#ALSO FOR THE RECORD. THE THING THAT STABBED HIM HAS NOT BEEN REMOVED THAT IS IMPROPER MEDICAL PROCEDURE

[blaiddraws]

Whumptober day 11: Sloppy Bandages

a scarf works in a pinch.

anyway. ALSO a continuation of this. what do you do when your weird dad-figure is impaled and you're the only one in sight.

(he's trying so so hard to be as calm as he can for her, calmly and coherently talk her through what she needs to do, but he very much is not doing great! got impaled through his side! he is. losing blood! it hurts and he's really woozy but he's trying so hard to be calm and keep that out of his voice as much as possible.)

#whumptober2022 #no.11 #sloppy bandages #impalement #blood #submas au #gunsmoke au #injury #pokemon #submas #nobori the eclipse #nobori #ingo #dawn #dad ingo #FUN FACT! he'd put his hand on her cheek at first. that's why there is blood on her: face. #ALSO FOR THE RECORD. THE THING THAT STABBED HIM HAS NOT BEEN REMOVED THAT IS IMPROPER MEDICAL PROCEDURE #he is just trying to keep things as calm as possible for actual medical help to arrive #because dawn really doesn't know what to do at all

[shalscumbunny]

Dear Doctor | Chapter 4: Privacy

Summary: Shalnark suffered a small injury while investigating some things for the Gen'ei Ryodan, his intention was that a doctor would cure him and nothing else, unfortunately that doctor was you and what you least expected is that one of the most wanted criminals in the world would end up becoming obsessed with you.

Pairing: Shalnark X F.Reader

Warnings: Harassment, recordings, spy cameras, the reader does not know she is being recorded, male masturbation

Author’s note: I always mention it in all my writings in English, but better safe than sorry, English is not my native language so it is very likely to find many mistakes and also that I know practically nothing about writing “X character and Y/N”

I am not a doctor so I will say my life excuse for everything, “I am a social science student”, so if something is wrong I apologize

Sites: AO3

What exactly is privacy? The right one has to hide intimate things? Well, someone like Shalnark really doesn't have the slightest respect for that word, much less when it comes to you.

Of you and the beautiful love story that he formulated in his head, to Shalnark you are soulmates who belong and love each other, a relationship so deep and intimate does not need something as ridiculous as privacy.

Since he installed the security cameras in all the environments you are in, your privacy is not something that interests him very much, he does not care much, even if he is murdering someone in cold blood, he probably remembers that you are doing something that he likes see and he will have no choice but to turn on his cell phone and continue stabbing the man who begs for mercy while he watches on cameras how you drink a hot cup of coffee.

He has several monitors in his study, he could be hacking into a bank's website, stealing a couple of million, and at the same time he watches on the other monitor as you work in your office with that beautiful smile that melts him.

Thanks to the cameras, he knows your routine backwards and forwards, now his favorite moment of the day is seeing you arrive from work, a sweet smile forms on his lips when you throw your briefcase on the floor and rush to the couch for a few minutes, exhausted.

He can only sigh enthralled when you go into your bedroom and take off your clothes, the invasion of your privacy has reached a point where the order in which you remove the clothes from your body has been learned; first the top, then the bra, you pull down your pants and finally you take off your panties.

He bites his lower lip following your journey to the bathroom through the cameras. At that moment his cock is sore and hard inside his pants, but his eyes remain fixed and almost without blinking, watching you enter the shower and the warm water falls on your tense body.

Shalnark steps back in his seat opening his pants, his erect cock shoots out of his pants onto his abdomen, completely swollen and in need of attention.

He watches you silently, although you can't see or hear him, he feels that a single noise from him could disturb your peaceful bath.

His turquoise eyes make a beautiful contrast with the brightness of the screen, they shine with lust and desire while his hands clumsily play with his swollen cock that is already releasing precum.

He is watching how you soap your body, your arms, your legs, your abdomen, your breasts and finally your vulva. His breathing is labored when the camera focuses on how you use your fingers to open your lower lips and caress the area with water to clean it. He feels his mouth watering, he would give everything to bury his face there, to lick and suck your folds and clitoris, to witness the warmth of your beautiful entrance.

He's sick and eager for you, his expression gives him away, he's lost in thought as he masturbates, he gasps excitedly imagining himself in that shower next to you, grabbing your hips and pushing his cock into your tight, sweet pussy, he bites his lips imagining the hot and pleasurable feeling that your rubbery walls would give to his hard cock.

Shalnark perceives you as his, no matter what, he loves you and wants you intensely, he only thinks about possessing you, he only squeezes and pumps desperately imagining the sound of your moans and whimpers, he grunts imagining your tearful and red face as you moan his name, the stimulation is so much that his balls are swollen and throb with need for you.

Shalnark's hips began to push upwards as he moans your name excitedly and desperately.

"Doctor...shit...doctor...you are so tight...so hot...I love you so much...Fuck..." He speaks with his eyes closed tightly feeling his balls tighten "Y/N... You’re mine...only mine..."

Finally, the right thing happens, Shalnark grunts with pleasure and his semen shoots out with such force that it hits the keys of the computer, he remains weak and breathing hard, he felt good, but when he sees that you continue bathing calmly, he knows that it isn´t enough, his hand isn't enough either... you are the only thing he knows will be more than enough.

Finished his daily ritual, he cleans himself, sighs trying to lower his temperature and lies down on his bed exhausted looking at his cell phone, he sees on the cameras how you yawn and lie down directly to the side of the camera, Shalnark had spent a couple of nights watching you sleep in your apartment without you realizing it to find out which side you slept on and put the camera there, of course he covered both sides just in case, but he's proud of himself for correctly guessing which side you were sleeping on.

His eyes have a sickly-sweet look as he watches you rest, he can't help but fantasize about the day when you both sleep in the same bed, he smiles imagining your head resting on his chest and the smell of your hair in his nose while he kisses the top of your head lovingly.

"Good night, Y/N" Shalnark whispered softly, turning off his phone, leaving it on the nightstand and falling asleep.

Thank you so much for reading my shit 🖤

Chapter 3 <- Chapter 4 -> Chapter 5

#hxh #hunter x hunter #phantom troupe #shalnark #genei ryodan #shalnark ryusei #shalnark x reader #hxh shalnark #hxh x reader #shalnark x you #yandere #yandere male #male yandere #yandere shalnark #tw yandere #tw stalking

[abybweisse]

Hey! (^_−)☆

Do you think there was a particular reason for UT to see Sebastian’s record? i mean did he want to know a specific information, or maybe wanted to see something…Or just out of curiosity?

Why look at Seb's cinematic records?

When a few bloggers made some really odd claims, like:

Polaris must have been the mystery person in ch137.

Undertaker removed real Ciel's soul from Sebastian's body when he stabbed him, so real Ciel has his soul restored.

I had to go back and read that scene from the Campania arc. Because I knew those claims didn't make sense, but I needed a fresh look -- and screenshots -- to refute the claims.

Regarding the mystery person in ch137, I do believe Undertaker might have had a body by then to use for Polaris, since I theorize he used the body of one of the dead butlers from the attack at Phantomhive Manor. And that, therefore, not all of those bodies were consumed by the flames. However, only a month had passed between that attack and the ritual sacrifice that killed real Ciel. Undertaker later explains that he managed to sneak into the sacrificial building before real Ciel's body could be destroyed by the fire that Sebastian started. Fire is used a lot in this series to destroy evidence, isn't it? 😅

To Undertaker, fire is probably one of the few ways to truly lose the Phantomhives. That's why he cries over Vincent and specifically mentions how horrible it is that Vincent was reduced to ashes. Despite what some fans still think possible, Undertaker really can't make a bizarre doll for Vincent. Not only does he lack the right body, but we have to assume the cinematic records were destroyed as well. Just because the anime has a library of "life books" that can be altered doesn't mean the manga does. And even if manga canon ends up including something similar, like a storage facility for cinematic records that have been clipped and saved on special film reels or something, manga canon Undertaker isn't simply a "retired" reaper with easy access to that information... while having his praises practically sung by William. 😆

Anyway, even if Undertaker had Polaris' body in his possession by then, that bizarre doll wouldn't have been able to just quietly stand there and observe; none of the bizarre dolls were able to do anything but grab and bite when they were first made and "activated". By the Campania arc, that's still all they could do, including real Ciel. Chances are, any body he already had in his possession when he collected real Ciel's body would have also been in the absolute earliest stages of the process, like laying in one of those special coffins... being repaired from their mortal injuries.

Also, how would Undertaker know to send anyone to that sacrificial venue when he couldn't even get there in time to keep either of the twins from being killed? There's no reason for Undertaker to send someone who can only observe and not intervene on his behalf to save them. That's the sort of thing an active reaper or even an angel might be sent to do -- observe and report. That's why I still think the mystery person is either William, another active reaper, a "higher up" in the reaper organization (possibly angels)... or even John Brown. I theorize that Undertaker was still trying to figure out where the boys had been taken, and perhaps he had trouble getting there in time to even collect a body. By then, the demon contract had already been made, the fire had been set, and the new master and "black butler" had already left the scene.

It's also been made quite apparent in later chapters that real Ciel's soul was not removed during the Campania arc and subsequently restored to real Ciel's body.

So, I had blogged in response to those claims (and others like them) that Undertaker stabbed Sebastian and viewed that chunk of his cinematic records because he didn't know how the contract had been formed. The mystery person, whoever it is, in ch137 had not been sent there by him.

There is no other known reason to want to see his cinematic records. However, Undertaker also got to see how the demon has been treating his young master. And that's when he says the demon is no good for our earl after all, even though he's protective, so he goes in for the kill but gets interrupted by the ship listing too much.

Undertaker gains a wealth of knowledge from those snippets of Sebastian's cinematic records:

The fact that the two do have a contract with each other, and the fact that real Ciel's death was used as the sacrifice. This confirms that Sebastian has already claimed/devoured real Ciel's soul.

He gets to see the terms of their contract, so he can look for loopholes to break it.

He gets to see how the demon and young master treat each other, from the very beginning of their contract into the various stages of their training (as butler and earl, respectively), and he might be able to further manipulate that... cause strains on their working relationship, so that it's even easier to potentially cause a breach of the contract.

He also gets to see Sebastian make an early attempt to end the contract prematurely and go ahead and claim the kid's soul. So, even though he knows the demon is contract-bound to protect his master, he's not entirely above tricking the kid into giving up. Which means if Undertaker wants to break the contract but keep the kid alive, he has to be careful not to break it in a way that would still give the demon a chance to eat his soul anyway.

There might be other things he's gleaned from viewing those cinematic records, but that's what I've been able to think of right now.

#black butler #kuroshitsuji #undertaker #sebastian michaelis #earl phantomhive #our earl #real ciel #ciel phantomhive #cinematic records #campania #campania arc #kuro-lover #kuro lover #asks #i answer #answered asks #feb 19 2023

[bahbahhh]

The Killing Moon Author's Note

He asks if he remembers her.

He doesn’t answer.

There is quiet longing between them in moments when they are alone that Link still cannot place. He thinks he needs time but Hyrule won’t grant them peace. Especially not when there is a kingdom to rebuild and the Blood Moon still rises. But Link doesn’t want to rebuild, he just wants-

(Or, Breath of the Wild 1.5 for those who are tired of waiting.)

Rated E - Post BoTW/ TotK theories - 50,834 words - complete

Read The Killing Moon on Ao3

(Two months later, here it is!) Wow. I cannot believe this story is finally done. I started writing this before so much of what defines me and my life today even happened…I look back at 2017 and the things that used to excite me, bother me, worry me have shifted and changed so significantly…and yet LoZ remains

There have been a few games in my lifetime that have touched me this way, becoming sources of comfort during challenging or stressful times, never losing their luster. (“Seriously, you are playing that again, B?” ) The idea for The Killing Moon came following a frantic explosion of creative energy after I finished BotW for the first time.  I didn’t want it to be over. I remember diving into fanfiction at the time, hungry for anything and everything that would keep the story alive.

Then I decided to write a multi-chapter, lore-heavy, character-study of a fanfiction. As my first stab at fanfiction. Because, why not.

I churned out several chapters REALLY fast (I think 9??) and then my life got busy, my attention shifted, and before I knew, it had been years.

I would occasionally think about the story, sometimes making a mental note to go back and delete it, only to forget about it again…To be honest, I was nervous to look back at my writing and get stuck….I had had a vague outline of where I was going that was lost, so all I had in my head was a final confrontation under Hyrule Castle (more on this later).

Following a replay of BotW and the 2021 E3…I decided to do a massive edit, removing chaptering 2-9 completely, and reworking the plot to align more cohesively with what we received about the sequel. The story had a clear endpoint and it took off from there.

Major changes/themes/story notes

[MAJOR CHANGE] the tense:

I switched the ENTIRE story from past to present tense (I am positive I've slipped up here and there…I did not have a beta and, alas, I am not an editor…truly, this was written in the sleepy moments I get at the end of the day when my kids are in bed).

The Killing Moon was never meant bring much resolution and I felt present tense lent itself better to the suspense and tension I wanted present throughout with this in mind. Also, from the beginning, this story has been primarily about Link beginning the process of unpacking some of his trauma. I wanted a chance to deepen my version of Link POV and intensify the complexity of emotions he might face after all he has endured…I wanted to honor the complexity living with trauma. At times, it was meant to feel claustrophobic and uncomfortable and confusing. He is actively remembering his past in this story, specifically recalling personal details no one else can give him. Even Zelda is limited in what she can tell him about himself and as Link says, it feels wrong (even though she would gladly do it) to hold her accountable for chronicling his life. So if he wants it, he must endure it.

[THEME] loss of knowledge to time/making decisions on incomplete information:

I also wanted a tense that promoted unreliability…this story is very much a guessing game. For us (the fandom) with the sequel coming, but also the characters themselves…literally working back from the almost-end of the world where many of the information-keepers died and records were destroyed/lost.

BotW is a post-apocalyptic Hyrule.  The “golden age” is long gone. Even the “robust” Hyrule we see in the events of 100 years ago do not hold a candle to what is alluded to exist in Hyrule 10,000 years prior. There is little/no mention of KEY elements in LoZ lore because they have been lost to time, purposely concealed, and then forgotten over the ages.

“Goddess, don't tell me you’ve forgotten your sacred charge? “A pause. “The power without equal. The hidden treasure of Sky Keep? Broken by Twilight’s touch? Fa ha ha…The birth of the Calamity has even faded into myth, hasn't it?...Now give me what I ask in return for the secrets of the Triforce.” (Horned statue, Chapter 4)

In the Killing Moon, first time they have ever heard about the Triforce is from a demon.

This Link and Zelda, in a way, resemble the first version of themselves. They have very little guidance. The history they are working through is incomplete and potentially inaccurate (maybe even skewed by those who recorded it) and yet, they must face destiny all the same. As we saw in BotW, destiny doesn’t wait for you to be prepared.

[THEME] the burden of destiny/ trauma across lifetimes:

Jacob Geller provides a beautiful narration to the theme of darkness in the Zelda series as a whole and does a magnificent job of summarizing what sets BotW apart.  “It is a game in which each acre, every abandoned stable and crumbled temple and forgotten spring is a monument to your failures.”

I didn’t come upon this video until very recently, but I feel like it captures the essence of the the "big picture stuff" I was aiming for with Link.  The first scene I wrote for The Killing Moon was actually his panic attack in chapter 3:

"Nothing - left of me," he continues in a desperate whisper. He can’t read her face. "If we have to - again," His hands are sweeping in front of him, tracing his broken speech in patterns that feel true. “I won't come back. My body but I-”

A new resolve takes hold of him. He doesn’t need her to just hear him -he wants her word. He’s in her face now. She takes him up in her hands again, and furiously thumbs away the tears from his cheeks. He is supposed to be dead. He whimpers and dips his head down, chewing, chewing, chewing on the words. 

"Not-not even sure I'm fully alive!" 

To die (I know the jury is out on whether he actually dies or not, but in The Killing Moon, he does die 100 years ago), come back without your memories (essentially the stuff that make us who we are), into a world that has seen generations since you closed your eyes, and be thrust back into a destiny you have already failed…and then the WEIGHT of your past lives…thinking about the overstimulation alone breaks my heart. I feel it in my gut.

Now that Link has finally done it, “completed” the task he was charged with 100 years ago, what happens to the weight of duty when the war is won? What happens to a weapon? Does he get put on a mount somewhere, too? Does he turn to dust?

He can’t even figure that out because of the inescapability of his fate. In the first chapter, he is called to destiny a THIRD time in a single lifetime.

He is also trying to make sense of this with another person. Someone he learns he once loved, who still loves him, who he understands has danced with him in these roles over many lifetimes.

Is there any part of this soul that is his alone? (Chapter 7)

How much of this was manufactured? Does that even matter to him now? Can he allow himself to have feelings? In BotW, we learn 100 years ago Link felt so burdened by duty, he stopped speaking (in The Killing Moon, it is a total loss of the already very little verbal speech he had as an individual who is/was selectively mute.) Now, faced with another “calamity” of sorts, it is his feelings toward Zelda, in particular, he struggles with. And she as well -can they allow this when they know what is at stake?  There is a push and pull intentionally through the story, the impact of severely ingrained GUILT for wanting more than what they are destined for. Wanting each other more than anything.

 “This isn’t the first time I’ve heard stories about your travels, all you’ve done for everyone else since you woke up.  It doesn't feel like my Hyrule anymore.  It feels like yours.”

“It can be yours, too.” His voice frays at the end. He sets his hands on her thighs. Something burns in his throat.  

“It’s OK. I’m at peace with this. Really, I am. I will do everything I can to protect it. To protect them. For you.” (Chapter 10)

Also a feeling that their timing is off. Their specific time together, that they were supposed to have, has past (I think we see it in AOC tbh). They’ve lost that to destiny, too.

[MAJOR CHANGE] Big Bad

"A Spring is created only when a divine spirit departs from Hyrule." A mischievous smile. “What is born from shadow? A Void. The Blood Moon is a harbinger of what’s waiting beyond. See, look here-” (Hino, Chapter 3)

In the original draft of this story, before 2019 E3, Void was the name of the "Big Evil" in this Hyrule. It was going to be revealed as another title for Demise, trapped inside Ganondorf who was sealed under Hyrule Castle.  I shit you not, lol. His sealing was going to have been flawed somehow and the malice or essence that escaped is how we get Calamity Ganon. That is why in chapter 7 the movements of CG in the footage are “off”. Basically a dead spirit carcass being possessed by the Big Evil because, fuck, he’s not going to die that easily after 10,000 years and then another 100 more of being this close.

When we got the teasers, Void became a description for the concealed bit of history. I still wanted to play with the themes of parasites/possession and added in the possibility that after his time with Zelda, a silver of the human he was started to come through. You can read my thoughts on the battery theory, which heavily influenced the connection between Ganondorf, Link and Zelda in this story.

“All three or none at all.” (Master Sword, Chapter 7).

Ganondorf too is trapped by his destiny and how TERRIBLE it is to be on THAT side of it. Imagine if your destiny was the soul of not a Hero or a Goddess, but a demon.  What if your destiny was to be the one who will Eat the World? And what if you loved Hyrule? What if Ganondorf was a man of the people, who was trying to do right and the Royal Family tried to ERASE him from history by sealing him away and concealing everything from the records? 

“We are bound too tightly in this fate. We’ve been fighting for a long time. More than a century. It was us ten thousand years ago. It has been the three of us time and time again. Link, when I was in the darkness, sometimes I felt like he was a part of me. And that part was lonely and scared and so tired. I think he wants us to save him like we saved you. Is that crazy?”

I am admittedly pretty obsessed with the idea Zelda feels connected to Ganondorf.

[STORY NOTES] Zonai

Mentioning the Zonai came in the rewrites. Not even on my radar in 2017 when I started The Killing Moon. Clearly, I am firmly in the-Zonai-play-a-big-role-in-the-past-and-TotK-camp. But I didn’t think it was realistic for Link and Zelda to figure out everything about them in this story.

[STORY NOTES] Luminous Stones

Another addition to the rewrite. I became obsessed with all the raw luminous-stone looking crystals in the teasers and ran with the detail about them rumored to contain souls of dead. It did not make it into the story but I did have tons of notes about how these luminous stones might be souls of Zonai or the army of the spear-wielding rider in the pictographs/ petroglyphs and their energy is part of the seal.

[STORY NOTES]Losing the Master Sword

The threat of this was always in the original story but it was emphasized more in the rewrite.

The original story had Link’s nightmare in which the Sword is gone (it was actually written to be symbolic of LINK “becoming” the Master Sword in the nightmare, that his body is the weapon, to be bent and broken and forged again and again with the Shrine of Resurrection). Hyrule Forest–resting place of the Master Sword–was destroyed in the original story. It fits well with TotK. I do wonder if the Lost Woods will be inaccessible for the game or for a part of the game.

[Fun-ish facts]

I love to connect all the LoZ stories and overiously do so with direct references to past lives (this story is SS, TP, Oot-heavy). But there are more indirect references in The Killing Moon I tried to sneak in:

"Wind waker" -  Stamella shroom tonic for soldiers (Wind Waker)

The three comrades from Link's past (Colson, Medin and Jayde) are called "four swords" by their commanding officer. (Four Sword Adventures)

This is dangerous.” Link starts.

“Take this.” Zelda hands him her torch before stepping further into the cave.  (Chapter 11)

(A spin on "It's dangerous to go alone, take this!" The Legend of Zelda 1986)

Thank you to those who have stayed with the story. Thank you to those who are new. I do this for fun and I can't tell you how much it means to me every time I get a notification someone took time out of their day to leave kudos or write a comment or I see the story was bookmarked. Comments/questions always welcome. I am planning to go back and do some minor (mostly grammar) edits but I already have some ideas for a continuation once TotK is out.

I just love this fandom.

B

#bahbahhhwrites #loz botw fanfic #botw fan fic #long fic #author's note #the killing moon #legend of zelda #loz #botw #loz fanfiction #loz fandom #totk theory #totk fanfic #tears of the kingdom

[barebonesblonde]

Monsters

Two nights ago, Joe's daughter, "K", threatened to kill me.

Specifically, she threatened to stab me, then to "slice me up" with a knife, the next day. I ended up having to call the police when she did it the third time that morning -- you know what they say -- third time's the charm and all that. In case you're wondering, she has attacked people physically before, and is absolutely capable of violence. She is both a drug addict, and a psychotic. So yes, I am very concerned.

I sat, shaking and crying, in the kitchen, knives gathered on the table beside me, Calvin my Maine Coon sitting on them protectively, as Max, Joe's son, stood guard between her and I as we waited for the cops. At that point, she pretended to be sleeping in the living room, as he let them in to question her and me.

I've no illusions, and as expected, I got no protection from them as she hadn't actually physically attacked me -- but she has a record, and I don't, and she also physically outweighs me by about 40 lbs, and is several inches taller than me. The cops believed me, and discounted her story that I was "just trying to get her kicked out".

I learned that there IS recourse for Joe to get her evicted, if he so chooses, since she's essentially a squatter (ironically what she screams accusingly at me, funny she accuses me of being all the things she actually is). The female police officer was much more helpful (go figure), and took my report, filed an assault charge, but since she receives mail here, they couldn't remove her, and Joe doesn't have the heart to to forward with the eviction steps, so I have decided I need to leave.

My heart is breaking, because it means, for now, leaving my cats behind in Max's care. I was crying my eyes out as I explained to them my plan to go and stay with friends until I could figure something else out -- since she's been threatening me with physical violence, this is considered a domestic violence situation and I can seek help through those channels, for the second time in my life.

I'm waiting to hear from the friends who offered me a room to stay while I figure things out (they can't have my cats, because theirs is very territorial, which is making me cry as I write this, but I understand); I think the best plan is to seek assistance from every social service agency I can in regards to housing, disability for my health, etc.

Meanwhile, I can come see my kitties because I will only be two blocks away, and at least while K is out getting high or whatever it is she does, I can spend time with them when I'm not too sick.

It's impossible to describe the sick feeling in my stomach I have at the thought of leaving them behind -- I love them so much, they are my babies, they are what keep me going. But how do I stay in a place where my life is being threatened by an unstable, psychotic drug addict? I am so miserable, so torn, so anxious right now. I have no alternatives that are reasonable due to my health, and I feel like a failure.

Currently, I think the cops spooked K enough where she's just yelling about me to Joe, but no longer bursting into my room to threaten me, so as stressful as that is, at least she's no longer in my face for the time being.

I can only hope Joe will eventually get to the point where he will take the steps to evict her, for his own sake, because what she is doing to him is elder abuse. The screaming, the throwing plates of food and destroying things, the name calling, the threats, all of it.

I don't know if my friends will follow through on the offer, it's clearly a lot to offer a person, to open their home to someone in my situation; if they feel they can't, I will likely call a domestic violence shelter for the interim. Because I know this won't be the end of things with K. She's unstable, clearly hates me, blaming me for her situation out of some sort of misguided jealousy. But I'm not safe here.

I can't believe I will have to leave my cats behind. Max has reassured me that he will take care of them, make sure they are OK. My health today and pain levels are of course miserable, and I am in bed, just staying out of K's way, hoping she just leaves the apartment soon. I am too weak to do so myself at the moment, but I am feeling extremely depressed. This situation is untenable. I don't want to leave my babies. Especially not here. But I hope that with me gone, she will at least calm down, and once I'm not actually living here, just visiting until I can take them back, she won't feel so violently towards me.

I really don't know what else to do.

#domestic violence #mental illness #addiction #relationships #mental health #chronic illness

[junietuesday]

so far in bg3 ive beaten the goblin camp and am holding off on doing the tiefling party until i get more affection. (im TOO indecisive and aroallo and polyam for this what do you MEAN i cant just sleep w any of the characters i want without having to get into their full on romance routes. dont tell me every single one of these characters wants that deep emotional connection or w/e like come on 😭) and i have id say. more than half the companions now? so recording my thoughts. normally i make little posts while i game but bg3 is so addicting i couldnt even open tumblr to talk abt it. i played it for almost 12 hours i think today (with breaks in between but STILL). which is why this is so long im rambling abt everything since i started the game

i feel like me and shadowheart have a good thing going rn if she were more physically my type i think id be certain on romancing her. im attached to her we’ve been together since the start of the game (i didnt find any of the other companions until after i went to the druid grove and had made it to the goblin camp LMAO i didnt realize they were all just right there). shes very pragmatic but i also notice she approves occasionally when im nice. i like her <3 we’re besties we’re a Team

i found astarion second and. yeah i get why hes tumblr’s favorite. hes an evil flirty fruity vampire. he has white hair and pronouns. that bloodsucking scene might as well have just been a sex scene. i enjoy him in my party (actually hes my fav character to play as, i love dashing around and stabbing and vampire biting people. i originally thought id have him as kind of a spellcaster but i even paid to respec him to have more mobility spells/traits. also hes my go-to for picking locks and disarming traps, w items and keeping him fed ive gotten him up to +7 sleight of hand, it was 9 before but i think i might have accidentally removed a bonus when respeccing him lmao. hes like the most useful of my party outside of combat. anyway) and im a lesbian but im literally torn on whether or not i should accept his proposition at the tiefling party bc hes just so entertaining. i might full on romance him in another save. but the thing w him is that im a monsterfucker sure (karlach 💞) but i dont like his moral compass it makes conversations w him so difficult to navigate it stresses me out. like im playing a self-insert and kind of just choosing the options i choose right. but he probably thinks all my dialogue options are too soft and weak and wishy-washy💔 like sorry i dont think idolizing absolute power is a good thing bro. even if i get why hed be obsessed w power after 200 years of utterly lacking any. doesnt mean i have to agree w his cynicism

on that topic thats why im utterly enamored w karlach💗💗 i love her. like of all the romancable characters i genuinely would enjoy dating her. if it werent for my emotional attachment to shadowheart after being w her so long itd be a no brainer. like at the beginning i just wanted her in my party bc shes a hot buff demon lady. but shes such a joy??? her zest for even the little things in life like her dialogue w shadowheart abt nature. her just cheerfully dancing in camp. shes boisterous and passionate and enthusiastic. also shes the only one of the characters i like who approves when i go out of my way to help people and when i brainwashed this monster into cannibalizing its pack (fucked up but i didnt wanna fight the whole horde And it) shadowheart and astarion approved but she Disapproved, and idk it just feels like a breath of fresh air to see someone who’s more openly just held on to goodness after everything shes gone through, after shadowheart’s and astarion’s disregard for other people. i need to find her a mechanic to fix her engine but i dont think i can go to the tiefling camp without triggering the party scene so. 💔

i dont really like gale tbh. i mean i dont Not like him he was fine to have in my party but as soon as karlach came along it was an easy choice to kick him out. his storyline is interesting from what ive seen but i feel like. im just not charmed by him lol. i failed a roll while he was trying to teach me magic in this probably romantic scene but he just cut it off there and i didnt bother savescumming to reroll. i also have met wyll but yeah hes fine. kind of the goody type from what ive seen and hes nice enough im also just not charmed. truly i think its just that im a lesbian but i find these two boring in comparison to the three above. ive also found halsin and hes abt to join my party but i made my character a druid already so hes kinda redundant😭 i googled it and hes the only one whos down w polyamory which is so sad bc i can see why people who like men find him hot but i dont, why couldnt any of the three companions i actually like let me date multiple people 😭😭 sadness. i wish it was like sdv where you can date everyone w no consequences as long you exclude one person. i dont like any of the guys except astarion please bg3😭😭😭

#june speaks #june games #holy shit that was a lot #see im so obsessed w this game i cant wait to dive into the fanfiction these characters are so great but i have to actually finish the game

[young-dumb-and-vaccinated]

The Sommelier (Hannigram x Female!Reader) pt. 5

More people said yes to Hannigram, which is good because Will is already involved in the plot and it would be awkward to have him just disappear. Also, I had someone request a Hannigram x reader in my asks. Apologies to the one person who voted no; I promise there will be more solo Hannibal x reader content in the future.

Hannibal decides to that y/n could do with some extra protection, but doesn’t anticipate what she has to tell him.

I have no idea how to make a proper tag list but @deadman-inc-bikeshop and @dovahdokren here you go 

Trigger warnings: discussions of alcohol, victim blaming

“When I saw his face, I immediately knew he had never once experienced the touch of his own hand, let alone that of a woman.” Charissa read out loud to everyone on staff. “Or, that he was buried so deep in the closet he found Narnia, but those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.” 

It was expected to be a slow night, as was normal for an ordinary Tuesday. On nights like those, you could get away with more, like reading a tabloid article out loud for everyone to hear. 

“I can’t believe [F/N] actually went public.” One of the new busboys commented. “What an absolute madlad.”  

“Did you just unironically use reddit terminology in an actual conversation?” You narrowed your eyes at the kid. 

“[F/N], you are making a very dangerous enemy.” An older waitress said, cryptically, from the corner of the room. 

“Who, Jason?” You gestured to the busboy. “What’s he gonna do? Make me cringe myself to death?” 

“You know that’s not who I mean.” She frowned. “I’m talking about Chase Mulvaney.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” You shook your head. “He’s not stupid enough to come back here.” 

Charissa made a noise that denoted her doubt. “I dunno, [F/N]. You’d have to be pretty stupid to start stabbing people at a crowded restaurant in broad daylight.” 

“But he was smart enough to get away, right?” Jason asked. “That’s gotta count for something!” 

You and Charissa exchanged glances. Neither of you had the emotional bandwidth to explain white privilege again. Instead, you just humored him. 

“Yeah.” Charissa lied. “He was smart enough to get away, meaning he probably knows better than to come back.”

"You're kidding yourself." A third waitress, who's name you couldn't seem to place, added. "People always say that killers are these galaxy-brained superhumans, but they're not. Mulvaney believes he's divinely ordained, so any thought that pops into his coked-out head is a sign from god."

And so shattered your thin firmament of denial. You made a point to never learn this person's name just out of spite.

“Oh, shit.” You said, trying to hide your genuine fear with a sarcastic voice. “Maybe he is coming back for me.” 

Charissa glared at the two other waitresses, equally pissed at them for scaring you.

"And it'll be your own fault for provoking him with that article." The older waitress said.

"Holy victim-blaming, batman." You mumbled.

“Alright, listen up, y’all.” Matthew announced to the group. “In ten minutes we open for dinner. Remember, if you want to switch shifts with another person, you have to run it by me first. I don’t want to see anybody but [F/N] at the bar tonight, capiche?”

“Yessir.” You saluted him and made your way over to the bar. You’d been doling out your bartending shifts left and right to avoid even the possibility of being cornered by another Freddie Lounds. You were only prolonging the inevitable, though. Eventually, you needed to return to the bar.

You passed the hostess's stand, where Charissa was stationed. Suddenly, you felt someone grab at your arm.

"Fucking hell, dude?!" You flinched violently and your heart rate jumped. "Don't do that!"

"Shit, sorry!" Charissa looked immediately regretful. "But, look!"

You followed her gaze through the window where a fancy car was parked. He leaned against the door, adjusting the cuffs of his dress shirt.

Now your heart was beating fast for a completely different reason. You squeezed Charissa's hand, trying to keep a lid on your nervous excitement.

"I think your luck's starting to turn." She said in a sing-songy voice.

"Yeah, I bet he'll protect me from the Baltimore Butcher." You whispered, trying not to giggle like an elementary school girl.

"Oh, could you imagine those arms around you?" She sighed deeply, her hand firmly against her chest. "I would die."

"Not until he sinks his teeth into your neck." You smirked, gnashing your teeth together.

"I would let him." She rested her chin on her hand.

"Yeah, me too." You agreed.

"I would give anything to trade shifts with you." Charissa groaned.

"Well, you heard the boss." You shrugged, suddenly feeling much better about your assignment. "I gotta stay behind the bar."

"Oh, pobrecita." Charissa rolled her eyes. Underneath the stand, she put up her middle finger in your direction. "Suck a dick, [L/N]."

You walked backwards towards the bar, keeping your eyes on your friend. "That's the plan, baby."

You tried to make yourself look busy. You dared not look at him as he entered the restaurant.

He exchanged pleasantries with Charissa then took his seat at the bar. You pretended not to notice him right away, only to give you an extra second to compose yourself.

"Hi there." You greeted, knowing you'd feel stupid no matter what you said. "Er- good evening."

"[F/N] [L/N], I assume?" He asked.

Fuck, you thought. His voice was dark, low and made your insides tremble. Even though part of you knew he was going to know your name, it still felt so sensual passing his lips.

You realized you had waved to him with your bandaged hand. That's how he was about to identify you so quickly. "Yes, I am she. I mean- her. Me."

Way to go, dumbass. You thought. Now he knows you're nervous and he's going to wonder why.

“God, I need to stop wearing this damn thing.” You said, clearing your throat. “What can I get for you tonight?” 

He was quiet for a moment. "What do you recommend?"

"Well, that depends." You said, pulling your gaze from him and grabbing a few wine glasses down from a high shelf. It was the only way you could maintain your composure.

"On?"

"What you're having for dinner, for one." You said. "And whether or not you're a vulpine tabloid journalist trying to corner me into a dubiously ethical interview. That's also a factor."

"So that's how Miss Lounds wore you down?" He concluded. "With wine?"

You rested your elbows on the bar, filled with an intoxicating confidence. "She tried wine first. Then she tried to get me fired because she asked for chardonnay and I brought her chablis. And when that didn't work, she siphoned my gas."

"I wish I could say that was out of character for her." He looked at you, apologetically.

"I take it you've had your own run-ins with Freddie?" You smiled.

"She's tried to infiltrate my practice multiple times." He sighed. "She's entered my office under a fake name with a recording device in her purse."

"What a sick fuck." You said, before remembering you really weren't supposed to curse in front of customers. You covered your mouth. "Sorry."

The corners of his mouth turned up into an amused smile. "Don't apologize. You're right."

“So you’re a doctor?” You asked, hoping he wasn’t the type to be offended by questions. 

“I’m a psychiatrist.” He nodded. “I used to work as a surgeon, but I find the mind much more compelling.” 

"Seriously, though." You pushed yourself back to your feet. "What can I get for you?"

He eyed the wine menu and then looked back at you. "What is your favorite red?"

"My favorite red?" You placed your hand on your collarbones. "On a night like this, I enjoy a nice, dry Argentinean Malbec."

"In that case," he thumbed through the list once more. "I'll have a bottle of Cobos Chañares from 2016, please."

You smiled. You wouldn't mind taking a sip of that if he offered. "Right away."

You carefully pulled the solid black bottle from its crevice and placed it on the bar. You removed the plastic seal and reached for the corkscrew. The bottle opened with a satisfying pop, filling the air around you with the strong, complex and seemingly contradictory aromas.

You poured a bit of this criminally expensive wine into his glass. He smelled it, then swirled it for a moment before taking a sip.

"Redcurrants and vanilla," he began. "With floral notes that operate with the precision of interlocking gears in a clock. Everything in its place."

"So you're a sommelier and a poet?" You tilted your head and filled his glass. "I'll bet you make women swoon at every corner."

You never had the best grasp on flirting, but even you knew that line was awful.

“Are you flirting with me, Miss [L/N]?” He asked, clearly not too worried about the consequences and enjoying the flattery. “Or are you just trying to get a taste of this Malbec?” 

“Little bit of column A, little bit of column B.” You shrugged. “Though you are as handsome as everyone says, I’ve had my eyes on that wine for slightly longer.” 

You fought the urge to slap your hand over your mouth. You had just broken the cardinal rule of workplace gossip. Panic reverberated through your body as you tried to break down his unreadable expression. 

Once again, he just looked amused. “I’ve seen those lingering glances, the way you all whisper and giggle. It’s flattering.” 

You felt your cheeks growing hot. “...I see.” 

“If you tell me what they say about me, I’ll let you have a taste.” His eyes bored into yours. 

You paused, trying to decipher exactly what he was offering. Then it hit you. 

“Oh!” You interjected. “The wine.” 

“Yes, that’s what I meant.” He said. “Dare I ask where your mind went?” 

Your cheeks stung from all the uncomfortable smiling. “I’d really like to keep my job, thanks.” 

“Have you never heard of bartender-client confidentiality?” His voice lowered and his eyes found your lips. “Nothing we say tonight has to leave these four walls.” 

Your insides turned to jelly. He rested the wine glass in his hand and offered it to you. Your hands shaking, you cradled the glass like an 18th century French village prostitute being offered a mug of hot soup. You brought the glass to your lips, the strong, overwhelming smells assaulting your orifices.

You let the wine grace your tongue. You had taught yourself to overcome the sting of the alcohol and focus on the undertones. Your eyes rolled back in to your head and you let out a little noise of pleasure. 

“Christ on a bike, that’s decadent.” You said, gasping for air a little bit. You quickly passed the glass back to him before Matthew could see you. “Thank you.” 

“Now, indulge me.” He instructed, glancing at the fresh pink lipstick mark on his glass. “What do the lovely women of Terroir whisper while I’m just out of earshot?” 

You rested your elbows on the bar and leaned in close. “They say you’re a vampire.” 

Judging by his unchanging neutral expression, it clearly wasn’t the first time someone had made that connection. “Perhaps they’re on to something.” 

“One of our line cooks used to say you were the devil.” You informed him, hoping that was one he hadn’t heard before.

“Used to?” He raised his eyebrows. 

“Until Chase Mulvaney came around.” You instinctively ran your fingers over your bandages, as if to make sure they were still there. It was a nervous tick you’d developed anytime someone brought up that day. “He’s stopped talking about, like, anything having to do with his religion ever since.” 

“It takes a lot to get an evangelist to stop evangelizing.” He refilled his glass. “Do you think he lost his faith?” 

“I heard someone say in passing that it was because he and Chase Mulvaney went to the same church.” You whispered. “But I can’t verify that.” 

“I’d say it’s more likely than a regular customer being a vampire, wouldn’t you?” 

“I wouldn’t trust their word because they made a regular customer into a vampire.” You corrected, hoping he would overlook the fact that you were one of them. “Secrets may stay within these four walls, but they tend to bounce around. It’s only a matter of time before one escapes, and you’d better hope it’s not one of yours.” 

This man must have been an exceptional therapist, because, there you were, baring your soul to him after fifteen minutes and one sip of wine. Occasionally, you were pulled away from the conversation by another customer who had the audacity to also want a drink. But, very few people came to you with the sole intent of drinking on a Tuesday evening. You and the sommelier talked until closing time. 

“Thank you for a lovely evening, Miss [L/N].” He said pulling out his wallet. “You are as delightful in person as you are on paper.” 

“Thank you, but I never caught-” you said, but stopped yourself. “I mean, you never gave me your name.” 

He signed his name on the paper check, then pulled out a fifty and unceremoniously handed it to you. “Now why would you want to ruin the mystery?” 

“Nothing we say tonight has to leave these four walls, remember?” You grinned and crossed your arms. “Come on, I won’t tell anyone.” 

He took the customer copy of the receipt and scribbled something down on it. He the folded it in half and slid it in your direction as if it contained nuclear launch codes. 

“Join me for dinner someday.” He ordered. “I’ll supply the Malbec.” 

#hannibal x reader #hannibal lecter #hannibal nbc #hannibal x you #hannigram #hannigram x reader #the sommelier #wine #tw trauma #tw victim blaming #tw alcohol

[xiyao-feels]

Finally got around to writing down some thoughts on the differences between Empathy and the original—per scene and then a general reflection.

Episode 10

(episode 10 differences)

Going through this chronologically, our first comparison is the captain encounter. Honestly I think NMJ was straight-up inventing most of this—even aside from the sheer absurdity of MY, what, smuggling XY out of prison, bringing him into the middle of everything (he runs into the Captain and friend AND WWX!), XY…just going back into prison…well, anyway, putting all that aside—the Captain's questions here seem like NMJ's preoccupations, not the Captain's. The Captain is hugely contemptuous of MY, but he's not, like, obsessed with his innermost heart, you know? "You're lying! I just saw that. You were talking. Tell me honestly. What's your ulterior motive?"—that's NMJ, not the Captain at all. Plus there's the way the Captain grabs MY basically the exact same way NMJ does. 

Next up there's MY telling NHS he's going to go check on XY—minor phrasing differences aside, one thing that's interesting is we don't get all of MY's reaction/decision before he tells NHS in Empathy, just the tail end:

Ahhhh, now, the bit where NMJ sees MY stab the captain! You can see here the beginning of a pattern of Empathy erasing the Wen. MY throwing himself in front of the blade to save NMJ is removed, of course, but so is NMJ fighting WZL, as he was before going to the prison in episode 10; in the Empathy he's just kind of standing there. And then sees MY, uh, creepily pick up a sword??? And follows him??? Instead of hearing that XY's escaped and running to the prison because of that, which is of course what happened in episode 10. (So XY is erased some in this scene, too; even when it comes to MY's excuses, he says It wasn't me, but we don't get to 'Xue Yang killed him', as we do in the original.)

Some other points of interest here… Of course the expression NMJ sees on MY as MY kills the captain is only shown in Empathy. Interestingly, also, while MY is quite clearly terrified at NMJ's approach in both, in episode 10 it's presented immediately, while in the Empathy he has a beat before he starts reacting that way.

The last scene—NMJ confronting MY and kicking him out of Qinghe. In the Empathy, we start with MY having been thrown onto the floor, rolling—but this isn't there in episode 10, and to be honest I think it probably didn't actually happen. First, while I can see NMJ throwing MY onto the floor, I don't actually think he'd throw him quite that hard at this point in time? And it's also got a lot of visual echoes of JGY rolling down the stairs; I think he's projecting backwards. Of course, it still takes MY longer to recover in episode 10; Empathy consistently minimizes the physical harm done to MY.

So the conversation is interesting because it's really just two different conversations in the Empathy vs episode 10. In episode 10, MY leads with the Captain's abuse of him, and he's clear that it's habitual, ongoing, long-term. In Empathy, he leads with the Captain releasing XY, /adds in/ that the Captain wanted to kill him (that's not there in episode 10!), and absolutely skips over and minimizes the abuse: the beatings aren't mentioned, the credit-stealing isn't mentioned, the insulting and humiliating… even the 'Every time' is removed from before the 'he humiliated my mother', making it seem like this was a one-off provocation instead of habitual. NMJ's somewhat unhinged rant about MY's motives, including the would you have killed everyone at the cave if I hadn't helped you, is also Empathy-only (and then when MY starts to reply NMJ is like, Don't lie to me! and MY shuts up, suggesting perhaps that a denial would have been lying, which may be part of why people think this is a remotely reasonable assertion).

Some other interesting things—in episode 10, we see NMJ lift his sabre and then lower it, unable to go through with it; in Empathy, we don't see that at all—in general I think there's less of a sense that he's struggling with his decision, in Empathy, it's more just like He Is Doing The Righteous Justice. Fascinatingly we also don't see him put Baxia away in Empathy—I think he must because we see a scene where he already had, in episode 10, but we don't actually see it. We also don't see MY, injured, get up and thank NMJ and walk out, or indeed NMJ's conflicted gaze after him; the scene cuts off too soon.

Episode 22

(episode 22 differences)

There's only one scene for episode 22: the WRH, NMJ, and MY scene, inside Sun Palace. Right off the bat, we have the Wen erasure again; the episode 22 scene starts with WRH directly addressing NMJ and tormenting him and his Nie cultivators, whereas the Empathy one only starts when MY walks in. (Although interestingly MY addresses WRH as xiandu, while he doesn't seem to say anything with his bow in episode 22).

This one is an interesting scene because there's relatively little overlap? In the episode 10 scenes, you mostly saw different versions of the same events; in this one there's some of that, but there are also large chunks of time that are only in episode 22 or only in Empathy. Most of the MY-interacting-with-NMJ is only in Empathy, including, yes, the damn sabre touch. But we do have the beginning of MY talking to NMJ in both. MY's expression is different in Episode 22 vs Empathy—it's a little hard to capture in a still, but it's a lot more, mmm, simpering-mockery in the Empathy version?

Ah, one detail that's interesting—so, in CQL—which is to say in Empathy because we don't see this sequence at all in Episode 22—when that Nie cultivator calls the place 'a den of Wen' he uses 温/温氏, for Wen, and then when people are insulting MY in this scene they're using 走狗. But in MDZS all of those are actually 温狗, Wen-dog. Which is definitely more directly disrespectful to WRH than the 走狗 insults, but I feel like in general CQL doesn't use 温狗 a lot, while in MDZS it's all over the place—so while it's an interesting detail I'm not sure it's suggestive for Empathy in particular. Hmmm.

We return to things being shown in both Empathy and Episode 22 with NMJ shoving MY back. In Empathy, we only see MY stagger a little, while in episode 22 it's quite considerable—again, Empathy's tendency to minimize the physical damage MY suffers.

And then MY kicks NMJ in return! Okay this is actually fascinating, because in Empathy, it looks like this totally wipes NMJ out, and the scene stops here. But that isn't at all what happened! He's knocked onto his back, yes, BUT he recovers and comes up and shoves MY hard enough he goes flying: 

He gets up and goes to attack MY, and would probably have killed him if WRH hadn't interfered. Which, don't get me wrong, is entirely reasonable of him given his understanding of the situation but it is not at all the impression you'd get from Empathy. If anything NMJ's collapse in the Empathy after MY kicks him looks like the collapse he has after WRH finishes with him, in episode 22. And MY saying How dare you be so rude in front of Clan Leader Wen when he kicks NMJ is also removed—the whole sequence here is really another example of the removal of the Wen from the Empathy scenes. 

Incidentally, MY didn't actually kill all the Nie cultivators, in this scene. If you look while MY is flying back, at least one of them is still alive:

And then you can see all four are dead while NMJ's attacking WRH:

But MY has been on the floor recovering from NMJ's attack, so he definitely didn't kill the at least one and quite probably two who are still alive.

WRH asks MY if NMJ killed Wen Xu question; you have MY staying quite noticeably silent, which I think is still meant to be understood as MY saving NMJ's life. I guess they changed it because the MDZS version really doesn't work with the flow of events as happens in CQL? For the record, in MDZS MY answers yes, but then immediately suggests that they torture him instead of killing him immediately, and then once WRH isn't set on killing him immediately, kills WRH on the spot and starts lugging NMJ's unconscious body out of there. So there's no WWX for distraction, and Sunshot's army definitely isn't right outside, there's only LXC he sent a message to and who hasn't quite shown up yet—so in MDZS he's taking a bigger risk, and more unambiguously saving NMJ's life and winning them the war. Which is not, to be clear, to in any way minimize CQL MY's astonishing bravery and achievements.

Episode 23

(episode 23 differences)

So in both we start with LXC holding NMJ and looking down at him. In episode 23, when NMJ sees MY, we see LXC see and notice his reaction and /then/ look over at MY in concern, whereas in Empathy we don't get that moment—it just goes to both of them looking at MY.

NMJ demands his sabre back, and in both MY complies, though in the Empathy one he takes a beat longer and looks more worried about it. In the original, MY also has "Let me explain" which is dropped from the Empathy.

In both we have NMJ attacking MY with Baxia, and trying to get past Shuoyue—in the Empathy it's a bit shorter, though, and we also lose LXC asking NMJ what he's doing this for. I think that goes with cutting LXC seeing NMJ react before he looks over at MY, above; the effect is to make NMJ's response seem more obvious/natural, when in fact LXC is pretty baffled by it at the time.

"he became the Wen's underling and had been helping the tyrant at Nevernight!"—the language on 'became the Wen's underling' is actually different in episode 23 vs Empathy. In episode 23, you have 原来投靠了温氏; in Empathy, though, it's 原来是做了走狗. Note the 走狗 as earlier!

Okay, and now the big one: LXC giving NMJ reasons they should trust MY/not kill him. Empathy cuts most of this. It keeps that MY is the one who sent the map, but it drops: that the reason LXC is here today is because MY sent him a message; that MY was the one who schemed to get WRH's guard down, and then /killed him/; that MY was the one who saved LXC's life after CR burned; and that MY independently approached WRH to spy on him and has been sending LXC letters the whole time. /That's really not trivial. That's a lot to cut./

I wonder if this has any relation to the common idea that LXC did not in fact have a lot of very good reasons to trust JGY.

(Incidentally it's after the MY killed WRH reveal, in episode 23, that NMJ lowers his blade.)

...also. so. In episode 23 LXC asks MY, you know, didn't he already tell NMJ about all this (a question which makes a lot more sense in MDZS, where NMJ has already woken up before LXC joins them, but I just run with it), and MY says, you saw it ZWJ, even if I had he wouldn't have believed me. And NMJ—again it's kind of hard to capture in a still, but he pretty much reacts like he thinks that's ridiculous and MY is just making excuses/being manipulative?

And then of course that gets erased from the Empathy, as well as as just mentioned most of the reasons LXC actually gave. So. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh, this also means it cuts what I'm pretty sure is the first on-screen use of A-Yao—it does show up later in the Empathy version of this scene, so I don't think that's hugely significant, but just as a note.

Then there's MY kneeling in preparation for apology, which is in both Empathy and episode 23. The Empathy cuts make it seem like he kneels pretty much right after NMJ lowers his blade, though, and we don't get to see him making the deliberate choice to step out if LXC's protection to kneel—again, I think it makes LXC seem more understanding of NMJ than he actually is here.

The apology proper is only in Empathy; honestly it mostly seems fairly reasonable to me, although it does mean you only hear LXC saying "But I believe, when he was doing such things, deep in his heart he must have been…" after the version that cuts most of his reasons for believing that. In terms of actual changes, I wonder if LXC reacted more quickly/strongly to the bit where it looks like NMJ is actually going to kill MY? It's definitely more understated than his previous reactions, and it would fit with the other changes made.

Last scene: the oath. At this point I think it's fairly well-known that NMJ looking at JGY, and LXC turning his head to look at them both, is only in Empathy—there's also, maybe?, a small change to the text; in episode 23, "Both God and people will be furious with us" is 天人共怒, but in Empathy it's 天人共戮. I say maybe because—on the one hand, the subs definitely use a different character, and it's in both the YT subs and the Netflix subs even though those aren't always 100% identical, but while I'm not usually checking the audio for this I did here because it's just the one character and the audio pretty much sounds the same to me? (ep 23) (Empathy) Could just be my ear, or a mistake on the subs' part or the audio part, who knows.

Overview

Looking at all the changes together, a few patterns emerge.

First, people who are doing damage who aren't JGY—the Wen, XY—tend to get minimized or erased from the narrative. Similarly and to some extent as a result, the harm caused by JGY is exaggerated; also similarly, the good that JGY does is also minimized or erased. Meanwhile, the damage done /to/ JGY is minimized—both the environment of abuse he suffered at Qinghe, and the physical harm done to him, which he usually recovers from much more quickly in Empathy (even when the attack itself is made stronger as, unusually, it is in the confrontation where NMJ kicks MY out of Qinghe). Finally MY is made more manipulative than he necessarily is; while I'm not saying he's never being manipulative, NMJ understands his expressions of weakness as /purely/ manipulative and inherently false, when in fact the weakness MY expresses is very real, however calculated, or not!, its expression may be.

Honestly—in this JGY who does way more harm and way less good than he actually does, who is more powerful and experiences less damage than he actually does, who is never actually weak but only acting that way to manipulate people? I feel like I'm seeing a lot of where popular takes on JGY come from.

#long meta #more than one tag could contain

[brainfingerprints]

Elliott Smith

Singer-songwriter Elliott Smith was 34 when he was found in his apartment, dead, from two stab wounds to his chest.

Smith rose to prominence when his song “Miss Misery” appeared in the soundtrack for the film “Good Will Hunting.” His voice has been described as “spiderweb-thin” and his songs as melancholic. 

He was a heavy drinker and drug-user throughout his life and had severe depression which is apparent in his music, leading some to believe the stab wounds were self-inflicted. At one point in Elliott’s life, he had tried to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff, but luckily a tree broke his fall. One producer that worked with him said, “Lots of people have stories of their own experiences of staying up with Elliott 'til five in the morning, holding his hand, telling him not to kill himself."

The autopsy could not determine whether the stab wounds were the result of a homicide or a suicide and because of this, rumors of a possible murder have continued since his death.

According to Smith’s girlfriend at the time, Jennifer Chiba, during an argument, Chiba locked herself in the bathroom to take a shower. She heard him scream and when she opened the door, she found Smith standing in front of the door with a knife sticking out of his chest. She then called the police.

The coroner report listed no evidence of any drugs or alcohol in his system. There were no hesitation marks on the wounds, which are common in victims of self-inflicted stab wounds.

The idea of Smith committing suicide is so widely rejected because his death occurred at a time in his life when he was turning things around. He was completely sober (something that hadn’t happened since he had been a teenager) and had been taking his prescriptions for depression and ADHD regularly. Along with this, he gave up both red meat and sugar, indicating the intention to lengthen his life. He seemed optimistic about the future and a record producer, Larry Crane, reported that he had agreed to work with Smith that following week to finish an album. Crane said, “It seems surreal he would call me to work on an album and then a week later kill himself.”

Suspicion immediately landed on Chiba as reports following his death described their relationship as volatile. Chiba was part of a punk rock band called Happy Ending and before Smith’s death there was a period of high anxiety due to Smith’s involvement on Happy Ending’s new record. The owner of the label that planned to release Happy Ending’s single described it as “Band on one side, Elliott on the other...the worst thing to happen to Happy Ending was Elliott getting involved, to be honest.”

In fact, a statement on Happy Ending’s website describes Chiba and Smith’s relationship to that of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen (Vicious suspected of having stabbed Spungen to death in 1978).

There have also been reports that Chiba refused to talk to the police and removed the knife from Smith’s chest, but Chiba refutes this. When asked about being a suspect in a possible murder case, she stated to the press, “His sister and his parents know the truth, so I’m not worried about it.” A few days later, however, the family’s lawyer made a statement to the press contradicting that they “know the truth” and that they would wait for the investigation to conclude before making a statement on the “true” circumstances of Smith’s death.

Although it is widely reported as a suicide, his death has neither been ruled definitively as a suicide or homicide, and the case remains unsolved.

#forensics #true crime community #true crime #criminology #tcc #unsolved true crime #buzzfeed unsolved #missing person #missing persons #tcc blog #elliott smith #unsolved murder #unsolved mysteries #unsolved mystery

[dannimatic2]

The Tapes Are Web And I’m Right: A long, rambling, semi-comprehensive list of reasons why the web controls the tapes and also jon, written as of MAG 194:

1. It's practically all but confirmed that they aren't linked to the Beholding (they appear in the Eye's blindspots like the tunnels and Upton House) and I genuinely just can’t imagine how they'd pull off the "the tapes were actually us, the audience, all along" theory in canon aside from subtext and meta implications, so that crosses the two off as mostly implausible in my mind.

2. How could Annabelle have known exactly when Martin and Jon split up so that she could snatch Martin up the next moment and take him to Hilltop Road, unless she heard the tape of their argument? How could she have known so much about them to be able to use their doubts & insecurities to manipulate them? (Are you truly in control of the choices you make? Does he even need you at all?) She's not semi-omniscient like Jonah, so where does she get all her information from? How does she know so much? 

3. There are countless hints linking the tapes back to the Web, including but not limited to:

-MAG 134: It was revealed that Martin piled the tapes on top of the coffin while Jon was still in the Buried to help him find his way out, but he didn’t know where the idea came from, and it’s very likely that the web placed the idea in his mind. 

-MAG 147: Annabelle was in possession of the Anglerfish tape, the very first statement Jon ever recorded, and placed it atop her own statement at hilltop road. I can’t think of a single reason for it to be there besides as a hint to the audience of the Web’s subtle involvement with the plot since the very beginning, and the convenient placement of the tape on top of Annabelle’s statement is just screaming that the two are somehow linked.

-MAG 157: Annabelle was the most plausible option as to who left the tape on Jon's desk that led him to try to find the panopticon & save Martin, consequently getting the Lonely mark and ending the world.

-MAG 163: At the end of the episode, a tape manifests in Martin’s bag. He asks it what it's doing there, and at that very same instant, the phone rings. It’s later revealed that it was Annabelle on the other line.

From these examples alone, I’m almost entirely convinced that the Web is behind the tapes. One thing that still doesn’t make sense, though, is the 6 month gap of time while Jon was in a coma. Why would the Web choose not to manifest any tapes during the Flesh invasion, or during Martin’s turn to the Lonely? Maybe it simply wasn’t important to the completion of the world-ending ritual: Jon was comatose, so logically the ritual couldn’t be furthered until he woke up, and the Web had no reason to spy on Melanie as she furiously stabbed a many-limbed eldritch monstrosity triple her size (although I, personally, would’ve paid to hear that go down).

But another explanation may be that Jon himself, being The Archive, is a vessel for Annabelle Cane’s master plan. If we take into account the hints littered throughout the series that the apocalypse was mainly orchestrated and carried out not by Jonah but by Annabelle—the worms being let into the archive when Jon tried to kill a spider, Oliver Banks being compelled by Annabelle to give his statement to Jon (“you know better than anyone how the spiders can get into your head. Easier to just do what she asks”), the Web compelling Martin to lure Jon out of the Buried by piling tapes on top of the coffin, etc—His entire purpose as Archivist could possibly be better attributed to the Web, not the Eye. We already know that the entities are so fundamentally connected to each other that not one single fear can be brought into the world without bringing along the rest, and many, if not all of them, overlap to some degree. And the Web’s whole thing is manipulation! If the Desolation ritual involves a messiah born in flame, and the Flesh ritual is literally just a bunch of people throwing meat into a gigantic hole, then it would make a lot of thematic sense for the Web, instead of orchestrating a ritual of its own (which we all know wouldn’t work in the first place), to succeed through the manipulation of another entity’s ritual, silently pulling the strings so that another entity, such as the Eye, is unwittingly helping the Web fulfill its plans the entire time. This theory works in the case of past archivists as well: Gertrude used the Web to bind herself to Agnes Montague in an attempt to thwart the Desolation’s ritual, not to mention that she was established to be extremely cunning and manipulative by nature, characteristics more in line with avatars of the Web than the Eye. And it was the Web that brought Jon to the institute, that led him to get marked by all fourteen fears and, ultimately, to end the world. 

This could tie the “the tapes are a manifestation of Jon's powers" and "the tapes are the Web” theories into one, explaining why the tapes didn’t manifest during the six months that Jon was comatose, while also falling in line with the evidence that the Web is in control of, or at the very least has unlimited access to the tapes. This would also explain why the tapes only started manifesting around season 2: it was the first point in the series where Jon began fully taking on his role as Archivist and became able to compel people to give him information, the first instance of such being in MAG 61. Not to mention that this ability itself could easily be an extension of both the Web and the Eye: the Eye part being that it's a way to get information from people, and the Web part being the manipulation of one’s free will to do so. Note how Jon compels Floyd Matharu in MAG 141:

ARCHIVIST

[Soothingly] You can go.

FLOYD

Erm… I, I don’t…

ARCHIVIST

Thank you Floyd. You’ve been… very helpful.

FLOYD

C—

ARCHIVIST

It’s alright, Floyd. You just… need a break.

FLOYD

Yeah… Sure.

[RINGING FOOTSTEPS DEPART]

He doesn’t ask Floyd a question. He’s not trying to get any more information out of him. He’s doing what I can only describe as mind controlling him. He plants an idea in his mind that makes him walk off in a daze. It’s unlike anything he had used his powers for before. It reminds me of MAG 59, where Ronald Sinclair made his way down to the basement of Hilltop Road, and every subsequent movement—removing the box from the table, taking out the apple, lifting it up to bite into it—was made not only against his will, but performed with the calmest expression on his face while in his mind he desperately fought against it. It reminds me of MAG 81, where the book lures Jon out of his house, walks him all the way down to Mr. Spider’s doorstep, and balls his hand into a fist to knock on the door.

His being the Archivist could also be why the Web gave Jon the lighter in the first place: maybe he’s the only one who can use it to fulfill their grand plan, whatever that may end up being in the end. Maybe he was meant to from the start.

And for my final and most damning piece of evidence, feast your eyes on THIS:

Thank you for your time.

#warning: it's long and also very likely wrong but I needed to get this out of my system somehow #wrote this all in one night mainly based on memory save for direct quotes so. its probably littered with mistakes #the magnus archives #tma #tma spoilers #mag 194 #jonathan sims #annabelle cane #ok yeah. bye i have actual schoolwork to do #tired: web martin theory #inspired: web JON theory

[hermannsthumb]

As per our convo, Newt getting set up with Hermann via Hermann’s father’s binder full of pre-approved suitors for his son...

(from @k-sci-janitor 👀) easily one of our funniest concepts yet. I was going to end on newt coming over for dinner scenario but I like the ominous open ending. I'm not actually sure when kaiju attacks fall in the PR timeline so excuse my handwaveyness, LOL

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hermann’s relationship with his father is what one would call strenuous at best, but—Hermann must admit, to the man’s credit, and in spite of his many flaws—he took the news of Hermann’s sexual orientation as unflinchingly as if Hermann had told him the day’s weather. It was a bit annoying, in fact. Hermann had agonized over the proper way to breach the subject for months, certain it spoke to some sort of personal ruin (whether ostracization from the Gottliebs or being forbade following through on any attraction he may feel whilst still living under the family roof, he wasn't sure), before finally simply announcing it one day at the breakfast table on a whim.

It had been a long-standing tradition that Hermann’s parents compile a binder—effectively of dossiers—on all the most eligible bachelors (for their daughter) and bachelorettes (for their sons) to aid in the choice of the latest Gottlieb mate. It was easiest this way, or so Hermann and his siblings were told. Parental approval was already secured. The histories of each were already secured, which bypassed any nasty shocks that might emerge in the courtship stage. Most of them were children of his father's colleagues or bright minds in their own rights: surgeons, and dentists, and mathematicians. Poets were strictly forbidden.

The occasion of Hermann’s breakfast table announcement had also been the day Hermann’s father presented him with his very first binder of prospective mates—a few days after his eighteenth birthday, and shortly before he was to go off to begin work on his PhD. His father had slid him a hand-written binder of names, no more than a dozen, and all with accompanying photographs. “All are accomplished young women,” he assured Hermann. “We can arrange any meetings of your choice over your winter holidays.”

Hermann glared down at the row of frozen smiles. He stabbed his fork into his cooked tomato wedge. “I don’t want to marry any of these women,” he said, and turned his glare on his father. He still had a rebellious streak in him at that point, something nurtured by a charismatic young man he used to trail after in boarding school, who pierced Hermann’s ear with a sewing needle in the boys’ toilets and listened to songs about setting things on fire. In late this streak had manifested itself in Hermann in nicking packets of cigarettes from his father’s study, one of which was in his pocket now. The weight of it made Hermann feel bolder. “I don’t want to marry any woman,” he continued. “I like men.”

The binder was drawn away in silence, and Hermann was free to eat his toast and tomatoes. The next morning a binder of young men was in its place.

(In a way the acceptance infuriated Hermann. It meant he could not blame his father’s obvious dislike for him on an unfounded, homophobic prejudice; rather, it was a result of Hermann’s own personal failings.)

The binder was placed at Hermann’s breakfast plate every day until he left for his studies. It was placed at his plate when he returned from them five years later. Not even the emergence of the kaiju from the bottom of the ocean shortly after Hermann turned twenty-four dampened his father’s hopes, nor turning all their scientific efforts towards the new jaeger program: some names were removed from the binder (the reasoning Hermann shudders to think at), more still were added, though Hermann is expected only to consider it once a week now on account of his busy schedule. This was one of such days.

“Your brother is very happy with his wife,” Hermann’s father reminds him. “She was one of my first suggestions for him, in fact.”

Hermann is not fond of his sister-in-law. Too rude—too cold. Though perhaps that makes her perfect for Hermann’s brother. “Haven’t we got bigger things to worry about these days than whether or not I’m going to marry?” Hermann says. He adds milk to his tea. “I’m sure they’re all, er, marvelous selections, only—”

“Your sister, too, with her husband,” father says.

Hermann sighs. He hasn’t got much of the rebellious streak he used to in him anymore—too stressed. Not fancying a fight before they’ve even begun today’s coding work, he picks up the binder and begins flipping through it. Sons of engineers working on the jaeger program with them, prominent young chemists, many of whom Hermann has been presented with since he was eighteen. Plenty of them are even handsome. Half of Hermann wonders if he should just pick the least-unappealing one of the bunch and be done with it already. He turns the page over and freezes. “Oh,” he says. “This one is—new.”

“Hm?” father says.

Hermann holds up the binder, tapping at a new entry. “Newton Geiszler.”

“Dr. Geiszler,” father says, nodding. “A child prodigy from Berlin—he’s made tremendous strides in kaiju science in such little time. And,” he adds, “three PhDs. Two of them before he even turned twenty.” The unspoken implication was that Dr. Geiszler far surpassed Hermann in intelligence and Hermann should feel ashamed for not skipping as many grades as Dr. Geiszler.

Hermann feels he ought to resent Dr. Geiszler for it, but he's finding it difficult to summon up any animosity towards him. It's likely because Hermann finds Dr. Geiszler to be strikingly handsome in his photograph: cheeks which haven’t quite lost their baby fat (giving him the appearance of being a scruffy hamster), large, thick glasses, tousled hair, an easy grin. Three PhDs, and German at that. And a child prodigy? “I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned him to me before,” Hermann says. He seems precisely the sort father would. Geiszler’s photograph is black-and-white and a bit grainy, but Hermann swears he could make out the lightest bit of freckles across his cheeks.

“I’d not heard of him until he published an article last week on kaiju biology,” father says. “Besides—he’s moved to America.”

Geiszler has three piercings up the side of his left ear. “I am going to write to him,” Hermann declares.

Father nods, and picks up his newspaper, clearly already disinterested. They speak no more of it that day.

It is not hard to find Dr. Geiszler online (his name is not the most common, and his field of study certainly isn’t), nor is it hard to match his photograph to his faculty page on MIT’s website. From there, Hermann retrieves Dr. Geiszler’s email address. He takes the evening to read over Geiszler’s publications spanning back to 2003 before he gathers up the courage to type out an actual email.

Dear Dr. Geiszler,

You do not know me, but I have recently been made acquaintance with your work and find it—Hermann pauses—scintillating. My father and I are—Hermann backspaces this—I am currently working on the development of the jaeger program…

There’s a response waiting for him the next morning. It’s as enthusiastic as it is brief. Dr. Gottlieb- That’s so awesome!! Believe it or not I’ve been following your work too. I have a million questions for you about the jaegers. If it’s classified info I promise I won’t tell. -Newt

It makes Hermann smile like nothing ever has before.

Hermann’s correspondence with Dr. Geiszler does not transgress beyond the professional until the following January. By that time, Hermann and his father have successfully completed the coding for their first jaeger prototype, and Hermann has been offered his fair share of tenured university positions to pick from as he likes. He finds himself oddly disappointed that none of them are in America with Dr. Geiezler. This, which leads to the realization that he’s grown rather fond of Dr. Geiszler, is perhaps what drives Hermann to uncharacteristic sentimental extremes on January 19th: he orders Dr. Geiszler a birthday present. The first email Dr. Geiszler sends him after that addresses him as Hermann. The first email Hermann sends Dr. Geiszler after that addresses him as Newton. Things move rapidly after that.

“Are you still writing to that young biologist?” Hermann’s father asks him in March. Hermann has spent the last two months devouring every bit of information Newton has seen fit to divulge about his personal life: his dexterity with no less than three different instruments, his favorite loud monster movies, how he’d love to get a kaiju tattooed on him one day. Hermann suspects he might be falling in love with Newton. In hardly five months! These are war times, Hermann supposes, so it would make sense. People are meant to do such extreme things.

“I am,” Hermann says.

“I’ve asked around about him,” Hermann’s father says. His expression is stern—unimpressed. “About his character. I’m not sure it’s wise to continue your correspondence.”

The reasons are this. Dr. Geiszler’s methods are unorthodox. Dr. Geiszler is loud and uncouth, and has little respect for his intellectual superiors. Dr. Geiszler was thrown out of a convention once for storming up on stage and stealing a microphone from an engineer to shout about the destruction coral reefs. Dr. Geiszler was in a distasteful band for several years. Dr. Geiszler was once arrested for egging a politician’s house. Dr. Geiszler has gone on record as describing the kaiju as “kinda cool”. Almost none of this is news to Hermann; in fact, that which is only causes Hermann’s affection for Newton to grow. “I will consider your advice,” Hermann says, knowing he won’t. Besides, it's not as if his father really has Hermann's interests at heart—Hermann knows he merely wishes to preempt any scandal Newton Geiszler could possibly bring upon the Gottlieb name.

In April Newton goes on television and declares that he’s sure the kaiju are extraterrestrial in origin, on account of their great size and his brief examination of a sample from the second kaiju to make landfall. He’s laughed off by his older peers before he can get another word out. The email he writes to Hermann afterwards is furious, capslock-heavy, and expresses that Hermann is the only one who takes him seriously in the whole world. It leaves Hermann certain that he is in love with Newton.

“Dr. Geiszler was interviewed on some American television program,” Hermann’s father says a few days later.

“I know,” Hermann says, proudly. Newton was on television. “I watched it.”

“He made some extraordinary claims,” Hermann’s father says.

But Hermann is thinking only of the outfit Newton wore (skinny jeans and an oversized leather jacket, so out of place compared to the suited other scientists sitting around him), the shade of his eyes (hazel), his short stature (hardly taller than Hermann), and the cadence of his voice (high, but not unappealing). He’d been so confident, and carried himself with a self-assurance that was foreign to Hermann. It was marvelously attractive. “I’m sure they're correct,” Hermann says. "Every single one. Newton is a terribly brilliant scientist." All bold claims are met with derision at first, are they not?

Newton’s theory is proven correct after the next kaiju attack, when experts other than him get their hands on kaiju samples and validate his claims. The general consensus after that is that the kaiju are not of this world. And Newton was the first to propose the theory! Hermann sends Newton an email full of congratulations, and Newton responds with a heart emoticon in his sign-off. Newton isn't just a brilliant scientist. “Newton is a genius,” Hermann tells his father, dreamily.

The binder reappears on Hermann’s work desk a few months later, Newton’s page torn conspicuously from it. Hermann tips the whole thing straight into his trash can. He has more important things to worry about—arranging a meeting with Newton, perhaps. Hermann ought to have him over for dinner.

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag #Anonymous #the new post editor is weird but I like that I can make things pink

[elindae-writes]

i feel like if the mcprime mcdonalds fight video got leaked onto human youtube there'd be a lot of memes about "that crackhead alien robot with a buckethead screaming about mcnuggets". additionally Fowler would take the piss out of it at first before remembering it's his job to deal with the fallout of the entire world knowing aliens are real

Fowler would just be sitting there and laughing over it only for General Bryce to stomp in and remind him of just who has to take over this mess.

"Fowler. You need to deal with that crackhead."

Megatron is disgruntled by his new "meme" stardom and tries to regain his old clout. He pursues a public relations campaign in the best way he knows how: by livestreaming on Facebook. All of the old coots on that hellsite instantly gravitate to this newcomer. Theories about Zuckerburg being Megatron's son--or vice versa--spread like wildfire. Facebook tries to remove his livestreams but Soundwave ensures that they not only cannot be removed but also ensures that they play 24/7 on literally every Facebook page.

Imagine going onto your aunt's profile page because she wants you to like her new chicken recipe post and instead you just see Megatron's chin being aired right in the middle of the screen.

Yes, I think Megatron would livestream for 24/7.

This AU is 10x better if you imagine that everything I'm about to lay out for you is taking place in an AU where Megatron actually does rule Earth.

He'd get creative and create poorly edited Bible quote pictures except it would be his own quotes instead of Bible ones.

He livestreams just way too much. Literally everything is shared.

He always makes sure to hold the camera near his stomach while pointing it up at the most unflattering chin-view angle possible. Or, alternatively: he holds the camera too high and only records his forehead. He alternates between these two majestic camera shots.

"it's me megatron streaming right hot from the nemesis. your future warlord."

He sometimes forgets he's livestreaming. This results in hours of footage of him angrily muttering and stomping around.

He just leaves the camera on the table and gives everybody a view of his elbow as he eats his energon. Whenever he needs to beat the scrap out of somebody he just puts the camera down. It just records the ceiling as you hear faint smacking noises in the background. He then always shuffles back into view.

"hey guys i just needed to take care of some things, never mind that."

Other bots would be forced to "guest star."

"say hello to the camera, starscream"

"YOU ARE A DEMENTED FOOL HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN LIVESTREAMING THIS IS WHY I SHOULD LEAD THE DECEPTICONS--"

Starscream cuts off as the camera shifts to record the ceiling instead

faint smacking noises in the background

Nobody bothers to watch the State of the Union because it's more interesting to watch Megatron yelling at a rock.

People slander him in the comments and he gets angry and starts fights with them. One particular user vexes him in particular: xx!seeker!xx. Who could this strange harasser possibly be?

He accidentally records himself sleeping and everybody hears him shrieking about some archivist and McDonald's in his sleep.

Megatron would do "walkthroughs" except instead of some girl showing off the fairy lights in her dorm it is instead some old warlord showing off his poetry taped to his walls.

"i wrote this after my now-former bff stabbed me"

He does unboxing videos even though he doesn't understand the concept of them. He just shoots at a box.

There are uncomfortable poetry recitations.

"let me show you something i have been working on"

deep breath

"orion paxxxxxxxx"

#megatron #headcanons #anon #ask #transformers #transformers: prime #mcprime universe

[dallonm-archive]

REVELATIONS, REVELATIONS | UPDATE #1

Hello y’all! I refuse to believe it’s been 3 and a half months since I last made an update post for this novel because time is not real :) whoops! This has actually been sat in my drafts for like a month though 

A rundown of things that happened: 

We have a new title! I already went into the meta and possible interpretations (it’s ~ambiguous~), so if you want you can read about that HERE.

I did 3 weeks of Nano and wrote 15k words! On the site I recorded 15053 but I think it was more 15.5k? I’ve edited the original doc now so idk but I’m v happy with that!

After that I took a break and a lot of Life Things happened re a certain pandemic that is taking :) all my motivation :) so I didn’t return to drafting until January. I also really struggled to progress with the story and decided the best thing was to revisit what I already had and work on that

It’s not that the original chapters weren’t working, I was just trying to understand the story for the first time and also Nano was such a hazy blur and I’m 99% sure November didn’t happen. I probably won’t revisit a section this intensely again until I’ve finished the draft but at this stage it really helped because the more I worked on it, the more I understood where it had to go next - I know the structure (for now), the basics for the middle and how the story ends :) hehe :) and I don’t think I’d had those revelations (aha) without revisiting this first part. I got to fall in love with the story all over again and I’m very happy with where it’s going!

This intro is already getting so long so I’m just going to jump straight into it because this update is LONG. I’m talking about all the chapters today even though not all of them are new, but since I’ve learnt a lot about them and this is officially update #1 post-nano, it makes sense to talk about all of them! I’m also going to do a new taglist because I see this as a new set of updates also I am awful at keeping up with taglists so! I’m just tagging friends who have already expressed interest + mutuals who I’m like 99% sure want to stay on so! please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed! 

@kowlazovdi​ @isherwoodj​ @avi-burton-writing​ @pamsdrabbles​ @ryns-ramblings​ @kitblogsthings​ @svpphicwrites​ @aetherwrites​ @radiomacbeth​ @bijouxs​ @writerlywonders​ @haldimilks​ @alicewestwater​ @piyawrites​ @coffeeandcalligraphy​ @shaelinwrites​

usual content warnings for religious trauma and cult discussion, specific CWs will come before excerpts!

So I’m currently working with four parts, and I’ve extended the timeline from one year to four years. This suits the story much better BUT pretty much everything here was written before that decision and I do not have the energy to restructure all of it right now :) Each part is split into two sections, one for each POV. So four parts, 8 sections, Felix and Dorothy get four sections each. I let the structure grow with the story but this one is working very well!

Also I started setting my pages to light green and it was LIFE CHANGING. Much kinder on the eyes and just looks so nice?? Calming?? This post is your sign to set your page colour to light green like LOOK

So we have a prologue now!! The story made a lot more sense once I added this because originally the information we learn was just shoehorned into Chapter 1 in a flashback when really we needed to know this information going into it. That being said I struggled with this for a bit just because to justify a prologue I need that information to be conveyed in a way that is completely unique to the rest of the narrative so I didn’t want to just write this as a flashback. I ended up writing it in 2nd person and it came out in a way where it’s not clear which twins POV it is? Like it’s more of a fusion of both of them where neither of them have their own individual identity beyond “the twins” yet. I can’t tell if this is my funky POV peak or a clarity nightmare but I like it! I want it to only be ~500 words so we can take the risk.

In this they’re fourteen and they do a “blood pact” as a way to symbolically cut themselves from their family (aka: their father) whilst they’re still tethered to it. I really love it because not only is it exactly what these slightly unhinged-but-havent-tapped-into-it-yet, co-dependent-and-dont-realise-it kids would do but it immediately brings up the question of family and what family actually is. I’ve also realised a huge idea in this story is the idea of the tangible and for them, the concept of family and blood isn’t tangible so they struggle to recognise its significance (not that it. has any for them in the first place.) but their relationship, seeing each other bleed and pressing the cuts together is. The writing itself is kinda wonky because of the whole funky clarity nightmare POV but here’s a little taste of the ending:

cw: blood

You’ll slink back into your family room to clean and plaster each other’s hands and you’ll ask yourselves: which bloodstains came from who? Who bled the most and who stopped first? Who will come up with the story for the cuts on your palms and who will dispose the bloodied towel? Who is Dorothy without Felix and who is Felix without Dorothy?

Shiny new first chapter! Originally this was in Dorothy’s POV but now it’s switched to Felix and instead of just showing their reunion (which turns out is....very anticlimactic and not appropriate for an opening lol??) we actually explore Felix’s thoughts an actions after he decides to escape the cult, which was a very impulsive decision and spans about a day and a half. This one is definitely gonna take a few drafts to get right because it’s such a delicate but intense event to write and I’m content with the fact that it’s not There Yet but the prose is! I had a lot of fun writing this chapter and it really helped me get back into the swing of loving this story. There’s something very delicate about it but also very troubling under the surface. The opening gave me a lot of trouble, but the first line hits!

The day Felix decides to leave the sun glows the same, and the pine trees breathe the same, and the chapel cross stabs the sky the same. 

Ironically, a good chunk of the chapter happens outside the cult, as Felix decides to spend his final day taking Lola - a woman his age who is literally the only person he likes lmao - to one of the nearby towns. Whilst the main function of the chapter is to introduce the cult itself, it’s also to show how normalised leaving actually is - it’s just every time he’s left has been temporary, and every time he has left, he still feel separated from this “outside world”. They go to a candy store and a thrift store - where Felix lies about his mom (who he hasn’t seen in 20 years) being in hospital so he can use a phone :) Lola is a new character so I don’t have much to say on her, but all I can say is they are wlw and mlm solidarity but also she knows how to read him 

“I don’t know why Dotty and I loved this place so much - we always got  toothaches.”

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

“These apple ones are nice, but I think the lime is my favourite. Do you think the apple or the lime is nicer?”

“I think you’re leaving, but I also think you’re scared, so you’re pretending that I’m going to leave with you and that’s why you wanted to go to town. You chose the candy shop because this is where you went the first time you left, but this time you’re not coming back. Does that scare you, Fel?”

And here is my favourite paragraph in the whole chapter because <3 what the fuck <3 and if pine trees are a key Felix symbol no they aren’t 👁️ yes they are

cw: falling out a window? pushing yourself out a window? description of bones breaking

The day Felix decides the leave, when the clouds bleed amber, he pushes the scratched mahogany dresser so it lines with the windowsill, lies on top and hangs his head out. It’s never comfortable, but it’s always peaceful: sometimes cars murmur on nearby backroads, sometimes a wind chime flutters, sometimes brush rabbits rustle in shrubbery and they all breathe the same oxygen as him. He closes his eyes, inhales the pine air, and plays God: pushes himself further out, an inch at a time, until his shoulders cross the line and he wonders what bones would break if he fell. Would he break both arms or one, both legs or one? Would he break his spine? Which vertebra would crack, and how many? Would he feel them all in one big strike, or all the individual bones burst like popping candy? Evening breeze whispers against his face and he could do it right now, leap out the window and if he didn’t break his legs or back he could run to the bushes, to the pine trees, to the road, the town over East or West, the county line.

If Felix hit the ground, would it be because of a freak fall, or because he pushed himself out?

We have to laugh because I’m pretty sure I said in my Nano update that this chapter was the strongest so far besides one scene but when I looked back that scene <3 took up 80% of the fucking chapter <3 So I just said fuck it I’ll rewrite the whole thing for fun!!!! And I love it!!! It’s so jarring compared to Chapter One and that’s the point!! Everything is so over saturated and originally that was just to convey the absolute shock Felix gets from the Major Impulsive Life Decision He Just Made, but now I think it’s intentional on his part and it goes back to the idea of the tangible: whilst he didn’t grow up totally isolated this is still a new life for him, and he has nothing to latch onto, so he looks to his surroundings and hyper-focuses and latches onto it because it’s something that’s now tangible and accessible to him so he sees it in this very bright, romanticised way (the romanticisation of San Francisco is very amusing to me but it’s also very relevant). But even with that he still distances himself from this environment still - the same way he did whilst living in the cult. He has no idea how he wants to exist in this world and he doesn’t even know how to exist yet.

And so it became clockwork: eyes burst open at two, three, four in morning, doesn’t bother trying to fall back to sleep. Lurk into the kitchen, make a coffee or water or whiskey. Sit under the fritzing lightbulb with no shade, think about everything and nothing and everything and nothing. Or go for a smoke, inhale the vapours until it hurts his chest, breathe in the cool air until it hurts his teeth, wander around the block until it hurts his feet. Sneak back into a room that doesn’t belong to him in an apartment that doesn’t belong to him in a city that doesn’t belong to him. Count the bumps in the popcorn ceiling until footsteps sneak down the hall – Dorothy leaving a room that doesn’t belong to her. Join his sister back at the kitchen, she complains that they need to replace the lightbulb. Over pulpy orange juice and scrambled eggs on toast, she retells her dream and lists the possible meanings and he lists his plans for that day on how to immerse in the outside world, familiarise himself with the city until it belongs to him. Travel by trolley for the first time, eat seafood at the waterfront for the first time. Bump into a cherry-headed conure parrot by chance. Climb Twin Peaks and gaze at the new view of home. Trace the outline of translucent mountains in the air and pretend you’ll ever hike them; trace the outline of high rises in the air and pretend you know the people in them. He asks Dorothy when he’ll stop feeling like a tourist – she has no answer for him.

(context: Dorothy’s roommate, Jolie, is out of town at this point, so Dorothy tells Felix to take her room whilst she takes Jolie’s and they’ll sort it out later. Dorothy has no problem sleeping in Jolie’s bed because her and Jolie are Very Good Friends)

I also realised that, in the nicest way possible to November me, that this chapter was so damn boring because it’s very dialogue heavy but in every dialogue moment they are literally just 🧍 doing nothing. So I wrote a scene as a half-joke of Just Met Like Three Hours Ago Beau and Felix going to the arcade and it saved this chapter. It is SO fun but it also comes straight after this very emotionally intense moment and it’s really interesting to see that reach its zenith and then just. fizzle out but linger in the background? I love this scene but I also can’t take it too seriously because they play Frogger and @aetherwrites​ joked that the game’s a metaphor for Felix leaving the cult and I love her and hate her because she is so right I can picture the LIT1000 seminar where that analysis would be made unironically and it’d be ME who makes it and I am so close to just running with that for real. Also these two aren’t love at first sight but the chemistry is so loud like did you two meet today or have you been married for eight years and own five dogs together what’s the truth? Anyway here’s Felix murdering Beau on sight 

“You know, you could’ve warned me that you’d be that good,” Beau says.

“It’s not that difficult, you could’ve warned me that you’d be that bad.”

Beau leans across to shuffle through cassette tapes in the glove compartment. “I’m not, you just got lucky. I let you win.”

“But it’s not even competitive. You just died seven times in a row.”

I’m a little unsure of the pacing for this chapter now because its effectiveness lies in the fact it takes place a week after the previous, and my job with this section post-draft is to stretch it out longer since it only spans three weeks. I’m hoping I can make it work where there’s little time between Chapter 1 & 2 but still cover more time in chapters 3-5 because I think that’d be jarring in the best way? Like the absolute intensity of that initial week quickly dissolving and suddenly he’s been living this life for months he didn’t notice go by. Again <3 a problem for post draft me <3

I don’t have much to say about this one because in Nano I didn’t even finish it, and now I have but it’s still <3 giving me trouble <3 - however I’ve realised this is probably the most important chapter at this stage of the novel because it’s the first full chapter with just the twins, trying to have a bonding moment and catch up but only learning that they a) love each other b) can’t stand each other whilst not realising just yet that they are c) extremely co-dependent. I like to call this novel multiple plot threads in a trench coat and that’s definitely it, the twins have their own individual plot threads separate to one another, but if there’s a central plot (and there kinda is?? its a surprise :) ) at its essence is them realising how fucked up their relationship is, but wanting to rectify that and trying to understand the difference between a tangled and toxic relationship. 

This chapter introduces that each character has a key symbol that’s attached to the world somehow and Felix has chapters like these in his arc where he tries to navigate the state of their relationship (so there’s one later on titled “Ocean (Beau)”) and his associations with them. We have to laugh here because I was really like “oh Dorothy is sapphic so I’ll make her obsessed with the moon” but then it became a major symbol in the story <3 Dorothy IS obsessed with the moon, and Felix is frustrated because he can’t see it the way she does and he feels like part of him is missing because of that, when it’s just a different perspective but nooo these two need to have unhealthy co-dependency and then get mad when they’re unhealthily co-dependent on each other :/ Anyway I’d just like to talk about how Felix’s need to be like his sister in this chapter is demonstrated through a symbol that’s attached way more to her than it is to him even though in the prose he describes the moon as this fragile, breakable thing which is the complete opposite as how Dorothy would and lets talk about the blade mirroring the prologue!!!!

He closed an eye and pointed the blade at the moon. If he could, it’d be so easy: surgeons precision, swift wrist flick, carved and plucked from the sky. Laid out on his palm like tissue paper, half translucent and as breakable as skin - a birthday present for Dorothy, if he doesn’t tear it. He’ll try not to, but it’d be so easy.

In further development of the Moon Imagery, I’ve started using a lot of Star Imagery with Felix and a lot of general space imagery in both of their POVs and I’m delighted to say I have no idea what the meta means with that but I like it!! It fits the story very well and they’re probably mirroring each other or something!

This little chapter taught me that I need to be flexible with form <3 this was originally meant to be the final scene of the last chapter, and I was so hyped because it was one of the first scenes I conceptualised, but then it ~sucked~. However I didn’t realise until recently that it sucked because I was writing it in a traditional storytelling form - which most of this book benefits from, but this moment certainly does! not! I’m really glad because I think this book is the perfect playground for experimental form - although here it’s relatively simple though, most of the setup for this happens at the end of the previous chapter and then this is just all the information condensed as much as possible. This chapter is focused on memories so it really works for it to be cut off from the previous which is in the fictive present, and Felix’s perception of memories right now are ~a little jarring~

The final scene of Moon (Dotty) depicts Felix and Dorothy breaking into a park at 4am, promptly having an argument that results in Dorothy leaving, and Felix sat next to a fountain picking pennies out of it and trying to associate a memory with the year on the back - this chapter is those memories and this introduces the fluid relationship characters have with their past. For Felix, he’s seeing the last 20+ years from a bird eyes view in a very sporadic way and it’s starting to sink in that those 20+ years actually Happened. Some of the memories are very distanced, others are as intense as flashbacks, and some are a mixture of the two. This one is very interesting to me because he completely separates himself from the memory halfway through Fel do you wanna talk about this (unfortunately I cannot drop the name because of plot <3)

cw: light/implied homophobia

IN GOD WE TRUST / 1978

The first time Felix held a boys hand was in 1978 in the back pew at morning service. It was the first time [redacted]’s father preached and they got stuck in the back because they arrived late, because they laid in the grass together, wearing each other’s identical pecan coloured blazers as sunrise peeled back the night, and they slunk into the back of service like ghosts everyone could see and maybe they knew why they were late. [Redacted]’s father had a razor voice and he made sure every word sliced into his son and his son interlocked fingers with the boy next to him. His son didn’t look at the boy he held hands with the same way he’ll pretend his blazer is his and not the boys and the same way he didn’t look at the boy the first time they kissed behind the chapel building and the same way he didn’t look at the boy during Bible study for the week after.

Whilst I’d say in Chapter 2 the chemistry between Beau and Felix is as clear as day this is the first instance where Felix’s queerness is explicitly introduced and I’m taking this chance to say this book gets more queer every fucking week. Like I think in the last updates I was like ohhh sexuality doesn’t play much into Felix’s arc and know it’s like 99% of his damn arc and we LOVE it. But at this point he doesn’t realise like when I tell you guys this man is so repressed

I am literally only putting this here because I talk about all the other chapters and it’s weird to me to leave one out. Also because the graphic and title is pretty. Not gonna lie I love making these posts and that is 10% to ramble about meta 90% making pretty graphics that is literally just cropping photos on Unsplash and putting Garamond text over them <3

Anyway this was originally Lessons in Holy and when I revisited that chapter I realised it was so fucking messy and I tried to fix it but it didn’t really work and I’ve been scared to touch it since. However the meta is top notch so here we are - it mirrors Chapter One, Everything Holy, which explores Felix’s decision to leave the cult and with that, leave God. Everything Holy / In San Francisco explores his relationship (or lack thereof) with God and how much Felix’s life has changed since he left - and how “holy” it is. It definitely goes back to the idea of the tangible because the holiness preached to him growing up was not something tangible to him, whereas with this he looks at real life experiences, so he tries to find holiness in that. It also ties with Cyan City and the romanticisation of San Francisco as something tangible and something he can find holiness in, which a) he needs to learn that things don’t have to be “holy” to be valuable and b) it would be a shame if :) he centred everything good about his life around SF and then :) something bad were to happen whilst living in SF :) the way he and Dorothy both do this

My plan for this is basically: Condense The Shit Out Of It. The hardest part about this chapter is it is very thematic and you know as a lit major (derogatory) I love that but with more theme centric chapters the line between subtle and Too Much can be verrryyy thin, but I think focusing on character exploration over theme will fix that pretty easily. I’d also like to separate the Isaias introduction into its own chapter because it’s such an important moment and November me just? Latched it on at the end? And that plus Felix’s crisis in the same chapter is just too much. This chapter is gonna get changed A Lot but for now here’s Felix’s very chill and relaxed ending to his POV section :)

cw: drowning, drug mention

Felix didn’t speak to God for three weeks and everything unholy became holy: the coffee scorching his throat, the kaleidoscopic t-shirts and high waisted jeans, the punk rock they play at the record store – loud and electric. It’s unholy, but he sleeps through the night now, he folds coloured card into butterflies at breakfast and scribbles biro eyes over the newspaper's sudoku on his lunch break. He earns money and he spends a pinch of it on himself: on new wave records and playing cards and earrings he can’t wear yet. Sometimes he buys marijuana it’s not a sin because marijuana means he only smokes tobacco twice a day now – one at breakfast, one before bed. He bar hops with Beau on Saturdays and hikes with Dorothy on Sundays and he tells strangers he studies American Literature and he smiles with his eyes more and nobody notices that somebody’s holding his head underwater. And he doesn’t know whose hand it is, but it knows how to grip tight. And he doesn’t know how to swim, but he knows how to swallow water. And he doesn’t know if this is the punishment or the sin because the water stings his eyes but he chooses to keep them open, and the water will tangle in his lungs but he chooses to keep his mouth open. And hellfire can’t touch him under here, so he’ll keep swallowing water and it’ll burn him in a different way, and he’ll like how it scorches his throat.

(Once again context I didn’t share because I don’t like the writing that talks about it: Felix has a deep fear of drowning from past trauma, but he’s also very obsessive about it and often imagines himself drowning.)

(also the way these excerpts are just showing off my love for repetition my Intro to Creative Writing Tutor that called repetition lazy is seething rn!!!!)

Overall though, I’m v happy with how this section came out now that I actually know what the story is! As I’ve finished drafting it, I have noticed where the missing plot beats are and this is what I expected because I Do Not have a lot of experience with novels (I’ve never passed 15k on a novel before so we’re in new territory now) and generally struggle to see beats before I finish a draft. I’m thinking there’s at least one chapter missing and maybe a shorter one, like MSATBOTF, but I won’t be touching this section again until I finish the draft. Most of all I learnt a lot about the story’s form and I’m excited to play with that and be a bit more flexible! 

I’m currently drafting Indigo, the first chapter in Dorothy’s POV, and I was going to talk more about it but this post is too long and the next update will be <3 all about her <3. But the chapter introduces her and Jolie’s tumultuous relationship and here’s a lil peak! 

Me, a sapphic, capable of writing happy sapphic relationships: 

Me instead: 

cw: light/implied homophobia

If she didn’t display the ticket on the bedside table - like she had something to prove - she could have easily been in Dallas, in New York, London, Cannes, Moscow, Tokyo, Cairo, Sydney. But wherever she went, Dorothy and Jolie have had four airport reunions before today - four times they’ve had to soften themselves, disguise themselves. Old high school friend flying in to be her maid of honour, college roommates who don’t see each other as a day past eighteen, pen pals reuniting for the first time since the seventies, business trip colleagues in casualwear. The fifth time, there’s nothing to hide, and as they walk to the car, Dorothy has to wonder: if they were seen by nobody, would Jolie have hugged her with both arms? Would she have kissed her? Would Dorothy kiss back?

I’m midway through this chapter, so I’ll keep the rest of it for the next update! That I promise won’t be in three months!

If you read through all of this then I am in love with you <3 

#i'd say im sorry this is so long but it was so fun to write so i'm not! #also pls be proud i cut 2k words from this bc i RAMBLED #atlastracking #writeblr #writing update #revelations revelations

[with-my-murder-flute]

by the sword (Nile genfic, 2.6k)

Fic summary: Nile learned fencing and longsword and hand-to-hand fighting long before she ever met Andy's small army. But learning with them is a new form of difficult. Not because they've got thousands of years more experience (though they do), but because this time the practice doesn't stop when somebody gets hurt.

So she has to learn about war and how you balance it out with peace. Figure out how they do it and who she wants to be. And decide which weapons suit her best.

Content notes: Explicit depiction of the injuries Nile gets when training in knife fighting and quarterstaff combat with Nicky and Joe. There are also discussions of the physical damage done by different kinds of weapons, the butchering of animals, and people cutting off their own body parts in industrial accidents. (Oh, and a positive/sympathetic portrayal of Nile as a Christian)

They promised that in March they'd start teaching Nile how to fight with a sword, but when March came, Nicky gave her a knife.

A hauntingly familiar one, even though she'd never touched it before. For a second she thought it was her own, the Ka-Bar she planted in Andy's shoulder the day they met. Instead, as she turned it over, finding it familiar in every groove and contour, she found it an anonymous and identical match to her dad's instead. Not new, with the black paint worn down around the edges of the handle, but not a knife she knew. It could have been used by any Marine in the world except her. Except her father.

"You know too much," Joe explained from the side of the hangar, where he'd tumbled an umbrella stand of swords out onto a tarp and started removing their rust with fine-grit sandpaper. "We're not knights or cavaliers. For them, swordfighting was about honour. There were rules. We don't have any of that."

Nile knew going into this that nothing she knew so far was real swordsmanship. Like yes, she could fence; she'd competed in foil and saber for two years as a teenager. But that was closer to stagefighting than actual combat. It was all so staged and carefully managed. Even in her longsword league they said over and over again, it was a martial sport, not actual combat. They could imagine what it might have been like—could land heavy blows on armour, could mime falling down dead—but that wasn't the reality of it.

It seemed to her that the purpose of beginning with knife-fighting lessons was to go over territory she already knew, and do it for real this time. Nicky said he had something else in mind, some principle of combat he meant to teach. But that wasn't what Nile noticed.

What Nile noticed was that this time, she really died.

The old people argued it over, about how to teach Nile. Andy's example made them newly-cautious, but this was the way they'd always trained: You had to do it through blood and pain, you had to fight when you were still resurrecting. It was the way Andy and Quynh had trained Nicky and Joe.

Nile wondered, in the back of her mind, if being trained like that had something to do with the way Booker... well, Booker. After he'd already had such terrible experience of war that he'd wanted to desert. But that was the kind of thing she didn't air out loud, because they'd only just stopped having that kind of useless, circular, self-flagellating argument. She figured she'd keep her own peace on Booker.

She also opined, after hearing them wrangle over it for a day or two, that she'd rather practice with live weapons and get injured among friends than play it safe and incur a dangerous injury among enemies.

And when the knife fighting started, she was grateful they hadn't moved directly to longswords.

They taught knights how to do this, Nicky said, by having them slaughter and butcher animals. It taught you your way around muscles and tendons and joints. He offered to take her to a bullfight sometime, which she didn't say sounded so barbaric she had to wonder why PETA bothered with picketing rodeos.

He said that after her trachea healed over. She hadn't actually died that time; you had to aim further up or to the side to get the carotid artery. But the horror—not actually the pain, but the horror of feeling the air wheeze through the gash in her throat—had been so overwhelming that she'd barely resisted the pin he got her in. She'd just shuddered with her arms behind her back and his weight pressing her down until it healed, and tapped out of the rest of the afternoon. He'd been understanding when she didn't want to be around him for a bit, and let Joe gather her into a hug and let her cry.

That was when he told her about the bulls. She told him about Chicago's meatpacking district, about the old men she knew who'd butchered hogs every day of their lives for decades. About how they said they got numb to it, until one day one of them cut off his thumb with a machine and didn't feel it, until the guy next to him looked over and noticed all the new blood. About how after you see too much violence, your brain just stops processing it. About how a study on kids in the next neighbourhood over from hers had shown they had permanently elevated levels of cortisol, a sign that their bodies were under stress all the time and didn't know how to calm down.

Those were the kind of conversations Andy couldn't stay in the room for. She slunk off somewhere and got drunk, and you saw her the next morning, maybe. Nile used to judge her a lot more for it, but the day her throat got cut she let Joe and Nicky feed her a red wine as soft as velvet and fell asleep pressed against Joe on the sofa and understood, deeper than words, just how much keeping sane meant feeling anything other than your body shattering into pain.

Nicky braided her hair, the next day. Slow and careful, a little unpracticed, singing ballads in a language that wasn't exactly dead, but only had a few thousand speakers left in northern Italy. Their composer hadn't been good, exactly, but they'd been snowed into a castle with him one winter in the 1680s, so Nicky remembered his entire repertoire. Nile listened to the music and knew he'd refuse if she offered to record it, or write it down. One of the songs felt like the length of a novel (but was, when she checked her phone, more like one hour twenty) and by the end of it she was singing the chorus along with him, and it occurred to her that she could simply ask him to teach her.

"You can't rescue every one you see," she remembered her mom saying, when she found a half-stunned bird on the sidewalk. That was what it felt like with languages.

That afternoon Andy took her to the market. Ostensibly it was for groceries, but Andy didn't do simple errands, especially not when it involved food. She stopped to smell fruit Nile had never heard of; Google told Nile that medlar and quince were related to apples and also, apparently, roses. Nile had to try pine nuts, wild mustard, and three different kinds of yogurt drinks, one of which tasted of roses. Andy protested when she added a bag of potatoes to the load, saying they were bland, but Nile, who'd had enough of turnips, sweetly told her to pay the fuck up.

If you were lonely, and hurting, and didn't have someone to hold you, you could comfort yourself like this. Sunshine and sweetmeats and the steady hands of friends. Something, but probably still not enough. Nile understood it but it made her chest ache. She felt, sometimes, a little glad that Andy would die someday, the way families felt helping someone keep alive from cancer. Of course you wanted them to be alive, but you didn't want them to suffer.

Joe moved her on to staff fighting the next day. It was, he said, not the most useful of weapons in the current day and age, since it was most useful against long bladed weapons, "And who else but us uses those?" But there was some kind of theoretical basis behind the progression of her teaching, from weapon to weapon, and after knife came staff.

To tell the truth, Nile liked it. She'd learned about quarterstaff in her longsword weapons, as something that could defeat a swordsman, but nobody anybody she knew actually practiced it, because while you could wear percussion-resistant cloth and keep safe with blunted swords, there was simply no defending your bones against the percussive strike of a giant whirling stick.

There was something less offensive about getting your skull split or your collarbone broken, compared to getting stabbed. Partly it was because Joe was just a much nicer teacher, slower and more patient, while Nicky would keep stabbing you as you fought to reach your own knife. But also it felt more impersonal, more like an accident that had happened to you.

Okay, and it was also more fun. Knives created small imaginary hemispheres of pain, the angle of the arm as it swept out. Quarterstaves were huge, so long that if you wanted to get around them, sometimes it was literally easier to flip yourself into the air or dump your opponent to the ground instead of getting the staff to move. The first time she managed to run up a wall to get leverage on him, it felt so awesome she didn't actually mind that much that he popped her shoulder out taking her back down.

It was bloody and violent and really would have been impossible if dying had been a significant barrier for them. It made Nile laugh in a high-on-endorphins way, because it felt like she could finally push past the pain and find a place beyond her limits. It felt like being free. Like all her life she'd been wearing a heavy armor of caution, knowing she'd had to keep herself alive, and now she just felt the lightness of taking it off.

There were tears at the back of that laughter, about everything she'd lost because of it, but she pushed that away and went to shower. She and Joe spent the evening on Youtube, watching videos of capoeira and wushu, while the other two made a batch of some kind of pickled egg they thought they remembered from three hundred years ago.

Nile hugged Andy sometimes, because she looked like she needed to be hugged. Andy almost never turned her down.

A long time ago, she thought she remembered, holding a sword had seemed to transport her to some other time. Some other place. Like the sword had been a tangible connection to the past, to a time when things felt... clearer, or truer, or more real somehow. Like the feeling the word "honour" gave her, of something echoing and amplifying through a vaulted space. There was a time when people fought with swords for what they believed in. There was a time when you knew what was right and what was wrong and laid down your life accordingly.

She'd been twelve and believed in fairytales. So sue her.

The swords in their armory spelled out a long story of misery and war. When she held them now, Nile felt like she could feel the bodies that had come into contact with their blades. Curved single-bladed sabers and scimitars, ideally wielded from horseback, meant for a decisive downward chop. Nicky's giant longswords, meant to peel an armored knight like a tin can. (He'd used it, he said, to similar effect on a tank once or twice.) Andy's axes showed her age; before they had the metallurgy to make an entire blade, it was better to use a wood polearm with a blade on the end, and focus the sharp metal to a curved edge, to as small a surface area as possible.

Andy's axes showed her age, but not theirs; they were less than ten years old. Steel, especially steel that came into contact with blood, aged fast enough (and could only take so much of a beating) that the old people knew and had opinions on all the modern replica manufacturers. The oldest blades in the collection were used at Waterloo, only a little more than 200 years ago.

(Nile wondered, as she polished one and rubbed a state-of-the-art hydrophobic finish on it, if the quarterstaff lessons were actually preparing her to fight Booker, should she ever find herself opposing him. It was the kind of thing she couldn't help but think about the logistics of. Surely firearms would be more effective, she initially reasoned, except... guns jammed, guns broke, guns overheated, guns ran out of bullets. And then your gun became a very expensive bludgeon. And you're facing a swordsman who's had 200 years to train. So... why not try a very big stick?)

She knew that even this team could betray her. Even they could fight for the wrong cause. They'd supported revolutions that turned into dictatorships and fought alongside people who turned out to be monsters. There was no promise, no moral certainty, in violence.

So she felt really stupid about it, but the truth was that holding a sword... still brought back that old emotion. That feeling of being capable of doing things. Fighting for a better world. It made her feel taller. It made her feel like her life had a purpose that she'd been heading towards since she was young.

Like God had called her for a special purpose.

Which she'd never say to any of the rest of them, since Andy had been a god and Nicky had been a holy warrior and Joe had broken down completely once, when they let him get too close to a newspaper. They'd only ever hear it with the weight of all the horror they had seen.

So instead she had to carry it as a private conviction, a calling she would have to follow by herself, her own career to make holy instead of horrific. Like when she joined the Marines. Freer, in some ways, but even more out of her depth, not sure she totally understood the situations she was injecting herself into.

The fact that she wasn't sure she ever could walk the path of righteousness and keep herself always on the side of good... was absolutely no inducement not to try. It never had been.

"Picked one yet?" Andy asked, from the door.

"What, you guys weren't gonna pick one for me?" Nile asked, craning her neck around. Andy had her hands buried in the pockets of her jacket, smiling faintly.

"Some things, nobody can pick for you," she said. She picked up one of Nile's polished sabers and admired the sheen along its blade. "Your last-ditch weapon, least of all."

Nile already had a secret favourite of all the swords, but what she found herself saying was, "I want us to do some training in de-escalation."

Andy looked aside from the blade. "Sorry?"

Nile took a deep breath, her heart suddenly pounding like crazy. "That's what I was trained in, aside from combat. De-escalating conflicts. When I was a security guard, we... I got a course on mental health crisis from a guy who does hostage negotiation. I want... we should practice it."

She was ready to be seared by Andy's instant, caustic sarcasm. By a reminder that they were a specialist unit brought in when negotiation failed. Instead Andy looked back at the sword, twisting it to catch the light. "Was it useful?"

"Yeah," Nile said, trying not to let the breath shudder out of her in one long exhale. She didn't want Andy to know how nervous she'd been. "There's a... a lotta conflicts that don't have to turn violent, if you just approach it in..." She ran out of steam for an instant, and shrugged. "If you know how to respond."

"See if there's a webinar," Andy said, which flabbergasted Nile so much—coming from Andy!—that she didn't have anything to say while Andy set the saber down and sauntered back out of the building.

Nile sat for a good long while after that, surrounded by swords on a floor stained with her own blood, and got her breathing under control. Eventually she took her knife out of its sheath and looked it over.

It felt silly, to take a sacred oath on a Ka-Bar knife.

"I swear to almighty God," she said to it, anyway, "that I will use you as my last resort. Not my first."

#nileweek2020 #nile freeman #the old guard #my stuff

[combat-wombatus]

Anti-Asian Racism (Pt. 2)

so if you haven’t read my (long) post about historical anti-asian racism, you can find it here. i tried my best to put things in chronological order, so you might want to read that before you read this one!

i got really tired writing that one bc it was super long and i only covered up to like...the 1920s?? and so here’s a second part bc i couldn’t fit it all into one post oopsies

WARNING: this contains some graphic descriptions of violence. i don’t want to accidentally trigger anyone, so please read at your own discretion. however, i do feel that it is important to be educated on the parts of history that schools often overlook, so if you can handle this, please read it.

the watsonville riots—january 1930

as US nationals, filipinos had the legal right to work in the US, and employers exploited these workers relentlessly as they assumed the filipinos were unfamiliar with their rights. they were paid the lowest wages among all ethnic laborers. the immigration acts of 1917 and 1924 allowed filipinos to answer the growing demand for labor in the US, and many young filipino men migrated to the US. due to gender bias in immigration & hiring, filipino men courted women outside of their own ethnic community, contributing to mounting racial tensions. white men decried the takeover of jobs and women by filipinos and resorted to vigilantism to deal with the “third Asiatic invasion”, and filipino laborers in public risked being attacked by white men who felt threatened by them. eventually, on january 19, this culminated in 500 white men gathering outside of a filipino dance club—owned by a filipino man—with clubs and weapons intending to take the white women who lived there out and burn the place down. they were turned away by security guards and the armed owners, but returned later to beat dozens of filipino farmworkers. they dragged filipinos from their homes and beat them, threw them off the pajaro river bridge, attacked them at ranches—and at a labor camp, twenty-two filipinos were dragged out and almost beaten to death. the mob fired shots into filipino homes, killing 22-year-old fermin tobera: no one was ever charged for his murder. in stockton, a filipino club was blown up—the blast was blamed on the filipinos themselves.

many filipinos fled the country. filipino immigration plummeted. anti-filipino violence continued in california in the months after the violence ended.

japanese internment camps—1942–1945

established during ww2 by FDR through executive order 9066. shortly after the bombing of pearl harbor, FDR signed the executive order, supposedly to prevent espionage. military zones were created in california, washington, and oregon—states with a large population of japanese americans—and the executive order commanded the relocation of americans of japanese ancestry. it affected the lives of around 117,000 people—the majority of whom were american citizens. canada soon followed, relocating 21,000 of its japanese residents from its west coast. mexico did the same, and eventually 2,264 more people of japanese descent were removed from peru, brazil, and argentina to the camps in the united states.

even before the camps, discrimination ran rampant. just hours after pearl harbor, the FBI rounded up 1,291 japanese community & religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets. a month later, they were transferred to facilities in montana, new mexico, and north dakota, many of them unable to inform their families. most remained incarcerated for the duration of the war. the FBI searched the private homes of thousands of japanese residents, seizing “contraband” (looting).

1/3 of hawaii’s population was of japanese descent. some politicians called for their mass incarceration. 1,500 people were removed from hawaii and sent to camps on the US mainland. japanese-owned fishing boats were impounded.

lieutenant general john dewitt prepared a report filled with proven lies—such as examples of “sabotage” (cattle knocking down power lines)—and suggested the creation of military zones and japanese internment camps. his original plan included italians and germans (because we were at war with them too!) but the idea of rounding-up americans of EUROPEAN descent was not as popular.

california’s state attorney general and governor declared that all japanese should be removed at congressional hearings in february 1942. general francis biddle pleaded with the president that mass evacuation of citizens was not required, pushing for smaller, more targeted security measures. FDR didn’t listen, and signed the order anyways.

around 15,000 japanese americans willingly moved out of prohibited areas. inland states were not keen for new japanese residents, and they were met with racist resistance. ten state governors voiced opposition, fearing the japanese would “never leave”, and demanded they be incarcerated if the states were forced to accept them. eventually, a civilian organization called the “war relocation authority” was set up to administer the plan, but milton eisenhower (from the department of agriculture) resigned his leadership in protest over what he characterized as incarcerating innocent civilians. 

no one really cared back then, but we appreciate the sentiment. however, this led to a stricter, military-led incentive to incarcerate the japanese civilians, so you didn’t really win, mr. eisenhower.

army-directed evacuations followed, and people had six days notice to dispose of their belongings other than what they could carry. anyone who was at least 1/16th japanese was interned, including 17,000 children under 10, as well as several thousand elderly and handicapped. 

these camps were located in remote areas, the buildings not meant for human habitation—they were reconfigured horse stalls or cow sheds. food shortages and poor sanitation conditions were common. each center was its own town, with schools, post offices, work facilities, and farms—all surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers.

in new mexico, internees were delivered by trains and marched two miles, at night, to reach the camp. anyone who tried to escape was promptly shot and killed, no matter their age.

when riots broke out over the insufficient rations and overcrowding, the police tear-gassed crowds and even killed a japanese-american citizen. three people were shot and killed for “going too close to the perimeter”.

in 1942, fred korematsu was arrested for refusing to relocate to an internment camp. his case made it all the way to the supreme court, where he argued that the executive order violated the fifth amendment. the supreme court ruled against him.

the camps were finally closed in 1945, after mitsuye endo fought her way to the supreme court once again. the government initially offered to free her, but endo refused—she wanted her case to address all of the internment camps. she was successful; the court eventually ruled that the the war relocation authority “has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure.”

the my lai massacre—march 16, 1968

during the vietnam war, US army soldiers entered a vietnamese hamlet on a search-and-destroy mission. they didn’t encounter any enemy troops; they did, however, proceed to set huts on fire, gang-rape the women, and murder around 500 unarmed civilians—including approximately 50 children under the age of four. army leadership had conspired to sweep this massacre under the carpet—the my lai massacre triggered a cover-up by the army that served to keep the atrocities committed a secret from the american public for 20 months during an election year.

american soldiers stabbed, clubbed, and carved “C [for Charlie] Company” into the chests of their victims (alive); herded them into ditches and blew them to bits with grenades. they cut off victims’ heads and slashed their throats.

this was more than spontaneous barbarism; for years, the army had dehumanized the vietnamese people as “gooks” and depicted women and children as potentially lethal combatants.

army officers who heard eyewitness reports of a massacre were quick to discount them. they issued a press release that informed news coverage—with lies. they claimed that their troops had killed 128 viet cong forces, even though they had been met with no resistance and suffered only one self-inflicted wound.

after word of the massacre reached the general public, more than a dozen military servicemen were eventually charged with crimes, but lieutenant william calley (the leader of the charlie company who was the main perpetrator in the massacre) was the only one who was ever convicted. pres. richard nixon reduced calley’s sentence to a light punishment—three years of house arrest.

three years of house arrest, and for only one person. for slaughtering 500 unarmed civilians. you do the math.

deportations

in 1975, more than 1.2 million refugees from southeast asia fled war and were resettled in the US—the largest resettlement for a refugee group in US history. in 1996, the illegal immigration reform and immigrant responsibility act (IIRIRA) expanded the definition of what types of crimes could result in detention & deportation—this broader definition could be applied retroactively, resulting in more than 16,000 southeast asian americans receiving orders of removal—78% of which were based on old criminal records.

islamophobia (article 2 preview) (article 3)

after the 9/11 attacks, islamophobia was especially prevalent in the western world, although it was also prevalent in other places without large muslim populations. from a small percentage of violence, an “efficient system of government prosecution and media coverage brings muslim-american terrorism suspects to national attention, creating the impression that muslim-american terrorism is more prevalent than it really is”, even though since 9/11, the muslim-american community helped security and law enforcement officials prevent nearly two of every five al qaeda terrorist plots threatening the united states. globally, many muslims report feeling not respected by those in the west, including over half of those who live in the US. in late 2009, the largest party in the swiss parliament put to referendum a ban on minaret (a tower typically built into or adjacent to mosques) construction, and nearly 60% of swiss voters and 22 out of 26 voting districts voted in favor of the ban—even though most swiss say that religious freedom is important for swiss identity. a network of misinformation experts actively promotes islamophobia in america. muslims are more likely than americans of any other major religious groups to have personally experienced racial or religious discrimination in the past year—48%, compared to 31% of mormons, 25% of atheist/agnostics, 21% of jews, 20% of catholics, and 18% of protestants. 1/3 (36%) of americans say that they have an unfavorable opinion about islam (gallup polls).

in the aftermath of 9/11, the US government has increasingly implemented special programs with hopes of “curbing and countering terrorism” and “enemy combatants.” these policies—such as the USA Patriot Act and the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System—have been targeted towards and disproportionately affects arabs, south asians, and muslims in america.

of course, the most lethal terrorist groups active in america are white supremacist groups, but people tend to overlook that because it’s always easier to blame something you have zero understanding of.

the non-profit advocacy organization South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) cataloged 207 incidents of hate violence and xenophobic political rhetoric directed towards south asian, muslim, middle eastern, hindu, sikh, and arab communities between nov. 15, 2015, and nov. 16, 2016. approximately 95% of those instances were animated by anti-muslim sentiment. also, “approximately 1 in 5 of the documented xenophobic statements came from president-elect donald trump.”

that’s who america hired to run our country in 2016. this was way before his misdeeds in office, yet it took us so long—and such a hard fight—to oust him. did it really take that long for everyone to catch on?

police brutality—(christian hall) (angelo quinto) (tommy le)

“CHRISTIAN HALL was a 19-year-old chinese american teen who experienced a mental health emergency on december 30, 2020. pennsylvania state police were called and requested to help de-escalate the crisis. rather than providing aid or assistance, the troopers shot and killed christian. his hands were up in the air as he stood on the SR-33 southbound overpass to I-80, posing no threat to the armed officers.”

they shot him seven times, with his arms up in the air.

“I miss my son so much. I love him so much but if his death is the catalyst for change, then so be it. Let his name be remembered. His name is Christian Hall.” —Fe Hall, Christian’s mother.

a video, shot by his mother, shows ANGELO QUINTO, a 30-year-old Filipino immigrant, unresponsive on the floor after officers subdued him with a knee to the back of his neck. the video shows him bleeding form the mouth after police knelt on his neck when he was experiencing a mental health crisis in his family home. he died three days later in the hospital without waking up. the antioch police had no body camera footage, nor has the department named the officers involved.

“I was just hoping they could de-escalate the situation,” his sister said in an interview. she called 911 when her brother had been experiencing mental health problems and paranoia. she says that she remains conflicted about calling the police that night: “I don’t know if I will not feel bad. If it was the right thing to do they would not have killed my brother.”

“TOMMY LE, a 20-year-old Vietnamese-American student, died hours before he was scheduled to attend his high-school graduation in June 2017. He was shot multiple times by sheriff’s Deputy Cesar Molina after responding to reports of a man armed with a knife. Deputies discovered after the shooting that he was carrying an ink pen, not a knife.

The office reported that Le had lunged at the sheriff’s deputies with a knife and had been threatening residents, shouting he was “the creator.” An autopsy showed that two of the three bullets that struck Le were in his back, and a witness said that Le was shouting he was “Tommy the renter.”

despite the challenges our communities face, AAPI communities receive less than one percent of philanthropic funding.

covid-19

i’ll try to keep this brief. there have been so many instances of violence perpetrated against the asian community during covid-19—not to mention the casual snipes at our culture, the microaggressions we face every day, the verbal and sexual harassment we encounter, sometimes even on the way to the grocery store for a supply run.

VICHA RATANAPAKDEE: a thai-american, he became known as “grandpa” throughout his neighborhood, where he’d made it a ritual to go on morning walks each day. it was during one of those walks on january 28, 2021, when the 84-year-old was forcibly knocked onto the ground. he was transported to the hospital, where he died two days later.

“He never wake up again. He [was] bleeding on his brain,” his daughter said in an interview. “I called him, ‘Dad, wake up.’ I want him to stay alive and wake up and come and see me again, but he never wake up.”

between march and december last year, the organization Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander Hate recorded nearly 3,000 reports of anti-Asian hate incidents nationwide. the new york city police department also reported a 1,900% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes last year.

i think senator tammy duckworth put it very aptly.

“Most people, I don’t think, think of Asians as being the subject of racist attacks, but we have been. And we’re the one community that’s often always seen as the ‘other’. I—to this day—still get asked, ‘So where are you from really?’“

i don’t think i’ve ever related so much to something a senator said.

actor and activist daniel dae kim talked about an encounter he had with a pollster who said asian americans are “statistically insignificant” in polling models in a congressional hearing:

“Statistically insignificant. Now all of you listening to me here, by virtue of your own elections, are more familiar with the intricacies of polling than I am, so undoubtedly, you already know what this means—statistically insignificant literally means that we don’t matter.”

do we matter? are we really “statistically insignificant”? blips in the machine, to be used and then thrown away once we become too “fussy” or demanding?

testimonies from victims showcase the array of xenophobic and racist insults they’ve encountered. i’ll put an (x) next to the ones i’ve personally heard.

“Go back to Wuhan and take the virus with you.” (x)

“You are the reason for the coronavirus.” (x)

“Damn, another Asian riding with me. Hope you don’t have covid.”

*fake coughing* “Chinese b—” *more fake coughing* (x)

now for some really “creative” ones that i’ve personally encountered:

“Cock up my dad’s botton, Chinease cunt”

“You don’t got the kung-flu, do ya?”

“Ever ate a dog?”

Along the same vein, “ever had any bats? Heard they’re delicious.”

“Wouldn’t want ya to pet my dog. Ya might steal it and cook it for dinner!” *hyena laugh*

a little personal anecdote

i debated whether or not to wear a mask to school in early march. my aunt lives in china, and she’s a first-responder (trained paramedic & contact tracer) and we knew how bad the virus was going to be in late february when we facetimed her, quarantined in her apartment. her toddler was staying with her husband at her parents’ house because she was afraid of infecting them. she didn’t see them in person for four months, working 14-hour shifts in the back of an ambulance decked out in a hazmat suit.

my mom cried when she facetimed us the second week of her grueling shift. i couldn’t stop thinking about her when i went to school that day. my mom sent me another picture during art class, and i just couldn’t control myself. i started crying during class.

i asked my mom whether or not i should wear a mask to school, and she said that if i did, i would be singling myself out. i wouldn’t be protecting myself—far from it. if i wore a mask to school, people would think that i had the virus, not that i was trying to protect myself from it.

gossip spreads like wildfire, and the next day, everyone knew i had relatives in china. most of my friends were sympathetic, but they were wholly removed from the situation. it was early march, and they never believed that the coronavirus would spread here. they were firmly rooted in their opinion that it was an easy situation, grossly mishandled by the chinese government, and that we’d do much better if it ever washed up on our shores.

i do hate the chinese government, and back then, i didn’t think too much of their antagonism. yes, the situation was mishandled. it was like a repeat of the SARS outbreak in 2003—first a cover-up by the local government, then a cover-up by the national government, and finally, a realization that no, in fact, they could not handle it in secret. yes, the media had to get involved. no, dead bodies were not piling up in the hallways while they waited for doctors to triage care. yes, we have capacity! look at these documentary mini-videos, forcing doctors and patients to leave a wing of the hospital empty and operate below maximum capacity so they could shoot propaganda videos for the lunar new year, boasting about how well they’re handling it!

i won’t argue that in the beginning, this was mishandled. i will argue, however, against the idea that asian countries are incompetent. that western approaches are oh-so-much-better.

in wuhan, they built a makeshift hospital spanning three soccer fields in the span of a week, with properly-functioning utilities, hospital beds, decontamination, and security. people rallied together and donated everything from money and supplies to food and ventilators, from all across the country. doctors and medical staff shaved their heads so they could better wear masks and volunteered to go to wuhan, where the situation was much more dire than in other areas. thousands of medical students from shanghai were transported to wuhan to fill the personnel shortages.

china reopened in june.

what did we do?

we didn’t ask the asian countries for experience. china, japan, and korea had handled the 2003 SARS outbreak and knew what kinds of things needed to be done. from the beginning, they wore masks. they halted travel, they did routine testing, performed contact tracing, set up programs for bringing food to the immunocompromised, elderly, and disabled, and worked as a cohesive community.

on the other hand, we resorted to childish infighting, political games, shunning masks and blaming it on asians, when we could’ve learned from them instead. we didn’t do contact-tracing. our testing systems were sorely inadequate. borders were closed with china, yes, but the majority of the cases in the US arrived from italy and other european countries who had already been infected. banning travel between the US and china was nothing more than a political gimmick.

states fought each other for basic medical supplies. there was no national unity. we were fractured in two, and COVID became more fuel for the fire dividing the two parties, when it could’ve been something that unified us.

and instead of blaming china, we would’ve been better off recognizing our own failures.

you can say that the virus caught china by surprise.

it shouldn’t have done the same to us.

we knew it was coming. but we still botched it.

blaming the virus on asian communities is a sign of immaturity and a lack of accountability. own up to your failures.

anyways, my mom was right. whenever we wore a mask in public, people really did think that we were “dirty, foreign chinese.” we stocked up on groceries so we wouldn’t have to go out, because every time my mom did, people would look at her weirdly. they didn’t wear masks.

one time, she was accosted by a blonde woman when we were at a supermarket. i’d gone with her that time because it was right after practice, and i was in the car anyways. the lady came up to us (without a mask: this was in may) and said, “excuse me, you don’t have the virus, do you?” with a pointed look at my mom (who was masked up).

my mom, being the polite person she is, simply responded “no, i don’t.”

the woman didn’t let us go after that. she pushed even more. “well, you see, i was just making sure...with this chinese virus going around, it’s scary, you know?”

i wanted to ask her why she wasn’t wearing a mask if it was “so scary”, but i couldn’t get a word in before she asked another question.

“by the way, y’all aren’t chinese, right?”

yes i am. yes we are. why does it fucking matter. we’re wearing masks, you’re not, get the hell out of my face.

honestly, i don’t know how my mom does it. she has the patience of a saint. she said “mhm”, grabbed a gallon of milk, and walked to the self-checkout area. the lady looked at me and raised her eyebrow, and i said “so what if we are?”

she looked like she’d been slapped in the face. i turned and followed my mom, but she said “now hold on young lady!” i ignored her and kept walking.

i don’t owe her anything. why do people think it’s okay to talk to others like that? we’re human beings too. we’re allowed our basic dignity. basic respect. we’re not something for you to joke at, to laugh at, to fetishize or bully into submission. i don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to realize that. i don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to treat others like human beings.

to people like that lady in kroger:

why do you feel the need to do it? is your opinion of yourself really that high to think that you’re superior to others who are different from you? are you really that conceited to think that you’re the perfect image of a perfect human, and anyone not like you is unworthy, considered lesser? or is your opinion of yourself really that low, to think that whatever you say, it doesn’t really matter anyways? why do you find derogatory jokes and demeaning comments funny? why do you think it’s okay to harass a stranger just going about their day? is your life really that boring, and you have nothing else to do with your time? why? would it be okay if i came up to you and asked if you ate rotten shark meat, then laughed it off and said “oh, i thought you were from iceland”? is that okay? can i ask if you eat cockroaches? how would you respond if i asked “where are you from?”? you would say america, right? and if i asked again? europe? where in europe? oh, you don’t know? are you illegal? was your mother a prostitute? are you a communist? why are your eyes so big? do you speak europeanese? crut iveroij aeish poient. oh, those aren’t words? well i think they sound like european words. what’s your name? je-re-mi-ah? like jeeryyy-miiiaaaccchh? oh, that’s not right? sorry, my tongue just won’t bend that way. your names are so weird! why would your parents name you that? oh, it means something? well, i don’t know the language, so don’t expect me to say it right. have you ever eaten haggis? oh, that’s scottish? oh, you’re not scottish? sorry, you all look the same to me. scots and italians are just so similar, you know? what’s your name? your last name is anderson? i know an anderson! she lived in texas. are you related to her? oh, you don’t know her? sorry, i thought you were all related. yeah, like i said before, you all just look so much alike, you know? are you lazy? oh, nothing, i just heard from my dad that all french people are lazy. oh, you’re not french? well, you still look lazy. are you good at english? oh, nothing, i just assumed that all white people were english. i know you like to assume that we’re good at math. oh, you got an A in english? isn’t that normal? i can’t help it, you’re just smarter. you probably don’t even study. oh, you do? well, you’re smart anyways, so it doesn’t matter. you’re so good at math for an american! oh no, nothing, i just assumed that all americans were bad at math. *starts playing with her hair* oh, that’s making you uncomfortable? but your hair’s so silky, and it’s so smooth. what kind of hair products do you use? i want to learn how to make my hair look exotic like that. oh, you’re not exotic? but you’re foreign. of course you’re exotic. you know, *leans in and whispers* men like you this way, yeah? they just looveeee exotic ladies. *winks*

can you see how this is demeaning? can you see how this diminishes our culture, our hard work, our accomplishments?

racism isn’t funny. it’s not cool, it’s not a joke, and it’s hurtful. it makes us question our capabilities, forces us to have unrealistic expectations of ourselves, makes us feel unworthy and “other”. just stop? stop making hurtful comments. stop stepping on other people to feel better about yourselves.

#racism #anti-asian hate #anti-asian racism #asian #asian racism #politics #covid #covid-19 #i'm so sick of it

[fairfaxleasee]

So @rangeredacted (the mind behind my Evergiven fic) requested something with killer garden gnomes for @dadrunkwriting so... Here it is. (Or here is Part 1 at least, I don't think I have the energy to do the whole thing tonight...)

"Inquisitor what are you doing?" The answer should be fairly obvious to Cullen - Ayala Trevelyan was kneeling in Skyhold's garden digging a hole. But Cullen knew enough about Ayala (and the woman's hatred of getting dirt, plants, or bugs anywhere near her hands or clothes) to know that if she was digging a hole in the garden, then answer was anything but obvious.

Ayala ignored him entirely and stuck something in the hole.

"Inquisitor..."

Cullen had no idea what she had stuck in the hole, other than he both didn't want to know and that it should greatly concern him. Ayala had an annoying habit of picking up every piece of useless junk on Thedas that caught her attention for any reason and Cassandra and Solas had decided it was Cullen's job to sort through it all just in case some of it was dangerous (some of it was inevitably dangerous, but given the amount of stuff the woman dragged back to Skyhold, it would be far more suspicious if it wasn't occasionally dangerous.)

"I asked you a question, Inquisitor..." Cullen hoped the 'angry Templar' tone would get her attention. He doubted it would, she was one of the few Circle mages he'd met that didn't inherently mistrust Templars, but if the tone didn't work he'd have to try and touch her and he wasn't in the mood to be flung halfway across the courtyard by a barrier spell she'd send up whenever someone tried to touch her and she wasn't expecting it (although if she spent more time in this world and less in her own, she might be surprised about it less often).

Ayala hummed to herself and adjusted whatever it was that she stuck in the hole that Cullen was becoming more and more convinced he never wanted to look closely enough at to properly identify. She made one last adjustment and turned to face Cullen (who had made sure to have his arms crossed and a disapproving glare on his face in preparation for it).

"Inquisitor, you know you're supposed to bring anything you find to me before you do anything else with it, right?"

Ayala's eyes darted up and to the right, "Uh... I don't know what you're talking about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about." He stepped around her, finally resigned to seeing just what she'd gotten herself into this time.

"But look! He's all happy there! You wouldn't want to make him mad by taking him out of his new home!"

Cullen clawed his fingers in rage at the interloper sitting in the garden. The blighted gnome was, by far, the ugliest thing Cullen could recall seeing (and that was saying something given the things Cullen had seen). Its sculptor had (for some Maker-forsaken reason) carved its wrinkled face into a snarl and given the thing almost avian talons that were reaching up towards whoever was looking at it. And the ridiculously oversized hat that obscured its eyes was just a mockery of everything.

He reached out and snatched the thing out of the ground, provoking a disbelieving interjection from Ayala. "Hey! Put him back! He liked it there!"

"NO! Inquisitor, you know the rule - anything you find on your travels has to come directly to me for inspection! Now, I'm going to put this blighted thing in the ever-growing pile of things you've picked up. Once I manage to examine it, assuming it's not possessed by something, you can have it back and then you can stick it in the garden if that's what you want to do!"

"But he wants to live in the garden now!"

"It is a statue!"

Cullen turned and stalked off, but not quickly enough to avoid Ayala's grumbled retort, "Don't see why you're so grumpy about everything all the time..."

He (barely) resisted the urge to turn around and hit her over the head with the stupid hunk of rock and stomped the rest of the way back to his office.

He set the thing down on his desk and buried his head in his hands, hoping the thing would decide to be gone when he opened them (this could all be a bad dream, couldn't it?). Unfortunately, when he was interrupted a few minutes later by Jim, not only was the scout lurking around in his office for what he was positive was an inherently illegitimate reason, the blighted garden gnome was still there and appeared to be sticking its tongue out at him (he wished he could recall whether the thing always had its tongue out like that).

"What's this?" Jim lifted up the statue and turned it over in his hands.

"Nothing!" Cullen snatched it back. Jim winced as he did so, but Cullen didn't care. "Something the Inquisitor picked up and was trying to sneak into the garden." He slammed the thing down on his desk.

"Oh, so you know the Inquisitor was doing something in the garden then?"

Cullen widened his eyes and pressed his lips hard enough for it to hurt him at the man. Fortunately it worked as Jim ran from the office faster than Cullen had ever seen him move before. He turned down to his desk so he could take out his anger at the damn gnome only to find it gone.

That's... odd. I could have sworn I just put it down here.

He started looking around the desk for the thing.

Maybe I just slammed it down hard enough to crush the blighted thing. No, I'm not that lucky...

He snapped his head up when he heard the door open, "What now, Jim? Some other problem I've already solved?"

"I highly doubt that, Commander. I can think of few problems you've actually solved."

Cullen narrowed his eyes at the one interruption he liked less than the scouts. "...Solas."

"Well, I see your eyesight is working. However, I came in to test your memory. Ayala came to tell me that you confiscated her gnome."

"I don't care how upset your girlfriend was about it! She knows she's supposed to bring things like that to me first! And why'd you let her bring the blighted thing back with her anyway?"

Solas shook his head slightly in a gesture Cullen recognized to mean the apostate had no intention of listening to a word he was saying.

Where is that damn gnome now that it could have a use. I might not be able to hit the Inquisitor with it, but I could absolutely throw it at him...

"Finished, Commander?"

Cullen glared in response.

"Good. While I care little, for the record, I did not 'let' Ayala bring anything back here. She was with Sera, Blackwall, and the Enchanter at the time, and my understanding is they were too busy antagonizing each other to notice that Ayala had gone off into a secret passage on her own. However how the gnome got to Skyhold is unimportant. Where the artefact is now is."

"I don't know. I must have tossed it in one of the piles of junk," Cullen threw his arm around his office to indicate all the random items Ayala had dragged back to Skyhold, while Solas had been 'supervising' her, "Your girlfriend whose name you're afraid to say to her face dragged back here."

Cullen thought one of Solas' eyebrows may have twitched at that.

Good. At least he's getting just as annoyed about this as I am!

"Let us keep any interaction between us to a minimum, Commander. Where is the gnome now."

"I don't know, I can't find it, but I also can't be expected to keep track-"

Solas sighed, looked at the ceiling (or at least as much of the ceiling that existed in Cullen's office), and cut him off, "Very well, Commander. However, as you cannot locate it, can you tell me this - had Ayala put the gnome in the garden before you confiscated it?"

"I -" Cullen thought back for a second. "Yes."

Solas pursed his lips. "Unfortunate. And these blood drops by your desk, they were not caused by the gnome by any chance, were they?"

"I - what?" Cullen leaned over to where Solas was pointing. There wasn't a lot of blood, but it was fresh, and Cullen didn't think it had been there before Jim started playing with the stupid gnome.

Cullen didn't answer Solas, but the man saw through his silence. "That is even more unfortunate, Commander."

"Why? Just what do you know about this Solas?"

"Well, I know nothing, I never saw the statue myself if you recall, however in my travels in the Fade I have heard rumors of-"

"GARRG BAR-RARGH!!" A gutteral cry interrupted whatever Solas was going to say.

They both snapped their gazes to Cullen's desk in time to see the gnome reach into the inkwell and smear paint on is face in a pattern that was reminiscent of Bull's vitaar.

"BA-RAR-RAR!!!" the gnome called as it picked up one of Cullen's quills and stabbed at his hand.

Fortunately, his armor was more than a match for his quill and the makeshift weapon snapped in half. The gnome seemed to be far less pleased than Cullen at the development and reacted by trying to bite his finger. He snatched gnome and threw it at the nearest wall (the fact that Solas' head was in a direct path to the nearest wall was just a random fringe benefit of the action). Unfortunately, Solas ducked out of the way and the gnome was launched outside Cullen's office without taking any of the apostate with it.

"GAR-Rah-argggh!!!!" it called as it landed and turned to scurry away.

"Let me guess - the statue is cursed and will come to life if its removed from its garden and exposed to blood?"

"Not exactly, Commander. The statue is cursed, however it does not need blood to come to life. That happens if it is forcibly removed from a garden in which it has been placed if the proper precautions are not taken. The blood allows it to increase its numbers. The more blood it finds, the more of these we will have to deal with. And the more bleeding injuries they could cause. I'm sure you can understand the vicious circle that represents."

"If we survive this, Solas - your girlfriend is in quite a LOT of trouble."

"Technically, Commander, she didn't cause any of this. You were, after all, the one who removed the gnome from the garden."

"Have I mentioned lately how much I don't like you?"

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