#he is incompetent at best. he is harmful at worst.

[sixstepsaway]

I've been thinking a bit recently about how things like Tumblr and Twitter have changed how we approach subjects and people

(cw discussion of sexual assault in media/fiction, and right-wingers and such on twitter, as well as mention of nazis)

like, maybe a decade and a half or so ago, i remember a push to never write rape into stories because there's 'never a need for it', which at the time when i was much younger, seemed like it made sense. people argued that sexual assault never, and could never, provide anything to the plot and there was no reason to include it

this is, of course, in hindsight, completely bullshit

there's no reason for lots of things in fiction. the recent thing that's being declared as pointless and unnecessary by puriteens and their ilk is sex scenes, with the declaration that they are never important, never push the plot forward, contribute nothing and shouldn't exist ever

also bullshit! it entirely depends on how something is written whether a subject was unnecessary (not always a reason to leave it out) or important to the plot and/or development of characters

but the root of 'stop putting rape in your fiction 😠' started, i think, from people who were very tired of people who treated it with no respect and offered no warning shoehorning it into things and startling victims with it

there's a line that goes: rape victims exist and can be triggered by rape in fiction, murder victims dont so that's fine

also bullshit, really, considering how many people survive attempted murder, but i can see where they were coming from with it. getting triggered out of nowhere by a rape scene you didn't expect, weren't warned for, and is written poorly at best must be incredibly triggering

(which isn't to say you cant write it poorly, or write it for a kink (especially considering a lot of the people who write it as a kink are survivors themselves and use it to cope and express), or write it for any number of reasons, it's actually just to say it should be warned for. trigger warnings should exist on every piece of media, and should be available but optional for those who dont want spoilers/warnings)

the problem is that this 'dont write rape' i think has snowballed slowly over time from 'writing rape is unnecessary and harmful' to this bizarre notion of 'depiction is support and endorsement'

i saw someone on twitter today mad that neil gaiman included the nazi minisode in good omens season 2, a minisode in which the nazis were doomed to an eternity in hell, struck a deal to get out of it, and then were, when they kept to their side of the deal, basically told they were doomed to zombify to bits on earth as punishment for being the worst ever and really, did they expect anything else considering they were going to hell? lol

but this person was really mad he'd given screentime to nazis because surely this meant something really bad about neil gaiman, like that he supports nazis or sympathises with them or something

(the minisode wasnt even written by him and cast the nazis not just in the bad light of being horrible people but also in the bad light of being incompetent idiots)

to a lot of people now, who seem to completely lack media literacy, depiction == endorsement, and i just find that bafflingly weird

similarly i've noticed a trend where observation is also endorsement? if you watch or read or listen to something or someone who has bad opinions or bad points of view, you must be bad yourself

this one i think i can trace back to twitter being twitter. for example, if i get a copy of some right wing nazi twat's book from a charity shop, and i read it to understand their point of view to better counter it, the only one i am offering any support or endorsement to is the charity shop who get a couple of quid for me buying the book from them

however, on the hellsite that is twitter, if i follow John Right Wing so i can observe his opinions and better counter them, or prepare countermeasures of some sort in an activist way, or write scripts for video essays like the kind Shaun on yt does, twitter assumes that this means JRW will get them more ad revenue - after all, someone is following him - and pushes him to more people

observation is not endorsement, but twitter's algorithm doesnt know this and responds by giving JRW more engagement and pushing him to people who may not know he's a shitbag and may internalize his messages

in this way, i can understand why when someone sees that Supposed Leftwing Youtuber follows John Right Wing on twitter, they immediately declare this is bad and proof that SLY is actually a nazi in disguise - after all SLY is endorsing JRW's bad ideology by engaging on twitter!

for the same reason, i can understand why people do their, "72 of my mutuals are following JRW, who recently posted this crap about marginalized people. block him!!!" bullshit. they dont want to be complicit in helping JRW reach more people, possibly vulnerable people, and spread his ideology

it just totally forgets that being aware of things and understanding things is one of the basic requirements of being able to fight those things effectively

to me both these things come down to the same thing that's permeating how everyone approaches, well, everything at the moment: to see something and not look away from it is endorsement of that thing. if you're watching a tv show and the tv show includes a rape scene or a nazi and you continue to watch it, you are endorsing rape and nazis, even if the nazi is shown as stupid and evil and the rape is shown as a terrible, horrifying act. if you're watching a person or a character be disgusting and bigoted and you continue to watch, to engage, to even consider maybe things could change there, you are implicitly supporting that bigotry

after all, in the world of twitter if you reply to a bigot and say, "hey, you're wrong actually, and here's sources on that" or "hey, this isn't cool, can we discuss this?", even if there's a miniscule chance that you might change things (and, after all, isn't that what, to an extent, activism is? not everyone should be expected to engage with bigots in a vain hope of changing their minds, but some people should, because if we can change even one or two minds that aren't completely rotted to the core, that have a chance of change and evolution, that's an actual real positive effect we're having on the world, and even the smallest change can grow and develop into something more, you just have to nurture the seed of it, rather than throw the entire garden away as corrupt) you are engaging with a bigot, and thusly a bigot yourself because engagement is support. engagement is endorsement.

engagement brings ad revenue and encourages the continuation of bad behavior, so it's better to stick your fingers in your ears, go "LALALA" and pretend it isn't happening at all.

i think this might also be why when a section of a fandom decides Mr Character is a Bad Person and has Innate Bigotry, if some other section of the fandom engages with that character - whether the bigotry is real or imagined - they are seen as bigots themselves, because engagement and depiction are endorsement, and engaging with such things means you support it, even if you really, really don't

on the same vein when someone says something dumb they are often written off instantly as irredeemable - much like certain media are painted as if they have one subjectively 'bad' quality - because continuing to engage with that dumb thing will likely boost that person in the algorithm and no one wants to risk being why they double down on their dumb thing so their account gets more traction in the online space

for the same reason they dont want to continue to support writers who write 'bad things' or 'irredeemable media' because gasp what if the algorithm thinks they're supporting the bad parts of the media and that means more things include that bad thing they want to see less of?

i don't have a conclusion for this, it's just some thoughts really. i think the latest iteration of the internet has completely warped how we engage with everything, to the point people act like a single thought leads to endless undoable corruption out of sheer fear of nurturing those things simply by dwelling on them

fuck twitter lmao

#fandom #fandom antis #twitter #engagement #anti-anti #proship

[dadumtss]

Slenderman Headcanons: Jobs 2

What is it like working for the Slender Brothers in the AU?

Slenderman

Most people that work under him are terrified of him. But really only because of his reputation and demeanor. While he certainly demands respect and some level of deference, most under him are rarely in any actual danger of him. Unless you anger him on a personal level or do something incomprehensibly incompetent or truly malicious, he’s not going to do any more harm than fire you. He’s curt, stand-offish and doesn’t care about interacting with you on anything other than a professional level, but he isn’t unreasonable or cruel. 

He does think the worst of others, but that ends up working in your favor since he expects that there’s going to be some level of mistakes made and incompetence displayed. Therefore, he isn’t angered when it happens and will offer guidance on getting things back on track. 

He’s sometimes hard to reach because he’s off being a diplomat all over the world and is often locked in his office when he’s around, but he always seems to have an idea of what’s going on. 

The pay and benefits are the best and requests for leave are almost always granted. He’ll listen to your opinions on relevant work topics and doesn’t impose weird office rules or brutal working hours (though sometimes staying late is expected when there’s a crisis). 

All in all, a perfectly reasonable boss.  

Offenderman

Working at his Clubs

Offender is a very absentee boss. He’s extremely hard to reach since he’s always off on some crazy adventure but thankfully he has managers and the like that ensure everything can run smoothly without him there. But then one day after a long absence he’ll burst through the doors and start talking happily about ideas he has and things he wants changed and events he wants to put on and you’re expected to get all of them done.  

It’s frustrating for sure but he’s fun to work with. He’s extremely entertaining, fun to talk to and brings a lot of energy to the workplace. While most of the managers hate dealing with the logistics of all his crazy ideas and impulsive decisions, everyone tends to enjoy having him around. He remembers names, faces and makes an effort to get to know you on a personal level (even if it is just a ploy to get you in bed). 

The pay is higher than any other club and while things like benefits, leave and work hours usually fall to the managers, if you can catch Offender and ask he’ll enthusiastically give you whatever you ask for and more without much thought. 

There’s no sanction on relationships (with him) in the workplace and he’s probably slept with most, if not all, of the workforce. 

He’ll sometimes jump in on the jobs he considers fun. He’ll join the bouncer in throwing people out and breaking up fights, he’ll help out behind the bar and make a show of making flashy drinks and he’ll even get up on stage and put on a show.  

Working at his Investment ‘Business’

Offender is much more involved with his investment business. He listens to the pitches himself and does most of the leg work in getting those that impress him whatever they need. 

However, if you’re one of the, like, two people at his ‘general’ office you have one hell of a job ahead of you. Your job is to answer his mail, keep his accounts orderly and his books clean, inform him of anyone looking for an ‘investment’ and ensure that all the businesses he ‘invested in’ are paying their dues.

Basically, you do all the paperwork since he considers it ‘boring’ and wants no part of it. 

The pay is undeniably great but putting up with Offender’s uncaring attitude towards your job makes it just barely worth it. 

He rarely comes into the general office but when he does he’s just as flirtatious and friendly as he is with his employees at the clubs. He tries to get to know you on a personal level but so much of your time has to be dedicated to your job due to the workload that he finds hearing about your life boring.      

Trenderman

A menace. 

Everyone who works for him is terrified and its for good reason. He does not tolerate failure or mistakes and he can and will make it impossible for you to get another job in design after you’re fired if you piss him off enough. 

Not to mention it’s known around the office that he turns people into mannequins. 

He runs his business with an iron fist. All his employees’ work has to be approved by him and he won’t hold back on any negative opinions. Even if he likes what you’ve done you won’t hear much more than “hmm” as he signs off on it.

All of his employees are experts at reading even his smallest micro expressions so they can avoid his wrath. 

He rarely yells but his quiet anger and scathing remarks are just as effective in breaking down his employees. 

It goes without saying that you are expected to dress well if you want to work for him. It doesn’t matter if you’re a secretary, interior designer or photographer, if he pays your salary you better look good when he sees you.

The elevator is his. If he’s on it you do not get on. If you’re on it and he gets on, you get out. 

The pay? The best in the business. You get amazing benefits and leave but you’re expected to always be ‘on call’ if needed.  

Splendorman

An amazing boss. 

The pay is way more than a comparable job anywhere else, the benefits amazing and your requests for leave are always granted. 

He’s kind, amicable, approachable and very forgiving of most mistakes. 

He brings treats to work for all his employees to enjoy.

He makes friends with everyone, remembers all his employees faces and names and always takes your opinion into consideration. 

He remembers details about his employees like birthdays and favorite foods that he uses to make sure he’s doing right by them. Expect gifts on your birthday and the treats at office parties catered to everyone’s taste.  

He’s very easy to reach and is very involved with his business (though not to the level of micromanaging). 

He has a propensity for taking on too much work himself since he always wants to help out his employees any way he can.  

He does ask his managers to fire anyone that absolutely has to be. He just doesn’t have the will to do it himself. 

#slenderman #slenderman headcanons #slenderman headcanon #offenderman #offenderman headcanon #offenderman headcanons #trenderman #trenderman headcanon #trenderman headcanons #splendorman #splendorman headcanons #splendorman headcanon #slenderverse #slenderverse au #creepypasta #creepypasta au #creepypasta headcanon #creepypasta headcanons #slender brothers #slender family

[peachypizzicato]

The Five Of Cups: An Open Letter to Dorian

Hey everyone! Welcome back to my soapbox (or, if you see this and by some divine happenstance don’t know me: Hi! I’m Felix! Or Anemone. I go by many names.)

As you can tell by my Big Boy Letters, I’m comin’ to talk about kind of a serious subject. At least, it’s serious to me anyway. I wanted to talk a bit about the game The Arcana. You know the one. The definitely not at all divisive one. That Arcana. (/s)

(Warning: I will be touching on depictions of racism, misogyny, anti indigenity, antisemitism, and just general mistreatment of marginalized people!)

TLDR; The Arcana is full of harmful portrayals of marginalized people and the fandom at large ignores it at best and encourages it at worst. The best thing we as the community can do is make it abundantly clear to the company that this is not okay and should not continue.

To be completely upfront here, I’m not going to be going in-depth on every single problem with the devs or the distributors or anything. We’re all busy people and there’s not nearly enough time in the day. But what I am going to do is touch on a few things I’ve witnessed firsthand that I think are worth sharing with the wider community.

One of the behaviors I’ve noticed most often is what I can only think to call… Strange treatment of the love interests. Not by everyone, mind you, but on a startlingly normal basis. Now, what do I mean by “strange”? Well, it really depends on the character honestly.

With Asra, much of the portrayals feel significantly more sexualized than that of their peers. Drawn and portrayed as if their body exists to be ogled by someone else rather than lived in by themself, y’know what I mean? That, combined with blatant orientalist imagery baked into much of their designs, makes for a feeling of feast or famine when seeking out content. And this isn’t even to comment on the intense focus on them as defined by their relationships to others– namely Julian– and all of the mischaracterization that comes with that.

It’s not much different in regard to Nadia, if you can believe it. The image of “step-on-me-queen dominatrix” cultivated by the original writers persists in the community, with overwhelming focus put on her body and her sexuality over anything else. Anyone who’s known me since I discovered the game knows I actually really liked her at first, but it’s hard to have a genuine attachment to a character who seldom even gets to have a personality outside of basic traits and Having Tits.

Julian is, admittedly, a difficult one. I am not jewish myself, but I’ve heard testimony from jewish fans that his portrayal is less than ideal (to put it lightly). At the very base, his design itself is riddled with common antisemitic imagery and was based primarily on a real brown-skinned jewish man whose melanated skin they excluded, surely coincidentally (/s). but it goes even further than that (depicting a jewish man as a bloodsucking vampire, anyone?). I don’t claim to speak for any groups I do not belong to, but with the knowledge I do have it simply makes things uncomfortable to witness.

Muriel. Oh, Muriel. Again, if you’ve known me for any significant amount of time, you probably knew I was dreading this. But as much as I’d like to think nothing could ever be wrong when he’s around, there are definitely problems. Now, I could go into all the issues with the way the writers concocted his route, his story, his character as a whole (brown man with a ~foreign~ type of magic lives in solitude in the woods and is “in tune with nature” to the point of communication, very original /s), what I really want to touch on here is how this informed the way the community treats him. Listen, I’m not gonna sugarcoat this, a lot of Muriel fans are not subtle about their (most often white, but not always) savior complexes. More times than I care to remember I’ve seen him babied, treated like he’s incompetent, made at best into an animal to be tamed and at worst into an uncontrollable monster. I’ve seen pieces of fanfiction call him, a very blatantly indigenous-coded character, a real actual slur. Not to mention how watering down the trauma he faced has become something of commonplace. And this isn’t even an exhaustive list of ways he’s mistreated! For as much as it makes me angry, it’s also extremely saddening. The devs and writers made one of their most genuine kindhearted characters into a metaphorical punching bag, and the community has only continued swinging for years afterward.

But, I think I’ve made my point. Moving on.

Portia is a combination of problems I’ve already touched on. Conveniently, all of the stereotypical traits that Julian inherited happened to skip right over his little sister. What didn’t skip over, however, was the gene of being shamelessly and gratuitously oversexualizing of her. Take a look at any of her CGs; most if not all of them are centered on her chest or otherwise use color and design to draw the eye there. Every one of her sprite outfits are low cut to show varying levels of cleavage. And the few vocal fans she does have only serve to perpetuate this over and over again. To be completely clear, there’s nothing wrong with characters who embrace their sexuality. That goes without saying. However, for being the one “plus-size” love interest– which really in this case only means short and curvy– the emphasis on her body over anything else about her is startling and sad.

Finally, we find Lucio. Our one ethnically white male love interest. You may be wondering how a character like that could possibly receive “strange treatment”. Or maybe you’re not. I will elaborate anyway. The biggest problem with Lucio, with the fans and absolutely with the teams behind the game, is and has been for the longest time the complete and utter lack of awareness of his role in the world and the consistent retroactive rewriting of his character. What I mean by that is this: Lucio, originally and in every route but his own, is blatantly written to be an unforgivably cruel and immoral man. He seeks the best treatment he can get while cityfolk all but die in his streets, he takes advantage of the kindness and generosity of others and punishes their trust. There are many assumptions that can be made but we are shown explicitly that he can know Asra, a child (as an adult himself), and make sexual advances on them in adulthood with absolutely no guilt. He blackmailed Muriel into being and staying his slave and in turn forced him to perform brutal public massacres for an indeterminate amount of time: all we know is that it was long enough for a colloquial name to become well known and for his appearance to grow unkempt and haggard. All this plus more things that I don’t even have the time to list. And yet, he is arguably one of the most popular characters. Take two steps into the fandom at large and you’ll see countless postings about how his childhood was so tragic and how he’s so very sorry, he’s just a little oopsie whoopsie uwu soft boy! The few times I personally have seen his horrible actions even addressed by his fans was to underplay them, to insinuate that he has it worse than anyone he hurt. In spite of, or maybe even because of his extensive list of broadly observable crimes, he thrives in the community. The people love him. I don’t think I really have to explain why this in particular is so extremely chilling to me.

So, with all of these things laid out… What now? We’ve acknowledged the problems, there’s pages upon pages of other posts outlining ones I didn’t even cover here, so now what do we do? What’s the solution?

The answer to this isn’t quite cut and dry. There’s no simple solution to murky waters that run as deep as these do. But, for what it’s worth, I have a few suggestions I’d like to propose.

First off, I understand that all of the routes are finished. They had all completed well before the Dorian acquisition, I’m fully aware of that fact. However, in regard to said acquisition, I feel as though Dorian dropped the ball when transferring the property to their own app (and I’m not even talking about the writing of the tales, which is its own can of worms). Rather than simply copy-pasting the routes from the existing app, things could’ve been redone, remade better. Problems could have been solved now that the game had gained new life. This was much of the inspiration behind my own reworking of the concept, to address the problems and fix them. I don’t even believe that it’s too late for them yet; routes have only just begun being uploaded to the Dorian app, in theory there’s still room to reconsider things.

But that’s the problem. I don’t believe that the crew behind Dorian really cares. I don’t believe the original development team or Nix Hydra crew really cared. If the people involved really cared about these problems, there was ample time within the last nearly five years to fix things. They did nothing. They continue to do nothing. People like me shout endlessly into the void, hoping someone will hear and actually listen to the issues happening within their game. But they don’t care. They continue to make money, they continue to draw in players, why should they? If racism and misogyny and every other form of bigotry under the sun doesn’t hurt their bottom line, why change anything? Why care, why change if the community at large not only ignores it but actively encourages and supports it? Why listen to criticism if you can just block it and soak up praise from your unconditional fans? Why?

As I said, I don’t have a simple solution for any of this. But I’ve made personal choices in my own life to give less of my time and money to the company. If I want merchandise, I seek out independent artists. If I want to see or read something again, I can find screencaps. As much as I miss certain things, I don’t play the game anymore. I can’t help being attached to characters who have been important to me for as long as I’ve known them, but what I can do is make purposeful choices in response to the affection I feel. Maybe my singular actions won’t mean anything to them, but specifically and purposefully refusing to support the profits of a fundamentally flawed game that doesn’t even have the self awareness to be ashamed of itself means everything to me.

Thanks for listening. I hope anyone who happened to make it to this point can take something good from my impassioned ramblings.

#kinda ship related #hey thanks for reading if you happened to get to the end of this thing! #don’t blame you if you didn’t though lmao this shit LONG #i just have a lot of feelings and wanted to get them out #plus i saw some posts talking about putting messages out there that should get to the higher ups #and well. y’know. a peach can dream #if i got anything wrong in here PLEASE let me know im happy to be educated more #i just want as many people as possible to know about this kind of stuff #the arcana #the arcana game #asra alnazar #asra the arcana #nadia satrinava #nadia the arcana #julian devorak #julian the arcana #muriel of the kokhuri #muriel the arcana #portia devorak #portia the arcana #lucio morgasson #lucio the arcana #peachyrambles

[horizon-verizon]

The argument that Visenya would’ve loved the Greens because she was a ‘usurper’ is so funny because what she always prioritized was the strength of her house. She founded the Kingsguard to protect her brother, gave Aenys the best advice, even offered to do the dirty job. The Greens are the reason her house lost their power and dragons.

Visenya didn’t put Maegor on the throne for funsies, she wanted her house to remain strong and powerful and only somebody like Maegor, a necessary evil, could’ve dealt with Westerosi bullshit which he did.

Referring to this post.

Visenya was also:

rumored to practice blood magic

wanted to burn down the Starry Sept 2x

a woman who used a sword quite comfortably, etc.

Neither woman would appeal to each other. I honestly don't know if either, too, would be able to hide their suspicion (both) or disdain & & fear (Alicent) or their cool indifference (Visenya), which would make things worse. And Alicent, of the two, would likely take the quickest offense.

Alicent also was the leader of a bunch of incompetent children, and Visenya seemed the type to not tolerate that type of shit. Much less a parent who'd allow it & even try to use a member of the very institution she created (the Kingsguard) to harm or exclude a royal family member/a Targ. She'd also hate Cole for that. Cole is attached to Alicent and was/is instrumental for her faction.

Nah, if there was a side she had to choose, she would never choose the greens. The greens are more likely to be outsiders at best (bc of the Faith connections and the history there...she wanted Maegor to marry Rhaena anyway, for the line to continue with its own traditions and insularity for the dragons to continue be bonded with the ruling Targs), disruptive outsiders at worst to her. Of course Visenya wanted whatever was best for her house...but she, again, hated incompetence and the green candidate for a king...ugh. Death knell. No resuscitation.

Visenya to Cole for fucking up her Kingsguard:

#visenya targaryen #visenya the conqueror #asoiaf asks to me #the greens #fire and blood characters #visenya's characterization

[wackus-bonkus-maximus]

the miraculous enneagram post nobody asked for

if by now you don't know i'm obsessed with the enneagram & personality stuff, i present to you know the depth of the hole i'm in. hello, i'm wackus, type 9, and if you skip this rambling post i totally understand.

the enneagram is a personality tool i use for writing (both fanfic & non-fanfic stuff) and irl to navigate relationships. this post will focus on how i type the mlb characters in my fics. however, the enneagram is more than putting people in boxes and stamping them with stereotypes. i use it in my writing is to know what motivates each personality and how their values shape not only their worldview, but the actions they will take in the narrative.

1 - the reformer marinette (wing 2), su han, kagami driving goal: integrity, perfection, improvement basic fear: being bad or corrupt

2 - the helper nino, rose, sabrina (wing 1) driving goal: love, appreciation, validation basic fear: being unwanted, unloved

3 - the achiever chloe (wing 2), lila (wing 4): driving goal: worth, success, image basic fear: being worthless

4 - the individualist gabriel (wing 5), zoe, juleka driving goal: identity, authenticity, significance basic fear: the void

5 - the investigator felix (6), max, nathalie (wing 4) driving goal: knowledge, understanding, competency basic fear: being helpless or incompetent

6 - the loyalist mylene, roland, sabine (wing 5) driving goal: security, community, certitude basic fear: having no support system

7 - the enthusiast adrien (wing 6), kim, gina (wing 8) driving goal: satisfaction, excitement, contentedness basic fear: missing out, feeling pain

8 - the challenger alya (wing 9), alix (wing 7), ivan driving goal: autonomy, importance, control basic fear: being harmed, being controlled

9 - the peacemaker luka, fu (wing 8), tom driving goal: harmony, connection, peace of mind basic fear: conflict, separation, loss

there is no enneagram type that's better or worse than the others. an unhealthy person will present the worst symptoms of their type, while a healthy person will present the best. remember, the goal of the enneagram is to get out of the box you're in so you can be a more healthy personality!

notes:

*i'm like 95% sure i got their types right but if you think differently pls feel free to correct me

*wings are when an enneagram type leans into the traits of the type next to them on the circle (either side). i, a 9 wing 1, am mostly laid-back and chill, but if you don't do the dishes like i asked then i'll passive aggressively get up and do them myself while saying "it's fine."

*each type might act like another when they are healthy/unhealthy. E.g nino (type 2) has gone to the "bad side" of 8 in stress (bubbler & rocketeer tried to dominate & regain control). but when he is healthy he looks like "the good side" of 4, making videos and dj-ing & just being super creative.

*any type can be in a happy relationship with any other type as long as they're both healthy (which is one of the things i like about the enneagram's perspective). that being said, my favorite couples that i always end up shipping the hardest are the 1/7 and the 2/5. just so much fun to watch ❤️

*if you're looking at this like "mm i don't buy it, sounds like bull" you might be a type 6

*if you are reading this and thinking "i need to research this more and get the right info" you might be a type 5

*if you're looking at this and are unsure which one you might be because some or all of them kinda sound like you, you're probably a 9

**i am not a certified enneagram coach, just v obsessed

tldr: wackus sorts the miraculous characters into enneagram types bc it helps her write good.

#miraculous ladybug #mlb #enneagram #writing #ao3 writer #this has been sitting in my notes for months tbh #if you made it to the end congratulations #this probably won't be the last miraculous enneagram post i make #now you know my writing secrets

[noamuth]

Orgoll

Dalamus' eldest brother. Born 300 years before the events of Baldur's Gate 3, and born 100 years before Dalamus.

Orgoll was a bully at best, and a conniving cold-blooded murderer at worst, an exemplary individual by Lolthite standards. He had no patience for gemcutting, his family's trade. He desired power, and lusted for blood. To satisfy this, he willingly joined military service, aiming to be an elite warrior, and then a commander.

He was strong, preferred a hammer as his weapon, and favored the combat styles of Z'ress a'thalak and Orb Alur. Z'ress a'thalak focused on physical strength, while Orb Alur taught one how to strike many enemies at once. While he mastered neither, the combination in practice was terrifying to behold, and earned him the fear and respect he desired.

Orgoll detested his brothers. He hated Nilaufein for his kindness, what Orgoll considered weakness, disgusting, an embarrassment, and would have gladly killed him if not for the fact that Nilaufein rivaled him in strength thanks to his own job. He was jealous of the attention Dalamus got for his gemcutting skill, and would sabotage his work, harass him, insult him, and push him around.

The only thing keeping Dalamus safe from permanent harm was the fact that he was the only skilled gemcutter of his generation keeping the family's trade alive, and Orgoll did not want to deal with the potential fallout. Hence, the sabotage--if he could make Dalamus appear incompetent, then killing him would be doing everyone a favor.

By the time Nilaufein was called to participate in a surface raid, never to return, Orgoll was climbing rank and fully immersed in his job, his power, rarely coming home except by a parent's behest or for religious meetings. Each return offered another chance to mock Nilaufein's death and sabotage Dalamus' work, but he succeeded fewer and fewer times as Dalamus grew more skilled and hid his tools better.

After Dalamus' Blooding, Orgoll was asked to return so they might celebrate his little brother finally proving himself an adult. Unbeknownst to Orgoll, Dalamus had been practicing some skills outside of gemcutting, such as stealth.

Believing Dalamus to be out of the house one night, Orgoll retired to bed, where he could initiate Trance in peace before returning to his military duties. But he would never return. Dalamus had been hidden under the bed, waited for Orgoll to initiate his Trance, distracting him, then swiftly exited the hiding spot to slit Orgoll's throat before he could take any action. Dalamus was finally free from Orgoll's murderous shadow.

#strighym headcanons #orgoll #missy screenshots

[billconrad]

Defining Evil

    Occasionally, everyone does something unacceptable, ranging from not covering one’s mouth during a sneeze to mass murder. Encountering unacceptable people is unpleasant; fortunately, most people have good hearts. Unfortunately, some encounters are so bad that we call these individuals evil. This quality is beyond poor judgment and bad behavior; it is when a despicable person enjoys inflicting harm.

    Authors tap into their positive and negative experiences to create stories and characters. I wanted to concentrate on my negative encounters and how they shaped my characters.

    During my life, I have experienced a few evil individuals and watched/read many stories that contain evil characters. For example, a good detective who breaks the law. The anti-hero Mad Max who, saves a life one day and kills ten people the next. The desperate Bonnie and Clyde criminals who are “trying to survive against the man.” The trusted person who is a pedophile. The leader who removes seditious people to save society. The person with a mental health condition who “does not know any better.” The despicable Hannibal Lecter and real-life Ted Bundy who enjoy torturing people to death.

    At the lesser end of the evil spectrum is a “normal” person who appears to have poor judgment, but an element of evil is contained within their core. For example, a best friend that steals from you. An alcoholic relative who rams their car through a crowd of people in a drunken rage.

    Sometimes, a “good” person feels they are performing good deeds with deplorable actions. Such as killing “non-believers.” A less extreme example is a parent who constantly punishes their child. These evil people go to great lengths to justify their behavior. “I had to do this but did not enjoy it.” They genuinely perceived their actions to be helpful.

    The worst evil is looking in the mirror and seeing evil in yourself. “Breaking my brother’s arm was not an accident.” “I’m a drug dealer and not a spiritual helper.” I have never seen this trait in my reflection and never want to.

    I believe an evil person can become a good person because it is possible to make positive changes, apologize for mistakes, and make amends. Other times, an evil person embraces their inner demon. “I enjoy being a drug dealer.” “Breaking his arm felt good.”

    In fiction, negative characters range from annoying to horrific characters that can only exist in outlandish fiction. Can a fictional character be evil? Stories are made up of words that only become real when a reader thinks about them. Does a negative character bring out (invent) evil in a reader’s mind? For most people, no, because they know it is a story. Yet, many evil people got their inspiration from books or movies.

    People are complex. We have witnessed events ranging from supreme kindness to unimaginable horrors. A good story will make readers recall and examine their life experiences to visualize it.

    Let’s explore two evil people from my life. The first is a former coworker who overcame his incompetence by blaming others. My project came into this individual’s crosshairs, and I suffered during his tyrannical blame storm. The result was hurt feelings and a messed-up project. I still harbor disdain for this individual all these years later.

    What did he think of me? I do not have to guess because he told the team what he thought of us many times. We were all incompetent. He would likely summarize me as a non-team player and a bad electrical engineer. This coworker often called another team member “a troublemaker” for pointing out his flaws.

    Was he genuinely evil? In my life, I have encountered a few people with evil in their eyes. I would consider them to be a dark soul or a person who has had their heart consumed by evil. This nastiness was in my coworker’s eyes every time I saw him.

    That negative experience was many years ago, and I have had time to reflect. This coworker was suffering from severe arthritis and needed to take powerful medications, which led to severe side effects, including mental impairment. He was the only provider of a family with two children. The combination must have placed incredible pressure on him. However, that is no excuse for his poor job performance. As proof, he never asked the team for help, understanding, or forgiveness.

    The aspect of his personality that brought out the evil was his enjoyment of inflicting pain. He blamed others rather than accept his circumstances. He savored successfully criticizing team members. This action went far beyond poor judgment or bad manners. Something else was present in that man. I guess that this “evil high” distracted him from his arthritis pain and prevented him from facing his incompetence.

    I based one character on my memory of this man. I copied his fashion, arrogant decisions, cover-ups, low ethics, and condescending speech. He made a good foil for my other characters. It is fun to be a writer. Or is it budget therapy? Hmm.

    I crossed paths twice with another evil person. In 2015, our house was robbed and severely damaged. The traumatic experience harshly affected me and my family, but there was justice when he got arrested in 2016.

    Joey Ramos is a despicable man who committed several crimes by the age of 37. In the courtroom, I faced my accuser. I could see the evil in his black eyes. (They were actually black. I absolutely could not see any white and felt stabs of evil when he looked at me. It was very unnerving.) This man had no soul. He is my definition of evil and the supreme proof that evil exists. The jury gave him 650 years behind bars. (He did some other bad things besides robbing my house.)

    Will I base a character upon him? Absolutely not. He is far too bad for my writing style, but I know that other writers have such characters. He could easily be the despicable criminal a great police officer chases or the theft equivalent of Hannibal Lecter.

    I do not know how other writers could craft a character like Hannibal Lecter and get a good night’s sleep. I must have one foot in the real world when I write; therefore, my negative characters must have a quality beyond embracing evil. I have used my powerful memory of this individual to develop character descriptions, especially their evil eyes, manor, and unnerving confidence.

    Now, hold on for a second. My fictional stories contain death, torture, murder, and hardship. My first book is about a 500-year-old murdering psychopath. In this (well-written!) book (you should buy) (right now) (please!), the character tries to justify her existence. The result is a (well-written!) story that shows an evil person becoming less evil. Does this make my book evil? Hmm.

    My writing goal is to create a story that entertains while keeping my ethical boundaries intact. To appreciate the positive parts of a story, the negative parts must be present. So, my answer is that I explore fictional evil characters.

    When I write something negative, am I fostering evil behavior in my readers? Hey, bad people, here’s an idea. Go read Bill’s books and learn how to kill. At least get yourself in the mood. Hmm. I suppose I am adding a bit of evil to this beautiful world.     What other evil lives in my life? I read books and watch movies with evil characters. I play video games where I “kill people.” I admit to making mistakes that cause harm to others. Hmm. I must conclude that a percentage of me is evil. Dang! That is something to think about.

    You’re the best -Bill

    January 20, 2024

    Hey book lovers, I published four. Please check them out:

    Interviewing Immortality. A dramatic first-person psychological thriller that weaves a tale of intrigue, suspense, and self-confrontation.

    Pushed to the Edge of Survival. A drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

    Cable Ties. A slow-burn political thriller that reflects the realities of modern intelligence, law enforcement, department cooperation, and international politics.

    Saving Immortality. Continuing in the first-person psychological thriller genre, James Kimble searches for his former captor to answer his life’s questions.

    These books are available in soft-cover on Amazon and eBook format everywhere.

#writing #crime #evil #character development

[thefunkes]

dec 12 2023

The feeling is back. 

Maybe Brian Wilson said it best in "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times." Or maybe Bo Burnham did with "That Funny Feeling." Or maybe Robin Peckinold was getting at the same thing in “Helpless Blues.” 

I’ve never been original, always latching onto somebody else’s ideas. But if I could describe this feeling at all, It's that prickly feeling I get all over telling my body to Do Something. It's the bile creeping up in my throat signaling my body to vomit. When I lie down, I feel it pulse through my legs in waves. My heart is pushing into the back of my chest. I think it’s been with me since high school, but maybe it was just always there undetectable to little me who was focused on community building in Animal Crossing. The pain speaks more than the incoherent thoughts colliding into each other in my brain. All I feel is the wave from my skull to my toes. 

The feeling chooses when to come. It’s like the feeling wakes up and decides it needs to keep busy. We all do. Who am I to shit on someone else’s purpose? It’s not like I have one at the top of mind. With the feeling comes dread and a sense that my time is up. When I find myself in this state, I go limp. My body is in physical pain and I don’t fight back, I give in so easily, drooping like underarms. I have told no one about this pain. Becca JH wrote, “Pain eliminates language. At its most extreme, it results in an animalistic scream, an expression of utter unintelligibility.” 

I think this feeling first entered my body in high school, like a possession. But I saw The Exorcist when I was in high school and it didn’t scare me much. To combat this feeling I’ve done everything from drink, smoke cigarettes, suffocate my ears with music, go for walks, yoga, get a degree, stop eating, and flirt with guys at parties who I will never see again, amongst others. But it has no escape, it throbs every now and then to remind me, that it’s still there. Every time it shows itself, I swat at it like a mosquito, but the desire for blood is strong—it wants to kill its host.

"I don't think you know what you wanna do with your life."

In ContraPoints’ video “Incels,” Wynn coins the term masochistic epistemology: whatever hurts is true. This is to say that as a form of self-harm, people will seek out disparaging comments about themselves or people whom they identify with online to reaffirm their own ideas that they have of themselves in their head. To those who live inside my head, they’ll know I’ve been known to do this from time to time. I used to have a screenshot saved of a Reddit thread where a man posts, worried that he is stupid as he fails to complete everyday simple tasks. I didn’t care to screenshot the replies. I don’t need comfort, I wanted to reaffirm that yes, there are people who are incompetent and deserving of very little. Not of course, that I would say that about that man. To him, I would say that he is loved by his friends and family and to move towards the light in his life. I don’t go on these online adventures anymore. Because once you’re an adult with a degree people you won’t have to seek out cutting comments about yourself through a stranger, sometimes somebody will look at you square in your deer-in-the-headlights dumbass face and say your worst fear about yourself to you.

"I don't think you know what you wanna do with your life."

The other night I was at a party with people all older than me whether it be by a few months or almost a decade. Everybody seemed so eager, so willing. Our bodies were close together, I could feel the legs of another man touching mine. My heart fluttered. I forget. I drink. I forget. I remember, then say something I shouldn’t have. I forget. Then I wake up at 3 AM.

"I don't think you know what you wanna do with your life."

#writing #essay #text

[seadeepywrites]

Part Two

Character: Haven Vasselon Words: 1888 tw: blood, wound care

The cool glassy surface of a plane beyond the Shell stretches out in every direction to an indifferent horizon. Haven sits at the center of her Leomund's Tiny Hut and tries to stay positive.

One: She is alive, and she has stayed alive long enough to bring up the Hut around her — neither of those were a guarantee when she was wrenched unwillingly from the only reality she's ever known.

Two: The creature that appeared, bearing brilliant light beneath its feet, was simply a friendly gnome from Kyndra and not a monster intending her harm. Haven aches to follow him, and find out where he went after the color suffusing him faded away, but blood is still leaking in sticky, clotting patches through her clothing. His fate will remain a mystery — although Haven knows what it usually takes for mortal souls to pass beyond the Shell, and it doesn't bode well for his life back on Thiuhm.

Three: Haven has time now, sitting in this Hut, to bind her wounds and attune to the Amulet of the Planes. The Amulet is shining serendipity, a treasure looted from the caves below Veville that may now hold her only hope for returning to her party and her ship.

So even though the world around her is starting to tilt and spin — and Haven's pretty sure that's just blood loss, not some new quality of this plane — things could be a whole lot worse. Haven digs in her backpack and fishes out the amulet, which is wrapped carefully and buried below most of her other possessions as insurance against pickpocketing. She slips the chain over her head, struggling for a moment as it tangles with her antlers, and touches the strange, spiky metal of the amulet itself.

It is cold to the touch, which she expects. What she doesn't expect is the strange pulse of heat that suffuses it for a few seconds, bringing it from icy to warm against her skin. It cools again, then pulses hot again. Cold again, hot again. The rhythm is almost consistent, but not quite.

"Huh," Haven says out loud.

Bundling the Rod of Absorption away into her pack and removing the few medical supplies she has, Haven makes an effort to bandage and salve her various cuts and bruises. Her ministrations are clumsy at best and incompetent at worst — Whisper and Klaus are usually around, and both of them are better than she is at this, but she's not going to bleed out here. 

The thought of her loved ones reminds Haven, with a dull throb of misery that goes far deeper than any injury, of what she intends to do next.

Moving slowly and tenderly, Haven rummages for a sheet of parchment and a pen. She flexes the fingers of her writing hand a few times, though they are no more stiff than the rest of her. Absently, she notices she has begun to shiver, and raises the temperature of the interior of the Hut by a few degrees.

And then she places the gleaming tip of the pen to the parchment and tries to marshal her whirling thoughts into some sort of coherent language. She swallows, tears trembling on the end of her lashes, and she writes:

Klaus,

It's not that I wish you'd never met the Kraken. Obviously if you hadn't he probably would have just killed us all when we first met him, and also I wouldn't want to take away such an important person from your life. I remember we already talked about this a little, but I know that I'm very different than I would have been without meeting you all, and I wouldn't want to ever assume that I know what's healthy for you—

She crosses out the last part of the sentence, and tries again.

I wouldn't want to ever assume that I know everything about what people should do in their own lives. It's kind of the exact opposite, really. You're a lot smarter than I am when it comes to making good decisions, and staying alive, and I don't think that I thank you enough for it. We all know that we'd be dead a dozen times over if you weren't around, but me especially.

I've spent a lot of this letter so far writing about what I'm not saying, and maybe if I do that enough I'll be able to figure out what it is that I am trying to say. My point is that my personal feelings about the Kraken don't matter, but we do. Your crew matters.

Haven hesitates for a few long seconds, looking at the word "your." Eventually, she leaves it as she wrote it, but the tears begin to slip down her face without a sound, leaving dark spots on the parchment and blurring the ink.

I should have known back in Tillnete, she writes, then crosses it out furiously. The pen rips through the parchment, and she makes a small noise of frustration deep in her throat.

The Kraken is not a good person, but you know that already. That kind of thing is important to me, but like I said — that's not what matters here. The part I don't understand and maybe won't ever understand is that we also all know that you can't trust him.

Haven strikes out the entirety of that sentence. She replaces it with, What does matter is that he's proven twice now that he'll hurt us even when we try to play by his rules. Even when you try to talk him out of it — and I do believe that you tried.

Memory swirls up, and Haven's fingers twitch with the echoes of a thin gold ray of arcane power.

I know you'll be alive to read this when I get back, she writes. I can only hope the rest of the crew is as well.

The next part requires more thought. Haven touches her hand to her face as she deliberates, realizing only after she lowers the pen again that she's smeared black ink across her lower lip and the curve of her chin. She swallows hard when she touches pen to parchment, but she's stopped crying. Her hand is steady as she begins writing again, her handwriting clear and even.

It's my job to protect our crew. You keep us safe too in so many ways, with your caution and your arrows from nowhere, and as long as you're traveling with us I will try my hardest to make sure you're happy. You're my friend, Klaus Graves. I care about you so much I can't even write it all in words.

For the safety of our crew and our ship, we can't work with the Kraken anymore. It seems obvious when I put it like that, after what just happened, but when he broke his word in Tillnete Isle we let you talk us into meeting him again. And look where I ended up. Look what happened to Whisper.

Haven scribbles over that last part, because it's not entirely fair. Her sense of justice would have sent her chasing after the Nightweaver anyway, and the Munafik's cannons are the only reason the Nightweaver didn't disappear into the night as abruptly as it arrived. But Haven can feel her heart beating in her fingertips, because she's getting at a larger truth here, and it scares her senseless.

I won't make you pick between us, she writes, and doesn't add that it's because she suspects she knows the answer Klaus would give.

I won't give you any advice on your relationship with him. But I will say, in this letter, before you give me a hundred practical reasons why it just makes sense to forgive him, that you can't play both sides. Not even in the short term, before the world ends. You have some sort of decision to make, before someone you care about gets hurt in a way you can't save them from.

I've made my own decision about this, Haven writes, fingers pressed so hard against the pen that it leaves indents. Whisper says a lot that we can't change how other people act, only how we respond to them. So this is just my opinion I'm sharing with you, because you've helped me so much in the time I've known you. It seems so long to me and so brief to you, but I hope you'll at least take the time to consider what I've said. I'm pretty sure that even people with really long lifespans can still change things to make themselves happier. But I guess that part is up to you.

Love,

Haven

Signing the letter with a flourish, Haven caps the pen and sets it aside before blowing gently over the ink to dry it. In the soft golden light of the Hut, the letter looks as messy as she feels. There are dents and blots where she crossed out sentences, and her tears have diffused some of the words into indistinct, feathery patches. Haven considers copying the letter onto a cleaner sheet of parchment for a few moments, but eventually decides against it. She wants to be honest with Klaus, and this is as honest as she can get.

The Amulet of the Planes is still cycling between hot and cold, but Haven recognizes the rhythm now. It has slowed and aligned to match her pulse. Perfectly in sync, almost eerily so. She wraps her fingers around the amulet, holding it close like the lifeline that it is, and breathes deeply. Tilts her chin up. Some of the uncertainty that has churned inside her for months is settling, channeled through her pen and out into the world at large. The view is beautiful here on this unknown plane, and even the oddities she's encountered so far are beautifully unique and unexpected. She wishes she could explore further, but what matters right now is staying alive long enough to return to the Material Plane — to return home, whatever that might mean.

In the space her uncertainty leaves behind, a twisting vine of sorrow begins to put down roots. She can admit it now, in this silence: the Kraken's betrayal has chipped away at her faith. Not in the Kraken, whom she's never liked nor trusted, but in Klaus. It's a hairline fracture for now, one small imperfection in an otherwise unshakeable foundation, but it's tarnishing the edges of Haven's affection for him, and she hates it. If Klaus was so spectacularly wrong about how this would go — enough to be caught and caged, a feat Haven didn't think was possible — then what else might he be wrong about?

It's insidious, this doubt. It burrows its spidery filaments through all her worries and fears, and then deeper still, wending its way through her hopes. Her plans for the future. Her half-formed yearnings and her tendency toward blind devotion. Haven can feel the tides changing, slow but inexorable, beginning to wash away the sand beneath her.

Haven waits for the hour to pass, ready to cast Plane Shift as soon as she can. She isn't afraid to channel altogether unfamiliar arcane magic — that part is intriguing, even exciting.

What frightens her is that she's no longer as certain in the people to whom she'll return.

#Haven #this made me fucking sad to write tbh #corsairs campaign

[isaacathom]

worst part is i cant really pool those emotions into something else, because my primary other "things" are my main ttrpg ocs, and they simply arent doing the things that are called for.

sure you could make a strong case that florian being in love with his best friend captures some of that energy (and thats only if we assume he is actually in romantic love with his best friend, as opposed to like, anything else) and while thats Something its not quiiite the same because the only thing stopping either man is emotional incompetence. i mean yeah sure the setting aint super queer friendly but also who cares. and theres no tragedy yet. someone has to nearly die to get in the right bit.

sure you could say that naielles 20year absence from her fiancee captures some of it, the vibe of being in love and not being able to be together, but like. idk. it just doesnt carry the energy. that might be because theyre engaged? and even after the 20 years her fiancee is clearly still invested in the relationship to a similar level as naielle is, meaning that in the (unlikely) event they are able to reunite there wont be any "problems". ofc itd be complicated and not as easy as either would like, they have a lot of secrets theyve been keeping from the other, but hypothetically it would be a happy reunion and then the two are free to begin their lives together again, no harm or foul. the element of proper tragedy only rears in head if the other is in danger, and the nature of the matter means neither can KNOW that. any revelation of the danger would be delayed, like a letter stuck in the mail. actually exactly that in naielle's case because the only way news ABOUT naielle can get to her fiancee without Naielle herself doing it is a regularly delivered letter, which given the circumstances may never get delivered. in the fiancees case there's a hypothetical route that Naielle learns that happened via pseudo astral projection facilitated by her pact patron (?) but thats only if she and the other person try to connect at the same time, which, hey maybe long enough without word she would just start trying to connect regularly just to see whats up. who knows.

point is its. its not quite right. not quite the right balance of love and tragedy and whatever the fuck.

#florian is the only one with the proper potential because the ttrpg system he's in is a d10 exploding one #so the likelihood that he or zeke die or are mortally wounded is an ever present damoclesian sword #i dont actually know if florians feelings are romantic or like. qpr? or smth? brotherly? unclear #but i suppose within a context i can imagine him saying 'i love you' and not necessarily deciding what form he means #because i think its a statement thats true no matter what angle hes coming from. its up to zeke to interpret that #however florian only has POTENTIAL. things are complicated by the play situation #alas. not much we can do #im just doing naielle-related art and vibing this is just the words portion of emotions

[arpov-blog-blog]

Willie Horton and Me, Again | Bowdoin College

....."Shortly before his death in 1991, Atwater (rather clinically) explained to political scientist Alexander Lamis what he and his fellow strategists were thinking as they developed the ad: “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘N——r, n——r, n——r.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘n——r’—that hurts you. Backfires. So, you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a by-product of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying ‘We want to cut this’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘N——r, n——r.’”

I think that stands as evidence; one of the two major American political parties has deliberately, for more than fifty years, fanned the fires and divisions of racial hatred and misunderstanding. As their plan.

Consider a statement made by Trump supporter Crystal Minton, who said to New York Times reporter Patricia Mazzei in reference to Donald Trump, “He’s not hurting the people he’s supposed to be hurting.” She was complaining that the 2018–2019 government shutdown, implemented by Trump, was harming her and the people of her small town, who were largely dependent on government jobs at the federal prison in Marianna, Florida. In Minton’s statement, we hear the revenant of Atwater’s remark: “Blacks get hurt worse than whites.”

But by 2019, the subtext had become the text. Atwater had played a very large role in this GOP battle plan, often referred to as “The Southern Strategy,” architected in 1968 by the Nixon campaign to use race as a wedge issue. But I didn’t know that, not for sure, in 1989. In 1989, it was painful and bewildering. And, looking at it from the vantage point of 2020, I didn’t know that not only would it continue over the next thirty years, but it would get ever more sophisticated and savage, turned to cringing effect against Barack Obama and finding (one must hope) its apotheosis in the mind-numbingly regular statements and taunts of Donald Trump. I have to say, as an intellectual proud of what I think of as my sophisticated irony, it would almost be funny, like a Saturday Night Live or Dave Chappelle skit mocking outdated ignorance, if I were not the parent of a child who has had her childhood blighted by all this.

I also didn’t know as I wrote, and neither did many others, that the officer who apprehended Horton and brought him to justice, Yusuf A. Muhammad, was African American. Muhammad, a corporal in the Prince George’s County Police at the time, shot and wounded Horton, bringing him in. That wasn’t in the ad. It also wasn’t in the ad that Corporal Muhammad was the recipient of two degrees from Johns Hopkins, that he would go on to be a police chief, or that he would finish his illustrious career with the Metropolitan Police of Washington, DC.

The everyday occurrence that the best and worst of our society, a valiant and studious and learned police officer and a vile criminal, were of the same race had been conveniently overlooked by the Republicans in their rush to stereotype Black males. And perhaps it points to what I have come to think of as the general incompetence on these matters of the Democratic Party and their strategists that they did not make an advertisement pointing this out. But what we were left with was a masterpiece of cruel political magic stirring up fear and division that went virtually unanswered and that has been allowed to morph and metastasize over the succeeding decades."

[watchmegetobsessed]

The Hottest Avenger - Bucky Barnes

a/n: im warning you, i will probably not stop for a while with the bucky fics so... brace yourselves lol! also i wrote this before ep 5 came out so its placed in that time

pairing: Bucky X Reader

warnings: TFATWS spoiler, some violence? nothing extreme

word count: 1.8k

summary: Being locked together with Sam and Bucky brings the worst out of you, picking on each other constantly. Following an arguement Bucky accidentally calls you his girlfriend in front of Sam when your relationship was supposed to be a secret.

masterlist

“Did you fucking eat the last dumpling?” you accuse Sam, holding up the empty takeout box where you thought were one more dumpling, one you’ve saved for yourself, but now it’s gone as Sam is eyeing you with his mouth full.

“Thought it was mine,” he mumbles, his words barely understandable from all the food in his mouth.

Taking a deep breath you’re trying not to jump at his throat right then and there. You’ve been locked up together all damn day in the trashy apartment across the street from the building where’s Zemo supposed to be hiding. Sharon had a tip about a possible place where he might be found, but you’ve been waiting to no avail for now. You’ve been growing stressed and impatient. You lost track of Karli and her people and now you can’t seem to find Zemo either. If it wasn’t for the Dora Milaje, you wouldn’t bother to be so after the asshole, but Bucky said if Ayo finds him first, he is dead and every useful information he holds goes to the grave with him so now you are forced to look for him. One failed mission has been following the other these days, that incompetent dickhead John is on the loose too after murdering that man in front of civilians and you feel like control has slipped out of your grip a long time ago. Now you’re stuck with Sam and Bucky in this crappy place, waiting by the window, watching out for Zemo and on top of everything… Sam ate your last dumpling.

Just when you’re about to snap at him, you feel a strong grip on your shoulder. You don’t have to look up to know it’s Bucky right behind you, but not just because he is the only other person in the room beside you and Sam, but also because you know his touch probably more than anyone. Only that most of the times it’s not your shoulder he is gripping…

It’s been going on for a long time between the two of you. Started with just some innocent flirting and you never thought it would grow into something more significant, but it did. And now you are officially in a relationship with none other than the Winter Soldier, only that no one else knows about it and you plan to keep it that way. You don’t need the teasing and jokes and the Avengers are known to be dicks sometimes, especially Sam.

Glancing up your eyes meet Bucky’s blue irises and he sends you a look that says “just let it go”, and though every fiber in you wants to whoop Sam’s ass, you let it slip.

“Don’t tell me you’re gonna get mad about a dumpling,” Sam chuckles as he chews on the food that you should be enjoying right now.

“I can get mad about whatever I want to,” you growl back, growing quite irritated of him at this point.

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” he huffs under his breath, clearly not as bothered as he should be. Before you could do any harm in him, you leave your spot by the window, needing a breather from… well, from him.

“Hey, it’s still your turn!” he calls after you.

“I need a break,” you growl back.

“Get your ass back here, we agreed to switch every two hours!”

“Sam! I’m walking out because I’m way too tempted to punch you in the face right now!” you snap at him, losing your patience. He rises from his seat with a hard expression, not quite a fan of the way you just talked to him, but you couldn’t care less.

“You think you could actually throw one? Because last time we fought you couldn’t really get a hold of me,” he narrows his eyes at you, coming to stand tall in front of you, trying to intimidate you with how much taller and stronger he might be, but you both know you’re a better fighter.

“It’s easy to talk with your fancy tech stuff. Why don’t we see who wins in a simple battle?” you challenge him with faked boredom.

“Guys, stop. We should be looking out for Zemo, not tearing each other apart,” Bucky tries to end the staring contest, sticking his metal arm between the two of you in case any of you decides to launch at the other one.

“Then tell her to stop bitching!” Sam nods in your way.

“I’m not bitching, I’m just fed up with your bullshit!” you spat back at him, leaning closer, your chest coming in contact with Bucky’s extended arm.

“Don’t talk to her like that, Sam,” Bucky warns him, but Sam snorts dryly.

“Don’t tell me you are taking her side, she is throwing a fit for a fucking dumpling!”

“I’m not taking sides, just trying to settle this stupid disagreement here,” he defends himself and you roll your eyes.

“You can’t tell me she is not overreacting it, Buck!” Sam laughs in disbelief, taking a step back, dropping the act that he wants to fight you. He probably knows he would come out as a ridiculous loser. “This is fucking insane, I’m not in the mood to deal with your shit, Y/N,” he shakes his head.

“Hey!” Bucky snaps at him. “Don’t talk to my girlfriend like that, okay?!”

“I’m just—wait, what?!” Sam’s eyes widen and you freeze too.

Your dumbass boyfriend didn’t just out the two of you, did he? What else is about to come?! Sam’s shock turns into a cocky grin as his eyes shift between you and Bucky.

“You guys… you guys are fucking?” he asks with a delightful laugh and you close your eyes sighing, already tired of his shit.

“That’s not—We’re not fucking, I mean… It’s not like that,” Bucky stutters, but it’s just making it worse. He looks at you with terror in his eyes, but you are way too drained to deal with it the right way.

“Yes, we are fucking! And we are in a mature adult relationship! Get yourself over it!” you bark at Sam before turning around and walking out.

You faintly hear the two men talk inside, but you don’t make out the words. You don’t go too far, sitting on the steps leading up to the third floor. Soon enough you hear the door of the apartment open with a creak and a moment later Bucky shows up in your sight. He sits beside you, remaining silent for a little before speaking up.

“Sorry for running my mouth,” he mumbles, his head hanging low.

“It’s… fine,” you breathe out. Bucky fidgets with his fingers and you know he wants to touch you in any kind of way as a reassurance that it really is fine. You don’t want to hold a grudge, it was an accident, you’re just a little bummed it’s not gonna be just the two of you anymore. Reaching out you take his hand, the real one that’s flesh and meat and you lace your fingers together as he peeks at you, still reserved and hesitant.

“Is it really fine or are you just bottling it up?”

“It really is fine,” you chuckle softly and leaning closer you kiss his scruffy cheek. “The only reason I wanted to keep it a secret is because you know how vickery the guys can get. I just didn’t want them to pick on us.”

“They do it because they are just jealous,” he smirks playfully, his shoulder bumping against yours.

“Yeah? Of what?” A soft chuckle slips through your lips.

“That I scored the hottest Avenger,” he replies smugly and you can’t help but laugh with your head snapping back.

“I didn’t know you were fucking Thor!” you retort and immediately see his smirk vanish from his lips as he stares back at you, not enjoying your joke as much as you are.

“Thor? Really? Not this shit again, Y/N,” he narrows his eyes at you. Back when you were just skirting around each other, you loved pulling his leg, joking about how much you are into the hottest Avenger, aka Thor. He never appreciated it, usually earned you a tight-lipped smile before he mumbled “Tarzan’s got nothing on me” before walking away, leaving you laughing like a hyena.

“Come on, you know I’m more into super soldiers,” you grin, leaning closer as he pepper his sharp jawline with more small kisses.

“You know, it’s not the best thing to say to your boyfriend when there are now about eight more super soldiers running around,” he huffs.

“But none of them has a metal arm,” you point out, finally making him laugh.

“So that’s your kink? A vibranium arm?” he asks with faked shock and you curl your arms around his bicep, resting your chin on his shoulder.

“How haven’t you realized yet?” you chuckle. Bucky turns his head until his lips can capture yours in a sweet, lighthearted kiss that makes you forget about everything that’s been clouding over your mind these past days. All the failures, the mistakes and chaos fades into nothing, because you have him and he has you.

Walking back into the apartment Sam stares back at you, neither of you entirely sure how to act after what just happened. He then grabs his phone from the dusty table before holding it up.

“I could order some extra dumplings,” he offers and you crack a smile shaking your head. This was his peace offering, both of you knows he won’t straight up apologize for the way he talked, but this is already more than what you were expecting from him. Bucky must have had a few words with him before joining you outside.

“It’s all good.”

The three of you get back to work, taking your previous spots, returning to the task on hand as silence falls on the room once again. You catch Sam glancing at you and the Bucky and you can tell he is about to make a snarky comment on your relationship. And just as he is about to open his big mouth, Bucky moves to silence him, but you’re faster. With a simple move you throw Sam to the ground, keeping him down with your hand wrapped around his neck.

“Don’t even think about teasing, understood?” you hiss at him as he gasps for air, his hands wrapping around your wrist as he tries to fight you off, but you hold him a second longer to emphasize the importance of your words. Then you finally let go of him and he coughs for air, fixing him up from the floor as you simply walk back to your spot by the window.

“Hottest Avenger, huh?” he breathes out, revealing that he heard what you talked about out on the stairs. “More like the Avenger with the most anger issues…”

You just grin, glancing over at your boyfriend who is now standing with his arms crossed over his chest, not even bothered by his friend’s struggles on the floor as he smirks back at you, nodding proudly as if he was saying: “That’s my girl.”

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed it!

#the falcon and the winter soldier #the falcon and the winter solider spoilers #TFATWS #bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #bucky #bucky imagine #bucky au #bucky fanfiction #bucky oneshot #bucky angst #bucky fluff #bucky one shot #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x reader #sebastian stan

[naruhearts]

I’m done keeping my composure.

Sorry, this will be a LOADED post! (And I’ll be repeating the points others have made)

for real, to everyone being nasty and telling heartbroken fans that “Dean was always supposed to die get a grip you’re just butthurt etcetera etcetera—” F you royally.

How dare you police the brutal feelings that’s been embroiling us since the Finale That Must Not Be Named aired. 

The show you think you all watched, the show you all believe was the same SPN from Season 1-4, changed at some point. Kripke wrote his original vision, put it to screen, saw it through in S5 as he intended, and closed the door on that era.

In 2008, Supernatural was adopted and inherited. As you know, there was a supreme paradigm shift post-Kripke era. The show FLOURISHED (we won’t talk about Gamble thanks). It evolved, transformed, grew beyond trauma-induced self-worthlessness and toxic masculinity and endless death and hegemonic social ideals and conservatism and repressive anti-revolutionary ideas. Castiel, the iconic favourite and beloved staple of the series portrayed by Misha Collins, was introduced in Season 4 as the core lead character, and he ushered in a brand new era of Christian mythos that SPN took advantage of. Longevity SKYROCKETED. Audiences were INTERESTED. SPN amassed an incredibly groundbreaking fanbase infused by non-nuclear principles. A massive subversive wave began, fighting the Status Quo of the times since 2008. It’s precisely why such an abysmal ending to a show of extensive Freud-Jungian metanarratively meta META complex stature and social POWER will render us totally and unbearably broken for years to come.

Point is, DEAN WINCHESTER NO LONGER WANTED TO DIE. HE WANTED TO LIVE. HE WANTED TO SIT ON THE BEACH, PLUNGE HIS TOES IN THE SAND, AND SIP UMBRELLA DRINKS WITH HIS BROTHER AND HIS BEST FRIEND. He said this in Season 13. And then, a season later, he told the ghost of his long-deceased father — the source of his deep-running trauma and the figure of self-reductive authoritarianism permeating his arc since Season 1 — after being questioned why he didn’t pursue the Nuclear Fam, that he already has his own: his brother Sam, his adopted child Jack, and Cas.

Dean’s best friend Cas. Oh god, Cas, who made his inevitably permanent mark on Dean’s soul beyond allyship. Castiel, renamed to Cas, God’s -iel removed by Dean. Dean, the human spark that lit the fire of pre-existing autonomy in the inherently rebellious angel who was, this entire time, the catalyst for free will in God The Writer’s puppet show. Their friendship set on goddamn fire. I can also write paragraph upon paragraph about my love for Cas while devastated tears stream down my face, but I digress—

Cas’ romantic love for Dean pushed our main Heart of SPN to love himself. Love is free will. Free will is also love. Of note, Cas’ love confession in 15x18 was supposed to offset something so vastly important and fundamental...to maybe (read: most likely) pull the trigger on SELF-TRUTHS in conjunction with free will. And The Great Anticipated Follow-Up to the episode penned by the passionate Berens should have included (read: seemed like it was going to be) Dean, closeted trauma survivor in love with his best friend, being given the opportunity to do it right: to SPEAK HIS TRUTH, and then that very singular opportunity was STOLEN so grossly. After poring over it for days, I refuse to believe we made their years-long story up out of thin air, spun it out of fantastical-delusional dream cotton candy, because we DIDN’T. IT WAS REAL.

As I said in another post: “I’ve just been feeling physically ill for the past >40 something hours with the terrible knowledge that 19/20 undid years of vital progression towards healthy interdependence, autonomy, and a positive endgame, where Sam, Dean and Cas close the ring of found family in final empowering self-fulfillment...where Dean, no longer repressed and set free, is able to use his words and speak his truth as a queercoded trauma survivor, henceforth confirming and self-affirming his own bisexuality since S1 by reciprocating — by telling Cas that he always loved him, too, loved him endlessly, which would have altogether divested Supernatural of its cult status and catapulted it into global worldwide significance as the longest running sci-fi genre show in American broadcasting history that actually dared to defy and, by proxy, empower LGBTQ2IA+ everywhere who found profound personal meaning in Destiel through VALIDATION,” — found themselves mirrored in Dean and Cas’ respective character journeys individually and as each other’s queer love interests.

THIS IS WHY DEAN WASN’T MEANT TO DIE.

THEY WERE SO ESSENTIAL, NOT JUST TO THE OVERARCHING STORY AND HEALTHY INTERPERSONAL THEMATICS OF MODERN SPN, BUT ALSO TO THE SOULS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ACROSS THE WORLD WHO FOLLOWED THEIR JOURNEYS, HOPED FOR THEM, ASPIRED TO BE LIKE THEM, TREASURED THEM, WEEPED FOR THEM, AND FOUGHT FOR THEM, LIKE YOU AND ME.

Heck, how could anyone think Sam Winchester had a well-deserved characteristic ending? He didn’t. Dean’s brother was shafted so badly. He stopped hunting when seasons ago, he had canonically accepted that he no longer wanted an apple pie life. He simply...turned the lights off in a resoundingly empty bunker and left — abandoning his dead brother’s room — never to return (he did return later to get the Impala, family photos etc, I mean this symbolically)...as if — dare I say it — Supernatural itself eerily told us, in the negative-spaced pitch blackness, that the organic show and the wonderfully complex, matured characters we’ve grown to love weren’t going to survive or be revisited...that it was all going to perish, and that they no longer gave a single shit about their own show, which, to me, is the worst cardinal sin, because how dare they throw Team Free Will, an immovable and indomitable and passionate found family they built from the ground up, a found family CHOCK FULL TO THE BRIM OF LOVE AND LIFE RAGING AGAINST THE AUTHORITARIAN MACHINE IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE FREE WILL, under the bus no matter who is to blame. Growth was stomped on.

Then Sam married a faceless wife who wasn’t his textually established (and deaf) love interest Eileen, named his son Dean Jr., and grew old miserably, still mourning the passing of his older brother, shaken and sombre. Back to square one. IT WAS ALL ANTITHETICAL, even OUTSIDE a shipping context, and I ripped my hair out at this point in sheer disbelief.

This 15x20 ending would have fit somewhere between S4-7. Now? IT DOESN’T FIT. IT’S A JAGGED PUZZLE PIECE THAT DOESN’T BELONG ANYWHERE. IT’S THE FOREBODING UNKNOWN STRANGER IN ITS OWN LAND, BOTH LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY. This kind of ending was basically an illogical, unsound cluster of metastasized cells that, to me, ruined the viability of previous seasons to sustain bold praise and respect and dignity and rewatches and classic nostalgia in such insidious ways.

Dean Humanity Winchester and Cas, after everything they’ve been through, were silenced and lost in death, ripped apart from each other, unable to love each other the way they deserved, because of disappointing, vile incompetency and homophobia. The greatest love story ever told, again obliterated in less than 60 hollow minutes.

You know what this tells your audience, CW SPN? Death without self-growth is the way to go, and no one is allowed to forge their own path to freedom.

HOW INSULTINGLY HARMFUL IS THAT?

I don’t think I’ll ever stop grieving.

We all deserve answers.

#fuck #my stuff #spn s15 #15x20 #sorry this was so long winded but i’m so #I think I finally wrote out all my frustration in this??? #i’m still broken but I do hope it gets better #ily all #my meta #fuck cw #fuck spn #deancas #destiel #excuse me for any sloppy grammar and weirdness and shit #I’m still emotionally wilding lol #the greatest love story ever told #narrative #character development #narrative cyclism #supernatural #destiel deserved better #jensen and misha deserved better #at the same time this all seems cathartic anyway :P #I sorta snapped because wtf WE AREN’T WATCHING THE SAME SHOW IF YOU BELIEVE DEATH IS THE ANSWER 😭 #I respect your opinion only if you’re respectful towards ours #but I’ve literally seen so many nasties out there #I’d rather have queue #long post for ts #I’M TEARING UP AGAIN #I’m ill

[superrman]

I got a couple asks about my reply to an ask where I said that I acknowledge cop propaganda in procedural’s, and believe that everyone falls for it, while still acknowledging that I have enjoyed those shows. More than one ask said they are fully aware of the propaganda and so they can still watch those said shows, this is something I want to expand on because No one is above falling for propaganda.

I have loved and watched cop shows since I was 12, and I also have studied propaganda academically for half a decade, and that is why I can say with certainty you have internalized and fallen for propaganda within cop shows. 

It is important to note that cop shows are designed with the aid of professional police for this exact purpose, they are insanely important to the normalization of behaviours of police, and justifying their actions, because you as an audience emotionally connect with the characters. 

There are many things that have circulated around tumblr that have acknowledged certain forms of propaganda - the continuous use of violence, in a way that claims that the police must in many cases resort to violence, Trevor Noah did a great small clip showing how many cop shows do this. On top of that the villainization of internal affairs and the entire defence system, claiming public defenders are moronic and don’t defend their clients well, which in turn makes people afraid to turn to public defenders, which in turn results in people not asking for a lawyer, and at the same time paint defence attorneys as evil as well, and an impediment to justice which makes people dislike lawyers in general.

These are all important functions of the propaganda system as it justifies many actions of cops, but there are so many layers of propaganda, with hundreds of cop shows, all with police consultants, all employing underhanded tactics and specific messaging impacts you, below is a small list of things I either personally have internalized or know people have internalized. In brackets I mention just a couple shows I have seen this on, keep in mind many shows do this and they all tend to overlap

1. We as a society all agree that murder is wrong, but how many times in a cop show have you rooted for the police to get away with murder? How many times has the protagonist killed someone for personal reasons? They may find a way to kill said individual in the line of duty and that is legal, and or in many cases personally hunt them down and commit murder, and then the story line is about them getting away with murder,  but at the same time many story lines in the same series say no one has a justifiable reason for murder, and they may even arrest someone for the same reason as they killed someone.

This teaches the audience that you can’t kill for abuse, country, cause, or revenge, but the police can and should kill, and if they do kill it was only for a valid reason

(NCIS, NCIS LA, The Mentalist)

2. The ‘red tape’ and intense scrutiny of police shootings is the worst, and harmful for the police, in general the scrutiny of all of the measures meant to prevent police violence and harassment of citizens is hindering the police. How many shows have you watched where the main character scoffs at the idea of mandatory counselling post a shooting, or is angry by the idea of having to justify why they took a shot and killed a man

(Rookie Blue, Cold Case, Hawaii 5-0)

3. The police are underpaid and lack the funds for the necessary policing measures. This one in particular I internalized to the extreme, I have always held the false assumption that police are underfunded like all of the other services they equate themselves too - but the police departments have more than enough funds as the protests have revealed. Yet, every cop show depicts a scene of complaining about budget cuts, lack of funds, cannot pursue a case because of budget cuts. On top of that any cop that gets caught stealing is justified because if he was paid fairly, he wouldn’t have to do that.

(Castle, Lucifer, Brooklyn Nine Nine)

4. The police can’t save ‘everyone’ in the context of the most vulnerable of society drug addicts, sex workers, the mentality ill, the sad reality is that some people ‘don’t want help’ - it says societal problems are unsolvable not that the police are not qualified or effective in solving society problems but even then there is a plucky do good cop not yet jaded that will try and try to save people, but eventually have to come to a hard realization you can’t save everyone

(Perception, Criminal Minds, Law and Order SVU)

5. The police always work with experts in the field, have the best technology and moreover, experts will want to work tirelessly for the police or the police themselves are geniuses- this is not the case, in fact in many cases police incompetence and ignoring experts leads to false convictions

(Bones, Rizzoli & Isles, all the CSI, Criminal Minds)

But the most malicious form of propaganda is the way in which police procedurals acknowledge the real world political climate and use the criticism as a way to bolster the police, by this I mean, so many cop shows will have an episode of focusing on a corrupt cop, or a civil rights activist wrongfully arrested, wrongful conviction in general, and the narrative will show outrage throughout the system, cops all banning together to undo this injustice, but with enough resistance from some bad apples to make it seem as if they acknowledge the system is not fully functional but reinforces to the audience that many cops can and do fight the system to get the wrongfully accused out of prison, to protect civil liberties and that cops do care and will willingly fight their own to do it .

Moreover, this is shown in the context of the importance of police brotherhood. Being a cop is always more than a job it’s a lifestyle, you can’t stop being a cop, and it’s a part of your identity, so its extra heroic that the protagonist challenged the corrupt cop, it’s as if he or she turned on his own family to do what is right.

There are always episodes about going after the rich and politically connected and how no matter what the protagonist will do what’s right and fight against the system to get justice for a poor, or poc , or down on their luck victim, it teaches us that even though in the news cops might not be able to stop all of the big evil rich people, Kate Beckett or Jake Peralta is out their fighting the fight, trying to take on corporations, it teaches us to go on faith that the police are separate from the corrupt system, and will try to take on politicians and corporations rather than the reality of them working for those same people

Finally, so many cop shows have minorities and women leading the charge to challenge the old guard, usually with the new era of white men, that laugh at the police brutality and incompetence of older generations. It’s hard to ignore the damage the police have done, but every show simply disregards this with a change in the vanguard, newer cops are immune to racism, classicism and agree older cops used to break the rules and where more corrupt but now that isn’t the case. It’s meant to undermine all of the arguments against police, think about how many people agree that the police during the civil rights movement of the 1960s were bad, or the police that co-operated with drug dealers were terrible but no more, cops now are much more ethical.

Propaganda is dangerous, because it is continuous and repetitive, it is subtle and seeps into your life, you internalize things because we all consume media for enjoyment not to subject it to academic rigour, and that's how they get you to sympathize and feel for cops, we constantly watch stories of brave souls putting their lives on the line for us, and of course we want to believe that this is a real life story and reflective of most cops, but we need to realize now that this is not the case in reality, and its not just a few bad apples, but a system that is broken beyond repair, who relied on the entertainment industry to spread and maintain the false face of the police industry to avoid and undermine criticism.

Just remember No one is above falling for propaganda

#police brutality #cop propaganda #propaganda #the most dangerous cop shows are the progressive ones

[ldss-interactive]

At Alter’s End: A CYOA Novel

Overview:

Trentworth, Maine. A town of ten thousand southeast of Ellsworth and North of Bayside. Its only bragging point since its conception in 1867 was being a shoreline city and cheaper than any of the other big tourist towns. Nothing ever happened here, besides the occasional drowning or fishing trip accident, until the killings started. They lasted five years in total and 48 people were lost to the killer’s sick desires. Robert Hall terrorized this small town, slipping under the radar by focusing on those considered “undesirable”; sex workers, orphans, drug addicts, and the like. Now ten years later, ten years after the killer has been put behind bars, murders have begun again. A copycat killer has come to Trentworth. And they seem to be targeting the ones left behind, still trying to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives…

You take the role of a highschool senior; your parents having died in a home fire shortly before the killer was put behind bars and now under the care of your workaholic aunt. Make allies of your classmates or attempt to go it alone, clear your parents’ name from their believed involvement with the killer or fight to put the past behind you, deal with the skeletons in your closet and mind or bury them deeper... Oh, and make sure your history project is turned in on time. With two young siblings depending on you and a whole host of problems a highschool student should never have to deal with, can you survive this nightmare made real?

Trigger Warnings: This game will go into very heavy topics including the following; murder, death, various mental health issues (such as PTSD, depression, and anxiety), abandonment, gambling, various types of drug addiction, self harm mentions (not happening to the MC or shown in graphic detail), suicide, sex work, child abuse (mental, emotional, and physical), and dangerous situations. This is a murder mystery/thriller, it is NOT intended for audiences below 18.

Hello! Thank you for showing interest in At Alter’s End. This is a Choose Your Own Adventure style novel in the Thriller and Murder Mystery genres. It would also fit nicely in the Drama genre as well, but Drama is not the focus. This will be a rather lengthy project, with fifteen chapters plus a prologue and epilogue planned.

You take on the role of a senior at Trentworth High. Join an after-school activity, take care of your younger siblings, prepare for finals, get a part time job, find a date to homecoming, and survive your worst nightmare come to life. The copycat killer is targeting the students of your school and no one is safe. With the police dragging their feet, no help coming any time soon from any higher up law enforcement, and the locals refusing to acknowledge the possibility of a copycat killer, it’s up to you and your classmates to find the person responsible...before it’s too late.

- You can play as female, male, nonbinary, or trans!

- You can be straight, gay, or bisexual!

- A highly customizable MC including hair color, eye color, skin color, hair length, height, and personality and interests!

- The ability to choose which mental illness the MC suffers from due to the trauma of their past from the following:

Anxiety, Depression, or PTSD.

- The MC is deaf in their right ear ear due to the way in which their parents died; this is not something that can be changed.

- Choose from 7 different official after-school activities! Trentworth Volunteers, Up and Coming Artists, National Debate Society, National Honors Society, Co-Ed Varsity Basketball, Creative Writing, and Trentworth Gardeners!

- Bond with your classmates, explore your town, and help raise your younger siblings!

- Rescue your parents’ bakery from corporate clutches or let it go!

- Find the killer, stop the murders, and put a stop to the rumors that have plagued your every step for 10 years!

Vanya: Oldest adoptive twin sibling to MC’s adoptive siblings, 6 years younger than MC. Strong-headed, intelligent, and always getting into trouble. She looks after her brother and MC in the ways she can.

Ajay: Youngest adoptive twin sibling to MC’s adoptive sibling, 6 years younger than MC. Nearly completely blind since birth, he enjoys painting and other artistic endeavors. Obedient yet opinionated.

Aunt Emma: The workaholic aunt that takes custody of MC and their younger siblings after the death of their parents. Well meaning but absent most of the time on business trips or at the office.

Kwan Hall: An adoptive relative to Robert Hall; aloof, intelligent, and completely ostracized by Trentworth as a whole. When the killings start again the town’s attention is immediately turned on Kwan. He’s the first to begin investigating the killings when the police prove their incompetence. He is of Korean descent, standing at 5’6” with dark hair and dark eyes. His most notable feature is the long scar that stretches from his forehead’s hairline, down his left temple, and ends just below his jawline and the constant disinterest on his face. He is asexual in that he doesn’t experience sexual attraction at all. He is also bisexual.

Alessia D’Agostina: Trentworth High’s school president. She’s clawed her way tooth and nail up to earn the respect of both the school faculty and her fellow classmates; she’s strong-willed, dependable, and always looks at things through a logical lens. When she sees her classmates dying, she takes it upon herself to try and stop this once and for all. With dark skin, deep brown eyes, long braided hair, and standing at 5’8” her confidence and sense of self always make sure she stands out from the crowd. Alessia is bisexual.

Georgiy Kuzmin: Twin brother to Anastasiya Kuzmin; he is, in the kindest way possible, not the brightest bulb in the box. Yet he always means well and is more than willing to offer a helping hand. As the co-captain of the basketball team, captain of the baseball team, and the star of the swim team, Georgiy is one of the most popular and well beloved students at Trentworth High. When he realizes his friends are in danger, he willingly throws himself into the investigation to do all he can to help. With fair skin, dirty blond hair, bubbly green eyes, and standing at 6’1” he cuts an approachable figure to anyone who knows him. Georgiy is gay.

Anastasiya Kuzmin: Twin sister to Georgiy Kuzmin: she and her brother are alike in so many ways apart from just appearance. Anastasiya, who goes by Ana more often than not, is head of the Co-Ed Varsity Basketball team, the Girls’ softball team, and the Tennis team. Just as popular and loved as her brother, Ana may not be the smartest but she makes up for it with passion and dedication. Like her brother, she has fairer skin, dirty blond hair, and bright green eyes. Also like her brother, she felt she couldn’t just sit around while her friends were put in danger and agreed to join the investigation. Ana is gay and demiromantic, meaning she only gains feelings for someone after having a strong relationship with them.

Lillian Triano: A quiet, withdrawn girl who mainly keeps to herself. Due to the fact that Trentworth High demands for every senior to be apart of an elective, she is mainly seen in afterschool reading club run by Ms. Habeeb. She’s MC’s closest friend, having been one of the only people who didn’t believe the rumors that MC’s parents were assisting Robert Hall in his murders. She has an olive complexion, brown eyes, a heavy dose of freckles, and stands at 5’1”. Lillian is gay.

Jasmine Abernathy: Jasmine is Trentworth High’s self proclaimed “Best news source!” After the school newspaper was disbanded, Jasmine took it upon herself to keep freedom of the press alive. She’s fierce in her pursuit of the truth and never one to back down from a fight, though her rash attitude can get her into some sticky situations on occasion. With vibrant red hair, dark brown eyes, and standing at 5’3” she puts the term “fire” in Fire Signs. (She’s an Aries in astrology!) When the copycat killings began, it was no surprise when she took the case head on. Jasmine is bisexual.

Asa San Nicholas: Asa is the oldest of a set of triplets; they’re the type to march to the beat of their own drum, often not listening to what anyone has to say about themselves or their interests. Asa is a firm believer in the paranormal and it isn’t uncommon to find them indulging in their interest in various ways. “The spirits are distrubed. These deaths aren’t meant to happen.” Asa’s reason for getting involved seems to tie directly back to their “connection” with the spirits of the town. Asa has black hair, most often tied in a ponytail, hazel eyes, and an olive skin tone. At 6’4” they tower over most everyone...something they seem to enjoy a great deal. Asa doesn’t see gender and is interested in people regardless of how they present.

Leo San Nicholas: The middle of the triplets. They are genderfluid, okay with any pronouns. Leo is, for lack of a better word, eccentric. A bit of an adrenaline junkie, you can often find them cliff diving or giving their siblings heart attacks by playing russian roulette with a chocolate gun. To them, it isn’t fun if there isn’t a little danger involved; naturally, an investigation into a serial killer scratches that itch quite nicely. Their black hair is clipped short, multiple piercings visible on each ear, and their heterochromatic hazel and green eyes are often stated to stare through a person. Although Leo is genderfluid, they are only interested in people who present as female.

The demo is upcoming! When it is available I will make a post announcing it! I will also update this post with the link! This game is written in choicescript; the demo will be published on Dashingdon and the final game will be published for free on itch.io. I am open for questions regarding this game/novel and once the demo is published I will also be publishing a link to my Ko-fi! Until then, please don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions!

#interact if #interactive fiction #choicescript #Choose your own adventure #At Alter's End #CYOA #Author Speaks

[katiebug586]

I have decided to continue my rant on why season 1 is the best season of WWA based on a convo I’ve had with a friend. Everyone is super nice, which is ironic, because once the show moved to Canada, everyone suddenly became not so nic- who am I kidding, they literally warped into assholes. I’m not even talking about their attitude to Andy in general.

The mayor went from this well-meaning, if not incompetent, southern-speaking mayor to an egotistical political jackass with anger issues, though everyone seems to have anger issues of SOME kind past season 1. He literally snubbed Jervis of a spot at the country club despite the kid working his ASS OFF for it, all because Jervis couldn’t stop Andy from pulling a prank despite the fact nobody else would either. Season 1 him would have given him the position anyway and it would have been a victory/defeat for Andy, which is what season 1 is mostly based on. It would have been a defeat because he didn’t get Jervis out of the position, but still a victory because he still pulled off a nice prank.

This leads to me to my next point. Why the hell is season 3 based on Andy’s endless defeats? Most, if not all, episodes he gets found out for what he did and then either A. Runs from the mob who is now chasing him or B. Hiding out from said mob or otherwise displeased crowd. And sometimes his PARENTS are in that mob/crowd. Come on, these people are clearly out for Andy’s blood, I feel Andy’s parents get the WORST character derailment here. They go from parents who love and support Andy, though are willing to put their foot down when his pranking goes too far, which is completely understandable, to visibly expressing desire to harm him. Case in point, when Andy’s mom states ‘When I get my HANDS ON HIM-’ in a season 3 episode with a clear desire to throttle. The prank in question wasn’t even THAT bad, it was just Andy making everyone act like dumbasses via subliminal messages. I like how they did their due karma compared to other episodes here and I think it would have been the same in season 1, but without the clear intent to murder Andy.

What I’m trying to say is that Andy usually gets the short end of the stick in season 3, not too sure about season 2, haven’t watched too much of it. My problem with this is... how good of a prankster is Andy, really? Season 1 Andy seems to be a step ahead of his game in an otherwise usually unsuspecting town and does suffer defeat or humiliation, but sparingly. The show paints Andy at this master prankster, the prince of pranks, but if he keeps getting found out in some, albeit convoluted, ways is he truly that good?

The conclusion my friend and I came up with? At the very least, season 1 takes place in a different, but similar, universe compared to the other two. Season 2 and 3 could be different from one another, but the only obvious change would be Andy suffering MORE defeats from his pranks and Lori’s VA change, which well, couldn’t be helped. (My condolences to her season 2 VA, may she rest in peace)

#What's with Andy? #what's with andy #Rant #Vent #If I EVER hypothetically write an Andy fic it's going to be season 1-based #The only good thing I like about season 3 is the theme song #It's super catchy even if it's slow