutely would if I had an income. I don't have disability checks, I don't have anything. I literally get money on Christmas and my birthday, that's it.

Do you know anyone with celiac disease? I have a cousin with it, yes. I think her mom also has it.

How many siblings do you have? Are they all full siblings? I have two full-blooded sisters, one half-brother, and technically three half-sisters, but one I have never met or spoken to or know almost anything about.

What’s the weather like today? Raining cats and dogs on-and-off, windy. We have a hurricane.

How do you usually celebrate New Years? Occasionally Mom and/or I will have a drink, and that's pretty much the extent of it.

Do you currently have any alarms set? Not right this minute, but at bedtime I've been setting an 10:30-11:00 A.M. alarm lately. I've been sleeping in too late.

Do you like whiskey? Meh, I can have some in mixed drinks. I don't particularly like the flavor, but I don't like the flavor of alcohol period, so...

What type of milk do you like to drink? 2% or whole.

Do you have a first aid kit at home? Yes.

Are your parents dog or cat people? Is that different or the same as you? Mom's a dog person. Dad, I'm not sure. He has a cat and loves him, but we also had dogs while he was still with my family, so idk. I'm a cat person.

What’s your favourite flavour of potato chip? Just plain/salted, honestly. I do like salt & vinegar and french onion, though.

Would you ever get a matching tattoo with someone? Maybe my mom.

What is your Chinese zodiac animal? Rat, I think.

What form of communication did you last use to talk to the person you're currently interested in? Discord.

Do you want to see someone right now? Yeah, I saw Girt like... two days ago and I still really miss him.

What was the last thing you looked up on YouTube? Powerwolf's new album, I think.

Did the last guy/girl you kissed have any piercings? No.

Do you actually love your parents? Yes. I don't know where the hell I'd be without my mom.

What pattern do the sheets on your bed have? They're just plain white.

Where did you get the underwear you are wearing right now? I don't wear underwear with my pajamas, that's so non-cozy lmao

Do you feel uncomfortable sharing drinks with other people? Sure do. I WILL with Girt, but I'd still prefer not to.

Have you gone through a lot emotionally, or has life been easy thus far? I've been through the ringer.

Do you spend more time outside or inside? Inside, it's no competition.

Would you rather give up the computer or the TV? TV, easy. I don't even watch it on my own, only with Mom or Girt.

Last person to make you seriously mad? Tobey.

Who have you recently made up with after fighting? Nobody.

What kind of toothpaste do you use? Crest.

What were you doing this morning at 1am? Most likely sleeping. A flash flood warning woke me up at some point, though.

Have you used a tissue today? Yes, my allergies have been out of this fucking world today.

The last person that slept in your bed gets arrested, what do you do? Cry extremely hard and figure out what the hell happened, try to reach him over phone if he's allowed. I'd have no guess what he got arrested for.

When people ask "how are you?" do you say "good" even if you aren't? No. I don't info-dump, I just don't think there's shame in sharing that you're not doing great.

How was your Friday? Tomorrow is Friday, so the kids should be coming over while their parents work. I don't have a book to read right now, so it's gonna be a long day. I do like Fridays though, at least it's something different, I just get stressed out by kids too easily.

Did you speak to your father today? No, it's been a minute.

What was the last thing you drank? Raspberry lemonade flavored water.

How did you wake up this morning? Tornado warning alert. There's been three or four actual tornadoes touch down in the area since last night, but so far my city has been gratefully spared.

Some people were really destructive as a child, were you? No.

Who was the last person you were in a car with? Girt.

Who was the last person you cried in front of? My mom.

Do you know anyone that is gothic? I have a friend, as well as me, at heart at least. I definitely feel like I fit the gothic aesthetic ideally and emotionally, I just can't be bothered to dress up (that and I can't afford stuff like that), and I HATE putting on makeup.

Have you seen UP? I've seen I think most of it.

How is your mom? Stressed, always.

Do you feel comfortable getting up and giving speeches? HELL no.

Have you ever dipped french fries in a frosty? Yes, I didn't get the appeal at all.

Would you prefer eating jello or pudding? Pudding, so long it's chocolate.

Last time you ate a salad? It's been a long while. I don't really like salads.

Have you ever been described as “adorable”? It's been said before.

Are you a moody person? I can be, yes.

What are you listening to? I'm watching 8-BitRyan play Into The Pit.

What video game could you waste the most time on? It WAS World of Warcraft, but I've stopped playing it. It's the main reason I've been doing more surveys lol, I'm fighting to find other ways to kill time.

[lingeringscars]

⭐ as is tradition

Akilah- gigi because I think I could put her in yj if I think about it and there is something about her quickly viewing violence as a means to an end vs akilah not even picking up a weapon, ryan. i still don't know how we'll do that without creating a whole sep verse just for them or akilah lives au but yeah <3, leoni. oh you know nothing about this but YEAH THEM. she's actually described as walking sunshine but also has contributed to destruction. she's devoted her life to helping other people because she was saved from death + as a result someone died to help her. as for yj chars, I feel like we don't talk about shauna as much. and then gen.

Travis- if i don't say shauna here who even am i? can't explain this one as well but my gut does say percy too. or maybe i just miss him. I do think harper and travis would be really interesting because she has that directness and kindness where she'd be like dude wtf at his outbursts while also extending empathy to him bc she's been there re taking shit out on other people esp after dads dying. she would also initially want to help look for javi but would taper off as more time went by and it became unlikely he was still alive rip. tyler. that same teenage boy anger at the world, shitty fathers, not able to regulate emotions well and reactionary because of that. ryan. feeling responsible for siblings deaths. he's really good at just adapting to whatever needs you have so if you wanna talk or sit and drink or explode he got u travis. miller. being part of the in group to survive.

Melissa- shauna and van because there is so little and we can go wild thinking about it. her and spencer would have played a sport together or like if we stick with rival team, would have met against each other across multiple sports growing up. melissa would you have tried field hockey at some point. also harper. they can be snarky together. then ofc mari and gen. akilah vc: duh.

Allie- layla is my gut reaction because of how they were supposed to be somewhere that turned disastrous (the plane crash, her mom's car crash). i think allie would get completely on her nerves though and would Try to be understanding because it is a vicarious trauma while also like oh my god i can't stand you. christian would be like oh my god you weren't on the fucking plane. sorry allie. lydia. i'm not really sure with this one i was just thinking about them being tertiary to some stuff but still affected by it.

Van- finch or hope m if just because I am thinking about landon and van being friends. i just think while you were streaming would be such an important place for spencer but also going to the movies and parents that don't notice you weren't home. maddie because needing to be the one that takes on that caretaker role and isn't taken care of when they need it, running, etc. thinking about van & rachel having different arcs almost. them both going through something traumatic that results in a disability but while van becomes harder and deflects with humor, rachel leans more into humor and becomes lighter and freer. gen & shauna. harper + mothers that don't really notice you're gone. she wouldn't understand most of the pop culture references and would ask. like mari. love u van sorry about that. emma duval. reclaiming identities, disdain for modern technology after All That, almost dying 432 times. lucy and van should hook up.

Jessica- christian/adrian/sonya. i can see her having connections to their powerful families, basically. being hired to manage things by christian's extended family, covering up adrian's escapades, sonya's fall. idk! same with tyler. his dad was mayor so. you sent a meme for melinda but yeah her & may. doing what needs to get done, i can see her getting mixed up with shield stuff too. michael bishop because this reeks of nikita. lmao spencer. her loose connection to the team so trying to talk to her like those at the beginning of the pilot but like. she's been through shit of her own because of A so she's not gonna talk about that or the yj team but also that being a whole other thing.

Hayden- kaley. idk they could meet at college or something. striving for independence. christian. moving after traumatic events, family member (sister, aunt) that means everything to you and helped raise you. JAYMEE. they could have worked together but also they just have a lot in common. i have zero thoughts about lydia/hayden in yj but like why not. all <3 gen, shauna, van, nat, mari. jenna. jenna studying psychology and hayden for social work.

Callie- hey cal wanna meet your mom's friends? kaley, ryan. just want her to have friends. also they would listen to her talk if she ever wanted to do that. christian. family secrets are the hardest kind are they not? sally because closeted lesbians who sometimes do the wrong thing because they're just trying to cope with their families. thea because navigating Life. Mariana also understands going through it because of family drama. don't know how to explain it but lydia and callie + the way they interact with their moms. oh also emma duval and the way your mom's life comes for you personally (sorry maggie ily).

@itchose sent ⭐for potential dynamic combinations / always accepting

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 23, second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Nature Abhors a (Power) Vacuum

Jin Guangshan, Nie Mingjue, and Lan Xichen have gathered to decide what to do about the remaining Wen people and also what to do about the Yin metal. They have not invited Jiang Cheng to this discussion, or blowhard Clan Leader Yao, despite those clans having been hit particularly hard by the Wens in the course of the war. 

The three of them have a conversation about what to do with the Wen captives, showing their different attitudes towards killing.

Jin Guangshan: Killing is awesome, particularly in project management. It's just so efficient. Nie Mingjue: Killing is necessary, and a little bit fun, too. Lan Xichen: Killing is necessary, sadly, but we can randomly spare some women or old people, as a token sign that we’re not monsters. Kind of like when you have a fancy dinner and include a tofu dish for the vegetarians. Nie Mingjue: Nobody likes tofu, Xichen.

Jin Guangshan says he's looking for the Yin Iron and that they can't let any Wens or "ambitious people" get a hold of it. By ambitious people he means Wei Wuxian, not himself and his murder kid. Lan Xichen realizes this right away but doesn't, you know, do anything to contradict him.  Jin Guangshan says he's asked "A-Yao" to look into it. Which is smart, because A-Yao is already in cahoots with Xue Yang, who actually has the piece of Yin Iron they're looking for.

Getting Jiggy With It

Then Jin Guangshan introduces Meng Yao, now renamed Jin Guangyao, in a weird twist on generation names. He has given him the name of a sibling or cousin of his own generation (starting with Guang), rather than a name of the next generation (starting with Zi). JGS says that JGY just recently learned about about being related to him, although we know perfectly well that's not true. 

And they both talk like he appreciates JGY's efficiency and helpfulness, but that's not why JGS has him at his side. He has taken him in because he is a steel-eyed murder bot, not in spite of it. 

(OP does not believe that Jin Guangyao could have been a good person if only his dad had let him hold Jin Ling that one time, as some have argued. Dude killed his own child because there was a chance he might be disabled in a way that could lead to gossip. Dude is a stone cold killer.)

(more after the cut)

In the language of CDrama costume (which is not, precisely, the language of actual historical clothing), Jin Guangyao has chosen to dress as a minister instead of as a chevalier. This is partly an artifact of his mother's ideas about a gentleman. It also suggests that he’s content with the sort of career that's available to a bastard of a noble house--not inheriting the noble title, but having enough favor to rise in power. 

It may also be a ruse to make him seem like he's not a strong cultivator and not a strong fighter, when in fact he is both, at least by the time he’s throwing death chords at Jiang Cheng, much later in the show. 

Mingjue makes all kinds of grumpy faces and snarky remarks to let everyone know that he fucking hates Jin Guangyao.  Xichen agrees to his “nice refugee camp with only a little death” plan, with no qualifications.

Now we get to see Jin Guangyao's manipulation of Lan Xichen. Lan Xichen says that Nie Mingjue wants a plan that’s more killy, because he believes in punishing evil. JGY deliberately misunderstands this, pretending that Lan Xichen said he, JGY, is evil, kind of forcing LXC to reassure him and take his side in an argument that isn’t actually happening. 

They have a little handholding while bowing, and then after Lan Xichen leaves, Jin Guangyao puts on his evil face and has all the prisoners killed behind the big closed door.  

This is done in such a violent fashion that the blood apparently flows up several stairs to the door, and over the tall raised threshold, before flowing downward toward the camera. Some evil is so extreme that even traditional Chinese doorway architecture can’t stop it.

Run To the Rock

Then we go outside to where Wei Wuxian is standing on a rocky outcropping, thinking it would be a good strategic spot to choose if he's ever in a battle where he wants to commit suicide right quick.

Lan Wangji comes to join him and admire the view, not knowing yet that this view, or one a whole lot like it, is going to be seared into his memory for most of his life.

Lan Wangji is becoming more and more committed to Wei Wuxian, more and more inexorably joined to him, but he still doesn't agree with him. So they each have this comfort in each others' presence at the same time as being massively in conflict.

Wei Wuxian asks him what he thinks of all the politicking and murdering. Who is good and who is evil? LWJ doesn't answer because WWX is leaking black smoke, so he grabs him and tells him to concentrate.  Lan Wangji is, incidentally, wearing Princess-Leia quantities of lip gloss.

Lan Wangji asks if Wei Wuxian would like to learn a new tune, "Absterge" according to Netflix. The fuck? [op looks it up in the dictionary]. "To cleanse, especially by wiping." Also known as aftercare. Netflix. Honey. This word is MIDDLE FRENCH. Will you knock it the fuck off?

So anyway, instead of answering his question about who is good and who is evil, LWJ asks if he wants to learn a song called "Cleansing." Wei Wuxian says “hey babe, are you fucking kidding me?” 

His actual words are "you doubt me too?" meaning "you think I also took the missing 4th chunk of Yin iron to make my ugly tiger amulet, rather than obviously having used that giant sword I pulled out of the turtle?"  

Lan Wangji mentally replays Wen Ruohan's questions in his head--the questions he barked at Wei Wuxian right before choking him unconscious--which Lan Wangji also feels entitled to know the answers to. Fuck you, Lan Wangji. He answers WWX with "when did you forge your amulet?" Which is his way of saying "yes, I doubt you."

Wei Wuxian kindly refrains from saying "while we were on a break, bitch" and instead tells him the exact truth--I found a yin iron sword in the turtle--but says it in his patented "make it sound like a lie" way. 

LWJ keeps grilling him, eventually coming out and saying dude, you knew the sword was Yin iron, why did you need to use it?

This is the crucial question--why WWX broke his first promise, to Lan Yi, which was to try to get rid of the Yin Iron. He won’t tell anyone the answer, which is that he needs to use it because he can't cultivate normally, because he lost his golden core. He made a lot of promises before that happened, and he probably expected to keep them. But without his core, everything changed; without his core, he’s a different person, so it’s maybe not fair to expect him to honor his previous promises. 

I’m reminded of my grandfather, who was the oldest son of an old southern US family, with lots of expectations as the firstborn. He went off to WWI as a soldier, expecting to die. He didn’t die, and so from that point on, he regarded his life as a gift. He felt could do whatever he wanted with it, and let go of expectations from before the war. He moved to Paris and took up with a glamorous divorcee 7 years older than him (my Grandma, eventually). 

The actual point of that story, other than OP having cool grandparents, is that when you think you’re going to die, and then you don’t die, your ideas about what you owe to people can change quite a bit. Wei Wuxian expected to die in the Burial Mounds; he expected to die at Nightless City; he expects it, over and over, and each time he doesn’t die, he gets further and further from being what everyone else wants him to be. And--a lot like soldiers returning from a war-- NOBODY in his life knows how to talk to him about it. 

Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji to back off, Lan Wangji says why aren't you letting me help you, and they are once again on the edge of the same fight they keep having. Lan Wangji does some impassioned arm holding while Wei Wuxian says he's not like Wen Ruohan. 

Romantic Duet #1

The argument is interrupted by screams and killing, so they go to check it out, and find the Jins hunting down some prisoners for sport. They arrive in time to save two people. Yay?

Jin ZIxun acts like a jerk, as always. The new element is that per Jin Guangshan, anyone concerned with Yin Iron shouldn't be alive.  He says that the Lan and Nie clans agreed, and challenges Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji stops him from responding, grabbing his wrist.

The Jins leave and Wei Wuxian refers back to their earlier conversation, saying there will be more resentful spirits now and that "Rest" is the music to play, not "Cleansing."

He gives Lan Wangji a long look and then pointedly removes Lan Wangji’s hand from his wrist, by holding his hand, which is some next-level mixed signaling. Lan Wangji totally deserves it at this point, though. He keeps pushing and pushing WWX about his cultivation method, but he refuses to discuss the underlying morality of it, or the morality of the killing going on right in front of them. 

WWX walks off, leaving LWJ to stew in his own juices surrounded by a bunch of fresh corpses. 

Lan Wangji fails his saving throw against the guilt trip, and sits his ass down to play Rest, just like Wei Ying told him to. So switchy!  Wei Wuxian, out of sight but not out of earshot, hears him and accompanies him on Chenqing.

This scene is slightly ridiculous and a whole lot sublime. Ridiculous because it's their first time playing music together, so it's a super slow, romantic, extended scene, but they're surrounded by corpses. And not the helpful, friendly, third-wheel-on-a-date type of corpses.

It's sublime because the occasion of their first beautiful, literally magical duet is an argument. And they are joining together to play beautiful romantic music - as a service for the dead. And they are doing it while they are on literally opposite sides of a literal killing field. And Lan Wangji is sitting literally in the middle of a wide open road; the sort of road that they will both reject, metaphorically, later in the show. There is so much about their conflict and their journey that is encapsulated in this one musical moment.

Lan Wangji, by playing the song Wei Wuxian said was needed, is telling WWX that he took his words to heart, that he is listening, even though they're at odds.

WWX, by stopping and playing with him, is acknowledging this. And by settling the dead souls together, they are both reinforcing their dedication to doing what's right even as they both struggle with knowing what that is.

When Other Friendships Have Been Forgot, Ours Will Still Be Hot

Now we have the sworn brothers thing. I understand, plot wise, why this has to happen, but why would Nie Mingjue ever agree to this? Lan Xichen's puppy eyes are just that persuasive?

If they ever crack your spine, drop a line If they ever cut your throat, write a note If you’re ever in a mill and get sawed in half, I won’t laugh (HA HA HA HA)

Tedious Party Time

Now there's a cultivation party, which is about as excruciating to watch as it would be to attend.

Everyone is lining up to praise Jin Guangshan. To be fair, he did provide shelter for most of the smaller clans while the war was going on. So being grateful is appropriate, but Clan Leader Yao practically breaks his own neck kissing Jin ass. Yao says JGY’s contribution was the greatest of the war, adding, "fuck Wei Wuxian; everything is his fault."

The Jiangs show up wearing mourning belts that show off their itty bitty waists, and Jin Guangshan makes shifty eyes like a cartoon landlord when he sees them arrive.

JGS praises Jiang Cheng, and asks when his fancy clan-leader ceremony is going to happen. Jiang Cheng says he's still in mourning so it's not appropriate. JGS is like “Oh...yeah," as if he totally forgot about all the Yunmeng slaughter, and talks up his friendship with Jiang Fengmian. He acts comforting while WWX manages not to barf.

Then the Lan clan shows up and there is nice encouraging chit chat between LXC and JC...

...and just, SO MUCH mournful staring between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian.

Then the Nies arrive.  Jin Guangshan tells Nie Mingjue he's late, and that everyone's waiting for him. That might be true in the script but it’s clearly bullshit on the screen, where the Lans and the Jiangs are still milling around looking for the coat room.

Nie Mingjue--who, let's remember, JUST swore to be brothers with Jin Guangyao--looks at him like he's something that fell off a garbage truck.  Lan Xichen jumps in to maximize the discomfort by pointing out that Jin Guangyao should address Nie Mingjue as Big Daddy Da-ge from now on.

Then the Jins offer Nie Mingjue the giant fire throne because...he's the leader of the Sunshot campaign, I guess? Of course it's all a manipulation tactic, designed to make him say he won't sit there, so that JGS can elevate himself to head cultivator, or something? And sit in front of the throne but not on it? Cultivator succession seems kinda arbitrary. 

I swear to god, it wasn't until I was clipping this episode that I realized Wen Ruohan had two thrones and they're in different rooms from each other.

Finally everyone goes to sit down, but because there hasn't been enough fucking awkwardness, JGY stops WWX to ask him what's on his mind. WWX asks him why he's not carrying his sword, which made me laugh and laugh. Wei Wuxian must have been just waiting for a chance to ask someone else that question for a change. 

Jin Guangyao says he threw it away, because it was just a random sword, but he really means he had it made into a sneaky murder belt, that he will be using again in 13 to 16 years. They both fake-laugh and trade Mean Girls insults pretend to like each other. 

Everyone wanders around toasting each other. Lan Wangji goes to find Wei Wuxian, after first making sure that his hair looks good.  

Wei Wuxian is lying around on the steps, sprawling and drinking wine, and not, incidentally, looking for Lan Wangji. He continues to not seek him out and Lan Wangji continues to chase after him.

Wei Wuxian says "how about playing Cleansing?" but Lan Wangji says he's learning a new score. It looks like it's going to be another argument, but then Wei Wuxian smiles and kind of praises Lan Wangji for being stubborn. 

Awkward Marriage Proposal

Just then everyone inside starts cheering for Jin Guangshan to give a speech. Jin Guangshan is making a move to marry Jiang Yanli to his son, which is a big time power grab, given that the Jiang Clan is 1. vulnerable and depleted 2. has control of the Yin tiger amulet.

We get a very rare glimpse into Jiang Cheng’s inner mind, where he thinks that saying yes isn’t a great idea, but isn’t sure what to do. This marriage would make his sister happy, but could destroy the Jiang Clan's independence.

Fortunately, Wei Wuxian joins the party just in time to fuck up Jin Guanshan’s plans. Will this teach Jin Guangshan not to invite Wei Wuxian to parties? It will not.  

Soundtrack: Friendship, by Cole Porter (from “Anything Goes”)

Bonus:

[twoidiotwriters1]

Starcrossed Losers IX (Josh Wheeler xReader)

 A/N: Friendship is cool but it gets you in a lot of trouble. Also, Happy Christmas’ Eve!!!

Words: 4,339

Warnings: Blood, cursing and weird outfits 

Previous chapter // Next chapter

“Y/N, can I ask you a question without making you mad?”

“I don’t know Josh, you’ll have to ask me the question first”

“Why are you still wearing that?”

I look down at my clothes and laugh.

“I forgot,” I look at my reflection on the closest glass and examine the torn shirt that covers my body.

“So it wasn’t a fashion statement?” Asks Josh with a smirk.

“Sadly no,” I stand up and stretch my arms, yawning, “I think it’s time I get a new outfit.”

“You’re finally changing your resident evil cosplay?” Wesley walks by me, eyeing me up, Josh laughs.

“Don’t be mean,” I stick out my tongue, “I’d rock a resident evil cosplay”

“I don’t doubt it,” He raises his hands, “go nuts”

Wesley points towards the stores and I happily comply.

“You want us to go with you?” Josh raises his voice, following me with his eyes.

“I’ll be fine, you guys stay”

As I’m walking away I hear Wesley talking to Josh.

“We should practice our sword skills”

“Dude, yes!” Josh answers.

I chuckle lowly and head straight into my favorite store. 

It’s been a while since I got new clothes for myself; being alone is okay I guess, but it’s nice to be able to calmly pick an outfit without worrying about being attacked. 

I also get to pick something that will match my skates no matter what. You know when you have a specific favorite outfit that you wanna wear all the time but is not socially acceptable to do so cause then people will think you don’t shower? Well, now those rules don’t apply anymore cause everyone wears the same clothes all the time and it’s a known fact that we don’t shower. 

With that in mind, I pick the stuff that makes me the happiest and put them on. When I look in the mirror I feel amazing, and I take it as a sign that I have finally found my outfit.

“Y/N, we prepared a whole obstacle course, come see it!” 

“You wanna see my new outfit?” I ask excitedly from the changing rooms.

“Sure!” Josh replies, walking in, “Where are you?”

“Turn around and I’ll come out!” I drag the curtain and walk out towards him, I’m pleased to see he followed my instructions and is facing the entrance, “You can look now!”

He turns around and I show my outfit with my arms extended.

“So?”

“That’s a... are those short overalls?” He examines them carefully.

“Yes!” I smile wildly, “and a lime-green shirt. With fun socks,” I raise my eyebrows, “get it? so I can match the skates you gave me”

“That’s, uh...”

“You don’t like it,” I lowered my arms, frowning, “Why?”

“It’s not that!” He quickly counters, “it’s just... well, your arms and legs are exposed and we live surrounded by things that bite.”

“Yes, but I have a hammer,” I say sternly.

Josh stares at me.

“A hammer won’t protect you from a horde.”

“Fair,” I agree, “but it’s not just my hammer. I have two samurais on my side, right? Either way, Ghoulie bites aren’t that dangerous.”

“They are if they rip your arms off”

“You’re exaggerating. I’ll be fine,” I walk past him, “you gonna train with Wesley or no?”

“Yeah but-”

“Hey, are you guys coming or what?” Wesley screams from the main hall.

“Going!” I scream back.

I found a bunch of tables with a small piñata, a watermelon and god knows what else spread around the place in order to make training harder. Wesley lets out an exclamation of approval when he sees me.

“Now, that’s a hundred percent Y/N-brand. You look good, girl!”

“Thanks! I feel good,” I smile at him, then look over at Josh, “See? Wesley gets it”

“I never said I didn’t like it...” He grumbles.

“We can talk about our fashion sense later. First, we train,” Demands our friend.

“Who’s first?” I ask, leaning against a column far from the obstacle course.

“Let me show you how real warriors do it...” 

Josh and I look at each other wondering what will Wesley do to try to impress us. When he kneels on the floor and bows to his sword, we have to look away so we don’t start laughing.

But don’t worry, our laughter dies as soon as he does the wildest moves ever, totally not humiliating us in every possible way. 

When he fixes his posture and takes off his mask, he vaguely points towards the mess and then to Josh.

“So, clean this shit up and, uh, your turn,” He smiles. 

“What?” Josh asks in pure outraged. I laugh and he looks at me with a bitter smile, “oh, don’t get so amused. You’re helping me.”

“What?” Now is my time to be scandalized, “Why?”

He shows me his injured hand and smirks.

“Cause I'm a disabled person in recovery.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how this works,” I frown, “but I’ll help you anyway, cause I don’t want you to cut another of your little fingers by accident”

“How nice of you,” He mocks.

It takes us about ten minutes to replace and arrange everything. When we’re done I sit next Wesley, arms crossed and a knowing smile on my face.

“Just do your best, Wheeler. Try not to fall over innocent people, please.” 

“Very funny, L/N,” Josh sneers.

When it’s his turn to train, Josh does... his best. I managed to remain silent for most of it until he hits the mannequin and the only thing he cuts it’s the finger. 

“Oh my god,” I cover my mouth and stifle most of my laughter. Wesley stands up and looks at the result.

“Wow, that is... ironic.”

“It’s...” I say between laughs, “it’s so sad...”

“Dude, I’m a terrible swordsman. Especially with only one good hand,” Josh replies.

“You are in good company,” Wesley retorts in an attempt to calm him down, “Skywalker, Furiosa... Jaime Lannister, if you can get past the child-killing, incest, rape.”

“Meh,” I squint my eyes, “I think you should stick to Skywalker.”

Wesley shakes his head and mouths something that looks like ‘not now’, so I stay silent as he continues his speech.

“Hands gives us identity. Chefs cut, artist paint, warriors... warrior.”

That’s definitely not how you call it, but uh, that’s not the point, right?

“All good Jedi lose a hand.”

“I couldn’t even get that right!” Josh replies with annoyance, holding his hand up.

He leans against the column and falls slowly to the ground, it’s quite a miserable sight. I stand up and walk over to sit next Josh, I pat his back softly as a way of comfort.

“You know what I love about right now?” Asks Wesley, “we are free. We can do anything!”

Josh looks at me and I know he’s thinking about the story I told him yesterday. 

“I couldn’t pull off those pants,” He offers, discretely changing the subject, “you and Y/N could wear anything and still look good. I can’t, so I’m not that free.”

Wesley looks down at his clothes.

“No. No, you cannot. But is not about having cool shit, it’s about being cool as shit,” He slowly makes his way to us, “you define yourself. Who are you?”

This is getting real way too fast. 

Who am I? Besides the weirdo with a fixation for the lime-green. I told you this before, there’s a reason why I never joined any tribe. I clearly don’t have a thing. If I don’t have a thing, then why am I still here? What am I supposed to be doing?

“I’m oni samurai, when I get done with my quest and find redemption, they will write songs about me.”

“Who?” I ask, bewildered, “the fairies in your head?”

Josh stands up suddenly, getting face to face with Wesley.

“Look, I couldn’t save Sam’s life. I have to avenge her death,” I stand up as well, hearing attentively, “those scratches on her body were made with a butcher’s knife. I’ve only seen one douche with a weapon like that.”

And before he says it, I already know what he’s planning to do.

“I’m gonna kill Baron Triumph,” He leans over and speaks on Wesley’s ear, “I’m gonna kill Jayden Hoyles.”

Oh, poor stupid, love-sick Josh.

I know, judging by Wesley’s face, that this took an unexpected turn for him. For me? Well, I can’t say I knew exactly what Josh had in mind, but I figured he wouldn’t just stay here and cry for the rest of his life. He’s got hero-complex. Which, unfortunately, is gonna get him killed.

But it’s good to know that I’m not the only one looking for redemption now, whatever it was Wesley did and Josh’s burden are now on the line. Maybe that could be our thing? The tribe of regrets. The redemption circle. The I-can’t-stop-fucking-things-up club. No? Meh, I’ll find the right name eventually.

I follow Josh towards one of the stores. He’s in a bad mood.

“Josh-”

“Don’t try to talk me out of it,” He interrupts me, “I need to do this.” 

“I wasn’t going to stop you,” I reply.

“You weren’t?” He stops, turning completely this time, “Why?”

“You want me to stop you?” I raise a brow, “Cause I can do that too if you want.”

“No, I mean... I don’t know, I thought you’d be upset about this. See it as a way of holding on to something that won’t bring anything good.”

“I do think that you’re closer to get killed with this plan and I do believe that killing Hoyles won’t make you feel better. The difference is that I don’t follow any samurai rules, so I don’t think it’ll bring you bad karma or whatever. It’s your life, you decide.”

“Okay,” He has an odd expression. I can’t tell if he’s suspicious or curious, either way, it makes me feel nervous, “then you could help me?”

“To kill him?” I tense, “What, just because I killed once it means I can do it again?”

“No,” He rolls his eyes, “I’ve killed Ghoulies too, and I don’t judge you for what happened with your sister. You did what you had to do.”

“So..?”

“I was going to ask if you could help me find a new weapon... or hand”

“What?” I giggle, then I see him ready to get all defensive and I stop, “Sorry, what do you have in mind?”

And he pulls a list out of his pocket, like the dork he is.

“I have a few ideas...”

“We can try them,” I nod, “I’ll put on my skates so I can help you get the stuff faster.”

“Sure, I’ll be here, analyzing my list,” He lowers his eyes towards the paper, excitedly reading all he wrote.

I snort, walking away.

“You’re too cute, Wheeler.”

Oh fuck. Oh fuck. I said that out loud, didn’t I? 

Well, now I can’t turn around to see if he heard me, god I hope he didn’t. If he did that means he’ll start to get suspicious and I don’t wanna ruin another friendship. Besides, I don’t like Josh that way. I don’t.

We’re friends. I just gained a friend (several, actually), I won’t ruin it just cause I think he has pretty eyes. I told Angelica that I won’t be playing her games and I’m too stubborn to admit she may have a point. Also, am I forgetting that Sam just died? This isn’t exactly what I would call perfect timing.

Josh is focused on his work when I go back and I’m too nervous to talk to him, still thinking about how he might have heard my not so subtle compliment.

What is wrong with me? I never had this issue with Alex, he was easy. I mean, we also knew each other since we were six so I guess that’d have influenced the way I perceived my behavior around him.

“Y/N?”

“Huh, yes?” I jump, “sorry, what did you say?”

“You spaced out,” He says with a small smile, “you didn’t listen a thing did you?”

“No,” I give him an awkward smile, “I got lost in my own head. I’m here now though, tell me what you need.”

“What do you think?” He points to every item on the table, “You see something that fits my... uh, whatever Wesley said I should have?”

I slide closer, examining all the stuff.

“You understood what Wesley was saying?”

“Yes... no. I don’t know. I get that he’s trying to convince me that life can be better without revenge, I guess?”

“Don’t ask me, I don’t know what he was trying to say,” I mumble, “all I know is that I have no clue of who I am. The apocalypse kind of fucked up my identity.”

“Well, who were you before?” He steps closer, carefully grabbing the glove with blades and trying it on.

“The artsy girl, according to my friend Maya,” I reply, a bit self-conscious, “I wasn’t that good if I’m honest but you know, if my friends ever needed to draw something for their projects or if they were looking for some new not-so-famous band to listen to, they’d give me a call.”

“So you were the ‘not-like-the-other-girls’ girl?” He smirks.

“Ugh, that is misconceiving,” I scoff, “every girl is their own person, we’re all the same. Just like the guys, and humans in general. We just have different likings, I really liked all kinds of art before, that’s all”

“Okay,” He takes a minute to think about it, “you’re right, there’s no tribe for that.”

“And it’s not like I could use my drawings to defend myself,” I grin.

“Well, the disciples of the Kardashian aren’t exactly trained warriors.”

“Maybe,” I help him take off the glove, “but there’s more than one, they share one specific trait. The jocks protect them of course, they don’t need to know how to defend themselves, I do. I have no one.”

“You have me now,” He replies promptly, “Uh, I mean us. You have us. We can protect you and you can go back to being the artsy girl.”

“To be honest, going back to that would be dull,” I squint, “I know I said I wanted my old life but that’d only work in the old world. I can’t be who I was, so I have to find a way to be a new version of myself, meaning I’ll have to use my creative instincts in something else.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Josh answers, grabbing a knife and weighing it, “your thing and mine. We have time.”

“That, if you survive to Hoyles,” I say subtly, “cause if not then we don’t have time at all. Or... if you wait a bit longer before going after Triumph, maybe we’ll have it...”

“Ah, there it is,” Josh has a smug smile when he leans towards me, “that is how you’re trying to convince me about not doing this?”

“Is it working?” I get closer as well, grinning.

“Almost,” He sighs, “but not enough, I’m still going. The only thing that could stop me from going is if I don’t find something to help me with my bad hand, which seems more likely than not.”

“I tried my best,” My foot accidentally kicks a mannequin’s hand and something comes to my mind, “hey, we have one more item (not listed) that you can try on for your new look. Who knows? Maybe it’ll bring you good luck.”

“What is it?” He curiously looks around the table.

“Here,” I pick up the hand and show it to him.

“Y/N,” He gives me a stern look, “tell me you’re joking.”

“What? We don't have functional prosthetics laying around, that is the closest thing you can get,” I put a hand on my hip, “you know is your best choice. You’ll get used to it. Adapt and survive, man.”

“Fine,” He sighs, “but I’m not obligated to use it if I don’t like how it looks.”

“Sure,” I agree, “it’s your body.”

I sit next to the table while he goes to a changing room. I hear him break the hand and I hope he didn’t screw up the fingers. Not that we can’t get more if that’s the case, but you know, time is not something we have to spare.

Wesley enters and sees the bunch of weird things we’ve come up with.

“Okay,” He nods, “yeah, hell yeah! This is what I’m talking about, brother! You define yourself. Come out here and show me your new killer digits.”

Josh pulls the curtain and walks out from the changing room with the white, plastic finger tied to his hand. Wesley and I laugh.

“Nice figure, Kim Cattrall,” He notices neither Josh or I get the joke, and he continues, “because she was a mannequin.”

We stay quiet.

“In the movie mannequin?” I shake my head without saying a word, “about a mannequin who comes to life? They made a sequel with Kristy Swanson, the orig Buffy the vampire slayer...”

Josh walks out of the store, showing Wesley his middle finger.

“I can’t tell if that means he liked it,” I mention, standing up next to Wesley, “but I take that he won’t waste more time on this?”

“Okay,” Wesley sighs, “let’s go hunt Baron Triumph.”

The sound my skates make against the gravel is like music to my ears. I had missed this, the outside. As dangerous as it is, it gives me the liberty that no safe haven ever could. I know these streets like the back of my hand, I got this.

Maybe I enjoy myself a bit too much, skating around and humming an old song I haven’t heard in a while when I realize Josh is staring. I immediately stop what I’m doing.

“Sorry, I should be quiet,” I look away, limiting myself to just skate beside my friends.

“No, it’s okay,” He says, “I wasn’t- I was staring but I... it seemed like you were enjoying yourself.”

“I shouldn’t,” I reply, “this is not a fun trip, I’ll stop.”

“I...” Josh is about to say something when Wesley speaks up.

“Hey, look at this!” He picks up something from the street, “second left molar, nice craftsmanship on the porcelain ceramic filling...”

“Your dad taught you a lot,” says Josh.

“A thing or two.” 

“It was knocked off by Triumph.”

Wesley turns around and looks at Josh with a sly smile.

“You don’t know that.”

“I only know one dude in school with a size fourteen shoe... cause I licked it.”

We look down at the mud and see the footprint that Josh is pointing to us.

“Hoyles,” whispers Wesley.

“He went east, toward San Fernando,” Mentions Josh.

“You’re like a Canadian Wolverine,” Replies Wesley in amazement.

“More like Deadpool,” I correct, “’cause the katana..?”

“Wolverine is a Canadian Wolverine,” Josh shakes his head, “can we focus right now? Look, I hunted elk every summer...”

He starts to walk away, but Wesley keeps talking.

“Your dad taught you a lot.”

Josh stops only to answer.

“A thing or two,” He smirks.

“You can track. But you can’t fight.”

“Here we go,” I roll my eyes, moving away from their discussion to look for more clues.

I don’t pay much attention to what they’re saying while I turn my back to them and analyze the footprint. Josh is right, it’s heading towards the industrial section. I know the old Hoyles’ cereal fabric is there, maybe we should take a look and see what we find... 

“Run!” I turn around abruptly, raising the hammer above my head. I see Wesley sprinting towards the other side of the street, Josh gives me one panicky look before looking behind us in confusion.

“What?”

“Run!”

“Okay!” Josh runs after him with me close behind them.

We run around town like maniacs, I have the hammer ready but I don’t actually see any danger, so my fear isn’t growing but I’m not calm either. At some point, a couple of Ghoulies start to chase Josh and for some reason Wesley doesn’t let me help him. We wait until Josh gets rid of them and we go back to the running. My skates are going fast, soon enough I leave them behind and I hear Wesley scream:

“Get under the car!”

I stop harshly and skid without being able to control my movements. I trip falling on one knee and my legs and arms get a few scratches. My hammer flies like four feet away from me.

“Y/N!” Josh tries to go over to me but Wesley grabs his ankle, already under the vehicle.

“They’re coming!”

“Dude, I don’t see anybody!” He complains, obeying against his own will.

In the few seconds that takes me to stand up again, Wesley and Josh are already getting out from under the car.

“Let’s go! Go! Go! Go!”

“Wes, I’mma smash your knees with my- Where’s my hammer?” I look around frantically until Josh touches my shoulder lightly.

“Here,” He gives me the tool and I thank him silently, rushing over so we catch up with Wes.

“Wesley!” I scream after spending five more minutes running, “Stop! I think I hurt my knee when I fell, shit...”

Josh stops immediately after hearing what I said and looks over my shoulder, frowning.

“Dude,” He stops Wesley, “what the hell? Dude, there’s nobody after us. And now Y/N got hurt, look at her knee!”

I look down and I yelp at the sight. My knee is bleeding, swollen, and one of my hands is pulsating in a way that makes me think I might not be fine to continue.

“I think I can fix it,” I groan, gently touching my scratches.

“I had the Baron’s trail and now I’m all lost. Why did you do that?” Josh inquires.

Wesley seems to struggle to find a proper answer when we hear the engine of a car coming closer. Soon the golf team appears, annoying as ever.

“Great,” I grab the hammer from beside me and prepare to fight.

“Remember us, just Josh?”

“I remember there being more of you,” He retorts.

“We’re downsizing”

“Yeah, but not by choice, by circumstance.”

“The circumstance being death.”

“We’re currently taking applications for new membership.”

“Oh,” Replies Josh, “not interested.”

“Not talking to you,” complains Barry, “we’ll deal with you next. Hi, Y/N!”

“Hi, Barry,” I sigh tiredly, “how’s your wrist?”

I know them, of course. The golf team was like the lowest of them all, they weren’t so bad, only terribly stupid. During my time with the Jocks, I did some stuff for them as well, small things like collecting their balls and keeping their golf sticks clean and ready to use... I hate talking about golf cause it always sounds like I’m talking about sex.

“Better, thank you. I see you got a bad knee, I can get you an ointment for that.”

“No thanks, I’ll manage”

“What say you Fists?”

“You ready to come home?” Asks the other... is it Larry? They all have similar names, I can’t bring myself to remember, “listen to fate: Gary, Larry, Barry... Wesley”

“It doesn’t fit the line,” mumbles Barry.

“There’s a ‘y’ at the end” He replies.

“Meh, it’s kind of a stretch,” adds... Gary? I’m pretty sure it’s Gary.

“Close enough for Armageddon. Three is not a team, four can play spades.”

“Just because you have balls, doesn’t make golf a sport.”

It is, though. But I won’t say that right now.

“Gotta start somewhere to earn your way back into his good graces...”

A second car appears, this time on the other side. We’re face to face with Turbo. My wrist is killing me but I lift the hammer again, this time looking at the other side of the alley.

“Not gonna lie,” I say, “I’m starting to regret this”

“Tell me about it,” Whispers Wesley.

Turbo steps out of the car and growls. He does that a lot. As a matter of fact, it’s the only thing he does now. Wesley understands perfectly so he translates all that into a petition to fight to the death, only Josh and him, no weapons.

“You got all that from a look?”

“I speak Turbo.”

“What did I even do?” Asks Josh.

“Besides making all the wrong choices?” I ask.

“He said he doesn’t like to lose.”

“This isn’t Mario Kart! You tried to capture us, we got away”

“Wait, that was all?” I frown, “Turbo is chasing you because you won in a tag-you’re-it game?”

“He’s sensitive about this stuff,” explains Wesley.

“More like a fucking baby,” I reply.

Turbo grunts. Josh steps forward.

“Who cares?! God, this is... there is no your side or my side. Hoyles is out there trying to kill all sides. He’s killed out friends...”

“I’ll be your friend!” A small, mechanical voice replies behind us, “I love you. Let’s be besties!”

“What the fuck...” I mutter.

Larry picks it up and says he knows those bears, something tells me he’s in danger.

“That’s pretty. Put it down,” I urge him.

“They had their names stitched on their butts. What’s your name, guy?”

“I’m pretty sure he can’t answer that,” I insist, “Wesley that’s not a good sign, we need to leave.”

He nods and opens his mouth, but when Larry turns the bear around something catches our eye.

“Larry put the bear down!”

The explosion makes us fly and fall hard on the ground, disoriented and stunned. I hear screams and rushed steps around us, I open my eyes with difficulty and I see Josh’s body a few feet away from mine. 

All I do before passing out is watch as the figure of Baron Triumph walks out of the dusty cloud.

Taglist.

@letsbloodmagic @hollywaterpls​

[verdigrisonamber]

Courier Six

Fallout New Vegas is my absolute favourite Fallout, because it’s fucking amazing. I only wish Obsidian had had longer to make it so they could flesh it out even further. The Legion don’t deserve to be the ‘straight up bad guys’ (especially when the NCR are so fucking hateful). And ED-E is my best friend ever. Here is some blurb about my Courier, Dolores. Name: Dolores Urquhart Nickname: Dolly, Aeris (Latin for Copper – Eye colour, hair colour being like verdigris.) Age: 28 Height: 5’7” Specials: STR 5, PER 5, END 7, CHR 8, INT 8, AGI 7, LCK 6

Eyes: Hazel Hair: Mohican, dyed teal Ethnicity: Caucasian Gender: Cis Female Body type: Athletic Sexuality: Bisexual Relationship Status: Friends with benefits/ Lovers Partner(s): FWB: Red Lucy, Jack (Great Khans) Lover: Vulpes Inculta. Family: Deceased. Mother (Jessica) & Father (Frank) were both Doctors (which is why Dolores is proficient in medicine). Dolores was 14 when they were murdered by raiders (looking for chems) that the NCR should have protected them against. No siblings or extended family.

Languages: English (first language), Spanish (asks Raul to help her become fluent) Disabilities/Illnesses/Injuries: Likely brain damage from being shot twice in the head by Benny. Multiple scars from injuries sustained whilst travelling. Scars: Forehead (left) scarring from when Benny shot her x2 and from Doc Mitchell’s surgery. Chest, head and spinal scarring from the Think Tank’s surgeries (the Auto-doc can only do it’s best to minimise these). Various limb & torso scars from buckshot & bullets, knife wounds to arms, scarring on knuckles from fist fights. Clothing: Regulator duster, Recon Armour, Stealth Suit MK II (the AI drives her mad and she is extremely grateful when Raul manages to silence it), Authority Glasses, Party Hat, Pre-War Spring Outfit, Sexy Sleepwear Fashion Style/Lifestyle: Wears Light armour to aid agility & movement, when relaxing likes to feel pretty (also likes to dress nicely for her lovers). Enjoys people’s reactions to wearing silly clothes especially if a situation is serious/tense. Weapon of Choice: Melee: Combat knife/Baseball bat. One handed guns: That Gun/A Light Shining in Darkness. Two-handed Guns: Hunting Shotgun/Sniper Rifle. Rarely uses Energy Weapons but likes Pew Pew. Doesn’t use Heavy Weaponry (she’s agile rather than strong). Skills: Proficiency with Repair, Lock-picking, Medicine, Speech. Has good endurance and athleticism (essential for Couriers). Will use Speech & charisma before resorting to violence. Weaknesses: Sarcastic, impatient, kleptomaniac Faction: Yes Man Friendly Factions: Caesar’s Legion. Due to relationship with Vulpes, she is able to trade with the Legion & visit the Fort. She saves Caesar’s life by scrounging parts for the Auto-doc (she isn’t proficient enough in medicine to perform the surgery herself). She carries out several requests by them but stops short of fully allying with them because of their treatment of women, her distrust of Lenius and her fears over the safety of Vulpes should Lenius take over the Legion from Caesar. Boomers: She realises they could be a great asset so clears out the ant’s nest and charms the kids with teddies, dinosaurs and rockets and finds herself readily accepted by the rocket-loving Boomers. Great Khans: Approves of their lifestyle & probably would have joined them if they had more power & influence. Enjoys a very casual relationship with Jack (until she meets Vulpes). Followers of the Apocalypse: Admires them greatly. Wishes she was a good enough person to join them. Attempts to aid Freeside because of them. Wishes Arcade would join with her, but he declines due to her reputation with Caesar. The Kings: Loves to visit The Kings to see Rex (H/C that The King & Rex are reunited once Rex gets a new brain), also enjoys the stage shows. Aided the Kings vs NCR because fuck the NCR. Hasn't as yet cashed in The King’s ‘favour’. Enemies: Is very careful to appear friendly to all factions, though loathes NCR. She thinks they are ineffectual, weak and will cause the collapse of New Vegas if they ‘win’. Hates bureaucracy & sees them as little more than ‘Enclave lite’. Of course blames them for her parents death. Fiends/Vipers/Jackals: Tries to keep far away from these groups as you cannot reason with them. Powder Gangers: Idiots with dynamite. Neutral Affiliations: Gomorrah: Despite herself, she finds Cachino charming, so helps him rid the casino of Big Sal & Nero. Warns Cachino that if he abuses any more women she’ll castrate him. Also aids Joana escape with Carlito. White Gloves: Stopped the cannibalism, would have burnt the whole place to the ground if she didn’t think the Strip needed the casino. Likes: Blamco Mac & Cheese, reading, repairing electronics & weapons, singing (badly) along with ED-E to the radio, dogs, Nuka-Cola, sleeping, exploring, hiking, hacking pre-war technology, swimming, fresh fruit, listening to Vulpes tell her tales from the Legion whilst they cuddle Dislikes: Cazadors, NCR, having your brain removed without being asked, stones under her bedroll, feeling cold, sleeping alone, litter/rubbish (can spend hours tidying before feeling comfortable somewhere. Both her parents were fastidious to the point of neuroticism and demanded cleanliness in the home as well as in their clinic, if Dolores is nervous or stressed she exhibits similar ‘clean freak’ tendencies to her parents.), bureaucracy & saluting. Friends: ED-E, Raul, Lily, Vulpes Inculta, Red Lucy, Jack (Great Khans), Rex, Fisto, Boomer kids Acquaintances: Boone, Veronica, Arcade, The King. Former friends: Cass (Cass disapproved of her relationship with Vulpes and her friendliness with the Legion, Dolores got fed up with being threatened by Cass so told her to fuck off, & wasn’t surprised or saddened when Cass did just that.) Enemies: Benny (feigned seduction, then stabbed him in the throat with a concealed switch-blade. Shot him in the head with Maria to make sure he was dead.) Personality: Sarcastic, dry sense of humour, intelligent, open, cheerful, charming, happy to help if she believes you are good for the world and her, sexually open. Trusts her gut feelings and easily becomes mistrustful; particularly after almost being murdered (you have to be or you’ll end up in a shallow grave), gets a thrill from stealing & finds it too hard to stop.                                   ______________________ Other info: Adores ED-E. Cried for a week after the Lonesome Road and wishes she could go back and blow everyone up to try to save ED-E #2 (Even though this doesn’t actually work in the game, you sadly lose the little dude no matter what you chose). Has Raul set up a long range radio receiver on ED-E #1, so she can find new radio stations because if she hears ‘Johnny Guitar’ just 1 more time she’ll kill someone. Loves travelling with Raul. He’s non-judgemental, funny, and she loves his Vaquero outfit. He helps her with her Spanish & repair skills, she helps him feel useful again. They make a great team of gunslingers. Raul moves from his cabin to live in Jacobstown in one of the spare cabins. Dolores is so happy she gets to visit Lily AND Raul when she visits Jacobstown. After Hoover Dam Doores is given one of the cabins meaning she can stay whenever she likes. Misses her ‘Grandma’ Lily and visits often when she feels it’s safe enough to return to the Mojave. Travelled with Boone to REPCONN but was terrified he’d kill her if he found out about her and Vulpes/The Legion, so let him return to Novac. Travelled with Veronica for a while. After returning from the Sierra Madre she tells Veronica about Christine, and together they return to the hotel so Veronica and Christine could be reunited. Knows she’s playing a dangerous game with the Legion and worries she’ll end up enslaved, and knows one day she’ll have to betray them. She is terrified of losing Vulpes or worse, that he’ll kill her or she’ll have to try to kill him. Tells Vulpes of her concerns re: Legate Lenius and begs Vulpes to leave the Legion & California before he’s murdered by Lenius. Vulpes disappears before the battle at Hoover Dam. 8 months later, Dolores can be seen travelling with a blond haired man and ED-E (the Playing Card set you can get from the Special edition has Vulpes with blond hair so this is why I h/c him bleaching his hair at the end as part of his disguise). Greatly enjoys being a Courier. She loves to explore and see other lifestyles and meet new people. The events of New Vegas take their toll on Dolores and she can feel her normally cheerful personality being whittled down. She becomes short tempered and judgemental, resorting more and more to violence. To try to temper this she spends time talking with Arcade. She knows how he feels about her affiliation with the Legion and is glad he still keeps friendly with her (despite declining to travel with her). Whenever she’s in Freeside or nearby, she makes a point to visit the Followers to not just add to her medical skills, but to spend time with those worse off than her so she can see how others are affected by the Legion & NCR. This helps her make up her mind to go with Yes Man.

[thenixkat]

Animorphs notes 50

Book 50

In the final count down

We start with a fucking Cassie book.

Who is scraping their slave’s blades together in the middle of a fight?

Who decided to start haveing hork bodies make a weird pretty much impossible noise given the fucking placement of their blades. 

Also still no distinction b/w enslaved people and the people controlling them

… Cassie’s skin… is already brown… ya know what? I don’t care, I’ve already revoked her Black card for a while now

So this was an exercise. One that Cassie failed.

Also since when was Toby’s speech ‘guttural’?

Also just doubling down on this staying put for siege warfare nonsense from 47 huh?

Imagine if yall decided to break this shit to yer families b4 u were forced to do so

Well at least they have a new camp and didn’t inside on staying in the old one. It’s a start

Hell yeah hork-bajir construction and engineering prowess

If Jake really gave a damn about the saftey of his parents he’d have fucking made a second attempt to rescue his brother

He should blame himself

I mean I’ve mostly ignored Tobias but this whole wild hawk thing reads like an extended suicide attempt that the universe just won’t take him up on

hammers i get axes and saws? Why? horks... are axes and saws

Cassie's mom needs to not be specist

also of course the parents aren't allowed to have any competence. they are damseles who can't fight and need to be babysat by horks. also! the animorphs never consider giving their parents morphing just incase to protect themselves. Except for Loren but there’s lot to unpack there and I’d rather just throw out the suitcase

also why the fuck would Cassie's mom, a fucking veterinarian not understand that people could die? Vets have to deal with death and injury and unpleasant shit. Ya know the realities of nature and chance and the horrible things that happen to animals and what people can do to animals

but that would mean actually making the parents characters and not just devices to show how much the Animorphs have 'grown' and how people who'bve never been to war can't possibly understand it

I’ve not forgotten Marco deliberately leaving his stepmom to be enslaved b/c he likes his first mom better

Also the Animorphs are def falling apart

i wish the parents were allowed to act like actual people

When I say the ableist shit in Animorphs I don’t just mean the shit with the physically disabled characters

Rachel didn’t touch them? At no point in that segment did she touch her mom. This is book 34 all over again when the writer changing events a paragraph apart. My kingdom for a fucking editor

Ah it just seemed like she was talking to Rachel and not the horks. I will not delete my previous point

and the series had been trying to make a point of painting Rachel as needlessly violient and dangerous for a good while now it just felt like something the writers would do

*Note: I don’t actually put my full conversations with Ach in these

Cassie yer the last person who can be calling people cowards

A functional team leader would know the second in command just incase anything happened

Tobias seems to be hanging out in human shape more

The hork-bajir are getting on just fine Cassie and would be great without yall

… I’m just gonna assume that Toomin took all the parents brains b/c them being functional would get in the way of his plans

I’m just gonna start skipping shit b/c thsi is very poorly written

Is this implying that Toby has an underbite?

Just assuming that the yeerk resistance has been crushed or can’t help

All the animorphs are speciest as fuck and deserve to fucking lose this fight

“So it has to be people” I hate these kids i hate these kids i hate these kids

Writers: Purposely makes the adults behave with no sense or realism at all

Writers: Are to uncreative to use the hork-bajir Writers: Guess the only solution is to throw more kids at the meat grinder and let's sprinkle in some ableism

The yeerks have very advanced prosthetics/medical technology and a body is a body you ableist hacks

...The yeerks would know that morphing heals people you cunts VISSER 3 FUCKING EXISTS\

Pointing out yer inconsistencies doesn’t make it better

I don’t  give a shit about yer romo worries

You’d think these fuckers would wear a different face than their own but that ould imply they can think

Part of me just loves the ‘fuck off’ energy that girls have for Marco. 

More ableism. There was no rudeness on the part of the stuttering boy or the girls expecting the Animorphs to fucking stick around and wait for what he had to say

I like James

James and friends are a good.

Like it feels like an entirely different actually competent writer showed up for a few scenes

Annnnd now we’re back to shit. Collette you and yours did nothing wrong or dude

Kelly has exactly the right attitude. And Timmy’s probably the only asian person outside of Allison Kim in this whole fucking series.

hell yeah James kick his ass!

I wanna see Kelly kick their asses too! Cassie is racist against romani people

honestly I would have prefered it if James didn't give a shit about Jake turning into a tiger. something like, "That ain't gonna help you beat me jackass"

listen take it to the ultimate level, mount some dracon beams to his chair and just have him fucking go at the yeerk forces and kick their asses

Call their asses out James

Not everyone is willing or able to put their lives on the line and that’s fine. Not everyone is a warrior or willing to throw away their lives. There’s more roles in a war than just fighting

Oh who coulda guessed that the important one would be healed by morphing

i am not well versed enough in disability issues to rip that apart but i know enough that it should be shredded

You had several fucking choices that you decided not to go with b/c the writers are hacks

Huh neat the yeerks predicted them and attacked

Nice. I love some competence. The unnammed yeerk leads the capture of the majority of teh Animorphs

Kelly's battle morph is a fucking walrus! that's awsome

Everyone’s competence has flushed into the void

booo Kelly has a perfictly good walrus

Tobias isn’t morphed oh forget it

One of the yeerk resistence actually did something!

Thanks Cassie! You’ve fucked over yer side and will have much more blood on yer hands. 

Also Jake continues to not give a singular shit about rescuing his brother

And that ends the book

[thecorteztwins]

Fabian Cortez vs The Serpent Society

[Context: During the early 90s, Fabian was not only leader of the Acolytes, but a member of the Upstarts as well. Long story short, the Upstarts were a sort of supervillain competition between rich young bored mutants, refereed by the telepathic “Gamesmaster” who put forth the tasks and awarded the points.] “You see, Gamesmaster?” Fabian proclaimed with dramatic pride as he held up the glittering cube, “I, the Supreme Mutant, have succeeded where all the other Upstarts have failed! I have conquered all obstacles in my path with grand ease! I have obtained the---wait, what was it called again?” “The MacGuffin”, explained the telepathic projection of the Gamesmaster, a bald omnipath who shockingly was NOT Charles Xavier despite their similiar powers and hairless heads. “But you need do more than that, Fabian Cortez. To win this challenge, you need not only obtain it...but hold on to it for the next 24 hours.” “Pfft”, scoffed the Supreme Mutant with utmost confidence, “That is no challenge at all!” “Let us see how you feel 24 hours from now” said the Gamesmaster, as the psychic vision faded away from Fabian’s eyes. Fabian, however, was undaunted, “24 hours from now---I will have my reward!” *** Though twenty four hours had not yet passed even halfway yet, Fabian had decided to gloat and celebrate in advance. He took out the Cava---only Americans though champagne was classy---cranked up the hot tub, and, MacGuffin beside him within his reach, turned on the hologram projector above the bubble where he watched. Ah, it was like a vision of things to come---including him---once he was finally given his due.  He had just started to really relax when security klaxon sounded, accompanied by the sound of a woman cursing. No, several women! “Mamba, I thought you got them all!” “Asp’s sting blasts are what were supposed to disable them!” “Will you two bimbos stop yer bickering?! He’s gonna hear us!” “Something tells me he’s already aware we are here, Anaconda.” To Fabian Cortez, brilliant schemer and strategist that he was, it was obvious what was happening.  And he was ready for it. *** “Keep your guard up, ladies”, warned Asp as she and her two comrades slunk through the building, “The alarm is off. He knows we’re here. Yet nothing has yet happened. That in itself is suspc---” She was cut off by a booming, bombastic voice. “LADIES!”

On the platform above, a spotlight suddenly shown down. Standing upon the former and under the latter was a tall muscular redheaded man,wering naught a tiny towel around his waist, and a cape around his shoulders. Said cape was blowing backwards despite lack of wind, as was his lustrously conditioned ponytail. “Get him, Ana!” yelled Black Mamba. “I ain’t touchin that guy,” protested Anaconda, the muscle of their outfit, “He’s naked!” “I know what you have come for,” Fabian continued at the trio, flipping his hair dramatically, his gaze smoldering. “Then hand it over, pretty boy!” snarled Anaconda. Fabian smirked, “Gladly.” And he removed towel. Asp screamed, firing a venom blast in shock. Sadly, her distress caused her to miss her target, and she only singed the wall behind him. “What are you doing?!” Black Mamba demanded “He’s---he’s---” Asp was covering her eyes. “Not you---YOU!” Black Mamba pointed at Fabian while shielding her own gaze as well with her other hand. “Put your towel back on, are you crazy?!” It wasn’t that the women had never seen a dick before. Hell, Mamba was once a professional escort, Asp was an exotic dancer at a strip club, and Anaconda, despite frequently being stereotyped as playing for the other team, had been caught more than once making out with Puff Adder. So they were none of them blushing virgins. But dammit, there was a time and a place for dicks!  “This is what you have come for is it not?” Fabian smirked at his own display,   “Or...will come for.” “Ana please!” Asp pleaded, “We’ll give you 45% instead of 33%, just kill him now!” “Fine, ya pansies, I’ll do it,” Anaconda’s muscular arms extended an impossible length towards where Fabian stood far above them,  “Guess I can just wash my hands after!” But speaking of washing, Fabian was still wet from the jacuzzi, causing him to slip out from Anaconda’s death grip like a particularly gross bar of soap. He leaped on to one of her massive arms and used it as a sort of bridge to slide down to where the trio where, jumping dramatically before them. “Not you!” he pointed at the baffled Anaconda, “You freakish barely-female monstrosity, you are nowhere near adequetly comely for the harem of Lord Cortez!” While Asp and Black Mamba were a pair of very conventionally attractive beauties, Anaconda was...well, she was not. Even before she had undergone the procedure that had given her scales on her skin and gills on her face along with her powers, she’d been an extremely tall woman who was, to put it frankly, built like a brick shithouse. And she hadn’t been given much of a pretty mug to make up for it either. She’d learned to take pride in other things, but she still didn’t appreciate this kind of smack talk coming from a bozo like this Cortez scrub! “I’ll give you twos BACK that extra percent if you shut him up!” she shouted, as she knocked Fabian over with the biggest backhand in the world to his entire side. “No problem, said Mamba, conjuring Darkforce energy, “Much as I hate to give this creep what he wants...” The Darkforce granted slightly different powers to everyone who could tap into it. In the case of Black Mamba, it would take on the form of the person that the target loved or sexually desired most...and make love to them as it drained their very life. “Remember, our orders are NOT to kill him!” Asp reminded her, despite having ordered her other teammate to do exactly that just moments ago, “Just to get the MacGuffin and get out---but we must leave him alive! As we were instructed!” “Pity,” scoffed Black Mamba as the Darkfoce energy swarmed the fallen Fabian like smoky Jell-O, “You could have died in ecstasy. Something tells me your eventual end at other hands won’t be half as nice as my love phantoms here could make it.” Phantoms, plural. Usually it was just one per customer, but it looked like this guy had a whole harem’s worth for the Darkforce to drawn on. Most were impossibly gorgeous women like herself, but some of them were duplicates of HIMSELF! Despite having only known him for a few minutes, this didn’t surprise Black Mamba much at all. Leaving the man writhing and moaning on the floor with the shadowy “skins” she had created, as she liked to call them, she and her fellow Serpent Society mercenaries ran off to locate the MacGuffin. *** ”Alright, lover boy, time to snap out of it.” The MacGuffin had been found, but as Asp had stated, the orders from their contractor was that Fabian Cortez had to survive its acquisition. Thus, Black Mamba had returned to release him from his sweet release while the other Serpents waited in the getaway chopper. There were so many Darkforce phantom women and Cortez-clones covering the guy that she actually couldn’t SEE him until she willed them to dissipate away...and given how he looked at this point, she really wished she didn’t HAVE to see him. ”Oh good, you’re alive,” she said, though her tone did not match her words. ”Wha...que...” he looked around dumbly from the floor, barely able to lift his disheveled head up. In typical comic book character fashion, Black Mamba explained to him exactly what had happened, and how her powers worked. ”Well, obviously your abilities were malfunctioning!” he snapped at her. Looked like he was gaining some energy back. That was fast. ”Oh?” she raised an eyebrow. This was not an uncommon accusation; people tended to be ashamed at what her powers revealed about their real selves, their real wants, their real fantasies. ”How so?” ”There was Quicksilver in there!” Fabian shouted, his wind really coming back now, “Why was HE mixed in with my well-deserved harem of WOMEN?! Is this some perverse prank?! Some secret kink of yours?!” “Sounds like it might be a kink of YOURS, buddy,” Black Mamba drolled. The guy was made that this one other dude was in there...and not that there had been about five duplicates of himself? Hmm, did it count as bisexuality if you were only attracted to your clones and not anyone else of the same sex? Except this Quicksilver guy too, apparently... “Anyway, I’ll just be going now,” she turned and started to prance away, ”Thanks for th--” “Oh no you don’t.” To Mamba’s shocked, she felt a strong hand wrap around her delicate wrist, and gasped despite herself. How had he gotten to his feet so fast?! She turned, and found his horribly leering face staring down into hers.  “You were a naughty girl, Miss...Mamba, was it? You need to make that up to m---” And that was when a real live woman, not a hologram or a Darkforce illusion, touched Fabian’s genitals that day. Specifically, she grabbed and squeezed and TWISTED. As the HOWL of the “Supreme Mutant” echoed throughout his headquarters, Black Mamba dashed out to the waiting helicopter. “I better get a BONUS for that!” she said as she climbed in. “What?” Anaconda asked. “....you don’t wanna know,” Black Mamba decided she didn’t want to explained. As they took off, she looked at the secured MacGuffin cube. “What did the Gamesmaster guy say was so valuable about this thing again?” “He said it gets the plot going,” Asp shrugged, “Whatever that means.” END

[myfandomrambles]

You know I watched girl meets world first. But boy meets world still is like the better one to me. Like even though I’m only one year older than Maya & Riley the original group is more relatable.

Some of the problems are.

Maya is supposed to be Shawn? This doesn’t work for me because she doesn’t go through as extreme things She has one trauma (her dad leaving). Then her mom is set up to be like Chet (in girl meets Maya’s mom) But they don’t follow through. She gets the job at Topanga’s and is actively a good mother after that point.The show also makes it so she was always a good mother (The storm scene). I don’t Chet or Verna would ever sit with him. Katy was absent but never abusive. Shawns parents were. So the parallel is there however it feels weak. However, The depression storyline parallel is strong. The lack of hope, lack of self-esteem, and destructive tendencies. 

Is Maya Riley’s Shawn or Topanga? They start with very obvious Maya&rRley are the 21st-century female reboot of Shawn&Cory. But as the show goes on they seem to relate their relationship more with Cory/Topanga (See “extraordinary relationship”).  I think this comes from maybe the writers wanted to go full gay but were stopped (Rowan supports Maya/Reilly). This gives a frustrating feeling to what Maya and Riley are to each other. I see Maya’s wanting to be Riley and get in between her and Lucas is much more about wanting Riley as well as wanting her life.

Cory tells them what to think not how to think. Cory outright states the message of each episode/lesson not letting them think for themselves ever. It’s patronizing in the highest order. It’s reductive to the spirit of the original story. It’s not like Feeney or Mr Turner who gave advice but didn’t give the answer. Cory also made the class about the kids versus in boy meets world it’s more of a coincidence that things line up. Cory literally tells them the meaning of life. Which is so conceded and heavy-handed. Feeny’s relationship to the kids as grandfather/teacher versus bio dad also let then learn from more people in the show instead of it being the same person all the time.

 The Love Triangle. The love triangle is annoying as fuck. Now I know BMW did it with Eric/Jack/Rachel. But it was more of a side plot and was resolved faster than gmw. It wasn’t their main character arc either. The gmw love triangle became all-consuming. It also became a major factor in who Riley and Maya were. It was a key part in Riley “growing up” and Maya’s identity crisis. Lucas also suffered by “dateable dude ” being 80% of his character.

No sex. Okay, i know this is by virtue of it being a Disney channel show. But bud I lost my virginity in eighth grade. And by the time they are sophomores they are defiantly having sex. BMW included this and the more general dating game. Shawn had sex and Cory didn’t. One wasn’t better but it was there. They missed a big aspect of growing up when that is the main motif of the show. they vaguely alluded to the perilous of boys but its all in a very innocent way. The couples in the show are all adorkable and not very romantic even when they are the centre of the show.

Cut and paste scripts. You can extend a universe with the same characters without this. Todd Hunter is a good example. Heck, the cursed child (don’t get me started on that). The mountain & the “cool teacher” come to mind as examples of this. These moments don’t feel like a homage it feels cheap. Good version of this is somehow cory being their teacher every year, and three of the core characters meeting as kids.

Riley often coming across as too oblivious. She has some good moments. With the bullying, being kind to Maya, and her propensity to need to reinvent herself. But the latter is played for jokes and a lot of the meaning of that issue is glossed over and never addressed.

Cory being way too unobservant and oblivious. He doesn’t recognize in Maya’s behaviour that it is similar to Shawn’s for a long time. Until Mya flat out explains “dad is gone, mom uninvolved”. Also, how did he not know Maya’s dad left them like 9 years after the event? That I think was just bad writing and ended up being a plot whole considering it seems like he is more aware later on. 

Cory Matthew’s preachy but. 

Starting with “people change people”, okay wtf does that even really mean? They say it 100000x and it never even makes sense. like how is that the meaning of life? That’s a thing because your environment shapes who you are. but they say it like its so profound. A regular 30something yr o man knows the universal meaning of life not likely? It is a good idea that you can and are influenced by those around you, so be a nice person. 

 Then you have the “us & them”There is a fact that the USA is a richer country but cory has to know there are people living in poverty in his town. Shawn didn’t have food or new clothes as a kid? Also, how does he know none of the kids in his class isn't haven’t been homeless? maybe one of your kids came from a shelter. Also, Maya doesn’t have as much money as Riley does. Her house leaks and if her mom had to work a billion hours it’s probable they lived with less earlier on. We know she didn’t have a nice smartphone or art supplies so she wasn’t as much of an “us” as Riley. Also what about people who live in abusive households? Who goes home to being beat, who get plates thrown at their heads? What if one of them was chronically ill? What if they had cancer? Like he uses the idea that he is a white, straight, non abused, healthy, upper-middle-class man then all of them have that privilege? also, the message is a good one. Giving back to the community is a good thing to do. It absolutely is! But using a guilt trip to get the message across? BS. Telling a severely disabled kid that they are an “us” and shouldn’t feel bad about their position in life? that sucks. Telling a kid with no food that they are an us? THEY AREN’T!

Those are the top 9 issues.

Agree? Disagree? let me know

[aion-rsa]

What the Mank Ending Leaves Out About Orson Welles and Citizen Kane

https://ift.tt/2VFtrLe

This article contains Mank spoilers. You can read our review here.

It’s like the climax of a Western. Two men stare across from each other in a showdown of ego and calculation. And Gary Oldman’s Herman J. Mankiewicz (or “Mank”) has just told Orson Welles (Tom Burke) he wants writing credit for the Citizen Kane screenplay. This is not going to end well.

Before this moment, Welles had been conciliatory to Mank, feigning concern for his health and offering to take sole rewriting duties on the gargantuan script. He’s even providing $10,000 from RKO Pictures as a consolation. It’s of course more bribe than bonus. Yet as Welles realizes that he might have to share credit, or worse have no credit at all for a screenplay we just watched Mankiewicz write alone for two hours, the budding director throws a temper tantrum worthy of Charles Foster Kane, and Mankiewicz uses it as inspiration for exactly that—hubris run amok.

In the end, Welles is unmasked as a bully and an opportunist: a charlatan who wants to claim credit for a masterful screenplay that is all Mank’s, at least according to Mank. Yet the movie’s “Boy Genius from New York” wasn’t smart enough to see the writing on the wall about how the newly formed Screen Writers Guild would arbitrate this, nor did he predict that when Mank finally accepted his eventual screenwriting Oscar from his front lawn he’d say, “I am very happy to accept this award in the manner in which the screenplay was written, which is to say in the absence of Orson Welles.”

Is all this true? Did Welles put his name on a screenplay he didn’t help write a word of? It’s a question that has bedeviled the legend of Citizen Kane for 50 years, and even longer if you consider how many decades before that most people just believed the “Boy Genius” created everything substantial in Kane out of whole cloth. That myth is perhaps why Pauline Kael created one of her own when she published her 50,000-word essay “Raising Kane” across two volumes in The New Yorker in 1971—an account of Citizen Kane’s creation that suggests Mankiewicz alone wrote the script.

The Influence of Pauline Kael and “Raising Kane”

Kael’s essay, which is the clear basis for Mank, has been discredited in the ensuing years as inaccurate, unfair to Welles, and at best sloppy (or at worst intentionally misleading). But it makes for a hell of a story, which five decades on still finds life in David Fincher’s new Netflix film.

“Orson Welles wasn’t around when Citizen Kane was written, early in 1940,” Kael emphatically stated midway through the first volume of “Raising Kane.” Rather, she’d eventually elaborate, he was too “deeply entangled in the radio shows and other activities and a romance with Dolores Del Rio” to be bothered to do anything at Victorville’s dude ranch but stop by to have dinner once with Mankiewicz. In his absence, Kael paints a picture of a disabled Mank dictating the masterpiece of his script, more or less fully formed, to secretary Rita Alexander—and with the good support of Welles’ one-time business partner and now increasingly estranged middleman, John Houseman.

In Kael’s telling, “Welles probably made suggestions in his early conversations with Mankiewicz, and since he received copies of the work weekly while it was in progress at Victorville, he may have given advice by phone or letter. Later, he almost certainly made suggestions for cuts that helped Mankiewicz hammer the script into tighter form, and he is known to have made a few changes on the set.”

Basic key facts that Kael had access to while researching her essay would call this account into question, including how Welles and Mankiewicz spent five weeks in consultation, hatching out the general story of the film, as well as Welles simultaneously penning his own rough draft while Mank was in Victorville. But the blind spots turned out to be even bigger than these oversights.

So why the omissions? In part, as with Fincher after her, Kael clearly wanted to shine a light on one of Hollywood’s forgotten talents, as well as his entire generation of early talkie screenwriters. Unlike the playwrights and script doctors who came after him, Mankiewicz arrived in Hollywood as part of a singular era in the New York literary world, a member of the fabled “Algonquin Club” who came to Tinseltown for easy work and fat paychecks.

As Mank famously telegraphed to his buddy Ben Hecht, “MILLIONS ARE TO BE GRABBED OUT HERE AND YOUR ONLY COMPETITION IS IDIOTS.” But as Kael sharply illuminated, writers were one of the least valued cogs in the machinery of Golden Age Hollywood’s assembly line. They gladly took the money, but disdained the business as much as themselves.

“The vacation became an extended drunken party, and while they were there in the debris of the long morning after, American letters passed them by,” Kael opined. Mankiewicz, a journalist who wrote (often drunkenly) for The New York Times and The New Yorker, came to Hollywood and sold his soul—but then got little of the credit he deserved for doing so. That includes his immeasurable contributions to Citizen Kane.

Mank highlights elements from Mankiewicz’s own personal biography that became essential to crafting the 1941 masterpiece. Obviously Mankiewicz’s friendships with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance in the film) and his movie star mistress Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried) informed much—though crucially not all—of the biography of Charles Foster Kane (Welles) and Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore) in Kane. Other episodes in the ’41 film were also lifted from Mank’s own life. Kael underlines a good one where Mank fell asleep drunk at his typewriter while writing a scathing theater review for The Times. It was so toxic his editor refused to publish it, similar to the experiences of Joseph Cotten’s Jedediah Leland in Kane.

These contributions had been obscured in the 30 years between Kane and Kael, with most only remembering Welles’ multi-hyphenated talent. And as the late ‘60s and early ‘70s rolled around, a new generation of film critics like Peter Bogdanovich and Andrew Sarris emerged with an almost worshipful reverence for the contribution of film directors. Sarris even coined “auteur theory,” and Kael became one of its biggest skeptics. It seems likely that “Raising Kane” was as much about tearing down “auteur theory,” and going after one of its adherents’ biggest idols, as it was meant to raise Mank up.

The problem, of course, is that for as much as Kael got Mankiewicz, she missed Welles—and the actual making of their picture—by miles.

What Mank Misses

Backlash to “Raising Kane” was fierce, with Sarris and Bogdanovich among its most vocal early critics. Indeed, both wrote pieces criticizing Kael, and Bogdanovich’s Esquire article, “The Kane Mutiny” published in 1972, proved to be the first major yank at unraveling Kael’s (and now Mank’s) version of events. Hardly an uninterested party—Bogdanovich was a protégé and friend of Welles, who likely had input on “The Kane Mutiny” from Welles himself—Bogdanovich nonetheless did something Kael failed at: legwork that could corroborate her story.

For starters Bogdanovich unearthed much of the research for “Raising Kane” was not done by Kael but UCLA film professor Howard Suber. “Raising Kane” was originally intended (and eventually published) as the introduction to a screenplay book on the movie titled The Citizen Kane Book (1971). Kael agreed to write an introduction in part so she could publish it as an excerpt elsewhere, but she also agreed to co-author the introduction with Suber, who’d been researching Kane for years. In the end, she wrote her epic alone, but with Suber’s treasure trove of material. Yet she failed to mention his name once in 50,000 words.

Bogdanovich interviewed Suber about these events and the professor came to a very different conclusion than Kael, saying, “After months of investigation… I regard the authorship of Kane as a very open question. Unfortunately, both sides would have to be consulted, and Miss Kael never spoke to Mr. Welles, which as I see it, violates all the principles of historical research.” For that comment, Kael declared she’d never return to UCLA until Suber apologized. He waited until after her death to speak publicly in detail about how he was supposed to co-write the original introduction.

Read more

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The vision Mank offers of the screenplay’s origins existing exclusively in Victorville seems based primarily on the accounts of two people who were there: Houseman, Welles’ bitter ex-partner who spent much of the rest of his life criticizing Welles on all matters, and Rita Alexander, whom Kael described as saying, “Welles didn’t write (or dictate) one line of the shooting script of ‘Citizen Kane.’”

That might be Alexander’s account, but Bogdanovich reached out to Welles’ own secretary, Kathryn Trosper, who likewise typed out much of Welles’ version of a script written concurrently with Mank’s, as well as the subsequent drafts that Welles worked on. “Then I’d like to know what was all that stuff I was always typing for Mr. Welles!” Trosper responded.

More convincingly are the accounts of major third party figures Kael referenced but never interviewed, like Charles Lederer. As another screenwriter who was good friends with Mank, and nephew to Marion Davies, Lederer is played in Fincher’s film by Joseph Cross as a man loyal to both his aunt and pseudo-mentor. He also is the go-between who Oldman’s Mankiewicz gives a copy of American (Citizen Kane’s original title) to, in order to decide if Marion would be upset. The fallout of letting the script into Hearst-friendly hands nearly derails Kane’s release. This is also how Kael described events in her essay, even though she never reached out to Lederer. Bogdanovich did.

“That is one hundred percent, whole-cloth false,” Lederer said in 1972, revealing he received the script from someone else within the industry. “I gave it back to him. He asked me if I thought Marion would be offended and I said I didn’t think so.”

Regarding authorship, Lederer said, “Manky was always complaining and sighing about Orson’s changes. And I heard from Benny [Hecht] too, that Manky was terribly upset. But you see, Manky was a great paragrapher—he wasn’t really a picture writer. I read his script of the film—the long one called American—before Orson really got to changing it and making his vision of it—and I thought it was pretty dull.” He would go on to add, “Orson vivified the material, changed it a lot, transcended it with his direction.”

As early as ’72, Bogdanovich picked apart Kael’s essay, from finding a 1941 affidavit by Richard Barr, executive assistant on the film, where he stated Welles made revisions that included dialogue, changing sequences and characterizations, and creating new scenes, to also citing Lederer’s claim that Kane never had its writing credits arbitrated by the Screen Writers Guild. This contradicts Kael’s assertion that the guild forced Welles to accept Mankiewicz’s name on the screenplay—and first above his own.

However, it has since been confirmed that Mankiewicz did lodge a protest with the Screen Writers Guild in 1940 before withdrawing it. He clearly worried about receiving credit because he had genuinely agreed to go uncredited on the script. The primary reason for this arrangement was because RKO’s contract stipulated that wunderkind Welles was to write, direct, produce, and star in his own movies. The studio didn’t want the mystique impugned by a co-writer. Whether Welles personally orchestrated this is unknown, but after Mank made noises and RKO decided (without the guild’s intervention) to give Mank credit, it was Welles’ decision to give Mankiewicz first credit. Assistant Richard Wilson recalled Welles circling Mankiewicz’s name and drawing an arrow to move it in front of his own for the end credits.

Beginning in 1978, film professor Robert L. Carringer offered the definitive rebuttal to Kael, and therefore Mank’s, story. First with “The Scripts of Citizen Kane” and then The Making of Citizen Kane, Carringer analyzed all seven drafts of the script, from the original 266-page behemoth Mankiewicz turned in from Victorville to the 156-page shooting script, with Welles being held chiefly responsible for most or all of the changes after the third draft.

Among Carringer’s discoveries, significant lines like “If I hadn’t been very rich, I might have been a great man” are attributed to Welles, as are several of the film’s most significant sequences, such as Kane’s loveless first marriage being conveyed through a series of dissolves at the couple’s breakfast table over the decades.

Carringer concluded, “[Mankiewicz’s] principal contributions were the story frame, a cast of characters, and a good share of the dialogue… Welles added the narrative brilliance – the visual and verbal wit, the stylistic fluidity, and such stunningly original strokes as the newspaper montages and the breakfast table sequence. He also transformed Kane from a cardboard fictionalization of Hearst into a figure of mystery and epic magnificence.”

Reconsidering Orson Welles and ‘Auteurs’

The truth is Welles wasn’t there when Mank wrote his first draft—though even that occurred after more than a month of story meetings between the two men—but he did write many of the later drafts; and he wrote enough to deserve co-screenwriting credit.

It’s easy to understand the frustration for many about Mank being overlooked, including Mank’s own resentment. After the Citizen Kane premiere, where attendees were greeted to a program declaring Welles the author, director, producer, and star, Mankiewicz wrote to his father, “I’m particularly furious at the incredibly insolent description of how Orson wrote his masterpiece. The fact is that there isn’t one single line in the picture that wasn’t in writing—writing from and by me—before ever a camera turned.”

Yet this resentment, which in turn eventually fueled Kael and now Fincher, is divorced from reality.

Auteur theory is flawed and certainly not perfect. While some directors can clearly leave a signature on their body of work that is distinct, filmmaking is still a collaborative process, and emphasis on the director too often cultivates neglect for many other talents. But Kael, and now Fincher after her, seem so determined to undermine the concept that they created an ideological prism of their own, which is separated from the actual truth.

In a recent interview with Premiere, Fincher said, “Sure, there is genius in Citizen Kane, who could argue? But when Welles says, ‘It only takes an afternoon to learn everything there is to know about cinematography,’ pfff… Let’s say that this is the remark of someone who has been lucky to have Gregg Toland around to prepare the next shot.”

This is a fair critique of Welles’ boast in the 1970s on The Dick Cavett Show that “technically the whole bag of movies can be learned in a day and a half.” This was braggadocious late night TV blather, then and now, which undervalues talents like Toland and Mank. And it informs Fincher’s vision of Welles as a Mephistophelian figure who slithers up to Oldman’s hospital bed to make a Faustian bargain. But it’s not the whole picture of Welles or his legacy.

After all, Welles was the first (and still one of few) directors to place cinematographer Toland on the same title card as himself in the end credits of Citizen Kane, giving the man equal due for the visual wonder of the film.

And in a more thoughtful interview Welles had with Bogdanovich in 1969, he said, “It’s impossible to say how much I owe to Gregg. He was superb… Up until then, cameramen were listed with about eight other names. Nobody those days—only the stars, director and the producer—got separate cards. Gregg deserved it, didn’t he?”

And as for Mank? In the same interview, Welles said, “I loved him. People did. He was much admired… [A lot of Hollywood writers] were pretty bitter and miserable. And nobody was more miserable, more bitter and funnier than Mank… A perfect monument of self-destruction. But you know when the bitterness wasn’t focused onto you—he was the best company in the world.”

While he additionally gave Mank credit for “rosebud” in that interview (his least favorite aspect in Kane), Welles also heaped praise on Mank writing the scene where Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloane) recounts seeing a girl on a ferry in 1896 and thinking about her every day since.

“That was all Mank,” Welles said, “it’s my favorite scene… If I were in hell and they gave me a day off and said what part of any movie you ever made do you want to see, I’d say the scene of Mank’s about Bernstein. All the rest could be better, but that was just right.”

Late in Fincher’s Mank, Herman insists the Susan Alexander character is not really based on his pal Marion Davies—just the idea people have about her. It’s an act of betrayal, but it doesn’t undermine how great Citizen Kane is. Similarly, Fincher’s devilish vision of Welles doesn’t undermine the quality of his superb film, even as the 21st century filmmaker is playing into Kael’s false, hatchet job of a portrait of him.

Later in life Welles regretted how people got the wrong idea about Davies from Kane, saying she and Hearst had a “right to be upset about that.” And if he were alive today, maybe he’d have a right to be upset about his portrayal in Mank.

Both inaccuracies make for good stories, and both are pure fiction.

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The post What the Mank Ending Leaves Out About Orson Welles and Citizen Kane appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[autismus-obscurus]

AutistAgent Dev undercover

Hey guys! I know my blog has been dead for a while. My internship in a psychiatric clinic started and I have to study for upcoming exams so I don’t really have time to blog much. But I’d like to write a little summary of the first two weeks to recuperate a bit and get my thoughts into order. To not spam your dash, the rest is under the cut.

SO, my internship is in a psychiatric clinic. To be more precise it’s part of a big institution that has everything from open and closed stations, to living spaces for elderly mentally ill people and heavily disabled peeps whodon’t have anyone else. I work at an outpost, the day clinic, meaning people come there from Monday to Friday from 8am to 4am. They’re not stable enough for a normal psychiatrist to work with, but also not so bad off they’d need to stay several weeks at the clinic. The “regular” time in the day clinic is six weeks, but it will be extended if necessary. The main buildings are on the other side of town, which is around 700m by foot, and we walk back and forth once, most of the time at least twice a day. I have never been so fit in my life. (Jk, but it’s been a while since I worked out regularly.) I think what most people don’t realize is how normal everyone looks. Even on the stations it doesn’t really look like a “mental hospital”. Sure, I haven’t seen the closed stations yet and my next intership might be a bit harder. But over here, those are all quite nice people who hit hard times. We have a lot of them with chronic pain, with depression and anxiety. At least half of them are sick because of their environment being shitty to them. Of the fifteen patients, five are women who got burnout because their partners manipulated them into doing everything for them. Trying to change their approach and not let themselves get pushed around is a big challenge and super draining. We have some that hit a low because of trauma, because of a loved one dying. It’s harsh, and it’s sad. The first few days were horrid. I slept really badly for a few days and was constantly tired. Add to that the stress of a new environment and lot of people around, I was a mess. On the third day I stared crying after a group because I picked up the emptions (mostly sadness) so intensely. Hyperempathy can be a bitch. I still get close to tears now and then, mostly when I’m extremely stressed because then my emotion regulation shuts down. The first few days I fled to the toilet very often to calm down. My stim pad and music helped a lot. In the second week I didn’t need it as often, but I still stim during groups, mostly by stroking the fabric of the chair I’m sitting on or wiggling my fingers. I’ve also noticed I rub my hands and arms a lot while speaking. A year ago I would have tried to suppress it, but screw that, I need to stim to survive this.

The people are really nice. The psychiatrist who is responsible for my internship is a cool dude who likes D&D and wear bow ties every day. I’ve started the mission to find out how many different bow ties he has. The number as of now is 8 and counting. None of them know autism very well so I doubt they’ll pick up on it, even though I don’t hide my stimming a whole lot. I still make eye contact, even though it’s as always pretty unstable. I have trouble focusing on a point, anywhere in the face, and all the years of training make it hard to not make eye contact. Conversations with the patients go reasonably well. I guess I really learned how to do smalltalk by now. (Pro tip: It’s always the same. I can’t tell how many times I’ve explained where I study, what I study, in which semester I am, and where I’m from and what route I take by car. Seriously.) I often accompany patients to therapies. The other therapists are super nice. A lot of the therapies benefit me as well. I like to think I wouldn’t need it unless I hit super hard times (I couldn’t either way, because then the insurance would act up and employers don’t like people with problems), but now that I’m here it’s really helpful since i get to see both sides, that of the patients and the reasoning behind it. I started drawing again, and finally got around to use pastels for the first time, for example. I bought my own pack now and will start to practise portraits so I have something to sign should a band I like give autographs on a festival. The relaxation sessions are pretty chill too, after I gave up on meditation for lack of time. I even got around to work out again. (And caught a cold, woo.) We did a small trip to a nearby city in the Netherlands, which was hella cold and also entailed me not finding shit. At least I saw a bunch of cute dogs. Surprisingly, the conversation once went to gender stuff and the toilet situation. Surprise, not actually surprised, there’s people (women, in this case) who don’t want only unisex toilets. Why? Because they don’t want any other gender, with the reasioning, hold on this is gold, the men always freak out as well when a woman comes into their bathrooms. I was mad at first but if I think about it now, it’s hilarious. The bow tie psychiatrist cleared things up, but apparently she gets very fired up about the topic every time. I didn’t start a fight like I would have in a more comfortable environment, but it wasn’t necessary, bow tie guy has our back. In the evenings I unfortunately have to study, which only recently sorta worked because I’m not totally dead when I come home. I get to study my target language a lot, since when I’m bored I usually do some vocab and I occasionally write about my day in my target language.

Now for the bad bits. What sways me the most is that I have no clear routines. In the morning we make breakfast, but since I don’t know where everything is and how many people we are and what everyone eats it’s next to impossible for me to help. In general, I sit around a lot between therapies and meetings and when the patients are eating. It makes me feel terrible. Both nurses are basically unreadable to me and have a very, uh, powerful way of going around. I suspect they think I’m hella annoying, but I think that of everyone so who knows. Also, I managed to prove I can’t make coffee or screw a coffee flask shut. Hella embarrassing, to say the least.

Some therapies are hella uncomfortable for me, and it’s a bit problematic since I can’t step out (social anxiety, also I’m not supposed to be the one with problems.) One patient is in the clinic because of panic attacks, but he’s also hella sensitive to sound, just like me, and hates being touched. In one session we were supposed to do a game where we clap hands with each other and I was honestly really relieved when he said he couldn’t do it. Another therapy session was about touching hands with each other while we walked past, and look each other in the eyes and it was honestly the most uncomfortable thing I’ve done in quite a while. The excercise is about knowing your own boundaries and i guess it makes sense (but I’m not sure what that’s good for when you can’t step out because you’re not a patient.) There’s also a billard table in the clinic as well and one patient just thrashes the balls around every time. It’s like he lets all his aggression out on the queue. You bet I flinch every time. Chill the fuck out, mate (especially since he says he’s not aggressive. Sure bro.) Food is a smaller issue. I got stamps for the cafeteria, but some stuff is just... nope. So far I’ve managed to avoid stuff I couldn’t deal with, or ate just enough to convince people I was full. Some food there is actually really good though and the clinic is literally in the same building as a small supermarket and a bakery, so it’s chill.

Overall, I’m surprised how well I deal. I know what I have to avoid now, so it’s really chill. I might actually go into therapy after all. There’s some icky stuff, but once I’m not an intern anymore I can do my own routine and organize stuff.

[newstfionline]

The painful truth about teeth

By Mary Jordan, Kevin Sullivan, Washington Post, May 13, 2017

SALISBURY, Md.--Two hours before sunrise, Dee Matello joined the line outside the Wicomico Civic Center, where hundreds of people in hoodies, heavy coats and wool blankets braced against a bitter wind.

Inside, reclining dental chairs were arrayed in neat rows across the arena’s vast floor. Days later, the venue would host Disney on Ice. On this Friday morning, dentists arriving from five states were getting ready to fix the teeth of the first 1,000 people in line.

Matello was No. 503. The small-business owner who supports President Trump had a cracked molar, no dental insurance and a nagging soreness that had forced her to chew on the right side of her mouth for years.

“It’s always bothering me,” she said. And although her toothache wasn’t why she voted for Trump, it was a constant reminder of one reason she did: the feeling that she had been abandoned, left struggling to meet basic needs in a country full of fantastically rich people.

As the distance between rich and poor grows in the United States, few consequences are so overlooked as the humiliating divide in dental care. High-end cosmetic dentistry is soaring, and better-off Americans spend well over $1 billion each year just to make their teeth a few shades whiter.

Millions of others rely on charity clinics and hospital emergency rooms to treat painful and neglected teeth. Unable to afford expensive root canals and crowns, many simply have them pulled. Nearly 1 in 5 Americans older than 65 do not have a single real tooth left.

Over two days at the civic center, volunteer dentists would pull 795 teeth. A remarkable number of patients held steady jobs--a forklift operator, a librarian, a postal worker--but said they had no dental insurance and not enough cash to pay for a dentist.

Matello had both problems, adding to her frustration about being cut off from a world that many wealthier Americans take for granted.

“The country is way too divided between well-off people and people struggling for everything--even to see the dentist,” she said. “And the worst part is, I don’t see a bridge to cross over to be one of those rich people.”

Matello voted for Barack Obama in 2008, thinking he offered the best option for working people, but she sat out the 2012 election. Last year, she rallied behind Trump after listening to him talk about “the forgotten men and women of our country, people who work hard but don’t have a voice.”

“I’m running to be their voice,” Trump said repeatedly.

What Matello heard was a promise “to restore pride to the working poor.”

A big part of that promise was Trump’s assurance that he would build a “beautiful” health-care system to serve every American, a system that would cost less and do more. But nearly four months into Trump’s presidency, Matello sees Trump backing a Republican health care plan that appears to leave low-income people and the elderly worse off.

“I am hearing about a number of people who will lose their coverage under the new plan,” Matello said. “Is Trump the wolf in grandma’s clothes? My husband and I are are now saying to each other: ‘Did we really vote for him?’”

Matello said she has no option but to keep hoping Trump will devise “a plan so we can all feel the benefits of a better economy.” But since he took office, Trump has focused on so many other things--most recently, his decision to fire the FBI director--that Matello has begun to wonder about his promises to the working class.

Straight, white teeth are associated with social success--just about everyone on TV or with a big job has them. People drop $2,000 per tooth on porcelain veneers to hide the smallest imperfections. Trump has unusually perfect, snow-white teeth, prompting numerous cosmetic dentists to publicly note that he seems to have had expensive work done.

“If I see someone with perfect teeth, I think, ‘Oh, man, they’re out of my league,’ “ Matello said. “Us poor people ‘status’ each other. We’re like, ‘Ah, dude, you don’t have any teeth!’ Or if you see someone with little jagged yellow stubs, you think, ‘Oh, man, you have lived here your whole life, haven’t you?’ “

“Here” is Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the poorest part of one of the country’s richest states. It’s a region famous for chicken farms: Perdue’s national headquarters is here in Salisbury, a town of 30,000. Matello lives 20 miles north, in Laurel, Del., near fields that sprout corn, watermelons and soybeans.

In these rural areas, even the water can work against people. Many homes, including Matello’s, rely on well water. Unlike water from public systems, well water is not fluoridated. Nationwide, 25 percent of Americans are not connected to a fluoridated water system, and therefore, are missing out on what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called one of the 10 great health advances of the 20th century.

“It’s all well water, no fluoride,” said Patricia Higgins, one of the dentists volunteering at the Salisbury clinic. “In these places, we see people with a different level of dental problems.”

George Acs, director of the dental department at Chesapeake Health Care, a clinic near Salisbury, said people with oral pain and infections are inundating hospitals. Last year, more than 2 million U.S. emergency room visits were attributed to neglected teeth.

“What I am seeing is absolutely horrifying,” said Acs, who recently testified about the problem before the Maryland state legislature.

Although those hospital visits cost an estimated $1.6 billion a year, the ER is generally not equipped to fix dental problems, Acs told lawmakers. So ER doctors just medicate people with “a perpetual cycle of antibiotics and opioids.”

That cycle is feeding a nationwide epidemic of opioid addiction. Meanwhile, Higgins said, Americans’ increasing reliance on all kinds of drugs is further ruining their teeth. Many drugs cause dry mouth, which leads to more cavities. When she started her practice 35 years ago, she said, people took far fewer prescription drugs. Now patients hand her computer printouts with long lists of them.

Matello’s problem wasn’t complicated: A molar shattered years ago. The 46-year-old mother of three had not seen a dentist in nine years. When parts of her tooth broke off, she knew fixing it could cost hundreds of dollars, and other bills were always more urgent.

Then she heard on TV that the nonprofit Mission of Mercy was coming to the Eastern Shore to host one of the free dental clinics that had drawn overnight crowds in Nebraska, North Carolina and other parts of the country. So she decided to take Friday off.

Matello and her husband own a small vending-machine business called DeeLicious, spending their days restocking 69 machines installed in factories, schools and office buildings. They offer granola bars and other healthful snacks, but Snickers sell best.

Life was easier before the recession hit in 2007. Her husband managed a furniture warehouse, making more than $70,000 a year, and she sold fishing boats, adding to their income. But then people stopped buying big-ticket sofas and boats, and they both lost their jobs.

So they started buying vending machines and earn about $47,000 a year. Matello said she doesn’t know if the country’s rich-poor divide is worse now, but it sure feels more “in your face.”

“I am just fed up with it,” she said. “I don’t do Facebook. It’s ‘I went on this trip’ or ‘I got this new thing.’ You know, I really don’t need to see how great you are doing. It puts me in a state of depression.”

She said people judge success based on what people wear or where they live, and she even catches herself doing it. Washington, for example, is just 150 miles west, but to Matello it feels a planet away, totally out of reach.

“It’s a beautiful city to drive through. But I could never live there. I wouldn’t fit in,” she said. “I don’t have the toys, the education, the money to live there. We have nothing in common. That divide is why you see lower income people rising up, being mad at affluent people.”

And teeth, she said, “are the telltale, visible sign of wealth.”

The Washington region has one of the greatest concentrations of dentists in the world, with many offering high-end services in offices that resemble luxury spas. More than 50 million Americans, by contrast, live in areas officially designated by the federal government as Dental Health Professional Shortage Areas. A great many of them are working poor.

“It’s completely skewed. You have the fewest dentists where the need is greatest,” Acs said. He recently sent a patient here with impacted wisdom teeth 120 miles to find a dental specialist who accepts Medicaid.

Louis Sullivan, a physician who was secretary of health and human services under President George H.W. Bush, said “broad systemic problems” block access to dentists.

First, new dentists often start out with significant debt, and they gravitate toward wealthy areas where they have a better shot at making money. The typical graduate from a four-year, post-collegiate dental school owes $260,000--more than the average medical student.

Then they set up solo practices, shouldering pricey overhead--equipment, office space, a receptionist--that accounts for much of a patient’s bill. While younger dentists are more likely to join groups that share costs, the century-old model of the solo practice has resisted change.

Then there’s the matter of payment. Teeth generally are treated separately from the rest of the body, a tradition that dates to dentistry’s origins as a specialty of barbers, who performed oral surgery and pulled teeth. Today, many public health officials view that division as a mistake. Poor oral health can lead to heart disease and other serious medical problems, and tooth loss can lead to depression and difficulty eating and speaking.

The separation extends to insurance. Even Medicare, the federal health program that covers 55 million seniors and disabled people, does not cover dental problems. For that, people must buy dental insurance, which typically limits annual benefits to about $1,500 per person--an amount that has barely budged in decades, even as costs have risen.

The price of employer-provided plans varies greatly, and can cost a family $500 a year or more, industry experts said. For those whose jobs don’t offer dental benefits, it can be even more expensive. So tens of millions go without: More than a third of American adults have no dental coverage, according to the ADA’s Health Policy Institute.

Children’s coverage has been improving. All states are required to provide dental benefits to children on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Obama’s Affordable Care Act currently requires medical plans to offer dental care to those younger than 19. But that requirement--and the dental benefits of 5 million adults newly covered under the ACA--are jeopardized by the Trump-backed health overhaul now being debated in Congress.

Adults who are poor enough, and live in certain states, can get coverage through Medicaid, the state-federal health program for low-income Americans. But only about 38 percent of dentists accept Medicaid--about half the rate of physicians--in part because of low reimbursement rates. On average, Medicaid covers about 37 percent of the bill, according to a recent ADA analysis. Dentists who don’t accept Medicaid also complain of bureaucratic hassle and high rates of canceled appointments.

In a handful of states, Medicaid offers no dental coverage for adults. Delaware, where Matello lives, is one of them. Which is why, on a damp Friday morning, she found herself lining up with hundreds of other people with aching teeth.

At 9:44 a.m., five hours after arriving in Salisbury, Matello finally made it inside the civic center and began to warm up.

“What do you need done?” she asked an older veteran in a wheelchair.

“Need nine teeth pulled,” he said. “My wife works at Rite Aid, and we don’t have any insurance.”

A little after noon, Matello’s number was called. A volunteer took her temperature; she was running a slight fever but not high enough to stop treatment.

Two more hours. Finally, she was waved over to an X-ray machine under a basketball hoop.

Just as Matello expected to be called for her turn in the dentist’s chair, a volunteer announced in a loud voice: “Those up to number 500 will be seen today. The rest will have to come back tomorrow.”

“You have to be kidding!” yelled a frustrated woman behind Matello. “I have to do this all over again?”

Matello’s eyes filled with tears. She had been waiting 10 hours.

A volunteer gave her a wristband that would put her at the head of the line the next day. So she drove home in her 18-year-old Jeep, ate dinner chewing only on the right side yet again, and set her alarm.

By 7 a.m. the next day, she was finally in one of the reclining chairs, with a dentist pointing a bright light into her mouth.

Robert Testani, a volunteer dentist from Catonsville, Md., examined Matello and checked her X-ray before easing a syringe of novocaine into her mouth. He prepared to pull her broken molar.

“Don’t worry. This is routine,” he said. He paused and looked around. “Except for the setting.”

Over two days, 116 dentists treated 1,165 patients, providing $1 million worth of fillings and other care, according to the Mission of Mercy. Matello was grateful. She was told her panoramic X-ray and extraction would have cost $600 to $800 in a regular office.

She looked at some of the others who had come here, despite working for a living cutting down trees, building homes, minding a town library, running small businesses.

“We are not staying home, not sleeping and living off the government,” she said.

She wondered why there wasn’t a better system for people like her. She tried not to look at the 51-year-old truck driver lying next to her who had three teeth pulled, his mouth stuffed with bloody gauze.

“I am trying to think that this is not demeaning,” she said as she cleared the chair for the next person in line. “But it is. It’s like a Third World country.”

[s-hadow-chan]

Moving blogs + a reflection essay

tl;dr -- I’m moving my main blog. Because lots of my views on life have changed, my life has changed, and obviously my tastes in fandoms have changed. I’ll put the URL here later once I’ve made it. To see how I got to this position and where I am now, keep reading ^w^

Note: This is just my own opinion as to how I’ve seen Tumblr over the past few years. 

Well, it’s the start of a New Year. I haven’t been active much in 2017 but I’ll try and be active this year. Thanks to all the people who’ve helped and supported me this year and the following people who have made my life on Tumblr : *a list of people I rarely talk to anymore*

....Is what I would have said perhaps a year or two ago. I’m still glad I’ve joined this site and had conversations with some KnB fanatics like I was. However, I haven’t talked to them in a year. The only people I usually talk to on this site are basically nonexistent. I mean my friends from high school technically, but I talk to them irl during classes and lunch. The truth is that I have not been active on Tumblr for the past year. And my activity on the site was starting to wane in 2016 as well when I accidentally deleted my main blog last year when I was actually trying to delete a side blog I was working on. But that’s besides the fact as to why I’m moving. I’ve changed quite a bit since 2014 when I first joined Tumblr. My views of the world have changed, my life has changed, even the tiniest things such as my fandom tastes have changed. Because of this change, I’m moving to a new blog. Since you’ve decided to keep reading, I’m going to write a long detailed essay about the three things that have changed with me: my taste, my views on the world, and my life in 2014. You have the complete freedom to click out anytime ^w^

The fourteen-year-old me has a different shit taste in anime than the shit taste I have in anime now. Obviously, no one person can stay the same. If you’ve reblogged the little posts I’ve reblogged from other blogs (try saying that five times lol) notice how there’s barely any Hetalia or Kuroko no Basket or Haikyuu for that matter. Even when I’ve been active for the past few days, it’s been more positive posts, memes, and occasional anime of Hero Aca and such. So really if you want to know what I’m into at the moment, it’s Honeyworks, Hero Aca, Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso (Your Lie in April), food, study things, any Makoto Shinkai film (doesn’t have to be Your Name but it can be) and always memes. And getting off from the high of finishing Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, I’ll be looking for that too. Also, notice the decline in squealing yaoi fangirl that used to squeal in the tags section about two dudes cross-dressing. Ah, yes. The Hetalia days of where I’d ship APH America with everyone and just had a huge obsession with APH America. The title of my blog (on mobile anyway) is still a quote from the dub haha.  To be fair, that squealing, yaoi fangirl did have a brief revival when Yuri on Ice was still airing. I still have a soft spot for the anime as it was very good (and still is, Phichit will forever be an angel) and I absolutely LOVE Makkachin still. But for the most part, I have mostly lost the whole yaoi fangirl that I once was in Freshman year of high school who still loved shipping countries together. Why I deviated from Hetalia is another post unto itself.

I mentioned how I haven’t been posting a lot of kurobas lately. Yes my interest has waned in the show, but I still appreciate what it’s done for me in my high school years. I still have a quote from Aida Riko back in the earlier chapters of the manga hanging on my wall as I work on homework: “I want you to have a big concrete objective and the will to achieve it.” I won’t deny, KnB really helped me set the mentality I needed to tackle high school -- to keep pushing myself to become a better person. Whether I fulfilled that expectation or not is debatable. But as always, the inspirational quotes of KnB will undoubtedly carry me onto college too.

Now don’t get triggered when I say that Tumblr can really take leftist ideology to the extreme. It’s definitely right to treat everybody equally no matter their skin color, gender, sexuality, shape, size, disability, etc. Basically, everyone deserves to be treated equally. That’d definitely fine and it’s the right way to live life after all. However, it first hit me in Junior year that Tumblr was getting annoying. The whole “the straights are terrible” and “white men should burn in hell” preaching gave Tumblr the black and white views of the world without any grays (or greys however you spell it) in between. Now I’m a straight CIS female. I’ve got good friends who are asexual, bi, lesbian, etc. I will say this, but I doubt it will be heard by the screams of hate against a straight CIS gender like myself: I DON’T CARE WHAT YOUR DAMN SEXUALITY OR GENDER OR COLOR OR WHATEVER IS AS LONG AS YOU ARE A NICE PERSON! If you are a trans, gay Hispanic (an example, not pointing you out) who treats other people terribly, that means I will flip you off and beat your ass (to some extent of this statement). Not all straight people are bad and not all gays are good and it goes for every demographic that exists ever.

Though it may seem that I am blaming all of Tumblr for acting this way, I am. But I can’t forget that I too, once had a black and white view of the world. As a fourteen-year-old who was very much shielded from the world because of a private Catholic school with conservative parents who are very well off, I had an inkling of what the rest of the world was like. And I feel like the people on Tumblr were just as uneducated about the world as I was. By no means do I know everything about the world now. A seventeen-year-old who hasn’t even finished high school will never know how the me from four years from now feels. I am just saying that my opinion from leaning so far left a damn tree would break has become more moderate. This website made me think: gosh being straight and CIS is uncool and being a normal functional being with no anxiety or depression isn’t normal too. I need to be bi and genderfluid! That was stupid thinking. Right now, I’m completely fine with being a straight, CIS female with no mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety who will gladly respect your pronouns.

Now life is really crazy. It was crazy in 2016, and it was crazy in 2017 too. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that I’m from Las Vegas, Nevada now did I? Times have changed man. I don’t think I would have said that when I was 10 on a website lol. But yeah if you’ve somehow been scrolling this far down I commend your efforts. And I’m sure you’re getting really strained rn. So get some water, take a break, I’m sorry if you can’t get to a laptop or computer right now. Don’t read this in one go. If you’ve returned or decided to read straight on through welcome back or good for you respectively. Now I’ll repeat that again. Yes, I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. Right where Stephen Paddock decided to shoot from the 37th floor of Mandalay Bay onto the Route 91 Harvest Festival where over 500 people were wounded and 50 people were killed and where three students from my school were at on Sunday night (they were unharmed physically I believe). I found this out when I was tucked in bed at home, far from the strip checking my friend’s snapchats before I fell asleep. For the largest mass shooting in modern US history to take place in an area where my family would take our extended family to dinner or where we once had a New Years Eve celebration at the Vdara, is sickening. My cousins and I used to go to Mandalay Bay and hang out at the pool and stay the night because it was Spring break back when we were in middle school. My mom’s 40th birthday was at the Mandalay Bay. It’s terrible. I know how those people in Orlando and Colorado and everywhere else in the world feel when a mass shooting happens and completely disrupts your life. I’ve barely even been to the strip this year. The fact that a terror attack happened in my own backyard is beyond words. It makes me angry that some bastard decided to fuck up the lives of everyone in my city by ruining a good time at a concert. It makes me sad when I read a Washington Post later about a group of girls who went to a Lutheran school were affected by this event mentally and some even physically by this event. And that in turns makes me pissed off that some dude ruined the lives of teenage girls exactly like me, who were worried about the SAT and ACT and AP Classes and college. Fuck him.

So that’s my feelings on the shooting a few months late. But remember that I live in Las Vegas. You can’t just forget a mass shooting that happened in the city you live in. I’d mention how people would disagree with me that other events on the strip have happened such as a robbing at the Bellagio (it’s always the Bellagio man! That’s my fave part of the strip with the dancing waters and the seasonal garden inside like man they don’t deserve that) and etc. but feel free to disagree with me when you submit an ask dear anon.

Now on a somewhat lighter note, high school will forever be stressful. Going to the best high school in the state is stressful when all your friends have a nonstop grind to be one of the valedictorians (apparently you can have more than one?? I had no idea until I went to high school). Though I am nowhere near becoming a valedictorian, I still have plans to graduate with high honors ( wearing white for graduation) because half of the people graduating will wear white because it’s a magnet school dammit we’re kinda smart. AP classes have been part of my workload since Sophomore year which is right when I deleted my blog, but I managed to keep my activity up somewhat. Junior year slumped in my activity big time. APUSH is hard you guys. That’s it. I believe I posted a reflection at the start of 2017 detailing a bit more of this. But the difference this year is that I’m a senior in high school. That means college and scholarships. As I’ve mentioned before, I live in Nevada. I either stay in Las Vegas and attend the university there or I head up to Reno, which is like a 6-hour drive from home or just an hour flight. That means living in a dorm away from everything I’ve known. And that includes my boyfriend.

The biggest change in my life between Freshman year and now is that I’m taken! And honestly, it was the biggest fucking plot twist of 2016 (and the largest failed segway of 2018 thus far). I’m dating the largest weeb at my school ever and I’m happy dammit. Most of the time. I’ve learned a lot from being in a relationship like how to shut the fuck up and listen and appreciate more in life. By no means was my relationship perfect either. We’ve had a lot of fights. I’ve mentioned this in my reflection of 2016 at the start of last year so the rundown is that we’ve been together a year and a half now. I’m in a healthy relationship. Then college comes in and says hi. Now my boyfriend has decided to go to the university here in Las Vegas. I’m still very unsure as to where I want to go next. After all, the decision as to where to continue my education lies with me and I’m running out of time (I’m procrastinating on the decision right now lol). Four years ago, I had dreams of going out of state to either a UC school or the United States Airforce Academy in Colorado, until I learned that school outside of my state is expensive so I decided to stay within the confines of Nevada. 

And honestly, that’s where I’m at right now. Thanks for reading this long ass rant. I spent an hour or two typing this up. I just have a lot of feelings haha. I hope everyone has the best year ever. If this is after I’ve posted my new URL, go follow me there. But for now, thanks for all the support thus far and especially for reading this long ass rant. See you!