#world trigger in nutshell

[mx-giraffe]

yuuma: if you go, you're going to die

osamu: no i have to do it

yuuma: you 👏will 👏die👏

osamu: ...so what you're saying is my chances of living through this are slim...

yuuma: BRO NO IF YOU GO YOU'RE GONNA DIE AM I NOT SPEAKING JAPANESE OR SOMETHING?? AM I SPEAKING THE WRONG LANGUAGE??? YOUR CHANCES AREN'T SLIM THEY'RE NOT THERE. IF EIGHTEEN OSAMUS WOULD DIE, YOU'RE GOING TO BE ONE OF THOSE EIGHTEEN OSAMUS!!!

osamu: im gonna do it

yuuma: ...fucking idiot oh my gosh

[acid-ixx]

(03/05/25) — again &. again masterlist

by the bird and the bee

ft. platonic soft! yandere batfam! x gn! neglected reader

✮ MAIN MASTERLIST ✮

— TRIGGER WARNINGS !

- lowercase writing, emotional neglect, allusions to sexual assault, prostitution & physical abuse, kidnapping, alcohol abuse, drugging, themes of depression, dissociation, vague traumatic events, mentions of murder, amnesia, other warnings would be added soon.

— SYNOPSIS !

who would have thought that living with your rich, billionaire father and endless supply of sisters and brothers would actually end up being the worst thirteen and a half year of your life?

when your mother was taken away from you at the ripe age of five, you were forced to live at the solemn wayne manor with nobody to accompany you but the butler, alfred pennyworth.

there, you learn that giving up was better than trying to gain the attention of your ever-growing family. so you left, and never once tried to look back at the decades of neglect they left you with.

but when alfred, your kind caretaker, had started leaving clues of your sudden disappearance; that's when they all take notice and then on starts the ultimate race of chasing freedom, and escaping what once was your gilded cage.

little did you know your mother's dark past manifests itself at the worst of times.

— CHAPTERS ! ; 48k+ words

00. — oh, please leave me be.

01. — because you only notice me once i'm out the door.

02. — and you don't even remember my face?

03. — i need a drink, away from everyone.

04. — mors tua, vita mea / your death, my life.

05 : 01. — a halo in the pit of darkness.

05 : 02. — to be his child is all i want.

— DRABBLES ! ; #series: again &. again

dick grayson calling you his baby bird

why now? (yan! damian wayne)

brutus (villain au concept)

brutus: out for blood

what if you were never neglected?

just a taste (yan! conner kent - suggestive)

laughter is the best medicine (yan! dick grayson, jason todd, tim drake, damian wayne)

to you, my greatest passion (non-neglected au-verse)

brutus: both arms cradle you now

bruce finding your graduation picture

how to be a heartbreaker! (yandere harem)

mea culpa (mini chapter)

conflicting comfort scene with jason todd

dialogue spoilers related to above drabble

more about jason todd and hurt/comfort

dick and his baby blue eyes

time travel au concept

sharing the same features with damian

brutus: the only fucked up thing in this world is you

cause you're takin' it like a champ, sweetheart! (yan! conner kent - suggestive)

brutus: just a burning memory (yan! conner kent)

young, just us?! (yan! young justice au)

that's my type! (yan! john constantine)

dick's miley cyrus eyes

you shoving their neglect in their face and it backfiring

model reader concept

why can't we return to what we once were?

— ASKS ! ; #series: again &. again

dick's spiral into yandere-ism

leaving gotham, resenting alfred, changing last names

your mysterious identity &. conner being your love interest

dick seeing you as a child & damian's need to be your favorite

damian and his cool, matching bracelets

does dick close the door on you? nah, he doesn't even know you were behind the door

wally west as your love interest

you care now?

conner as your angry, protective bf

jason trying his damn best to be a brother to you

calling bruce by his last name only

calling alfred your dad ft. jealous bruce

how are damian and jason obsessed towards you

their nicknames for you

how bruce and damian would try to bond with you

will you still go to college after being kidnapped?

will the series have a happy ending?

why does damian hurt you? and why do you justify his actions?

the family stalks you even in-game

how tim is in the series

what are the characters' ages in the series?

what if you were hypersexual?

how feral is dick in the series?

— INCORRECT QUOTES ! ; #a&a: incorrect quotes

yan! villains kidnapping you

hostage situation

how to become a target to the wayne family

dick and you miscommunication trope in a nutshell

— FANART ! ; #a&a: fanart

happy birthday by @luffyadolover

diary by @luffyadolover

another reason they're broke &. finished art by @oh-nowo-i-got-uwu

a take on the reader's appearance by @luffyadolover

reader trying to study ft. the batfam's endless calls &. finished art by @ghostdoodlen

reader finding bruce and damian watching a movie by @luffyadolover

again &. again mv by @luffyadolover

reader and their playlist by @luffyadolover

a comic panel by @lucioleestolie

conner and reader flying through the skies by @ghostdoodlen

when all of a sudden, i hear this agitating noise by @punpunsonny

villain au reader by @lazyemmy

a&a oc: emile by @questionthegrapevine

graduation pic, conner comfort, and mirrors by @ghostdoodlen

neglected &. non-neglected reader by @lazyemmy

jason calling you his angel by @ghostdoodlen

alfred gives you a christmas gift by @luffyadolover

my own art teehee by me

male reader interpretation by @yukiyee-akian

dick being clingy by @lazyemmy

brutus reader interpretation by @plkjnb

reader cosplaying as mabel pines by @mothintheskies

— TAGLIST ! ; taglist is under construction!

@.lilyalone, @.secretomelettetroops, @.earlqurl, @.simpingfor-wakasa, @.amber-content, @.ruiroku, @.okaybutfullhomo, @.trasshy-artist, @.obsessedwithromance, @.jjsmeowthie, @.fairy-lenaa, @.ilovvmyhusband, @.6uuyuuhgy, @.plsfckmedxddy, @.lavender-moony, @.sweetheart-era, @.chemicalsandghosts, @.darling006, @.starringyau, @.samanthahanes, @.rosecentury, @.jaythes1mp, @.pi1nkl0ver, @.i-thirsty-boy, @.sharks-are-cool-l, @.silverklaus, @.samanthathanes, @.traumaramacenter, @.maddimoon, @.anxrq, @.thedarknesslord, @.h0rr0r-10ver-69, @.lazy-idate, @.cupids-pretty-boy, @.alishii, @.mel-star636, @.sitepathos, @.freakyotaku059-blog, @.dirtydiavolo, @.sunbleachedantlers, @.24hrsoflanii, @.ceramic-raven, @.une-lueur-dans-la-nuit, @.tdickensstuff4, @.thickerthanthieves, @.arlandvery, @.distressed-lezbo, @.bunbunboysworld, @.bellethesleepypotato, @.naina326, @.nebuluma, @.alliwantisadonut, @.alishii, @.kusakiguzen, @.sirenetheblogger, @.emmbny, @.ryukyuin, @.solkara, @.starsdotalk

[beatrice-otter]

The Other Half of the Social Model of Disability

Lots of people in fandom are aware of the Social Model of Disability, which is a direct contrast to the Medical Model of Disability. Problem is, most of those people only understand half of the Social Model.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, the "in a nutshell" version is that the medical model views disability as something that is broken and which needs to be fixed, and little or no consideration is given beyond trying to cure it (and little or no consideration is given to the needs and wishes of the person who has it). The social model of disability, on the other hand, says that the thing that disables a person is the way society treats them. So, for example, if someone is paralyzed and can't walk, what disables them from going places is buildings that are not wheelchair accessible. (Or possibly not being able to afford the right type of wheelchair.) Inaccessible spaces and support equipment you can't afford are choices society makes, not a problem with the disabled person.

People then take this to mean that the only problem with disability is the society that surrounds it, and therefore in some utopian future where capitalism is no more and neither is ableism or any other form of bigotry, all problems disabled people have will be solved.

Except that what I've just described is not actually what the social model of disability says. Or, rather, it's only half of what the social model of disability says.

The actual social model of disability begins with a distinction between impairments and disabilities. Impairments are parts of the body/brain that are nonstandard: for example, ears that do not hear (deafness), organs that don't work right (e.g. diabetes), limbs that don't work (paralysis), brain chemistry that causes distress (e.g. anxiety, depression), the list goes on. The impairment may or may not cause distress to the person who has it, depending on the type of impairment (how much pain it causes, etc.) and whether it's a lifelong thing they accept as part of themselves or something newly acquired that radically changes their life and prevents them from doing things they want to do.

And then you have the things that disable us, which are the social factors like "is there an accessible entrance," as described above.

If we ever do get a utopian world where everyone with a disability gets the support they need and all of society is designed to include people with disabilities, that doesn't mean the impairments go away. Life would be so much better for people with impairments, and it's worth working towards, but some impairments simply suck and would continue to suck no matter what.

Take my autism. A world where autism was accepted and supported would make my life so much easier ... and yet even then, my trouble sleeping and my tendency to hyperfixate on things that trigger my anxiety would still make my life worse. I don't want to be cured of my autism! That would change who I am on a fundamental level, and I like myself. My dream is not of a world where I am not autistic, but a world in which I am not penalized for being autistic and have the help I need. And even in that world, my autism will still sometimes cause me distress.

There are some impairments--conditions that come with chronic pain, chronic fatigue, etc.--where pretty much everyone with that impairment agrees that the ultimate goal is a cure. But nobody knows how long a cure will take to find (years? decades? centuries?), whereas focusing on the social things disabling you can lead to improvement in your daily life right now.

In conclusion: the social model of disability is very valuable, and much superior to the medical model on a number of levels. But: please don't forget that the social model makes a distinction between disability and impairments, and even if we reach every goal and get rid of all the social factors that disable people, some impairments will be fine and cause no distress to the people who have them, some will be a mixed bag, and some will still be major problems for the people who have them.

Also on Dreamwidth

[andre-and-cal]

Cal and Andre’s last minutes on Earth,,

Calvin had flashed a quick glance to the school’s security camera shortly after the police began to show up to Iroquois High School. On the camera footage, Cal looks like he’s saying, Look at our beautiful disaster, with his highly ominous deadpan. His grandiosity kind of fueled his “playfulness” toward his victims.

Gathering in an area in the library, both boys were satisfied with the amount of victims who got hit and had suffered the impact of their bullets. But now Andre was prepared to leave through the school’s emergency exit to his car, so that he and Cal could flee the school together and go across the country to hide out. Andre was blatantly ignoring the dispatcher on a student he shot and killed— Omar’s— cell phone. Because the only people that mattered, especially today, were him and Cal.

During the massacre, he realized that him and Cal probably weren’t going to be able to reach other schools. To Andre, it was rather unrealistic to expect that they were going to be able to tackle that aspect of Zero Day, so he just settled on the assumption that he and Cal would just be hiding out somewhere else in the United States, or even Mexico, as Andre had mentioned before a while ago.

He brought it up to Cal, seeing as he’d been looking forward to running away with him. But what he didn’t know was that Cal has had different plans for a while now. In a nutshell, Cal’s response to Andre not only consisted of explaining how they get would shot and killed by the cops if they tried to take off, but he also somewhat coerced him into agreeing. But Andre’s acceptance to committing suicide was very dubious. After all, Andre had never necessarily felt suicidal. And he definitely didn’t want to die after Zero Day; he felt that he and Cal were so high up above humanity, that they’d done the best thing in the world.

And in some ways, Andre was afraid of dying, too. Afraid of turning the gun on himself.

But they’d already achieved their end goal, which was perpetrating Zero Day, and Calvin no longer sought to live after this day. He wanted Andre to be with him in death. He didn’t want to go alone. Because he’d never wanted to die alone, too. That’s what kept him alive up till Zero Day. He needed him, and he knew how much Andre needed him too. They wouldn’t have shot up their school if they didn’t. But Cal, too, was very aware of how Andre was afraid of death.

Finally kneeling down beside each other, Andre had his hand on Cal’s knee for a bit of comfort, and he kept on stalling and interrupting the countdown. Still, Cal was able to reassure him and eventually got Andre to give him a “yes”.

In the last 5 seconds before they died, Cal was thinking to himself about how relieved he felt that he and Andre were dying together. They’d planned this for practically a year, and the bastards they’d shot got what they fucking deserved, in his eyes. But Andre was worrying quite a bit. After all, where would he and Cal go? Would they suffer in purgatory or appear in Gehinnom because they did such a thing?

However, they still pulled the trigger nearly at the same time as one another. But Andre wanted to hear Cal pull the trigger first; he needed confirmation that he couldn’t back out of killing himself now. He couldn’t imagine a world where Cal was far beyond his reach. So the moment Andre heard Cal’s carbine go off, he pointed the barrel of his shotgun at himself and pulled the trigger.

Neither of them really felt pain when they blew themselves away. They went out so quickly that even if they did feel pain, they would only feel it for a split second. Their deaths were quite messy though.

The blood that had previously circulated through their heads, the fragments of brain matter, and the shards of their craniums ended up mixing together following the splatter of their skulls on the wall and on the floor.

They’ll always be 2 bullets in a single chamber.

Where they end is where everybody else begins.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The health industry’s invisible hand is a fist

On June 21, I'm doing an ONLINE READING for the LOCUS AWARDS at 16hPT. On June 22, I'll be in OAKLAND, CA for a panel and a keynote at the LOCUS AWARDS.

The US has the rich world's most expensive health care system, and that system delivers the worst health outcomes of any country in the rich world. Also, the US is unique in relying on market forces as the primary regulator of its health care system. All of these facts are related!

Capitalism's most dogmatic zealots have a mystical belief in the power of markets to "efficiently allocate" goods and services. For them, the process by which goods and services are offered and purchased performs a kind of vast, distributed computation that "discovers the price" of everything. Our decisions to accept or refuse prices are the data that feeds this distributed computer, and the signals these decisions send about our desires triggers investment decisions by sellers, which guides the whole system to "equilibrium" in which we are all better off.

There's some truth to this: when demand for something exceeds the supply, prices tend to go up. These higher prices tempt new sellers into the market, until demand is met and prices fall and production is stabilized at the level that meets demand.

But this elegant, self-regulating system rarely survives contact with reality. It's the kind of simplified model that works when we're hypothesizing about perfectly spherical cows of uniform density on a frictionless surface, but ceases to be useful when it encounters a messy world of imperfect rationality, imperfect information, monopolization, regulatory capture, and other unavoidable properties of reality.

For members of the "efficient market" cult, reality's stubborn refusal to behave the way it does in their thought experiments is a personal affront. Panged by cognitive dissonance, the cult members insist that any market failures in the real world are illusions caused by not doing capitalism hard enough. When deregulation and markets fail, the answer is always more deregulation and more markets.

That's the story of the American health industry in a nutshell. Rather than accepting that people won't shop for the best emergency room while unconscious in an ambulance, or that the "clearing price" of "not dying of cancer" is "infinity," the cult insists that America's worst-in-class, most expensive health system just needs more capitalism to turn it into a world leader.

In the 1980s, Reagan's court sorcerers decreed that they could fix health care with something called "Prospective Payment Systems," which would pay hospitals a lump sum for treating conditions, rather than reimbursing them for each procedure, using competition and profit motives to drive "efficiency." The hospital system responded by "upcoding' patients: if you showed up with a broken leg and a history of coronary disease, they would code you as a heart patient and someone who needed a cast. They'd collect both lump sums, slap a cast on you, and wheel you out the door:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4195137/

As Robert Kuttner writes for The American Prospect, this kind of abuse was predictable from the outset, especially since Health and Human Services is starved of budget for auditors and can only hand out "slaps on the wrist" when they catch a hospital ripping off the system:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-13-fantasyland-general/

Upcoding isn't limited to Medicare fraud, either. Hospitals and insurers are locked in a death-battle over payments, and hospitals' favorite scam is sending everyone to the ER, even when they don't have emergencies (some hospitals literally lock all the doors except for the ER entrance). That way, a normal, uncomplicated childbirth can be transformed into a "Level 5" emergency treatment (the highest severity of emergency) and generate a surprise bill of over $2,700:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/27/crossing-a-line/#zero-fucks-given

The US health industry is bad enough to generate a constant degree of political will for change, but the industry (and its captured politicians and regulators) is also canny enough to dream up an endless procession of useless gimmicks designed to temporarily bleed off the pressure for change. In 2018, HHS passed a rule requiring hospitals to publish their prices.

Hospitals responded to this with a shrewd gambit: they simply ignored the rule. So in 2021, HHS made another rule, creating penalties for ignoring the first rule:

https://www.cms.gov/priorities/key-initiatives/hospital-price-transparency/hospitals

The theory here was that publishing prices would create "market discipline." Again, this isn't wholly nonsensical. To the extent that patients have nonurgent conditions and the free time to shop around, being able to access prices will help them. Indeed, if the prices are in a standards-defined, machine-readable form, patients and their advocates could automatically import them, create price-comparison sites, leaderboards, etc. None of this addresses the core problem that health-care is a) a human right and b) not a discretionary expense, but it could help at the margins.

But there's another wrinkle here. The same people who claim that prices can solve all of our problems also insist that monopolies are impossible. They've presided over a decades-long assault on antitrust law that has seen hospitals, pharma companies, insurers, and a menagerie of obscure middlemen merge into gigantic companies that are too big to fail and too big to jail. When a single hospital system is responsible for the majority of care in a city or even a county, how much punishment can regulators realistically subject it to?

Not much, as it turns out. Kuttner describes how Mass Gen Brigham cornered the market on health-care in Boston, allowing it to flout the rules on pricing. In addition to standard tricks – like charging self-pay patients vastly more than insured payments (because individuals don't have the bargaining power of insurers), Mass Gen Brigham's price data is a sick joke.

See for yourself! The portal will send you giant, unstructured, ZIPped text files filled with cryptic garbage like:

ADJUSTABLE C TAPER NECK PLUS|1|UNITED HEALTHCARE [1016]|HB CH UNITED HMO / PPO / INDEMNITY [34]|UNITED HEALTHCARE HMO [101604]|75|Inv Loc: 1004203; from OR location 1004203|52.02|Inpatient PAF; 69.36% Billed|75|Inv Loc: 1004203; from OR location 1004203|56.87|Outpatient PAF; 75.83% Billed

https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/en/patient-care/patient-visitor-information/billing/cms-required-hospital-charge-data

These files have tens of thousands of rows. As a patient, you are meant to parse through these in order to decide whether you're getting ripped off on that HIP STEM 16X203MM SIZE 4 FEMORAL PRESS FIT NEUTRAL REVISION TITANIUM you're in the market for (as it happens, I have two of these in my body).

Kuttner describes the surreal lengths he had to go through to prevent his mother from getting ripped off by Mass Gen through an upcoding hustle. By coding her as "admitted for observation," Mass Gen was able to turn her into an outpatient, with a 20% co-pay (this is down to a GW Bush policy that punishes hospitals that charge Medicare for inpatient care when they could be treated as outpatients – hospitals reflexively game the system to make every patient an outpatient, even if they have overnight hospital stays).

Kuttner's an expert on this: he was national policy correspondent for the New England Journal of Medicine and covers the health beat for the Prospect. Even so, it took him ten hours of phone calls to two doctors' offices and Blue Cross to resolve the discrepancy. The average person is not qualified to do this – indeed, the average person won't even know they've been upcoded.

Needless to say that people in other countries – countries where health care is cheaper and the outcomes are better – are baffled by this. Canadians, Britons, Australians, Germans, Finns, etc do not have to price-shop for their care. They don't have to hawkishly monitor their admission paperwork for sneaky upcodes. They don't have to spend ten hours on the phone arguing about esoteric billing practices.

In a rational world, we'd compare the American system to the rest of the world and say, "Well, they've figured it out, we should do what they're doing." But in good old U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!, the answer to this is more prices, more commercialization, more market forces. Just rub some capitalism on it!

That's where companies like Multiplan come in: this is a middleman that serves other middlemen. Multiplan negotiates prices on behalf of insurers, and splits the difference between the list price and the negotiated price with them:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/07/us/health-insurance-medical-bills.html

But – as the Arm and a Leg podcast points out – this provides the perverse incentive for Multiplan to drive list prices up. If the list price quintuples, and then Multiplan drives it back down to, say, double the old price, they collect more money. Meanwhile, your insurer sticks you with the bill, over and above your deductible and co-pay:

https://armandalegshow.com/episode/multiplan/

The Multiplan layer doesn't just allow insurers to rip you off (though boy does it allow insurers to rip you off), it also makes it literally impossible to know what the price is going to be before you get your procedure. As with any proposition bet, the added complexity is there to make it impossible for you to calculate the odds and figure out if you're getting robbed:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/04/house-always-wins/#are-you-on-drugs

Multiplan is the purest expression of market dynamics brainworms I've yet encountered: solving the inefficiencies created by the complexity of a system with too many middlemen by adding another middle-man who is even more complex.

No matter what the problem is with America's health industry, the answer is always the same: more markets! Are older voters getting pissed off at politicians for slashing Medicare? No problem: just create Medicare Advantage, where old people can surrender their right to government care and place themselves in the loving hands of a giant corporation that makes more money by denying them care.

The US health industry is a perfect parable about the dangers of trusting shareholder accountable markets to do the work of democratically accountable governments. Shareholders love monopolies, so they drove monopolization throughout the health supply chain. As David Dayen writes in his 2020 book Monopolized the pharma industry monopolized first, and put the screws to hospitals:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu

Hospitals formed regional monopolies to counter the seller power of consolidated Big Pharma. That's Mass Gen's story: tapping the capital markets to buy other hospitals in the region until it became too big to fail and too big to jail (and too big to care). Consolidated hospitals, in turn, put the screws to insurers, so they also consolidated, fighting Big Hospital's pricing power.

Monopoly at any point in a supply chain leads to monopoly throughout the supply chain. But patients can't consolidate (that's what governments are for – representing the diffuse interests of people). Neither can health workers (that's what unions are for). So the system screwed everyone: patients paid more for worse care. Health workers put in longer hours under worse conditions and got paid less.

Kuttner describes how his eye doctor races from patient to patient "as if he was on roller skates." When Kuttner wrote him a letter questioning the quality of care, the eye doctor answered that he understood that he was giving his patients short shrift, but explained that he had to, because his pay was half what he needed, relegating him to a small apartment and an old car. The hospital – which skims the payments he gets for care – sets his caseload, and he can't turn down patients.

The answers to this are obvious: get markets out of health care. Unionize health workers. Give regulators the budgets and power to hold health corporations to account.

But for market cultists, all of that can't work. Instead, we have to create more esoteric middlemen like "pharmacy benefit managers" and Multiplan. We need more prices to shovel into the market computer's data-hopper. If we just capitalism hard enough, surely the system will finally work…someday.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/13/a-punch-in-the-guts/#hayek-pilled

[thefoolishone666]

The Shadows of The Critters

Today, I will be going over each of the Smiling Critters and what their shadows are in my AU. But let's make sure everyone here is at least close to the same page.

Before we begin, I am going make this clear, these shadows will be connected to some bad imagery...Mostly Dogday cause of course it is him. While some of these may not be bad, I am still under my own opinion to make sure everyone knows what they are getting into just in case. With that said, this post will have a few topics that can trigger some people, as minor as they are. So keep that in mind just in case.

Now then, what is a Shadow? A shadow is basically the suppressed self. These can be some dark thoughts, your fears. Basically, they are a part of yourself that you don't want to face. Maybe a truth you reject, a darknparts of yourself you despise, maybe even truama that is unresolved. There is a lot more to it than that, much of which, I am not smart enough to explain in an easy way to understand, but that is the basic idea of what shadows are in a nutshell.

The critter to be hit by our truama beam will be our favorite split dog, Dogday. A prisoner of fear. The wardens of which will be anyone and everyone he makes a connection with. His shadow body always gains a chain whenever he gets close to a person, always threatening to tear off the part that it is connected to his body. Now, his body is covered in the wounds cause by the chains pulled by those that hurt him before, who normal Dogday would call a friend, and bandages to help cover them up from the world to prevent it from seeing them all.

Next up on the choping block is our boy Kickin. Driven by the lost of his dear sister, his shadow is driven by a deep rage that refuses to end. Carrying a bag of souls that he wishes to end when given that chance to do such a thing. Always angry, always fighting, always hurting those that would hurt others. His soul demands payment for what they took from him.

Hoppy's drive to win is admirable, but her desire to win was also a short coming for her. Her tunic was almost a sickening yellow with a golden laurel wreath adorned on her head, all while scars of many an injury covered her body. Her calm mask hid her deep wrath whenever she gets a place unfit for royalty. She must obtain victory for people to stay. No one likes a failure after all.

Picky always gives, so she never has the urge to take. She fears how much she will take. Her shadow knows the fear the most. A painfully thin zombie compared to her healthy plump self, she offers parts of herself so others must not starve or suffer due to her selfishness.

Bubba sacrificed much to get to the position he was at. He sacrificed his integrity when he made that deal with the teacher, he sacrificed his old friends so he could concentrate on getting a good job, and he even turned his back on his parents wishes, purely because he knew what they wanted deep down. His life became mechanical, losing bits of his soul as he continued down this path. An unfeeling, logic based robot. That was what he was. His shadow proved such a thing. What was once human was now gone, for it would lead to the best future, or so he thought.

Catnap was evil. He knew that. Why he was, remained a mystery to him. He chooses to look away and instead goes to live a happy life, to pretend he didn't do anything wrong, but he was not a good cat. His shadow knew that. A blindfold over two very dark, very evil eyes, a blade always in hand to make him pay for the crime he has committed. If no one knows you did the crime, the only one to become judge, jury, and executioner will be what little good rests in your soul.

Bobby dreads the idea of being alone. She has done many things to get people to stay. Money, crime, even nearly hurt others, not that many people know that. Her soul was trapped in a show without an end, a puppet forced to dance and do what others demand. Strings holding her up always, despite her wanting to be free and do what she wants, she was forced to move the way others would be the most entertained by. A ballerina stuck in a dance of sorrow and pain, if only to insure another day with others around her.

Finally, there is Craftycorn. A great artist, and more than enough to prove that in many of her pieces... but what is it all for? When she was gone, what would these pictures mean? Her shadow's appearance says it all. In time, a statue would crack, and moss would eventually grow over it, parts now chipped away from time. A living statue slowly being destroyed over time, it's maker's name lost, and now without a legacy.

All these shadows torment and equally are tormented by their real-world counterparts. May it be because of lack of closure or their desire to overcome this issue of their's bug can't for some reason or another. In time, though, the shadows return to a much better form and heal with the normal versions of themselves.

[tobiasdrake]

Of the Danganronpa casts, which 8 characters do you think would best fit the Adventure Crests?

Ooh, that is a fascinating question to think about. I can't do an episode of Digimon today because I'm back at work after two days off so I not only have a lot of backlog to attend to but also end-of-week reporting to shoot out.

But this is a fun idea for an exercise to keep my brain moving through the day.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Courage: Mondo Owada. Mondo's issues with masculinity map well onto the Courage template. He's brave and impulsive to a reckless degree, driven by a desire to prove himself. His life has been defined by the virtues embodied in the Crest of Courage, both for better and for worse as his reckless bravery ultimately got his brother killed.

Mondo's story ends in a betrayal of his virtue. In the equivalent of Dark Evolution consuming his Digimon and driving it to kill him. But even this supreme act of cowardice occurs because he is shamed by the courage that Chihiro demonstrates. The virtue that Mondo has strived to uphold.

Friendship: Junko Enoshima. That one's going to take some explaining, but weird as it is to think, Junko's entire gambit as the Mastermind is a dark inversion of the virtue of Friendship. She knows each and every one of these people intimately, and she cares. She has to care for their deaths to bring her the despair she seeks.

The entire Killing Game is a form of self-harm, as despair-obsessed Junko inflicts emotional scars on both her friends and peers, and on herself. It's just like when she stabbed Yasuke; It only works, it only gives her the emotional response she desires, because she cares so much and knows so much about each and every one of these people.

Junko herself has the Crest of Friendship. Which she has corrupted in pursuit of despair.

Love: Sakura Ogami. Sakura is driven by love. Though seen only as a powerful and dangerous ogre by others, it's love that motivates her every action. It's love for Kenshiro that leads her to work for Junko. It's love for the rest of her peers that leads her to betray Junko.

Even her death, her final act in this world, was done out of love. Her final moments spent with a candy in her mouth; A present from a beloved friend. Sakura has a bottomless capacity for love.

Purity/Sincerity: Hifumi Yamada. A Purity-bearer is someone who is emotionally honest and sincere in their presentation. They wear their heart on their sleeve; What you see is what you get. They are, in every moment and every interaction, their truest unfiltered self. For better or worse, they shower everyone they meet in unrelenting emotional honesty.

Hifumi is often difficult to be around. His obsession with his favorite magical girl gets uncomfortable at times. But it cannot be said that he has any sort of filter or that he's concealing any part of himself. Hifumi puts his true self out there in every waking moment, even when you kinda don't want him to. He's not ashamed of himself and he's not going to pretend to be anything he's not. As such, Hifumi embodies the Crest of Purity more than anyone.

Knowledge: Kyoko Kirigiri. I mean. Obviously. Obviously the Ultimate Detective has the Crest of Knowledge. Kyoko is driven to find answers. So much so that she let Makoto die (or almost die until Alter Ego saved him) so that her investigation could continue. There is nothing that motivates Kyoko more than her own curiosity and need to find the answer.

Sincerity/Reliability: Kiyotaka Ishimaru. It can be confusing that there's two Crests named Sincerity in different versions. But they refer to different kinds of Sincerity. The Reliability Crest is exactly what it sounds like. It's the team mom. The most trustworthy person among us. Someone who is dependable and responsible for everyone's wellbeing, who steps up to make sure we're all cleaning our rooms and eating right and making good choices. Or at least tries to.

Up until trauma cracks him in half, that's Taka in a nutshell. A hard-working and diligent believer in effort over talent, Taka futilely tries to be the glue holding this group together and create a sustainable community within Junko's wicked game. He fails miserably, but it's still an effort worthy of the Crest of Reliability.

Hope: Makoto Naegi. He's literally the Ultimate Hope; Who else would this be?

Light: Sayaka Maizono. The Crest of Light is always a hard one because it's more of a spiritual thing than physical. The Light-bearer experiences reality in a unique way. They represent the force of life itself and are attuned to spiritual affairs beyond the mortal realm.

For me, that could only fit superstar pop idol and inexplicable mind-reader Sayaka Maizono.

Kindness: Chihiro Fujisaki. While not appearing in 01, the Crest of Kindness was added in 02 so I think it counts. Obviously there is no one more suited to Kindness than Chihiro, who would sooner give blood to a mosquito than smash it.

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

Courage: Akane Owari. Akane is Courage incarnate. Every bit as heroic, impulsive, and reckless as any Goggles Boy. Ready to fight at a moment's notice but disinterested in putting real effort into personal growth. She once threw hands with Monokuma hard enough to get one of her teammates killed; If that's not Crest of Courage material then I don't know what is!

Friendship: Gundham Tanaka. For all his bluster, Gundham cares a great deal for other people. Though he's uncomfortable with human contact, he's devoted his life to building relationships with others, even if they are primarily animal in nature.

Indeed, Gundham himself is no island, no single man standing alone, at any given time. He is accompanied always by his Four Dark Devas of Destruction, working together as a team of five to accomplish any goal. Gundham understands the value of teamwork and companionship like no one else alive.

Love: Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu. Though he tries to be the big bad gangster tough guy, the force driving Fuyuhiko has always been love. Love for his Ultimate Little Sister Natsumi and love for his dearest friend Peko, who he all but begged to deprogram from his family's conditioning.

Even before the Tragedy, Fuyuhiko had killed for love. In the Killing Game, he very nearly died for love.

Purity/Sincerity: Hiyoko Saionji. Again, she can be absolutely unbearable but for better or worse, she always puts forward her truest self. What you see is what you get with this foul-mouthed little bully who hurts animals and people for fun.

Knowledge: Sonia Nevermind. As the Ultimate Princess, Sonia is driven to learn much so that she can become a fair and just sovereign. The only reason she's even here is because she came to Japan to learn about the culture, and she also demonstrates a ravenous if amoral curiosity about macabre topics such as serial murderers.

Sincerity/Reliability: Nekomaru Nidai. As a coach, Nekomaru's dedicated to spending the very last years of his life to building people up. What time he has left in this world is his gift to the athletes training under him, and he will take a bullet for them in an instant. He is a responsible authority figure who selflessly and tirelessly works to build up everyone else, and for that reason he deserves the Crest of Reliability.

Hope: Nagito Komaeda. Again, this one's fairly obvious. He's a dark reflection of Makoto and Junko who embodies hope but in a twisted sort of way. Technically Izuru Kamukura gets called Ultimate Hope but that's just, like, the school administration's opinion, man. It's Nagito who has a complex relationship with the very concept of hope and so, I think, the Crest of Hope would go to him. Please use it wisely. (He won't.)

Light: Chiaki Nanami, of course. The digital human who serves in secret as one of the admins running the program, directly connected to the Neo World equivalent of Homeostasis.

Kindness: Mikan Tsumiki. This is another obvious one, I think. Of course the Ultimate Nurse gets the Crest of Kindness. Mikan struggles with her assigned virtue; she has some resentment in her, she's been abused so much she can't recognize positive reinforcement, and she enjoys the power trip of being in charge of others.

There is certainly a risk of a Darkness Evolution from Mikan. But I think those struggles only reinforce that importance and centrality of Kindness to her existence.

Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony

Courage: Tenko Chabashira. Tenko's a full-blown magical girl superhero. She's the Champion of Women, trawling city streets looking for rapists and abusers she can throw hands with.

In the Killing Game, she ticks all the boxes. Impulsive? Check. Reckless? Check. Heroic? Check. Does things without thinking to both the benefit and detriment of those around her? Check check check!

Friendship: Kaito Momota. Kaito well and truly believes that friendship and bonds of togetherness are how we're going to get through this alive. He's a serial adopter of isolated people, dragging anyone who doesn't have a friend into his own social group where he pushes them to become the best version of themselves.

In fact, his greatest flaw is having too much faith in people, blinding him to the darkness inside of them.

Love: Maki Harukawa. Furious though she would be to receive this Crest, Maki's capacity for love influences much of her story. Child caregiver for her orphanage, she became an assassin so that someone she loved wouldn't have to.

As the Killing Game progresses, Maki's capacity for love finds her again. Love is what drives some of her biggest and most influential actions.

Purity/Sincerity: Miu Motherfuckin' Iruma, shit-for-tits! If this were the Crest of Innocence, it'd be Gonta for sure. But this is about unfettered self-expression, and Gonta has to remind himself to conduct himself gentlemanly. He has fetters.

Miu, however, does not. Every last stray impulse or thought that hits her brain comes straight out of her mouth, even when it definitely shouldn't. She is honest and sincere self-expression incarnate, like no other.

Knowledge: Shuichi Saihara. Like Kyoko, this one's a no-brainer. Though he's reluctant to commit to the role, the Ultimate Detective is here to uncover the truth. His relationship with curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge defines his story throughout V3.

Sincerity/Reliability: Kirumi Tojo. Do I even need to explain why? The Ultimate Maid is the ultimate caregiver for all of these children. She is the pillar that makes living here sustainable, even comfortable. And she does it all without a single complaint. Caring for others is what she lives for.

Hope: Kaede Akamatsu. Though she isn't with us long, Kaede carries hope in her heart so strongly that it ultimately kills her. There is no greater gesture of hope in the entirety of V3 than Kaede's desperate gamble to try and corner the Mastermind. She risked it all on the belief that she could end everything right then and there.

She was wrong. But her effort earns her the Crest of Hope.

Light: Angie Yonaga. Cult leader and possibly oracle, Angie's life is downright haunted by her spirituality. She is already (allegedly) the vessel of Atua; She's the perfect choice for the vessel of Homeostasis.

Kindness: Gonta Gokuhara. This is the Crest that belongs to Gonta. Gonta is a gentle giant who loves all things big and small, but especially small. Though he can be scary at times, he means you no harm. He just wants you to meet his bugs. He loves bugs and he wants you to love bugs too.

Ultimate Team

So, of the three sets, who best embodies the virtue of their Crest? Let's assemble the team.

Courage: Akane Owari. Mondo ultimately falls short of his values. Tenko does a better job of it, but she's also terrified of pain and cracks easily under pushback, which holds her back from being a true icon of Courage.

But Akane gives zero fucks. She is, in every moment, the person that Mondo and Tenko aspire to be. Bold and headstrong to a fault, Akane Owari is officially the Goggles Boy of this team.

Friendship: Kaito Momota. Junko is hahaha no. Her subversion of the Crest's values pretty much disqualify her. Gundham and Kaito are close. However, while Gundham has a wealth of animal friends, he struggles with direct human-to-human interpersonal contact which costs him.

Kaito, meanwhile, is able to embrace the values of Friendship with open arms. An incorrigible friend-maker and support system for every introvert he kidnapped into his orbit, Kaito is a friend to all and a pillar that can always be leaned on for support, through thick and thin.

Love: This was a close one. Sakura, Fuyuhiko, and Maki all have their strengths, and they all perform incredible feats of love. Honestly, they all deserve the Crest equally. I agonized over this choice. But if I have to have to pick one, then I'm going to go with Maki. Because it's funnier that way.

Purity/Sincerity: Miu Iruma, queen of the overshare. Hifumi and Hiyoko are in-your-face with their personalities and proclivities too, but I feel like Miu goes above and beyond in the field of shameless, unapologetic self-expression.

Knowledge: Kyoko Kirigiri. Though Shuichi's story revolves heavily around deconstructing the pursuit of knowledge, he is by design a pale and unwilling imitation of Kyoko. Sonia's boundless curiosity puts her closer to Kyoko, but there's simply no competing with the Ultimate Detective in the field of pursuing knowledge.

Sincerity/Reliability: Nekomaru Nidai. Ultimately, Taka and Kirumi both crack under pressure, but Nekomaru holds true to his values to the bitter end. This is a man who would give everything for his athletes, and he puts his money where his mouth is twice over.

Hope: Makoto Naegi. Ultimate Hope. Contrary to the way later entries treat him, Makoto did not singlehandedly defeat Junko by shooting lightning from his eyes and disintegrating her. But he was the inspiration at the eleventh hour that burned away despair and made her defeat possible.

A triumph the series has never managed to truly recapture, despite two separate attempts.

Light: Chiaki Nanami. As the conduit to a digital god, it's hard to find someone more appropriate than a humanoid AI. You might think that should disqualify her from being a Chosen Child but I support AI personhood and also something something DR3 retcon says there technically was a real Chiaki so AI Chiaki can just use her Partner and Digivice. Nyeh!

Kindness: Oh fuck me, this one's pretty evenly split too. Chihiro, Mikan, and Gonta all deserve this slot on the team. I can't decide between them. So... I'm going to choose....

Hm, we have three DR2 and three DRV3 to two DR1 in this group. Alright, I'll give this to Chihiro so the numbers can be even. I didn't plan on it being even. But this would make them even and that's pretty neat.

Alright, there we have it. Three teams of Chosen Children and one Avengers-style Ultimate Chosen Children team. Holy shit, that was a hell of a thing. ^_^

[sophieinwonderland]

Hello! VrGenic anon again back with some small updates!

So I started off by going into public game lobbies under a sort of persona, I started off by writing some basic traits and some likes/dislikes (these will change overtime once she gains consciousness)

I also remember in the post with the video you were talking about, it had only taken a couple days for the person to start talking about this persona as if a completely different person.

So I tried this out specifically, after each play session I would go to my friends and start talking about what happened, at first I stuck with just I/me pronouns, but eventually as I kept playing more and more, I noticed I would accidentally switch between I/me and referring to the persona as her proper name and pronouns

I've noticed also that it's pretty hard to exactly "act" (I don't wanna say act but lowkey that's what I'm doing before she fully forms) as her outside of VrChat, for example, I decided to take a bit of a break and get a drink, so I decided "hm this might be a good time to practice" so I kept trying to ask myself things like "what would she drink? How would she mix it? Does she like multiple drinks?" And overall the answers were mixed, I couldn't exactly put one answer on each question, but if I was in VrChat and someone asked her her favorite drink, she would say apple juice (I ended up drinking alot of apple juice bc of her, but apple juice is good so🤷‍♂️)

Also whenever I would log into VrChat, while standing in the blue void waiting to get into the lobby, I had a weird almost dizzy like feeling, not like the feeling u get if u get motion sickness but as if I was having to shed off my old persona and then layer on this one, it wasn't bad it didn't really affect me that much, but it was cool to notice!

She has also gained some friends on VrChat, which helps tremendously with forming her since I can use more time in private worlds and figure out how she might react to certain situations, she ended up going to a spiderman world and she thought it was pretty fun, just a bit of a struggle to figure out

Overall, in a nutshell, so far some progress has been made, but I do not think she has her own consciousness YET, I will keep working towards it tho!

This is really awesome! Thanks for sharing your results with this experiment so far!

There's a lot of really interesting stuff here!

It's cool hearing how naturally the shift in pronouns happened. Especially since you were already aware of it from the other video and were watching out for it. I would have guessed that knowing would have made it less likely for this to happen. That because you were aware that it happened with someone else, that you would be paying slightly more attention when you spoke, and so using these other pronouns would be less likely to just slip out. The fact the language change happened even when you knew that it happened to someone else and was watching for it is fascinating!

The way you describe the dizziness whenever you're in the loading screen makes me wonder if it's become a sort of trigger. If so, I'm curious what would happen when you practiced outside of VR if you took a moment, closed your eyes, and imagined going through the loading screen.

But I might not advise doing this yet. It might be better to wait until later in development and you think that she's fully conscious. If only because I am incredibly curious how a headmate who has existed primarily in virtual reality would react when fronting outside of it and what her perspective would be on the outside world.

Overall, this is just really cool stuff! It's a whole new frontier of plural psychology that nobody has really tested before, so thanks so much for sharing your results with me so far! 😄👍

[themightymoose]

YEEEEEEEESSS!! (Trigger warning for Existential Horror and also potentially any other TW in existence aside from Sexual Violence and Pet Death (not animal death tho) since that's kinda TMA's whole Thing)

Ok, so the premise of TMA is that Fear is a real, tangible thing that exists just outside of reality, and seeps in as manifestations such as monsters, artifacts, or just wierd shit happening. It operates on a sort of dream/nightmare logic, which means that it has its own internal logic that doesn't neccesarily line up with reality. It doesn't really spread or feed on fear, it literally is Fear. The culmination of all the dread and horror that all humans (and animals) experience. The abstract made literal.

It's typically divided into 15 categories, but they are a bit of an oversimplification. They can overlap and bleed into one another, while also contradicting and working against each other ("Like colors, if colors hated me" -Jonathan Sims). So it's more accurate to describe Fear as an amorphous thing with various different aspects.

Anyway, at the end of season 4 of TMA, the Fears are summoned into reality and twost the world into a horrifying nightmare-scape. At the end of season 5 and the series as a whole, the Fears either almost or do succeed in escaping that reality to spread to others.

So the AU is the Fears consuming the world of TMA (pretty much canon) and escaping into the Black and White, where they meet the Lords in Black. The Fears are far less sentient than them, more forces of nature than actively malicious or sadistic. The only Fear that is self-aware (as far as I remember) is the Web (in a nutshell, the fear of manipulation - also spiders. One of its other titles is The Hidden Machination and it basically masterminded their escape).

I don't think Wiggly would like them much. Actually no, he might love them. They can turn reality into a literal nightmare, and they can't really be described as intelligent, so they would be wonderful to torment the residents of Hatchetfield with.

Pokey would hate them just bc he hates everyone (aside from his blorbo, Paul). He might vibe with the Web tho, both have themes of theatres and puppetry. Also maybe the Stranger, since at its core its the fear of a lack or even loss of identity (officially its the fear of the uncanny), and is related to things like masks, wax statues, and circuses.

Tinky would LOVE the Spiral (fear of deciet and insanity, also known as the Twisting Deceit and It Is Not What It Is). The Spiral is the fear that your own mind is lying to you, and often manifests as a bright yellow door that doesn't exist, leading to a twisting labyrinth made up of impossible architecture where nothing making sense (the "space" is actually the inside of the Twisting Deciet, and thus doesn't exist either). People preyed upon by the Spiral often find that they can't remember basic things like how many doors a room is supposed to have, their senses are all mixed up (smelling color, feeling sound, etc), and the yellow door follows them (any and every door could be a trick).

Blinky is def vibing with the Eye. To illustrate my point, one of the Eye's alternate titles is: The Great Eye That Watches All Who Linger In Terror And Gorges Itself On The Suffering Of Those Under Its Unrelenting Stuporous Gaze. If that ain't Blinky to a T, I dunno what is. (It's also the fear of being Watched, being Known by something that shouldn't, of having all your secrets unwillingly torn out of you and displayed for all the world to see. The title is poetic and a little pretentious, but also very literal).

Nibbly is the hardest. Maybe the Flesh. The Flesh is basically body horror, the fear that you are just meat, no more special than an animal bred for slaughter and consumption. It is related to cannibalism and dehumanization. Given how Nibbly manifests at the end of Honey Queen (won't spoil but holy shit) it seems the best parallel.

I've also thought about how the human characters could interact with the Fears, this is just the premise, I can keep going if you want :)

HOLY SHIT HOLYYYYY SHITTT OH MY GOD OH MY GOD YESSSSS

To add context about why I was using all caps despite knowing almost nothing about TMA: I fucking love when fear is used in a piece of media

Allow me to explain

You know those "face you fears" episodes that would happen in children shows? Yeah this is where it all started for me

Idk it's just something about someone forcefully confronting their darkest fear (especially if it's with a group of people oh lord-) kind of the same of being forced to relive their most traumatic/painful memories

Yes I know it sounds odd but it's sooooo good and I eat that shit up every time. And thinking about the hurt/comfort aspects where maybe someone has to pull people out of their worst nightmares??? Mmmmmm love that

[maxwell-grant]

If you had your say, what villains would you want featured in future venom movies?

With the stuff they have the rights for and aren't saving for future/solo movies, within Venom characters, who is there to pick from? They did the Future Foundation for the first movie, they got to Carnage in the sequel, they've set up Pat Mulligan/Toxin and we're probably gonna either get that or Knull in the next one. They can't scale down to one of Spidey's billion crimelords or someone like Sin-Eater who at least kinda has something to do with Venom, they've set up world-threatening symbiotes as the baseline. Toxin is just nothing, there's nothing there, the most you can get out of him is by having him be We Have Spider-Man At Home, and they already set him Mulligan as Venom's Javert. Combine those two, pit Eddie against a jerk Spider-Man who goes Carnage sometimes, I guess it's something? Knull is a Thor villain who took the wrong turn at Albuquerque, I can't imagine how they'd do him for these movies without just pulling the trigger on a Venomverse outright, and there's been a lot of talk about how the next movie's gonna set up that, or a multiverse, or the Sonyverse, and I'm boring myself to sleep just talking about this.

They both suck and are big idiot nothings, and none of the prior guys were really good to begin with. Knull is a little more tolerable in my book because Al Ewing and the new game made decent enough soup out of it and Tradd Moore's art sold me on him a little bit, and Woody Harrelson playing Biff Tannen was by default the most entertaining Cletus Kasady has ever been aside from AXIS, but "occasionally amusing" doesn't equal good or even mediocre, and that's the issue with these movies in a nutshell. An occasionally funny schlub protagonist and offscreen promises can't make up for all the crap everything else, and Let There Be Carnage wore my goodwill towards even that real thin. I really did try to like it.

Don't get me wrong, I like that those movies exist. I'm still probably gonna drag my friend into the next one. I hate most Venom comics but I'm incorrigible Venom trash. If we have to put up with those films and a Madame Web every now and then as the price to pay for Sony keeping the rights and keeping Spiderverse and the games just as they are, then by all means keep them coming. But man, I did try, I seriously combed through Venom and the other symbiote's rogues galleries and supporting casts to try and find an answer for this, and all the characters I found were A: dogshit Venom / Spider-anciliary characters that don't have much of anything worth it to them, and B: halfway there Spider-Man leftovers who are better served just not having anything to do with Venom movies, so I guess the option I'd go here is for them to just make new ones. I mean, movie Carlton Drake was basically an original character and he was, okay I don't even remember a thing about that guy but he was probably better than Cletus because it's really not that hard to come up with a better villain than Cletus Kasady (who at his best just elicits a chuckle) and dirtbag CEO with the cops on his side is the kind of thing you want a character like Venom to be fighting so, I guess lean more on that.

I guess I'd put Venom against symbiote tech cops that he can kill and eat without complication and have those follow him around while the actual plot is about some dumb errand or personal conflict he runs, but I don't think the villains are really the missing piece here. Venom is a terrific Spider-Man villain, but as a protagonist he is frequently deeply lacking, and as a movie franchise has like two things going for it, the titular character and the humor of a couple low-stakes absurd comedy scenes like the lobster tank, so I'd take those and throw the source material in the trash and have them go through something like the fake sequels of 22 Jump Street, just put the character in dumb problems that they can try and solve in dumb ways and do their dumb comedy routine in, Venom as a vehicle for dark parody as an extension of what he was made to represent. Treat the movies less like they are steps in a cinematic universe or character pieces and more like genre films that get infected and corrupted by a monstrous violent walking alien apocalypse and the schlubby journalist meathead in a co-dependent relationship with said walking apocalypse.

Venom In Space. Venom Goes to Hollywood. Venom In The Hood. Venom Surfs The Web. Everyvenom Venomwhere All At Venom. Not even joking, if I could make a Venom musical / Little Shop of Venoms I'd do it in a heartbeat, and it would end with similar destruction. Because make no mistake, this is a Laurel and Hardy thing only to them, and to everyone else it's an escalating horror film with some kind of destruction left at the end, because that's what happens when Venom runs rampant and Spider-Man isn't there to stop them or at least keep them in line.

Venom is not just a parody, he is a rot at the heart that never stops growing, and even if Eddie Brock can strive to be a better man and even be a decent one, even if he and the Symbiote can bond as losers trying to be better, neither can escape the nature of what Venom fundamentally is, with a million new Carnages and Riots and Agonies and Screams and Viruses and symbiote cops and serial killers popping up every minute as a reminder. You can't really come up with a Venom-specific villain that's going to be greater than Venom himself already is as a Spider-Man villain, so I'd just lean into that. And then maybe, when and if it's time to finally deliver on that Spider-Man or Sinister Six encounter, they find themselves arriving too late after we've had enough movies to laugh at this idiot schlub and his predatory living cancer buddy while the world they've been protecting has been turning more into this. We put this world not in the hands of Spider-Man, because we have the full rights hope in overcoming hardship to be our better self, but in the claws of Venom, because we are fucking stupid.

[brainrotarchive]

‘cause reading is what? fundamental! (15/30)

I’m at the halfway point of my 2024 reading goal so here’s the unserious book review nobody asked for! I’m so proud that I read that many books already despite the all consuming urge to read fanfiction every single day.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: 4/5 ✨

objectively an amazing read I just went through a rough time and didn’t enjoy it the way I could’ve?

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman: 4/5 🦇

kind of the same problem here but I also didn’t fully get it. I still had a really good time while reading and some scenes seriously shocked me. like sir, this is a children’s book. I was scared.

The Big Reveal by Sasha Velour: 5/5 💅

This was artistry at an insane level and it came to me at exactly the right time. A wonderful read and also beautiful to look at. I got to see the live show as well and it was everything I could’ve wished for and more. knowing this book has changed me. no notes, go read it!

Coraline by Neil Gaiman: 5/5 🪡

do i have to tell anyone that neil ATE with that one? my only issue is that I got really sad because I never read it when I was a kid. groundbreaking, stunning.

Narayama by Shichiro Fukazawa: 3.5/5 ⛰️

very short read and very different to what I’m usually into but I still enjoyed it. interesting read for sure but it didn’t have an impact like some of the others.

If Cats Disappeared From The World by Genki Kawamura: 3.5/5 🐱

It was all in all a fun read, a bit funny a bit sad but sometimes a bit cringey. Don’t want to imagine a world without cats.

Die Physiker by Friedrich Dürrenmatt: 5/5 👨‍🔬

reread this because I love it. the superior german classic, funny, murderous, critical. the best book I was forced to read in highschool.

How Much Land Does A Man Need by Leo Tolstoy: 4/5 💸

interesting, short, anti-capitalist - slay.

This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mothar & Max Gladstone: 4/5 ⏰

lesbians in time and space? I live. I will probably read it a second time instead of listen to it as an audio book and savour it more. It’s beautifully written.

The Fall of Icarus by Ovid

impossible to give a star rating for me. It was a nice excerpt from the metamorphoses and a nice literary translation.

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde: 5/5 🔥

I’m obsessed with this book, I think about her words all the time and can’t stop talking about it. My most stimulating feminist read in a long long time, maybe forever. I will write an essay about this and I’d slither over just to watch this book eat cake.

Lessons by Ian McEwan: 3.5/5 🎹

I finished it today and I was trying to get through it since march. my rating might change but it didn’t have to be that long. Ian McEwan is my nemesis ever since I read nutshell. his style is good and i can’t deny that but his mind is twisted. I found some of the themes in the book fascinating but overall I think a book about a man’s life will just never actually speak to me personally. I’m very conflicted because despite all that it did trigger some thinking and during some scenes I was invested.

Rubinrot/Saphirblau/Smaragdgrün by Kerstin Gier: 💎

no star rating because I will never be able to look past the obsessive love I felt for this book series when I was 10 years old. kerstin but crack for my brain in between these pages. Revisiting the story brought me so much joy and I was mothering my inner child. sadness is temporary, enemies to lovers time travel romance is forever. go read your childhood favourites, it’s so much fun!

feel free to recommend books for the second half of the year and fight me if you want.

[priafey]

Hiii. I wanted to share this excerpt from the latest chapter of Among the Many Lost Souls (which should be ready for publishing sometime between today and tomorrow). This is Sylvette's (or Sylvie's) backstory in a nutshell. It's <1k words. Trigger warning for allusions to sexual abuse (specifically, CSA), domestic abuse, and general violence. SYLVIE LORE, HERE WE COME

Sylvie remembered, very clearly, the first time a stranger touched her.

One of the servants put her out in the hallway, that day. They were angry with her over something she'd done; she'd long since forgotten what. There was rain bearing down on the tiny windowpanes a world above her. She couldn't see it, only hear it. Something sad swelled in her chest. She scraped at the wall with the talisman the servant had given to keep her busy as her sniffles began to fill out the quiet. Someone tall knelt next to her before she could arrive at tears, however, and she neglected her makeshift toy to look. Her wet, little eyes were like two eager, orange poppies reaching up to meet the stranger's smile.

"Do you want up?" he asked, and Sylvie's face lit up like a Fire Festival mage's fingertips. His own fingertips slipped under her legs, and he raised her up above his head. Sylvie could still see the rain running like a great, distorted curtain down that hand-wrought glass if she closed her eyes. She could still see the shapes she traced with her tiny finger, on the breathprints that appeared in front of her nose. The wispy cobwebs, the splintered wood, the cracked paint. All of it. The only image she conserved more clearly from that moment was the one she put together as the man lowered her into his arms.

His eyes. Hazy with sadness, like hers not a minute ago. And yet teeming with love.

He breathed in deep then, pressing her head to his breast. His chest jerked as he fell into inconsolable sobs. Sylvie was confused. She wondered if he was sad he couldn't see the rain up close, like she had. She wished she was tall and strong, like him, so she could lift him up to look. Meanwhile, she buried her nose in the soft wrinkles of his robes. He smelled nice. Deep, musky, sweet, she'd think, years later. Like a leather-bound book filled with more flowers than pages.

One of the servant's voices made him start. Quickly, but gently, the stranger set Sylvie down. He must've glanced back at her three or four times before disappearing behind the corner of the hallway.

Moments later, she heard someone coming up the stairs. Those were footsteps Sylvie knew well. She began to strike the floor with the talisman as quietly and harshly as she could, leaving dreadful etches in the woodwork. His voice broke out like a roar. He gained ground. She trembled uncontrollably as he grabbed her arm and yanked her off the floor, chastising her for always ruining all the nice things he bought for her.

Sylvie didn't often struggle against her father once they made it to her room. But on that day, she did.

There came a point in time she thought it all so normal. Her father's visits became like the rain–sporadic, unknowable, uncontrollable occurrences she regarded with complete indifference, except for those times they transpired with an unusually intense violence. Similarly did all the servants, not to mention her mother, Lousine, concern themselves with what was unfolding under their roof. At least in her mother's case, Sylvie supposed, she couldn't be blamed for failing to protect her. She had her own screams to let out on the marriage bed.

For eighteen years was unthinking cruelty the routine within the jarl's longhouse, and for eighteen years did Lousine sit on the secret that would increase it tenfold, from the moment it got out. Sylvie cried a lot on that, the evening of her birthday. Lousine, however, cried very little, even as her daughter begged her not to go tell her husband what they now both knew–even as Sylvie fell to her knees, pulled at her dress, and pled as fervently as she could without drawing the jarl's attention. But still Lousine left her.

The sepulchral silence of the hours that followed scared Sylvie worse than any of her father's doings ever had. Her mother was dead. She had to be. Sylvie spent the night curled up in bed, praying, though she'd never been very devout, that the Divines spare her the jarl's wrath. That she'd wake in the morning, and he'd be dead or gone, and she and her real father could leave it all behind to go live in High Rock together.

Instead, at first light, the jarl issued a decree.

Sylvie did not get the chance to speak to Florence as he was arrested in the merchant's square, nor as she felt, in the soles of her boots, the force with which he was beaten against the cobbles of the road leading to his house, nor as she heard the jarl declare this former thane of his a traitor of the highest degree, undeserving of any of the titles and properties he had so graciously been granted. These, he said, were now forfeit. Having seized all of his belongings, the guards bound, gagged, and threw Florence on the steps of his ruined home. In a final act of humiliation, the jarl handed his wife the torch. Sylvie heard every word he whispered into Lousine's ear then.

"Go on. Make your whore go up in smoke."

[leonellamoreno]

❝ and won't you think I'm pretty, when I'm standing top the bright lit city, and I'll take your hand and pick you up. ❞

𝐥𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐨 (31) — barmaid at tric / musician

› FULL BIOGRAPHY, TLDR AND STATS BELOW.

statistics ›

Name: Leonella Moreno

Gender & Pronouns: Female, She/Her

Age: 31 Birthday: March 17th, 1993

Occupation: Bartender at TRIC / Musician

Neighborhood: Midtown

biography ›

trigger warnings: none

Life had always been fairly average, where Leonella was concerned. She'd never wanted for anything growing up, except perhaps the acceptance of her absent father, but alas, as far as her mother and elder sister went, it was the three of them against the world. As it would remain until present day. 'Cause whilst her mother initially fell head over heels for Leonella's father, it unfortunately would be fleeting and ultimately disappointing, which summed up the man in a nutshell. And, perhaps that's why the young woman has little patience for men coming in and out of her life? Except perhaps the exception of her pending step father, who seems to have emerged out of the woodwork once more, with his biological connection to her sister, helping solidify their shift in family dynamic. Whilst being involved in the wedding is something that brings them together, she can't help but wonder why she was not allowed such pleasantries with her own father, a small amount of disconnect in who she is and whom she came from, without the details of what the man who helped bring her into the world is actually like.

However, whilst there was a part of Leonella that longed for a paternal connection that was lacking in her life, it wasn't enough to dislodge her life. It continued on, with strength and perseverance, especially with her sister's passion for life and big dreams of becoming a model, only inspiring her further. Granted, she wasn't quite into the idea of being the centre of attention in that way, she did somehow navigate her talents into a similar creative field, that of music. There was nothing that she connected with more, whether that be playing the piano, strumming her guitar, or belting out a ballad she'd written over the course of the weeks before. Unfortunately, it wasn't something she shared with the world easily, and growing up, it was definitely more refined and honed in the shower and confines of her bedroom, but alas, her confidence would continue to grow well into her teenage years, ultimately playing at local spots during her high school years, where she could.

College wasn't something that Leonella strove for, and instead focused her attention on music, and the band she'd secured over the years, trusted and just as passionate as she was about the future. There was a time where they had been signed for a small indie label, but unfortunately, following some unappreciated advances towards her from their contact, she ultimately decided she was going to do this alone. There was no way she was going to be 'that girl', sleeping her way to the top for a chance at performing for a living. So, instead, she continues to play in her spare time, and as a hobby, but the way she makes a living is far less glamorous. The brunette responsible for filling drinks, and ensuring there's ice at the ready at the local club, TRIC. The upside? She and her band do get to perform from time to time, given their extensive open mic nights, and scheduled live performances. Thankfully, it seems as though the owner is as enamoured by the music industry as she is.

Not only was performing something that brought fulfilment to her life, the addition of her niece was top of that list. Weirdly, Leonella never thought she would be someone to have children or embrace all that they brought, but alas, here she was, completely in love with a small child her sister brought into this world. Though having her own is still very heavily in question, being an aunt definitely satiates any potential in the meantime. Not that she was much of a dater these days, between rehearsals, shift work, family in general and managing her mothers engagement to her sisters father, it leaves little time for the dating pool and all it's bullshit. So, life continues on.

tldr ›

Leonella is a native to Wilmington, growing up there with her mother and sister Cami, and now niece. Whilst she may only be half siblings with her sister, it definitely doesn't show, their little three musketeers attitude had always been very deeply intact. Even whilst a part of Leonella was questioning the abandonment of her father, and what that meant for her. Particularly when Cami was graced with her parents re-evaluating their relationship, who are now engaged, the girls fully involved with wedding prep as we speak. Alas, overall the young woman is thrilled with the turn of events, particularly for her mother who seems to be getting her 'happily ever after'. Aside from this going on at present, she's also a barmaid at TRIC, which comes with the perks of being able to perform with her band, considering her deep rooted passion and talent for music. Both with instruments, like piano and acoustic guitar, but also singing, something that she used to keep hush hush behind closed doors until more recent years. She'd tried getting involved with a label once, but unfortunately, her experience wasn't enviable. Negotiations including that of a sexual element that she of course wasn't interested in, now deciding to pursue this herself, paying to produce any songs or albums in the future alone.

[aphrodieties]

so basically to manifest my dream live i must know and accept that imagination is the real reality by fuflilling myself however i want and living in imagination as if it was the outer world

and anytime i get triggered by the 3d i just let it be/react how i want to but as long as i consisitently accept it true in imagination it will manifest

and the faster i accept/make my desired state my dwelling place, the faster it will come to fruition because i am living my dream life in the true reality

like say i want straight hair, i can visualise it blowing in the wind and if i get triggered by having curly hair, its like whatever and i just accept that i have straight hair in imagination when i feel better

????

In a nutshell!

[subir-astrologer]

CAN AN ASTROLOGER USE MY NATAL CHART TO HARM ME

This is a nice question which many of the people have there at the back of their mind and there are many people without any proper knowledge about astrology give their thoughts to scare people and portrait themselves as knowledgeable person among the society.

Academically the answer is yes BUT practically it is not possible.

Simple logic answer is, if it is so then people would have become very rich by gambling or buying lottery tickets which is easiest way of making money without any effort.

Astrologer would have been the richest man in the world if one can move as per milli seconds.

Secondly decoding the horoscope to the very very smallest extent is not possible because there are lakhs of event given by only 9 planets and 12 bhavas / houses.

Lets understand it step by step.

An event happens when it is activated by the mahadasha period. The event should be promised in destiny level in the horoscope, if not then it won’t happen. The transit planet acts as trigger button to activate the event.

Mahadasha period is divided in sub and many many sub sub sub sub periods which is in up to smallest of time second.

An event gets activated at that very small fraction of that second of time.

So if an astrologer would like to harm any person thru astrology knowledge then he have to strike at that fraction of second of time which is not under his control.

Academically one can easily say yes but here practically it is impossible.

This is one side of astrology, now the other side is EVEN THE ASTROLOGER ALSO NEED TO HAVE THAT LUCK OF GAIN FROM THE NATIVE OR OPPOSITE PERSON AS PER HIS HOROSCOPE.

The same principle and law is applicable to the astrologer also to click his own luck by performing that action in that split second of time.

The opposite person or native should also reflect in the horoscope of the astrologer. Means the gain from a person can be seen from the horoscope of the astrologer and it should reflect the exact person from whom he will gain from his horoscope.

So it is but natural the loser ( man to get harmed ) should also reflect the exact person ( the astrologer ) from his horoscope. If astrologer is not destined to harm him then the astrologer cannot harm.

The condition of gain and the condition to get harmed should also match in the destiny level in both the horoscope.

So in a nutshell it is impossible to harm an individual by reading his / her birth chart.

NOW THE BIGGEST SECRET : GOD HAS KEPT SOMETHING STILL MYSTERIOUS WHICH IS NOT REACHABLE BY ANY ASTROLOGER AND THAT IS THE SAFETY OF AN INDIVIDUAL.

[lionews]

“Main chat or forums? I wanna see the drama if it was on a thread 👀”

Main chat unfortunately 😓 I flagged the messages bc I was pissed and Mods deleted them before I could take ss

But in a nutshell, it was like:

Voodoo: “Rainbow this and that” “that’s gay” A conversation I just had with a transgender bisexual 😑

People: Haha that’s funny and gay. Rainbows are very gay

Voodoo: See? This is what I’m talking about. The LGBTQs keep saying rainbow is gay. I don’t think the rainbow should be gay. If that makes me a homophobe, maybe I am homophobic

Some people were kinda trying to ‘trigger’ them by saying the world would be a better place if rainbows were, in fact, only gay and they succeeded. I don’t remember exactly what Voodoo said next but that was when they referred to LGBT people as “a queer” and I started flagging 🔫

Anyway, this person is an admin in our beloved ✨Zuri’s✨ clan, The Collector. Honestly, I didn’t have any ill feelings towards Zuri until I found out. The homophobe’s ID is 347283. Also, Zuri witnessed everything or at least some of it, but didn’t say anything until Mods showed up and she said “I wonder how flagged messages show up for Mods. Are they highlighted or something?” and that was it

.