#also hes a child. like hes actually a child zed has described him as a child in the wm biography

[galaxygermdraws]

Oh Worm? Feat. Wm's hamsters that he named after Zed n Tango.

(Reblogs w tags/comments are appreciated and encouraged. Please n thankyu)

#mcyt #hermitcraft #hermitblr #wormman #germ draws #germdraws #zedaphplays #ask to tag #tw blood #tw injuries #he really rammed himself into a wall 8 times a day for two months on end #is he ok??? wormman u good hun? #also hes a child. like hes actually a child zed has described him as a child in the wm biography #'he is a happy child with a dream to stop crime and bring justice to the world' #wormman is Literally a child.

[ogravensimp]

this one is for@mistkissedmoon a lil more Dad!Constantine with a ft. from Jason Blood and John would be so terrible at taking care of ppl but still like really care, so I hope I captured that feeling in this

“This was your big emergency?”

Jason Blood gave a blank stare to the British man across from him.

He didn’t usually just drop everything to attend to someone; especially if that person was John Constantine, but ever since the exorcist decided to take care of the Gem of Scath he proposed it would be a good idea for John to keep him on speed dial.

He didn’t actually expect John to use said number.

Constantine was a demon expert in his own right. Jason believed that he was right to assume that the only reason his help would be sought after was only if the apocalypse had begun.

He felt a nerve in his temple twitch in annoyance (and, ashamedly in disappointment).

It's just that when John rang him and pressed for him to come to the House of Mystery, he had simply been expecting more...destruction. Maybe some blood and fire raining from the sky, the earth itself cracking open to release eldritch horrors of all kinds or even complete ripping of the fabrics of reality.

Anything along those lines would have justified his presence being required, but instead, he was met with-

“achoo!”

Jason looked down at the small form below him.

The spawn of evil incarnate was smaller than he thought it would be. If one ignored the glowing red gem wedged into its forehead, it could easily fool for another harmless 7-year old girl.

Especially as it laid half-dazed in its bed, staring up at the ceiling in a lucid trance. With only half its face poking out from under their star themed blanket, it sniffled pitifully due to the snot dripping out its flushed nose.

The room was perfectly mid-temperature, but the child has so drenched in sweat that even the towel on top of its forehead had over-soaked but yet it still shivered as if it was below -0 degrees.

Was the level of the child’s symptoms extreme? Yes.

Was it worth calling him for? Definitely not.

The daughter of Trigon was sick, yes, but it was obviously just the flu.

“That’s what I‘ve been saying.”

Jason turned to the source of the voice—a young woman stood in the doorway and held a tray of what seemed to be cups and bowls.

John had introduced her as Zed and he had just assumed they were in a relationship— to focused on the assumed threat to try to examine their personal lives.

Maybe he should’ve guessed this excursion would be a waste of time by Zed’s expressions. When he arrived she had shot him nothing but apologetic looks. At first, Jason believed the worst laid behind the doors he was led to but as he now knows, that was not the case.

“That idiot thinks it’s some paranormal curse,”, Zed huffed as she sent a glare at the blond man who began to try and defend himself.

“It's been weeks and she's still under the weather. You think Beelzebub gets the bloody sniffles?!”

“But a child of her age would! Especially one who reads in the tub and doesn't dry her hair before going outside in August,” Zed rolled her eyes as she spoke as if the answer was obvious—and they were, "maybe if you stopped treating her as the destroyer of worlds and instead as a 7-year-old, you won't have wasted the poor guys time."

Jason couldn't help but internally agree with her words.

John continued his defence, "All I'm saying is when I got a cold, I just carried on with my day maybe a bit foggy up there but hardly half-dead like Blackbird over 'ere."

Another eye roll from Zed was the only reply.

Approaching them, she extended the tray towards Jason. He gave a look at the cup of tea and noticed it seemed to be next to another 'sweat towel' in a bowl, he cringed a little before rejecting the offer.

Zed just shrugged before dropping the tray onto a side table and drinking the cup herself. Taking a seat at the edge of the bed, her gaze was soft as she stared down at the child, her hands ran through the child short dark tresses in a comforting manner.

Jason studied how she gently cupped the back of the Gem of Scath’s head and raised it, picking up a cup of water from the side and bringing it to the demon’s mouth and it drank with obedience.

The more Jason watched, the less he could even continue to refer to this child as a demon.

Etrigan was a demon—looked like one too.

How could he use the same term he'd use to describe the bastard in him, to describe this tiny looking thing before him? And though he could sense the hellish magic pouring out of her, for now, she was harmless.

"Alright, summon him out."

John's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. He gave him a perplexed look before asking, "Excuse me?"

"Etrigan. Your demon buddy," the way John looked and spoke, you could tell he saw no issue with his request, "Just wanna confirm from a primary source whether if this is something worse or natural way of life."

Jason was flabbergasted, 'was this why he was called?!'

John sighed.

Actually looking peeved by Jason's confusion.

To the side, he heard Zed's chuckle as she began to switch the towels on the girls head, "told you he wouldn't do it."

"Oh bog off," John retorted back before turning back to him and placing a hand on Jason's shoulder, "Listen, it's either you or I visit ol' Luci and I'm simply not really...eager to have that encounter. So do me a favour here, and just bloody say the rhyme."

Jason looked at the hand on his shoulder like it was a parasite before smacking it off. Taking a breath to compose himself, he turned to the exorcist, " I assure you, there is nothing Etrigan can assist you with that I cannot also offer."

"A huge fuck-off sword?"

Jason glared, "Let me see the child," he spat—obviously ignoring the previous statement.

John put his hands up in surrender before indicating with a turn of his head to the child who had actually risen during their conversation and was now sitting upright—well, slouched and she was staring half-lidded at the wall with the only sign she was awake being her harsh breaths.

He bent down as to be in her level of sight and stuck his hand out, "Hello, my name is Jason Blood, you must be..." "Raven." "-yes, thank you, Zed. They tell me you are a bit under the weather?"

Jason realized halfway that he never learnt the girl's name and had simply just been referring to her as the Gem of Scath. He felt a tinge of guilt for his rudeness, but the dazed stare the girl gave him was confirmation that she was barely conscious enough to even notice.

He also realized it was ridiculous to try to shake a child's hand and was bout to retract it when he felt a pair of smaller ones latch onto his fingers.

Looking up he met a sleepy pair of amethyst eyes trying to focus on him, "N-n-nwot sick...jus-jhwust..uh sleepy and...cwold," with a voice that was softer than a whisper, plus the slurring of her words due to the fever, she was basically incomprehensible.

He was going to try and retract his hand again when he felt something soft come in contact with it. He looked down to see that she had placed her face in the palm of it and wrapped around it like a snake.

With a single muttering of, "...warm...like hellfire", she fell asleep with his hand still under her.

He looked at Constantine.

Not really sure what to do, but the con-man only grinned before giving him a tap on the back, "Good lad Jason, put her to sleep. Even I couldn't do that, let alone Etrigan. Guess I'll leave it to you."

And with that, Zed and John stood up and began to exit the room.

Jason was still in shock to even speak; so before he realized what they were doing, they already switched off the lights and closed the door with a soft click.

He simply stared into the darkness, the only illumination being the moon and stars outside.

Sighing, looked down at the fiend holding his hand prisoner and contemplated yanking her off. She was small. it would incredibly easy to flick her away and then he could simply depart home...but then he felt a squeeze.

As if the girl sensed his thoughts, she clung harder onto his limb like it was a lifeline.

She looked truly at peace right now; her harsh breaths were now nothing but puffs and she was less...sweaty. Demon spawn or not, the girl was no more vulnerable than a newborn fawn at the moment. Jason just didn't have the heart to disturb her peace for his own gain.

Another sigh could be heard in the silent room.

'Maybe an hour longer won't hurt but after that, never accept a favour for John Constantine again.'

hope you like it, feels weird writing characters that aren't just raven and my other faves, hope I didn't make anyone ooc

#raven dc #raven teen titans #john constantine #zed martin #john x zed #dad!constantine #constantine & raven #dc comics #raven fanfiction #jason blood #etrigam the demon

[goosedawn]

i've never listened to Friends At The Table (though it's on my list now, dnd campaigns podcast wooo!) what would the storyline of the crossover entail? with the HermitCraft characters i'm guessing it's chaotic and interesting 😊

:0!!!! :DDD!!!!!!! if u end up giving it a shot i hope u enjoy it! they dont actually play dnd, they play a bunch of other tabletop games which are all really neat also! (also if u need a suggestion for where to start if/when u get to it, feel free to drop me an ask)

the story follows the typical structure of "group is sent off to do tasks for money, and eventually realise something bigger is going on" so i am largely following the plot in that way, where groups of adventurers are sent out to investigate a series of towers that appear to have some connection to the gods of the world. ajhsjjejhfhjef most of my thoughts about the au are more character based,, so instead of a proper plot summary i can give details and thoughts on where some of the hermits fit into everything so far (while. trying to avoid the big twists revealed in the podcast ig,,?) i also ended up including some sleepybees (sbi + beeduo) in the au but im still not 100% sure on where they fit in (as in i have too many ideas djhdkndnj)

ANYWAY uhhhh some spoilers for the universe im basing this off of, under the cut cos it got long :'D

context/setting:

the specific arc/universe that this au is set in is the one from Seasons in Hieron (SiH) which is their fantasy season! (its. its long,, this arc spans i think. 3 seasons? plus a short interlude season)

the setting was previously a traditional fantasy world that had some sort of great catastrophe (the Erasure) happen, and the current world is after people have rebuilt a new society! its described as "post-fantasy, post-post-apocalyptic" its very fun and subversive and afhdjfbj the worldbuilding is just. real good :>

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characters:

im still figuring out where different hermits fit into the au but i am basically taking aspects of various characters from the podcast and splitting roles and traits to hermits, so its all mixed up! also,, there are just. so many hermits,, i have not found places for all of them (not even most of them i dont think) but here is what i have so far:

impulse and zedaph work in the New Archives (a series of huge warehouse-like archives run by the orcs of this world!) impulse is an orc, zed is not! impulse works to retrieve artifacts for the archive, and zed,, hes just kinda there. learning and experimenting with pattern magic (a type of magic done by arranging and rearranging things in specific configurations, often they are obscure and weird things like "27 brown birds in a tree, 5 table legs, 500 buttons, 16 steps to the east" etc.) when the story finds them they are studying a fallen tower in the center of the Mark of the Erasure (a location still showing the effect of the great cataclysm that befell the world)

tango vaguely takes the role of Ephraim, prince of something or rather,,, idk man hes cool and has fire powers, very anime. his powers were a gift from the gods, and he goes on to hv close relations w them! he meets up with impulse and zed later on and become fast friends obviously

joe is an expert in pattern magic, and is on the run from the archives after having stolen a pretty nondescript notebook. its a nice notebook! hes just a human guy. he writes and recites poetry in order to do pattern magic using the notebook!

cleo hails from the city of *Nacre*, where people get multiple chances at life. people from there can get killed but will exist on as zombies, then if they are killed again, they exist as ghosts, and then they pass away fully. she is an undead pirate captain that joe somehow manages to sway over to their side ahjbhfbjf,, she is hunting down the lost prince/king of Nacre.

wels is a pala-din (pal-ah-deen, rather than paladin), a sort of living marble statue that serves one of the gods in the pantheon.

scar is ofc, a wizard! it. it should be noted that wizards dont really exist in this world, people who perform and study magic are mages, not wizards,, "wizard" is kind of a weird term to use sjbdbjhfjjhb scar takes place of The Great Fantasmo in the podcast, and similarly has an invisible assistant! he doesnt seem to remember much of his past...

cubfan works in Velas, a fishing town where the story "begins" he does not enjoy talking to scar, and seems to be sad whenever hes around. perhaps scar reminds him of someone, or perhaps of better times...

tfc hes a priest aagsuijdjhkdgjdkihwhjvd i swear theres a reason for this later,, the role of the npc alyosha is somewhat split between tfc and cub!

-----

others i have thoughts on but im not settled on yet:

im debating having xisuma as part of the pantheon, but if not, he would be a druid so he can shapeshift into animals sjbakjnsnfjb he would take the general role of Fero in the story, but would also be kind of split with evil x, who captures... a certain stubbornness and deepset frustration Fero has in later times.

etho could take the place of Samol, the first god to exist. he is the embodiment of this world, and is kind of isolated and strange wbhshjhbdbhjdjbdkjn,, strange /pos. hes also. kind of dissapearing though... i wonder why :)

while theoratically i could have xisuma as samol cos. yknow. admin. i think the vibes and role just fit etho better

and... if i had etho as samol i think it could be fun to have doc and bdubs as other members of the pantheon, if u go with their dynamic from the start of s7 they even fit the divorced couple vibe two of the gods have /lh /hj (nho pantheon pog..? maybe. theres a total of 5 deities in the pantheon tho...)

im leaning toward either false + stress or maybe gem + pearl pairs for two of the goddesses in the pantheon, but thatd probably depend on if i can find a better place for them ;P

techno and phil take the role of red jack, and techno is a Huge Oni Dude >:] in canon red jack has a cool horse!!! it fits!! hes also. heavily implied to be kinda immortal?? anyway. im torn on this because techno and phil ALSO fit the roles of some of the player characters, with relation to the missing prince/king of Nacre but im still working things out,,

no matter whats up with them, ranboo takes the role of bluejay, redjacks son, meeting up with tubbo and tommy who take the place of benjamin, the son of one of the player characters. tubbo and tommy kind of. get sent to another dimension to keep them safe,,? and live in a lie for many years before they are brought back.

when i first thought about this au, i also thought about the whole. sending child off into fake dimension to live life, and of course. i thought about. grumbot ofc and originally planned to have mumbo or grian take the place of that player character abhdfvnbrvbn but it also implies one or both of them would be paladins (not pala-din! just the normal religious knight) AND have connections to tubbo and tommy which is. funny but ehhhh idk.

-----

and that. maybe probably somewhat incoherent train of thought is what i have for the au so far! its. still very much a work in progress so thank you if you stuck through all that!! ive still got a lot to think abt in the au,,,, lots to figure out ;P hopefully i can iron it out a bit more in the future, but its fun to think about for the time being

#goosegoes #not g/t #i lost so many words from this draft #i kept forgetting to save it #anyway its like 2am ajbanjkjrjhfjdk i should sleep #anon #again thank u for asking aabjhskjnjkrhjbrjhjk #even if u dont read all of that it means a lot that u showed interest 💛 #obscure crossover au

[rat-apologist]

A Semi-In depth Review of Anna Todd’s After

So I’ve been seeing the trailer for the movie adaptation of this book every five seconds on my Instagram feed, and as a proud dyslexic unwilling to sit down and read it, I listened to the audiobook.

Again, these are all my opinions, if you don’t agree that’s okay.

Here is a quick, spoiler free plot synopsis for those who want/need it: Being moved from Wattpad into the real world of publishing, After follows a girl named Tessa, who simultaneously has the mentality of a five year old and an old man from the 1800’s. She is eighteen years old and is going to college to be an English major. Tessa loves control, planning, and books. She's an introvert at heart, and “not like other girls” (i.e. dresses conservatively, is a virgin (the books words, not mine)). She has a shitty mom and a nice, preppy, boyfriend who is still in high school, and her life is completely planned out. That’s all turned upside down when the poster child for emotional abuse named Harden (harry styles) waltzes into her life during a frat party her first week of college. Your typical Wattpad/teen movie drama ensues.

(the actual review under the cut)

This review is chock full of spoilers for Anna Todd’s book After. If you want a good idea of what I thought about this book without any spoilers I’ll just say this: I can really honestly say I was never bored while listening to this book. However, that is not necessarily a good thing. Often times I was just too much in awe of the clunky writing and truly evil supposedly “redeemable” characters to be bored. On a one to five star scale, I’d probably give it a two. More on that later.

Here are the things I liked:

(this one is only applicable to the audiobook) the narrator was amazing, her voice acting was very appropriate (though she did tend to drop accents sometimes- but that is forgiven because of how otherwise amazing her line delivery was- especially considering the quality of the dialogue).

Landon and Dakota were my favorite characters, and even though they had no personalities beyond what they meant to Tess and how they interacted with Harden (Hardin? Again, I listened to the audiobook I’ve got no idea how to spell that lmao) they still made the book better to listen to.

Despite the repetition of plot/narrative structures I can happily say again that I was never really bored.

Okay moving on to more mixed-bag feelings:

So the last chapter was from Harden’s perspective, and I thought that was an interesting idea. Learning what one character thinks, especially since our protagonist is, how you say, a little bad at reading/interacting with other human people. However the execution left something to be desired for me. It quite literally was just the exact same scene we just saw from the previous chapter, but from Hardens perspective instead of Tess’s. Which was just ended up being unnecessarily repetitive at times.

I liked how Tessa tried to be less judgmental throughout the book, however her growth is very, very limited.

I liked the fact that they mentioned they used condoms in pretty much every sex scene, and that most of the time clear verbal consent/clear nonverbal consent was given for the sexual stuff. That does not happen often in books, especially in fan fiction from what I understand.

I like that Tess does stand up for herself, while I could sometimes see myself comparing her to Bella Swan considering how much of her personality does kind of revolve around her relationship with Harden, she certainly was more vocal about her feelings. And boy, did she have a lot of feelings.

Moving on to the things I didn’t like, this is probably going to be a mix on writing, characters, and plot points so bear with me. (I’m saving my many thoughts on the twist for last)

Okay so a big number one is the biggest plot driver, the love story. So, I feel like it goes without saying, but the main relationship is SUPER unhealthy. Harden constantly stalks, manipulates, and bullies Tess throughout the whole book. He is pretty much abusive, using her caring for him to his own advantage and then dropping her when it suits him. Plus his hyper-sexualization of her “virtue” is really really nasty. Tess pretty much cries in every interaction they have together, and even acknowledges how toxic their relationship is, and yet I’m supposed to root for them? Hmm… I don’t think so

The near constant slut shaming and girl hate in this book bothers me, especially when it’s mixed with the hints of “I’m not like other girls” from Tess

The character descriptions kinda weird me out considering how much Harden is described like Harry Styles, like literally a tumblr punk edit of Harry Styles

The dialogue is… bad. To all the writers out there (myself included) make sure you read your dialogue out loud to see if it sounds natural, that way if your Wattpad fanfiction ever does get published, and your book is adapted into audiobook, you’ll avoid a situation like this one. Because, especially listening to it, the dialogue in this book is really really bad. Honest to god it sounds like robots imitating humans are talking to each other, only they’re trying to convince the other robots that they are humans. For some reason Anna Todd avoided using contractions for most of the book, making the characters sound unnatural and completely out of their predefined characters. Why would these college students not use words like “it’s” “we’ll” and “we’re”? It is truly astonishing, and it makes the few uses of contractions really distracting. Normally I don’t give a shit about grammar since I don’t really understand grammar, and normally grammatical errors aren’t that obvious when listening on audio, but the dialogue was seriously that bad.

The pacing was bad, that’s kinda all I have to say. It was generally too quick during plot development but then took a screeching halt for each fight/sex scene (of which there are many)

The repetition of certain words/phrases really got annoying. Everyone's always screaming, biting on their lip, or smirking. Harden is rude, as Tessa mentioned about eight million times, and Tessa finds his dirty talk arousing. We know this, because Todd uses those phrases about a billion times a chapter.

The sex scenes kind of grossed me out. I’m (in general) fine with sex, but the way the sex scenes were written seriously ucked me out. These college kids avoid using words like “penis” “dick” “pussy” etc. and use really really juvenile words like “down there” and “length”. Maybe this is a fanfiction thing, and I’ll admit that I have not read essentially any fanfiction, but it is truly a disturbing way to write sex. Especially since Tessa is written to have the experience and understanding of sex as like a child, not even understand what an orgasm is and unwilling to say words like penis or vagina, something our loverboy Harden is super attracted to, by the by.

I hate that this book uses “girl almost gets assaulted so man can come in and valiantly protect her” trope. It is super gross and I hate it. That’s kind of all I can say, the use of women's pain so that men can get some amount of redemption is awful.

More on Harden: I am sick of the “violent, broken man that I promise I can fix!” trope. It is used to justify and excuse abuse and I hate it. Tess is honestly scared of him several times in the book and it’s played as a personality quirk of his? Like everyone just accepts that’s how he is? I know for the most part we aren’t supposed to “like” him for the first part of the book, but it’s obvious that the author wants us to root for him and Tessa in some capacity. Especially with the inclusion of his perspective at the end, which in a way is exactly the kind of manipulation that he is into so idk. Also he is possessive despite the fact that they weren’t dating, and he is very clear he does not date. That’s already abuse, but of course there is more. On top of that he is cruel, and pretty stuck-up throughout the book- making him pretty much insufferable to me. And all of this shit just gets worse once the twist is introduced, and no amount of his whining from his chapter could at all change that.

The rest of the characters are all either boring, or the worst people you could ever meet. Tess’s mom, Molly, Jace, all really terrible to offset the horror of Harden. To almost justify what he does- because comparatively he doesn’t seem as bad (up until the twist).

The twist. Dear god the twist. So, as it goes it isn’t an extremely inspired twist. I’ve seen it done before in a similar way (I’m looking at you, Ten Things I Hate About You). For those who are wondering: the big twist is that Harden only really pursued Tess in the beginning because after she revealed she is a virgin at a party early on in the book he makes a pricey bet with Zed (another side character only used to add ~drama~ to Tessa and Harden’s relationship) to see who can take her virginity. All of the subsequent bullying, possessiveness, manipulation, etc. were all a ploy to have sex with her before Zed could. I feel like it goes without saying that that’s disgusting, but let me tell you exactly why: at least if he was actually interested in her at first his weird behavior could possibly be passed off as hormones (I wouldn’t like it, but I’d understand it  more if you’d try to make that argument), but the fact that it was all for a bet not only makes his disgusting actions worse, but makes the fact that he supposedly falls in love with her so much more annoying. Plus, the fact that he literally tries to trap Tessa in a lease so she can’t leave him, and tries to bribe his friends into silence really shows how little he actually cares about Tessa and her thoughts and feelings.  

So, why two stars? Honestly, because I was entertained (for lack of a better word) by this book. Maybe if I actually read it and not just listened to the audiobook it my rating would be lower, maybe if there was just one more sex scene to slow down the pace I would have been more bored. Who knows, but I was entertained. Sometimes by how terrible the dialogue is, by how astonishing the characters decisions were, sometimes by the actual plot. It’s like watching a shitty soap opera, it’s not good by any means, but it certainly keeps your attention.

#pj speaks #book review #after book #after book review

[tieflinglich]

Multiples of 7 for Zed?

you made me do math fuq u

so this is Super Long, and i ended up putting it under a readmore. it’s also full of juicy Zed Lore that i cant really outright say bc fellow players follow me soooo

7. Describe your character’s current appearance: clothes, armor, scars they’ve picked up along the journey, etc.

seven and a half foot mountain of a man covered in about five layers of dark fabric with silver accents, very clearly some type of vestments. he wears a white mask with a grimacing expression based on the skull of some type of avian. hidden away under his sleeves and robe are monstrous limbs with a black, scaly texture and each digit adorned with a jet black talon at least several inches in length. he has a constant aura around him that is menacing and deeply unsettling .[he does have scars and other things, but those are under his clothes and not a part of his outward appearance]

14. Has your character ever been in love?

actually, yeah. he doesn’t look it, but there was a time where he was very deeply in love with someone else.

21. Does your character have any noticeable scars? If so, what are their stories?

yes and no! he has a lot of scars, but they’re under all his clothes and its pretty hard to see them outside of the bedroom. but for the sake of answering this question i can at least describe the most notable! on his chest there is a giant Y-shaped scar, going from just above the armpits, converging in the center below the neck, and stretching all the way down to roughly the pelvic area. on his back are two jagged scars along his shoulder blades, and he has a mess on his neck that looks like claw marks.

28. What is currently motivating your character to stay with the party?

he wants to find out more about the plague! what caused it, how its carried, who/what started the outbreak, how to cure it, and who is behind its recent reappearance. 

35. Why is your character’s lowest stat their lowest (the in-character reason, not “because there’s no reason for a wizard to have 16 strength, duh”)?

his Dex is at -2 bc he has four fingers on each hand and claws that are several inches long. he’s not a very dexterous person.

42. What does your character think is the true meaning of life?

it’s a little edgy, but he believes that to live is to die, or to be consumed by something else so that others may die. death is an inevitability and many things thrive on death, so he sees the two as inherently linked and constantly feeding into each other. 

49. What colors are associated with your character?

black white and silver!

56. When they were a child, what did your character want to be, or think they were going to be, when they grew up?

when he had the ability to think on the distant future, he wanted to become a king.

63. Is your character willing to risk the well-being of others in order to achieve their goal?

absolutely. nothing matters more to him than himself. everything else is expendable.

70. What is your character’s biggest pet peeve?

goodiness, altruism, self-sacrifice. he believes in the self, if that makes sense. he doesn’t think a person should give themself up for someone or something else.

77. If your character had to multiclass into a class they currently aren’t the next time they level up, what would it be and what reason would they have for doing so?

ooohh man he’d either be a fighter or a barbarian. he LOVES hitting hard, and barbarian gives him a chance to harness his resentment as well as gives him an incentive to wear no armor.

84. What does your character want to be remembered by?

he wants to be known as fierce and powerful. he believes that people are remembered better by inflicting pain onto others, and thats a philosophy that’s been relevant to him his entire life.

91. What is your character’s guiltiest pleasure?

he is what he eats

98. What advice would your character give to a younger version of themselves?

dont leave the house without a knife

#long post #oc chat #zed #dnd #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #waldenwayfarer #live free or die consequence

[ur-mom-kayn]

Loyalty Chapter 8: The Good Bye

Zed Pov

In the last few weeks, Zed took a detailed look at the league system. It was really what Shen had described. He did not like the idea that he had to confine himself to 4 attacks. The actual damage is scaled by the league. He would be weaker in principle than in real life. That pissed him off a bit, but what applies for him was also the same for Shen and his friends. The system tries to create fair conditions for all. Should be right with him. He would still take them all down. In that sense, his summoner had something on it.

Zed had not only focused on the league but also increased his private hours with Kayn. The boy's words hurt him a lot, but in the end, he was right. His desire to kill Shen was greater than giving up money and staying with his disciples. It was not right for him to let Kayn down. That's why he also tried to devote every free minute to him. He gave so much for him that the topic 'league' did not stand between them. They made good use of their time, so Kayn was able to develop his own strong 'Umbral Trespass' technique. He jumped into the body of another and injured him from the inside out. Zed used to pretend to be a training partner, but only on the condition that he let the part hurting him. There were other victims for that.

Over time, Kayn was 15 years old and a bit bigger. He certainly trusted him to be able to lead the Order, but he did not want to untangle that burden all by himself. He also lacked the certain maturity and the leadership qualities. A few of his other men would be far more suitable for this job. But how was he supposed to let Kayn know he was not mature enough? His arrogance exceeded a new level each time. Criticism just bounced off him like a sign. Insight was a foreign word for him. That could still be cheerful.

At dinner, Zed finally decided to tell his men about joining the league. That would be the final blow in Kayn's face. He hated himself for hurting the boy, but he knew it was best for everyone involved. As usual, everyone sat in their seats and waited for Zed's release. But this time he would give a speech before. When everyone had something under their nose, Zed stood up and asked for attention. "I'm sorry, but the food has to wait. I want to announce something important to you. Maybe one or the other has already seen something of the league of legends on his missions. This is a place where the best fighters from all over Runeterra compete against each other in teams. After many considerations, I have decided to join as a representative of the Order of Shadow. My accession will bring us a lot of prestige and, above all, a lot of money. Unfortunately, the catch of the whole thing will be that I will not be there for a long time. During my absence, therefore, I will leave the leadership over the order of my elite. I trust you. Please take care of my students." Especially on Kayn., The latter he kept better for himself, but his men understood him even without words.

Most of his students sought eye contact with Kayn, but he just dodged. At least Zed's decision surprised him. He had apparently been mentally prepared for it already. At least that's how he looked. His face showed no signs of emotion. After Zed's speech could finally be eaten. Of course, there was only one topic at the table - the league and the future of the Order. "Ehm Master, how should we actually divide your tasks among us?" Satoshi asked in the round. Zed immediately pulled his mask down behind the cabin to answer his question. He preferred to speak with an echoing voice.

"You can make that out among you. I do not care who does what. As long as you can agree with you. Lead the Order as if it makes no difference if I'm there or not." "Okay, and what will Kayn play for a role? Is not he something like your right hand?" Did the boy really have to kick his ass so much? Kayn had not even spoken the whole evening. It was strange when the jester of the table did not speak a word. He really did not want to transfer it. "Kayn will do what he thinks is right. Cooperate with him and involve him in important decisions. He can best represent my opinion. Yet issues related to finance are better left to the elders of you." Hopefully, Kayn did not feel overly aggrieved, but his math and accountability skills were not up to scratch.

"Good, I understand, Master. And you Kayn? You are so quiet all evening. Do not you have anything to say?" Immediately you heard the clink of a falling spoon. Kayn looked a little tense. His body was almost convulsive. "I ... I've already added my mustard to this topic some time ago. Master Zed knows my opinion and I have nothing left to add ... Master? May I leave the table prematurely for once?" Though he tried to stay cool, Zed recognized the storm that was raging in his eyes. Without thinking much about it, he allowed him to leave the table. Still, Kayn's passive-aggressive stance hurt him. His men were also completely silent after Kayn left the dining room.

When dinner was over, Zed first went to Kayn's room. He was very worried about him. Maybe the future responsibility might be too big for him. Or maybe he just mourned for his master. No matter what it was, it had to be quickly removed from the world. Zed certainly did not intend to leave him in this mode. He could not shake the feeling that something was still left unsaid between them. And that very thought drove him crazy.

Arrived in front of his room, he carefully knocked on the massive wood. "Kayn, may I come in?" "Yes Master," he answered as always. Being allowed to enter the question was relatively unnecessary with them. Nevertheless, they always asked each other for safety's sake. Zed pushed the door aside and entered. Behind him, he closed the door again. In the room, he found Kayn cuddled in his bed. Involuntarily, he just stared at the wall, as if he had been lying there for minutes and thinking. Zed felt miserable because he knew he was responsible. If only Shen had not told him about the league.

Carefully he moved to the bed and lay down on the other side. Then he took off the annoying mask and put it on the bedside table. Kayn still did not move. How should he do that? "Hey Kayn, are you alright? Forget it. Stupid question. Is there anything I can do for you so that parting will not be so hard for you?" "Yes. Do not go.", He answered immediately. Zed already expected an answer in the direction. "Okay, and now seriously. You know very well that you can not change my mind. Say ... Are you mad at me or something? "

Finally, Kayn turned around and looked into Zed's face. His eyes were relatively expressionless and meaningless. Where was the lively child, please? "Okay. So you're mad at me. I've understood." "No. You did not understand anything. I can not be mad at you Master. Not even angry or disappointed. It is your life. You can do whatever you want. I was selfish that I wanted to have you all to myself. And I did not even waste a second on that if you want the same thing. Apparently not, but it's okay with me. Nobody wants to be tied to a child at the age of 25. I can do it. I can grow up on my own. Please do not worry about me."

"And how I make myself some. You are and will remain my son. Of course, I want to take care of you. Please do not think anything wrong about me. However, I have to say that your words sounded very mature. I think you are already grown up. What I do not understand is why you sound so emotionless? Even to your comrades. Why?" Kayn shrugged his shoulders and then approached his master. Before answering, he put his head down on Zed's chest. "It's so easier for me. If I turn off my feelings, then I can not grieve for you. I'm sorry. I try to behave again." Zed believed that such an impulsive person as Kayn would never be able to switch off his feelings. But then he had been wrong about the boy again. He understood his motivations. He also preferred to switch off his feelings in such situations. But it felt wrong this time. Kayn could not just be forgotten.

"Are you trying to avoid pain?" Zed asked after a slightly longer conversation break. Kayn clenched his fingers in Zed's shirt. Slowly his mask seemed to crumble. "I ... eh ... Master, I can not do that. I do not want pain. I'm so happy by your side. What do I do when you are no longer there? Who will scold me if I go to bed late, or forget to brush my teeth? Who will make me learn for the 'school'? Where is my motivation? You can not control me from such a great distance and commands from another mouth, I'm interested in a shit. What should I do?" Zed was the least concerned about such things. It was absurd things for which a father was responsible. Kayn was not worried about his training, just annoying stuff.

"Are you serious?! Please do not be ridiculous. I expect you to be disciplined around the clock. It does not matter if I watch you or not. If you're crapping on such things, make sure that you are at least plagued by a guilty conscience. Remember, I would be disappointed with you if you do not behave yourself. That's all I can do for you. Just keep my strictly eyes in mind." Kayn smiled a little. Finally a sign of emotion. "What's so funny?" "'Strictly.", The boy mocked the term. "You've never really got me hooked." "Because you're normally a very obedient boy. Wait, until you do shit. Then your ass will go down on you " "It will never come to that" Kayn answered as arrogantly as ever. He should not be too sure. Everybody makes mistakes and it was only a matter of time until the perfect Kayn finally builds shit. Of course, Zed wished that it never came to that, but he knew that day would come.

...

The next morning came too fast. Zed spent his last evening with Kayn. He somehow owed him that. Nevertheless, the farewell was not easy. Minutes passed in which Kayn just held his master around his waist and buried his face in his chest. In the long run, it was a bit uncomfortable for the older one, because his whole order was gathered around him. But pushing him away was not possible either. Everyone knew that they had a special relationship with each other, but how far they went was supposed to be hidden. "Kayn ... do you want to let go?" "One more minute please, Master." Zed sighed but let it go.

As promised, Kayn let go after another minute. "Thanks, master. Please take care of yourself and please make us proud. Everyone in this world should be frightened by the name 'Order of Shadow'." "I'll see to that, boy. And you make sure that we live up to our reputation." "Yes, Master! ", All his students answered in unison. Now it was really time to say goodbye. Zed waved to everyone again until he finally turned around and finally disappeared.

...

After a much too long boat trip and a ride through the Ironspike Trail, Zed finally arrived at the Institute of War. A huge castle waited for him. From the outside, everything was decorated magnificently and decorated to the smallest detail. At the entrance, employees were already waiting for his arrival. "Master Zed, may I take you to your quarters?" A man in a long robe asked him. He had not much left but to follow the man. The 'quarters' were divided into their regions. For outcasts and others, there was an extra department. Zed, on the other hand, was a door-to-door neighbor with Shen and co. He counted as a complete Ionian and he was glad about that, only he would have liked to have more distance to Shen.

Each room has a name on the door. Passing by, Zed recognized his brother's room. From there he always counted. To his disappointment, his room was only 2 doors away. Between Shen and Zed lived only knowing the hamster. Arriving at his room, he got his key from the employee. Zed did not hesitate any longer and opened the door. He showed a large spacious room with a large bathroom. But otherwise, nothing spectacular was available. Actually, he would have expected something more. Before Zed could complain, the man behind him spoke up. "Since we do not know your taste, we have for the time being only the most necessary furnished. At your bedside table, you will find a catalog of furniture and decorative items. Just let us know and we will set up your room to your liking."Zed liked that earlier. His room was far too bright. Black curtains were more appropriate than white ones. The birds could have come to that, too. As if the Master of Shadow would like the light.

"What about the kitchen and the rest?" "Of course we have a communal kitchen where everyone can cook their favorite dishes or they can be cooked to order. In addition, we have various lounges with various activities. Occasionally parties are thrown so the champions get to know each other better ... " "Enough. I understood. Can I be alone now?" "Of course. Please be in the gap in 3 hours so that our team can detect your attacks. In addition, in 5 hours, a photo session and ... " "Can you just not write down the shit for me? I do not feel like memorizing everything." "Yeah ... " The man quickly reached for a pen and paper and wrote down his appointments for Zed. Then he quickly searched the distance and left Zed alone.

He threw himself in his small single bed and leafed through the catalog. Here, new furniture had to be produced as quickly as possible. Shit if he had to build everything himself, this bald cave definitely needed a new coat of paint. As he went through the catalog and tagged his favorites, there was a knock at his door. "What's up?" He practically yelled at the door. "May I come in, brother?" It's just not the idiot. Zed was already in a bad mood about the move anyway. Shen did not promote his mood. "Do something you can not do." Shen opened the door and entered the room. Zed did not care about his guest. He did not care about him in principle.

As if nothing had happened between them, Shen simply threw himself on his back at the end of the bed. "Shall we let the masquerade be, Zed?" Without replying, Zed took off his mask. He really did not need to hide from Kayn and Shen. One took him as he was and the other was responsible for his appearance. Shen did not get away with it either. His face was decorated with slight scars. Nevertheless, the suggestion came from him and he also took off his mask. It was a very strange situation. You do not usually lie down in the bed of the man who murdered your father, but Shen seemed to be in great control. He had to. The contract clearly stated that you can not kill champions outside the divide. He hopes he did not give him any reason to break this rule.

"What are you doing here Shen? And why?" "I was a little surprised to find you here. Did not think that you want to settle for the many rules here. Most of all, I thought you wanted to take care of your 'son." The boy was only here to put him on the bag. Kayn was a very critical topic that he was reluctant to talk about. Even if he could talk about him for hours. "Kayn is mature enough. He does not need me anymore." " Although I have to admit that he is incredibly strong. Be honest, he can use the forbidden technique, right?" "No technique is forbidden brother. But yes. You're right. He is incredibly strong. He will one day become a great assassin."

Shen straightened to a seated position and smiled at Zed. "You have changed Zed. Apart from that, you are very out of balance. Your compassion for others has risen sharply." "Oh shut up Shen. I am exactly the same cold bastard as before. Kayn is an exception. He deserves my attention. You have no idea what's in it. I will not make the same mistake as Kusho. I will recognize and promote his talent. If necessary, I will also give him some paternal love. I prefer falling out of my role as being tipped off the back. "

"Maybe you are right, brother. And I believe that Kayn is dangerous. Just tell me, what makes him so special? You must have had a reason to teach him the forbidden technique." "Sure, I even had several. The boy is incredibly well in control. I could definitely trust him with the training. But that was not what fascinated me from the beginning. Kayn is able to lead any weapon at the highest level. He controls every fighting position and depending on the situation, he can adapt accordingly very quickly. "

"Hm ... I should not underestimate him when he's old enough to fight me. Anyway, I'm leaving now. Was nice with you. If you need someone to chat, or if you have general questions, I'm only two doors away from you." "Tch. Certainly.", He spat mockingly at him in farewell. Zed had no interest in improving his relationship with Shen. He was here to kill him every day over and over again. Nice chats were rather counterproductive.

#kayn #zed #shen #kayn x zed #zed x kayn #zeyn #fanfic

[legatumrpg]

We want to start off by thanking everyone for applying. There were some tough decisions that needed to be made, especially when each and every application we received was so unique in their own way. Congratulations to everyone under the cut, your applications absolutely floored us. Each application presented their characters with such nuace or complexity, sometimes even both, we know that you all will bring magic to our little roleplay. Please see our CHECKLIST for further instructions. 

LEO IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF SIRIUS BLACK ! For all that he pictures capturing his cousins, he can’t picture killing them. Nor can he picture Bellatrix or Regulus killing him. And maybe it’s his subconscious failsafe against hysteria. We had three amazing applications for Sirius, so this was one of our hardest decisions, but it was the way you wrote his flaws that really had us decided. The complexity of who Sirius is and how he got there was so interesting to read and we loved seeing just how much his past still affects his life.

ZED IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF SEVERUS SNAPE ! In many ways Severus was changed drastically from the quiet, caring person they had always been to the cold, cynical person they became. We loved seeing the change that occurred which caused Severus to become who they are today. The fact that Severus faith in the Death Eaters being shaken due to the extremes that they don’t believe in and how the Marauders, in a way, reminds them why they chose the side is gold.

ALEXA IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF ROMAN MULCIBER ! In the end, Roman was a young god, leaving a trail of scorched earth in his wake.  Terror was beauty and war was terror after all. This application is exactly how we envision Roman through all of their temptation, entitlement, and complexity. Everything about the application screamed Roman and none of us wanted to stop reading about them. We know that wherever you take Roman, we’ll not so secretly be rooting for them.

MANU IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF RITA SKEETER ! However, Rita always knew she was meant for more. And she shall get everything she always wanted. Fame, fortune and especially recognition. Rita is one of my personal favorite characters and the way you made them come alive is just absolutely beautiful. We know that they are going to do amazing things, even if those things are harsh or twisted. FACE CLAIM CHANGE TO ANA DE ARMAS IS APPROVED.

LUISA IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF REMUS LUPIN ! His first memories became those of tearful full moons, of clutching at his mother’s skirt and sobbing, begging her to fix him, falling to his knees in front of the Crucifix on the parlor wall and demanding that she tell him why God had let him become a monster. This application just left us shook. Adding a religious aspect to Remus’ life is something we haven’t seen before and we absolutely love it. We love the idea of Remus being allowed into the werewolf clan and seeing how that plays out.

CAITLIN IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF REGULUS BLACK ! After all, a frightened animal is the most dangerous. That line alone had us wanting to accept the application immediately. You really want into the portrayal of Regulus and made him your own. We could go on all day talking about how much we loved your application for Regulus and we really cannot wait to see what happens next to the dear.

MANU IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF MOLLY WEASLEY ! Then, a hatred started to grow inside Molly’s chest. the otherwise sweet and caring mother to all was facing a feeling she could not quite process – anger. Molly is so many things; a mother, a sister, a friend but they are also are a person who isn’t without their flaws. We know that you are going to do wonders and we are at the edge of our seats to see Molly going down a darker path.

SKY IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF MARLENE MCKINNON ! Hogwarts was a battleground for Marlene; not one where she encountered bloodshed or death, but one in which her knowledge would be tested. Marlene is a character of force. They are always sure of themselves and when things don’t happen as they plan, they can get a bit heated. We absolutely loved how you portrayed Marlene and how they are even more drawn into the cause due to the recent deaths. We cannot wait for Marlene’s fight to come alive.

LARA IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF MARY MACDONALD ! Even broken dolls have sharp edges. We could have quoted anything from this application and it would have been exactly how we imagine Mary. The way you handled Mary’s attack was written just so beautifully and the way that you controlled her emotions and response which left so much room for development with the other players involved is just wonderful. We are so excited to have you with us! FACE CLAIM CHANGE TO COURTNEY EATON IS APPROVED.

SASS IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF LUCINDA TALKALOT ! Blood separated them, but superficially she saw herself as an equal. The way that you describe how exactly they feel when it comes to blood and their doubts that they keep hidden away is just so beautifully written. As our admin Neetu pointed out, it’s like being dropped in the middle of shark-infested waters and constantly wondering where your next attack is coming from but instead of physical attacks, they are verbal and underhanded. This reminded us of Icarus, just without the disastrous end...yet.

AL IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF LILY EVANS ! Starting off, she was only assigned to puff pieces — aimed towards teenage girls, and housewives — slowly, but steadily, she took to spinning them in a way that she could talk directly to her audience, sending off strong messages about the world and situation they are living in. A way of voicing her opinion. Lily is such an icon and we really feel like you managed to capture exactly that in your biography. You really show that Lily has a lot of passion for many different things which ultimately left them wanting to send messages, to get their voice across to those who may have the same thoughts as them. They really are a force to be reckoned with.

ERIN IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF JAMES POTTER ! Even in the midst of a war, he can’t shake his wholehearted belief in the inherent goodness of the world. This application gives us more than the bully narrative of James back in Hogwarts. It shows that yes, James made mistakes, and yes he was, and on still levels still is, immature but James has grown so much since their years at Hogwarts. They are more than their mistakes and this application really shows that aspect of him.

MARIE IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF ISABELLA WILKES ! There are many downfalls to infinite wealth—but as Isabella Wilkes will frequently note on, “it’s also really fucking fun.” We cannot describe a better quote other than this one that just has Isabella’s name written all over it. We are absolutely living for Isabella and the tragic mistake they made resulting in actual consequence. The biography gave us a look at their entire life and we just absolutely love it. We know that you are going to be an amazing Isabella!

HOLLY IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF GILDEROY LOCKHART ! Anyone with a pulse and a Daily Prophet subscription can tell that war has arrived, but even with the future of the Wizarding World at stake, he struggles to care about something unless it involves him personally. As admin Neetu stated, ‘ I stan a man who stans himself. ’ This application is just beautifully written and shows every single aspect of Gilderoy and their big head. We cannot say anything but nice words about the application as we believe that you completely nailed them.

JEN IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF EVAN ROSIER ! Like an eagle crowned with the Rosier insignia, Evan soared. We absolutely loved every bit of this application. The fact that they came into the deadly elite group with distrust in their hearts? Golden. We absolutely love how Evan seems like they don’t really want anything to do with the cause but rather they want safety from the people involved.

JO IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF CHARITY BURBAGE ! All her life, she was sweet Charity. Soft Charity. Shy Charity. Charity ‘can’t-make-her-own-choices’ Burbage. She wants to be strong Charity. Wow. This was very much a different take with Charity than we expected and we absolutely loved it. We loved how their parents want them to be a good pureblood and don’t approve “joining the Muggles”, really we just loved every bit of it! FACE CLAIM CHANGE TO BAE SUZY IS APPROVED.

HAYLEY IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF ARTHUR WEASLEY ! You see, they use very thin strips of hard material connected by ropes to cover their windows instead of curtains. Isn’t that fascinating? We absolutely loved this far more than just what JK Rowling wrote. You have captured everything that is Arthur and honestly, we cannot find one single flaw in this application? Arthur has captured our hearts not just by being a loving husband and father but also due to their curious eye and warm spark in their soul. We really hope that he discovers the function of a rubber duck. AGE CHANGE HAS BEEN APPROVED.

G IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE AMYCUS CARROW ! The golden boy, the perfect child, the heir to his family’s legacy — the one thing that finally made his father believe he had made something good. The whole thing about their parents wanting to save their heir was honestly so beautifully written. As you said, Alecto was just as loved, but Amycus was worshipped. And the fact that Amycus believes themself as equal to Voldemort? Just, all around wow.

ALEXA IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF AMELIA BONES ! Justice might as well as have been her first spoken word, because young Amelia Bones refused to yield for any form of injustice she witnessed though at the time injustice for Amelia meant not sharing a toy broomstick with the rest of the group. Okay, you absolutely nailed Amelia. The quote alone just screams her name. We loved the fact that Amelia struggles to understand the cause of Death Eaters and how focused they are on justice. Everything about this application is just solid.

LIZ IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF ALICE FORTESCUE ! Her only option now is to find the answers herself, regardless of the danger that might put her in. This was another hard decision, four applications and all of them amazing. Alice’s edges and raw anger came across so vividly and we cannot get over it. The writing of this application is absolutely beautiful, we are so excited to see the trouble she stirs up.

DANI IS ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF ALECTO CARROW ! Alecto can so easily remember the day she was approached by the Dark Lord in her dreams, with his promises of allowing her to have the powers that she so deserved and had been craving yet would never have because she was not the heir. Everything that we envisioned about Alecto goes back to her parents. Her anger, her power, her desire to be better and this application really reflected on that. We loved the fact that she’s never going to forgive her parents for thinking she’s inferior, it really just screams like Alecto!

#accepted: alecto #accepted: alice #accepted: amelia #accepted: amycus #accepted: arthur #accepted: charity #accepted: evan #accepted: gilderoy #accepted: isabella #accepted: james #accepted: lily #accepted: lucinda #accepted: mary #accepted: marlene #accepted: molly #accepted: regulus #accepted: remus #accepted: rita #accepted: roman #accepted: severus #accepted: sirius

[bluboothalassophile]

Hi Blu!! I just wanted to say that you are killimg me with these Raven family fics. And I wanted to know if you could write a fic where Constantine (Raven's adopted father), Lucifer, and Maz interrogate Jason about his girlfriend Raven. Thanks if you write it.

Hello,

Couldn’t seem to get the interrogation quite down how I wanted, but this is how the story wanted to go. So I hope you enjoy it all the same. =)

The Devil’s in the Kitchen

Lucifer was making a rare trip out of Los Angeles to see hisgranddaughter; whom he had not seen since she had joined the Young JusticeTeam. He’d seen her on the teli, and he had to make sure that she was alright.Her father most certainly was not as Constantine was smoking more than normal.Chas was not even happy about this.

Apparently, they had been forced to surrender Raven to theYJ team because all children were going to this team. Not that Raven was achild.

But that was not what Lucifer was here for as he sat in thekitchenette sipping jasmine tea.

A young man with rumpled black hair walked out of the hall.

“Good morning,” Lucifer cheered, the young, masked humanjolted.

“What the fuck!?” he yelped. “How the fuck did you get inhere!?”

“I came to visit my granddaughter,” Lucifer stated as hesmiled.

“You’re fucking me, right?” the young man sputtered; it wasthen that Lucifer saw the knife in the teen’s hand.

“I don’t believe I am,” Lucifer stated.

“There’s no fucking way you could be a grandfather, you’reyounger than my dad!”

“Au contraire, I am Lucifer, God’s most hate son, ruler ofhell, punisher of the wicked,” Lucifer smiled.

“Uh-huh, and how the fuck did you get in here?” the boydemanded again.

“Hey Gramps,” Raven appeared in her usual sleep attire,which had the young man eyeing his granddaughter’s legs.

“Ah, my darling granddaughter, back to the land of theliving!” Lucifer caught her in a brief hug.

“You’re not giving Robin a hard time, are you?” she askedcrossly walking to the fridge.

“Robin? Is this the young man who asked you to thehomecoming ritual?” Lucifer asked.

“Yes, so play nice,” Raven said.

“You do realize he’s not supposed to be in this HQ, right?”the boy demanded.

“He’s a Fallen Angel, I wish you luck keeping him out,”Raven replied. “Did Maze come?”

Suddenly there was a demon claw knife whirling from theshadows at Raven. The demoness caught her aunt’s knife as Maze walked out ofthe shadows.

“Did you miss me?” Maze asked.

“Yeah, and we need to go dress shopping,” Raven saidshutting the fridge as she poured herself a glass of milk.

“Sounds fun,” Maze grimaced.

“I’d ask Zed but she’s in the hospital for, you know,” Ravensaid.

“She still won’t let you heal her?” Lucifer sighed.

“Said she has made her peace and she’s going,” Raven statedmiserably. If Lucifer could, he’d shred the perverted angel which had harmed ahuman. Fallen Angel Lucifer may be, but even he knew there were rules betweentheir kind and humans.

“Raven, uh…”

“Relax Jason, this is my Grandfather, Lucifer Morningstar, andmy aunt Mazikeen, he’s the Devil, and she’s a demon. The MJ security systemcouldn’t keep them out, even if you wanted to,” Raven said.

“Wait, the actual Devil?”

“Why of course, do you know another Devil?” Lucifer purred.

~~~*~*~*~~~

Jason had spent a month working up the nerve to ask Raven tohis Homecoming, he didn’t really want to go, but he wanted to take Raven. He waspretty sure he was in love with her. And Jason had reevaluated said loveseveral times in the last three months since knowing and meeting Raven. It wasn’ta crush, nope, he knew what crushes were, had a few, but whatever he had withRaven, it surpassed a lot of shit he’d ever felt for girls before.

And now he was staring at her blonde, early thirtiesgrandfather (who looked younger than her dad) sitting at his kitchen bar (yesit was his fucking kitchen as he was the ONLY ONE on this worthless team withany cooking skill), and he was the Devil.

Jason was past even questioning if the Devil was real or notafter having seen Raven go full demon on Klarion last month. If Raven said thiswas the Devil, and that her aunt was a demon, and her father was an exorcist,then Jason had no problems believing that.

Raven and the leather clad late twenties chick walked off,talking about something or other and Jason was left with the Devil in hiskitchen.

“So you’re the young champ who asked my granddaughter tothis Homecoming?” the man smiled in that predatory way Raven would smile whenshe had them all beat and they didn’t know it.

“Yes sir,” he managed, proud that he didn’t waver under theintensity of this man’s stare.

“Mmm, now, I would warn you that any harm befalls mygranddaughter and I will send you to Hell, but that is rather a pointlessthreat as Raven is more than capable of taking care of herself. She is thestrongest born demon and she’s still growing. So instead, I ask you to tell meabout yourself Jason,” Lucifer smiled.

“Robin,” he corrected.

“Ah, yes, of course, we are in your HQ. So Robin, tell meabout yourself.”

“Uh… I’m from Gotham, from Crime Alley, I want to go toPrinceton, I study hard for it. I think I might also be in love with yourgranddaughter. I love baseball, and hockey, I’m not that into football. I cansteal anything, and I’m Robin,” Jason said nervously. He couldn’t even describehow much he loved her.

“You think you love her?” Lucifer perked at this.

“Pretty sure I do,” Jason said. He wasn’t confident on thatas he hadn’t ever loved another person outside of his small family. “I’ve neverloved anyone so I’m trying to figure it out.”

“Well, then, you have my full respect, and say that to herfather and he won’t blast you to another dimension.”

“Yeah… any tips there, other than that?”

“Not really, Constantine is a protective father.”

“Noted,” Jason said.

“You’ll do fine, kid, I like you, and I don’t like humans,such dull, thoughtless beasts,” Lucifer stated.

“Really?

“After a millennium of being blamed for human behavior Itire of humans. But you, you are interesting, worthy match of the Gem.”

“So you’re not sending me to Hell?”

#bluboothalassophile #fanfic #one shot #raven #jason todd #lucifer morningstar #mazikeen #Young Justice

[thatonejhinguy]

Headcanon Exploration

Writing Jhin; Motive and Past

Part 1 of like however many posts this exercise I found takes.

Tigger Warnings; torture, delusion, paranoia, implied claustrophobia, nyctophobia (fear of the dark), death/killing

I was just reading up - as one does - on how to write serial killers and one of them suggested do a thing and yeah I’m gonna do it since the whole time I was reading the post I was just screaming “Y E S” in my head. It’s honestly a wondrous post and you should definitely take a look at it if you are or are looking to write a serial killer or if you’re just fascinated by that shit like me.

I’m going to use the post to do a little in-depth on this whole thing that Jhin has that like. U may or may not know about... (He kills people, Jim.)

So here we go;

Motive

According to the post linked above, there are four ‘motivation’ categories for serial killers; Visionary, Mission Oriented, Hedonistic, and Power (alternatively; Control). What each of these mean are outlined in the post, so I won’t describe all of them. Just these two:

Mission Oriented (as described in the post); “justify their acts as ‘ridding the world’ of a certain type of undesirable person. They see themselves as trying to right society, and thus try to cure it.” 

Hedonistic: “seek thrills and pleasures from the act of killing.” Thrill-seeking Hedonistics “want to induce pain or terror in the victims, which then provide the stimulation and excitement for them. They seek the adrenaline rush provided by hurting victims. They are often professionals, able to refrain from killing for long periods of time in order to plot and refine their methods. They will try to set up the ‘perfect crime’.”

(insert thinky face here)

SOUNDS LIKE A PERSON I KNOW....

But yes! Jhin (how I write/hc him at least...) is a mix between a Mission Oriented and Hedonistic (Thrill). 

The only thing I feel the need to explain is his Mission. There’s actually two; force/encourage his people to advance in culture and technology and change how Ionians deal with threats (here and here), as well as berid the world of people who he considers to be ‘demons in disguise’. He sees his ‘art’ as a purification process if someone wants to ascend to heaven (or something akin to it, Jhin’s beliefs are a little spotty in that regard). Kinda like Lucian, but where Lucian kills actual demons, Jhin kills anyone he labels ‘evil’, ‘bad’, or ‘in his way’ (here and here).

[Important Sidenote: now that I think of it, I haven’t posted anything explaining the whole demons/angels schtick Jhin has going on... I’ll do that after this! tldr version; he basically hallucinates visages angels and demons in the world around him, often in bright rays of light or dark shadows (respectively). The images are also overlayed on real people such as they have aspects of the spirit types (ex. angel wings/halos, demon wings/claws), causing Jhin to relate - or in severe cases, even mistake - them for real angels and demons]

Past

I’ve written about it before, as anyone who reads what I make can recall; however I want to explore a certain aspect of my Jhin’s past. Not what drove him to kill, as I’ve covered that before, or his life before the Jhin we know of appeared. But rather, the type, and therefore reason of, his ‘madness’, and his time in Tuula. Next post I make will be about the effects of his time in Tuula, as well as the incident of his incarceration, Zed’s assault, and some other things.

An important note to restate;

The past I operate on for my Jhin is not one characterized by abuse from his parents, grandparents, or any other family member. His ‘madness’ is not caused by that, but rather by later events in his formative years (adolescence) that more has to do with his own body’s failings, worsened by the failings of those around Jhin to notice.

More specifically, in his time in Tuula and the improper treatment (or lack thereof) of his schizophrenia.

[Important Sidenote: I have researched schizophrenia extensively (alongside other disorders), reading and listening to various sources including documentaries, papers, first- and second-hand accounts, informational articles, and many more. I understand that many people are sensitive to the mention of schizophrenia, due to either personal experience or other, and are easily angered and upset whenever the topic arises. If this is the case with you, feel free to skip over this section of the headcanon, the headcanon altogether, or - if it elects such extreme spite - unfollow my blog.]

Jhin’s schizophrenia began to develop when he was approximately 17, only two to three years before he became a stagehand, and several years before he began producing his ‘art’. His positive symptoms (delusions, hallucinations, movement disorders) were mild at first, but quickly became more and more severe as time went on. His negative symptoms (reduced expression, reduced feelings of pleasure in daily life) went unnoticed; Before, Jhin was known for being a shy, quiet child. He kept to himself, and never really made his thoughts, ideas, or feelings known unless prompted.

He was scarcely seen as a child, let alone heard, and often prompted to tend to his herd than communicate with real people.

As such he never got help for his disorder, and honestly never had. So, it has been free to run wild, and ultimately has consumed him, his life, and his work.

In Tuula, he was kept in appalling conditions for nearly a year, then noticed for his good behavior. Such goes along his lore (I headcanon he was freed when he in his late twenties). I mentioned this before as well - but those conditions were so horrifically vile that Jhin still feels their effects to this day. His strength, health, and even more have all suffered immensely due to the conditions he was put under for his first year in Tuula.

Not only did he suffer from malnutrition, but where he was kept, too, effected him greatly; both mentally and physically. 

It was disgusting - rats, mice, and other rodents skittered about freely beneath the cots and along the floors. The stench of dirty, sweaty, and occasionally rotten bodies filled the stifling prison air. It hung like a curtain over everything, as the air scarcely moved. It was dimly lit, save for the stray candle of the guards.

And as you can imagine, with Jhin’s mental state and his severe fear of the dark and shadows; 

This was nothing short of torture.

TO BE CONTINUED

#headcanon #long post #jhin league of legends #trigger warnings apply #hi have a dark thing for once #I'll edit any mistakes later #and also talk more abt it later since I like this exercise #ppl pls don't yell at me for writing this #I'm just a good smol bean trying to write evil guys #s obs

[zedkyo]

Day One Sorta...

Two weeks ago the world was a much happier, though at the same time not as happy place. At least back then they were just trying to screw each other out of a nearly useless currency instead of trying to eat or kill each other outright, or most of the world was. Now we’re standing at gunpoint from some boys that look like they should have either eaten or been eaten this last week, practically skin and bones and barely able to hold up the guns they are threatening us with.

“Which one of you is the leader?” The man nearest the middle of the group steps forward, directing his used-to-be-illegal sawn-off side by side 12gauge at each of the seven of us individually, though in no condition to even start to guess which of us is the leader, or the most dangerous for that matter. His cloths can only be described as grey scraps of cloth, littered with brown splotches from the dirt. It’s only been two weeks, how are people this bad off already? “I asked a question!” He’s obviously getting impatient now so I step forward.

“They call me Zed. I guarantee though, if you pull that trigger the other six will wipe you and your band out faster than they can pull their own.”

“Yea? Wanna bet?” He opens the barrel in a show that it is in fact loaded, though I think he might have forgotten if it actually is. Before he can even close the action on it, two guns are drawn from the closest to me and pointed at the raggedy group.

I point to my left, at a woman that looks no less than thirty, a large caliber, and even larger barreled rifle aimed dead center at the man’s head. “This one’s V, and the one on my right we call Hulk. You can probably guess why.” V, is no small girl for sure, and she holds the twenty plus pound rifle steady for standing up and it being nearly as tall as her five and a half foot tall self. Wiry looking, but faster at drawing then the other.. The second one, maybe three inches below my near six and a half feet tall is built almost like the Hulk himself from the comics and old TV show. In one hand he sports a similarly equipped sawn-off, though this one is easily a 10gauge, wielded like a child might a dandelion. In his other, or rather hanging off his shoulder and the trigger held by the other hand is a triple-barreled chain gun, the button on the side of the reversed pistol grip pressed down to charge the RPMs of the barrels, all three hair-triggers pressed to their maximum reach before they actually let off a round. The minigun seems to have the most effect though, and the man slowly closes the chambers of his and orders his men to lower their guns as well, to which the high pitched grinding sound dies down and all weapons are lowered. Loaded or not, every gun has an intimidation factor, and the way we look compared to the way they look is more convincing that ours are actually loaded. “Now, how about some food? You boys look as hungry as we feel tired.” I motion towards the abandoned hotel in the middle of the flatlands where we are at, the men eye our bags with delight at the prospect of food and hurry in, only the man at front waiting until the big guns pass him to start heading inside with me at his heels, seemingly more restrained than the others. Smart. Dangerous.

Two Weeks, and Two Days Ago: Chaos Begins, T-Minus 52 hours.

V was nowhere to be seen, which was good. If she was seen, we wouldn’t have had the surprise on our side. Hulk and I stopped at the front in our black SUV, looking at the old apartment building that should have been demolished a decade ago.

“Well boss, looks like another job we have to watch our step in.” His voice is deep, but soft. Not showing any of the mental horrors or pain he had stored away for nights light this.

“Aren’t they always? It’s not like simple gang bangers can afford a fancy mansion, now can they?” I replied casually, having done this a thousand times already. He shrugged, knowing I’m at least partly right. If they didn’t spend their money on their own dope, they probably could with the money they make.

V sounded in our ears, her voice was silky and young compared to her age, even two weeks later in the middle of hell, for less appropriate terms. “At least twenty moving around, I don’t see any on the far side.” I confirmed two at the door, watching our car with nervousness mixed with genuine fear. I could only assume word had gotten around about the last six years things had gone awry for people like them and their bosses in the state. Someone eventually made up a name for people like us and word always spreads.

“We have the two at the door, Hulk is going to breach, then you take down as many as you can that you have CLEAN shots for. None of that half-assed, guessing shit like you did last month and left a couple of injured that nearly dropped us.”

“How was I supposed to know there was some angled sheets of scrap metal they had pack-ratted away? Besides, a clean shot would imply not through walls, and you know nobody goes NEAR a window when the shooting starts.”

She knew what I meant, it was just her way of saying she would keep to what she knew was safe to shoot through. At this point, I might as well pause.

Eight years ago. I started out alone, story of boy meets girl, bad guy kills girl and leaves guy alive. Guy takes his shitty, civilian equipment and gets revenge. The twist there is, the story doesn’t end with that. Someone else sees him do it, decides to offer him a job doing it. Starting with only pocket knives, working nights during school time, on weekends, earning money he can’t admit to where he got, and can only show off small bills at a time. Shown where to get black market weapons, to do better. Better knives, a gun or two just in case, REAL equipment. One night on a job, runs into a gang training a girl that was in the slave trade for the last twelve years. He nurses her to health in secret of his family, turns her loose. Eventually we run into each other again, she wants me to train her in what I do, as payback for all the people that bought and sold her since she was kidnapped at 6. A year later, we find a huge man that was probably a bodybuilder before he was beaten half to death chained to a wall in the basement. Free and nurse him after clearing out the warehouse, he joins the team for similar but different reasons. Three people with shitty pasts joining together to try to stop any more people from getting hurt by the same garbage.

Back to the job that night. The hulk of a man opened his door and steps out, followed quickly by me. We walked towards the door slowly, non-threatening, but guns are still drawn on us as expected. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“Doing maintenance work. Your door looks pretty busted, like it’s coming off its hinges.” The smartass WOULD say something like that too, and it surprisingly throws these two off and their guns lower as they both stupidly look back at the door. He immediately steps between them in the middle of their, “But it’s fi-”, his burly right hand reaches under and back, pulling a 40lb hammer down from a sheathe across his back, one upward motion hitting the door dead center and blowing it in several feet before the crumpled piece of metal even hits the floor.

The gunmen instantly turn their guns on him, and I draw two solid metal knives from my sides, two blacked throwing knives really, each carved and sharpened from a single dense sheet of steel without any hinges or plastic. Fists up, blades down, Hulk is in the door and I quickly join him, having “punched” past the two guards with the blades slicing their throats clean enough that they probably didn’t feel it until the tips cut between the vertebrae and almost instantly killed them before they dropped.

“More subtle next time, big guy?” I tossed the twin blades, one towards the guard of the next door, sticking it deep into his chest and through his heart before he can even raise the muzzle of his shotgun, the one in my left hand spiraling off to the right immediately after to stick into a second man’s forehead as he rose from the couch near a TV.

V hops on comms again, this time with a warning. “Civilian in the next room, Zed hit that one. Kaden, you get the door on the left. Hit it hard, it’s sturdy but won’t hold because it looks like the frame is rotting a bit, but there’s a guy behind it you won’t have to deal with otherwise.”

“Thanks Vera.” Take note that Hulk is only his nickname as we headed our separate directions while V nags me about hating when I call her that. I pulled my handgun, which is more like a hand cannon, from the holder on my left thigh, aiming it at the left before I even kick down the door. Taking the hint from V, and another throwing knife in my right hand, I pull the trigger on the first guy in the room and using the recoil as momentum from the heavy caliber pistol I launch the knife into the man’s neck, just above this girl’s shoulder. Released from his grasp she drops to the floor. A third, behind the second is practically tore in half from a bullet the size of my throwing daggers that also tears a hole in the two walls to my right and rips a chunk out of the floor before the phosphorous tipped shell disintegrates into the ground. Looks like she didn’t hit any sheet metal this time. The rest of the building was easy, a tip here, an extra hole in the wall there, and the last 15 or so armed people are cleaned up. I walked back through, digging my knives out of people’s bodies in various places, cleaning it on their clothes before restoring them to their proper places on my now slightly hole filled body armor. Those welts are going to hurt tomorrow for sure. It’s a weekend though, nobody to ask why I’m limping from this chunk taken out of my not-so-protected hip at school. As we walk out the front door, all reusable equipment in hand, we see V almost to the vehicle already.

“You have a count?” She asked. I simply shrugged in response, as we all knew the job was the clear the building out, not to care about how many were in it. We certainly weren’t the kind to compete like Legolas and Gimli might either. Everything is stripped off and tossed in the back, knowing in the imperfect world all the gunfire that took place over ten minutes would mean the cops would take less than thirty from the first shot, meaning we had ten minutes to move away from the area before we even heard a siren out here. That doesn’t mean we could properly store them before getting thirty or so miles away though, so we hopped in, Kaden passed out almost immediately in the back seats while I crawled into the passenger side and V slid behind the wheel and started us away.

Maybe an hour and a half later all the gear is secure where it should be, in the safe under the seats, and ten minutes more we’ve gotten back to their motel and I’ve been escorted home by, as some might call, the “.50 caliber chick.”

This next part is not an action movie, and you should be over 18 for it. Anyone underage, please scroll past this, don’t worry I’ll tell you when you can stop.

Veronica ran her hand along my thigh, a thing I might do if I’m stressed, whether to myself or someone I’m close to. She however, has different intentions with the motion.

“Vera, you know how I feel about this.”

She hummed out an uh-huh, her fingers danced upwards slowly, teasingly. I’m driving and I prefer not to take a hand off the wheel. Besides, I drive a manual, so even if both hands are not on the wheel, the second still needs to be somewhere on the car instead of fighting her off. By the time we got to my house and I had parked, she had slid her hand into my pants and was rubbing the growing bulge in my boxers. I practically jumped out of the car, walking inside as she took her time getting out, knowing with my more feral senses she was doing every seductive movement she could while getting out. I opened the door and practically snuck inside to keep from waking the other occupants of the house up, where she walked around to the front of the house where my window was on the second floor, climbing up the gutter with her own silent ease and letting herself in through the never locked pane of glass right as I stepped in the door, not turning the light on as per my usual way of entering my room. I had it memorized, and light just wakes people up anyway.

Before I could respond to her presence, she states in a quiet, innocent, but loving tone. “You’re tired, and injured. Let me help you get those off.” Her hands slid under my shirt, and I woefully lifted my arms up to let her pull it off my torso. Her fingers tug at the button on my pants, then undo the zipper. “These have to come off too, since this is around where your biggest injury is.” Her fingers pushed beneath my boxers at my hips, the wound not even making me flinch as she accidentally brushes against it, being too tired and having too high of a pain tolerance to even feel it. Her thumbs stay on the outside however, allowing her to push both layers down to my ankles as I kicked off my shoes.

I sighed, twisting my body to fall on my back on the bed, where she flicked at my erection playfully. “Well, even if you resist mentally, your body still seems to enjoy my touch. I’ll get to that after I patch that up though.” Two which she pulls a roll of gauze and rubbing alcohol from under my bedside table. One of the things I always keep around me, just in case something happens, accident or not.

V taped the gauze in a large bundle to my side, to make sure I didn’t roll over in my sleep and bleed out through a thin sheet or something. After that, I heard her clothes hit the floor and realize she hasn’t thrown my blanket over me. Instead of a blanket, and before I can realize I was still exposed, she crawled on top of me, my slowly dwindling hardon instantly springing back to life as her warm body pressed against mine in the dark, the heat between her legs rivaling the core of my own body, if rumors of me being a space heater are true.

“Now the fun part, unless you really don’t want to.” She stretched out that “really” as far as she could, so I sighed and wrapped my arms around her back, a hand on her lower back to squish her nethers against mine, and the other at the peak of her shoulder, pressing her chest to mine as I kissed her neck hard enough to leave a definite hickey. She ground helplessly against my body in her sudden lust, and moaned directly into my ear at my unexpected move.

I smirked at her as she cried out. “One, you should probably muffle yourself however you can, and two, you teased me for the last twenty or so minutes and THEN tell me I can say no?”

Her only response was to grind even rougher at me with her hips, my hand keeping her folds away from the tip of my member by pressing them instead against the base of my shaft, her body unable to pull back and reposition. “C-come on. Please??” Great, she’s begging now. Might as well give her what she wants, since she has pushed me this far right?

I relaxed my grip on her lower back, my hand brushed past her ass and gripped her thigh. I’m rewarded this time, a small gasp as I pull her knee towards her side, suggesting she pull the blankets over us just in case someone decides to check if I actually am home, and she does just that right before I lift her cooch into the air and spread it wide and deep by pressing her down on my rod. She did her best to stifle her shocked moan by digging her teeth into my shoulder almost deep enough to draw blood.

“My turn now?” She looks at me pleadingly in the dark and I nod, being able to see quite well in the blackness. My hands both moved to where her legs and hips meet as she sat up on my lap, balls deep in her hot, wet, and rather soft-walled mound. She started slow at first, rocking her hips back and forth, getting used to me inside of her before beginning to bounce on my lap. She bit her hand to keep quiet this time, her walls clenching tighter as she gained speed and momentum. I could feel myself reaching my own peak as well, spurred on by the knowledge she was getting off on me.

Right before we both climaxed, my hands reached up, one cupping the back of her neck to pull her down into a rough but intimate kiss, the other wrapping around her breast. The feeling of her lips against mine, as well as my hand squeezing her tit gave us both a little jump of pleasure, hers more obvious however as her pussy became like a vice, every pulse of our hearts was felt by us both the fitting was so snug by this point. She thankfully didn’t break the kiss, but by her mewls I could tell she was cumming, and so was I. Every time one of her tiny moans was around the same time as the throbbing spurt of my balls emptying into her depths, she squeaked a little, our bodies held tight to each other even in the afterglow. I refused to pull out, even after, and I knew she would hate if I did, so we lay there with her on top, both of us more exhausted than we were from the job.

Ok little ones, you can open your eyes now.

Her body laying on top of mine, she pants, speaking quietly because of our close proximity in the bed. “Why don’t you want to do this all the time, Zed? Why do you not like us being close?”

I sigh at the question. “You know why.” She pouts at my response, so I oblige her for a hundredth time. “I found you in a time of hardship, and gave you a better place. Our relationship started off as a thrill in that way, so us being close like this is just us being mentally attached to the feeling of when we first met, and that feeling is just a memory that is years old.”

“We could make new ones, ones that don’t involve blood or you saving my ass, literally.” Always persistent, but I do have to give her credit for trying.

“All we do is deal with blood and saving each other’s asses. Figuratively OR literally. When this goes away, then we won’t have anything keeping us together.”

She always hates that response to that question, but she’s euphoric at the moment and doesn’t argue. I was too tired at the moment anyway to argue, and she was already half asleep now as her breathing slowed. I hated to admit I loved feeling this close to someone, but it was also scary because I didn’t think it would last either. I could think about that more in the morning anyway, if she decided to bring it up. I closed my eyes and felt myself drift into sleep, knowing full well the horrors and memories that accompany my dreams, but at least there was someone to wake up to tonight instead of a cold empty room, not knowing if I was still in my nightmares.

End of day 1

[paradox-oflife]

q and a part 6 pls ignore

1. Who was your favourite teacher at school and why? My 9th grade Lit teacher. She was the kindest soul I’ve ever met.

2. Whats your favourite party game? I LOVE MAFIA. I’m not talking about basic mafia. You gotta play upgraded versions. I personally love playing one called One Night Ultimate Werewolf. I also like playing the law version which is made for super big groups - There’s police involved, and they choose the mafia. The person accused can hire lawyers who defend them. The police have to present their reasoning, and the lawyers have to figure out how to prove them wrong. God it’s basically Danganronpa isn’t it.

3. Is it acceptable or unacceptable to smack a child as form of discipline? Now this is controversial, and understandably so.  I personally would never hit my child and yell at them. But for other people, if it’s a light smack, like a pat, I guess it’s alright. But otherwise nothing harder than that.

4. Can a hetrosexual male ever wear pink? Um, yes??? Do what you want man.

5. Is it criminal to wear socks with sandals? Listen I’ve seen too many people wear these in public to the point where I’m numb to it.

6. If you were captain of a ship, what would you call it? Make it an obscure video game reference or an inside joke. 

7. If you were to join an emergency service which would it be? Probably the medical side of things, like an EMT. Or a firefighter. EMT’s go through a lot of pressure.

8. If you were to join one of the armed forced which would it be? Maybe coast guard. But I really would not want to join the military. I’m too sensitive. If people yell at me I’d probably cry lol. And there’s the colorblind test.

9. Whats the worst thing about being your gender? Periods. And the pain of child birth. Also how it’s scary to walk alone at night sometimes.

10. Whats the best thing about being your gender? Of course this doesn’t apply to everyone, but I feel like sometimes the friendships girls have are more emotional than boys.

11. If you swapped genders for a day how would you spend it? Honestly? Just observe my body. Not in a sexual manner but like, how does it feel like to not have boobs? How does it feel to have a dick???

12. If you were exiled what country would you choose as your new home? I’m moving back to New Zealand lol. I already have a passport and family there. Or maybe Canada if I don’t want a big culture difference

13. Have you ever made someone cry? Yeah :( Not through verbal attack though. I accidentally kicked a football into a girl’s face.

14. Have you ever starred in a school play? In the first elementary school I went to, it was mandatory to do a play. So yes. Three, actually.

15. Were you a member of any celebrity fanclub? Nope

16. Have you ever been a member of any other club? Yes! Animal Services and Protection, CSF (volunteering stuff), Martial Arts

17. If you could have a full scholarship to any university what would you choose to study? The university I’m going to rn

18. Whats been your greatest ever day? I have a lot. One of my favorites was going to an amusement park at the end of middle school. Had a blast.

19. What historical period would you like to live in if you could go back in time? Hmm... Maybe during the Age of Enlightment?

20. What would you bring along to an idillic picnic? My friends, no phones, music, and a sandwich.

21. Whats your favourite childrens story? Does Harry Potter count? I guess not really. When i was little I loved Geronimo Stilton LMAO

22. What movie ending really frustrated you? And how would you change it? The Mist. I mean, it frustrated me not because it was bad, but because it was so FRUSTRATING.

23. What three things do you think of most each day? Now we’re in quarantine, “I wonder how my friends are doing?” “What am I doing with my life?” “Will life be the same?”

24. What do you call your evening meal? Dinner Tea or Supper? Dinner

25. What do you call your after meal sweet? Pudding or Dessert? Dessert. I usually just have a fruit

26. If you had a warning label, what would yours say? “Warning! Certified Grade A Clown!”

27. Have you ever got sweet revenge on anyone? Can’t really think of one

28. Have you ever been to a live concert? aaaah no i really want to though

29. Have you ever been to see stand up comedy? It was a long time ago on a cruise. It was pretty funny :D

30. Have you ever needed stitches? Yup. If you observe closely, you can see a faint scar near my eye. If it was a bit more obvious I’d look like an anime villain lol

31. If you could invent brand new baby names what would they be? LMAO imagine naming your child like, Fire Emblem names. “Hi yes this is my baby, um, his name is Chrom”

32. Do your dreams ever tell you to do anything? I have the most bizarre dreams. They’re super vivid. They range from me summoning tornados, to me being killed in some Danganronpa world. I dreamed of a school shooting once and a couple days later some other school in my state had a shooting

33. Who's your favourite radio 1 DJ? I don’t really listen to radio lol

34. Whats the best way to your heart? Be a good person. Have good morals.

35.  Do you know your own mobile phone number off by heart? Um yes??? 

36. If you were a fashion designer, what style of clothing or accessories would you design? Just comfortable hoodies that don’t change when you wash it.

37. Do you ever laugh at things you shouldn't? I laugh when I’m nervous. Like I go like, “hahahawhat the hell”. I also laugh when I’m shocked.

38. Have you ever been in a submarine? Yes! But it wasn’t underwater.

39. Have you ever walked out of a cinema before the film was done? Nope. 

40. What song would you say best sums you up? Eeeh i can’t decide but Read my Mind by the Killers. Their music video. When he’s twitching his arms, but he’s acting like everything’s fine.

41. Do you have any old friends would wish you could meet up with again? Yeah :( I had a super super close friend from 4th grade and we slowly drifted apart. By the time of high school we just stopped. I want to be friends with her again :((( I really miss her

42. Whats your favourite Nursery Rhyme? Idk... ring around a rosy maybe just because the context of the lyrics lol

43. Do you prefer metric or imperial measurements? Of course I’d take metric over imperial, but I’m used to it by now.

44. Who's your favourite monarch of all time?Queen Elizabeth I

45. What was the last thing you ate? These Asian things called Zong Zi in Chinese. I’m pretty sure like every country has their own version of it lol/

46. Whats your favourite farmyard animal? I love baby chickens but cows for me I guess

47. If you could choose one celebrity to be the father/mother of your child who would it be? Just someone who’s caring. Tyler Joseph

48. What would you do if someone proposed to you tomorrow? If it’s someone I like, then I’d freak out. Because I’m way too young for it.

49. What are your 3 favourite internet sites? Reddit, youtube, and uh... tumblr or wikipedia. I use tumblr mobile way often

50. How high can you jump? Never measured but definitely not that high

51. Which fictional character do you wish was real? aw man i would say a character but then that would imply their universe exists

52. Who was your first crush? PHFFT IT WAS probably Marshall Lee from the genderbent episodes of Adventure Time.

53. Whats the greatest thing about being your nationality? The food

54. Whats the least greatest thing about being your nationality? Having to explain the difference between Taiwan and China. Like. It’s understandable.

55. Do you believe in destiny, fate or free will? I kinda correlate destiny with fate. It’s a bit paradoxical. We have free will to do whatever we want, but whatever choice you make will end up being your “destiny”

56. If you could talk to one species of animal which would it be? Dogs. They just seem so happy all the time. I want to tell my dog I love him so much.

57. If you had friends round what DVD's would you have to watch? Mean Girls, Heathers, Legally Blonde, or Daria

58. Do you like vanilla or chocolate? Vanilla>>> fight me

59. Are you a giver or a receiver? Both

60. Do you have any enemies? Yeah. Me.

61. Are you scared of needles? YES YES YES

62. How many piercings do you have? Nah I was going to get my ears pierced a while ago but something came up so ever since I’ve jsut haven’t gotten it done

63. Have you ever got majorly lost trying to get somewhere? yes it was scary. Had to use google maps because I have a terrible sense of direction

64. How fast can you say the alphabet? 4 seconds

65. Do you say "Zee" or "Zed" to describe the letter Z? Zee

66. What was the last thing to make you feel happy? My dog fell asleep at my feet and I couldn’t move for the past hour but I love him

67. What was the last thing to make you feel angry? A friend of mine. I love her and all but she takes a week to respond to my texts. And I’m tired of waiting.

68. You are walking to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss told you if you are late one more time you're fired. Do you save the dog? Okay realistically I immediately call animal control or the nearest vet or something. But in some alternate universe I’d take pictures as proof, grab the dog, then get it out.

69. Are you the kind of friend you'd want to have as a friend yourself? I perceive myself as a not so great person. But my friends perceive me as a good person. So yeah. i mean, I might not text first sometimes but if smoeone texted me I’d always respond asap!

70. Do you have any questions or queries about things you're just to scared or embarrassed to ask anyone about? Do my friends like me as much as I like them? I’m so scared of that

71. If you were a wrestler what would your stage name be? and what would your special move be called? Haha maybe like Paradoxical (yes thats my blizzard tag) I’d do something like a shihonage

72. Whats the most interesting thing you can see out of your nearest window? A cat

73. Do you think Barbie is a negative role model for young girls? There’s a lot of Barbie models out there. I don’t think they’re completely bad. But there’s negative things.

74. Have you ever needed an eye test? Don’t have glasses so no. But I might need some soon at the rate of time i spend on electronics

75. Do you find yourself attractive? No. I’m just. Average.

76. Can you roll your R's? Yes

77. What social class do you consider yourself or your family background to be in? Upper middle class

78. Do you know any magic tricks? I used to but I never execute them well enough to convince anyone lol

79. Whats the largest amount of money you've ever won? I ever won? Probably like, $100 lol

80. Whats the largest amount of money you've spent in one spree? $200, if we’re not talking necessities.

81. Whats the largest amount of money you've had to borrow off of a friend or family member? I don’t borrow money. But the most from a friend was like $20 maybe.

82. Have you ever been on a cable car? Yeah, San Francisco is known for that stuff. But I’ve only been on one like, twice.

83. Do you prefer Honey or Jam? Jam! But I like honey too.

84. Do you prefer the French or Germans? Uuuuh, French?

85. How fast can you get changed? Pretty damn fast, if we’re talking my normal outfit.

86. How fast do you type? Around 98 wpm

87. How fast can you run? I’m a decent sprinter. I got 12 seconds on a 100m dash.

88. Which is better, Mario or Sonic? Mario. But both are cool

89. Whats your favourite biscuit to dunk? (im assuming british biscuit but in that case idk)

90. Which would you rather have if you had to, a broken leg or a broken arm? Arm. I like walking around.

91. Do you read a daily newspaper? Nah

92. Do you watch the news on TV? Sometimes

93. Have you ever had anything published? Nope

94. Do you believe in love at first sight? Not really. I mean, Romeo and Juliet, and Frozen has warned us right

95. How many remote controls do you have in your house? Two.

96. Have you ever been in a hot tub or sauna? Yes, and it’s hella

97. Have you ever had chicken pox? Nope. Vaccines rock

98. Do you own a lava lamp? Nah, it seems cool but I’d be too mesmerized by it

[neworoldnews]

Nihilism is a term which describes the loss of value and meaning in people’s lives. When Nietzsche proclaimed that “God is dead,” he meant that Judeo-Christianity has been lost as a guiding force in our lives, and there is nothing to replace it. Once we ceased really to believe in the myth at the heart of Judeo-Christian religion, which happened after the scientific revolution, Judeo-Christian morality lost its character as a binding code by which to live one’s life. Given the centrality of religion in our lives for thousands of years, once this moral code is lost and not replaced, we are faced with the abyss of nihilism: darkness closes in on us, and nothing is of any real value any more; there is no real meaning in our lives, and to conduct oneself and one’s life in one way is just as good as another, for there is no over-arching criterion by which to make such judgments.

Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is an odd film. It’s a seemingly complete narrative which has been chopped into vignettes and rearranged like a puzzle. It’s a gangster film in which not a single policeman is to be found. It’s a montage of bizarre characters, from a black mobster with a mysterious bandage on the back of his bald head, to hillbilly sexual perverts; from henchmen dressed in black suits whose conversations concern what fast food items are called in Europe to a mob problem-solver who attends dinner parties early in the morning dressed in a full tuxedo. So, what is the film about? In general, we can say that the film is about American nihilism.

First, a quick run-down of the film:

PART I : Ringo and Honeybunny decide to rob a coffee shop. Jules and Vincent discuss what a Quarter Pounder with Cheese is called in France. They collect a briefcase which belongs to Marsellus Wallace from Brad, Marvin, et al. Before Jules kills Brad, he quotes a passage from the Old Testament. Marsellus has asked Vincent to take Mia (Mrs. Marsellus Wallace) out for the evening, and Vincent is nervous because he heard that Marsellus maimed Tony Rocky Horror in a fit of jealousy. Vincent buys heroin and gets high, then takes Mia out to Jack Rabbit Slim’s, a restaurant which is full of old American pop icons: Buddy Holly, Marilyn Monroe, Ed Sullivan, Elvis; they win a dance contest. Mia mistakes heroin for cocaine and overdoses; Vincent has to give her a cardiac needle full of adrenaline to save her.

PART II : Butch agrees to throw a fight for Marsellus Wallace. Butch as a child receives a watch from his father’s friend, an army comrade who saved the watch by hiding it in his rectum while he was in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. Butch double crosses Marsellus and doesn’t throw the fight; his boxing opponent is killed. Butch must return to his apartment, despite the fact that Marsellus’ men are looking for him, to get his watch; he kills Vincent. Butch tries to run over and kill Marsellus; they fight and end up in a store with Zed, Maynard and the Gimp, hillbilly sexual perverts. The perverts have subdued and bound Butch and Marsellus, and the perverts begin to rape Marsellus. Butch gets free and saves Marsellus by killing a hillbilly and wounding another with a Samurai sword.

PART III : Returning to the opening sequence, one of the kids Jules and Vincent are collecting from tries to shoot them with a large handgun; he fails, and Jules takes this as divine intervention. Jules and Vincent take Marvin and the briefcase; Marvin is shot accidentally, and the car becomes unusable. Jules and Vincent stop at Jimmy’s, and Marsellus sends Winston Wolf to mop up. Jules and Vincent end up in the coffee shop which Ringo and Honeybunny are robbing. Ringo wants to take the briefcase, but Jules won’t let him. Jules quotes the Biblical passage again to Ringo and tells him that he would quote this to someone before he killed that person. This time, however, Jules is not going to kill Ringo. Ringo and Honeybunny take the money from the coffee shop; Jules and Vincent retain the briefcase.

As I said, in general, the film is about American nihilism. More specifically, it is about the transformation of two characters: Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Butch (Bruce Willis). In the beginning of the film, Vincent (John Travolta) has retumed from a stay in Amsterdam, and the content of the conversation between Jules and Vincent concerns what Big Macs and Quarter Pounders are called in Europe, the Fonz on Happy Days, Arnold the Pig on Green Acres, the pop band Flock of Seagulls, Caine from Kung Fu, tv pilots, etc. These kinds of silly references seem upon first glance like a kind of comic relief, set against the violence that we’re witnessing on the screen. But this is no mere comic relief. The point is that this is the way these characters make sense out of their lives: transient, pop cultural symbols and icons. In another time and/or another place people would be connected by something they saw as larger than themselves, most particularly religion, which would provide the sense and meaning that their lives had and which would determine the value of things. This is missing in late 20th Century America, and is thus completely absent from Jules’ and Vincent’s lives. This is why the pop icons abound in the film: these are the reference points by which we understand ourselves and each other, empty and ephemeral as they are. This pop iconography comes to a real head when Vincent and Mia (Uma Thurmon) visit Jack Rabbit Slim’s, where the host is Ed Sullivan, the singer is Ricky Nelson, Buddy Holly is the waiter, and amongst the waitresses are Marilyn Monroe and Jane Mansfield.

The pop cultural symbols are set into stark relief against a certain passage from the Old Testament, Ezekiel 25:17 (actually, largely composed by Tarantino himself):

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children.

And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is The Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

Jules quotes this just before he kills someone. The point is that the passage refers to a system of values and meaning by which one could lead one’s life and make moral decisions. However, that system is missing from Jules’ life and so the passage becomes meaningless to him. Late in the film he teils us: “I’ve been saying that shit for years, and if you heard it – that meant your ass. I never gave much thought to what it meant – I just thought it was some cold blooded shit to say to a motherfucker before I popped a cap in his ass.”

The absence of any kind of foundation for making value judgments, the lack of a larger meaning to their lives, creates a kind of vacuum in their existence which is filled with power. With no other criteria available to them by which to order their lives, they fall into a hierarchy of power, with Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) at the top and themselves as henchmen below. Things come to have value in their lives if Marsellus Wallace declares it to be so. What he wants done, they will do. What he wishes becomes valuable for them and thus becomes the guide for their actions at the moment, until the task is completed by whatever means necessary. This is perfectly epitomized by the mysterious briefcase which Jules and Vincent are charged to return to Marsellus. It is mysterious because we never actually see what’s in it, but we do see people’s reactions to its obviously valuable contents. The question invariably arises: what’s in the briefcase? However, this is a trick question. The answer is really: it doesn’t matter. It makes no difference what’s in the briefcase. All that matters is that Marsellus wants it back, and thus the thing is endowed with worth. lf Jules and Vincent did have an objective framework of value and meaning in their lives, they would be able to determine whether what was in the briefcase was ultimately of value, and they would be able to determine what actions were justified in retrieving it. In the absence of any such framework, the briefease becomes of ultimate value in and of itself, precisely because Marsellus says so, and any and all actions required to procure it become justified (including, obviously, murder).

In addition to the pop iconography in the film, the discourse on language here concerns naming things. What is a Big Mac called? What is a Quarter Pounder called? What is a Whopper called? (Vincent doesn’t know; he didn’t go to Burger King.) When Ringo (Tim Roth) calls the waitress “garçon,” she informs him: “ ‘garçon’ means ‘boy.’ ” Also, when Butch’s girlfriend refers to his means of transportation as a “motorcycle,” he insists on correcting her: “It’s not a motorcycle, it’s a chopper.” And yet – and here’s the crux – when a lovely Hispanic cab driver asks Butch what his name means, he replies: “This is America, honey; our names don’t mean shit.” The point is clear: in the absence of any lasting, transcendent objective framework of value and meaning, our language no longer points to anything beyond itself. To call something good or evil renders it so, given that there is no higher authority or criteria by which one might judge actions. Jules quotes the Bible before his executions, but he may as well be quoting the Fonz or Buddy Holly.

I’ve been contrasting nihilism with religion as an objective framework or foundation of values and meaning, because that’s the comparison that Tarantino himself makes in the film. There are other objective systems of ethics, however. We might compare nihilism to Aristotelian ethics, for example. Aristotle says that things have natures or essences and that what is best for a thing is to ‘achieve’ or realize its essence. And in fact whatever helps a thing fulfill its nature in this way is by definition good. Ducks are aquatic birds. Having webbed feet helps the duck to achieve its essence as a swimmer. Therefore, it’s good for the duck to have webbed feet. Human beings likewise have a nature which consists in a set of capacities, our abilities to do things. There are many things that we can do: play the piano, build things, walk and talk, etc. But the essentially human ability is our capacity for reason, since it is reason which separates us from all other living things. The highest good, or best life, for a human being, then, consists in realizing one’s capacities, most particularly the capacity for reason. This notion of the highest good, along with Aristotle’s conception of the virtues, which are states of character which enable a person to achieve his essence, add up to an objective ethical framework according to which one can weigh and assess the value and meaning of things, as well as weigh and assess the means one might use to procure those things. To repeat, this sort of a framework, whether based on religion or reason, is completely absent from Jules’ and Vincent’s lives. In its absence, pop culture is the source of the symbols and reference points by which the two communicate and understand one another; and without reason or a religious moral code to determine the value and meaning that things have in their lives, Marsellus Wallace dictates the value of things. This lack of any kind of higher authority is depicted in the film by the conspicuous absence of any police presence whatever. This is a gangster film, in which people are shot dead, others deal and take drugs, drive recklessly, etc., there are car accidents, and yet there is not a single policeman to be found. Again, this symbolizes Marsellus’ absolute power and control in the absence of any higher, objective authority. There is one small exception to this, which I will note in a moment.

Pulp Fiction is in part about Jules’ transformation. When one of his targets shoots at him and Vincent from a short distance, empties the revolver, and misses completely, Jules interprets this as divine intervention. The importance of this is not that it really was divine intervention, but rather that the incident spurs Jules on to reflect on what is missing. It compels him to consider the Biblical passage that he’s been quoting for years without giving much thought to it. Jules begins to understand – however confusedly at first – that the passage he quotes refers to an objective framework of value and meaning that is absent from his life. We see the dawning of this kind of understanding when he reports to Vincent that he’s quitting the mob, and then (most significantly) when he repeats the passage to Ringo in the coffee shop and then interprets it. He says:

I’ve been saying that shit for years, and if you heard it – that meant your ass. I never gave much thought to what it meant – I just thought it was some cold blooded shit to say to a motherfucker before I popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this morning that made me think twice. See, now I’m thinking, maybe it means: you’re the Evil Man, and I’m the Righteous Man, and Mr 9mm here – he’s the Shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean: you’re the Righteous Man, and I’m the Shepherd; and it’s the world that’s evil and selfish. Now, I’d like that, but that shit ain’t the truth. The truth is: you’re the Weak and I’m the Tyranny of Evil Men. But I’m trying Ringo, I’m trying real hard to be the Shepherd.

Jules offers three possible interpretations of the passage. The first interpretation accords with the way he has been living his life. Whatever he does (as commanded by Marsellus) is justified, and thus he is the Righteous Man, with his pistol protecting him, and whatever stands in his way is bad or evil by definition. The second interpretation is interesting and seems to go along with Jules’ pseudo-religious attitude following what he interprets as a divine-mystical experience (he tells Vincent, recall, that he wants to wander the earth like Caine in Kung Fu). In this interpretation, the world is evil and selfish, and apparently has made Jules do all the terrible things he’s done up to that point. He’s now become the Shepherd, and he’s going to protect Ringo (who after all is small potatoes in mob terms, robbing coffee shops, etc.) from this evil. But that’s not the truth, he realizes. The truth is that he himself is the evil that he’s been preaching about (unwittingly) for years. Ringo is weak, neither good enough to be righteous, nor strong enough to be as evil as Jules and Vincent. And Jules is trying to transform himself into the shepherd, to lead Ringo through the valley of darkness. Of course, interestingly, the darkness is of Jules’ own making, such that the struggle to be the shepherd is Jules’ struggle with himself not to revert to evil. In this struggle, he buys Ringo’s life. Ringo has collected the wallets of the customers in the coffee shop, including Jules’, and Jules allows him to take fifteen hundred dollars out of it. Jules is paying Ringo the fifteen hundred dollars to take the money from the coffee shop and simply leave, so that he (Jules) won’t have to kill him. Note that no such transformation has taken place for Vincent, who exclaims: “Jules, you give that fucking nimrod fifteen hundred dollars, and I’ll shoot him on general principle.” The principle is of course whatever means are necessary to achieve my end are justified, the end (again) most often determined by Marsellus Wallace. This attitude of Vincent’s is c1early depicted in his reaction to Mia’s overdose. He desperately tries to save her, not because she is a fellow human being of intrinsic worth, but because she is Marsellus’ wife, and he (Vincent) will be in real trouble if she dies. Mia has value because Marsellus has made it so, not because of any intrinsic or objective features or characteristics she may possess.

The other transformation in the film is that of Butch. There is a conspicuous progression in the meaning and relevance of the violence in the story. In the beginning, we see killings that are completely gratuitous: Brad and his cohorts, and particularly Marvin, who is shot in the face simply because the car went over a bump and the gun went off. There is also the maiming of Tony Rocky Horror, the reason for which is hidden from all, save Marsellus. Again, this is evidence that it is Marsellus himself who provides the meaning and justification for things, and his reasons – like God’s – are hidden from us. (This may in fact be what the bandage on his head represents: the fact that Marsellus’ motives and reasons are hidden to us. Bandages not only help to heal, they also hide or disguise what we don’t want others to see.) The meaninglessness of the violence is also epitomized in the boxing match. Butch kills his opponent. When Esmarelda Villa Lobos (the cab driver) informs him of this, his reaction is one of complete indifference. He shrugs it off. Further, when Butch gets into his jam for having double-crossed Marsellus, he initially decides that the way that he is going to get out of it is to become like his enemy, that is, to become ruthless. Consequently, he shoots and kills Vincent, and then he tries to kill Marsellus by running him over with a car.

The situation becomes interesting when Butch and Marsellus, initially willing to kill one another without a second’s thought, find themselves in the same unpleasant situation: held hostage by a couple of hillbillies who are about to beat and rape them. I noted earlier the conspicuous absence of policemen in the film. The interesting quasi-exception to this is the pervert, Zed. Marsellus is taken captive, bound and gagged. When Zed shows up he is dressed in a security guard’s uniform, giving him the appearance of an authority figure. He is only a security guard, and not areal policeman, however, and this is our clue to the arbitrariness of authority. In the nihilistic context in which these characters exist, in the absence of an objective framework of value to determine right, justice and goodness, Marsellus Wallace is the legislator of values, the ultimate authority. In this situation, however, his authority has been usurped. Zed holds the shotgun now, and he takes his usurpation to the extreme by raping Marsellus.

Just as Jules’ transformation had a defining moment, namely, when he is fired upon and missed, so too Butch’s transformation has a defining moment. This is when he is about to escape, having overpowered the Gimp, but returns to save Marsellus. As I said, initially the violence is gratuitous and without meaning. However, when Butch returns to the cellar to aid Marsellus, the violence for the first time has a justification: as an act of honour and friendship, he is saving Marsellus, once his enemy, from men worse than they are. Note that Butch gets out of his jam not by becoming like his enemy, i.e., ruthless, but in fact by saving his enemy.

Butch’s transformation is represented by his choice of weapons in the store: a hammer, a baseball bat, a chainsaw, and a Samurai sword. He overlooks the first three items and chooses the fourth. Why? The sword c1early stands out in the list. First, it’s meant to be a weapon, while the others are not, and I’ll discuss that in a moment. But it also stands out because the first three items (two of them particularly) are symbols of Americana. They represent the nihilism that Butch is leaving behind, whereas the Samurai sword represents a particular culture in which there is (or was) in place a very rigid moral framework, the kind of objective foundation that I’ve been saying is missing from these characters’ lives. The sword represents for Butch what the Biblical passage does for Jules: a glimpse beyond transient pop culture, a glimpse beyond the yawning abyss of nihilism to a way of life, a manner of thinking, in which there are objective moral criteria, there is meaning and value, and in which language does transcend itself.

In contrast to the (foreign) Samurai sword, the gold watch is a kind of heirloom that’s passed down in (American) families. It represents a kind of tradition of honour and manhood. But let’s think about how the watch gets passed down in this case. Butch’s great grandfather buys it in Knoxville before he goes off to fight in World War I. Having survived the war, he passes it on to his son. Butch’s grandfather then leaves it to his own son before he goes into battle during World War II and is killed. Butch’s father, interned in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp, hides the watch in his rectum, and before he dies – significantly – from dysentery, he gives it to his army comrade (Christopher Walken) who then hides it in his own rectum. After returning from the war, the comrade finds Butch as a boy and presents him with the watch. The way in which Butch receives the watch is of course highly significant. His father hides it in his rectum. The watch is a piece of shit; or, in other words, it is an empty symbol. Why empty? For the same reason that the Biblical passage was meaningless: it is a symbol with no referent. That to which it would refer is missing.

The sword is also significant because it, unlike the gold watch (an heirloom sent to Butch by a long-absent father, whom he little remembers), connects Butch to the masculine line in his family. The men in his family were warriors, soldiers in the various wars. Choosing the sword transforms Butch from a pugilist, someone disconnected who steps into the ring alone, into a soldier, a warrior, one who is connected to a history and a tradition, and whose actions are guided by a strict code of conduct in which honour and courage are the most important of valuess.

Finally, note how Butch is always returning. He seems doomed to return, perhaps to repeat things, until he gets it right. He must return to his apartment to get his watch. This return is associated with his decision to become his enemy. There’s his return to the cellar to save Marsellus, when he transcends his situation and begins to grasp something beyond the abyss. There’s also his return to Knoxville. Recall that the watch was originally purchased by his great-grandfather in Knoxville, and it is to Knoxville that Butch has planned to escape after he doesn’t throw the fight. After he chooses the sword and saves Marsellus, Butch can rightfully return to Knoxville, now connected to his paternal line, now rightfully a member of the warrior class.

[eggheadsguidetorunning]

The Journal

While I was purging my computer, I found these old documents that I had written in what feels like a lifetime ago. At first the discovery of the continued existence of these documents horrified me and I considered deleting them. After some consideration I decided to finally do what I had originally meant to do with them before I had decided to forget about them, putting them online for the public. Despite the danger this story could impose on others I considered that many who read this will think the story fabricated which should help alleviate some of the danger in reveling this information. More importantly though I convinced myself that is was better to present the danger posed in the unknow than to leave it shadowed in its own mystery. To those who read this whether you believe it to be fake or based in truth this should be taken as a chance to arm yourself against a great danger that approaches us all.

I like digging through the trash. Which isn’t to say I dig with my hands and fingers through the trash. I just kind of look and see if there is anything of interest in the trash and if I see something cool I grab it I don’t normally have to dig. Honestly, everyone should do it you would be amazed at all the cool shit to be found in the trash like the occasional book, some fresh batteries, at one point I even found a new figurine although I think that was in there by accident. Mainly though I find some pens, pencils or unused/slightly used journals that I can scrap for school supplies. I haven’t yet stooped to taking food from the garbage yet and I hope I won’t have too, but that is unrelated to what I need to tell you. You see one day I took a glance into a trash can on my way to class not expecting to find anything because nobody had passed by yet and the trash had just been taken out that morning. That’s why I was surprised when I found a strange yellow military grade weatherproof journal. I couldn’t believe someone just threw away a twenty-dollar journal (I looked up the estimated cost later) into the trash, so I took it and hurried off to class. When I got back to my dorm I was able to take a better look at the journal and to my dismay found it full of notes. I couldn’t use it for school, but I decided to read the notes just to put off studying a little longer and to wait for my show to buffer. I will continue to put some of the entries up here, so others can figure out what some of these entries mean for themselves, because frankly I can’t, and I don’t want to be bother with doing so I’m busy with other things.

Just skimming through the journal though made it seem kind of disturbing, like a mad man’s notebook, but upon reading it I think it is just some creative writing students attempt at a story. I say attempt because it seems to be paced poorly with long entries seeming to be about nothing at all. The weirdest parts are the images of a strange box poorly sketched through the book. The Sketch is hard to explain it looks like a kind of Cube or something except its all gray and some of the pieces are sticking out. I will start putting up some of the entries the first ones are boring, but I think the author was trying to build up the characters or something like that. I will occasionally add input on the story to help give some context, so I will keep the journal entries in italics to keep it separate from my entries.

Date 05/15/2013

They brought us into a living quarter with six rooms: four bedrooms, a kitchen, and a lounge. This is just supposed to be a time for us to meet up and get to know each other. They told us to get the guards to bring us anything if we need it like they were room service or some shit like that. I think they are trying to make it seem like we all don’t know their true purpose here.

They drove us out to this military base in the middle of nowhere with a location we are not allowed to know and say we were just recruited for our expertise, and its all okay because the guards will give you fuckin room service. Its just fucking typical of the fuckin system to notice my expertise when it is convenient for them but to not give me any recognition for it beforehand. I’M A GODDAM HERO YET THEY TREAT ME LIKE SHIT!!! But I muscle on anyway because I’m a hero and that’s what heroes do.

They brought me in due to my experiences in programing, and they were right to because I’m the best. They also have a geologist, Humbert, who is a fucking asshole. Just because he went to school he thinks he is so fuckin smart. Zed said that if we stuck a rock up his ass we would get a diamond in a month could be worth trying so that we might get some profit out of this endeavor. Zed is the architect they brought in he is probably as smart as Humbert but not a dick. Had a few beers with him in the lounge he is a fun guy. Then there is Burkeman, oh I’m sorry Dr. Burkeman, the psychologist, he is the one who gave us all the journals and told us to write in them. As the commanders said Burkeman is our life line he is going in there to help keep us alive. He seems alright, but he also has the authority to force us to let him read our journals, at least for the first week before the mission. He has this power for our own safety, but if he is reading the journals then why would I write anything bad about him or anything I didn’t want him to know. In honesty though I have always felt having journal to be useful with both my work and with keeping myself organized, so I will probably continue to use this anyway. Just thought you should know Dr. Burkeman, but I still dislike the idea of you reading it.

05/16/2019

I try to recall the gathering we had this evening it was a peaceful moment and might be the last we have.

I was sitting on the couch with Zed having a good talk with some beers and listening to a baseball game. Even though I never liked baseball the beer is good and I have learned to at least talk like I enjoy baseball. Humbert comes in and snorts at us like he is a fuckin pig, I would guess he is half.

“Shouldn’t you be prepping,” he says.

“Chill Humpy” Zed responds (Sorry that is a says in the Journal, but this guy uses that word for every single dialog and I’m sick of seeing that word so I’m changing it from here on. Also, there are countless spelling errors I’m just fixing because I can’t stand them.). “Besides..” Zed continues “we are prepping getting to know each other like we are a team. Bonding is an important part of the downtime ain’t that right Dr. Burkeman!”

Burkeman steps out of the kitchen and pops open the beer he grabbed as he goes to sit in the recliner to the right of the couch “That’s right Zed,” says Burkeman.

“Well then” Humbert says and goes into the kitchen to later come out holding a glass of wine, he continues to stand though “if we are doing team building then how about you tell us your name Zed, your actual name?”

“Zed is my actual name. It’s what I go by now anyway.”

“No parent names their child Zed.”

“What does it matter anyway. We are only teammates for this mission we will probably never see each other after this op, so who cares?”

“It’s a matter of trust you know my name, you know Henry’s name, and you know Burkeman’s name I would like to know yours,” whines Humpy.

“I only know your first name,” Zed counters “besides I’m not sure Burkeman is Burkeman’s first name.”

“Its my last name actually,” Dr. Burkeman responds then continues with a sigh “So when it comes to keeping score for names as it is we have Humbert’s first name, Henry’s first name, an alias for Zed, and my last name. So, if it is any comfort to you Humbert that just means you are one of the more trustful people here.”

“If it helps Humbert I wasn’t going to give my first name either,” I point out.

“Nobody was going to call you Sup3r_H, man” says Zed. Everybody laughed at that, I was glad to help bring some peace to the scenario although I’m not sure if Humbert was satisfied. We then continued to listen to the game while making stupid bets like what the next commercial was going to be advertising.

I liked this whole story for some reason I can’t quiet put my finger on why I liked this story enough to try to memorize it. Maybe I liked the back and forth we all had there or the conversation. It was peaceful in an odd sort of way like a calm before the storm. The field is always hectic, and it was nice to have some rest before then. I will kind of always picture the guys as they were in that exchange no matter what happens in the field. I think I will tell this story to my girl when I get back home too.

Okay I’m skipping the next few days since a lot of nothing happens the next two days and the entries are uninteresting. At one point, Thomas decides to write a whole entry on the quality of his shit, I think he was trying to mess with Dr. Burkeman though. So, like my friend Mikey always says “On with the show.”

05/18/2019

They herd us into the general debriefing room like cattle. In there they would give us all a general idea of what we were going doing for them. Then they would individually brief us on our own assignments and what was done before us by the previous teams.

We were the sixth team to be sent to discover the identity of an unknow object and as of today we were now part of Operation Gordian (Ha, did the author really think he could slip an Alexander reference through so easily!). As far as they would describe the object was cube like and appeared to expand upon the completion of a scenario of its choice being solved like a sick sort of puzzle box. At current point it was 5 meters tall and 4 meters wide and a length of 3 meters leading to a volume of 60 cubic meters, and they estimate it is still growing.

They told Humbert something about it being a regenerative mineral that they would only now be able to get him a sample to work with and the tools to get more if needed. They said that it was discovered that the mineral was perhaps an 8.5 on the talc scale but behaved like a 4.0 on the talc scale when removed from its host. They at first thought it was made of perhaps a metallic basalt but recently have come to think that it may made up of some sort weird combination metallics or metallic by-product. Some of the experts believed it to be containing lots of iron and nickel like substances.

Zed they wanted to find out what could be the inside design of the structure or how it could be made and what could make it open. They said they wished they could give him more information, but so far, he was only their second architect on the scene and the first one was only able to discover that while it appeared to the eye to be a perfect hexahedron its measurement betrayed it to truly be a prism. The object seems to have some weird optical illusion the measurements being just close enough to each other in length to give off such an illusion. However, the object was much smaller when this observation was made though and they are unsure if such an illusion still exists.

To me they said that they had been able to connect all sorts of wires and devices to the cube. They are unsure of how, but they have two theories. One being that the material seems to form an appropriate outlet for any type of device. The other theory is that the material simply absorbs the end of the wire. While they have been able to seemingly connect devices, they have yet to be able to get a charge from the object to power said devices, but it has yet to destroy any devices even with its apparent magnetism. More importantly they have found a signal within the object and what they would like me to do is try to get a response and communicate with it.

They had no instructions for Dr. Cord.

They would give us the rest of the day to prepare and tomorrow they would send us in for three weeks with three weeks’ worth of food and after which they would let us out. After that we would be free to choose to stay and study the device or simply be free to go.

Zed asked the first question and only question “How come you think all these things have you not observed the object yourself?”

Their answer was that only field experts recruited to study the object were allowed contact with it. Comforting.

#original story #horror stories #creepy