#than discovering someone who did horrible things being a kind and trustworthy person? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

smallheathgangsters · 4 years

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Business Deal (Part Three)

Header made by the amazing @flowers-in-your-hayr 🌻

A/N: I’m so excited about this mini series and I hope you are exicted with me! Part four will hopefully be uploaded next week or at the beginning of the week after. Please enjoy and leave some feedback! ❤️ Excuse any mistakes, I try my best to make as little as possible. :)

Tag List: @captivatedbycillianmurphy @tranquility-or-chaos @zodiyack @claire-loves-music @cubedtriangle

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x Reader

Word Count: 3264

Type: angst, violence, a lot of swearing

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You came back to consciousness only a few minutes after breaking down in front of Tommy’s betting shop and realised that your father’s men had carried you to a car and laid you on the back seat.

After pushing yourself up, you massaged your temples with closed eyes and tried to process everything that had happened in the last half hour. The graphic images flashed before your eyes that were shut tightly. The men storming in, the hands grabbing and pulling you carelessly, almost violently. Tommy being pushed to the floor. The fists and feet punching and kicking him. The blood.

And lastly, yourself. Yourself going absolutely crazy by shattering a glass against the wall and slapping the Shelby man across the face, as if he hadn’t been hurt enough.

Although, maybe he deserved it. Maybe he deserved worse for murdering your father and not even doing it himself. For sending his helpers like the coward he was, giving your father the least honourable death, he could have ever wished for. Your father would’ve never went to heaven. He’d done a lot of bad things in his life and caused a lot of pain. But he’d always done the dirty work himself, having to live with the consequences and only ever taking men with him for backup and assistance, not to do it for him.

That was one of the many reasons he’d been able to achieve such a great following. He was a man who people admired, apart from the horrible side of it.

You opened your eyes when you stopped massaging your temples and leaned forward to the two men in front of you, one of them driving the car. “Where are we going?”

“We’re bringing you home,” you heard Gerald say. He was steering the automobile.

“Did you kill Tommy?”

You saw him shake his head.

You frowned, surprised by his answer. “You didn’t? Why not?”

Gerald sent you a quick glance over his shoulder. His expression was confused. “You wanted us to finish him? I thought you’d be happy we didn’t.”

You let out an irritated scoff. “Why the fuck would I be happy?”

Gerald shrugged. “I thought you were like in love or something.”

“In love or something!?” you exclaimed outraged. “Bloody hell, Gerald! He killed my father! Why on earth would I still be in love with him?”

“So, you were in love before we stepped into that filthy betting shop?”

“Fuck off,” you grumbled and pushed yourself back into the seat. You saw the man next to Gerald on the passenger side turn around and give you a curious look. That made you realise that you didn’t only know your driver, but his companion as well. Ben.

“What are you staring at?” you said to him, annoyed by his invasive gaze. Your mother had always hinted at you that Ben might like you but was too scared to come forward because in the end, you were his boss’s daughter and he wasn’t just any kind of boss.

Ben immediately turned his head back to face the road. “Nothing, sorry.”

“Do you want us to go back and get him?”

“Tommy?” you asked. Gerald nodded. “We can send some boys to go back, pick him up and bring him to the mansion.”

You thought for a second. Having him at your house would give you some time to talk to him in private. Maybe you’d be able to find out what exactly had happened and what your father had done that made him get himself killed.

You started chewing on your lip. Since waking up from your black out you hadn’t yet shed a tear for your father’s passing. You felt bad because you loved him very much but the only thing you were able to think about was what had taken place between Tommy and him and what you’d do to Tommy if you’d have him in your control.

Your whole behaviour was the absolutely opposite of what you’d sworn yourself to be. Your promise to yourself and your future children to not follow into your fathers’ steps. To bring as much distance between his business, his lifestyle and yours. But the anger and rage in your body was too intense to ignore, to not act upon it.

“You know what, Gerald? Get him.”

Gerald nodded again. “I’ll send someone when we’re at your house. It’s not much further.”

He was right. Only a few minutes later the automobile rolled onto the large driveway with the pretty fountain in the middle. Thousands of roses graced the sides of the front yard. Pink ones, because they were your favourite. Your father had immediately called some gardeners to replace the red ones when he found out, that you preferred pink roses.

The car halted and you jumped out the back seat before Ben was able to open the door for you. You saw how Gerald leaned in to one of the men guarding your home, whispering something in his ear, most likely sending him off to the betting shop. With long strides you walked towards the entrance of your house, again pushing open the door yourself before Ben could get it for you.

The second you stepped into the entrance, the body of your mother flung itself against you, wrapping you into a lavender-scented embrace. Her slender arms felt as if they were trying to crush your ribs, making it hard for you to catch your breath.

“Mum …” you breathed out, signalling her that she was hugging you a little too hard. That made her loosen her grip but erupt into tears instead.

Your heart broke for your mother. She may be a gangster wife and daughter with a hard shell, but her core wasn’t. It was caring, soft and motherly. And you both knew what the death of your father meant. It meant that if they didn’t want to lose their influential position in the city, country even, your mother had to take over his place.

“I’m going to help you,” you said with a shaky voice, your eyes getting misty too. Hearing and seeing your mother cry shattered your heart. She didn’t deserve this.

You felt your mother nod against your shoulder, where she had placed her head. You knew she knew what you’d meant with that.

Your mother eventually peeled herself off of your body and looked at you with puffy, red eyes. But nevertheless, her expression was strong. Fierce even. “We’ll make these bastards pay.”

“We’ll be a great team, mum,” you assured her. “We’ll make father proud. There is no way we’re losing this fight or our position.”

That was the moment you let go of everything you stood for. With this statement you had committed yourself to taking over and helping your mother with your father’s business and there was no way out from here. But in that exact moment, you didn’t even think about the consequences.

You gave your mother another loving hug. Then you grabbed her hand and breathed in slowly. “Mum … where is he?”

Your mother gulped, trying to hold back another wave of tears. “S– still in his office, where he got shot.”

“He got shot in his office?!” you exclaimed loudly. “How was that possible?”

There was no way for somebody outside of your father’s inner circle to get into the house. All your entrances were either locked and barricaded, so nobody was able to get in or at least two men guarded them. Except …

“We’ve got a mole, Y/N,” your mother said, her voice now stronger again. “There wasn’t a break in or any of that kind. Nothing was damaged and there weren’t any noises that would’ve alerted me. I was here the whole time.”

“A mole?” you hissed. “Who? Do we know who?”

“No, not yet. But we’re at it.”

You huffed. “How the fuck are we going to find him if he’s among the men that should be detecting him?”

“I only told Gerald, we can trust him,” you mother said, trying to calm down your raging self. But it was no use. You didn’t trust anybody. Not since today happened. How would you know that Gerald was trustworthy? Not to mention that he had been the one to let Tommy live instead of killing right him on the spot, a decision that had been rather strange compared to the usual manner they had.

“Fuck Gerald,” you spat. “I’ll take care of this matter myself. The only person I trust at the moment is you, mum. And you shouldn’t be trusting anybody else than me. I don’t want something happening to you as well.”

“But–“ she started, but you interrupted her. “No, mum, no buts.”

Your mother knew you were right. You couldn’t risk anything, especially being women. Men, often looked down at you, underestimating your skills and knowledge and you weren’t going to let that happen. Most importantly not when it came to your father’s subordinates.

You were about to storm off when something on your mind stopped you. Your turned back to your mother and grabbed both her hands with yours, squeezing them comfortingly.

“D– did you find him?” you asked carefully, internally hoping strongly that it hadn’t been your mother who had discovered his body.

She shook her head, making you exhale deeply. “Thank god.”

She gave you a weak smile. “Please be careful, darling.”

“I will,” you promised her and then hurried down the hall. You weren’t paying attention at all when you ran towards your father’s office, suddenly crashing into somebody with full force. You had been preoccupied with your thoughts of what you’d witness when stepping into the office, that you didn’t see the person approaching you.

You inhaled sharply, trying to suppress the pain the collision had caused you.

“I’m so sorry, Miss, I wasn’t looking,” you heard a masculine voice mumble apologetically. A hand reached for your shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m okay,” you answered, looking up at the man you’d bumped into. Ben.

For fuck’s sake. He was the last person you wanted to see. His intense gaze on you made you feel uncomfortable once again and look past him into the direction of your father’s bureau. “I need to get going, Ben. Could you please let go of my shoulder?”

“Oh, of course, Miss. I’m sorry,” he apologised instantly, pulling back his hand. “I’ll be available if you ever need something. I understand that this is a hard time for you.”

Your instincts wanted to tell Ben to get away from you as far as possible, but your brain suddenly had an idea. Including Ben.

You mouth formed a wide, fake smile for him. “You know what, Ben? There is something I need your help with.”

“Y- yes?”

Ben seemed confused. Understandably though, since you’d never given him any attention and usually were very harsh with him, trying to get across your disinterest in him.

You nodded cheekily and grabbed his hand. Another puzzled glance from Ben. “Am I in trouble?”

You laughed. “No, Ben. Just trust me.”

Your inner self huffed at your choice of words. Trust. But you kept up the act and pulled him down the hallway, past your father’s office to the large door to the sitting room where you’d met Tommy Shelby for the first time.

“In here,” you said, pushing open the door, leading him inside and closing it behind him right away.

Ben stood in the middle of the room cluelessly. “What are we doing here, Miss?” he asked and frowned, looking around and probably trying to find something that would help him understand the strange situation.

You walked towards him and let your fingers run up the hem of his suit jacket. “A little birdy told me that it’s hard for you to keep your eyes off me?”

You heard him gulp, his Adam’s apple bobbing when he did. “Who said that?”

You gave him a disappointed look. A fake one, of course. “Are you telling me you don’t like the way I look?”

“N– no, not at all!” Ben stuttered, not really knowing how to react to your sudden approach.

“It was my mum,” you admitted, truthfully this time. “I don’t think my mother would lie to me.”

Your words made him even more insecure. “I didn’t intend on calling your mother a liar, please forgive me.”

“It’s alright, Ben,” you purred, looking up at him sweetly. Your hands wandered from the hem to the back of his neck, interlocking your fingers behind it. “As you know, my former love interest was beaten up badly for giving the order to kill my father and now I don’t have anybody who can cheer me up in this sad time …”

You pouted at him. With your hands around his neck you could feel his initial tenseness slowly go away. Finally, you had made him regain his confidence.

“Cheer you up, Miss?”

“Please, call me Y/N,” you said, winking at him quickly. He grinned and lifted his hands up to place his hands on your waist. “Something particular in mind, Y/N?”

You nodded and crashed your lips on his without thinking much. You felt sick to your stomach when you did that, every part of your body wanting to resist. But no matter how much you wanted to get away from this man, you maintained your act, not showing him the internal feeling of disgust that took over every fibre.

He moved his lips against yours and you tried your best to not tense up, letting him grip you harder and pulling you against his chest.

“Do you know how my father got killed?” you asked in between kisses, trying to keep him from pressing his lips to yours.

“Something about a mole?” he murmured, pulling your head closer to his again.

“So, you know about the mole?” you questioned before his lips were able to touch yours. You took a step back. Ben shook his head. “It’s what I heard Gerald say.”

You hummed thoughtfully. “You don’t know his name then?”

He denied and came towards you again, gripping your hips. You suppressed a groan when he touched you and unwillingly let him pin you against the wall.

“You’re really pretty,” he breathed against your neck, placing a kiss on it. You pressed your lips together, concentrating on the reason why were tolerating all of this.

“Don’t you have some insider information? Maybe somebody that has been acting suspiciously lately?”

You felt him sigh against your skin. “With a job like this you always notice strange behaviour going on.”

Ben trailed kisses along your jawline and let his fingers tangle into your hair. “Are you sure you can’t name someone who stood out to you? Or to Gerald? Did he mention something?”

“Why do you keep digging?” he suddenly asked, pulling away from your neck. He looked down at you with a strange look on his face. “I thought you wanted to get your mind off of things?”

“I do, but I’d feel much safer if I knew,” you admitted. Ben chuckled. “Don’t worry sweetheart. We have everything under control, it’s nothing a lovely lady like you should need to worry about.”

You scoffed internally. That had been the exact reason why you’d decided against simply walking up to Ben and asking him about conspicuous behaviour and events in your home and between the men working for your father. No matter how much he’d respected his boss, he’d never seen you as more than just the daughter they had to protect. Not as an equal with just as much brain as your father.

“If you tell me, I’ll show you a little more of myself,” you whispered seductively, running your tongue over your lips slowly. His eyes were fixed on them.

You reached down and grabbed the material of your dress, hiking it up your leg and revealing half of your thigh. “What do you say, Ben?”

“Fuck,” he grunted, connecting your lips again. He started letting his hand wander under your dress, suddenly grabbing your bum.

Your hand reflexively pushed it away. “Still didn’t hear a name, Ben.”

He let out a suppressed moan, moving his hand down again, but still having it resting on your thigh. “Chester. Chester Gordon.”

That was all you needed.

You knew exactly who Chester was. He had been your father’s main right hand next to Gerald. While Gerald had been with your father since before you were born, Chester had only just joined a few months ago. Still, something about the knowledge or the skill he had helped him get the powerful position, given to him by your father.

Without much thought your quick hand sneaked its way under Ben’s jacket and grabbed the gun in his holster, pulling it out. Before he was able to resist or protest, he had the barrel pressed against the skin under his chin. “Get the fuck away from me or I’ll shoot your brains out.”

“What the fuck, Y/N?” he breathed surprised and annoyed at the same time. He tried to grab your wrist and bring the gun away from his face, but you cocked the gun, making him pull his hand away immediately. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing! That’s a loaded gun, you stupid bitch!” he hissed angrily, but still too afraid to move. He thought you’ve never held a gun before. The way he was constantly underestimating you made you fume. “You’re fucking disrespectful, Ben. I said, get the fuck out of here and go tell Gerald to meet me in the back yard. I’ll have something I need to talk to him about.”

Ben inhaled sharply, gritting his teeth together. You saw him open his mouth to let out another insult, but you beat him to it. “Shut your mouth and do as I said.”

He scoffed but stepped back. Then he hurried out of the sitting room, adjusting his jacket before opening the room and entering the hallway.

When Ben was gone, you let out a shaky breath. Your hand was trembling. The façade you’d been keeping up for the last twenty minutes hand taken a toll on you. But you knew it wasn’t over just yet. You had to suck it up and finish what you’d planned on doing. Especially since you’d threatened Ben and made him look like a wimp.

You inhaled deeply, trying to calm your nerves and then followed Ben out of the sitting room but turning into the other direction instead. Chester’s office was three doors down from your father’s. You counted your way along the hall and eventually ended up in front of the one you aimed for.

You knew you didn’t have much time to think about what you were about to do. If you did, you probably wouldn’t pull through with it and you couldn’t risk failing. So, you pushed all worries and fears aside and burst into the office.

Chester was sat at his desk, hovering over a stack of papers, a pen in his left hand. His head shot up when the door slammed against the wall forcefully, eyes wide in surprise. He tried pushing himself up from his chair, but he didn’t get that far. You had already lifted the arm that was gripping the cocked gun and pulled the trigger.

A loud bang filled the air and the bullet hit Chester perfectly between his eyes. A clean shot. One that your father would have been proud of.

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femmedplume · 4 years

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Don't mind me! Dropping in from the atla tag! I read your thoughts on the whole Azula going crazy after realizing she has no friends and I was wondering... The creators of the show wanted to have another season where they would work on a redemption arc for Azula, cause let's face it she did some horrible stuff but she was just as much of a victim as Zuko. And she was still basically a kid. What do you think a redemption for her would have been like? And what do you think she would be like after?

Ooh great question!

Hmm. 🤔Well, I definitely think she could have a cool redemption arc, because the ATLA writers have already proved they can write one hell of a redemption arc lol. I think if they did do a redemption arc for Azula, it would be a longer road than Zuko’s -- and I would love it if they explored her abuse trauma like they did with him.

She’s definitely a victim of her terrifyingly abusive dad. So maybe part of her redemption arc could be her being taken in by a loving family and being actually nurtured and cared for. Not that she never had anyone to try to tell her how to be better, but she never really listened to Uncle Iroh; I don’t think they clicked the same way he clicked with Zuko-- which was in part Iroh’s fault. At the same time, even as a child she was dismissive/disrespectful of him, so it’s clear he probably wouldn’t be the one to get through to her.

So maybe an Earth Nation family? Like remember that one time she was gloating over how their father was going to murder Zuko, and she taunted him about finding a “nice Earth Nation family” to adopt him? So that would be a great callback/little narrative irony, if she found a family there. This would be after her arc in the comics so far, of course (where she leans into the insanity and villainy for a while)--

--So maybe an Earth Nation family, who lost their only daughter to the war, takes her in after she’s injured somehow and cares for her. They have a farm, and she ends up working on it with them while she heals up.

Maybe they have a son, a couple of years younger, fiery and full of hope, who follows Azula around and gives her the admiration she craves so much. She can’t teach him bending, but she can teach him regular combat skills. He introduces her to his friend group, and because she can’t firebend or Princess them into submission, she has to learn how to-- gasp!-- interact like a normal person!

Hilarity ensues, but she figures it out slowly.

And maybe when she acts all high-handed and threatening, her Host Family makes it clear that she can’t force them to do what she wants and that they won’t stand for “tantrums”-- which would probably be the first time anyone put her behavior into that perspective.

At first, she’d probably say hurtful things, sneer at them, be ungrateful for their help; because like I said before, Azula has NO tools for emotional expression, and has never had to be grateful for anything. But the Earth family would lead by example, and eventually she’d start trying to be better. She’d also have to re-examine what she’d been taught about kindness being weakness and such.

She’d probably also be having extreme PTSD reactions to failure because of her past-- but the Earth family would give her understanding and gentle care, and help her understand that she doesn’t have to be perfect to earn validation or kindness.

Meanwhile, she’s living in this Earth Nation village, and learning the same way that Zuko did about the atrocities that the Fire Nation has committed from the victims’ perspectives. Maybe she finds out that she herself is directly responsible for the death of her Host Family’s daughter, and that’s the moment that finally gets through to her--

--because Azula’s biggest flaw is her inability to take responsibility for her behavior. Zuko (eventually) apologizes, tries to make amends, all that, but Azula never gets to that point. So all this time she’s been acting out that Might Makes Right™ Fire Nation MO; but learning that she personally broke the hearts of people she cares about finally breaks through that cultural and personal arrogance and forces her to face her crimes and mistakes.

AND THEN.

Then the redemption arc can really begin!

GUILT!

REMORSE!

THE DRIVE TO REGAIN HER HONOR!

Azula, too ashamed to face her Host Family, flees the Earth Nation village and wanders from place to place, trying to outrun her guilt. As she travels, she meets people; and for the first time, tries to help those she comes across instead of harming. Tries to make up for the past. Because she is strong, and smart, and capable and determined, she would definitely be successful in helping to rebuild the Earth Nation. Maybe she starts to gain a bit of a reputation-- a good one-- and people learn they can turn to “The Red Pilgrim” (because of her cloak; she still likes Fire Nation red,) in their hour of need.

But! Because the Earth Nation is so mistrustful of firebenders (and she’s keeping a low profile,) Azula can’t use her bending when she’s helping; which forces her to find other ways to make things happen. She draws on what she’s learned from Mai’s cleverness, and Ty Lee’s friendliness, and even Zuko’s strict code of honor-- and ends up discovering that being (relatively) nice and trustworthy gets her the friends and loyalty she’s always wanted in a way that her terrifying powers can’t.

One of the people she ends up helping is a kid whose parent is super abusive, and surprise! The Abusive!Parent is someone Azula befriended earlier; someone who flattered her and agreed with her and liked to laugh at other people’s humiliation like her. A friend who behaves like Azula used to behave, which is super seductive.

Then she sees Parent!Friend verbally/emotionally abuse their kid, which brings up Azula’s own unexplored daddy issues. Finally, finally Azula realizes that Ozai is a bully, and that by emulating him, she’s been a bully her whole life too. In standing up for the kid to Parent!Friend, Azula says all the things that she never even knew she needed to tell Ozai-- and she tells Abused!Kid some things that someone ought to have told Zuko and herself.

So from there she could return to Host Family and confess her crimes and beg forgiveness, and/or go back to Zuko and try to rebuild their familial relationship. The Host Family might not forgive her, and that would be reasonable--

--but maybe some of the friends she’s made in the village do. Maybe they understand that she’s trying to be better, and give her what encouragement they can.

Zuko would definitely forgive her; their relationship is fraught and tense, but he knows what it’s like to be trying to regain one’s honor. The most obvious step from there would be for her to try and find a place in the new Fire Nation government, but what I’d love to see is her becoming a teacher... and maybe a priest! Joining a Fire Sage temple, using her experience to help teach new firebenders the right way. Maybe finally finding someone to fall in love with (I low-key ship her with Mai or Ty Lee lol.)

Growing up, growing old and wise.

Letting go of her anger.

Doing her best to balance the bad she’s done with good.

Becoming Grand Master Azula, the greatest firebending teacher of her generation, thus fulfilling her ambition of being The Best™ at something.

Making up with Mai and Ty Lee, (although I’m betting Suki and Sokka are not going to be inviting her over lol.)

Actually getting to know Aang, and realizing Oh My God I Almost Killed This Sunshine Child Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me??

Visiting her Earth Kingdom family regularly, or sending them gifts and letters. Visiting Zuko on holidays. Learning not to be jealous of his Firelord-ishness. Learning to be proud of her big brother for all he’s accomplished. Being Best Woman at his wedding, and Auntie Zula to his kids. Taking a Family Trip to the beach every summer--

--calling him ZuZu in front of Very Important Ambassadors and such, because lol.

REDEMPTION!

#avatar: the last airbender meta #azula #stitch answers an ask #redemption arc #thevalkyriewarrior

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eightysixed · 4 years

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Does your character have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with? Juniper has a younger half-sister, Paola and 4 cousins. She’s close with her sister of course, and her twin cousins Luke and Emily.

What is/was your character’s relationship with their mother like? She adores her mother. Eleanor was a trapezist in the circus, who now trains the other circus children.

What is/was your character’s relationship with their father like? She’s very close with her father, as well as her stepfather, Lorenzo. A daddy’s girl through and through. It’s easy to be close to both of them when they all travel and work together.

Has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know? Despite her young years, she’s seen a lot in her life. It doesn’t occur a lot, but there was a mugging she witnessed and intervened in, and an assault on her friend, both of which were particularly dark moments that weigh on her conscious.

On an average day, what can be found in your character’s pockets? Lip balm, a ton of hair scrunchies, bobby pins, and a tube of mascara are never far from her person.

Does your character have recurring themes in their dreams? Flying, wide open African plains and savannahs, communicating and communing with wild animals, enrolling into university.

Does your character have recurring themes in their nightmares? Ending up naked onstage, drowning or suffocating.

Has your character ever fired a gun? If so, what was their first target? Only at funfairs and practicing targets for Rolf’s horse and gun show.

Is your character’s current socioeconomic status different than it was when they were growing up? It’s pretty much more or less the same paycheck to paycheck existence she’s always known. Her family’s never had a lot of money, but they scrape by and rarely ever are wanting. Juniper had a bit of a shoplifting phase around 11, but her mother taught her that was wrong.

Does your character feel more comfortable with more clothing, or with less clothing? She has to feel comfortable wearing very little, performing in tight fitting leotards and whatnot onstage. But offstage, you’ll find her in trackies and comfy snug hoodies.

In what situation was your character the most afraid they’ve ever been? When the circus was about to go bankrupt/shut.

In what situation was your character the most calm they’ve ever been? When a man after a show was having a stroke. Calm and collected, she called 999 and got him help.

Is your character bothered by the sight of blood? If so, in what way? Nope. Injuries are par for the course during training and even performances, so she’s comfortable patching anyone up, even applying basic stitches.

Does your character remember names or faces easier? Faces. But she’s good with names too.

Is your character preoccupied with money or material possession? Why or why not? Not in the slightest. She appreciates a windfall like any other person, and that windfall is usually used for a makeup or clothes shopping spree, but Juniper is not focused on that in any way. She wouldn’t be in the circus if that was the case, she jokes.

Which does your character idealize most: happiness or success? Both. When it comes to her show, she is very success oriented, constantly pushing herself to be better, to land her jumps more precisely, to pull of a more spectacular show than the last. The show — and the circus — are her life, and she wants nothing more than to one day perform with the Cirque du Soleil. But she values her own personal happiness as well, and tries to go after it.

What was your character’s favorite toy as a child? A monkey on wheels that belonged to one of the clowns that she would cart around everywhere with her. His name was Careful.

Is your character more likely to admire wisdom, or ambition in others? She admires both. She’s more starstruck by wisdom, because, being as young as she is, she doesn’t have all the sorts of wisdom that come with age and life experiences. But she loves and usually orients herself around other ambitious people.

What is your character’s biggest relationship flaw? Has this flaw destroyed relationships for them before? She’s a terrible idealist. She holds herself to very high (sometimes impossibly high) standards, and expects her parters to come through with the same. When they don’t she feels disappointed and even heartbroken. She would never, ever cheat (although is a natural flirt, but knows her barriers and is very firm about them), and is floored every time she discovers her partner committing the same.

In what ways does your character compare themselves to others? Do they do this for the sake of self-validation, or self-criticism? Competition is a natural tendency in a circus, and more often than not she’s competing with herself. But every now and then, some other acrobat or performer might pull off something she can’t, and Juniper uses that as (angry) fuel to do better.

If something tragic or negative happens to your character, do they believe they may have caused or deserved it, or are they quick to blame others? She is never quick to blame anyone but herself. Usually she believes she’s the bringer of her own misfortunes, although looks at things more or less rationally. Can get rather woe-is-me at times.

What does your character like in other people? Honesty, openness, the desire for adventure and to have a good time, generosity and boundless kindness.

What does your character dislike in other people? Selfishness, close-mindedness, judgmental people. When they chew with their mouths open and make horrible noises.

How quick is your character to trust someone else? Not that quick, but not agonizingly slow either. She will trust them after they’ve proved themselves by some action or other.

How quick is your character to suspect someone else? Does this change if they are close with that person? She’s not a naturally suspicious person, if anything she is too naive and open-hearted and gets taken advantage of for this reason. If she’s close to someone she’s more likely to trust them no matter what, even if they aren’t entirely trustworthy and she get shurt in the end.

How does your character behave around children? Adores children and gets on with them like a house on fire. She can often be seen coaching the younger members of the Circus, picking out their outfits or doing their hair and makeup. Juniper wants a big family of her own, with no less than 3 or 4 kids. Being in a big family of her own, on top of all the Circus members she’s adopted into it, makes her want nothing less.

How does your character normally deal with confrontation? Head on. If she’s upset with someone, she will tell them right then and there, to hell with waiting and holding things in.

How quick or slow is your character to resort to physical violence in a confrontation? Almost never. It’s not likely that she’ll throw the first punch, but if she’s dragged into one, she would raise hell.

What did your character dream of being or doing as a child? Did that dream come true? She’s doing exactly what she dreamed of, since she grew up in the Circus watching her mother perform, and wanted to do exactly that. She considers herself very lucky in this regard.

What does your character find repulsive or disgusting? Dirtiness, lack of hygiene, when members’ caravans are untidy, filthy or messy. Equally anyone who would bully or prey on children. She is very protective of the circus children.

Describe a scenario in which your character feels most comfortable. Anywhere her people are. Draped over a couch or armchair with a beloved pet or person snuggled close to them, chatting shit and laughing for hours. A place beside a fire, coziness, hot cocoa with marshmallows and Tim Burton cartoons on the tv.

Describe a scenario in which your character feels most uncomfortable. Unfamiliar, dark places. She doesn’t like to stray too far from the Circus, but does love exploring the cities they travel to. Sometimes when she and her friends go out, she will get herself into creepy places and potentially dangerous situations. She doesn’t like those.

In the face of criticism, is your character defensive, self-deprecating, or willing to improve? When it comes to her show, Juni will accept all criticism with a level head, willing to improve on herself and her techniques for the higher aims of a better show. Now if it’s personal criticism on her cooking, cleaning, or something else, she won’t hear of it. Absolutely not.

Is your character more likely to keep trying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately move on to a different solution/method? Problem solving is a huge part of staging a Circus show, and many things can go wrong during practice, dress rehearsal, or even the show itself. This is why she’s grown up to be quick thinking on her feet, and trying many different things to land a solution.

How does your character behave around people they like? Super friendly, warm, and open.

How does your character behave around people they dislike? Super friendly, warm, and open. (she graduated from the ‘kill them with kindness’ school)

Is your character more concerned with defending their honor, or protecting their status? Not exactly. Her ‘status’ in society isn’t a terribly high one, and not something she concerns herself with ever.

Is your character more likely to remove a problem/threat, or remove themselves from a problem/threat? Remove herself. If there is a point blank dangerous situation somewhere, she’d rather remove herself and all her loved ones out of the harm’s way, than try to engage with it, unless unavoidable.

Has your character ever been bitten by an animal? How were they affected (or unaffected)? She was bitten by a monkey during show rehearsals one time and had to get shots, but otherwise was unharmed. Animals tend to like her.

How does your character treat people in service jobs? With the utmost kindness. She leaves big tips whenever she can, too.

Does your character feel that they deserve to have what they want, whether it be material or abstract, or do they feel they must earn it first? She’s a bit of a self-flagellator, and subconsciously doesn’t believe anything good she wants should come easy. So she’s willing to work for things, sometimes unnecessarily hard.

Has your character ever had a parental figure who was not related to them? Yep. You name one, she’s got one. She’s adopted many members of the Circus as her aunts and uncles, grandmas and grandpas. She loves them all equally.

Has your character ever had a dependent figure who was not related to them? She looks after a lot of the circus children, some of whose parents leave the circus while the children end up staying.

How easy or difficult is it for your character to say “I love you?” Can they say it without meaning it? With friends and family, she says it constantly. In a relationship, for some reason, it is very hard for her to say. Not because she’s afraid of commitment, she will commit to someone on day one — but rather, saying it out loud is something rather taboo for her. It means she could lose the person she loves, and she’s never ready to acknowledge that. She could never say it without meaning it, either.

What does your character believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them? Juni’s not entirely sure and she’s not too fussed, either. She’ll happily discuss it over a campfire and some marshmallows, but she’s too busy living to think of where she’ll end up after dying.

#juniper #i love my child sm #10/10 would die for her

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lotusdiscussthis · 5 years

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@yunevii

I read your tags and I was afraid to respond to it considering you didn’t show it on the reblog. By putting your comments on the tags, I could’ve easily overlooked it, so I didn’t know if you really wanted to talk about it or not. In the end, I’ve decided to link you to give you my reply anyway. I hope you don’t mind.

I don’t blame you for not agreeing. After all, my perception of Saihara can be hard to believe when I haven’t given enough explanations as to what made me look at Saihara in such a negative way. It’s mainly due to having to reanalyze the story in a different perspective after discovering things that paints the supposedly innocent detective in a different light. But I’ll try to explain my thoughts the best that I can...

“kokichi often makes conversations go in frustrating circles because of his lies...

True, talking to Ouma also gave me headaches when I first played. Though sometimes the best way to determine someone’s nature is to not always rely on their words, but through their actions. It’s easy to say things like “I’m really evil” and act like the bad guy, but if your actions contradict with that behavior, that would naturally raise questions.

Let’s take Ouma’s evil speech after Gonta died. He said he enjoys their suffering, yet in the previous chapter, he urged Himiko to express her grief properly. How is it that he would go that far for someone he barely even knows, only to suddenly make a big show about he loves their suffering later on? Or when Ouma looked like he faked being injured only for Saihara to notice him wobbling as he walked and failed to notice how he was blanking out while talking to him? Or how about when Ouma was screaming “WE want to live, so don’t get in our way!” mid-trial while arguing with Kaito? We’ve just forgotten that part when Ouma later explains, “Oh yeah, me and Gonta were totally planning on getting you all killed so you wouldn’t have to face the horrible despair of the outside world!” None of this makes any sense.

How is it that Saihara would overlook these major redflags that would contradict the fact that Ouma was a heartless person? If I can notice this myself, how is it that the protagonist, the Ultimate Detective, can’t??? (Also, reading between the lines is kinda what detectives do, so this is no excuse)

“i think more than anything saihara wanted to feel like kokichi was on his side-...”

I will be frank, you shouldn’t expect people to do anything for you so simply. That was pretty much what I was trying convey in my original post. To think that somebody on the opposing side as you is automatically suspicious, not good, or wrong is just incredibly flawed reasoning. Especially since the reason why Ouma wasn’t on Saihara’s side in the first place was because he was mostly siding with Kaito the whole time. And Kaito, a man of instinct/belief/blind optimism, mostly showed hostility towards almost everything Ouma says and does. Ouma clearly knew the gravity of the situation and yet, he gets treated like the pariah because almost nobody wants to listen to what he has to say.

Ouma tried several times in the beginning to speak logically about their circumstances, yet practically everyone would automatically think he’s trying to start up pointless trouble. Like when Ouma said if Gonta were to continue being gullible, he was going to get killed. The reason why we saw Ouma as the bad guy in that moment was because everyone around him started to get all defensive and called him insensitive for saying such things after Kaede and Rantaro died. Which isn’t rational. THEY ARE IN A DEATH GAME. Whether Ouma had said anything or not wouldn’t have changed that fact.

Out of everyone, Ouma has proven to have put in the most effort into showing his trustworthiness by spitting out the facts and warning them all to be careful, but it was everyone else (besides Miu and Gonta) that had rejected his help in the end.

On the one hand, Saihara hadn’t really done anything to earn Ouma’s support and friendship since meeting him. Even if Saihara was truly expecting what you had claimed, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s selfish for him to think that way. He doesn’t owe Saihara anything.

On the other hand, Ouma also did say at one point he was on everyone else’s side. And in the 5th trial, he had put everything on the line for his final plan to work and put an end to the killing game. Knowing that, does it still sound like he was not on his friends’ side? Even if you’ve figured it out, Saihara somehow couldn’t bring himself to comprehend this fact.

“...but talking to him always feels like a battle just to get the truth out”

If the ‘truth’ you are referring to is about knowing Ouma’s true intentions and plans, then there’s a good reason for that. Ouma did mention in the beginning that carelessly opening up to people would be dangerous. And no, I don’t think he was speaking as Mr. Paranoia as much as the fandom loves to see him as. I think he said that because Monokuma would most likely be listening in on their conversations and that one of their friends is most likely the ringleader. (Just like how Kyoko was cautious of talking to Makoto out in the open in DR1) And turns out he was correct. So if he explained that much in the beginning, shouldn’t that give the listener (Saihara) a better idea as to why he shouldn’t be too outright with his intentions? There’s only so much you can do without getting careless within a killing game.

“also by the time saihara says that he’ll never get kokichi to change kokichi had proven to be not just hard to talk to but pretty heartless and villainous as well”

I would like for you to recall how Ouma first introduced himself... Now this is something I’ve always found curious, but never really dove into too deeply in case the story were to prove me otherwise at some point. But now that it’s been a year since I first played, I just have to ask those who think that Ouma has a single sadistic or villainous bone in his body.....

What kind of antagonist would out themselves as a liar in the beginning? In a killing game, no less?

We all know that he’s an incredibly clever boy who knows how to play mind games and put on an act that would befit the situation. So if he was truly serious about winning the game and was willing to coldly disregard the lives of others, wouldn’t it make more sense to not reveal that problematic aspect of himself? Wouldn’t it give him a better advantage to NOT play the flaming jerkwad role and piss everyone off to the point of wanting to kill you? Much like how Komaeda played innocent until Hajime and Chiaki cornered him into admitting that he set up the murder plan and then showed his crazy side. Ouma could’ve played himself up just like that as well, but no. Instead he kept claiming he’s nothing more than a liar.

Admitting to a bunch of (supposed) strangers that he’s a liar just makes no sense at all. Although, to disregard his intentions as just him being crazy or just him screwing around would be oversimplifying things. Even Nagito had an understandable method to his madness...

“though he hadnt done anything drastic he does fuck up the trials and says (lies) about how much fun the killing game is”

When you say “fuck up the trials”, you mean when he took Ryoma’s motive video or saying that he killed Angie? I had to ask to make sure because just simply saying “he screwed up the trials” is not a clear enough explanation. Anyway, we never actually knew the real reason as to why Ouma stole the motive vid. We were made to think he did it for kicks, but in the end, he explained on Ryoma’s behalf that his motive video was empty when nobody knew what could’ve made him lose his will to live. I guess he also speculated that Maki was Ryoma’s killer and wanted to steal it before she got a hold of it. After all, she was the original holder of his video and nobody knew about her and Ryoma’s encounter besides Ouma, so nobody would’ve questioned her as to why she had his video. And I think Ouma was waiting for an opportune moment to shove the evidence in her face if things went differently. (I’m just guessing here tho.) But I do believe Ouma has reasons for why he does what he does, instead of simply doing it for jokes.

On the matter of him claiming that he killed Angie, he said so himself that he was trying to lure out the culprit by pretending to be the killer. He said if he played the killer, the actual blackened would likely push the blame onto him. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s more of a valid reason to do it than simply screwing around.

It’s rather funny to me how the fandom talks about how Ouma screws up the trials, but what about Tenko, Himiko and Maki???

Tenko kept others from questioning Himiko for the sake of the investigation, Himiko would sooner let everyone die for the sake of keeping her magic a secret, and Maki stupidly kept quiet and put the trial on hold so nobody would figure out her talent. And yet, Saihara would sooner side with them and lie for their sake in the middle of the trial even though he had just about as little relations with them as he did with Ouma. Why????

“its really hard for saihara to feel like he’s on his side despite how much he does want to work with him”

I’m sorry to say, but Saihara had that opportunity to work with Ouma when the boy himself made the offer in the VW. Without considering it or even questioning him, Saihara just ignored him and logged out. Saihara clearly had no intention of working beside him.

“i do kinda agree that he didnt really ask that many questions but kokichis answers really had proven to always be super vague or just a lie”

Which vague answers are you talking about exactly? I wouldn’t know how to answer that myself because that’s not specific enough. Give me an example?

“the point is i really dont believe saihara is an arrogant person.”

I’m afraid that the screencaps I’ve shown in the original post aren’t the only proof I have to show that he’s an arrogant person. I wanted to mention them in a different post, but I’ll give you a few other brief examples.

He has insinuated that Ouma is stupid despite the fact that we’re talking about the same dude that has pretty much been doing more detective work than the actual detective did. Not to mention that Saihara’s the one that believed Ouma was the mastermind and screwed up the first case majorly.

After the 5th Closing Argument, Saihara claimed his detective’s intuition was flawless even though it was clearly just conjecture in the end. He had practically no proof to back up what he had laid out for them. He may have gotten Kaito to exit out of the exisal but only because he had to lie. That doesn’t prove that was what actually transpired. Only Kaito knows about what had happened between him and Ouma, and seeing how Kaito was following the script he was given, we wouldn’t know the extent of it.

This one really peeves me. Because he thinks he knows better, he thinks he gets to shut down someone else’s emotions because he thinks they’re lying when he couldn’t possibly have gotten the chance to know one thing about him. Whether you think someone is insincere or not, it’s not your place to disregard their feelings like that.

There’s also the fact that Kirumi got unexpectedly personal and called out on the fact that Saihara doesn’t even listen to others in the 2nd trial. It was weird how she could make these accusations at all like she knows something...

And despite the fact that Tsumugi claimed it was Kaede’s twin as the possible suspect, Saihara would sooner disregard the piece of evidence because he trusted his intuition moreso than looking into possible facts. Same can be said in the first trial too, where he trusted his intuition to pin Kaede as the culprit despite the fact that she WASN’T...

I’ll just stop it here...

“i dont think its right to compare gundam and kokichi”

Well, I don’t see how it’s wrong either, honestly... Considering how the game itself gave me a lot to work with to show how much these two said characters contrast with one another. I actually made something before that would showcase a lot of comparisons between Ouma and Gundham. So if you wish, you can look for yourself and see what I mean... (Link to Self-Sacrificing Duos post) And a friend of mine actually analyzed a scene between the two when they had a moment in TDP and the game even subtly hinted about them being similar! (Link to Gundham and Ouma TDP moment post)

It’s kinda hard not to compare when there are a number of things you can compare within this franchise, not just Gundham and Ouma. They are all by the same creator after all and he loves to re-utilize his own tropes.

“wow i should not have written all this in the tags its so long sorry i make it sound like i dont like kokichi when i really do. he’s a great character just really hard to get along with. i hope this made any sense lol”

It’s no problem. I just hope that what I’ve explained made sense ^^; I apologize if I come across as harsh or anything like that, but I couldn’t find myself expressing certain points any better than I did...

Hopefully, this gives you at least a better understanding of where I’m coming from.

#{replied}#yunevii #{opinions}#{thoughts}#{screencaps}#{personal}#{answered}#{I need smeeps}

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iloveposse · 5 years

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Send a number ask 1-30

Mwahahahaha...don t blame me for the ling ass post, blame my dear hun^

Ok...so

1)how old werr you when you firat fell in love?

Now see this bothers me cause love can be very different. Cause romantically id say 14, but i do believe we must understand that when that is boiled down, the love and caring part is the same as in a platonuc sense, it s just added on attraction if sorts that makes it romantic. So truly, the first time i genuinely met someone i cared about deeply and, id say, loved a lot, more than anyone at the time, i was 13. And that was a pivotal point because i realised that being loved is a strength and power while loving someone is a great weakness.

2)name the first person who broke your heart.

My parents. Fuck them.

3) hiw many different best friends have you had?

Over a dozen by title, 3 that actually meant something

4) do you have a best friend?

Yes

5) do you have a specific talent?

The talent of being average. Im good at everything i try (except riding a bicycle)but im a jack of all trades, master of none

6)do you fit into any stereotypes?

Hmmm...don t think so. I guess depresses millenial/gen z kid?

7) sexuality

Confused mess

8) fav animal

Tarantula brachypelma, peacock spider, snakes, sloths....i love all animals more than people 😚💕

9)favourite pet names

Darling, pumpkin, asshole, the unknown material

10)what do you think love is....

WHAT IS LOVE? BABY DON'T HURT ME, DON'T HURT ME, NO MORE!

11)when did you discover your favourite band?

Hmmm 14, but last month i listened to palaye royale for the first time and i already know almost all their songs....still finding favourite bands

12) do you want to get married?

Ah, now this is important, see i am undifferent to it, i find the idea of parties and people repulsive and legal bindings are not the sort of bondage im into.....but...if against all odds someone i somehow really loved wanted to marry me i would fucking kill putin and make gay marriage legal for the person (or more reasonably just move to another country)

13) do you want to have kids?

I have a huuuuuge phobia of pregnancy and i have serious anger issues stemming from a meh childhood.. .i would fucking suck with children, but i think i could handle adopting a teen.

14) when did you have your first kiss?

Like for realsies like 2 and a half years ago (14 i believe, at a cinema, right next to a mutual best friend who didn t find out her friends were dating till like ages after, it s actually a hilarious story)

15) nope

16)have you been cheated on?

Technically no

17) how many times have you fallen in love?

Idk, twice romantically, and also back to like the first question, though it might not be defined as falling in love, i do love my best friend very much, like more than anyone else. this whole post is basically gonna be an ode to her.

18) have you ever rejected anyone?

I tend to get very violent and/ or cold towards people when they show me a smidgen of affection so never got the opportunity cause i scare em off....im surprised i even have good close friends.

19)have you ever cheated?

Omg....U CONFESS I CHEATED ON A HISTORY TEST ONCE BUT I FELT BAD AND MADE MISTAKES IN PURPOSE IM SORRYYY

relationships ..no

20) have you ever been in a ling distance relationship?

All of these do not really apply i dated someone once, it ended horribly, i think i just really wabted to answer the 2 i saw when i first looked through this. But i am a lass of great determination and i will do this

21) romantic or sexual aspects of relationship?

Ummm i prefer the aspect of having someone who gives a rats ass about you and who you give a rats ass about. But like. Sexual stuff is cool too, not gonna discredit that.

22)na

23)na

24) favourite thing about best friend?

Where do i even start? She s marvelous! She s incredibly smart, intelligent and she studies a lot. But she also has a great way with people. She s incredibly dimplomatic abd resppectable. She could be a world leader! But she s genuinely kind but not to a fault. Shes extremely trustworthy

However she s also very funny and cool and just a blast to hang out with. We re basically two sides of the same coin. The basics are similar (smart, hardworking, determined, sense if humour) but then she s just so much better than me at almost everything. She s brilliant.

25) do you want a significant other?

Idc about the label, i just want someone who i can trust and talk to about everything and vice versa, cause i don t like bothering my aforementioned best friend. She s too sweet and worries too much.

26)do you like anyone?

Yes, my 2 friends, my cat, and someone i barely ever talk to (also a couple of lovely people from this hellsite that im not tagging cause they ll be forced to try to figure out wher they re mentioned in this mess)

27) who was the last peraon you loved?

Well right now i love my friends and....ok i get that this is like a romantic question and as i said i had one shitty relationship that ruined a fucking awesome friendship, and though i still care about the person and xould talk to them, but it s just said. This whole topic is sad.

28)do you have a celebrity crush?

Though many celebrities are very attractive both inside and out i do not have crushes on them for i feel uncomfortable thinking that.

29)name a song that makes you want to fall in love?

Um....any song directed to someone else? If we re getting music into this i just want to violently sing my affection at someone. Especially ma cherie by palaye and the only hope for me is you by mcr and smithereens by top.....all of the emo bops

30) do you think you ll be happy later in life?

Hahahahahahah. Um...this hits too close to home. There are moments when im semi happy but...ye...i ve kinda been stuck with the same mood in the background for years and it isn t great. Here s to hoping it doesn t engulf me and that one day (hopefully soon) i won t be surrrounded by people i hate so much i gave my stomach erosions (not kidding, the doctor said it was stress making the burning sensations that s caused by stomach acid basically neating away at various areas inside the tum)

Heeey venting actually made me feel better! Like a bit.. Thank you @thegreenpea. Cause yes im making you scroll through all of this just to let you know that i do love you very much and i appreciate your existence and the moments whenever we talk :)

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twxntrash · 6 years

Text

Discern the Truth ch. 1

Regular Day in an Irregular Scenario

The warm air tickled Shio’s face as she slowly came to, a breeze brushed against her skin and she slowly opened her eyes to stare up at the clear blue sky above her, white clouds gently rolling by above. The day was nice, beautiful even.

Pushing herself up to sit, Shio rubbed some sleep from her eye and swiveled her head about to look at her surroundings. The dorms looking as pristine as ever, a few students talking by picnic tables and a few were walking towards the university centers building. If things were different, she would have just shaken it off as a regular day at a college as freshman. Though a problem with that was she was still in high school, so it was hardly regular.

Shio turned her head to look forward, a frown forming on her face as she stared up at the towering metal wall that left her and the others trapped on this campus.

Nothing about this day was regular, nothing about this situation was regular.

One week ago Shio had been preparing for a violin recital, something she enjoyed greatly, it was her talent after all. Six days ago she woke up on this enclosed campus with fifteen other students. Six days ago she found she was forced to participate in a killing game forced upon them by a twisted black and white bear.

Of course that caused strife among the students forced here and it was no easy task for Shio to get the others to calm down and worth together. Though she wouldn’t really call it working together for some as much as it was a tolerance and uneasy peace. Still, she wasn’t sure how it happened, but she had become the de facto leader of the group after taking charge on the first day when everyone else was in a confused and scared mess.

It wasn’t a role that Shio wanted to take, but if it meant she could prevent someone from being killed like Monokuma wanted, then she’d gladly take the reins and try to keep everyone safe.

Her classmates were… oddballs, some of them. But, Shio was sure that they could get along and be friends. It might be hard with some, but she had hope and determination on her side! She even already had a few she could consider as a friend.

Daichi Akemi in particular she thought as she spotted his messy blue hair and red neckerchief as he headed out of the door to the dining area of the university center. Unlike the others, who’s talent they knew and remembered, Daichi seemed unable to remember his which painted him with some suspicion early on. Some of the others refused to trust him simply because he couldn't tell them what his talent was, but Shio had been able to dissuade the mistrust, or at least get them to keep it to themselves. Even Shio remembered her talent with the violin. The two just gravitated naturally to each other on the first day, working to explore what parts they could together of their prison, getting to know the others, she liked to think that her and Daichi made a pretty good team.

And she wanted to help him, help him remember his talent and help him find his confidence. The guy always looked like he was about to jump out of his skin and she could only imagine that if the tension rose in their situation, it would not affect him well. He was a ball of anxiety and she wanted to help keep him grounded.

There were others of course. Yuu Kobayashi was sweet, she didn’t seem to hold any sort of ill will towards anyone and Izumi was a force of energy and cheer. Even among the guys, Hayato Himura, though he kept to himself, seemed genuine, he had no interest in participating in a game where they killed each other and Takahiko Saikawa made it clear that he wasn’t afraid to give a black eye to anyone who even tried. The others, she couldn’t say for sure, she didn’t want to distrust her friends, but she couldn’t say she knew what went on in their heads.

But she knew that they could work together. It might be hard, it’d take some work, but Shio was confident that they could work together and put a stop to this horrible game they had been put in.

She’d even begun to notice that some had even began moving towards each other, developing little pairs and groups of their own, and that pleased her. She rarely saw Takahiko and Yuu separate, for example, and she often saw Aito lingering near them like he wanted to join but wanted to keep a distance at the same time. Even Hikaru and Kasumi tended to stick near one another, and of course there was herself and Daichi. It was nice to see the others were making their own friendships and teams, and not isolating themselves from the others.

What really worried her though, wasn’t just the fact that they were trapped in this campus and being told they have to kill each other to get out. It was the crucial piece of all of this that no one else seemed to remember, the part that made this so much worse than what it already was, the similarity to-

“Uehara-san,” Shio looked up, her train of thought broken, to see Daichi had reached her and gave him a smile. He didn’t meet her eyes, running a hand through his messy blue locks and keeping his other in the pocket of his jacket. “Do you want to head to the meeting spot? It’s about time we all get together.”

The meeting spot. It was nothing more than an outdoor seating area a little off to the side with a stone bench in a U shape. Shio had suggested that they keep some form of regularity in their lives while here, and among the ideas had been a daily meeting to discuss anything they had discovered or any problems they found. Its purpose was to try and strengthen bonds among each other while also working to find ways out of this prison.

They’d meet up every day at five, right before dinner, and so far over the two days it seemed to be working well enough. Only Mitsuru complained about it, but Shio had a feeling Mitsuru would complain about everything if given the chance.

But she kept smiling as she pushed herself up, brushing some black locks of hair behind her ear, “It’s that time already? I guess I lost track of time, thanks for reminding me,” she hadn’t actually forgotten, she’d been well aware of the time, but the gratitude made Daichi feel better so she’d give it to him. “Let’s get going, Akemi-kun, it’d be awkward if we were late.”

He didn’t say much, but smiled and walked at her side as they made their way across the grass to the area just hidden behind a corner of the dorm.

There were a few already there.

Aito Shigaraki was sitting on one end of the stone bench, his white hair as messy as always with the heavy bags under his eyes and disheveled clothes. He was the Ultimate Forensic Pathologist, and from what Shio understood that meant he studied dead bodies. She hated to admit it, but Aito kind of creeped her out. Sometimes he looked unhinged and he made it clear that if someone died he’d love to take a look at their insides.

On the other side of the spectrum was Izumi Hayasha. Despite earning her talent for being a thief, she wasn’t a bad person as far as Shio could tell, if she looked past the whole being an actual criminal thing. When Mitsuru challenged her on the first day for “trying to control them” or something, Izumi stepped in and backed Shio up with how she was the only one trying to do something other than panic while Mitsuru was doing nothing. She even promised not to steal anything from the other students, unless they did something to make her mad, and so far she’d been trustworthy. Daichi seemed to like her well enough, too.

“Hello, Hayasha-san, Shigaraki-kun,” Shio greeted with a smile as she took a seat at the bench, the stone felt warm against the bright sun. Daichi took a seat beside her, situating himself between herself and Shigaraki, as though the lanky individual would try and attack her. She knew that he distrusted Aito and a part of her wanted to chastise him for not having faith in their friends, but chose to bite her tongue. It’d do no good to draw attention to him right now when Aito didn’t seem to notice or care.

He didn’t even respond to her greeting with more than a small hum as he fiddled with mangling the flower in his hand.

Izumi on the other hand smiled brightly and leaned over the stone bench, “Aah~! Shio-chan, it’s so nice to see you again, it’s a beautiful day today, isn’t it? Though these past few ones have been just lovely as well. Not nearly as lovely as you, though,” she smiled and it was brighter than the sun. “And Daichi-kun, you’re looking as handsome as ever, though I still think it’d be nice of you if you’d give me your neckerchief, the warehouse in the campus doesn’t have one like that.”

Daichi blushed and didn’t look at her but gripped the red fabric around his neck, “Sorry, Hayasha-san, but, like I said before I’m not giving it up.”

The thief just giggled and waved it off. Shio was happy to see her in such good spirits like usual, she’d be worried if Izumi suddenly became solemn.

Gradually the other students started filtering in, some on their own and some in groups of two or three until all sixteen were seated and the meeting was ready to commence.

Beside Izumi sat Hayato Himura the survivalist, and beside him was Ren Taikiyo an actor. The screenwriter, Yuu Kobayashi sat between him and Takahiko Saikawa, a Taekwondo champion. Goro Kobe, an obnoxious Go player was between Takahiko and herself while Daichi was stuck sitting next to the figure skater herself, Mitsuru Kita.

From there it went to Hikaru Yoshii the residential adrenaline junkie and racer, and Kasumi Sasaki, a graceful dancer. Eisuke Watanabe, the Ultimate Archer sat next to her, and next to Eisuke was Tsubasa Watanabe the basketball player and then Kousuke Nakamura, the photographic memory. Taiyou Adachi sat between Kousuke and Aito, being the only one to not disclose his talent but rather keep saying he had a different talent whenever asked.

There was some murmuring among the group and Shio brought her hands together in a clap to quiet down the chatter and start the meeting. Monokuma had begun breathing down their necks lately about no one being killed, they needed to come up with a plan.

“By the sounds of things, no one’s found anything new,” Shio began which was followed by a few disgruntled mutters and sly remarks tossed about by her classmates. But she clapped her hands again to bring attention back to herself. “That’s fine, that’s fine, we’re still trying so that’s what matters.”

There was a loud groan and she turned to look at Goro. “Some are trying harder than others, but not like that matters,” he responded, his eyes on Mitsuru.

The figure skater let out an offended gasp, “What are you insinuating?” she demanded.

“Exactly what it sounds like.”

“Mitsuru, everyone is putting in more effort than you are,” Kousuke snipped, his eyes narrowed at her, “last I checked, all you’ve been doing since we got here was eat in the dining room and complain. I don’t think you have a right to be insulted when someone calls you out on it.”

“I would have thought that as someone from such a rich and fancy home as yours that you’d know; some people are meant to work while others are meant to sit back while others do the work for them,” Mitsuru retorted, crossing her arms over her chest, “Obviously I was not born into this world to do menial labor and hard work like the rest of these bums. But I guess your upbringing wasn’t nearly as proper if you’d let yourself fall to there level.”

“Of maybe I’d like to get out of here more than I’d like to hang onto egotistical pride like a certain pretentious brat.”

“Why you,” Mitsuru curled back a lip, “I have half a mind to slap you right now.”

Taiyou began laughing as he leaned forward to watch, “Oooh~! Are we gonna get to see some rich brats duke it out?” he asked loudly, a wide grin slapped across his face, “Ten monocoins on Mitsuru-chan!”

“Please! Q-tip can take her, hands down,” Hikaru shot back, “Twenty that he wins !”

“Excuse me? Who are you calling a q-tip?” Kousuke snapped, almost rising from his seat, his attention moved from Mitsuru to Hikaru. A few snickers and cackles turned into laughter from multiple people and the arguing started to spread.

So the whole everyone being friends was clearly still in the works.

Trying to dissolve the situation quickly and get things back on track, Shio raised her voice, “Guys? Guys!” she yelled over the bickering, they gradually quieted back down to look at her. “Please guys, we’re friends here, we don’t need to be arguing when we need to stick together, right? How do you expect us to take on Monokuma if we start arguing so easily?”

A few of the students murmured but no one really spoke up, all looking at the ground or away from Shio, some bitter and others guilty.

Trying to raise the mood, Shio smiled at them all again. “Even though it’s not going to help us find an exit out of here, I was thinking we could do more things as a group than just the daily meeting,” she said, fanning her fingers out and tapping them against each other. “Just something to help us grow closer, help keep a unity among the groups.” It was vital to forge a strong bond with everyone, strong enough that no matter what Monokuma might throw their way, it won’t cause them to betray one another.

“Eh?” Taiyou asked, raising a brow, “What sort of activities did you have in mind, my dear Shio-chan? Don’t tell me you want us to scrapbook together, or sit around a campfire singing songs, I don’t know if I could handle that much friendship!”

“Hey, come on the campfire sounds pretty fun if we throw in some smores,” Ren snickered harmlessly, sticking his tongue out a little so that the metal stud at the tip peeked out past his teeth.

So maybe she shouldn’t bring up that digging up a pit for a campfire and spend some time at night together was one of her ideas. Didn’t seem like the group was going to take that one seriously right now so she’d push it off to a later date.

“I don’t know about that, but, we do have a lot of space outside,” Shio said as she began thinking, “we could find some kind of game to play. The gym has lots of sports equipment in there, so we could find something that would let everyone play in there.”

Tsubasa raised her hand after Shio said that, “There’s a lot of baseball gloves and balls in the gym closet, as well as plenty of baseballs and a few bats. There’s also some flags if we want to play capture the flag, and a few footballs, as well as the American ones,” she said and then scratched her cheek, “though I don’t know the rules to that one.”

“That’s fine,” Shio grinned as she looked at the athlete, “I shouldn’t be, but I’m surprised you remember everything that’s in there.” Tsubasa blushed when she said that and Shio took that as a cue to turn to the others again, “Even if we don’t want to get dirty playing a sport, between the school store and the warehouse, I’m sure there’s plenty we can do together.”

Hayato gave a small laugh from his end of the bench, “You sure are intent on keeping us as a united group, aren’t you, Uehara-san?” it was less of a question and he had a smile as he said it, but it looked tired.

She didn’t falter and with a feeling of determination in her gut, Shio nodded her head. “Of course I am, Himura-kun. You guys are all my friends, so I’m going to do everything I can to keep us all alive,” the words were genuine. Even though she only knew the group for a few days, she cared about them like she knew them for longer. They were her friends, even if they didn’t feel the same, and she wanted to keep her friends safe.

What was so wrong about that?

But as soon as she finished speaking, someone began gagging from behind her, a fake retching noise in response to her desire for all to survive. “Uuuugh! How boring!”

She felt a chill run over her, and beside her she saw Daichi go pale in the face at the familiar, overly cheerful voice. He wasn’t the only one, others had gone pale, while some went red in the face from anger, heads swiveling to stare at the intruder.

With a walk that was more of a waddle, Monokuma marched around until he was right in front of the group, staring at them with his mismatched eyes and ever present grin. “All this talk of unity, bonds, friends and sticking together, ooooh! I can feel my stomach churning. You’re going to make me sick at this rate!”

“Why should we care about your health?” Takahiko asked dryly, eyes narrowed at the robot. “You don’t seem too concerned with our wellbeing, so why should we be with yours?”

“Yeowch, you cut me with those harsh words,” the bear complained, an air of gloom surrounding him, but it was gone as quick as it appeared. “But that’s not what I’m here for, not at all! My health can wait because I’m sure that your talk of friendship and teamwork will be ending soon!”

Shio stood up, hands on her hips in a defiant stance as she stared down at the bear, “You’re wrong, we’re not going to stop working together just because you want it,” she said firmly. She was the leader of this group, she had to make sure she always stood up against Monokuma, here was no different. “Why are you here if it wasn’t to complain? If it’s to tell us to kill each other, we’re still not going to play your twisted game.”

But the bear let out a long sigh, “Man you are no fun, no fun at all,” he whined. “But you’re right. As things are now, there’s no way you guys will start the killing game, and that’s just so boring. So I had to think long and hard, I skipped sleeping last night just to come up with this idea, you know?”

“What idea?” Kasumi asked from where she sat, playing with the sleeves of her shirt, Shio noted they were becoming increasingly more frayed as her nails picked at the strands.

Monokuma let out a maniacal laugh as he stared at them all good and hard. “I was thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and then it hit me! You guys have the place, the tools, the possible victims, but no reason!” he exclaimed. “Now, I would have thought the Graduation rule would have been reason enough; kill someone to get out of here, but nope! You guys are pickier than that!”

A reason? “Are you talking about a motive or something?” Shio asked, feeling her heart beating louder in her chest. Did he come out all this way to give them something to motivate each other to kill? Whatever he was going to throw at them, it wasn’t going to work. They weren’t that easy, they were stronger than him and wouldn’t fall for the devil’s temptation like he wanted them too.

“Oooh, that’s exactly what it is,” Monokuma sang, “I thought it was about time to give you all a motive!”

#danganronpa #fanganronpa #cam writes shit #Discern the Truth

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emocatkeith · 3 years

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every 2 months or so i am sucked right back into batman and this godforsaken gremlin man. so, i decided to expand more of my bm oc cast, and since i don’t think i’ve ever shown these dudes off, here they are now! Also, still deciding on the weapons they should use and what designs they should be, but I’m satisfied for what I have now.

check below to see their prototype-ish designs and some info about them! it’s valentine’s day and im going to indulge in my adoration for my ocs, god damn it!

All five of them work as “henchmen” under Jervis Tetch’s command. Of course, they’re still wacky and unique in their own right, so Jervis often gets a headache when trying to corral them back into doing what they’re supposed to do. Despite this, the Wonderland Gang (shut up this is their name for now as cheesy as it sounds) treat each other like family and are ride-or-die for one another.

[From Left to Right, starting at the top]

(TW: Transgender/Possibly ableist bullying, mind-control, violence, child abuse, & body horror/gore, jic!!)

- Baily Aubre “Deck O’ Kards” (usually shortened to just Kards) - 24 - Female (AMAB) - Baily was a gymnast-in-training during her school years, and hoped to go on into the Olympics. However, she lived in a more “traditional” town, and the boys often picked on Baily due to her feminine-acting ways. But when she discovered she was actually trans, she became a social outcast and general pariah, and had to both quit her gymnastic career dreams and to transition into home-schooling instead. Due to never being able to really trust others in social situations, Baily only really cared about her widowed mother, whom she depended a lot on. So, when she passed, Baily didn’t know what to do, and since her apprehension among groups of people didn’t motivate her to go to college, she soon went into shady businesses instead. She worked as a henchman for multiple rogues and soon set herself upon a criminal record, but she had grown fond of Jervis and his goals. But, as time went on, Baily realized she wanted to go onto bigger things in life and tried to convince Tetch to do the same. When that didn’t work, Baily attempted to walk out on him, but didn’t see him approach her, and just when she got a few feet away from him, Jervis knocked her out. Due to his obsessiveness and loneliness problems, he told himself that the only way to keep her around was to mess with her brain a bit, to make her more loyal to him. Baily is still witty and cautious on dangerous situations, but now she’s willing to sacrifice herself for Jervis. Though, her personality was mainly remained intact, her memories of her past was completely rewritten and changed to Tetch’s liking. It’s unknown if there is a way to undo the effects of his tampering, but a scar permanently remains wrapped around her head and hidden under her hair as a reminder of what he did.

- Jackie Summers “March Hare” - 20 - Male (AFAB) - Jackie was a major sweetheart back in his youth, but constantly hyperactive and excited. Unfortunately, he was very gullible and naive into being tricked or pranked by other kids, and often scolded by his teachers and parents for getting bad grades or not listening during class. Though, he still remained an optimist, hoping that one day someone will be a true friend to him. But the bullying and harsh attitude to him only got worse as time went on, even beyond his school days. In Gotham, he was a college student studying theatre and visited the local library many times during the month. One day, as he browsed through the fiction setting, he picked up a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland out of curiosity. He was spooked, however, when a man approached him and excitedly started talking to him. But, Jackie wasn’t adverse to conversation and soon became friends with the man he soon would learn was Jervis. But, since he hadn’t transitioned yet, he still had long blonde hair that his new friend would often fond over. While confused, Jackie didn’t question it and loved the newfound attention he got from Jervis. But, one day as the library started to close up and the secretary decided to hand the keys over to Jackie, Jervis strolled in with a new tea recipe he wanted Jackie’s opinion on. Being oblivious to his intent, he agreed and drank the tea, but soon would get knocked out and wake back up to find Jervis, dressed up in his Hatter assemble, trying to get Jackie to play the role as his Alice. Afraid and not knowing what to do (and hating the itchy dress Jervis put on him over his regular clothes), Jackie appealed to Jervis by instead exclaiming he would rather be the March Hare than Alice. While slightly disappointed at first, Jervis relented, but found Jackie to be a much better suit for that character in the first place due to his eccentric personality (a side-effect of being in drama classes too much, haha). Likewise, Jackie found himself becoming much more attracted to the March Hare character and wanted to continue helping out his new friend. So, when Batman tried to rescue him from Tetch, Jackie instead fought him (with Batman clearly winning) but as both were sent to Arkham, they decided to become partners-in-crime together.

- Eenah Lyle “Dormouse” - 19 - Nonbinary/Genderfluid (it fluctuates) - Eenah has always been the quiet type, preferring to listen rather than conversate. Even though they had bad narcolepsy, Eenah found themself to be a fantastic bodybuilder at a young age and strengthened themself up for wrestling competitions. Eenah soon went on a winning streak, and went towards becoming the ultimate wrestler in all of Gotham. But that came to a close when they won against another diva, who was furious that Eenah won. So, thanks to their narcolepsy, Eenah passed out and woke up right after their bus-ride back home left without them. But they were approached by a gang that were hired by the diva to “rough Eenah up”. While they fought as hard as they could, Eenah was outnumbered and brutally got beaten on, who left when their lower jaw broke. Eenah was left there until a random passersby stumbled upon their body and got them to a hospital. Despite being able to repair most of the damage that was done to them, their jaw would always be crooked from now on. This prevented them from going on into the championships and Eenah lost everything after that. Fueled by fury and revenge, Eenah went on a rampage one day, finding the gang and diva that ruined their life and murdering them without a hint of mercy. Afterwards, they went on the run, coming across Jackie who they attempted to mug for food money. Instead though, Eenah found kindness they hadn’t felt in a long time, and waringly, followed Jackie back to Jervis. They found that Jackie and Jervis was trustworthy enough to be around, and soon that trustworthiness evolved into a tight friendship. Now, while being more on stealth missions, is able to hold their own against Batman or anyone else who intends to mess with them or their friends.

- Karoline Hudson “Queen of Hearts” - 14 - Female - Raised in a high-class, European family, Karoline was a sweet girl and had a kind family that hoped for the best for her future. Everything was looking great for Karoline and her family, but that peace was soon disrupted by a large group of people who viciously murdered her family and was kidnapped by them among many of her prized possessions/wealth to be sold. After seeing how cruel people could be, Karoline’s pure demeanor was ripped to shreds, leaving only a shell that felt empty. But, as the group arrived to Gotham, they got into a fight with another group of people, allowing Karoline to sneak away from her prison and run off into the streets. Unfortunately, nobody knew of the Hudson family and thought she was just a beggar on the streets, rambling crazy talk, and left her out on the rain. Three years pass, and Karoline has become a scavenger and unwilling of other people’s help due to fear of hurting her or taking her back to those people. So, when Jackie and Eenah found Karoline shivering in the rain, they were surprised at how snappy and mean this little girl was. But, Eenah reached a hang out to her, and started to tell of their own story. While still being highly aware of any sudden or suspicious movements, she was surprised to find that they weren’t trying to trick her at all. Jervis, although also shocked at how sharp-tongued Karoline was, welcomed her with open arms. Karoline still remains to be cautious of anything they might do to hurt her in some form, she found a new family that were generous and nice towards her. She likes to take charge most of the time, but often relents to Jervis’ pleads to just let him do the blueprints for god’s sake. She also likes to pick on everyone, especially Kard, but would kill anybody who would say or do something that would harm them. Karoline also has a small plush rabbit, stitched heavily due to wear-and-tear, that has dirty yet white fur, kept from her young days before she was taken away.

Chester Bennett “Cheshire Cat” - 38 - Male - Chester was always a nice man, liking to help others out even at the cost of his own time or safety. But, he also grew up poor and scrounged around for any money that he could find. His kindness had a limit though, especially towards rich or stuck-up people that believe they’re better than everyone else. While hating getting into debt, Chester had no choice but to relent to one of the top mob-bosses in Gotham, Roman Sionis, just to live. Though, as his constant failures at regaining the money towards Sionis persisted, Chester knew he had made a horrible mistake into working for Sionis when he was strung up and, as punishment for disappointing the mob-boss too many times, went through excruciating pain as his skin was ripped off from his muscles. Thankfully, he called the police before he was dragged to the warehouse, but the GCPD was too late. Roman Sionis and his henchmen had left Chester there to bleed out, who was barely alive at that point. Through hospital care, he survived, but was told that his epidermis would never recover from this trauma and would have to wear bandages to avoid harmful outside influences or blood leakage. Time went on, yet Chester never got over the traumatizing event and could hardly keep a stable job more than a month. Out of all of Gotham, there was one place Chester would go whenever he felt emotional: Storybook Land. He snuck in at night through a hole in the fence and wandered into the Wonderland area, and just as he got to the Caterpillar room, he broke down and sobbed underneath a mushroom. He jumped however when a voice above him asked what was wrong. Somehow, Jervis, who promptly introduced himself to Chester, had snuck his way into Storybook Land that night too and wanted to know why Chester was crying. He didn’t know why he started to vent towards this random stranger, but since nobody listened to him and instead veered away due to his off-putting appearance, finally having someone who would listen to him. Jervis nodded along, sympathizing while not being patronizing, and the two of them soon went on a long chat. Chester hadn’t felt this happy for so long, and found a friend in Jervis. Both met up at Storybook Land during night just to talk about their day, until Jervis brung in the new and improved costume of the Cheshire Cat the theme park got and, since he noticed he always wanted to cover up, they could have fun together dressed up as the Mad Hatter and the titular cat. Chester agreed, and found the costume to be surprisingly flexible and comfortable, not actually wanting to take it off. While apprehensive and shocking at first when Jervis spilled the beans about his Rogue status, Chester continued wanting to be friends with him and be a part of his makeshift gang. The others hit off Chester fast, and before he knew it, the man found himself a new home in the form of, frankly, a bunch of crazy people. And, to his own shock, he liked the company.

hope you liked all that cheesy backstory stuff lmao. i was scared at first to post their backstories but i thought why the heck not. hope you guys like these misfits!

#i am NOT proud of jervis in the bg #bitch looking like a rat #still i hope you guys like these funny haha people #btw i really want to make one of those brandon rogers aiw videos but on this ocs now lol #also sorry if theres too much cheesiness or stuff you didn't like in their backstories! its hard to write engaging profiles on characters #when you forget the stuff you intend on putting in there lol #batman #dc #dc oc #batman oc #jervis tetch #mad hatter #*rubs my awful hands together* oc tag time babee #baily aubre #jackie summers #eenah lyle #karoline hudson #chester bennett #btw happy valentines day! love you guys!

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simblr-2019 · 5 years

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Forgotten Hollow part 30

Phillip: -talking to himself- Despite everything that’s been happening this bench will always manage to calm me.

Amber: Hey. I’m sorry about everything back there. Are you okay?

Phillip: No. I’m not okay I don’t think any of us are. Are you okay?

Amber: I pretend to be fine, but deep I’m really not.

Phillip: I’m just...glad I got that off my chest. I’ve been holding back anger at Stephen for a long time and tonight I finally had the guts to do it. I just know now everything is going to change he knows we’re all angry at each other and at him.

Amber: I’m usually the optimist here, but Stephen is smart and now he’s going to look into why you finally decided to snap at him. He’ll start watching us.

Phillip: He’s always been watching us. Out of the seven of us he trusts us the least. We both had the hardest time accepting what he told us about our parents. I probably distrusted him the most which doesn’t help your case given that you are really close to me. Stephen is smart and heknew it was a matter of time before we started to question things and call him out.

Amber: I hope you don’t mind but I called Brandy I knew the three of us clicked at the ball and I figured it would be good for you to talk to someone who isn’t me all the times.

Phillip: Actually I think it would be good for the both of us to make a friend.

-Brandy and Samantha show up-

Brandy: Hey

Phillip: Brandy hey.

Brandy: I brought Samantha she’s been my best friend since I was a toddler. Hope that’s okay.

Samantha: Just wanted to know if we could talk. After all you two seemed nice and there’s not a lot of teenagers around here.

Amber: Sure we’d love to make new friends.

Phillip: You trust her Brandy?

Brandy: With my life.

Phillip: Alright she can stay. What have you told her Brandy?

Brandy: Samantha knows everything I know, but over text you said you wanted to share with me something.

Phillip: You’re okay with me telling them right Amber?

Amber: They seem trustworthy.

Phillip: Amber was adopted by Stephen when she was (blank) years old and ended up being turned.

Samantha: Okay.

Phillip: She was adopted because her parents died in a storm. Lightning hit the boat and her parents drowned. The bodies were never found. However, I’ve been suspicious of Stephen for a long time...for various reasons. Many of which I’m not ready to discuss yet. -Amber and Brandy put their hand on Phillip’s shoulder to show support- Anyways I did some research into Amber Grace Wheatley’s parents and discovered some peculiar police reports. Lots of talks about the equipment of the boat being “sabotaged” and hearing of people sneaking around their equipment as well. They believe the storm was a cover up for murder. They described one of the suspects to the murder to be a tall pale man who was only seen at night....The description they gave sounds a lot like Stephen....

Brandy: What? You think your adoptive dad killed your parents? What why?

Phillip: Because he wanted to adopt us. And Amber’s parents being alive was in the way.

Brandy: That’s so messed up.

Phillip: It is.

Amber: I’m glad we were able to share this with you two.

Phillip: Please don’t tell anyone. I’m looking into it more.

Brandy: We won’t.

Phillip: We considered telling this to our adoptive sister Joy, but given that she was born a vampire she might consider this a personal attack. Especially since we don’t have any real evidence.

Amber: She also seems very loyal to Stephen so there’s that as well. And after the events of tonight we don’t really trust anyone in our household. We all exploded at each other and at Stephen.

Samantha: I’m not surprised. By any of this. Vampires do horrible things.

Brandy: Yeah they do like turning people against their will. And murdering innocent people.

Amber: That reminds me we don’t really know your story of how you came here. We’d like to here it if you don’t mind.

Samantha: I don’t mind sharing.

Brandy: I don’t either. I guess I’ll go first.

Brandy: Okay so this might sound weird, but we went to the same highschool as Markus Crow and Kat Kave did. Yes Markus and Kat who are minions of Miss H. We were freshmen at the time and they were seniors. I already told you Kat is my cousin and that she is partly responsible for the reason why I was turned. Anyways Kat had a friend a few years older than she was who previously attended the same school we did. She was extremely rebellious and got kicked out for smoking in the bathroom and a bunch of other stuff. When she did go to the school she befriended Kat and Markus. She mentored them in her rebellious ways. They did all sorts of things ditching school, cheating of tests, shop lifting, and graffitiing public property. It got worse and worse as it went on. My aunt and uncle were worried about Kat and made Kat stop hanging out with Markus and Miss H. It worked. And for awhile everything seemed to die down. Until one day I met up with Kat and she told me she was going to visit Miss H, even after her parents forbid her to be around that girl. She said that Miss H had a surprise for her. I told her not to go. I told her she was lucky she wasn’t arrested for the things she did. That she has a chance now to back away from a dark and dangerous path. She didn’t listen to me. That was the last encounter I had with her and it didn’t go very well. Before she left she pushed me and down and took a bag of her stuff with her.

Later that night when I got home from school my aunt and uncle called and they said Kat was missing. I freaked out. Kat was gone. Really gone. There was no trace of her anywhere. They tried and tried calling her cell phone, but no response. They tried to trace it to, but nothing. Everywhere they looked was a dead end. And everything in my life felt hopeless.

Then a few days later the police found Miss H’s car. It looked as if it was driven off a bridge and attacked by some animal with a pile blood not to far. I was devastated at their findings. It meant Kat was never coming back. We knew that for sure now. Kat and I were close when we were younger and even though we grew apart I still cared for her deeply. The police also said Miss H was probably drinking under the influence with Markus and Kat. When the car crashed they probably tried to get help, but instead got attacked.

A few days later I went out at night I wanted to see the car and pay my respects to my cousin. Even though our relationship fell apart I felt that I owed it to her to honor her.

When I did arrive at the place they died, I heard some sounds coming from the near by woods. I stupidly decided to follow the sounds. I was fourteen okay. Teenagers don’t make smart decisions.

Anyways I saw three figures in the clearing. They looked creepy glowing eyes, pointed ears, sharp teeth, I tried to turn away and run but I stepped on a branch and it snapped. The next second Markus was behind me somehow. Markus moved so fast and he had glowing eyes. He grabbed me and dragged me over to where I saw Kat and Miss H. Kat looked worried and told me I shouldn’t have come here.

Turns out Miss H was turned by Vlad for reasons that I still don’t know and Miss H then decided to turn her “friends” Markus and Kat as well.

Miss H told Kat that I had seen too much and to prove her loyalty to Miss H she had to kill me. Miss H and Markus left not wanting to see what would happen. But Kat couldn’t do it. Kat attacked me, but instead of killing me she turned me.

I was knocked out by Kat and I woke up a few minutes till morning, I had to hide in a cave from the sunlight. When night eventually did come I was very thirsty didn’t know it at the time and I went looking for food. Ending up biting people. I didn’t kill or hurt anyone.

I kind of just went from place to place at night knocking people out and drinking from them it wasn’t fun. Then one night I found a man on his own and nearly attacked him when Demetrius found me. Demetrius gave me some blood bags asked me my story and took me in. He said he sensed supernatural powers around my city. And ever since then I’ve been staying with him. He’s a good guy. I see him as an uncle figure. I can’t call him my dad since I had one once, but he probably thinks I’ve died along with my cousin Kat....

-Samantha notices that Brandy is getting emotional and decides to share her story-

Samantha: My turn. I’ll keep my story short. I was also in highschool with Brandy. And the two of us were good friends. I was also an honors student and had plans to go to a good college. I tried very hard to be a good and successful student.

I knew Miss H she hanged out around my neighbor a lot and caused trouble.

I ratted on her and her friends a lot to the authorities. When she was turned by Vlad she decided to turn me as punishment for getting her in trouble with law enforcement. This was after what happened to Brandy. I followed Miss H for a short while after all I had no where to go and ran into Demetrius who took me in as well. The part that sucks is I’ll never be able to go off to college like I wanted to and I have her to thank for that.

Phillip: That... both of your stories are so horrible.

Amber: I can’t believe these things happened to you.

Brandy: Me either.

Samantha: It is what it is.

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moviessilently · 7 years

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Stage star Lenore Ulric brings her signature role to the screen in this melodrama set in Canada. We have Mounties, trees and bloody revenge. The usual Hollywood Canadian wilderness picture, in other words, but we have the added bonus of a super Mountie and a location shoot in Yosemite.

Home Media Availability: Released on DVD.

This is my contribution to the O Canada Blogathon hosted by Silver Screenings and Speakeasy. Be sure to read all the other reviews!

Go get ‘em, tiger!

I do love Mountie flicks and I know I’m not alone. What’s not to love about noble gents in great hands tracking down evildoers? Unfortunately, the quality of Mountie pictures can be described as spotty at best. For every piece of quality entertainment, we have a few bombs. For example, Nomads of the North features Lon Chaney as a sexy fur trapper. Really. Where the North Holds Sway is essentially a western with more flannel. See what I mean? Well, let’s see if this picture will make up for the bad ones.

Will Forrest Stanley’s Mountie win us over?

Tiger Rose is an adaptation of a 1917 stage play written by Willard Mack (you can read a public domain copy here) and produced by the famed David Belasco, who had quite a number of western and wilderness pictures in his repertoire. Warner Bros. scored a casting coup when they obtained the services of Lenore Ulric, who had created the role of Rose on the stage and had not been seen in movies in six years. The film was subsequently remade as both a silent and a talkie as a 1929 Lupe Velez vehicle but, alas, the remake is not on home video.

(I should note that the version of the film I saw runs for just one hour. Tiger Rose as originally released ran for eight reels, which would be eighty minutes at minimum and likely far longer. The storyline is smooth and I did not notice any particularly large holes in the plot.)

The things you find when you go fishing.

The film opens in a quiet Canadian trading community that bears a shocking resemblance to Yosemite. (Mainly because the exteriors were shot there. Whodathunkit?) Sergeant Michael Devlin (four-time Marion Davies leading man Forrest Stanley) is a Mountie’s Mountie and he comes riding hell for leather into town. He has fished a half-drowned woman (Lenore Ulric) out of Loon River and turns her over to the kind locals for some first aid.

We know that this young woman has been through a lot because she looks like this:

I wish I could look that good after almost drowning.

Yipes! When they say “waterproof” on the mascara bottle, they mean it! And who made her hairspray? Color me impressed.

Devlin tells the story of his brave rescue in flashback and it strikes me that this would have been a far more impressive opening scene for the film than shots of the great outdoors. Devlin races on horseback to catch up with the woman in the water—she’s caught in a current heading for a waterfall because this is a melodrama—and then he dismounts and throws himself off a cliff into the river below. That is some grade A stunt work and it’s a pity that the suspense is spoiled by using the flashback structure.

Now THAT is what I call an epic rescue.

Anyway, the young woman is named Rose and she likes to hunt and swear in the most adorable way possible. Devlin is interested but Rose falls for Bruce Norton (Theodore von Eltz), a dashing engineer. (Not there are two words I never thought I would type in the same sentence.) It’s love at first sight but Bruce is on a mission: he has tracked down a nefarious bad guy-type and he means to kill him for the sake of someone called “Helen.” There’s a suitably violent struggle for a pistol and Bruce ends up shooting his target, one of the local doctors.

When confronting one’s arch-nemesis, one would think one would be on the lookout for hidden weapons.

Another local doctor (this town is flush with ‘em, it seems) examines the body and delivers a mysterious proclamation. It seems that everyone in this picture has decided to become Lemony Snicket. The second doctor is played by Sam De Grasse, noted villain of Fairbanks flicks, and he sets out to help Bruce… or does he?

Devlin receives news of the murder and springs into action. He takes his trusty rifle and is able to wing Bruce lickety-split. Bruce is in a pickle as a storm is coming in and Devlin’s posse has the area surrounded. He takes refuge in Rose’s cellar, where she and the doc discover him a bit later. But Devlin hasn’t given up the chase and it’s going to take a very clever plan to evade our unstoppable Mountie.

Bruce learns that Devlin plays for keeps.

Will Bruce get away? Do we really want him to get away? I mean, that Devlin guy is pretty cool. In any case, find out in Tiger Rose!

Lenore Ulric does well overall but her Broadway experience causes her to play things in a broad way. (Get it? Get it?) It’s not too distracting but there are a few scenes in which her gestures get out of control and I wish I could assure her that we saw her in the nickel seats. She also applies her makeup with a trowel, which is distracting alongside the more subtle cosmetics of her costars and the general grit and outdoorsiness of the picture. (Makeup in the silent era was wildly inconsistent but the basic rule was that the actors should try to match one another in general amount and application.)

I’ve got a fever and the only prescription is more lipstick.

Ulric is further hampered by silly title cards that attempt to mimic French Canadian dialect. And does her background ever amount to anything in the picture? It does not. I am on record as hating dialect title cards and unnecessary dialect title cards are even worse. Frankly, it’s amazing that Ulric manages to rise above the silliness.

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Let’s face it, Rose’s motivation is a little weak. She met Bruce the day before and had a flirtation that lasted all of five minutes, that hardly seems like a good reason to risk everything for him. But… this is a melodrama. Love at first sight is a staple. What’s more problematic is the fact that her contributions to the story are pretty much superfluous. The doc and Bruce would have escaped on their own and the ending of the film (being intentionally vague here) would have been essentially the same with or without Rose. Yes, it’s fun to see a silent heroine wield a pistol but it’s not unheard-of. (See Back to God’s Country, a smashing Canadian wilderness picture in which Nell Shipman saves the day with firearms and a killer dog.)

For Helen – You will always be in my heart, In my mind, And in your grave.

Theodore von Eltz is okay as Bruce but the film misfires when it plays Button Button with his past and motivation. It would have been far more believable if he had confided his sad tale to Rose. As the film stands, the leads are forced to run around being terribly mysterious when any normal person would be asking some questions. “Um, why’d you shoot the guy? I know the doc said you had good reasons but I’d kinda like some clarification. Also, do you shoot girls? Asking for a friend.” Look, this mournful “Oh, my horrible past that I will not clarify!” stuff is amusing in A Series of Unfortunate Events but it gets rather tedious in a drama.

This looks like a job for… Devlin the Super Mountie!

I usually find Forrest Stanley to be a bit on the dull side but I really liked Devlin the Super Mountie. He doesn’t show up much in the beginning but every time he does, he performs some splendid stunt, strikes a heroic pose and otherwise shows himself to be Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent. In our world of gravel-voiced antiheroes, Devlin’s unabashed good guy-ness is a positive breath of fresh air and Stanley manages to do it all without coming off as sanctimonious or trite.

No villain is safe on Canadian soil!

Devlin’s whole “unstoppable manhunting force for good” act just gets better and better as the film progresses. I don’t know about everyone else but I was definitely rooting for him to get his man. The fact that Bruce’s motivation is not revealed until the finale makes him a rather opaque hero, which in turn makes Devlin’s straightforward lawman stuff even more appealing. Why were there no Sgt. Devlin of the RCMP spinoffs? Come on, people, you missed a huge opportunity!

Looks trustworthy to me.

I have to say, though, that the casting of Sam De Grasse really threw me off. Here’s a man who can make picnics and candy and flowers look sinister and he spends the entire picture lurking about in a most ominous manner. I kept expecting him to stab Bruce in the back or something.

Legendary cinematographer Charles Rosher makes the most of the films Yosemite locations and the cast is frequently posed against lovely natural backdrops. Hey, if you’ve got it, you flaunt it. He does equally well with the moody shadows of the nighttime storm scenes. The man was good, is what I’m saying. Check it out:

When interviewed by Kevin Brownlow for The Parade’s Gone By, Rosher revealed the film was significant in his career as it was the only time movie mogul Harry Warner ever gave him (or anyone else) a bonus. Lenore Ulric was due back in New York for rehearsals and if the film was not finished in time, the entire crew would have to follow her to the east coast and finish making it there at great expense.

She has a schedule to keep and you do not want to cross her.

Director Sidney Franklin was too nice to rush things along so Rosher took over the role as expediter and the picture was finished on schedule. Ulric got to New York in time, Warner Bros. didn’t have to move production across the country and everyone was happy. Harry Warner personally thanked Rosher and told him that shooting in the east would have added $25,000 to the film’s budget. There was a funny bit of business where Warner wouldn’t let go of the check but Rosher got his bonus in the end. Fully deserved too, I might add.

(Rosher also received a telegram from Belasco himself complimenting him on his camera work. Rosher claimed it was just because Ulric, a Belasco favorite, liked her closeups.)

In the cellar, out of the cellar, in the cellar… make up your minds!

But back to the film as we need to discuss some significant flaws. The main issues of the story come from the script. Its stage roots show particularly in the third act as the story’s setbound nature becomes obvious. The leads scamper from the house to the cellar to the house to the cellar to the cabin to the house. Rosher and Franklin try their best to open things up with shots of the great outdoors but there’s only so much that can be done and the story ends up feeling a bit claustrophobic.

No, sitting under a staircase doesn’t count as a scene change.

(Spoilers Ahoy!)

The finale of the film descends into absolute Victoriana, coincidences and all. It turns out that the doc was Bruce’s brother-in-law all along and it looks like everyone is going to get away when Devlin reveals himself and begins to make his arrest. Rose springs into action and holds Devlin back with a pistol while Bruce and the doctor escape. This means prison for Rose but after holding Devlin prisoner all night, Bruce returns to turn himself in and save her from sacrificing herself. Why they didn’t just tie Devlin up and all escape together, I have no idea. In any case, Devlin is moved by the gesture but he still arrests Bruce.

Hurray! You know, for people whose Hollywood motto is, “We always get our man,” the Mounties certainly seem to let a lot of fugitives go. I’d complain but then I remember that I almost never get my mail delivered during snow, sleet and dark of night. Hollywood needs more realistic mottos for its government organization. “We always get our man unless he’s dating that girl we used to like.” Well, not this time! Devlin remains a Mountie’s Mountie and thank goodness. Of course, Bruce just gets a few months in the pokey, which kind of retroactively nullifies the urgency of his escape. “I need to get away! I can’t serve six months! It’s inhuman!”

(End Spoilers)

Goodby and good luck in your new life, Rose. I planted cocaine in your dog sled.

Is it worth seeing? Oh, definitely. Tiger Rose is as corny as can be and no Mountie film cliché is left out, though some are twisted about and played with. Also in the plus column, the cast is game, Rosher’s cinematography is gorgeous and it’s all in good fun. If you get into the spirit of the thing, I think you’ll have a great time. It’s one of the better Mountie flicks of the silent era.

P.S. #TeamDevlin

Where can I see it?

Tiger Rose is available on DVD from Grapevine.

Tiger Rose (1923) A Silent Film Review Stage star Lenore Ulric brings her signature role to the screen in this melodrama set in Canada.

#1923 #Action Adventure #Charles Rosher #Forrest Stanley #Lenore Ulric #Sidney Franklin #Theodore von Eltz #Tiger Rose

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theleaffallsdown · 7 years

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Love with BPD

Most people experience it at least once in their life; some, maybe two or three times.

Lots of people find out in round about the same kind of ways as each other, but there are those of us who have a slightly different story.

Most importantly (in my opinion) is that not everyone realises at the right time, or the right place or with the right person. It doesn’t always end well, is what I’m saying.

I, for one, should know.

I found out what the truest of true love felt like by having to let the person I felt it for, walk away.

First of all, don’t think I didn’t fight it – because I did. So did he. We really tried but the fact is, I became the right person for him too late in the game. I became that trustworthy, somewhat stable being after the damage had been done.

See, I have this thing in my head called Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD for short) and she is a bitch. BPD is an ode to all things left unsolved. She is an homage to the result of fooling one’s self instead of facing reality. Trauma is like a physical wound that if left untreated, will fester and deteriorate. It becomes not just something to treat with watered down Detol and gauze, but a surgery bill, stitches, and an infection coursing through your blood. All because you got nauseous at the sight of the cut. You let it take over an entire limb that has to be removed now because when someone tried to help before, it hurt when they touched it so you pulled away and said “it’ll be fine.” Now the infected area is gone but you have no right arm. Maybe you will get a prosthetic. Not likely though. You just get to learn to live with what you lost, knowing it was only your fault.

That is what happened here. For years, I left multiple bouts of trauma sitting in a locked box on the top shelf of my wardrobe, pushed waaaaay to the back. Pretty clothes piled up in front of it and some days I forgot it was there entirely. The longer this went on, pushing the memories from the infected chunk of my life to the back of my brain, the more okay I felt.

Upon closer inspection, nothing was really okay. I was sharing parts of myself with other people behind the sights of a boy who loved me. I didn’t really know why either. Even if he ended up vacant and dismissive, prompting me to seek out the affection I desperately craved from others, why stay with him while it happened? Why would anyone do that? Well, for some, they just don’t care. Others, they like the idea of being caught. Some people are malicious and just in it to see how much destruction they can cause. Me? I was scared of that part of life where you are in your own company. Where you don’t have someone saying they love you every fifteen minutes and writing you lovely things just to make you smile. I wanted everyone to want me so I never had to feel alone. After years of people taking me just because they wanted me, it started to feel like the only way I could connect. I shared my body with others while someone in the foreground professed their love for me.

All that makes it sound like I fucked someone else. I didn’t. But in this beautiful age of technology, an image can be in the hands of anyone you choose within a second. They could see me and they could want me but they could not have me. It made me feel a certain type of complete. It served as a kind of punishment and release for me.

(You might be wondering what this has to do with finding out what true love feels like, but I am getting there. I promise.)

So it was during the course of this particular relationship that masses of the trauma occurred. Twice in one year I was made to be someone else’s. Once, for a gruesome five minutes that left me with mud on my face and beer on my back. The other for eight whole hours that nobody can tell me was not a separate lifetime within my own. That one left me with scars you can see as well as the ones you can’t. All this, plus what happened before, is why I coped the way I did.

Of course when all that I had decided to do came to light, the relationship ended. There were other factors, sure, but I had to leave. The guilt I felt each time I looked into his tired eyes, begging me to stay and work it out was far too much. I couldn’t even be his friend when he asked for that.

All of this went into that box.

Fast forward a while through “almost-s” and “maybes” and there I am on a bus.

I was sitting next to someone who was either tweaking or suffered a brain injury. He was erratic and almost frightening. He clutched a bag of groceries to his chest like it was filled with a million land mines. I lost myself in my book to distract me from the uneasiness I now felt around unstable men.

My stop arrived and I got up as swiftly as I could and practically burst off the bus. It was only a few seconds before I felt someone behind me. My heart thundered deep in my chest and before I could take another step, a deep voice made some comment about the odd protectiveness of the man over his shopping. I can’t remember the exact words anymore, but it made me laugh. While he spoke, I spun to see a tall, broad shouldered man standing to my left. I gave some simple reply and took in all that I could see of this person. Groomed beard, darker-than-olive skin, a little chubby, a thick sweater, an alpaca wool beanie, and the most brilliant brown eyes I had ever seen.

It turns out he was watching me on the bus to make sure that guy didn’t touch me.

In about 20 seconds, we came to a standstill and he asked if I lived in the area. I said I didn’t. He told me he was new around here and it would have been nice to know someone nearby. I said my name was Autumn and stuck out my hand. He took it in his and gave me the worst handshake I have ever received and replied with “Jacob”. We walked separate ways and I thought that was that. However, as I walked and thought and remembered all about the interaction, the more my stomach felt full of those damn butterflies and my cheeks pulled out to make a goofy, dopey smile. I loved him right there and then.

Later that night, he added me on Facebook, we spoke and he asked me to coffee. I said yes.

A few days later, we got coffee at Pilgrim. One of my favourite places. We talked and talked and instead of splitting and continuing our day, we wandered and spoke for eight hours. I ended up at a pub with him and his friends, tucked up under his arm. I couldn’t believe it. But at the same time, I could. I knew it would happen this way. I knew how to make people like me. I cut out little bits of my life story that made me seem like the one at fault. I told the horrifying tales of me being the victim but made myself something better than most other people. Totally innocent. It wasn’t even to manipulate him. It was because I wanted to be with this person I could tell would never hurt me. Who would plan extravagant life experiences with me. I was terrified of him saying he had places to be and walking away. I didn’t lie to be sneaky, I lied because I felt inadequate for what I had done in the past and wanted so badly to be someone else. Someone he would love.

He took me home that night. I thought it was a great night, but really, his attempts at keeping me out of his heart were quite horrible. He sent a naked photo of me to his friends so they could rate me. I consented but only because I was scared. I was drunk and in a strangers house. The second we were done having sex, he left me in bed and played video games. He laughed at my ex when he called in an emotional state. I went along with all of it acting like I didn’t mind because this was normal. This wasn’t what I thought it would be, but it was normal to me. Gentle even.

Going forward a few weeks, I started staying there more, he apologised for treating me how he did that first night and eventually he told me he loved me. I think I would have exploded into gold dust right there and then if I could have. I was so happy. We were perfect. Him as he was and I as the person I presented myself as.

He told me from day one I could do just about anything and we could sort it out, except for breaking his trust. That was the one thing that was irreparable to him. I panicked, knowing I had already done that. I was so panicked that I made the decision to believe those lies too. They had to be real or he would leave.

A few months later and some not-so-careful deliberation and I was living in a remote town in the middle of the Australian desert with him and his old friend. I was ecstatic. This was becoming more and more like the fairy tale, book worthy love story I had always longed for. I was forgetting I had even done anything wrong. I will spare all the details of exactly what transpired in those next months but I was discovered. I had also been speaking to someone I had said I had cut contact with, I had said some things about Jacob that were unfair and cruel. He uncovered all the lies I had told to make myself seem pure and hurt. He even gave me several chances to be honest. He prompted and encouraged me to be truthful so that he could feel there was hope. I never took a single one of those prompts until he outright told me he knew about something.

I moved back to Tasmania. He was bound for Perth. He said in three months we could reconnect and see how it went. I asked if we were single, he said yes. I told him I was going to show him I was serious by acting like I was in a relationship for those three months. I caught a bus to the airport before the sun came up and watched his shadow fade away as we pulled out from the station.

I had never felt more hollow and hopeless.

I spent the night in Melbourne. I called on two friends. One from long ago who knows me better than I know myself and the other who I had met once before while he was busking. We all had a picnic and stayed out late talking to homeless people.

My old friend kept me company through the night and made sure I didn’t harm myself. The next day, we had coffee with one of the homeless men from the night before and then he went home, leaving me with our new acquaintance. I soon found myself under a staircase with a young man who was smoking ice in front of me. I was so intensely scared that I searched for anyone to call. I called the busker. I found him and we wandered around. We explored big buildings with dress codes we could never meet and we even busked together. When it came time for me to leave for my plane, I went to hug him goodbye. He kissed me. It wasn’t totally unexpected and I didn’t stop him. I just left.

Once I arrived back home, things only got worse. My self-harming became more regular, as did my night terrors, panic attacks and emotional outbursts. Eventually, I gathered all the medicine I could find and swallowed it all. I ended up in the back of an ambulance as always, followed by the ER.

My mother called Jacob and he was at my side within the week.

He began living with us. He said he wanted to try to be together again. I was happy but I knew there was more he didn’t know about. At least I thought. It turns out he was still prompting me to tell him things he already knew. But he had just come back and I was even more scared to lose him than the first time.

We fought and I exploded in anger most nights. I continued to self-harm and overdose on pain killers. I thought I was just bat-shit insane until one hospital visit with one particular psychiatric nurse. I told him that many people and GPs had suggested Bipolar as a possibility. He chuckled and told me that wasn’t it. He told me he was almost certain it was BPD. He talked to me about what that meant, how it happens and most importantly that it can be fixed. It wouldn’t be easy and it would take years but it can go away with the right help.

I can’t remember ever getting better news. I had a chance.

I had started seeing a psychologist just a bit before that hospital visit and I felt hopeful going to him with Jacob in one hand and this insight in the other. I actually had things to target and focus on. Exercises to try and strategies to test. Thing is, there was yet even more that I would be confronted about. I didn’t even realise how much I had hidden until it was laid out in front of me. Jacob kept swallowing his issues and staying with me. He kept trying because I was too. We both fought, remember?

Well here is the kicker. He had gone away a few weeks earlier and I had a breakdown over an aspect of my life. My sexuality. So how did I choose to handle it? By exploring it on an online video chat. Nothing too lude transpired, at least on my end. But it was vulgar and degrading at best. Jacob discovered that too.

Despite being told over and over again that this will be easier to fix if I am just honest, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was like two voices in control of my body. The first would insist on being logical and honest. That voice was almost always overpowered by the fear in me. The BPD. It would take control of my words and my body and suddenly I was a bystander. She really is a bitch.

Now here we are, months and months later. My therapy has improved my state of mind in such drastic ways, I know that I won’t make those same errors and I feel so much more in control of myself. The only thing is, Jacob is at the end of his ropes. He tried to overcome this for so long that it became something he shouldn’t have to overcome anymore.

He ended it the other night and I had a dramatic anxiety attack and the living room floor.

When I came back to bed and stopped sobbing, I took a few deep breaths and told him that we should end it because it was harming him too much. That I agreed he needed to go.

That was the hardest thing I had ever had to say.

I do not want him to go. Not even a little bit. Just the thought of it brings me undone each time.

But I promised I would not hurt myself and I would not end my life or fall into old habits. I know he was worried about it.

I know I am right for him now but now he needs to be alone.

I love this man so much that the thought of another person being as close to me as he has been in any capacity makes me shudder. I love him so much that he is the only one that I have ever been able to picture in my future. I trust him with all the fragile parts of myself and know he would never try to hurt me. I know he has tried every step of the way. I know he loves me too. Nobody has the same warmth, the same skin, the same intensely beautiful smile or the same mind as him. Nobody could even come close. But all that deserves a chance to flourish and grow. He deserves to be happy and pursue the amazing future I know he has in front of him – and it is because I love him that I know I need to let him go for it to happen.

BPD SYMPTOMS:

· Affective (emotional) instability including intense, episodic emotional anguish, irritability, and anxiety/ panic attacks

· Anger that is inappropriate, intense and difficult to control

· Chronic feelings of emptiness

· Emotional over reactivity (“emotional storms”), emotional responses that are occasionally under reactive, and chronic boredom

· Impulsive behaviours that are harmful to you or to others.

· Self-damaging acts such as excessive spending, unsafe and inappropriate sexual conduct, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating, and recurrent suicidal behaviour, gestures, threats, or self-injurious behaviour

· You may engage in other impulsive behaviours such as actions that are harmful and destructive to yourself, others or to property.

· You may have an inaccurate view of yourself and others, and experience a high level of suspiciousness and other misperceptions.

· A markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of yourself (your identity), and Paranoid ideation or severe dissociative episodes (transient and stress related)

· You may consistently experience expectations of negative and harmful attitudes and behaviours from most people

· Impaired social reasoning under stress

· Impaired memory under stress

· You may experience tumultuous and very unstable relationships.

· You may engage in frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

· Your relationships may be very intense, unstable, and alternate between the extremes of over idealizing and undervaluing people who are important to you

· You may recognise that you have overly dependent and clinging behaviour in important relationships.

#borderline personality disorder #bpd #mental health #mental illness #love #pain #medical #life

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theliterateape · 6 years

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The Surveillance State Made Personal: Why Everyone Should Have a Body Camera

By Don Hall

Once, a long time ago, I was assaulted by an ex-girlfriend. I use the word “assault” but that’s because that is the legal definition. The simpler truth, unpainted with the soft language of the victimized, is that she punched me in face several times because I wanted her out of my house.

So I called the police.

Not because I wanted her arrested but because I wanted her out of my house. Hell, I’d been punched by far larger people with far more malicious intent than her.

She patiently waited for the police and, when they arrived, without a hint of remorse or pause, she told them that I had assaulted her. She accused me of stalking her and luring her to my house and assaulting her.

I knew I was fucked. Her words against mine.

Images of prison flooded into my vision, of my life flushed down the toilet, of the devastation it would cause.

I was so shocked by her statement, at the overwhelming untruth of it, all I did was shrug and say, “I just want her to leave.” The officers assessed the situation, one escorting her to the lawn, the other, hands on his belt near his gun, questioning me. After ten minutes or so, they determined either she was lying or that they couldn’t decide who was lying but ultimately drove her to her car and followed her home.

I sat in my chair and contemplated what was going to happen. She was an activist. She was a woman of color. She had serious ties with the justice system and law professors as close friends. I felt trapped.

An hour later, she came back. Pleading with me to let her in so we could talk about it. When I wouldn’t, she broke my front window with a brick. I finally agreed to sit down, her on one side of the locked screen door and me on the other, and she calmed down. I took my phone, hit voice memo and record, and after 30 minutes got her to admit on the recording that she made it up to hurt me, that I had not assaulted her, that she had punched me rather than the other way around. I had it on tape and I told her so.

I still have that recording on a CD somewhere in a box. You know, just in case.

On May 20, activist Shaun King shared yet another story of a police officer pulling over a black woman and the subsequent horrors of justice so common in that scenario.

“Sherita Dixon Cole just happens to be a close personal friend of Civil Rights Attorney and my close friend Lee Merritt. These are the facts he was able to get together after speaking with Sherita’s family:

On May 20th, 2018 at approximately 1:30AM Sherita Dixon Cole was pulled over in Waxahachie, TX by a Texas State Trooper — Officer Hubbard, near a abandoned car dealership (I287 South & I35 South). She was told she was being stopped because Hubbard expected she was driving while intoxicated. Cole voluntarily performed and passed all DUI/DWI protocol including a breathalyzer. However, Hubbard decided he “didn’t like [her] attitude” and that he was going to take her to jail anyway. He handcuffed her hands behind her back and placed Cole in the front passenger seat of his patrol vehicle. Hubbard then took a seat beside Cole and placed his hand on her thigh. He asked her if she wanted to go home as he hiked up her skirt. He told her that she could earn her way home, if she really wanted to go.

Cole had called her boyfriend to the scene of the stop when she was first pulled over. He arrived just as the officer began to accost her. Hubbard asked Cole who was in the car. When she explained it was her fiancé he asked her, was he armed. When she said he was not, Hubbard retorted “If you tell him what happened he will be armed and his fire arm will be visible when I have to shoot him.” Hubbard went out to speak with Cole’s boyfriend and allowed him to speak with her briefly in his presence. She told him that she passed the DUI/DWI protocol but the officer said he was taking her in anyway “because of [her] attitude.” Hubbard immediately ended the conversation and told Cole he was taking her to the Ellis County Jail. Her fiancé told Hubbard that he would follow them to the jail but Hubbard warned him that he could not follow him and would be arrested if he tried. Cole’s fiancé drove a short distance up the road and waited for the officer to head toward the jail.”

He wrote that she reported being sexually assaulted to the county jail and they refused to take her in for medical treatment. That very evening, the Texas Department of Public Safety responded that the body cam footage of the arrest did not support her claims.

The Faceborg commenting nose-bleed sitters responded in outrage. Apparently, here was another instance that supported the trend. “We believe HER!” was the online cry. King was apoplectic and tweeted without cease about the injustice, that her character was unassailable, demanding DNA testing on the officer, alleged a departmental cover up and insisted the department release the body cam footage to the public.

So they did.

And she lied.

Upon watching the two hours of video, King responded on Medium:

“Earlier today I was able to review nearly two hours of body camera footage provided by the police department. The footage appears to be authentic and trustworthy. At no time does it show any of the horrible allegations originally made by Sherita Dixon-Cole. The officer never threatens her or her fiancé as she described. No sexual assault of any kind takes place. From all indications the officer, Daniel Hubbard, was very professional and patient throughout the ordeal. The whole thing was rather routine and painfully normal.”

There are those who have made the case that, due to decades of police not believing women in assault and rape cases, that it is time for all men to be held accountable. I’ve read think pieces that state that hatred of all men (misandry) is now a just stance and that calls for due process are tantamount to upholding the Patriarchy.

“We believe HER.”

Using the soft language of the victimized,

a dirty joke is sexual harassment

breaking up with someone is abusive behavior

laughing at someone online is assault

Had there not been a functioning camera recording the arrest, Cole would have been successful in using the hysteria of our times to destroy the life of what appears to be an upstanding and honorable peace officer.

Here is where I am faced with a legitimate quandary. How do I have a rational and logical discussion about these issues with people whom I love and respect when my natural — and I would argue, earned — skepticism conflicts so directly with the message that any doubt as to the honesty of accusations is tantamount to putting a boot to the neck of feminism and declaring allegiance to abuse and rape?

The hysteria is such that a recent exchange in which I pointed out the irony of someone who has used the theatrics of abuse narrative and the aforementioned soft language of the victimized whining about someone using the same tactics against her resulted in her mob all agreeing that I was psychotic and dangerous.

A friend was told he was not welcome to an event because he was considered ‘problematic’ and would violate their ‘safe space’ when it was discovered that he questioned the validity of the accusations against Woody Allen. (Something similar happened to me despite my working for a feminist cause for months prior.)

How do I have a conversation with people so entrenched in ideology that it feels somewhat like trying to reason with an avid Trump supporter?

Men should just listen, I'm told. But what if I listen and still disagree with the strident whole-cloth condemnation of behavior I consider ultimately benign? Does "You should just listen" mean that if I don't completely agree that I didn't fully listen? Does listening require me to turn off my brain?

I very much want to be an advocate for women (and men, and, hell, humans in general.) If being a non-thinking reactionary is what is being asked of me, I'm not at all certain I can comply nor would I want to.

More importantly than my perspective, what happens to Officer Hubbard after being falsely accused of rape and police brutality? Is he going to "believe her" the next time he has an assault reported? Or will his lens of personal experience color his perspective to begin doubting any woman's claims?

Maybe everyone should have a body camera and leave their recording apps on their smartphones in continuous ON position. At least with recorded evidence, those who would use a legitimate and necessary social activism for their own nefarious ends will be thwarted.

Or maybe it’ll just make them famous.

#Sherita Dixon Cole #the weight of falsehood #MeToo #Shaun King #surveillance state #body cameras

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bodizwonder · 7 years

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Inside the Lab That’s Quantifying Happiness

In Mississippi, individuals tweet about cake and cookies an terrible lot; in Colorado, it’s noodles. In Mississippi, the most-tweeted exercise is consuming; in Colorado, it’s working, snowboarding, mountain climbing, snowboarding, and biking, in that order. In different phrases, the 2 states fall on reverse ends of the habits spectrum. If you had been to assign a caloric worth to each meals talked about in each tweet by the residents of the United States and a calories-burned worth to each exercise, after which totaled them up, you’d discover that Colorado tweets the very best caloric ratio within the nation and Mississippi the worst.

Sure, you’d be forgiven for doubting individuals’s honesty on Twitter. On these uncommon events once I destroy a complete pint of Ben and Jerry’s, I most assuredly don’t tweet about it. Likewise, I don’t attain for my cellphone each time I strap on a pair of skis.

And but there’s this: Mississippi has the worst rate of diabetes and heart disease within the nation and Colorado has the best. Mississippi has the second-highest percentage of obesity; Colorado has the bottom. Mississippi has the worst life expectancy within the nation; Colorado is close to the highest. Perhaps we’re being extra trustworthy on social media than we expect. And maybe social media has extra to inform us in regards to the state of the nation than we notice.

That’s the proposition of Peter Dodds and Chris Danforth, who co-direct the University of Vermont’s Computational Story Lab, a warren of whiteboards and grad college students in a good-looking brick constructing close to the shores of Lake Champlain. Dodds and Danforth are utilized mathematicians, however they might make a fairly good comedy duo. When I finished by the lab lately, each had been in working garments and cracking jokes. They have an abundance of curls between them and the wiry vitality of continual thinkers. They got here to UVM in 2006 to begin the Vermont Complex Systems Center, which crunches large numbers from large methods and appears for patterns. Out of that, they hatched the Computational Story Lab, which sifts by means of a few of that public information to discern the tales we’re telling ourselves. “It took us a while to come up with the name,” Dodds informed me as we shotgunned espresso and gazed into his MacBook. “We were going to be the Department of Recreational Truth.”

This 12 months, they teamed up with their PhD scholar Andy Reagan to launch the Lexicocalorimeter, an internet instrument that makes use of tweets to compute the energy in and energy out for each state. It’s no mere social gathering trick; the Story Labbers consider the Lexicocalorimeter has vital benefits over slower, extra conventional strategies of gathering well being information. “We don’t have to wait to look at statistics at the end of the year,” Danforth says. “This sort of data is available every day. We can tell if a public health campaign to invest in school nutrition is changing the way people talk about food or engage in activities.” For instance, what if Michael Bloomberg’s proposed ban on sodas bigger than 16 ounces had gone by means of in New York? Using conventional surveys and hospital studies, it will have taken years to measure the influence. But if the Lexicocalorimeter was tuned finely sufficient to precisely measure the adjustments in soda habits by neighborhood, then public well being officers may use it to focus on investments and modify the marketing campaign to cut back weight problems much more successfully.

Playing round with the Lexicocalorimeter is illuminating and sometimes horrifying—a glimpse of the unvarnished American character. Click on a state, and it shows the 200 phrases that made the largest distinction in that state’s calorie counts. In Louisiana (#48 in caloric steadiness), all people’s consuming chocolate, cookies, shrimp, and cake. Everybody’s consuming, interval. It’s one of many solely actions continuously talked about. In California (#12), they dance, run, hike, and bike, however they hardly ever sit or lie down. In my dwelling state of Vermont, the meals on the tip of all people’s thumbs is bacon, which might be an enormous a part of why we devour barely extra energy than the typical state. (In our protection, we additionally spend an inordinate period of time tweeting about beets, broccoli, and bananas.) Despite that, we’re pretty train obsessed, with—you guessed it—snowboarding main the best way. (We crush it on sledding, too.) All this provides us the third-best caloric ratio within the nation, behind Colorado and Wyoming. And certain sufficient, the well being numbers match: We have among the lowest charges of diabetes and weight problems and one of many highest life expectations.

In basic, all states are extra alike than we’d prefer to consider. “Watching TV or movie” is the most-tweeted exercise for each single state within the union, and “pizza” is the most-tweeted meals for each state besides Wyoming (cookies) and Mississippi (ice cream). Where a state’s particular person character actually shines is within the meals and actions talked about far kind of than common. Texas (#36) can’t cease tweeting about doughnuts; Maine (#5) is hooked on lobster. In actions, the mountain states do lots of working, the South is a strong block of consuming, New Jersey is all about “getting my nails done,” and Delaware distinguishes itself with “talking on the phone.”

Dodds and Danforth acknowledge their strategies are usually not excellent. The butter on the lobster doesn’t get counted. There’s no approach of calculating if someone ran 1 mile or ten. But while you’re speaking tens of hundreds of thousands of tweets per day over the complete vary of demographics, the inaccuracies even out—at the least as a lot as they do in comparison with the opposite, equally flawed methods of measuring society’s consuming and exercising habits. As Dodds factors out, the numbers communicate for themselves: The Lexicocalorimeter correlates extraordinarily properly with charges of diabetes and weight problems. “The ridiculous thing about this,” he says, “is that it works.”

We stay in unusual instances. “People leave so much of their id on the web,” Danforth marveled to me, “and they share it openly. That’s enabled a whole host of new instruments to try to understand what’s predictable about our behavior. And it turns out a lot is. As much as we think we’re really complex, people have very structured ways of behaving. The way we move around the earth is very predictable. The way we use language is very predictable.”

For instance, Barack Obama’s approval scores over his presidency strongly correlate with the sentiment of tweets about him 3 months upfront of the approval polls. In different phrases, in case you’d been a savvy politico with a instrument for measuring tweets, you’d have had precious intel months forward of anybody else. “It’s an amazing time in social science because of the data available,” Dodds says. “It’s opened up a window that we absolutely did not have access to before.”

(Courtesy of the Computational Story Lab)

That’s the thought behind the UVM staff’s Hedonometer, which surveys the nation’s tweets every day and calculates a happiness rating for every. The staff had individuals charge 10,000 phrases on a happiness scale of 1 (unhappy) to 9 (joyful). Most phrases are impartial. The happiest words are “laughter” (8.50), “happiness” (8.44), and “love” (8.42). “Hahaha” will get a 7.94, placing it a bit increased than “kisses” (7.74). The largest negatives are “terrorist” (1.30), “suicide” (1.30), and “rape” (1.44). “Shit” will get a 2.50, “bitch” a 3.14, and “fuck” a surprisingly respectable 4.14. Fuck yeah! “Swearing is really important,” Dodds says.

All this provides as much as a mesmerizing sine wave monitoring the nation’s temper from 2009 (the fledging of Twitter) to the current. “One of our goals was to provide a snapshot of the public’s response to something,” Danforth defined, “the texture of the day.” Most common days fall right into a slender band with a mean happiness stage round six, although Saturdays are persistently the happiest days of the week and Tuesdays the grumpiest. There’s additionally a day by day sample, with happiness ranges hovering round 5 and 6 a.m., once we’re all newly optimistic in regards to the day, after which plunging all through the morning and night as actuality units in, reaching a trough of despair round 11 p.m. “The wheels kind of come off,” says Dodds. “We call it the daily unraveling of the human mind.”

You can even parse this by state. The happiest state is—unsurprisingly—Hawaii. The backside dwellers are, as soon as once more, Mississippi and Louisiana, although Delaware will get a stunning bronze for melancholy. The West is joyful, each coastal and mountains, whereas the South and Midwest are sad. Only Tennessee bucks the pattern, an island of smiles in a sea of Southern gloom.

The happiest day of the 12 months is all the time Christmas, when the Hedonometer spikes as phrases like “Christmas,” “happy,” “family,” and “love” flood the ether. The 5 unhappiest days since 2009: the capturing at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Boston Marathon bombings, the Orlando nightclub assault, the capturing of Dallas law enforcement officials, and the election of Donald Trump.

National happiness will not be constant. We had been fairly joyful from 2009 to 2011, regardless of the Great Recession. Then our temper darkened from 2011 to 2014, however we got here out of it: The Hedonometer surged! The 12 months 2015 was a comparatively joyful 1, and the nice emotions stored getting into 2016—till the election took over. Since then, indicators have been rising that one thing horrible is occurring to the American psyche. We’ve by no means been so erratic, with the usually easy blips of the Hedonometer beginning to twitch like somebody failing a lie-detector take a look at. And as of this writing, we’re sinking into an unprecedented malaise.

That is, in case you consider the Hedonometer. On the face of it, measuring one thing as intangible as happiness sounds absurd. Yet, as with the Lexicocalorimeter, the Hedonometer matches “real world” measures such because the Gallup Well-Being Index (which polls individuals on issues like life satisfaction and private well being) and the Peace Index (which surveys charges of homicides, violent crime, and incarceration).

History is stuffed with ideas—from longitude to time—that appeared imprecise till the suitable instrument got here alongside. Even temperature, which to us appears goal, was thought-about unmeasurable for hundreds of years. “People thought you couldn’t do it,” Dodds says. “Because it’s too multifaceted, and the first thermometers were awful.” But finally our devices improved.

Dodds and Danforth see no cause why happiness can’t even be quantifiable. “We’re carrying around these phones that are sensing so much of our behavior,” says Danforth. “Tone of voice. Who we talk to. The types of words we use. We’re trying to push on a few areas and see what’s predictable, both on the population scale and for individuals.” And what they’re discovering is that our telephones have turn out to be surprisingly good devices for taking our emotional temperatures. “Can we tell you’re about to experience an episode of depression based on your social media behavior? Maybe your friends can’t see it, maybe you don’t even realize it, but you’ve started to communicate with a smaller group socially, or you’re not moving around the earth as much.”

By analyzing the tweets of each depressed and wholesome people, the Story Lab has developed algorithms that may precisely establish melancholy months earlier than precise diagnoses by psychological well being practitioners. They’ve even achieved it with Instagram, discovering that depressed people usually tend to put up pictures which can be bluer, grayer, and darker. Their technique outperformed skilled practitioners at figuring out beforehand undiagnosed melancholy. The lab is now partnering with a psychiatrist at UVM who hopes to make use of the algorithm to go looking the social media historical past of ER guests (who give their consent) to foretell suicidal habits.

One of the clearest indicators that the Hedonometer is on to one thing is how properly it really works with media apart from Twitter. The Story Lab has analyzed the phrases in 10,000 books and 1,000 film scripts, and it precisely kinds the feel-goods from the nihilists. Sex and the City is the cheeriest film of all, powered by phrases like love, smiles, wedding ceremony, lovely, and, sure, intercourse. At the underside of the listing now we have grim fare like Commando, Day of the Dead, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Omega Man.

Yet for grimness, none of these can contact Outside’s masterpiece of masochism, “Bury My Pride at Wounded Knees,” by Mark Jenkins, about competing within the 2010 Death Race. I requested Reagan, Dodds, and Danforth to take the emotional temperature of 49 classic Outside stories, which run the gamut from Steve Rinella’s joyful paean to Argentinian steak (“Me, Myself, and Ribeye”) to Jenkins’ mudfest, which begins “I unintentionally pitchfork a clod of manure into my mouth” and goes downhill from there.

(Courtesy of the Computational Story Lab)

Beyond a bit’s general happiness rating, the Hedonometer permits us to chart its emotional journey. Here’s “Into Thin Air,” maybe the last word Outside basic, which begins off joyful (Everest journey!), plunges a couple of 1/3 of the best way by means of the story as Krakauer reaches the perilous Lhotse Face (“It was here that we had our first encounter with death on the mountain”), soars on the midway level (summit!), after which tanks far and quick as storms transfer in, errors are made, and other people die.

Not solely does the fall-rise-fall emotional arc of “Into Thin Air” properly mirror the Himalayas, nevertheless it additionally occurs to be a great instance of a basic narrative arc. Riffing off Kurt Vonnegut’s famous talk on the shapes of archetypal tales, the Story Labbers got here up with six arcs that tales are inclined to observe: Rags-to-Riches (rise), Tragedy (fall), Man-in-a-Hole (fall-rise), Icarus (rise-fall), Cinderella (rise-fall-rise), and Oedipus (fall-rise-fall). Encouragingly, an evaluation of the bestseller lists discovered that the extra complicated narratives (Cinderella and Oedipus) are inclined to promote higher than the less complicated ones.

This fall, the UVM staff might be engaged on teasing much more tales out of the information we share: Can monetary crashes be predicted forward of time? When does pretend information trump actual information? How does a society choose the story it tells about itself? The questions are removed from trivial. “Humans are storytelling organisms,” Dodds says. It’s how we study who we’re. As the Story Lab will get even higher at discovering the alerts in our noise, let’s hope we like what we uncover.

Source: fitnesscaster.com Source: Bodiz Wonder

#Bodiz Wonder #Bodiz Wonder - Wonderful Life

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