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wilwheaton · 1 year

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the scorpion doesn’t care who it stings

I posted this on my Facebook four days ago, and it seems to have taken on a life of its own for a minute.

I thought I’d repost it, here:

I can not fathom the emptiness, the insecurity, the insatiable need for attention and validation, the staggering arrogance, the malevolence and total void of human experience that is Elon Musk.

He's the richest man on the planet. You can't go anywhere or do anything without interacting with something he's part of in some way. There are literal millions of people who uncritically worship him, in spite of overwhelming evidence that he's a douchebag. Some number of them will come after me, as they come after anyone who points at their naked emperor. They'll spend entire days going after me and people like me, slavishly serving a man who does not even know they exist. They are his army of fools, uncritically serving his every whim. And it still isn't enough.

He can have any material thing he wants, and he will *never* be happy or satisfied. He has no real friends. Every single person around him is either a viper, a parasite, or both.

So what does he do? He bullies and threatens and harasses and trolls and behaves like the weak, scared, insecure child he has always been. That's a tragedy for him, but it's dangerous for us. He doesn't care what he destroys or who he hurts as he chases this existential thing he cannot ever have.

You know the saying "hurt people hurt people"? He's a hurt person who is hurting our society, making people I care about less safe. The consequences of this one man's midlife crisis are global, and that terrifies me.

In a comment, about an hour later, I added:

You know what's really interesting is the tiny number of people who are attacking and harassing me are either typical right wing idiots who all spew the same garbage from behind their wraparound sunglasses, or these weird nerds who are DESPERATE to justify how toxic and cruel and destructive Elon Musk is. Like, nerds, listen to Old Man Wheaton, please.

Don't hitch your wagon to Elon Musk. There are countless people who are amazing and genuinely good, who do all the things we wish we could do. Stop defending this piece of shit who would push you into a volcano without even learning your name, if it would save him half a second on his way to his next shitpost on $8Chan (formerly known as Twitter).He doesn't stand up to anyone. He doesn't stand up FOR anyone. He is not your champion. He's angry and chaotic and destructive, and you have to understand that the scorpion doesn't care who it stings.

Finally, I want to add two things: 1) It’s interesting to me that a lot of the people who came to my post to be dicks used a lot of MAGA language. It reminds me of this thing my friend says about concerts: the audience looks like the band. Of course there’s substantial overlap between the angry, hateful, terrified, cowards who support Trump and the same who Stan Elon Musk, and it’s real interesting to see it in action.

2) I haven’t used Twitter for years. I quit before it was popular (lol) because it was better for my mental health. I logged in once when my book was published, and I deleted all my tweets when he announced he was buying Twitter. When he took over and immediately amplified a conspiracy theorist, I made my account private. In a perfect world, I would delete my account entirely. But I have to keep it for reasons I hope I don’t have to explain. After I posted this on Facebook, it made its way around Twitter (still is, four days later, which is ... a thing that is happening) and when people went to look at my account, they saw that it was closed. As much of a fucking manbaby Elon Musk clearly is, he didn’t do anything to my account. In fact, the only reason he even knows I exist (if he does) is through a vanity search of his name. I locked my account on my own, and so should you.

I am only on:

Tumblr

Facebook (itswilwheaton)

Instagram (itswilwheaton)

and my blog that I’ve been neglecting for too long at wilwheaton.net.

I’ve had a Reddit account since 2006, predating user-created subs! I’m u/wil there.

Okay that’s all. Thanks for listening. Please choose to be kind.

#fuck elon musk

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astonmartinii · 1 year

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Heyy! Can I request more vettel insta AU? Honestly I have no preference for the reader I just enjoy reading vettel a lot because of how less we get to see it but I'm happy to discuss suggestions 🤩 hamilton y/n + roscoe, charle's sister anything really

family ties | sebastian vettel instagram au

pairing: sebastian vettel x leclerc!reader

seb may be retiring, but he's not gone from the paddock completely, though the reason is not exactly what you'd expect

ynleclercart

liked by charles_leclerc, pierregasly and 110,067 others

tagged: sebastianvettel

ynleclercart: it's been a rollercoaster of a ride but i am beyond grateful to have been able to design helmets for such an icon of the sport. seb will always be missed on track, but if he ever wants to return, he knows where i am <3

view all 21,450 comments

user49 noooo can people stop posting their goodbye posts for seb i'm still in denial

sebastianvettel no one else i'd rather work with, thank you for always supplying the beautiful lids

ynleclercart always - come visit soon

sebastianvettel i'll be there

user12 ^^ this is just digging the knife deeper PLS DON'T GO SEB

charles_leclerc what about your loving and devilishly good-looking brother?

ynleclercart eh, seb is better

user35 most iconic leclerc and it doesn't even come close

ynleclercpriv

liked by charles_leclerc, sebastianvettel and 31 others

ynleclercpriv: sometimes babygirl is a fully grown man who hikes in his free time

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charles_leclerc tell him if he comes to monaco i'm shaving it

ynleclercpriv over my dead body charlie

charles_leclerc that can be arranged

sebastianvettel thank you for the compliment (?) my love, charles stop threatening her or i shall have to intervene

maxverstappen1 get his ass seb

ynleclercpriv max why are you involved in our family domestic?

maxverstappen1 idk seemed fun

sebastianvettel can we all go back to the original point of the post - admiring me?

f1gossipandtea

liked by 2,130 others

f1gossipandtea: seb spotting!! anon sent me this picture of recently retired sebastian vettel in monaco of all places. why do we think he's there?

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user45 my king is looking so good, retirement unfortunately suits him

user10 my sebchal heart tells me that he was there to see charles but it's not likely :(

user09 no let's be delusional

user22 i saw a post that he was later seen with a woman??? a girlfriend mayhaps?

user49 pls no i can't take retirement and a girlfriend in a month

sebastianvettel added to their story

[caption: had to commission the best in the business - thanks y/n]

ynleclercpriv

liked by sebastianvettel, pierregasly and 35 others

ynleclercpriv: goofing around in the wilderness

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sebastianvettel it's not goofing, we're serious hikers

ynleclercpriv sure we are and i'm also a professional boxer

maxverstappen1 y/n can you get seb to come back? it's a shit show here without him

charles_leclerc i agree with him for once

ynleclercpriv lmao they gagged ur ass @lewishamilton

charles_leclerc y/n i'm being serious !!!! he'll listen to you if you ask

sebastianvettel i can literally read all of this

maxverstappen1 so you'll come back?

sebastianvettel nope

sebastianvettel

liked by ynleclercpriv, charles_leclerc and 702,088 others

sebastianvettel: vacation and all that jazz

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user78 seb using instagram like a normal person after retiring, my prayers were heard

charles_leclerc you're 1000% going to be a crunchy dad

sebastianvettel i don't know what that means but i don't think a person can be crunchy

charles_leclerc that's exactly what a crunchy dad would say

ynleclercpriv don't try and trick him with online terminology

user30 i love the domestics in this comment section i didn't know the leclercs and seb were that close

user40 call me a conspiracy theorist all you want but that's defo y/n leclerc

f1gossipgirl

liked by user45, user10 and 404 others

f1gossipgirl: another seb spotting, the german made a surprise appearance in melbourne... and in a ferrari jacket. our sources say that he was accompanied by a woman but he wasn't seen again other than his entrance. do we think seb will watch from ferrari? does he have a new job? does he have a girlfriend? what do you think?

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user10 omg he's so mysterious but like i need him to be straight up with me right now

user39 my brain: he's probably just there to support, my heart: seb for ferrari team principal

user88 omg imagine seb as team principal helping charles win a championship

user67 so someone commented on seb's post that he might be dating y/n leclerc (charles' sister, seb's old helmet designer and artist) and that would make sense that he'd accompany his gf to support her brother

user11 omg the thought of charles and seb being brother-in-laws

ynleclercpriv

liked by sebastianvettel, charles_leclerc and 35 others

ynleclercpriv: forgive me friends but i am so in love with this man

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charles_leclerc believe me we know

sebastianvettel i love you too honey 🍯

pierregasly where did you get the last photo... asking for a friend

ynleclercpriv it's from norbert - you snooze you lose pear

maxverstappen1 omg parents

charles_leclerc STOP

sebastianvettel i'm not sure we're your parents but yes you can come visit for christmas

charles_leclerc wait i thought we were coming this year

ynleclercpriv more than one family can come at a time - grow up charlie

sebastianvettel

liked by ynleclercpriv, charles_leclerc and 1,023,566 others

sebastianvettel: doing melbourne right

view all 101,677 comments

user45 sebastian... you don't know what a soft launch is

user13 he's an influencer now baby

charles_leclerc i thought social media was stupid ?

sebastianvettel let me appreciate the love of my life in peace

charles_leclerc okay romeo

user19 the last two posts + charles commenting on every post + seb being seen in the paddock IN A FERRARI JACKET = i'm losing my mind

redbullracing can't wait to see you tomorrow champ!

user48 they're fuming he's being seen with ferrari

liked by charles_leclerc, pierregasly and 772,303 others

tagged: scuderiaferrari, charles_leclerc & sebastianvettel

f1: a familiar face back in the ferrari garage! seb made his return to the scuderia in melbourne surrounded by former coworkers and the leclerc family.

view all 96,236 comments

user48 AND THE LECLERC FAMILY ??? they know what they're doing f1 admin is a seb x y/n truther

liked by f1

charles_leclerc he loves me too much to stay away for too long

ynleclercpriv *us

user38 YALLLLLLLLLLL

user97 i need them to confirm it i love them so much

user21 the way y/n has commented - her account is priv but there's over 1,000 posts HOW MUCH OF IT IS SEB PLS GIVE US THE CONTENT

ynleclercpriv i don't kiss and tell xoxo

charles_leclerc

liked by ynleclercpriv, sebastianvettel and 1,304,778 others

charles_leclerc: congratulations on officially joining the leclerc family seb!! thank you for putting up with me and i expect great birthday and christmas presents xx

view all 211,056 comments

sebastianvettel of course you spoiled this, i love you but you are an unfortunate by-product of my relationship with y/n

user23 CONFIRMATION

pierregasly CHARLES NO

danielricciardo CHARLES NO

landonorris CHARLES NO

maxverstappen1 CHARLES NO

ynleclercpriv YOU FUCKING MORON CHARLES I'M LOCKING YOU OUT

sebastianvettel

liked by charles_leclerc, ynleclercpriv and 2,134,677 others

sebastianvettel: happy engagement to the love of my life, your brother may have spoiled it, but i'm prepared to deal with his annoying ass if i get to be with you for the rest of my life. you make life worth living and i can't wait to explore the world with you x

view all 301,451 comments

user39 when will it happen for me god?

charles_leclerc I'M SORRY I LOVE YOU GUYS THOUGH

maxverstappen1 bagsy flower boy

danielricciardo pleasse let me plan the stag

aussiegrit congrats seb!!

christianhorner congratulations seb and y/n

ynleclercpriv i love you so so so much seb, i'm so glad i met you. you've changed my life and finally showed me what love truly means x

note: omg this post has posted so many times unfinished im gonna lsoe my mind

#f1 instagram au #f1 x reader #f1 x you #f1 imagine #sebastian vettel x reader #sebastian vettel imagine #sebastian vettel instagram au #sebastian vettel x you #sebastian vettel

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multifandomfanficss · 8 months

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Stuck With You

Adrian Chase/Vigilante x Reader

Adrian Chase Masterlist

Prompt: When the team sticks their newest member with Vigilante, everyone feels bad for you, but you’re grateful to have him around when you run into something from your past and lose your cool.

Warnings: panic attacks, human experimentation, referenced child abuse

A/N: I found a couple lines of dialogue in my drafts that I never did anything with and I had the writing bug today so I decided to finally make something with it! I’ll crosspost it on my AO3 adriansglasses as well. Hope you enjoy!

“(L/N), you’re with Vigilante.” Harcourt says, at the beginning of the meeting.

“You’re really gonna stick the newest person with that psycho?” John asks.

“You don’t need to be mean to Adrian just because he’s not here.” Leota starts.

“I would say it to his face too. He’d probably just laugh and call me his 4th best friend.” John retorts.

You hadn’t been with the team for long. This was your first mission with them. After a mission gone too out of control, Waller sent you to the middle of nowhere Evergreen, Washington. You thought she’d sent you here because the environment would be less hectic, but the longer you’re there, the more you realize she probably sent you here because everyone on this team is either highly traumatized or in need of more experience. She was trying to put the training wheels back on. From what you’d been told by the team’s top conspiracy theorist, Christopher Smith, this team was originally supposed to be an expendable scapegoat, but they ended up saving the world. You had no idea what to believe at this point.

“What’s up with Vigilante?” You ask, wondering why this was all such a hot topic. You hadn’t known him for long. He seemed a little odd, but overall fine. If you were being honest you actually kind of liked him. He was sweet and funny, often without trying. There was this comforting air about him and you didn’t really know why. He was a good fighter and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t think he was at least a little bit cute.

“He’s a little…” Chris started moving his finger in a circular motion, trying to insinuate that Adrian was crazy.

“He can’t be that bad.” You smile.

Suddenly Adrian comes running into the old video store tripping over one of his shin guards that wasn’t on properly. He sits down and fastens it.

“Sorry I’m late, guys. They kept me late at the restaurant and then when I was trying to put on my suit in the car I accidentally ran a red light and usually I would kill somebody for that, but I mean I think the more important thing is that I didn’t run over the old lady crossing the street! She was totally fine and I know she’s alive because she screamed at me…I’ve never seen an old lady use to many swear words. It was kind of awesome! Anyway what did I miss?”

“You put on your suit while driving?” Leota asks.

“Yup.” He gives a straight face nod. Adrian often had a way about him, as if what he was thinking should be obvious to other people, when in fact, it was not obvious to most people most of the time.

“You amaze me.” Harcourt says, sarcastically.

“Thank you.” Adrian smiles, not catching her sarcasm.

She rolls her eyes, sighing.

———————————————————————

Later on that night you and Adrian found yourselves walking through a series of tunnels.

“John, I think we might be lost.” You spoke into your coms, hoping he can help you from the van.

“I can’t even hear you in my earpiece and I’m right next to you. I think we lost the signal.” Adrian walks in silence for a few seconds before adding, “I’m sorry you got stuck with me.” He looks at the ground, sad.

“What are you talking about?”

“I know they stuck you with me. Nobody ever really chooses to be my partner.” He lightly kicks a rock, pretending not to be bothered.

“They did pair us up, but that doesn’t mean I was disappointed.” You smile.

“Really? Why would you want me?”

“Well first of all, you’re a great fighter. You were also the first person to attempt to be my friend. I’d trust you in the field over anyone.”

“Really?” You can hear the surprise in his voice.

“Yeah.” You let out a soft giggle. “Why are you so surprised that I like you?”

“Usually everyone just tells me to shut up or fuck off.”

“Well I’m not everyone.” You nudge him playfully as you walk.

Soon you come upon a door. It’s a little rusted, but Adrian shoots the lock off and you’re able to break in.

“What is this place?” He asks.

As soon as you walk inside you see the tubes, the files, the devices, the tables, the symbols. You know exactly what this is. This is an old facility for the for the group that made you leave your old job, the mission that ruined your life. You see files on the table, files no doubt full of details on the children they were experimenting on. The group would take orphaned children or children who were abandoned and unwanted, kids who had no one to protect them, and they would experiment on them. They were human trials to try to find new ways of making superheroes. This must have been one of their old abandoned facilities. Despite the lab being inactive, just the sight of it was still enough to send you into a spiral.

Your heart starts beating rapidly as you grow dizzy. You look down at your shaking hands. You’re starting to lose control of your breathing.

“I- I can’t-“ You walk backwards out of the room, starting to hyperventilate.

“Woah. Hey, what’s going on? Are you having a panic attack?” Adrian slowly puts his hands out towards you. He’s a little unsure of what to do.

“I’ve seen this before!” Your entire world is spinning as your start to cry. You can’t stop thinking about the awful things you saw when you snuck into their active facility earlier this year. Those poor children. Part of you was starting to wonder if Waller put you on this team for a reason. You should have known better than to think she was giving you a break. Waller always had some sort of fucked up motive that only worked for herself hidden up her sleeve. “I can’t fucking breathe!” You sob, sucking in air.

“Tender nice touching.” Adrian slowly approached you, patting your shoulder. You needed pressure on your body. You felt like you were slipping away from earth and you needed to be held down.

“Can I have a hug?” You asked, quietly.

“You want a hug?” He asked, his voice just as quiet. He was speaking softly to not startle you further.

“Yeah…”

“I think I can do that.“ He smiles, slowly bringing you into his arms. A little loose at first, he tightened the hug as you melted into him.

“I’m sorry- I- I just…I know what the did here and- and-“ Adrian shushes you as you begin to stutter, your mind moving much faster than your mouth is able to.

“You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you. Just breathe with me. Don’t focus on anything else, but your breathing okay? Can you feel me breathing?” He rubs your back as you cry into his arms. You nod. “Okay, good. Just…just follow that.” He sighs and then focuses on making his own breathing something you can follow.

“Sometimes it’s hard for me to know what people on the team want because I know Chris doesn’t wanna look weak and Harcourt would kill me if I touched her, so I try to be careful. I just don’t wanna upset you guys more, but if you want me hold you I can keep doing that. Just let me know what you need and I’ll do it.” He says, softly.

“Can you just keep talking?” You ask. The sound of his voice is soothing and grounding.

“You want me to keep talking?” He smiles. “You’re in luck. I’m actually really good at talking. So good, in fact, that people are constantly asking me to shut up. So uh… What can I talk about? Oh! I know. So I have this friend at work. His name is Taylor. Well, he says we’re not friends, but he texts me all time time asking me to help cover his shifts and I would only trust a friend enough to ask them for that, so I think we’re friends. Anyway, so Taylor walked in this morning and…”

The longer Adrian rambles on the better you feel. The pressure of his body on yours and his voice slowly bring you back to earth. Eventually you find yourselves walking back through the tunnels, hand in hand, retracing your steps as he guides you back to the van to regroup. He keeps you distracted with silly stories the entire walk back.

You don’t know what the rest of your team was talking about. Adrian was the best partner you could have had.

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reasonsforhope · 3 months

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hey i get what youre trying to say with the taylor swift post but as of a few days ago shes trying to sue a college student who posts her (publicly available) flight logs. she very much does not give a shit about her carbon emissions and she shouldn’t be celebrated for her mediocre attempts to seem climate-conscious

I get what you're saying, definitely. I also did actually know about the thing with the college student when I posted that, so I wanted to give some context about why I made that post:

First, I personally didn't view it as celebrating her so much as celebrating progress. I think that if we never acknowledge wins, we'll end up dispirited very quickly

Second, recognizing when people decide to be less shitty is, at least I think, an important carrot in the carrot-and-stick dynamic of using public opinion to influence public figures

Lastly - and this may well be an unpopular opinion - but I don't actually hold her actions re: the college student against her

Why?

Well, for one, it was a cease and desist letter, not an attempted lawsuit. A cease and desist letter isn't legally binding, nor is it the start of a lawsuit - it's more like she's Putting Him On Notice. A cease and desist order can be followed by a lawsuit, if it's ignored, but it doesn't initiate one. Likely Taylor Swift will try several other steps of resolution before actually telling her lawyers to sue this guy, if only because the headlines would Not look good (x, x)

But more than that, I don't hold it against her because when Taylor Swift says that it's a matter of life and death for her, I believe that's very true.

Like, don't get me wrong, I'm not mad about her flight data being up either. And I'm not particularly a fan of Taylor Swift

But I also think that if I had to read through the rape and death threats she gets on an almost-certainly-daily basis, I'd want to vomit.

And I think that was true before Trump and his minions got obsessed with the idea that she's the keystone in the next Biden-election-stealing Pentagon psyops plot. Now - especially in the days right before the Superbowl, when this alleged conspiracy is supposed to happen - I don't even want to think about the brutality of the threats she's receiving

(For anyone going "Uh, wtf?" about the MAGA Superbowl Taylor Swift conspiracy thing, yes, I hate to inform you that it's A Whole Thing. More info here: x, x, x, x, x, x)

Taylor Swift does have stalkers, and now she has a bunch of MAGA paramilitary conspiracy theorists absolutely furious with her. If I were her, I'd want to do every single thing I could to keep information on my movements and in-the-moment location off the internet, too

tl;dr: I don't necessarily think she cares about the environment, but I'm not mad at her for sending a cease and desist letter because I think without her extensive security, she would be in real danger now, including possibly danger of being killed by armed MAGA conspiracy theorists

You're allowed to be mad at her and dislike her (obviously!), you're allowed to totally disagree with my attitude toward the cease and desist. I just wanted to share my rationale for including the post (and it is something I went back and forth on tbh)

#Anonymous #ask #me #taylor swift #celebrities #private jets #planes #cw rape mention #cw vomit mention #cw stalking #sidenote I'm really not sure why “she's going to endorse Joe Biden at the Superbowl” counts as a conspiracy theory #much less worth KILLING HER over #but they're straight up going on about her being an official asset for pentagon psyops #so #apparently it is #edited quickly to reflect the fact that she's accused of being a pentagon psyop asset #not a deep state member #literally only because she's not in any kind of official political anything I'm sure

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gretchensinister · 2 months

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Babylon 5 rewatch, S1 E8: And the Sky Full of Stars

IDK if it's how I'm watching it or what, but the lighting on B5 seems dimmer than I would expect in public spaces

Okay okay plot: guy needs money for shady reasons, other guys have Sinclair as a target for who knows what

Oh, it's not notable shady reasons, it's just a gambling problem

The guy with the longish gray hair that's going to do Something to Sinclair has a very 90s energy, I can't define it but it's so notable

I like Dr. Franklin and Delenn's scene here with the practicality of getting information about other species brought up.

Yeah Delenn what DID you do during the war?

The design of that weird chair is good, I definitely believe that they built it out of smuggled in pieces and that it's going to be used for nefarious purposes

Ignoring the plot to wonder about Sinclair's kitchen area not appearing to have a sink or any appliances (I know it's just a set but I think about trying to redesign my tiny apartment kitchen a lot)

Sinclair is in the Torment Nexus

At least it's hard for the commander of an entire space station to disappear without notice

Of course it's a simulation that's what happens to guys in charge of space stations/starships, other weird guys show up to fuck with your head. Notable employment hazard.

Sinclair's Mysterious Day! Yesss let's find out about it (shame the exposition has to come through the Torment Nexus)

Sinclair is 39...I guess that makes sense. (Maybe I just know so many people in that age group with so much less responsibility.)

The angelfish-looking Minbari ships <3

If you believe in yourself you can punch your way out of the mind prison (I mean...it didn't work yet, but it might)

I think B5 as a show does well with naming things. I mean, maybe it's just familiarity at his point, but the Battle of the Line is simple, evocative, and IMO gives you an idea of what it was about

Goodbye Benson we hardly knew ye

Yeah where exactly are these "Knights" from?

I think the guy playing the interrogator would be great to see on stage.

Another human supremacist conspiracy theorist, boooo

"Maybe the universe blinked" I do like that line

"There is a hole in your mind" that was from the pilot movie we missed on the rewatch schedule, wasn't it?

:D :D :D (my reaction to the triluminary [did I remember that correctly?] appearing)

I know who that waaaaaaaas

YES you CAN punch your way out of the mind prison if you love your station enough

Delenn we (the audience) still want MANY more answers about what you were doing during the war

I have a feeling this guy is going to be interrogated by psycops as soon as he gets back to Earth

Secrettsssssss I love this dynamic though

It's an interesting 90s thing that Sinclair is comfortable making a electronic/digital recording of this EXTREMELY sensitive information, these days my perspective is if you want it to be secret it's on paper hidden in your mattress or something

#babylon 5 #b5-rewatch #b5 rewatch

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gojifan97 · 2 years

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An AU where All for One accidentally sends his son Izuku and his ward to Tomura to the wrong summer camps. Izuku gets sent to a training camp for young villains. Tomura gets sent to an All Might fans summer camp with All Might himself as a guest lecturer. Please work your cracky magic!

AFO had it all under control. At least that's what he told himself. In actuality being potatoed had really frazzled his mind, so when Inko and Kurogiri asked for coordinates at the same time, he quickly looked up both and sent them, never even noticing he sent them the wrong coordinates.

Inko was confused that the camp was so remote, but she trusted her husband. So she told Izuku she loved him and sent him off. When Izuku arrived it didn't take him long to figure out he was at the wrong camp, what with nobody knowing anything about AM and several camp counselors being wanted criminals, but it wasn't like he could openly say anything now could he? Luckily, everyone treats him with respect as AFO's protoge so he plays along so he won't get killed.

Tomura wonders if he did something wrong for Sensei to send him to what seems the 10th circle of Hell. Or could this be the villain camp? Yes, a villain camp disguised as an All Might camp! That makes perfect sense! Unfortunately his attempts to flaunt his authority soon get him sent to the time-out corner, and he's forced to wear gloves to control his quirk. He'd fight back, but that Todoroki girl is terrifying.

Izuku is soon practically running the camp. Not only is he the smartest kid there and giving everyone in depth quirk analysis in exchange for swearing their loyalty to him (so he can keep them from using his advice for evil and maybe get them to buy merch for him), but he's also learning a lot that would be useful for hero work from the counselors! Also people genuinely like him, which is an absolute dream for him! The only one that doesn't is that janitor Dabi who insists Izuku's a spy. Everyone ignores him for being a conspiracy theorist who failed to kill a mouse once.

Tomura is having less success. His prior quirk usage has caused them to watch extra close that he doesn't "accidentally" lose his gloves, meaning that when an All Might handshake event happens he actually has to shake that filthy beast's hand! Without killing him! Also All Might talks about things like not leaving everything for him and helping yourself, which Tomura hates for actually being ok advice! Even worse, All Might at one point asks Tomura on video game metaphors to use! Tomura helps of course, but only to show off how much he knows. He's such a problem child that eventually the camp's guidance counselor takes interest in him: Gran Torino.

To everyone's shock, Gran's "character building" sessions actually work! Partly because he plays video games with Tomura afterward (he's quite good) but also because Tomura respects violence. Soon he's decided violence without being arrested seems like a neat idea after all! Especially since he can adopt a corgi that way! When Tomura learns that Gran new his grandma, he comes clean to help him stop AFO so he can get that corgi because it's the right thing to do.

Izuku finally brings Dabi to his side by letting him run the camp's theater club. Dabi loves melodramatic acting so much he forgets about his father. Well mostly, he still loves bashing Endeavor in his plays. Izuku then has his legion overthrow the counselors and become Heroes! Except Dabi, he's becoming a theater actor/vigilante.

Izuku's calling the authorities when AM arrives at the villain camp. Izuku: I need the Heroes to come and arrest some major villains! We're at- AM: I AM HERE! Izuku: Wow that was fast! Dispatcher: ???

AM notices no one's attacking him and that several villains are tied up. He demands to know who's in charge. They almost pull a Spartacus, but when Izuku steps forward, they all point at him.

Izuku marches toward All Might, flipping through his book like he's looking for the perfect page to handle him with. All Might tenses up. Finally Izuku stops in front of them and holds his book out. Izuku: Can I have your autograph? AM: ???

The villains are arrested, the villain kids (and Tomura) pardoned for their help, Tomura gets his corgi, Izuku gets AM for a new dad and eventually OFA, and AFO flees the country to escape Inko the heroes. He will later be found with a concussion caused by someone beating him with a frying pan. The culprit is still a unknown.

#all might: young midoriya is such a sweet innocent boy!#gran: he took over a camp full of hardened of villains in less than a week with no backup or experience #despite the counselors including several hardened murderers #am: yes but he did it innocently!#my hero academia #tomura shigaraki #izuku midoriya #all might #5 headcanons ask game

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gwgaccountant · 8 months

Text

Dan Olson's newest documentary, "This Is Financial Advice," has really gotten into my head.

I should mention this first: I'm going to call the memestock redditors believing the MOASS conspiracy theory "apes" because that's one of their most common names for themselves. Like most of their other self-descriptors, it implies a lack of intelligence. There's a weird self-deprecating streak in the memestock community, which you'd think would be incompatible with a typical conspiracy theorist's overconfidence. You'd be wrong. That's part of what's interesting.

Part of me wants to break down all the places where the self-proclaimed apes' financial theories break down. Like, if we accept that Ken Griffin needs to buy back more Gamestop shares than are in existence, and that the Reddit apes already own most real shares of Gamestop, and that all of them will hodl as the stock prices rise to plausibly high stock prices, the hedge funds wouldn't be forcibly liquidated to pay arbitrarily high prices demanded by the apes. The short sale contract is a contract between the short-seller and the lender; nobody involved has an obligation to the shareholders. If stock prices rose too high, the short-seller would either cut a deal with the lender or break contract and deal with the legal consequences. But this kind of thing is pointless; the people who believe that stuff aren't available to be persuaded, and the exercise requires accepting so many absurd premises that its educational value is limited.

Another part of me is fascinated by how the whole memestock community is basically playing the world's slowest game of chicken. They seem to conceptualize their conflict with hedge funds as—well, first of as a conflict that both sides are participating in, where both sides are fighting by the same rules. But those rules are, themselves, kinda silly. The apes ascribe their inevitable, ultimate victory to the fact that they're willing to grind video games for little practical reward; their actions involve stubbornly refusing to sell the stocks they buy, even as the company they represent goes bankrupt and warns investors that those shares are likely to become worthless soon. As far as I can tell, they conceptualize the conflict as basically a contest of will—the diamond-handed apes holding onto their stocks versus the greedy hedge funds...doing...something. Spreading FUD, I guess. It's such a weird conflict and bears so little relationship to how actual finance works.

It also overlaps in some key ways with other topics Dan Olsen has covered, which isn't surprising. Everyone needs a niche, and Olsen's is increasingly online conspiracy theories and grifts. Also, /r/Superstonk users are swimming in the same waters as a lot of conspiracy theorists and crypto-bros, and the sort of person who buys GME because Reddit says it'll make them all gorrilionaires and then swallows conspiracies like tic-tacs to explain why the price is still falling is probably vulnerable to blockchain scams and flat-earth theories and such.

But there are also interesting differences! To start with, despite being a financial conspiracy theory, MOASS is remarkably non-antisemitic. There is still antisemitism, don't get me wrong, but since the villains of their conspiracy are international financial institutions, I expected more. I expected the antisemitism to be front and center, even more prominent than in most conspiracy theories. But it's not! It's probably less antisemitic than the average conspiracy theory!

There's also the fact that apes are basically trying to organize a counter-conspiracy. It's an ineffective one, considering how its plans are based on a bunch of lies they keep telling each other, but they're still organizing an effort to create a new world order with themselves at the top, by accumulating financial capital and forcing the US government to pay obligations owed to them. It sounds like the kind of thing a conspiracy theory with the average amount of antisemitism would say Jews are doing. You don't see that kind of counter-conspiracy "we're gonna take over the world" thing often, outside Christian Dominionist circles and imperialist war hawks, and their "we" is a lot broader than the apes'.

On a completely unrelated note, one of MOASS's core figureheads, DFV, is an ordinary securities broker who wanted to be a finance Influencer. He said that GameStop was probably undervalued by about 50%; it would probably see a bump in 2020 from the ninth console generation (which wouldn't be delayed by any unexpected global events that also hurt brick-and-mortar retail in general), which would give it the capital needed to potentially pivot to a business model that's more sustainable in our digital world. By saying GME was undervalued, defending his theory despite the global pandemic ruining the assumptions it was based on, and celebrating GME's obviously unsustainable prices as evidence of his theory being correct despite being caused by completely different factors, DFV became a bit of a thought leader. The apes started reading anything he said in public as a coded message to them, which lead DFV to withdraw from the memestock community and social media overall, which lead to the apes simply recasting him as the sort of shadowy cabal leader that would be a conspiracy theory villain if he wasn't supposedly supporting and leading the apes from the shadows. DFV is not perfect. He committed to his pet theory even when the basis for it collapsed, even though COVID gave him a perfect ego-preserving exit ("I was wrong, but who could have predicted the pandemic?") He then took an equally unpredictable freak event as confirmation of that theory, even though it was unrelated to the theory's premise. But he saw a bunch of increasingly conspiratorial cranks who wanted to make him a figurehead in their movement, potentially giving a huge boost to his finance Influencer dreams, and said "no, bye". I can respect that.

Ryan Cohen is such a character. He's a perfect example of a capitalist failson. He's an activist investor, a concept which I've been meaning to ramble about ever since I learned of the term in one of my accounting classes. But he likes attention and is willing to give apes the kind of crumbs they like for it. And maybe manipulate them for his own profit. Despite this, the apes still treat Cohen as a trustworthy savior, so much that Carl Icahn got drafted into the pantheon through flimsy association with Cohen. They think he has this master plan to create a megacorporation out of failing retailers that he has already stopped meddling with, which will somehow make the apes into billionaire cyberpunk villains.

Speaking of which: For all that the memestock apes like to position themselves against Wall Street's real-life cyberpunk villains, their predictable bad decisions are making a tidy profit for those same villains. (Aside from the one company that went out of business because it was making short sales that were considered reckless before Reddit started memestocking.) I don't have a point here, it's just ironic.

And, of course: Is the headband guy the same as the "I'm within 400 feet of an elementary school to prove the haters wrong and tell you about an unmissable business opportunity" guy from the Contrepreneurs video?

#dan olson #folding ideas #reddit #memestocks #moass #gamestop

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bennydwight · 1 year

Note

Saw the "Libby in Chairman's Robe" piece just now, and I wanna ask, how do you think Molly would look, and feel, in that robe?

Okay okay okay Koskela I’m so sorry but you opened the floodgates here.

I know the intention here was a cute picture of Molly playing dress up but for some reason I saw your ask and my mind exploded with enough red string to choke a conspiracy theorist and I have to get all this out somewhere, so buckle in folks because I’m about to jump to more conclusions than a paranoid frog and it’s going to get long

Molly and the Cloak

We begin with the previous Chairman. An intimidating looking dude, meant to serve as a direct opposite character-creation-wise to the ghosts immediately around him. He’s physically taller, built like an inverted triangle as a contrast to the characters he usually hangs out with

(Scratch is a rectangle don’t @ me)

But there’s one more interesting physical difference he has with every other ghost we’ve been introduced to:

Underneath the cloak, the Chairman is bone. In fact, the bone motif seems to be a large part of his design, since his facial area is shaped loosely like a skull.

Neither of which ghosts have.

And we know it isn’t a style transformation because when Scratch uses the cloak, he’s still the same underneath (no bones about it!)

And since skeletons haven’t been introduced to part of series canon (maybe they’re planning that for season three), we can only deduce that there was once a human under the hood. And it’s not a typical way for a human to exist in the Ghost World, since the default form is obviously ectoplasmic and not skeletal. So what might’ve caused the Chairman to differ so greatly from his peers?

(This is where the red string comes out.)

Before we dive into the next point, let’s take a look at some of the other traits of the Chairman for the purposes of this headcanon/theory/alternate universe/whatever:

He never speaks

He rarely moves, only in stiff, disjointed jerks

He gains power and sustenance from misery

We’ll get to that last one later, but for now let’s focus on the first two. We’ve seen these symptoms in another concept already introduced to us: possession. (Speaking less so than moving, but we do know there's at least a tonal difference.) So if the human that was once the Chairman is dead, why isn’t the ghost under the robe? What happened to it? The thing that makes it tick, the soul, the free will, is gone, leaving only the physical body behind. You could argue, sure, that the human died, the ghost went on to have fun ghosty adventures, and its body was left behind for something else to pick it up (but why bother if everyone’s a ghost anyway?)

Well, the thing that picked it up wasn’t a ghost.

The Chairman is the Cloak possessing a human corpse.

This explains a few things: it doesn’t talk because its got no voice (either meat or spectral), it keeps movement to a minimum to avoid suspicion, the body provides a shape to fill it out (hence why the Chairman has more human proportions), and solidity could also act as a form of armour.

(My theory here on why it had to be a corpse it couldn’t just be a ghost is that, from what we’ve seen, we can assume that ghosts can’t possess other ghosts. Otherwise nothing would get done. It’s likely the Cloak needs a physical vessel because trying to push a spirit out of a body without the body probably won’t work too well.)

But why go through all the rigamarole of possessing a skeleton and instigating yourself as the head of a ghost society? Why the secrecy? Now we get to point three: misery. The Cloak needs to feed off misery, and a bunch of angry, bitter people with lifetimes of grudges is probably a pretty great meal. Access to so much misery ensures its growth and survival. It’s a parasite. One with rudimentary forms of free will too, as we’ve seen the Chairman making decisions of its own accord.

As an intelligent parasite with the potential for an eternity of sustenance at your fingertips, the only smart thing to do would be ensure you kept the misery-generators under your control and were in the position to manipulate your surroundings to prioritize your continued survival (why scaring is mandatory, closely monitored, and punished if insufficient). Thus, the Chairman rises to power.

The deal was probably pretty good until the season finale. With the misery engine that was the Flow of Failed Phantoms gone, and the final hit depleting the last of the misery-born power the Cloak held, it lost control of its vessel, now so old that the bones basically liquified instantly. Weak and desperate to cling to life (as parasites are), it fell dormant as a defense mechanism.

Another thing to consider: in the season two premiere, we’re told that the person who vanquishes the Chairman becomes the next one and inherits the Cloak (makes sense, a position of ultimate power is probably pretty good for the parasite to remain in). We don’t know if its been a ghost before (we don’t know how long the previous body lasted), but the next leader is… Scratch. Someone wholly uninterested in power or misery of any kind, and unable to be controlled since he can’t be possessed.

Not a great day for the Cloak, I bet.

Any other parasite would pack their bags, not a whole lot of surviving happening if the new Chairman decrees scaring isn’t necessary anymore. But the Cloak sits quiet and plays nice. Why? Because of a simple little detail that’s bothered me ever since season two episode one dropped.

Scratch didn’t kill the old Chairman.

Molly did.

Young, human, easily controlled if it can just get close enough, the Cloak won’t bother settling for second best when the grand prize sleeps four feet away from its current host, not when its existence is on the line. Its still weak from the massive blow of joy Molly dealt, but it can feed off background misery and regain strength until Molly asks to play dress up one day, or Scratch leaves it laying around unsupervised, and then it’s an easy job of quashing one tiny soul and regaining power.

Its had an afterlifetime of practice, after all.

#asks #koskela13 #thank you for the ask!#the ghost and molly mcgee #tgamm #tgamm season 2 #tgamm spoilers #art #lineless art #Molly #scratch #the chairman #I felt like a genius putting these thoughts together #but I probably sound like a madman #tgamm theories #anyway tldr I don’t think she’d like it because it’s itchy next question

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clickerflight · 10 months

Text

Burned at the stake - Part 1

Well. I have done it. 14K ish words. I'll put this out in about 5 bits me thinks. Anyways, enjoy!

Content: Vampire whumpee, out of body experience (?), mention of vampire trafficking, burning flesh

Let me know if you want to be on a tag list

.....................................

Fanatic was a word often tied to cults, to religious nuts, to conspiracy theorists, which really is quite narrow minded. The word fanatic more often applies to a wider range of people, more specifically known as anthropology students. After all, who else would spend outrageous amounts of money and time to go to some remote jungle that could most certainly kill them in a thousand different ways for the remote chance that they might find some ancient temple that some random drunk dude swore till he was blue was there, and also very haunted.

So, yes, Joanna was having just about as much fun as a human being could experience as she hacked her way through the brush ahead of her slightly less enthusiastic colleague, Kyle. Because he had more of his wits about her (more but not much more as he was a student of ancient languages and only here in case they found the temple and something needed to be translated) he was slowed by making sure they marked the path back clearly.

“Joanna, when was the last time you looked at the map?”

“Kyle, you know as well as I that time does not exist out here,” she replied, pausing to get a sip of water before pushing forward again. “But we do not need a map! All we need is our hearts and our minds!”

Kyle laughed as she flashed him a grin while reaching to pull out the map and check the compass. “Yeah, we’re on track.”

“Good,” Kyle replied. “Do you know how much farther we need to go?”

“Well, probably another 2 or 3 miles but…..”

Kyle paused, looking at Joanna who’s movements became more purposeful and smooth, like she was completing a ritual. Kyle felt it as well. There was a tension in the air. Something that said they would discover something interesting soon, like the forest was holding its breath while it waited for their reaction.

And now that he thought about it, the birds had all gone silent.

Joanna had noticed as well, and she slowed down so he could catch up with her. His shoulder brushed hers as she paused, leaning to see past the foliage ahead. It almost seemed as though there was a man-made clearing, and the tension in the air went from intriguing to nerve wracking. Kyle glanced past Joanna who tightened her grip on her machete and pushed forward. The foliage around the clearing was dense, and the effort to get through it left Joanna and Kyle exhausted as they took turns cutting the vines. Kyle was so exhausted, in fact, that when he broke through the foliage with one last swing his tired arms and legs didn’t expect the lack of resistance and he fell through into the clearing.

A cloud of fine particles filled the air around him, coating his mouth as Kyle took a surprised breath. Kyle coughed hard, stirring up the ash around him as he forced himself up and out of the cloud he had stirred into the air, trying to find fresh air as Joanna came out behind him.

Kyle continued coughing out a lung or two as she stood there silently, and as his voice came back to him, he choked out, “I’m fine, by the way.” He coughed, listening for Joanna’s apology or joke or-

He blinked hard, eyes watering as he turned to look at her. “Joanna? I-”

Joanna was pale and staring at something behind him. He turned quickly, ash swirling up around his feet. The ash was everywhere in the clearing. The clearing was huge, as well, as though it had been burned and razed. Or maybe the thick layers of ash were killing off life and keeping the plants from coming back in the clearing.

The immense expanse of ash, so strange and wrong compared to the jungle that refused to touch the clearing, was nothing compared to what was in the middle.

A pole jutted from the ground, silver chains nearly hidden in the ashes underneath the charred and blackened mass skewered on the pole. There was the faint shape of ribs in the mass, the whole thing smoking faintly in the sun.

“Uhhhhhhhh, what’s that?” Kyle asked softly, but his voice seemed to ring in his ears without the dense foliage to muffle it.

“I dunno, but I’m gonna touch it,” Joanna said, kicking her way through the ashes with a scared, though determined step.

“Joanna!? What do you mean you’re gonna touch it!?” he cried, reaching forward to stop her.

She dodged past him, turning grey as the ash melted into the sweat of her body. She reached the charred mass on the pole and reached out a hand, brushing over it. She screamed and jumped back as more ash and char crumbled through her fingers. Kyle reached her, nearly knee deep in ashes.

More of the black char crumbled away, and something pale peaked through what remained of the ribs. Something that pulsed and flinched.

Holding his breath, Kyle leaned forward as Joanna vigorously wiped her hand off on her pants.

“Er….. I think this was.. Is it a vampire?”

“What?”

“There’s a heart under here. Still beating,” Kyle replied, not removing his eyes from the heart which seemed to be fused to the pole which skewered up, just barely missing it. He was trying not to be sick, but his stomach churned right along with the pulsing of the vampire heart.

Joanna shoved him out of the way so she could look, and Kyle was glad for it as he hadn’t been sure he would be able to look away. He grabbed his water out and sipped on it, shivering slightly as he dealt with what he’d just seen.

“What do we…. What do we do with it?” Joanna asked, reaching in and touching the heart very gently, almost stroking it like one would do to the chest of a friendly bird. She watched as the heart fluttered and she touched it again gently. This time the heart pulsed in response and she found herself whispering, “It’s alright. We’re not leaving you here.”

“We’re not taking that thing, are we?” Kyle asked. “What if it was left here because it was, I dunno, a monster or something?”

“So we should just leave it here?”

“We… well, we shouldn’t leave it to suffer, obviously, but we could, er…. I’m sure we could find a stick…”

“We’re not killing it. That’s murder,” Joanna replied, still stroking the pale heart.

“We should call the government, then. This isn’t our problem!”

Joanna gave him a withering look, cupping the heart and shielding it from the sun as more of the chest cavity collapsed. “And they’ll kill it for sure. You know that this country doesn’t ‘waste’ resources on vampire recoveries.”

“Alright, alright, fine,” Kyle said. He took another sip from his water and sighed. “Alright. Are we going to smuggle it back with us?”

“We have to.”

Kyle sighed. “Alright. We’d better take it back to the hotel and figure out how we’re going to get it back home. You’re carrying it.”

“Chicken,” Joanna said with a sharp grin. “Could you pass me your handkerchief?”

Kyle nodded and handed her a couple clean ones from his bag, most of them out of ziplocks and already damp to help with staying cool while they hiked, as he usually used them for.

Joanna gently wrapped them around the heart and cooed at it. “I’m sorry, love, this is gonna hurt.”

She gently pried the heart from the pole, which revealed itself to be made of silver and had burned the heart to the metal. The heart thumped irregularly as she pulled it away from the pole, leaving charred flesh behind. It nearly squirmed right out of her hands and she shushed it, pulling it more gently until she had the swathed heart shivering in her hands.

She stood up and turned, still cooing at the heart and stroking it gently, making sure the sun wouldn’t get to it by wrapping it in another piece of cloth.

“Let’s get out of here,” Kyle said with a heavy sigh. They turned back and made their way out of the jungle slowly and surely. With the heart tucked into her bag, they got a taxi in the rundown town to get back to their hotel room.

As soon as they had the door locked behind them and were all settled, she pulled the heart out. The wrappings were dried out now, though the heart looked a bit better for being damp. She went and made the handkerchiefs wet again, wrapping them around the heart, which still flinched when she touched it, but seemed to be beating at a steadier rate.

“We need a plan,” Joanna said.

Kyle sighed, sinking into the bed. “We can’t keep it here. There are only so many times we can extend the trip, and if it’s discovered it’ll be confiscated and destroyed…. Or worse.”

Joanna nodded faintly. The two of them were well acquainted with the fact that there were dark markets trading in pieces of vampire hearts, claiming them to be ancient creatures with fantastic knowledge of the past. Most of the time, the poor things weren’t allowed to grow and were just kept in a silver lined box and treated like an interesting old trinket. Or they were grown out, forced to tell all they knew, and then they had their hearts removed again so they could be easily stored or sold on. You didn’t get into anthropology without first dividing which side of that moral quandary you stood. Many of their peers were actually lobbying for even more rights for vampires so this sort of thing would be cracked down on a bit harder, though she knew that the laws they volleyed for were specifically ones that would put vampire hearts in the hands of people like them. Of course it would be in the name of helping ancient vampires transition with people who understand a bit of the world they used to live in before they were stripped of their bodies, but the motivations were the dreams of getting useful information first, and straight from the source.

Joanna would be lying if she didn’t have the same thoughts when they were riding back from the jungle.

“I guess that just leaves the matter of how we’re going to get it back,” Joanna said. “I used to know some guys we could have shipped it with, but they got arrested a couple of months ago….”

“It probably wouldn’t be safe to ship it. It might get eaten by rats on the way, or someone might hear it thumping,” Kyle replied, standing up to have a look at the heart. “I think you might have to hide it under your shirt or something.”

“Under my shirt?” She asked, annoyed. “Why my shirt?”

“Because you can use your bra to keep it from falling out,” Kyle said, sounding ashamed with having to even voice the idea out loud.

“Bold of you to assume I wear one,” Joanna said to get back at him. He spluttered in a very amusing fashion and she laughed, the heart in her hands picking up the pace for a moment.

“Alright,” she said when Kyle looked close to fainting with embarrassment. “I guess that’s fair. But someone at the gate will absolutely notice that my shirt is moving every time it does.”

Kyle sighed. “We have a few more days. Maybe we can find some way of making it be still for long enough to get through the gate. There has to be something.”

Joanna gave him a long-suffering look. “Fine. Hold this,” she said, passing the heart to him before pulling out her phone and typing ‘How to get a vampire heart to stop moving.’

………………………..

There had been pain for a very long time. How long? How does one count heartbeats when one does not have fingers to aid them? Does time even matter in the face of all of that pain? Reasoning certainly doesn’t. One learns to stop questioning the why of the pain, and try to adapt ways of ignoring it. Or using it in intervals to stay sane.

What was worse than the pain was when there was no more body to feel. Just a heartbeat to keep the time. The nothingness lasted…. Less than the pain? It was hard to tell. It was almost worse. There was no way to grow anymore, to try and escape from this place, so finding ways to stay sane became almost nonexistent. There was an occasional burning that would bring sanity back, but never for long, like the brush of a finger over a hot stone to remember what heat was like before it was doused out in a river.

Being a heart, you couldn’t properly muse. You couldn’t have proper thoughts. Just memories that played in an order of thinking. A mockery of it, like drawings of a sunrise to try and describe a sunset.

Still, it was all one had left when put in such a position. Playing memories over and over in a semblance of thoughts, hoping that the use of them in this way would not damage or destroy them.

The heart had given up on stringing memories into thoughts. It was tiresome and sad. Instead playing out favorites. The heart had grown quite good at this over time and had begun to use its infinite time to uncover new ones. Like digging. Brushing aside the sand of time like the sands in the -

“Maman! Can I dig in the garden?”

“Yes, Esial. Listen for me when I call for you!”

“Yes, Maman!”

Sand on the edge of the herb garden. Maman was a healer. Esial, the young boy with bright eyes and sticky fingers got to digging, using a nice stick he found. Usually, he would dig out lines and pull leaves off of plants and trees, shoving them in the dirt so he could have his own garden and he’d show his Maman, and she would always aww and coo at him and scoop him up. They would show father when he got home.

But just as he started this wonderful pastime, his stick scraped past a rock. He stopped and used his fingers to scoop away the dirt. The stone was small and rather round. The black color took hold of his imagination. It could be an amulet! It had to be! Why else would this small stone be so black and shiny? He giggled as he ran around, pretending to vanquish evil with every wave of the stone until his father came home and saw him.

His father had been very keen to listen to Esial describe the magic powers the stone had.

“I don’t know about putting flight and fire blasts into the same stone, but we can see what we can do.”

The workshop smelled like mint and sage and his father started painstakingly carving runes into the stone, whispering about what they meant and how they would protect his little Esial.

The Heart wished it could remember all the details.

“There,” his father said, putting a leather cord through the hole he’d drilled out with some sort of magic. “Try this on.”

Esial did, and was delighted. He loved his amulet more than anything! Except perhaps the blanket Nanan had made for him when he was born. He decided he would always keep it on him so he would-

“THERE! GET IT!!!”

Esial ran through the trees, heart thumping stolen blood through his body. He’d been so hungry. He’d needed something and it was better that it was an animal than a person, right?

“THIS WAY!”

Esial came sliding to a stop and ran in another direction, not wanting to be cut off by the hunters. He reached up to his chest to grab his amulet, but his pale fingers closed on empty air. His amulet? His AMULET! Where did he-

The Heart stopped that memory in its tracks. The Heart had control over the memories, and it didn’t want to watch that one again. Not again.

Instead, the heart reached for a memory of teenage years, pondering over them all to-

East blood.

There was a hand, pounding with east blood cradling the Heart. Why were there hands? Pain, burning, screams, flinching, fear-

The fingers smoothed over the Heart. Memories of Maman smoothing down hair lovingly surfaced and the Heart slowed, now more curious than scared. Something cool, moist, damp, was wrapped around it. The Heart relished in the feeling before the hands tugged. Sharp pain tore alongside the Heart as it was ripped from something and the fear came back as more cool, moist, damp was wrapped around it.

Time passed and the Heart got the sense of… movement. They were going somewhere. The Heart couldn’t sense the hands anymore, though. But it was moving

Eventually, the damp, cool, moist was pulled away and the East Hands stroked the heart directly. The Heart did not think, but it did hope.

The East hands placed the Heart in new ones. Rougher, bigger, Northwest blood. The Northwest hands held the Heart, though did not stroke it. The Heart grew nervous as it sensed the anxiety in the blood flow beneath it. Soon enough, though, the East hands were back and were stroking it again. The Heart relaxed just enough that, when the cold, dry, freezing touched its flesh, it was merely confused rather than afraid. That changed very soon as the East hands left and disappeared entirely. The fear became vivid and sharp as the cold enveloped The quickly beating Heart. But as the heart got cold, it grew tired. And even more so. The fear dropped to mild anxiety, then to malcontent tiredness. Then…. Nothing.

Part 2

@whumpsday

#vampire whumpee #rescue #carewhumper #having a hard time with tags right now #ancient vampire #What a good time this has been

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thenationaltreasuregazette · 4 months

Text

Interpersonal Aftermath: Abigail and Riley Edition

Ben and Patrick | Ben and Abigail | Ben and Riley

Whereas I think Riley and Ben are both very aware that Ben is the protagonist of their shared story, Riley and Abigail have much more “best friends each separately think of the other as sidekick” energy. And I love that for them.

Their relationship is incidental to the story in a way all of the others are not. As we discussed in the first of these relationship deep dives, all of the main dynamics that drive the story forward pivot around Ben. This is especially true of Patrick and Abigail, because Ben and Riley’s relationship doesn’t evolve much during the film—they start and end as a team. But even still, Riley’s relationships to Ben as his accomplice, voice of reason, and comic relief are all central to the plot and tone of the movie.

For Abigail and Riley though, this isn’t true. As long as they can get along well enough to orchestrate Ben’s escape from FBI custody with Ian, their relationship with each other does not affect the plot. Whether they hated each other, become instant besties or anything in between, the movie doesn’t change. As long as Abigail doesn’t hone in on Riley’s role as tech wiz and voice of reason/resident pessimist (she doesn’t) and Riley doesn’t interfere with Abigail’s role as love interest (he doesn’t*) then their dynamic doesn’t influence the narrative.

*In the actual film. Headcanons may vary.

However, when we explored the missing time in National Treasure—the moments we don’t see on screen—we discovered the Riley and Abigail actually spend a good amount of downtime together, particularly in Philadelphia.

As I wrote there:

In any of the routes that take them on a bus, Abigail and Riley would spend a lot of time together. Remember, it’s Ben that Abigail’s really connected with so far. He’s the one she’s been flirting with, he rescued her from the catering truck, she learned about his family and his relationship with his father, and he’s the one she risked her career with testing the Declaration. She was talking to Ben only during both the late night car ride and while clothes shopping. To her, Riley has been the weird sarcastic guy tagging along. That’s not to say she hasn’t had any interactions with him. Her “I look pregnant?” comment is directed to Riley, so she’s clearly not afraid to engage with him. But she has gotten to know Riley way less than she’s gotten to know Ben. She’d probably be curious about how Riley got involved in the treasure hunt, and for preparation purposes I’d imagine she’d have lots of questions about Ian—who his henchmen are, their dynamics, the kinds of weapons they carry, etc. But after that the conversation might run a bit dry. Riley doesn’t know much about history; Abigail doesn’t seem like much of a conspiracy theorist. Though, idk, she jokingly brought up bigfoot during their first meeting so Riley might see how far he can run with that.

I also came up with this little moment earlier in the Philadelphia sequence, which I have no textual evidence for, but like a lot:

At some point they send Riley into a drug store to grab a few necessities—granola bars, bottled water, maybe some bandaids. A bottle of ibuprofen because Abigail’s shoulder is starting to bother her and at least one of the three of them has a pounding headache at any given time from here to the finale. Riley takes pity on Abigail’s increasingly smudged makeup and grabs a travel pack of makeup wipes as well. Abigail hasn’t paid too much attention to Riley up until this point, but she’ll always remember that gesture.

In any case, they have had time to get to know each other, and while Abigail and Riley might never have become friends if they met under other circumstances, here they are united by being the two “odd men out” swept along on this adventure—Riley because he doesn’t know much about history, and Abigail because she doesn’t know much about Ben and his quest.

Ben and the treasure might be the thread that initially brings and holds them together, but I have to believe they do become genuine friends in their own right. First of all, they’re the only other person each of them can go to when Ben and the treasure and the whole PR tour that it might entail become too much.

Also, I imagine each of them finds the other to be a grounding influence in their lives. Riley finds Abigail grounding because she’s the kind of put-together person who works a prestigious 9-5 and files her taxes early (not a lot of such influences in Riley’s freelance world). And Abigail finds Riley grounding because where her job, and probably any friends she has from professional world, rely on Business Speak™ Riley will simply voice his opinions bluntly (and often humorously). She needs more of that in her life.

Bonus:

When in the film did they become friends? Sometime before this moment:

That is friend banter and I'll hear no arguments. (Unless you want to, lol)

#the national treasure gazette #national treasure #national treasure meta #abigail chase #riley poole

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gentlebeardsbarngrill · 4 months

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Hi, I have huge gratitude and admiration for your posts and updates on OFMD, I always find them so comforting and informative! Especially as I'm only on Reddit and got a Tumblr account 4 days ago to keep track of OFMD (Twitter/X is just too overwhelming for me lol). What was your take on Rhys Darby's Cameo video in regards to making you feel more hopeful/less hopeful/neither but it was still lovely? With the deafening silence from David Jenkins and worrying that the morale is dropping, it's irresistible not to start feeling a bit of doom, you know? Any response appreciated, but regardless, thank you so much for the work you're doing ❤️

Hello my dear! Welcome to tumblr, we're so glad to have you! I really should get on reddit sometime (I get notifications when certain posts get busy but I just always forget to check them). I totally get that Twitter is overwhelming, it's a tornado of information--and thank you! I'm so glad you're getting something out of the updates!

My take on the Rhys Darby cameo, ay? Well I'll be honest, I thrive on even a little bit of feedback so I was 100% pumped after that yesterday. It sounds silly but I went and cried in the shower for 20 mins because I was feeling torn between the sadness for Rhys and what he lost and was feeling and then also the beautifully kind and positive advice he was giving us.

After that-- I basically felt like someone called Gondor for aid and I was a raging pile of need for action. I actually feel more hopeful now, but I think Rhys has that affect on people. Like that man could tell me the sky was blue and I'd grin like a toddler with a lollipop and nod and feel like I could take on the day.

I do totally get that doom and gloom feeling that comes with the silence. We need that feedback from the people we're fighting for to keep morale up. That being said though--- I've noticed a trend over the past few weeks since cancellation, and that is that when we start feeling down, someone in the cast/crew starts poking their nose out. Usually its Chaos Dad (David Jenkins) but all of a sudden when things are slowing down again this week, Rhys puts himself up on Cameo, two days before the UK launch of s2? I just don't believe in coincidences in most cases, especially when we're all watching things so closely. It may make me sound like a conspiracy theorist but I do truly believe that a huge chunk of the cast and crew is watching our actions and reactions to things very carefully (Hell, Alex Sherman is over on twitter liking a bunch of fan art and porn, so at least we have our little perverted guardian angel!). They just seem to keep popping up at the exact right moments to help rally the troops for them not to be.

The difficulty with negotiations in any industry is the whole Non Disclosure Agreement that comes along with people potentially taking on new clients/funding new projects. Legitimately, there could be a contract in the works right now with a network and we already have our s3, but we just can't know about it because that would damage / threaten negotiations. It could be the other way too, but with how supportive Chaos Dad and Rhys and the rest of the crew have been just popping in and out like little bubbles of positivity, I really feel like we have still have some hope here. It's just really hard to be patient when we're all pushing so hard-- which is why breaks are so important. Anywhoooo, I've had my coffee so I'm obviously rambling at this point-- thank you so much dear for writing into me! I hope that answers your question... I am feeling overwhelmingly positive after Rhys' videos and feeling very mama bear on wanting to protect that man by doubling down on efforts, lol. So glad you're will us on tumblr friend! Always feel free to reach out :D <3<3<3 Ty!

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ecoamerica · 1 month

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youtube

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goldenstrikeheart · 10 months

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Villain Glinda the Good AU idea

There was (and still is) a fun theory going around that Glinda was the true villain in the original Wizard of Oz movie, so I decided to make an AU that Glinda is the villain in Lost in Oz.

In this AU, Glinda got rid of the Wizard and the Wicked Witches through the Original Dorothy, and when Dorothy left, Glinda was the only acceptable ruler of Oz. In Lost in Oz, in childhood, Glinda makes friends with Evelyn and Crya to try to get them to forgive their past. It is clear later it won’t happen, and she eventually leaves it be. As said in the show, Glinda had been trying to bring the Gales and the witches together, because if they forgave each other, she would have less threats to her position from the Witch family. Later in the series, the magic crisis is still happening, but Glinda keeps her magic in case all goes to ruins, so she will still have power. Langadeire hates Glinda for the whole Gale and witch stuff but slowly figures out that Glinda was the main villain, causing all the pain her family went through. She doesn’t take it as an invitation to become the hero, as she realizes that she can rule Oz herself, so she goes to keep Glinda away in the painting. (Same events in canon, really.) While Glinda is stuck in the painting, she tries her best to get out, but when she hears Dorothy from outside of the painting, she stays and waits. She knows that the Gales are smart and will push to find answers. Dorothy will eventually find Glinda. When finally she does, Glinda manipulates the game again.

Upon learning that West has inner magic, Glinda takes West under her wing to learn about how it works. If Glinda was found out that she had manipulated everything, it was something that could threaten her position in charge of Oz. When it turns out Dorothy is the one who can help West with her magic, Glinda tries to separate the two’s friendship. If those two teamed up against her, Glinda would have trouble. With West, Glinda tells her about how Dorothy’s ancestor killed hers, and Glinda put in the thought that she should stay away from Dorothy. That Dorothy could potentially be dangerous or the inner magic she has could be used for destructive motives. With Dorothy, you put a thought in her head that she has to prove that she’s a good person, and that she’s not like the ‘witch killers’. Glinda doesn’t mention either that the witches were wicked, making it seem like they were innocent, or that the Original Dorothy killed them by accident, and never truly intended on killing the wicked witches.

When the Wizard scenes happen, Glinda takes a chance to put the Wizard in a more evil light, saying that he stole the gnome king’s belt, and destroyed the treasury. Truly, he knew the truth of Glinda trying to get power by erasing all of the threats to herself. He blew up the treasury to get rid of any of the other magical items that she could use to her advantage, but it was an illusion. He hid the items, making Glinda think they were destroyed, while they were just hidden out of plain sight. When he comes back, the Wizard tries to get Dorothy’s help on his side by talking about how he knew his family to get her trust, but Glinda is using her family background as a motivation to be better than them, and not to be ‘evil’ or a ‘witch killer’, making her against the wizard, despite that he’s the truly good guy.

“Well, I know all about you, and your family.” “I’m sure you’re not going to be like your ancestor, right?”

In this AU, Reigh never fully trusts Glinda in this AU, because something feels off. Of course, the others usually will brush off his suspicions for being paranoid. When Dorothy and West’s fragment in their friendship starts getting more apparent and worse, he takes it upon himself to figure out what’s happening, and why they just keep fighting and arguing. Patchwork later joins in with him, mostly because he thought Reigh was being paranoid and a conspiracy theorist, later figuring out what Reigh is onto something. They go undercover to meet the wizard, and try to piece things together.

When they figure it out, they go to Ojo to tell him, as he is the one who sees Glinda the least. When they set out all the evidence that Glinda was there to try and get more power, Ojo seems to slowly process it. Throughout the whole story, he has been in the middle of Dorothy’s and West’s fights, and just wants them to get along like they used to. He doesn’t take too much time to get convinced, as the evidence seems clear on it. He only questions it because they got the information from the Wizard, who was said to be bad.

Finally, Scarecrow. He was the hardest person to convince of course, because all the time he knew Glinda as said, ‘Glinda the Good’, who helped Oz and ruled over just and fair. Even with his memory problem, everything he can remember is nothing to what the others are saying. Of course, he always thought the wizard wasn’t evil, but he doesn’t think Glinda is evil either. Before he had lost his memory, the Wizard had tried to convince him, and it had somewhat worked, but you were very good at minuplating the game to your will, so the Wizard never truly got to convince Scarecrow that she was manipulating everybody.

For West, West does not agree with them at all. She thinks that Glinda isn't lying or that Glinda has a plan for power and such. She thinks that Dorothy is dangerous to be around, and that Glinda is correct in what she’s saying. But the more West thinks about it, she slowly starts realizing manipulative actions and the way Glinda words things. It throws her off, but she realizes her friends are correct. It takes her a lot of time to fully understand it, and she feels a bit betrayed at it. That Glinda the ‘Good’, had always been lying. They are left with having to try to convince Dorothy.

Because of Glinda’s manipulative moves on Dorothy, she questions her mortals, constantly trying to make everybody happy and constantly stressing about it. She is trying so hard to not seem like a bad person, and to prove that she's NOT one. (She's not.) With the fights West and she had been having, she's trying to convince herself that she's not dangerous, and helps good people. When she learns that Glinda is the villain, she sort of mentally falls apart for a while. Glinda couldn't be the villain, because that means that she was helping a villain. Which means she's not a good person. She questions who's good and who's bad, and for a while she's just denying it for the sake of her sanity at the moment.

#lost in oz #wizard of oz #alternate universe #glinda the good #villain au #should i write this?#Reigh thought she was the villain #and what if she WAS?#should i post more?#Villain Glinda AU

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wafflebloggies · 8 months

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DFTM thoughts after the last CC video

If you know me I have probably screamed at you about this already. But I'm just going to write it out so I can point a finger at the problem here.

This whole plot point with Carl and his 'secret weapon' relies on SOMEONE acting incredibly stupid, or at least not having access to information which, in-universe, they really should.

OPTION 1: Carl died at the end of his final old-format video and every Carl video since has featured a doppelganger. In this scenario, HMF chose to have Fake Carl upload a video which showed Carl's death and then his 'upgrade' to his new slick setup, with a vague non-explanation about how he killed his Muse and escaped. As the audience, it was initially clear that this was a doppelganger. To anybody in-universe, with access to Carl's website and these videos, LIKE RAMONA, it should have been crystal clear that Carl had been compromised and nothing he said from this point on was trustworthy.

This would mean that the files that describe Carl's escape were faked to make things seem more convincing. Kind of makes sense, if their intention is to lure Ramona into danger or give her a 'weapon' which is actually harmful to her or useless. What DOESN'T make sense is why Ramona would believe such an obvious fake. It doesn't matter how convincing he's able to sound, she knows what doppelgangers are, and she had access to Carl's site with his old videos, the footage of his death, and the 'upgrade' to weird slick New Carl in black with a neat new setup. With all this evidence, she still communicates with Fake Carl, sets up to meet him, accepts this 'weapon' from him. Option 1: Ramona is an idiot.

OPTION 2: Carl did not die and did actually kill his Muse and escape. The files HMF have of his escape are accurate. He has something that either is, or he believes to be, an effective weapon against the Muses. With this in mind, Carl- super-paranoid conspiracy theorist Carl Mayhew- instead of going to ground, publishes footage of his near-death and lets everyone know he's alive, and then films a video speaking directly to Ramona, exposing the fact she exists and has contacted him, exposing the concept of this 'weapon' even though he says that it's vital HMF doesn't find out about it- and uploads it PUBLICLY TO HIS SITE. Not only that, but he FILMS THE RESULT AND THE MEET-UP. He publishes footage of the location, parts of the drive, Ramona and the 'weapon' (so it's blurred, big deal) to his public website. At the point where he should be at his MOST secretive and paranoid, leaving nothing to chance, Carl is basically acting like a fucking vlogger bringing us along on his trip to Comicon. Even if he's so desperate to fix his mistakes that he's lost every ounce of caution he had, it still comes off as grossly out-of-character. And stupid. Option 2: Carl is an idiot.

The most simple option generally being the most likely, I guess option 2 is the one I'd have to go with. It doesn't make any sense, because there's no reason for Carl, right after his near-death and going on the run, to suddenly have a cool new newsdesk setup and a brand new habit of wearing ominous black, if not to make it clear to the viewer that he's been replaced. But it's less complicated and unlikely than HMF coming up with a plan that any twit could see wouldn't work, faking files in case anyone found them, making up this idea of a Muse-killing secret weapon that sounds too magically convenient to fool a six-year-old, and Ramona 'HIGHLY INTELLIGENT' Bynes being so fecking stupid as to fall for the whole thing anyway. I just don't see any way out of it being one option or the other, one of these two characters acting criminally goop-brained for the convenience of the plot.

I guess we'll see.

#dftm #muse arg #happy meat farms #alex bale #ramona bynes #conspiracy carl #carl mayhew

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saintsenara · 1 year

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You are both hilarious and insightful, so…I’ve created a second edition of my ship ask:

Classic: Neville/Luna

Niche: Snape/Narcissa

Tastefully deranged: Voldemort/one of his horcruxes

Deranged: Umbridge/Filch

Crack: Fudge/Margret Thatcher, who canonically tried to throw him from a window (quite an enemies to lovers opener…)

thank you for the ask anon! these are amazingly deranged...

neville longbottom/luna lovegood

i have the toxic trait of really disliking fanon!luna. my girl is not a dreamily misunderstood clairvoyant, dispensing pearls of folksy wisdom. she's a conspiracy theorist.

which is to say, show me a neville/luna where they're both being sweet and taking edibles and talking about, idk, how plants are our friends, and it's a no.

show me neville returning to his pre-war awkward passivity and therefore unsure about what to do in the face of luna coming home with "evidence" that seed oils destroy the magical core and the battle of hogwarts was a hoax, and i'll tune in.

narcissa malfoy/severus snape

i sincerely think this is implied by canon - how do you know where he lives, eh, narcissa? - and that it's probably one of the better relationships either of them ever have. after all, they are aligned on how children should be raised [not as death eaters], what relationship to have with your in-laws [bella and wormtail, you are not wanted here], and what to do with a toxic boss [lie to his face]. all things that matter.

and let's be honest, lucius malfoy has selfish-in-bed vibes, but severus "i will sacrifice everything for even a crumb of your regard" snape? oh, he fucks.

lord voldemort/his horcruxes

this one obviously has several potential manifestations...

voldemort/the non-living objects the horcruxes are made from:

if you can find a way to fuck a tiara, full respect to you.

voldemort/nagini:

nagini's a lesbian, so she ignores all advances and flirts with the malfoys' peahens instead. importantly, she has only ever been a snake and the fantastic beasts films don't exist.

voldemort/harry:

canon.

voldemort/the victims

i have a soft spot for the potential of tom riddle/myrtle warren, because i was also an annoying and dramatic teenage girl, and sometimes those girls should be allowed a little crush on the hottest boy in school at a treat.

tom riddle/tom riddle sr.? well, voldemort does have unbelievable daddy issues...

voldemort/hepzibah smith? only if he got a payrise for doing it.

voldemort/unknown locket and diadem murders? why not.

voldemort/lily potter? hot, but he was too busy simping for james [no he did not face you "like a man, straight backed and proud", he ran into the hall without a wand, flailed, and then died] to notice the potential.

voldemort/frank bryce? i'm not entirely sure that soul baby had the ability to fuck, but if there's anyone who knows enough magic to try...

tomcest:

tomcest should appeal to me - and frequently does - because if there's anyone who would consider the only suitable partner for himself to be - well - himself, it's lord voldemort.

but.

i am someone who is quite critical of the default sexual dynamics in a lot of voldemort-centric slash [especially tomarrymort], which i often find to replicate a lot of heteronormative ideas about queer sex. voldemort is generally written as exclusively topping, largely - it seems - because many authors and readers equate taking that position with being in control of/more powerful than the bottom.

i prefer a dark lord who'll try anything, because enjoying getting railed doesn't make you any less capable of being a terrorist. and, luckily, there are lots of fics which feel the same way, and i've had lots of great conversations with other voldemort enjoyers about it.

but, one thing i think is worth being aware of is that a significant percentage of bottom!voldemort fics are tomcest, which - in my opinion - kind of defeats the point of saying that bottoming doesn't automatically require a relinquishing of power or a choice of passivity - obviously voldemort would be prepared to be passive with himself.

what i'd like to see more of is a voldemort who doesn't think the way he likes to get fucked reveals passivity at all, whether he's with himself or not, but atm i'm finding tomcest isn't entirely bringing it to me.

argus filch/dolores umbridge

i reckon this would be quite mutually fulfilling, actually. they do caretaker/headmistress role-play. i.e. their jobs.

cornelius fudge/margaret thatcher

fudge is elected in 1990, which means he gets to meet thatcher while she's on her way out, seeing betrayal around every corner. hurt/comfort for dayysssss.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #unhinged and deranged ships

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niuttuc · 9 months

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Thoughts on the extended standard rotation?

It's... Certainly a choice.

On its face, the reasoning makes sense, making standard more stable with less bans and a slower rotation so that paper players are less afraid of investing in it and playing the format. Sure, I can buy that.

The main issue is that the vast majority of Standard play emigrated to Magic Arena in the meantime. A staggering amount of standard is played there, enough to keep it up as the most played competitive format overall according to MaRo, despite it being essentially dead in paper.

On Magic Arena, playing games is very convenient, and thanks to the free-to-play model, rotation is less scary and feels less like a loss. Because it's so convenient to play games, people who play Standard on Magic Arena will tend to play many, many more games than paper players. Playing maybe once a day or once every couple days instead of maybe once a week at FNM.

Because they play more games, they become familiar with the standard metagame and play pattern much faster. And, after becoming familiar with it, they become bored with it. This is accentuated further by Arena's economy heavily encouraging playing competitively viable decks. Not only is there a ranked ladder, but also a top-tier mythic like Sheoldred costs the exact same as a jank piece like Angel of Suffering.

These facts combine to make the decision of a more stable standard a pretty awful one for Magic Arena Standard players. They face the prospect of a boring format and the same cards sticking around for far longer, and even the chance of a banning to shake things up is taken from them.

The current Standard is, by most metrics, very healthy! There is top decks and strategies, but there's a few of them, and a range of themes that see play. But it doesn't really matter because by this point, arena players are tired of playing against the same cards and the same decks, again and again. Some variation of black midrange has been near the top of the meta since... Basically Streets of New Capenna released.

With that in mind, Wizards' decision seems like sacrificing Standard where it is currently and factually popular, for a chance at reviving it in paper. A slim chance, if you want my opinion, people afraid of rotation that don't want to invest into standard aren't afraid that the rotation isn't long enough, they're afraid of the existence of a yearly rotation at all.

It's not an attempt at reviving Alchemy, as conspiracy theorists would have you believe. Alchemy's launch was so disastrous it is unsalvageable PR-wise as a competitive format, and WotC knows it enough to avoid mentioning it at all cost when they can these days, and promoting it as little as possible.

I think it's a mistake all the same. I expect the three-year rotation to stick around, because it doesn't change that much in the grand scheme of things, but I also expect the "one ban window a year" concept to disappear within six months. There's precedents, WotC often makes these announcements of sweeping course changes "forever" that are reversed when they realize they're heading straight into a wall. But I don't like that either. Competitive magic has been having such a hard time these past five years, with WotC out of the blue overhauling entire structures every few months. It makes it confusing and impossible to get into for players.

Five years ago, Wizards tried sacrificing competitive paper magic in favor of an Esports dream of digital magic. Five years later, they're trying to sacrifice the success of digital magic that didn't quite match the profits in their dream to salvage paper magic's competitive scene.

And somehow, both decisions seem stupid.

#magic thoughts #long post

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