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beastars-takes · 4 years

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Zootopia Takes: The Power of Really Liking Each Other

Our main event, Beastars Takes, will resume soon, but in the meantime I want to talk about one of my favorite movie relationships:

Has this been talked about to death by other people? Yes. But this is my blog and I write it for free so I can do what I want.

Note: this is not a shipping post--this is just an examination of their canonical relationship in the movie and why it rules.

At first glance, this is your typical enemies-to-friends story. I love those. But while the typical arc tends to involve two characters who can’t stand each other, who eventually develop a grudging respect for one another (often through some kind of shared ordeal) and maybe thaw into actual friendliness at the end. Zootopia packs all of that into the first half--by the midway point they are clearly not just allies, but friends, and by the end of the film they’re inseparable.

It’s important to recognize this isn’t just for the hell of it, or just to be cute--the closeness and trust they build is the linchpin of their success in the final moments of the movie.

All the reasons why, after the jump.

Something I talked about in the previous post was the messaging of Zootopia, and I don’t want to rehash it too much here. It’s a movie about prejudice, and the work it takes to overcome it. A key theme (one that it shares with Beastars, incidentally) is that friendships with those who are different from you are hard--but they are worth it.

Part 1: They Hate Each Other! (Right?)

Now...it goes without saying that when these two first meet, they bounce off each other hard. Each is seeing the other at their absolute worst.

Judy can’t stand Nick because he takes every bit of optimism she has about this world and throws it back in her face. She want to use him as a prop in her vision of an equal society, where “not all foxes” are crooks. He laughs at her. He humiliates her. All he has to do is walk away, but he takes his time. He twists the knife.

For his part, Nick sees a laughably ineffectual bunny who condescends to him and threatens him with jail for the crime of...humiliating her. She may not personally be a threat to him, but she wields the institutional power of the ZPD--a power he has plenty of reason to be afraid of--and she does it irresponsibly.

On first viewing, Nick inarguably wins this exchange. He avoids arrest, reads her to absolute filth and leaves her stuck in cement.

And he makes her really sad. Nice!

But, and I don’t pretend to be the first person to have pointed this out, on second viewing it’s obvious he can guess her story so well because it’s basically his story. The only difference, in his mind, is that he’s accepted the reality that he’ll never be allowed to live the life he wants, while she is still vainly pursuing hers.

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but the people I’ve met who have always most pissed me off are the people who remind me of things I hate about myself. The people who seem to embody the flaws I’ve worked to minimize. Nick’s naive hope is what has brought him the most pain in his life. He sees this bunny full of the same naive hope, surmises that she’s facing the same failures he did and yet stubbornly refusing to learn from them. It’s irritating.

Pictured: irritation.

Maybe I am projecting, but if Nick is anything like me, he probably didn’t walk away entirely happy from this exchange. Yes, he “won,” but he was also reminded of everything about himself that he least wanted to think about.

Part 2: They Are Not Very Good at Hating Each Other

So, the thing about Judy is, she is naive. By default, she assumes people are her friend. But she’s not stupid.

Nick assumes she is stupid, not least because she hasn’t wisely given up on her dreams like he has, and...he learns that she maybe not so fun to pick on after all.

So they wind up doing the first part of this enemies-to-friends routine, allies of necessity.

So, naturally, because he is Him, he makes it his mission to torment her.

In fact, we get two whole scenes where all he does he does is watch her struggle and make this face.

The first read of this behavior is that he’s just enjoying the failures of someone he hates. He says as much later. But I would also argue--from a viewer’s perspective--Judy is ridiculously entertaining and charming throughout these encounters. She wears her heart on her sleeve, and it’s hard not to like people like that.

Is there more happening here than just schadenfreude? I won’t pretend to know for sure. But worth considering.

By the time they’re investigating the limousine, his sabotage has diminished into something more like gentle trolling. And you can’t see this face, in context...

...and tell me she isn’t starting to like him, at least a little bit.

He’s also starting to help! By the time they’re past the minor detour of almost being murdered by a mob boss, he’s entirely cooperative, helping her conduct interviews and look for clues. The movie doesn’t call particular attention to this, but it almost did.

Finally, let’s look at Nick’s behavior when they’re being chased by a rabid jaguar. He could have absolutely booked it, with no regard for the cop who was blackmailing him into helping her.

These moments go by so quickly, but they’re hugely revealing of his true character, even before he defends her in front of Chief Bogo.

He picks her up when she falls.

More importantly, when he gets to the skytram, his first instinct isn’t to jump in--it’s to hold the door for her:

He sees she can’t make it, and she even tells him to leave without her. He doesn’t. He holds the door until he can’t anymore, and as a result he’s nearly killed.

Nick is a good boy.

Part 3: They Are Friends Now

She save his life, so he saves her job. This is a key story beat, and it’s a Disney movie, so there’s not a lot of subtlety (except how the specular highlights in Judy’s eyes fade as Bogo asks for her badge--the light literally goes out of her. Go watch).

But it’s such a sweet moment of teamwork--he was contemptuous toward her from the start because she believed in herself. This is the first time she’s simply given up in the whole movie, and he steps up. Because he believes in her now.

And she believes in him! Or, she wants to.

Judy’s supportiveness here is sweet, but it’s also still a little selfish. It’s not that different from their interaction at the ice cream shop, really: she wants to meet a fox who defies stereotypes, who is easy for her to like. Someone who ticks all the boxes to prove her family wrong.

When he starts being more foxy, later--self-identifying as a predator, showing his claws, challenging her--we learn that her supportiveness is conditional.

Am I being too hard on her? Sure. She’s been in bunny country her whole life. She’s new to this and she’s trying. But that’s where she’s at.

But still! They’re friends now. They’re no longer pretending they don’t like each other. Judy’s openly encouraging, Nick is fully in her corner, and we get a few cute sequences where they keep being more and more impressed with each other.

He’s still not above affectionately messing with her, and she’s getting worse at pretending to dislike it.

And he trusts her enough to let her flush him down a toilet...

Which gives us this heartbreaking shot where he thinks she’s drowned. He cares a whole lot about this bunny.

She likes him too! Enough to want to team up on a more permanent basis. This is pretty standard-fare enemies-to-friends stuff now, but considering where we started, and considering they’ve known each other for all of two days? Not bad!

It’s clear this moment means far more to him than it does to her, too. It’s actually taken very little persuading from Judy to get him to step up and be brave and helpful and trustworthy. The fact that he’s turned around and opened up to her so fast suggests he’s been ready for an opportunity like this for his entire life, and never got it. I mean, look at his face.

The foundational flaw in her worldview is still there, though, and it’s about to do almost-irreparable damage to their whirlwind friendship.

Part 5: Fuck!

So Judy gives her press conference, and gives a great example of why police usually answer every question with “the matter is currently under investigation,” or “we’re not prepared to comment further at this time.” Honestly, though, this is on Bogo--I had coworkers who once did some press interviews, and they spent over a week doing media training. They didn’t even break a major kidnapping case. So, you know.

So she repeats some weird race science stuff she assumes is true because someone in a lab coat said it, which is amusingly similar to how race science (or “race realism”) often propagates--people with low-rent doctorates from crappy universities write a bunch of scientifically shoddy material and people say “well, he has a PhD!”

And then Nick has a PTSD flashback? I don’t want to be irresponsible and make an armchair diagnosis, but also...that is absolutely what is depicted on screen.

You’re not immediately “better” after something like this, which is why I cut Nick a bit of slack when he basically blows up their friendship.

Judy...doesn’t get it. It’s completely heartbreaking, because she likes him, and doesn’t understand why he’s mad, and isn’t self-reflective enough to stop and think maybe he has a point. Not until it’s too late. He tests her, and she fails.

Their friendship has always been a little inequal. He’s trusted her with everything, shown her his deepest vulnerabilities. She’s never trusted him completely.

So he leaves.

I don’t want to impugn her professionalism by suggesting she wouldn’t have quit the force if she hadn’t had that friendship-ending fight, but, you know. Maybe.

This is the second time she gives up, and this time he’s not there to pick her up again.

Judy is intensely goal-oriented, and I don’t think she realized what Nick’s friendship meant to her, as the first person in the city who truly believed in her, until it was too late. Judy is sweet and well-meaning but emotional intelligence is not really her strong suit (which is actually cool to see in a female Disney protagonist, imo).

So, while it would have been nice for her to track Nick down immediately and apologize, I think it makes sense for them to spend time apart. Her own self-perception has been shattered, and she needs time to figure out how she went so wrong.

So when she does come back, she delivers one of the best animated apologies I’ve ever seen. Only AtLA compares, in my mind.

Part 6: They Are Much Better Friends Now

Nick forgives her, because of course he does.

(Sidebar--people talk about how he kept her carrot pen the whole time they were apart. He also kept his handkerchief from Ranger Scouts, AND he only wears shirts that match the wallpaper in his mother’s house. He desperately needs a hug.)

Credit to Nick also, who can’t fight and has no police training whatsoever, who has multiple times been almost killed helping her out, now agreeing to help her out again. She’s not even threatening him with jail this time!

We, the viewers, are then rewarded with this great montage of them being best friends.

She’s finally stopped pretending not to be amused by his shenanigans.

(One other sidebar here--Nick is canonically a really gentle character. For all their adventuring, this is only time in the movie he gets physical with anyone: to protect the bunny. Again, he definitely can’t fight and immediately gets smacked across the room. But it’s the thought that counts, right?)

Per the post title, more visual evidence of them really liking each other.

Judy trips on a dead body, and here we get the second time in the movie that Judy tells Nick to leave without her, and he won’t--this time, he refuses explicitly.

Which then gives us the opportunity for the big moment--the culmination of all this care and intimacy and trust.

In order to con Bellwether, she lets him stalk her, and bite her throat. This has been often pointed out, but it’s important--throughout the movie, Judy’s wriggling rabbit nose has been used as a signifier of fear and suspicion. It wriggles when she’s spying on Nick at the beginning. It wriggles like hell when he confronts her after her press conference.

Not here. Doesn’t move. It’s a great, clearly intentional animation choice that tells a close observer (or more likely, a repeat viewer) that she’s completely unafraid.

She trusts him.

I could write a whole other post about how well-scripted this movie is, how every scene is doing half a dozen different things, but the way the personal and the professional come together here, the way the threads of prejudice and friendship and the police case all tie together in this moment. It’s good shit.

This is basically where things end, in terms of character development, but we get a bunch more shots of them clearly adoring each other:

So there it is.

To sum up, certainly not suggesting this movie invented “characters liking each other,” or anything like that. But it goes above and beyond in portraying a friendship that’s not just one born of circumstance, one that’s authentic and unmistakably loving. Characters who enjoy spending time with each other, regardless of what’s going on around them.

I hope everyone is able to experience friendships like that. I absolutely treasure the few I have.

Appendix: The Shipping Thing

I hope I’ve made all this ship-agnostic, which was my intention. I personally like the ship, and I think the reason it resonates with people is because that love and trust and closeness is clearly there, and a romantic relationship creates a lot more easy opportunities for dialing those things up even higher.

I would also argue, if pressed, that the amount of teasing and physicality that happens reads as pretty flirty. If they were humans I knew in real life, I’d definitely think there was something going on there. But I’m an American, where touching and emotional intimacy tends to be read as romantic. Also, animals are a lot more cuddly than humans. So who knows? I think it’s perfectly reasonable to read them as platonic friends until the end of time.

But, one way or another, they love each other a lot. Shout out to this, one of the most emotionally rewarding relationships I’ve ever seen in a cartoon.

#zootopia #zootropolis #zootopia takes #judy hopps #nick wilde #disney

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melonlord-ramblings · 3 years

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✨Yowu Cardcaptor Sakura Limited Edition Headphones Review✨

Service and Shipping Rating: 4/10

Product Rating: 8.5/10

Service and Shipping Rating: 4/10

I rated their service 4 because of something that happened after I ordered my headphones. I ordered their headphones on a Wednesday and I emailed them (twice) on Saturday after getting no shipping updates - I went to check on my order status, it said it was closed (I got nervous, I don’t shop online a lot, let alone internationally). I got my answers on the following Tuesday - with the first one saying that nothing was wrong and that it was still waiting for delivery. The second response was the answer that I had needed. They answered saying that my package couldn’t ship out because it was stuck at customs because my package needed an “Unified Identity Authentication”. I didn’t even know what this was, and Google was no help. Miraculously, I was able to find out what they were needing by looking up customs regulations for my country and was able to quickly sign up for a personal customs code. I quickly sent them a reply and they answered back saying they’ll send it to the company. I wasn’t as angry as my sister, but I do agree with what she said. Were they ever planning on telling me that I was needing such a thing? There wasn’t a box asking for such information when I was inputting my address so I was unaware that was required. Five business days had passed, and I only found out they needed an important piece of information because I emailed them. Thus, the reason for a low service rating. I will give them credit that within the time frame of Tuesday and Wednesday, they did answer back rather quickly. But the late initial reply and the fact that I had to reach out to them to find out why my package wasn’t shipping, is why I gave them this rating. After sending them my code, I finally got a confirmation email on Friday.

Another reason for a low shipping rating is that they gave me the wrong shipping service, so it took me a while to even figure out which shipping service my tracking number was valid for. At that point, I only figured out what shipping service it was once my package arrived in my country.

After that, I received an email from the Korean branch of the shipping company confirming my address and all that. Later, they too, provided a tracking number, but again without a specific courier service. Thankfully, Naver has some sort of feature where you can input all available courier services and the tracking number to see which one it belongs to. Overall, I’d say it was a surprisingly slow delivery. Maybe I’m a little spoiled from fast shipping in Korea. After it passed through customs, it did get here somewhat quickly. They said minimum it would arrive Thursday, it came around Friday at lunchtime.

Thinking back on it, I guess it was pretty fast shipping - around a week and a half to two weeks, but the lack of information needed from the company really lowered the rating.

Product Initial Rating: 9/10

Oh my gosh, it’s so pretty!!! From the pictures, I was a little worried about how the gold would look with the pink, but there was no need to worry, the color scheme is so pretty. The earcups are also nice and squishy which is nice. It’s a little on the cheap feeling side because it’s made of plastic - which unfortunately, makes it creaky and a little stiff. I’m worried about potentially breaking the adjustable area because it’s so hard to pull out and push in. Other than that though, everything is so pretty and nice. I will say, it smells very strongly of paint when you first open it. I don’t know why, but especially the earpads smell so strongly of paint I gagged a little.

I love the details that let you know it’s Cardcaptor Sakura! The fact that they even gave three Clow cards?? I love it! The wired audio cable is based off of her star wand handle and the headphones themselves have aspects of CCS!

My package also came mainly in good condition, only a few minor bumps here and there - very minimal; which is surprising because it wasn’t that well protected. Maybe one layer of bubble wrap and then plain plastic packaging.

The headset case is absolutely beautiful! I thought it would be hard, knockable leather, but it’s actually a little squishy! I think it’s based off of her uniform, and it’s so cute! I think you can use it as an actual bag, but taking out the mold and stuff was a little hard, so I gave up because I didn’t want to risk it.

Product Final Rating: 8.5/10

I am in no way an audiophile or an expert on headphones, but I really like them! The sounds are nice and clear and crisp. I’m not sure if they’re for gamers because I’m not one, but when I used them playing Genshin, it was even more fun than usual! I could hear the fire crackling, the winds howling, and even what I think were wolves howling in Dragonspine! I could hear the little details and I think that was pretty impressive. I haven’t tested them with various genres of music, but I did like what I already heard.

I wore these for around an hour to an hour and a half and I didn’t even realize that much time passed! The earcups are really comfy and not bothersome, even with glasses. I will say, it’s a little on the heavier side and it weighs down from the top because of the cat ears and I did notice that a little near the hour mark. They also are a little tight to put on and that makes it a little hard to take them off, but hopefully they’ll stretch out over time.

The fact that it can be wired and wireless is also nice in case you run out of battery or just don’t feel like using bluetooth. The USB-C type means it’ll charge faster! Using the volume and function buttons really did make me realize how plasticky it was because it would make a plastic echo-y sound every time I pressed it.

I don’t think the mic is that good. On the few times I used it to talk with, the person on the other side said I sounded too quiet and I guess it doesn’t pick up on my voice that well. But I have also read other people say it’s good enough for calls, so it’s up to you.

You can manually change the lights and colors or you can do it through the app - which by using the Clow cards, can also unlock new colors. I don’t know if I’ll use the app because you need to input your phone number and I generally avoid inputting such information.

As for the battery life, it is not that good. It definitely is much shorter than the advertised 20 hours with lighting wirelessly. I can’t say exactly how long because I don’t and can’t wear headphones for that long, consecutively. But I do wear them for around 2 hours a day or so, and I only use them for around 2 or 3 days before I have to charge them. So I’d say around 6 hours total? So yeah, way less than advertised and “guaranteed”.

The headphones are definitely on the pricey side, which makes sense because of intellectual property and licensing - plus the cards and the leather bag headset case. I love this headphones and hopefully I’ll wear them a lot! I recommend these if you aren’t an avid gamer (because I don’t know if they’re good enough for that), love CCs, and have the money to spare!

extra note: I will say, if you have the money to spare, it is pretty worth it! Especially if you compare it to the airpods pro! These headphones, including shipping, turned out to be slightly cheaper, and it comes with more!

Ramblings:

I don’t know if it had to do with me, but it seemed like I could hear better from the left earphone - it was clearer and louder than the right - I actually had to move the left away to see if the right was even working lol. My sister also said the same thing, so it’s possible that this pair of headphones isn’t in the best shape? It’s not so obvious that it’s jarring, but it’s a little obvious in that it makes it uncomfortable.

I am wondering if Yowu will eventually offer extra accessories like earpads in case we need to replace the ones we have, or if they’ll give instructions on how to wash them?

I also would have liked it if Yowu had more details on their shipping and refund policies (mainly shipping) and clearer details and information on the shipping service.

I was watching Genshin Impact’s 1.5 livestream, and I don’t know if it was cause it was a livestream, but near the end, the audio started to occasionally short out, so there’s that.

Overall, I’d give this pair of limited edition Cardcaptor Sakura headphones a solid 9/10!

#ccs #cardcaptorsakura #yowu #yowuheadphones #yowustyle #review #headphones #yowureview #melonlord #melonlord-ramblings #melonlord-reviews

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sabineelectricheart · 3 years

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Overnight Clairvoyance

Summary: Estella has been having strange dreams about her best friend and they are making her confused and anxious. Is pulling back really the answer? How does Sam feel about all that?

Rating: K+ - Suitable for more mature childen, 9 years and older, with minor action violence without serious injury. May contain mild coarse language. Should not contain any adult themes.

Words: 2100

Notes: Friends to lovers. What not to love about that?

Estella shot up from her large bed, her chest heaving, as she tries to anchor herself back into awoken reality.

The sunny day was quiet and tranquil, as it often is in the valley. Her bedroom was on the second floor, and so even the animal and labour noises typical of country living went mostly unheard.

However, the tranquillity of her environment did not translate to a tranquillity to her heart. The auburn-haired girl had been having another dream, a blissful and happy one, but then she awoke feeling nothing but dread.

This was nothing new. She had been having these dreams for months, now, to the point she is close to take on the doctor’s offer to talk to a psychologist. They depicted a future of a happy and blissful relationship, days passed by with lazy, languid kisses and longing and loving stares. The dreams were everything anyone could ever want out of a romantic relationship.

If it was just the general situation, Estella would have been perfectly fine about those oneiric trips every other night. The problem, however, laid with who starred in these fantasies.

Sam had been her best friend since early childhood. A long time ago, before her father passed away and his had been shipped away to war, his family had been tenants at the farm, and so Estella had been encouraged to spend time with the hyper blond boy around the property.

Over time, the relationship blossomed, even after Kent enlisted and was sent beyond the Gem Sea, after Jodi moved with the children into town. They had seen all of each other’s important milestones, they had been there for each other through everything, good and bad. She had always thought of Sam as a brother, just like she did Vincent.

That was, until the dreams began.

Suddenly his very presence made her stomach erupt with fireworks and roses bloom on her cheeks. Every smile he sent her made the girl nervous and every bit of contact made goosebumps arise on her otherwise soft skin.

It did not help at all that her friendship with Sam had always been touchy. From a young age, the two of them would hold hands or hug often. Many nights the two of them could be found cuddling on the large living room couch downstairs, her head on his chest, his arm wrapped around her waist, and her legs tangled together.

It had never bothered her before, despite many, many, many innuendos from her granddad, but suddenly every touch made her skin burn.

It was not as if they never had fallen in love before! Both of them had their own romantic adventures with other people, and they have always been honest about those, without any drama or jealousy. Why that insanity now?!

Estella knew it was horribly cliche, this whole thing about falling in love with her best friend, but the dreams made it an inevitability. She could not escape her fantasies of a domestic life with Sam, but there was too much at stake for her to ever reveal her feelings.

She could not even think about the possibility of him rejecting her without shuddering. At the very least, their friend group would shatter. She knew people would take sides and most of their friends would pick the lovable doof Sam over entitled princess Estella. Then, she would be forced to hang out with Haley, or worse, her own mother.

It was also not too difficult to conclude that, if Sam did not feel the same for her, she would lose him forever. She could not bear the thought of a life completely devoid of him. She would rather suffer the curse of eternal friendzone than the anguish of a ruined relationship, not to mention the fact that she would lose her relationship with Jodi, Kent and Vincent. They were like her second family and she could never hazard the possibility of ruining that.

So, Estella tried to pull back slightly, hoping that the distance would help rid her of those blasted feelings. Of course, the girl did not disappear completely from town, she was not able to stand the idea of that. She just… Stopped touching him as much and she spent more time in the farm than at the town square with him.

The auburn-haired girl could not tell if he noticed or not, but she dearly hoped that it all went on under the radar and he believed that everything was fine.

Estella looked around her room, realizing that the birds were not chirping on the trees near her window, and so it must already be well into the day. She spared a glance at the alarm clock on her bedside table and realized it was almost noon, which was very surprising, as she often rose at no later than seven o’clock.

She groaned as she realized that she was supposed to meet Sam nearly an hour ago. She hoped he would not be too angry that she overslept.

The farm owner’s granddaughter sighed and got up, her feet padding towards her dresser. She took a glance at herself in the mirror, grimacing at the messiness of her long and soft hair. She smiled, though, when she realized that, in last night’s sleep-induced haze, she had pulled one of Sam’s jumpers over her head.

She took a deep breath, inhaling the remnants of his scent on the sweater. He had forgotten the article of clothing at her house almost a season ago, when he trekked through snow for a movie night, but was driven back home on her mother’s garish pink convertible. The stupid infatuation was picking up steam by them, and so she hid it under her bed, wishing she could keep it for herself.

Luckily, Sam never seemed to notice he was down a sweater. Jodi must have thought he had ripped it irreversibly on a skateboard accident, as it often happens.

Her deep thoughts were interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. She frowned and smoothed down her hair, unsure of who it could be.

She walked over and opened the door, only to be met by Sam barrelling through the doorframe.

“Sam?” Estella squeaked, surprise overtaking her. “How did you get up here?”

Sam ran a hand through his blond, stupidly spiky hair and turned to face her. “You really think that your family could stop me from checking on you?”

It was a lie, of course. He was deathly afraid of her mother, and had a profound reverence towards her grandfather. If either of them had told him he could not come up, he would never try to disobey.

“So… I’m wagering that they are out.” The girl jabbed, playfully.

“I saw your mother going out with the car, and your granddad is usually out on the fields at this hour.” He said with a flaunt, his commentary clearly intended to be a joke but the frown on his face ruining the effect.

She laughed softly, though the sound was hollow. She wrung her hands, preparing the apology that was about to spill from her lips.

“Listen, Sam…” Estella started, avoiding his gaze.

“What did I do wrong?” He asked suddenly, interrupting her in a most abrupt manner.

She froze, unsure of what to say. It seems that her hopes of counting on her friend’s overall detachment were about to be dashed.

“Because I think that you’ve been avoiding me and now, you’re not showing up for our plans, and I don’t know what I did!” He said quickly, the words spilling from his lips desperately.

She shuffled awkwardly in her place, next to the dresser.

“I didn’t mean to not show up this morning…” The girl said, meekly, trying to diffuse the situation.

Sam furrowed his thick eyebrows.

“So, you did remember that we had plans?” The boy questioned.

She looked up at him with an apologetic look.

“Of course, I remembered.” She said. “I just overslept.”

Sam let out a sigh of relief, his shoulders slumping.

“I feel quite dumb now!” He joked with a laugh. “I overreacted quite a bit, don’t you think?”

Estella gave him a forced smile, knowing that, while he had been wrong about her ditching plans, she had, in fact, been actively trying to avoid him.

Sam flopped dramatically onto her bed, kicking off his shoes in the process.

“Please hold me. It’s been a day!” He said with a playful grin on his face, his arms outstretched to welcome her into his embrace.

She laughed and made her way towards him.

“Sam, it’s not even noon yet.” The auburn-haired replied with a smile. “Wouldn’t you prefer to at least have lunch beforehand?”

Despite her token resistance, Estella clamoured into bed next to him, feeling the warmth of his strong arms around her needy body.

“What about our plans?” She asked softly. “I thought we’d go to the community centre.”

Sam let out a non-committal noise and pulled his totally-platonic friend closer.

“We can always go next weekend. I want to hang out just you and me.” He said, earnestly. “I’ve missed spending time with my girl.”

His careless words sent a jolt of electricity up her spine. She snuggled closer into his chest, pretending for a moment that maybe he wanted her the way that she wanted him.

*_*_*_*_*

Several hours later, Estella woke up, still curled up next to Sam. At some point, the two of them had fallen asleep in her bed. She looked up to look at his sleeping face, admiring how his eyelashes fluttered against his skin. She reached up and poked his cheek, causing him to stir slightly.

“Wake up, sleepyhead.” She said softly in his ear.

He groaned, stretching out his legs and his back. He reached up a hand and rubbed his droopy eyes. He seemed dazed and half asleep, not fully aware of what was going on. He looked at her face and she saw a gentle smile grace his lips.

“I think that you might be my soulmate…” He murmured softly, his eyes half-lidded and his voice groggy.

Estella felt her face fall in shock.

“What?” She whispered out numbly.

Sam seemed to wake up fully then, shooting up to sit in the bed. He put his head in his hands.

“Fuck.” He grumbled. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

She sat up, brushing hair away from her face, and removed her hands from his face.

“Sam, honey.” She breathed, trying to keep her voice even. “Why would you say something like that?”

He looked at his lap, avoiding her gaze.

“I’ve been having these dreams, you know?” He began to explain. “Where you and I are, I don’t know, together, I guess. Happily married, boyfriend and girlfriend, something like that.”

It took everything in her not to gasp at his words. It was just like her own.

“Everything that happens in the dreams is just so perfect, and I know that you’re so perfect, even in the real world. If I could have a Stardrop here and now, I know that it’d show those dreams becoming reality. I really, really want to be with you, and this is my heart’s fondest desire.” He said softly.

Estella sat on the bed in shocked silence, unsure of what to say. How was that possible? That they had both been dreaming of one another?

“And now you’re turning so quiet, and I’m pretty sure that I just messed everything up, but I think that I love you.” The blond boy admitted. “I know I’ve always been shit at sorting out my own feelings, but something about these dreams seems too real for them to mean nothing.”

His voice was filled with nothing but sincerity, his eyes downcast as he took her silence as a rejection.

“I’ve been dreaming of you, too.” Estella finally admitted.

He looked up at his crush with a wide-eyed expression, a shocked smile spreading across his face.

“You have?” He questioned breathily.

The girl nodded shyly.

“I have. And I think you might be right.” She said softly. “I really do think we might be soulmates.”

Sam let out an airy laugh before tackling her into a bear hug. He was feeling so damn excited that he could swim to the Fern Islands and back. She giggled as he pressed a quick kiss to her cheek and tickled her side.

“Sam!” Estella shrieked in excitement, slapping his shoulder playfully to make him stop teasing her.

“Hey, get used to it!” He said playfully. “I am your soulmate, after all.”

*_*_*_*_*

Stardew Valley Masterlist

#stardew valley #sam

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lovecanbesostrange · 3 years

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There was no reason for Station 19 to go that hard on all fronts, but wow they did. I honestly watched S1+2 mostly out of habit, but S3 was like cleaning house, setting everybody up as a character with their personal flashback gave them far more layers and now I truly care. Thanks. Well, and then Grey’s happened and I cried for like half the episode...........

Maya and Jack have definitely profitted the most from the shift in tone and the character development overhaul. And I liked both their storylines. Maya dealing with all that crap from her father and coming to terms with why she maybe isn’t 100% ready for this very steady relationship and sharing all her emotions was great. Can she tell Carina everything she told Andy? In almost exactly this way, please? Because being afraid of slipping and finding these moments and naming what she has trouble with adjusting to - that is all good. And Carina is one of the most compassionate and patient people (from the limited scenes we have had with her over the years). Dear Maya, if you communicate, she will be there for you.

And wow, Carina than talking about her home and her own fears. Magnificent. Early days of covid? All the horrible, horrible news from Italy come to mind. So thanks writers for building that international bridge. (I wonder how any Italian tv shows that will incorporate the pandemic will deal with this. Every country has their very unique story in this.)

Of course we will see nice side characters getting covid and probably die. Gonna keep my fingers crossed for Marsha nonetheless. Jack having this make-shift family did wonders for his character and I don’t want him to take a blow. It’s a found family on the side, not bound by trade and I like it. I love that thanks to Marcus the masks with plastic windows were mentioned (even tying back to Dr. Riley’s visit to Grey-Sloan. Good job.

Well, Miller and Sullivan. That all happened. And I am exactly 0% qualified to discuss the issues raised. I do empathise with Sullivan a bit more (not that I dismiss Miller’s points, because like Sullivan and Warren say, he is right). Because I absolutely hate this thing were being part of a (minority) group makes you the spokesperson and you get judged far more harshly. And then also taking in-group crap about it. Yes, it is how the world is. But it’s unfair. (And tbh luckily Sullivan hurt mostly himself and he did stand up and face any consequence coming his way. And yes, he was the kind of person to always tell everybody else to better not make mistakes *blablabla* and look, he fell down that high horse... I do think that is something Miller pointed out very rightfully.)

Glad Travis talked to his dad. And I do like the way he did. Just letting him know he knows and leaving that door open. His breakdown about how the church/religion is letting gay people down, while so many sins are just forgiven... damn. Hard to watch. And if just one viewer watching suddenly went like “huh, fucked up”, it was worth it.

Vic is the unsung hero of this episode. I loved how she kept defending that drugged up dude. Yes, he is stupid and it’s horrifying that he stays with his obviously abusive wife, but also keeps drugs around and just... lives like this. But she kept talking about how he didn’t mean to hurt anybody else and that he needed help far more than punishment. Travis and Vic are both good people, but in that situation I think most of us would react more like Travis. Being annoyed, mouthing back and wanting those two shut the fuck up. It’s a normal reaction. What Vic said is the harder choice. And it felt like there was an untold story there.

Okay, wow, much to say about Station 19 for once. But oh boy, Grey’s...........

I remember the “early” episodes we met Bailey’s father. And then we barely talked about her parents. They were somewhere in the background. Until in “(Don’t) Fear the Reaper” we met her mom, got that whole thing with her dead sister and got this picture of her early home life. It was really good. And last week her parents get mentioned again, because hey, elderly people. AND NOW THEY TELL US HER MOM HAD ALZHEIMER’S AND THEN SHE DIED............................................................... it was so fucking heartbreaking start to finish.

And I love all the quiet scenes we got out of this that are just so human. Sad and human. Bailey talking to Meredith, saying she misses her and relating to the whole seeing your mom withering away (so dying twice in a way). I like the use of the beach, because Meredith is semi-conscious, she hears it all, but she just can’t wake up long enough. And then Maggie and Bailey on that bench.

Two people sitting on a bench, talking. Nothing special happens. They don’t need to distract by having them in a busy hallway or somethng. It’s a whole ass conversation with no shorthand. Showing all the emotions. Having Maggie go back to that time her mother died and how she views it all in a different light now. Talking about dying with dignity. Chandra Wilson was so good in this scene. (Her best performance to me will probably always be when Charles died in front of those elevators, I can cry just thinking about that.) And she was allowed such a variety of feelings. And the pain of it all brings up joyful memories. Thanks so much for that hilarity that her scholarship came from the fucking Daughters of the Revolution. HA!

I don’t get people who still watch Grey’s and the relationship drama is the thing they care most about. This is what I’m here for first - the personal lives and relating to all these emotions (and also the mistakes and the way to do better next time).

Well, at least Tom got better quick, I guess. Nice way to give Amelia a reason to get to work for a day and thus have her confronting Teddy. Look, I am done with storylines involving cheating and all. Teddy as a character is often hard to like. But the way she is isolated and like the most contact she has is with DeLuca when he updates her on Meredith’s vitals... it’s harsh. And I liked that Amelia can talk to her without making her feel more terrible. And then I did like Teddy talking to Tom, who was his charming self in the end. Bonuspoints for mentioning that the kids are with Owen’s mom. And hey, I give this to Owen, I believe this must be hard for him, because being a dad is the biggest deal for him. Actually something to make him more likeable - if handled correctly - and this situation sucks for him as well.

Which brings me to Link. Who was left at the Grey home. With Zola, Bailey, Ellis and Scout. Wow. Who would have thought? Amelia’s pregnancy was a good thing, I guess, to give them the excuse of baby time and also Link sorta moving in to deal with all the kids. (Shipping all of them off to their own living Grandma isn’t an option. lol ) Link is a good dude. So please, okay, it was news to him, no need to hate on Tom, push through the irritation, Link! Ahahahahaha.

Jackson being so nervous about his mom being a bit too proud to always keep her mask on - wonderful. Sure, she’s a doctor, she’s also stubborn and he was so scared of losing her not that long ago. Family drama everywhere! I always like seeing Jackson and Webber together. And then they had another big talk, hammering home the fact that people are affected differently. That it’s worse for poor people and not by accident, but systemic problems, most of them are PoCs. So many black and brown patients dying left and right, and it’s clear where the problem starts... I do believe for some viewers this is actually news, because the “news media” they consume won’t talk about that.

So, well, and then there is the Jo of it all. OMG where do I even start? Now, first off, Levi and Jo living together is still hilarious and thanks so much for getting two scenes at the loft. Especially that first one with Levi pretty much pushing her out of bed. Now, I do want Levi to talk to his mom, I desperately need to know how things are. I’m sure the pandemic has shed some new light on what’s important. Second I’m also glad Levi is with Jo, so she is not alone, which makes it harder for her to fall into really bad habits and down that depression hole.

I kinda freaked out seeing Val again and was sure she’s gonna die (might still happen aaaaah). They have a tendency to kill the nice ladies. Still haven’t forgiven Grey’s for killing CeCe. So it was cool that the surgery was a success and wow, did I love when Jo sent Levi out to just listen to Val and connect. And then the baby delivery happened and....... what is going on? Jo even just casually thinking about switching specialties? TO OB?????????? WHAT?????? Dear writers, you dropped the ball on her entire medical journey so often, giving her a bonkers fellowship, having her residency take way too long and shoving her into general, because oops no mentor or anything. And now you give me this? Please, so this is how I would accept this as a set-up for an actual carthartic moment:

Let Jo stalk Carina, play out this thought “what if this thing that made me happy for a day is the thing I am supposed to do longer”. And then let her have joyous moments, but also something complicated, and finally a very distressed woman in labor. And Jo feels for the woman, is compassionate and all and when the baby is there, the woman struggles to connect. And this joyous second is withheld from Jo. And boom, full circle, this woman feels like shit for not loving that baby instantly, for the feeling of resentment and being out of her mind. And finally Jo can forvige Vicki. And that’s the end of that particular journey.

I mean we all pretend that we have forgotten that time Jo stole a baby, right? Because that was the S16 hiatus and there was a storyline set in motion that blew up with Justin leaving like that. And we have had Jo interacting with babies and new moms so often over the course of the show. While also staiting that Jo’s self-worth is tied to being in an OR, which is also her safe space. So this whole thing...

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Addison was the attending OB/GYN once upon a time. (”I’m being stalked by pregnant women!” “You are an obstetrician.”) She was also a fetal surgeon, which was what Arizona eventually became. So it’s not like when Meredith wore pink scrubs for a few weeks and got made fun of. There could be a long interesting road that eventually does include surgeries. But it’s just so....... dumb. In a way. Especially with Jo having so many issues. And the writers - who give out pregnancies and babies like halloween candy - constantly skipping a potential Jolex-as-parents-storyline.... which kinda bites them in the ass now. ugh F R U S T R A T I O N......... I could write a five page essay just about Jo so far this season, I’m sorry. (Also if I ever have to see Jo in pink scrubs, a part of my brain will explode thinking back to Jason for sure.............)

Oh, and then there was Ben Warren. Just existing. Being a good man. Thanks. :3

#Station 19 #Grey's Anatomy #ramblings

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tempestaurora · 5 years

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WHUMPVEMBER #11: HYPOTHERMIA

i hope we’re all impressed that i’m still doing this and haven’t given up yet. This is because I’m thinking about Civil War again. AO3

Blue. Everything was tinged with blue.

Like sunlight on ice-

The glint off the metal arm, the sunshine reflected in vibranium.

-like the outfit of the superhero. The saviour. America’s answer to injustice and danger. Captain America. There was always ice where that man was concerned. Always cold, a separation, the inability to break through and see the real picture.

Or maybe he’d thawed the ice, just not for Tony. Just not for the world and their safety.

But for—

He’s my friend. (So was I.)

Captain America crashing into the water, into the ice and freezing there for seventy years. Father, Father, Father – Howard Stark searching and searching, telling tales to a young Tony, too wide-eyed to know what would become of the man in the ice and how his story would loop around his, inexplicable and inextricable.

There was a slither of Tony’s being that wished to go back in time and tell his younger self that he could hate Captain America all he wanted; he should use it as his very own shield, heft it high and carry it always, so when the good Rogers himself swung a punch, Tony would already be deflecting it.

There was ice in the story of Sergeant Barnes too; falling to his death – not death, not death, not death – off the side of a train, snow burying his body, arm torn from his torso. Was it snowing that night he killed Tony Stark’s parents? Mid December, country roads away from the city, Tony sitting by himself on Christmas day, alone, alone, alone.

Captain America and ice. And the way he was found in a block of it, melting and still alive. And the way they took down the Hydra base, covered in snow, where they met the twins and Ultron was born at last; finally possible, finally probable – oh look, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Murdering JARVIS, tearing his coding apart. Not Captain America’s fault, but Tony remembered the judgement there.

Then this. Then the way his suit was the only thing keeping his heart beating, sending out distress signals because there was nothing else to do but die.

A shield, cracking through the arc reactor, the suit losing all power.

It had to happen in the ice, too. In the place where the sun shone off it in blue; blue like Cap’s clothing, blue like the way he felt that Christmas morning, blue like the Tesseract and the glow of Loki’s sceptre as aliens poured out of the wormhole – oh, that was blue, too.

Blue like Tony’s lips, fingertips; like the way shivering felt. Blue like the spots that were forming behind his eyes, like the walls and the ground, like the sky – though that was more grey, now the clouds had banded together to cover the sun, finally realising that today was not a day for sun; there was nothing good about it.

He was in and out. There and not. The suit had emergency power to send out the calls, one after another. Vision. Rhodey. Happy. Pepper. Pepper. Pepper. Where was she? Oh, right – they were on a break and she’d never come for him in fucking Siberia.

It was his fault, likely, that she’d gone. He was supposed to stop making suits, was supposed to reinvest himself in their relationship, in the company – but there was always another threat around the corner, and this time it came in the form of Steve fucking Rogers, who’d shared meals with him, and lived with him, and had more than once been drunk by his side and so incredibly giddy-

He wasn’t supposed to be making suits still, but he had been, and Pepper had left and now he was falling asleep amid the ice of Siberia, a shield he didn’t even fucking want sitting by his side.

My dad made that shield!

He didn’t want anything his father had ever touched, including himself, including Steve Rogers, including the Avengers that had decided that Barnes was more important that the public-

No, scratch that. He wanted one thing. He wanted his Aunt Peggy, but she was six foot under and he hadn’t even gone to the funeral. He’d been trying to clean up Rogers’ mess, and Rogers was right there, carrying her coffin down the aisle and not at all wondering where Tony Stark, godson to the wonder woman of Peggy Carter, was.

He was in and out, still. There and not. One minute blinking into the cloud-covered sky and the next he was in a slumber he couldn’t help but awake from. He shot out of it each time; a shield ramming into his chest.

I thought it was going to be my head.

There was a figure, above him, red in hue and all he could think was thank god it’s not blue. It carried him, they carried him, his head tilting back, eyes drooping – then, he’d shudder. The Winter Soldier strangling the life from his mother. Captain America fighting with everything he had.

Tony hadn’t used half of his weapons. He’d gone fucking easy and he was the one left in the ice. Maybe he should’ve frozen there, been left there, been thawed out in a hundred years and been the new man out of time, but maybe there wouldn’t be another hundred years, because there was always something coming for Earth-

There was an endgame, a monster lurking in shadows, waiting to tear them apart for all they were worth.

And the Avengers, Earth’s mightiest heroes, were fractured, were split.

Tony had just wanted to bring them in quietly, save them from the hit squad that wouldn’t hesitate to shoot them dead. He’d just wanted to trust the people around him – and he had, until Natasha Romanoff showed she was still a double agent, no matter how she acted. No matter the long nights of insomnia they spent side by side, or the morning cups of coffee they inexplicably shared.

No matter what Tony gave them, or what he said, they were all waiting to turn on him.

He awoke with a start, the shield crashing into the arc reactor all over again behind his eyes. He was in a medbay; a heart monitor beeping somewhat steadily behind him. The door to his room was open and no one sat by his side.

Tony blinked through the sleep and sat up, hissing at the pain in his left arm – it was always the left arm – and reaching out to grab the chart sitting on his bedside table.

Half the words were in German, so he could guess where he’d been shipped back to – but the ones in English listed minor injuries, one after the other, then hypothermia. Tony huffed. That made sense, too, in its own stupid way.

That Captain America could leave him for dead in the tundra and all he would get is hypothermia and nightmare fuel to last a lifetime.

There was the sound of chattering from outside his room and Tony looked up, searching for it. This was likely a private hospital, or maybe part of a government building, so why did it sound like there was a child walking the halls?

Ah. Him. Tony watched Happy usher Peter Parker, the Spiderling, through the hall, the older man looking weary and worn. Peter was talking, rushed and happy, about something or other, when they looked over to see Tony sitting there in his bed.

Both fell to a stop outside the door, and Tony could see the worry in Happy’s eyes and the confusion in Peter’s. Most of all, he could see the hesitance in stepping into the room.

For some reason, Tony made the decision for him. “Hey, kid.”

Peter’s face changed expression, just slightly. “Hey, Mr Stark!” he said, entering. Happy rolled his eyes, following him in, and immediately taking the chart from Tony’s hands to have a look over it, as if he hadn’t already read it a hundred times. “Are you feeling better? Happy said you got a bit injured.”

“Yeah, yeah I’m alright now. What about you? That was a hell of a fight you put up.” He didn’t know why he was even talking to the kid, let alone starting up a real conversation. Maybe he was starved of positive attention. Maybe his girlfriend, the love of his life, had left him, and maybe his only friends had all betrayed him, and maybe his best friend in the world had fallen and lost the use of his legs-

Maybe there was only a handful of people on the face of the planet who could’ve provided Tony with positive attention, and all of them had left him bar the ones in this room. And Happy was being silent, regretful, maybe – but Peter.

Peter didn’t know half the shit that weighed Tony down daily. He was still looking at Tony Stark like he was a superhero, not a failure of a boyfriend and an Avenger.

“Oh, I’m good. I had a few bruised bones or something, but they’re all healed up now.” Tony raised his eyebrows at that and Peter elaborated: “Enhanced healing. I’ve got this one on my jaw, still, but otherwise I’m good.” Peter tilted his head and Tony saw the purple mark, already mostly healed before nodding, satisfied.

“That’s good, kid. Thanks for the help out there the other day.”

“It’s no problem, Mr Stark! I mean I fought with the Avengers! How cool is that? And the suit’s amazing, Mr Stark – it’s so much better than what I used to wear, and-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony said with a smile, waving him off. The fact he was smiling at all was a miracle, in Tony’s opinion. “Glad you like it. Hey, Hap, are we heading back to the States soon?”

“I was gonna stick the kid on the private jet in about an hour, yeah.”

Tony nodded. “I’d rather be anywhere but here.”

Happy nodded like he understood and excused himself to find the doctor who would discharge Tony with enough pestering. Peter glanced nervously at Happy’s retreating back before looking over to Tony.

“How old are you again?” Tony asked, noticing how young he looked.

“Fourteen,” Peter replied. “But I’m almost fifteen.”

Tony nodded, blowing out a breath. “You don’t tell your hot Aunt about this, okay?”

“Oh, don’t worry, Mr Stark – I’m not gonna tell her about Spiderman. She’d ground me for a century and force me to eat her cooking for the rest of my life.” He cracked a smile and Tony exhaled one of his own.

“That Walnut and Date Loaf was not great.”

Peter pulled a face. “I keep trying to tell her but she won’t listen. The other day she got so excited because she hadn’t burned dinner and when we started eating we realised she hadn’t burned it because the chicken was still raw.”

Peter wasn’t blue, part of Tony’s subconscious realised. He may have had blue walls in his bedroom, that blue jacket with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows – but he was not blue. He was not Captain America. He wasn’t Iron Man, either, despite the red focal points of his suit. (Tony wondered what it meant, absently, that the Spiderman suit was coloured both Iron Man red and Captain America blue – would it mean he’d fall into the same traps both of them had triggered, or would he dodge them and become greater than them both? He hoped for the latter.)

But Peter wasn’t blue, so Tony felt himself smiling despite the hypothermia, despite the pain in his left arm, despite the way he couldn’t stop seeing the shield swooping down to catch him in the throat – no, the chest. Would Cap have ever gone for the kill?

They took the private jet back to the States, concocted a lie on Peter’s camera to serve as an alibi, and Tony let the warmth of Peter’s nervous chatter slowly push the bad thoughts out of his mind. When his head was clearer, he could see solutions, unfolding in front of him. He could see Spiderman protecting Queens, could see fixes to the Accords and a set of high-tech braces for Rhodey’s legs. Could see a way to keep tabs on the missing Avengers, a way to keep the press at bay, a way to maybe win Pepper back and never let her go again.

Peter chattered, as not-blue as a person could be, and Tony closed his eyes against it. There was darkness, behind his eyelids; a backdrop for whatever horrors his subconscious wanted to send him in his sleep.

Tony didn’t have a lot of things to be thankful for in that moment, but he had two for sure: the constant chatter of a kid who didn’t know any better, and the knowledge that there was no ice in Manhattan.

#whumptober #whump #irondad spiderson #marvel #tony stark #whumpvember #bethany talks

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trashcanwriting · 5 years

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Commonwealth Survival Guide

Chapter 2: All I Have To Do Is Dream

Summary:

Released from her own personal torture, Evangeline is now forced to try and escape the Vault on her own- now trapped in complete isolation.

Song to Inspire Title: All I Have To Do Is Dream by the Everly Brothers

Previous Chapter: America Of Tomorrow, Yesterday!

She was imprisoned back into her cryogenic pod the moment she had tasted freedom from being locked away, the moment the child felt they were being released, her mind was brought into the unconscious state she could only vaguely remember. It was a blurring experience, feeling like a dream she couldn't remember the morning after.

Inside her mind for so long, she did not dream, create fantasies or a life for herself in her mind. Memories, things she remembers, is all that floated through her head on a constant repeat. So, she was frozen, where her memories continuously played, with no escape in sight.

The memories felt real; she thought she was still in Aunt Nora and Uncle Nate's house. She felt the hugs and kisses and playing with Louis. One memory she always seemed to gravitate to was the first time she had ever seen her birth mother. The memory was bitter-sweet, almost surreal moment in on itself. It was odd to her that was the point in time that seemed so important to her; it felt so minor to everything else.

Aunt Nora had sat her on the couch, showing her the family albums. Uncle Nate was still in the war, and she had found out some months back her father was dead. She didn't understand why the war was happening, but she hated it. She hated she had not seen Uncle Nate for almost six months, she lost her father to it, and now her Grandmother had refused rights of her.

Aunt Nora must have seen how upset she was, as Eva now sat with a Nuka cola in her hand as Aunt Nora lazily flipped through the pages.

She knew the usual pictures, the ones of her Aunt and Uncle's wedding, her first days of school, Aunt Nora in college, and even some of Uncle Nate and her father in their youth. She was used to these photos and seeing her father made her heart sink more.

Just as Eva was going to close the book, Nora had begun to turn past the pages she was so used to, adventuring to photographs she had never seen. Her Father and Uncle in college, of her Grandmother and Grandfather before they divorced- things Eva had yet to see. If she didn't feel so glump, she would have felt excitement.

"Do you know who this is?" Nora turned her head towards her, smiling warmly. Eva’s eyes followed towards her long fingernail tapping on a photograph.

The photograph was a baby and a woman, and what looked to be her father. The baby had a wisp of jet black hair just as hers, with her icy blue eyes. Her father gripped the shoulders of the woman, so tightly the fabric had been wrinkled by the force.

The baby was hanging off the hip of a young woman; scrawny with straight-leg cigarette pants and a tight, black turtleneck. She had one arm holding the baby, with the other hand making a peace sign. She had her tongue out in a toothy smile.

The woman had a happy grin, an expression so bright it looked like a child's face. "No.. it's not you."

The woman's blonde hair was so long it went all the way to her back- she had never seen a woman have hair that long.

"It's your mother, Betty." Nora was rubbing up against the child’s arm, as Eva tensed. She was never allowed to know who her mother was, the adults in her life avoided the question with either gentleness or simply changing the subject. Her father shut down on her once for asking, locking her in her room for thirty minutes but never said why she was in so much trouble.

She wasn't ever allowed to see her, her hesitant fingertips reached, and gently touched the flat picture. Her mother was holding a baby version of her- and Eva had a fistful of that long, shimmering blonde hair in one grime covered hand. The baby was only half interested in the photograph, sufficiently engrossed in the long mane of the woman.

"She looks different." She glanced back up at her Aunt, who chuckles, going to another page to show Betty sitting on a counter at some restaurant, hands up in an excessive shrug as she grinned, her hands flat at her shoulders on each side. Her legs were crossed, looking off to the corner with that same innocence from the first photo. Her father was in this one also, looking young and without the scars he had gotten from war.

He sat on a bar stool, facing the camera with a stiff posture. He didn't radiate the life or fun the woman did. Evangeline felt a ting of grief as she never got to know this woman.

"Oh, she was, a poetic activist... The only woman who told your father when he was a tight up meanie." She coos, making the child look back at the photo for the second peek- her father looked as he did in the photo albums from years ago. He had the same stern, stoic countenance he had when she knew him. A gloved hand was on the thigh of Betty. He wore his military attire- he always did in formal situations.

Vincint was always dignified; his short black hair had been combed in a precise, clean cut. His attire was always pressed; without wrinkles, without a stain. That uniform was his pride. It was hard thinking of his memory, now that he was gone.

"This was their pregnancy photo, it’s based off the first ever picture of them together."

Nora taps the photo on the next page, showing a much younger pair of the two, Betty was sitting on the same counter, holding a full glass of wine as Vincint had his hand on her knee instead of her thigh. Betty was wearing dungarees pants, a black and white striped shirt far too big for her, and a plain pair of white flatties. He wore a dark button-up cardigan and beige khakis. His posture was perfect- everything of him was neat and organized.

"Your mother loved poems. She named you after her favorite one." Aunt Nora pets her hair quietly as Evangeline continued through the pages of the album.

Eva began to have a big love for poems. It made her feel close to the woman in the pictures and stories. The laughing, happy woman who applied lipstick in the reflection of power armor and fought against the mistreatment of people in America. Aunt Nora fully embraced this new found love and gifted her a poem book on her seventh birthday.

Eva cherished the book full of poems, with an attached ribbon bookmark, the cover was thick, made of leather. She felt so adult when she read the lyrics or carried it around the school. It was her show-and-tell five times in a roll. Those memories, of her mother, seemed happy. Her mother left behind an idea of a perfect woman.

Memories of her father were more bitter. She has memories of being yelled at for not making her bed correctly or getting grounded for getting B's in schools. He wanted perfection from a five-year-old, and she could never provide that. He was so stoic until she did something he didn't enjoy, and then he would become so angry.

It sent a wave of sorrow across her family when he was officially dead- his stream of holotypes had dried, the usual reports, that felt like an official document, where he stated how many he had killed, what weapons used, and what he ate.

Only in passing did he ever mention he missed his daughter or his mother, but that was usually as a side note. He was an abrasive man, when not shipped off on the front of the war, Eva would dread his homecomings and stay with him. He had a strict schedule, which had to be followed precisely.

Even out of the battlefield, he wanted it, he had been raised as a military brat, and he wanted that childhood for her also. He expected high performance for everything she did, and she would feel drained by his visits. When shipped off somewhere, Grandmother Ethelyn or Aunt Nora would care for her. She rathered them much more.

Aunt Nora lived in Boston, and her Grandmother lived on the coast of Maryland. So the only times she would see Aunt Nora was if Grandmother Ethelyn was going for surgery, requiring someone else watching the child, or holidays when the family would all gather together. She hardly knew Aunt Honora at the time.

Grandmother Ethelyn was an acerbic woman, and she was not gentle or kind like other grandmothers in television or books she had read. She couldn't call her Granny or Grandma like other children; she was to be referred to as Grandmother Ethelyn, even before she could pronounce it correctly, she would have to attempt to say it- even if it was more gibberish at that point.

She was similar to her father but much more watered down on the strict expectations and the life she had to suffer through him. She expected Eva to be independent: Eva was taught to cook, clean, and care for herself once she could walk and form a sentence. She was no-nonsense and expected Eva to be a little lady always.

The rules, the chores, the studying that she had to do, she never felt unloved or not enough. Grandmother Ethelyn told her she was a brilliant child, that she would do amazing things as an adult. If anyone bullied Eva, Grandmother Ethelyn would wait outside the child's house more fired up than a guard dog on a trespasser. Unlike her father, she never felt she could lose her Grandmother's love.

Grandmother Ethelyn was the strongest woman she knew. She could intimate women and men alike. Eva would always feel so protected by her Grandmother. She was a strong woman, who did heavy lifting and labor even in her older years despite her relatives pleading for the old woman to slow down.

She was tough and said everyone needed to be tough in times of wars. She expected Evangeline to be so strong, even if Evangeline couldn't be like her Grandmother, who could lose so much and still be so strong, who could watch her sons go to war and always love her country.

She had never seen Grandmother Ethelyn cry before her Father’s funeral, and if she didn't see it, she might not have believed it. She had seen the woman with a broken leg drive herself to the hospital, cursing and angrily shouting the entire way.

Aunt Nora told her emotional pain was worse; saying she lost her family, and that hurt worse than any physical pain. Evangeline knew that was true, as when they lowered her father into the muddy ground, the senior woman sobbed and screamed, falling to her knees. Grandmother reached for the coffin, and one of her distant male relatives had to grab the poor, grieve stricken woman from jumping in after the coffin.

Her Grandmother screamed and wailed. She kept saying the coffin was empty; her son couldn't have been buried in the soil of the country he loved so much. Evangeline was never allowed to know how her father died, but reliving that memory, the memory of Aunt Nora squeezing her hand so tight it felt it would break, she realized how this is what broke the family, the close-knit community the Clawsons made across the states.

When the worst day of Eva's life was over, Grandmother Ethelyn refused to care for Evangeline. She declined to share a hotel room with the child, and she had to bunk with her Aunt. She left for Maryland soon after and told Nora to get the child's possessions, including her dog. Aunt Nora was happy to gain rights of the six-year-old. Grandmother Ethelyn hadn’t looked at Evangeline the same anymore. She felt she did something wrong, but she never knew what.

Nora stopped going to the Holiday events and begun to refuse contact with Ethelyn after abandoning the child. Evangeline didn't know how to feel about it, but she was happy she got her dog back when Aunt Nora collected her things.

Those memories, the memories of her father's death, her dog running away and Grandmother Ethelyn's abandonment, it was the hard ones, she always seemed to cry harder each time. She wanted to remember only the happy, because still faintly, at the back of her mind, she recognized what was happening outside.

Her favorite memories were Uncle Nate's homecoming, her dog and the days they brought home Shaun, then Codsworth. She always wanted to relive those, the tight hugs she got from Uncle Nate when he scooped her up in his arms, the dinner was still Drumlin Diner. He would order a big burger and fries; because he says, that is what he misses the most.

The memory of when Shaun first came home, and she was allowed to hold him was always so peaceful. He was so little, soft. He wouldn't cry as much, and he would sleep all the time. He was like a baby doll, and Eva never stopped treating him like one.

The year where Shaun was born, when Uncle Nate returned from the war and Aunt Nora found work was the best memories of her life. She could vividly remember the taste of smoky burgers that Uncle cooked on his grill in the backyard, she could almost feel Louis' tight grip on her wrist when he dragged her off to play, the way Codsworth would lift her by the underarms with his grabbers when she kept running.

She remembered sitting in her Uncle's lap, listening so excitedly to the Silver Shroud stopping bad guys. She could remember her Aunt's tender hands holding her cheeks in her hands to plant a kiss on her forehead, she even remembered long drives through Boston with Shaun in his car seat hung over the seat, with her dog's head on her lap. She had never felt so calm and loved before that year.

In these memories, she was safe; she didn't have to remember her Uncle and cousin were stolen, how she was left behind. Maybe she was dead, and this was heaven. By the constant stream of dreams, she was never able to think upon this situation thoroughly. Her body was not her own. Her voice was not her own, it only acted out what she remembered. Like a corrupted recorder, she couldn't break from the cycle.

She couldn't change the past, and no matter how much she tried on that test, when she came home, she was still smacked and yelled at by her father.

She was reliving another numbing day of school when everything went black, it was sudden, without warning and she was drowned in darkness. She couldn't feel herself breathing, nor could she move, the panic set into her mind before her eyes shot open, snapping the daze of unconsciousness as all the memories fade, her mind drew blank of all the time she had spent reliving those memories.

Her lungs took heavy inhales, causing the poor girl to cough as the icy air poorly settled in her lungs. Her body felt weak and beaten, her fingers numb from the ice that surrounded her, that laced her jumpsuit and flesh. The pod releases the door, causing her body to slam against the hard flooring below.

What happened when she was refrozen was bleary, but she had stood and tried to bang on the door of the pod. Which caused her to fall over once the seal had been broken, lifting the metal flap of the clamber. She curled on the hard surface; She was so overwhelmed, her body ached and shivered, her heartbeat felt so slow. She couldn’t think straight past how freezing everything felt, how soaked her jumpsuit was.

She curled, her knees pressed to her chest as she tried to regain her warmth, huffing her lukewarm breath on her redden knuckles. It was such a contrast her mind was blank, attempting to recover.

The ice slowly melted off her, only causing her to become more cold, she held onto her soaked sweater, sniffling quietly. She shut her eyes tight, pretending her Uncle had scooped her up in his warm arms like that winter night when she had fallen in the snow.

She was only semi-conscious, drifting in and out of sleep, her body felt weak with exhaustion, but she didn't want to sleep, she had slept so long- why was she so tired? Her fisted hands were to her mouth, trying to soak in the warmth of her quiet whimpers and breath. Before her, she saw the doll she had been trapped with- laying right beside her. Her hands extend, slowly pulling the comfort item to her chest.

She recovered slowly, her head lifting to see the pod of her Uncle's- emptied. She stampers up, on her feeble knees and hurried across the room to the pod. She had tried to slam her fists against the window, but her eyes caught the lever.

She pulled it down, panicked and moving erratically. The door unsealed, slowly opening. She shoved her head inside once the door had opened wide. The icy water still dripped from the chair, where no one sat. The room was cold, so cold she couldn't stop her trembling. She stood, on sore feet towards the pod that was next to her. Aunt Nora was still inside, feeling a flicker of hope, she trudged towards the glass window of the shell.

Her arms were tightly wrapped around her, her thighs pressed together, panting as she looked to the lever, reaching a meek hand out and pulling it downward. It rang a noise of error, making the young girl released a choked cry of panic.

'Malfunction in Cryo Pod manual release override.' The child had no concept of what the voice meant, panic beginning to fill her senses as the door would not open. She kept slamming the lever handle upward, then down, trying to force it to work. The same error noise came, making her grip tighter against the switch.

She tried the other clambers, gaining the same response. "-Hello? Anyone!?" She yelled, hearing her voice bounce off the walls, her only answer was the humming of machines and the leaking icicles.

Eva couldn't stay calm, she was a child, alone, in a place she didn't know. She started to bunch her fists in her black bob, beginning to pull downward. It was a nervous habit, her doctor said, she missed the rough hands of her Uncle's who pulled her wrists so gently away from her hair, and how her Aunt would run her thin fingers through her hair, humming a calming tone to get her to untense.

But Evangeline didn't have this comfort now, she had to begin her breathing methods to calm herself down- she needed her Uncle, or a scientist, to get her Aunt out of the pod. That wouldn't be hard, she found adults all the time where she thought there were none. She removed her hands from her hair, gingerly, as she saw all the black strands on her palm. She narrowed her eyes as she realized what she had done.

She had pulled her hair again, that wasn't good- she hasn't done that since her father died. She waves the strands the best she could, but her clammy hands kept the strands glued to her skin. Frustrated, she just rubbed her hands against the skin-tight suit. She felt so constricted in the blue suit, wet and cold. It was like a constant hose of cold water sprayed over her.

Walking past the sleeves of chambers, the echoes of her footsteps reminded her of how alone she indeed was. When she breathed, soft wisps of clouds left her lips, the constant sound of dripping water followed her in these metal, blue walls. She hated it. She missed her warm house, where her stuffed toys and blanket were, where Codsworth was.

The bay door slides apart as she began towards it, letting out a soft noise of relief as she saw the emptied corridor. The hallway was once filled with people and scientists, but now all that laid was a scattered toolbox, and a few other miscellaneous possessions laid alone. She longed for the steady hand that guided her this far before, and the voices that echoed off the metal shell of the Vault.

Now all she heard was her heavy breathing and the spattering of the dripping water. Everything was cold and foggy, making everything even more uncomfortable. She felt as if a monster, maybe the rubber-skinned one that took her Uncle away- would be here any minute to snatch her up.

Clinging to her damp stuffed companion, she stood before the tall door, tilting her head when it wouldn't open. She placed a hand upon the chilled metal, feeling a shiver journey from her palm to her spine. Eva gulped, realizing the entrance would not open for her. She looked about the short hall, two doors stood opposite the wall of the other.

She held onto the doll tighter, brushing her cheek against the head of the thing as she attempted the next door beside her, watching it open before her. She exhaled a breath she had not realized when she saw the next room. Her chest heaved with sudden excitement, as she knew adults must be close. Someone who help children like her find her Uncle or get her Aunt out of those cold pods- any adult, who could fix what was happening to her.

That was what adults did. Uncle Nate had taught her to go to adults for problems, from scraped knees to feeling lost on a math problem. The sight before her came alive as the door slid upward into the wall, a long, blue staircase stood before her.

The stairsteps had minor aging, some of the yellow paint had chipped, as the metal beneath her had rusted from the constant moisture in the air. She felt she would slip and fall from the slick texture of the flooring beneath her feet. Her black boots squeak as she held onto the saturated railing, using it as support as her other hand pressed tightly against the doll on her chest.

Her steps echoed, intertwining with the other noises- she couldn't help but feel the isolation. As she entered the new area of the Vault, she noticed the fog was less dense here, in this small room, yet outside the window, she could still see the thick fog that lingered where the pods had been. Eva's eyes were unfocused, simply roaming as she strolled her way through before she saw a large, darkened spot on the window.

Tilting her head, she attempted to get a closer look- only for the spot to crawl down from the window, towards the metal floor. Her heart sank, beating against her ribcage to a painful degree. It was some giant bug! The biggest she had ever seen! Her free hand went to the collar of her sweater, taking a cautious step back as the bug seemed to take more interest in something else, flying off the window- she realized it had been on the other side of the window pane.

She stood there, struggling to recover- she swallowed thickly as she squeezed the comfort item, evening her breath. Her hands were holding tightly on her sweater so she would not pull her hair again- Uncle said it was a bad habit and she needed to learn to stop. She bit her lip, chewing at the inner flesh of her lower lip until she felt a calm wave over her once more. She inhaled, releasing all the tension in her body.

Moving forward, she took a moment to scan the layout of the lower section she had indentured to- the small place only had one sliding door, so, she began towards it. Her eyes glance back to the higher zone she had just departed from, she had no idea of how large this vault was so she may might get lost.

Eva made a mental note as she walked through, she wished she had some chalk, she had some in her room, but she was rushed out so fast, she couldn't have brought anything but Booboo. The next door was just as the others, unadorned with the yellow label of '111' upon it. The door opened for her when she stepped forward, allowing her to travel further inside the maze she had been stuck in.

The long, curling corridor had beige paint to it, perhaps she was near the end! The lights dimmed, this room had no fog, but the dust was flowing inside the room inside the rays of shining illuminations. Her pace quickened, finding yet, another door in front of her. She was becoming sick of the sight of doors and new rooms and then another door. She looked down to Booboo.

She tried to soothe her nerves humming a song, humming a quiet tone her Aunt would play while she read over a case. It was a song her mother used to love when she was younger, as she was told. She swayed her head to the tune in her mind, as the next sliding door released her from the room, revealing the next one.

Blue returned to this room, it was much larger with a table only a few feet from her, when she scanned over her surroundings, she saw an opened kitchen area and another door. Her hand grazes across her torso, feeling the sudden realization of how hungry she was. She had been dreaming of food she almost forgot she hasn't eaten for a while, maybe a week.

Her mind perked at the idea of food, she first went to the table, hoping for a clue to find an adult with. The surface had been barred of possessions other than a simple Beaton, the one with those guard used in those news footages she wasn't allowed to watch. She held it, it felt a bit wet, almost hard to use with such a lanky handle in her tiny hand.

She had only a moment to think, as she heard the slithering of something on the hard ground, rolling her heels to see another huge bug, and it was coming towards her! She tried to step back, newfound fear and panic slowing her speed to sluggish pace, as the roach lurched forward, it bit her ankle, and despite the thick layer of her boots, she felt the painful pinch of the bug bite.

The attack pierced the flesh, she screamed, swinging the new found weapon as she banged it over and over the now crushed corpse of the insect. She flopped backward on her backside, looking to her bloodied ankle- the fabric was torn as around the newly opened wound was becoming painted with red.

She wept there for some time, in frustration, in pain, in fear. She slammed her fist against the floor, having a fit as she couldn't take it anymore. It felt like a nightmare, big, scary bugs, all alone, and the creepy noises that followed her in this vault. She slammed her feet against the metal floor, crying heavily, yelling until her throat was sore. This continued until her cheeks were streaked with salty tears, her voice was rasped and her eyes were dried from crying them all out.

After a moment of rocking as she held her doll, she sat back up, going towards the kitchen area. Though, despite searching thoroughly, there was no food to be found. She felt so hungry, so thirsty, how could there be nothing? She went through the bedroom with the bunk beds, but it was bare. Everything was so bare.

The rooms were stripped, and without a sign of life but in the littering trash. She felt slighted, she just wanted to eat! She just wanted her Uncle and Cousin safe, or for her Aunt's pod to open! Why wouldn't anything work? She rubs her face in exasperation, letting out grumbles and murmurs. Leaving the room, she came to the next one. This one had some lighting shooting out from the large, box-like structures in the center of the room. This room was large but looked to the only house whatever these large, lightning boxes were.

Being soaking wet, she knew she didn't want to get a shock. She presses to the wall, sliding past before she heard the same crawling from before. She barely had time to smack the head of the thing with her Beaton before it flew up again. She hated that those terrible things could fling itself at her.

When she got to the next door, she found what looked to be an office of some sort, everything was muddled and messy, like the rest of the vault. The decay was still here, and she found something in the chair of the long desk. Her eyes fluttered at it; mind drew blank before she came to the sense it was a Halloween skeleton. It was October! She kneels before what she had presumed was a prop.

She stood back up, turning as she took a full look at the room.

"Hello? Anyone!" She shouts, she had wandered inside the Overseer's bedroom, finding yet, another emptied room. She looked through the locker, only to find a box of bullets and a single messager bag, thick blue leather with Vault-Tec's logo embedded on. She slid it over her shoulder, she promised to return it to the owner when she found them.

Eva grunts, trying to keep herself from boiling over again. Was she really all alone here? Vault-Tec was supposed to help her, keep her safe. She returned to the main office for the overseer, guns scattered alongside the surface with some needles-like weapons. Her eyebrows furrow, knowing what this was, a stimpack. She hated stimpacks! She had to take one when she broke her arm riding a bike, Uncle shoved it into her arm and pressed the button. Something foreign, wrong, entered her, going through her bloodstream.

But her broken arm healed on the way to the hospital, they were so fast and when she grew used to the feeling, painless. They came commonly in first aid kits and even Aunt Nora had some stored in the bathroom's mirror cabinet. She grabbed one, stabbing the needle into her shoulder as she pushed the chemicals into her bloodstream. She felt them course, making her fingers curl in reaction.

The wound on her ankle, the minor bruises of being tossed out of the pod and frostbite faded from her skin. She grabbed the next two, placing them inside the emptied bag as she continued around the room, anything that looked interesting she would take. For a child, anything shiny or unique to her world view.

She saw the gun on the counter; Uncle Nate would be so angry if he saw her with a gun without adult observation. He had taught her faintly how to hold one and aim, but she wasn't truly shown how to use one. She held the gun. It was so much more massive than one would think, the trigger didn't seem to have hesitation as she did; a quivering finger could kill a man without a thought.

The pistol laid a new weight in her palm, holding the handle tightly. The idea of shooting a roach up gave her more peace of mind than that Beaton that she had stashed away in her newly found bag- she would return it to whoever it belongs to when she found an adult. She tried to make her way out to the next door, seeing it not opening like the other one. Her hand presses to the door, but still, the metallic door would not budge.

"Dang it!" She shouts, stamping her feet as she was met with another locked door. She crosses her arms, taking the sight of the small room once more. The room but bare of everything but the terminal that still laid on the surface- she had taken everything else.

Moving the Halloween prop, She sat the comfy seat up. She seated herself as it creaked in old age. She attempted to start up the poor thing. The computer outer layer was full of decay of time and tears. Her caregivers had a family terminal so she could understand the general layout.

Her eyes perk at the option to open the tunnel door. She clicked it within seconds of reading it, before happily crawling off the chair and hurrying off towards the door. She lifted her shoulders, grinning with glee as she opened the door all on her own!

She ran towards the door, only to find the population of roaches that were on the wall. She moved slowly, lifting the pistol in her hand and aiming the barrel at the first.

She pulled the trigger, she felt the wind knocked out of her, the bones in her hand trembled. Evangeline cried out, stepping back and recoiling in sudden pain. Her ears rang as she used the hand holding her doll to grip against her earlobe.

She had only used a BB gun before; a real gun was so much worse. She barely had time to recover when the same creeping of insect feet filled the air. How in the world was there so many? With little time for thought, she had begun to bang the barrel of the gun as a weapon.

Each slam of the metal against bug made a disgusting crushing of guts and innards. She shivers at the sound, stepping back at the dead bugs she had just slaughtered.

The gun was now coated in bug remains, she gagged, tossing the dirty thing in her bag as she went for her Beaton again. Luckily enough, the gun did the job as a Beaton and got rid of the rest of the disgusting things. She stepped past the crushed spatters, going towards the next door.

Another beige room was what she was met with, she felt the tingle of hope drain from her form as she trudged forward, feeling near tears. She follows the curve of the room, holding the handle of her Beaton tight. She was going to get out, she would escape. She would find Vault-Tec workers and get her Aunt out, she would find Policeman who would get back her stolen loved ones. She felt so exhausted, so mentally and physically tired from running about the small Vault, she didn’t know if she believed that anymore.

She couldn't go much longer, she wanted to go home. To see Codsworth, and if Ducky had been found yet. She came to the next door, releasing a breath she had not known she was keeping in her lungs and walked forward to the metallic pane to see if she was finally out.

The door slid apart, to display the room that seemed she was in only a moment prior with her Uncle. The room was cold, with a moist fog that lingered. The room smelled of stale water and something rotten, Evangeline couldn't put her finger on the odor. She moved forward, feeling the fatigue placing weight on her shoulders.

The roach came forward, barreling towards her before she swung the Beaton a single time, hearing the scream-like squash as it laid motionless, crushed to death in one smack. It was getting easier to kill those things, and she was happy for that, she couldn't handle another thing hurting her.

She sidestepped the props that littered in the floor and the sideways table.

She walked to the platform, and tried to remove the plastic cover of the button, grunting in another wave of frustration washed over her, she had begun to bang her fist on the plastic lid of the electric board. She stomped her foot once before she felt an object bounce off the blue, rusted floor. Evangeline glanced down, to find a Pip-Boy in the wrist of a decor skeleton.

Her Uncle wanted one so badly, but they could never afford one. Aunt Nora said he should have been gifted one for being a War Hero, she kneels, lifting the dusty thing to her face. She drew a smiley face in the dust covering the screen, she knew this would be a great present for her Uncle! She snapped it to her wrist, flicking a couple of the buttons until it came online.

She smiled at it functioning, wiping off the rest of the dust with her sweaty palm. The smeared screen still allowed her to see the Vault Boy holding a thumbs up at her, making her instinctively copy his gesture back at the screen. She copied the Vault Boy's thumb pose when she saw it- her Uncle would laugh when she did it. Her face fell as she tore her eyes from the screen, finding herself isolated with only the hums of the machine to be her friend.

Evangeline was happy for a new toy, but she still needed to get out of the metal cage. She felt the hanging cord from the Pip-Boy dangling and bumping against her stomach, she grabbed it and glanced over the metal piece meant to connect to something. So, she inserted it inside the hole of the board, joyous as it entered, and the plastic lid flew upward.

She nearly jumped in pure joy for how fast that was- she was almost out! Almost to adults! She slammed her palm against the button. Her reaction was cut short only seconds in her celebration by the sudden flashing of lights.

'Vault door cycling sequence initiated. Please stand back.’

The Vault suddenly became dim, with only flashing white lights being the source of electricity. An orange circling spotlight began to activate- so much happened at once that Evangeline covered her ears, whining at the surroundings becoming slurred and different.

The Vault door was unsealed by the box machine that hooked from the ceiling moving forward, connecting to the door and pulling it side, so she was quick to hurry and climb atop the gate platform. The machine shook to action, beginning to connect to the Vault door slowly. It squeaked and whined in protest as it was rusted and time withered, barely able to make the journey to get her to the other side.

There, she was met with the same steps she was forced up with her Uncle, the same water dripping and robotic hums she had grown used to. The paint was rusted and peeled, giving the place an abandoned, aged appearance. The metal husk of the bunker was silent other than what she did, how her footsteps echoed, how her voice traveled through the halls. The total isolation was bringing her closer to panic. The lack of adults and live made her so nervous, she couldn't wait to get out of the Vault, to see adults and Louis.

The adrenaline was fading, she could feel the weakness in her legs and the wear of her mind. She could imagine nights of falling asleep on her Uncle's lap while listening to the Silver Shroud, where she would be half awake as she was carried to her bedroom, then tucked in. She would be given a kiss on the forehead by him, his warm palm running over her cheek. She ran her petite hand over her cheek in the same fashion, hoping for the same effect- but her chilled flesh didn't give the same comfort.

Nights of being sung British nursery rhymes from Codsworth and Aunt Nora's silky voice filled her tired mind as she made her way down the steps. The echoes of her own feet almost mocked her by how loud it was, how the dripping water rang in her ears, it was silent, lifeless.

Where were the adults? They were everywhere before, filling the rooms to the brim but now, now it was so quiet. Quieter than waking up at night in her suburban home, quieter than locking herself in her room after school to read books and poems, the silence was numbing her brain.

She stepped onto the elevator, and without her having to so much as lift a finger, it began to close the metal barring, trapping her inside. The child chose then that she was freed and safe, it was time to allow herself to give in to all the overwhelming emotions she felt. She allowed her legs to give out on her, flopping down on the floor below her.

Eva rested her legs, rubbing her calf as she glanced around her new surrounding. The shaky machine was slowly lifting her upwards. She hugged her knees to her chest, taking a moment to breathe- no adults were in the vault, they were all frozen, but she couldn't get them out. Maybe the rubber-skinned monster and her Uncle were in the surface, up above. But, that big explosion… what would that mean for everyone?

She covered her face in her knees, beginning to sob lost in her thoughts, of the realization that maybe she was all alone.The welling of tears finally beginning to pour. She whined meekly, allowing her shoulders to quiver and slack against her frame. She just wanted her Uncle, she wipes her nose, maybe Codsworth was still there, he always knew what to do, when she scraped her knees, when her caregivers weren't home and she needed a permission slip signed and it was the day of the field trip.

The darkness swallowed her, this time, she wasn't encased in strong arms and a soothing hand on her head. She was alone, shivering quietly, as she saw the entrance of the vault slowly open, sliding apart as rays of light shined through. It burned her irises, making her cover them at first as she was brought face to face with the outside world once more.

The warm washes over her frozen skin, her hand lowers from her eyes so she could see the beauty- all she saw a barren wasteland of death. The grass was dead or gone, the trees were stripped of life, and the prop skeletons from inside scattered the world surrounding her. It was so much more warm but louder, less welcoming than the vault. As her eyes roam the new realm she found herself in.

Evangeline could only wonder what new monsters laid awake for her here. The cold wind hit her flesh, as she slowly steps off the hard floor. "Hello!?" She called out, to anyone to hear her. She walked towards the gate, "Louis?" She cried, walking past the gate’s entrance towards the dirt path she knew so well.

The dirt path seemed more ominous than the last time she had been down this road, and the times she and Louis had been playing in the borderline of the forest. The way they could run from the curves of the trees, using leaves and sticks as ammo, and chasing each other from one side of the forest to another were some of her best memories.

Now, the leaves were gone from the bark; the wildlife she had loved was withered and gone. Leaving a pit of a feeling she could not describe, a lonely, isolated emotion. A feeling of being the only thing alive in such a place surrounded by death. On the new lonely road, she headed to the place where she thought Codsworth would be.

Her home, Sanctuary Hills.

#FanFiction #Writing #Fanfic #Fallout #Fallout 4 #Vault Tec #Child Sole AU #Child Sole Survivor Au #Evangeline #Oc #Original Characters #Canon-Typical Violence #Mentions of Abuse #Commonwealth Survival Guide

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The January Jobs Report Will Have Implications for Further Federal Aid: Live Updates Here’s what you need to know: Empty outdoor seating at a restaurant in New York City in December. The winter slowdown could leave lasting wounds to the jobs market.Credit…Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times After the economic rebound fizzled in December, government data on Friday is likely to paint a less dire picture. Forecasters generally expect at least nominal growth in the jobs report for January, though estimates vary widely. The reading, however, will probably signal continued weakness in the labor market after a winter coronavirus surge. “There’s no doubt that the labor market is navigating the pandemic,” said Becky Frankiewicz, president of the staffing and placement company ManpowerGroup North America. “There are twists and turns — we take two steps forward and two steps back.” Nearly a year after the pandemic devastated the job market, many forecasters predict that the economy will strengthen from here on. The $900 billion federal relief package enacted in December is expected to bolster the economy, with more aid potentially on the way. The vaccination push, though slower than hoped, is paving the way for wider reopenings even as coronavirus mutations around the world make the rollout more urgent. But the winter slowdown could leave lasting wounds. In December, the resurgent pandemic ravaged the leisure and hospitality industries, resulting in the first net decline in payrolls since April. Though the economy has regained more than half of the 22 million jobs lost last spring, millions of people have been unemployed for a long period — potentially making it harder to rejoin the work force — or are no longer classified as unemployed because they have stopped looking for a job. “It is difficult on a monthly basis to really see what the long-term impacts will be,” said Daniel Zhao, senior economist with the career site Glassdoor. “But certainly the long-term economic scarring is something that is a huge concern for the recovery.” The January numbers are certain to affect the debate in Washington over further federal intervention. The Biden administration and Democratic lawmakers have been pressing for a $1.9 trillion measure, while some Republicans have said a smaller package would suffice and others have said it is too soon for another round of aid. Kirin, one of Japan’s biggest breweries, announced on Friday that it would halt a joint venture in Myanmar after the coup earlier this week. Beginning in 2015, the company set up two brewing companies in Myanmar, hoping to “contribute positively to the people and the economy of the country as it entered an important period of democratization,” Kirin said in a statement on Friday. But in light of the coup, Kirin decided to exit its joint venture with Myanma Economic Holdings Public Company Limited, it said in the statement, citing the company’s connections to Myanmar’s military. It did not specify a time frame but said it was taking steps “as a matter of urgency.” Kirin had been under pressure to cut ties with its partner in Myanmar after the release late last year of an Amnesty International report that said the Japanese brewer’s Burmese partner had directed payments to military units implicated in systematic violence against the Rohingya ethnic minority. The report’s allegations could not be independently verified. In a statement, Amnesty International said Kirin’s decision showed it was “taking its human rights responsibilities in Myanmar seriously.” Over 400 Japanese companies currently operate in Myanmar, according to data collected by Japan’s external trade agency. Shares of GameStop have dropped 84 percent this week.Credit…Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times U.S. markets Wall Street stock indexes were set up open higher on Friday, extending a rally that has brought the S&P 500 back up to record highs. Later, the Labor Department will publish its jobs report for January. Most forecasters expect the payroll data to show some growth in hiring, though the estimates vary widely. On Thursday, a separate report showed new claims for state unemployment benefits fell for a third-straight week. The S&P 500 has gained 5 percent already this week. It has more than recovered from last week when a frenzy by retail traders in “meme stocks” unnerved markets. Oil prices have risen nearly 9 percent this week, the biggest jump since October. West Texas Intermediate futures were at $56.72 a barrel, while Brent crude, the European benchmark, approached $60 a barrel. Robinhood, AMC and other meme stocks GameStop shares have slid 84 percent this week, but were rising again in premarket trading, and AMC Entertainment shares have dropped 46 percent as trading volumes were about half of last week’s levels. Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary, met with market regulators on Thursday to discuss the volatility; afterward, the Treasury Department issued a statement that said the markets’ “core infrastructure was resilient” and that the Securities and Exchange Commission should publish a study of what happened. Robinhood, the online trading app that enraged users when it restricted buying some of the most popular stocks, announced “there are currently no temporary limits” on buying shares. Europe Most European stock indexes were higher on Friday, with Italy’s still leading the way, as investors expressed confidence in Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank, forming a new Italian government. The FTSE MIB in Italy has gained 7 percent this week, compared with a 3.3 percent gain in the Stoxx Europe 600 index. Shares in French Connection, a British fashion retailer, jumped more than 50 percent as it confirmed two offers to buy the company. Britain’s high-street retail industry is undergoing an accelerated shake up because of the economic fallout of the pandemic. The shares surged as much as 92 percent. Yields on 10-year British government bonds rose 5 basis points, or 0.05 percentage point, to 0.49 percent, the highest since March. Bond prices fell and the yields rose after the Bank of England said on Thursday that it wanted banks to be prepared for negative rates but it had no intention of introducing them imminently. The central bank said it expected the vaccine rollout to prompt a swift economic recovery later this year. The optimism has helped lift bond yields across Europe and the United States. Asia Peloton said it would invest heavily to limit the delays in getting the equipment to customers that have plagued the company.Credit…Dolly Faibyshev for The New York Times Peloton, the home fitness company, reported a jump in quarterly sales and profits on Thursday. But its stock price fell more than 8 percent in after-hours trading, as supply-chain issues continue to weigh on the company and as investors consider whether demand for its bikes and treadmills may fall as gyms reopen. Peloton’s value has soared nearly sixfold to $46 billion over the past year as pandemic lockdowns made its internet-connected fitness equipment a hot commodity. But the company has struggled to get the bikes to customers because of supply-chain challenges and delivery delays. Peloton reported $1.1 billion in revenue for the three months that ended in December, a 128 percent increase from a year earlier. It reported a net income of $64 million, compared with a net loss of $55 million a year earlier. Peloton now counts 4.4 million members, it said, including 1.67 million who own its fitness devices and subscribe to its streaming classes. In a letter to shareholders, Peloton said port closures on the West Coast and other “Covid-related factors” continued to delay deliveries. In December, the company acquired Precor, a fitness company with factories in the United States. It has also begun production in a new factory in Taiwan. Peloton also said it would invest $100 million to expedite deliveries and would ship equipment by air rather than sea, incurring costs that are 10 times higher than normal. “These unprecedented measures are for these unprecedented times,” John Foley, Peloton’s chief executive, wrote in a letter to customers. Credit…Jeenah Moon for The New York Times And now for something completely unexpected: The New York Post recorded a profit for the first time in decades. The colorful, pun-happy tabloid made money in the most recent quarter, its parent company, News Corp, said Thursday as part of its earnings report. The Post, which was remade by Rupert Murdoch into the sensationalist, Fleet Street form he preferred, was famous within media circles for being a money-losing enterprise. But it afforded Mr. Murdoch a significant voice in American media. Its aggressive coverage of boldfaced names and intense focus on Wall Street made it a must-read among the powerful. And its financial losses, which at one point reached more than $40 million annually, was considered well worth the cost. But the irony in The Post’s new profit milestone is that it comes at a time when the paper has arguably lost much of its sensationalist charm and no longer enjoys its reputation as a potent tabloid teaser. Losses at Mr. Murdoch’s papers in Australia and Britain have forced News Corp to tighten belts at every division in the last few years. The Post also underwent deep cost cuts, laying off more than 20 staff members last year and announcing a leadership change in January. In October, some of the paper’s reporters revolted when they were asked to put their names to a dubious report tying Joseph R. Biden Jr. to his son Hunter’s lobbying activities abroad. News Corp didn’t say exactly how much profit the paper made, but Robert Thomson, the chief executive, touted the moment and added, “Our task now is to ensure its long-term profitability.” Mr. Murdoch’s other U.S. paper, The Wall Street Journal, continued to see strong financial results. The broadsheet had 3.22 million print and digital subscribers as of the end of December, a 19 percent jump over the previous year. Of that number, about 2.46 million were for digital-only customers, a 28 percent increase over the previous year, amounting to a gain of about 106,000 new digital customers for the period. Dow Jones, which includes The Journal, the sister publication Barron’s, and Risk and Compliance, an expensive subscription product targeted primarily to banks and other big businesses, saw a 4 percent increase in revenue, to $446 million. Profit before taxes rose 43 percent to $109 million, a portion of which was driven by Risk and Compliance. As at other papers, advertising revenue at Dow Jones, which includes The Journal, continued to fall, with a 29 percent decrease in print ads, but digital advertising rebounded, growing 29 percent over the previous year. Advertising decreased overall by 4 percent, the company said. News Corp reported a 3 percent decline in its overall revenue, to $2.41 billion, and a pretax profit of $497 million for the three months ending in December, the company’s second fiscal quarter. But the company’s biggest bright spot was at the book publisher HarperCollins, where revenue jumped 23 percent, to $544 million, as the division saw higher sales in every book category. News Corp recently lost its bid to Penguin Random House to buy the rival publisher Simon & Schuster. Ford’s F-series trucks are the top-selling vehicle line in the United States.Credit…Brittany Greeson for The New York Times Ford Motor lost $1.3 billion in 2020 as car sales slumped during the coronavirus pandemic and the company ran up large restructuring costs for its overseas operations. The automaker, which was forced to stop making cars for about 60 days last spring to prevent the spread of the virus, reported $127 billion in revenue for the year, down from $156 billion in 2019, when it made a small profit. Ford is racing to develop electric cars and trucks in the hope they will juice its sales in the next several years and said it now plans to spend $22 billion on electric vehicles over the 10-year period ending in 2025. It previously planned to spend $11.5 billion through 2022. But Ford’s chief executive, Jim Farley, said in a conference call with analysts that he isn’t ready to commit to a phaseout of gasoline-powered models. General Motors said last week that it aims to stop making internal combustion vehicles by 2035, replacing them with electric models. “It’s stunning how fast the industry is changing,” Mr. Farley said. “I don’t think any of us really has an answer” to when electric cars will take over completely. Ford’s 2020 earnings were hurt by $5 billion in restructuring charges in the fourth quarter. Last month the company said it would close its plants in Brazil in a bid to halt losses in South America. It is also losing money in China and trying to improve profitability in Europe. The automaker said it expected business to improve this year as the economy recovers and the pandemic wanes. But its recovery faces a big challenge. Ford said that a global shortage of computer chips that has forced it and other automakers to slow production around the world could depress this year’s pretax profit by $1 billion to $2.5 billion. “The semiconductor situation is changing constantly, so it’s premature to try to size what availability will mean for our full-year performance,” Ford’s chief financial officer, John Lawler, said in a statement. “Right now, estimates from suppliers could suggest losing 10 percent to 20 percent of our planned first-quarter production.” Earlier on Thursday, Ford said it would slow production of its best-selling F-150 pickup truck at two plants because of the shortage of semiconductors. The company will operate just one shift at a Dearborn, Mich., plant for one week beginning Feb. 8, instead of the usual three shifts. A plant near Kansas City, Mo., will go to two shifts instead of three. Ford relies on the F-150 for a big chunk of its profits. Its F-series trucks are the top-selling vehicle line in the United States. On Wednesday, G.M. said that it would idle three North American plants next week because of the chip shortage. Source link Orbem News #Aid #Federal #Implications #January #jobs #Live #Report #Updates

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ciathyzareposts · 4 years

Text

Command : Modern Operations – Birth of a Scenario Part 1

CMO offers a host of new and exciting features that I’ve been eager to tear into. Except life had other plans and I’ve had to sit on the sidelines since launch. Now though I’m getting back into it and am going to walk through a scenario I’ve had in mind for awhile. The Soviet invasion of Sweden.

I know, stop the music, the Soviet Invasion of Sweden? Yup!

Sweden was neutral in the Cold War. A big empty spot on the map between Norway and the Soviet Union. Sweden managed a pseudo neutrality in WW2 but provided Germany with a good deal of iron ore. So what would they do, what could they do, in a Cold War gone Hot?

Luckily a good poster elaborated.

The strategic reality of Sweden in the Cold War revolves around The Great Naval Invasion. The Warsaw Pact was expected to only care about Sweden as a minor speed bump on the way to their strategic objectives – the Sound and the Norwegian North Sea harbors. Possibly they could be interested in Gotland (which was fundamentally indefensible, but the attempt had to be made) and in a decapitation strike on Stockholm as well, but that was pretty much it. Reaching the Norwegian coast was a matter of crossing many hundred kilometers of frozen taiga and sub-arctic mountains with incredibly poor infrastructure, and that war was expected to become the Winter War 2.0. The Sound and the decapitation strike though were a different matter. To accomplish either objective, a naval invasion was needed.

When people look at Cold War Sweden they kind of assume that NATO support must’ve been expected, because of course the idea of Sweden winning a war against the Soviet Union is absurd. However, Swedish operational planning did not actually expect or plan for any military NATO help. The NATO cooperation was on a subtler level and more political than anything else. If you’re thinking that, well, in that case the Swedish operational planning was pretty much a very complicated way to say dulce et decorum est pro patria mori and delaying the inevitable for as long as possible, then, well, you’d be wrong. The Swedish plan was to win the war, to win it alone, to win it quickly and decisively. Not winning in the sense of dictating terms from the ruins of Moskva, but winning in the sense of eliminating the military threat to Sweden for the immediate future. The planners saw one way to do that and then they bet on that horse with almost everything they had.

The way you win a land war in Asia is by not fighting it. Everyone knows this. Sweden attempting to delay the Soviet Union would be idiotic. There is nothing good that could ever come from that. Instead, the Swedish military focused with laser-like intensity on the Great Naval Invasion. It was the Soviet Achilles heel, the only point at which there was a fighting chance, the one moment where the war could be won. Push the landing force back into the sea, destroy the specialized landing craft (a scarce strategic resource for the Soviets) and there you go – you can sit back and stare at the Russians over the Baltic Sea in relative safety. If they establish a beachhead and start shipping in Guards tank armies, might as well throw in the towel immediately, because there is no winning that game.

This is what the S-tank was built for and why half of all the tanks in the country were stationed so stupidly close to the Iron Curtain (seriously, you could reach their tank garages with rocket artillery from across the Sound). East Germany and Poland were too close, the sea too narrow and the travel time too short for the navy and the air force (the Swedish air force was and to some extent still is specialized on anti-ship strikes) to take much of a bite out of the landing craft, so the army had to shoulder more of the burden. The plan in the 60’s and 70’s was to take every tank and APC that could be scrounged up and start rolling towards the sea as fast as the tracks would carry them. As soon as the brigades were concentrated and rolling on the open roads, they were expected to take horrifying losses from air strikes, but that was part of the calculation. Go for the beachhead, establish close contact as soon as possible to make it unpalatable for the enemy to use tactical nukes (since they’d be hitting their own guys too), and either you reach the sea or you run out of tanks. That’s it, that’s the plan, the one chance to win the war. If it doesn’t work, then the infantry brigades get to fill the entire southern half of the country with mines and it’s time for the delaying tactics while waiting for an unlikely bailout from NATO, but that doesn’t involve much tanking.

TheFluff

This stuck with me for a long time. Could Sweden have defeated the Soviets? They could swing through Finland and come from the north but it’s a loooong way with mediocre infrastructure.

But why would they risk an angry porcupine of S-Tanks? Soviet doctrine intended to capture from Shetlands north to Iceland and use it to harass incoming units from the US such as REFORGER showed. Without locking down Norway the US now had an unsinkable aircraft carrier that could hit at the North Flank of the Soviet advance.

There is actually Soviet planning along these lines but it is from the 1950’s-1960’s. Stalin really didn’t care if his forces got nuked, things changed post Kruschev. As I don’t want scenario bloat, I’m going to just focus on Sweden.

Originally I wanted to focus on 1970 but I miss out on an iconic Swedish aircraft.

The Viggen.

On top of that I ran into an oddity of the CMO databases that proved frustrating. In a nutshell there is two databases. One for the Cold War, another for everything post Cold War. CMO uses database ID’s (DBID) to define if something is a pier or a missile battery.

Using the Import/Export Units function I can easily draw in a huge variety of Swedish installations. One problem though, they are all tied in to the DB3000 (Modern Database). So if I try to use the Cold War DB the DBID’s don’t match up.

I tried to get fancy and write a Python script to convert the installation files to a version with the proper DB3000 ID’s. It became an exercise in coding that I didn’t feel like getting into. (Note, let me know if you’re into Python…)

On the up side I just bumped it to 1990 and can easily use the DB3000 without any issues and still get a very wide variety of Cold War aircraft. Plus we get the Viggen at the peak.

We’re lucky as Sweden has a really great selection of installations available. Now this is just facilities, but it’s a great start.

With a couple of clicks I can load in all of the Swedish Air Wing bases. Note that I had to de-select some doubles and select the earlier option.

There! But we’ve got no planes. Or radar. Or surface units or…

Now things get a bit more interesting as I’ll have to research what was available and place it in likely positions. I’m using a Google Sheet to build my research. For starters I’m working off of a Rand research paper from 2005 that describes the state of the Swedish Air Force in 1990 very well.

Rand – https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2007/R4007.pdf

This gives us a great start, and for the moment all I’m focusing on is building the force allocation. I may use some lua scripting to populate the air bases as the generic unit names that CMO creates are US centric. I’ll probably use a Swedish Name Generator to give the scenario some flair.

I’m testing out Github for some version control. It’s not really designed for something like this as I can’t see my changes in the actual code (which is OK) so I just have to comment my versions accordingly. Hopefully this will help once the scenario gets larger. It really works well on code…

I’m working on storing all of my lua externally so as to make it easier for future reference. As you can see on the above generic lua script all of my changes are tracked.

Once I’ve got some bones on the scenario we’ll take another look.

The post Command : Modern Operations – Birth of a Scenario Part 1 appeared first on The Strategy Gamer.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/command-modern-operations-birth-of-a-scenario-part-1/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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eeveelutionsforequality · 6 years

Text

Submission:

I'm the MAP anon: I'm gonna be honest with you, so much of your MAP discourse is a) long and rather unwieldy to read and b) seemingly focused on only the intrusive thoughts as a reason not to blame MAPs for anything. It was hard to get a read on your position, as my experience with you was you defending anti-contact MAPs, and given the person's blog I sent you say they're anti-contact, it came off as you defending them as well.

To clarify: my argument was in the scope of that anti-contact, who was still actively and wilfully sexualising minors, one of which was indeed an actual child and another who was being sexualised for when they were a child.

I @ed you not because of anything you said specifically anyway, but because you seemed to be the MAP expert on the blog. You couldn't have known that of course.

Lastly, please bear in mind that:

a) the person I sent you is someone I found through a third party blog, in addition to the fact that you yourself go on about them a lot, so all your instances of you chastising me for “seeking out” MAPs is pointless, and

b) the MAP in those screenshots states they're anti-contact, so this isn't just about the "bad" side of MAPs. It's perfectly reasonable for an outsider to see people like her and think that “anti-contact” is one stop above virtue signalling, and they're just as irredeemable. You know how people go on about how feminists need to do in-house cleaning if they want to avoid people disliking the movement? It's the same for the MAP community as well.

That said: I do genuinely apologise for not reading your arguments through properly. As much as an excuse as this sounds, my executive dysfunction issues make it hard to read as many paragraphs as you write on this subject - I am trying, but still, I dropped the ball a bit. I'm also sorry as well that I basically forced you to reiterate points you've already made probably a fair number of times before, because I know that's annoying af.

So that said, any instance I was misrepresenting your arguments you're free to ignore and I won't respond to your refutements of them since bascially we are actually much on the same page now I know who I'm talking to. There are a bunch of other things I could address but I feel it would be a waste of both our times, so I'll focus only on a few things that really jumped out.

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

what about the countries where young boys and girls are routinely used as prostitutes, where assaulting young boys regularly is “tradition”?

[...]

Maybe I’m just manipulated, maybe there’s some grand scheme to turn everybody in the western world into pro-contacts, and a tiny anti-contact community on tumblr dot com is where the disgusting revolution begins… but I highly doubt it.

The old “what about starving children in Africa” argument is not a decent counterpoint to anything since people started using it. One (1) submission to you about MAPs isn't me deciding that's more important issue of child abuse, and you have no idea what else I could be doing day to day.

Also: have you considered that the reason I even sent that in the first place is because of places like that? For example: the west has a keen problem with sexualising young boys, telling them that if older women prey on them they should be grateful, and that it's not rape because boys inherently want sex 24/7. So that MAP and others like her are an issue because hey, they aren't helping that.

Small-scale abuse is still abuse. One minor being preyed on it too many. Other, truly non-offending MAPs getting caught in the crossfire is unfortunate though.

(Also I thought you'd appreciate the juxtaposition of your “child abuse is acceptable on a societal level in some places” comment and the sarcastic “who's trying to make child abuse acceptable on a societal level?” comment.)

[…] but I don’t think that means that they’re not ever allowed to talk about it, or that it’s harming children if they ever do, just that it’s gotta be done safely and reasonably.

You sound just like an anti-shipper right now, honestly.

[...]

Do you feel the same way about people who ship certain ships and talk openly about it?

I knew you were going to bring in anti-shipping. I had had no idea why you would then, and I don't now, but I knew you were going to do it.

Anti arguments are ridiculous because they're about fiction. Getting off to Loli hurts no one because no child was abused to get those pictures. Shipping a 17 yo with a 25 yo, or an abusive relationship, or whatever hurts no one because they aren't real.

MAPs are real people attracted to real minors, so any argument against discussions of their attraction can't just be conflated with anti-shipping. You've already given me plenty of other decent enough reasons, bringing in anti-shipping is at best redundant and at worst conflates real life attraction to minors, and the expression thereof, with fiction. Remember one of the most important points in the anti anti argument is that reality and fiction aren't the same.

Also I don't appreciate being inferred as some kind of pearl-clutcher because I find it abhorrent to have come across an “anti-contact” MAP making explicit comments about at least three real children, one of which they were discussing with another MAP. Half the point was it wasn't done safely or reasonably.

Idk is there a word that differentiates anti-contacts who are like her and anti-contacts who find anything like that abhorrent? If not, that'd be my advice to the community.

If you demonize the act of thinking that thought and the thought itself, rather than the content of the thought if made real, what do you hope to achieve other than causing unnecessary mental strain on a person that could negatively impact their coping?

[...]

That’s like saying that my arthritis isn’t okay, it’s not reasonable… like, it doesn’t matter, I’ve still got arthritis.

You seem to have the wrong idea – I'm not demonising the act of having the thought. I'm demonising the content of said thought, as well as the shitty way it can be (and was in that example) expressed.

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this point tbh. My mother's rheumatoid isn't okay, you may think it's pointless to bring it up but she sees the fact that people don't really acknowledge how “not okay” it is as irritating.

Half the reason I've been able to deal with my depression was acknowledging my thoughts about myself aren't okay, and the only reason I went to the doctor in the first place. The more I remind myself that the contents of those self-hating thoughts aren't okay (namely that it would be actively abusive to be saying these things to someone else for the same reason I say them to myself), the more I'm taking care of myself.

The kind of intrusive thoughts we're talking about with MAPs are probably a different breed to mine, of course. However: that MAP and her pals would do well remembering that the contents of her thoughts, though not something she can help having, are not okay, because the way she's expressing that indicates she very much doesn't care.

You may think it's not important. I disagree.

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

There are other things as I said but ehhhh there's no point in arguing with someone you agree with on most things on the basis that we're on differing sides on less important ones. Kinda embarassed I ended up being someone who doesn't do their due dilligence eheh, this is a viceral topic for me so I got ahead of myself. Sorry again.

Previous submission: http://eeveelutionsforequality.tumblr.com/post/167987980707/submission-mod-vaporeon-i-guess-look-i-aint-a

"focused on only the intrusive thoughts as a reason not to blame MAPs for anything"

Not what I'm doing. Maps don't necessarily have intrusive thoughts, they have thoughts and attractions that they didn't choose to have - intrusive thoughts are just something I have that is comparable, and thus that I can empathize with them through. Intrusive thoughts are also something antis have taken to demonizing too lately, and I find that kind of thought policing to be dangerous to those suffering with unwanted thoughts. But none of that means that I'm removing blame from actions or speech.

"given the person's blog I sent you say they're anti-contact, it came off as you defending them as well"

I don't follow cinnamap, but I know that they're anti-contact. If my arguments defending anti-contact positions are also defending their position on those topics, then I'm glad we agree on those things, but that doesn't extend to me defending every view cinnamap has or everything they've ever done.

"my argument was in the scope of that anti-contact"

I apologize for assuming, by your wording and your claims that it was proof of a larger problem in their community, that you were extending blame to other anti-contact maps or justifying judgement against them based on those actions. As I said in the other post, I'll happily have a conversation about how to avoid and rectify situations like those posts.

"who was still actively and wilfully sexualising minors"

I know this is dark and I don't wanna have to say it, honestly it's awful to think about but... at the end of the day, that's what their condition is. The paraphilia is a sexual attraction to children. It can't be magicked away, only coped with. The conversation we're having, in regards to cinnamap, was whether that particular instance of "coping" was more harmful than good to them and others, and how to mitigate that in the future.

"so all your instances of you chastising me for “seeking out” MAPs is pointless"

I wasn't chastising you for that, I had no idea how you came across the stuff - I was chastising antis who actively seek it out to trigger themselves and to attack people. It's not healthy for them and it doesn't help prevention efforts.

"the MAP in those screenshots states they're anti-contact, so this isn't just about the "bad" side of MAPs. It's perfectly reasonable for an outsider to see people like her and think that “anti-contact” is one stop above virtue signalling"

In some of the reblogs on this post, I've talked about, to paraphrase, how pro-contacts are all assholes, but that doesn't mean that anti-contacts are incapable of being assholes: http://eeveelutionsforequality.tumblr.com/post/167769139872/what-the-hell-are-maps

Just because a stance or behaviour isn't pro-contact doesn't mean that it's not flawed or bad in some way. I don't think that anti-contacts are all angels, but judging all anti-contacts by the bad eggs within their anti-contact community (which is what I was saying in the last post), especially when the core of the stance is such an important thing in prevention, would be daft.

Additionally, anti-contact isn't just virtue signaling in this case, it's a stance genuinely held and maintained by cinnamap - anti-contact refers to sexual or romantic contact, criminal offenses, it doesn't refer to whether or not you talk about kids. If I hold the stance that theft is wrong, it doesn't become virtue signaling to hold and maintain that stance even if I'm completely fine with saying that I sometimes think about driving a Ferrari (which I could never afford, ergo would have to steal in order to drive) - as long as I don't steal the Ferrari, I'm still maintaining the morality that I espouse. People read a lot into "anti-contact" and want it to mean more than it does, and then accuse someone who fully adheres to the actual definition of the label, of not being anti-contact because they don't adhere to the add-ons.

It's unreasonable to judge an entire community by a couple of posts written by one person - if somebody is too lazy to do further research into the community and what opinions are essential to it, and what opinions are varied, then they shouldn't be commenting on that community or passing judgements. That's even more extreme than saying that it's perfectly reasonable to judge all football fans by the actions of the football hooligans, without researching what it means to be a football fan or what the vast majority of them are like.

"You know how people go on about how feminists need to do in-house cleaning if they want to avoid people disliking the movement? It's the same for the MAP community as well"

Which is a stance I supported in the very post you're replying to.

"The old “what about starving children in Africa” argument is not a decent counterpoint to anything since people started using it"

That wasn't what I was saying, and I'm sorry that I worded it in a way that could be read as such. I was saying that there are places where such things are normalized, but those practices in those places are considered abominable by our society, there's global effort to prevent them, there's hatred across the western world for pedophilia that exceeds the hatred people have for cannibalistic murderous psychopaths by a longshot. My point was that it isn't going to be normalized here, and that anti-contacts don't want the action normalized or legalized whatsoever, but that there are people out there who do and anti-contacts are as against those people as you and I. My argument was more that what you're talking about is being done by a completely different group and opposed by this group, because from your wording I believed your argument to be that there was some effort within the anti-contact community to normalize assaulting kids.

"Also I thought you'd appreciate the juxtaposition of your “child abuse is acceptable on a societal level in some places” comment and the sarcastic “who's trying to make child abuse acceptable on a societal level?” comment."

Given that my point was "these people are, these people aren't", how do the points at all contradict? Also, it wasn't sarcastic - I genuinely do highly doubt that there's some manipulation conspiracy to normalize it step by step, but it's not impossible, and it's not impossible that good intentioned small movements with positive goals end up supporting much eviler movements, look at radical feminism. Hence why I push so hard for their community to not become an echochamber.

"I knew you were going to bring in anti-shipping. I had had no idea why you would then, and I don't now, but I knew you were going to do it."

I should've expanded on that point:

a) In regards to the words normalizing things and harming the wider populace - it's a tiny hated group on a tiny hated website, it has no normalizing power in the real world, and when done properly (adequately tagged, nsfw, private, etc), it wouldn't fall into the lap of anybody vulnerable enough to be hurt by it (aside from when blogs like the one you linked spreading it in screenshots that other people don't adequately tag, I suppose). One example definitely isn't normalizing anything.

b) You can completely normalize an idea, be 100% okay with the idea, fantasize about it 24/7 (which cinnamap wasn't doing but whatever), and the action still isn't normalized. I've watched so much horror, and I daydream about murder on the regular, I daydream about murdering noisy kids in the shop or people who've wronged me or the neighbour that puts up too many Christmas lights... but I've never killed anybody to my knowledge. I know that murder is wrong and I don't want to actually do it... even if I figuratively want to do it. There's a huge difference between fantasy and action, even when you're fantasizing about real people or actively discussing them.

Along those two veins, I believe that your argument has some of the same flaws as anti-shipper arguments, in regards to the normalizing power of the target group and words in general, and in regards to the level of effect that normalization could have on actions.

"Anti arguments are ridiculous because they're about fiction"

Even if fantasy is about real people, it's still fantasy - a description of a historical figure's aesthetic in a fictional book with commentary on their aesthetic appeal is still fiction. If you have a rape fantasy about somebody you actually know, it's still just a fantasy. From where I stand, as somebody who knows none of those people, as an outsider, there is no difference to the post's impact on me whether cinnamap was talking about a real person or a fictional character. The porn blogs that post short rape stories with gifs to match, and word them as though they're true stories from themselves or others, come across as more real and visceral, and they get put in all sorts of coping and mental health tags without being marked as NSFW.

Honestly, if "I saw a hot kid" on your personal blog that's covered in the word "map", marked as nsfw, and keeping the post out of random tags, is the worst you're doing, you're not really one of the bad bad ones, like, just have a little perspective regarding what they could be doing. It's just words, at the end of the day (disturbing words, but still just words that can be criticized), and I think this conversation alone, let alone the notes on the post you linked, has shown that people will come out in force against that and attempt to correct that behaviour... which is good, as I said, I'm against the post and even small problems are still problems - they're just not problems that justify assuming everyone in the community to be not genuine about the anti-contact position.

This isn't to say "there's worse out there so we can't complain", but rather, complain on par with what is happening - having a little suspicion about their morality and extending questions about that and expressing discomfort with the wording I can definitely understand, especially if you're not very aware of things like what anti-contact means or haven't read any of their other posts, but I cannot understand condemning the whole community with it, accusing it of "normalizing" anything, exaggerating its capability for causing harm, or assuming it a definitive statement on that person's moral code or intent regarding action.

I disagree with the posts, as I've said, I think it was crude and potentially very triggering, but I don't think it had any power to normalize anything or inflict large-scale harm - like anti-shippers, you're inflating the reach and impact of the post, when I think a simpler critique is warranted. If my friend gets drunk and gets into a fight in the pub, I don't say "Your anti-murder stance is basically virtue signaling, I can't trust you or any pub-goers, you're normalizing murder", I say "Stop being a dick, Frank".

"MAPs are real people attracted to real minors, so any argument against discussions of their attraction can't just be conflated with anti-shipping."

I'm not conflating them, I was remarking on an error in your argument that is also an error in theirs - comparison, not conflating. I'm sorry that it came across like I was though, it was badly worded.

"Also I don't appreciate being inferred as some kind of pearl-clutcher"

I wasn't inferring that, I was inferring that your argument had some of the same flaws as theirs. Just because you're both emotionally opposed to something and believe that it causes significant harm and poses significant risk doesn't mean that I'd refer to you both with the same pejorative label - especially when I've expressed opposition to that same post multiple times myself.

"Idk is there a word that differentiates anti-contacts who are like her and anti-contacts who find anything like that abhorrent? If not, that'd be my advice to the community."

I've expressed something similar about the opinion of keeping their distance from kids: http://eeveelutionsforequality.tumblr.com/post/167831648067/did-you-even-try-to-address-any-of-the-points-on

Whether they should divide into smaller groups based on these opinion differences, or whether they should just leave it down to "we're obviously gonna disagree on some things even though we agree on others", is up to them to talk out amongst themselves.

"You seem to have the wrong idea – I'm not demonising the act of having the thought. I'm demonising the content of said thought, as well as the shitty way it can be (and was in that example) expressed."

If the content of the thought is demonized in the context of a thought, and not simply demonizing it in the context of action or specific kinds of expression of that thing, then you are demonizing the act of having the thought. I, personally, think the thoughts are gross and disturbing, however I'm not going to extend ethical judgment to that as the thoughts are not optional, just my own personal emotional judgement that allows people to understand that I don't personally want to hear that stuff unless I've been asked first if I'm in a mood where I can handle hearing it (for example if I'm needed to offer some kind of emotional help through a tough brain day).

There's a big difference between demonizing something, and acknowledging the risks of dwelling on something, acknowledging the emotional impact of it, acknowledging that it would be horrific in reality. A thought is just a thought, just a fantasy, just fiction - like I said in one of the posts I linked to you in my prior response, thoughts definitely can lead to behaviour, but if you're aware that it shouldn't be acted upon and you make the correct safety nets and decisions to prevent such a thing, there's no real reason to begin demonizing something that you cannot help, something that you're forced to mentally endure at length regularly, instead of simply coming to terms with the fact that it's just neurons firing and it has no power. Taking away its power actually helps with resisting.

"My mother's rheumatoid isn't okay, you may think it's pointless to bring it up but she sees the fact that people don't really acknowledge how “not okay” it is as irritating."

The point is that the arthritis not being okay doesn't reflect on the person who has the arthritis - if I'd done something you disliked, you wouldn't bring up the ethics of my arthritis as a way to insult me. If I'd stayed in bed all day because I couldn't move because of my arthritis, you wouldn't say "arthritis isn't okay, it's not reasonable, just get up". Whether the arthritis is "okay" or not doesn't change the fact that it's there, doesn't change whether or not I'm a good person, was my point. Whether it's "okay", in the context of a conversation where it's actually useful to discuss that, would be in reference to how much pain it causes, the stress it causes, the impact it has on life, how to mitigate those things (sympathetic not accusatory) - whether it's "okay" has no place in a conversation about morality. You're switching between two meanings of "okay" and two contexts of using it, and using one to justify the other.

I can't believe that you took my point so out of context here and you sound like you're implying that me, somebody with arthritis, is sat here going "I wish people would just never acknowledge how much it hurts".

You said: “We can accept that MAPs have little to no control over their attraction without accepting that their attraction is valid, reasonable or worth discussing except to demonise.”

Valid and reasonable are both judgements on whether something can or should exist or happen - something unreasonable and invalid should not happen. My point was that there is no point making ethical or logical judgments on the person or on the existence of arthritis or the thoughts, because those things exist and cannot just disappear - demonizing my arthritis, or them demonizing the thoughts, only leads to stress, while accepting limitations, addressing risks, and learning mindfulness are substantially better when faced with things that you can't change than anger and distress. Validity and okayness were pointless to bring up in the context in which you brought them up, because whether valid or invalid, reasonable or unreasonable, okay or not okay, these things are here to stay.

"The more I remind myself that the contents of those self-hating thoughts aren't okay [...]"

What are we using okay to mean now? You seem to change what "okay" means a few times in your replies, initially implying it means "ethical" but now implying it means "healthy".

You could change your thoughts, they can't. Healthy or ethical don't matter - if the conversation is about judgement or whether they should or shouldn't have them - if they're inevitable. If we're talking about reminding yourself of the emotional strain such thoughts can have on others if said to them, reminding yourself that they're dangerous thoughts to allow to consume you, and so on, then yes I believe that's good to remind yourself. If we're using "okay" to mean "ethical" again, and demonizing the thoughts and thereby demonizing the act of thinking them and the person who thinks them, leading to low self-esteem, isolation, and other emotional issues that can increase the risk of offending, then no I don't think it's a good idea for them to remind themselves of that.

"However: that MAP and her pals would do well remembering that the contents of her thoughts, though not something she can help having, are not okay, because the way she's expressing that indicates she very much doesn't care."

A better way to word this - if you mean what I think you mean, or what I would want to say - would be to remember the risk of discomfort to others that comes with the expression of such thoughts, and remember that your wording can convey to others a sense of how strongly you do or do not wish to refrain from very disturbing actions, and however strongly and genuinely you actually feel about that refraining they can't read minds and will make assumptions. Thoughts are just neurons firing, I won't bother judging ethically something that isn't harming anybody, I'm not the thought police - the behaviour is what causes the harm. Once the behaviour is controlled and the thoughts cannot overpower mental and physical safeguards, they're absolutely amoral.

"Kinda embarassed I ended up being someone who doesn't do their due dilligence eheh, this is a viceral topic for me so I got ahead of myself. Sorry again."

That's okay, I've actually been really mentally fucked - depressed, hallucinating, all that fun stuff. And this topic kinda makes me wanna die sometimes. My responses haven't been fantastic and I'm sorry that it's not been a very smooth chat.

#Mod Vaporeon #submission

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takaraphoenix · 7 years

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Two things. One, where did you watch Crazy Ex-Girlfriend? Two, Miraculous Ladybug?

Oooh. Oh, I have a very odd relationship to that one.

I definitely like it but I wanna strangle the people who were responsible for airing it? Like? The order doesn’t even make sense? And I had to consult three independent fanpages and their suggestions at viewing order to find one that suited me personally the best? And I hate that.

In today’s time and age, shows already have a hard enough time surviving. Why would you sabotage yourself by airing them in an order that doesn’t fit the timeline? It’s good that it were only minor things that messed it up, but if they had major plotline events out of synch, this could really hurt the show and I hope that they can get their act straight.

I was really very skeptical at first about this. I mean, a French-Korean cartoon? Whut? That is such an odd combination and I’ve never seen a cartoon from either country - well, French yeah, Asterix, of course.

But there was a cute guy in a literal cat-suit? So I had to at least try it.

Let me start this off with the love-square. (This show is a mess, really. Like, “Oh, love-triangles are sooo last year. Let’s mess it up even more!”)

Adrien is Chat Noir. Marinette is Ladybug. Neither knows the other’s identity.

Adrien loves Ladybug in a ridiculously adorable blushy fanboy way.(Approve. Adore. Ridiculously cute)

Chat Noir flirts with Ladybug in what would really earn him a sexual harrassment complaint if they were co-workers at literally any other job aside from superheroing. (Do not approve, because it’s highly unprofessional and no means no, Chat, get your act together, kitten)

Adrien sees Marinette as a non-sexual, non-threatening creature and a friend. (Understandable)

Marinette is... absolutely useless when she’s around Adrien because she’s hopelessly in love with him. (Nope. That girl behaves in exactly the way I hate girls acting when in love)

Ladybug ain’t having any of Chat’s silly flirting and is being professional and putting her foot down because they have better things to do. (Approve)

It’s a mess. A real mess. And when I started watching the show, I was really very annoyed by the love-story and wanted to stop watching because it was mainly Marinette making a fool of herself - I hate when girls are portrayed as those brainless morons who stutter and blush and can’t even when around the boy they like.

But then we got to see more of the love-square and I found the dynamics interesting and really adored Adrien.

And ths is why this show is a mess and why my relationship to it is so complicated. There are two characters, but four ship-possibilities between them and one of them is a NOTP while another is an OTP and something feels enherently wrong about that being A Thing That Exists.

So, my hopes for this show is that once the identities are revealed, they’ll even out into normal behavior on both sides - that is to say, Chat tunes down the aggressive flirting and Marinette tunes down the dumbness.

Though I have to admit, a huge part of why Marinette/Adrien is the angle of the square that bugs me the most lies in the flashback episode where we learn how she fell in love with him.

Until that point, I had assumed that she had been a fangirl way before they started attending school together. But to reveal in that flashback that when she first met him, they were behaving like normal human beings around each other and that she was Not Impressed by the pretty boy and had no idea that he was even a model - which, if that had stayed the angle and she had fallen in love with him in a normal way, I would have liked. But no. Instead out of some bogus little interaction, she suddenly falls head over heels in love with him and turns into a stalker.

I mean. Seriously. If he had been a celebrity she had been fawning over before meeting him, that would be a different story. But if you start putting posters up of your classmate and collecting photos of them, that is stalker-behavior. If you know that person personally, that kind of action gets insanely creepy.

Which brings me to another point where I’m confused about what this show does to me. I love Ladybug, but I really dislike all of Marinette. And, lemme repeat this just one more time, they’re the same person.

Ladybug is confident, brave, strong, even when faced with Adrien she behaves like the hero she is. She has that sense of duty that she puts even before that.

Marinette is... hopeless. She can’t even function like a normal human being around Adrien, she does ridiculous and very pathetic stuff due to her feelings for him. She’s so desperate but if she’d just act normal around him, she could already be so close to him. She also occasionally does things that I don’t approve of morally just for the sake of Adrien and wanting him.

It makes me feel weird to like half the main character? And I am really hoping that once she realizes the obnoxious kitten flirting with her is actually Adrien, she’ll callm the fuck down and start behaving normal.

Moving on from the love-square and the main character.

I like the side-characters. They’Re all ridiculously individual and the fact that the first season takes it slow enough to properly introduce all of them and give them all not just small roles but actual roles to shine and show what they’re worth and what they stand for is amazing in a world where TV is currently dominated by shows that are far too fast-paced and uses secondary characters more as props than real, fleshed out characters.

I particularly like Alya. She’s that sassy friend that just can’t be missed. I think that Marinette should have trusted her earlier to tell her about being Ladybug, because she’d have been an amazing sidekick and supporter and I feel like... this very long on-going lie between them should cause quite a rift once it’s revealed. I’m very upset about the spoiler for the coming season because it’s definitely not the direction where I wanted Alya to be taken. (If you know the spoiler, you know what I’m talking about. I don’t wanna spoiler those who managed to avoid it so far. Kudos to you)

I also like Chloé, not in the sense that she’s a good person, but she’s a good character. That bitchy antagonist at school who’s after the lead’s crush is... a very overused cliche, yes, but it’s that for a reason. Because it works in high school shows and movies. I’m curious to see where they take her character, because the best part about the antagonistic bitch is always her redemption arc where she ends up becoming the lead’s friend.

I really love the anime-feel of this show. It sets up those heroes in a way American heroes - DC and Marvel - would be set up, but it brings in all those anime-elements and I love magical girl animes to death and back. The adorable talking sidekick animals in Plagg and Tikki are so Artemis and Luna and I adore them. We got the costume change - but thankfully not as slow as in anime. The powers and color-coded different types of heroes.

And the fact that there are more. Honestly, what I particularly love about this cartoon is the big pay-off two-parter at the end of season 1 when we actually learn some about how and what is even going on here.

That there is the potential for a six-characters strong hero team is the most exciting for me. What I love about superheroes is not one hero heroing around on his own. I love the team-dynamics.

I mean, I definitely don’t want this to turn full Sailor Moon where there’s only good girls and then there’s Tuxedo Mask. Adrien can’t stay the only boy. My personal hope had been for a male fox, because Adrien is a bit of a mischievous trickster and to have a buddy who’d also fit that description would be great (yeah, I wanted to ship them, leave me alone, I’m addicted I know I have a problem).

Taking the bee out too, the only ones remaining would be the turtle and the peacock. The peacock being in Adrien’s house, I’ll get into that later on, doesn’t mean it will never be used. And the turtle belonging to the master, well, the guy’s old and I could see him die just as he reveals something potentially very important - because it’d up the stakes if the newly introduced potential mentor dies. So yeah, that could be passed on too.

Not that we’re limited to the seven Miraculouses in Master Fu’s box, of course.

After all, when he introduces the Miraculouses to us, we see this compiliation that includes Heracles with the lion fur and that stag dude. So there’s two animals already that aren’t covered in this box. Implying there are more boxes with more Miraculouses out there, so potentially we could very well encounter an entire team of male-only heroes, a mixed team, a total cliche magical girl team. I love that they opened the world in such a subtle way, like “For now, let’s focus on what we have, but seven are quite a limit so let’s keep the option for if this show takes off well to include more potential heroes”. It’s clever. I like clever in my cartoons.

Now, circling back to the peacock in Adrien’s house.

My personal headcanon slash theory about this is that Adrien’s mom used to be the peacock and his dad is the hawk moth. They used to be a hero duo just like Ladybug and Chat Noir. But then she died. And he became... corrupted. Angry, desperate, something in between.

Maybe he just wants to watch the world and the heroes using the Miraculouses burn to pay for it.

Maybe... there’s a special kind of magic linked to possessing all Miraculouses. Maybe Hawk Moth is trying to steal Ladybug’s and Chat’s Miraculouses because he thinks that if he has them all, he can use their magic to bring back his wife. And that one would be my personal theory.

So yeah, at first glance this looked like a very simple hero show, but I love the detail that went into it and the world-building and I am definitely very excited about what the coming seasons will hold.

Though it is a little ironic that I came for the cute catboy in hopes of finding a hot guy to ship him with because gays are what I watch and read and write for, but ended up actually liking the straight main pairing.

#ask me a show and I shall rant #TV Rants #Fandom Rants #Miraculous Ladybug #that love square though #such a headache #elements1999

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ieltsxpresscom · 4 years

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IELTS Practice Cambridge Book 7 Academic Reading Test 3 C7T3

Attitudes to Language It is not easy to be systematic and objective about language study. Popular linguistic debate regularly deteriorates into invective and polemic. Language belongs to everyone, so most people feel they have a right to hold an opinion about it. And when opinions differ, emotions can run high. Arguments can start as easily over minor points of usage as over major policies of linguistic education. Language, moreover, is a very public behaviour, so it is easy for different usages to be noted and criticised. No part of society or social behaviour is exempt: linguistic factors influence how we judge personality, intelligence, social status, educational standards, job aptitude, and many other areas of identity and social survival. As a result, it is easy to hurt, and to be hurt, when language use is unfeelingly attacked. In its most general sense, prescriptivism is the view that one variety of language has an inherently higher value than others, and that this ought to be imposed on the whole of the speech community. The view is propounded especially in relation to grammar and vocabulary, and frequently with reference to pronunciation. The variety which is favoured, in this account, is usually a version of the ‘standard’ written language, especially as encountered in literature, or in the formal spoken language which most closely reflects this style. Adherents to this variety are said to speak or write ‘correctly’; deviations from it are said to be ‘incorrect! All the main languages have been studied prescriptively, especially in the 18th century approach to the writing of grammars and dictionaries. The aims of these early grammarians were threefold: (a) they wanted to codify the principles of their languages, to show that there was a system beneath the apparent chaos of usage, (b) they wanted a means of settling disputes over usage, and (c) they wanted to point out what they felt to be common errors, in order to ‘improve’ the language. The authoritarian nature of the approach is best characterised by its reliance on ‘rules’ of grammar. Some usages are ‘prescribed,’ to be learnt and followed accurately; others are ‘proscribed,’ to be avoided. In this early period, there were no half-measures: usage was either right or wrong, and it was the task of the grammarian not simply to record alternatives, but to pronounce judgement upon them. These attitudes are still with us, and they motivate a widespread concern that linguistic standards should be maintained. Nevertheless, there is an alternative point of view that is concerned less with standards than with the facts of linguistic usage. This approach is summarised in the statement that it is the task of the grammarian to describe, not prescribe to record the facts of linguistic diversity, and not to attempt the impossible tasks of evaluating language variation or halting language change. In the second half of the 18th century, we already find advocates of this view, such as Joseph Priestley, whose Rudiments of English Grammar (1761) insists that ‘the custom of speaking is the original and only just standard of any language! Linguistic issues, it is argued, cannot be solved by logic and legislation. And this view has become the tenet of the modern linguistic approach to grammatical analysis. In our own time, the opposition between ‘descriptivists’ and ‘prescriptivists’ has often become extreme, with both sides painting unreal pictures of the other. Descriptive grammarians have been presented as people who do not care about standards, because of the way they see all forms of usage as equally valid. Prescriptive grammarians have been presented as blind adherents to a historical tradition. The opposition has even been presented in quasi-political terms – of radical liberalism vs elitist conservatism. Questions 1-8 Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 1-8 in your answer sheet, write: YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this 1 There are understandable reasons why arguments occur about language. 2 People feel more strongly about language education than about small differences in language usage. 3 Our assessment of a person’s intelligence is affected by the way he or she uses language. 4 Prescriptive grammar books cost a lot of money to buy in the 18th century. 5 Prescriptivism still exists today. 6 According to descriptivists it is pointless to try to stop language change. 7 Descriptivism only appeared after the 18th century. 8 Both descriptivists and prescriptivists have been misrepresented. Questions 9-12 Complete the summary using the list of words, A-l, below. The language debate According to (9) …………. there is only one correct form of language. Linguists who take this approach to language place great importance on grammatical (10) ……………………. Conversely, the view of (11) ………….., such as Joseph Priestley, is that grammar should be based on (12) …………………. A descriptivists B language expert C popular speech D formal language E evaluation F rules G modern linguists H prescriptivists I change Question 13 Choose the correct letter A. B, C or D. What is the writer’s purpose in Reading Passage? A to argue in favour of a particular approach to writing dictionaries and grammar books B to present a historical account of differing views of language C to describe the differences between spoken and written language D to show how a certain view of language has been discredited Tidal Power A Operating on the same principle as wind turbines, the power in sea turbines comes from tidal currents which turn blades similar to ships’ propellers, but, unlike wind, the tides are predictable and the power input is constant. The technology raises the prospect of Britain becoming self-sufficient in renewable energy and drastically reducing its carbon dioxide emissions. If tide, wind and wave power are all developed, Britain would be able to close gas, coal and nuclear power plants and export renewable power to other parts of Europe. Unlike wind power, which Britain originally developed and then abandoned for 20 years allowing the Dutch to make it a major industry, undersea turbines could become a big export earner to island nations such as Japan and New Zealand. B Tidal sites have already been identified that will produce one sixth or more of the UK’s power – and at prices competitive with modern gas turbines and undercutting those of the already ailing nuclear industry. One site alone, the Pentland Firth, between Orkney and mainland Scotland, could produce 10% of the country’s electricity with banks of turbines under the sea, and another at Alderney in the Channel Islands three times the 1,200 megawatts of Britain’s largest and newest nuclear plant, Sizewell B, in Suffolk. Other sites identified include the Bristol Channel and the west coast of Scotland, particularly the channel between Campbeltown and Northern Ireland. C Work on designs for the new turbine blades and sites are well advanced at the University of Southampton’s sustainable energy research group. The first station is expected to be installed off Lynmouth in Devon shortly to test the technology in a venture jointly funded by the department of Trade and Industry and the European Union. AbuBakr Bahaj, in charge of the Southampton research, said: The prospects for energy from tidal currents are far better than from wind because the flows of water are predictable and constant. The technology for dealing with the hostile saline environment under the sea has been developed in the North Sea oil industry and much is already known about turbine blade design, because of wind power and ship propellers. There are a few technical difficulties, but I believe in the next five to ten years we will be installing commercial marine turbine farms.’ Southampton has been awarded £215,000 over three years to develop the turbines and is working with Marine Current Turbines, a subsidiary of IT power, on the Lynmouth project. EU research has now identified 106 potential sites for tidal power, 80% round the coasts of Britain. The best sites are between islands or around heavily indented coasts where there are strong tidal currents. D A marine turbine blade needs to be only one third of the size of a wind generator to produce three times as much power. The blades will be about 20 metres in diameter, so around 30 metres of water is required. Unlike wind power, there are unlikely to be environmental objections. Fish and other creatures are thought unlikely to be at risk from the relatively slow-turning blades. Each turbine will be mounted on a tower which will connect to the national power supply grid via underwater cables. The towers will stick out of the water and be lit, to warn shipping, and also be designed to be lifted out of the water for maintenance and to clean seaweed from the blades. E Dr Bahaj has done most work on the Alderney site, where there are powerful currents. The single undersea turbine farm would produce far more power than needed for the Channel Islands and most would be fed into the French Grid and be re-imported into Britain via the cable under the Channel. F One technical difficulty is cavitation, where low pressure behind a turning blade causes air bubbles. These can cause vibration and damage the blades of the turbines. Dr Bahaj said: ‘We have to test a number of blade types to avoid this happening or at least make sure it does not damage the turbines or reduce performance. Another slight concern is submerged debris floating into the blades. So far we do not know how much of a problem it might be. We will have to make the turbines robust because the sea is a hostile environment, but all the signs that we can do it are good.’ Questions 14-17 Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F. Which paragraph contains the following information? NB You may use any letter more than once. 14 the location of the first test site 15 a way of bringing the power produced on one site back into Britain 16 a reference to a previous attempt by Britain to find an alternative source of energy 17 mention of the possibility of applying technology from another industry Questions 18-22 Choose FIVE Letters A-J Which FIVE of the following claims about tidal power are made by the writer? A It is a more reliable source of energy than wind power. B It would replace all other forms of energy in Britain. C Its introduction has come as a result of public pressure. D It would cut down on air pollution. E It could contribute to the closure of many existing power stations ln Britain. F It could be a means of increasing national income. G It could face a lot of resistance from other fuel industries. H It could be sold more cheaply than any other type of fuel. I It could compensate for the shortage of inland sites for energy production. J It is best produced in the vicinity of coastlines with particular features. Questions 23-26 Label the diagram below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. An Undersea Turbine

Download All Cambridge IELTS Books Pdf + Audio For Free Cambridge 1-14 (Free Download) Information Theory – The Big Idea A In April 2002 an event took place which demonstrated one of the many applications of information theory. The space probe, Voyager I, launched in 1977, had sent back spectacular images of Jupiter and Saturn and then soared out of the Solar System on a one-way mission to the stars. After 25 years of exposure to the freezing temperatures of deep space, the probe was beginning to show its age. Sensors and circuits were on the brink of failing and NASA experts realised that they had to do something or lose contact with their probe forever. The solution was to get a message to Voyager I to instruct it to use spares to change the failing parts. With the probe 12 billion kilometres from Earth, this was not an easy task. By means of a radio dish belonging to NASA’s Deep Space Network, the message was sent out into the depths of space. Even travelling at the speed of light, it took over 11 hours to reach its target, far beyond the orbit of Pluto. Yet, incredibly, the little probe managed to hear the faint call from its home planet, and successfully made the switchover. B It was the longest-distance repair job in history, and a triumph for the NASA engineers. But it also highlighted the astonishing power of the techniques developed by American communications engineer Claude Shannon, who had died just a year earlier. Born in 1916 in Petoskey, Michigan, Shannon showed an early talent for maths and for building gadgets, and made breakthroughs in the foundations of computer technology when still a student. While at Bell Laboratories, Shannon developed information theory, but shunned the resulting acclaim. In the 1940s, he single-handedly created an entire science of communication which has since inveigled its way into a host of applications, from DVDs to satellite communications to bar codes – any area, in short, where data has to be conveyed rapidly yet accurately. C This all seems light years away from the down-to-earth uses Shannon originally had for his work, which began when he was a 22-year-old graduate engineering student at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1939. He set out with an apparently simple aim: to pin down the precise meaning of the concept of ‘information’. The most basic form of information, Shannon argued, is whether something is true or false – which can be captured in the binary unit, or ‘bit’, of the form 1 or 0. Having identified this fundamental unit, Shannon set about defining otherwise vague ideas about information and how to transmit it from place to place. In the process he discovered something surprising: it is always possible to guarantee information will get through random interference – ‘noise’ – intact. D Noise usually means unwanted sounds which interfere with genuine information. Information theory generalises this idea via theorems that capture the effects of noise with mathematical precision. In particular, Shannon showed that noise sets a limit on the rate at which information can pass along communication channels while remaining error-free. This rate depends on the relative strengths of the signal and noise travelling down the communication channel, and on its capacity (its ‘bandwidth’). The resulting limit, given in units of bits per second, is the absolute maximum rate of error-free communication given signal strength and noise level. The trick, Shannon showed, is to find ways of packaging up – ‘coding’ – information to cope with the ravages of noise, while staying within the information-carrying capacity – ‘bandwidth’ – of the communication system being used. E Over the years scientists have devised many such coding methods, and they have proved crucial in many technological feats. The Voyager spacecraft transmitted data using codes which added one extra bit for every single bit of information; the result was an error rate of just one bit in 10,000 – and stunningly clear pictures of the planets. Other codes have become part of everyday life – such as the Universal Product Code, or bar code, which uses a simple error-detecting system that ensures supermarket check-out lasers can read the price even on, say, a crumpled bag of crisps. As recently as 1993, engineers made a major breakthrough by discovering so-called turbo codes – which come very close to Shannon’s ultimate limit for the maximum rate that data can be transmitted reliably, and now play a key role in the mobile videophone revolution. F Shannon also laid the foundations of more efficient ways of storing information, by stripping out superfluous (‘redundant’) bits from data which contributed little real information. As mobile phone text messages like ‘I CN C U’ show, it is often possible to leave out a lot of data without losing much meaning. As with error correction, however, there’s a limit beyond which messages become too ambiguous. Shannon showed how to calculate this limit, opening the way to the design of compression methods that cram maximum information into the minimum space. Questions 27-32 Reading Passage 3 has six paragraphs, A-F. Which paragraph contains the following information? 27 an explanation of the factors affecting the transmission of information 28 an example of how unnecessary information can be omitted 29 a reference to Shannon`s attitude to fame 30 details of a machine capable of interpreting incomplete information 31 a detailed account of an incident involving information theory 32 a reference to what Shannon initially intended to achieve in his research Questions 33-37 Complete the notes below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer The Voyager l Space Probe The probe transmitted pictures of both (33) ……………….,and ……………. , then left the (34) ……………. The freezing temperatures were found to have a negative effect on parts of the space probe. Scientists feared that both the (35)……………….. and ………………… were about to stop working. The only hope was to tell the probe to replace them with (36)…………………….. – but distance made communication with the probe difficult. A (37)………………….. was used to transmit the message at the speed of light. The message was picked up by the probe and the switchover took place. Questions 38-40 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet write TRUE if the statement agrees with the information FALSE if the statement contradicts the information NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this 38. The concept of describing something as true or false was the starting point for Shannon in his attempts to send messages over distances. 39. The amount of information that can be sent in a given time period is determined with reference to the signal strength and noise level. 40. Products have now been developed which can convey more information than Shannon had anticipated as possible. Show Answers 1. yes 2. no 3. yes 4. not given 5. yes 6. yes 7. no 8. yes 9. H 10. F 11. A 12. C 13. B 14. C 15. E 16. A 17. C 18. A 19. D 20. E 21. F 22. J 23. maintenance 24. slow (turning) 25. low pressure 26. cavitation 27. D 28. F 29. B 30. E 31. A 32. C 33. jupiter and saturn 34. solar system 35. sensors and circuits 36. spares 37. radio dish 38. true 39. true 40. false Read the full article

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