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mins-fins · 9 months

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MY MOST IMPORTANT (P.GW)

SUMMARY . . . gunwook loves his members, but specifically a certain one the most.

PAIRING . . . park gunwook x male!reader

GENRE . . . fluff, somewhat angst

WARNINGS . . . none!

WORD COUNT . . . 1k

NOTES . . . pretty basic but i just really love gunwook so take this :))

gunwook hates that y/n is under appreciated.

to him, y/n is everything but untalented, in his honest totally non-biased opinion, y/n is one of the most talented members and people he's ever met. he doesn't even know why people go on about y/n being the 'black sheep of zerobaseone'.

none of the members understand either, it's a generally known fact that y/n, despite being one of the youngest, is one of the most hardworking members in the whole entire group.

but the thing with y/n is, he always wants to prove himself.

gunwook knows he's seen the comments, because it's like he has this incentive to stay at practice for almost ten hours to prove a point.

usually, the older members are able to persuade him to not to stay longer than he should, and even with how stubborn he is, y/n would always give in after trying his best to put up an argument.

but today, y/n is insistent that he'll be okay.

he keeps putting up arguments, saying that it's better that he practices for longer so that he doesn't screw up at the debut showcase and embarrass himself.

everyone knows those are just his inner most thoughts messing with him, and all the hate comments he's been getting have messed with his already little confidence.

no matter how much they tried to convince him to not stay late, y/n stood his ground and simply smiled, saying he'd be fine, and it wouldn't be for long.

it has been three hours, and gunwook is done.

he tried to wait, he did. he tried to be patient, but he knows, he can't leave y/n there alone, he can't just let y/n overwork himself.

he's very very worried.

so, he grabs his sweater, and whilst he's getting ready to leave, gyuvin the walks by and pauses.

"going to get y/n?"

"yes" gunwook sighs, tired. gyuvin stares at him for a moment before giving a knowing smile, which confuses him. "what?"

gyuvin giggles, clearly having an idea in his head that he didn't want gunwook to know. "nothing, nothing" he snickers. "just make sure you don't come back late".

"it's already late".

"then later".

gunwook rolls his eyes, but gives gyuvin a smile. when he exits the dorm, he sighs at the fact that y/n is probably gonna put up another fight once again. he's lucky the wakeone building isn't that far away, but he also hates the fact that he has to drag y/n away from the practice room again.

gunwook isn't that surprised when he sees y/n still in the practice room, letting out a frustrated groan as he stomps on the floor.

"y/n".

said boy immediately flinches at the sound of his name being called, letting out a sigh of relief. his shoulders slump as he sees gunwook, and he's clearly very tired, but he tries his best to stand.

"gunwook, why are you here?"

"to take you home y/n" gunwook states obviously. he takes his arm but y/n shakes his head, resisting against his grip.

"no no no" y/n says, and gunwook literally can't believe that he still wants to stay late. "i— i still have to perfect this move then i'll finally be done and prepared—"

"y/n, it's almost midnight! you've been practicing almost all day, you need your rest!" gunwook exclaims, and y/n looks hesitant.

"i just— i have to make sure that i don't do anything wrong because then i'll mess it up for the whole group!"

y/n sighs, his shoulders slumping. "gunwook, it's just a few more minutes, i just— it won't take that long".

"y/n" gunwook's voice softens, he tugs his hand, wanting to convince him that it was okay to take a break. "you've been here for almost 10 hours, you have to get your rest".

"but—"

y/n pauses, he bites his inner cheek, a frown comes to his lips as his mind races. "i don't wanna mess anything up, like misstep, or step too early, or not dance at the correct time".

gunwook sighs.

y/n isn't usually like this, well wasn't usually like this before he actually acknowledged the things people said about him online. he remembers hearing him cry into junhyeon's shoulder because of how much it was taking a toll on him.

gunwook's face falls as he thinks about it, y/n shouldn't have to feel like this. he's talented, he deserves to be recognized for that, he shouldn't have to be recognized for stuff that isn't even true, all the rumors people would gossip about when the cameras weren't on.

it upsets him how much people dislike him even though he did nothing wrong.

"your not going to" gunwook states, but y/n just sighs, shaking his head. "stop— don't shake your head, i'm serious y/n, your going to do great".

"but what if i—"

"stop, stop it" gunwook cuts in. "y/n, your talented, creative, smart, funny, pretty, and anyone who disagrees with that is stupid, you don't have to practice for ten hours to prove how amazing of an idol you are, i know your gonna do great, i don't wanna hear you deny that".

y/n pauses again at the blatantly honest words, they're so genuine that his face goes a little red as gunwook continues to hold his hand. gunwook gives a small smile, poking his cheek.

y/n finally sighs after a set of silence, he pretty much stumbles forward because his muscles feel sore from all the dancing he's been doing. he simply wants to fall into gunwook's arms and fall asleep, but he can't do that, he can't be a burden.

gunwook smiles, pulling y/n by his hand, as the boy can finally stand up right due to gunwook supporting him. he lets go of his hand to wrap an arm around his waist, keeping him up.

y/n couldn't deny, everything about this felt nice. he'd always felt this warmth, comfort around gunwook, no one else could really bring him the kind of comfort that he did.

gunwook was just the kind of person who could calm him down, the one kind of person that y/n could just relax around.

"let's go home, okay y/n?"

y/n nods tiredly, giving gunwook the fondest of smiles.

home, that's what park gunwook felt like, home.

#park gunwook #zerobaseone #zb1 #zb1 gunwook #zb1 imagines #park gunwook x reader #park gunwook imagines #zb1 scenarios #zb1 drabbles #𑁍 ࣪˖ 𓂃 isa's works!

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onewomancitadel · 10 months

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I am serious, I won't touch S/uccession again, it's just such a great example of the kind of thing I am interested in (which is pretty much psychonanalytic... lol). The interface of archetypes is so interesting and I think it does express itself as a mechanism for cultivated cultural/social attitudes (be it as it may) which transcend popular social justice talking points and speak even deeper to particular moral, emotional, spiritual attitudes... I absolutely think the social justice angle is well-intentioned, it's just not comprehensive enough for me (and pretty much cannot be reconciled with the 'fiction doesn't real' position, but that is neither here nor there. My quibble is to what capacity does fiction real or does fiction reflect social attitudes, which is not an extreme position on my part at all, and it's frankly absurd the leaps that so-called 'antis' take. They need a better name).

Why is it that we make these judgements, how do they overall affect our interactions with storytelling, do they or do they not reflect real life attitudes, etc., like if you knew Shiv in real life as a human being would you treat her differently from her fictional self (I think fictional characters are distinct from real people; this is why people don't need to self-flagellate over 'feeling bad' for the wrong guy, because the point of the narrative is empathetic engagement. It's just interesting that it can actually happen in the reverse: there are people whom I otherwise agree with re: social justice politics that I have blocked because they talked mad shit about Cinder being unsympathetic).

I also don't think that there is just The Bad Attitudes some Bad People have, and when you get rid of the Bad Attituder Interface Component, they are the Good People with Good Narrative Interpretations. Interpretation narratively is never that flat; there is never going to be total concordance about what is or isn't the most ideal story, even with accompanying political responsibility and ostensibly clear goals of empowerment. (What does 'empowerment' mean in storytelling anyway? Is it physical might? Is it the strong female protagonist who kills people? What about humanisation? Do characters of one type come with a responsibility that others don't? So on). The reality is that the way you interact with stories is the way everybody does and there is no clear-cut way to having All of the Correct Opinions. That will literally drive you insane. This is why I return to asking deeper questions about narrative and thematic goals and why I argue for representation on the grounds of artistic excellence. It's not a popular idea, I'll give you that, but it's pretty much the only position I can personally reconcile between recognising art doesn't have political responsibility or morally didactic responsibility and yes, censorship of comprehensive artistic products is bad, but there is incentive to tell stories from every fabric of human experience... and that the humanisation of characters (and their homes, cultures, experiences etc.) matters.

So the Bad Attituder Interface Component won't go away - and sure, some people do just have bad opinions - but I think that's kind of the point? Because I do think art does reveal things about us, and is transformative in small ways too, and that's important. I think it is superficial to view it as an active political battleground (for good or ill; particularly from a governmental perspective - we don't want to encourage any attitude bordering on propaganda-mandated art... lol... these are the logical conclusions!) but equally you can learn things through it. Besides, none of the beliefs we harbour are distinct from one another - or organised in separate compartments in our hearts - even when they sometimes might seem conflicting with one another - and so I can never view narrative response through the flat lense of 'are you or aren't you a misogynist?' Which you have every reason to disengage from, be it racism or homophobia or transphobia or anti-Semitism, but equally I think it's a little superficial to view things that way. Which, honestly, isn't just a Leftist thing at all; the gender anxieties are just a little different.

I'm always worried I'm secretly a bad person and everybody hates me, especially because I had some really horrific online friendships on Tumblr when I was a teenager where my every move was scrutinised (I don't mean this in a 'I got told I was racist and it was terrible' type of thing; I mean I had my eating disorder explained back to me about why it was really addiction type of thing where my every move/word was scrutinised and I had to be constantly vigilant; I was sixteen and she was twenty-six) and I still pretty much exist with that watchman in my head, lol. So maybe what I'm talking about isn't the same sort of anxiety other people have anymore because it has been a few years lol; in fact the majority of asks taking me to task have been about misandry, so I would say with my - regular audience? - things don't exactly pan out the way I necessarily expect. But equally for that crowd what I've laid out here is true, and I would say that a real political urgency assigned to narrative interpretation isn't, and has never been, the blue-haired SJW thing. Think back to the way DND was characterised as Satanic. Or that reading was bad for women.

Point being I don't tend to view misogyny or social evil as its own superstructure; I think it is beholden to (deeper) psychological tools, and you can see those expressed in narrative response, and the conversation - for me personally - doesn't begin and end there, usually.

#stirring the pot

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thorraborinn · 2 years

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I have a question that is more anarchist than anything but basically would it be a betrayal of my anarchistic morals to accept a job offer as an insurance agent in training through Farmers Insurance?

I'm gonna rephrase a little to get at the heart of what you're really asking, because we both know that using the imbalance of power and resources between customers and a corporation to generate profit for the latter (and that's when it's working like it's supposed to) is not compatible with anarchism, but that's also what most jobs are, and that almost all of us are forced to do things we hate in order to survive under capitalism. What you're actually trying to figure out is whether this is a level of compromise that you can grit your teeth through, or if it's actually integrating with the architecture of oppression like, say, becoming a cop would be. And unfortunately, I literally just straight-up don't know enough about insurance companies or what kind of incentives they have to do things like deny coverage or whatever, or if there's opportunity to leverage your position to tip the scales in favor of policyholders (but I strongly suspect not) to have any insight there. Surely you have better tools at your disposal for figuring that out than I do, but I get that you don't want to get knee-deep in it and then have the moment of realization.

But yeah I don't think there's any way you should expect to be able to do this and keep your conscience totally clean, and the fact that we mostly don't get to survive and feel totally good about how we're doing it is a reason to be anarchist in the first place. Don't take the job and then retrofit an explanation for why it's actually fine. It's better to betray your values openly and honestly and to understand it as a condition of a system we're trying to destroy than to be manipulated by it.

Also, read this: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lorenzo-kom-boa-ervin-racist-insurance-racket. I don't know how much it applies to what you would be doing but I'd honestly find it surprising if the depersonalized, quantified data used to calculate rates doesn't produce disparities along racial lines even if that isn't written into the formulas directly.

The only sort of ancillary thing I can think to add is that a severely overlooked need that could be addressed using a mutual aid model but largely isn't, is helping people navigate bureaucracies like insurance companies. I've met a lot of homeless people who are technically, on-the-book entitled to money that they don't know how to fight for or don't have the resources (ability to travel, computer access, etc). I'm not submitting this as an idea for how to make up for harm done because I just don't believe in that sort of moral bookkeeping, just pointing out that also, separately, this is a need, and doing it would be good in a way that's completely separate from your question.

(For the record, yes, all this applies to every job I've ever had, and is one of the main things that made me an anarchist).

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conscious-fyp · 11 months

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What if the trends that went viral were about sustainable consumption?

Nowadays, the social media world has been growing more and more, most notably because of Tik Tok, which was created in 2016 and leveraged surprisingly during the Covid 19 pandemic. In this context, what should be a quarantine hobby, ended up becoming a "fever"between people . Social media has a lot of influence in people’s routines, mainly in relation to exaggerated consumption, which ends up becoming a problem, because conscious and sustainable consumption are forgotten day by day and become a distant reality.

According to Confederação Nacional da Indústria (CNI) 42% of the population had already bought something on the Internet, being that 64% from this total buy products with frequency or always, which means that 57 millions of people consume excessively. Furthermore, other impressive data were the reports from platform Stylight. This research points out that searches for the term “Tik Tok Fashion” in Google grew 195% in the world since the year 2021, which shows the impact of this app in the life of people.

Moreover, some brands transmit their fashion show on TikTok, or they hire tiktokers to be the "faces" of their products, which consequently generates trends, and all it takes is for an influencer to use a product that the population is already interested in buying. Then, a new trend is created. This is the current scenario, and it is simply terrible, trends that go viral in 15 seconds, consumption without awareness, absurd amounts spending, more and more production of trash. Having this in mind, is it still possible to reverse this situation?

I would say yes, and the solutions would be conscious and sustainable consumption. When you think in sustainable consumption it is necessary to think in several initiatives that encompass the decrease of environmental impacts in the world, despite the fact that most of the population is "immersed" in the age of Tik Tok one part has thought with greater political, scientific and media awareness about the mistakes and carelessness committed by big companies and industries

Therefore, while consumerism leads to excess, immediacy, and accumulation, conscious consumption proposes more rational choices with less impact on the environment. The central idea is that having a smaller volume of material items, but with higher quality. This can bring more tranquility, financial health, free time, and satisfaction. Some of the examples that can be done on a routine basis:

1. Plan your purchases; 6. Evaluate the impacts of your consumption;

2.Consumption only necessary; 7. Reuse products and packaging;

3. Trend: 36 items in your cose; 8. Separate your garbage;

4. Transformation one clothes into many clothes; 9. Spread the word about conscious consumption;

5. Incentive to buy second hand clothes; 10.Reflect on your values.

Finally, as difficult as it may be, it is not impossible, as sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has already said, "The happiness expected and attributed to the acquisition of new goods is only a promise. This desire remains in the seduction that is fed back by a constant dissatisfaction". This way, conscious and sustainable consumption is the way out and the solution.

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ironbrandon · 1 year

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Pitch Black, Devlog #12

I've got a lot to do, but I'm blastin' through!

Yes, although it was quite a struggle to set up the game's page for Steam with it's such high standards, I was still able to make a lot of progress!

Gameplay

The next monster is pretty much finished, I just need to give him sound and get him to appear all around the next puzzle area.

The next thing to work on is a new system for the candle, making the candlestick last for a limited amount of time. Whenever you put out the light, you'll also need to use matches to relight it, making you think more carefully about putting it out when you need to hide. I'm not 100% sure this feature will make the game fairer, but it'll give the player more incentive to search chests.

Atmosphere

Soon I'll also improve, in general, the sounds and ambiance. Currently, most of the time, there is complete silence, but I want a sort of very (and I mean very) subtle whistling wind sound through the caves. And then, on top of that, you would occasionally get a larger gust of wind blowing through in larger areas.

Optimizations

Another big thing I've been working on is improving the game's optimization, like how I recently figured out that Godot (the engine I use for my games) allows both '.wav' and '.ogg' files, but I had no idea how much smaller Ogg files are to Wav. I've now decreased the game's size from over 150 MBs to just under 50 MBs just by turning all of the music files from Wav to Ogg. The best part is that they're almost identical unless, of course, you see it's "songfile.ogg" instead of "songfile.wav." On top of that, I've been improving Memory usage by making some files only load when they're needed, the biggest culprit being (just like with storage) music. This is because I had all the in-game music 'preloaded' when the game started (including The Monsters Wait, Caves I, and Caves II), and I just switched between them. Now they only load when they're played, which will also help when I add the rest of the music.

Game Page + Final Notes

And now, as a reminder, I have set up the game page for Steam. If you use Steam, please wishlist it! I still plan to release the game on GameJolt, but only if my Marketplace Account gets accepted. Since I'm now on Steam I will try to start posting all future devlogs there, too.

One more thing I'd like to mention is that there are now a total of 4 ways to die—yay!

So that's all for this post, it'll be a lot longer till the next Devlog post, and there're mainly two reasons for that. First: the game is still so far from being done, that I'm going to be focusing most of my time on the game itself, with less focus on small improvements, music that I can finish later, and anything that I can put off to the side so I can get this game to a finished state. Second: I have three different platforms to publish these devlogs to; give me a break. Don't worry, though, because I will still let you all experience pitch black very soon...

#gaming #game development #devlog #indie dev #game design

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belphies-cuhm-sluht · 3 years

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So I have a silly request, can I request the demon Bros who has an MC who just randomly puts up a good noodle board. Like there is no purpose to any of the stars on board and it's just a social experiment between MC and Solomon to see how the demons will react. I keep thinking of how funny it would be if MC went about a week just adding stars at random for no reason and one day taking two away from Lucifer with no explanation. Which makes them realize that they can now lose Stars. The bros get told that it's a social experiment after about a month of dealing with the good noodle board.

The Good Noodle Board (Demon Brother Headcanons)

“Hey, remember that one episode of spongebob? You know… the one?” Solomon asked over study break, and honestly… this man… this fucking man. If he wasn’t asking about Lucifer and how to get close to the demon he was asking shit like this. It didn’t make any sense, and it was so vague, it drove you nuts… but you were bored, so you decided to humor him.

“Ahhh, yes… I remember that one episode, out of 248… I remember the exact one that you’re talking about with no context or description. I know that one.” Was the sass necessary? Nope, absolutely not, but you couldn’t really be that way with the demon brothers because they knew how to sass you back twice as much, and you couldn’t possibly be that way with the angels because they wouldn’t understand it and their feelings were fragile. Solomon on the other hand was a little shit and his sass wasn’t even good so you could take it if he tried.

“Ha… funny. I mean the one with the noodle board, the Good Noodle Board.” Now it was ringing a bell, but it still made no sense why he was bringing it up, so you nodded to encourage him to keep going. There had to be some reason he was bringing this up. “Social experiment… see how the brothers would react to a Noodle Board. You gotta try it, a month tops, and tell me how it goes.” It wasn’t a bad idea, and it might be fun for everyone… or it could go horribly wrong… You’ll never know if you don’t try though.

You hung the Good Noodle Board right in the living room in the middle of the night, no explanation. They’ll just wake up to the noodle board, and that’s where the fun begins!

Lucifer

He is highly suspicious of the board. But right now he sees that everyone has the same amount of stars, so he doesn’t get it, but everything seems even, so it isn’t really a problem. Not yet at least. Things really started to get confusing when he came out of his office later in the day and saw two new stars next to his name. It was a good feeling because that meant he was ahead of everyone else… but why? How did he get those stars? What did he do? He said good morning to you this morning, and he remembered to eat something with his coffee, were those the reasons for the stars? This was more confusing than Lord Diavolos' out of order paperwork. “Oh! Y/N I caught you… the uh, Good Noodle Board… what is it? How does it work?” There was no fun in explaining it already, it wasn’t even day two at this point and he had racked up a bunch of stars. You didn’t know why he was worrying about it now, the real fun part hasn’t even come yet. You shrugged, smiling sheepishly at him before walking towards the stairs, waiting for him to go back into his office before running back out and sticking one more star next to his name. After two weeks came the fun part, taking away the stars. He yelled at Mammon for no apparent reason and made him sad… he got two stars taken away. He fell asleep at his desk overworking himself? One star is taken away, and after the experiment is over you’ll talk to him about that because it isn’t good. Every morning you wake up and see him fretting over this board, counting and recounting the stars just to make sure he’s not just seeing things and that his stars are going missing. “Y/N… The uhm… My stars seem to be going missing. Is there a reason for that? Do you think Mammon is stealing the stars? Hmm… Never mind. I’m not even worried about it. I have a meeting with Diavolo today. Goodbye.” Another star was taken away for accusing Mammon of things he didn’t do. To see Lucifer get so worked up over the board, you were sure Solomon would want to be there to experience it too. By the end of the month, Lucifer is frazzled and confused and thinking way too hard about all of it. You were kind of sad to end it, but seeing his face when you explained it to him made ending it all worth it.

“I-... Study break is for studying. Use it wisely, and stop letting Solomon put ideas in your head. If I may ask though… Why did I lose the stars?”

Mammon

The Good Noodle Board is awesome. He’s got so many stars right now, and he already knows you did it. You think he doesn’t get suspicious of why you’re not in your room and sneaks down to see what you’re doing? Not in a weird way, he’s just making sure you’re okay. But yeah, he totally watched you put up the board and everything. He tried to stay on his best behavior because, well… things like this usually meant there was incentive, and that could mean money at the end. You were onto that too though, and you were trying to keep things fair, which was already out the window when you found out that he already knew what the board was. “Ya know… I’ve been real good lately and… I don’t think the stars are showin’ how good I’ve been. Don’tcha think I should have more?” He pouted at you, and you could only laugh as you shook your head at him before walking away. He was going to ruin the experiment if he kept questioning you, so maybe you should just add a couple more to get him to shush, or at least to keep him from telling his brothers about it. It took a couple hours for him to get busy enough to not worry about the noodle board for a few minutes, just long enough for you to run back down to the living room and stick a couple more stickers next to his name. It was hard for him to stay good the whole time though. The experiment lasted a month, and it was amazing that he was able to be on his best behavior for even one whole week. By the second week he was back to his typical self. One by one you pulled stars off, and each time he’d come to you whining about how it wasn’t fair. “Ya all just wanna see me upset! That’s why yer takin’ my stars away! I don’t need the stupid Good Noodle Board anyway… I know I’m a good noodle!” He stormed out of the room, making sure to stomp loudly just to show how upset he is. So the social experiment went well, and when you finally told him what it was… He was torn between thinking it was funny or being upset because it was done at his expense, plus it meant that you hung out with Solomon which he didn’t like at all.

“Next time ya wanna do somethin’ like that come ta me instead! I don’t want ya hangin’ with Solomon anymore.”

Leviathan

The Good Noodle Board didn’t seem like it would be a problem, he stays in his room all the time anyway, it shouldn’t be a big deal. He’s banking on his stars staying consistent, there’s no way he could earn stars because he doesn’t leave his room, and he doesn’t like being in competition with his brothers, so it’s better if he just stays up in his room anyway. The board can’t affect him if he doesn’t think about it. The thing is, he was getting stars randomly… It didn’t make sense to him. He’d find a new star stuck next to his name when he came down for breakfast and dinner, and on the days that he didn’t skip RAD classes he’d have five more. The system was strange, it was like whoever was running the board, although he did assume it was you, they spotted his good behavior even when he wasn’t trying to be good. “Hey Y/N…” He stopped you after dinner, leading you into the living room to point at the board. “What’s uh… What’s up with this… Do you know anything about it?” It would have been easy to tell him, but there’s no fun in that. You shook your head, walking away and leaving Levi to stare at the board, questioning his newly placed stars. Taking the stars away was even more entertaining than putting them on. If he stayed up all night and raged and kept the rest of the house awake, he’d wake up to stars gone. If he skipped his RAD classes, his stars would be gone when he came back home. There wasn’t really anything else to take his stars away for, but once he noticed the stars were gone he started to panic. “Wh-Why are my stars disappearing? What’s going on? What did I do? H-How does Mammon have more stars than I do?!” That didn’t seem right to him, not at all. Mammon couldn’t possibly be doing better than him. He was going to sulk about it until his star count was at least above Mammon’s. Waking up at the end of the month and seeing you take the board down was probably the happiest he’s felt all month. He wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore, but also, now he knows 100% that it was you, and he’s got a lot of questions.

“S-So it was you… Why was Mammon doing better than me? How did you come up with it? Why is it called being a Good Noodle? Why did I lose stars? Please don’t do it ever again…”

Satan

He had walked right past it the day that it got put up, he didn’t even notice it at first. Lucifer was known to hang weird decorations in the living room, and most of the things that hung on the wall didn’t interest him, so clearly this new wall piece wouldn’t be a big deal to him either. His curiosity got the best of him though when he saw you looking at it. Now he was invested in the star board, checking it every single time he walked through the living room just to make sure he was ahead of Lucifer. That was the only thing that mattered to him now. Being ahead of Lucifer on the Noodle Board meant that he was essentially better than Lucifer, and that would mean he was winning. “You see that, Y/N… Lucifer is below me… It feels good. Whoever is running this board knows who the best brother is.” He was going to lose stars for that as soon as you started taking them away, but for now he was still receiving stars for helping you study and reading to you at night. Once the stars were taken away though, he had a lot of reasons for getting them taken. He didn’t straighten up his books and you constantly tripped over them whenever you visited him in his room. He was sassy as hell most of the time, and his constant berating of Lucifer was kind of irritating, especially since it was pretty well known that he hated the guy, he just felt the need to constantly say something about it. Stars were disappearing left and right from beside his name, and he couldn’t understand why, it was stressing him out way more than it should. “Lucifer is doing this! It’s because I was above him and he couldn’t handle it! Look how many stars I’ve lost! He’s jealous. He’s so jealous. That’s fine. I know I’m better than him.” This whole thing cracked you up. It was hysterical how mad he got. Finally explaining to him that you were the one who ran the board and that it was yours and Solomon's idea, he didn’t know if it was a relief or if it irritated him more.

“So this was… your idea… and Solomon’s…? Did you write a book report on our reactions? Did you have fun? Sure seems like you did. Glad you enjoyed it. Never again.”

Asmodeus

So when he first saw the Good Noodle Board, he initially thought that it meant… well… he thought that Noodle meant… dick, so it was really shocking that all of the brothers, including himself, had the same amount of stars, especially since he knew damn well that his noodle was the best. It wasn’t until he started getting stars after not doing anything sexual that he realized that the board wasn’t pertaining to having a good noodle, but being a good noodle, and that he as a whole is the noodle. It still wasn’t going to be hard for him though, he’s a good demon, he’s a sweetheart, he knows it. He didn’t have to do much to get stars either, he was just a happy guy who loved himself and everyone else. How could he not be raking in the stars with a personality like that? “Look at all those stars, Y/N! It’s not easy being a star, but whoever is running this board really understands that I’m the brightest star there is. They’re very smart.” He had no idea that stars could be taken away, apparently he assumed that stars were permanent once they went on the board. He couldn’t have been more wrong. He changed his outfit about 3 times a day, which meant that weekly laundry was way more than it should be and laundry detergent was going faster than food in the fridge when Beel was home. And some days… he’d wear certain lip glosses that stained every single glass that he drank out of, which wouldn’t really be a problem if you weren’t the one doing dishes and trying like hell to scrub those lip marks off. He didn’t lose a lot of stars for the last one, but every time you had to deal with it, he’d lose one star for the hours you scrubbed away at those glasses. “I think a couple of my stars fell off… which is weird because none of the other ones did. Do you think… do you think someone is taking my stars away? How could they do that? Hmph… And I thought they were smart. I guess not.” Finally telling him was like a weight off of his shoulders, he finally understood what the whole meaning of the board was and who was doing it. He became way more interested in it when he found out it was Solomon’s idea as well.

“So this whole thing was just an… experiment? And Solomon was in on it? I didn’t know you and Solomon hung out like that. Well, next time you do, tell me. I want to be in on your next idea.”

Beelzebub

He also, like Asmo, thought the Good Noodle Board meant something else, although his thought wasn’t anywhere near what Asmo thought. He just thought it meant how many good noodles the brothers had made, which is why he was unsure of why Belphie and… well… any of the other brothers had so many stars. Their noodle making skills were not very good. You didn’t want him to be in the dark, so without giving away too much information, you explained the meaning of the board. Earning stars was really easy for him, and you actually worried that he didn’t have enough space next to his name for all the stars that he got. He was just… a sweetheart, and he was always being good to everyone and he never got into trouble or did anything bad. You were running out of stars, but he was so happy to see how many stars he’d have at the end of the day, it was really sweet. “Look Y/N. Noodles are really good, and I guess I’m really good too. Cool, I’m like a really good noodle. Goodnight.” Taking away stars was almost as upsetting for you to do as it was for him to see. You knew he didn’t mean to be a bad noodle, but… He was eating the lunches that you packed for yourself and you were constantly running late to your classes because you’d have to repack your lunch and… Well he had to lose a star for that. He also kept leaving his gym bag in the middle of the main hallway when he came home and you’ve tripped over it several times. When he saw that his stars were able to be taken away he looked really upset, which kind of upset you. “Am I not a really good noodle? I wonder what I did… Y/N, do you know what I did? No… I’ll figure it out. I have to be a good noodle.” You were really relieved when it was finally over, for his sake. It was fun with all the others, but he was thinking too hard about it and you didn’t want him to have to worry about it anymore.

“Oh, so I’m still a good noodle? I did have more stars than anyone else… Do I ever get to know why I got the stars taken away though, because I still don’t want to be a bad noodle… Even if the board is gone.”

Belphegor

He didn’t come out of his room often enough to even notice the board was up. Beel actually had to tell him about it, and that was the only time he came downstairs wrapped in a blanket to look at the board. All he did was shrug though, he legitimately did not care about it at first. It was hard to give him stars because… he was never around? Can you give people stars for sleeping? You’d have to use the same system that you used for Levi. He came out of his room to eat meals with the rest of the house… he’d get a star. He actually showed up at his classes instead of “accidentally” sleeping through them? He’d get a couple more stars. When he’d come home he’d see the extra stars next to his name and shake his head, but you could tell he was confused as to why he was getting them. “I get stars for participating in things I don’t want to do? I don’t know if I actually want the stars… but somehow Mammon has a lot which is stupid, so I guess I’ll just keep doing whatever so I can be ahead of him… And Lucifer. Stupid Lucifer.” Taking away stars was a lot easier than you thought it would be. Sometimes when you’d try to wake him up in the morning to get to class he’d throw pillows at you until you went away, and he’d lose stars for that. Other times he’d willingly go to sleep in the middle of classes, or meal times even though you knew for a fact that he had a full night's sleep, he was just trying to be rude. He got stars taken away for those things… and many others. When he saw that most of the stars next to his name had been taken he was kind of pissed off. “So according to the Noodle Board… I’m worse than Mammon, and Lucifer. I call bullshit, this whole board is bullshit and I’m taking a nap.” He was very sassy and he generally avoided the board. He couldn’t have been happier when he saw that it was finally gone at the end of the month, and when you told him that it was yours and Solomon’s idea, he just laughed, so you didn’t really know what that meant.

“I knew it was you the whole time. Only you and Solomon could come up with an idea that would throw all of us off like that. I’d have enjoyed it if I wasn’t involved and I got to watch Lucifer suffer. But now I can finally sleep whenever and wherever I want, so, I’m glad it’s gone. Night.”

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citrinekay · 2 years

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yes 2.07 really does reveal what a lying, scheming little shit Silver can be, but equally and also as importantly, it reveals his - I'm not sure if I would call it "moral" but his code. In the conversation with Max near the end of the episode, he says "trust is a funny thing. when I pledged my support to Captain Flint, I believed the trust between us to be of the strongest kind. we both desperately wanted the same thing." For him, a partnership is based on uniting behind a common goal, and he would have stuck around to see that goal accomplished no matter the consequences. it's easy, of course, to call him selfish for operating in this manner but he was never duplicitous about his motivations and incentives when it came to Flint. He was always up front and honest that the gold was his priority, and it's actually kind of funny to me that Flint is totally shocked when Silver announces "there is no we" because the gold is gone. Flint just can't wrap his mind around the fact that Silver might be content with realizing his own personal ideals for his future with no one else's benefit in mind when Flint is so dedicated to a more revolutionary idea of change. anyway its really interesting to consider that, in a story that ends with Silver betraying Flint, it was Flint who first betrayed Silver.

#silverflint #black sails #black sails S2 rewatch

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howtofightwrite · 2 years

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Hi! I've been working on a historical fantasy story (think Taisho era but with Caribbean influences). My issue is with two of the main characters: A morally-questionable "ronin" for lack of a better term, and street-fighter with the noble incentive of supporting her family financially. While it's easy for me to picture what their relationship ends up becoming, it's hard for me to decide how these two could end up working together without it seeming unrealistic or forced.

I have no idea what this means.

I'm vaguely familiar with the Taisho Period. This was from 1912 to 1925, and saw some early elements of the transition that lead to the Japanese Emperor's authority being completely subverted by a military junta in the following decade. It's a very significant era.

The problem is, Japan in 1925 looked nothing like Jamaica in 1656, and I cannot extrapolate exactly what you're looking for here.

"Caribbean influences," could be as simple as geological, or it could be an elaborate fantasy setting that melds elements of late Imperial Japan with the European colonial squabbling in the Caribbean that resulted in an authority vacuum, and the proliferation of piracy, both freelance, and state sponsored.

The result is, I don't know your world, and that's not a bad thing. It does make this question much harder to answer with any specificity.

So, yes, a unique world is a good thing. Not being able to boil that down into a single sentence is something you may want to work on. Though, the goal is to create a coherent one line description, not to simplify your world.

The problem with your characters is, I don't know who these people are. The description of them is basic, but fine. However, because I don't know your world, I don't have a full frame of reference for what your setting's ronin really are. This could be anything from a disgraced noble to a former military leader who's degenerated into piracy when their place in the old order collapsed when the previous emperor died.

How does that interface with someone who has the, "noble incentive of supporting her family?" This could get really dark.

A couple years back I remember reading an article discussing the good/evil axis for D&D's alignment system. The author used the concept of proximal empathy a litmus test for a character's alignment. (Note that "proximal empathy," means something very different in developmental psychology.) The idea is that a good person will experience empathy and exhibit compassion and altruism to a wide range of people, in some cases, even total strangers. However, as the alignment shifts away from good, that proximity will decrease. A neutral character may be apathetic about strangers, but they don't stop caring about or protecting their friends and family. An evil character may either only care about their innermost circle, or themselves alone.

While I think it has limited value as a philosophical position, it's something worth considering about your characters. If your character is willing to commit crimes and harm others in pursuit of providing for their family, that does not make them a good person. Further, even someone with noble intentions can be responsible for horrific actions.

This will be a slightly crude explanation, but when you're plotting the relationships between characters, it can be helpful to think of it like a multi-act story, with a sequence of different stages or phases. Over a long enough period of time, many relationships are unstable. People who start as friends can become bitter enemies, and people began barely tolerating one another could come to respect each other, only for that to be scuttled later on.

There's nothing inherent in these two character concepts that would automatically mean they couldn't work together, or even become friends. Similarly, there are a lot of potential threads that could lead to a brutal falling out down the line. That's fine. More than fine, that's useful.

I've said it before, but your job is not to make friends with your characters. You are not responsible for handing them a happy ending. Having characters that end up parting ways because of irreconcilable differences can punctuate a good story. Conflicts between protagonists can be incredibly valuable for changing a character's trajectory, or showcasing new insights into who your characters are, and how the story's events have changed them.

In both cases, you have a the basic sketch of a character who could be a complex individual, and that's something you will want to encourage. Character conflict lets you tease out that depth without requiring either character to be exceptionally self aware.

I can't tell you how they met, or why they started to work together. I can't tell you if there was friction or if they started out working together for purely pragmatic reasons. I don't know. Those are your character and your story.

What I do know is, try it. If it doesn't work, examine where and why it failed, and rewrite it until you're happy with it.

-Starke

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#Starke answers #writing advice #writing tips #writing reference #world building #character building

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soia-jpg · 2 years

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The ask about your Piper tutorial reminded me of something I wanted to say.

I have seen a lot of white artists repeating this idea that some characteristics are solely "white" – specially when it comes to noses –, and I just wanted to say that when you make the design of a character from an ethnic group that you're not a part of, giving them a certain characteristic just because you feel that the other one is exclusively white isn't representation, it's just another form of stereotype.

Your design of Piper is beautiful and I'm aware that you researched, looked for the opinions of Cherokee people and encouraged other artists to do the same, but I've really come across this so many times that I felt that it needed to be emphasized.

This yes! I totally agree with you!

I probably am not the best to explain things but for me is searching for details that usually were seen as "not pretty enough" to the " standard" and celebrate the difference in the humans. This include the nose but also body hair for example! I think extremism is always wrong and honestly I apologise if I reinforced the idea that there are some features that are solely white! I don't honestly believe in that, like, it doesn't make actual sense in my brain but I might have said something that reinforced that idea without realising so I apologise if it was the case!

I do love people correcting me and pointing out how things can be said better so please, always feel free to add stuff under my posts or correct me. I try to share my resources or more well written post when I talk about this because I usually do so on a really basic level, just to give people an incentive to research more

What I know is based on Internet research and real life experience but I live in Italy and I might not be the right person to talk about some stuff because irl friends sometimes have different opinion that the rest of the Internet people

So again, thank you for this! ❤️

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onewomancitadel · 1 year

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I have read a few posts here and there going around that are to the effect of criticising media literacy and consumption of fanfic, YA novels (read: hyperpalatable works) with the rejection of the canon which I think come close to a good point about the surge of what can only be called anti-intellectualism (a term unfortunately that has been ruined) but are asserted on an assumption that I disagree with. That assumption is chiefly that the way you cultivate your reading journey (especially as teenagers/adults) is on the terms of what is or isn't acceptable to read - which is not a thesis only put forth by (for the sake of this post) the 'pro-canon' crowd, but is similarly put forth by the fanfic/YA/romance/etc. crowd ('It's more diverse and this incentivises you to read it as a civic duty'). Interestingly both sides often fall into the trap of conceiving hyperpalatable genres as the good interesting brain candy books that you must read/or are the junk food you shouldn't eat and then there are the boring ones that require you to argue why the curtains are blue, and there are no emotional truths or stirring sensations - but might also be like green vegetables and should be consumed).

I still think it's coming from an inauthentic position and that is my chief problem with either sides of the debate of good books and bad books (books you should read for political, social, intellectual incentive). Certainly I think that the goal to understand 'literature' and the entire craft of reading and writing goes a little beyond what you yourself really want to seek out, but ultimately the most nourishing and most worthwhile endeavour is going to be discovering things on your own terms (What is your taste? What are your struggles? What do you value aesthetically... romantically... philosophically? What do you find pretentious? Why? Etc.). The false binary of good books/bad books means you may not value what you are reading because of some perceived characteristcs of, say, with fanfic - it's brain candy but not 'intellectual' - or with the classics - it's cerebral and therefore something you emotionally disengage from. This is seriously a sentiment I see on both sides. Fanfic is universally 'dumb', but the classics are 'smart', and the reason you read them is to develop media literacy/awareness, as opposed to something emotionally fundamental to the human condition lol - storytelling. (Side note: Yes, I am aware of the repeated sentiment that Dante's Inferno is fanfic, so there has been an attempt to legitimise the practice of fanfic in the canon. In terms of literary merit, I don't think this is the case).

I can see the security in embracing fanfic/YA/whathaveyou/romance as being 'dumb', or 'light' - 'let people enjoy things' - but I take major issue with the idea that entertainment which is lighthearted, or caters deeply to 'brain candy' or to the heart, does not carry actual craft or maybe deeper profound meaning - and is still on some level secondary to the 'serious stuff'. I'm relying on quotes here to tease out what I think are implicit assumptions I disagree with. What really offends me is the notion that lighthearted entertainment is simply dumb - to me these are low-standards.

In the reverse, the idea that the classics cannot move you in a 'brain candy' way - or that emotional disengagement is necessary in order to understand them, to reach a deeper intellectual engagement and to follow the proper order of literary criticism - is, once again, totally untenable to me. I do truly think there is a real problem in that people try to read 'the classics' and are put off because they simply do not expect to find an emotional world there or expect to be emotionally engaged.

This false dichotomy is very silly. What I think is even more silly is not cultivating your own reading journey by trying to find the things you care about and the things that move you and to understand that literary world you live in. The airs of reading one or the other (yes, nearly all the discourse I've waded through is one or the other) because of buried cultural sentiment or baggage from the annoying fans or that one bad teacher you had in English class or the time you tried to read Tolstoy and found him boring when he's One of the Greats (try Dostoyevsky) is annoying. Because one person proudly saying they refuse to read outside their own narrow world, whether it's fanfic or the canon, is annoying and stupid and makes me want to write a Tumblr post complaining about it. It really is, and almost always comes down to, trying to figure out who you really are and not who you are pretending to be. Lol!

There are really two contending issues here; the false binary of the canon and fanfic/YA/romance/lighthearted literature and the emotional engagement and brain candy or lack thereof and the discovery of reading that I think is more important than what you should be reading.

I really take issue with the idea that the brain candy/emotional engagement is something that is non-intellectual because it does a disservice to literature and also I hate posers!

#stirring the pot

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fandomfluffandfuck · 3 years

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this has been on my mind for hours so i'm sharing:

chubby modern vet bucky getting spoiled by retired cap steve -

they've taken up cooking in their newfound spare time, binge watching masterchef and chopped and great british baking show. steve has the funds for a permanently stocked pantry & fridge/freezer, and they both eat more than 2,000 calories a day, so they have plenty of opportunities to practice

cut to bucky going back go school & steve using food as a study incentive

cut to bucky meeting friends at school & inviting them over to dinner parties

cut to steve in a cute lil personalized apron, strutting around the kitchen with cookies while teasing his husband

just ~

✨ cute chubby soft stucky ✨

I'm so glad your mind is so brilliant lmao! Like, this is- *chefs kiss*

"Chubby modern vet Bucky being getting spoiled by retired Cap Steve" SAY NO MORE! I'm in love.

Yes yes yes yes. Of course friends, family, and therapists alike completely condone their down time and their new hobby. Steve's fully stocked pantry, fridge, and freezer initially, like before he meets Bucky and they begin dating, could be because *angst & disordered eating warning* he just didn't really have much motivation to spend excess time eating or cooking. And any of the new "future" treats his fellow avengers (and/or Agent Coulson) brought over for him to try didn't honestly have much appeal beyond the first bite. Beyond their reaction to his first reaction. However... Steve's still got that Depression Era mentality so he can't bring himself to throw away any of the left overs. So his packed fridge/freezer gets more and more packed over time. But NOW-! Now everything is fully stocked because who's to say what ingredient they'll need that day, week, or month? Who's to say what recipe they might stumble across and want to try? Completely, yes, lots of time to practice with hearty, healthy appetites and a lack of care about what they look like. It doesn't matter when they both have a partner who doesn't care and just wants them to be happy.

Aw! Yes! Bucky goes back to school (I'm thinking he probably went right into the military post high school and didn't have the chance to go to college) and food totally becomes a reward. He comes home and is greeted by Steve in a frankly grossly domestic apron cooking up a hot, home-y meal nightly (Steve also packs his lunches for him every day <3). Every good test score, no matter how small the test is in the scheme of things, warrants a celebratory date night out to some new or old restaurant. Every finals week is a week of Bucky going to bed stuffed with study snacks that Steve palms off to him, chuckling, "two for you, one for me." E v e r y t h i n g . Bucky jokes that they're both going to gain the freshman 15, give or take (and it's give... let's be real here).

(Or... if you wanna go a different way with that: maybe Bucky's going back to school for culinary arts? Not normal college. And so he's the one bringing home treats to Steve? Steve could still be cooking up a storm at home, so they exchange food haha. Or maybe, maybe they both go into culinary school (Bucky for pastries and sweets and Steve for savory meals and, like, meat. So at the end of the day they come home to each other, feeding the other the treats they made? Just an idea for you...)

Yesssss Buck's college friends come around and instantly gape stupidly at Bucky because- YOUR FIANCÉ IS CAPTAIN AMERICA? YOUR CAP- I MEAN, YOUR HUSBAND TO BE IS COOKING US THE BEST FOOD I'VE EVER HAD AND THE DESSERT YOU'RE TELLING ME Y O U MADE LOOKS SO GOOD I THOUGHT YOU BOUGHT IT! WHAT THE FUCK?? Anyway, the first time one of them comes over, it always takes them all the way through the first three courses at least to get used to the fact that Captain America, I mean- Commander Steve Rogers, er, I mean- Steve serving them food. Cheery as a picture perfect 50s housewife with his personalized apron and happy whistling tunes and cheek kisses for Bucky, indulging in his every "fairy" activity and behavior that he wanted to do or be like as a little boy but wasn't allowed to, his Ma fearing what would happen to if he did.

The Personalized Apron! Yessss! I can't help it; everytime I think of Steve in an apron it's instantly pink gingham with white lace edges at the bottom and neck line and two heart-shaped pockets on either hip, sewn with thick white thread that looks straight out of a cartoon. Ugh. Yes. (Realistically his apron is probably a ridiculously hideous Captain America themed thing that Sam bought him and gave him just after Steve gave him the shield. As if it was the same thing. It made Steve laugh so hard he started choking... so of course he's gonna wear it. Especially when Sam comes over for a grill out on lazy Saturdays.)

Thank you for the thoughts!!

#asks #jordansspot #my writing #stucky #steve rogers #bucky barnes #fluff #shrunkyclunks #cooking #food

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unrestedjade · 3 years

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More baseless Ferengi headcanons no one asked for: LATINUM EDITION~~~

- Almost every home is a rental, as almost all usable land is corporate-owned. Might as well daydream about owning a moon, it's no less realistic than owning the house you grew up in. (No I'm not frustrated with my $1500 rent at all, no I'm not miserable watching 40-year-old trailer homes selling for $250k to a property management firm that's going to rent it out. Surely a place like Ferenginar wouldn't be equally ridiculous, hahahahahahahahHAHAHAHA. Ahem.) - Latinum as religious fetish. We see Quark offering slips of latinum while he prays to the Blessed Exchequer before bed. He even has a little shrine. What's unclear is whether you're meant to reuse the same slips each day or if you have to actually "give up" the latinum over the longer term for the offering to count. You can break a piggy bank, but it's probably bad to break an image of the Exchequer, unless he's very chillaxed compared to the majority of gods. - Assuming really giving up the latinum is better, is destroying it extra good? Or are you sinning by removing it from the Continuum? Are there Ferengi extremist sects that sink latinum into bogs or launch it into a star?

- What do they think and feel about latinum with regards to the Exchequer? What does a god need with it? Is it meant to be his lifeblood, figuratively? Or literally, via transubstantiation? (Catholic Ferengi. Cathipitolists.)

- How was latinum treated in the days before they knew to process it with gold so it could be handled safely? It's very pretty and ethereal-looking in its raw form, and also very, very toxic. Depending on the symptoms of latinum poisoning, I wonder if it had anything to do with it gaining religious significance? Ancient Ferengi priests seeing visions and going a little funny in the head from handling raw latinum for years and years?

- The way Quark and Brunt talk about taxes in S7 suggests there's not a lot of taxation in Ferengi society (officially, anyway. idk what else you'd call their ubiquitous bribes/tips than unofficial taxation). In any case, since one of the major purposes of taxation in modern economies is to control inflation by removing money (governments create/destroy money; they don't really keep a little checkbook register of surplus/deficit the way a household does) offering latinum to the Exchequer as an act of worship could be a good way to take money out of circulation for a while. - Latinum vs fiat money? Latinum is canonically used as coinage by multiple species. (It would seem like Ferengi are putting themselves at a bit of a disadvantage by also attaching a spiritual importance to it, but who knows, and this is a tangent on a tangent.) Is all their money backed by latinum? It can't be, right? Just conceptually, their stock markets and banks can't possibly be tying every value in every account to a real, physical measure of latinum, that's horribly inefficient. Can "latinum" also mean any legitimate liquid asset? Or does the Exchequer insist on the real thing? Much to ponder. - Brunt implies in Family Business that Ferenginar has houseless people and beggars. There's no point in begging if no one ever gives you anything, so some people must give charity to beggars. What's that look like, is it something kind-hearted Ferengi do in spite of the RoA explicitly stating that charity is only acceptable when you come out richer than you started? What's their rationalization in that case? Are they left feeling shameful about it? (Obviously the people stuck begging feel shitty, by design. Ironically, they might feel less shitty than we would, since the Exchequer doesn't appear to care how you get money, only that you get it.) - If you're moved to give money/material aid to a needy person, you'd probably do it quietly. Here in the good ol' US of A a common view is that "hand-outs" hurt the needy person in the long run because you're removing their impetus to stop being lazy sponges. And that's from people who follow a religion that commands them to care for the needy! So it's gotta be even harsher under a religion that's completely mask-off in its worship of individual prosperity. - (You just know Keldar was one of those people tossing a few slips of latinum for someone sleeping under a shop awning each morning. His business sense sucked but Ishka made him sound like a warm person. Folks gotta eat.) - Reincarnation... Alright, so if you were a dude and you die broke it's implied you can't reincarnate/are damned to the Vault of Eternal Destitution. Cool and fair, nothing to unpack there. What about women? They're half the population but seem to have been overlooked on this point in this here 10k-year-old religion. Which is telling in itself, of course, but you'd think someone would have addressed this? Who reincarnates female? Is the accepted understanding that females reincarnate female and are totally removed from the requirement to bid on their life? But that still doesn't solve the problem, because even if reincarnation were assigned-sex-segregated (god what a shitty idea, compels me tho) you're still losing X number of men to the Vault each generation. - I want to see what Ferengi religious debates look like. Pel is shown to be a serious scholar of the RoA as they've dug into not only the text itself but all the commentaries and refutations and deep-dives others have published about it. That's gotta fuel some spicy convo around the tongo table once everyone's a few drinks in. - Are there multiple sects? People arguing whether this or that rule is meant to be taken literally vs as metaphor? Everyone can't be in lockstep on this stuff. Quark seems to have been raised within the currently-hegemonic sect, but surely there's others.

- There don't appear to be any clergy or equivalent persons, so I wonder if there's different sects how they organize themselves? Do they host different subs on Ferengi Reddit? (Ferengi Reddit...shudder) - Ferengi atheists slacking at work or living as drifters because there's no point saving money for a next life that's not real. Life must drive them to drink. That's when you go out into space to live with the sane people and never call home.

- Is the rest of the population chill with atheists, or is that a no-go? I guess it would depend on how loud the person is and whether they follow the Rules or not.

- You know who they're definitely not chill with: socialists. Do they have Satanic Panics about this or that media turning the youth into commies? If you're an outspoken socialist, are you looking at exile? Arrest? An unexpected date with an Eliminator? - Conspicuous consumption seems to be a thing, and it's interesting in light of the whole "needing a good high score for a good reincarnation" idea. It still boils down to showing off how much you can afford to waste, but the stakes are undoubtedly higher for the faithful. - If something happens and you're at risk if losing everything, is it safer to just off yourself while you still have money? What if you're going to lose more than you'd ever be able to make back? (In economics this is called a perverse incentive lulz)

- The Great Monetary Collapse must have suuuuucked. It's the Great Depression x100, and also your god is mad at you, maybe??? And your next life is totally screwed now, too. Fuckin' dire, man. When Quark mentioned it in the show, it was with this flippant air like he was waiting to see how Miles and Julian reacted. He might have elaborated more if they hadn't reacted...the way he probably assumed they would. (Partially a self-fulfilling prophecy given the way he primed them to treat it as a joke, but I digress.) - Suicide rates are measurably higher in societies that elevate achievement and work ethic (see the Protestant vs Catholic divide on this, it's interesting and very depressing as a lapsed protestant in a protestant-dominated country). Just saying. - On this same bummer track: hedonic depression could be very commonplace among Ferengi. Every minute not spent working is spent on distraction because life is just such an exhausting grind, and a lot of factors determining whether you're a good/successful person are out of your control. Booze, porn, and gambling are all very distracting, and thus very popular. If a lot of this just sounds like regular degular capitalism: yes. It's actually proving difficult to push the fictional society further out because we're already living beyond satire. Maybe that's why I like these awful little guys so much. (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

#star trek #ferengi #meta #meta being a generous term for me making shit up because that's just how i party #i got halfway through the virtue of selfishness for the first time since i was 14 just for this #couldn't make myself power all the way through but i think the depth of my ardor should be proven anyway #suicide mention #because their society is an ancap hellscape

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depravitymoon · 3 years

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Yandere Bucci Gang x Childhood Friend Darling Headcanons and Thoughts.

Source Of Pic

((Since this is more of my thoughts instead of head canons for each guy, I didn’t think it was right to have a picture of them up.))

What if Darling’s a childhood friend, would it make a difference?

Overall yes, I think they all would be nicer and softer to a Childhood!Darling.

My specific thoughts below:

Abbacchio and Mista would be the least affected. I think their childhoods were pretty normal, so I don’t see them having super close friends prior to the Bucci Gang. Most likely, all of Leone’s former friends and family cut ties with him after he got his partner killed. I headcanon Mista being shallow, so a childhood friend would stay a childhood friend unless they’re super hot.

The reason Narancia wouldn’t have a childhood friend: It’d ruin the point of his character. Being betrayed and being found by Fugo at his lowest point is a defining moment for him. Narancia having a close friend gives him less incentives to join Passione. Besides, I think Narancia is clingy person, so Yandere!Narancia would treat a woman he just met as a long time friend. He’s a delusional Yandere, so I don’t see a difference of behavior from Narancia.

Bruno, Fugo, and Giorno would be the most affected by having a Childhood Friend. For Bruno, his obsession will start faster. For Fugo, he’ll be more merciful. For Giorno, it may be the primary way for him to go Yandere.

Personally, Giorno’s my favorite Yandere to give a childhood friend to because I see him having the hardest time finding love, Yandere or not. To have a darling that was there for him as Haruno would melt his cold demeanor in a second.

Giorno x Childhood Friend Darling ideas:

You most likely moved away before Haruno became blonde and change his name to Giorno.

Then, years later, you came back to Italy/Naples and came across Giorno. You didn’t recognize him, but he recognized you.

Right there, his Yandere tendencies kicked in, even scarring the Bucci Gang how fast he fell for you.

He lost you once, he’s not losing you again.

Fugo x Childhood Friend Darling ideas:

Fugo didn’t like you at first.

You were a nuisance, always distracting him from studying to play.

During the events of Vento Aureo, you found him after he didn’t get on the boat.

The fact you brought him back to your home after he pushed you away, after he lost everything AGAIN, made him fall in love with you.

I personally don't like giving Bruno a childhood darling, because it gives him an advantage as best Yandere of the Bucci Gang. I want them to be equally good/bad as each other. With a Childhood Friend, Bruno would be more reluctant about using and hurting their loved ones. However, what I love about Bruno is that he gives the worst punishments and the best rewards.

Still, I’ll do head canons for Childhood!Darling x Bruno, inspired by an RP I’m doing with a friend.

Bruno x Childhood Friend Darling ideas:

Bruno’s Darling was childhood crush he had before joining Passione.

You met Signor Buccerati on the pier and that’s how you met little Bruno.

He was always so nervous around you, even stuttering out compliments.

He even sees “hanging out” with you as dates.

Just a little bit before his dad was attacked, you moved away. When you came back later, you couldn’t find Bruno and heard his father passed away.

In 2002, after GER helped Bruno, Leone, and Narancia recovered because EVERYONE SURVIVED (yep, totally canon lol), Bruno found you again.

He sees your life is filled with hardships.

He immediately tries to help you.

If you’re a struggling single mom, he goes Yandere in a year.

((Sorry that I was late posting this. This week has been mentally exhausting for me. That’s why I don’t have cool pictures for this post. I’m hoping I can make a part 2 of this soon.))

#Yandere Bucci Gang #Yandere Fugo #Yandere Giorno #Yandere Bruno #Yandere #jojo's bizarre adventure #vento aureo

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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I have to wonder how season 2 Crosshair is gonna start with anything other than him escaping execution. Dude murdered his whole squad with one known survivor who reports it to the General, who then says 'We were gonna kill him anyway, so just let him die here'. It's not like Crosshair has any sort of bargaining chip to justify the Empire not abandoning or executing him.

It may end up being important that (I think) the surviving squad member doesn't know that Crosshair killed his team, only that they're dead. She was off looking for Omega, came back, saw her dead teammates and the clones fighting droids, and (smartly lol) got the hell out of Dodge. I think her exact words were that Crosshair "lost control of the situation," which tells the Admiral that Crosshair failed, but not that he failed because of his own betrayal. Granted, I think she's also the one who approaches the Admiral earlier, saying she doesn't trust Crosshair's motivations when it comes to his former team, so there's already a precedent set that Crosshair's loyalty may be less than perfect. Still, the actual explanation of what went down doesn't reveal that Crosshair killed his teammates and outright betrayed the Empire, just that he failed to complete the mission.

So based on what stories have done in the past, I can picture a couple of different ways for him to return:

Using the above, Crosshair straight up hides his shaky loyalties and frames the failure as just that: a garden variety failure. Perhaps he implies, though does not outright state, that his team's death came at the hands of TBB. A "Let the Admiral think what he wants" situation that benefits him.

The above + Crosshair emphasizing that TBB escaped. You know what kind of threat they are, Admiral, and though I failed before, I'm still your best chance at capturing/killing them. You need me. Crosshair believes firmly in his own usefulness — that ego — and he's not above working hard to convince others of that.

Between now and the time of his return, the Admiral has, for whatever reason, reconsidered the benefit of having at least a few clones in his army and is thus pleased that Crosshair survived, no matter the iffy circumstances of that. Personally, my mind keeps focusing on the weird motivations here. Namely, this push to have a conscripted army when, as far as TBB shows, that's a bad option compared to what they've already got. We as the audience know that the Empire needs to reach the point where they've got stormtroopers with terrible aim (that's the OG Star Wars), but right now, outside of that meta context, the Admiral's choices come across as rather stupid to me. Gregor and TBB point out, "These are our replacements?" highlighting that conscripted soldiers just don't have the skill of clones who were bred for war. I can only assume that the Empire was spying on Crosshair's team the same way they did TBB when they were sent to execute the "insurgents," which means they would have seen that the clone, Crosshair, was the only one originally willing to follow their order of killing civilians. Crosshair had to kill the other guy/talk the rest of the team into following that command. And of course, that's largely due to the chip, circling right back to why the Empire would have removed his when it gives them perfect control over Crosshair, especially after bothering to enhance it in the first place. So say nothing of Crosshair's crazy skills, making him one of, if not the best, shooter in the galaxy. I feel like if they want the Admiral to come across as less foolish, all these points should resurface at some point like, "Yes, having an ally specifically bred for war, with a genetically superior makeup to enhance his ability, who can be put under literal mind control and who while in that state has already proven that he'll follow our commands when conscripted soldiers won't... that's actually a good thing for us evil people to have!"

The Admiral has totally written Crosshair off. Doesn't need him. Doesn't want him. But a new character is introduced who is interested and who, crucially, outranks him. So Crosshair is let back in as someone else's evil pet, setting up conflict within the Empire.

The above, but specifically through the lens of clones now being a rare and useful commodity. We know they grabbed Nala Se, so either she (if she regains some power) or her new scientist boss could insist that they keep Crosshair around as a genetic source/experiment/whatever. Especially since they don't have Omega yet. Could even be that Crosshair becomes a prisoner again, returning to fight for the Empire, but becoming their lab rat instead.

Crosshair deliberately does something to get back into their good graces. Something, something, saving the Admiral from a legit threat, or one of Crosshair's own making. A way to show off how useful he is.

OR we do get a near execution that results in the same basic thing: Crosshair escapes, shows off his skill, all his would-be executioners are dead, he's the last one standing, and the Admiral is like, "Well then. Welcome back." You know when Rex is on the cruiser and goes "This will do nicely," Tech points out that it's not sterile, Rex pushes back that they can go to Kamino instead, and within a second Tech is going, "This will do nicely!" too? Same idea. It's easy to accept Crosshair as the best/only option if he does something to make himself that option.

Ultimately, I think how this goes down will depend largely on whether they want Crosshair back in the Empire's clutches or not. He's told TBB he intends to stick with the big power, but that doesn't necessarily mean the plot will allow for that. If the story wants Crosshair to continue being a willing Imperial for a time, prior to his assumed redemption, then yeah, I think it would be relatively easy to get him back in the Empire's good graces. It wouldn't necessary be the smoothest transition of all time, but as we've already seen in Season One — I don't totally follow why conscripted soldiers are supposedly better than clones, don't follow why TBB isn't trying to rescue Crosshair, don't understand yet why Crosshair won't clarify things about his chip, etc. — motivations in Star Wars can be... messy at the best of times. So if they just went, "And the Empire let Crosshair come back for ___ reason, don't think about that reason too hard" I'd be fine with that. But, if they want Crosshair to start his redemption now, one of the easiest ways to do that would be to stick him with a third party. Someone else finds him on the planet, perhaps someone neutral-ish like another bounty hunter, and Crosshair is given the chance to technically be opposed to his brothers because that's where they left things, but not actively working with the organization hunting him down. Plot-wise it would be relatively simple to put him in situations where he wants to return to the Empire, but can't just now, for whatever reason — they need to travel there, he hasn't thought up a means of getting back in their good graces yet, he gets caught up in another problem he needs to solve first, starts hunting TBB himself to return with that incentive, etc. — and that time allows him to start reconsidering whether he actually wants to go back, now that he's been forced to survive without them. An in-between space that will allow him to work towards the Light side again... even if I'd personally prefer for that to come about through his brothers fighting for him.

#TBB #The Bad Batch #SW #Star Wars #Crosshair #mymetas

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Understanding the aftermath of r/wallstreetbets

A couple days back, I wrote up my best understanding of what happened with /r/wallstreetbets and meme stocks like Gamestop, trying to show how all the different, seemingly contradictory takes on the underlying financial stuff could all be true.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/28/payment-for-order-flow/#wallstreetbets

In the days since, a new series of contradictory takes has emerged, these ones disputing the meaning of this bizarre financial spectacle, and likewise what response, if any is warranted as it unfurls.

I think that all of these takes can also be true, and as with the trading itself, reconciling them requires that we widen the frame.

Let's start with Jimmy Carter.

In 1978, Carter's IRS created the 401(k), a tax-sheltered account for people who wanted to gamble on stocks to fund their retirement.

That was a fringe proposition at best.

The normal retirement system was a "defined benefits" pension where your employer guaranteed you a certain monthly percentage of your salary from retirement to death.

The vast majority of Americans wisely prefered a guaranteed payout to a tax-advantaged gambling account.

Obviously, right? On the one hand, you have the guarantee of a pension (maybe even inflation-indexed); on the other, you have a bunch of bets, that, if they go wrong, leave you literally homeless and starving.

When gamblers remortgage the family home and cash in the kids' college funds to play the tables, we consider them to have a mental illness, a pathological condition that harms them and the people around them.

Giving up a defined benefits pension in favor of a 401k is just the same kind of bet - staking all the money that will support you when you exit the workforce on the movement of stocks and bonds.

Who would do that voluntarily?

Pretty much no one. But the transition from defined benefits to 401k was not voluntary. Finance ghouls like Ethan Lipsig wrote memos to major employers like Hughes Aircraft showing them how they could ditch their pension obligations by moving workers to 401ks.

In the 80s, Reagan created a bunch of legal tools that allowed employers to coerce their workforces into giving up the security of a pension and force them into gambling their salaries on the prayer of a win in the markets.

This was insanely, amazingly great for the finance sector, in three ways:

1. It made companies more profitable. Guaranteeing that the workers whose labor made your company viable wouldn't spend their dotage starving and homeless is expensive.

Helping fund wagers on shares is much cheaper. The finance sector represented the major shareholders of the companies that transitioned to 401ks. The savings were transferred to these shareholders and the finance sector got commissions.

What's more, this temporary inflation of share prices disguised what was going on with the pension switcheroo: workers' defined benefits pensions were liquidated and turned into stocks, just as stocks were going up because their pensions had been liquidated!

Their legs had been amputated out from under them, but so subtly that they didn't yet feel the pain - and now their bosses cooked their legs and snuck them into their dinner, and everyone marveled at how full they felt after that hearty, meaty meal.

2. 401ks brought a lot of suckers to the table. The market was - and is - dominated by "sophisticated investors," AKA predators, who knew all the ways to fleece the rubes who had no idea how any of this worked.

The predatory nature of finance only increased over time. Hedge funds, for example, exist to find unethical practices that are legal (thanks to loopholes in the rules) and exploit them until they are illegal.

3. 401ks created a political force outside the finance sector that would lobby on its behalf. Transforming America into a nation of stockholders meant that workers had to choose between supporting rules that protected their jobs and rules that protected their retirement.

For your pension account to grow, you had to support policies that permitted finance ghouls to offshore your job, or misclassify you as a contractor, or eliminate the safety rules that prevented you from being maimed, or take away your right to sue for compensation.

Every time there's a particularly ghastly bankruptcy driven by PE or hedge funds - Toys R Us, Sears, etc - it emerges that at least some of that money is coming out of a union pension fund.

That's marketization - turning the once obscure, boring business of market-based capital allocation into a matter of import to everyday people.

Marketization begat financialization.

While marketization is primarily about capital allocation (who gets what money), financialization is about bets. Sometimes those bets are about things - businesses, houses, coal and timber - but things are limited. Mostly the financial market consists of bets on other bets.

Bets are infinite. Every time you make a bet, you create inventory for a market in a bet on the outcome of your bet. And that's inventory for a new market: bets on the outcomes of bets on the outcomes of bets.

It's called Wall Street Bets for a reason.

Bets need referees, someone who decides who the winner is. In sports, it's a major scandal if a referee is caught wagering on one of the teams in a match. In the financial markets, it's the norm - referees that lay wagers on the outcome of the contest they're overseeing.

Let's take stock:

Workers are forced to play the casino, and if their bets fail, they spend their old ages homeless and starving;

The vast majority of casino games are wholly abstract - bets on bets on bets - and require layers of refs;

the refs are all crooked.

Every couple of years, we have a massive, systemic financial crisis, and every time that happens, the finance sector lobbies for a no-strings-attached bailout, abetted by suckers who hate the finance sector but fear starving in their old age.

We're about to be engulfed in the second-largest crisis of our lifetime - the reckoning from trillions in capital market gains propped up by the Trump administration's policy of buying all corporate debt as a covid stimulus.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/28/cyberwar-tactics/#aligned-incentives

(the largest crisis of our lifetimes is a few years off, as the climate emergency piles losses on losses, stranding tens of trillions in assets, from fossil fuels to obsolete gas-stations to literally underwater coastal real-estate to whole towns incinerated by wildfires)

That's where we're at: a crooked casino that we've trusted our futures too, a crisis on the horizon, and a bunch meme-stock "players" who have thrown the normal weirdness of the market into stark relief through a spectacular stunt.

A lot of people are angry at Robinhood, the stock-trading platform at the center of all this. Robinhood froze trading on meme stocks, and has only allowed it to come back in a useless, performative trickle that is seemingly calculated to prevent more meme-stock gamesmanship.

Is Robinhood just another crooked ref? Yes…and no. The meme stock run upset the stable cheaters' equilibrium whereby cheating never escalated to the point where the game just collapsed.

For example, the total short position on Gamestop exceeds its total stock issuance.

Translation: there were more Gamestop shares promised between bettors than exist. When the game stops, all those promises come due, and they literally can't be paid off because there aren't enough tokens in circulation to settle all the debts.

Robinhood halted trading in part because the big fish upstream of Robinhood also halted trading, because they have even more at risk than Robinhood does if the game collapses - they the refs for MANY players, all the same size as Robinhood or larger.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-29/reddit-traders-on-robinhood-are-on-both-sides-of-gamestop

But remember, the refs are cheating. And they are both downstream and upstream from other games in which the refs are also cheating.

And the games, as a whole, encompass our economy, including the solvency of the "real economy" (the people who make masks, deliver groceries and drive ambulances), and whether you spend your old age homeless and starving.

So the people who say, "Don't blame Robinhood, they didn't halt trading to help billionaires, they halted trading to prevent the game from collapsing are right."

But they're not the only ones who are right.

Also, there's the people who say that meme stocks aren't making money for little guys at the expense of the big guys. They're right too.

First, because these stocks will all need to be converted to cash, and that means selling them.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/the-gamestop-bubble-is-going-to-hurt-a-lot-of-ordinary-investors/

When the selloff starts, the price will plunge, because even if the stock was undervalued before, it's certainly overvalued now. Every bubble produces wealth for its early bettors who sell out to later players who lose everything when they can't find a sucker later on.

From Beanie Babies to subprime, bubbles burst and leave suckers holding the bag. If you just heard about meme stocks last week, you're too late to make money off of them.

There's another version of the "this isn't little guys, it's big whales" that's *also* true: the main beneficiary of the meme stock runs is giant funds who magnified and the bets from r/wallstreetbets and got out smart and fast.

https://twitter.com/zatapatique/status/1354904995901136896

So given all this, what can we make of calls (from parties as varied as AOC and Ted Cruz) to investigate Robinhood and other retail brokerages to see whether they're honest refs, or in the tank for billionaires?

At Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith calls this a "fatuous uproar," saying that the Senate has more important things to do during the racing-out-of-control pandemic than to investigate a literal penny-ante grift.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/01/the-fatuous-uproar-about-robinhood-and-gamestop.html

Do we really care who the winner is in "a beauty contest between Cinderella’s ugly sisters" ("clueless new gen day traders versus clumsy shorts")?

Smith is right too.

A speculator-v-speculator contest that falls apart when the crooked ref halts play to prevent collapse - who cares who "wins?"

But here's how they can all be right - the "who cares" and the "goliath v goliath" and the "bubble" and the "Robinhood is a plutes' honeypot."

*If* there's hearings, and *if* those hearings expose the absurdity and corruption of the system, *then* there is a chance to build the political will to make real, systemic changes when the crisis comes.

And there's a real crisis coming: two, in fact. The covid junk bond financial crisis, which is due very soon, and the climate crisis stranded asset emergencies, which will unroll with increased tempo and intensity for decades to come.

The half-century cycle of "addressing" finance crises by increasing financialization MUST stop.

If the meme stock spectacle gets us to pay attention to hearings that reveal the irredeemable rot of the system, then it's a unique chance to spread *real* "financial literacy."

And that literacy is the necessary (but insufficient) precursor to taking action when the time comes - and the time is certainly coming soon.

#pluralistic

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