#why can’t i be both an academic weapon & consistent??

[blind-alchemists]

Meta-Analysis of the Rift Mage Specialization

I said in February I was going to do it, and it only took me seven months to follow through!

Anyway. Analyzing game-play elements for narratives purposes has become somewhat of a hobby of mine ever since I really got into GameLit. Then, I started "fangs" and felt that my fight scenes were boring, so I build ability trees reminiscent of DA:I's for my OCs. You know, as you do. During that process, though, the lack of banter acknowledging several choices struck me as odd. Especially regarding specializations. Especially when it comes to Solas'.

We’ll be taking a look at (in order)

1. Description

2. Codex Entry

3. Skills

a. in comparison to DA: II’s Primal & Force Mage

4. Specialization Dialogue with Solas

5. Conclusion

Disclaimer: I talk a lot (this post might have about 2.5k). And, I promise you, you'll be tired of seeing 'the Fade this' and 'the Veil that' at the end of it.

Description

“These mages draw upon the force of the Fade, either pulling matter from the Fade to attack or twisting the Veil itself into a weapon to stagger or crush their enemies.”

[source – DA wiki; bolding mine]

So, lore-wise, mages do ‘draw upon the Fade’. Sure. But do they ‘pull matter from the Fade’? Absolutely not.

Physical things and the Fade rarely mix well. Plus – this is mainly my theory – the way magic is utilized (the 'drawing upon the Fade part') requires it to pass through the Veil. Magic being a form of energy, and thus not physical, does not constitute to ‘pulling matter from the Fade’.

That's the first thing other mages (read: Dorian, Vivienne, possible the Inquisitor) should (or could) have referenced in banter/dialogue.

The rest of the sentence ('twisting the Veil into a weapon') is also highly interesting, since there is little known about the Veil. Nobody knows how it works. And, thus, nobody should be capable enough to manipulate it consistently enough to use it as a weapon. But considering it's Solas who gets this specialization - well. He knows the Veil well enough, don't you think? (Which is why I think Rift Mage should have been Solas' personal, individual specialization like Fenris' Lyrium Ghost, but I just really like personalized skill trees in general.)

However, having answered that question, connecting magic so closely to the very thing can be described as a “magical vibration that repels the Fade”, I'm curious about how it would work. Since, you know, mages are inevitably tied to the Fade. Wouldn't the Veil repel a try to manipulate it by a mage? Is using mana the same thing as drawing energy from the Fade? If so, it would be straight-up impossible to actually use such a method for any ordinary mage (read: not Solas). If mana can be used without the Fade, it would be possible, but is such a thing feasible? Can you switch between spells and Veil quickly enough without horrific consequences such as possibly tearing yourself apart?

Very interesting topic. Would love to go into it more, but at that point, I'd become subjective, so let's end it here.

To summarize: Rift mages do things (physically pulling things from the Fade plus using the Veil) normal mages don't do. There is also a chance, logically speaking, that no one else but Solas (or mage!Inquisitor) can accomplish such a feat without dying a horrific death.

Codex Entry

From "Power Bleeds: Harness the Flow." Your Trainer's words make one passage stand out:

There are no tomes dedicated to this manipulation. There has been no time for academics, only the practical—and not in a manner that mitigates risk. Power in a raw form has found an outlet, both visible and in ways that only we of arcane proclivity can sense. The risk is great.

An account:

From this page forward, these are the notes of Thelric. They began as the work of my mentor Julion, and I will continue in the research she began, as she cannot, because she is dead. The rift we were examining did not react well to her last investigation. We believed ourselves prepared for demonic manifestation. We were not prepared for how the energies we expected would be encountered. Well-versed in the forces that magic can produce, my senior was surprised by an alteration, a deviance. That which previously had to be coaxed is now a flood that must be staunched. The same amount in different intensity, quick to expose fault in the way it is accessed. She drew too much, expecting resistance. There was none, and her form suffered the brunt. Tread carefully in studies of new matters, for I cannot unsee the end of her.

Scattered symbols and sketches follow.

[source – DA wiki; bolding mine]

Apparently DA:I has a thing for hiding the true horror in Codex Entries and off-hand comments.

Here, we learn one key fact: The school of Rift Magic is relatively new ('no tomes dedicated to this manipulation'). I think it's safe to assume the possibility - and thus research concerning it - emerged around the time the Breach appeared. So it's new, people have no idea what they're doing, but it somehow works. A little like the whole time magic thing, funnily. (That brings me back to a lot of questions I have about the Veil: Just how powerful is it? Just how deeply is it intervened with Thedas?)

Reading further, the entry seems to (only) stress how dangerous Rift Magic is. Who would have thought! No, really, it's a fair point to empaphize. I'm not certain the Trainer and his previous teacher (or anyone else but Solas) know what kind of role the Veil plays in this, and so of course experiments are going to get ugly. The Veil holds a much greater importance than the people of Thedas realize.

And, in a very similar vein: The people of Thedas don't know much about directly interacting with the Fade through, say, a rift, which poses another risk. The wiki entry establishes two things in particular that are relevant here: Using spells (in the Fade itself) has unpredictable results, and one can draw unprecedented power from it while sleeping.

The codex entry cited above proves that. A rift is a direct connection to the Fade, and thus unpredictable ('She drew too much, expecting resistance. There was none') and that power is too much to handle ('her form suffered the brunt').

My theory is that, while a certain flunction is natural to the Fade, the Veil also plays a role here. Which I'm not sure. But it has one.

Personally, I wouldn't be sure the risks of a horrific death outweigh the benefits of power, but let's look more in depth at that!

Skills

Which brings me to the abilities themselves.

The first two you can choose from are Veilstrike and Stonefist. (Which I think should have had their names changed but, oh, well.)

Veilstrike: “You recreate your own fist from the essence of the Fade and smash nearby foes to the ground.” (Upgrades being Punched Down and Wounded Veil, but they don’t have anything interesting for this analysis. Note the names, though.)

Curious here is the 'recreate [...] from the essence of the Fade' part here. On first glance, it sounds like a rather ordinary spell, right? But it's not. That's just the 'hiding in plain sight for the first playthrough' aspect of Solas' character.

Mages do shape their spells with energy from the Fade (as far as my assumptions go). Maybe they can also recreate something. I'll give them that much. But the essence of the Fade - the inherit, unchanging nature of it - can't be manipulated by them. I think that's specifically a trait only Dreamers can have. (More evidence for my 'Rift Mage should have been Solas' personalized, individual specialization' hc!)

There is an argument to be made if this already constitutes for 'pulling matter from the Fade', but this isn't even the funkiest part yet.

Stonefist: “You summon a boulder from the Fade and smash it into your target, sending them flying.” (Upgrades being Shatterstone and Unblockable Force.)

'Summon a boulder from the Fade', you know, as in, bring physical matter from the Fade to the other side of the Veil. A thing that is pretty much unheard of. Remembers what happens to spirits when they pass violently through the Veil? There is an entire game dealing with that. (I mean, stones won't hopefully turn into demons, but my point is that bringing things through, usually, is not a wise idea.

Another thing someone could have commented on.

Passives: Restorative Veil, Encircling Veil, Smothering Veil, Twisting Veil.

Unfortunately, neither of these descriptions give me much, but they all have the ‘Veil’ component in their name, so that’s interesting.

Upon closer inspection, the Veil can function in a variety of ways: speeding up mana recovery, further weakening enemies, boosting your own damage. (Veilstrike being an example of a means of attack.)

Now, my question here would be: Do over mages notice changes in the Veil? Do they feel it shift and bend? If not, well, that's one thing. if they do, even subconsciously, I'd want banter. (I want a lot of banter, though. Just generally speaking.)

Pull of the Abyss: “You create a tiny rift that pulls enemies toward a central point.” (Upgrades being Shaken Veil and Devouring Veil.)

I can live with never hearing anything about everything else. Sure. But this one? This damned skill? You're telling me I read that the first time I played the game, nodded, and that was it?

'You can create a tiny rift-' I'm sorry, do you what now? After a good a couple of hours of learning just how bad rifts are?

And the upgrade names. Shaken Veil, Devouring Veil - is there anything this thing can't do, except for becoming more and more horrifying and giving me bad vibes ofr whatever DA4 will do with it?

Firestorm: “You summon flaming meteors, raining fire down upon enemies all over the area for the next several seconds. This ability consumes and is powered by focus.”

This one is ... honestly, I don't like it being here. It's an AOE skill, which does fit in with the rest, but it's fire and it seems rather randomly assigned compared to other focus abilities with a more personal note (Haste, Rampagne, Cloak of Shadows, Mark of the Rift).

Doesn't give a lot here to analyze, except that raining down flaming meteors is the level of (global) destruction I can see happening in the future if Solas isn't stopped. So. That's fun.

(It's the ultimate skill in the Fire/Ice tree in DA:II, or at least the ability there has the same name.)

DA: II Comparison

Nearing the end, I'll take a brief look at the Force Mage specialization from DA:II and the Primal base skill tree for mages. Both have some interesting similarities.

First, Primal.

Stonefist: “The mage hurls a stone projectile that strikes with massive force.”

It's only the name and the effect, honestly, but it is curious to see it in a skill tree that focuses exclusively on the elements earth and lightning. (Because Pride demons also use electricity ... yeah, yeah. I'm reading too much into this.)

Petrify: “The mage entombs an enemy in stone, leaving the foe temporarily unable to move. However, the target becomes more resistant to damage for the duration of the spell.”

This has nothing to do with Rift Mage, but in light of Trespasser, I'll just leave it here for your consideration. Petrifying people is neither new nor exclusive to Evanruis.

Now, onto Force Mage.

Fist of the Maker: “The mage slams enemies into the ground with incredible power, against which armor is no protection.”

The effect sounds like Stonefist (Primal) and Veilstrike.

Pull of the Abyss: “The mage conjures a maelstrom of energy that draws enemies to its center while slowing them to a crawl.”

This one is similar to the Rift Mage skill with the same name, so it might have served as an inspiration (or base).

Overall, though: nothing much to say here. Maybe I could talk more about Rift Mage being focused on crowd control, but that is probably for game-play balance. I could connect that to Solas' character and analyze every little thing to death. I'm not doing it, though.

Specialization Dialogue

Solas: You have begun practicing new magical forms. Interesting. You seem to be drawing upon the raw substance of the Fade, likely using your mark as a catalyst. I use similar techniques, although it took me years to learn that. Why did you choose such an esoteric area of study?

Inquisitor: (if chosen) I hoped that studying such magic would me help better understand the Fade.

Solas: While our fight affords little time for formal study, the wise can better themselves even in the midst of battle. Perhaps especially then. I hope your new studies serve you well.

[source]

Let’s go through this slowly.

‘You seem to be drawing upon the raw substance of the Fade-’ Alright, we’ve talked about that. Makes sense he’d comment on it. ‘likely using your mark as a catalyst’ Sorry? The Inquisitor is doing what? I’m not saying it’s not possible, I’m just saying it might not be an overly smart idea to use the Anchor in that way. Because it’s attached to the Inquisitor’s arm. And because the Inquisitor knows what happens if it snaps out of control. So, purposefully doing something that might cause you agonizing pain? Mh. Yeah. No, thanks.

Also. The 'drawing upon the raw substance of the Fade' part makes me think that the Anchor does give the Inquisitor Dreamer-like abilities. Forcefully, and possibly difficult to control, and the Inquisitor might not be aware of it, but. That would be an interesting aspect to explore.

‘I use similar techniques, although it took me years to learn that’. Well. Yeah. Mostly a sound response, except I’m not really sure it's true. Why does he say years? Because he didn’t go right to sleep after creating the Veil, or because he studied such methods theoretically beforehand? I doubt he refers to the time Inquisition spans, because it’s not that long, cannocially, (isn't it like ... a year? I forget what the devs said), but … I don’t know. It doesn't sit right with me. Solas never truly outright lies, so there is probably some merit in it.

‘Why did you choose such an esoteric area of study?’ That’s … an interesting way to ask. Sure, there is a very small group who has this specialized knowledge, but it feels a little like deflection.

The rest of the conversation doesn’t give much for me to analyze.

Conclusion

TL;DR: There should have been banter. Or Rift Mage should have been a personalized, individual specialization.

Pull of the Abyss is the funkiest skill in the entire game, from a meta-perspective, because tearing a hole into the Veil is the opposite of what the Inquisitor is trying to do.

There are also many more questions than answer to take away from this regarding the Veil and the Fade and how Solas manages not to blow his cover, but I believe there are theories about at least the two former points out there.

I thank you very much for bearing with me for this long!

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

Why do we feel such strong emotions to not existent people? How do people have crush and /or other deep feelings for... for example, Lotor?

Hi, anon! Wow, great question! A lot of researchers and psychologists have asked similar questions. The term “parasocial relationship” was coined by Horton and Wohl in 1956 to describe the deep relational emotions that fans were attributing to celebrities who had never actually met them before. Over time, the phrase “parasocial relationship” has moved to also mean the one-sided relationships that viewers can make with fictional characters as well, whether those bonds are based in friendship, romance, or even vicariously living through that character (kinning).

So when you talk about a fan connecting deeply with Lotor, then we’re talking about that fan’s parasocial relationship. And that phrase might help you find more psychology research about this if you’re interested!

To answer your question about “why” people make these kinds of bonds:

A 2018 academic article (Parasocial Relationships with Fictional Characters in Therapy) by Kathleen Gannon states, “Parasocial relationships can build overtime, and the more that someone is viewing, playing or reading about a character’s story the more likely that this connection to them will become more intense (Hall, 2017).” In other words, the more you’re exposed to the story of a character, the more likely you are to develop emotions for that character, and for those emotions to grow.

The types of emotions you might have for a character can depend on many factors, of course. But Gannon’s article and various others go on talk about how you might see yourself in a character, or see them experiencing a struggle you’re facing in real life, and those details inspire you to create empathy bonds. Some people admire the looks or traits of a character and want to be them, etc.

So that emotion you have for a character, whatever the emotion, is real, even if the fiction inspiring that emotion isn’t. And those emotions then help to dictate the type of bond you might have toward that character.

This article by Catherine Anillo (”Why we mourn fictional characters: The very real emotion behind fake death”) adds that the social phenomenon of several people coming together over a character further heightens that parasocial relationship. Because now, even if that character is fictional, the community based around them is in fact real, and your conversations about them are real, etc. That character becomes part of an actual, real-life culture and can even inform the real-life friendships and relationships you build, as well as your own personality or identity. 

But is “level of exposure” the only factor for why someone might build a parasocial relationship? 

Tilo Hartmann in his 2016 paper, Parasocial Interaction, Parasocial Relationships, and Well-Being, explores this:

There’s some research about how parasocial relationships may be a stand-in for lonely people who don’t have such relationships in real life, have been rejected in real life, or don’t have the social skills to have real relationships. This is called the Compensation Hypothesis, and it’s a little controversial. While there are some studies supporting this, there’s also several other studies showing that the Compensation Hypothesis can’t explain why so many well-adjusted people engage in parasocial relationships. In fact, Hartmann reveals that a lot of people who engage in parasocial relationshps aren’t lonely in real life and showed strong interpersonal skills during the study:

“Contrary to the skill-deficit compensation idea, research has found that people who are both motivated and able to develop social relationships, e.g., extro-verted individuals, may develop both more intense real and parasocial relationships. For example, in a study by Vorderer and Knobloch (1996), individuals who were not very motivated to mix with other people, but also were not shy, maintained the strongest parasocial relationships. Likewise, Tsao (1996) found that socially skilled people, i.e., individuals with higher cognitive and affective trait empathy, maintained the strongest parasocial relationships. In addition, in his study, trait extraversion was positively related to parasocial relationship intensity, whereas trait introversion was unrelated. Taken together these findings suggest that, contrary to the skill-deficit compensation hypothesis, people with greater – not weaker – interpersonal skills develop more intense parasocial relationships.” - page 135

Hartmann’s collected research overview goes on to suggest that there are levels of parasocial relationships and different kinds of attachments—in that some people have very, very intense attachments while others have a milder form of attachment. The research does seem to indicate that people with social anxieties might experience a more intense parasocial relationship with a fictional character or celebrity, compared to a person who is not as afraid of social rejection. And that explanation makes sense because…in a parasocial relationship, you’re the one in control of the relationship. The fictional character can’t actually say “no” to you or disagree/be cruel unless you envision them doing this. The fictional character satisfies the need to belong.

But according to collected research in Hartmann’s paper, it seems a willingness to engage in a parasocial relationship at all is part of what drives the entire entertainment industry and makes fiction a fun pastime for everyone (mentioned on page 137). If people can’t build a parasocial relationship with a show’s characters, then that show isn’t going to be seen as particularly likeable either. And even having relational emotions about social network blogs or twitters, etc. is a form of a parasocial relationship.

But is all of this bad?

That first article I tossed out, by Kathleen Gannon, talks about the use of parasocial relationships in therapy environments. So it seems that psychologists have become increasingly interested in plugging into this social phenomenon to help patients overcome things like trauma and anxieties, etc. And even Gannon herself acknowledges the type of fun and enjoyable communities that people build within cosplay circles, conventions, which also can feed into one’s own career.

So it seems like the answer to “why do we do this” involves a combination of these things:

Humans can make pack bonds with literally anything because we are emotional jelly bags, and very few people are immune to creating empathy bonds. The whole entertainment industry feeds off this very basic phenomenon and actually tries to hook you so that you’ll support a show or celebrity.

Parasocial relationships can help people overcome or face real-life issues or have an escape from real-life pressures.

Parasocial relationships are a known means of accessing fun communities and friendships with other like-minded people and can healthily add to a sense of well-being, social community, and identity.

(Note, the research from Hartmann does caution that a parasosocial relationship can become unhealthy/pathological, such as in the case of people who fully substitute real-life relationships for parasocial ones and isolate themselves from real people, or delude themselves into expecting that the character/celebrity can and should reciprocate the relationship. - page 138. So just like any relationship or social bond, a parasocial relationship has to exist within certain parameters for it to be a healthy and fun/meaningful addition to your life.)

But “why do people make a parasocial relationship with Lotor” specifically?

It seems the Lotor fandom is composed of many people with many different reasons for why they like this character:

The Lotor character is dynamic with several talents and flaws, so that makes him feel more real to begin with, as opposed to some wooden/static heroes or comic book villains. He’s very complex with a wide range of emotion and thought processes and motivations. He’s relatable because he’s imperfect, more fleshed out. More capable of being unpredictable, like real people are.

People seem to identify with his struggles as a person of mixed heritage and as a person who has suffered abuse and psychological trauma from his parents.

A lot of people admire that this character also doesn’t allow himself to be defined by a victim card. So for many, he takes on even a “role model” vibe in relation to overcoming abuse or prejudice.

A lot of people like that he has nerd vibes while also being physically powerful and commanding with weapons. So he’s both mentally and physically capable as a character. They might either want that for themselves or else are attracted to those traits existing in the same character.  

He’s a very aesthetically pleasing character to many, with a complex visual design, so I do think people admire that about him, and that inspires other types of emotional bonds as well.

His darker, more dangerous side makes him an interesting springboard for typical power fantasies, potential Jungian “Shadow Confrontation,” or some kind of wish fulfillment.

The VLD show itself really played on viewer emotional bonds with this character by consistently showing his backstory in a sympathetic light, down to even flashbacks of him as an innocent child being brainwashed by toxic culture and growing up in an environment without Voltron to save him. So the way the show presented Lotor really heightened people’s already established connections with Lotor.

There’s probably other reasons that I’m just not thinking about why people connect with Lotor, lol. But either way, I hope at least some of this info helps answer your question or gives you resources or ideas to research further! 

[justanotherlifeff]

Chapter 1

21 July 2314

Musutafu, Japan

The dark cityscape was suddenly illuminated by an explosion in one of the factories of the industrial district. The factories were closed for the day and the workers already went home, something that brought peace into All Might’s mind as victims were the last thing this operation needed. It took them 10 years to locate her. He couldn’t imagine what the poor girl must’ve gone through. In the year 2304, when All Might defeated All for one, the police found several experimentation documents in his hideout. Experiments on creating a weapon to kill All Might. While All for one was the strongest villain to walk the Earth, face to face combat with All Might was something that he wanted to avoid.

The documents mentioned of a girl, age 3 as of then, being given multiple psychological quirks as a fetus. She was the daughter of All for one’s two faithful followers, Empath and Boost. According to the documents, the girl inherited both her parent’s quirks, which were emotional manipulation and quirk enhancement also known as boost, as well as the quirks given to her by All for one, which were, telekinesis, portal creation and time travel. While her quirks were taken from mediocre quirk holders by All for one, her father’s boost made them all uncontrollably strong. A small trigger could make her lose control and cause widespread destruction. However, a quirk that strong comes with drawbacks. Due to her powers being psychological in nature, it increases the movements of her blood cells abnormally, making her blood vessels expand, causing intense pain that may make her lose consciousness. It doesn’t just stop at that. Her quirk doesn’t automatically deactivate when she loses consciousness. Instead, it grows stronger and continues it’s destruction in a much larger scale. The scale of destruction, according to the documents were unknown as there was no experiment done on that yet. To make sure that she doesn’t lose consciousness from the pain, a training regime was created for the three year old. According to the document, the training regime consisted of multiple forms of torture which were so gruesome that it made All Might wince just thinking about it. “I hope she’s alive.” All Might thought before attacking the villain’s base.

The explosion woke you. You were tied up in your room as usual. The light bulb in your room bursted and small shelf broke apart. It always happened when you got startled. “What’s that sound?” you wondered as you sat in the dark room. You weren’t allowed to feel things. Atleast unless they were experimenting on you. However, sometimes you just couldn’t help it. The explosion scared you. You can’t be making these mistakes or the experiments will hurt even more. You sat alone in the darkness till the door was opened by a man. “Is it time for experiments already?” you wondered. “Get up, Nomu. We need to get out of this place” your father hissed at you as he started opening your cuffs. “Why do they call me Nomu?” you wondered yet again. You wondered why ever since you found out what it meant. You were homeschooled by a teacher that your parents kidnapped. The teacher was scared of you. Everyone was scared of you except your parents and aniki... You were scared of your parents. In a flash, your face was splattered with blood as something punched your father, breaking the wall. As you looked at the man before her, only one thing came across your mind. “He killed father… He’s stronger than father… He will kill me now…” you thought as fear consumed you. Just as the man turned his attention towards you, you backed away, shouting “STAY AWAY FROM ME!” with a hoarse tone. The lack of speaking made your throat feel raw. “Don’t worry! I’m here to save…” the man started but you already lost control of your powers. The next thing All Might knew was that he was sent flying alongside the debris of the building.

“Eraser head, seems like I’ll be needing your help after all.” All Might said as he approached the black haired pro hero. They were standing outside the industrial district along with a group of police. After being thrown off by the young girl’s telekinesis, All Might decided to regroup. Your radius of destruction seemed to increase by the minute. You seemed like you were trying her best to control your powers but so far, you were failing. Your expression made it clear to All Might that you were scared. All they needed to do was have a conversation with you without her powers getting in the way. “Is she an enemy? Why did she turn her power on?” Eraser head asked All Might in a monotonic voice. “She’s just scared. I could see it in her face. This is all self defence. It seems like she doesn’t have much control on her quirk.” All Might answered. “I see. Now what do you propose we do?” Eraser head asked. “We need to hurry. Her destructive radius is increasing as we speak. I’ll carry you close enough to her and you need to erase her quirk. There is no other way to stop this.” All Might answered. Other than Eraser head and All Might, no other heroes were informed of this as it was a top secret mission. If the general public found out about the existance of an anti All Might weapon, they would panic. After all, you were a wild card, there was no guarantee that you would be on the hero’s side. The plan was put into action as All Might picked Eraser head up and used Detroit smash to propel himself closer to the epicentre of the flying debris. There you were, levitating, pulling on your own hair to make yourself focus on controlling your powers but yet, failing. It didn’t take long for Eraser head to locate you and erase your quirk. With that, you started falling down, though, All Might quickly caught you and brought you to safety on one of the nearby roofs all while making sure that Eraser head doesn’t lose focus on you.

You were ready to run as soon as All Might put you down. However, you fell on your feet wincing in pain. While you were wearing a T shirt and sweatpants, it didn’t stop All Might from noticing the blue veins that showed through your skin. Your face was full of blue marks, half her hands and your feet as well. Your blood vessels were expanded enough to show on your skin and All Might could only imagine how painful that must be. “Please don’t kill me” you blurted out. Your (E/C) pupils were dilated with fear. They were milky white when you were using your quirk. “Young lady, we are not going to kill you. We are here to help you. Please calm down and listen to us. We won’t hurt you.” All might told you in a gentle tone. No one ever spoke to you like this. “But… You killed him… My father…” you stammered. “Calm down, young lady. I did not kill your father. However, I cannot guarantee his safety anymore since as the debris fell, there’s a high chance that he is dead. I’m sorry about it. The same goes for your mother.” All might explained with a grim yet gentle voice. “I… I killed them?” you asked, wide eyed. You didn’t look sad, infact, you almost looked relieved. “We don’t know that yet. We are here to rescue you. Your parents are villains and they hurt people. We want to give you a chance to change your life. You can learn to control your power without being hurt and you can make friends and have a nice family.” Eraser head told her monotonously. “Yes that’s right young lady! So, would you come with us?” All might smiled at you, holding out a hand. You looked at them for a while and held All might’s hand. “Kill them if they aren’t dead already. They would come back to hurt me if you don’t.” you muttered. “Don’t worry. No one is going to hurt you. You are under our care now. By the way, what’s your name?” All might reassured you and asked you your name. “They called me Nomu.” you answered. “Nomu? Brainless?” All might asked, confused. “She was just a weapon of destruction to them, without her own will. Hence the name ‘Nomu’ or brainless” Eraser head predicted. “Well, we will give her a new name in that case! Let’s go!” All Might said cheerfully before picking you up and heading to where the police were waiting. Eraser head stopped erasing your quirk long ago but it seemed as if the news of your parent’s apparent death and the promise of safety calmed you.

Your POV

March 20 2316

Musutafu, Japan

My name is (Y/N) (L/N). I was the daughter of two villains, Empath and Boost. It was later revealed that my father’s last name was (L/N) and thus, I inherited the name while one of the nurses in Musutafu public hospital gave me my first name as they did a health check-up on me after I was brought to the police. Due to the heavy destruction I caused in the industrial district, my identity had to be published. Now that my existance was no longer a secret, no public school dared to enroll someone as risky as I am and so, with some help from All might and dad (I call Mr Aizawa dad now since he has.been a father figure to me ever since I was rescued), I was admitted in Soumei Junior high in Tokyo. As dad was in charge of taking care of me, I lived in Musutafu and travelled to Tokyo everyday to go to school. I was never academically excellent, I was more or less an average student. Dad made sure that I get therapy for the last two years, to bring my emotions in control, not by force but by actual professional help. To be fair, it worked. I could control my powers better now unless I got caught off guard by some sudden emotion. It wasn’t like I had to force myself not to feel anything. I just didn’t let it’s intensity get to me. If any emotion such as fear from a tire bursting suddenly got to me, it would end mostly in a broken lightbulb or something close to that. However, it never got worse than this unless I tried to train with dad. There were times when I was close to losing control but dad erased my quirk before that happened. For the daughter of two villains that I accidentally killed, I had a normal life. I couldn’t be more grateful about it. Currently, I was training to get into U.A, the most prestigious hero academy in Japan. It may sound cliche but after All might held out his hand to me two years back, my life changed. If those villains didn’t exist, maybe I could’ve had the normal life I have now for a longer time. Maybe I wouldn’t have to deal with this quirk that makes me stay alert all the time. That could potentially destroy the world if I am not careful enough. Yes, my quirk can destroy the world if I lose control completely. The cameras in the industrial district recorded the damage I caused in a matter of minutes. I still had my consciousness back then and I had control on my power to some extent. The data the scientists in I island collected on my destructive power predicted that without any control, I could level the Earth. Even All might wouldn’t be able to stop it. I had to be careful every second of my life just because of these villains. I couldn’t experience emotions rawly, only because these villains exist. I have therefore decided that I would go to U.A and become the number 1 hero. I would destroy the existance of villains so that no one will ever have to go through the life that I went through.

I was standing in U.A’s practical test ground. I already got in by recommendations but they still decided to take an exam to see if we were good enough to get a recommendation. The exam consisted of a written test, a practical test and an interview. I knew I’d get average grades in the written test as I was always an average student. I had to show them my strength in the practical test. It was a three kilometers long obstacle course. Something that I could end in mere moments. Pro hero Present Mic was in charge of invigilating us. I recognised one of the students standing there at the starting line with me. Endeavour’s son. I didn’t know his name though. Judging by his expression, he didn’t seem to want to talk. “Use your quirks freely to reach the finish line!” Present Mic explained simply before the starting buzzer went off. While others used their powers to run, I merely opened a portal and reached the finish line. “No 17 reaches the finish line in just a second! That’s faster than ever recorded! It wasn’t even a competition!” Present Mic shouted. I just smiled at him slightly as I waited for the others to finish.

“Hello (L/N) chan! I’ll be taking your interview!” Midnight sensei told me as I entered the interview room. She knew me well enough as I lived with dad in UA grounds as dad was the only one who could keep my powers in control in case if something goes wrong and dad lived in his quarters in the UA campus as he is a teacher in UA. Dad had been training me to control my quirk for the past 2 years, however, as I wasn’t enrolled in UA, he couldn’t give me any training to strengthen it as it was against protocol. “Yes, Midnight sensei” I answered with a polite smile. Everyone in the faculty liked me as I was always cheerful and lively. I never failed to be nice to everyone I knew, which is why I had a good relationship with pretty much everyone. After all, I spent years having no one who was remotely nice to me, which is why I didn't want anyone to feel the way I did. Midnight sensei asked me why I wanted to be a hero and I gave the typical textbook answer. Killing villains was against protocol after all. While I did follow the rules, this was something I couldn’t agree with. However, I decided not to let others know about my intention. The interview was bland and it was over as unceremoniously as it started. All I had to do was wait for the acceptance letter.

April 01 2316

Musutafu, Japan

I was supposed to get my acceptance letter today. I already knew what it’d be like. I knew how school life was here in UA. After all I did live here for 2 years. However, I still felt a certain excitement deep down. It only increased when dad knocked on the door to my room to give me the envelope. He stood there as I opened it and found the device. “That’s new” I wondered. Suddenly, a projection started out startling me, hence making me end up breaking yet another light bulb in my room. Dad only shook his head in frustration. He had been trying to get me to stop breaking things every time I got startled by something but so far, it didn’t work. My powers were too annoying… “I am here as a projection!” All might shouted. To be fair, anyone would be startled if the begining of a projection starts with All might shouting. He mentioned that I got accepted into UA and gave a motivational speech. The letter along with device consisted of the class routine, section name, and where to send measurements for the uniform and the hero costume. Apparently I was in Class 1A. “Didn’t you already make a costume design? Let’s go give the support department what they need. There’s no reason to delay things.” dad told me in his usual monotone tone. “Okay. I’ll get dressed.” I told him before he left the room. A small smile formed on my lips. I was getting closer to my aim. My aim to become the number 1 hero.

[bssaz97]

Post RWBY AU: Training Pains Part 1

* I decided to make another post in this AU as I’m captivated by it at the moment. Hope you guys will like more of Rowan.*

There was a time in everyone’s life where all their hard work was rewarded with either victory, accomplishment, or satisfaction.

...Today wasn’t one of those days.

- Signal Academy, Training Room -

Rowan: Aaaahh! Oof!

Rowan was thrown across the stage and landed on the ring’s wall. A buzzer goes off signaling the end of a sparring match. A match Rowan lost.....again. With a grunt the young red head got up off the floor and picked up his practice scythe. The instructor, a older woman in her mid 60s with graying black hair. She walks to the center stage with a clip board and a smile on her face.

Mrs. Hutchison: Very good. Another excellent match for you Peri, you saw your opponent’s openings and you made swift advantage of them.

Peri: Thank you mam.

The young boy named Peri, who welded dual swords sheathed his weapon with a smile. When he looks at Rowan his friendly smile was replaced with a smug grin. This was his third match with Peri and boy did his fellow classmate loved holding that over his head. Like it was an accomplishment for him.

In front of instructors, Peri was an obedient and excelling student, but when they weren’t watching his personality changed and he had the tendency to act like a...what was that word Mr. Whitley would call people who are arrogant and rude...‘duckhead?’ Yeah something like that. Anyway, Peri was one of the top students in the class and had won five fights in the first month of his first year, three of which were against him. Peri made it a point to hold that over his head and call him a ‘second rate’ fighter and a huntsman wannabe. Well he wasn’t wrong about his fighting ability.

Rowan was not a bad student academically or physically during his first month at Signal, but he was ashamed to admit that he was...‘trash’ with a scythe. Rowan only wanted to be like his mom and started to train with a scythe but while training with her was good, it became apparent that he was not as making any progress with her teachings. What made today worse was that his aunt was overseeing the match from the back of the class. Something about being there for moral support but he had the suspicion that she had an alternative motive. Especially since she’s been eyeing Peri after he did a certain maneuver that flips him on his back.

Mrs. Hutchison: Rowan, Mr. Rowan!

Rowan: Huh?

Class:(Starts uproariously laughing)

Mrs. Hutchison: Well Rowan, have you been paying attention to what I was saying you would have heard that while you are an a quick to your feet against your opponent, you are lack skill in landing a hit on your opponent. Also your scythe technique is...less to be desired. I would suggest that you either spend time after school in the training room or change to another weapon choice.

Rowan: Thank you mam.

*Riiiiinnnnggg*

Mrs. Hutchison: Alright children remember that your other classes will begin their first exams in two weeks so it’s advisable to study for them. You’re all dismissed. Well, except you Mr. Rowan I need to have a brief word with you and your aunt in my office, if you would please. Your mother will also be here shortly.

Rowan: ....Yes mam.

- Mrs. Hutchison’s Office -

Ruby walks into the office of the older teacher and sees her sister and son there waiting for her to arrive.

Mrs. Hutchison: Ah Miss Rose thank you for coming it is a pleasure for you to join us today.

Ruby: Thank you Mrs. Hutchison, it’s good to see you too. Wish it was during different circumstances though. You said you had something to speak to me about Rowan’s performance in combat class?

Mrs. Hutchison: Yes, I’m afraid it’s not good news. You see Rowan here has lost three matches in the first month of the class since he started. While he is academically excelling in the lecture side of this class, I’m afraid that if he loses another match, he could be at risk of failing my class.

Ruby/Yang: What?!

Ruby: But I thought the total number of lost matches for a student to fail was five. There must be a mistake.

Mrs. Hutchison: I wish there was, and you are correct that the original number was five while you two were students was five. But the school changed that rule when the council amended new regulations to the combat school curriculum. Unfortunately, the changes that came saw fit to create more effective hunters by lessening the number of loss matches from five to three.

Yang: Create more eff-they want to make better hunters by increasing the chances of failing. That’s stupid!

Mrs. Hutchison: I agree, I tried to have Signal request a appeal for the amendment to be revoked or at least changed but I was out voted. I’ll be honest with you ladies, I don’t want to do this to your son, he is a very sweet boy, very honest and hardworking. However, if Rowan does not improve in his combat class it could cost him his grade for the first year.

Both Ruby and Yang look at each other, showing much concern about the situation. They would have to think of something if they wanted to help Rowan get through the first year.

Yang: When will his next match be?

Mrs. Hutchison: ...two weeks.

Ruby/Yang: *thinking* ‘Shit...’

- Rose Household -

Yang had given her scroll to Ruby to look at the footage she took from the fight and both watched how the fight went down. Ruby wanted to be supportive of her son in all things that he did, but this was particularly difficult to watch. Her maternal instincts were telling her that she should have prepared Rowan better from his training with her and Yang. However, her huntress side was critiquing on how her son had missed many of his attempted strikes and was lugging his practice scythe all over the arena. Eventually she reaches the end of the video, Ruby gives Yang back her scroll and presses her finger tips together to gather her thoughts.

Ruby: ......I didn’t want to believe it but she’s right. Rowan’s fighting skills are not up to par.

Yang: Yeah, I don’t even think you had it this bad when you first started.

Ruby: Yeah....Hey!

Yang: Ruby if anything that was a compliment. I’m looking at this and I can already tell that Rowan’s getting his ass whooped every match. Especially with that Peri kid. He’s not great, but with Rowan’s fighting it makes him look good.

Ruby: Oh my poor baby, he’s probably feels so discouraged right now. But I don’t know how to help him, I’m doing everything that Qrow taught me when I was doing badly but it doesn’t seem the training is transferring as smoothly to him as it did me. What could I be doing wrong?~ (Places head in her arms on the table)

Yang: Look I know this might not be something you want to hear but, maybe we should get an outside opinion.

Ruby: What? What do you mean?

Yang: Well, what I’m saying is that maybe the reason he’s struggling so hard is because ...we’re going soft on him.

Ruby: Wait, are you saying that the reason Rowan is losing his fights is because we’re too soft in training? That’s ridiculous!

Yang: Look Sis, I don’t want to admit it, but I have seen how you’ve been training him. I can assure you that you are not going as tough as you should be.

Ruby: That’s.....ok maybe I have been taking it easy on him but it’s only his first month. I didn’t know I’d be setting him back this much. Oh, maybe you’re right, we should get a outside opinion.

Yang: And I know just who to call!

*3 hours later*

Whitley: ....Yeah the kid sucks. (Gives Yang back her Scroll)

Ruby: You could have sugarcoat it a little.

Whitley: I was sugarcoating it.

Ruby: Oh...

Whitley: Look I’m just going to provide my honest opinion. I think you’re not pushing him as hard as I think you should be. It doesn’t mean that Rowan is a lost cause or that you are entirely at fault. It’s still early in his training so he can get caught up still. Speaking of Rowan where’s he now?

Yang: Oh he’s doing his training exceeises.

Whitley: Show me.

Yang: Ok, follow me Shrimp boy.

Whitley: I’m over 30 and you’re still calling me that.

Yang:(Singsong) And I’m not planning to stop.~

Whitley: Sometimes I think she’s doing that on purpose to rile me up.

Ruby: Why don’t you tell her to stop if it bothers you so much?

Whitley: You and I both know that by doing that it would acknowledge she is winning, I refuse to give her the satisfaction.

Ruby:(Places hand on his shoulder) Truly you are a brave soul.

Whitley: Don’t patronize me. Now come on let’s fix the mess you made.

Ruby: Hey! I’ll have you know that my training is not that bad. It ensures that Rowan gets the training he needs and he’s safe while doing so.

Whitley: Oh this’ll be good to see.

*Five Minutes Later. Outside of Rose House*

Whitley: I was wrong. This is so much worse than I thought.

Yang: It’s not... that bad.

Whitley: Yang please don’t try to sugarcoat this....mess. I mean come on, what is he even wearing?!

Before the three of them was Rowan who was wearing his ‘training armor’. Said training armor consists of a football helmet, a chest protector, shin guards, hockey gloves, and finally multiple pillows for extra protection. His practice scythe being made of wood with styrofoam on the edge. The only way one could tell it was Rowan wearing the gear was the silver eyes peeking out of the protective visor.

Ruby: I personally don’t see what’s wrong with anything here.

Whitley: You-You can’t be serious Ruby. How can you not see what’s wrong here. I can see now why he’s having such a hard time with combat class, it’s because your training the poor kid like this!

Yang: Whitley...

Whitley: Alright look, sorry for the blunt criticism, but there will need to be serious changes to the boy’s training routine. That means no more ‘training armor’.

Ruby: What?! But he’ll be vulnerable without the armor.

Whitley: He’s vulnerable with the armor on! Look, Rowan do a turn around for me.

Rowan: Ok...just give me a minute...eh! (Rowan waddles around but he eventually gets to turning in the span of 20 seconds)

Ruby: ...Ok I think I see what you mean. (Looks down dejected)

Whitley: ‘Sigh’ Look Ruby, you want your son to pass right.

Ruby: Of course I do.

Whitley: Then the first thing you do is to stop treating him as a child and as a young hunter who needs training to survive.

Ruby: Ok, that’s a start. Any other advice.

Whitley: Yeah, maybe change his weapon. I get the feeling a scythe is not the best weapon choice for him.

Ruby:(Dead Stare)...Excuse me.

Whitley: Ok hear me out first, I think some of the problems that we’re having here is not just due to having poor training......What I’m saying is that he sucks at using a scythe in general. I mean.....like a lot.

Ruby: ... I’m giving you a five second head start. (Cocks Crescent Rose)

Whitley: Oh fuck me. (Starts to run like mad)

Rowan: Mr. Whitley where you-?

Whitley: CAN’T TALK GOTTA RUN! (Running past him)

Ruby: RRRAAAAAAHHHHH!!! (Chasing after Whitley)

Rowan: ...Are they gonna be ok?

Yang:(Walks up to her nephew and rubs his helmet) Don’t worry kiddo they’ll be fine. Your mom just needs to let out some steam on Shrimp Boy.

Rowan: Oh... you mean like how you say you’re gonna go let out some steam when you and Mr. Whitley go to town and don’t come back until the next night?

Yang:(Blushes) Um... No that’s, uh, that’s different. What I mean is your Mom and Whitley just need to fight it out.

Rowan: Oh... what’s the diff-?

Yang: When you’re older, Rowan.

Whitley: WHY ARE YOU BITING ME!!!

Ruby: TAKE IT BACK!!!

Whitley: GET OFF ME!!!

Ruby: NOT UNTIL YOU SUFFER!!!

-End of Part 1-

A/N: Made a few edits.

[fourdaysofrain]

In a Flash

Summary: Peter sees a familiar face during patrol.

(Post-Far From Home, ignores the end credits scene)

Read on AO3

Peter Parker was standing in a cemetery.

It’s not the first cemetery he’s been in. He’s had experience with grieving, of course. His Aunt May and Uncle Ben helped him process the death of his parents, and then his Aunt May alone helped him with the death of his uncle. Even before that, he was brought to the funeral of his great-grandfather before he was old enough to realize why everyone was crying.

But now, he stood in front of the grave of Tony Stark. It was bare, with dirt that hadn’t yet begun to grow grass. Peter slowly leaned down and placed a single white carnation against the gravestone.

“Mr. Stark, I–” his words caught in his throat, countless unsaid feelings floating just out of his reach.

Peter kept taking slow, deep breaths. He didn’t plan anything to say, he had hoped it would come to him in the moment. He settled for just looking solidly at the dirt, too afraid of the finality of seeing the name engraved in the stone.

He watched as a small spider slowly stalked through the ground. Another unearthed right behind it. And another to the left. Peter tried to shift backward, but his shoes were glued to the earth beneath him. He couldn’t even look away.

He saw the dirt shift almost imperceptibly. And then it continued to shake, a mound forming in the center.

A gauntlet burst out, one that was too achingly familiar. Peter wanted to move, to run away, to do anything, but he couldn’t even blink. He was trapped to watch as the rotting carcass of Tony Stark pulled itself out of its grave and grabbed him, pulling him down into the earth.

If you were good enough, maybe Tony would still be alive.

Peter slowly slid his window open, not wanting to disturb Ned, who was still snoring loudly underneath a pile of blankets. They had yet another sleepover last night, both still too afraid to sleep comfortably alone. They both passed out to Ned’s laptop almost judgmentally showing the “Are you still watching?” screen from Netflix.

Peter had nightmares about Tony’s death even before he sacrificed himself to save the world. But after Mysterio, they were happening more and more frequently. Thankfully, he was able to wake up without screaming now. He cringed as he remembered the first couple weeks when he would feel Aunt May softly rubbing his back as he sobbed himself awake. But tonight, he just needed some fresh air to calm down. Sticking to the outside of his bedroom, he double-checked that his suit was sealed correctly, and then put his mask on.

“Hey Karen, how’s your night going?” he asked casually.

“Good evening Peter. Your heart rate seems to be elevated, is there anything I can do to help?” Karen’s voice cut cleanly through the dull sounds of the city at night.

“Uh- no, no I don’t think so, I just need to swing around for a while. You know.”

“Of course, Peter. Would you like me to play your patrol playlist on Spotify?”

“No, that’s okay, Karen. Thank you though.”

“I’m here if you need me.”

Peter took a deep breath before jumping from the wall and falling to the ground below. He felt the rush of wind around him and waited as long as he could before shooting a web and pulling himself back into the air.

He tried not to think about when Karen would offer to call Mr. Stark on nights like these. She would read his fast heartbeat, figure out he had a nightmare, and Mr. Stark would call him with a lazy excuse about needing his opinion on a project. They would end up talking for so long he’d forget what the nightmare was even about. Or, Mr. Stark would get an alert that he was using the suit past curfew, and he’d get an angry phone call on his display. The current lack of supervision was almost oppressive, some nights. Aunt May was always willing to help him, but she had no way of knowing what he did after he went to bed each night. Happy kept in touch with him, of course, and he was able to get some information from the suit, but he didn’t even know the half of all the protocols Mr. Stark made. Peter himself was only barely starting to scratch the surface.

The first time he went out patrolling after Mr. Stark di- after the blip, he got stabbed. It was nothing he hadn’t seen before, he just needed to get to the MedBay. Karen had innocently asked if he wanted to call Mr. Stark, and he broke. He was barely able to tell her to call Happy instead. The next day, he went through her code with Ned and removed any reference to him. The next month, he put it all back in, and slowly struggled through telling her the story of how he saved the universe.

The night progressed slowly. He swung from building to building, no end destination in mind. The beating of his heart eventually slowed to match the steady rhythm of his swings. He finally ended up on the roof of a nearby building to take a break before going back home. He wasn’t keeping track of how much time had passed since he left, and he wanted to get home before sunrise.

The hair on his arms stood up, and he got a short burst of adrenaline. Something was wrong.

“Karen, what’s happening?” he whispered.

“There seems to be a mugging happening in the alleyway to your right,” Karen responded.

“Thanks, Karen. I’ll check it out.”

He slowly peered over the edge of the building to get a read on the mugging. There were three men surrounding someone who was cowering against the end of the alleyway. He couldn’t see any weapons out, but that didn’t mean there were none.

“Hey Karen, activate enhanced reconnaissance mode. Let me hear what they’re saying.”

“On it, Peter.”

A small rectangle appears over them in his mask’s display and magnifies his vision.

“C’mon kid, just fork it over and no one gets hurt,” a gruff voice said.

The reply consisted of mostly whimpers and heavy breathing.

“Dude, if he’s not gonna just give it to us, we’re gonna have to take it,” a second voice grunted.

Peter decided this was a good time to jump in. He dropped slowly down to the ground, making sure to remember Nat’s advice about landing on his toes so he didn’t alert the muggers.

“Thing like that must cost a pretty penny, eh? Not like your daddy can’t just get you a new one, with how much you were runnin’ your mouth back there,” the third voice finally chimed in, a small flick of his wrist revealing a switchblade.

Peter took one more slow, deep breath before intervening, putting on the Spider-Man persona like an old leather glove.

“Hey, guys! Looks like you’re all having fun, but unfortunately, I gotta break this up.”

When the three criminals turned around, Peter shot a web at the third’s hand that held the blade to pin it to the wall. His hand instinctively opened, and the switchblade fell to the ground. One of the remaining two dove for it.

“Oh no you don’t,” Peter shot a web over the knife to make it unreachable, “don’t you guys have more than one of these? That’s poor planning on your part.” He shot a web across the torso of the third, who was trying to pry his hand free. He was pinned to the side of the alleyway. Now he just had two to worry about.

They were both moving towards him aggressively. He threw a web grenade at the side of the alley, and when it detonated it threw the two of them to the opposite side. All three of them were stuck to the wall in some way or another. He could handle petty criminals like these in his sleep. He mumbled a quick reminder to Karen to alert the local precinct and got a short confirmation in return.

The person at the end of the alley was still curled up in the fetal position. All he could see was the top of a very gelled hairstyle. He shot a quick web over each of the mugger’s mouths before starting to approach the victim.

“Hey guy, or uh- person! Don’t worry, these things happen all the time. Are you hurt? Do you need help?” Peter could hear a staccato rhythm of quick, sharp breaths underneath the muffled yelling of the muggers as he got closer. He slowly crouched and put a hand on the person’s shoulder, when they yelped and started to run out of the alleyway. Peter froze for a beat and then lightly jogged after them.

“Hey! Hey, you can’t just run away! I know it’s kind of scary but I want to make sure you’re okay!” Peter called as he caught up. It didn’t take long, but they were able to make it out of the alleyway. At least he didn’t have to keep looking at the wild eyes of the three men webbed to the walls. Peter grabbed their shoulder again and they whipped around.

“Hey, do you have anyone I can call for–” he froze. It was Flash. He just saved his high school bully from a group of muggers.

“Holy shit!” Flash exclaimed, eyes wide.

“Hey, hey, hey. The bad guys are gone now, it’s just you and me.” Peter tried to sympathize with him, being in danger for the first time can be a big shock.

“Jes- Jesus Christ! They could have killed me!”

“They didn’t though, you’re good, they’re stuck back there for a couple of hours.” Peter awkwardly motioned to the alley before trying to find a natural position for his arms.

Flash let out a huge sigh and slumped against the wall of the adjacent building. Peter looked at him and sighed in turn while he wondered how to proceed. Sure, Flash gives him a lot of shit in school, but it’s not like he was irredeemable. Peter also knew that he was a huge fan of Spider-Man, and he didn’t want to ruin that.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Flash looked at him with a start.

“Are you Spider-Man?” he yelped.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I am.” No, these are my pajamas.

“You’ve saved me before.” Peter didn’t want to give anything about his identity away.

“When?”

“I was in the Washington Monument when the elevator broke. Part of an academic decathlon team, if you know what that is.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that. Were you the guy who tried to save the trophy before himself?” C’mon, just because he was helping him didn’t mean he couldn’t make a little fun of him.

Flash gave a dry chuckle.

“Yeah, I guess that was me.”

Peter hummed in response, wondering how he could end this conversation quickly.

“You also stole my dad’s car.”

Peter’s gaze quickly snapped back to Flash, but he didn’t sound angry. He just sounded… sad.

“I’m really sorry, you were the first person I–”

“Don’t apologize,” Flash interrupted, “That was the first time in a long time that my father paid any attention to me.”

The statement hung heavily in the air between them as Flash’s breaths started to even out.

“Y’know,” Flash started, “I swear I’ve heard your voice before, Spider-Man.”

Oh shit. Peter felt his blood turn to ice. He knew he should have made a voice modulator, but he kept putting it off. All the ones that Mr. Stark had made him were over-the-top and dramatic, just like the man himself.

“Voices are weird like that, huh? You just said we met before anyways, so…” He tried to subtly deepen his voice.

“You just changed it, you sounded different before.”

“Listen, Flash, it’s not a big deal.”

“How do you know my name? You said it while you stole the car, too.”

Double shit.

“I– Someone said it in the Washington Monument, and I remembered it because it’s a cool nickname?” Peter squeaked out, hoping Flash would be blinded by the compliment.

“Are you spying on me? Is this because of what Father did? I know he’s rich, but he’s not worth all this trouble. Because if you hold me hostage, it’s not like he’ll give you anything. And he’s not available, anyways. I tried calling him when those thugs tried to get my phone, but I only have the model early because he paid for an exclusive prototype. If you want it, just take it, they weren’t lying when–”

“Woah woah woah, hey,” Peter cut him off before he ran out of oxygen, “I’m not spying on you, don’t worry.” Flash’s fear turned to anger. He pushed off the wall and got into Peter’s personal space.

“Then tell me how you know my name, Spider-Shit. And why you sound so familiar. I’m just tired of no one listening to me.”

“It’s not a big deal, don’t worry. I’m just going to leave now.”

“I’ll show you a big deal”

Then it happened. Before Peter could lean away, Flash grabbed the top of his mask and pulled.

Peter stilled, cursing his supposed Peter tingle. He kept eye contact with Flash, blinking a few times to let his eyes adjust to the change in brightness.

Flash was frozen, his mouth in an almost perfect “O.” He stuttered a few times, not knowing what to say first.

“I– You– Wh–”

Peter’s inner conscious was swinging between fight and flight like a metronome on meth. Eventually, it stopped on one.

“Bye Flash. The cops are already coming, you can leave,” he said grimly. Before Flash could form a coherent sentence, Peter jumped off a nearby streetlight to gain momentum and grabbed his mask from Flash’s hand with a web as he used his other hand to swing from a nearby building. He quickly put it on before getting out of Flash’s line of sight, turning his head to see him staring right at him.

“Shit,” Peter murmured.

—

Peter was able to get back to his bedroom before anyone woke up. He changed back into his hand-me-down pajamas and booted up his laptop. There was no way he’d go back to sleep now. Thankfully he didn’t have to see Flash until Monday, and it was still Saturday.

He checked the clock. Scratch that– Sunday. He sighed and rubbed his face. He had no clue how he was going to face Flash knowing he was Spider-Man. He checked Spider-Man’s mentions on Twitter and Instagram, but there wasn’t anything online about his identity yet. That was a good sign, at least. The only people who weren’t superheroes or part of Mr. Fury’s group that knew his identity were May, Ned, and MJ. And Liz’s dad, but he figured it out last year and nothing has happened yet. He really didn’t want to add anyone else. Flash knowing was… manageable, as long as he didn’t tell anyone else. He decided to just mindlessly browse Twitter while he waited for the rest of the world to wake up.

—

“Are you sure I can’t miss a day?” Peter groaned out from underneath his pillow. Sunday went by too fast. He managed to not let it slip that Flash found out his identity to Ned or May, but it still sat like a stone deep in his stomach.  

“Peter, superheroes don’t get sick, you already miss so many classes. Ned’ll be here soon, chop-chop!” May yelled from the kitchen, no doubt trying to get the coffee maker to work.

Peter stretched his spine before quickly throwing on the cleanest looking clothes he could find on his floor and made it to the front door just as Ned was knocking, being sure to grab his wrapped up lunch and snacks from the counter before he left.

“Bye May, love you!” He yelled behind him as he walked out, locking the door behind him.

Peter and Ned walked to school together, like always. Ned was talking about LEGO’s new Avenger Tower set when the secret bubbled up into Peter’s throat. He made sure no one was around, and then interrupted Ned.

“Flash saw me in the suit!” He said harshly.

“What? When?” Ned looked at Peter with the same wide-eyed look that he always has when talking about his extracurricular activities.

“During our sleepover, I went out after you fell asleep and I stopped some people who were mugging Flash and then he took my mask off and I just left and now we’re going to see him in school and he’s probably already told everyone!”

“Why did you let him take off your mask!”

“I don’t know it just happened!”

“I thought you had your Peter tingle?” Ned acted out his words, waving his fingers near his temple.

“Stop calling it that, I’m freaking out right now, man!”

“It’ll be fine Peter, we can figure this out together. Does May know?”

“No I didn’t tell her, are you crazy? She already hates Flash, this would just give her an actual reason to go murder him!” There was only one adult he would feel comfortable telling, and he was six feet underground somewhere upstate.

“Okay, just… Deep breaths. We can figure this out.”

Peter and Ned’s conversation kept ping-ponging between the two for the rest of their walk. Eventually, they reached their lockers.

“Ned, we have chemistry first period with him! What’ll I do?” Peter said, sounding more like a strangled cat than a teenager.

“Guy in the chair, I’ll figure something out. I can cause a distraction whenever you need. I’ll just drop all my stuff onto the floor, just give me the signal,” Ned said pointedly, grabbing an extra textbook he doesn’t need from his locker.  

“I don’t see how that will help,” Peter hissed at Ned before they walked to class.

—

Flash was already in his seat and had a crowd of students around his desk.

“I was scared out of my mind, when all of a sudden–” Flash’s eyes snapped to Peter and he choked on his words for a second. He cleared his throat before anyone listening to him noticed and returned his attention back to the group around him– “Spider-Man came in. He just wiped the floor with these guys, it was awesome. I got to see it all happen five feet away.”

Peter tried to keep his face as neutral as possible as he watched Flash from across the room. Ned, meanwhile, was looking visibly anxious as he fiddled with his stack of textbooks put purposefully near the edge of the desk.

“After he was done and all the guys were stuck to the wall, he just swung away, probably off to save more people’s lives,” Flash finally looked up from the small group of students and made eye contact with Peter as he finished his story, “I wasn’t even able to say thank you.”

Peter let out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding.

Peter nodded slowly.

Flash nodded back.

And if either of them noticed Flash started calling him Peter, they wouldn’t tell.

[spiritleak]

Narcissists & gaslighting, Jezebel Spirits, journey to abuse healing

Psychologists state that a narcissist is someone who has covered his true self-expression in response to mental injuries and replaced it with a highly developed, compensatory false self. This other self often comes across as above others, self-centred, self-absorbed, and highly conceited.

Many of them also use gaslighting as a way to make many people around them more vulnerable to their attacks.

Gaslighting is a form of peristent manipulation and constant indirect brainwashing that causes the victim to doubt himself, his opinions and side of the stoy. The goal is to ultimately lose one’s own sense of perception, identity, and self-worth. A gaslighter’s statements and accusations are often based on deliberate falsehoods and calculated marginalization. The term gaslighting is derived from the 1944 film Gaslight, where a husband tries to convince his wife that she’s insane by causing her to question herself and her reality.

Many narcissists are gaslighters but it's not necessary to always coexist 100% . Someone could have antisocial personality disorder (sociopathy) and use gaslighting to manipulate, for instance.

Both narcissists and gaslighters tend to project false, idealized images of themselves to the world, in order to hide their inner insecurities. Many narcissists like to impress others by making themselves look good externally. This complex can exhibit itself physically, romantically, sexually, socially, religiously, financially, materially, professionally, academically, or culturally. The underlying message of this display is: “I’m better than you!” or “Look at how special I am — I’m worthy of everyone’s love, admiration, and acceptance!”

Both narcissists and gaslighters have a desire to make decisions for others to suit their own benefit. Narcissists may use their romantic family members, friends, or colleague to meet unreasonable self-serving needs, fulfill unrealized dreams, or cover-up weaknesses and shortcomings. Narcissists are also fond of using blame, guilt and victimhood as manipulative means.

Gaslighters conduct psychological manipulation toward individuals and groups through persistent distortion of the truth, with the intention of causing their victims to question themselves and feel less confident. In personal and professional environments, they manipulate by telling others how they should think, feel, and behave under the gaslighter’s unreasonable restrictions. They often become judgemental, angry, intimidating, and hostile toward those who fail to bow down to their directives. Gaslighter manipulation is often highly aggressive, with punitive measures (tangible or psychological) executed toward those who fail to recognize and obey their self-perceived authority.

Jezebel spirits - the spiritual side of manipulative people

How can you tell if a Jezebel spirit is affecting your actions or using someone close to you?

In her book, “Jezebel’s Puppets” Jennifer LeClaire describes Jezebel as: “A wicked spirit that has roamed the earth for thousands of years seeking someone to entice into sin, Jezebel is more than a spirit of control and manipulation that many make it out to be.  Jezebel is a spirit of seduction that works to woo people into immorality and idolatry….”

People influenced by a spirit of Jezebel have fear issues of rejection. They control others so that they will not be hurt. Generally, there is a history of trauma or abuse. They are not accountable to anyone and often accuse others of being a Jezebel. A Jezebel never forgets when they are wronged because they struggle to forgive others. Therefore, he/she will not be at peace until they find revenge, even if it takes years to achieve. Jezebels do not forgive nor forget. Such a person is capable of killing you emotionally or destroying your life. In the bible, such was the case with the Pharisees, they found Jesus teachings offensive and very hurtful to them and they eventually sort to kill and destroy Jesus.Those under Jezebel in position whether in the workplace, ministry or family dynamics; will tend to fear him/her because when a Jezebel is in power, he/she has an authoritative and threatening demeanour. He/she will cunningly make you believe that you need him/her and you’re nothing without their help. A Jezebel spirit is never wrong, unless it is a temporary admittance of guilt to gain favor with someone, make them feel empathy and confuse them. To accept actual responsibility would violate the core of insecurity and pride from which it operates. When a Jezebel apologizes it is never in true repentance or acknowledgment of wrongdoing. It’s unbelievably painful when it’s a member of your own family. People have a hard time believing anyone could be so cruel. It’s life shattering to come to grips with this as reality

No matter what someone’s religious and spiritual views are, I believe we all agree that it is important to heal. To heal from emotionally draining people and situations and eventually get out.  Heal from the self doubt and self hate we are being put through when dealing with such a person. Gain our lost confidence back and realize that they are the problem, not us.

How will that healing take place?

Try to get educated on the topic. Watch Youtube videos and read about such behaviors. Knowledge is your biggest weapon against manipulation and hurt. Understand that they are not who they show they are and also realize what they want from you. 

Begin to notice that self-care is something you need to participate in consistently. Not sorely because you are healing from emotional abuse, but because healthy people, in general, understand the importance of putting on their oxygen mask before they can help others.Life can be stressful enough without the added obstacle of toxic abuse. It only stands to reason that if your goal is narcissistic abuse recovery, your body and mind require extreme self-care. This might include reducing social engagements, staying off of the internet, saying “no” to friends and family, taking a nap when you feel exhausted, and making time to do meditations.You resist the urge to make excuses as to why you can’t take care of yourself, realizing that even single mothers can work self-care into their schedules.  If you are a single mother, you deliberately get a babysitter on occasion to take yourself out. Do guided meditations, treat yourself with spending time doing what you love, listen to relaxing music. One step at a time. You are worth this.

No longer obsess about the narcissist with their new supply or the fact that they seem so happy because you can come to understand that the narcissist is destined to repeat the same cycle of abuse with anyone they are with at any given time. There is an African, humanist philosophy called Ubuntu. At its most basic, it states that:  ‘A person is a person through other people’. Who you choose to associate with will have an influence on who you are. This means that surrounding yourself with narcissists, manipulators, and abusers will lead to deep unhappiness.

WIsh you luck on your beautiful journey!

[fursasaida]

hello!when you're not busy/if you don't mind, could you pls recommend something to read on how human rights can sometimes get hijacked in propaganda? like for example how american conservatives can use religious freedom beat on other countries, how lgbtqa rights can get disingenuously used to push islamophobic agenda etc idk if this makes sense basically how human rights can be a complicated situated subject. sorry to bother you! you just seem to know everything ;_; pls feel free ignore this ask

Hi! I’m alive again.

Trafficking Women’s Human Rights by Julieta Hua

Human Rights, Inc by Joseph Slaughter

This is somewhat oblique but relevant: The Protestant Ethnic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Rey Chow

Again, not directly about human rights but still illuminating: “Uncommoning Nature: Stories from the anthropo-not-seen” by Marisol de la Cadena (from the book Anthropos and the Material)

If I had my wits about me a little more I’d look for some shorter articles to suggest, because I know a bunch of academic books is kind of a steep hill to climb. But I don’t know when I’ll have the wherewithal to do that properly, so I’d rather answer you now. Feel free to send another ask later if you can’t get access to these, or if you need something a little less demanding!

The main thing to remember, I think, is that the concept of “rights” as abstract freedoms that are distributed equally and inherently across every individual is not universal. That is, a basic respect for people and their ability to live their lives is not the same as “human rights.” Human rights is a legal framework that developed directly out of both the Enlightenment and colonialism; the mission to bring “human rights” to the world is very often a reinscription of the colonial mission to “civilize” the world that Western Europe and the US engaged in. To be “included” in this system is also to be produced as a particular kind of (autonomous, socially/culturally un-differentiated) individual, which may not be what the people targeted by this mission want.

To take de la Cadena’s chapter as an example, the Peruvian state wants to “develop” the land of the Awajun Wampis mainly for its own profit; but part of why they see doing this as unproblematic is because they make certain assumptions about what is “good for” Awajun Wampis–jobs, money, infrastructure, connection to urban centers, etc. (To be clear, the point here isn’t that the state is fundamentally benevolent, but that the state makes assumptions about what “any rational individual” would and should want.) But all of those assumptions are based on the idea that Awajun Wampis see themselves as individuals with certain kinds of “interests” that are ultimately the same as those held by the individuals who make up the state. Meanwhile, Awajun Wampis see themselves as “being-with” the watercourses and land that make up their territory; they aren’t separable from those other forms of life. Or rather, to make them separate would make them no longer Awajun Wampis.  The “development” that the state wants to bring them would destroy that “being-with.” As one of the resisting activists quoted in the chapter says [paraphrasing from memory], “no one asked us if we wanted their development.” The point here is not that Awajun Wampis are pre-modern noble savages who ~respect the earth~. (That idea only makes sense from the same Enlightenment point of view that a) casts “The Earth” as something separate which it is moral to “respect,” and b) assumes that it is unusual or optional–even if charmingly or transcendently so–to respect this alienated other.) The point is instead that the idea of the individual as autonomous is a set of Enlightenment assumptions built into the very concept of “human” as it is generally used now in these discussions. As a result, the “rights” of human rights are devised in service of that kind of atomized individual. To be granted “human rights” is also to be folded into a system that quite likely deprives you of other things, not least other ways of being and understanding your place in the world.

In terms of how this is weaponized, I think a very telling example is how, after Ferguson, the current president of Egypt started making a lot of noise about how the US has no right to go around dictating human rights to other countries. Sisi fucking sucks, and his point was in service of bad ambitions (being left alone to continue repressing Egyptian society), but he was right that hypocrisy was evident. That moment points to how, again, because “human rights” is organized around an Enlightenment and colonial idea of “human,” certain kinds of people are always conceived as not quite ready for human rights, not fully deserving of them, or not yet having fully put them into practice. This can be weaponized in two different ways. One is to say that “because you (as a non-white people, or as people who don’t believe in property, etc.) are not doing human rights right, we have a higher right to force you to behave differently. In the name of rights! It’s obviously right!” This is basically the story of U.S. foreign policy when it comes to human rights. The other is to say “because you are not consistent with our notion of human, we have no obligation to respect your human rights.” This is what happened in Ferguson in the first place. These forms get used interchangeably according to whatever is convenient for those with the power in the specific situation, but the point is that “human rights” only means something if someone is outside it. That is, human rights is a project that requires some people to be deprived of it or not capable of practicing it in order to sustain itself; otherwise it has no purpose. (This is where the fact that it’s a legal framework comes in. Laws exist to curb contestation; they need an outside.) So “human rights” is very often a kind of fig leaf for what is really an exercise of power, just as the civilizing or Christianizing mission was for imperialism.

To be clear, this does not have to mean a total retreat to moral/cultural relativism. Recognizing that human rights is a specific and culturally-situated paradigm doesn’t mean you can’t say anything is ever right or wrong. It just means that you need to develop your moral framework beyond that one limited paradigm. You wouldn’t accept that your moral framework couldn’t extend beyond “whatever is currently legal in your town,” right? Human rights is one current legal and moral paradigm that has attained some international hegemony; looking past it doesn’t mean abandoning ethics or politics. You just have to think hard and critically about what the basis for your ethics and politics is.

[mikeshinoda12-blog]

Introducing Construction in Ireland

The kind of construction modeled in the index ought to be considered.  Safeguarding Your InvestmentHiring a contractor who's experienced with pouring concrete walls will guarantee that you receive a high quality product which will endure for years.  The usage of equipment to safeguard against life-threatening hazards is also discussed.

This practice enhances the safety on the building site.  A lot of death in construction result from hazards concerning construction activity.  The expense of rip rap will be dependent on several things like amount, size and supplier.

Construction in Ireland

If you don't desire to get these communications, we encourage you to opt from the receipt of particular communications. These parties aren't permitted to use personally identifiable information but for the purpose of providing these services. Our unbiased, expert staff is always readily available to help you locate the most suitable studying to fit your requirements and your financial plan. You'll locate people want websites for their company and families. If you are searching for assistance with your dissertation then we provide a comprehensive writing service given by fully qualified academics in your area of study. If you've got the very same experience as we do you will understand that most people (such as installers) take shortcuts. The Chronicles of Construction in Ireland Normally, you'll have a variable rate of interest during the building phase, or so the rate and your payment can fluctuate. Qualifying for a house construction loan is typically harder than qualifying for a conventional mortgage. If you can't get qualified for financing, you don't wish to be out hundreds or thousands that you set into blueprints and design. The Construction in Ireland Stories Have you parents look over any organization you opt to make certain they're genuine. This charge will be different between company's, make sure that you ask. In place of just offering general cleaning companies attempt to locate a specialty that'll cause you to get different and thus a more marketable job candidate. Any employer will need an interview (when you submit an application for work), which explains why you must learn different interviewing techniques. Today the construction industry in the usa includes a number of skilled tradespeople. Working for a British company overseas provides you with an awareness of home-from-home. New Ideas Into Construction in Ireland Never Before Revealed When you use features like Remember My Username,'' the cookie is related to your Personal Information as a way to offer you a more convenient experience. You can also delete cookies from your device at any moment. Our site's cookies are temporary and can't be utilized to recognize individual visitors. However, you might also change your browser settings at any moment and apply the Arvato website without cookies. Other third party tools and widgets might be employed on our personal web pages to supply extra functionality. You may make adjustments to your notification preferences at any moment. A Secret Weapon for Construction in Ireland A whole lot of schools find it tough to renew their sports features for an assortment of sporting activities, which means children find it impossible to take part in these types of sporting activities. For the additional 2, however, you obtain a lot of additional information regarding the history of the castle and all the events it's been involved in. Similarly your house also appears shabby if you don't put on some decor at all. Ideas, Formulas and Shortcuts for Construction in Ireland If you're interesting in improving your house on the cheap, think about using salvaged building materials. Both the finishing and the standard of the woods are unparalleled. When you initiate the building of the walls, you'll get to a specific height that the block layers are no longer able to carry on without a suitable scaffolding. Ultimately, existing ties will want to get isolated to prevent more damage to the outer leaf. If you've been contemplating building a new house, it may be among the most exciting and fulfilling projects you will ever undertake. The internal home decoration equally require care and concern to coordinate with the exterior. The Most Popular Construction in Ireland Typically, a bachelor's degree in engineering is demanded. Employment posters are an excellent quick reference which will enable you to rapidly summarize the laws in your specific state. Nowadays occupational safety is quite a common matter. The Secret to Construction in Ireland These jurisdictions may not supply the same degree of information protection as your home jurisdiction and might not be considered by the European Commission to provide adequate protections for personal data. In case you have any concerns about our handling of your private information, please speak to us at the aforementioned address. We explain below various mechanisms which you are able to utilize to opt-out of our usage of your private data in respect of Services that we provide in regard to Client Sites. If you continue to get a relationship with us, we have to retain the data we want to manage this relationship. The duration of time we keep any component of your private information will be contingent on the kind of information and the purpose for which it was obtained. At your option, you could also provide demographic information (for example, gender or age) about yourself, but it's not required. Introducing Construction in Ireland It is crucial to note DE does not really employ teachers working in schools in Northern Ireland. Many Irish businesses are currently busy in the united kingdom helping to tackle a problem on either side of the Irish Sea a desperate demand for more housing. The expense of land in Ireland varies considerably in line with the area. The Good, the Bad and Construction in Ireland Cob is labour intensive, but it's extremely satisfying. This charge will be different between company's, make sure that you ask. A great architect needs to be in a position to recommend quite a few reliable builders, but you need to also do your own research, as the absolute most important consideration when building a house is the reputation (and financial standing) of the builder. Union-sponsored apprenticeships are the foundation of the building business and the most typical path to becoming a union member. Although not construction-specific, it certainly will have no small effect on businesses. You do put in plenty of labour. The Chronicles of Construction in Ireland Some previous items should be treated with serious care. The builder's sales agents are paid to symbolize the builder, no matter what they may inform you. It's possible to build it cheaper than a normal residence. The Secret to Construction in Ireland Let's look at just what the law requires, and the way you can adapt your Privacy Policy to suit the context of your company. The use of Personal Information Aon processes personal information collected via the Site for the aims of handling your requests and supplying you with information about the merchandise and services Aon can provide you with. There are fees for the usage of all 3 registries. We limit the collection and application of Personal Information to the information which is relevant for the aims of processing and won't process Personal Information in a way which is incompatible with the purposes for which the information was collected or subsequently authorized by you. You must not offer personal information if you don't accept such terms and conditions of usage. A few of this information could be personal info, such as change of postal address details. Here's What I Know About Construction in Ireland Ramps employed by equipment has to be designed by means of an individual, qualified in structural design. It's critical to maintain your roofing to deal with the temperature. In order to receive accurate quotes the paving contractor should pay a visit to the website. Each construction site needs to have a construction site manager. By the conclusion of this calendar year, Building 2 at Mill 19 needs to be prepared for occupancy, and it's been reported that Aptiv, an international supplier for smart-vehicle components, will lease 70,000 sf there. Ares Construction is devoted to bringing you the very best service, and the very best products no matter the kind of construction you are searching for. The Most Popular Construction in Ireland TruthFinder doesn't offer consumer reports and isn't a consumer reporting agency. You can depend on them to provide you facts. You may see the differences here between writing in legalese versus writing in a frequent voice that's far simpler to understand. The Key to Successful Construction in Ireland A number of these tools may allow you to e-mail reports and other details from the tool. Our email marketing may consist of personalised and non-personalised email advertising. It allows us to customize your online experience, improve the performance, usability and effectiveness of KPMG's online presence, and to measure the effectiveness of our marketing activities. To get additional information on construction leads app please visit construction information service Businesses are sure to seek approaches to block access. The whole assortment of the many of Ireland Contracting's operations may be gotten at their internet website. On the flip side, the privacy protections afforded in a variety of locations, particularly in the EU, could develop into a worldwide advertising and marketing feature. What You Need to Do About Construction in Ireland If you're interesting in improving your house on the cheap, think about using salvaged building materials. Both the finishing and the standard of the woods are unparalleled. When you initiate the building of the walls, you'll get to a specific height that the block layers are no longer able to carry on without a suitable scaffolding. Do remember, Building regulation requires you to have a specific amount of insulation in the walls. The building procedure may take longer than normal, but the legacy will endure for generations. The internal home decoration equally require care and concern to coordinate with the exterior. Construction in Ireland Ideas When you use features like Remember My Username,'' the cookie is related to your Personal Information as a way to offer you a more convenient experience. A secondary kind of cookie called user-input'' cookies might still be required for necessary functionality. Our site's cookies are temporary and can't be utilized to recognize individual visitors. However, please be aware that should you do this, you might not be capable of using the complete functionality of this site. Well, it's possible to anyday seek assistance from notice letter templates over the net that provide a readymade notice structure so you don't have to begin anything from scratch. These apps may also provide you with additional choices for managing your own personal information. The Chronicles of Construction in Ireland You may not remember registering for anything or giving them your name, however you will have done so. If you have to pay trades people to assist you with these aspects, it is going to be more costly than if they were fitting out a rectilinear property. The first thing people do when they visit our residence is carress it. The Fundamentals of Construction in Ireland Revealed As this land was undeveloped at the moment, a short-term capital was needed. The overall election in February 2016 saw the debut of an extremely fragmented minority government. If a parcel of land goes in the marketplace in Greater London in a place where people generally wish to live, it is going to be purchased by the people with the deepest pockets, that's the large, listed companies. The Most Popular Construction in Ireland Typically, a bachelor's degree in engineering is demanded. It's also an excellent concept to confirm your state's employment poster. Be ready to be tested by your employer to show you've got the essential computer knowledge. Top Construction in Ireland Secrets Whether you are searching for a more contemporary or a traditional design we have you covered. There are various kinds of insulation that could be used, that range from panels to Injected full fill beads. So far as the exterior walls for most sorts of construction, you will discover that they are generally the exact same. Do remember, Building regulation requires you to have a specific amount of insulation in the walls. Imagine you're an installer at work site with 2000sq feet of hewn log siding which has not been finished and you need to finish all 6 sides before installation. The internal home decoration equally require care and concern to coordinate with the exterior. Ok, I Think I Understand Construction in Ireland, Now Tell Me About Construction in Ireland! Our on-line mortgage functionality is intended to create the very best experience possible for our site visitors employing a number of the latest technology available. After the user signs up for these services, we'll share names, or other contact information which is essential for the third party to present these services. The most frequent approach to supply information is via a privacy notice. However, you might also change your browser settings at any moment and apply the Arvato website without cookies. Other third party tools and widgets might be employed on our personal web pages to supply extra functionality. You may make adjustments to your notification preferences at any moment. The Secret to Construction in Ireland The way the rest of the price is paid varies from 1 portion of the country to another. For the large part, crime in Ireland isn't a concern, but some areas do need a specific quantity of discretion. From an environmentally-friendly viewpoint, it doesn't get far better. Construction in Ireland - the Conspiracy With all these folks working several jobs, few men and women have the opportunity to actually look after their very own cars. The box-shaped rooms that the majority of people reside in nowadays are, in actuality, alien to us. If you believe I am attempting to scare the living daylights out of you, you're exactly perfect. The Construction in Ireland Stories Construction executives must work out how to transfer all that knowledge to another batch of hires in a time of labor shortage. Construction projects inherently assume a whole lot of financial risk. It has adapted well to a local marketplace that is in a disorderly state. As professionals try to map out 2018 and beyond, there are quite a few trends shaping the construction market. Although not construction-specific, it certainly will have no small effect on businesses. With a duty to be sure the livelihood of their employees and their families, it is necessary to have positive cash flow for the corporation. The Tried and True Method for Construction in Ireland in Step by Step Detail Large construction projects are occasionally known as megaprojects. If you're presently a homeowner, an alternate to a construction loan is to use the equity in your house to finance building a home. If you would like to build a new residence, you should know you've a tougher road ahead of you than if you pursued a conventional mortgage. The Pain of Construction in Ireland More technical information regarding the CIS is also offered. 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Construction in Ireland for Dummies

Failure in any one of these areas may result in a higher risk in exposing workers to harm in the building atmosphere. This paper, in advancing the reason for diversity, argues that an increased use of locally sourced products ought to be utilised in house construction in order to reflect the historic building and construction styles of distinct sections of the county.  Many indices are supposed to reflect general building construction.

It's vital to be cautious while operation motor vehicles or equipment on the website.  Knowing the asphalt paving pricing and considerations you have to remember when selecting a paving contractor will help to insure that you wind up with a high excellent asphalt driveway that will last you for a long time to come dfgdfg An asphalt drive way is a superb option for providing an entrance to your house in addition to place to park your vehicles.  Routine service will enhance your equipment's performance and minimize the chance of unexpected repairs.

[kbcwin-blog]

Best ways to earn money online from the comfort of your home

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pain points

[andallhisausterenhost]

Organising Squats

I’ve posted a few times recently about picking up some old Citadel Squat miniatures. I don’t really have an excuse aside from ‘I always really liked them’ and ‘money is overrated’. Once I decide on a colour scheme and a basing style, I’ll paint up a small squad for Necromunda, but I do have an eye to expanding to something approaching an army.

The problem is that the Squats haven’t had an army list since the initial release of second edition Warhammer 40,000 in the 1990s, and even then it was a small, colourless list. It was enough to spark my affection, even though the models were already unavailable in stores by 1997, but a handful of 5-model squads and some bikes isn’t really the sort of thing I want to focus my collecting around.

1989′s Compendium, on the other hand, has a beautiful Brotherhood army list, for the Squat Homeworlds. It features robots, bikes, Exo-Armour Hearthguard and some unusual squad alignments. Plus, you know, it’s the only Squat-only army list out there. It’s a good place to start!

1988′s Book of the Astronomican, on the other other hand, contains no less than five army lists, including the first proper Space Marine army list (for the Whitescars chapter and they are weird) - and three of these lists feature Squats.

Finally, we can consider what Squats could counts-as in eighth edition Warhammer 40K. People use Space Marines, Mechanicus, or Imperial Guard. For my collection, focusing on Paul Bonner-style quilted jackets and sturdy gear, Imperial Guard are probably going to be the best choice for my infantry squats. Robots and bikes are a different problem.

There is also the Horus Heresy list, where one can get apply Survivors of the Dark Age and Abhuman Helots to the Imperial Militia lists, so that’s something to consider.

But first, let’s go back in time to 1988. I was a toddler, half of you Tumblr kids weren’t even born yet....

Hylgar’s Hell-Raisers is the first Imperial Army list. It has some similarities to the modern Astra Militarum - there are humans in it, and lasguns. Importantly, it offers several Squat options:

The only Squat character, the Sergeant-Major is equipped a little oddly - he has what is a special weapon in 8th-edition terms! He also has no other options, a feature of the early lists.

Character: Plasma, sword, bolt pistol, mesh/flak armour.

The basic squads, these lads are also a little different from modern squads, but broadly similar: 10 soldiers, lasguns and a special weapon (in this case a flamer) or a heavy weapon (heavy bolter). The part that takes some getting used to is how the squads have either a flamer or a heavy bolter, rather than the ‘one special, one heavy’ that is common across nearly every modern 40K list.

For some reason the Striker Squads have mesh instead of flak armour, but as long as you make it clear to your opponent, I can’t see the modelling making much difference.

Infantry Squads: 10 men with lasguns, a sergeant. Tactical squads have a flamer; Striker squads have a heavy bolter. Tactical sergeants have a laspistol; Striker squads a lasgun.

A squad of characters! Well, minor ones, anyway. This looks more like what we’re used to in contemporary 40K - a squad of 10 bolters, with one special (flamer) and one heavy (missile launcher), along with a sergeant with a pistol and a nasty melee weapon. A hand flamer is pretty unusual though!

Infantry squad: 10 men with bolters, one flamer, one missile launcher. Sergeant has a hand flamer and power glove/fist.

Finally, we have an assault squad. Again we have the mesh armour, but the main thing here is that everyone has laspistols, with one special weapon (another flamer) and one sergeant with a power glove again.

Infantry squad: 10 men with laspistols and knives, one flamer. Sergeant has a pistol and power glove.

So for the Imperial Army squats, this can be broken down as:

Officer with plasma gun

10-man squads

9 Lasguns, bolters, (las)pistols

One flamer/squad max

One heavy bolter OR missile launcher/squad max

If bolter troopers, then missile launcher AND flamer.

Sergeants either lasgun OR chainsword OR power glove (maybe also hand flamer(!))

The notable thing here is that other special or heavy weapons are notably absent, except for one officer (well, non-com) who has a plasma gun.

This is all a little strange, and makes it a bit hard to match this with both non-Citadel Space Dwarfs, who usually offer 10-man squads with a heavy and a special weapon, and the Citadel range, which has a number of various heavy and special weapons within. Modern lists don’t make taking heavy/special weapons compulsory, so I guess that would be fine..? Onwards!

The next list is for a Rogue Trader’s company. It’s a mixed-arms list, consisting largely of Marines, with a healthy dose of other Imperial forces, including Guardsmen, Astropaths, and our Squat friends.

No characters this time - there are no ranking Squats among Borodin’s forces. The Tactical squad is identical to that in the Imperial Army, except that we have some upgrade options now - we can give them chainswords (but not lose their lasguns) and give the sergeant a plasma pistol. This is called a Close Assault squad, but bears little resemblance to the Assault squads of the Imperial army - I suppose Borodin has more money than the average Marnier Militaris.

Infantry squad: 10 men with lasguns, a flamer, a sergeant with a laspistol.

OR

Infantry squad: 10 men with lasguns, chainswords, a flamer, sergeant with a plasma pistol.

These are basically identical to the Imperial Army Guard squads, with the addition of further equipment rather beyond what I’m worried about. Most Squats have visors - I guess these ones can be photochromatic if they want.

Infantry squad: 10 men with bolters, one flamer, one missile launcher. Sergeant has a hand flamer and power glove/fist.

So much for Squats in a Rogue Trader fleet. I suppose with all those marines around, Borodin can’t hire on many abhumans. These look like:

10-man squads

Lasguns or bolters.

Can have chainswords for lasgun squads.

One flamer/squad max

If troopers have bolters, also a missile launcher.

Sergeants have laspistol - can add chainsword & plasma pistol OR if troopers are bolters, power glove and hand flamer.

Other special or heavy weapons are totally absent.

This is even more strange, although I at least know which model they wanted for the Champion-Sergeant, as I have him on my desk. He definitely has a hand flamer and power glove!

At any rate, next up we have pirates...

This is where the Squats really shine in the Book. We have several characters and squad types.

A character! Another plasma gun! This time also with a power glove. I have no idea what model they intended him to be for, and somewhat suspect they meant plasma pistol, given the illustration there.

Character: Plasma gun (pistol?), sword, bolt pistol, mesh/flak armour, power glove.

More characters! This time one is compulsory - you want to be space pirates, you gotta bring some space dwarfs. Again, they have a special weapon! What the heck!

Character/s: Bolt gun/pistol, chainsword, flamer.

Only the one squad (although again, they’re compulsory!), probably because the pirate list also has a lot of pirate Eldar and regular ol’ Humans and so doesn’t lack for variety. Plus, this has loads of weird options, but first let’s look at the basics...

..which involves splitting the squad between autoguns and bolters. This is the first time we’ve seen Squats with autoguns, although there were four in the Citadel range and they are common among other companies. So we have eight riflemen, split between autoguns and bolters, one heavy bolter, and a sergeant with a chainsword, bolt pistol, and... flamer.

It’s certainly a very characterful squad, representing well the scarce resources and motley nature of a bunch of pirates, but it’s also weird. What are those options in the sidebar?

Oh, yes, another Close Assault deal, where everyone gets chainswords and the sergeant gets  a plasma pistol (so he has two pistols, a chainsword, a flamer, and a partridge in a pear tree). That’s fine, even if I don’t think any of the Citadel range has plasma pistols. What’s the other option?

Oh, cool, power boards. what the actual fuck

Sure, they existed in the Rogue Trader material and are incredibly cool, but there are absolutely no miniatures for them. Which is an absolute shame and I now want a recce squad of space dwarf rascals on hover boards because read that sentence again and then you should know why.

Infantry squad: 4 men with autoguns, 4 men with bolters, a heavy bolter, a sergeant with a flamer, bolt pistol, chainsword. MAY TAKE HOVER BOARDS!!!

OR

Infantry squad: 4 men with autoguns, 4 men with bolters (all with chainswords), a heavy bolter, a sergeant with a flamer, bolt pistol, chainsword, plasma pistol.

Despite the weirdness of the hover boards (!), this is basically more of the same from the Imperial Army and Rogue Trader lists:

Officer with plasma gun and power glove

1-3 Officers with flamers.

10-man squad

4 autoguns & 4 bolters

May add chainswords or hoverboards.

One heavy bolter

Sergeants have bolt pistol, chainsword, flamer. If the squad has chainswords, he gets a plasma pistol.

Overall, the Astronomican lists treat squats in much the same way across the board: ten-man squads, with an emphasis on single-man special weapon additions, nearly always a flamer. Elite squads have bolters. Assualt squads have chainswords. Some squads have heavier weapons. Pirates are a bit weirder, including the only autogun unit. [Autoguns and lasguns were similar weapons (and, since 3rd edition, have been basically identical). Most squat riflemen models have lasguns, so this is a bit academic.]

So, let us travel forward in time to 1989, and see what Squats doing it for themselves might look like....

I find this army list a bit annoying, actually. The background material is great, and it features a lot of truly excellent artwork (a lot by Paul Bonner), but list design has definitely improved over the last twenty-nine years. Ansell, Stillman, and Davis wrote a list with very few characters and an excessive amount of minimum units. The most egregious of this, for my money, is that you only get one Guildmaster if you take seven guild bikers - and even Engineers Guild lists only get the one, and they have to take fourteen. You should be able to have a couple lower-ranked engineers running about for the robots, am I right?

Anyway. That’s a problem for some other time. Nobody is going to hold me to any rules or regulations when it comes to an army which nobody plays with using these ancient rules, anyhow. This is just a guideline for me to have something to hang a collection on.

And we’re only looking at infantry, anyway. For the infantry, you must take a Warlord, and then 3-4 Combat Squads...

First off is the Warlord, who has four hearthguard bodyguards. This is pretty interesting, as they have carapace armour as a default and can take all kinds of weird, mostly invisible to WYSIWYG, wargear (anti-plant grenades indeed). The Hearthguard themselves get to roll on the equipment charts, which a modern collector can use to justify whatever armament they like. Which is what I intend to do.

The alternatives are threefold, for the Citadel range: the original Hearthguard models, which had plastic arms - that is, you can model whatever armament you like, or roll up if you prefer. Alternatively, you can get yourself a squad in Exo-Armour, or mount ‘em all on bikes.

My intention is definitely to eventually get a squad of exo-armour. I’m lukewarm on the Hearthguard catapace armour - it’s a bit too fantasy dwarf, and not enough ‘rugged miners’ for my taste. Exo-armour fetches a pretty penny on the second-hand market, so I’m definitely in no hurry on this front.... unless someone wants to give me a very early Christmas present? No?

Character & 4 Elite: Very flexible. If you don’t mind the armour not necessarily being ‘carapace-y’, it’s do as thou wilt.

Woof, look at those options.It looks weird, but most of it is grenades. Things to note:

8-man squads. This is very unusual for Warhammer 40K, which uses 10-20-man squads for even alien species. I think even the Tau have moved to 10-man units, although they don’t have base-10 mathematics.

Lasguns as the default, although they can be swapped for bolters.

Gunslingers everywhere. While a very cool look, I think I want to be a bit more uniform. It’s a good look for sergeants, though.

Everyone can have a heavy bolter(!). This is a long way from the limited heavy weapon selection of the pirates, army, and rogue trader Squats!

One other heavy weapon per squad, with a wide selection.

No ‘special’ weapons, aside from grenade launchers - no plasma guns, melta guns, or flamers.

Leaders have a very broad range of options, but it basically boils down to ‘a different pistol’, ‘a shotgun’, ‘a combi-weapon’ or ‘a melee weapon’, although I guess you could go with a power sword and a regular sword, if you wanted.

In terms of army design, having an army where the basic infantry unit can be equipped entirely with heavy weapons is an interesting one. I kind of like it. It has a great synergy with their low movement of 3 and works in terms of giving a feeling of grouchy, dug-in warriors.

In a modern list, this would never do - heavy bolter squads would be a Heavy Support choice, but with the way 8th edition detachments work, this wouldn’t necessarily prevent a player with an extensive heavy bolter Squat army from being able to play.

For me, I think I’ll have mostly or entirely riflemen squads, but it could be interesting to have one or two heavy bolter squads.

Putting aside the heavy bolter legion issue for a moment, 8-man squads would immediately mark the Squat army from being different from Imperial Guard or Space Marines. In gaming terms, you have a lower ‘trooper-tax’ for your special/heavy choices, allowing a more MSU approach to your army. In aesthetic terms, it helps reinforce the idea that Squats are fewer, but tougher, than their true human cousins. I really like this idea.

In 2nd edition, incidentally, the regular Squat squads were reduced in scope considerably, to 5-man teams, either Warrior Squads (lasguns and one special/heavy), Attack Squads (bolt pistols & axes, choose from the assault list, one special), or Thunderer Squads  (lasguns, but everyone gets a special or a heavy - this is your all-heavy bolter squad).

This was the gap-filler ‘Codex Army Lists’ list, which wasn’t intended to be permanent, but it’s also a little bland to be basing my collecting around. I’m not collecting a weird, antique, 30-year dead army of old lead in order to paint generic 5-man squads! I want recce teams of hoverboards and cigar-chomping bearded miners with bionic hands!

Sergeant with power glove and rifle, Theoc Miniatures. Sculpted and painted by Chris Nicholls.

Having written all this out, I’m still no closer to figuring out what I want to do to organise my collecting strategy. I’m leaning toward the unusual 8-man Combat Squads of the Brotherhood, with a single heavy weapon each - or a heavy weapon and a heavy bolter - and maybe a handful of special weapons as a Hearthguard.

..but then I do want an exo-armour Hearthguard squad, so maybe I could get 6 Combat Squads in total and keep a few flamer-armed chaps around for some space pirates. Maybe some extra riflemen if I use the army as counts-as Imperial Guard. After all, exo-armour can be counts-as Terminator armour, and the new detachments allow a lot of flexibility in that area, especially if bikers count as Marine Scouts.

oh no

[scripttorture]

I have a character who was never held as a child, never given any physical affection and was kept in a lab and experimented on (needles, etc.) for the first six years of his life. He was trained as a weapon of sorts as well. years later he still trusts almost no-one, what would I have to do to make a romantic relationship realistic? (Sorry if this makes no sense) тнαик уσυ!!（*＾3＾）

OK so I’ve consulted with members of the Script Family who know a lot more about childhood developmentthan I do and there’s a good chance that your character wouldn’t live intoadulthood.

 Insufficient touch at an early age is linked to a host of conditions andimpairments in human children. The mechanism is more thoroughly studied in rats(for rather obvious ethical reasons) but the essential conclusion is this:gentle, caring touch is essential for childhood development.

 There’sa short academic review paper on the subject here which covers humans and rats(and worms but that’s not relevant to your story). There’s a moreaccessible piece in Scientific American here. Basedon these papers I think whatever you decide you need to remove the ‘lack oftouch’ as an element in your story.

 You want this to be realistic so I think the most helpful thing I can dois start suggesting alternatives rather than try to go into depth aboutchildhood development (an area where my knowledge is patchy at best).

 I have issues with the motif of children being raised as ‘weapons’. I’vespent too much time reading about (and seen too many) child soldiers to feeleasy treating it as pure fantasy (the way I gather most audiences from richstable countries do).  

 I’m saying that as statement of bias- from what you’ve described I don’tthink it’s an element you ‘have’ to change but I think you need to think aboutwhich of these background elements you’ve included is most important to yourstory.

 Basically what I think you need to decide is which of these things is most important to the story:

 1)     The character was raised as aweapon and is an effective fighter

2)     The character was used as asubject in unethical experiments

3)     The character was tortured

 The reason you can’t realistically include all of those elementstogether is because they all reduce the efficiency of each other.

 A character who is tortured willbe a less effective fighter and torture would add another unaccounted forvariable into a scientific study which would basically make any data gathereduseless.

 A character who is used as an experimental subject couldn’t be effectively trained as a fighter without alsodisrupting the experiments.

 The best way to achieve point 1) is to raise the character in a loving, caring environment (includinghaving positive reinforcement, caring parental figures and touch). Thecharacter’s kind, caring, lovingparental figures would then teach the child about war, weapons and fighting inmuch the same way a normal parent would introduce teaching a child to read.They would lavish praise on him and teach him that he is part of somethingbigger, a glorious cause.

 And if they did it ‘right’ he would grow up mentally healthy, welltrained and perfectly willing to kill for them.

 I’vewritten about scenarios like this before and you might find this ask helpful.

 The best way to achieve point 2) is to get rid of any notion thatthe character is being trained for anything and remember that in this scenario any torture is secondary.

 Serious scientists do not setout to cause animal experimental models more pain. If your character is beingtreated like an experimental animal then that means any pain he experienceswill be secondary to what thescientists are interested in.

 Let me give you an example: the case of Elsie Lacks.

 Elsie was committed to a mental ward as a child in America during the50s. Elsie was mentally handicapped (the diagnosis of the time was ‘idiocy’)she was epileptic and deaf. She was also black.

 Elsie was used in at least two, and possibly more, medical experiments.There’s no evidence the hospital sought consent and given her age andcapacities Elsie may not have been capable of giving it. One involved insertingmetal probes into patient’s brains. The other drained the fluid from apatient’s skull so the brain could be x-rayed, a procedure that causes dizziness,vomiting, seizures and headaches for months while the skull refills with fluidand can also cause permanent brain damage and paralysis. Elsie died aftermaking herself vomit for six months. By the end she was bringing up clottedblood. She was 15.

 The pain Elsie suffered was notthe point.

 The people who did this to her did notgo out of their way to cause her greater suffering. They treated her like anobject, another part of the test. They acted in a manner that was systematic, reproducible,recorded and wrong.

 Torture is not reproducible. It is rarely recorded. It is notsystematic. And it always treats pain, cruelty and neglect as the point rather than as a secondaryfactor.

 Which brings me to scenario 3).

 Torture and abuse doesn’t mesh well with science. It’s usually conductedimpulsively with little regard for any controlling factors.

 Torturers usually use multiple techniques and they will generallycombine techniques. They often misjudge how much damage they’ve caused whichcommonly results in serious injury or the victim’s death.

 This doesn’t mean they always leave scars. Some techniques, what I referto as ‘clean’ torture, don’t leave obvious external marks. This can maketorture incredibly hard to detect and prove.

 Deaths from clean torture techniques are often attributed to accidentsor an underlying health condition in the victim (for instance a sudden heartattack, stroke or organ failure).

 The pattern of abuse is generally that torturers use a lot of techniquesvery quickly, over a period of perhaps the first three days. After that theytend to start to lose interest in the particular victim and start concentratingtheir efforts on other individuals.

 In the longer term (ie months) what you tend to see is an irregularcycle of intense abuse, followed by longer periods when the victim ismore-or-less ignored.

 How to approach the question ofyour character having a romantic relationship as an adult depends on which ofthese three points is important to you in the story.

 In scenario 1) where the character is primarily a soldier/weapon I’dtreat it as if he’d escaped from a cult. Difficulty trusting his partner andhaving to take the relationship incredibly slowly both seem reasonable. Therelationship would probably also bring up a lot of self-doubt for thecharacter. His partner would probably contradict everything he was taught aboutpeople outside the organisation that raised him. He might find himself thinkingabout his childhood a lot and recognising ‘new’ things that were wrong orpoisonous about it.

 He might find innocent things his partner did reminded him of his ‘family’and ‘training’.

 You mightfind this BBC article, which interviews a woman who left a US cult, helpful forwriting that sort of scenario.

 In scenarios 2) and 3) your character would, realistically, have a lotof serious mental health problems. Youcan find out more about the common symptoms of torture here, these symptomswould also apply to someone used in unethical experimentation.

 We can’t predict which individual would develop which symptoms and notall victims experience all symptoms.

 From a writing perspective that means picking symptoms from the list andshowing them consistently impacting your character’s life. I advise pickingsymptoms based on what you feel fits the character and the story, for suchprolonged abuse at such a young age I’d say around 5 severe symptoms is a goodball-park figure but don’t be afraid to use more than that.

 The issues the character would encounter with a romantic relationshipwould be dependent on his symptoms. But generally speaking I’d expect him to finda romantic relationship, or indeed anylong term relationship extremely difficult. Perhaps cripplingly difficult.

 Healthy relationships are hardwork. It isn’t unrealistic for a character with such severe mental healthproblems to be in a long term relationship butthere are a lot of good reasons why a person in his position might choose not to be in a relationship.

 There is nothing wrong with a character putting his health first. And….essentiallyif this is the character’s first romantic relationship and he went through sucha prolonged and traumatic experience as a child I think he’d have to put his health before therelationship.

 I don’t mean he’d have to break off the relationship. I mean that hispartner would probably have to accept things like:

           ‘I know you spentmonths planning this holiday for us together but I’m going to have to cancel atthe last minute while in the airport because going through security is givingme a panic attack.’

           ‘I know you wanted us togo out for your birthday but my anxiety is awful today and I can’t leave thehouse.’

           ‘I know we were havinga lovely meal, but I’ve just been triggered and I’m now going to spend half anhour having a flashback in the restaurant bathroom.’

 Not everyone is accepting of these knock-on effects of mental healthproblems. Not everyone is OK with having to suddenly drop everything going onin their day because their partner is feeling suicidal.

 Even people who are acceptingof their partner’s health problems will make mistakes. They will almostcertainly accidentally trigger things, say things that feed into mental healthproblems or do small things that make the issue worse.

 There’s a lot in this scenario that I strongly advise you to re-thinkand re-write if you want something even close to realism. Until you make adecision about what sort of background you’d like the character to have I can’tgive more detail on how it would affect his future romantic relationships.

 Nonetheless I hope it helps you with your story and if you decide youwould like to make the character’s background more realistic I’d be happy tohelp with any further questions you have about how that would affect his adultlife and relationships. :)

Disclaimer

[estrellamientos]

Damnum Ferre ch.1

So I mentioned on @canon-typical-violence that the first chapter of this fic exists.

Their first civil conversation afterward is held at blaster- and sword-point, respectively. The second one goes worse.

Hux passed through conscious shakiness or disorientation some hours ago; he has long been worn down to what feels like two-dimensional nothingness but lacks the smoothness to be glass. Glassy calm he knows well, and fury like the flat of a good blade (his own, for instance), and this is neither. He’s something depthless and empty and abraded, lacking the wherewithal to find itself repulsive.

There are marginal advantages to this. For example, while he would normally take a running inventory of pain before moving on to not allowing it to affect him, Hux currently can’t manage to keep a listing of the damage in his head. This applies to all of the damage at hand, admittedly, but tabulations of what matters can be written down just as this is disregarded. He works easily through the due diligence of sacking the erstwhile Resistance base for all the nothing it has to provide, at any rate, and through their own forces’ withdrawal. He does not think about pursuit at this time, the way he does not think about the common features between one breath and the next.

It is not that he has ever forgotten the taste of blood, particularly his own, but that it is staying in his mouth beyond all reason, currently. This is odd. Psychosomatic, he presumes, unless he’s managed enough reverting to old bad habits to tear the lining of his throat. Irrelevant, at any rate, as in he will not permit it to become relevant. He does not stop.

By the time Hux can in good conscience return to the *Finalizer* he feels like Crait’s sanded off the surface of his skin the way it seems to have grated the contours of his mind. Not that anything hurts, save when he breathes. Merely that he seems to be lacking things he shouldn’t need to lack: edges, definition, grip; the ability to meaningfully distinguish stimuli that are himself from those that are not.

It does not notably impair his functioning, at least not to a degree that is intolerable; however, that is given the fact that the scale for said range of tolerance is currently a quietly horrible study in adaptation all its own.

Hux watches over the buzz of busy misery that surrounds him, not least because it wouldn’t do for him not to be tracking it, but he does not issue reprimands for individual acts of incompetence. None are irreparable—in fact (he may feel toward this later, should he remember to) people recover remarkably well, it’s merely the density of casual mistakes to recover from—and the apparent widespread agitated despair is too universal to selectively punish. Selection of particular actors would be unproductive even as examples to the rest. The solution, whatever it is, lies beyond mere individuals.

Beyond most individuals, anyway.

He knows better than to keep his distance from Kylo Ren now but Hux finds himself doing so anyway, at least for the duration before there’s a ship solid under his feet again. It is a somewhat pathetically short span of time, he realizes later, for all that it seems to stretch infinitely while he’s within it.

Ren allows the search and the withdrawal (Hux sternly does not call it a retreat; therefore neither does anyone else) to happen without any incident significant enough for people to bring to Hux’s attention. This is an acceptable state of affairs, though perhaps only in the way that inevitable things must be.

He waits, then, until he can corner Ren, and does not delude himself that Ren doesn’t know he is being cornered, in the particular manner that passes with little effort for drawing him aside into an unremarkable and vacant mid-level meeting room Hux knows the template for better than his own bare hand. There is a casually risible normalcy to it, of table and chairs and blank walls lacking sufficient importance to merit a viewport. If the lights were on it could be anywhere in spacetime after the first _Resurgent_ launched.

Hux does have his blaster ready, this time.

(Armitage Hux’s gift is preparation in advance; likewise his curse. He is, however, not in the habit of making the same mistake twice.)

“I don’t know if you can stop a shot from this distance,” Hux says. His teeth still taste like blood, so mildly there’s the impression of it being just the natural state of things at this point. It feels almost more like a faculty of the air, especially given how dry his mouth is. “I don’t know if you do either. I *do* know—” Know what? Not what Ren’s willing to risk on the subject, beyond that it’s enough to have walked in front of Hux without complaint. For all Hux knows Ren wants to die outright. It’s as close to a working theory of what he’s been witnessing as any. “You killed Snoke.”

Ren turns to face him, slow, easy. This is in no way outside what Hux went in expecting, when Ren let himself be steered to leave his back open so easily as to be outright consent, when the door reformed behind them. Ren is an egotistical, hubristic idiot, but he is not dead.

Neither of them bother with light, and the ship is running on her mildest level of power conservation. It’s a preventative measure, while they determine how much damage there is for the unscathed and the functional to make up for, for how long. The trace available illumination is sufficient, both for this conversation and for operations throughout. What light there is collects in Ren’s eyes and, when he speaks, shows on his teeth.

“Do you now,” he says, his voice rough as well; from salt, presumably, and from screaming. Ren fumbles some of the emotional coordination he’d need to achieve a noteworthy level of cruelty, but Hux notes the symbolic effort of it as a matter of record.

The problem with standing close enough to Ren to not be backed against door or wall while promising a shot in the spine—or, now, the gut—is that Hux can’t evaluate him as a whole threat. He simply doesn’t have the needed width in terms of viewing angles. As such he has to choose: he can watch Ren’s face, like a man who is having a conversation.

Or he can watch Ren’s hands, like a frightened animal, and feel it in his neck.

Hux has considered before, generally in the context of early childhood education (and, more prosaically, particularly while illuminating others on why they have forfeited any right to tell him their opinions on early childhood education), how much of the distinction between sentients and subsentients can be demonstrated by way of death. A subsentient animal has no meaningful understanding, fear, or anticipation of its own demise. It cannot develop a conception of its inevitability in general, nor a particular preference between facing an oncoming death and looking away before the moment of impact. Nor can it act on such a preference—or against it—were it to somehow internalize one anyway.

Confrontation, cowardice, and the rest of that family of emotions are a sentient prerogative. This is naturally relevant at even the lowest levels of human acculturation, for reasons that should be patently obvious and yet still forced Hux into *years* of mere parodies of would-be academic debate.

He’s sure Ren would have an opinion on the subject, if prompted, for Hux to be irritated by, were he to be given the opportunity. If he hasn’t developed it, Hux is resigned to confidence in Ren’s ability to determine one on the spot. Ren, as a murderer and a telepath, is uniquely disposed to potential usefulness with regards to analysis by the living of the experience of death in general; it is Ren *himself* who would make the effort useless at best. He is an unreliable witness consistently more interested in finding ways to make himself an obstacle than in relevance or truth. That Hux has never had that *particular* debate with Ren does not change the fact that he knows this.

When Ren’s arm moves too fast and fluid to bother with, when his lightsaber hums to life at the corner of Hux’s eye, Hux does not particularly react. He flinches on some level, and he feels it on his face, but it’s doubtlessly both unimpressive and unimpressed: more a microexpression with delusions of grandeur than anything else. His blaster stays perpetually steady.

“Of course I know, Ren.” Hux couldn’t keep the tiredness from his voice to save his life; as such he doesn’t try. “I know everything.”

Ren does something like laugh, like he thinks the lie is for his benefit: short, barking, not quite wild. His features don’t reach wildness either, merely managing to reach *for* it, even with the advantage of drinking in flickering red plasma light as an intensifier. There is remarkably little of him left, all told, if only the excisions were relevant or permanent. In both of their cases the net effect is not dissimilar to the feeling invoked by surveying the wreck of the *Supremacy*: the vast majority still usable, patently alive, objectively a unique threat and enduring achievement, yet stripped of menace despite largely retaining its function. “No you don’t,” Ren says. Staring at him, and not swinging, like he thinks he’s managing to say something else.

“I know you’re hopelessly outmatched,” Hux answers, dry in both form and function. His own tongue slows him down, sticking to the roof of his mouth.

“By *what*?” Ren snaps, but the rage makes no travel down his sword arm; Hux only realizes belatedly that it could’ve. The matter didn’t cross his mind for—many reasons, but not least among them is the fact that neither of them are looking at their weapons at all. The hum of Ren’s saber this nearby sounds positively faulty, though Hux lacks enough experience with simple uses of kyber to know from that how much of it is due to flaws of the crystal or of the housing, or of the character of lightsabers more generally. “Organa has *nothing*,” Ren’s going on, making a solid effort at passion, his voice snagging roughly on itself, “and the girl is—”

“Irrelevant,” Hux says. Ren lets him. (Hux, for his part, lets that carry him away; it doesn’t occur to him not to.) “They are currently irrelevant. You’re outmatched by yourself. You are on track to burn down everything of value in this galaxy and, presumably, should you continue to—to miraculously survive your mistakes otherwise, in the next.”

“I should kill you for that,” Ren halfway growls, making no effort to do so. Something of the ambient loss gives the ludicrous impression that the idea is new to him.

Hux holds his gaze accordingly. “You should,” he says. His own voice runs more placid about it than he’d expected. “And you won’t.”

“Really.” Ren is trying; this is noticeable; it’s why he fails. He’s never been able to be the threat he ought to be in mere conversation, Hux has found. It’s not surprising that what serves him in power and menace on the battlefield isn’t recaptured into a static exchange merely by the presence of the sword that represents it.

If it were just Ren’s lethality in question, that aspect of him would never go missing; he is self-evidently a weapon more obviously than he is a man. But Ren doesn’t work as a sustained, present ultimatum any more than a lightning strike could, and his lightsaber is fixing to give Hux a headache.

“So why not just shoot me, General? You remembered a gun this time.”

It’s surprising that Ren’s aware, even that much, of what went through Hux’s mind in the throne room. Barely less so, come to think, that he didn’t contest being assigned Snoke’s death at all. Hux says, “I’ve no great interest in dying, Ren.” Pointedly.

“Then what’s this *about*?” Ren’s lip pulls back from his teeth; Hux can’t tell if the line of brutal light at his side shifts with a tremor of the blade or just with Hux’s own blinking, gaze too fixed on the fire that paints Ren’s face. “You’re right, I should j—”

“I am invested in my continued survival and that of the Order,” Hux cuts in. He does not have to try hard at all *to* make it cutting, an accusation of a contrast worth noting out loud. This is the only reason he manages to do it, the same way he manages this conversation’s fixed tableau largely through the kind of even immobile calm that can only come from holding a blaster steady. “And my assessment of your inevitable, *contagious*, and self-inflicted ruin—” It awes him to see Ren take even that with merely a twitch, which is why Hux keeps going. He’ll rationalize it into a test later. It is not a test now. “—was dependent on you taking up the mantle that would destroy you *alone*.”

“So you should—“ Ren shakes himself for a second, from the neck up only. It completely ruins any authority or composure acquired by rephrasing. The central problem being, of course, that he doesn’t need it. “No. You *will* help me.”

Hux will deny, later, to himself, that he then spends a second imagining saying no. It rips through him anyway; it is unexpected; it is wholly unmanageable. Left to his own devices Ren is in fact sure to drive the Order into the ground. It will splinter faster and with less hope of salvage than any Republican dream. And, curiously—given Hux doesn’t think he would’ve made this assessment a week ago—he thinks Ren really would even know it was his own fault. Maybe even entirely.

For a second he imagines that: Saying no. (Leaning into the saber blade he won’t deign to look at, even, before Ren thought to do something more elaborate. There’s something seductive about the furious plasma at the corner of his eye, a manner of drawing him in of a vertigo-like genre with the kind of hubris at which Hux succeeds as much as with flight at which the human body fails.) Turning the entire conversation into one last spiteful feint. Letting Ren, for the first time in his life, experience the consequences of his actions.

He imagines the consequences themselves by the end of the beat, though. What it actually means—anathema—for the Order to fall. (And for Hux, were he to do otherwise and survive to see it, a neo-Republican execution; even if they end the war with enough collaborators to form a jury he can’t imagine anyone would waste the time.)

Hux thinks of Rae Sloane wearing the blood on her uniform like rank insignia; of the first flash of certainty of knowing that his father was not the Empire, that his father was a disgrace.

Snoke was not the First Order. Hux is not the First Order. Even the millions dead today were not the First Order. And Ren *certainly* isn’t.

He’ll give Ren nothing else aside from this pause: let the man know Hux still had to think if he has to, if he’s even equipped to notice, but Hux offers no change of expression, no resigned or irritated breath. He wouldn't be standing here if in the end he didn't know already exactly how this story goes.

Clipped and atemporal, the words as at home in his mouth now as they would have been five days or months or years ago, he says, “Of course, Supreme Leader. What do you need?”

At that Ren still stares at him, oddly slow to adapt. “I’d be more convinced you mean that,” he says, “if you weren’t still pointing a blaster at me.”

The corner of Hux’s mouth twitches quickly, to an extent that may or may not be visible. “Naturally,” he says, already thumbing the safety back on. Shifting his gaze isn’t necessary for that, nor for holstering it, although he knows immediately that keeping the conversation up to standards is about to get vastly more uncomfortable. He expects mistakes, as such, like breathing. “Sir?”

“Incredible.” Ren’s voice is flat in a way that makes the Republican in him positively blare with it.

It’s harder to read his face once his saber retracts, but the last relatively detailed look Hux gets gives him the odd impression Ren reciprocating on the armistice has happened without his conscious assent. The surprise seems too deep and fundamental to merely be a (honestly unmerited) reaction to Hux himself.

Ren takes a step back as he returns his saber to his belt, spending the rest of the distance between himself and the room’s normalcy to the point that he almost walks into the table, the motions far less polished. “So this is a truce?”

“Truces are for enemies, Ren,” Hux says. Ren looks at him for long enough that Hux’s eyes readjust in the interim, so perhaps it was the wrong thing to say. Certainly Hux has pushed further and in more directions than he’d at any point intended, egged on by every time Ren let him. Presuming Ren’s not about to change his mind about that and snap Hux’s neck, he’ll have to reassess. For now, in order to watch Ren blink at it more than anything else, Hux pitches his voice away to add, “Lights to fifty percent.”

Fifty percent lighting on even slight ship-wide energy austerity is entirely forgiving; he catches Ren’s face on the end of the reflexive blink that lets him, too, school himself accordingly. “Right,” Ren says. “Enemies.” He sounds not sarcastic as much as like he was recently made aware of the idea of sarcasm and is still forming a conclusion on it. “So what do *we* need, General?”

Hux shifts into parade rest; he even allows his spine to have an opinion on doing so, briefly, before he dismisses it. “We need to know where we stand,” he says, wonders idly if Ren finds a double meaning in it. Then he immediately gets carried away again. “The majority of the dedicated fleet is intact but a full survey of the damage will take time. A full survey of the death toll will take longer. The rest of our forces are largely dispatched on the frontlines of invasions of what had been selected as vulnerable targets prior t—” Prior to Starkiller. Hux swallows the mourning viciously and clears his throat after. “We can expect them to begin reporting back soon if they haven’t already, and that will give us a better picture of what we have to work with for recovery. For now I r—”

Ren raises his hand and Hux stills. He stills *immediately*, giving the lie to his own performance, stopping so fast he feels his pharynx click. All Ren does with this, though, is to scrub his hand over his face; the other finds the small conference table he’d not quite backed himself against and leans slightly on it. Hux understands the impulse on both counts, but it does Ren no favors. He doesn’t need them; this continues to be the problem.

(He will. Will he know?)

“Better question,” Ren says after a moment, his tone an oddly fragile tangle of resignation and embarrassment. “Now that you’re committed to not shooting me if I do, does anyone need *me*, or can I—can I get some sleep.”

The tiredness in Ren’s voice scrapes along Hux’s own bones, which is overall unsurprising. Beyond the obvious of their recent exertions, even Hux’s rudimentary understanding of the Force indicates it must require some manner of energy tax from its practitioners. He blinks, though, waylaid enough in thought to answer on a slide further into autopilot prompted by the obvious mistake of it, like Ren’s an errant subadult or some uppity commander. “Even under crisis a significant disruption of sleep/wake cycles is a choice of last resort,” he says on blank didactic reflex. “And even for essential crew. The alleged gain in having *any* given person present can only be weighted against the cost of their absence after considering that loss of function from sleep deprivation is immediate, punishing, and progressive, as well as compounding on itself. The idea carries the same wretched cost-benefit ratio as returning injured soldiers to the field when others are available. A—”

Ren is staring at him. Differently, this time, the emotion gap produced by the drop-off in threat filled with Hux’s own belated humiliation.

Hux bites his lips savagely, resigned to the certainty that his face is coloring with embarrassment. Those debates had taken *ages*, immediate practical relevance making them worse and more protracted than the issue of death, back when Order command had been laboring under an even worse infection of old Imperials spoiled by upbringings where they’d had lives to underexploit—even to waste—than it currently is. So much of Hux’s life takes place in contexts where he can better things by explaining them that the reflex endures long after he’s lost his grasp on common sense.

(The only thing that curtails it is certainty of lack of *understanding*—that is, a guarantee of failure—and Ren is not Snoke. Of course that has disarmed him.)

“My apologies,” he chokes out. “Habit. There were—arguments. For a long time. About establishing priorities, by people who didn’t *recognize*—” Hux strangles his own voice again before Ren can, though at this point he’d probably welcome it as help, before realizing at last why he’s actually doing this.

Because Ren just blithely handed Hux permission to tell Ren to hurt himself and all but promised he would do it in the asking, and Hux still needs to tell him no. The good thing is Hux knew to talk himself out of doing otherwise before he even recognized the option. The bad thing is that the managing of it is so hard Hux has to spend his own dignity on necessity and do so out loud.

“We don’t,” Hux says, still drawn inexorably to take the long way of it, more so knowing now he’s hit on something Ren is crushingly, subhumanly inept with, to an extent Hux can’t yet so much as model. The realization that both the down payment on Hux’s continued survival and the delayed cost of him making it this far will have to be fixing Ren to at least manage to fake it, and the prospect of in *any* way *fixing Kylo Ren* is—”We don’t hurt our own unless it is necessary for the advancement of the First Order. And recovery efforts are already in motion. Yes.”

“An actual answer, Hux.” Ren is still staring: nakedly, some kind of upset Hux isn’t going to further disambiguate for as long as he can afford to read Ren as not planning on lashing out with it. For now Ren looks merely like an impending implosion, and Hux can not care. Any extent to which this manages to penetrate far enough to be refreshing is annulled when Ren remembers his own rank, though, even slightly. “And then you’re dismissed.”

Shifting to an actually pertinent routine distracts Hux from the knowledge of his off-script failures as much as anything could. Ren may not appear disposed to push on any of those fault lines currently, all the fight gone out of him with the decision that Hux doesn’t merit fighting, but Hux’s mind will surely pick up the slack. He nods sharply. “Sir.” Thinks before he speaks, this time. *Not* about the open wounds of the present, or about the other questions Ren has opened, unintentionally and in great density, thus far. “It’s… in everyone’s interest that you rest, frankly. We can reconvene when—”

*When we’ve both recovered somewhat,* he almost says. Hux himself isn’t sure quite why he opts to kill the sentence so viciously instead. It’s not too gentle on Ren; aggravating him further now has ceased to be useful. It’s not irrelevant; it is the strict description of his concern at hand. It’s not impossible; Hux can’t afford not to recover.

What, then?

“Right,” Ren says, into that emptiness, after a moment. “All right.”

The way his eyes fall shut seems more than anything like the action of gravity on a great and inert weight (seems like Hux has ceased to exist), not like the function of a mere human body, such that Hux can’t find him pathetic quickly enough to be affected. Instead he’s seized with the nonsensical urge to ask if Ren plans on falling asleep here, on his feet, in a mid-level conference room. Strictly speaking, as far as Ren’s poor decisions go, something that *human* is unlikely to be beyond him.

Hux leaves, instead, exactly as requested and without another word. Quickly, as well; it is somehow even more uncomfortable than being watched by Ren *not* to be. He is aware of no gaze on his turning back, not even of the air-pressure shift he has gathered is the Force as metaphor made real actor.

It’s not that Hux’s sense of such things has ever been inerrant, or even reliable; it is, instead, exactly enough to make him wonder, and nothing more.

He does hope that Ren has the sense to drag himself off and actually rest. It happens almost in spite of himself. Hux can recognize, regardless of the quickly-ignored opinions of his individual bones, that this has been brutal for Ren as well, because it has been brutal for everyone, to varying degrees.

Ren will be more bearable when he is more effective. At worst, when he inevitably gets in Hux’s way, that will enable Hux to act with the confidence that Ren meant to and proceed accordingly. At best…

Who knows? Hux thinks, so suddenly that for a moment it drags him almost to a stop. Who would know? Who has *seen* it? At Ren’s best—

Maybe he’ll even be useful.

[ruffsficstuffplace]

And The AWRD Goes To... (Part 11)

“Shooting Star…! Shiny Rod…! FUSION…!” Akko cried as she raised both weapons up to the heavens.

Nothing happened.

Akko crossed the two weapons across her chest instead, and closed her eyes. “Oh Shiny Rod, weapon of the super great and awesome and amazing Shiny Chariot, please lend me your power…!” she prayed.

Still nothing.

Akko laid Shooting Star down on the counter in front of her, held the Shiny Rod up to her face with both hands, the light reflecting off some of the jewels making them look like eyes locked with Akko’s own. “Hey Shiny Rod, could you please fuse with Shooting Star again?” she asked, smiling hopefully. “I just want to see just how powerful you two are together, so I can know what not to use, and how much force is too much force. I promise I’ll try not to accidentally kill us all this time!”

On the side, Winter, Ruby, and Diana watched as Akko gave the Shiny Rod puppy dog eyes. The other students in the firing range either ignored them or started laughing.

Diana groaned. “I can’t believe I’m watching this...” she muttered.

“I can’t believe you aren’t more appreciative of this opportunity,” Winter said quietly. “Just think: we’re witnessing, live and right before our eyes, one of the most enduring and enigmatic mysteries of the modern era!”

Akko whined as she started shaking the Shiny Rod. “Come on, Shiny Rod, just this once, please!”

Diana gave Winter a look, Winter ignored her, Ruby stepped up and put a hand on Akko’s shoulder. Akko stopped shaking the Shiny Rod and looked at her.

“You mind if I try and ask for you?” Ruby asked.

Akko nodded and handed it over, sulked over to the side with Diana and Winter as Ruby began to talk to the Shiny Rod. “Hey there, Shiny Rod! Can you please fuse with Shooting Star again? Like Akko said, we just want to know how powerful you are so we don’t accidentally kill our friends or civilians while we’re fighting Grimm.”

There was a brief moment of silence. “Well?” Akko asked.

“It said ‘No.’” Ruby replied.

“But why…?!” Akko whined.

“It said ‘Now’s not the time.’”

“But when is the time? Is it when we’re fighting Grimm?”

“It said, ‘Again, now’s not the time, and yes and no.’”

“And what does it mean by ‘Yes and no?’”

“It said, ‘You’ll find out when it’s time.’”

Akko whined and flailed in frustration.

“I find it rather interesting that only you can converse with the Shiny Rod like that,” Winter said.

Ruby shrugged. “I guess it kinda helps that I’ve always really understood weapons, and you, know, it, uh, ‘talks’ the way it does.”

“Any idea on how it’s ‘beaming ideas and emotions straight to your brain’ since we talked earlier?” Winter asked.

“Well, nothing concrete, since I haven’t been able to examine it at the Forge”--she tensed up as the Shiny Rod began to pulse--“AND I’M TOTALLY NOT GOING TO DO THAT, EVER”--the pulsing stopped--“but I do have a theory now!”

“Mind sharing it?” Winter said as she opened her scroll, prepared to take notes.

“Sure, but I gotta warn you: it’s pretty long and rambly! I haven’t gotten the time to really refine it, or do some long research yet.”

“Ruby, right now, I’ll take whatever leads and information anyone can provide me,” Winter replied. “And honestly, you’re turning out to be a very good source.”

Ruby smiled, before her face turned serious. She took a deep breath and started. “Okay, so… I’m sure of one thing, and one thing only with the Shiny Rod: it’s definitely an ancient artifact, not something made within the last decade, not the last century, possibly even not the last millenia.

“It’s not made of any sort of modern alloys or commonly used traditional materials for weapons like wood and animal bones, nor is its construction and properties consistent with any sort of post or pre-industrial era techniques. So far as I can tell, it doesn’t have any sort of artificial aura amplifiers or dust capacitors I’ve ever seen or heard of, and yet it’s capable of seriously magnifying the effects of modern ammunition made long after its time, presumably through some sort of unique resonance and interaction with Akko’s aura and dust, possibly even the metal of the casing itself and the ignition mechanism, making it far more powerful than anything most dust munitions are capable of, or possibly even through the use of pure dust crystals.

“I hate to sound unscientific, but the only plausible explanation I can find with this weapon was that it was either made from incredibly exotic materials of legend, like the Starlight weapons forged from a giant meteor that crashed somewhere in Mistral in the Dust Age, or mundane materials processed with some technique either lost to time, or so secret that that we’d have a heck of a time trying to find someone who can explain how it was done, kind of like the Bloodborne weapons from the same era.

“Pretty much all of those weapons had some sort of special quality to them, kind of like its own semblance, and a lot of the accounts weren’t afraid to suggest, or just outright claim that they were just as alive as the people who wielded them. The Shiny Rod’s could definitely be its ability to fuse with and amplify the strength of already existing weapons, but I won’t be able to have even the slightest idea of how it’s able to do that so easily and efficiently until I know what it’s made of, what was used to forge it and how, and what it’s capable of.

“However, given that the accounts tend to be holey or super exaggerated, I don’t think we should put too much stock into them, and look for different explanations. I’m actually starting to think that the Shiny Rod’s rejecting people other than me or Akko could be due to some incredibly specific fine-tuning and aura resonance techniques that were made to specifically limit the kinds of people that could wield it, like a super efficient ancient DNA scanner based on aura resonances, and its ‘talking’ could just be unintended interference and disruption of my aura causing minor hallucinations, possibly because of the clearly shock-based security system malfunctioning and causing my nerves and brain cells to misfire.”

Akko, Diana, and Winter all stared blankly at her, some preliminary notes on the third’s scroll before she gave up.

“But hey, like I said, it’s just a theory,” Ruby finished.

“… Ruby, did you happen to write any of that down?” Winter asked.

“Yep!” Ruby said as she pulled out her scroll. “All in here, though I think I gotta give you a guide to decode my notes before you can really use it, or you know… read it.”

“Just send it anyway, please, Ruby, it’s not the first time I’ve had to decrypt unfamiliar code and other people’s handwriting,” Winter replied.

Diana sighed, her shoulders slumping.

“Something wrong, Diana?” Akko asked.

“Yes, but not through anyone’s fault; it just… bothers me that nearly everything about that thing just laughs in the face of all my knowledge, and believe me, I’ve studied most everything there is to know about weapons, Grimm, and huntsmen!”

Winter put her hand on her shoulder. “Don’t get too hung up about it: there’s plenty of other things out there in the world that simply defy explanation.”

“You say that like that’s supposed to be a good thing...” Diana muttered.

“No, it’s not, but it is our reality, and you’d do best to just accept it,” Winter said. “So, seeing as the Shiny Rod won’t be fusing with anyone’s weapons any time soon, and still seems to be intent in keeping its secrets until it’s ‘time,’ any of you girls mind if I go retire to my quarters now?

“It’d be ideal if I get some actual sleep before I’m off to the Celestial Hills.”

“Go right on ahead,” Diana said.

“Sleep tight!” Akko said.

“Bye, Ms. Schnee!” Ruby said, waving.

Winter chuckled. “Please: just call me Winter.” She frowned. “Believe me, last names and proper titles get cumbersome very quickly, when you’re in for the long-haul...” she said as she walked out of the firing range.

“You guys want to clean our weapons together?” Ruby asked. “I totally forgot to even wipe down Crescent Rose last night.”

“I was thinking of prioritizing our academics, but sure: I could use your expertise,” Diana said, before they walked off, talking about who was going to be fetching what from the supplies counter, and if Ruby could examine Gwragedd Annwn’s internal mechanisms again.

Up above in the rafters, their eavesdropper followed after them, steps so quiet and the shots down below so loud you would have barely heard them even if you knew they were there.

Winter opened the door to her room at the Haven Guest House, sighed as she saw Qrow sprawled out on one side of the floor, his flask in one hand and held upright to keep from spilling. She sighed as she stepped inside, decided to make do with the light of the afternoon sun blocked by some heavy curtains.

“Why am I not surprised…?” she muttered as she shut and locked the door behind her.

“You got a lot of experience with your mom,” Qrow slurred, still on the floor. “How is ole Snow, anyway?”

“I have no idea, and frankly, I’ll just wait till she calls me,” Winter said. “It can’t be easy for her, no longer having any of us with her in the house besides Whitley, and who knows how she might react to news that her daughter almost died before she even got accepted.”

“Meh,” Qrow said, raising and swirling his flask around. “She’ll survive, she always does,” he said, before he put the rim to his lips, pouring whiskey into his mouth and all over his face.

Winter sighed again, and shook her head, before she headed to the other side of the room, rolled out one of the mats and sat on it. “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?”

Qrow tilted his flask away from his face, swallowed and coughed for a few moments. “Managed to catch up with you-know-who. She’s happy that it’s finally made a comeback, but is stressing over whether or not she should actually step in and try to help with its new tour—she’s pretty sure it still holds a grudge.

“You?”

“There was a spy in the firing range earlier,” Winter said as she shrugged off her heavy top-coat, folded it up and set it to the side. “Probably wouldn’t have even noticed if it weren’t for these,” she said, pointing to her head just as an ethereal pair of arctic fox ears appeared, twitching and turning around. “I  kind of wish I was born with these things; the world is just so different when you can really hear,” she said as the animal ears disappeared.

“Yeah, I hear systemic oppression and a constant risk for violence and discrimination is so worth being able to hear everything, always, whether you want to or not,” Qrow muttered.

“Which is why I said ‘kind of.’”

Qrow raised his head. “You think it’s from anyone we should be worried about?”

“No—probably just from the pet project.”

Qrow snorted as he laid his head back down. “I didn’t realize something that size was a ‘pet project.’”

Winter chuckled. “Forgive me: getting tangled up in the grand machinations of the gods tends to really change your sense of perspective.”

Knock-knock.

“Excuse me, Ms. Schnee, Mr. Branwen?” one of the Haven maids asked. “Do either of you need anything? Different styles of beds? Tea and food? A private bath and a change of clothes, perhaps?”

“Alcohol!” Qrow said. “They know what I drink, just mention my name, you’ll be fine.”

“Professor Schnee mentioned that, yes, Mr. Branwen. Ms. Schnee?”

“I’m good, thank you.” Winter said.

“As you say, Ms. Schnee. Excuse me, I will take my leave now.”

The fox ears reappeared as Winter listened to the maid as she went down the hallway, made sure she really did go down the stairs and in the direction of the kitchen. Then, she turned to Qrow with a surly expression. “Really, Qrow? Drinking this much so soon before a mission?” she said.

“You know I’m a better huntsman when I’m drunk,” Qrow replied. “Well, drunk-er than usual.”

Winter groaned. “No wonder and you mom got along so well...” she said as she pulled out her scroll, checked her messages. Aside from the usual deluge of general notifications for hunters, important world events, and messages from her contacts both professional and personal, she found that Ruby had already transmitted her notes over to her.

Like she had warned her earlier, it was a giant, unwieldy mess, even if the time-stamps said it was just her entries for that day and yesterday. Ruby seemed to be fond of using a ‘quill’ instead of the default keyboard, and used a bevy of personal shortcuts, codes, and symbols, with not a single legend or guide to be seen anywhere. She sighed and she started scanning it, stopped as she found a sketch of suitcases, and a simple portrait of Weiss, with the nearby words written in plain language.

“Almost blew myself up today! Accidentally fell on Weiss luggage”--there were arrows pointing to the drawings--”which turned out to be full of dust and ammo and SUPER explodey, but it’s okay: she and her friend Akko helped me get up and not blow us all up to kingdom come.”

Winter chuckled. “Hey Qrow, heads-up: looks like your niece mistakenly sent me her diary with her notes about the Shiny Rod.”

“That’s not a mistake, that’s a feature,” Qrow said as he still lay on the floor. “To Ruby, weapon notes are as much a part of her diary as whatever the hell else happened to her that day.”

“Well don’t worry, I won’t read any more into it than I really have to,” Winter said as she continued scrolling, passing over much more detailed, intricate sketches of weapons like Shooting Star, Myrtenaster, and all their components, a doodle of a bird with X’s over its eyes, and details about their repeated run-ins with the Grimm, until she finally found entire pages dedicated to the Shiny Rod.

To her dismay, it seemed Ruby’s lengthy explanation earlier was already collated and edited: her theories, notes, and examinations of the Shiny Rod jumped around from whatever aspect of it caught her eye, her hastily scribbled notes swerving around curving around each other as her numerous trains of thought did their best to avoid collisions.

Winter sighed, and set her scroll aside.

“Can’t figure it out on your own, huh?” Qrow asked. “Don’t worry: no one else back at Sanctum could, either.”

“I’m not giving up!” Winter snapped. “I’m just putting it aside for later…” she yawned. “It’ll be better if I do this with a clear, rested mind.”

“Trust me, Ice Queen, that only makes it worse, because then you realize you still can’t figure it out...” Qrow muttered.

Winter grumbled. “… Hey Qrow? I almost forgot: did she happen to mention that friend of hers? The one that actually studied the Shiny Rod, and tried to figure out what the hell it was supposed to do?”

“She did,” Qrow said. “Good luck trying to find her, though; she didn’t pull a disappearing act, but we don’t know what the hell she’s been up to this past decade, either...”

Winter sighed as she curled up into her futon. “What I wouldn’t give to be able to talk to her, and get her perspective on all this...”

“Careful what you wish for, Winter,” Qrow muttered. “From what she’ll tell me, it really wasn’t an amiable separation...”

Snap.

Croix smiled as she broke apart her chopsticks, watching all the news and bubbles popping up on the scroll giant screen in front of her—official news reports, activity from Haven students’ social media feeds, even the more credible rumour mills out there in Mistral’s vast, sprawling underworld—all with one subject in common:

The Shiny Rod.

Croix hummed to herself as she ate her cup noodles. Behind her, her disc-shaped Aura Units floated about, disassembling equipment, packing it into crates, or running her various experiments and constructs through last-minute, greatly hastened final testing.

It was going to be a hell of a time, relocating her entire laboratory from Atlas, especially with all the weeks if not months of readjusting she had ahead of her. But if there was anything she’d learned from all her years, in a place as big as Mistral, there was always a place to hide, you just had to know where to look.

“I couldn’t believe it when I first heard it, you know?” she muttered. “After so long, why now, why her, why there? But I guess I’m going to find out when we meet again, won’t we, ‘Shiny Rod?’ she laughed. “And this time…

“… You won’t escape again.”

Note: Can you all tell which aspect of Ruby I was REALLY unhappy to find had been relegated to something of a one-off joke?

[exploringsocialinformatics]

Blog #2: Do Androids Dream Of Tenured Positions?

I wrote this in response to the article “Imagine How Great Universities Could Be Without All Those Human Teachers” by Allison Schrager and Amy Wang. I chose to write about it because of my background in education, because I feel like I really benefited a lot from the personal connections I made with my human professors in undergrad and also because I’m scared of robots.

I admit that the concept of AI does terrify me a little so I really had to reevaluate my anti-robot bias as I tried to figure out exactly where I stood in the fairly confusing lane between AI technology as a helpful assistant and AI technology as a terrifying force coming to steal jobs from professors. After careful consideration, though, I’ve come to a firm conclusion: not only should AI/automation in general not be wholesale replacing human labor, we don’t actually have to let it wholesale replace human labor. Inevitability sometimes only exists because we make something inevitable. The robots aren’t making themselves.

Or. . .I guess they kind of are, but--you know what I mean.

The choice to replace any job with AI technology instead of utilizing AI and adapting that job to both benefit the worker and to add more diverse tasks that couldn’t be accomplished by a machine is fundamentally a choice in favor of profit over people. I realize that it’s naive to think that major corporations or even universities might choose people over profit but, with the smallest percentage of hope I have left for the world, I know that it’s at least an option.

For example, the McKinsey Institute (not a group of folks who I would assume would be pushing for human decency) has laid out plans for the future of retail workers when automation is more of an established presence in their establishments. They reference already existing examples, writing, “Several grocers, for example, are creating new roles for in-store pickers and e-commerce distribution centers. [. . .] Meanwhile, McDonald’s has not only introduced table service in restaurants but also rolled out self-service ordering kiosks. Best Buy has pushed further into adjacent services, creating new customer-service roles in its In-Home Advisor and Total Tech Support programs and retraining employees for them” (Begley, Hancock). The ideal here is shifting labor, not replacing it.  

With all of that in mind, I feel compelled to take a moral stance here: this is less an issue of technology and more an issue of properly compensating employees. The human ones with skin and hearts and stuff, whose humanness is often a key factor of their job. And this is especially true of educators, whether K - 12 or higher education.

The notion that AI can replace professors just goes to show the fundamental disrespect that we as a society have for educators. This is something that we can see in how little they’re paid (especially adjuncts, who don’t nearly make enough to survive [Douglas-Gabriel]). It’s also ignoring the possibility of shifting their labor. This argument requires that we’re all on the same page that higher education should be about expanding knowledge: replacing the day to day work of grading or answering easily answerable questions with the help of AI, in an ideal world, wouldn’t mean job losses for TAs or potentially un-tenured professors. If universities properly focused their money (for example, focusing more on professors than administration [Lewis]), academics and robots could peacefully co-exist. Imagine a world where professors won’t have to worry about minutiae and instead have time to focus on research and writing and other things that are the reason they got into academia and that will actively make them better teachers. Imagine a world where TAs get real world experience actively helping with that research. Professors who have more time to work with students one on one! To write grants! To live more fulfilled and meaningful lives!

It’s exciting!

Again, naive and probably idealistic, especially considering that this would require universities to radically change their budgets. It would be also likely require more funding and more specified funding from the federal government for public universities. These are both very large feats.

In his paper Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? David H. Autor backs up my idyllic academic vision when he states that, on top of replacing labor, “automation also complements labor, raises output in ways that lead to higher demand for labor, and interacts with adjustments in labor supply” (2015). Essentially, the purpose of automation should be to make life easier for people, not to displace them.

There are a few significant arguments in favor of focusing more funds on AI in academic institutions that I find compelling, many of them focused on the students. On a base social level, I would probably have been more comfortable addressing a robot as an anxious undergrad than I would my professors and having a resource that would be available more frequently than a human could possibly be would be a comfort. Schrager and Wang explain the software created by the company Hobsons and how it can figure out demographics that might be struggling and use it to identify specific students that are close to dropping out. This is described as “granular,” (3) which is important--after all, professors are notably human. They can’t catch and parse small things like that, especially with crowded classrooms.

Another argument is that investing in technology that can directly help students and takes over the bulk of teaching saves money because you can hire fewer professors; ultimately, this could be worth the loss (7 - 8). If AI can do the menial labor behind teaching, why pay a human to do it when that requires a consistent salary and when the money could be used in ways that would more directly benefit--as was already mentioned--far more students than a single professor could reach? Kristin Houser writes, on the online publication Futurism, in regard to K - 12 teachers being replaced that “after the initial development costs, administrators wouldn’t need to worry about paying digital teachers. This saved money could then be used to pay for the needed updates to education facilities or other costs” (“The Situation to Our Education Crisis”), which seemingly supports the same claim about colleges. She also adds--and I find the idea that this technology would function so efficiently and without bias far more idealistic than anything I believe, but it’s still good to think about--that “digital teachers wouldn’t need days off and would never be late for work. Administrators could upload any changes to curricula [. . .] and the systems would never make mistakes. If programmed correctly, they also wouldn’t show any biases toward students based on gender, race, socio-economic status, personality preference, or other consideration” (Houser). These are all certainly elements that could positively impact education if they functioned well enough.

Even with both sides of the coin, though, there’s some evidence that the coin itself is less relevant than we think. There have been several studies which point out that automation isn’t killing off manufacturing jobs at nearly the rate that people have been expecting. Jared Bernstein, former chief financial advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, wrote in the Washington Post that the sharp decline in manufacturing jobs after 2000 had more to do with trade than it did automation (“Contrary to Popular Wisdom”). This was also a contentious moment in a Democratic Primary debate last fall between Senator Elizabeth Warren and entrepreneur Andrew Yang, with the former supporting Bernstein’s claim and the latter supporting the issues with automation. According to Politifacts, both the candidates were effectively right (Greenberg). So, essentially, this isn’t to say that automation isn’t part of the problem, it’s just that the situation is likely not as dramatic as economists and others have made it out to be.

Also, there certainly aren’t clear indicators that automation will be taking over academia specifically anytime soon. To say otherwise seems unnecessarily fear-inducing. As I said, though, I might be naive. Maybe college professors and TAs should be stocking up on whatever weapons are most effective against a robot uprising (. . .water?) or at least updating their resumes. If this does become a trend, though, I sincerely hope that the inherent value of good, earnest, sentient human educators is considered. As someone who primarily took undergrad classes in the humanities, the lived experiences of a professor often go hand in hand with their own education to make them more effective at relating to students. Giving up a fully realized, authentic education just for a more efficient one isn’t worth it.

Resources

Autor, D. H. (2015). Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29(3), 3–30.

Begley, S, Hancock, B. (n.d.). Automation in retail: An executive overview for getting ready. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/automation-in-retail-an-executive-overview-for-getting-ready

Bernstein, J. (2018, July 12). Contrary to popular wisdom, automation is not a job killer in U.S. manufacturing. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/07/12/contrary-to-popular-wisdom-automation-is-not-a-job-killer-in-u-s-manufacturing/

Douglas-Gabriel, D. (2019, February 15). 'It Keeps You Nice and Disposable': The Plight of Adjunct Professors. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/it-keeps-you-nice-and-disposable-the-plight-of-adjunct-professors/2019/02/14/6cd5cbe4-024d-11e9-b5df-5d3874f1ac36_story.html

Greenberg, J. (2019, October 16). What's the Manufacturing Job Killer, Automation or Trade? . Retrieved from https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/oct/16/both-trade-and-automation-hurt-and-helped-jobs-whi/

Houser, K. (2018, January 17). The solution to our education crisis might be AI. Retrieved from https://futurism.com/ai-teachers-education-crisis

Lewis, N. (2017, February 17). U.S. Colleges: Where Does The Money Go? Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanlewis/2017/02/17/u-s-colleges-where-does-the-money-go/

Schrager, A., & Wang, A. X. (2017, September 27). Imagine how great universities could be without all those human teachers. Retrieved from https://qz.com/1065818/ai-university/

[devilmaycry-arts]

Dante

I knew all the info but reading this was still interesting these character profiles are missing the events and info from the Dmc Anime and Dmc 4.

Intro: Dante is the son of the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda and a mortal woman called Eva. Half human and half demon, Dante possesses amazing powers and superhuman abilities. He hates demons, as he blames them for taking his mother and brother from him when he was only a child, and makes his living as a mercenary. But Dante won’t just take any “boring” job. He specialises exclusively in the supernatural and the occult, specifically, hunting and killing demons. Dante is a demon slayer. Powers and abilities: Most of Dante’s powers are not fully explored in the games, and the true extent of each power is generally not known for sure. Dante is naturally gifted with superhuman strength and speed, and he has incredible endurance stemming from his uncanny regeneration ability. Dantes wounds heal near instantly, in fact they heal over so fast that Dante apparently can’t be cut up, because by the time the blade has sliced through him, the wound has healed over already. This can be seen in a few scenes, for example, when he has a sword through his hand, but can pull and twist his hand around until he is holding the swords blade, without losing any fingers, and his brother Vergil, who possesses very similar abilities to Dante, can be seen to be cut clean through the torso by Dante in their final fight, but remains whole. Dante has survived gunshots the head and stomach, multiple stab wounds from scythe blades, being smashed into the ground by a heavy demon, being impaled by a sword (on several occasions) and various other acts of grievous bodily harm that should have been fatal to a human. However Dantes regeneration skills don’t mean he is totally unkillable or invulnerable. Dante can be worn down by continuous attacks, and when he is tired or consistently/badly wounded (which makes him tired anyway), he is far more susceptible to damage. (an example is after his lengthy tiring battle with Vergil, a single stab wound is enough to floor him) If really exhausted and beaten, Dante can pretty much be killed by anything that would usually be fatal to a human. Dante also has access to a selection of supernatural powers. In DMC3, Dante’s move list was divided into specific “styles”. (This was explained as an in game representation of Dante still learning and developing his skills, but it was really in order to cope with RAM issues, and because all the moves would be difficult to put on a controller at once.) With Trickster, Dante uses his amazing speed to dash around his enemies, appearing like a blur to the naked eye and demonstrates that he can even teleport short distances from enemy to enemy. (This may just be Dante moving so fast that he appears to teleport) With Royal Guard, Dante can somehow block nearly any physical attack with his bare hands as long as he times the movement correctly. In doing this, Dante builds up power, and can “release” it again upon enemies with a flash of movement. Dante can also summon a visible force field in front of him for the RG move “ultimate”, which will block/absorb projectiles and charge Dante, giving him power/health. Considering this, and the fact that some, extremely powerful attacks can be seen to visibly smash Dante’s block as if it was glass (with sound and everything), it is very likely during Royal Guard, Dante is in fact summoning a small force field around him, or his arms/hands at least, that deflects the attacks. This gets weaker the longer it is held, which is why timing is important. It only stays solid for a very short time after Dante summons it. RG is likely a demonically charged extension of the martial arts style Aikido, which is all about redirection of energy and countering/reacting to your enemy, using their attacks against them. Dante then absorbs a number of demonic abilities from bosses he defeats during DMC3 (although he does not utilise them in “later” games, so perhaps they didn’t last) but when he uses them, they are quite draining, using his up his demonic energy. The first is Quicksilver, which allows him to seemingly slow time, and as such all the enemies, objects etc around him, but move at normal speed himself. In fact, Dante is moving incredibly fast. He is also untouchable by any attack that starts after he begins his QS, indicating hey may have slipped a little out of reality, and is overlapping the physical objects around him in the timeline. The second demonic power is Doppleganger, which summons a shadowy copy of Dante, composed totally of darkness, to also attack enemies. Dante has also demonstrated plenty of acrobatic ability, (boosted of course by his superhuman stamina, speed and strength) pulling off flips and jumps with ease, as well as more OTT skills such as running along walls etc It is also stated in DMC3 he knows Aikido (clearly this is the basis of RG, as I said above) and in the opening cutscene he shows off some impressive hand to hand combat and martial arts abilities. This brings me to another interesting edge to Dantes abilities. Dante can pick up any weapon that he finds or is given, and seemingly, pretty much instantly master it. It has been suggested that this is one of Dantes powers (some kind of naturally affinity to battle that allows him to pick up and use any weapon, or some kind of natural talent to learn/master skills in a short time), others say he simply has extensive experience with a variety of combat styles, martial arts, and has trained with a variety of different weapon types, which means he can instantly adapt his fighting style to the weapons he comes across. Of course, considering Dante’s age, he would still need to have some form of natural ability or talent that allows him to learn/master skills much faster than a normal human for this explanation to work. This does suggest some kind of superhuman intelligence, although perhaps not in a strictly academic manner. Either way, Dante does indeed have a very unique and adaptive fighting style, and he often makes use of his powers and skills in very inventive ways. Especially in DMC3, were he seemed to enjoy playing around with his abilities, and using them in totally OTT, sometimes even silly, ways. Many of the powers Dante uses in the games however, are not based on his own natural abilities at all, but on his equipment. Dante uses “devil arms”, weapons that either were once demons themselves, are charged with demonic powers, or contain a demon. Dante had to earn these, either by defeating the demon, or enduring a test, as generally in order to use a devil arm, you must first prove yourself worthy to the demonic presence in the weapon. Dantes demonic blood means that he cannot only wield these weapons, but he can access and channel their powers. When using them, he can be granted a selection of new skills. One of Dante’s most signature powers, is that he can “devil trigger”, and assume a demonic form. In DT, Dante is considerably more powerful. He is stronger, faster, and he takes far less damage. He even heals faster, if possible. Generally, Dante requires a devil arm to DT, channelling the demonic essence in the weapon through him using his demonic blood. This means that depending on the weapon he is using, the DT will look different, and have different powers, reflective of the devil arm itself. However by DMC2, Dante is seen to have access to a “universal” DT, and can access it without the use of devil arms, this has yet to be fully explained. Dante can only stay in this form for a short time, as it costs him considerable demonic power, and is rather draining. History: Dante’s earliest history is for the most part unknown. Sparda died sometime during his childhood, and some even say he never met his father. However there is evidence that both the Sparda brothers did know him, at least long enough to form an opinion of him, as it states in Dante’s Code 1 profile, Vergil “reminds him of his father”, who was “cold-hearted”, and if Vergil has successfully emulated his father so, he probably had a living model to base himself on. This is of course, only speculative and the evidence is circumstantial. After Spardas death, Dante and Vergil were raised by their mother, Eva, in a house on the outskirts of town. Both received half of an amulet on one of their birthdays. Dante was very close to Eva, and Vergil apparently was jealous of their relationship and felt she loved Dante more than him. Then when Dante and Vergil were around 8, demons attacked their house. Eva told Dante to hide, and from his hiding spot, he saw his mother brutally murdered. The demons then reported everyone dead and when they left, Dante thought both Eva and Vergil had been killed. Vergils real whereabouts during the attack are currently unknown, but see his profile for more details. The next 10 years of Dantes life are as yet completely unexplained. It is unknown where he was, how he survived, if he went to school, who raised him, in fact it is unknown if anyone else raised him. The next known chapter of Dantes story is the DMC3 manga. DMC3 Dante: The DMC3 director confirmed in an interview that Dante was 19 in DMC3. (The manga takes place a year previously to DMC3, so Dante is 18 in the manga.) At first glance DMC3 Dante may appear light hearted, optimistic, cheerful and free-spirited, but in reality Evas death deeply affected Dante. After her death, he became disillusioned and detached, he has no purpose in life, he has no real drive or goals, and he doesn’t really give a damn about anything. Instead, Dante lives a hedonistic lifestyle; he is a thrill seeker, living for crude pleasures, cheap thrills and the adrenaline of battle. All he really has left, is his deep hatred for demons and the demonic, the things that he sees as taking his family from him. But being half demon himself, Dantes heart is heavy with self-loathing, he despises his demon side, the darkness always within him. He is ashamed and disgusted that it is part of him and in the manga, he clearly hates to access it. Dante doesn’t even defend himself against the torrent of insults Lady throws at him during DMC3. He is reckless and unpredictable, bordering either on being extremely selfless or dangerously suicidal. Enzo comments sometimes he thinks Dante has a deathwish. Dante also harbours a hatred or dislike for his father, (it has been theorised that he blames his father for not being there to protect them when they needed him most, or because it is Spardas demon blood that makes him what he is, and Spardas legacy, that eventually caused Evas death. She was killed as revenge for something Sparda did, making it his fault.) and hates that he consistently finds himself “cleaning up his fathers mess” and getting the blame for his fathers actions from various demons that he meets. He wants to get out from under his fathers shadow and stop being associated with him by every monster he meets and kills. At the start of the DMC3 manga, Dante is already living in his new office, (which he apparently got on the cheap due to Enzo) and is working as a mercenary for hire, with Enzo as his manager. However, Dante hasn’t had work in a long time, as he keeps turning down all the “boring” jobs. (much to Enzos frustration) In fact he hasn’t even left his office in days, and is basically living in squalor, eating pizza and drinking tomato juice. But he begins to realise he is running low on cash and food, and eventually the threat of losing his new place spurs him into action again, and Dante reluctantly accepts a missing persons case. The job isn’t so boring after all however and the resulting events lead him to learn that not only is his brother Vergil is still alive, but that he is planning to resurrect the tower of fear and use it to again open the gates of hell. By DMC3, a year later, Vergils plans come to fruition and the Temin Ni Gru, the tower of fear, raises from the earth, right in the middle of the city. Vergil lures Dante to the tower, as he requires Dantes part of the amulet to eventually unlock the power he desires. Dantes shop is destroyed in the resulting demon attack, and gazing up at the tower he goes to face his brother. Although at first Dante doesn’t give a damn about the larger scheme of things, and seemingly just goes seeing it as a thrill, a party, a piece of fun, a game (laugh) and because he just doesn’t like Vergil all that much, as he battles his way through the tower he meets a girl called Mary. (or “Lady”, as Dante calls her after she says tells him she has no name) She is there to settle her own family matter, and kill Arkham, her father, because in order to gain power, he sacrificed his own wife, i.e her mother. Dantes experiences in the tower and with Lady, change Dantes outlook. He tells her himself that it’s because of her that he now knows what is important and what he must do. Dante has purpose again, and he actually cares about something. He heads into the demon world to stop his brother. However, after Dante defeats him, Vergil will not return to with him to the human world, and instead casts himself into the depths of the demon world, disappearing into the darkness below. After Dante and Lady escape, Dante is seen to shed a tear for his lost brother. Lady remarks that perhaps even a devil may cry when they lose a loved one. After DMC3, Dante has seemingly come to terms with what and who he is (generally interpreted as him realising that just because he is part demon, doesn’t make him evil himself, the same way humans are not all good just because they are human.) It has been theorised by some, that he has even forgiven his father, as having been in his place, fighting for the human world, he identifies more with him, and understands him much more. (This is only speculation based on character development witnessed however) He continues his demon hunting business, only this time he actually cares about what he is doing; he has purpose, and finally picks a name for his place. “Devil May Cry” DMC1 Dante: Trish remarks in DMC1 that demons took Dantes mother and brother from him 20 years before. Now, DMC1s referencing is based on a previous version of the canon, so things said must sometimes be interpreted figuratively if the story is to gel together. Here, it could easily be assumed that she is referring to the attack that killed Eva, as Vergil was figuratively lost to Dante from then on, and because he was officially considered dead after the attack for a long time. So, 20 years ago was the attack, 10 years later the manga, 1 year later, DMC3, so DMC1 is set 9 years after DMC3. Dante is around 28 in DMC1. DMC1 Dante is considerably more mature now, and is a lot more experienced. He has been working as a mercenary, hunting demons, for nearly 10 years since DMC3, evidenced by a wall of trophies taken from his various kills. But he still retains his cocky, fearless attitude and his penchant for constantly mouthing off and insulting his enemies during battle. He also retains his deep hatred of demons, blaming them for stealing his mother and brother, and is hoping that as he continues his business, killing every last one he comes across, eventually he will hit the jackpot and finally have his revenge on the demon responsible for his mothers death. Various sources also indicate DMC1s Dante has quite a dark edge to him, although it is not really seen much in the game, and most are from now uncanonical sources, but it does show how Capcom seemed to interpret Dantes personality around the time of DMC1. It’s also worthy of note that by this time Dante has started using a password system with perspective clients. When he gets a call he asks them for the password, if they have it, that means they have gone through the right channels, and know exactly the kind of jobs Dante takes. In DMC1, Dante is hired by Trish (a mysterious woman who looks nearly exactly like Eva did) to stop the resurrection of the demon emperor, Mundus. She was in fact created by Mundus and sent to lure him there. While on the island Dante is reunited with his brother, who is now under the control of Mundus and in the form of the dark knight Nelo Angelo. Trish eventually betrays Mundus to save Dante, and once Dante defeats Mundus, he and Trish escape the island together. Partly to comfort Trish and partly as a new opinion of Dante’s on the difference between devils and good, he renames his business “Devil Never Cry”, as true devils, true evil, cannot show emotions as Trish or even he does. Trish and Dante become partners in the demon slaying business from then on. DMC2 Dante: DMC2 is set an unknown time after DMC1, so Dante’s age in it is unknown. The official DMC2 strategy guide says that it is set a “few” years after DMC1, but it is unknown if that is canonical, and even it was, it remains rather vague. (indicating maybe 3-5 years difference) In DMC2 Dante is very different to the lively cocky demon hunter we know in the other games. He is much more reserved, and he barely talks. He still cracks the occasional dry joke/comment, but only rarely, and they are arguably less humorous than those from the previous games. DMC2 Dante is all business and is very serious all the time. He has also started carrying around and occasionally flipping a coin, which on close inspection has the Trish silhouette from the DMC1 logo on it. Dantes sudden and unexplained change in personality is theorised to be a reaction to some traumatic and horrific event that deeply effected Dante between DMC1 and 2, (to which the coin perhaps bears relevance) but Capcom has not acknowledged this. Another point worthy of mention is that Dante has stopped using devil arms. (except for the awakened Rebellion) The possible storyline relevance of this is also not explored right now. At the end of DMC2 Dante must go into the demon world to stop the demon Argosax from escaping, but the gate closes behind him and he is trapped. With no way back to the human world, Dante heads even deeper into the demon world on his motorcycle. There is also an extra scene after the credits, which features Lucia sitting in Dantes office. She is thinking of Dante, when she hears a motorcycle outside and excitedly rushes to see who it is. It is therefore left vaguely open whether Dante remains trapped in the demon world or not. Interests/Hobbies: In both DMC3 and DMC1, Dantes office is filled with a selection of vintage memorabilia and collectables. The list includes a motorcycle, a wall of guns and other weapons, a juke box, pool table, guitar, trophy wall and drum kit. This was most evident in DMC3, perhaps because he was younger and filling his time with collectables and games, trying different things and indulging in various hobbies, or because he had plenty of money to splash around at that time. (thanks to Rabis “fake” missing persons case) But he still has one or two relics and collectors items of choice around his place in DMC1. We never actually see him use these things, so whether he does, is any good at them, or he simply has them as decoration, is unknown. Although, when he receives the guitar based weapon Nevan, he instantly breaks into an extreme guitar solo. (This may mean nothing, as Dante always seems to master any weapon he picks up pretty much instantly - See the powers section for expansion on this idea) In DMC1 Dante also has an entire wall devoted to demon hunting trophys, which may be there either to show off, or there to impress clients/scare demons, or it could be a reflection of how much he hates demons. But it again is an example of Dantes collecting of something. It is also known Dante is a fan of rock music, and particularly likes songs of the style in the games soundtrack.

[whydoyouhaterapevictims]

On recent events

I’ve spoken to some people about Carmen’s recent actions and, although being a target of her has been incredibly draining and terrible for my health (both mental and physical!), I wanted to say some things about the way she’s escalated her language and the claims that she’s making lately.

It has not escaped my notice that since I abandoned my more public blog and stopped writing things explicitly for wider distribution about abuse and sexual violence, I have not been a major target of Carmen’s, but that since I did these things, she has ramped up her harassment of people who associate with me (catandkitty and clownyprincess, among others) significantly. I do not think this is a coincidence. 

It has also not escaped my notice that regarding catandkitty, Carmen has basically constructed a new version of events to justify her continued harassment, which she outlines here:

she entered a discussion between ace survivors about how they were raped by partners who guilted them into sex, and catandkitty entered the conversation to remind everyone present that withholding sex is abusive.

like.

that is *not* the context in which you say that.

the only reason someone would say that to a group of rape-by-coercion survivors is if they were attempting to defend the rapes being discussed.

and guess what?

making posts about torturously abusive partners who abuse by denying sex, and then tagging it “ace” when the post didn’t mention aces at all?

shows that you’re trying to associate violent abusers and rapists who deny sex to abuse, with asexuals who are sex repulsed.

it is an attempt to paint asexuals being sex repulsed as an act of abuse, which works as an AMAZING justification for pressuring asexuals into sex (you’re abusing me if you don’t consent!).

IE, it’s a defense of rape.

like. all you people can do is call me a liar, call me disgusting.

but you can never prove i’m wrong. lmao

Well, okay, allow me to prove that you’re wrong.

First of all, I’ve already addressed the idea that catandkitty (and myself, at my old blog missvoltairine) “entered into” the “chronological middle” of a discussion that was specifically about asexual peoples’ experiences of sexual violence. It’s not true. The conversation that sparked our responses took place over several days and across multiple threads. The crux of the discussion was not “is it okay to rape an asexual person”, but rather, “when and how is it okay to talk about issues of sexual compatibility in relationships?”. Multiple people took a stance that expressing any kind of dissatisfaction with your sex life with your partner was, essentially, rape by coercion, and multiple other people, including myself and catandkitty, spoke up in response to THAT specific idea by pointing out that a rapist could just as easily manipulate someone being unable to express sexual dissatisfaction in a relationship as they could manipulate someone with the idea that they were somehow “owed” sex. We both illustrated this point with personal anecdotes from our own separate abuse histories. 

So the claim that catandkitty was responding, specifically and directly, to several other rape survivors talking about their own abuse, in order to "defend” the sexual violence they had experienced, is a lie. Catandkitty and myself were both responding to a set of ideas that we were seeing repeated in a number of different places. We both made original posts on the subject, instead of reblogging a specific discussion chain, for this reason. Neither of us commented on anyone else’s sexual abuse. Both of us very clearly only discussed our OWN abuse, and the tactics our abusers used.

Catandkitty’s own post on the subject is what Carmen references constantly, now claiming that it was tagged “aces” and “asexual” in an attempt to frame asexual people as inherently sexually abusive. This is an outright lie - the initial post, found here, is tagged with some additional commentary:

#please take explicit notice that this expressly includes sex-repulsed people #the term human need does not in any way harm you #it also doesn't assume you want any particular activity! #you're all about as smart as rocks it's incredible

Catandkitty later reblogged her own initial post to add clarifying details about where she was coming from, specifically - this is where she talks about her own abuse, and the phrase “withholding sex” first comes up (which was initially what a lot of people took issue with, and has now been reframed, as in Carmen’s post above, as “saying no to sex” - this may seem like an academic distinction but “withholding sex” is a phrase used in advocacy circles - it’s in Why Does He Do That?, I learned about it doing anti-rape advocacy work - to describe a specific phenomenon of abusers repeatedly shutting down and shaming any expression of sexual desire or agency in their victim, and then leveraging that later when coercing them into sex they don’t actually want; “saying no to sex” has very different connotations and was not coined in the same way/with the same intentions, and as such it evokes a very different dynamic). You’ll notice that this post is ALSO not tagged with “aces” or “asexual”! It is tagged with the usernames of two people - one of whom accused catandkitty of being a rapist directly, and another of whom was a minor whose blog became the epicenter of a series of people making claims along the lines of “any ultimatum in a relationship is abusive”. (The latter blog, certifiedacehet, has since been deleted and that content was purged, but I have linked to asexualnataliaromanova’s claims about catandkitty before, I believe they’re still up.) It is also tagged “ace tumblr” and “ace discourse”, which, I mean, you could argue implicated all asexuals, but you’d be very obviously wrong. These are tags that are consistently used for discourse, and it’s clear that that is why catandkitty used them.

So the statement that catandkitty tagged a post about her rapist with “ace” and “asexual” is also a lie. This just literally never happened.

I’m disturbed by this dishonesty on a few levels. Ultimately, I think the false claim that catandkitty speaking about her abuse was and is incompatible with the idea that asexual people have also experienced rape imposes a hierarchy of sexual violence where in order for one survivors’ experience to be believed and respected, it is understood that another survivors’ experience must be denigrated, weaponized, and (explicitly or implicitly) positioned as false. This is cruel, dishonest, and dangerous. A non-asexual person talking about their experience of rape is NOT an attack on the idea that sexual violence against asexual people is unacceptable. It never was. Not from me, and not from catandkitty. However, this framing also is pretty notable in how it is completely exclusive of the possibility that an asexual person could ever be abusive! The very idea that an asexual person could be abusive to a partner is consistently positioned as an attack on all asexuals - even when no one in the original conversation went there in any capacity at all. 

I find this difficult because one of my abusers was asexual. This is not a detail I wish to elaborate on, and I want to be very clear that I’m not bringing it up as proof that asexuals are inherently abusive. Abusers can be anyone! They can be members of literally any group. The idea that a specific identity precludes everyone within that identity from being abusive serves abusers and silences their victims. Taking the abuse history of someone like catandkitty and claiming that she’s wrong for discussing it at all because of how it reflects on asexuals - when her abuser was not asexual and she never said he was! - is an incredibly shitty way of perpetuating this idea. No survivor should be pressured to stay silent about their experiences for the sake of “the cause”. Not only is this terrible for survivors, it is terrible for movements, as it enables abuse and its destructive effects within specific groups. 

To spread that idea through blatant lies... is so damaging, to ALL survivors, that I can’t not say anything about it.