#do guns have more rights than human beings in America

[probablyasocialecologist]

And so it makes sense that these are now the places where fascism grows; that’s what these places were designed for. The suburbs were invented as a reactionary tool against the women’s liberation and civil rights movements. The US government, in concert with banks, landowners, and home builders, created a way to try and stop all that, by separating people into single homes, removing public spaces, and ensuring that every neighborhood was segregated via redlining. The suburbs would keep white women at home, and would keep white men at work to afford that home. These were explicit goals of the designers: “No man who owns his house and lot can be a Communist,” said the creator of Levittown, the model suburb. “He has too much to do.” The reason Target has become the locus of today’s particular right-wing backlash is the same reason countless viral TikToks attempt to convince women that they’re at risk of being kidnapped every time they’re in a parking lot. It’s the reason why true crime is one of the most popular podcast genres in America, and why many refuse to travel without a gun by their side and shoot people if they set foot on their driveway.

[...]

It is of course true that these mass hysterias are part of an organized right-wing movement that is attacking human rights across the country—through legislation banning abortion, gender-affirming care, and books, and making it illegal for educators to teach American history accurately. But the shape this movement has taken is not coincidental; it is in fact the product of the unique shape of public life in America, or lack thereof. Suburbanites do not have town squares in which to protest. They do not have streets to march down. Target has become the closest thing many have to a public forum. We often hear that urban areas are more liberal and suburban ones more conservative, and we’re often told that this is because of race. That may be partly true, though cities are whiter than ever and suburbs more diverse than ever. Instead, it may be that suburbanism itself, as an ideology, breeds reactionary thinking and turns Americans into people constantly scared of a Big Bad Other. The suburban doctrine dictates that public space be limited, and conflict-free where it exists; that private space serve only as a place of commodity exchange; that surveillance, hyper-individualism, and constant vigilance are good and normal and keep people safe. It is an ideology that extends beyond the suburbs; it infects everything. Even cities, as Sarah Schulman writes in The Gentrification of the Mind, have become places where people expect convenience and calmness over culture and community. What is a life of living in a surveilled and amenity-filled high-rise and ordering all your food and objects from the Internet to your door if not a suburban life? To make matters worse, the people who have adopted this mindset do not see it as an ideology, but as the normal and right state of the world; they, as Schulman writes, “look in the mirror and think it’s a window.” So when anything, even a gay T-shirt, disrupts their view, they become scared.

#lgbt #fascism #usa #suburbia

[lassieposting]

So like, Poppy Playtime is one of those things that I enjoy watching whenever a new section drops, but don't usually get particularly invested in, but if there's one thing guaranteed to give me brainrot, it's a codependent friendship between a deeply damaged, morally questionable killer and a lonely, mixed-up kid who idolises him. So naturally Chapter 3 has me in my feelings about the Prototype and Theodore Grambell.

And that got me thinking in general, which gave me a theory.

The Prototype - or, at least, whoever became the Prototype - had a military background.

If you think about it, the Prototype's skillset - while horrifying in an escaped monster on the rampage - would be an asset in a soldier, and more than once we see him use abilities that would probably be best explained by military training.

We know he's tech-savvy, mechanically skilled and good at improvising under pressure and time limits: he strips down an alarm clock in his cell - which he'd have to do quickly, because he's under constant surveillance - and makes a laser pointer from its parts to disable the cameras. These seem like skills that would benefit a soldier, who would be familiar with stripping his equipment - his gun, for example - down to parts to clean and reassemble them, and who might need to know how to fix a vehicle or a radio or use improvised parts in an escape from hostile territory.

Based on the fact that he's appeared unexpectedly multiple times now to claim the bodies of dead and dying mascots at exactly the right time, it's likely that he's been tracking the Player - silently and without being seen - since they entered the facility. He's doing recon, watching to see what the Player does, what their goals are, whether he needs to worry about them, and whether or how he can use them to his own benefit.

He can stay silent under torture. The tapes confirm that Sawyer continued experimenting on him even post-transformation, and the Prototype's description of these sessions makes it clear that there is nothing ethical or humane about them: "You stick us...beat us...tear at flesh." But Sawyer himself confirms that - other than snarking at him on that one tape we see - the Prototype has been silent, stubborn and uncooperative throughout. Soldiers can undergo Resistance to Interrogation training to teach them to cope with torture tactics; the only thing they're allowed to reveal is their name, rank and ID number. If the Prototype has already had this kind of training, it would make a lot more sense why he's able to keep silent when most people, adult or no, would be desperately cooperating and begging for mercy.

He's fiercely intelligent, excels at manipulating situations to his advantage, and is shown in Project Playtime to be capable of marshalling and directing the other fight-capable mascots. He's also a creative, ruthless tactician who seems to favour surprise attacks - the Hour of Joy works because it takes the entire facility unawares. The escape attempt where he hides from the camera relies on the security specialists panicking at his having vanished in a matter of seconds and rushing to do damage control, forgetting the camera has a blind spot. This thing is a strategist, and he's good at it.

Now, from what I've seen, it seems to be a popular theory that the Prototype was created from Elliot Ludwig. I'm not sure whether I really buy into that, but if it were true, it would actually work well with this little theory of mine.

We know that Ludwig was a young adult - probably in his 20s and 30s - in the 1930s and 1940s. He's old enough to have gotten married and to get divorced, and to have started his own company.

And where were all the 20- and 30-something men of America during the 1930s and 40s?

Conscripted. Fighting World War II.

So if he was created from Ludwig, or from any adult in Ludwig's age bracket, it is very likely that this is not the Prototype's first ugly war. Playtime Co are not the first monsters he's ever seen doing horrific human experimentation on captives and trying to cover it up. He'd have seen it all before, and he'd know there would be no stopping any of it without collateral damage. So when he gets his opportunity - the Hour of Joy - he's ruthless about it. He wipes out every human in the Playtime factory. If he fought in one of the major wars of the 20th century - WWII, Vietnam, etc, depending on the age of whoever was used - that would also explain why he goes to that extreme. Plenty of guilty, awful people escaped justice after those major conflicts, and he doesn't want that for the Playtime scientists. He'd rather massacre every employee, whether or not they knew about the experiments, than risk one who deserves death getting away.

idk I just think that whole idea makes his behaviour and motivations make a lot more sense

#poppy playtime #vidya gaems #the prototype #experiment 1006 #poppy playtime meta #poppy playtime headcanons

[two-white-butterflies]

mob wife | d. targaryen

Description: Daemon comes home covered in blood. In which, you realize the kind of life you decided to enter isn't exactly kind.

(mafia au)

Rating: Teen

Author's Note: GIF for now since Canva hates me.

A small breath exits his mouth before collapsing in front of you.

"Daemon," you whisper, kneeling down beside him. He was wise enough to lose consciousness inside the house. His eyelids flutter, a humorous chuckle escapes his lips. "Not mine, I promise." he wiped the blood off his chest, spreading it on the floor.

He vowed to protect you - to never allow harm to befall his wife and daughters - he'd be damned if he let that promise slip.

"The Hightower's men, they tried to fucking ambush us in our own home." he cursed, staring deep into your eyes and letting the moment remain. There will be time to clean - but right now, his only intention was to tell you everything he knew.

"The fucking cook. The fucking cook." he repeated while unloading his gun. "Did you take care of him?" you inquire, wiping the crimson stain away from his platinum locks. "I did more than that," he joked, holding onto your shoulders while he stood up.

"Let's get you cleaned," you breathed, dusting your knees and following after him up the stairs.

Your husband and his group called themselves the 'Dragons' - reminiscent of his family's banners in the olden days. It was said that the Targaryens commanded dragons and ruled the world with an iron fist - looking at your husband, it wasn't hard to believe that.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to get blood of white shirts?" you raise an eyebrow, scrubbing his chest with a pink loofa. "Have the maids clean it." he replied, closing his eyes and allowing your hands to provide him with the sensations that he craved.

"- but I like washing your clothes." you hummed, smiling as his eyes opened to meet yours. He raised his hand - cupping your cheeks. "I did this so those pretty little hands of yours never touch laundry again. You are too dutiful," he mumbled - in disbelief that you were married to him. "And you are too hard-headed," you answer, reaching down to drain the bath then refill it again.

Daemon was handsome and smart - an interesting paradox of a human being. He was the perfect mixture of dangerous and dedicated - and the most important thing is; he was yours.

Yours to command.

Yours to take, and yours to obey.

There was silence between the both of you - and in spite of the smile on your lips, he knew that you were unhappy. "We'll get out of this life, I promise." he comforted, feelings your hands on his back. "You're right, this isn't the kind of life that Baela and Rhaena should have." he mumbled, waiting for a reply.

You continued rubbing the blood off his fingers.

Silence was a better answer.

"Once I get rid of the Hightowers - we'll follow Rhaenyra to America. We'll build a life for ourselves. Far away from this." he promised, pressing a kiss on your bare shoulder. "And we'll buy you a house, eh?" he smiled.

"I just wish that I never worry about your safety - never think about whether or not you're dead." you confess, eyes narrowing at stains underneath his fingernails.

"Let me worry about dying, but right now you're the boss' fucking wife - you have to own it." he cursed.

He paints a small smile on your face.

@watercolorskyy @bellastwd @fan-goddess @nyctophilic0vitnir @pearlstiare @areaderinlove @hc-geralt-23 @rozendiors

#daemon targaryen fanfiction #daemon targaryen #daemon targaryen x oc #daemon targaryen x reader #daemon targaryen x you #house of the dragon #house of the dragon fanfiction #house of the dragon fanfic #matt smith #hotd #hotd fanfiction #a song of ice and fire #a song of ice and fire fanfiction #asoiaf #asoiaf fanfiction #game of thrones #game of thrones fanfiction #got #got fanfiction #house targaryen #fire and blood

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

So overall you think men have things worse off than women? You don’t think that DV statistics, rape statistics, the wage gap, harassment statistics, lack of power/representation etc might run contrary to your claim?

The internalized model you've taken on from feminism/Marxism/identity politics is what is underpinning your faulty assumptions about reality here: I don't think of men and women as warring nations, but rather the human family: it's not a "who's the biggest victim" competition: If your father and brother are suffering, it's not a triumph for you; If a man's mother and sister are being abused, they're not going to applaud or celebrate.

Feminism itself created "the gender war", and this model of thinking about ourselves has been incalculably corrosive and destructive to all human relationships.

So it is not my intent to replace the narrative of perpetual female victimhood with one of male victimhood. The only reason i argue against feminist claims is because they are harmful lies, and because feminism itself is the most sexist movement that has ever existed in the history of the human race, whereas I support equal rights, opportunities, care and concern for all.

The "wage gap" has been disproved endlessly:

but feminism relies upon this narrative of injustice and oppression, even when it's not there: it's been illegal to pay women less than men for the same hours at the same job doing the same task for over 50 years everywhere in the western world. Women on average work fewer hours, and gravitate towards careers that pay less than work that is harder, more stressful or dangerous. They also take years out of their working lives through maternity leave, and after giving birth often come back part time: women work the majority of part-time jobs, which pay less because of how much easier and comparably free from responsibility they are.

All these things on average add up to a lower total of lifetime earnings than the male column, even though there is no month-by-month "wage gap" at all, and in fact childless women in their twenties have been out-earning men of the same age for a couple of decades now. It should also be obvious that the older men who are working longer hours in unpleasant conditions to increase their paycheck are usually doing so because they have a wife and children to support, so the money they make is going to, and being spent by, women (women make 80% of all purchasing decisions in America and presumably most of the rest of the world).

Once again, everything is interconnected: human beings are not nations at war against each other but families and friends helping and relying upon each other. The "class war" lens through which the feminists and others look at the human race is evil and only destructive.

As for domestic violence and rape and harassment, etc., it's been gone into here and elsewhere in great depth, but in all cases, men are not counted or treated equally to women in the eyes of the law (or by society) in any of them, and there have been many instances where a man has been assaulted in his own home by a crazy women, and when he called the police, they arrested him instead of her. Feminists pushed for this sexist "primary aggressor" law, which urged police to arrest men rather than women, even though any woman can pick up a knife or a gun or a frying pan and kill someone they're with just as easily as a man, and only someone who sees all women as innocent children incapable of any violent thoughts whatsoever would maintain otherwise.

Women coercing a man into sexual activity against his will is in most countries not counted as "rape" at all, but rather one of a variety of lesser charges with names like "forced envelopment" or somesuch, so it's hardly likely that the rape statistics reflect such a great disparity when one half of the population cannot be charged with the crime. Right?

Now, I personally think quite a lot more men rape women than women rape men, but then on the other hand, I've seen with my own eyes far more women hit men than men hit women. Intimate partner violence is about equal between the sexes, although interestingly enough, the highest rate of domestic violence reported is by lesbians, with straight couples in the middle and homosexual males coming in last.

The fundamental truth is that people pheromonally bound to one another are sometimes terrible to one another. I wish they weren't, but they always have been, and it's idiotic to try lay the blame at the feet of one half of the human race and not the other.

But what political hold would feminism still have in the world without asserting otherwise?

[studiodaydream]

genuinely, genuinely, in the most neutral way possible: zionism in no way claims that jews control the world. idk where you got that from. all zionism is is the belief that jews should be able to live in their ancestral homeland freely. it's not white supremacy, because not all jews are white. please stop spreading hate ❤️

There is no hate for Jews here, only for White Supremacist ideologylies like Zionism.

I have proof that Israel mutilates, and guns down African Jews, who are not the so called "Evil Muslims" that Zionist love to kill and murder for their land and resources.

Most of this is about Ethiopian Jews but the treatment of Refugees from African Countries is even more so appalling.

You cannot tell me to do my research and all I've found is Racism, Islamophobia, Genocide, Mutilation and Murder.

Talks about a Chosen Race, and Superior Bloodlines and not see the White Supremacy that has plagued America and Europe for hundreds of years.

You can not tell me to do my research about Zionism and tell me I don't know anything only to see that your so called "Jewish Nationalist Independence" came from an Antisemitic British man

So no im not spreading hate, I'm spreading facts about the White Supremacist ideology of Zionism. That believes that it shouldn't be criticized because it's Jewish White Nationalism and it's different from regular White Nationalism and if you compare the two and criticize Israel you're antisemitic and you hate Jews.

Judaism is a non violent religion. Jewish Culture is non violent. What is Violent is Zionism and its settler colonialist aggression towards its neighbors, relentlessly bombing them out of "self defense" well the world is watching what youre so called "self defense" looks like.

It looks like dead babies left in hospitals that have been bombed

Isreal's "self defense" looks like a father asking for help with his child, as his dead child's REMAINS are stuffed in bags and yet he begs for help

Israel's self defense looks like White Phosphorus being dropped on innocent civilians

https://youtu.be/geqdxdNEToU?si=js5ZGZC4eajY7uO2

These links show that Israel is not only a White Supremacist Nation like its parents The US and UK but also that Zionism is a White Supremacist Ideology.

I am not spreading hate Anon, I am spreading facts. To deny these facts is to spread hate. To deny that Israel is not a criminal empire and is simply "defending its right to exist" is to spread hate.

Antisemitism is on the rise and it's not because of people like me Anon is it because of Israel and Zionist Settler Colonialist Aggression towards the Palestinians and towards its Arab Neighbors. Israel denies the Nakba and that it stole land at all claiming that "no one lived here before we came" a "empty land with no people". Well there were people and those people had neighbors who saw what Zionist did to their defenseless neighbor with the backing of terrorist countries like the US and the UK. Terrorist Nations that destabilized and murdered millions in 3 separate nations in their "War on Terror".

White Supremacy has no ally on this blog, including Zionism.

If you want to unfollow me go ahead. I will not be swayed by Zionist Propaganda that this is all in "defense" of Jewish Nationhood, and how the only way to "defend" Jewish Nationhood is to invade other countries and murder other people who look different from them because they are the "Chosen People".

We've heard it all before, when the Europeans said they were bringing "civilization" to Africa and the Americas by enslaving our people and stealing our land and resources. When America had its "Manifest Destiny" which led to the genocide of countless Native Americans and the stealing of their land and resources. To Nazi Germany and the "Superior Ayan Race" which killed millions and invaded other nations killing millions of more.

You might be familiar with that last one, the Holocaust. Where millions of Jews were brutally and systematically murdered. But not only Jews but Black Europeans, Romanian Immigrants and LGBTQ Europeans.

But it seems like Israel has forgotten history because it does not treat African Jews equally to its European Jews and is actively Hostile to Refugees from African countries. While committing Genocide against the Palestinians as I type this out.

So if you're reading this I implore you to donate if you can or spread awareness of what's happening in Gaza

https://buildpalestine.com/2021/05/15/trusted-organizations-to-donate-to-palestine/

And your daily clicks

https://arab.org/click-to-help/

Do not allow Zionist to call you antisemitic for calling them out on their lies.

Palestine will be Free, From the River to the Sea

#from the river to the sea #palestine will be free #free palestine #free free palestine #free gaza #jews for palestine #palestinian genocide #support palestine #never again #means never again for everyone

[darkbanez]

So if y’all aren’t caught up with the shooting this morning:

Today, in Nashville, Tennessee, a 28 year old trans man broke into and opened fire on a Christian Elementary School.

According to CNN:

“Here's what we know so far:

About Covenant School: The school is a private Christian school founded in 2001 as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church. It has an average enrollment of about 200 people in recent years, according to its website, and it teaches preschool through 6th grade.

What happened: Don Aaron, spokesperson for the Metro Nashville Police Department, said the first calls of an active shooting came in at around 10:15 a.m. local time. When officers arrived, they went through the first level of the building, he said. They then heard gunshots coming from the second level of the building, according to Aaron. He said that's where police confronted and killed the shooter at 10:27 a.m. local time.

The shooter: The shooter has been identified as 28-year-old Nashville resident Audrey Hale. The shooter was armed with a handgun and two AR-style weapons — one a rifle and an AR-style pistol, Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said. Two of those may have been obtained legally and locally in Nashville, Drake said. According to initial findings, the shooter was once a student at the school, he added, though he said police are unsure what years.

Prior planning: The shooter had drawn detailed maps of Covenant School, Drake said, including the entry points to the building and detailing "how this was all gonna take place." Drake said police believe the shooter shot through one of the doors to get into the school. Drake said the school was the only location targeted by the shooter. Police have also located a manifesto that they are reviewing.

The victims: The three students who were shot and killed at Covenant School were all 9 years old, police said. They have been identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, according to police. Three adults were also killed in the shooting. They have been identified as 61-year-old Cynthia Peak, 60-year-old Katherine Koonce and 61-year-old Mike Hill, police said.

What's next: Police will spend the next two days processing the scene and working to gather more details about what happened during a shooting at a Nashville elementary school, Aaron said, adding police also intend to release video soon. Officials said they knew where the shooter lived and they have interviewed the shooter's father.

Call for gun safety legislation: President Joe Biden called the shooting at a Nashville school "heartbreaking, a family's worst nightmare," while advocating for gun reform. Biden said Congress needs to pass an assault weapons ban because we "need to do more to protect our schools." However, a bipartisan solution is extremely unlikely this Congress with a slim Democratic majority in the Senate and a GOP-led House. Nashville Mayor John Cooper said too many children are dying from guns and that the community needs to come together to support each other.

Mass shootings in America: The Nashville shooting is the 129th mass shooting in the US so far in 2023, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. The Gun Violence Archive, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.”

(via https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/nashville-shooting-covenant-school-03-27-23/index.html)

Obviously Twitter is having a hayday with this, right-wingers seemingly celebrating the fact that the shooter was transgender.

If you choose to care more about what the shooter identified as, rather than the LITERAL children and teachers that were killed, you are a despicable human being and you deserve everything that comes to you.

Please feel free to add more info in reblogs/replies!

#nashville #cw school shooting #march 27 #nashville shooting #info #dark.txt

[cheemscakecat]

BLU Spy headcanon and Sniper pee

What if… BLU Spy was from rural France originally, and not the city?

Because the way he acts, you would assume he’d throw a hissy fit over getting dirt under his nails or something minor like that…

But what if it’s an act? As stuck up as he is, he pretends to be grossed out and prissy about everyday messes to keep up his image. And the only thing that actually grosses him out is human waste like Sniper pee?

[Throwing dirty bottles from the trash]

Think about it. He doesn’t tell people his name or where he’s from, he doesn’t let them see his face, and he tries to stay aloof. Even to someone as friendly as Soldier. Wouldn’t it make sense to play a part that doesn’t fit your background, so people couldn’t use your behavior to extrapolate your origin?

Animals are not clean, they poop and pee wherever it seems right to them and it accumulates. Farm animals included. And beyond that, gardening and farming requires you to get your hands up in the dirt. But that’s nature, animals don’t have souls and human intelligence. We know what viruses and diseases are; livestock, wildlife and pets do not.

So, in the absence of his suit or reasons to pretend to be a germaphobe, it wouldn’t bother BLU Spy to clean up a horse stable; they need their feces to be taken away so they don’t get worms. It wouldn't bother him to give food scraps to pigs or chickens, and it wouldn’t bother him to get the eggs from the coop.

Walking around cow patties in a field, helping a farm animal with a difficult delivery, and fertilizing a garden or field would not bother him. Killing a farm animal and preparing it to be cooked would not make him squeamish.

But Sniper is a grown man who throws his pee at people intentionally. And to BLU Spy, that’s extra nasty because how does an adult think that’s acceptable behavior? It’s waste; it’s water with all the toxins and ammonia and refuse that your body doesn’t use for energy. And it can make you sick if you get it in an open wound [likely on the battlefield] or drink it, which Snipes may well do.

And it’s probably worse considering the fact that Sniper takes those kidney enlarging pills; they may not be filtering waste out of the body like they were meant to do. I think that when RED Medic brought him back, he replaced his messed up kidneys with some from an exotic animal, since he wouldn’t have gotten the chance prior.

This is an interesting interaction for a few reasons.

The sewage they’re currently walking in is up to Soldier’s knees and almost Spy’s.

Soldier is talking about trench warfare, which is notorious for wet sloppy ground and rats causing gangrene and other illnesses. But the way he talks about it makes it sound less terrible than the situation they’re currently in. I think he was just trying to make conversation, not tell Spy to get over himself because he’s been through worse.

2. Soldier is looking straight ahead while Spy is looking into the water to watch his steps.

Sewage pipes are meant to take feces, pee, and toilet paper away from people to keep them from getting sick. But animals such as rats and random trash end up in the sewers; and given their location, they may well step on a fallen gun, bullets, or an engineer’s tools by mistake.

They’re both being smart in different ways; Soldier is watching for enemies ahead, and Spy is watching for objects that might go through his shoe and cause an infection. Or cause him to slip and get more sewage on himself.

3. In WWI, trench warfare was concentrated in France.

The Germans were trying to take Paris, and the French fought fiercely in the countryside between the city and Belgium, which had already fallen and been razed. WWI had more trench warfare, because the inventions needed to break a stalemate between two trenches of enemy soldiers had to be developed during those years. Chemical warfare like the use of Mustard gas was not condemned legally until after the war at the Geneva convention.

Meanwhile, America was ever the land far away that didn’t suffer the same effects on their land. Their soldiers died, their elderly and children did not. Their farms were not scarred with razor wire and trenches and bullets. But those scars were concentrated in France.

So to Spy -who did not live through the first war, but did hear the stories, and of the rebuilding, and live through WWII- Soldier is the one who hasn’t really been through it. War is hell on all soldiers, but it was a wildly different experience for a foreigner to come in, help, and go back to the land of plenty, than to be a citizen of one of the countries invaded by the N*zis.

4. In WWII, France fell to Germany in stark contrast to their valiant performance in WWI. The Resistance and anyone who tried to save persecuted undesirables were about the only people who showed courage.

I won’t go into so much detail here, since this will be relevant in my Emesis Blue fanfic later, but you should know that the country of France was not heroic and brave in WWII. It brought great shame on their people, even if it was mostly forgotten by the rest of the world later.

So in a way, Soldier being someone who kept up the fight against the Germans makes him “better” than the French military, alongside his platoon. But he would also be unaware of the wider hardships faced by the people of France during those years, as someone who was rushing to stop Germany and on the frontlines. He didn’t live in a village or city in Europe, living the misfortune of the civilians who called that country home. And he didn’t live through the years after the war, when these countries had to rebuild.

Him looking forward and ignoring whatever might be in the water is a good representation of this. So is the fact that he’s the one in front, setting their pace, while Spy is lagging a little.

#tf2 #emesis blue #tf2 spy #tf2 soldier #character analysis #this started out lighthearted and got sad quick. #Angst #historical context

[splathousefiction]

"For The Children" Is A Puritan Dogwhistle, And It's Time You Stop Pretending People Who Use It Are Acting In Good Faith.

They're not.

Not once, not ever, nor has any policy, political move, bill, terms of service update or edit to an EULA agreement done under this banner been made with good intentions. "For the safety/good of children" is what's commonly referred to as an "Emotional Appeal", a logical fallacy most of you learn about in grade school. Corporations and politicians, at least in America, will happily strip away your autonomy without a second thought while simultaneously ignoring direct and real dangers that many children face literally every single day. They get away with it too, because gaslighting in American politics works.

There's no grand agenda, no chemical in the water nor some mind control via 5g tower by some shady cabal to harm your children.

You know what kids are really dealing with right now?

There's been 64 school shootings in the US so far just in 2024. The number of kids facing food scarcity or only getting a meal at school (often on the free/reduced price tier) has surged since the 2019 lockdowns. More than 1.2 million kids in school right now are homeless. Schools are underfunded by $150 billion annually, meaning kids don't even have access to the resources necessary to receive a quality education.

These are just the causes I can personally think of that we should be investing in "for the children", and yet as literal bodies pile up every year, kids starve and freeze outside in the elements, I've watched our politicians just shrug and say nothing can be done while actively infringing on the privacy and safety of it's citizens.

Instead of doing something about gun control, we've got militarized police in schools and talk of allowing teachers to carry firearms. Instead of taking my tax money and at least feeding the kids, I've watched them be fed stuff so lacking in nutritional value it might as well be dirt. I've seen politicians move to keep the holocaust out of textbooks and reduce the horrors of war to a few paragraphs-always with this country as the winners, the good guys, the MCU equivalent of the avengers coming to save the day. Don't even get me started on housing those homeless children. If the US doesn't care about kids being shot to death, it sure as hell doesn't care about giving them adequate shelter.

I'm not so dumb as to assume there's a single solution or a single cause to any of this, but I'm also not ignorant to the fact that every single fucking time I've heard "for the safety of kids" or "for the good of the children" used by someone, they're about to do something fucking hideous to all of us and get away with it. They're about to rob you of your rights, your humanity, your name and culture if they think they can. And they're gonna get away with it too, because what kind of monster would ever argue against the safety of kids?

"For the children" is a conservative dog whistle. It always has been, it always will be, and every time you see it used it's time to start harassing the shit out of the people saying it by asking them what they're legitimately, actually, factually doing for kids. Because there's a damn good chance their entire argument is built on a throne of corpses.

[anika-ann]

Love on the Brain - Prologue

Take a Picture, It Will Last Longer

Type: MCU x Criminal Minds crossover series

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader    Word Count: 2500

Summary:  Being Steve Rogers’ neighbour, coworker and friend comes with certain perks... doesn’t it?

Series masterlist

Warnings: series includes criminal behaviour such as stalking or kidnapping; graphic violence, gun violence; (mentions of) death; allusions to dub-con; possible PTSD and flashbacks; sexual innuendos and foul language. Loads of fluff and teasing. I’m covering my bases here to make sure - probably sounds worse than it is. If you’re interested in specific warnings for individual chapters, let me know.

A/N: divider by @firefly-graphics​; we start short, chapter will get longer... happy reading 💗

"A picture's worth thousands of words but they don't tell the whole story."  Jennifer Brown

-

Had anyone asked you a few years back what the favourite part of your day was, you would answer slightly evasively and yet in a manner that said it all: not mornings.

You were not a fan, at all; your biorhythm was set to being more of an owl. Therefore mornings were destined to be your doom. Mornings were destined to be everything but pleasant.

Then again, living next to Steve Rogers, Captain America himself, made one rethink their stands.

Because seeing him coming back from his morning run at seven a.m. like clockwork was a sight for your sore eyes, more so when he arrived ten minutes later with two cups of coffee from the nearest café. Those mornings, he graced you with your morning fix, a view of his t-shirt clinging to his ridiculously large frame and a million-dollar smile with a teasing edge, because unlike him, you had just barely shuffled out of bed.

Mornings like that were heavenly.

More so, however, living next to Steve Rogers also made one rethink their ways.

An agent operating under the Avengers Initiative for two years now and a former FBI agent for what felt like a whole past life often called for an early morning and regular workout. These two were not mutually exclusive unless you could help it.

You were certainly not a fan of participating in a morning run, but Steve was a very sweet running partner who’d always wait for you and who made for a perfect eye-candy because he’d just do push-ups and such while you were trying to catch up with him and your lungs tried to catch up with you.

Watching Steve was the best motivation; but ogling him was only platonic, of course.

You two were friends – dare to say best friends. Despite your slightly awkward start, the whole co-worker slash neighbour thing worked for you well. For all your knowledge of the human mind, you could only think of one way to describe what happened between the two of you to lead to your friendship: you simply clicked together.

Hence some mornings finding you actually running with him, returning to your apartment building energized and exhausted at once, breathless and with an ache in your feet and a smile on your lips.

Much like today.

Even after an atrocious hour of having to wait up for your ordinary human running – and it was a must for Steve, because that was who he was, he wouldn’t just leave you behind –, he was a gentleman.

Opening the door for you as you were entering your apartment building, he lifted one corner of his lips in a lop-sided smile, which only widened at your quiet thank you as you were still trying to level your breathing.

He followed right behind you to the mailboxes, joining you in your routine of sorting and exchanging mail between the two of you.

Every now and then, a new mailperson would join the post office and inevitably got confused by the absolutely baffling signs on the boxes that made for a lot of Steve’s mail ending up in your mailbox and vice versa.

Some of your neighbours lost patience and added stickers on their own mailbox to clear things up, but not you nor Steve had done the same. It actually became a habit to deliver the mail that ended up in the wrong box straight to each other’s door and have a quick chat in the hallway… or a coffee. Or a breakfast. Or a lazy morning where you convinced him to hang out on his couch and catch up with at least one episode of what you were currently watching.

For most people, getting mail was ought to be annoying, because usually it was either bills or ads or boring adult stuff. But like this? With Steve Rogers, apparently even getting mail could be fun.

“You were pretty quick on your feet today,” he uttered as he reached over your shoulder to his mailbox situated directly above yours, causing your heart to skip a beat at both the reminder of how easily he would able to pull you to his chest and tuck your head under his chin and his compliment. “I barely had to wait.”

“Maybe you’re just getting slow, GG. Your age is catching up to you,” you teased lightly.

“Ha-ha. Just take the compliment, will ya, Sparkles?”

You reached inside the box absentmindedly, glancing over your shoulder, met with the sight of his broad chest first, followed by his raised eyebrow as you looked up. You couldn’t but smile, nodding.

“Thank you, Steve.”

“Just the truth. You’re getting better and better.”

“Must be the right partner,” you shrugged, praising him right back – only to feel your eyes widen when you realized how it sounded.

The right partner.

It sounded like you were dangerously skimming the border between friendship and a romantic relationship – a border you seemed to be pushing more and more these days, even if almost exclusively on accident. Which was probably the only reason Steve let you off easily whenever you did so.

Just like now.

Still. Feeling blood rush to your face with more ferocity than during the run, you swiftly shut the box, ducked under Steve’s tree trunk of an arm and stepped away to make space for him, busying yourself with the envelopes in your hands.

Electricity bill – oh lord.

Water – great, it is that time of the month.

‘Buy yourself a new furry friend’—do not tempt me.

The last remaining envelope was curious to say at least, instantly making you frown; it was rather thick.

Now perhaps that was the curse of being a government agent, paranoia having a grip on you at all times… but this wasn’t just paranoia. It was a gut feeling. A gut feeling screaming at you despite the envelope not being sealed. No sealed envelope meant there were likely to be no explosives.

And yet…

As you pulled out the content carefully, your heart leaped into your throat, your blood running cold – and turning colder with every new image your eyes fell on.

“Hey, you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost and I’m usually the one being followed by those,” Steve joked lightly, an echo of concern in his voice.

You couldn’t find your own voice, you couldn’t find the words; your mind come to a screeching halt.

Distantly, you were aware of Steve looking over your shoulder as he stood behind you, the tower of a man he was, his hand brushing your lower back as if for support.

You knew he noticed how you had stiffened, because it was impossible to miss it. Your body went into complete defensive – and into panic.

Because in your hands there were photos – quite a few photos – and on every single one of them was the man standing by your side. Pictures of him at various times of day, captured at different places he frequented, almost always wearing a different outfit. The only thing connecting the photos was his expression – in most of the photos, he was smiling.

He looked as handsome as ever, but that certainly wasn’t what had your heart beating its way out of your chest.

“What the hell…?” he muttered, so lowly it barely reaching your ears.

Then again, maybe it had to do with the fact that the alarm bells in your head were ringing louder with each passing second.

Because someone was watching Steve.

Someone was stalking Steve.

And they wanted him to know – that much was clear.

What was considerably less clear but possibly even more menacing was the message written in black marker, underlined in red, written over every single photo.

NOT WORTHY

You had no idea what the fuck that meant, but frankly, you did not care.

You didn’t care about anything besides Steve being in danger.

It was that last thought that snapped you from your trance at last, years of training and practice finally kicking in as you spun to face him.

“Okay… I’m gonna go with you and check your apartment. Then, you’ll grab a quick shower and meet me in fifteen minutes,” you ordered mechanically, leaving no room for discussion. “You take a minute longer and I’m barging into your apartment with a gun.”

Your serious eyes met his, widened in shock, softened by the furrow between his brows.

“Come on now, that’s a little-“

“Not a word.”

He opened his mouth to oppose you once more, but you never gave him the chance, shooting him a glare that clearly made even Captain America think twice before crossing you. It kinda reminded you of the one time you stared him down when he told you he never tried pineapple on pizza and he really wasn’t sure it could taste good--- not important.

The clock was ticking.

“Fourteen minutes and thirty seconds left, Steve. You know I wouldn’t joke about this. Whatever your plan was today, it’s just changed,” you said, adamant. “We’re taking these straight to your friends. And I’m not letting you out of my sight until you’re in the same room as Ironman and Black Widow, at least.”

“Sparkles-“

You stared at him, unrelenting and stern even as anxiety weighted a ton in your stomach.

“Fourteen minutes, Steve. Let’s go.”

You almost made good on your promise as you stood in front on Steve’s door, listening intently and watching the seconds tick by, gun ready as well as the two knifes in your calf holster. You would not take any chances – this was Steve.

Just because the lock still looked untouched by brutal force and his apartment had been clean mere minutes ago when you checked it and you both lived on the eight floor and you secured the possible entrances from the fire escape, it did not mean any intruder couldn’t get in somehow.

Twenty seconds remained from the timer you had set and your legs were getting twitchy, preparing to kick the door in and run in, gun blazing.

Yes, perhaps you were being overbearing and took this extremely seriously, but you had a good reason.

Statistics were full of people who underestimated a stalker – and ended up hurt or even dead. Hell, you had lived through one of those cases and the bad ending after bad ending piling up had brought you here, hoping for better outcomes in your new job.

It was naïve to think you would never encounter a case like this ever again; but you had never imagined it would happen to someone you cared about so deeply.

Then again, no one ever did until a psycho made them or their loved one a target, may it be a stalker or another disturbed individual. The victims themselves often didn’t see it coming.

Kyle Meyers sure didn’t.

The life leaving his eyes, eyes accusing you of betrayal because you had promised to protect him flashed behind your eyelids, an image of your own bloodied hands stealing air from your lungs.

‘Please-‘ he had said, one little word, betrayed and yet so trusting, a grown man begging like a child, heart bleeding and vulnerable, because you had fucked it up and swore to keep him safe.

And failed.

Ironically, the authorities deemed you innocent, free of error, allowed you to stay despite the blood still staining your hands.

But the blood was so dark, crimson, so achingly red, red, red-

The timer went off with a vibration on your wrist, snapping you from your horror-like daydream.

Steve was still inside.

The timer went off, but you still had time. Steve was not going to end up like all the people you couldn’t save before.

Bracing yourself, you glanced at the door, muscles tensing, preparing to kick.

You nearly jumped out of your skin when the door flew open.

Steve watched you startled, shield up to protect himself from the gun you instantly aimed to his face – and you lowered it just as quickly, heart having leapt to your throat.

“Jesus,” you breathed out, closing your eyes briefly, gulping. Great, now I almost shot him before his stalker could get to him. “Sorry. I’m sorry, GG. Truly.”

Concern was written all over his face as he let the arm with a shield fall down to his side, engulfing you in a gentle half-hug, doing justice to his nickname of a gentle giant.

It was clearer than day he was more worried about your jumpiness than his own safety and if you weren’t so overwhelmed with just how impulsive you had been, it would irritate you. Steve wasn’t taking this seriously; those of past experiences you had shared with him and which were coming back to haunt you, on the other hand, weighted him down.

“It’s okay. I’m just glad you didn’t shoot me.”

You dug your elbow into his stomach hard, pushing away even if his warm touch soothed your nerves.

Jerk. This was not a laughing matter.

“Let’s go.”

Naturally, you insisted on checking the bike thoroughly; with Steve’s help because you were not much of an expert on motorcycles. Once again, you could tell he thought you were being overbearing, that you were overreacting – but you were taking no chances.

He would have jumped on the bike with no care for the world because they were just a few photos with a little note.

As if… as fucking if.

“Steve, we’re not getting on that bike unless we check it,” you said decisively, not above emphasizing the ‘we’, knowing all too well what you were doing.

Unsurprisingly, something in his blue eyes changed – slight annoyance melted into resignation... and then worry.

It was a low blow to use Steve’s mother-henning tendencies against him but until it got through his thick skull that he was in danger, you were willing to use any means necessary.  

“Right. We ride together.”

“I told you I’m not letting you out of my sight,” you reminded him, mindful to sound less biting but no less firm. “For once, I don’t care if you mind having me tag along, because yes, I simply am riding with you.”

With a sigh, he nodded, crouching by the vehicle as you stood tall, sharp eyes monitoring the surroundings for anything suspicious or downright dangerous.

Neither of you found anything.

For now, your mind unhelpfully supplied as you climbed behind Steve, his shield holster on your own back so you could hold onto Steve tight and reach for the weapon when needed. You shushed the pessimistic voice as you pressed to his back and breathed in the scent of leather mixed with Steve cologne.

“Shall we?”

You just nodded against his back.

You trusted him to drive you both safe to the Tower; in return, it was your job to ensure you remained safe from other dangers than traffic.

And damn, you would.

You would keep him safe no matter the cost.

→ Next part

Series masterlist // Steve Rogers masterlist // Misc masterlist

Thank you for reading! 💕

As said above, we’re staring relatively short - prologue and first chapter. Then we’ll delve in for real👀

Please consider any feedback. We live for interaction on this site. Taglist is open.

#fanfiction #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #marvel #criminal minds #captain america x reader #agent reader #captain america x you #steve rogers #captain america #marvel crossover #criminal minds crossover #steve rogers imagine #captain america imagine #criminal minds imagine #bau #bau agent reader #former bau agent reader #love on the brain #anika ann

[xdogteeth]

Binged all of The Boys episodes and the more I watched, the bigger the snowball became when Homelander was on screen. There are a lot of thoughts for him particular (plus his actor, Antony) and I don’t even know where to begin. Homelander is so messed up in more ways than one but I have stressed over and over it’s what makes him a good villain. There is nothing good about him, there is nothing you should be defending him over. He’s a legitimately a character you should never defend and baby over. Every little thing Homelander has done is downright cruel and unforgivable. I could analyze him every single day and not be tired of it because he’s truthfully interesting.

You watch Homelander charge into the same brick wall over and over again in the 3 seasons that’s aired and he finally breaks through it in the last episode in season 3. You continuously see him with his pants on fire, not thinking clear due to being traumatized and not having anyone guide him into a right path even now that he’s older. I genuinely hated seeing him literally long for Madelyn’s attention and love, being so touch starved it was pathetic in its own way. Watching her use him without him even noticing in the slightest, believing this was how everyone was treated with love. Homelander was Madelyn’s Golden Boy of the 7 and nothing more. I think she cared a TEENY bit for him out of pity but I don’t think there was nothing else there. If he wasn’t throwing a tantrum and causing hell rise in the city, he was out of her hair for the week. When he was seeking attention like a small boy, she’d reach her hand out to ease those feelings for a little by giving false hope and lies to make him shut up for the mean time. It just hurt a lot to watch Homelander be treated like that.

Which brings me to the company in general. They all treated Homelander like some type of special gift to humanity, feeding his narcissism and ego which truthfully led him into what he became. You could not tell me they didn’t know what they were doing with the child when he was growing up, grooming him and making him into a perfect little golden child. Homelander was America’s Sweetheart, never able to hurt a butterfly or animal. He wasn’t supposed to act out, being fed into fears of being punished. Honestly, with these moments you find out in the show, I couldn’t help but slowly understand why Homelander was turning into a monster in real time; showing his feeelings he’s had to cover for years on end, showing his touch starved self because he couldn’t hold it anymore. Homelander needed to express these feelings and thoughts from years of torture and grooming so can you really blame him for finally lashing out and becoming insane?

Though, I don’t condone in his actions at all. If Vought truly knew that their sweet little Golden Boy was a ticking time bomb, why didn’t they feed him a therapist and a psychiatrist? You could pull out: “He’d give out too much information” and that’s a reasonable thought. Yet, you know that the Vought had their “people” and they could’ve easily hired one of those professionals with a gun to their head to let Homelander vent. I’m so curious of what he would’ve turned out to be if they just… Thought with their brains instead of their dicks for him. Maybe, the company wouldn’t have crumbled the way it did if they just thought. I guess, truthfully, it wouldn’t be a good show if Homelander got the treatment he desperately needed.

There’s so much I could analyze and ramble about but I think I’ll hold onto those thoughts for another time. I really love Homelander, his characteristics are eye catching. Morbid, but I find it beautiful of how he reacts and thinks. I like his train of thoughts, learning that the simplest of words could trigger him into a melt down and kill everyone in the room. The way his inner child bursts through when he doesn’t earn what he wants, stomping his foot and physically pouting in front of his team when he doesn’t like. something. Homelander, to me, is just a scared parentless child who’s afraid in this dark room they threw him in. Sure, he’s like, 41 years old or something and looks like a grown man but in reality Homelander is a child controlling the mind of a man. I think he starts actually maturing when Stormfront appears in his life because she knew how to speak to him unlike the others. Even if his childish acts appear across his face when he doesn’t get his way every so often.

I stand by these words when I say: I don’t want Homelander fixed. He is not a fixable character, he shouldn’t be a fixable character. I’m kinda antsy for the last 2 seasons for his development in the show because I don’t want him to be forgiven of his crimes. Not every character should be “fixed” and “forgiven” because some deserve an awful death/life for what they did. I hate when people do that to the bad characters because “everyone deserves redemption”. Homelander had his chances and blew it not even once but multiple times so no, don’t fix it. It’d be a good story to see him crash and burn head first, losing all of his humanity for good and possibly, just possibly, killing Ryan and himself out of pure andrenline. Watching him stand there in the burning fire, not wanting to handle it would be just fine with me. I don’t have a problem of killing off Homelander though, some people would disagree about that. I don’t understand why you’d get your panties in a twist over that theory? Why not have a spicy ending for a man like him, watching him lose it once and for all while sobbing over it before just… Ending it with Ryan. You get to watch a legit Madman become too much and fall just like that.

Homelander to me is like a Rubik’s cube. I can twist and turn all of these pieces of him, analyzing him from the front to back, side to side, and not get tired of it. I’d like to finish the puzzle though, lmfao, but it has been a long time since I’ve fallen for a character- let alone, villain- like him. Something that’s actually written correctly and intersting to indulge into. It’s why I enjoy talking about him because there are so many hit points Homelander has that I can’t stop pointing out.

Anyways, I wanted to talk about Antony Starr acting as him. Maybe I am a teeny bit bias for it but I don’t think they couldn’t have found anyone better. Antony really shows the emotions in his voice and facial expressions - a lot of actors don’t grasp. I love seeing him enjoy being Homelander, taking his role seriously (on and off set LMFAO) and making Homelander real to everyone. He shows Homelander's emotions in ways I can't describe but I think it's so amazing he's able to get the viewer to cry along.

If you watch closely, you notice ticks Antony has when he's in character. I notice he stutters when he's mad, which I'm not sure if that's just supposed to be Homelander in the script but I don't think it is truthfully. It's endearing, seeing Antony make Homelander be vulnerable in those moments, or when he's switching personalities on the fly. The scene in season 2 where he's in the forest, trying to cry before laughing from insanity trickling in really sold and captivated me. Antony in general is an amazing actor, I honestly understand why people praises his work all the time.

In awe over Antony in general, not sure how someone can look so intimidating by snarling their teeth before smiling sweetly with their canines showing. It takes real hard work to switch on the fly like that especially for a character like Homelander. I hope to see more of his work one day and I'd like to see Antony expand his horizons in acting instead of always staying with the villains.

Back on Homelander now.

The scene in one of the episodes in s3, where Homelander is fighting with himself in the mirror. It kind of lives inside my head, seeing his mentally unwell side take over his humanity thoughts. The way it barks at him, crushing his inner child when Homelander replies: "I just wanted them... To love me." with tears in his eyes before it started harping at him. Once again asking to the sky, why no one tried to help him out. If you truly examined Homelander in Vought, you could easily tell there was something unwell with him. I guess people are blinded by money.

All Homelander yearned and ached for was genuine love and attention. The crowds feeding his egos will never sew up the holes in his heart, it will never be a true Mother and Father love like he assumes. No one, not even Madelyn and Stormfront, could've sewn up that ache in his chest. He wanted to believe it did in those moments, thinking it was curing him when it wasn't at the all. It never will.

It brings me to Ryan. What Homelander did to Becca was horrible and I really despise the fact he did it. Forcing a woman to hide with his son that he didn't care about first, believing it was already a mini soldier when he met it was just so... I suppose he had to learn in the wrong way since no one has showed him attention like that. Ryan to Homelander was just a void to fill in, believing if he forces himself onto Ryan and live carelessly through the child, he would fix his own traumatic past.

What he did was wrong in every way, making me grit my teeth because if he just listened to Becca, maybe things could've been a little different. Homelander has a very strong stubborn streak inside of him, hating being tied down and being told what to do so Becca trying to tell him to NOT take Ryan away, it gave Homelander flashbacks of being told what to do.

Simple terms: Homelander's inner child threw a tantrum and ignored what the person was trying to make him understand.

I don't doubt Homelander loves Ryan, especially in s3 he shows it more. I don't agree what he was doing to Ryan in s2, feeding lies into the child's mind with Stormfront's help and making it worse. I think, when Homelander lays his eyes on his son, he only sees himself and it scares him. He never wanted Ryan to be a captive, living under a rock with no outside world like he did when he was younger but it's kind of hard to break a cycle.

Especially when you're also off the deep end, your brain barely registering what's good and what's evil. Homelander wants to protect Ryan but again... He's doing it in the wrong way. I roll my eyes at his antics but I also remember: Homelander never had parents so how does he genuinely know what he's doing to the kid? For all we know in Homelander's mind, it's sunshine and rainbows to Ryan and the kid itself won't know anything different now. (Especially with the nonstop of Grace and Butcher hounding him before Homelander took him back)

I could rant more and let my thoughts scatter across the floor like marbles but I think I'll stop here. My brain is fried entirely and I just really, really love Homelander and Antony. I'm not looking for fights and "YEA BUT-" because bitch it is a fictional [mentally ill] man and a irl man who's living inside my head rent free. I just wanted to express thoughts I've held in for 2 weeks of watching the show and I'm letting them be free. I wish I could be free from this torment.

#.exe #the boys tv #homelander #idek if this makes any sense because i'm not lying when i say my brain is shutting down #if it's scrambled and not making sense..... that's between me and god

[thetonethetollandthethunder]

Scythe chapter 11-15

You know the drill!! Cmon!!!

—

Chapter 11!!

-I always forget the conclave’s have names,,,

-The thing is, you can never blame these people for fighting back, it’s human nature, but OUGH the consequences of human nature are so devastating

-But just imagine the guilt you’d feel, your husband got killed and you get immune from the same fate for a whole year. That’s just prime for survivors guilt

-Also the fact that Faraday told the family the man didn’t resist is just testament to his kindness and compassion

-“The sanctity of the law…And the wisdom to know when it must be broken.” *Stares at Goddard*

-MILK SCENE, I unironically love this scene even tho I think it’s really funny

-Also I genuinely don’t know how ppl drink milk b4 bed, is that even a real thing? How does that make you sleepy??

-Also good on Faraday!! Don’t waste shit!!!

-Apparently all the Scythe Rings are white but I refuse to acknowledge that, they’re all multicolored and each color relates to the scythe in some way <3

-That ring security system Faraday has going on is sick as fuck tho ngl

-“Now let’s see how long it takes Rowan to go for the ring.” I love himmmm, he’s fun!!! He can be fun!!

-Tonist mention!! I love the Tonists <33

-Nice chapter!! Gives more depth to Faraday!!

—

Chapter 12!!

-Rowan and Citra’s test are approaching!!!

-The idea of having to hold yourself back in life because you’re afraid of being killed is actually terrifying—

-Also same Rowan, I hate studying too

-“Rowan concluded that not knowing was more terrifying than knowing.” If I remember correctly what the consequence is then that is CERTAIN true

-I LOVE Citra and Rowan’s banter here!! You can see their chemistry early on!!

-UGH I WONT LIST OUT ALL THE MOMENT BUT THEYRE SO CUTE!!!

-Cute chapter! Lots of Citran moments!

—

Chapter 13!!

-“I’m a human being, not a mole.” Faraday is soooo fun sometimes like so fun and endearing???

-“Destroyed back in the age of mortality by something called ‘terrorism’.” OKAY SO YES THIS DOES GIVE US A LOT TO THINK ABOUT IN TERMS OF WHAT PEOPLE HERE KNOW ABOUT THE AGE OF MORTALITY BUT ALSO THAT IS RLLY FUCKING FUNNY SOOO

-I too hate walking at 6:30 am (I go to public school in America)

-“I have found that with the Scythedom, it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” He is iconic yall

-“What’s the worst they could do?” Things said before disasters—

-“Running the gauntlet” Like walking the red carpet!

-“Scythes wished to be seen as the many faces of light, not of darkness.” And soon they will be! Yk, just right after the plague—

-SCYTHE CURIE OMG OMG!!

-OO now they’re seeing scythe goddard ohoho I LOVE HAVING FORESIGHT

-Citra would cringe at the fact she at one point dazzled by goddard

-Rowan don’t be fatphobic /j

-I like that the conclave’s are pretty boring for the most part, makes it feel more realistic

-I love how only when Citra becomes a Scythe does she begin to understand these rituals, shows how much she grows

-OHOHO we got goddards fuckin note bullshit! Citra is gonna hear allll about that when she becomes a scythe

-Love how Chomsky is basically described as “as white as anyone could be” lmaoo token white man

-also gun lobby, nothing to say about it just…Gun lobby

-Rowan starting to talk like faraday is GOLD

-Again I love Citra and Rowan’s banter

-SCYTHE CURIE

-The idea of the weaponsmaster being a infomercial salesman is SOO funny i need to use that in my scythe oc shit

-Also that digital poison sounds fucking TERRIFYING

-The Scythes not liking the term ‘victim’ is rlly interesting to me, shows they really think of themselves as these faces of light

-Neal I don’t think you know what feminine hygiene products sound like—

-Hand of midas shit but even MORE horrifying!!

-I am terrible with names I saw Scythe Mandela and thought he was Scythe Possuelo and I have no idea why

-Who names their child Ransom??

-VERY good and long chapter!! Two more to go!!

—

Chapter 14!!

-OOO the test scene!! One of my favorites!!

-SCYTHE CURIE

-Again what is with the shit names??? Jacory??

-OHH you do NOT interrupt scythe curie girl you are FUCKED

-Oh Citra you’re gonna revisit the worst thing you’ve ever done REALLL soon

-ROWAN LOSING ON PURPOSE FOR CITRA IS SOOOO!!!

-GODDAMN IT RAND I LOVE YOU BUT STOP

-AND THE TENSION THICKENS WITH THE ADDED RULE OF THEM HAVING TO KILL THE OTHER OH MY GOD ITS STILL GOOD MAN!!

-We all want a relationship with the thunderhead Curie

-Very good chapter that adds to the stakes of the story!! One more to go!!!

—

Chapter 15!!!

-God the shock and confusion and how upset they all are really captivates this conversation

-And you see that eventually Rowan is very willing to die at the hands of Citra, that’s how much he loves her like UGHH

-“Scythes were supposed to be above the petty,” oh citra you have no idea bby girl,,

-Hash pales!!!

-THE KISS SCENE

-Ive already went in depth about why I love this scene in my Citran analysis post but UGH I LOVE ITT

-Liar!! You are totally in love rowan!!

-GODDARD THE BASTARD

-God he is such a fucking dick i hate himmm

-Very good chapter :)

—

AND THATS THE NEXT 5!!! Next time we’ll do chapters 16-20!

#the tone speaks #arc of a scythe #rowan damisch #citra terranova #scythe faraday #scythe curie #scythe goddard

[cy-gogglin]

Welcome to Johnny Cash’s world of whiskey, sin and lyrical doom

Johnny Cash is a Mount Rushmore figure in American music. He had a voice as deep and ancient as the wellspring from which his folk and country heritage sprang, and a face that might well have been carved from a mountainside. Across seven extraordinary decades as a recording artist, from his debut single Hey Porter (1955) to his 67th and final album American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002), Cash wrestled with love, hate, crime, punishment, forgiveness, redemption, death and salvation. He was the God-loving sinner who could deliver his most famous line, “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die”, with the same conviction he brought to a gospel spiritual.

“I have a feeling for human nature in difficult situations – don’t know why, but I always have,” Cash told me during an interview in 2003, the year before he died at the age of 71. We spoke via a transatlantic phone call, and I can still recall the thrill of hearing him come on the line with the four words he’d uttered at thousands of concerts: “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.” That famous gravel voice was instantly recognisable, if a little shaky with age. When I asked him whether, looking back over his long life, he had any regrets, he laughed. “None that I’d really like to publicise. I don’t cry in my beer – or milk, for that matter.”

Cash was then in the midst of a late-career flourish, releasing a series of stripped-back albums produced by Rick Rubin. More than just a coda to a rollercoaster career, the American series framed Cash as an immensely complex figure, embodying and embracing the many contradictions of being human. “Truth is what ties it all together,” he told me of his vast recorded output, almost all of it featuring sparse productions that made no concessions to fads. “I never thought about doing it any other way except the simple, straightforward bare-bones way that felt right in the beginning. It carries my message in the song without a lot of adornment. I try to keep it down to earth – play it as it lays and say it as it is.”

Standing 6’ 2”, and with an incomparable gravitas, Cash was a big man in every sense of the word, and it takes a big book to do him justice. The Life in Lyrics is a proper doorstopper, a large-format hardback of 374 pages that weighs in at 4.5 lbs. Structured partly chronologically and partly thematically, it attempts to tell a life story in songs and pictures, packed with 125 lyrics – from the 600-plus Cash composed – plus hundreds of photographs, handwritten letters and memorabilia from his personal archive.

Cash with his son John Carter Cash in the mid-1970s - White Rabbit

The photos are glorious. In shots from 1969, a year in which Cash saw off the challenge of Elvis Presley, The Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel to be named the biggest-selling recording artist in America, his hands are bony and rough-skinned, testament to a poor childhood spent picking cotton and fights. His face looks whip-thin and dust-blown, brow deeply furrowed, eyes sunken and haunted. Those were his wild, mean days of amphetamines and whiskey. “I always thought somebody was trailing me,” he told me in 2002. It may have been the ghost of his beloved older brother Jack, who died, aged 12, in a horrific chainsaw accident. “I probably never did get over it,” Cash admitted.

But he certainly worked through it. Among the classic songs that Cash composed, and are reproduced here, were the deathless romantic ballad I Walk the Line, the bitter confessional Folsom Prison Blues, the epic Big River, the tragicomic flood narrative Five Feet High and Rising, the careworn lament Don’t Take Your Guns to Town, and the stark protest song All of God’s Children Ain’t Free. At their best, Cash’s lyrics are carefully wrought, with the basic structures and rhyming schemes of folk poetry underpinned by rough-hewn wisdom, sharp observation and quick wit. His signature song, The Man in Black, from 1971, remains an enduringly powerful statement of empathy for his fellow man: “I wear black for the poor and beaten-down / Living on the hopeless hungry side of town.” 

These songs were written to be sung, however, and in The Life in Lyrics, without that inimitable voice to sustain them, their essential simplicity can appear trite. The accompanying text, written by authorised Cash biographer Mark Stiepler with dewy-eyed contributions from Cash’s son John Carter Cash, is informative but hagiographic, with a tendency to exaggerate achievements and gloss over failings. Cash’s brave 1969 anti-Vietnam war song, Route 1, Box 144, which describes a dead American soldier being returned to his family, may offer genuinely touching commentary, but is it really “the greatest argument for peace ever devised”?

There’s also an unfortunate tendency to brush over or excuse the darker elements of Cash’s life, the drug addictions, infidelities and appalling behaviour – despite the fact that these gave his music so much depth. The 1964 hit Understand Your Man is a song of spectacular bitterness directed at his soon-to-be ex-wife Valerie while he was already having an affair with future wife June Carter, yet it warrants only a brief, glib paragraph. I could have done with fewer stories about the deeply pious impulses behind Cash’s gospel hymns, and more tales about, say, the time he smashed every crystal chandelier in a hotel lobby in a drug-fuelled rage over his amorous rejection by a friend’s widow. The Man in Black accepted the darkness within him: it’s a disservice to try to whitewash his image now.

As well as being a songwriter, Cash was an interpreter who could make a song completely his own, but this aspect of his art is inevitably missing from a book of his lyrics, so there’s no commentary on such Cash hits as Ring of Fire, A Boy Named Sue, The Ballad of Ira Hayes, Highwayman or his definitive cover of Hurt (originally by the industrial metal group Nine Inch Nails). We do, however, learn of the genesis of one of his last and finest songs, the mysterious, apocalyptic The Man Comes Around. Composed in 2000, it was apparently inspired by a dream about Queen Elizabeth II, who told him: “Johnny Cash, you’re like a thorn tree in a whirlwind.”

In the last song Cash wrote, Like the 309, he imagined being carried away by a heavenly train, and viewed it with anticipatory relish: “Take me to the depot, put me to bed / Blow an electric fan on my gnarly old head.” As we reach the end of this mighty book, with the cumulative impact of Cash’s sincere words, the photos of his creased face changing over the years, his clear and consistent love for June and family and, indeed, his fellow man, the final pages become incredibly moving. Blind and weakened, Cash awaits his inevitable end, still embracing life with humour and pathos. 

When I spoke to him that day, he was stoically suffering ill health, and in such constant pain that, having kicked his pill addiction, he was required to take painkillers just to function. Yet, when I asked what was the best advice he had ever received, he didn’t miss a beat. “Don’t sleep with your whiskey bottle by the bed,” he said, laughing deep and low. “That’s a piece of advice that has probably kept me alive this long.”

Johnny Cash: The Life in Lyrics is published by White Rabbit

Story by Neil McCormick || The Telegraph

#Youtube

[drstonetrivia]

Chapter 231 Trivia

"Aaaaaaaah primitive technology noooooooooooo!"

This is definitely worth looking at closely: we have post-America-arc Chrome shedding a tear, young Suika again, Ishigami Village, the Soyuz capsule…

Oddly, Senku's chest piece is missing and Byakuya's name may be incorrectly spelled in Cyrillic (Б НШНГАМН vs Б ИШИГАМИ)

We get some insight into how the Medusas see things: we already know they can sense EM waves from chapter 229, and especially radio waves, but they may be able to selectively filter which wavelengths they see.

If they could only see radio, then it'd be impossible to see bones as the waves pass right through us. Given the image, it's very likely they're using x-rays to examine the people, but if that's true then the gun would appear as a bright white rather than partially transparent.

It's possible that they can see all wavelengths at once, and they're able to parse what would be "pure white" to us in such a way that they can selectively see the "layer" they want, but even picking a specific wavelength to view would result in the gun blocking the bones.

Alternatively, they only emit a specific range of waves at once and see what gets returned (like radar), but they'd have to know which wavelengths to use without knowing anything first. This echolocation seems slightly more likely since we have panels of them emitting waves.

It's possible that that's why they interpreted the humans as skeletons: they chose to see in x-rays rather than in the visible spectrum (=our vision) and thus only saw bones.

Maybe they assumed both the space suit and "meat suit" (skin, muscle, organs) were the same thing?

It's amusing how the Medusas scanned Senku, but then didn't bother making a perfect copy: the skull is more realistic/less manga, and his hair is upright, despite it being flattened against his head because of the helmet.

Not even they can make his hair look good though…

By mimicking Senku here, the Medusas effectively fulfilled all the previous depictions of Whyman.

Senku uses "me" and "us" here, but he does only mean "me"— the time between his revival in April 5738 and this date* is 10 years, not counting the 7.5 years he spent petrified. Apart from maybe Xeno, no one else shares the same timeline.

*(~Sept 5755, if it's exactly 10.)

List of weapons on the moon:

Grenade-net launcher.

Stone axe.

And the latter was the one that drove them away, haha!

Xeno was one of the ones most excited about what the Medusa tech could mean for humanity, which is why he looks especially grim when they decided to call humans pea-brained one last time before fleeing the solar system.

I have no idea how they retrieved the capsule since it and the Medusa inside seemed to disappear into the swarm, and the one that chose to stay didn't bring it back. It's also definitely the same capsule (with a few new additions) because the broken string is the same.

The capsule got a little upgrade to make it easier for the Medusa to communicate: the speaker was moved to the outside, and was replaced with a tiny Yagi–Uda antenna!

The antenna type is mostly for clarity, because at that range a monopole would have worked, or even none at all.

I'd like to think this Medusa has an affinity for Kohaku, since it chose to give itself up to her. They also had a nice conversation together! :)

(I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact the other two were holding things at the time & Kohaku is the least busy one onboard…)

This piece coming off the main rocket is the ascent stage of the lunar lander. Similar to how parts of the rocket come off when leaving Earth, the ascent stage only gets the astronauts back to the rocket before it is discarded, destined to fall back to the surface of the moon.

The moon bunnies have a little 'x' for a mouth, and the capsule's face has a mouth shaped like that too… Coincidence?

I wonder who drew the face:

Senku, because he had a marker and likes drawing faces on things?

Kohaku, for fun?

Stanley, for the gap moe/Xeno 'x' (and because it seems like something he'd do somehow)?

Ryusui, to welcome his new crewmate?

If we'd gotten a name/species as an answer, then fans would inevitably be disappointed by not meeting them after they'd been hinted at, or been angry at how "unrealistic" whatever they got was.

This may not be a satisfying answer for some, but the alternatives are much less so.

I love this admission of Kohaku's, does she not have anything to think about!?

#trivia #dr stone #chapters #231

[queen-shiba]

I wrote an essay today on the subject of gun restriction and ban laws. I thought I might share.

I always found it annoying that people only ever think about what the gun itself does and nothing else. So here it is, what you didn't think about.

“Should gun laws be stricter?”

Stricter gun laws can be beneficial to many in places where guns are legal. Passing such laws is smart; however, there are quite a few loopholes and issues that many fail to acknowledge. Often, people on the side of banning guns or merely having stricter laws related to guns will say that they kill people, and are the root problem of violence. On the other hand, there are people who do not want restraints on gun ownership who say that it is the people who kill, and not the guns. The issue with both of these views is that no one has considered that so many people already own guns, people will find a way to get a gun even if the means are illegal, and the violence itself would not stop whether or not people have guns.

Firstly, when people think about banning guns, they fail to realize that so many already own guns. To ban them would mean riots, and having to forcibly remove the weapons from people’s homes. Something that no one will take lying down. Should such a bill pass in any relation to banning or restricting gun rights, people are certain to be killed over it. A man might leave his home, guns blazing to keep his gun from being taken. A restriction or ban can be seen as a direct threat from the government, and the people living around us.

Furthermore, the problem with people managing to gain things the law deems they shouldn’t have by dipping and dodging around the rules. Many would turn to illegal means of owning a gun. Others would join some branch of the military, or the police force; jobs that are certain to allow their employees to own guns and many more weapons. People are not complete fools when it comes to getting what they want, and humans stop at nothing to get what they want. It is impressive when used for upright purposes, but most wouldn’t use such a skill to do the right thing. Banning or restricting guns would only open another can of worms entirely.

Lastly, even if a gun restriction or ban were to be passed and succeed, violence and murder would never stop. One might as well call for all deadly things to be banned. People will still have knives and even their own hands. The spread of violence is completely inevitable, and unavoidable. People do not require a gun to do harm or take a life, and that seems to be a big misconception. I’ve noticed that many people outside of America, especially, will say that the country would be better off with a gun ban to control the violence and death toll. That logic is ill thought out. Even more so because people who live outside the U.S, have only ever visited, or lived here temporarily do not grasp at all, what goes on here or how things work. It is illogical to form an opinion on how a country should run things if it is based only on stereotypes and media.

Stricter gun laws can be beneficial, but the thought processes behind why guns should or should not have stricter laws or be banned are not well planned out. The loopholes come in numbers that even the government can’t count. It is good to consider all things that could go wrong, and make a conscious effort to not tip a balance that is already teetering. Most people already have guns, and will fight to keep them. Others will find ways to get a gun under the nose of the government. Even if gun laws were to be successful, people would still be as violent as they have been since the beginning of time; only with other weapons at their disposal. Stricter gun laws are closer to a fruitless peach tree than a thriving garden.

#gun violence #gun laws #guns #gun violence in america #ban guns #restrict guns

[everygame]

The Mysterious Murasame Castle

Developed/Published by: Nintendo R&D4, Human Entertainment / Nintendo Released: 14/04/1986 Completed: 31/01/2024 Completion: Finished it (with quicksaves at the start of levels and before bosses.)

1986 is a huge year for Nintendo. They released the NES in North America at the tail end of 1985 and will launch it in Europe by the end of 1986. After nearly 3 years of spotty releases and arcade ports an avalanche of games are going to start showing up. But most fascinatingly, as they begin to conquer the world, they take a massive right turn in Japan by releasing the Famicom Disk System in February.

I assume that even if you’re not a scholar of video game history, if you’re reading this you already know all about the system, but in précis, Nintendo made a business decision. The Famicom was successful; producing cartridges was expensive. Retailers and consumers wanted cheaper games. Nintendo hadn’t created a licensing scheme for the Famicom (as they would for NES) so they weren’t seeing any sweet, sweet fees either. Seemingly, a floppy disk add-on solved all those problems, while also allowing games to be larger, have more sound channels, and include saving.

You can debate the success of this business decision. They sold 4.4 million of them by 1990, and the hardware pushed their game design forward leaps and bounds. But it seemed to come at the exact wrong time. Within four months of launch cartridge games were being released with larger capacities than the disks offered. Saving becomes available on carts; newer and better mapper chips meant games on the disk system were stuck in the past. It was simply a technological dead end. The first original game to released for it would be The Legend of Zelda, and by the time of its release in North America not quite a year and a half later it would be on cartridge without any major concessions.

Interestingly, though, the second original game to be released would be Nazo No Murasame Jou, aka “The Mysterious Murasame Castle” which would not be released outside of Japan at all. Why this is I have no idea and can find nothing concrete, because when considered contemporaneously, this is a perfectly successful run-and-gun adventure that feels like an early example of what the system would become known for via companies like Capcom: arcade ports that have been expanded into something more suitable for the home console (think Bionic Commando and that.) Here it’s like someone, noticing that Nintendo had The Legend of Zelda engine lying around, decided that they should make a version of Sega Ninja with it–and in fact, I’m not sure that’s not what they did, considering the SG-1000 version of Sega Ninja has flick-screen scrolling too.

Cast as the samurai Takamaru, you have to make your way through five castles by first fighting your way through their castle grounds (taking one or two maps) and then the castle interior (one more map.) You do this by melee combat (which tends to kill everything in one hit) or throwing projectiles (which tends not to.) Movement feels very much like The Legend of Zelda, including very boxy collision detection. The maps, too are like The Legend of Zelda dungeons, but not exactly: you travel about them in a non-linear fashion and have to pick up certain power-ups to advance (sandals, for example, that allow you to travel over water) but you’re not really ever forced to fight any enemies, and most power-ups follow the Xevious system of just being invisible and you have to shoot where they are to get them (thankfully, they’re predictable once you’ve found them).

While I can’t guarantee this was inspired by Sega Ninja, it’s very much like it in one respect. The Mysterious Murasame Castle is relentless. Multi-colored ninjas are throwing themselves on the screen constantly, and if you stop moving or stop attacking you’re dead–it really is that simple. Most of the game is played trying to get off screen as quickly as possible and working out the optimum route through the castle–it’s almost a racing game in that respect. 

It is very hard. Not impossible, but made, er, impossible-adjacent by how strict it is. You can only take three hits, health restoring items are rare (and invisible) and and every time you die you lose everything (but you do start on the screen you just died on–and you can backtrack to try and get some power back, so that’s nice.) While it feels stupidly difficult for 2024, I can imagine how for the right kind of player in 1986 this was the straight razor compared to The Legend of Zelda’s, uh… quill pen. Play a hard action game surviving and mapping out the levels, learning new things, new efficiencies every time rather than doodling about. It feels perfect, actually, for the American audience of the era, which makes its absence all the more puzzling–I suspect that the setting was considered “too Japanese” and reskinning it felt like too much work, the kind of thing that kept Ninja JaJaMaru-kun stuck in Japan too. 

Now, there are some absolutely brutal skill checks in this that I can only see as requiring you reset the system every time you die (most notably the last few bosses) that just make it feel old-school cruel, but I had a fairly decent time trying see how far I could get “for real” once I’d learned the maps (not very far, it turns out.) And I still enjoyed the challenge of this even letting myself do some judicious quick-saving. This isn’t the great leap forward for design that The Legend of Zelda was, but it sort of offers an interesting counterpoint–would games look completely different if Nintendo decided this was the one to get released in the west instead of Zelda?

Probably not actually.

Will I ever play it again? It’s fun, but it’s too hard. Probably not on this one too.

Final Thought: Nintendo really haven’t returned to this one very much. It’s not a complete black sheep, getting a GBA re-issue and (bizarrely) a 3DS release in Europe and Australia, but one of the strangest has to be that in Samurai Warriors 3 for Wii (Nintendo published in the west but otherwise a Koei game through and through) Nintendo EAD made an entire “Murasame castle mode” which is a remake in the Musou style. That’s an even odder decision than not releasing this in the west in the first place.

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up a digital copy of exp. 2600, a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

#gaming #video games #games #txt #text #review #nintendo #nintendo switch #the mysterious murasame castle #nintendo r&d4 #human entertainment #famicom #famicom disk system #1986

[sserpente]

A/N: Heyho there, my lovelies! So, as we know now, part of Season 2 of Loki will take place in a McDonald’s. So… what if Loki ordered some food there? Enjoy, everyone!

Words: 1372 Warnings: pure fluff + Loki being a sad bean

Soaking wet, you stormed inside the heated building, almost slipping on the tiles with your wet soles. Loki and Mobius followed suit behind you, both of them drenched to the core as well. The place you had fled to from the raging thunderstorm outside was a shabby McDonald’s branch in the suburbs. Not one of those new modern ones but rather one of those old 80s restaurants the owner had failed to upgrade to modern standards—at least, there were no smart screens to order your food yet. Instead, customers were greeted by a creepy Ronald McDonald statue in the corner. Ugh.

Nevertheless, it was either this or the pouring rain outside. Besides, the smell of fatty fast food made you inexplicably hungry. You hadn’t had McDonald’s in ages.

“I’m ordering some food,” you announced with a shrug.

“I mean … we could do with a break,” Mobius said.

You turned to Loki. “Have you ever had McDonald’s before?”

“No,” Loki responded slowly.

“You’re either gonna love it or you’re gonna absolutely hate it, there is no in-between.”

“Lovely…”

You grinned at him before moving towards the counter, your squeaky footsteps echoing through the surprisingly quiet restaurant.

“Heya…” The cashier smiled at you. “What can I get started for you today?”

“Hi! I’ll have a large BigMac Meal with fries and diet coke and… the six-piece nuggets with sweet ‘n’ sour sauce, please.”

“Hmm… anything else?”

Intrigued, Loki peeked at the glowing menu boards above the cashier’s head.

“What’s that?” He asked, pointing at the board displaying the new Happy Meal toys.

“Meals for children. Smaller portions in a cute box and they always come with a toy,” you explained. And this time, so it seemed, they had little Avengers figures with bendable limbs. In this universe, they looked exactly the same. Black Widow had two little guns, Captain America had his shield, Iron Man came with a removable helmet and Hawkeye had a little bow. Thor, of course, came with his hammer. Loki’s eyes were practically glued on him.

“Loki? Do you wanna try some food now?”

“I’m not sure I’d enjoy this greasy excuse for food. But… a smaller portion I am willing to try.”

Mobius suppressed a laugh—he failed miserably. “You want a Happy Meal? Come on, Loki, what are you, twelve?” He mocked jokingly. You shrugged, wondering what the cashier must have been thinking about the three of you right now. In any case, Loki had a point.

“… Well, and a Happy Meal then, please. You should try the cheeseburger, Loki,” you suggested.

“Yeah, that.”

The cashier suppressed a chuckle. “Okay… and what toy would you like?”

“Number six,” Loki answered immediately. You peeked up again. That was the Thor figure.

“For the drink?”

“What she ordered.”

“Diet coke… alright. That’ll be 15.75, please.” You tapped the card machine with the card you had taken out of your wallet to pay and stood aside as soon as you had your receipt so she could take the next order. In the meantime, another staff member went to prepare your food, with Loki watching him like a hawk.

“Let’s sit over there,” you said once you were handed the tray, pointing to a table in a corner a little more secluded than the others.

“Hmm… I haven’t had McDonald’s in ages,” you said as you opened your burger box and dug into your fries. Loki scrunched up his nose while unpacking his Happy Meal.

“It looks… and smells… exceedingly unhealthy. This can’t be good for you. No wonder humans are so weak and prone to illness and disease.”

“Oh, Loki, just shut up and try it!” Loki unwrapped his burger with a frown. He took a long suspicious look at it before taking a big bite. You did the same all the while Mobius shook his head in an amused manner.

“Actually, I’ll have some of your coke?”

“Help yourself.” You swallowed. “Loki? How is it?”

Loki took another bite, making you grin. “Surprisingly… it’s not bad.” He ate some of the fries as if to make a point.

He was done with his meal long before you got to start with your nuggets. In the meantime, you kept sharing your coke with Mobius and watched Loki unwrap his complimentary toy. You eyed him curiously as he ripped the plastic open to take the tiny Thor out of his packaging. You could tell he was trying hard not to look too interested—but the truth was, he was practically enamoured by that little figure.

Once he had equipped the tiny Thor with his hammer, he toyed around with it in his hands, looking down at it quietly, pondering. Sad.

Unlike you, however, Mobius did not seem to notice.

“Right, I’m gonna hop to the bathroom. All that coke went right through me.”

“Too much information, buddy.”

Mobius casually got up and strolled off, leaving Loki and you behind alone.

“You miss him a lot, don’t you?” You asked when you opened your nuggets box and offered him one. Loki took it with hesitation, patiently waiting for you to open the sauce before dipping it in.

“Who?” He asked.

“Your brother, silly.” You pointed at the little Thor figure with your nugget.

“I don’t even know how long it’s been since I left my timeline.” He paused, almost as if he was contemplating if he could trust you. “It feels strange… knowing I can’t go back… ever.”

“Ever? That sounds extreme.”

Loki looked you dead in the eye. “My timeline was pruned. I can’t go back.”

“You could eventually always go back to the sacred timeline, Loki. It’s not exactly sacred anymore after all. But don’t tell Mobius I just said that.”

The Trickster frowned.

“I mean, why not? You met yourself in the future. You never actually got killed by Thanos, you settled down on a different planet, and then… the older you is not around anymore and time is a relative thing anyway. Now that the sacred timeline is falling apart, there’s nothing that would stop you.” You were almost, almost a little surprised by your own words. But the truth was, you cared about Loki way too much to watch him suffer. Mobius had been right about him. Loki had a warm heart underneath all that ice that had spread inside of him throughout his past. Perhaps you were even a little in love with him but that didn’t matter, now did it? As soon as you found Sylvie, surely he wouldn’t bother with you anymore. Even though part of you wished he would just ask you to—

“Come with me then.”

“What?”

“You said you came from the sacred timeline as well.”

“We can’t just leave Mobius behind, Loki.” You said, even though your heart nearly jumped out of your chest. Butterflies awakened in your belly and you felt the urge to jump on the table and do a little happy dance. What was that about Sylvie again? You suppressed an almost maniacal grin.

“No, I mean eventually. He can’t truly believe I’ll play the TVA agent forever.”

“And we could find Thor.”

Loki nodded. “And we could find Thor,” he repeated and smiled at you—genuinely, making your heart jump once more.

“You know, for a little mortal without any superpowers who became a TVA agent out of desperation, you are quite alright,” he said, snatching another nugget from your box.

“Oh, thanks. And for a Trickster who almost took over my home planet and constantly pulls pranks on me all the while being a sarcastic little shit, you’re quite alright too.” You paused. “I like you, Loki. A lot. You are so much more than you let on and I wish people would take the time to get to know you better before judging.”

Loki’s lips parted. But right before he could say anything else, Mobius returned and sat down opposite you two again.

“80s toilets are surprisingly clean,” he announced.

“Ah…” Loki shook his head. He didn’t say more and neither did you. But then, under the table, you felt him gently squeezing your thigh. It was then you realised you were probably more than just a little in love with him.

#loki #loki imagine #loki x you #loki x reader #loki fluff #loki laufeyson #loki laufeyson imagine #loki laufeyson x reader #loki laufeyson x you #loki laufeyson fluff #loki odinson #loki odinson imagine #loki odinson x you #loki odinson x reader #loki odinson fluff #marvel #marvel imagine #mcu #mcu imagine #the avengers #the avengers imagine #thor #thor imagine #loki series #loki series imagine #loki show #loki show imagine #disney+ #tom hiddleston