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lets-try-some-writing · 1 year

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Death is very good being Normal (at least he thinks so)

The Thirteenth Prime is death, that is his function, his purpose. However in response to increasingly high counts of meaningless loss of life, he has taken on physical form to try and address the issue. Too bad he keeps getting wrapped up in side quests and friendship along the way.

Previous part here.

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙

Orion Pax was an odd one alright. Ratchet knew that the moment he saw Orion the first time at the archives.

The way he walked was almost as if gravity had no sway over him. His body language was near non-existent and Ratchet couldn't sense an EM field from him at all. The Archivist seemed to blend right into the background if one weren't paying attention and Orion didn't even seem bothered. If anything Pax appeared to be more shocked when he was noticed rather than when he wasn't. Not only that, but there was just something... of about him. His limbs were too long, his plating too jagged and placed in areas it really shouldn't have been able to develop. His optics were too wide, too bright, and lifeless despite their glow.

He was off, but Ratchet found himself intrigued all the same.

He vividly remembered the day he finally worked up the confidence to approach the mech. He requested aid finding a text he could have easily hunted down himself just to see how the Archivist would respond. Ratchet was left even more interested in Orion when all the Archivist did was nod and gracefully guide Ratchet through the archives without even the slightest hint of emotion beyond momentary confusion and shock at being spoken to. It was almost hypnotic following Orion Pax with how every living thing seemed to bow to him.

He left the archives with his medical text in a bit of a daze and with more questions than answers. That day he resolved to figure out who Orion was and what about him made him so mysterious.

He came back to the archives time and time again, at first under the guise of needing new texts for his studies. Orion always seemed so very shocked when Ratchet approached but he never once rejected him. He talked with Orion, often receiving basic answers or ones that were so cryptic they hardly made sense. However eventually he came back just to be with the Archivist he had started to see as a friend. Orion was an excellent conversationalist and wise far beyond what Ratchet assumed was his age,. What started as a simple study of a unique character ended with Ratchet genuinely invested in teaching Orion how to be normal as he quickly discovered his friend was anything but.

Ratchet gave up asking how and why when it came to Orion around a stellar cycle into their friendship and instead merely sighed and accepted the oddity that was Pax.

Often Orion forgot to vent, a thing Ratchet had learned had zero affect on Orion since the mech was always cold as ice, only ever being even the slightest bit warm around the chassis. In such instances he would tap Orion on the shoulder and that would be enough to get him to open his vents and begin running his fans just to appear normal. When it happened in public mecha always began to panic upon seeing Orion with his armor clamped down tight around himself. The concern was so common that Ratchet even began timing how long it would take after Orion forgot for some poor bot to begin worrying that Orion was going to overheat.

The Archivist also tended to forget to show expression, make a show of having a field, and present some sort of body language. The lack of it left everyone Orion interacted with aside from those who knew him feeling like they were talking to a ghost. So Ratchet often straight up told Orion how he was supposed to act when required. Shoulders back, shift pedes every three seconds or so with slight variation, vent twice a Klik, reset the optics periodically, smile when spoken to, and so on. The list was near endless but he coached Orion all the same.

The only times he purposefully let Orion be was when the less savory sort came and bothered them. In those instances he was perfectly content to let Orion scare the scrap out of the poor bot on the receiving end by pure nature of his seeming lifelessness.

There were plenty of other things about Orion that Ratchet couldn't and certainly felt no need to explain. Sometimes Orion would disappear for cycles at a time without a word or a trace, almost like he had never existed at all. The first time it happened Ratchet nearly drove himself into a frenzy trying to find him until Orion reappeared as if nothing happened. After that he panicked a handful more times, but every instance of Orion dropping off the earth always ended with him returning in perfect condition. As such when it happened Ratchet stopped worrying and instead made sure to take care of Orion's plant while he was off doing whatever.

Ratchet also quickly got over Orion knowing things he really shouldn't and giving answers so wildly out there that it was ridiculous. How did Orion know personal details about what the late Lord of Vos preferred in his fuel? No clue. How did Orion know about the death of Sentinel Prime long before it was announced? Ratchet didn't even bother to try and figure it out. How was Orion aware that he had broken a cup in the medical bay earlier that morning when he had been alone and cleaned it up right after? He didn't want to know.

Ratchet: Where are you from Orion? It's rather obvious you are not native to Iacon.

Orion: I come from the place between the stars where time is meaningless and the whispers of things inconceivable to the mortal optic ring out all around.

Ratchet: Right... that is one way to describe the wilds.

Ratchet: So do you have any relatives?

Orion: Father watches over me in my duties, his gaze ever present but not loving. He is far greater than I, his vision so much more expansive that I cannot even comprehend it. My brothers do their duties with little regard for my own purpose. We are set apart, kin in our maker but not the same.

Ratchet: *nervous as hell* Tough family life huh? Understandable. What is this purpose you speak of?

Orion: I am merely a keeper, one who walks the void between realities to safeguard the children of Primus. I care little for who they are or what they have done, only that they are brought back safely and learn. They can struggle as hard as they wish, but all will come to me eventually...

Ratchet: *having a small crisis* An odd way to describe archiving data, but I suppose all do come for learning eventually.

Orion: As you say.

Sometimes he needed a strong drink after interacting with Orion, but he wouldn't dare ignore the entertainment he gained from his friend when he wasn't being driven to alcoholism with wisdom that Orion really shouldn't have and the odd instances where he saw some sort of energy being in place of his friend after long work shifts. After meeting Megatronus, Orion's odd instances became far more obvious since the Gladiator had quickly taken to telling Orion that it was indeed normal to do all the things the Archivist did that were certainly not. It drove Ratchet up the wall the first few times, but it quickly became funny for him as well to watch the reactions of others in response to Orion's actions.

Megatronus was weirded out by Orion on many levels, but he too gained an appreciation for him after listening to the wisdom Orion had to give. Not to mention Orion somehow had contacts everywhere and could forge words like a master even if they ended up being more terrifying than convincing.

Megatronus: How does the speech fare little Archivist? Might I hear a snippet of what you have composed?

Orion: The void awaits us all, our lives ultimately destined to end. Why endure suffering for eternity when it can be changed for those who are to come? Would we condemn the little children to this torture? Stand up. Fight for your freedom and embrace the end. For what harm is there is facing death with honor.

Megatronus: *slightly shaken* A good start, but perhaps tone down on the melodramatics.

To make up for the near constant trauma that came from being around Orion, Megatronus made great sport out of watching the chaos that came from his companion. While Orion was not very expressive, it was pretty clear he thought he was doing a great job at being normal. Megatronus never saw fit to correct him simply because the Archivist managed to scare Soundwave of all mecha by turning up in his berthroom in the middle of the night while somehow managing to get past all the security systems and Soundwave's heightened senses, only to then lean down and whisper to the spymaster.

"Megatronus summons you to formulate plans upon which this world may be rebuilt"

Simply put, Megatronus sent Orion to tell Soundwave to come to a meeting, and by the time the spymaster shot up, Orion was gone without a trace, not even a mark left on the security footage either. Soundwave quickly similarly ceased asking questions about the matter of Orion Pax and joined Ratchet and Megatronus in watching the fallout.

Orion seemed to think he was doing a fantastic job as he assisted in the efforts to begin a revolution in the pits. Megatronus could tell just by looking at him that the Archivist didn't even seem aware of how creepy he was. It was terrifying to have Orion turn up at any and all hours to hand over information. It didn't matter where Megatronus, Soundwave, Ratchet, or anyone else was. If Orion had information he wanted to relay, he would get to wherever they were and hand over the data even if his last known location was on the other side of the planet. Megatronus opted to ignore the fact that when Orion reappeared after disappearances his frame was a little more "normal" looking. He also never commented when Orion stared at him with unfeeling optics as if watching an interesting animal.

And much like Ratchet, he just did his best to forget the times Orion shifted in times of danger to become something... other. It was always different, but whatever it was Orion became when he felt threatened... it was a terrifying mess of energy and optics, claws and denta, fangs and wings. Best to ignore it and move on, as was generally the best decision when it came to anything that had to do with Orion Pax.

Even still Megatronus and Ratchet said nothing, letting Orion do as he felt and only directing him when in public if at all. He was strange and most likely a spark eater or another abomination in disguise. But he was a good mech and cared deeply once one got to know him. So for that Ratchet and Megatronus dealt with his oddities by either ignoring them or drinking them away so they could instead enjoy his companionship.

Orion for his part didn't know he was doing a poor job blending in and was just pleased that his chosen champion was making such good progress.

#maccadam #transformers #transformers prime #optimus prime #ratchet #megatron #the thirteenth prime #death's embrace au #shenanigans #cosmic horror #but minor cosmic horror #Orion is just too focused for his own good #Soundwave over here having a small crisis because “how the frag did orion get in???”#Orion talking like he is an Ancient Old One certainly doesn't help him blend it

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magnoliamyrrh · 6 months

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also on a similar topic of women i hate hearing from ppl "women in america dont need feminism and have no issues and have nothing to complain abt because they have it so much better than Those women over there!!" (nevermind that those women over there are often told the same thing)

there is such an endless list of womens issues in america that this statement is so beyond stupid like get back to me when abortion gets unbanned, child marriage gets outlawed, deeply conservative purity culture aint around, sex trafficking aint a massive issue (america being one of the top countries in the world for sex trafficking and child pornography consumption), women stop being denied basic health procedures bc theyre female and oh well maybe theyll want a baby someday, black women in particular stop having such high rates of dying in birth, indigenous women stop going missing and murdered, the rates of csa and incest in communities drop, men stop watching porn, the Highest cause of death for pregnant women isnt being killed by men most often their partners, the wage gap closes, rape is no longer a thing, domestic abuse is no longer a thing, courts stop letting woman and child rapists walk free with a slap on the wrist, theres paid maternity leave and proper maternal care, we can walk around at night safley in places men can, women stop doing the vast majority of housework even while working jobs, theres actual better medical research into health issues which only impact female people or predominantly impact female people, the government is no longer mostly men,,,,, need me to go on?

like its fair to point out how yes women in america have a better status than women in other places for sure. and its fair to point out how in certain areas of america this is even moreso the case. but booooy oh Boy are there still issues

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explode-this · 3 months

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how much of what we know about ‘addiction’ has been made up to fit the idea that it is a ‘disease’? What complex functions of human nature are we ignoring to force a person’s behavioral compulsions into a model that has no backing of actual studies because agenda took the helm? I wish more people would read Chaz Bufe’s “AA: Cult or Cure?” and Joe Miller’s “The United States of AA” to get an idea of where a lot of it came from. If I were granted the wish of one Behind the Bastards episode/series it would be not on Bill Wilson but Mrs. Marty Mann (aka the lesbian who took her name and honorific from a marriage of convenience so she could hide behind it/not hurt the “reputation” of AA by being known as a lesbian, while being the most lesbian a lesbian can be, e.g., owning a housing in Cherry Grove on Fire Island). She was a PR wizard who managed to strongarm the AMA into adopting the hypothesis that ‘alcoholism’ could be a disease—once she was able to get even the barest acknowledgement that it could be likened to a disease, the PR cogs were set in motion, and people have been swallowing this idea wholesale ever since. I don’t expect anyone who goes to a 12 step group in a state of utter desperation to know these things or do scads of research before they begin; when a person feels overwhelmed by their problem and needs help, that’s the last thing they’re going to do. But the structure is such that research and free thought are discouraged (or summarily dismissed as “stinking thinking”)—often from an ‘experienced’ sponsor to the newcomer in a power dynamic that could best be described as a ‘cult of two’—and someone can find themselves convinced of something that has no basis in reality, more scared of themselves than they ever were under the influence of whatever they were medicating with, whether it’s alcohol, drugs, food, gambling, shopping, or sex.

If you struggle with substances (a behavioral compulsion with threads of chemical dependence), then you owe it to yourself to read widely. You are not broken or diseased—you are a human being, being human. The severity of your struggles don’t put you in a class above or below all others with their own behavioral issues, and you don’t need to close yourself off from the world at large to find community that understands you. Guidance and fellowship are awesome but you also don’t need to take a single person or group’s word for it when you have the capability to seek and parse other information. I’m not even asking you to take my word for it—I’ve only listed two authors and books but I’ve read more than just those, including Dr. Lance Dodes and Dr. Gabor Mate. I have plenty more on my to read pile. I got into the research after feeling completely overwhelmed by the stifling nature of Al-Anon, which I likened—then kindly—to “emotional kindergarten.” I think there are lots of people in 12 step groups that feel that there’s something more to life than endless meetings and a perpetual recovery with no exit into ordinary life, but are actively discouraged from looking outside of “the rooms” for help. You’re allowed to look beyond the first measure of help. It is not the only way. (I dare say it’s not the way at all, but again, that’s my opinion based on my own research.) if people are trotting out the notion that your only alternatives are “jails, institutions, or death,” but also say “you’re free to leave at any time,” you will get stuck somewhere in the middle, and you deserve more than to be merely held in place for the rest of your life, afraid that thinking for yourself will lead to a downward spiral.

#12 step #alcoholics anonymous #yes i know opinions assholes etc.#but maybe listen to opinions outside of a mentor-mentee relationship #or the word of a book that is frankly more terribly written than even neon gods

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newpopplusminusdesign · 2 years

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Staying Sober Can Drive You to Drink - Anxiety of Staying Sober is a Killer

Google the word Alcoholism and you will obtain 25,400,000 indexed lists. Habit of Alcohol and Symptoms of Anxiety Depression can decrease the hardest individual to a prattling wreck. Uneasiness of Alcoholic backslide is a genuine consider your mission to stay sober. Stop anyone in the road and ask them what they partner with the word Alcoholism and the responses will without a doubt incorporate the answers, hitting rock bottom,detox, done for, compulsion, wrecked life, vagrancy, wrongdoing yakkity yak. Give somewhat more consideration and do all necessary investigation and you can figure out that when you drive around evening time one out of seven drivers out and about are lawfully intoxicated. The Medical Research Council expresses that liquor misuse costs the South African economy around R9 billion every year and a big part of all murders are the consequence of inebriation. The details are endless and cover all parts of South African culture from youngster maltreatment to passerby passings, home savagery and the disastrous instances of labor deserts. Practically all occasions that you consider terrible news most likely have somewhat liquor included some place or other ALSO VISIT:-new modern pop plue minus design

Anyway on the unavoidable opposite side of the coin, investigations have discovered that the utilization of liquor enjoys critical benefits in the overall treatment of stress, coronary illness and related diseases. Add to this the financial advantages of a gigantic industry adding to the countries riches and occupation creation and we nearly have an impasse.

Into this difficult exercise comes the predicament of the person. Someone once said, and the name gets away from me now, that there are details, more details and afterward there is damn lies. Yet, there is no doubt as far as I can tell that this is an issue that must be taken a gander at cautiously. The overall agreement is that roughly 1 of every 17 individuals beyond 15 years old years are inclined toward the possibly lethal ailment of Alcoholism. Another startling detail holds the reason that main 1 out of 37 analyzed Alcoholics at any point make a full recuperation over the long haul. Something worth mulling very over.

A couple of years prior I went through the difficulty and repulsions of intense liquor addiction. I was one of the lucky ones. I endure however the beauty of God, the adoration and empathy of my friends and family and companions and the ability and care of the clinical calling. I proceeded to compose an element article for Mens Health which ended up being my genuine record of my winding into a dim universe of misery, urgency and depression.The article itself contained the same old thing for understudies of this quiet executioner sickness. Begun drinking. smashed more, rationalized, seethed at the world by and large, got drunker, messed up everything dear to me, moved toward death, destroyed my body and my psyche lastly fortunately fell and went to clinic and dried out . The response to my "Miserable Hour" article was overpowering. I was soon to understand that this was a plague going wild. I was certainly not the only one.

I proceeded to recover my confidence and revamp my life. A near disaster that many individuals don't get then have the extravagance sitting and thinking back as I have.So now there I sat praising myself on defying expectations. What's the deal?

Well frankly "presently what" involved another period of my life that would expect me to take care of business once more, aside from this time this wouldn't be tackled with a multi day detox and rest treatment, in some overrated private emergency clinic. My Doctors words began to reverberate in my mind. " It's straightforward Alan, don't drink once more and you'll be fine. Drink, you'll bite the dust"

That was all there was to it in plain English. The main issue was that I was having an issue finding some peace with that idea. Allow me to get this straight. I was 45 years of age and suppose I lived until 80. 80 short 45 allows you 35 years. A long, long time in anybodies world. That is a ton of braais, weddings, festivities, terrible days, poop supervisors, gridlocks, frustrations, shutting arrangements and watching the Boks beat the All Blacks and Chuck Norris 50-nothing. Perhaps the clinical folks had committed an error. Perhaps I was not a drunkard. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Time was to demonstrate them right. I had not defied expectations. After eighteen months on one specific grim July day in a not so bright Margate I sunk a container of my #1 hard tack and wound up in the trauma center sitting tight for a stomach siphon. For some dark explanation simply known to the large person higher up I got opening once more. Yet again as my relationship, business and wellbeing were back on the line, I at long last gone with the choice. My variant of moms milk needed to go separate ways and this time for good.

I had now turned into an individual from a club that no sane person needs to join. Carrying out a day to day existence punishment with no parole. The clinical exhortation presently turned out to be very unambiguous. Not a drop of liquor to pass my lips. The 6% or so of us who have this faulty quality are educated to not take the risk concerning liquor entering our framework in any structure at all. This anonymous and imperceptible quality sends us types dilly and subsequently we can't have a couple dops after work or at the end of the week in the event we go wild and drink ourselves into an early grave.

Whenever I had heard my sentence I presently needed to resolve how to serve it. I've perused that genuine detainees discuss "hard and delicate time". It was right now that I had an "Oprah" second. It made sense to me. Lament is too gentle a depiction. I had messed up for sure and presently must compensation for it. For sure. Hospitalization had ridden me of my withdrawal side effects yet presently I needed to manage the brain games.

People in general at large are no question acquainted with Alcoholics Anonymous and the authentic work that they do to help those unfortunates stricken with this possibly lethal illness. Step by step is their song of praise. The vast majority of us at first battle against this visualization dished dependent upon us and genuinely accept that we will defy expectations. We begin to imagine that perhaps they had missed the point. Perhaps I can have a break and begin once more. Here came those dam maybes once more. In this way, for some, begins the purported tumbling off the cart and afterward getting yourself once more. In any case, that's what the horrendous the truth is " they" were without a doubt right and you need to make an arrangement. Somewhere,sometime I ran over a statement from one of those old folks in bygone times. I think it was the American writer Robert Frost. As he sat in the field he thought of something that, for me calls up this entire battle with liquor abuse -

"Two streets separated in the forest. I took the one more uncommon, and it had a significant effect."

The distinction here is to remain sober no matter the consequences.

In the wake of leaving the emergency clinic my body step by step started to recuperate. It frantically expected to. So that every one of those out there who need might hear a couple of valid justifications to not arrive at the constant phase of liquor abuse and what I like to call the " last legs" stage, the following are a couple. They are not pretty however they are a reality. They will happen at last. On the off chance that you are solid, fortunate or simply have a holy messenger taking care of you could one day get by to discuss it. In the event that not, have a pleasant outing.

This stage endures a couple of days, weeks or months, contingent upon your constitution. It is a slide into damnation delivering you frail to forestall a presence on the edge of a vast dark opening. No joke. The veins in my eyes began to collapse. My legs were wild and went on their very own mission. I had no apparent veins left. Right up 'til now I can think about what the green gunge regurgitating of me was. Medicinally my liver and kidneys had nearly tapped out . There appeared to be no distinction between my rest and my waking hours. I floated between suspicion, mind flights and voices in my ear. The expression "doomed soul" most certainly comes into view.

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flysafepapi · 2 years

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the sin factor 4/?

Peaky Blinders Scream AU

masterlist

Warnings: Murder, death, permanent souvenirs of kills, self harm sort-of, the usual stuff.

Summary: It’s in the eyes, too, the same ambition and clawing desperation to be more, get more, hidden behind a carefully blank stare. He also knows that Duke has something Tommy never had although it’s more likely that it’s the other way around, because Tommy has lines that he won’t cross for reasons that are his own. Duke has no such reservations.

tagging: @zablife @the-makingsofgreatness @peakyrogers @hb-writes (let me know if you want to be added on or taken off)

“What are you doing?”

Duke had been sitting on the edge of the bed when Isiah woke up, turning something over and over in his hands almost absentmindedly, and he doesn’t move when Isiah shuffles forward to sit behind him but he does shift a little to the side when Isiah hooks his chin over Duke’s shoulder and looks down.

“Who’s next?”

“We haven’t decided yet, remember?”

There’s only a short list, so the possibilities aren’t endless, but they’ve been debating the matter over the last few days without coming to an agreement.

“Are you sure you can do this?”

It’s a valid question, he knows that, but it still borders on offensive in his mind. It makes sense to ask. These are people he’s spent practically his whole life around, he’s formed attachments with them that Duke never has. He’s sure that even if Duke had the opportunity to form the same relationships, this would still be happening. It’s an addictive thing, to know that you’re the only one that’s ever going to be safe from the monster masquerading as a human that you hold in your arms, and Isiah chases the thrill and the fun of it like it’s a game. Maybe it is. It feels just as satisfying as winning one.

“The next one is mine. How are we doing it?”

Duke holds up the object in his hands, a small, unlabeled glass bottle full of something clear like water but thicker somehow. It doesn’t move like water, it moves like there’s a viscosity to it that’s only just barely noticeable.

“What is it?”

“Undetectable, for the most part. As long as the body isn’t found for at least 24 hours, it’ll be harder to detect, but not impossible. They’ll have no reason to test for it if the person has any underlying medical issues.”

“I knew you’d come around to my suggestion eventually. Let’s go, then.”

It’s another thing to hear about what the innocent looking liquid does, and another entirely to watch it in action. The seizures look painful. Not as painful as the crack of his skull hitting the floor when he falls out of his chair, but painful all the same. It’s fascinating to watch it in action, and Isiah crouches down beside him, watching carefully. Duke is somewhere in the room, but Isiah doesn’t know exactly where, can’t bring himself to look away from the convulsions.

“If you fight it, it’ll just make it worse,” Isiah says softly, the words barely able to be heard over the sound of faint choking. That’ll be the asphyxiation. He knows the words are heard, because his eyes snap to the left and look up at him, panicked and confused. “It’s nothing personal, if that’s what you’re wondering. Yeah, I’d probably think the same. I want you to know that it’s no hard feelings. You’re just going to be in the way, and we’ve got no use for someone like that.”

“Don’t get too close. They’ll check him over once they find him, if there’s anything to find that leads back to us-”

“I know.”

It doesn’t take much longer for the suffocation to do its job, just another half an hour or so, but it feels like an eternity. Watching it gets boring after five minutes and he drifts to the other side of the room instead, taking up the knife sitting on the table. He can’t feel the chill of the steel through the gloves but imagines he can, just as pleasant as the weight of it in his hand.

“Ready?”

Duke pulls his sleeve up, the left, and runs a finger along his skin above the mess of old scars criss-crossed over the top of each other like a fucked up latticework. The most recent one, done after Duke had come back from killing Mary, is only just barely healed, and when Isiah reaches out with his other hand to hold Duke’s arm still, the movement splits the skin back open.

“Do it.”

“You do mine next.”

Without another word, he flicks his wrist quickly and slashes through the skin that was indicated to him, another marker of a death joining the dozens of others. Isiah himself doesn’t have nearly as many, just three until Duke adds the fourth tonight, and he can’t deny that it makes him feel in awe a little at the sight of the scars layered up and down Duke’s arms, each one of them a memorial to the lives he’s taken so far.

Before they leave, he turns back to the body on the floor, ignoring the flare of pain the movement causes in his shoulder where the fabric rubs up against the newest cut, next to the other three souvenirs of the kills he’s made over the years.

“Goodbye, Arthur.”

~~~

“Give me that, I’ll do it.” There’s no blood this time, none that isn’t his own anyway, but he still heads straight for the bathroom as soon as they make it back to the apartment. Duke follows, silent, and takes the cloth out of his hands when he tries to reach the still-bleeding slice on his shoulder. Carefully, ignoring the hiss of discomfort that comes from Isiah when the cloth scrapes against the raw wound, he cleans the area as best as he can.

“Thanks.”

“Ask next time. How stupid would we be to get this far only to fuck it all up because one of us got an infection?”

“I could’ve done it myself. Eventually.”

Duke rolls his eyes, Isiah can see it in the mirror, and he does a good job at acting annoyed but Isiah can see the smile barely there at the corner of his mouth.

“Neither of us have to do anything by ourselves anymore.”

Before he’s even halfway dressed, he hears someone banging on the front door. The impacts are heavy, out of anger, and he’s not surprised when he hears Finn’s voice yelling through the wood. Duke pulls the door open before Isiah can stop him, and it takes him a minute to pull the rest of his clothes on, not bothering with any shoes. When he gets out into the main room, Finn is still standing in the doorway, looking like he’d love nothing more than to cross the room and kill the nephew he wishes he never found out about.

“I know you did it.”

“Did what?”

Duke doesn’t move when Finn grabs him by the collar and pushes him into the wall, nor does he flinch when Finn’s fist smashes into the side of his face. There’s no outward reaction other than the quick exhale of breath, actually. It’s a little impressive. Isiah yells at Finn to calm down and yanks him backwards, shoving him into one of the seats at the table where he tells him to stay.

“You had something to do with this, I know it.”

“He was with me all night, Finn. Neither of us left the house.”

Finn isn’t exactly the smartest, Isiah will admit, but he’s far from stupid and understands what Isiah is saying as soon as the words are out of his mouth.

“Right. That’s- Finn, let’s go, you’ve had a long day. Making accusations won’t bring her back.”

“You might want to get those anger issues checked, Uncle Finn,” Duke mocks, grinning, “They might get you into trouble one day.”

Isiah gives him a look as he pushes Finn back out the front door, and has to stop himself from laughing himself. The trouble was already on its way.

~~~

The house is supposed to be empty. There’s not much left to be removed, just a few paintings, paperwork, some boxes of clothes. They’ve been assigned to move it all before the demolition guys arrive in a few hours, and it’s supposed to be just him and Duke in the house. He’s halfway through a joke about how Mary must’ve cried when she realised what was coming when he heard the floorboards creak just outside the door, someone listening in and trying not to make themselves known. He waves a hand at Duke to keep filling the boxes with the papers from the desk and walks over to the door, keeping his footsteps light and undetectable.

The gun in his hand when he yanks the door open makes Lizzie take a few quick steps backwards.

“Sorry, Mrs Shelby, I didn’t know it was you.”

Putting the gun away makes her relax a little, but he can see the tension in her frame when she looks between him and Duke, who’s still methodically putting folders into boxes, his back to them as he ignores them completely.

“It’s alright, I probably should have knocked. I’ll just grab what I came to get and be out of your way.” “I’ll come with you,” Isiah steps to the side, blocking her way, and smiles. “Can’t have two many hands to help, right?”

“That’s fine, I can manage.”

“I insist.”

He doesn’t know how long Lizzie had been standing outside the door, listening, but it must’ve been long enough to hear things that Isiah knows he can’t let her leave with. By the slight shaking in her hands, she knows it, and she quickens her step as he follows her down the halls towards the master bedroom. Every time she glances back at him, he smiles, putting her more at ease than she would be if Duke had been the one following her, but Lizzie isn’t stupid. She recognises danger when it’s close enough to wrap its hands around her throat and squeeze until she stops breathing.

#peaky blinders #peaky blinders scream au #so we have another in this one #slowly working through the list of victims ive got #they were randomly generated but im always open to suggestions #i thought for a long time about how to do this one #this is what i went with after an hour or two of debating it #i wasn't even going to add in the name of the victim just to make people wait for the reveal but nah #little bit of potential foreshadowing there at the end #i took the scar thing from victor zsasz and im not ashamed of it in the slightest #they're just two fucked up little guys that found love with each other and they're gonna do horrible things #duke shelby #isiah jesus #finn shelby #lizzie shelby #arthur shelby #tw: murder #tw: death #tw: self harm

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shijiujun · 4 years

Text

Time for some BL/Danmei novel recs!

You guys have probably (maybe) seen my novels list here - [X] - but it’s more for my own tracking than anything else, so here’s a brief list (I’ll probably do full ones of the ones I really love in another post, probably on Minmo).

The ones elaborated on below with the asterisks are the novels I’ve actually finished reading.

*since everyone more or less knows MXTX’s works - TGCF, MDZS and SVSSS, I’ll skip those!

1. SCI 迷案集 | SCI Mystery Series by 耳雅*

Summary: Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao are childhood friends and rivals that end up working together under the newly established SCI unit as co-leads, with Bai Yutang providing the brawn as Captain and Zhan Zhao the brains as Vice Captain and the team’s resident genius psychologist. They solve cases together and slowly unravel a wider conspiracy that involves their parents’ generation and beyond. At the same time they also realize that they’re meant for each other!

Other CPs: Bai Jintang (Bai Yutang’s older brother) & the medical examiner, Gongsun Ce, Bai Chi (Bai Yutang’s younger cousin) & magician Zhao Zhen, and at least three other gay pairings, one of which is considered another main couple of sorts from Vol. 2 onwards

Status: Incomplete (Began in 2010, author is still going on strong with one chapter every one or two months, we’re halfway through Vol. 5 right now and it’s been 10 years ;-; Love that the author is going on strong!! Everyone on JJWXC are like “please author it’s okay if you go slow as long as you keep going we’re here for you” and jfc I understand the fear of this not completing, also when will Vol. 5 be completed and printed?!! I need to complete the collection)

Translations: Unfortunately, only the first volume has been translated well so far on novel updates. The one on Wattpad seems to have caught up, but I would not recommend that one.

Drama/Live-Action: Season 1 was filmed and released in 2018 under the same name with slightly changed names for the characters. Season 2 was supposed to start filming this month but... oh well. First season basically covered Vol. 1 novel from start to end.

*I love this one only because it was my very first danmei and so it’ll forever have a special place in my heart, and also because it’s still ongoing so ya know, I relive how much I love this every month

2. 成化十四年 | Cheng Hua’s Fourteenth Year (The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty) by 梦溪石*

Summary: Tang Fan, a prefectural judge, and Sui Zhou, a high ranking officer in the Embroidered Uniform Guards, meet while trying to solve a murder case. Both of them end up partnering very well together, Sui Zhou ends up inviting Tang Fan to live with him, and the rest is history. Through their days living together and solving cases + a larger conspiracy involving the royal palace, they fall in love. Adding to this mix is also Wang Zhi, a powerful, young eunuch who befriends the pair, and the three of them basically help the crown prince to overcome challenges and his enemies to become the next Emperor

Other CPs: None XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: Ongoing on several websites. I’m only translating relationship highlights, but here’s an introduction post I did for it, if you guys would like somewhere to start without getting too invested - [X]

Drama/Live-Action: The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty was released earlier this year, directed by Jackie Chan and starring Darren Chen and Paul Fu, but cases are a little different and there are new characters in the show that weren’t from the novel etc.

3. 杀破狼 | Shapolang by Priest*

Summary: Set in a steampunk universe where flying boats named ‘kites’ and flying armour exist. Young teenager Chang Geng lives with his mother and stepfather - the former abuses him and the latter neglects him, and the only person that he cares about (and cares about him) is Shen Shiliu, his (very young) godfather. He realizes his identity as a royal prince when the Man tribe invades his city and Shen Shiliu, whose real name is Gu Yun, turns out to be an army general whose duty was to protect Chang Geng in secret (among other things).

Chang Geng has been critically poisoned by his mother (who’s not actually his birth mother, if I recall she’s an aunt) which leads to him getting terrible dreams frequently with the end result of him being driven into insanity, while Gu Yun is half blind, half deaf due to poisoning + injury when he was much younger, and he can only regain his hearing and sight fully when he takes a medicine that is slowly losing its effectiveness with every dosage he has.

The both of them navigate learning about each other again, falling in love a few years later when Chang Geng is all grown up and also unravel conspiracies and fight bad guys (both external threats and internal as in the current Emperor and other parties) XD

*Note: The age old debate is that Gu Yun ‘preyed’ on and also ‘groomed’ Chang Geng, but I disagree and stand by the fact that Gu Yun was 90% of the time not around while Chang Geng grew from a teenager to a young adult as he was fighting wars elsewhere, while Chang Geng refused to stay at the Gu manor and insisted on running around, travelling on his own and seeing the world for a few years before they met again. And it was Chang Geng who’d always loved Gu Yun and devoted himself to caring about him, making advances on him etc. when he became an adult

Other CPs: Shen Yi (Gu Yun’s second-in-command) & Chen Qingxu (a renowned physician who ends up healing both Chang Geng and Gu Yun of their ailments)

Status: Complete!

Translations: Fully translated the last I heard, it’s up there in the list of holy grail BL/danmei novels, so I’m sure it’s done hahaha.

Drama/Live-Action: Filming in progress!

*This is up there in the hall of fame for danmei novels for more than just the amazing content and writing - It’s also famous for being one of the most complex novels ever. I don’t know how the translations team did it because DAMN it was complex and I read all my novels in Chinese without much issues but I was honestly STRUGGLING WITH this one and I went through some existential crisis while reading because I was like ‘did I ever learn Chinese, am I even Chinese’ XD

4. 默读 | Silent Reading by Priest*

Summary: Luo Wenzhou, a police captain, and his team including best friend and partner Tao Ran, face a few challenging cases that end up being small parts of a larger conspiracy, and end up having to consult with Fei Du, a flamboyant, charming and flirty, young and rich CEO, who Luo Wenzhou describes as someone who is an expert at ‘crimes’. Not deduction, not solving crimes, but someone who is familiar with how the murderer or culprits would commit crimes. Both Luo Wenzhou and Tao Ran know Fei Du well, because they first met when Fei Du was in high school, when he called the police because his mother had hanged herself in the house, and since then Tao Ran and Luo Wenzhou look out for him, spending holidays with him, giving him presents here and there. Luo Wenzhou and Fei Du overcome their misunderstandings of each other and fall in love while solving all the cases and the larger conspiracy behind it.

Other CPs: Tao Ran and someone he knew first from his school days or was a neighbour when he was younger, I can’t remember, but they meet again at a blind date and end up living in the same building on different floors XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: Complete!! There’s a huge post floating around on Tumblr with all the links (I can’t find it right now) and on Twitter you can also find the collated, epub versions etc.

Drama/Live-Action: Rights for a live-action was signed, no casting confirmation or set dates yet

5. 犯罪心理 | Criminal Psychology by 长洱*

Summary: Police captain Xing Conglian drags psychologist Lin Chen out of seclusion/hiding to solve a case that is indirectly tied to him. Lin Chen was involved in a case a few years ago that led to four deaths - these four victims were the sons/daughters of four of the five huge old-money (super rich) families in the country and these family members sought to make Lin Chen’s life very difficult for him afterwards by making him lose all the jobs he can find, by surveilling his every move and ensuring that he’s not happy etc. Because of that, he backed out of the police force as well and quietly lived as a school dorm administrator, which is where Xing Conglian finds him a few years later. Lin Chen fakes his death after the first case (not deliberately but kind of a by-the-way thing), but as fate would have it, he ends up meeting Xing Conglian on another case, and he decides that he’ll move in with him and also involve himself again, consequences be damned, and they fall in love!

Other CPs: None XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: I think it’s not complete yet.

Drama/Live-Action: None that I know of.

6. 死亡万花筒 | Kaleidoscope of Death by 西子绪* (MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE)

Summary: Supernatural setting where people who are about to die get a second chance to live. These individuals are either in the midst of a dangerous situation (for e.g. a shootout or a deadly mugging incident) or are about to get into accidents (for e.g. an entire bus going off a bridge or a chandelier dropping from above and crushing the person underneath) or are ill (recently diagnosed with cancer or are terminally ill with a condition for e.g.) - The list is endless, and in the situation between life and death, 12 doors will appear before them.

It is said that once these individuals finish all 12 doors, they will truly get a second chance at life and survive whatever cause of death they were imminently facing.

Each door represents a creepy, supernatural mystery, and Lin Qiushi finds himself in a strange place after opening a door when he was trying to enter his apartment one day. He meets Ruan Baijie, a beautiful, tall woman who he happens to meet, and they realize that in this strange world, he and other individuals who came through the door have to complete a given task, find a key and an exit door, and make it out alive. The others in the team (some of which have already gone through several doors) explain to Lin Qiushi, who is a first-timer, what the doors are about.

The catch is, if they die inside the door, in the real world, they’ll die immediately, by accident, throwing themselves off a building, or just throwing up blood until they die (just to name a few)

On the first night, however, three people are slaughtered and eaten by a long-haired ghost/creature. The good news is, Ruan Baijie isn’t all that she seems to be (for one, she’s not exactly a woman) and she takes a liking to Lin Qiushi immediately.

Other CPs: None XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: I think it’s not complete yet!

Drama/Live-Action: None that I know of, but honestly, this novel would be fricking EPIC as a live-action, and really creepy, but this is my all-time favourite novel, I kid you not!!!!

*I’m definitely doing a longer and more detailed to-read for KOD on my translation account, gosh you guys have no idea how much I love this.

7. 当年万里觅封侯 | Those Years in Quest of Honor Mine by 漫漫何其多

Summary: Yu She and Gu Wan were close friends for a short period of time when they were younger, but unfortunately their identities and positions meant that they were opponents. Yu She’s family was for the Second Prince and Gu Wan was taken in by the Sixth Prince’s family, but in the end it was the Second Prince who ended up getting to the throne, while the Sixth Prince was accused of treason and died somewhere far away at war after being captured. Gu Wan’s only wish was to keep the Fifth Prince’s children - Xuan Rui and a pair of twins, Xuan Yu and Xuan Congxin safe, and so he moves them to another province and asks the Emperor (the Second Prince) to demote Xuan Rui’s status to prove that they are no threat to the Emperor, if only to stay alive for another day.

However, their days of hardship have only just begun, and Gu Wan decides to namedrop Yu She, whose family is so powerful now, and claims that Yu She loves him and that he was wooing Gu Wan back in the days they knew each other so that officials and others would treat the children under his care better. A few years pass and Yu She doesn’t expose Gu Wan. Gu Wan thinks they can go on like this forever, until the Emperor asks Xuan Rui and the twins to head back to the palace for a visit.

Gu Wan meets Yu She again, but the boy he knew, who was gentle, a stickler for rules and a proper, well-mannered person, has changed almost completely. Cue palace conspiracies again, brothers fighting for the throne, scheming consorts etc. XD

Other CPs: None XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: I think it’s not complete yet but I’m not super sure on this

Drama/Live-Action: None that I know of!

*They came out with a new reprint edition three days ago and it’s gorgeous! And comes with amazing freebies, and I am a sucker and read it on the day of the printed novel release because I saw the art and loved it, wanted to see if the story was any good, and damn after chapter 2 I WAS GONE and then I checked out two copies from different stores for the two different sets of freebies

A list of those I haven’t read but I see are highly raved about:

1. 二哈和他的白猫师尊 | The Husky & His White Cat Shizun by Meatbun

- I’ve already been spoiled and I know what goes on mostly, and there are a lot of warnings for a reason, but I’m still a fan, and let’s not get into the debate on the content, I know I have to read this but the angst level is apparently ridiculous, so I need like some mental preparation before I sit down for it.

2. 千秋 | A Thousand Autumns by 梦溪石

3. 烈火浇愁 | Lie Huo Jiao Chou by Priest

4. 将进酒 | Qiang Jing Jiu by 唐酒卿

- A really good group of translators picked this up initially on Twitter, but then assholes were complaining that they were being too slow and insisting that machine translation (MTL) did an equally good and faster job, so the OG dropped it, and then another nice team picked it up, but MTL team is still being an asshole XD I’ve heard really good things about this one, it’s apparently quite complex as well, I’d liken it to Shapolang level? But it might be even more complex (with a lot of politics and stuff), so much so that apparently the printed novel comes with a relationship/character chart so readers are at any point in time clear on the characters which is like amazing XD

#danmei #bl novels #novel recs #sci谜案集 #kaleidoscope of death #silent reading #shapolang #犯罪心理 #成化十四年 #the sleuth of ming dynasty #2ha #priest #梦溪石 #meatbun #西子绪 #耳雅 #长洱

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ziracona · 3 years

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Hello! I have always believed that Michael needed better doctors and good treatment. He was simply billed as "Evil". Sometimes I think that at that time they were unaware or ignorant of mental illness, and that is why Michael did not recover. I wish it had been treated better. I would like to know your opinion about it ;v;

Oh, absolutely. Michael is a very tragic character, and what happened to him was almost entirely Loomis’ fault, secondarily the system and his parents’, and like onyl 0.8% his own. It’s true that mental health aid has historically been really bad in most places, and even today treatment and acceptance—even in specifically medical settings—tend to be abysmal. Of course people knew less than they do now about how psychological stuff works, but bias, cruelty, and superstition as well as a system that enables and even to degrees outright encourages that is to blame for the awful treatment people woth mental illnesses and personality disorders faced and continue to face, not just a lack of knowledge, and the history is really heavy and awful to look over. : ( It’s horrific some of the things doctors have done and do to people just trying to get help.

Like, in Michael’s case, we’ve had a name and understanding of psychosis since the 1800s. Canonically, by the time the poor kid was six years old, he was hearing voices telling him to do bad things to people. He told his parents, seeking help, and they did nothing to help him—just told him it was his imagination—despite knowing hos grandfather had suffered the same symptoms. If they had only taken him seriously and given him therapy and possibly medication too, Judith never would have died. (I am not goong to say it every time, but all this information is official canon) Michael’s reason for killing his family members is wanting the vocies talking to him to be quiet, because it’s agonizing. If you’ve ever had intrusive thoughts (stuff like “pull into oncoming traffic” or “break that and see what happens” and such that don’t actually compell or force you to do it at all, and are always things you as a person deeply do not want to do, but nevertheless are really annoying or distressing to hear in your head), imagine that cranked up to 1000, endless and constant, but from voices that seem to come from around you instead of in your head. Especially as a young child, with no understanding what is happening to you, this would be incredibly scary and distressing—doubly so when dismissed by your parents, whose sole job is supposed to be to love and protect you.

The voices say they’ll be quiet if Michael kills Judith, so Halloween night, he does. Important to note here Michael is recently six years old at the time, which developmental psych literally is not old enough to have a complete understanding what death itself is, let alone complex morality. You /cannot/ be evil at six, you simply don’t have a complex enough understanding of right and wrong or of consequence to /be/ evil. Also at this age, usually kids see death as a vague concept, but one that applies to people they don’t know only, not to them and their loved ones. In Halloween 1978, immediately after stabbing Judith, Michael looks away while he keeps doing it, and his breathing speeds up in a scared way. He barely looks at the body, and immediately goes down stairs to wait for his parents—probably for them to fix it—and does nothing to flee or hide what he’s done. He looks traumatized when they take his mask off. (Lots of little notes here like that Judith when she sees him seems annoyed but not very, and when he attacks her, tries to shield herself and call to him to stop, rather than fleeing or fighting back, which [appealing instead of fight or flight] is pretty exclusively something you only would use if attcked by someone you are on good terms with—I mean, Michael is six—if Judith had /tried/ to fight back, no way she would have died—so there’s less than nothing to indicate they had anything but a loving familial sibling relationship. But if I list all these I’m gonna launch into my six page Michael Myers meta so I will speed through the rest.)

Anyway! Sorry, I have many feelings. About...everything. Including Michael for sure. So, immediately after killing Judith, Michael stops talking. He also shows other psychosis and trauma readily recognized side effects, like catatonia, slowed movement. In Halloween 1978c Dr. Loomis claims he tried to treat Michael for eight years, then spent another seven trying to keep him locked up because he realized he was evil. This is a /blatant/ lie, as in film canon Loomis, by Michael’s review hearing I believe four months in? Six or less for sure, I believe it is four. Loomis has /already/ become convinced Michael is a demon in human form, faking his symptoms, and itching to kill again. The other doctors think Loomis is crazy, as does the other doctor who examines Michael, but they’re awful people so they let him stay Michael’s doctor anyway, even though they refuse to move him to Litchfield maximum security. By this time only a few months in, Loomis is canonically also threatening the six year old in his care and constantly telling him he is an evil being who wants to get out and terrorize again. (Also, I will die enraged the sentance Michael gets for killing Judith is to remain locked in solitary in a sanitorium for /15/ years, until he turns 21, at which point he will be tried as an adult for murder??? The fuck?? You CANNOT charge a 6 year old’s crime in adult court! ‘Tried as an adult’ is meant for like, when a 17 year old dismembers their family and eats them! It’s for particularly heinous crimes, committed by someone /very/ close to being legally an adult, and that /only/. The idea of waiting fifteen years to try someone as an adult for something done at age six is laughable and sick).

Okay this is already long, I get carried away rip. Uhhh, anyway, yeah. In Smith’s Grove, Michael is visited by mom and Laurie once, then never sees any of his family again, because his dad hates him and forbids the others—finds out because Laurie is four and talks that they went /one/ time, and physically beats four year old Laurie for mentioning his name until she trauma blocks out ever having had a brother. From then on, Michael spends /fifteen/ years and all the dest of his developmental stages of childhood in a sanitorium with Dr. Loomis—a man who on wild religious superstition grounds assumes by his own admission /on sight/ that Michael is evil, and no other human contact. According to canon, Michael spends at least four hours of /every/ day with Loomis, his /only/ human contact, who threatens him, promises to stop him, and endlessly barrages him with “You’re evil, you’re not human, you want to kill again, I /will/ stop you,” and nothing else. He also canonically keeps Michael overdosed on a type of antipsychotic that, while a fine drug if used normally, if overdosed can deeply worsen symptoms, and can cause permanent brain damage.

Honestly, if a six year old is exposed yo major trauma, none of their issues are explained, legitimized, or believed, and almost all of their developmental stage is spent with endless voices they don’t know the cause of suggesting murder and violence, one human being and authority figure telling them over and over and over for fifteen years with no other constant in their life or human contact period that they are a demon in human form who wants to kill and is /going/ to do so again...? How else was that story ever going to end? I’ve said it before, but that’s beyond conditioning; it’s lab growing a human child to one day walk out and murder Laurie Strode with a large kitchen knife.

I stand by Halloween is a greek tragedy more than a slasher, and Michael and Laurie are both victims. He’s the Asterios, she’s the Ariadne. Loomis the Minos, the real villain. (Or the Poseidon choose your poison).

Anyway, I 100% agree! If he had just gotten help from his parents, Judith would have never died. If he’d had good doctors, none of the events of 1978 would have come to pass, or anything after it. Loomis single-handedly causes the deaths in 1978 himself through years of cruelty, and bigoted bias towards a small child in his care who needed his help, not his abuse, but he chose to break as much as he possibly could despite his responsibilities as a doctor, an adult, and a human.

If you’re interested, I did a canon-deep-dive character study short story on Michael on AO3! Halloween is such a sad story but it’s fascinating. God, poor Michael and Laurie deserved so much better than they got. It’s a testament to Michael’s character that even after 15 years of Dr. Loomis, he really only kills his intented target(s) in search of quiet from the voices, and anyone who sees him/would be a threat, and not other people. Makes no attempt to kill any of the kids in Halloween 2018, and only kills Bob when he literally opens the door to his hiding spot and Michael is found and Bob becomes a threat to him. In H20, after Michael has had 20 years on his own, you get arguably the least brutal Michael, who intentionally passes on killing the mother and child, and the security guard he walks right past, because they don’t see him and thus he doesn’t /have/ to. Halloween II is less intentionally avoiding, but even then he still does the same multiple times too, like with the old lady making a sandwich, or the scene in the incubator room. Anyway he desevered better fuck Loomis all my homies hate Loomis.

#ask #anonymous #michael myers #halloween #halloween 1978 #halloween II #Halloween H20 #Halloween 2018 #note: Michael is written /very/ differenly in the different timelines. different writers took complrtely dofferent approaches to hin as a #person. and his motives. so unless I state otherwise I am always talking exclusively about the version of Michael from the H20. 2018. & DbD #timelines. since those are all largely the same character. unlike the 3-4 RZ and resusrection or the novelization etc #they’re seperate universes w different canons. i am only really interedted in core/OG canon and its offshoots #its /direct/ offshoots haha #laurie strode #sam loomis #Isolation (fic)#Isolation #meta #michael myers meta #long post #me: I am not gonna do the six page breakdown ima do an overview #me: doesn’t do the six pages but damn well doesn’t do the short version either #i can’t help it you found an intense passion topic

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pyraffin-drgo · 3 years

Text

All Heavy interactions in Poker Night at the Inventory.

For you to interpret however you wish.

Video Version

(They have [bootleg movies] in your country?) "I like movies, yes." (Yeah, like what? [Lists movies]?) "No. My favorite are The Dirty Dozen and the first twenty minutes of Rocky four."

(We can talk Tetris?) "Hmmph. Tetris is baby game." (Tetris Attack keeps it hood!) "Why does everybody think I love this Tetris? It is just stacking!"

"[To Strongbad] Tiny Heavy." (What is it?) "Do you get the nightmares?" (I get the jibblie nightmares. [Describes silly nightmare, shivers].) "I am talking about the visions of endless suffering. Dead doctors everywhere. Spy can not be found. (No, but that sounds like the Jibblies.) "I do not like these 'jibblies.'"

"Strong and bad. How is boxing career?" (These. Are. My. HANDS!) "I was boxer, once. In school. We have to either box or learn to herd goats." Silence, looking concerned. "I am not good with goats..." (Too much information, man.) "At first, I do not like punching other boys... But then I learn to love it." Punches his palm menacingly.

(Find any rare drops lately?) "I do not understand." (When you get a kill, you get a present?) "When I get kill, I get honor of team." Smile drops. "Sometimes... I also get nightmares. A man does not go home to his wife and children." (So, no loot?) "Oh! You mean hat! Yes, I love hats! Sometimes, I get these. They are the best."

(Hey, Heavy. You know any hot Russian spies?) "I hate spies." (But you gotta have the inside line on some deadly minxes.) "You want hot spy?" (Am I not wrestle man?) "I have friend who gets you a hot spy. (Get em on the two-way, man!) "His name is Pyro." (Tycho, to Strongbad: The spy is hot because it is on fire.) (Oh...)

"[To Tycho] What do you do with life?" (Me?) "Yes. What is possible with tiny, frail body?" (I occupy myself with simulations... of various kinds.) "What is these?" (Struggles to explain.) (Strongbad: He lives in his parent's basement.)

(So, is there a Mrs. Weapons Guy?) "No. Sasha is my only love." (Sasha kills people, I presume?) "No." (Oh?) "WE kill people."

"[To Strongbad] Maybe you and I box?" (I can't risk my beautiful face, it's the franchise.) "We spar. For fun." (I don't think so.)

"Strong and bad. You wrestle? With mask?" (No, I'm a wrestle man, not those hack wrestle-LERS.) "Not like Iron Sheik?" (No, Iron Stake is a LER.) Heavy nods. "Hmm. This is too bad."

(So how long you been with those Team Fortress fellas?) "I do not understand." (The game's been on Steam for like 3 years. I imagine there was some audition process?) "Ohhh! Yes, I understand! I kill many men VERY quickly." (Excuse me?) "I kill record number of soldiers, and I am commissioned to join RED team."

(Mr. Weapons. I am in the market for a new firearm. [Specifications].) "Hmm, for you I do not recommend minigun then. You know, there is this fast baby man that annoys me greatly with shotgun." (Oh! Oh! What are the available options? I'll spring for leather!) "Da, this is good for you. I suggest Force-A-Nature." (I'll tell them [shop owner] Heavy Weapons Guy sent me.) "It is no need. I know guy."

"I will make hat from you, little bunny." No reply from anyone. A reference for the player to the Max hat in TF2.

"You look familiar, bunny." (How closely do you follow the Manhattan Crime Blotter?) Also a reference to the hat, Tycho then takes over conversation.

(If I need someone snuffed out, what's your going rate?) "Five hundred thousand U.S. dollars." (Steep.) "Cash." (You can do it discreetly?) "Sasha... not so discreet." (That's fine.)

(How did you guys hear of the inventory?) "My engineering friend brought me one night."

(This reminds me of the time Artie Flopshark rigged an entire poker tournament to pay off his loan shark.) "I know of this. This is respectable profession in motherland." Conversation is stolen by Tycho.

(This reminds me of [story]!) "I am reminded of time Engineer kill my entire team." (Damn Heavy, that's... heavy. Sorry to hear that.) "I search entire base for him. He tries to kill me with turret and mini turret, but I crush his toys like they are made of paper." (Sounds like crappy toys.) "Then I find him. Hiding by teleporter. I take his gun away from him. He tries to hit me with wrench! Hahohoh! So I take wrench away from him. I take his wrench and shove it down his throat, all the way down to the handle." (Christ!) Heavy laughs. "Then I rip off all his fingers one by one!" He talks while laughing. "Lets see you build toys now!" He breaks out in laughter. "There's blood- everywhere! And- he's crying!" More laughter. "I think he cries out for mother, but- but-" Crumples over laughing. "The wrench is stuck in his throat! And it sounds like-" Makes choking motions and noises then laughs. "Is this not the funniest thing??" (Horrified looks) (Head shakes slowly.) (That's some bleeped up bleep, man!)

(How about you, Heavy weapons? I'm guessing you're a vodka guy?) "Peach Bellini. But bubbles can give me headache."

(Mr. Weapons, how do you like your line of work?) "It is good. There are many benefits." (Oh! Like a free pass to snuff out bad guys or a waffle bar?) "Both. And full dental."

(I wonder if this dump is haunted.) (I hope so! Roughing up who can't die is fun!) "...I do not like ghosts..." (It's okay, Mr. Weapons. I have [extensive experience]. I can handle a few ghosts.) "...You will take care of ghosts for me?" (You bet cha!) Heavy nods at him. "I like you, tiny rabbit."

[Story including a union] "I am union. RED local six fifteen." (You guys unionized?) "Eh. It was necessity for group medical."

"Tycho. This sweater, is special equipment?" (No, standard issue.) "You have no class specific head gear?" (Got a motorcycle helmet that protects from 100% of UV rays.) "This sounds beneficial."

(Why do you keep calling me 'Tiny Heavy'?) "You are Heavy. Tiny. No? You are RED team. You have killing gloves of boxing. You earn these for being great killer! You should try out for RED team." (Hmm. Guess I could join your team of ruthless killers and lame hat wearers and watch you get grenaded by 8 year olds.) "You will take many bullets before dying I think."

(Hey, Heavy. I just finished [Russian fantasy book]. Ever read it?) "No." (Oh. What's your favorite book?) "I prefer war." (Ah, War and Peace. Tasteful.) "No. Just war." (Art of War?) "Nyet." Silence. "I like 'Tsar Hunger' by Leonid Andreyev. You know this?" (...No.) "Is classic."

"You have hands like young girl." (I keep them shits moist.) "...So you are more of sneaky, stabbing type?" (In an extreme circumstance, I guess.) Heavy looks at him suspiciously. "I keep my eyes on you." (No, no no- I wasn't implying that-) Heavy looking at him angierly. (Shit.)

(Ever listen to music while you work?) "Yes! I just buy new walkman." (What gets you in the killing mood? Icelandic death metal?) "I just get Huey Lewis tape. Keeps spirits up on battle field."

"[To Tycho] You have woman?" (Not with me) "She is pretty?" (Yeah, cute, glasses, red hair.) "She has the red hair??" (No, Heavy! She is not on the other team! Don't have to kill her!) "No. But I love the red hair!" (Well, you can't have her, either.) Re-used image of Heavy looking at him angrily. (Well, maybe we can work something out.)

(Hey, Heavyman. You think you can 'take care' of the King of Town for me?) "I can assassinate king, yes. It is expensive, though." (By take care of I meant sneak in and shave off half his mustache.) "I am not best at sneaking." (Confront him in a dark alley then?) "This is better. That way blood wash away in rain."

(You have any interest in moonlighting?) "WHAT? I am not moonlighter!" (Just a little work on the side with Sam and me beating up goons!) "Oh. I can not do this." (C'mon it's fun and free!) "No, I am sure it is." (Then what's the problem?) "I have non compete." (Ah, yeah. Lawyers.)

(All these aces reminds me of [weird dream]. You have any weird dreams, Mr. Weapons?) "I sometimes dream that I am killed. There is blood everywhere. (Tycho gives him a weird look) But then I wake up and I realize this is ridiculous! Nobody can kill Heavy weapons guy! (Riiiight...)

"[To his chips] This is good Solider. This one is good Doktor. You are demolition man."

"Saaaandvich, sandvich, I love you sandvich!" (Would you like someone to order you some food?)

"Blue man." (Tycho.) "Tycho. What college do you go to? You are educated, no?" (Actually, no.) "No?" (I studied at Gygax Polyhedral if you catch my drift.) "I do not. This is good school?" (Uh. The best.) "I went to Soviet College of Mines, Farms, and Science. I have PhD in Russian literature." (Do you.. use that in your work?) "More than you think."

"Tiny Heavy, who is your favorite to kill in war?" (Those discount three-pack green helmets.) "To kill spy is glorious thing! How about you, Max? You are killing type." (My favorite enemy? Like asking me to choose between my children!) Heavy laughs. "You crack me up, little bunny!"

(Hey, Hefty Bag, you ever play video games?) "Just one." (Oh yeah?) "It is called-" (Tycho: WoW?) "Nyet. That is not popular. It is called 'Where's an Egg'." (Strongbad: I love Where's an Egg!) "Where's an Egg is as big as Tetris in homeland."

(Concerning your firearm, whay caliber we talking?) "Big." (What, we talking 300 Weatherby Mag here?) "Bigger." (50 cal, whereabouts?) "Bigger than 50 caliber. They are hand made custom tool cartridges with classified diameter." (Why's that?) "So enemy canmot use ammunition. But Sasha can chew through theirs." (Diabolical!) "I think so." Nods.

(Alright, big pretend killer man. Tell me the most awesome story you have with plenty of senseless violence!) Heavy thinks. "When I was boy, I was at camp, being trained in many ways of combat." (Assassination camp for kids! This is gonna be good!) "There was sparrow sitting on fence. Snow falls quietly around me. Without notice, another boy jumps from behind tree and kills sparrow with throwing knife. The boy runs away." (And then??) "I pick up sparrow, and hear his last breath before digging him tiny grave..." (Tycho crying) (Max silent) (That's not even a little bit funny, man.) Heavy shakes his head solemnly. "No..." Sits back. "It's not."

(So, what do you do for fun?) "Clean Sasha. Use Sasha... Clean Sasha again." (Proper maintience is crucial.) "I also collect old coins." (A fellow numismatist!) "Which I melt down to make custom bullets." (Of course.)

"I am hungry for sandvich." (Then order a sandvich, man.) "Oh, I can not have sandvich! I become unstoppable killing machine!" (Yeah, maybe order a water.) "Is best."

"You wear blue sweater." (All the time.) "What are you?" (Haven't we went over this?) "You are not Scout. Maybe very tricky blue Spy? Maybe... new class?" (I can use a keyboard to sabotage your entire team, steal your intelligence, and have your sister delivered to my doorstep in one afternoon. Yes, I'm a new class.) Heavy, shocked, "This is true??"

(Hey, Heavyman, what's your living situ-aysh?) "I live in RED barraks. Is nice. There is foos table." (How about taking a room in the house of Strong?) "There is vacancy?" (First you'll have to dump the current person in your room.) "This is enemy?" (He won't put up much of a fight.)

Hope you enjoyed, spent most of the day copying all these down. The non-Heavy lines are paraphrased for shortness. Heavy's are full, how they are in game.

#long post #tf2 #team fortress 2 #heavy #tf2 heavy #heavy weapons guy #poker night #poker night at the inventory #neat

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marginalgloss · 3 years

Text

I turn 35 tomorrow. How better to celebrate that than with some notes on the handful of video games I have managed to finish over the last ten months. In no particular order:

Judgment (PS4)

Something I think about often is that there aren’t many games which are set in the real world. By this I man the world in which we live today. You can travel through ancient Egypt or take a trip through the stars in the far future, but it’s relatively rare to be shown a glimpse of something familiar. Hence the unexpected popularity of the new release of Microsoft Flight Simulator, which lets you fly over a virtual representation of your front porch, as well as the Grand Canyon, and so on.

I found something like the same appeal in Judgment, a game which took me longer than anything else listed here to finish — seven or eight months, on and off. Like the Yakuza games to which it is a cousin, it’s set in Kamurocho, a fictional district of a real-world Tokyo; unlike other open-world games, it renders a space of perhaps half a square mile in intense detail. I spent a long time in this game wandering around slowly in first-person view, looking at menus and in the windows of shops and restaurants. The attention to detail is unlike everything I have ever seen, from the style of an air conditioning unit to the range of Japanese whiskies on sale in a cosy backstreet bar. And this was a thing of value at a time when the thought of going anywhere else at all, let alone abroad, seemed like it was going to be very difficult for a very long time.

It’s a game of at least three discrete parts. One of them is a fairly cold-blooded police procedural/buddy cop story: you play an ex-lawyer turned private eye investigating a series of grisly murders that, inevitably, link back to your own murky past. In another part you run around the town getting into hilarious martial arts escapades, battering lowlifes with bicycles and street furniture. In another, you can while away your hours playing meticulous mini-games that include darts, baseball, poker, Mahjong and Shogi — and that’s before we even get to the video game arcades.

All these parts are really quite fun, and if you want to focus on one to the exclusion of the others, the game is totally fine with that. The sudden tonal shifts brought about by these crazy and abrupt shifts in format are, I think, essentially unique to video games. But the scope of Judgment is a thing all its own. As a crafted spectacle of escapist fiction it’s comprehensive, and in its own way utterly definitive.

Mafia: Definitive Edition (PS4)

I was amazed when I found out they were doing a complete remake of Mafia, a game I must have finished at least three or four times in the years after its release back in 2002. Games from this era don’t often receive the same treatment as something like Resident Evil, where players might be distracted by the controls and low-poly graphics of the original.

A quality remake makes it easier for all kinds of reasons to appreciate what was going on there. (Not least because they have a lot of new games in the same series to sell.) But in the early 00s PC games like this one had started to get really big and ambitious, and had (mostly) fixed issues with controls; so there’s a hell of a lot more stuff going on in Mafia than in most games of that era. It was also a very hard game, with all kinds of eccentricities that most big titles don’t attempt today. Really I have no idea how this remake got made at all.

But I was so fond of the original I had to play it. The obvious: it looks fantastic, and the orchestral soundtrack is warm and evocative. The story is basic, but for the era it seemed epic, and it’s still an entertaining spectacle. The original game got the balance of cinematic cutscenes, driving and action right the first time, even while Rockstar were still struggling to break out of the pastiche-led GTA III and Vice City.

They have made it easier. You’re still reliant on a handful of medical boxes in each level for healing, but you get a small amount of regenerating health as well. You no longer have to struggle to keep your AI companions alive. Most of the cars are still heavy and sluggish, but I feel like they’re not quite as slow as they once were. They’ve changed some missions, and made some systems a little more comfortable — with sneaking and combat indicators and so on — but there aren’t any really significant additions.

The end result of all this is that it plays less like an awkward 3D game from 2002, and more like a standard third-person shooter from the PS3/360 era. Next to virtually any other game in a similar genre from today, it feels a bit lacking. There’s no skill tree, no XP, no levelling-up, no crafting, no side-missions, no unusual weapons or equipment, no alternative routes through the game. And often all of that stuff is tedious to the extreme in new titles, but here, you really feel the absence of anything noteworthy in the way of systems.

My options might have been more limited in 2002 but back then the shooting and driving felt unique and fun enough that I could spend endless hours just romping around in Free Ride mode. Here, it felt flat by comparison; it felt not much different to Mafia III, which I couldn’t finish because of how baggy it felt and how poorly it played, in spite of it having one of the most interesting settings of any game in recent years. But games have come a long way in twenty years.

Hypnospace Outlaw (Nintendo Switch)

If this game is basically a single joke worked until it almost snaps then it is worked extremely well.

It seems to set itself up for an obvious riff on the way in which elements of the web which used to be considered obnoxious malware (intrusive popups and so on) have since become commonplace, and sometimes indispensable, parts of the online browsing experience. But it doesn’t really do that, and I think that’s because it’s a game which ends up becoming a little too fascinated by its own lore.

The extra science fiction patina over everything is that technically this isn’t the internet but a sort of psychic metaverse delivered over via a mid-90s technology involving a direct-to-brain headset link. I don’t know that this adds very much to the game, since the early days of the internet were strange enough without actually threatening to melt the brains of its users.

(This goes back to what I said about Judgment - I sometimes wonder if it feels easier to make a game within a complete fiction like this, rather than simply placing it in the context of the nascent internet as it really was. Because this way you don’t have to worry too much about authenticity or realism; this way the game can be as outlandish as it needs to be.)

But, you know. It’s a fun conceit. A clever little world to romp around in for a while.

Horace (Nintendo Switch)

I don’t know quite where to begin with describing this. One of the oddest, most idiosyncratic games I’ve played in recent years.

As I understand it this platformer is basically the creation of two people, and took about six years to make. You start out thinking this is going to be a relatively straightforward retro run-and-jump game — and for a while, it is — but then the cutscenes start coming. And they keep coming. You do a lot of watching relative to playing in this game, but it’s forgivable because they are deeply, endearingly odd.

It’s probably one of the most British games I’ve ever played in terms of the density and quality of its cultural references. And that goes for playing as well as watching; there’s a dream sequence which plays out like Space Harrier and driving sequences that play out like Outrun. There are references to everything from 2001 to the My Dinner with Abed episode of Community. And it never leans into any of it with a ‘remember that?’ knowing nod — it’s all just happening in the background, littered like so much cultural detritus.

A lot of it feels like something that’s laser-targeted to appeal to a certain kind of gamer in their mid-40s. And, not being quite there myself, a lot of it passed me by. Horace is not especially interested in a mass appeal — it’s not interested in explaining itself, and it doesn’t care if you don’t like the sudden shifts in tone between heartfelt sincerity and straight-faced silliness. But as a work of singular creativity and ambition it’s simply a joyous riot.

Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4)

I stopped playing this after perhaps twelve or fifteen hours. There is a lot to like about it; it still looks stunning on the PS4 Pro; Aloy is endearing; the world is beautiful to plod around. But other parts of it seem downright quaint. It isn’t really sure whether it should be a RPG or an action game. And I’m surprised I’ve never heard anyone else mention the game’s peculiar dedication to maintaining a shot/reverse shot style throughout dialogue sequences, which is never more than tedious and stagey.

The combat isn’t particularly fun. Once discovered most enemies simply become enraged and blunder towards you, in some way or another; your job is to evade them, ensnare them or otherwise trip them up, then either pummel them into submission or chip away at their armour till they become weak enough to fall. I know enemy AI hasn’t come on in leaps and bounds in recent years but it’s not enough to dress up your enemies as robot dinosaurs and then expect a player to feel impressed when they feel like the simplest kind of enrageable automata. Oh, and then you have to fight human enemies too, which feels like either an admission of failure or an insistence that a game of this scale couldn’t happen without including some level of human murder.

I don’t have a great deal more to say about it. It’s interesting to me that Death Stranding, which was built on the same Decima engine, kept the frantic and haphazard combat style from Horizon, but went to great lengths to actively discourage players from getting into fights at all. (It also fixed the other big flaw in Horizon — the flat, inflexible traversal system — and turned that into the centrepiece of the game.)

Disco Elysium (PS4)

In 2019 I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. I’m talking about the actual tabletop roleplaying game, not any kind of video game equivalent. For week after week a group of us from work got together and sort of figured it out, and eventually developed not one but two sprawling campaigns of the never-ending sort. We continued for a while throughout the 2020 lockdown, holding our sessions online via Roll20, but it was never quite the same. After a while, as our life circumstances changed further, it sort of just petered out.

I mention all this because Disco Elysium is quite clearly based around the concept of a computerised tabletop roleplaying game (aka CRPG). My experience of that genre is limited to the likes of Baldurs Gate, the first Pillars of Eternity and the old Fallout games, so I was expecting to have to contend with combat and inventory management. What I wasn’t expecting was to be confronted with the best novel I’ve read this year.

To clarify: I have not read many other novels this year, by my standards. But, declarations of relative quality aside, what I really mean is that this game is, clearly and self-consciously, a literary artefact above all. It is written in the style of one of those monolithic nineteenth century novels that cuts a tranche through a society, a whole world — you could show it to any novelist from at least the past hundred years and they would understand pretty well what is going on. It is also wordy in every sense of that term: there’s a lot of reading to do, and the text is prolix in the extreme.

You could argue it’s less a game than a very large and fairly sophisticated piece of interactive fiction. The most game-like aspects of it are not especially interesting. It has some of the stats and the dice-rolling from table-top roleplaying games, but this doesn’t sit comfortably with the overtly literary style elsewhere. Health and morale points mostly become meaningless when you can instantly heal at any time and easily stockpile the equivalent of health potions. And late on in the game, when you find yourself frantically changing clothes in order to increase your chances of passing some tricky dice roll, the systems behind the game start to feel somewhat disposable.

Disco Elysium is, I think, a game that is basically indifferent to its own status as a game. Nothing about it exists to complement its technological limitations, and nor is it especially interested in the type of unique possibilities that are only available in games. You couldn’t experience Quake or Civilisation or the latest FIFA in any other format; but a version of Disco Elysium could have existed on more or less any home computer in about the last thirty years. And, if we were to lose the elegant art and beautiful score, and add an incredibly capable human DM, it could certainly be played out as an old-fashioned tabletop game not a million miles from Dungeons and Dragons.

All of the above is one of the overriding thoughts I have about this game. But it doesn’t come close to explaining what it is that makes Disco Elysium great.

#gaming #judgment #horace #disco elysium #horizon zero dawn #hypnospace outlaw

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electricbluebutterflies · 3 years

Note

Soft babes + “You don’t have to sleep here just because I got admitted.”

Chris/Melissa, post 6x06. Did not use the actual prompt line but it did make a good starting point here. PG-ish and also on ao3.

Two years. Two damn years of dealing with what seems like an endless parade of new types of supernatural beings, after spending half her life beautifully oblivious to the existence of anything of that sort, and Melissa’s breaking point is apparently very human and very not used to anyone caring.

It’s not even the whole ancient magical medicine part of the last day of her life that has her overwhelmed, although she did take a moment to write that list down because it could be useful later. Nor is it remotely surprising that the man she’s currently hovering over managed to get himself hurt – from what she’s pieced together, this isn’t even close to a low point there. It’s more…

When bad shit happens to the kids, even the ones who went through hell before they turned into whatever they are now, they all have this sense that they do deserve some kind of caretaking. Her counterpart, on the other hand…

She’s never seen that many scars on a human body before, and she only got a good look from the waist up. It figures this, of all things, would finally be the match for her resilience.

It’s over with now, Melissa reminds herself. It’s over with, and she didn’t have to appropriate anything that would get flagged as anything more than inventory error if anyone were to assess the state of a few supply closets, and half her coworkers know she’s involved in some kind of bizarre situation that doesn’t usually happen out here. Someday she will probably have to explain the supernatural world to a few of her quieter coworkers; for now, it is enough that when Visibly Weird Shit comes in and she’s on shift, it is automatically her problem. She wonders offhand who knows what, who suspects what, how no one questioned this latest round to her face.

(She will blame Malia for that, she decides. The girl tries, but sometimes the claws and fangs are a little more publicly visible than they should be. With that kind of distraction attached, and recent enough in a few particular memories, Melissa could probably do whatever she wanted for the next week and no one would bat an eyelash.)

And the thing is, she’s gotten used to the not-knowing because she can’t make predictions about the biology of creatures she doesn’t understand. A decent working knowledge of werewolf medical care may be her life’s work if all of this keeps up – Melissa is under no delusions this phase of her life will be over when the kids leave for college, she knows how word gets out about safe people, and apparently Beacon Hills is a magnet for creatures so there is no way this ends anytime soon – but most of the time it's trial and error and misjudging metabolism and toxicities. This is different. This is very human and determined to fight her even when drugged to hell, which… is honestly a little more conflicting than it should be.

Blame the loneliness of her positions. Blame the fact that he’s reserved enough she’s not even sure what to call him, what level of formalities they’re working with here. Blame her involuntary dry spell and how long it’s been since someone on her level has fully appreciated how capable she is. She does not care anymore.

It's over, but she is still not letting that man out of her sight because she has heard enough stories not to trust his ability to rest when ordered to. She has a few admin tasks to do anyways, an attempt at electronically erasing the last day or so. It won’t be perfect, her little detours never are, but again the goal is just to avoid a major flag, if it looks like effort was made then she’ll be okay and-

Oh never mind, he’s awake. Next time, she thinks, next time she is finding a way to hook up better sedatives without doing anything she’d have to explain to anyone else. If this is her life for the rest of her life, she needs to find better workarounds.

“You’re still here,” he breathes. She did not realize his voice could get lower but apparently it can, and there are too many possible reasons for that and she worries and-

“Yep, because you won’t ignore me and go chasing whatever the hell attacked you if I don’t give you the chance,” she replies. She knows that’s where this ends – it has to be. Somehow the whatever-the-hell will end up connected to why she’s had to unlock a few doors in the past two weeks and cash in a favor with security, and things will go wrong for other people but not her because the bad things do not happen to her and-

“You don’t have to stay.”

Melissa turns and conjures up what she hopes is a good death glare. Fine, so their relationship so far has mostly been of the we’re stuck in each other’s worlds so might as well coordinate attempts at surrogate parenting variety and that doesn’t leave a whole lot of space for actual bonding, whatever. The fact that this is where she feels underestimated? Not okay.

“Does any of this look like obligation?” she asks, gesturing around the room. She’s tried to keep the footprint minimal, but there are still a few monitors around in case something more mundane happens, still an IV in him in case of very human emergency. “I can’t… I don’t want to lose you.”

If the worst happened, she told herself while trying to improvise, she’d find a way. She always does. But in the midst of all of this she realized she doesn’t want to. The man may be a stubborn sacrificial idiot with communication issues, yes, but even while poisoned and not exactly mentally present he trusted her to pull off something that may or may not count as low-level magic. That’s a hell of a trust fall, and she…

She wonders. And now is not the time for that, but she wants.

“You’re not getting rid of me,” she says after a few moments’ quiet. “Not possible.”

Call it trust issues, call it loneliness, whatever. She is equally good, and she feels that now, as she moves closer. Her attempts at admin detouring will have to do as they are; right now she is preoccupied.

“You don’t… owe me,” he says, and the rest goes unspoken but she is pretty sure he’s mentally promised his life to her. He would.

“I don’t live in that kind of world. I take care of people. I’m good at it. And you needed me, and the kids knew that, and-“

“You shouldn’t have to-“

“I don’t. I want to.”

#pixievixen #chris argent #melissa mccall #chris x melissa #mcargent #ebf writes fic #ebf remains in cute canon endgame rarepair hell

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thatblondeperson · 3 years

Note

TimSteph, taking care of chronic injuries!

Hey look, another ask that got buried! Sorry friend!!!!

This is all preboot, RR/Batgirl era.

Ok so Tim is super extra imo when it comes to treating any kind of sickness, injury, ANYTHING. He’s the type of guy who will go to CVS and buy out the entire “cold + flu” aisle as soon a Steph gets a runny nose. He absolutely drowns her in cough drops and tissues. I can see him being extremely attentive as well. Like bringing blankets and pillows around the clock, happy to carry her from point A to point B, almost insisting to do so on occasion, and just sitting with her for as long as she desires/needs company. He absolutely pays no mind to germs. Steph can cuddle all she wants.

Steph is similar but less extra. She’s got some more classic home remedies that Tim doesn’t have. She absolutely would baby the hell out of him if he got sick though, and probably more often than not she has to put her foot down on him trying to patrol even if he’s completely out of it and burning up. Tim has a hard time relaxing, but eventually the time is used for him to catch up on sleep. Tim getting sick is like a mini-hibernation. I can see Alfred stepping in occasionally if they were both sick because Tim’s an absolute mess, and Steph can only do so much before she gets wiped out. They’re hopeless and completely out of service if they’re both ill at the same time. Error 404: Dorks not found.

Chronic injuries are a constant process. Steph obviously has a ton just from Black Mask alone. I’m sure she gets aches and pains on the regular due to the severity of the torture she experience. Power drills would leave some lasting abdominal pain for sure. Hell, I wonder if it makes cramps worse for her? It could in all honestly. She may need serious pain meds during that time of the month which are of course always kept on hand. On top of that, the physical trauma definitely left endless mental trauma. No question about it. Not to mention that time she got lightly shot in the head. I say lightly because I forgot this was a thing because they don’t really address it again. I imagine that would cause occasional headaches/migraines, and I’m sure Tim likes to run a scan every now and again to make sure there isn’t any lasting damage. And of course, we return to the medicine cabinet for more pain pills. (Thank you @incoherentbabblings for reminding me of the gunshot.)

I headcanon that both of them get nightmares on almost the regular. They’ve both got it set that if one of them is in the middle of a bad nightmare, the other just holds them close, doing whatever they can to soothe them until the calmness sets back in. The nightmares get more spaced out some time after they move in together because I think the constant safeness of having someone beside them every night would eventually help them both sleep through the night better. It is hard to get back to sleep though. Both of them have been put through the ringer, they’ve both seen death of loved ones up close and personal, and I imagine a lot of what they’ve experienced is still very vivid and intense for them.

Tim’s got his own fair share of recurring pain. The boy doesn’t have a spleen and tbh I don’t know how he’s not getting sick more frequently. But extra precautions need to be taken to keep him from getting infections when he gets any kid of open wound, thank GOD Steph is a nurse. Tim has to be kept pretty healthy though if at all possible, which brings us back to my previous headcanon about him not caring about germs when Steph is sick? Yeah, not his smartest move, but Tim’s an idiot and forgets that he’s fragile.

Both of them have regular joint issues. They’ve dislocated enough things for just about everything to make awful clicking sounds now and again. Steph doesn’t have as much regular muscle pain, she’s far more flexible than Tim is so she stays pretty loose and limber, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have to work at it every day. Steph does yoga as a part of her routine. She gets Tim to join sometimes but he’s not very good at keeping up with it. He’s flexible too but not to her level, and he locks up easier if he’s had an especially tough night. They both try to put the time in to exercise when they can, spotting each other, keeping a routine going, because given how much they both get beaten and battered on the daily, if they don’t keep up with muscle pain, it’ll just get worse. On bad days when the pain makes any mobility difficult, massages ensue. They’ve got at least 15 ice packs in the freezer at all times, and a stack of heating pads in the medicine cabinet. And if all else fails, a nice hot bubble bath never hurts. With Epsom salts and everything. Steph likes to add a touch of lavender oil.

Immediate injuries they’re both very good at treating. Steph obviously has more technical knowhow, and she is the most medically trained of all the Batfam members, but Tim is detail oriented and good at focusing when he needs to so he can keep up just fine. They’re both good at stitches and general wound treatment, but Steph is better at consistent treatment. Tim will absolutely forget to switch out his bandages or clean things because his brain is soup and he cannot be bothered to think about injuries when he’s too busy with 50 other things on the constant. He needs to slow down. We get right back into “more prone to infections” again. Alas. Idiot.

They both have their fair share of mental health issues, though Tim’s tend to be more intense. Steph has her ways of managing her own mental state but Tim gets stuck often. He falls into some pretty deep depression spells, and his anxiety acts up fairly frequently. Steph has started teaching him how to meditate, but also has a list of distractions and special remedies that she can utilize if need be. Movies and tea are a good base line, though Tim’s mind gets very far away sometimes and it’s hard to pull him back out. Like he almost wants to wallow in his sadness. Often she just tries to ground him as best she can so he doesn’t get so lost that he can’t come back. Steph likes to make sure that he isn’t always using patrol as a crutch for when he’s feeling upset or tense. It’s hard to sway him away from more pain when he lets himself get so close to the edge. It breaks her heart, sometimes she feels helpless.

Steph has anxiety as well, and some psychosomatic tics from her past abuse. She needs a lot of reassurance and gentleness when her mind starts racing. She’s still prone to trust issues, even now when she’s surrounded herself with stable people. She’s been let down and she fears losing her steady ground sometimes. Tim, let’s face it, hasn’t been the most reliable in the past, but I firmly believe that with some growing up he’d step up to the plate and try to be a solid home base for her to the best of his abilities. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon. He’s very good at being gentle. That’s canon as fuck. I will die on the hill that Tim is as delicate with Steph as one would be with a priceless porcelain heirloom. Fight me, the boy would never intentionally try to physically or mentally hurt her. He tries so hard to reassure her but I thinks he feels a little helpless sometimes too. Some of her trust issues are his fault, and he can’t just snap his fingers and reverse his mistakes. He tries his best, but there will always be scars.

All in all, I think they’re both very tender and caring with one another. They’re both beyond broken sometimes, and they are a mess and a half. But they know each other, they know each others pain and sadness and I think once they got back together they’d settle very easily into a care routine. Both of them are carrying the weight of countless consequences and mistakes and hardship on their shoulders. Pain is just a side affect that comes with carrying so much baggage, but it’s a little easier to manage when they have each other for support. I do think some of it would get easier over time, and my wish for them is that they can move somewhere just outside the city, maybe by a lake. Far enough away that things are quiet, but not so far that they would completely leave the hero gig behind. I agree with the consensus that neither of them could fully quit. Tim would just sink into the background, but Steph would be out there in the field for many years. Justas long as they have somewhere safe and comfortable to return to, I think they’ll both be just fine. Plus smooches are the best fallback medicine for all ailments and we all know that they never run out of those. 😘💋

THANK YOU FOR THIS ASK! More than half of this was not anything to do with chronic injuries but fuck it. We’ve tapped into the hurt/comfort section of my brain and there is a lot of material there to work with. Idk when you sent this in but I hope it wasn’t too long ago. I hope this answered more questions than you ever intended to ask. 💜❤

#TimSteph #tim drake #stephanie brown #robin iii #spoiler #robin iv #red robin #batgirl #batfam #batfamily #dc comics #dc #batman #personal #ask tbp

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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Why Is The Media Against Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-is-the-media-against-republicans/

Why Is The Media Against Republicans

Mcconnell And Co Are Playing As Dirty A Game As Possible In Their Quest To Fill Ginsburgs Seat Before The Election But You Wont Find That Story In Most News Coverage

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US Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell at a press conference at the US Capitol on September 22, 2020. McConnell said in a statement that the Senate would take up President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

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The argument against confirming Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court before the inauguration is a Republican argument. They invented it, they enacted it, and they own it. That’s because it was Republicans, not Democrats, who changed the number of Supreme Court justices from nine to eight for 10 months in 2016, when a Democratic president was in the White House. It was Republicans who argued that no Supreme Court nominee should even be considered by the Senate in an election year. And it was Republicans who promised to block the confirmation of Hillary Clinton’s Supreme Court nominees in the event that she became president while Republicans retained control of the Senate.

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And that argument is simply untenable. We do not have a legitimate third branch of government if only one party gets to choose its members.

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Vaccine Advocacy From Hannity And Mcconnell Gets The Media Off Republicans’ Backs But Won’t Shift Public Sentiment

Sean Hannity, Mitch McConnell and Tucker Carlson

Amid a rising media furor over the steady stream of vaccine disparagement from GOP politicians and Fox News talking heads, a number of prominent Republicans spoke up in favor of vaccines early this week.

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, “shots need to get in everybody’s arm as rapidly as possible” and asked that people “ignore all of these other voices that are giving demonstrably bad advice.” House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, got the vaccine after months of delay and then publicly said, “there shouldn’t be any hesitancy over whether or not it’s safe and effective.” And Fox News host Sean Hannity, in a widely shared video, declared, it “absolutely makes sense for many Americans to get vaccinated.” This was treated in the press as an unequivocal endorsement, even though the use of the word “many” was clearly meant to let the Fox News viewers feel like he’s talking about other people getting vaccinated.

Is this an exciting pivot among the GOP elites? Are they abandoning the sociopathic strategy of sabotaging President Joe Biden’s anti-pandemic plan by encouraging their own followers to get sick? Are the millions of Republicans who keep telling pollsters they will never get that Democrat shot going to change their minds now?

Ha ha ha, no.

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— Matthew Gertz July 20, 2021

The Technology 202: New Report Calls Conservative Claims Of Social Media Censorship ‘a Form Of Disinformation’

with Aaron Schaffer

A new report concludes that social networks aren’t systematically biased against conservatives, directly contradicting Republican claims that social media companies are censoring them.

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Recent moves by Twitter and Facebook to suspend former president Donald Trump’s accounts in the wake of the violence at the Capitol are inflaming conservatives’ attacks on Silicon Valley. But New York University researchers today released a report stating claims of anti-conservative bias are “a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable evidence to support it.”

The report found there is no trustworthy large-scale data to support these claims, and even anecdotal examples that tech companies are biased against conservatives “crumble under close examination.” The report’s authors said, for instance, the companies’ suspensions of Trump were “reasonable” given his repeated violation of their terms of service — and if anything, the companies took a hands-off approach for a long time given Trump’s position.

The report also noted several data sets underscore the prominent place conservative influencers enjoy on social media. For instance, CrowdTangle data shows that right-leaning pages dominate the list of sources providing the most engaged-with posts containing links on Facebook. Conservative commentator Dan Bongino, for instance, far out-performed most major news organizations in the run-up to the 2020 election.

In The Past The Gop Would Be Rallying Their Voters Against This Bill Their Failure To Do So Now Is Ominous

Mitch ?McConnell, Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro

With surprising haste for the U.S. Senate, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, just after passing a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. And Democrats could not be more excited, as the blueprint covers a whole host of long-standing priorities, from fighting climate change to creating universal prekindergarten. The blueprint was largely written by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who released a statement calling it “the most consequential piece of legislation for working people, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor since FDR and the New Deal of the 1930s.”

Sanders isn’t putting that much spin on the ball.

While the bill fallls short of what is really needed to deal with climate change, it is still tremendously consequential legislation that will do a great deal not just to ameliorate economic inequalities, but, in doing so, likely reduce significant gender and racial inequality. It’s also a big political win for President Joe Biden. In other words, it is everything that Republicans hate. Worse for them, it’s packed full of benefits that boost the middle class, not just the working poor. Traditionally, such programs are much harder to claw back once Republicans gain power — as they’ve discovered in previous failed attempts to dismantle Social Security and Obamacare.

Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only.

But that’s not really happening here.

The Actual Reason Why Republicans And Their Media Are Discouraging People From Getting Vaccinated

Independent Media Institute

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a CNN Medical Analyst, said last week, “A surprising amount of death will occur soon…” But why, when the deadly Delta variant is sweeping the world, are Republicans and their media warning people not to get vaccinated?

there’s always a reason

Dr. Anthony Fauci told Jake Tapper on CNN last Sunday, “I don’t have a really good reason why this is happening.”

But even if he can’t think of a reason why Republicans would trash talk vaccination and people would believe them, it’s definitely there.

Which is why it’s important to ask a couple of simple questions that all point to the actual reason why Republicans and their media are discouraging people from getting vaccinated:

1. Why did Trump get vaccinated in secret after Joe Biden won the election and his January 6th coup attempt failed?

2. Why are Fox “News” personalities discouraging people from getting vaccinated while refusing to say if they and the people they work with have been protected by vaccination?

3. Why was one of the biggest applause lines at CPAC: “They were hoping — the government was hoping — that they could sort of sucker 90% of the population into getting vaccinated and it isn’t happening!”

4. Why are Republican legislators in states around the country pushing laws that would “ban” private businesses from asking to see proof of vaccination status ?

Death is their electoral strategy.

Is there any other possible explanation?

So, what’s left?

Destroying Trust In The Media Science And Government Has Left America Vulnerable To Disaster

For America to minimize the damage from the current pandemic, the media must inform, science must innovate, and our government must administer like never before. Yet decades of politically-motivated attacks discrediting all three institutions, taken to a new level by President Trump, leave the American public in a vulnerable position.

jonmladd

Trump has consistently vilified the national media. When campaigning, he the media “absolute scum” and “totally dishonest people.” As president, he has news organizations “fake news” and “the enemy of the people” over and over. The examples are endless. Predictably, he has blamed the coronavirus crisis on the media, saying “We were very prepared. The only thing we weren’t prepared for was the media.”

Science has been another Trump target. He has gutted scientific expertise and administrative capacity in the executive branch, most notably failing to fill hundreds of vacancies in the Centers for Disease Control itself and disbanding the National Security Council’s taskforce on pandemics. During the coronavirus crisis, he has routinely disagreed with scientific experts, including, in the AP’s words, his “musing about injecting disinfectants into people .” This follows his earlier public advocacy for hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment, also against leading scientists’ advice. Coupled with his flip-flopping on when to lift stay-at-home orders, the president has created confusion and endangered people.

Media Bias Against Conservatives Is Real And Part Of The Reason No One Trusts The News Now

Members of the media were shocked as he was supposedly revealed as incredibly anti-woman presidential candidate, perhaps even the most ever nominated by a major political party in the modern era. He had admitted that he reduced women to objects and the Democrats pounced, seeking to make him lose him the support of women and, in turn, the presidency.

I’m not talking about the media coverage of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and the “Access Hollywood” tape, but his predecessor, Mitt Romney.

His sin? Saying that he had “binders full of women” that he was looking at appointing to key positions were he elected president. Sure, it was an awkward way of stating a fairly innocuous fact about how elected executives begin their transition efforts — with resumes of candidates for every position under the sun —- well before an election is held. Yet, the media and commentators came for Mitt Romney and they did so with guns blazing, as he was portrayed as an anti-woman extremist… for making a concerted effort to hire women to serve in his administration as governor of Massachusetts.

There Is No Liberal Media Bias In Which News Stories Political Journalists Choose To Cover

1Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.

2University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA.

3Brigham Young University-Idaho, Rexburg, ID 83460, USA.

?*Corresponding author. Email: hans.hassellfsu.edu ; jh5akvirginia.edu

?† These authors contributed equally to this work.

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‘it’s Time To End This Forever War’ Biden Says Forces To Leave Afghanistan By 9/11

The enormous national anger generated by those attacks was also channeled by the administration toward the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which was conceived to prevent any recurrence of attacks on such a massive scale. Arguments over that legislation consumed Congress through much of 2002 and became the fodder for campaign ads in that year’s midterms.

The same anger was also directed toward a resolution to use force, if needed, in dealing with security threats from the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. That authorization passed Congress with bipartisan majorities in the fall of 2002, driven by administration claims that Saddam had “weapons of mass destruction.” It became law weeks before the midterm elections.

Once those elections were over, the Republicans in control of both chambers finally agreed to create an independent commission to seek answers about 9/11. Bush signed the legislation on Nov. 27, 2002.

The beginning was hobbled when the first chairman, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and vice chairman, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine, decided not to continue. But a new chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, and vice chairman, former Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, filled the breach and performed to generally laudatory reviews.

Long memories

Top House Republican Opposes Bipartisan Commission To Investigate Capitol Riot

But McCarthy replied by opposing Katko’s product, and more than 80% of the other House Republicans did too. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., initially said he was keeping an open mind but then announced that he too was opposed. This makes it highly unlikely that 10 of McConnell’s GOP colleagues will be willing to add their votes to the Democrats’ and defeat a filibuster of the bill.

Republicans have argued that two Senate committees are already looking at the events of Jan. 6, as House panels have done as well. The Justice Department is pursuing cases against hundreds of individuals who were involved. Former President Donald Trump and others have said any commission ought to also be tasked to look at street protests and violence that took place in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd.

But with all that on the table, several Republicans have alluded to their concern about a new commission “dragging on” into 2022, the year of the next midterm elections. “A lot of our members … want to be moving forward,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the No. 2 Senate Republican toMcConnell. “Anything that gets us rehashing to 2020 elections is, I think, a day lost.”

Resistance even after 9/11

The Taliban were toppled but bin Laden escaped, and U.S. forces have been engaged there ever since. The troop numbers have declined in recent years, and President Biden has indicated that all combat troops will be out by this year’s anniversary of the 2001 attacks.

Opiniontrump And His Voters Are Drawn Together By A Shared Sense Of Defiance

Americans in general have begun to catch on: 66 percent of Americans believe that the media has a hard time separating fact from opinion and, according to a recent Gallup poll, 62 percent of the country believes that the press is biased one way or the other in their reporting.

So when CNN, NBC News, Fox News, or another outlet break a hard news story, there is a good chance that a large swathe of the public won’t view it as legitimate news.

And politicians, right and left, are taking advantage of this.

The entire ordeal is part of an ever-growing list of examples in which the media seemed to be biased, whether consciously or not, against Republicans.

Before Donald Trump, there was New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who in 2014 accused the media of “dividing us” because they asked him about some protesters who had chanted “NYPD is the KKK” and . He also accused the media of McCarthyism when they dug into the personal life of an aide of his, who reportedly had a relationship with a convicted murderer. The mayor also publicly and privately accused Bloomberg News of being biased against him, since it is owned by his predecessor. However, de Blasio is not terribly popular within his own party, so Democrats in New York did not buy what he was selling.

The Media Has Entered The Republicans Pounce Stage Of Critical Race Theory

Now that polls show a majority of Americans oppose Critical Race Theory, the Democratic Party and their scribes in the legacy media have launched a rearguard action against parents — by casting them as the aggressors. As is true every time the Left misfires or overreaches, the media ignore the offense and focus on the popular backlash in a tactic popularly known as “Republicans pounce.”

Media coverage proves that CRT has entered the “Republicans pounce” stage. Witness the words of one Politico writer, who said on Thursday, “he right is hoping to capitalize on the grassroots angst over critical race theory and excite its base voters in next year’s midterms.” Chris Hayes, who has the unenviable position of competing directly with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC, agreed Thursday night that all the Republican Party’s “rhetorical fire has moved away from the deficit and on to some random, school superintendent in Maine after his district dared to denounce white supremacy after the murder of George Floyd.”

But why are grassroots Americans so filled with “angst”? Because they are intellectually deficient and, of course, racist, according to Vox.com.

“Conservatives have launched a growing disinformation campaign around the academic concept” of CRT. “It’s an attempt to push back against progress,” wrote Vox.com reporter Fabiola Cineas. The problem is that “Republicans … want to ban anti-racist teachings and trainings in classrooms and workplaces across the country.”

Trump Continues To Push Election Falsehoods Here’s Why That Matters

Republican opposition to the commission

Rice was featured in one of the very few congressional commissions ever to receive this level of attention. Most are created and live out their mission with little notice. Indeed, Congress has created nearly 150 commissions of various kinds in just the last 30 years, roughly five a year.

Some have a highly specific purpose, such as a commemoration. Others are more administrative, such as the five-member commission overseeing the disbursement of business loans during the early months of pandemic lockdown in 2020. Others have been wide-ranging and controversial, such as the one created to investigate synthetic opioid trafficking.

In the initial weeks after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, the idea of an independent commission to probe the origins of the attack and the failures that let it happen seemed a no-brainer. It had broad support both in Congress and in public opinion polls. It still enjoys the latter, as about two-thirds of Americans indicate that they think an independent commission is needed. The idea has fared well — particularly when described as being “9/11 Commission style.”

Opiniona Guide For Frustrated Conservatives In The Age Of Trump

Conscious bias or not, such practices do not engender trust in the media amongst conservatives. They only reinforce the belief that the media seeks to defend their ideological allies on the left and persecute those on the right while claiming to be objective.

This idea that the media is made up of unselfconsciously liberal elites who don’t even recognize the biases they have against conservative policies and conservatives in general goes back decades, to when newsrooms were more or less homogenous in nearly every way. At first, conservatives fought back by founding their own magazines; after Watergate and in the midst of the Reagan administration and liberals’ contempt for him, organizations like the Media Research Center began cataloguing the myriad examples of biased coverage, both large and small.

And there was a lot to catalogue, from opinion pages heavily weighted in favor of liberals to reportage and analysis that looks a lot more like the opinion of the writers than unbiased coverage.

Despite Cries Of Censorship Conservatives Dominate Social Media

GOP-friendly voices far outweigh liberals in driving conversations on hot topics leading up to the election, a POLITICO analysis shows.

The Twitter app on a mobile phone | Matt Rourke/AP Photo

10/27/2020 01:38 PM EDT

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Republicans have turned alleged liberal bias in Silicon Valley into a major closing theme of the election cycle, hauling tech CEOs in for virtual grillings on Capitol Hill while President Donald Trump threatens legal punishment for companies that censor his supporters.

But a POLITICO analysis of millions of social media posts shows that conservatives still rule online.

Right-wing social media influencers, conservative media outlets and other GOP supporters dominate online discussions around two of the election’s hottest issues, the Black Lives Matter movement and voter fraud, according to the review of Facebook posts, Instagram feeds, Twitter messages and conversations on two popular message boards. And their lead isn’t close.

As racial protests engulfed the nation after George Floyd’s death, users shared the most-viral right-wing social media content more than 10 times as often as the most popular liberal posts, frequently associating the Black Lives Matter movement with violence and accusing Democrats like Joe Biden of supporting riots.

Politifact Va: No Republicans Didn’t Vote To Defund The Police

Rep. Bobby Scott speaks at a 2015 criminal justice forum.

Speaker: Bobby ScottStatement: “Every Republican in Congress voted to defund the police when they voted against the American Rescue Plan.”Date: July 12Setting: Twitter

In last fall’s campaigns, Republicans thundered often inaccurate charges that Democrats wanted to defund police departments.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., is flipping the script and saying that all congressional Republicans voted to defund police this year when they opposed a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan.

“Every Republican in Congress voted to defund police when they voted against the American Rescue Plan,” Scott tweeted on July 12.

Scott represents Virginia’s 3rd congressional district, stretching from Norfolk and parts of Chesapeake north through Newport News and west through Franklin.

His claim, echoing a Democratic talking point, melts under scrutiny. Here’s why.

The Facts

The term “defunding police” arose after the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Many advocates say it does not mean abolishing police, but rather reallocating some of the money and the duties that have traditionally been handled by police departments.

Scott’s explanation

Barbera sent an NBC article noting that communities in at least 10 congressional districts represented by Republicans who opposed the bill are using some of its relief funds to help their police departments.

Our ruling

We rate Scott’s statement False.

Opinion:no The Media Isnt Fair It Gives Republicans A Pass

The right-wing media, willfully ignoring the press investigations into Tara Reade’s accusations, insist that former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has not been treated similarly to accused conservative men . They have a point, but not the one they were trying to make.

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Let’s start with the big picture: Right-wing groups persistently engage in conduct for which Republicans are not held to account. The latter are allowed to remain silent after instances of conduct with a strong stench of white nationalism, but pay no penalty for their quietude. Right-wing demonstrators at Michigan’s statehouse this week — angrily shouting, not social distancing, misogynistic in their message, some carrying Confederate garb — were not engaged in peaceful protest. This was a mob endangering the health of police officers and others seeking to intimidate democratic government. Some protesters compared Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to Adolf Hitler and displayed Nazi symbols. Newsweek reported:

The media has adopted the approach that a pattern of sexual harassment claims over decades is not relevant because Trump has denied them, yet they want investigated the single assault claim against Biden. Biden responded in an interview and in a lengthy ; the media insists these things have to be investigated further. They do not ask Trump’s campaign why the president does not respond to questions. They do not ask Republicans about Carroll, Zervos or others.

Social Media: Is It Really Biased Against Us Republicans

Wednesday promises to be another stressful day for Facebook, Google and Twitter.

Their chief executives will be grilled by senators about whether social media companies abuse their power.

For Republicans, this is the opportunity they’ve been waiting for.

Two weeks ago, Twitter prevented people posting links to a critical New York Post investigation into Joe Biden.

It then apologised for failing to explain its reasoning before ditching a rule it had used to justify the action.

For many Republicans, this was the final straw – incontrovertible evidence that social media is biased against conservatives.

The accusation is that Silicon Valley is at its core liberal and a bad arbiter of what’s acceptable on its platforms.

In this case, Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz believed Twitter would have acted differently if the story had been about President Donald Trump.

Sobering Report Shows Hardening Attitudes Against Media

NEW YORK — The distrust many Americans feel toward the news media, caught up like much of the nation’s problems in the partisan divide, only seems to be getting worse.

That was the conclusion of a “sobering” study of attitudes toward the press conducted by Knight Foundation and Gallup and released Tuesday.

Nearly half of all Americans describe the news media as “very biased,” the survey found.

“That’s a bad thing for democracy,” said John Sands, director of learning and impact at the Knight Foundation. “Our concern is that when half of Americans have some sort of doubt about the veracity of the news they consume, it’s going to be impossible for our democracy to function.”

The study was conducted before the coronavirus lockdown and nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd.

Eight percent of respondents — the preponderance of them politically conservative — think that news media that they distrust are trying to ruin the country.

– Deal gives Atlanta company control of Anchorage TV news

The study found that 71% of Republicans have a “very” or “somewhat” unfavorable opinion of the news media, while 22% of Democrats feel the same way. Switch it around, and 54% of Democrats have a very favorable view of the media, and only 13% of Republicans feel the same way.

That divide has been documented before but only seems to be deepening, particularly among conservatives, Sands said.

In The Age Of Trump Media Bias Comes Into The Spotlight

Almost 20 years ago, after my first book, “,” came out, I made a lot of speeches, some of them to conservative organizations. The book was about liberal bias in the mainstream media. I had been a journalist at CBS News for 28 years and, so, it was a behind-the-scenes exposé about how the sausage was made, about how bias made its way into the news.

I said that despite what many conservatives think, there was no conspiracy to slant the news in a liberal direction. I said that there were no secret meetings, no secret handshakes and salutes, that anchors such as CBS’s Dan Rather never went into a room with top lieutenants, locked the door, lowered the blinds, dimmed the lights and said, “OK, how are we going to screw those Republicans today?”

It didn’t work that way, I said. Instead, bias was the result of groupthink. Put too many like-minded liberals in a newsroom and you’re going to get a liberal slant on the news.

Liberal journalists, I said, live in a comfortable liberal bubble and don’t even necessarily believe their views are liberal. Instead, they believe they are moderate, mainstream and mainly reasonable views — unlike, of course, conservative views which, to them, are none of those things.

But what I wrote and spoke about then — mainly about how there was no conspiracy to inject bias into news stories — seems no longer to be true today.

Pandering, it seems, is good for business.

Bias shows itself not only in what’s reported, but also in what’s ignored.

Florida Republicans Move Against Social Media Companies

TALLAHASSEE — Concerned that social media companies were conspiring against conservatives, Florida Republicans sent a measure Thursday to Gov. Ron DeSantis that would punish online platforms that lawmakers assert discriminate against conservative thought.

The governor had urged lawmakers to deliver the legislation to his desk as part of a broader effort to regulate Big Tech companies — in how they collect and use information they harvest from consumers and in how social media platforms treat their users.

Republicans in Florida and elsewhere have accused the companies of censoring conservative thought on social media platforms by removing posts they consider inflammatory or using algorithms to reduce the visibility of posts that go against the grain of mainstream ideas.

With the ubiquity of social media, the sites have become modern-day public squares — where people share in the most trivial of matters but also in ideas and information that often are unvetted.

In recent years, social media companies have acted more aggressively in controlling the information posted on their platforms. In some cases, the companies have moved to delete posts over what they see as questionable veracity or their potential to stoke violence.

DeSantis is a strong ally of the former president, and the Republican governor is supporting hefty financial penalties against social media platforms that suspend the accounts of political candidates.

America Hates The Republicans And They Dont Know Why

@jonathanchait

Americans harbor certain deep-rooted impressions of the two parties, which have held for generations. Democrats are compassionate and generous, but spendthrift, dovish, and indulgent of crime and prone to subsidize poor people who don’t want to work. Republicans are strong on defense and crime, but too friendly to business and the rich. What is striking about the Republican government is how little effort it has made to push against, or even steer around, the unflattering elements of its brand. President Trump and his legislative partners have leaned into every ingrained prejudice the voters hold against them. They have acted as if none of their liabilities even exist.

That is not the approach Democrats have taken in office. Bill Clinton famously fashioned himself as a “New Democrat,” angering his base on crime and welfare and declaring the era of big government over. Barack Obama did not position himself quite so overtly against his party’s brand — which had recovered in part because of Clinton’s success — but he did take care to avoid confirming political stereotypes. Obama frequently invoked the importance of parenting and personal responsibility. He did not slash the defense budget, and took pains to woo Republican support for criminal-justice reform. Obama tried repeatedly to get Republicans to compromise on a deal to reduce the budget deficit. Whatever the merits of these policies, they reflect a grasp of the party’s innate liabilities.

Placing Some News Sources On The Political Spectrum

Here are a few examples of major news sources and their so-called “bias” based on ratings from AllSides and the reported level of trust from partisan audiences from the Pew Research Center survey.

Note that much of these ratings are based on surveys of personal perceptions. Consider that these may be impacted by the hostile media effect, wherein “partisans perceive media coverage as unfairly biased against their side” . A three-decade retrospective on the hostile media effect. Mass Communication and Society, 18, 701-729. ).

The Capitol Siege: The Arrested And Their Stories

It would only be logical for that memory to inform the imagination of any Republican contemplating a similar independent commission to probe what happened on Jan. 6. The commission would likely look at various right-wing groups that were involved, including the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, some members of which have already been charged. The commission might also delve into the social media presence and influence of various white supremacists.

Moreover, just as the 9/11 Commission was expected to interview the current and preceding presidents, so might a new commission pursue testimony from Trump and some of his advisers, both official and otherwise, regarding their roles in the protest that wound up chasing members of Congress from both chambers into safe holding rooms underground.

House Minority Leader McCarthy was asked last week whether he would testify if a commission were created and called on him to discuss his conversations with Trump on Jan. 6.

“Sure,” McCarthy replied. “Next question.”

All this may soon be moot. If Senate Democrats are unable to secure 60 votes to overcome an expected filibuster of the House-passed bill, the measure will die and the questions to be asked will fall to existing congressional committees, federal prosecutors and the media. To some degree, all can at least claim to have the same goals and intentions as an independent commission might have.

The difference is the level of acceptance their findings are likely to have with the public.

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another-dr-another · 3 years

Note

{has been worked out} Signs of Struggle

Inori - Nothing has been worked out that doesn’t relate to those!

Maeda - No, that's wrong!

Maeda - Remember the mess in the kitchen? Uehara was able to work out exactly how the scene played out,

Maeda - And just by a gap in some spilled sugar! Not to mention, his talent isn't related to murder.

Maeda - So there's that instance of one person, not educated in stuff like this, working something out on their own, and doing it quick!

Uehara - I feel like... honored right now.

Uehara - I'm special and helpful! Yes!

Uehara - None of you bitches are allowed to remind me of how irrelevant my discovery is in reality. No one.

Tomori - ...Actually, remind me to come back to that. Maeda, keep on going, you're doing great.

Maeda - Huh? T-Thank you, Tomori!

Maeda - That, combined with the multiple students here who have medical knowledge, weaponry knowledge, and assorted bits of trivia,

Maeda - We can reassess the body and do fine! Just let us draw our own conclusions, and work out how it happened, then we can learn who did it.

Maeda - If you just tell us something we have to trust you on, with no context on how it happened, won't that end up messing us up the most?

Tomori - Once we find a suspect who works for the way we lay out the case,

Tomori - We'll likely have found out culprit.

Tomori - We've already got the list narrowed down to just a few suspects, and can probably quickly discuss and knock out some more.

Tsurugi - And if after all that, there's still no conclusion, we can keep debating and go over other parts of the trial!

Tsurugi - Should we run out of time, I'll just real quick explain who it is, and how I know!

Inori - ...

Inori - Still, this doesn't seem safe.

Higa - It does feel like we may hit quick dead ends;

Higa - But also, I feel as though we'd be able to prove most of what we learned from Inoris autopsy without her help.

Higa - Tsurugi was able to pinpoint just about every injury, right?

Kobashikawa - And when it came to cause of death, after I knew about the injury to her chest,

Kobashikawa - I was able to identify that it was an issue with her pnumeothorax.

Kobashikawa - You're valid for being concerned, but everything will be okay.

Iranami - ...Actually, can we discuss that concern for a moment? It's not really... ringing right with me...

Inori - Woah, hold on a fucking second, are you dumb?

Inori - I'm clear, we've already confirmed that it can't be me.

Inori - Too short, remember?

Inori - ...Someone tall like you though... who has experience working with murders, and knowing what'll get someone caught...

Yamaguchi - Woah woah wait, what are you implying?

Hatano - She's got a point... we were also talking about how it could be you earlier!

Hatano - Oh! And, you're the one who keeps accusing people, even if they're established to not be a suspect!

Yamaguchi - Woah, where's that come from?!

Ōtori - Guys? You're kinda starting an endless loop here.

Mekaru - Ya' can't keep accusing others based off their actions here!

Mekaru - People can start attacking others more in the heat of debate, so it's not necessarily an indication of guilt.

Inori - Yeah, Mekarus right... besides, I just don't want us to vote wrong and die, that's the reason I didn't wanna throw everything out the window.

Inori - But if you're so sure that you can keep discussing, then fuck it, not gonna waste time by arguing when I have no clue who the culprit is.

Taira - It's sweet to see how much you worry for our safety, Inor-

Inori - Fuck off! I genuinely don't care about any of you,

Inori - I just know that if you all fuck up and vote wrong, then we all die.

Tsurugi - ...And on that happy note! Lovely time to remind everyone that I care about all of you!

Tsurugi - Even the culprit, especially if I'm getting their motive right...

Tsurugi - So let's get back to debating! I know Tomori wants to talk about the fight in the dining hall,

Tsurugi - But can we talk about something the autopsy didn't even really guarantee?

Tomori - I don't mind waiting, I still need to organize my thoughts... and I'm curious about what's on your mind.

Tsurugi - Okay!

Tsurugi - Uh... we never really confirmed what the murder weapon was.

Maki - ...Holy shit.

Uehara - For real? Are you fucking deadass?

Maeda - Did we just... all forget to establish that... damn...

Inori - Dumbasses. All of us.

Tsurugi - Huh! Don't think I've heard that many swears in a row since the last time I saw my dad...

Tsurugi - But yeah, we all just heard that it may be a gun and decided that was good.

Hatano - Well... what else could it be?

Maki - I mean, I didn't get a super close look, but the... wound on Kurokawa seemed to coincide with a gunshot.

Higa - Inori, didn't you have a theory about how the culprit and the drugged might be different people?

Higa - I ask because...

Higa - Monokuma! While investigating, no one reported finding any weapons, let alone guns. Was there any available in the unlocked school rooms?

Monokuma - No General Areas Had Any Sort Of Firearm, Let Alone Any Accessible For Use.

Ōtori - ...But then...

Higa - The only explanations? It wasn't a gun, or, the murder was committed using a weapon from the SHSL Sniper, or the SHSL Police Officers room.

Maki - And neither Tsurugi or I are suspects anymore, so that's unlikely.

Inori - Does that not fit with my theory?

Maki - It could, but Tsurugis already been confirmed as not the culprit.

Tsurugi - Leaving Maki, and she had tea that night that would've knocked her out, and this murder was clearly really planned and timed.

Tsurugi - Why get sleepy time tea before killing someone, and attacking another person?

Tomori - And I saw Maki drink it, it was a stronger one, so she would've started feeling the effects quickly, even after just a sip?

Kobashikawa - Why such a strong tea?

Tomori - ...Ah, I...

Maki - It's all chill, I don't mind talking about it.

Maki - I have a minor history of nightmares, particularly whenever I get this paranoid feeling before sleeping.

Maki - I got feeling that last night, really bad after I left the dining hall.

Maki - It's what cued me to get something in the first place, since drinking something to help induce sleep usually helps me just sleep deeply, with zero dreams.

Maeda - Okay, that's important, because like the convo about Tsurugi earlier, it should clear you of suspicion, but uh...

Maeda - What's with the comment about guns in Maki and Tsurugis rooms?

Yamaguchi - Oh right! No talent, no specialized room!

Iranami - Kinda wanna trade rooms with Maeda now...

Uehara - Everyone's room has some aspects related to their talents! There's standard shit in everyone's rooms,

Uehara - But a lot of the details, theming, and bonus stuff are related to talents.

Maeda - Woah, really?

Uehara - Yeah! Also seems to kinda take our relationships with our talents into mind...

Uehara - Like, mine isn't super stereotypically "clean, chaste, pure room with nothing in it but a cot, for all I need is devotion to the Lord" like some rooms I've been in.

Tomori - Similarly, my room has various sets of pom poms and cheer flags from teams I've worked with over the years, along with some uniforms.

Tomori - But it also has a lot of self help things, workout related items, and things like the now-relevant, teas to help with sleep, among others.

Tomori - ...It also may be related to my liking for tea, but that's off topic.

Maki - So can't be Tsurugi, can't be me, no other way of getting a gun...

Tsurugi - Oh! I know this isn't really too relevant, but all my weapons and stuff that were left out for me in my room

Tsurugi - Have since been moved to little hidden parts around the place, pushed to the very back, behind things I don't think I'll ever use!

Tsurugi - Just wanted to make sure my stance on the firearms I've been provided are clear... don't wanna give them to someone, but I have zero plan to use them!

Maki - If I use any of mine, it'll be at one of the targets in my room.

Iranami - ...

Hatano - ...

Higa - ...Wow

Maki - What? Fuck off, they're a constant in my life, the familiarity soothes me!

Ōtori - You're valid, but lying to make yourself seem more innocuous may be better in this situation.

Maki - Fair...

Inori - Hey uh, if the murder weapon wasn't a gun, just what could it be?

Tsurugi - I know! And I think you guys know what I'm gonna say about it!

Uehara - "Sounds like something to debate!" Again?

Tsurugi - Yep! Good job!

~*~ Nonstop Debate: Start!

Truth Bullets: Monokuma Inoris Autopsy Rug Burn [Exit Doors] Lost Blood

~*~

Hatano - It's gotta be a gun!

Hatano - There's nothing else that makes sense...

Uehara - But how did the culprit get their hands on one?

Hatano - Could... they have {gotten into a room with guns?}

Maki - I guess?

Maki - I can imagine Tsurugi and I both kept a good record of {locking our rooms} though.

Higa - I don't disagree that it's unlikely it's a gun,

Higa - But if it's not, what other weapon could it be?

Yamaguchi - Maybe it's a skewer?

Kobashikawa - That's {too skinny, just looking at it}, may not be long enough,

Kobashikawa - And I don't know it would necessarily cause a fatal wound.

Tomori - Hmm... maybe we shouldn't look at what we can prove, but rather,

Tomori - What best fits with other details from the trial?

Tomori - After all, if we assume it's not a gun, that [explains something about the crime] that's gone unexplained.

~*~

Maeda, narrating - So much gun...

Maeda - I feel like at this point, the trial is just us bickering over minuscule details until someone has a breakthrough.

Maeda - Ah well though, might as well try and work out where someone's going wrong.

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hannahxxashley · 3 years

Text

This is a really long post that I know nobody will read but I just need to vent about it lol.

Just when I thought life couldn’t get much worse, I now have cystic acne to add to my list of bullshit I’m dealing with. It started around December. And I’m not talking like “oh look at this cystic acne haha” and it’s one or two pimples (like SOME fucking women who have left reviews of certain products on amazon 😒 they show their before pictures like OMG LOOK HOW BAD MY FACE WAS and they had like 2 pimples that you can barely see. Fuck off. 🖕��😂). I’m talking full blown, unrelenting cystic acne all over my chin and jawline and now it’s moved to my cheeks and sometimes my forehead. Giant, inflamed red bumps and a million little tiny bumps all over the place...it looks like I have some sort of flesh disease on my face. It is horrific, embarrassing, upsetting, and it’s something I have NEVER dealt with in my whole life. Even when I was starving myself to death I didn’t have acne like this.

I think it could be hormonal but I don’t know why it’s this bad. The only thing I can think of really is that I’ve turned 30 and women’s hormones start changing a lot in their 30s. I’ve read a lot of women say they started dealing with insufferable cystic acne in their 30s as well. I know it’s not my IUD because I’ve had that thing in for 4 years now and I didn’t have this problem until recently. I did quit taking those birth control pills last April and I read online that sometimes acne can peak up to 9 months after you quit taking the pill. That would have been right around December. I also started getting my periods back around December as well. So maybe this is just some sort of freak acne flair up while my hormones rebalance but idk...I quit taking the pill 4 years ago when I got the IUD put in and I never had this happen.

I’m going to try to fix this internally first. I’ve bought a few supplements to try. I’ve been taking 1250mg of omega 3 fish oil, I also got evening primrose oil to try BUT I think that is triggering headaches. The last 2 days I’ve taken it, I’ve woke up with a headache across my forehead (different than my covid headaches) and one of the side effects of EPO and GLA is headaches 😒 so I might have to stop taking it. I’m also going to try green tea extract and maca root. I’m also going back to an acne kit called Exposed Skincare. I used it for a couple of years when I lived in Oklahoma and it helped with the acne I was having then (although it wasn’t even CLOSE to how bad it is now but I was taking Lexapro at the time and also taking birth control pills that caused acne issues). One thing I see all over the internet is that you should stop eating dairy of you have bad hormonal acne. The American Academy of Dermatology says their is no credible science saying that dairy causes acne. And I’ve been eating dairy (milk based nutrition drink and Greek yogurt) twice a day every day for the past 3 years now. Why would it all of a sudden be an issue now? I can’t change my meal plan anyways because I’m not about to fuck with my eating disorder lol.

If I can’t fix this on my own, I will concede and go to the dermatologist. I absolutely will not take accutane and I will NOT go back on birth control pills. I can’t take spironolactone because it can raise potassium levels and people who take a potassium supplement cannot take it. I have to take potassium every day twice a day since I still b/p. It also is used to lower blood pressure and the last time I took a medication that lowered blood pressure was when Dr. Narcissist (that is what I call my psychiatrist because he is a giant narcissist 😂) prescribed a BP medication for my PTSD. After being on it for a week, I started getting chest pains and I became so lethargic that I could barely get off the couch or walk from one room to the other. It was pretty scary. I’m also not really open to doing any harsh chemical or acid peels on my face. I’ve read countless women say it did nothing for them. So honestly, what else could the dermatologist do for me at this point? 😂 idk. I have to do everything in my own time, in a certain order. So the dermatologist at the end lol.

Sigh. What a shit fest. I just want my life to be normal again. It was going so well. 🤦🏻‍♀️

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations for reading my endless paragraphs of self pity lmao. I CAST THIS OUT INTO THE VOID.

#rant #ed recovery #eating disorder #anorexia #bulimia #osfed #ednos #skin problems #adult acne

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lancetuckershairgel · 4 years

Text

Dollhouse

Chapter Three: Procedure

Characters: Jefferson x Reader

Words: 1,110

Warnings: dark, medical fetish, body modification, breast enlargement, mention of blood (just the word no graphic details), stitches, smoking, brainwashing, edging with vibrator, non consent

AN: Surprise! I dropped another chapter unexpectedly and hold on to your flashlights because its getting dark in here y'all.

Tag List: @southernbell91 @marvelgirl7 @buckysforeverprincess @tranquil–heart @brat-in-a-teacup @anxiousamandapanda @msruchita @i-have-arrived-bitch @buckysteveloki-me @kissmecap @angryknightstatesmantrash @stupendousshepherdloverpony @slytheringswift @marvelfansworld (If you want to be added or removed let me know)

Three days had passed since Jefferson had brought his new toy home. The madman had been busy making the less severe of the modifications he had planned for her and the poor girl was already broken, or so she thought. After Jefferson had removed every strand of hair from her body, including her head, he forced her to look at herself in a mirror. She couldn’t even recognize herself, her eyes were swollen from crying, her face was flushed pale white from fear, and her beautiful blonde locks were no more. He had even waxed her eyebrows away. She sobbed as she looked away from her once beautiful reflection and he just laughed.

“Oh, my precious doll, this is just the beginning of what I have planned for you.” He spoke darkly as he stroked her bald head “I’m going to push you so far down the rabbit hole you’ll never come back.”

Jefferson placed a kiss on the naked crown of her head and walked away, leaving her bound to the steel table to process what he had said. When he came back hours later he was carrying three bags of fluids. One of them was a bag of blood which he put in a cooler to be used another time. The other two, a bag of saline and a bag of nutrients, were then hung upon a metal stand. After Jefferson inserted the medicine IV into her arm he began to prepare the saline.

“Know where this one’s going, Doll?” He asked as he held up the needle, watching the drops drip down

She shook her head, whimpering into the gag. While she was thankful he hadn’t gagged her with a rag that would dry her mouth out this time, she hated the dental gag. It stretched her mouth wide and the metal against her teeth hurt.

“It’s going right into your tits. The viewers love when the dolls have huge tits. More fun to abuse too.”

With that, Jefferson inserted the needle into the meaty flesh of her breast and began the drip. It was cold, she could feel the saline filling her breasts and while it didn’t hurt she was terrified of what the end result would be. While Jefferson waited he lit a cigarette and sat on the rolling stool, taking a long drag. He blew the smoke out directly into her face and laughed when she coughed and her eyes watered.

“You know what my daddy used to do to me when he finished smoking?” Jefferson asked her without looking in her direction as he took another pull “He used to call me over and tell me to lift my shirt. Fucker would put the stub out on my back.”

She didn’t have the chance to feel sorry for him because all thoughts were immediately focused on the burning pain and disgusting taste on her tongue. Jefferson had ashed the cigarette into her open mouth and if she wouldn’t choke to death on her own vomit she would have puked. She had no choice but to swallow the disgusting black ash.

Fifteen minutes and another cigarette later and Jefferson stood and removed the needle carefully from her breast.

“Already a cup size bigger.” He remarked

She groaned when he gave her breast a squeeze, suddenly aware of how tender the globe of flesh was. Tears slipped down her cheek as he inserted the needle into the other breast to finish the bag.

“I think twice a day for a few days will do the trick, don’t you?”

Now here she was three days later bound to a high backed chair that resembled an upright dental chair. He arms and neck were strapped to the chair and her legs were splayed far apart and strapped down at the thighs and calves. Her breasts were huge now, swollen and sore. They jutted out from her chest and ached with the slightest movement, something Jefferson had no issue taking advantage of.

Jefferson stood in front of her, one arm folded across his chest and his other hand resting against his face as he tapped a finger against his chin.

“There’s still so much to do to you but I think now we should begin your training. I’m not a professional doctor but I do know that we need to take these procedures slowly. A little mind warping should give you a nice break.”

“Mind what now?” She thought to herself

Jefferson placed headphones over her ears, making sure they were snug, before placing a black latex hood over her head. Unknown to her the hood had the face of a doll painted onto it, an unsettling face that would give a child nightmares and even Jefferson wasn’t a fan of it but the pictures he’d take and show her later to humiliate her made the creep factor worth it. The hood was tight and if it weren’t for the small holes under the nostrils she wouldn’t be able to breathe. The hood also prevented any light from penetrating and she was left completely blinded. This terrified her and she sniffled. She would have screamed and begged him to release her but he had clipped her vocal cords the night of her first day, after the second round of saline injections, just as he said he would and to prevent her from doing any damage to her throat he had sewn her lips together, temporarily. She could only thank her lucky stars that he had drugged her for that particular procedure although he didn’t want to, it was just necessary to prevent damage.

She twisted her body in the restraints in an attempt to find any slack but there was none. All she could do was sit and wait for him to begin. She jumped and made a gurgling noise when she felt something slick and cold press against her labia, spreading the lips apart. Jefferson used his fingers to spread a numbing lubricant over her sex, coating the clit well. Then he moved a metal stand in front of her and lowered the arm to the correct height. The stand had a vibrating wand attached to it and she jerked when she felt the buzzing head press against her exposed vagina. She tried to squirm away but it was no use.

“Welcome to your new life.”

Jefferson’s deep voice came through the headphones

“You’re no longer human. You no longer have a name. You are an object and a toy to be used for my pleasure.”

The pre recorded message played on an endless and the vibrator buzzed mercilessly at her clit, slowly breaking down her will.

#jefferson #jefferson ouat #jefferson x reader #sebastian stan #fan fiction #fanfic #dollhouse

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